While reading the news.admin.net-abuse.usenet newsgroup, I came across a short message mentioning that the rec.collecting.coins newsgroup is being sued because the plaintiff was flamed (ref: http://bscicoins.com/case/page1.html).

For those of you who aren’t familiar with newsgroups, they are basically distributed messaging groups that have existed on the Internet since before most people had even heard of it. The “Big 8” newsgroups are collectively known as Usenet.

Since a newsgroup is not an entity I’m not quite sure what they hope to achieve. I should mention that they’ve also named some of the regular participants in their suit. I can only imagine what a royal pain in the ass that must be for them.

I’ve added a couple of links to the Canadian Red Cross to my blog. I encourage you to donate to the tsunami relief if you haven’t already done so.

By now, virtually everyone has heard about the tsunami in Asia that has killed over 140000 people. Natural disasters bring out the best in people, but they also cause the scum of the earth to float to the surface, too. The BBC has a story about a guy who sent emails to the families of missing Britons telling them they were dead.

Absolutely incredible.

He’s been arrested and is going to appear in court Monday. Hopefully, they’ll have a rail handy to run him out of town on.

I want to wish everyone a very happy 2005!

I spent New Year’s at a farm near Merrickville with my friends Ken and Margaret and some of their friends. There was much food, much drink and much merriment. The skating on the pond didn’t happen because of the water on the ice, but the impromptu bonfire made up for it.