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Matt's Profiteering (not)

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cjensen(at)dts9000.com
Guest

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 6:11 am Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Robert,

  

 Well  said...and quite diplomatically as well.  I'm endlessly astounded by the  "baby bird" syndrome suffered by pilots, builders and our industry as a  whole.  Pilots think nothing of indulging themselves with $4.00/gallon gas  (if you can find it) to amuse themselves by flying around or to save the  inconvenience of being scrutinized by security and delayed endlessly by the  airlines, yet, when asked for a voluntary donation for something that we use and  enjoy every day, are beside themselves at the temerity that a net-volunteer  should want to recover some of their cost and, gawd forbid, might even have a  nickel of profit left over.  Their immediate response is a flair  up of baby-bird syndrome....cheap, cheap, cheap.

  

 I put  my donations where my mouth is--$30 for each of the six lists I use; and its a  raging bargain at that.  So yes, Gary, if you are uncomfortable accepting a  free service, then I would think Yahoo is definitely a good landing spot for you  so that you are not put upon once a year for a voluntary donation.   geeezzz.

  

 Chuck

 [quote]   --

mosquito56

Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 77
Location: Laredo, Tx

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 11:36 am Post subject: Re: Matt's Profiteering (not)

I have to put my 2 cents in. If a person gives a service worth something then we should be willing to pay something for it. 

    There are a couple of good reasons for doing this for free but they can only last for a very limited time. The reasons might be boredom, learning or enjoyment of coding. Each reason is valid but all only last for a limited time.

    I am sure Matt could find something better to do, has learned all he need about coding, and has had so much coding it is no longer enjoyable doing the same thing over and over.

    Now that he has no reason to pay the massive bills to run the server, the only option left is to pay for his time. If he is not given sufficient reasons to run this site he may just turn the darn thing off. If he were to do that I would be up the creek with no paddle.

   Anyone who thinks yahoo groups are worthwhile except for general chit chat about planes is crazy. I am in 5 groups and get maybe 4 emails a day. The responses to yahoo are so small that I have e-mails sent to me anytime anyone puts in a message. If I tried that with matronics I would be so overloaded with e-mails I would spend an hour a day erasing e-mails.

   My point is until I found matronics from the Zenith site, I had no informational source from the net and was completely lost.

   I figure if we each give minimum $20 and he gets 2,000 checks each year that should help with the bills and leave enough for a few adult beverages at the end of the day.

   If you really think yahoo is better because it's free, then be so kind as to not use up our bandwidth with nonesense.



   SEND A CHECK!!!!! If you can afford a $100 hamburger you can afford something for Matt.



P.S. I don't know Matt. I have only been on this site since July when I bought my kit.



Don



 Please archive

_________________
Don Merritt- Laredo, Tx
.

echristley(at)nc.rr.com
Guest

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 12:28 pm Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

mosquito56 wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   



 I have to put my 2 cents in. If a person gives a service worth something then we should be willing to pay something for it. 

     There are a couple of good reasons for doing this for free but they can only last for a very limited time. The reasons might be boredom, learning or enjoyment of coding. Each reason is valid but all only last for a limited time.

     I am sure Matt could find something better to do, has learned all he need about coding, and has had so much coding it is no longer enjoyable doing the same thing over and over.

     Now that he has no reason to pay the massive bills to run the server, the only option left is to pay for his time. If he is not given sufficient reasons to run this site he may just turn the darn thing off. If he were to do that I would be up the creek with no paddle.

    Anyone who thinks yahoo groups are worthwhile except for general chit chat about planes is crazy. I am in 5 groups and get maybe 4 emails a day. The responses to yahoo are so small that I have e-mails sent to me anytime anyone puts in a message. If I tried that with matronics I would be so overloaded with e-mails I would spend an hour a day erasing e-mails.

    My point is until I found matronics from the Zenith site, I had no informational source from the net and was completely lost.

    I figure if we each give minimum $20 and he gets 2,000 checks each year that should help with the bills and leave enough for a few adult beverages at the end of the day.

    If you really think yahoo is better because it's free, then be so kind as to not use up our bandwidth with nonesense.



    SEND A CHECK!!!!! If you can afford a $100 hamburger you can afford something for Matt.



 P.S. I don't know Matt. I have only been on this site since July when I bought my kit.



   

I've sent a check, but I hate to see things going overboard.  Massive 
	


server?  I don't know how many list Matt's running, but the Aeroelectric 

list and a dozen like it would run fine on a 5yr-old low end computer 

contected to a residential broadband connection.   I ran several list a 

while back, and like you say, it gets old.  It can be rather tedious at 

times, and it is one more responsibility that isn't building airplanes.  

Matt does more than I ever cared to, with the virus/spam scanning and 

all, but it is still a fairly intermittent duty.  Maintaining the forums 

may be different.  I would never run one, because I don't even like to 

use them. 



Yahoo irritates the snot out of me every time I try (generally 

unsuccessfully) log on.  All the useless graphics, and adds for consumer 

CRAP flooding my connection just grates on my last nerve.  You're paying 

every time you log onto Yahoo, because they are selling YOU.  You are 

the product they sell to advertisers, and everything about their site 

screams that at you. I appreciate a clean, uncluttered text interface 

and I'm willing to pay a few dollars to keep it.



Matt deserves his due.  I just object to the hyperbole.

nuckolls.bob(at)cox.net
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:39 am Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

 	  Quote: 	
		  I've sent a check, but I hate to see things going overboard.  Massive 

server?  I don't know how many list Matt's running, but the Aeroelectric 

list and a dozen like it would run fine on a 5yr-old low end computer 

contected to a residential broadband connection.   I ran several list a 

while back, and like you say, it gets old.  It can be rather tedious at 

times, and it is one more responsibility that isn't building airplanes.

Matt does more than I ever cared to, with the virus/spam scanning and all, 

but it is still a fairly intermittent duty.  Maintaining the forums may be 

different.  I would never run one, because I don't even like to use them.

Yahoo irritates the snot out of me every time I try (generally 

unsuccessfully) log on.  All the useless graphics, and adds for consumer 

CRAP flooding my connection just grates on my last nerve.  You're paying 

every time you log onto Yahoo, because they are selling YOU.  You are the 

product they sell to advertisers, and everything about their site screams 

that at you. I appreciate a clean, uncluttered text interface and I'm 

willing to pay a few dollars to keep it.



Matt deserves his due.  I just object to the hyperbole.


	


   Nothing hyperbolic about it . . . take a peek at:



http://www.aeroelectric.com/Pictures/Misc/MatronicsRack.jpg



   This is the Phase III upgrade to the equipment

   that in part supports 64 lists. This is not your

   grandpa's resurrected 486. I believe this system

   has access to a T1 interface to the 'net. Last time

   I checked on one of these in Wichita, they were about

   $2500 a month!



   Obviously, there's a lot more snort here than what's

   necessary to support the lists and I'm certain that

   Matt has other sources of cash flow to justify putting

   this system together in the first place. My own

   website resides on this system for which I pay $35

   a month . . . a bargain! At the same time, I'm

   reminded of a privilege I enjoyed when

   KTVH television donated space and power on the

   1200 foot platform of their tower in Hutchinson

   KS for the Air Capitol Amateur Repeater

   Association's 146.22/82 repeater. We had altitude

   that normally rented for .25/foot/month or $300.

   I helped install that system 37 years ago, those

   are the toes of my boots seen in . . .



http://www.aeroelectric.com/Pictures/Misc/KTVH.jpg



   The amateur radio fraternity for 100+ miles around

   Hutchinson have enjoyed the value of access to that

   tower without having to pay the $150,000 rent that

   other folks have paid to share the same space over

   the years.



   Yes, KTVH has other revenue sources that justify

   putting the tower up irrespective of the club's

   ability or willingness to "donate" to their

   coffers. In retrospect, I regret that as president

   of the club for many years, I didn't have the presence

   of mind to acknowledge an exceedingly unique privilege

   we enjoyed.



   We should at least have sent some nice cheese,

   nut and fruit baskets every Christmas to the

   technical and management staff that supported and

   tolerated us for all those years . . . and still

   do to this day.



   It's too easy to loose sight of the true value

   received from the graciousness of our hosts as

   we go through life. I'd like to take this opportunity

   to raise the awareness of the List members as

   to the unique position we occupy on Matt's system

   and in particular, alternatives we'd be

   stuck with if Matt had not taken it upon himself

   to share the best he knows how to do with the

   rest of us.



   We have no right to demand anything of Matt and

   every obligation to share the load. In addition

   to renting website space on his system, the

   'Connection donates about $500 of in-kind

   products to support the fund raiser. A few

   years ago, Matt was assaulted with a

   frivolous lawsuit by JPI over allegations

   of trademark infringement. The 'Connction

   mounted a drive to contribute to Matt's

   defense. As I recall, the AeroElectric-

   List raised about $3500.



   Whip out your credit cards guys. Don't know about

   you but it would be a sad day in my life should

   we find it necessary to conduct this List on AOL

   or Yahoo just because Matt's personal $burdens$

   assumed on our behalf were not adequately shared

   by us all.



   Bob . . .

echristley(at)nc.rr.com
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:44 am Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote:

 	  Quote: 	

 <nuckolls.bob(at)cox.net>

> I've sent a check, but I hate to see things going overboard.  Massive 

> server?  I don't know how many list Matt's running, but the 

> Aeroelectric list and a dozen like it would run fine on a 5yr-old low 

> end computer contected to a residential broadband connection.   I ran 

> several list a while back, and like you say, it gets old.  It can be 

> rather tedious at times, and it is one more responsibility that isn't 

> building airplanes.

> Matt does more than I ever cared to, with the virus/spam scanning and 

> all, but it is still a fairly intermittent duty.  Maintaining the 

> forums may be different.  I would never run one, because I don't even 

> like to use them.

> Yahoo irritates the snot out of me every time I try (generally 

> unsuccessfully) log on.  All the useless graphics, and adds for 

> consumer CRAP flooding my connection just grates on my last nerve.  

> You're paying every time you log onto Yahoo, because they are selling 

> YOU.  You are the product they sell to advertisers, and everything 

> about their site screams that at you. I appreciate a clean, 

> uncluttered text interface and I'm willing to pay a few dollars to 

> keep it.

>

> Matt deserves his due.  I just object to the hyperbole.

   Nothing hyperbolic about it . . . take a peek at:

 http://www.aeroelectric.com/Pictures/Misc/MatronicsRack.jpg

   This is the Phase III upgrade to the equipment

   that in part supports 64 lists. This is not your

   grandpa's resurrected 486. I believe this system

   has access to a T1 interface to the 'net. Last time

   I checked on one of these in Wichita, they were about

   $2500 a month!

Let's put some numbers on it, and then decide if it is hyperbolic or not.

Your message that I'm responding to was 5.5kB, not including the 

headers.  Let's use 5kB as an average message size (because it's a nice 

round number).  5kB translates to 40kb (bytes to bits), which will tend 

to use 50kb of bandwidth over ethernet.  Most telecom works out to 80% 

efficient once all the overhead is accounted for.

On an extremely busy day, a list might get 100 messages (again, just an 

easy number), and we're looking at 64 lists...6400 messages at 50,000 

bits each...that's 320,000,000 bits per day, or 37,037bps.  All the 

email list running full tilt would stress a good analog modem, but just 

barely.  Mail is a store-and-forward protocol, so daily averaging would 

actually work.  No, that rack isn't a resurrected 486, but a resurrected 

486 will do the job we're discussing without breaking a sweat, even if 

you added some decent virus scanning.  A 486 with a modem is not what I 

would consider a "massive server".  The original comment was about the 

hardware required to run the list, not what Matt had.

The hardware requirements to run a mailing list are very modest at 

most.  The typical time requirements are modest.  The tedium of dealing 

with a spam attack when you'd rather be doing <anything_else> is high.

I get far more out of each mailing list that I'm subscribed to than I do 

from all the magazines I subscribe to.  The benefits far outweigh the 

costs, so, yes, break out the credit-cards.  Acknowledge that Matt's 

contribution is far greater than what we're individually paying for it.  

I'm very grateful that Matt allows us, as guest, to use a portion of his 

servers to openly exchange ideas and information.  I'm much more 

grateful that he expends the occasional weekend to keep the 

communication lines open.  I'm willing to spend a little to show my 

appreciation.  I don't think a thousand baskets of fruit and nuts will 

be beneficial to Matt, and the Paypal option was easier anyway, but we 

do have to keep it real.

deej(at)deej.net
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:02 am Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Ernest Christley wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  



 On an extremely busy day, a list might get 100 messages (again, just

 an easy number), and we're looking at 64 lists...6400 messages at

 50,000 bits each...that's 320,000,000 bits per day, or 37,037bps.  All

 the email list running full tilt would stress a good analog modem, but

 just barely.  Mail is a store-and-forward protocol, so daily averaging

 would actually work.  No, that rack isn't a resurrected 486, but a

 resurrected 486 will do the job we're discussing without breaking a

 sweat, even if you added some decent virus scanning.  A 486 with a

 modem is not what I would consider a "massive server".  The original

 comment was about the hardware required to run the list, not what Matt

 had.


	


Hi Ernest,

    I've been doing Unix Systems adminstration for the past 18 years or

so, and I can assure you that you are missing a huge part of the

picture.  As a part of my daily job I run a small mail server with about

a dozen mailing lists on it, with a small number of people subscribed. 

The system is a dual-core 2.8 Ghz machine with a couple of gig of RAM. 

You would think this would be overkill to run these lists, however, that

vile and foul entity known as SPAM makes this poor machine struggle at

times, at rare times causing hours of backlog.  We literally get

hundreds of thousands of SPAM messages per day, which take a huge amount

of processing and computing resources to filter.  I can safely assure

you that a 486 would choke and die on my small mailing lists, and would

in no way be able to handle the loads of Matt's mailing lists.



-Dj



-- 

Dj Merrill - N1JOV

Glastar Sportsman 2+2 Builder #7118 N421DJ

http://deej.net/sportsman/



"Many things that are unexplainable happen during the construction of an 

airplane."  --Dave Prizio, 30 Aug 2005

echristley(at)nc.rr.com
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:23 am Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Dj Merrill wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   You would think this would be overkill to run these lists, however, that

 vile and foul entity known as SPAM makes this poor machine struggle at

 times, at rare times causing hours of backlog.  We literally get

 hundreds of thousands of SPAM messages per day, which take a huge amount

 of processing and computing resources to filter.  I can safely assure

 you that a 486 would choke and die on my small mailing lists, and would

 in no way be able to handle the loads of Matt's mailing lists.



 -Dj



   

There I was set up with a perfectly cogent argument, and you come along 
	


with all your facts..and figures..and experience.  How am I supposed to 

compete with THAT?!!  It's about as bad as arguing with my wife.  

Sheesh!  I can't ever get a break.



I stand corrected.  I never had a big problem with SPAM; though, the 

list I ran wasn't as popular as Aeroelectric and it was a few years ago.

deej(at)deej.net
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:51 am Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Ernest Christley wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  >  

 There I was set up with a perfectly cogent argument, and you come

 along with all your facts..and figures..and experience.  How am I

 supposed to compete with THAT?!!  It's about as bad as arguing with my

 wife.  Sheesh!  I can't ever get a break.



 I stand corrected.  I never had a big problem with SPAM; though, the

 list I ran wasn't as popular as Aeroelectric and it was a few years ago.


	


    *grin*  No worries.  At first glance I would totally agree with you

that a smaller machine should be able to handle the load, and several

years ago it could have back before SPAM became so overwhelming.  You

would not believe the struggle we have with handling SPAM.  Balancing

the load on the servers, the aggressiveness of the filters, and keeping

everything updated is a complete nightmare.



    I only wish we could make sending out SPAM a capital offense...  or

resort to the rules of the Old West!



-Dj



-- 

Dj Merrill - N1JOV

Glastar Sportsman 2+2 Builder #7118 N421DJ

http://deej.net/sportsman/



"Many things that are unexplainable happen during the construction of an 

airplane."  --Dave Prizio, 30 Aug 2005

Tim Olson

Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 2881

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:33 pm Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Not sure if I missed something in the calculation, but even if ever

list got 100 messages a day, for 64 lists, at 6400 messages, that's

no big deal at all.  But, what is a big deal is if there are another

4000 people subscribed, so once 6400 messages come in, there are now

25,600,000 messages that need to be delivered, and each negotiation

of SMTP takes a bit of time to accomplish and retry if it fails.

Then you add the fact that 85-95% of ALL email is SPAM, and you would

find that there might be another 50,000 or more inbound connections

that come in and churn up the spam processors (each message would

have to be crunched by the spam filters).  So yup, I'm with Dj in

that a 2Ghz box can take a lot of power just to handle the email

load.

Then, take it a step further.  Every message that comes in is going

to be databased, and processed for web distribution.  And remember

that now that images are supported on some of the lists, the message

sizes go up....especially when ding-dong's forget to resize that 5Mb

photo.

But I'm sure the bulk of the added costs come from keeping up with

good hardware.  When you have thousands of people relying on you

for their enjoyment, even a hiccup can cause phone calls and emails.

So you add some good RAID, and a backup system, and a few other

hardware odds and ends and now you're talking a few more bucks.

The bandwidth costs may add up too, but they're just a piece of the

puzzle.  Keep in mind that although I am able to get 10Mb fiber for

a good rate, and they're about to launch Fiber to the home in my

neighborhood, there are still locales even out near silicon

valley that a T1 is all you can get, and you don't necessarily

get the same competitive rate as you would in other locales.

Anyway, not trying to be argumentative, because everyone will eventually

do what they feel is what they need to do.  But, I do get a

kick out of thinking about the technologies involved.

I don't think anyone who's here argues the value of what Matt provides,

because if they didn't like it that much they'd be gone anyway.

I'm just impressed that he'd care enough to do it as a side

job and not profiteer on it so he can play all day.  It then

becomes more of a personal thing.

Tim Olson - RV-10 N104CD - Flying

do not archive

Dj Merrill wrote:

 	  Quote: 	

 Ernest Christley wrote:

>>  

> There I was set up with a perfectly cogent argument, and you come

> along with all your facts..and figures..and experience.  How am I

> supposed to compete with THAT?!!  It's about as bad as arguing with my

> wife.  Sheesh!  I can't ever get a break.

>

> I stand corrected.  I never had a big problem with SPAM; though, the

> list I ran wasn't as popular as Aeroelectric and it was a few years ago.

     *grin*  No worries.  At first glance I would totally agree with you

 that a smaller machine should be able to handle the load, and several

 years ago it could have back before SPAM became so overwhelming.  You

 would not believe the struggle we have with handling SPAM.  Balancing

 the load on the servers, the aggressiveness of the filters, and keeping

 everything updated is a complete nightmare.

     I only wish we could make sending out SPAM a capital offense...  or

 resort to the rules of the Old West!

 -Dj

cjensen(at)dts9000.com
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:33 pm Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Not to get political about things, but if our fine government, instead of spending millions and thousands of man-hours going after some college kid with a nickel bag of dope, they would put their time and resources into spanking-the-spammers, that would be doing some good that affects nearly everyone.  For sure, Spam is not a victimless crime!!!



Chuck Jensen

--

rv10(at)sinkrate.com
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 2:25 pm Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

I run several mailservers and manage several racks of servers in heavily

laden production environments.  One of our spam gateways gets 1M messages

per month with about 50,000 of them being valid emails that are let through.

This particular spam gateway appliance (much like Matt's Barracuda Spam

Gateway) costs us about $1000/yr in subscription fees to run.  It was about

$4000 to purchase when new.  Rack space, bandwidth, and electricity to host

is not included.  I would say this one server cost me about $250-$300/month.

Spam is about 97% of all email.  Really sucks.



-Ben Westfall

dgolden(at)golden-consult
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:52 pm Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Chuck Jensen wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   

 <cjensen(at)dts9000.com>

 

 Not to get political about things, but if our fine government,

 instead of spending millions and thousands of man-hours going after

 some college kid with a nickel bag of dope, they would put their time

 and resources into spanking-the-spammers, that would be doing some

 good that affects nearly everyone.  For sure, Spam is not a

 victimless crime!!!


	


The problem is that (for example) over the past 2 to 3 weeks, about 80

to 85 percent of the spam on my mail server has been comming from

Poland. It's not something that our government alone is going to fix.



Just my $0.02.



Dennis

-- 

Dennis Golden

Golden Consulting Services, Inc.

glastar(at)gmx.net
Guest

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 10:42 pm Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

And Ernest do not forget, your numbers are the mails coming in, but how 

many 1000 users has the server to send out mail to? I think that might 

account for most of the traffic over the needed link.

I could tell you from another list server, due to a heavy SPAM attack 

I've not got ANY mail since 7 days I can only read them currently over 

the web interface as the message fwd is shutdown since a week.

and do not archive

Werner

Ernest Christley wrote:

 	  Quote: 	

 <echristley(at)nc.rr.com>

 Dj Merrill wrote:

> You would think this would be overkill to run these lists, however, that

> vile and foul entity known as SPAM makes this poor machine struggle at

> times, at rare times causing hours of backlog.  We literally get

> hundreds of thousands of SPAM messages per day, which take a huge amount

> of processing and computing resources to filter.  I can safely assure

> you that a 486 would choke and die on my small mailing lists, and would

> in no way be able to handle the loads of Matt's mailing lists.

>

> -Dj

>

>   

 There I was set up with a perfectly cogent argument, and you come 

 along with all your facts..and figures..and experience.  How am I 

 supposed to compete with THAT?!!  It's about as bad as arguing with my 

 wife.  Sheesh!  I can't ever get a break.

 I stand corrected.  I never had a big problem with SPAM; though, the 

 list I ran wasn't as popular as Aeroelectric and it was a few years ago.

echristley(at)nc.rr.com
Guest

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 6:59 am Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

Werner Schneider wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   

 <glastar(at)gmx.net>



 And Ernest do not forget, your numbers are the mails coming in, but 

 how many 1000 users has the server to send out mail to? I think that 

 might account for most of the traffic over the needed link.



 I could tell you from another list server, due to a heavy SPAM attack 

 I've not got ANY mail since 7 days I can only read them currently over 

 the web interface as the message fwd is shutdown since a week.



 and do not archive


	


The first concern is a red herring, because SMTP doesn't work that way.  

The protocol is inherently multicast.  If there are 100 users on one 

mail server, it will send out one message, and the SMTP server that the 

users share will duplicate the message on the recieving end.  The larger 

ISPs use several techniques to insure that all the incoming mail comes 

through one server address (even if it isn't  a single physical server) 

so that the multicast features of SMTP are optimized.  A dumpster dive 

computer with a residential broadband connection could handle all the 

*normal* list traffic we're discussing.  The connection would be the 

bottleneck.  The computer would have enough bandwidth left over for a 

decent game of Doom2.



The spam is a valid concern.  With the system we have (SMTP) the only 

way to do anything at all about it is to pre-send headers and dump 

anything that isn't from a valid/registered user that is subscribed to a 

list.  Unfortunately, that requires cooperation from people that don't 

want to cooperate.  The job is analogous to standing in no-man's land 

trying to sort bullets from enemy machine gun fire.  It'd be nice if the 

enemy would label their bullets, and stop shooting the ones that you 

don't like. 8*)



I ran my server several years ago, and it seems that the spam problem is 

growing exponentially.

msausen

Joined: 25 Oct 2007
Posts: 559
Location: Appleton, WI USA

Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 3:40 pm Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

I realize that this thread is a bit stale but hey, what else is there to do while loosening the belt on Thanksgiving other than checking email lists that you are behind on.  



  Ernest I know you are a geek like many of us but you are a bit behind in the economics of email nowadays.  I do large scale email systems design (20k to 100k+ users and 3-4 in a year) and I can tell you for a fact the infrastructure to do this isn't cheap.  While you may think email is multicast, and in a perfect world it would be, the reality is RFC's aren't always followed as intended.  In many cases only the connection may be constant assuming the emails are queued up in order, and each email to each user is sent individually.  While not always CPU intensive (except for directory lookups and keeping a connection open), emails on this volume produce a crap load (technical term) of IO at the disks and it takes some serious hardware to keep from killing a disk subsystem or causing major queue backups.  I believe this was the reason for the last couple of upgrades Matt completed.  Spam has already been covered but I just wanted to add that any commercial service such as this is usually targeted heavier than a normal business.



  Look, I get it.  Some people think they are owed a service and try to rationalize not paying for it when asked for a donation to the idea that they really aren't getting a valued service or that it costs someone like Matt nothing to do this.  Hey tell yourselves whatever you want to make you feel better about it.  No skin off my back.  But in a world of $40 a month phone bill, $60 a month cell service, $75 a month cable/sat, $40 - $80 for Internet, and on and on.  I find it funny people would be all that concerned about someone making a couple bucks for running a service that gives us the equivalent of $100 an hour consulting for free.  Don't underestimate what we have here.  But hey it's a free country and anyone who feels this service isn't worth the effort can always go to Yahoo (supported by ads at the bottom of every email unlike this one) or that other RV "college fund" site that bombards the hell out of you with ads and might as well have a popup with every click asking for a donation.



  I think Matt does a great job.  I think his system of asking for a donation one month a year is more than fair (NPR you listening?) and I think each person out there has every right to decide if they don't want to make a donation and I'm willing to bet the vast majority of us don't.  What I would like to see is if you don't want to, or even if you did, that you keep disparaging comments to yourselves.  This isn't a public company and we are not owed financial statements.  It's supported at a best level of effort and, given the number of service restoration teams I have been on over the years, I think it's been outstanding so far.  Sorry Ernest, I'm really not trying to take a shot at you, and I think you are a valued member of this list, I just don't want people to get the impression this is easy to do because it just isn't fair to Matt.



  Off my high horse and do not archive for that $0.00013 of disk space this 14KB message costs to archive.



--

matronics(at)cencula.com
Guest

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 10:55 pm Post subject: Matt's Profiteering (not)

I'm way late to the party, but if anyone that's running an e-mail server 

can do it, turn on greylisting.  For my humble postfix server here at 

home, greylisting alone reduced my personal spams from >400/day to 

<10/day.  It definitely has a downside, though, in the form of some 

delivery delay for the first sender-recipient match in the list.



Mike Cencula



do not archive



RV Builder (Michael Sausen) wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   



   I realize that this thread is a bit stale but hey, what else is there to do while loosening the belt on Thanksgiving other than checking email lists that you are behind on.  



   Ernest I know you are a geek like many of us but you are a bit behind in the economics of email nowadays.  I do large scale email systems design (20k to 100k+ users and 3-4 in a year) and I can tell you for a fact the infrastructure to do this isn't cheap.  While you may think email is multicast, and in a perfect world it would be, the reality is RFC's aren't always followed as intended.  In many cases only the connection may be constant assuming the emails are queued up in order, and each email to each user is sent individually.  While not always CPU intensive (except for directory lookups and keeping a connection open), emails on this volume produce a crap load (technical term) of IO at the disks and it takes some serious hardware to keep from killing a disk subsystem or causing major queue backups.  I believe this was the reason for the last couple of upgrades Matt completed.  Spam has already been covered but I just wanted to add that any commercial service such as thi!

  s is usually targeted heavier than a normal business.

   

<snip>

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