Telephone
You can reach me by phone at 954-ODD-LUCK (+1 954 633 5825). Within the United States you can use the widget below to have GrandCentral call your phone and connect you to me.
Instant Messenger
Not the most reliable way to reach me, but you can try.
AIM: EuroBryce
MSN: tby-msn@yehl.us
Yahoo: byehl
My e-mail address is tby@yehl.us. To ensure safe passage thru my spam filters, include the phrase “No luncheon meat” anywhere within your message. Geeky explanation follows…
Spam
Having maintained a public e-mail address for several years means that I receive a ton of spam. In order to relieve myself of the burden of having to sort thru the spam, I use what is known as a Challenge-Response system (Active Spam Killer) to verify that unknown e-mail senders are actually human. ASK maintains a list of known e-mail senders in a “Whitelist.”
Since at least January of 2004, anyone who leaves a comment on this site that passes moderation is automatically added to ASK’s Whitelist.
If your address is not on ASK’s Whitelist, your message will be placed in a holding queue and ASK will send you a Challenge message. Simply Reply to that message — ASK will add you to my Whitelist and deliver your original message to my Inbox. So long as your e-mail address does not change, ASK will never Challenge you again. If you do not respond to the ASK’s Challenge message within a few days, your message will be automatically deleted by ASK.
Including the phrase “No luncheon meat” within your message will instruct ASK to bypass the Challenge-Response mechanism, add your e-mail address to the Whitelist, and deliver the message to my Inbox.
Some anti-spam services may block the Challenge message from ASK. You should either add tby@yehl.us to your own Whitelist, or use the above phrase to add yourself to my Whitelist.
I apologize in advance for making you jump through hoops to e-mail me, but if it weren’t for ASK I would have no choice but to stop providing my e-mail address publicly.
PS: Mailblock, Spam Arrest, and similiar Challenge-Response anti-spam services tend to be Evil. Mailblocks employs questionable patents against competitors. Spam Arrest has used customers’ Whitelists to send spam. Other anti-spam services have performed similar misdeeds with customer Whitelists, usually it does not even violate their Terms of Service.
ASK is software that runs on my mail server, not a third-party service, so your e-mail address is never exposed to any Evil Corporation that might send you spam about their anti-spam services.
