ThunderBayes: So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

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I’ve talked about ThunderBayes (the Thunderbird front-end for the SpamBayes anti-spam engine) here before, several times. It’s great. Unfortunately it’s no longer supported, and I don’t have the time to properly learn Javascript so I can fix it myself. So when an SSL update broke my customized version of it a couple days ago, I decided to scrap it entirely.

I wasn’t willing to scrap the SpamBayes engine though, so after getting my Thunderbird setup working again, I dug into the instructions on how to install the 1.04 version manually (the 1.1 alpha version is the one that the SSL update broke). It wasn’t all that difficult, but I don’t recommend it for anyone who isn’t at least a power-user… I had to install an older version of Python to get it working properly (it only partially works with the 2.6 version that Ubuntu comes with), and chain it through stunnel to get SSL support (that’s why I wanted the 1.1 alpha in the first place, it supports SSL without stunnel). And without ThunderBayes, you have to go through a web interface to train it, which is a pain in the tail. But eventually I got it all working properly.

Some day I hope to have the time to learn JavaScript properly, so I can fix ThunderBayes and maybe write some other useful extensions for Thunderbird and Firefox. But for now, this will suffice.

“Gray Hair Caused by Stress (Cell Stress, That Is)”

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Um… if, as this article suggests, hair goes gray because the body is “forcing the [damaged stem cells in hair follicles] to mature” in preference to killing them off, why would the same scientists suggest that “we may soon have anti-graying creams for aging populations”? Wouldn’t you want those cells to mature, rather than continue growing with damaged DNA?

“Periodic table adding new element”

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The periodic table was hard enough to memorize twenty years ago, but they keep adding more elements. It’s almost as bad as having to memorize the list of presidents. Our children will curse the names of these scientists for their entire seventh-grade science course.

Maybe the scientists can redeem themselves by naming the thing after a popular children’s television show or something. 😉

Happy Anniversary!

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GoddessJ and I have been married for ten years today. Here is an open letter from me to her:

GoddessJ, the last ten years have been amazing. You’ve taught me a lot, and I’ve grown to be a much better person for it. I’ve always admired your openness, your enjoyment of life, your sense of humor, and your social skills, among many other traits.

It hasn’t always been easy, or comfortable, but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

I’m proud to have as my wife and best friend. Here’s to the past decade, and to the even-better decades yet to come.