Hmpf.
[19:17] <ecksor> Hey, Alex, I didn't know you started an ISP. [19:17] <ecksor> http://www.flex.com/sign_up/ [19:19] <ecksor> http://www.flex.com/net_status/fan_pro.html
The other day I was watching a reconstruction of the days and hours leading up to when the space shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986. The broadcast included a reconstruction of the discussion between the engineers and members of management. For the first time in NASA's history, the engineers were recommending that a launch be postponed. The cold weather gave them reason to suspect that the O-rings would not tighten fast enough, resulting in a gas leakage and subsequent explosion.
As I watched NASA management, the people responsible for the astronauts safety, downplay, disregard and attack technical aspects they did not want to understand, I experienced, for the first time since my resignation, a horrible flashback to my former employer. I recalled all the battles I had to fight for even the most basic precautions to be taken, how most suggestions for improving security were dropped or postponed for various reasons and how useful security decisions were reversed on a whim or due to pressure from other departments.
The mind boggles. Currently playing: Shitlist by L7. For a good reason, too.
New clueful entry: Stop me before I consult again.
I gained 612 pounds in the last 4 days. Minimum. I am such a fat bastard. Mick would be proud of me.
Loot: Scarlet's Walk by Tori Amos; Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles) by Anne Rice; a burbon shirt, nice warm socks, The Little Book About Chocolate by whomever, Det' Leth - a handyman's referencemanual, a quarter of a silver knife. Books, Tori and Chocolate. I cannot decide which I love more.
I lost my MP3 copy of You Make Me Feel Brand New as covered by Tori Amos, by the way. If you can point me in the right direction there might be a big wet sloppy kiss in it for you. Send me the URL or something. Do not email me the file. I repeat: Do not fucking email me the fucking file. I will beat you within an inch of your life.
I met up with Blond Bimbo, aka Lars, for the first time in at least a year. He lives in Germany of all places. Last time I saw him was over dinner and drinks in Ireland. We had more food and beer tonight. I see a pattern forming. (Amazon has hits for all types of patterns (design, language, etc), except beer patterns.)
Before I went away on the 23rd, I pointed out some security problems at smartguy.dk, and the very responsible staff are working on fixing the root cause. Not once did they hint at legal action. It was a pleasant surprise.
There is a handful of email I have not responded to in the last few weeks. I hope to find the time tomorrow, so if you are waiting for, say, my opinion on postfix vs. qmail, I am getting there.
Currently playing: Thank You by Led Zeppelin.
Jerry told me about infrastructures.org today. The mindset described on that site should be the mindset of anyone responsible for maintaining anything more complex than a solar powered calculator. At least one of my former employers could use a bashing with 40 printed copies of the content on that site.
Holy diary-update, batman! This whole thing about christmas still does not please me. Just thinking about having to buy presents makes me want to crawl back to bed. That is not the way it is supposed to be, is it?
If any of you are following my Soekris adventure (wireless gateway/firewall), it has not moved due to geometry differences when building the media on my laptop and reading it in the firewall. I would like to get my wireless AP going soon. After all, there is a reason I bought it.
NullSoft, the creators of WinAmp, needs to clue in. Rather than using
individual registry keys for each user, these idiots store configuration
details in the directory to which WinAmp was installed. Uh, hello? My user does
not have write access to \Program Files\Winamp\. Corel's Painter
Classic, which came with my Wacom board, also does not run as a limited user.
And my online bank still requires administrator priviliges. Are we starting to
see a pattern here? I managed to get this same problem fixed in Dev-CPP for
Windows. One down, 500 million to go.
I tried to download Project Entropia - a 380MB file, but Mozilla crashed when it reached 100%, dropping the entire file somewhere other than my HD. Did I mention that I am soooo sick of shitty software? Technology is supposed to make my life better, not be a source of rants.
Oh, and finally I did not get the job I interviewed for last week. At least not yet.
There was a documentary on National Geographic today about the Netscape/Mozilla story, covering the company and the employees from 1998 to 1999. The broadcast title was Code Rush, like the motion picture.
My ISP had several hours of downtime this evening.
I ended up not getting drunk. I only had one pint all evening.
Chrille has posted the pictures he took at the ORDB meet. Jesper has posted more pictures from the same event including this group picture of about half of the people behind ORDB.org.
This is what some of us look like when we are freezing our fucking asses off.
I made it to Århus alive! Going to get drunk again in a few hours.
Recovered from last night. I hate hangovers.
SiGNOUT posted pictures from McGrath's already. I will post mine later.
The interview went well. They will decide next week if they want to see me for another interview.
I met up with some of the BSD-DK people and had a few pints. Well, it ended up being a drinking session. I got home around 4am.
I picked up a copy of the November issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal at the train station. The issue was centered around computer security with articles on biometrics, of all things, and software security. I always get my hopes up when I read Dr. Dobbs and then I am reminded that it is just a journal that provides teasers. You have to buy someone's book to get anything really worthwhile out of it.
Reading Dr. Dobbs did remind me that I must get copies of How to Break Software and Kevin Mitnick's new book. Deception something or other. With a few job oppertunities coming up, I should make a plan to buy at least two books each month -- at my employers expense, of course. I wonder how how many of my readers have monthly book allowances of some type? State your occupation and amount your employer lets you spend on books. Answers on a postcard, please.
I am going for a job interview in Copenhagen, I'll be away from Wednesday and this weekend I will be at another ORDB hackathon/benderathon. See you Sunday!
Some people will be meeting up in McGrath's on Thursday at 7.30pm. Let me know if I should expect you.
Sorry about the dead diary, by the way. I have been putting my energy into various projects such as trying to find a job.
