Monday, April 12, 2004
Man, lots of rearranging of equipment n the Vortex in anticipation of the Great Network Cut-over on Wednesday. I sure don't want a Southwestern Bell guy in the house. Many chai-fueled nights have been spent pulling cable and rearranging things in the pseudo rack. But it will be pretty cool when complete.
The worse thing about this is I've become convinced that the manager at the local Starbucks is the least competent employee there. He tries to micro-manage, flusters everyone since no one is exactly sure which task he is going to "take over". The service is faster, better, and smoother when he is not running things. Sad, really. Was there earlier today and he's fucking pathetic and in the way.
And Brian, fix your goddamned email for christ's sake. Sorry to invoke one of the christian gods there, but get out of the amish country and plug in, man.
What's up with that Jesus guy anyway? And Easter? Can someone explain to me how a pagan symbol of fertility (eggs) became the subject of a children's hide and seek game on the supposed anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus? I don't know about you, but since eggs in the springtime are so paganish, what is with the nightmarishly Freudian act of having children look for eggs? Some type of fucked up Oedipus complex going on here. And what it has to do with christianity, I have no idea. Maybe we are supposed to hide them from Jesus, to give him something to do after he cheats death.
The worse thing about this is I've become convinced that the manager at the local Starbucks is the least competent employee there. He tries to micro-manage, flusters everyone since no one is exactly sure which task he is going to "take over". The service is faster, better, and smoother when he is not running things. Sad, really. Was there earlier today and he's fucking pathetic and in the way.
And Brian, fix your goddamned email for christ's sake. Sorry to invoke one of the christian gods there, but get out of the amish country and plug in, man.
What's up with that Jesus guy anyway? And Easter? Can someone explain to me how a pagan symbol of fertility (eggs) became the subject of a children's hide and seek game on the supposed anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus? I don't know about you, but since eggs in the springtime are so paganish, what is with the nightmarishly Freudian act of having children look for eggs? Some type of fucked up Oedipus complex going on here. And what it has to do with christianity, I have no idea. Maybe we are supposed to hide them from Jesus, to give him something to do after he cheats death.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Just got back from Starbucks, Brian served up a 12 pump venti iced chai for me. My god I'm buzzing. Pity I have work stuff to work on, I'd rather be coding something interesting.
And speaking of work, I've decided that all of the security standards such as FISMA, HIPAA, and ISO 17799 all were put in place because the bureaucrats of The Man are jealous. That's right, jealous. You see, now that us hacker guys are starting to get chicks and all (and hacker chicks, well, they can basically have any guy on the planet) they've decided to punish us. Yet even though they are jealous and vengeful fucks, we shall still bring them and their evil corporate ways down. These stupid regulations and standards are simply the same security 101 things we've been complaining about for years, except they are tedious, boring, and designed to repel existing and potential sex partners.
I guess it is obvious I am working with one such standard right now.
And speaking of work, I've decided that all of the security standards such as FISMA, HIPAA, and ISO 17799 all were put in place because the bureaucrats of The Man are jealous. That's right, jealous. You see, now that us hacker guys are starting to get chicks and all (and hacker chicks, well, they can basically have any guy on the planet) they've decided to punish us. Yet even though they are jealous and vengeful fucks, we shall still bring them and their evil corporate ways down. These stupid regulations and standards are simply the same security 101 things we've been complaining about for years, except they are tedious, boring, and designed to repel existing and potential sex partners.
I guess it is obvious I am working with one such standard right now.
Friday, April 02, 2004
I made the mistake of telling Nomad I made Chai, so now I have to talk about it...I first tried the Starbucks Chai Tea Latte, which was good, but a bit too sweet for me. I liked it enough to attempt Weasel's recipe, but I didn't have cardamom pods and used ground. Not the same at all. A local Indian merchant got me a supply, so now I'm happily customising the recipe to my tastes (extra spicy).
It occurs to me that Chai choices are like many choices in life. You can either go with the bundled, Microsoft-type solution with lots of features, ease of use and little control (Starbucks). Or you can go for the Open Source version and make your own. The latter requires skill and time, but is very worthwhile in the end. However, most Americans can't make tea for shit, so perhaps the Starbucks verion would be better.
It occurs to me that Chai choices are like many choices in life. You can either go with the bundled, Microsoft-type solution with lots of features, ease of use and little control (Starbucks). Or you can go for the Open Source version and make your own. The latter requires skill and time, but is very worthwhile in the end. However, most Americans can't make tea for shit, so perhaps the Starbucks verion would be better.
Random chai-influenced hacker thought here.
I've decided that teleportation is not what it is cracked up to be. As I stated yesterday on #!w00w00, you think things are fine, but someone 0wnz your teleport machine, and next thing you know you have an umbrella where your dick was. Fuck that.
I've decided that teleportation is not what it is cracked up to be. As I stated yesterday on #!w00w00, you think things are fine, but someone 0wnz your teleport machine, and next thing you know you have an umbrella where your dick was. Fuck that.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Busy day so far, going on no sleep. No chai yesterday, but some today after lunch. This weird thing happened at Starbucks, the manager there is obviously some type of control freak. One of the barristas who has been working there since I've been going in was waiting on us, but the manager came over and just reached around the guy, "correcting" him and typing in our order. Go back to commie micro-management control school, you nihilist. You can't deny my chai experience.
Was up late last night perpetrating the annual NMRC April Fool's press release, a wonderful group effort used to justify the existence of a private IRC server. Got up early for work, left early for a long lunch, and have a shitload of crap to do later. I think the best part of the NMRC joke was the code but unfortunately most people aren't going to get jokes written in C. Ah well. And it is also my 18th wedding anniversary, being April Fool's Day. Pity we can't celebrate until this weekend, since we have another kid's soccer game tonight.
Speaking of the boy (we call our son "the boy" like Hank and Peggy call Bobby on 'King of the Hill', mainly because he hates it), we were at Barnes and Noble last night and he wanted a book. We kind of balked at the books he was picking out, I can't remember the titles but they were all something like "How To Kill Your Parents and Take Their Possessions and Stuff", so I talked him into "Catch Me If You Can", the book about Frank Abagnail that inspired the movie. If he's going to get criminal examples to explore and admire, I'll start him there. He's already talking about getting Abagnail's other book "The Art of the Steal", and then after that I figure I can get him talked into Mitnick's book. You see, it's the hacker parent's fear that their kid grows up to be a Republican DoJ prosecuting attorney or something, so I've got to take steps.
Finally got through loading and installing the latest silc client, which took a while since I had to look the code over for cooties. No obvious cooties, but then again I only looked for an hour and I was mainly checking that private security patches had been applied.
Was up late last night perpetrating the annual NMRC April Fool's press release, a wonderful group effort used to justify the existence of a private IRC server. Got up early for work, left early for a long lunch, and have a shitload of crap to do later. I think the best part of the NMRC joke was the code but unfortunately most people aren't going to get jokes written in C. Ah well. And it is also my 18th wedding anniversary, being April Fool's Day. Pity we can't celebrate until this weekend, since we have another kid's soccer game tonight.
Speaking of the boy (we call our son "the boy" like Hank and Peggy call Bobby on 'King of the Hill', mainly because he hates it), we were at Barnes and Noble last night and he wanted a book. We kind of balked at the books he was picking out, I can't remember the titles but they were all something like "How To Kill Your Parents and Take Their Possessions and Stuff", so I talked him into "Catch Me If You Can", the book about Frank Abagnail that inspired the movie. If he's going to get criminal examples to explore and admire, I'll start him there. He's already talking about getting Abagnail's other book "The Art of the Steal", and then after that I figure I can get him talked into Mitnick's book. You see, it's the hacker parent's fear that their kid grows up to be a Republican DoJ prosecuting attorney or something, so I've got to take steps.
Finally got through loading and installing the latest silc client, which took a while since I had to look the code over for cooties. No obvious cooties, but then again I only looked for an hour and I was mainly checking that private security patches had been applied.
