Monthly Archives: February 2003

Damn Kids

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I’m never having kids. I’ve never like them and if I haven’t already mom, I apologize for being an annoying kid. I bring this up because in my art class today some girl brings her kid to class. Yeah, a crying baby in a lecture hall of college students. I sat there giving her dirty looks the whole class.

Also, in the annoying-people-in-my-classes department was a couple in my art class who were practically making out during class today. They sat next to each other with the girl resting her head on the guys shoulder and caressing his arm. Get a fucking room! So annoying!

Tabbed browsing and Safari

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Apple’s recent addition to its software library, Safari, is another victory in the company’s battle to conquer the digital hub. I’ve dabbled with the browser, but have yet to actually take a close look at it. Until now.

The most glaring hole in Apple’s browser is the lack of tabbed browsing. I was so upset about this fact that both my girlfriend and I both submitted bug reports. Today I signed the petition. One Apple enthusiast proposes a very cocoa tabbed browsing alternative, which looks interesting. I also came across this review, which compares Chimera and Safari. If you must have tabs you can try Safaritabs.

The two things that stand out in my eyes is Safari’s speed and the fact that it spell checks automatically within textarea’s. The Google bar is a decent edition as well.

O'Reilly inserts foot into mouth

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Recently, on the O’Reilly Factor Bill O’Reilly referred to Mexican border jumpers as “wetbacks”. I guess no one told him one of his guests was a latino Congressmen.

We’d save lives because Mexican wetbacks, whatever you want to call them, the coyotes — they’re not going to do what they’re doing now, so people aren’t going to die in the desert.

Evidently, some guy has been contacting latino and Mexican organizations in regards to Bill’s comments. I’d *have* to believe this doesn’t go unnoticed.

Scary

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We should forget about Sadam for a few minutes and focus on N. Korea. Today CIA Director George Tenet announced that N. Korea has missles that could hit the west coast. Furthermore, it has been recognized that they probably have at least two nuclear bombs. Great.

The leader of N. Korea said any sanctions would be treated as a declaration of war. If this guy is as crazy as he comes across who knows what he’ll do with nuculear weapons. Bush are you listening to me?!?

Jacko, Wacko's, and Taxes

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I’ve been offline at home for quite some time due to an ongoing battle with Comcast, which explains the reason my blogging habits have decreased in recent weeks. The good news is that I have some funny stuff to comment on today.

I hate to post about this, but I the shear idiocity of it all demands my attention. Michael Jackson is in the news again. Some of the things this guy says just amazes me. In one quote he talks about his desire to have kids.

Rowe agreed to have his children because “she wanted to do that for me as a present,” Jackson said, adding that before he became a father, he wanted children so badly that he carried around a baby doll.

A baby doll? Are you kidding me? This guy needs to be committed ASAP. Another quote, which is just off the charts, is in regards to his ongoing plastic surgery saga.

He insisted that the only cosmetic work he has undergone were two operations on his nose to help him breathe and sing better. Asked about his changing appearance through the years, Jackson said, “I changed. People change.”

Gray hair, loss of hair, wrinkles are how people change. Skin pigmentation, chins, noses, and eyes don’t. How do you go from this to looking like this. Crazy idiot.

In other wacko related news I was walking out of Taco Bell today and saw a large group of about 20 young adults walking towards the drive through window. They were all well dressed in suits, dresses, etc. Nothing odd about this, except two things: A man and woman where each holding one hand of a small doll as parents would with a young child and they were all walking somberly towards the drive through. It looked like a cult. Needless to say I ran in the other direction.

The good news today is that I got my taxes all done. I did the rapid refund option from H & R Block and picked up the check today. Nothing like the government paying ME money for a change.

Metnick Speaks

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Slashdot is running a great interview about Kevin Mitnick. I’m only half way through it, but so far it’s a great read. My favorite quote thus far:

… security is not a product that can be purchased off the shelf, but consists of policies, people, processes, and technology.

I totally agree with the above. At my current place of employment I was brought in for two reasons: research, purchase, install, and configure a scalable server farm and to rework the current security policies and methods.

I’ve since removed access from most servers for anyone who is not an administrator, created a DMZ, put firewall rules into place, closed ports and services, etc. The thing that amazes me most is that some of the coworkers have complained about the new measures I’m taking. I guess laziness and lax security go hand in hand.

Work and other things

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I’ve been busy at work working on keeping our new server cluster up and running. We’ve been having major problems with our database server. Looks like it’s totally dead.

I’ve also taken the advice of Paul and installed Nagios to better monitor the server setup. I only have it monitoring during work hours right now, but may increase it to 24×7 monitoring.

Lately I’ve become bored with the Internet. It’s not as exciting as it once was. I spend less and less time updating this blog, reading other blogs, and keeping up to date on the latest technology. Maybe I should spend a few days learning something new that excites me.