NetBSD on x86 is good for cross compiling for other architectures.
pckgsrc is the equivelant of the ports directory under FreeBSD and is just as easy to keep up to date with.
A weakness of NetBSD is the amount of configuration needed to get it to work the way you want it too work, but I view this as a strength as well (I advise people wanting to learn Unix to install it for this reason).
Asside from those two reasons to isntall it on x86 the other good one is just curiousity. A person might end up finding a non-curiousity reason to use it or be convinced that their other *BSD or Linux choice was the right one.
They would never go for it though. After the network gets totaly hosed by someone e-mailing a 2GB attachment to another developer during a critical time, guess who would be called in to fix everything anyway?
(I am assuming they would not put limits on the size of e-mail attachments)
That there is a reason why alot of admins are paranoid about giving anyone , not just developers, control of their box. The case in the article was an extreme example, but I couldn't help but wonder "What did some developer do years ago that completlty hosed everything?"
The back up situation at the place in the article sounded outrageous. The author had every right to be angry about that.
As far as the firewalls go..if there is a security breach, the developers would not get sacked and new abused ports are discovered. Users find ways of clogging everythign up with Yahoo! IM going through port 80, outside KaZAa users from Brazil suddenly thing that you have LTR Return of The King hidden somewhere on your network or script kiddies from Korea sudenly decide to scan port 1021 all day long...In other words, there are lots of reasons to change the configuration of a firewall daily (unless disconnected from the outside completlty..but no users want that).
Like NetNinja said, cleaning up after them is a nightmare, plus the admins are liable for the mess , not the developers. Communication between groups is the key.
What could have been a valid critique of a technology movement devolved pretty fast when the comparison to terrorists was made.
How many people have Linux "Zealots" killed in the past year?
*crickets chirping*
One would think that after 9/11 we would have a real definition of what a terrorist is and what they do. Instead what we have is too many people willing to use the word "terrorist" as it suits them and their goals.
Netcraft listed the web service as coming from a "private residence" in Hoboken NJ.
I want Al-Jazeera to be up but something tells me that it may be due to poor planning on their part more than "hackers", because the English version went down really fast. First they denied it was hackers and just said it was alot of page requests, now they want the Government to do something about it.
Either way I hope they get up soon. They are missing a hell of an oportunity.
In the third world countries that I have been to, the lack of power and fresh water add many hours of work to the day that inhibit things such as going to school, learning new things,...plus without decent power there wil be nothing to "plug" anything digital into, not to mention little time to learn the device and its usefulness.
I suppose a combination of a cheap electicity, unrestrictive laws (telephones are cheaper now in Nigeria now that cell phones have replaced Nitel)and an effort to combat the nastier effects of poverty are needed before we all get our old Pentiums ready to ship off.
Re:Gee, hacking is dangerous
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Network Hacking
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· Score: 1
I didn't see or read about any demonstrations that showed how to determine what printer was on a network, how to get into that network and how to "own" a printer, and what could be done after the printer was compromised.
That is left as an exercise for the reader...
Still, a demonstration by those making the claim would be nice.
Did anyone do an nmap -sS -O on an IP of a Lexmark 1200 to see what processor and OS came up?....doubtful.
Do *you* spend much time syn scanning printers?
Not alot, but I have (it doesn't take that long to scan printers)..the point being a demonstration of a real vulnerability: Scan, connection, and compromise..that would have been. Sounds like more of challange to get people to do the dirty work for them after they come up with a "maybe", and then they get the cash for "securing" it
Anyone demonstrate how to connect and get a banner and prompt with netcat? (if they did, what would they do, print with only magenta or screw around with the queue?)
Not exactly. The following is from jill.c
I'll try the exploit. But I would be shocked if I got control of a printer using it...Perhaps it was designed to gain control of a box running Windows 2000/IIS 5..I was talking about connecting to a printer with netcat and getting a banner from the printer OS..but I don't think I was specific. Often telneting to HP plotters will give a person immediate access and control if passwords are not configured, but what could someone do from a controlled plotter to the other machines on the network?
Gee, hacking is dangerous
on
Network Hacking
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· Score: 1, Troll
Better give security guys more cash.
All these "what if" scenarios and "theoretical" hacks, and very little in the way of real world demonstration.
Now Printers are vulnerable....but I didn't see or read about any demonstrations that showed how to determine what printer was on a network, how to get into that network and how to "own" a printer, and what could be done after the printer was compromised. Did anyone do an nmap -sS -O on an IP of a Lexmark 1200 to see what processor and OS came up?....doubtful. Anyone demonstrate how to connect and get a banner and prompt with netcat? (if they did, what would they do, print with only magenta or screw around with the queue?)
I'd worry more about the fact that they got on the network in the firt place than the fact that they could take over the printer.
And the CDROM attack...A Hacker could mail a CDROM and get it to install on a PC because some luser is curious? Yah, I suppose. Or the sysadmin could make accounts in NT and W2k that doesn't allow programs to be installed...hell, they don't even have to allow CDROM access.
Maybe they should testify before congress and claim that they can bring down the internet in 30 minutes from a HP Plotter, or that Osama Bin Laden will now mail CD's promising free "Click Art" to unsuspecting secretaries around the US with a thing for "Precious Moments" themes. Because Congress will shovel any amount of money to greedy bastards wearing a propeller beanie, and talking about things they know nothing about.
Ironic that these guys often start out by breaking into places, then demanding alot of money to protect the world from people like them, and then advocating jail time for future business competitors down the road.
One of my jobs is to create a backup policy. I don't backup individual workstations because it would limit my other jobs.
If all work and all data is saved to a network drive then it is backed up. I am responsible for reminding people of this policy and I do that quite well without being a jerk.
Before I came along, this was not the policy and data got lost. I convinced the boss to adopt it by asking weighted but true questions:
1. Would you rather have all of our essential data on one drive, backed up on one tape, and the responsibilty of one person or would you rather have all of YOUR data on many machines with many people responsible for backups.
2. If anyone gets any bright ideas that I should be able to backup all the machines then I would ask if that was the only job they wanted me to do and hire others for networking and troubleshooting. Be prepared with some stats on what tasks you perform during the day and the amount of time and effort it takes to backup every users machines.
3. When the "what if" scenario comes up. Allow an exception but make it known that you are in charge of the decision to allow the exception. Point out that the boss is probably too busy...he/she will agree.
4. I have only turned down one request to back up files that were not on the network drive, because the request is made so rarely. I also give out CDRs and CDRW's for users to back up their own stuff if they want.
I assume every situation is different but emphasising the time, money, reliabilty of this setup without being a jerk works quite well for me and the users.
Too often we tend to see the world in terms of technology (as in computers). Open source has alot to offer the "digital divide" but this fails to consider that in many places of the world you have to overcome the "sewage divide" and "electicity divide" before you can even have a digital one. I think an "Open Source" type solution is a good idea for providing for the more basic needs of poor countries.
As an example of this, I was in Haiti on vacation in December (I hate relaxing vacations...I can relax at work) and it is quite amazing how much human time and energy is spent just keeping clean, getting drinkable water, cooking, in a place where the population doesn't have access to plumbing or electricity. I figured it would be about 3 to 4 extra hours of work each day...time that cannot be spent at another job, learning to read or just having time enough to consider your own existance.
Selling fresh produce for extra cash is difficult becuase of poverty of your potential customers and lack of refrigeration limits the time that it can be sold, cooking it requires getting charcoal from a vendor (this is why Haiti is deforested), raw sewage on the streets makes whatever food that is cooked still risky (in this suburb of Cap Hatien the tallest structure in town was a two story pile of dried sewage in the middle of the street.)
Clearly something needs to be done, and all the other plans have always had contracts, agreements and treaties tied in that equalled that only a few people would profit from a "project" but the situation of the general population would remain unchanged. I hope engineers, earth scientist and botanists get involved in this.
Many art shippers (especially in the Bay area) have decided to make some extra cash by shipping high end computers.
What they have is climate controlled storage, employees who know how to blanket wrap and strap down somethig valuable, trucks with air ride suspension and they always travel with two or more workers.
The employees don't look upon anything that is shipped as an appliance but assume that it is worth alot and that their job security depends on it being delivered in good shape.
Most people in the world use Windows on the desktop does that mean Linux is dead on the desktop?
The *BSD's have their fans and their niche.
For example I don't have to compile a weird SCSI emulation layer to run an IDE CDR/RW in NetBSD. I can run most Linux apps (I'm useing netscape under linux emulation right now), FreeBSD apps, Solaris x86 apps, and Windows apps using bochs.
For fun get two identical machines, one with NetBSD and one with linux. Run X, Abiword, Netscape, FreeCiv. Now run top. Compare the memory and swap useage.
netBSDs real strength is its portability and stability. When DEC/Compaq support runs out on VMS for VAX, I'm turning the VAX server where I work into a netBSD mailserver. The DC port was probably done for two reasons (all good): To have fun. And to test the claim that it can port to anything. (The Linux port was done for the same reasons I assume).
A possible problem with the Linux port as opposed to the NetBSD port (as I found with x86) is the difference in distros and platforms. (I never have problems with pkgsrc)
I looked at the map and for some reason I forgot about Ethiopia. Still I bet the roads suck to high hell for most of the route.
The HiLux is a 4 runner? hmmm...When I was in Haiti this December (got out right before the attempted coup) I was amazed at the Hilux...traveling the pothole system that passes for highways there (all dirt, except from PAP to SDQ) Stacked with people and livestock...Uncomfortable but amazing.
It would be expensive and dangerous. You would need a REAL SUV with a winch, extra fuel and would need permission and armed escorts through Peru (some of the land is occupied by Sendera Luminoso) and then you may have to go through some sketchy areas occupied by the FARC in Columbia. (the FARC would love to kidnap an adventurous traveler, but they rarely kill foreigners...but you might get caught in the crossfire of the Columbian army and the FARC). Also no real roads exist in the Putomayo district of Columbia nor are they really "roads" in the tradtional sense in Northern Columbia or southern Panama (also FARC and ELN hangouts). Once you went from Panama to Mexico hopefully the worst problems you would have would be repairs, gas and bribes. Through these countries you might have to register the car with the police upon both entering and exiting the country and have proof of insureance that is valid in all of them ($$$).
After that it would be smoothe sailing from I-5 in San Diego up to (I think) Homer Alaska...asside from the 'migra' agents searching the hell out of your vehicle. Once you get to Homer, you'd have problems. The Provedeniya route is limited, the best bet would be to sell the car in Alaska and head by boat to Dutch Harbor. There you could try booking a bearth on a Russian cargo ship to Madagan Siberia or Vladivostok. Try to buy a Toyota HiLux (the Taliban drove them, and they are the staple of every third world country with a different diffinition of the word "road"). The best would be to get to Magadan because then you could drive to Yakutsk but be prepared to get special permission from the Russians to enter in Madagan...a bribe might succeed). Last I heard, Yakutsk to Irkutsk was still drivable in the winter but sketchy during the summer (permafrost...drop by the museum of permafrost studies in Yakutsk and enjoy "milk tar" with the locals) from there, you would probably be prevented by the army from driving further (but who would not want to see Lake Baikal in Irkutsk?) by this time you would have already accumalated enough 'macho points' and a massive credit card debt so you could just continue on to Moscow with the Trans-Siberian railroad or you might want to pay through the nose and get your HiLux put on the train to let you off in Ekaterinburg and drive through there to the Black Sea. When there you would have the tough choice of proceeding through Russia through Georgia (civil war with muslim fundies in the north), Armenia (occasional war with Azerbaijan) and Turkey (war with PKK) or go the long way of Ukraine (bribes), Romania (Bribes), Bulgaria (beatings and bribes) and Turkey (shitty drivers...no bribes).
Istanbul is cool, hang out there for a while at a youth hostel, make Australian girls lust after you.
From there your only choice is to drive through Syria. Hope you can get the car through and hope you don't have a Jewish sounding name or have been to Isreal (they will call it 'Occupied Palestine'..use that term to not get your car confiscated).
You Cannot drive from Syria to Lebanon to Isreal, so your best bet is to go through Jordan (use 'Occupied Palestine' as the term again to get some tea. The term for bribe is 'Baksheesh' offer it by asking if there is any way that they can help you).
Going from Jordan to Isreal should be doable. Be prepared to answer alot of questions from the IDF, explain to them that you are a nutball with alot of money or so into debt that you hope to be killed in Africa.
Isreal to Egypt...probably doable, depending on the politics at the time. But from Egypt it will be tricky.
You may be able to cross into the Sudan from Egypt at Wadi Halfa but the Sudan is kinda pissed at the US right now (marry a Swiss person in Istanbul if you can...they have an excellent dental plan as well) and US citizens are forbidden from entering Libya by the US state department (I hear the Libyans don't stamp your passport but also don't like the fact that you have been in Isreal) This is where your trip would most likely stop without getting on a plane. If you could cross in the Sudan you would be stopped by the military as you got near the South, where they have been having a civil war for about 20 years and what little roads exist are probably unpassable. In Libya you would have to drive at night through the Sahara along routes used by illigal immigrant smugglers from Niger....Lots of bandits, and the desert might kill you before you got to Niamy or Mali.
You also couldn't get around The Democratic Republic of Congo, due to poor roads and "Africa's World War" going on. It is also unlikely that you would be able to get past Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda as well.
Not to worry though , going to Isreal would have stopped you from getting this far to begin with.
I pulled my hair out planning this trip a few years ago, but I was not going to drive, just try to see how far I could get without using an airplane while seeing as much land as possible.
Plan a short version of the trip and you'll have a blast. Traveling is great.
Having done factory work too, I can see his point. I am just happy to be able to get paid while sitting in a chair so I don't care about long hours.
I was thinking that perhaps another aspect of 'age discrimination' towards the young might be that during the dot com boom, many people got out of college (or never bothered), got a high paying job, brought their pets to work, played with nerf toys, played Quake on the LAN and now kinda expect that again. One advantage to 'discriminating' against younger people is that a supervisor may want to stop this disruption or avoid it.
The same would hold true about people like me or your friend. They might want to avoid the 'old guys set in their ways'.
A skilled interviewer should be able to filter out negative qualities without resorting to age or previous work experience, but regretably that does not happen as often as it should.
Yeah, discrimination exists. I taught myself Linux (with help from wonderful people on the net and books of course) at age 32. I wanted a career change from being a truck driver. You wanna talk about discrimination? Try jumping from blue collar work to white collar work at my age.
But I figured I could either whine about it and try to change the whole IT industry or I could try to change myself, my approach to resumes, interviews, dress...whatever and hope to find a cool place to work where they viewed my ambition to change careers as a positive thing and not a weird thing.
I found one after sending out 600+ resumes.
This guy is young, experienced and has a whole wide world of careers and/or schooling ahead of him. Either his employers are ingrates and should be ditched as quickly as possible or he has some other flaws that ARE the real reason people want him out.
Either way the solution is up to him alone and not 'society'.
Solaris. We are on a network and run GIS software. Nothing works better in networking than Unix. Volume Management (Veritas) and backup (Networker..blah...I use ufsdump when the index gets screwed up) are easy to manage (inspite of Networkers problems). The few NT boxes I have set up have been nothing but trouble, but needed for some statistical software.
DEC/Compaq's kick ass tech support. If this much money is going to be blown on a supercomputer, you are going to want the experiece of a company that set the standard in tech support and service...instead of going to alt.os.linux and post "750 Node Cluster won't boot"
I have to go to work in the "Frozen Zone" today. I'm going to have to see if I can look down on the ground and see what kind of stuff rescuers are working with and now look up in the air to see what is being used also (I bet I can't tell though). Or I suppose I could actually do some work. I fear things will be pretty dusty.
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1.6.2 works great on SPARC II (except the Mach64 driver doesn't work for Ultra5). I just installed it this past week.
NetBSD on x86 is good for cross compiling for other architectures.
pckgsrc is the equivelant of the ports directory under FreeBSD and is just as easy to keep up to date with.
A weakness of NetBSD is the amount of configuration needed to get it to work the way you want it too work, but I view this as a strength as well (I advise people wanting to learn Unix to install it for this reason).
Asside from those two reasons to isntall it on x86 the other good one is just curiousity. A person might end up finding a non-curiousity reason to use it or be convinced that their other *BSD or Linux choice was the right one.
They would never go for it though. After the network gets totaly hosed by someone e-mailing a 2GB attachment to another developer during a critical time, guess who would be called in to fix everything anyway?
(I am assuming they would not put limits on the size of e-mail attachments)
That there is a reason why alot of admins are paranoid about giving anyone , not just developers, control of their box. The case in the article was an extreme example, but I couldn't help but wonder "What did some developer do years ago that completlty hosed everything?"
The back up situation at the place in the article sounded outrageous. The author had every right to be angry about that.
As far as the firewalls go..if there is a security breach, the developers would not get sacked and new abused ports are discovered. Users find ways of clogging everythign up with Yahoo! IM going through port 80, outside KaZAa users from Brazil suddenly thing that you have LTR Return of The King hidden somewhere on your network or script kiddies from Korea sudenly decide to scan port 1021 all day long...In other words, there are lots of reasons to change the configuration of a firewall daily (unless disconnected from the outside completlty..but no users want that).
Like NetNinja said, cleaning up after them is a nightmare, plus the admins are liable for the mess , not the developers. Communication between groups is the key.
What could have been a valid critique of a technology movement devolved pretty fast when the comparison to terrorists was made.
How many people have Linux "Zealots" killed in the past year?
*crickets chirping*
One would think that after 9/11 we would have a real definition of what a terrorist is and what they do. Instead what we have is too many people willing to use the word "terrorist" as it suits them and their goals.
Pretty stupid.
Netcraft listed the web service as coming from a "private residence" in Hoboken NJ.
I want Al-Jazeera to be up but something tells me that it may be due to poor planning on their part more than "hackers", because the English version went down really fast. First they denied it was hackers and just said it was alot of page requests, now they want the Government to do something about it.
Either way I hope they get up soon. They are missing a hell of an oportunity.
..to power supplies and clean water.
...plus without decent power there wil be nothing to "plug" anything digital into, not to mention little time to learn the device and its usefulness.
Being literate wouldn't hurt either.
In the third world countries that I have been to, the lack of power and fresh water add many hours of work to the day that inhibit things such as going to school, learning new things,
I suppose a combination of a cheap electicity, unrestrictive laws (telephones are cheaper now in Nigeria now that cell phones have replaced Nitel)and an effort to combat the nastier effects of poverty are needed before we all get our old Pentiums ready to ship off.
I didn't see or read about any demonstrations that showed how to determine what printer was on a network, how to get into that network and how to "own" a printer, and what could be done after the printer was compromised.
...
That is left as an exercise for the reader
Still, a demonstration by those making the claim would be nice.
Did anyone do an nmap -sS -O on an IP of a Lexmark 1200 to see what processor and OS came up?....doubtful.
Do *you* spend much time syn scanning printers?
Not alot, but I have (it doesn't take that long to scan printers)..the point being a demonstration of a real vulnerability: Scan, connection, and compromise..that would have been. Sounds like more of challange to get people to do the dirty work for them after they come up with a "maybe", and then they get the cash for "securing" it
Anyone demonstrate how to connect and get a banner and prompt with netcat? (if they did, what would they do, print with only magenta or screw around with the queue?)
Not exactly. The following is from jill.c
I'll try the exploit. But I would be shocked if I got control of a printer using it...Perhaps it was designed to gain control of a box running Windows 2000/IIS 5..I was talking about connecting to a printer with netcat and getting a banner from the printer OS..but I don't think I was specific. Often telneting to HP plotters will give a person immediate access and control if passwords are not configured, but what could someone do from a controlled plotter to the other machines on the network?
Better give security guys more cash.
All these "what if" scenarios and "theoretical" hacks, and very little in the way of real world demonstration.
Now Printers are vulnerable....but I didn't see or read about any demonstrations that showed how to determine what printer was on a network, how to get into that network and how to "own" a printer, and what could be done after the printer was compromised. Did anyone do an nmap -sS -O on an IP of a Lexmark 1200 to see what processor and OS came up?....doubtful. Anyone demonstrate how to connect and get a banner and prompt with netcat? (if they did, what would they do, print with only magenta or screw around with the queue?)
I'd worry more about the fact that they got on the network in the firt place than the fact that they could take over the printer.
And the CDROM attack...A Hacker could mail a CDROM and get it to install on a PC because some luser is curious? Yah, I suppose. Or the sysadmin could make accounts in NT and W2k that doesn't allow programs to be installed...hell, they don't even have to allow CDROM access.
Maybe they should testify before congress and claim that they can bring down the internet in 30 minutes from a HP Plotter, or that Osama Bin Laden will now mail CD's promising free "Click Art" to unsuspecting secretaries around the US with a thing for "Precious Moments" themes. Because Congress will shovel any amount of money to greedy bastards wearing a propeller beanie, and talking about things they know nothing about.
Ironic that these guys often start out by breaking into places, then demanding alot of money to protect the world from people like them, and then advocating jail time for future business competitors down the road.
One of my jobs is to create a backup policy. I don't backup individual workstations because it would limit my other jobs.
...he/she will agree.
If all work and all data is saved to a network drive then it is backed up. I am responsible for reminding people of this policy and I do that quite well without being a jerk.
Before I came along, this was not the policy and data got lost. I convinced the boss to adopt it by asking weighted but true questions:
1. Would you rather have all of our essential data on one drive, backed up on one tape, and the responsibilty of one person or would you rather have all of YOUR data on many machines with many people responsible for backups.
2. If anyone gets any bright ideas that I should be able to backup all the machines then I would ask if that was the only job they wanted me to do and hire others for networking and troubleshooting. Be prepared with some stats on what tasks you perform during the day and the amount of time and effort it takes to backup every users machines.
3. When the "what if" scenario comes up. Allow an exception but make it known that you are in charge of the decision to allow the exception. Point out that the boss is probably too busy
4. I have only turned down one request to back up files that were not on the network drive, because the request is made so rarely. I also give out CDRs and CDRW's for users to back up their own stuff if they want.
I assume every situation is different but emphasising the time, money, reliabilty of this setup without being a jerk works quite well for me and the users.
Too often we tend to see the world in terms of technology (as in computers). Open source has alot to offer the "digital divide" but this fails to consider that in many places of the world you have to overcome the "sewage divide" and "electicity divide" before you can even have a digital one. I think an "Open Source" type solution is a good idea for providing for the more basic needs of poor countries.
As an example of this, I was in Haiti on vacation in December (I hate relaxing vacations...I can relax at work) and it is quite amazing how much human time and energy is spent just keeping clean, getting drinkable water, cooking, in a place where the population doesn't have access to plumbing or electricity. I figured it would be about 3 to 4 extra hours of work each day...time that cannot be spent at another job, learning to read or just having time enough to consider your own existance.
Selling fresh produce for extra cash is difficult becuase of poverty of your potential customers and lack of refrigeration limits the time that it can be sold, cooking it requires getting charcoal from a vendor (this is why Haiti is deforested), raw sewage on the streets makes whatever food that is cooked still risky (in this suburb of Cap Hatien the tallest structure in town was a two story pile of dried sewage in the middle of the street.)
Clearly something needs to be done, and all the other plans have always had contracts, agreements and treaties tied in that equalled that only a few people would profit from a "project" but the situation of the general population would remain unchanged. I hope engineers, earth scientist and botanists get involved in this.
I know cuz I used to be one.
Many art shippers (especially in the Bay area) have decided to make some extra cash by shipping high end computers.
What they have is climate controlled storage, employees who know how to blanket wrap and strap down somethig valuable, trucks with air ride suspension and they always travel with two or more workers.
The employees don't look upon anything that is shipped as an appliance but assume that it is worth alot and that their job security depends on it being delivered in good shape.
So?
Most people in the world use Windows on the desktop does that mean Linux is dead on the desktop?
The *BSD's have their fans and their niche.
For example I don't have to compile a weird SCSI emulation layer to run an IDE CDR/RW in NetBSD. I can run most Linux apps (I'm useing netscape under linux emulation right now), FreeBSD apps, Solaris x86 apps, and Windows apps using bochs.
For fun get two identical machines, one with NetBSD and one with linux. Run X, Abiword, Netscape, FreeCiv. Now run top. Compare the memory and swap useage.
netBSD also doesn't have a working mouse for DC.
netBSDs real strength is its portability and stability. When DEC/Compaq support runs out on VMS for VAX, I'm turning the VAX server where I work into a netBSD mailserver. The DC port was probably done for two reasons (all good): To have fun. And to test the claim that it can port to anything. (The Linux port was done for the same reasons I assume).
A possible problem with the Linux port as opposed to the NetBSD port (as I found with x86) is the difference in distros and platforms. (I never have problems with pkgsrc)
It runs on pretty much everything, probably more stable than Linux too (it has been for me on x86 but not as much fun stuff)
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/dreamcast
I looked at the map and for some reason I forgot about Ethiopia. Still I bet the roads suck to high hell for most of the route.
The HiLux is a 4 runner? hmmm...When I was in Haiti this December (got out right before the attempted coup) I was amazed at the Hilux...traveling the pothole system that passes for highways there (all dirt, except from PAP to SDQ) Stacked with people and livestock...Uncomfortable but amazing.
It would be expensive and dangerous. You would need a REAL SUV with a winch, extra fuel and would need permission and armed escorts through Peru (some of the land is occupied by Sendera Luminoso) and then you may have to go through some sketchy areas occupied by the FARC in Columbia. (the FARC would love to kidnap an adventurous traveler, but they rarely kill foreigners...but you might get caught in the crossfire of the Columbian army and the FARC). Also no real roads exist in the Putomayo district of Columbia nor are they really "roads" in the tradtional sense in Northern Columbia or southern Panama (also FARC and ELN hangouts). Once you went from Panama to Mexico hopefully the worst problems you would have would be repairs, gas and bribes. Through these countries you might have to register the car with the police upon both entering and exiting the country and have proof of insureance that is valid in all of them ($$$).
After that it would be smoothe sailing from I-5 in San Diego up to (I think) Homer Alaska...asside from the 'migra' agents searching the hell out of your vehicle. Once you get to Homer, you'd have problems. The Provedeniya route is limited, the best bet would be to sell the car in Alaska and head by boat to Dutch Harbor. There you could try booking a bearth on a Russian cargo ship to Madagan Siberia or Vladivostok. Try to buy a Toyota HiLux (the Taliban drove them, and they are the staple of every third world country with a different diffinition of the word "road"). The best would be to get to Magadan because then you could drive to Yakutsk but be prepared to get special permission from the Russians to enter in Madagan...a bribe might succeed). Last I heard, Yakutsk to Irkutsk was still drivable in the winter but sketchy during the summer (permafrost...drop by the museum of permafrost studies in Yakutsk and enjoy "milk tar" with the locals) from there, you would probably be prevented by the army from driving further (but who would not want to see Lake Baikal in Irkutsk?) by this time you would have already accumalated enough 'macho points' and a massive credit card debt so you could just continue on to Moscow with the Trans-Siberian railroad or you might want to pay through the nose and get your HiLux put on the train to let you off in Ekaterinburg and drive through there to the Black Sea. When there you would have the tough choice of proceeding through Russia through Georgia (civil war with muslim fundies in the north), Armenia (occasional war with Azerbaijan) and Turkey (war with PKK) or go the long way of Ukraine (bribes), Romania (Bribes), Bulgaria (beatings and bribes) and Turkey (shitty drivers...no bribes).
Istanbul is cool, hang out there for a while at a youth hostel, make Australian girls lust after you.
From there your only choice is to drive through Syria. Hope you can get the car through and hope you don't have a Jewish sounding name or have been to Isreal (they will call it 'Occupied Palestine'..use that term to not get your car confiscated).
You Cannot drive from Syria to Lebanon to Isreal, so your best bet is to go through Jordan (use 'Occupied Palestine' as the term again to get some tea. The term for bribe is 'Baksheesh' offer it by asking if there is any way that they can help you).
Going from Jordan to Isreal should be doable. Be prepared to answer alot of questions from the IDF, explain to them that you are a nutball with alot of money or so into debt that you hope to be killed in Africa.
Isreal to Egypt...probably doable, depending on the politics at the time. But from Egypt it will be tricky.
You may be able to cross into the Sudan from Egypt at Wadi Halfa but the Sudan is kinda pissed at the US right now (marry a Swiss person in Istanbul if you can...they have an excellent dental plan as well) and US citizens are forbidden from entering Libya by the US state department (I hear the Libyans don't stamp your passport but also don't like the fact that you have been in Isreal) This is where your trip would most likely stop without getting on a plane. If you could cross in the Sudan you would be stopped by the military as you got near the South, where they have been having a civil war for about 20 years and what little roads exist are probably unpassable. In Libya you would have to drive at night through the Sahara along routes used by illigal immigrant smugglers from Niger....Lots of bandits, and the desert might kill you before you got to Niamy or Mali.
You also couldn't get around The Democratic Republic of Congo, due to poor roads and "Africa's World War" going on. It is also unlikely that you would be able to get past Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda as well.
Not to worry though , going to Isreal would have stopped you from getting this far to begin with.
I pulled my hair out planning this trip a few years ago, but I was not going to drive, just try to see how far I could get without using an airplane while seeing as much land as possible.
Plan a short version of the trip and you'll have a blast. Traveling is great.
Especially for those of us who have a CDL. A state issues them, but they are on a National Database somewhere.
It's also pretty easy for another state to run a check on a person with just having their drivers license number (often their ssn).
I can't picture this doing anything more about 'security' but I suppose it will be harder to get a new Drivers License after a DWI (Sorry Delaware).
Unless you are a John Birch Society member, I'd say you got shafted by the Big Green Tractor Company.
Sorry to hear that.
Having done factory work too, I can see his point. I am just happy to be able to get paid while sitting in a chair so I don't care about long hours.
I was thinking that perhaps another aspect of 'age discrimination' towards the young might be that during the dot com boom, many people got out of college (or never bothered), got a high paying job, brought their pets to work, played with nerf toys, played Quake on the LAN and now kinda expect that again. One advantage to 'discriminating' against younger people is that a supervisor may want to stop this disruption or avoid it.
The same would hold true about people like me or your friend. They might want to avoid the 'old guys set in their ways'.
A skilled interviewer should be able to filter out negative qualities without resorting to age or previous work experience, but regretably that does not happen as often as it should.
You figger out why....
Yeah, discrimination exists. I taught myself Linux (with help from wonderful people on the net and books of course) at age 32. I wanted a career change from being a truck driver. You wanna talk about discrimination? Try jumping from blue collar work to white collar work at my age.
But I figured I could either whine about it and try to change the whole IT industry or I could try to change myself, my approach to resumes, interviews, dress...whatever and hope to find a cool place to work where they viewed my ambition to change careers as a positive thing and not a weird thing.
I found one after sending out 600+ resumes.
This guy is young, experienced and has a whole wide world of careers and/or schooling ahead of him. Either his employers are ingrates and should be ditched as quickly as possible or he has some other flaws that ARE the real reason people want him out.
Either way the solution is up to him alone and not 'society'.
Solaris. We are on a network and run GIS software. Nothing works better in networking than Unix. Volume Management (Veritas) and backup (Networker..blah...I use ufsdump when the index gets screwed up) are easy to manage (inspite of Networkers problems). The few NT boxes I have set up have been nothing but trouble, but needed for some statistical software.
DEC/Compaq's kick ass tech support. If this much money is going to be blown on a supercomputer, you are going to want the experiece of a company that set the standard in tech support and service...instead of going to alt.os.linux and post "750 Node Cluster won't boot"
I have to go to work in the "Frozen Zone" today. I'm going to have to see if I can look down on the ground and see what kind of stuff rescuers are working with and now look up in the air to see what is being used also (I bet I can't tell though). Or I suppose I could actually do some work. I fear things will be pretty dusty.