Re:They don't eat pythons, do they?
on
The Python Cookbook
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I was at a bookstore years ago and this old preacher-type guy came up to me and started saying how pleased he was to see a young guy like me interested in religion -
I didn't have the heart to tell the guy exactly what "Linux Bible, the Gnu Testament" was about...
(Then again, I probably do as much preaching about Linux as he does about God - maybe we should get it declared a religion and get tax-free status...)
But the PC was all like Beep beep beep beep beep... I was *really* good source code, but then we had to write it again and it wasnt as good. It was really a...... Bummer.
Think about how easy it would be to absolutely *trash* your system, your network and every other Lindows machine within pingable distance with a simple perl script running as root.
Annoying as it may be, having to enter the root password to change settings is a necessity. Running as root is a tremendously Bad Idea that will be the downfall of this OS. This is just not a negotiable issue at all and should be changed *immediately*.
If you want to see how it should be done, look at OS X - when you need to change something, a confirmation dialog pops up and you enter the password. Not annoying at all. Most people haven't enabled the root account, so the password is just your normal account password.
They should issue a patch that creates a default user and moves the user into this account. At least their nifty installer would be able to help migrate users easily enough.
Exactly. Try to explain to the clerk that all you want is to be able to read/dev/camera. I can't even find one that will work with Os X at my stores, except one that is FireWire, but that one costs as much as the network cameras.. I'd love to find one of the old B&W Quickcams - what were they? Parallel port? I had one of those working great under Linux five years ago or so, IIRC. (If you see one, grab it - for color, you could always pipe it through ImageMagic and add a creepy green color...)
As for the IP cameras, I'll gladly pay the extra cost, just to have it work out of the box - as I get older, it seems that my Saturday afternoons are worth more and more to me. I have much less desire to futz around with stuff that takes forever to get working. $400? Not a problem, especially if it's got a flash ram card holding the OS. If I ever did feel like upgrading it, I could pop in a MicroDrive and make a pretty decent micro server out of it. (But then again, that takes me back to futzing away a Saturday...)
So would have I... But as it turns out, these things are a bargain. A few months ago, I was in Akihabara and grabbed a Connectix QuickCam on impulse - I got the cheapest one, assuming that it was the most likely to have Linux drivers. After all, I had the original B&W Quickcam the week it was released years ago and it had Linux drivers after something like 25 minutes. Guess what? The new QuickCam has the most Linux-Unfriendly thing you could imagine. It's Windows-only and the only way to upload pictures to an FTP site is to use some POS service that's free for the first 30 days and only works with some half-dead proprietary service. All I wanted was to be able to take a picture from a command line and save it to a file - I'll take care of the rest. So that was $70 wasted. At my office we just got one of the ones that Tom's reviews that does Pan and Tilt (the Panasonic?) and the thing is GREAT. $400 or so and it comes with a web server (Nmap tells me it's Linux) and does everything that a Linux-friendly webcam connected to a normal web server would do, *if* I could find such a camera. Plus, the pan and tilt and refresh rate are excellent. Such a thing would have cost 4 times the price a year ago. I've got enough computers running in my apartment that power consumption is a real consideration too - another real appeal of this thing. I went to try to find one of these today at lunch (before reading the article,) but the store didn't have them yet, or I'd have one tonight. I'd buy one just to not waste a weekend or two fscking around with unsupported hardware and drivers and he worry of facing a Windows box to the Internet. I guess I'd say to you, Just wait a few months - this is the direction that this sort of equipment is going - embedded Linux and network transparency - plus,it will be half the price by February.
Cheers, Jim
PS - I think any CCD camera has night vision capabilities if you crack it open and take out the filter - at least i heard that somewhere...
How about a sneak attack just after dawn, before they're all set up? Get 50 or so RC Plane enthusiasts to help out - Bomb then to the bottom of the pond!
I have seen connection kits for phones over here, but they tend to be expensive (~10,000 yen) good for only that phone and will run only in Japanese Windows. The good thing is that once I dial the number once, it's in there...
Why they can't just have a couple of MB of memory accessible over USB or even serial is completely beyond me. A friend of mine has a phone that has a 64MB card for storing MP3s, but guess what - it's only accessible through special software and a special cable. The address book isn't stored there either, so there's no way to get to it. I swear sometimes these things are designed by marketing types, not engineers. I know that some people do write Linux programs that access the phones - I see them in the Japanese Linux magazines using handmade cables, but when I'm probably going to only have the phone for a year, it just isn't worth the effort.
I think they might have GSM here in Japan, but if they do, it's the least popular. I use PHS (Personal Handy System). It has the worst range, but the best sound quality and the best data transfer. It's also much cheaper to call other people on the PHS system.
You'd think that this would be something that the industry could have agreed upon years ago. Apple is doing it now, with their address book and calendar, so I have some hope. They also make it easy to do yourself if you have access to a WebDAV server, which isn't too hard to set up on a home server. Microsoft is supposed to let you do this too, with their Active Directory, which is basically LDAP, but why hasn't it taken off? This is the basic problem with web services - everybody is trying too hard to make a buck that they can't seem to get the simplest useful services out the door... OK, Im ranting now, time to stop...
That's exactly the problem. LDAP is great, but my cellphone can't use it, which is where I need it. What I used to wind up doing was printing out my address book in *really* small type and folding it up in my wallet. Worked well enough until I got a palm pilot. Now I just keep that up to date. For anything else, I can usually just SSH home and open up Mozilla or whatever forwarding X and grab what I need. I do the same with email - my work email is only read from one program and I ssh in to the office if I need to access it. Cheers, Jim
Can a Sims character open a restaurant? Will it be allowed to compete with McDonalds?
Can he refuse to buy an Intel Computer and get an AMD or a Mac?
Would there be harsh punishments for firebombing a virtual McDonalds?
What happens when your little Sims town gets infected with the Starbucks Virus?
If they're going to open these franchises inside your game, I think that all fair trade and anti-monopoly laws should apply. You should be allowed to start a competing franchise and let others do the same.
I seem to have unleashed a firestorm by asking for a copy of this program in an obviously evil format such as DivX.
Sorry, my bad.
Could one of you who knows me mail me a tape then?
Cheers, Jim
(I hear it will be webcast, but can you imagine trying to actually watch one of those for something shot in such low light? It would look like a cubist art video...)
If someone's planning on making a DivX of this, I'd really love to see it. (I'm in Japan and don't these channels.) I feel a bit guilty for asking, so feel free to leave in the commercials - I'll watch them as my penance.
Ever see 'Awakenings'? (Robin Williams & De Niro) It has a similar story, only it's a guy who comes out of a coma only to figure out that he'll be going back in before too long. I think it would be a bit too similar - I already get those two movies confused at times...
All that snort does is *watch* for stuff, not prevent it - It's up to the admin to read the logs and decide then what to block, using some other tool. If you set it up and get familiar with it, you'll see that this is a good thing, due to the nature of it - it is sometimes overly-paranoid and the level of false-positives is very high. If it blocked all of the stuff it thought was an intrusion, you'd never get too much done. That said, I have heard of tools that use Snort to trigger the insertion of firewall rules based upon certain types of 'intrusions'. Snort's a great learning tool, but don't think it's actually *protecting* anything. If you don't read its logs, it's like a security camera that nobody watches...
The IPCop Firewall Distro comes with snort and has an easy-to-understand web interface and a decent set of default rulesets. Unfortunately, tuning the rules cannot be done through the web interface, but you can log in and tweak with a text editor.
Why not hack in to it and change the web page a bit? (First adding some ALT tags to those stupid number images...) Then, add in some pleading messages from the web server:
Please don't let them do this. I don't want to die.
I am being made to do this under duress. This is just *wrong* - I could be donated to a school.
That sort of thing... See if you can convince enough people that this is a horrible, horrible thing to do, that they protest it and have it stopped.
birdwatching is about understanding what is out there and to a degree the world around you.
When I scan for networks, I am doing just that. I can see in real time how my neighborhoods are evolving - where the technical people are, where businesses are popping up, even cafes. There's a cafe near my office whose access point is named 'Good Day Cafe'. They apparently leave it open on purpose. I first saw it from a taxi in Omotesando. For them, it's a form of cheap advertising I guess.
Lots of people (myself included) leave their access open for web browsing.
Often times, my iBook will automatically log me on to the strongest network I am near. I've noticed that I sometimes get a low IP like 192.168.0.2, which would seem to indicate that it's just me and the router - no servers to 'snoop'. Most home users seem to just use these things to get online.
Be ashamed for not knowing the difference!
Don't be such a pill.
There's a big difference between logging networks and breaking into them. At least awareness is being raised and more people that want to are securing their nets.
I have a Linux router that runs IPCop (ipcop.org) that has a lot of features you'd like: Transparent proxying with logging, Intrusion Detection System, Firewall logging. It's pretty neat and really easy to set up on an old box. Find a packet sniffer that will run on your os of choice, too.
I'd also take a look at NoCat - it's designed for this kind of service exactly.
I guess this means then that if I were to go to your house and try a door or window and its open, thats a 'welcome Mat' for me to come in a take what I wanted?
No, but if you want to check your email on my wireless lan, you are more than welcome to do so. Want to borrow my phone and make a local call? Sure. Want a glass of water from my tap? Again, though I technically pay for these things, I would share them, with the hopes that others would do the same when I need them.
Those actions don't deprive me of my property. (Unlike your example of stealing my things.)
Oddly, where I live, my ISP allows this and even encourages its members to set up public access points. (http://www.freespot.net/) so...
See my other reply: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=39208& threshol d=-1&commentsort=3&tid=172&mode=thread&pid=4189848 #4189980
If I have 50 locations that I cannot monitor, they're all going to be outside the firewall with VPNs to the network. (My company has 42 remote locations and we do just fine this way.)
Anyone who hooks up an AP without authorization on my LAN is going to get fired. Same for anyone who *intentionally* leaves the front door unlocked overnight as a convenience. Negligence for the sake of convenience is simply not acceptable in my book.
Slashdot Mirror
180K/sec from Tokyo - I want their pipe!
I was at a bookstore years ago and this old preacher-type guy came up to me and started saying how pleased he was to see a young guy like me interested in religion -
I didn't have the heart to tell the guy exactly what "Linux Bible, the Gnu Testament" was about...
(Then again, I probably do as much preaching about Linux as he does about God - maybe we should get it declared a religion and get tax-free status...)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
But the PC was all like Beep beep beep beep beep... ... ...
I was *really* good source code, but then we had to write it again and it wasnt as good.
It was really a
Bummer.
Cheers,
Jim
Think about how easy it would be to absolutely *trash* your system, your network and every other Lindows machine within pingable distance with a simple perl script running as root.
Annoying as it may be, having to enter the root password to change settings is a necessity. Running as root is a tremendously Bad Idea that will be the downfall of this OS. This is just not a negotiable issue at all and should be changed *immediately*.
If you want to see how it should be done, look at OS X - when you need to change something, a confirmation dialog pops up and you enter the password. Not annoying at all. Most people haven't enabled the root account, so the password is just your normal account password.
They should issue a patch that creates a default user and moves the user into this account.
At least their nifty installer would be able to help migrate users easily enough.
(CDs automount nowadays, too.)
Cheers,
Jim
Get some rest, guy - unplug for a while.
You sounded freaking *EXHAUSTED* in that interview...
Cheers,
Jim
Exactly. /dev/camera.
Try to explain to the clerk that all you want is to be able to read
I can't even find one that will work with Os X at my stores, except one that is FireWire, but that one costs as much as the network cameras..
I'd love to find one of the old B&W Quickcams - what were they? Parallel port?
I had one of those working great under Linux five years ago or so, IIRC.
(If you see one, grab it - for color, you could always pipe it through ImageMagic and add a creepy green color...)
As for the IP cameras, I'll gladly pay the extra cost, just to have it work out of the box - as I get older, it seems that my Saturday afternoons are worth more and more to me. I have much less desire to futz around with stuff that takes forever to get working. $400? Not a problem, especially if it's got a flash ram card holding the OS. If I ever did feel like upgrading it, I could pop in a MicroDrive and make a pretty decent micro server out of it. (But then again, that takes me back to futzing away a Saturday...)
Cheers,
Jim
So would have I...
But as it turns out, these things are a bargain.
A few months ago, I was in Akihabara and grabbed a Connectix QuickCam on impulse - I got the cheapest one, assuming that it was the most likely to have Linux drivers. After all, I had the original B&W Quickcam the week it was released years ago and it had Linux drivers after something like 25 minutes.
Guess what? The new QuickCam has the most Linux-Unfriendly thing you could imagine. It's Windows-only and the only way to upload pictures to an FTP site is to use some POS service that's free for the first 30 days and only works with some half-dead proprietary service.
All I wanted was to be able to take a picture from a command line and save it to a file - I'll take care of the rest.
So that was $70 wasted.
At my office we just got one of the ones that Tom's reviews that does Pan and Tilt (the Panasonic?) and the thing is GREAT. $400 or so and it comes with a web server (Nmap tells me it's Linux) and does everything that a Linux-friendly webcam connected to a normal web server would do, *if* I could find such a camera. Plus, the pan and tilt and refresh rate are excellent. Such a thing would have cost 4 times the price a year ago.
I've got enough computers running in my apartment that power consumption is a real consideration too - another real appeal of this thing.
I went to try to find one of these today at lunch (before reading the article,) but the store didn't have them yet, or I'd have one tonight.
I'd buy one just to not waste a weekend or two fscking around with unsupported hardware and drivers and he worry of facing a Windows box to the Internet.
I guess I'd say to you, Just wait a few months - this is the direction that this sort of equipment is going - embedded Linux and network transparency - plus,it will be half the price by February.
Cheers,
Jim
PS - I think any CCD camera has night vision capabilities if you crack it open and take out the filter - at least i heard that somewhere...
How about a sneak attack just after dawn, before they're all set up?
Get 50 or so RC Plane enthusiasts to help out -
Bomb then to the bottom of the pond!
Cheers,
Jim
I have seen connection kits for phones over here, but they tend to be expensive (~10,000 yen) good for only that phone and will run only in Japanese Windows. The good thing is that once I dial the number once, it's in there...
Why they can't just have a couple of MB of memory accessible over USB or even serial is completely beyond me. A friend of mine has a phone that has a 64MB card for storing MP3s, but guess what - it's only accessible through special software and a special cable. The address book isn't stored there either, so there's no way to get to it.
I swear sometimes these things are designed by marketing types, not engineers.
I know that some people do write Linux programs that access the phones - I see them in the Japanese Linux magazines using handmade cables, but when I'm probably going to only have the phone for a year, it just isn't worth the effort.
I think they might have GSM here in Japan, but if they do, it's the least popular. I use PHS (Personal Handy System). It has the worst range, but the best sound quality and the best data transfer. It's also much cheaper to call other people on the PHS system.
You'd think that this would be something that the industry could have agreed upon years ago. Apple is doing it now, with their address book and calendar, so I have some hope. They also make it easy to do yourself if you have access to a WebDAV server, which isn't too hard to set up on a home server. Microsoft is supposed to let you do this too, with their Active Directory, which is basically LDAP, but why hasn't it taken off?
This is the basic problem with web services - everybody is trying too hard to make a buck that they can't seem to get the simplest useful services out the door...
OK, Im ranting now, time to stop...
Cheers,
Jim
That's exactly the problem. LDAP is great, but my cellphone can't use it, which is where I need it.
What I used to wind up doing was printing out my address book in *really* small type and folding it up in my wallet. Worked well enough until I got a palm pilot. Now I just keep that up to date. For anything else, I can usually just SSH home and open up Mozilla or whatever forwarding X and grab what I need. I do the same with email - my work email is only read from one program and I ssh in to the office if I need to access it.
Cheers,
Jim
Never played, but I wonder...
Can a Sims character open a restaurant?
Will it be allowed to compete with McDonalds?
Can he refuse to buy an Intel Computer and get an AMD or a Mac?
Would there be harsh punishments for firebombing a virtual McDonalds?
What happens when your little Sims town gets infected with the Starbucks Virus?
If they're going to open these franchises inside your game, I think that all fair trade and anti-monopoly laws should apply. You should be allowed to start a competing franchise and let others do the same.
Just a thought...
Cheers,
Jim
I seem to have unleashed a firestorm by asking for a copy of this program in an obviously evil format such as DivX.
Sorry, my bad.
Could one of you who knows me mail me a tape then?
Cheers,
Jim
(I hear it will be webcast, but can you imagine trying to actually watch one of those for something shot in such low light? It would look like a cubist art video...)
If someone's planning on making a DivX of this, I'd really love to see it.
(I'm in Japan and don't these channels.)
I feel a bit guilty for asking, so feel free to leave in the commercials - I'll watch them as my penance.
Cheers,
Jim
(jim at mmdc dot net)
Ever see 'Awakenings'? (Robin Williams & De Niro)
It has a similar story, only it's a guy who comes out of a coma only to figure out that he'll be going back in before too long.
I think it would be a bit too similar - I already get those two movies confused at times...
Cheers,
Jim
Since it's a *Packet* sniffer, you just need to tear open the packets to snort them - no dollar bill required.
Cheers,
Jim
All that snort does is *watch* for stuff, not prevent it - It's up to the admin to read the logs and decide then what to block, using some other tool.
If you set it up and get familiar with it, you'll see that this is a good thing, due to the nature of it - it is sometimes overly-paranoid and the level of false-positives is very high. If it blocked all of the stuff it thought was an intrusion, you'd never get too much done.
That said, I have heard of tools that use Snort to trigger the insertion of firewall rules based upon certain types of 'intrusions'.
Snort's a great learning tool, but don't think it's actually *protecting* anything.
If you don't read its logs, it's like a security camera that nobody watches...
Cheers,
Jim
The IPCop Firewall Distro comes with snort and has an easy-to-understand web interface and a decent set of default rulesets. Unfortunately, tuning the rules cannot be done through the web interface, but you can log in and tweak with a text editor.
Cheers,
Jim
Countless times have I tried to search a web page using the slash. That is so very cool.
Thanks, you just made my night...
Cheers,
Jim
Why not hack in to it and change the web page a bit?
;-)
(First adding some ALT tags to those stupid number images...)
Then, add in some pleading messages from the web server:
Please don't let them do this.
I don't want to die.
I am being made to do this under duress.
This is just *wrong* - I could be donated to a school.
That sort of thing...
See if you can convince enough people that this is a horrible, horrible thing to do, that they protest it and have it stopped.
Now *that* would be art.
Cheers,
Jim
If your boss comes to the server room and hands you a badge and a gun, please *try* to take it a bit easier on the caffeine...
(Maybe they should also ban FPS gaming during work hours too...)
birdwatching is about understanding what is out there and to a degree the world around you.
When I scan for networks, I am doing just that. I can see in real time how my neighborhoods are evolving - where the technical people are, where businesses are popping up, even cafes. There's a cafe near my office whose access point is named 'Good Day Cafe'. They apparently leave it open on purpose. I first saw it from a taxi in Omotesando. For them, it's a form of cheap advertising I guess.
Lots of people (myself included) leave their access open for web browsing.
Often times, my iBook will automatically log me on to the strongest network I am near. I've noticed that I sometimes get a low IP like 192.168.0.2, which would seem to indicate that it's just me and the router - no servers to 'snoop'. Most home users seem to just use these things to get online.
Be ashamed for not knowing the difference!
Don't be such a pill.
There's a big difference between logging networks and breaking into them. At least awareness is being raised and more people that want to are securing their nets.
Cheers,
Jim
Why is birdwatching interesting?
I have a Linux router that runs IPCop (ipcop.org) that has a lot of features you'd like:
Transparent proxying with logging, Intrusion Detection System, Firewall logging.
It's pretty neat and really easy to set up on an old box. Find a packet sniffer that will run on your os of choice, too.
I'd also take a look at NoCat - it's designed for this kind of service exactly.
Cheers,
Jim
I guess this means then that if I were to go to your house and try a door or window and its open, thats a 'welcome Mat' for me to come in a take what I wanted?
No, but if you want to check your email on my wireless lan, you are more than welcome to do so. Want to borrow my phone and make a local call? Sure. Want a glass of water from my tap? Again, though I technically pay for these things, I would share them, with the hopes that others would do the same when I need them.
Those actions don't deprive me of my property. (Unlike your example of stealing my things.)
Oddly, where I live, my ISP allows this and even encourages its members to set up public access points. (http://www.freespot.net/) so...
What were we talking about again?
Cheers,
Jim
See my other reply:& threshol d=-1&commentsort=3&tid=172&mode=thread&pid=4189848 #4189980
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=39208
If I have 50 locations that I cannot monitor, they're all going to be outside the firewall with VPNs to the network. (My company has 42 remote locations and we do just fine this way.)
Anyone who hooks up an AP without authorization on my LAN is going to get fired. Same for anyone who *intentionally* leaves the front door unlocked overnight as a convenience. Negligence for the sake of convenience is simply not acceptable in my book.
I think I *do* get it, actually...