October 2009 Archives

Since it's my birthday, I'll share my new favorite drink:

The Globe
from the SFist

3 oz. 209 Gin
1 oz. St. Germain
1 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. agave nectar

Shake and serve up with a mint garnish.

Today I wanted to convert the contents of my postfix 'deferred' queue, which was all spam stuck in my MTA, to mbox format so that I could feed it into various spam-learning systems.

First I converted my Postfix queue to human-readable format with postcat:

cd /var/spool/postfix/deferred
mkdir spam
for i in {0..9} {A..F}; do mkdir spam/$i; done
for i in `ls */*`; do postcat $i > spam/$i; done

This made a copy of each file in postcat format, but that's only halfway there -- postcat has its own output format that isn't anything like an mbox or a maildir. Inspecting the output, and brushing up on my sed, I came up with this:

sed -n '
  /^\*\*\* ENVELOPE/,/^\*\*\* MESSAGE CONTENTS/ {
    /^message_arrival_time:/ {
      s/^message_arrival_time: \(.*\)$/\1/
      h
    }
    /^sender:/ {
      s/^sender: \(.*\)$/\1/
      H
      g
      s/\(.*\)\n\(.*\)/From \2 \1/
      p
    }
  }
  /^\*\*\* MESSAGE CONTENTS/,/^\*\*\* HEADER EXTRACTED/ {
    /^\*\*\* MESSAGE CONTENTS/ d
    s/^\*\*\* HEADER EXTRACTED.*$//
    s/^\(>*From \)/>\1/
    p
}' -

A final pass over all of the messages, and I had my mbox file to train SpamAssassin with:

for i in `ls */*`; do sh mkmbox.sh < $i >> spam.mbox; done
sa-learn --spam --mbox spam.mbox

Found in a backcopy of Vegetarian Journal, March 1996:

1 cup of water plus 1/2 cup water
1 ounce dried wild mushrooms
1 Tablespoon oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
3 small turnips, peeled and cut in quarters
4-5 small potatoes, cut in half
1/2 pound mushrooms, halved
3 dried tomatoes, made into powder
8 ounces seitan, cut in small chunks
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 Tablespoon miso
1 Tablespoon arrowroot
2 Tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
Black pepper to taste

Boil one cup of the water and soak the dried mushrooms (if they are morels or shiitake) for 30 minutes. Save soaking water. If using porcini add when recommended.

Heat oil in pan over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, turnips, and potatoes. Sauté for 3 to 5 minutes until onion begins to soften. Add fresh mushrooms, tomato powder, and 1/4 cup water. Cook for 5 more minutes. Then add seitan chunks, dried herbs, and rehydrated mushrooms that have been cut in pieces. Cook for 5 more minutes.

Add soaking water drained of any debris and porcini, if using them. Add the miso and stir. Cook for about 10 more minutes until vegetables are almost tender.

Combine the remaining 1/4 cup water with the arrowroot and add to the pan over medium heat, stirring until thickened. If too thick add water 1 tablespoon at a time. If too thin add arrowroot 1 teaspoon at a time. Season with black pepper. Add parsley just before serving.

A recent AP story about health care spotlights the sort of close-minded, numb stupidity that fuels anti-reformers:

Andrew Newcomb, 28, who works in sales and lives near Destin, Fla., said he doesn't think taxpayers should have to take on the costs of covering the uninsured.

"I don't want my tax money to pay for some pill-popper to fake some injury and go to the hospital when I don't ever go to the hospital," said Newcomb, adding he can afford to go to the doctor and pay $60 for a checkup.

Andrew, since you never go to the hospital, I'm sure it won't ever be a problem. But if you do get sick, be sure to die quickly. Otherwise you might cost us taxpayers a lot of money at a taxpayer-funded emergency room.