mcgees.org

The Olive Garden^® restaurant, with the help of Coca-Cola^®, recently enacted a program [archive] to sell more Coke.  Why?  To increase sales for Coca-Cola^®?  Of course not!  To increase revenue for The Olive Garden^®?  What, are they fascists?  They did it “with the goal of increasing overall guest satisfaction.”

Before you laugh this off as bullshit, offensive marketing drivel, take a moment to consider the compelling logical argument [archive]:

1. Customers order tap water “not because they enjoy it, but because it is what they always have drunk in the past.”  Obviously these customers have never heard of Coke, so
2. in the interests of customers, The Olive Garden^® established a goal “to influence customers to abandon their default choice of tap water and experience other beverage choices to improve their dining experience.”  We know the dining experiences of customers were improved because
3. the program worked, generating “reduced levels of tap water incidence”, which shows
4. “a strong indication that Olive Garden restaurants succeeded in enhancing the customer’s dining experience,” due to the fact that
5. see point #3.

OK, now laugh this off as bullshit, offensive marketing drivel.

(Thanks to memepool for the pointer.)

[Note added 2 August 2001: My my my ... it looks like Coke got a bit embarassed and have pulled the pages.  That's fine; there is still a cache on Google, of which I have made a copy for posterity.]

A small business hoping to appear larger (or at least to have a permanent office) may rent a private mail box, or PMB.  A PMB is an enumerated physical mailbox owned and operated by a private company.  The U.S. Postal Service have been cracking down on the use of “Suite” to designate such a mailbox, with the argument that such use is deceptive.  Some companies continue to do so; some simply list the box as “#x” (allowing one to assume a suite); some actually use “PMB x“.  For search-engine fodder, here are the results of a Google search for companies who use a small Mailboxes, Etc. in town their corporate address, along with the method in which they identify their box number (Updated 24 Jun 2002).  This does not necessarily imply deceit on the part of the business, but if you are expecting corporate offices at the address, there will not be.

I just finished Isaac Asimov’s Asimov Laughs Again, an occasionally amusing book that somehow remains a page-turner even during the relatively unenjoyable parts.  The book is mostly a stream-of-consciousness transcribed by Asimov, remembering jokes, anecdotes, and limericks.  But I was exceptionally annoyed that he misquotes Samuel Johnson in entry 586.  Johnson is informed that one of the words in his dictionary is defined incorrectly, and is asked to explain the reasoning behind his mis-definition.  Asimov quotes Johnson as saying “Ignorance.  Simple ignorance, sir.”

Assuming that he was quoting from Boswell (a very reasonable assumption) I remember the quotation as “Ignorance, madam.  Simple [or sheer?] ignorance.”  Petty distinction?  Perhaps.  But Asimov is a reknowned science writer, and a science writer does not simply repeat from memory.  And how long would it have taken him to look this up?

Hmmm … how long indeed?  I have a stopwatch function on my wristwatch; I will turn it on, fetch my Life of Johnson from another room, and attempt to find the reference.  I sincerely doubt if I will be able to accomplish this any faster than Asimov would have.  We will also see whether I am right or wrong in calling his memory into question.  OK, here goes …

… and the answer is one minute, fifty-six seconds.  My memory was erroneous as well: the quote is “Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.”  [If you think it would have been faster for me to search online, you are right.  I just checked: it took 34 seconds, and this is without searching on the corrected text that I just presented.  But Asimov would not have had this at his disposal for his 1993 book.]

Does Asimov so separate the realms of his science writing and his humor/historical writing that he sees one as requiring scholarship and one not?  Or is he perhaps being devilishly clever, courting exactly this reproach?  “Why did I misquote Johnson?  Ignorance.  Simple ignorance, sir.”

Hello, boys and girls, your lesson for the day is not to cut wedges of slimy, three-week-old gorgonzola towards your finger with a very sharp knife.

I have just been watching Carlton Television’s Police, Camera, Action which TLC is kind enough to air for us on U.S. cable.  There were two episodes this evening which (truth be told) I have been looking forward to all weekend.  For me, this program is far more pleasurable than other programs of its kind.  For one thing, I greatly enjoy the host Alastair Stewart and his presentation of the material.  For another, I have never seen them show any footage in which someone (or animal) was killed or seriously injured; it’s a safety net of civility one does not usually get in U.S. shows of this sort.  I also enjoy the reminiscence of seeing British roads.

I am usually embarassed when footage is shown from the U.S.  The criminals seem more violent, the police always approach with sidearms drawn, and the police commentary seems far more volatile.  But the nonviolent “culture shocks” are fascinating to watch.  For instance, in this past episode Mr. Stewart was discussing Madrid’s “ingenious” use of a “high occupancy vehicle lane”, a highway lane that may be used only by buses and by cars carrying at least one passenger.  For someone living in California who takes our “carpool lanes” for granted, greeting this concept as a novel idea is a bit surprising.

As another amusing cultural difference, this past episode showed footage from a Los Angeles suburb of “a known drug dealer” running from police.  Apparently as a nose-thumbing, the driver decides to target trash cans that had been set streetside for weekly pickup, ramming them with the front of the car.  Mr. Stewart narrates that the driver “decides to have some fun by crashing into the roadside dust bins.”  I am not sure it would be possible to explain to Mr. Stewart just why this interpretation of events sounds so cute; one element is certainly the lack of understanding that the assorted bins (some metal, some plastic, some wheeled, some not) were the possession of the homeowners.  The second more striking element is the naîve belief that a Los Angeles suburb would bother to provide municipal trash cans on residential streets….

One thing that insomnia does give one is time to read.  The insomnia is partly my frustrating occasional insomnia, and partly the pain in my left kidney that I suspect is another stone.  I missed work on Thursday and Friday due to pain and fever, but if I continue to get these every few months for the rest of my life, I am not sure how reasonable an approach this is.

The geeks among you will certainly have already heard of Dmitry Skylarov, Russian academic and father of two, who a week ago was arrested in Las Vegas after presenting an academic paper [1 (PowerPoint)] at the computer security conference Def Con [2].  Here is how the story apparently plays out: Dmitry wrote for his employer [4] pitifully insecure encryption format for electronic books.  This is apparently completely legal under Russian law, but violates the new U.S. Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).  Apparently [5] at the behest of Adobe, Skylarov was arrested under the DMCA and faces a fine of $500,000 and a five-year jail term.

This action, which smacks of the most hideous mode of free-speech suppression and thought-police strongarming, has most in the free software and electronic privacy communities absolutely livid.  I am as well.  At least two movements [6,7] are afoot to “Free Dmitry”.  And in a startling turn of events, Adobe has joined [8] the EFF [9] in urging Skylarov’s release (use your own level of cynicism to decide whether this is goodwill or sheer terror at the prospect of incarnating a Fahrenheit 451 [10] universe.)

For the non-tech readers, let me attempt an analogy (an analogue, if you will, in more than one sense.)  Do you recall when the “The Club” (the automobile anti-theft device) and its ilk were introduced?  They are the very strong iron braces that prevent a car’s steering wheel from being turned while the vehicle’s windshield is in place.  They were advertised as being the ultimate in security, but I remember a particular television program that demonstrated two inherent flaws.  First, and more creatively, liquid nitrogen could be applied to the iron bar (perhaps even from an aerosol can) making the metal very brittle; hitting the device with a crowbar would then cause it to fracture in two.  Second, and less creatively, the steering wheel itself could be cut!  This program aired on national television.  Arresting Skylarov is the digital equivalent of jailing the presenter of this television program (fine, perhaps his boss sells the digital equivalent of a can of liquid nitrogen….)  Non-techies, please read enough about this issue until you (1) agree with me or (2) understand why you disagree with me.  Please do not simply believe the propaganda that paints Skylarov as a scary foreign rogue cracker.  There is a qualitative difference between breaking into a bank to steal all the money from the safe, and simply pointing out that the bank leaves the safe wide open at night.

There exits a petition [11] that will be presented to the U.S. Congress which has been signed by the likes of Jeff Bates [12], ESR [13], Linus Torvalds [14] and Bob Young[15].  If you agree with the sentiment and the text [7], please take a moment to sign your own name.  I would especially like to see educators, librarians, lawyers and authors sign.

[1] http://www.download.ru/defcon.ppt

[2] http://www.defcon.org

[3] http://www.elcomsoft.com

[4] http://www.adobe.com

[5] http://www.securitynewsportal.com/article.php?sid=1129

[6] http://www.freedmitry.org

[7] http://www.dibona.com/dmca/index.shtml

[8] http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,28178,00.html?nl=dnt

[9] http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/

[10] http://makeashorterlink.com/index.php?T29E36B0

[11] http://www.dibona.com/dmca/signup/index.shtml

[12] http://slashdot.org

[13] http://www.opensource.org

[14] http://kernel.org

[15] http://www.redhat.com

Off-the-top-of-my-head list of annoying bugs and features in MS Windows and IE:

1. Changing foreground window automatically.  Windows will pop up
   a window, or move a background window to the foreground, without the user’s
   intervention.  This changes the keyboard focus as well, which creates a
   security hole large enough to march a pony through: on many occasions, I
   have been standing behind someone entering a password.  Another window is
   brought to the foreground, and the user’s keystrokes are echoed into this
   window, revealing the user’s password.

2. Closing menus without the user’s consent.  As per the above entry,
   Windows will take it upon itself to close menus (Start Menu, context menus,
   menu bar menus, etc.) while the user is in the middle of an operation.

3. When an IE5 window encounters an error, the window will be moved to the
   foreground (this is a continuation of the previous two points.)

4. IE5 bug: IE windows will enter a state from which the window will not
   close.  Alt-F4 and clicking the “x” button in the upper-right only cause a
   system click to sound.  Alt-Tabbing away, then back, rectifies this
   problem.

5. IE5 bug: User hits Ctrl-F to open a Find dialog, but instead the main
   window loses focus and the dialog does not display.  If one then Alt-Tabs
   or clicks the main window to bring it back into focus, the Find dialog is
   then displayed, but now it does not have focus.  Only a mouse click
   seems capable of bringing it back into focus.

It seems in Microsoft’s best interests to pay attention to bug reports, but
bug submissions seem to be an exercise in futility.  By posting the
complaints here, perhaps some ambitious Microsoftee will stumble upon them
while doing a web search.

I forgot to add a note last Thurday that I had updated the malts page.

The malts, while not yet added to my malts page, have been incorporated into the malt room.  One of these days I should update the photos.

Sorry the site has been down for so long.  The system crashed hard while we were away, and it took a great deal of effort to get it running again.  Anyway, we are back from the Scotland trip and I will provide more details in the near future.

I am writing this sitting at a Cyber Cafe in Port Ellen, Islay, Scotland.  Jennifer and I are having a great trip so far.  Just a quick note since I am paying for time here.  More notes when I return.

Well, this is it!  We are off on our trip!  See you all in a couple of weeks.

I just ran into something interesting.  It seems that Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 will allocate a maximum of 4094 classes in a cascading stylesheets (css) file.  I do not see why, in principle, this number could not be arbitrarily large.

Looking at this page, I see that my last post was more than a week ago.  I find it impossible to believe this; I would have sworn that I made this post no more than a couple days ago.  This should evidence the degree to which time has become a blur as a result of illness and pain medications.  I am pleased to say that I am doing much better, almost fully healthy again.

Darn it.  In 1992 or ‘93, I had a great idea for a cookbook based on foods from C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.  I worked a fair amount on it, scouring the books for references to foods, planning the layout, etc.  Then I set it to the side.  Now some people have beaten me to it.

As I said, darn it.

A few notes before I return to my sickbed.  My prior recuperation attempt failed.  I ended up back at the hospital that night; I went in for a surgical procedure to remove the stone the next day.  I am pretty much incapacitated, spending 95% of the day in bed.  But I will get better … the doc said a return to work on this Friday or the following Monday was possible.  Wish me well….

Recuperating, I have been watching MTV X, MTV’s 24-hour commercial-free hard rock video channel.

Linux (and possibly other Unices) employ the concept of an IP routing table; I have become far too accustomed to dealing with this because of the incessant hacking attempts to my server.  Modifying an IP routing table allows network traffic to be directed to another IP address before any other process “sees” it; that is, transparent to other programs, incoming traffic is re-routed to another location.  I think this is a perfect metaphor for one trait of heavy metal.  I believe heavy metal can (metaphorically) modify the psyche’s routing table, allowing pain to be transparently routed to catharsis.  I expect this is the major reason for its popularity among adolescents, who undergo intense and constant psychological pain.

While watching the videos, Stone Temple Pilots‘ video for their song Down was played, which reminded me that Scott Weiland (the lead singer) was in jail during the filming of the video.  Three guesses what he was in jail for.  That’s right: for putting chemicals into his own body.

Now let me give you some autobiographical context before I proceed: I have never, in any fashion, used an illegal drug.  My most “deviant” behavior has been to take a Tylenol-3 on occasion (i.e., once per year or so) for severe pain when it has not been expressly prescribed to me, and I had an occasional beer in college before age 21.  There is no element of my argument that stems from defensiveness or resentment.  My argument is that a civilized society has no business legislating what its citizens can and cannot do to their own bodies.  None.

I know that many people will disagree with me, judging by our draconian laws.  We have a drug czar, official title, for Pete’s sake.  This would be hilarious if it were not so tragic.  Drug use is a personal choice; drug abuse is a medical problem.  Law and imprisonment have no business whatsoever in this domain.  And it frightens and disturbs me that the arguments in favor of our “drug war” (if this term is not simply agitprop I have no idea what is) are cyclical.  The advocates’ rhetoric begs the question: “Why is drug use illegal?  Because drugs are bad.  Why are drugs bad?  Because using them is illegal.”  Occasionally one encounters more sophisticated arguments.  So let us address them:

1. People under the influence of drugs can cause harm to innocent people.
2. Drugs taken during pregnancy can damage the fetus.
3. Drug use imposes an unfair burden on government-subsidised health systems.
4. Drug use undermines the “moral fabric” of our society.

But are these arguments reasonable?  Consider:

1. Yes, people under the influence of certain chemicals (including the legal drugs ethanol [beverage alcohol] and N-acetyl-50methoxytryptamine [kava kava]) pose a risk of impairment, e.g. behind the wheel.  Fine: legislate against the specific behavior.  Establish a competency test for drivers that can be administered in the field.  We have the technology to do better than a touch-your-nose field sobriety test: send officers out with notebook PCs and administer reflex and visual perception tests to motorists suspected of driving while impaired.  Frankly, I don’t care if a motorist who runs over a child while impaired was drunk, stoned, exhausted, or blind; regardless, he should not have been driving and the behavior should be punished.  Forget blood alcohol levels, drug screens.  Forget letting tired drivers off with a warning.  If behavior directly endagers someone, make this behavior illegal.
2. Yes, drugs (including legal ones, along with many prescription medications and certain foods) taken during pregnancy can cause damage to the fetus.  First, we need to decide whether we make this a crime.  Then, even if we do, address this prophylactically through education and criminally through seizure of the child.
3. Yes, the legalisation of drugs would probably cause government health care costs to rise.  But let us direct even one tenth of the money used to pay for CIA helicopters, Miami gunboats, and Peruvian jet fighters to education, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation and see where we stand.  Additionally: do we really want to set the precedent of making behaviors illegal if they harm our health?  Think about your own life (you, John Q. Reader):  Do you ski?  Bicycle?  Eat at McDonalds?  Smoke an occasional cigar?  Play contact sports?  Skip your semi-annual dentist appointments?  Crave Ben & Jerry’s from time to time?  Should these be illegal?
4. And as to some illusory moral fabric, I feel it almost beneath my dignity to address this.  Yes, I see you anti-drug moralists: you are, by and large, the same ones who want children to pray in schools (to preserve our moral fiber) and want unmarried adults to practice abstinence (to protect our moral fiber) and want to outlaw the production of pornography and other forms of expression with which you disagree (to protect our moral fiber) and want to impose internet content filters on library computers (to protect our moral fiber.)  Anyone who parades in and says “I have the one true morality in the world.  My ideals and behaviors are just and moral and those who disagree with me are evil” are unspeakably arrogant.  I am sure you can sense the anger in my written voice here.  “You put chemicals into your body that I would not put into mine.  Go to jail.”  Fuck you.  Sorry, there I go degrading our moral fiber with my speech here.

Am I not understanding a sophisticated argument?  Please let me know.

I note for those who have been concerned about my health:  I ended up in the hospital again this morning.  Pain woke me up at 5:30 a.m. … I thought my appendix was going to burst.  It was the worst pain I have ever encountered.  It turns out I have another kidney stone, even larger than the last one.  I am home now, recuperating.

Today I visited a local mediocre-but-cheap all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant in town.  I had been there a few of times before, had never been impressed with the quality of the food, but as it is not much more expensive than fast food and cheaper than almost any other sit-down restaurant around here I keep returning.

On the sushi bar sneeze-guard (I do not know what else to call it) they have posted signs, which I began reading.  “Take up to six (6) pieces at a time.  You may visit 1000 times [their emphasis],” the signs began.  This sounds quite reasonable; sushi is expensive, their profit margin must be very small, so they want to discourage wastage.  But the signs continued: “Do not eat just the top of the sushi.”  Frankly, it had never occurred to me to use the restaurant as an all-you-can-eat sashimi restaurant; because of my deeply-rooted aversion to wasting food I likely would never have thought of this, let alone done it.  But apparently they are having problems with some people exploiting the system, the restauranteurs want people to fill up on rice rather than sashimi, and so the sign is justified.

But it did not stop there.  The next line said, “For every block of rice on your plate you will be charged $1.00.”  Hmmm … now we are getting into muddier waters for me.  This comes off as fairly harsh; it seems to assume that all the customers are unethical in this regard.  Are there not other ways to handle this?  Why cannot waitresses notice this as it is happening, by seeing customers removing the fish from the sushi?  Even if the proprieters decided to retain the dollar-per-rice-block policy they could inform patrons only when they noticed them doing this, as in, “I’m sorry, we have a policy against eating only the fish.  If you wish to visit the sushi bar for another six pieces, we need to ask that you eat your rice first.”

But it was the last note that put me over the proverbial edge: “Don’t try to hide the rice.  We will find it.”  Yikes.  This sounds ominous and intimidating; worse, is certainly abusive to their law-abiding patrons.  If posted policies (”do not waste food”) and clarifications thereof (”that means even the rice”) and warnings by waitresses (”eat your rice if you want more sushi”) are not enough for a customer, is he really to be deterred by “We will find it?”  There are two options, it seems: first, the proprieters will not find the rice and they are just blowing smoke; this would seem to only taunt the abusive customers.  Second, they will find the hidden rice, in which case the rice-hiders will get what is coming to them anyway.  So why the sign?

A year and a half ago I wrote a fun little program in C++ called ASCIIfy that takes a black and white bitmap and creates an text file in which the characters take the shape of the picture.  For instance, it took a black-and-white version of this picture and created this text file.  (Do not just click on the last link in your web browser.  You will just get garbage.  It needs to be viewed in 9-point fixedsys font.  Notepad++ uses this by default.)

I decided to make a fancier version, in PERL this time, that would take a color GIF image, like this, and turn it into a color web page using cascading style sheets.  Before I give you the link, let me say two things.  First, this will probably only look decent in Internet Explorer.  Second, this could take a long time to load, depending on your system speed.  Your computer most likely has not frozen.  Just wait for it to load.  Here is the page.

I was going to put a CGI connection to the script on the site, but it takes too long to run the conversion program for this to be practical (this probably means I just programmed it inefficiently.)  I’m not going to make the source code public for now, but if you want a copy just ask.

The Standard’s Media Grok today contained a hilarious article about an imperfectly-conceived IBM ad campaign and a communication chain breaking down.  I suppose IBM’s motive, as an enormous, hulking behemoth, is to portray themselves as guerilla underdogs.  Yes, this should be difficult, because very few people are likely to fall for it.  But one ad exec seems to have devised a clever idea: show the world IBM is counter-culture and therefore “cool” by drawing peace signs and penguins in chalk on city streets to support IBM’s “Peace, Love and Linux” campaign.  Cities such as Chicago.  The problem is that IBM outsourced the Chicago effort to a Chicago company called (and I am not making this up) Ch’rewd … and the message seems to have been corrupted at some point through the pipeline.  You see, the guerilla ad campaign went off as planned, except it was rendered in black spray paint rather than chalk.  This provides Media Grok with a classic opening paragraph:

Those crazy kids at IBM. A 20-year-old busted for spray painting Chicago sidewalks last week seems to have been tagging on behalf of a Big Blue ad campaign. Maybe next week we’ll catch Compaq sneaking wine coolers and Oracle cutting algebra.

But Media Grok outdid itself today by providing another hilarious line.  Apparently (and I am not going to delve too deeply into this one) Salon is launching subscription-based plan where Salon articles can be read without advertisements.  The media had a field day over the fact that this extends to Salon’s sex-related text, articles, and photographs, discussing “Salon’s Premium Porn”.  [Well, darn ... because of this paragraph this page will be blocked by AltaVista's Family Filter.]  And this leads up to Media Grok’s second line:

So as not to appear too lowbrow, Salon says it’s featuring the “erotic
art and photography” in “galleries.” (Pass the espresso with a lemon
twist.)

In Programming Perl (or at least the older version I have) is the listing for a program called travesty, a very clever little program that analyzes the frequency of adjacent word triplets in a given text and then … well … shuffles them around for you.  Every three consecutive words in the output exists in the input, but there is no overall fidelity to the original.  The result is nonsense, but conspicuously English-sounding nonsense.  And it gets even more fun, I have found, if the text is less than clear to begin with.

So here is a game: I will give you two passages.  One is an unadulterated excerpt from a text; the other is an excerpt from the travesty output.  See if you can figure out which is which.  To begin with, a passage from Wittgenstein’s “Notes on Logic”.  Your choices are:

It is not strictly true to say that we understand a proposition p if we know that p is equivalent to “p is true” for this would be the case if accidentally both were true or false. What is wanted is the formal equivalence with respect to the forms of the proposition, i.e., all the general indefinables involved. The sense of an ab function of a proposition is a function of its sense. There are only unasserted propositions. � Assertion is merely psychological. In not-p, p is exactly the same as if it stands alone; this point is absolutely fundamental. Among the facts which make “p or q” true there are also facts which make “p and q” true; if propositions have only meaning, we ought, in such a case, to say that these two propositions are identical, but in fact, their sense is different for we have introduced sense by talking of all p’s and all q’s. Consequently the molecular propositions will only be used in cases where there ab function stands under a generality sign or enters into another function such as “I believe that, etc.,” because then the sense enters. The ab notation makes it clear that not and or are dependent on one another and we can therefore not use them as simultaneous indefinables. Same objections in the case of apparent variables to old indefinables, as in the case of molecular functions: The application of the ab notation to apparent-variable propositions becomes clear if we consider that, for instance, the proposition “for all x, x” is to be true when x is true for all x’s and false when jx is false for some x’s. We see that some and all occur simultaneously in the proper apparent variable notation.

.. or …

For we introduce ab-functions. A very natural objection to the way
in which the whole of mathematics holds; and similarly the
so-called definitions of logic are not all propositions that have sense
from these indefinables alone. It is a subject-predicate proposition
if we know when a point that it is important that we can perform
ab operations on them. We shall, by doing so, correlate two new
outside poles to the same name but by two different propositions, but
can occur in itself. This is the fundamental truth of the
proposition. A proposition cannot be fitted by this description, because it does not designate a point of the form of scientific propositions (not only of primitive propositions). The word “philosophy” ought always to designate something over or under, but not beside, the natural sciences. Judgment, command and question all stand on the other hand the repeated application of the class of them; and we overlook the fact that not every feature of a proposition true, and thereby that they could be treated like “simples”. But this alone made them unserviceable as logical types, since there would be no ground for using the same symbol as p. And therefore we can understand it without knowing if it is easy to suppose that only such symbols are complex as
contain apparent variables. Negative facts only justify the use of
variables. It follows that not-not-p denotes the same level; but all have in common must not be more than what corresponds to it; but this
is not like it. This is a sign for a relation. But it is to be
decided upon. But in that case what is true (or false), I must first
know when a point is white (not black) corresponds a negative fact.
If I designate a thing (truth-value), whose properties might be
called white. In order to be called “false” or “true”; the verb of a
simple, that it is false. Thus a proposition is a new pole a in
whatever way i.e. via whatever poles is correlated to p compared with
the relation of a proposition symbolizes in symbols of this type
are constants. Components are forms and constituents.

Too easy?  Try the Biblical book of Ezekiel:

The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their sight, as they
went. And their whole body, and their doings: and ye have been
scattered, and I anointed thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away
thy blood from thee, and looked upon thee, saith the Lord GOD; This
burden concerneth the prince that is a lamentation, and shall go
forth: they shall stone thee with badgers’ skin, and I may be their
God. But as for their appearances, they four had. As for his father,
he shall not escape. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, they shall
burn thine houses with fire, and another fire shall devour them; and
the glory of the Chaldeans; yet shall he then live? he shall die in
his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his roaring. Then the
glory of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, behold, they of
the forest, which I had put upon thee, behold, thy time was the
same faces which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey,
wherewith I fed thee, thou hast done, thou and thy whoredoms a small
matter.

… vs. …

Therefore, thou son of man, prepare thee stuff for removing, and remove by day in their sight; and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight: it may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house.  Then shalt thou bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for removing: and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight, as they that go forth into captivity.  Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby.  In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground: for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.  And I did so as I was commanded: I brought forth my stuff by day, as stuff for captivity, and in the even I digged through the wall with mine hand; I brought it forth in the twilight, and I bare it upon my shoulder in their sight.

If you have access to a UNIX shell account, you can have fun playing around with the program on your own.  A word of warning: the script as written contains an infinite loop.  No idea why they did this.  It is trivial to put a counter of some sort into it, however, or just press <CTRL>-c when you get bored.

Eight days since the last post.  Yikes.  Here is a short list to help you catch up.  In the last eight days, I have:

• Undergone surgery (yes, related to the continuing medical fun.)
• Found that, while fixing some symptoms, they still cannot explain the pain and fever.
• Recuperated.
• Returned to work.
• Undergone many many many more hacking attempts.
• For the first time solved a cryptic crossword without the assistance of Crossword Maestro (I have just recently become interested in these.)

Anyway, the log is back.  Sorry for the long delay.

It looks like my system security has just survived a full-scale attack by an attacker’s script that targeted nearly 3000 ports on my system.  In words you script kiddies will understand: “Woo hoo, I kicked your scrawny thirteen-year-old asses.”

We’ll just ignore that there is only one hour between this post and the last one and pretend as if I fit a full night’s sleep in here somewhere.

Aaaargh, those bastards.  It is now after 4 a.m.  I have been fending off hacker attacks all night; one has been severe enough that it could be seen as a denial-of-service attack.  One attacker generated over 3 MB of entries in my log files.  What scum.

I have established a Hacking Hall of Shame page to publicly air my grievances against hackers.

I have to begin this entire post from scratch because Blogger decided to sign me out just as I was posting this document.  Thanks, guys.

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I am at a crucial junction: for the first time while I have been running mcgees.org I have to decide how family-oriented this site is.  The question pertains to how explicitly I describe the dickless pre-pubescent script kiddies who hacked my system last night and cost me six hours of intense labor securing the system and undoing the damage.

The hackers successfully broke into port 23 on my machine last night.  The hostname of the machine they used is s0-1.fordogg.bbnplanet.net (that’s s,zero,dash,one at the beginning.)  After gaining root access, they established two new users, “wizards” and “wizards2″.  They then proceeded to delete my xferlog files to hide their tracks and chown them to one of their bogus accounts.  It looks like they then spawned approximately forty instances of some script to bang away at other IP addresses.  I noticed the odd processes this morning and zapped them all: I was not sure of their origin until I started delving deeper into the hacking issues.  I found out about the hack attempts when I received emails from two site administrators who had undergone hacking attempts from my system.

Sysadmins, look for these signs in your own systems.  You may want to block access from the offending host right now if you do not have stronger measures in place already.

Here is my suggestion for penalties for script kiddies: first offense, $500 fine and notification of parents.  If the kid cannot afford $500 or his parents are unwilling to pay it, he works it off in community service at minimum wage (that’s 97 hours.)  Second offense is 24 hours in jail, a $1000 fine ($500 of which cannot be community service), and seizure of all computing equipment in the household.  Think this is too harsh on the parents?  Perhaps these sort of stakes will encourage parents to actually act like parents.

I have been working on Linux security issues for the past couple of hours, sitting at my desk.  I have been growing increasingly thirsty over the past half hour; I know I should be drinking lots of fluids, and I am very good about it at work (I refill a 1L bottle several times a day) but at home I neglect to have a beverage at my desk at all times.  And I get too involved in my work to want to wander off for a glass.

I finally decided that it was rather foolish to sit here thirsty when the kitchen was twenty steps away.  As I stood, I was deciding what to pour.  Wine?  No, not thirst quenching, and I do not want to dull my Linux skills right now.  Coca-Cola?  No way can I handle the caffeine this late.  I settled on ginger ale.  As I stepped into the front room, however, I found that my wife had fallen asleep in front of the television, and the station had gone off-air to show the Juiceman infomercial.

I stayed and watched for a couple of minutes.  To be perfectly honest, I have seen large parts of it several times before: infomercials are ad hoc friends when insomnia strikes.  But I marveled yet again at how full of shit “The Juiceman” himself is.  It is snake-oil-sales meets Palm-Springs-spa.  It is the California dream: be pure, healthy, happy, beautiful, and trendy, and you do not need to do anything difficult to achieve it.  There were very few moments not populated by misrepresentations, a barrage of scientific-sounding but innacurately-used words, or flat-out lies.  My most generous interpretation is that the gentleman is a harmless old man who believes the absurdities that he is spewing.  Cantaloupe juice will stop aging.  Apple-celery-carrot-parsley juice will make one “seemingly never tire”.  There are juices to lose weight (”It is only the juice of the fiber that can pass through the intestinal wall.  Your body expends zero energy processing the juice: everything is already digested.  And it goes straight into the bloodstream.”)  There are juices to fight cancer, juices to help you stop smoking, juices to make you feel young.

This may be a foolishly naïve question, but why cannot this device be marketed as what it is: a highly effective, affordable way to make great-tasting, refreshing juices, and a way to monitor and control what goes into said juices?  Does orange juice really need to cure gout or hangnails or hepatitis in order to be worthwhile to drink?  When did “healthful and delicious” cease being enough?

But I am glad I saw the infomercial.  I own a Juiceman II.  No, I did not buy it to cure me of all ailments: I bought it because I love juice.  It is easy to use, easy to clean, and works great.  In warmer months I go to farmers’ markets and buy the fruit from the “ugly bin”: the price-slashed specimens that, despite having firm flesh, good coloration and intact skins do not look like they could appear on the cover of a Bristol Farms circular.  So I walk away with eight pounds of apples for a couple of bucks, buy (when Jennifer lets me) a twenty-five pound bag of horse carrots, and have a great time.  When I remember that I own the juicer.  This is where tonight’s infomercial comes in: I realized that, aha!, I have one of these things in the kitchen, and I have some great produce.  Two minutes later I have a ten-ounce glass of beautiful deep-orange colored juice composed of one minneola tangerine, one apple (of the Fuji/Braeburn/Gala sort), and most of a snack bag of pre-peeled baby carrots.  In thirty more seconds I have rinsed off the pieces of the machine, and fifteen seconds after that I am back in the study typing.  Typing this, actually.

Blogger has been having some hiccoughs lately (man, Evan Williams … poor guy) and I have been unable to post.  So there are assorted bits of nonsense floating around in my head that I have had no place to vent.

• I have been considering, for about six months, purchasing one of those voice-recorder pens.  There is even a cool one that combines the voice recorder with an integrated laser pointer.  That way I could have two gadgety things of dubious necessity and they would only take up one pocket-protector slot.  It’s $200, and no, you cannot write with it.  Perhaps they are considering a “pro” model to exhibit this advanced technology.
• Do the writers of ER realize that “GSW” takes longer to say than “gunshot wound”?  Do paramedics, in a hurry to covey life-critical information, really expend the two extra syllables so that they can use an initialism?
• No, I’m not healthy yet, but thanks to the people who have asked.  I thought I might be earlier today, but tonight was running a 100.4° fever again.
• I have many, many Postal Cancel Art submissions in the pipeline right now … and I have many that I have received but not yet added to the website.  I find it hard to gather the motivation to scan, crop, and re-size all of the images.  Maybe I need a faster scanner.
• There are more rattling thoughts, but I cannot seem to find any of them right now.