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Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 1:02 am
by josiah
Hey all,

Introducing myself, my name is Josiah. I am Josh's son, and have been able to enjoy this service most of my life (I have a single digit User ID in the table)

I wanted to open up after some radio silence on our end by saying my dad is still kicking, and his recall of individuals is quite good, so whenever he has a visitor, he can recognize them instantly and make nice small talk.You may have seen in an earlier post that he has one of the most aggressive strains of Glialblastoma (MGMT-unmethylated). Unfortunately since October his ability to operate electronics has diminished, and vocabulary by Thanksgiving. After 17 months of treatment on an 11-month prognosis, multiple oncology groups have recommended stopping treatment and he started in-home hospice earlier this month. He is always around family and loved ones, and my wife and I have been able to visit over a dozen-odd weekends last year to date. Same goes for my sister and her husband :D

Around August I got slightly involved with the project on this side in a soft handover, such as updating exim4 to account for a vulnerability (in case any of you were wondering about that).

Today I want to announce that we will be keeping spamgourmet online. We finally got him to remember all the passwords he used to log into his auto-pay accounts for domain, certs, and datacenter leasing. However, I'm still working on finances on my end. It's a sole proprietorship, so I've created a business account at my credit union in my name. If you insist on donating to the paypal Josh had set up, I probably wont access the funds for a while, and I may post a link to a new paypal account eventually.

As I get more familiar with perl-cgi (I am more of a HDL person myself). After I feel comfortable with the codebase, I plan to turn user creation in the next month or two.

Thank you,
Josiah

I'll be pinning this to the top of General Discussion for a while. Please let me know if you have any questions, or want to introduce yourself.
Edit: I cannot seem to find pinning functionality.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 7:32 am
by towwang
Josiah:

Thank you so much for your work in keeping SpamGourmet going. I am really glad to hear your dad is surrounded by loved ones. I with you, him and your whole family the best.

Please be sure to post here if you guys need help with the upkeep of SG, whether monetary or volunteer labor. Happy belated new year!

Tow

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:56 pm
by rutlander
Just posting to offer thanks for continuing to keep this service going and the best wishes to the family.
I can't believe how long I've used this service for free, if it needs support then please find a way to get the message out beyond these forums so we can help.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 4:56 pm
by Nuke
I'm so sorry to hear about your Dad, and I wish the best for him.

You deserve a medal yourself for continuing with SG, and our thanks, and I would certainly like to contribute to the funds when the situation has stablised.

Nuke

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 3:32 pm
by noOneInParticular
As an activist I have to say there are ethical problems with the donation instruments:

  • Paypal shares users' data with 600+ corporations, owned by Peter Thiel (who uses Palantir to further violate people's privacy). Paypal also has a history of blocking access to political activists. There's a long list of problems but the excessive data share probably hits home with most SG users. (ref: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/the_600_compani.html)
  • Amazon is making an astronomical investment in facial recognition and coupled with "Ring" will have all of us well surveilled. Amazon also runs extreme sweatshops.. many 911 calls coming from their warehouses.
  • Visa & Mastercard are fighting FOR the war on cash through their membership with the "Better than Cash Alliance". Visa is also giving $10k rewards to shops who agree to refuse cash. This is very bad for people's freedom and privacy.
  • American Express is an ALEC member.

I will not donate to charities in a way that feeds any of the above companies. I suggest:

  • Tell donors how to make out their checks and where to send them. The same mailing address could perhaps be used for small amounts of cash or giftcards.
  • Open a Euro account and give an IBAN so Europeans can donate (they've mostly eliminated checks in Europe)
  • Post a cryptocurrency address.

Note as well that US checks and euro transfers tend to have zero overhead.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Wed Jan 22, 2020 6:45 am
by taxlady
Thank you so much for taking this on Josiah. I'm sorry that you and your family and your dad are having to deal with this. Sending you all the very best wishes.

Is there a way to contribute financially? Will you, for certain, be able to access your dad's Paypal account(s) at some point. I would hate to send money that you don't get. I have been enjoying this service for many years and really appreciate it. Thank yous to your dad.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 1:27 pm
by maelcum
Thank you, Josiah, for the heads up. Although it is sad to hear about the condition of your dad your writing makes it clear that he is loved and cared for. I owe your father a lot, having relayed on SG for years and years. I only wish the best for all of you.

Thank you as well for your willingness to geht involved in this service. After the announcement in 2018 I have searched for alternatives. There are very, very few and none like SpamGourmet. It really is a rare and valuable thing in the world wide web. I am thrilled to hear that there is a future for it. Please reach out to us if there is anything we could help you with.

Have a very nice day.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Sat Jan 25, 2020 6:18 am
by ragingdragon
That's great news, Joshua. I can imagine it's not easy to take on an additional responsibility when you already have so many. Appreciate you taking this up and continuing what your dad did. Your dad's an amazing man and so are you. My heartfelt best wishes for you folks.

Glad to hear Josh is surrounded by loving family. He has a lot of goodwill coming towards him from our side as well. Wish there was something more I could do to make things better for your family. This is probably the best time to say that you folks have so much goodwill, if you ever need help in real life, there's likely a bunch of us who will be ready to do our part in helping you out.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 9:43 am
by Kiore
Hi Josiah,

Thank you for posting about your father's status. He's done so much good for people for so long, I wish him nothing but comfort in his remaining time.

Thank you also for picking up your father's legacy.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Sat Feb 01, 2020 5:10 am
by anon090526
Hello Josiah,

Well that certainly turns my emotions inside out and upside down.

So sorry that your father is declining quickly. Thank you for updating us. Bummer. I hope he remains comfortable and at peace.

But of course I'm over the moon about the news that SG will continue; I've dreaded having to find an alternative and move all my 200+ addresses over.

I've been a regular annual contributor. If you have difficulty accessing your father's Paypal account, please set something else up for the time being on the "Donate" page.
If you're going to give us the gift of keeping SG running, out-of-pocket costs should NOT be something you need to deal with.
I'm not in a position to help with time or expertise, but I can certainly help with the financial side. Sounds like I'm not alone.

9,730 forwarded, 5,789 eaten. You have 224 spamgourmet address(es). Since April 2006.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 4:52 am
by taxlady
I would also like to be able to donate to help running this marvellous service.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 6:13 pm
by af7v
Josiah,

I can't thank you enough for keeping this alive. After over a decade of use, I'm more than happy to pay to keep the lights on.

Best to you and your family as you care for your dad as well.

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 8:30 pm
by drive
Just wanted to say I'm glad to know your dad is surrounded by loved ones. And thank you for keeping the light on!

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:02 pm
by jacke1
Hi Josiah,

Thanks so much for taking the mantle from your dad, Josh! I am sorry about your loss but I bet he would be proud that you are keeping SG alive, it is indeed a great resource for all of us.

I do want to contribute money for the upkeep, but am not really clear how you want to do it these days. From your message, it sounds like the old paypal way isn't fully working for you yet, so how would you like to get a donation? Let me know...

Also, I think that the Patreon idea is a great one, since those of us who want to could do a monthly "donation subscription"!

Thanks, and keep up the great work,
Jack

Re: Spamgourmet will stay up, and some life updates

PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 5:43 pm
by dki2707
Hi Josiah,

I am sorry for your loss, may Josh rest in peace. Your post dd. feb. 7, 2020, has deeply saddened me. Josh's work has made the world a better place.

I'd be very happy to pay for your SG services, too. Please post a reply here or send a message to josiah.20.dki2707@xoxy.net

Best regards from Germany, near Frankfurt/M
Dirk