Cactus TurboNet Newsletter 1/15/2006

New Spam Filter Deployed (1/13/05)

You may have noticed that the number of pesky spams in your TurboNet email account has dropped drastically. We have implemented GreyListing, which blocks spam originating from zombies and worms. It does not affect emails coming from real email servers or list servers, so it can't block legitimate email.

A description of GreyListing can be found at www.GreyListing.org.

Beware of scams

Watch for these scammy (or scummy?) indicators:

1. The buyer is out of the area, or even out of the country.
2. The buyer offers to send you more money than your item is worth, and wants you to reimburse him for the difference. Or any type of money exchange.
3. The buyer wants to use a shipping company you’ve never heard of.

If one of the above is true, be very suspicious. If more than one is true, you are probably being scammed. http://www.elsop.com/wrc/complain.htm links to a list of places which accept various kinds of complaints – the FTC, FBI, etc.

Avoid the Common Cold

I’ve been unable to verify this in the literature (I did a cursory search at scholar.google.com) but I’m personally convinced that the opposite of “cold” is “warm”. Whenever I feel myself coming down with a cold, and I go to bed with a stocking cap pulled down over my eyes and to the tip of my nose, I wake up better. Usually, the cold is gone completely.

If I wait until the cold is established to initiate this “treatment”, it allows me to breathe better during the night, and for a little while after I wake up, before the symptoms return. I’m sure nose- and sinus-warmers other than stocking caps would be equally effective.

I’ve found a couple of articles saying that most cold viruses are temperature-sensitive – they grow and multiply better at cooler temperatures than they do at normal body temperature. And I remember a popular article about research on the common cold which suggested a nose mitten. I tried crocheting a nose mitten so I could watch TV while keeping my nose warm, but my glasses kept fogging up. Oh, well.

    -- Monica