The more ominous the font, the better

I've been looking for this picture from Fark for ages. Unfortunately, Google doesn't index rasterized text so well. I got lucky the other day and some Digger dug(g) it back up again, so I can save it to my hard drive this time.

After I get back from C4[1], I think it's time to make some stickers.

Storage convergences

When you sit in a cubicle all day, you get a little stir-crazy and come up with weird ideas. (Warning: the following weird idea may actually exist and be in production; who knows.)

I was recalling this Symantec weblog posting about the concept of "parasitic storage". Then I wondered, instead of this concept being used for evil, what if you used it for good?

Consider that in a relatively large company, you'll have hundreds or thousands of desktop computers and laptops sitting around, each with a very large hard drive. I'd bet that the average worker has less than 20 GB of stuff on their main disk. If you used a technology like Google File System, you could drastically increase the size of your network storage.

(Just make sure that you don't get so aggressive that you leave your users without swap space. Also remember that if a lot of the computers are laptops, you'll need more redundancy because those laptops could drop off the grid at any second.)

Feel free to email me and show me the vendor that's already implemented this, so I can feel stupid.

Umbrage at Umbria

I like me some Keith Jarrett, but this seems a little extreme:

On July 10, 2007, Keith Jarrett began a concert in Perugia, Italy with the following speech:

"I don’t speak Italian, but I hope that somebody who speaks English tells those assholes to shut off those fucking cameras. Until you understand this, the music won’t be at its best and you will have spent your money for nothing. I’m speaking to you, you, you, and you, that red light over there, and also you up there. If I see one single flash during the concert, I and Gary and Jack reserve to ourselves the right to stop playing and leave this goddamn city. It’s your privilege to be here, not mine. If you see someone with a camera, you have my permission to take it from them. You can come up to the stage and get a prize for it, I guess."

Jarrett played two sets but, after seeing a small number of flashes from the audience before he had sat down at the piano, told an audience that was giving him a standing ovation that he would not be playing an encore.

In response, the Umbria Jazz Festival announced it would never invite Jarrett to perform again.

Unpleasant Rendezvous

If you happen to have destroyed two wireless routers in the past year, and plug in your backup router only to discover that

1. it tends to choke on more than one simultaneous HTTP request
2. it gives out bogus DNS server data to your iPhone, leading it to only work with mail and maps

...please consider that you may have turned off Bonjour.

I did so after the revelation that mDNSResponder is an insecure piece of shit, but I didn't realize that my Mac would try to communicate with my AirPort Express solely through Bonjour. Once I turned it back on, life was good again.

Still pwnable

From the Slashdot peanut gallery:

I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a government agency whose website was hacked. After a month-long "security audit", their in-house security experts devised a comprehensive plan to lock down their server and prevent it from ever being compromised again.

The solution, in its entirety, was to turn http://www.dumbass.agency.gov into the new, "secure" https://www.dumbass.agency.gov.

I wish I was kidding.

Fahrenheit 2007

I always enjoy reading stories about ignorant douchebags who try to ban books from school libraries. It's even more fun when the douchebag in question hasn't even read the books in question.

I read a great story on Thursday about Laura Lopez, but between the time that I decided to blog about it and now (when I'm actually writing the entry up), the Palm Beach Post completely rewrote their article to make her sound less stupid. I want everyone to be amused by the full force of her stupidity, so I'm reprinting the original article below. (NOTE: The previous link redirects almost immediately to the new article. You have to be quick on the trigger.)

Mom urges WPB school board to ban 80 books

By LAURA GREEN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Eighty books in high school library stacks are corrupting students with tales of abortion, homosexuality and atheism. That's according to a West Palm Beach mother who has appealed to the school board to remove the books from the shelves of Dreyfoos and Royal Palm Beach high schools.

Laura Lopez has been fighting since September to ban these books that she says "promote sin and lies."

Committees at both schools have already shot down her request. So has Superintendent Art Johnson. On Wednesday, she will ask the full school board to intervene.

Palm Beach County School District staff can't recall any book challenges reaching the school board in at least seven years.

Lopez admits she hasn't read a single one of the objectionable books cover-to-cover.

In her appeal, she quotes scripture and blames the Columbine school shootings, drugs, bullies, teenage pregnancy and other ills on what she considers the removal of God from schools.

She targets literary genres ranging from reference books to short stories. Among the books she wants removed are "Medical Ethics: Moral and Legal Conflicts in Health Care," "Warriors of God: Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin in the Third Crusade," "Coping When a Parent is Gay" and "The Cider House Rules," a John Irving novel about a rural doctor who runs an orphanage and performs illegal abortions.

Lopez said the book challenges stemmed from a basic interest in the types of books in her sons' school libraries.

So, she went to the computerized card catalogue and typed in the keywords "homosexuality," "abortion" and "atheism." She was shocked by the dozens of titles that popped up.

"My kids are going to school to learn, not to become a homosexual or an abortion doctor or an atheist," she said.

Lopez requested a meeting with Royal Palm Beach High Principal Jose Garcia.

During the meeting, she didn't name any specific titles, but was generally concerned about the kinds of literature students were being exposed to in the school library, Garcia said.

He told her he couldn't simply pull books off the shelves based on her complaint.

Parents who want to challenge library books or classroom materials must file a written request for reconsideration with the school where the objectionable book, movie or other material was found. Then the principal convenes a committee of parents, students and staff members, which evaluates the objection, reads reviews from professional journals and consults school board policy.

In Lopez's case, committees at Dreyfoos and Royal Palm, where she two teenage sons attended, found no merit in her objections. They said she did not cite specific passages to which she objected, as required, and noted that board policy dictates that materials be chosen to represent "all points of views." Rather than referencing specific pages, Lopez included mostly general comments.

In her objection to "Am I Blue?: Coming out from the Silence," a collection of 18 short stories about gay and lesbian issues, Lopez wrote: "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and not Eve and Sue."

Lopez appealed the decisions of Garcia and Dreyfoos Principal Ellen Van Arsdale to Johnson. He sided with the principals.

Lopez said she doesn't know what her chances are before the school board. Even within her own home, reaction is split.

"My oldest son doesn't believe in God," she said. "I guess he kind of thinks I'm stupid."

Inspecting the horse's teeth for plaque and decay

New rule: if you ask someone for directions, you are not allowed to argue over the directions you receive.

Also: it is a fundamental axiom of geometry that two parallel lines will never cross, so you shouldn't be so shocked that Rochester Road never intersects with Livernois Road.

(Thankfully, I restrained myself from whipping out my iPhone, and from telling the schmuck that "since you are obviously so familiar with the area, talking to me is just slowing you down.")

Defending us all from Vegas

In some states, you can place a "credit freeze" on yourself, preventing anyone from accessing your credit report data until you manually allow it.

I think there should be a similar system put in place for marriages. I should be able to place a freeze on my marital status, and in order to have a marriage license issued, I should have to remove the freeze and wait 24 hours for the paperwork to clear.

Thoughts?

How dare you criticize King George III in a time of war?!

Instaputz:

Enjoy the fact those bunch of authoritarians who call themselves Republicans today would no doubt be Loyalists in 1776.

Rather, it lost

Thank you to Andrew Sullivan for reminding me that Bush's 2000 campaign jet was named "Accountability One".

Thank you to Matthew Yglesias for reminding me that Marc Rich's attorney was Scooter Libby.

This country is seriously fucked up.