Everything I used to bore people on newsgroups and mailing lists with, now in one inconvenient place.
Brian Scearce wrote this on a mailing list I’m on. It’s too good not to share.
To the tune of “My Favourite Things” from “The Sound Of Music”:
Steam-run computers with shiny brass fittings
Read-only memory: Jacquard-type pittings
Ethernet using just tin cans and string
These are a few of my favorite things!LCDs lit up with shuttered white candles
Objects with actual ivory handles
Striking a bell for the part that goes “ping”
These are a few of my favorite things!
Every now and then I have an idea that I think would probably be valuable, but rather than running with it I just chicken out and document it. Sometimes it turns out to be a decently good idea (such as when I thought that there might be money to be made going around to homes and offices and running anti-virus and anti-spyware software on a regular basis, since most people can’t seem to be bothered to do it for themselves), and other times it turns out that somebody is already doing it (like when I had the idea of combining small/fast/expensive disk storage with bigger/slower/cheaper disk storage with even bigger/slower/cheaper tape storage, and software to stage data between the different levels of storage depending on usage patterns).
Continue reading “My latest million dollar idea”
For years now, my employer has not allowed ssh out their firewall. But they do have a telnet relay where you telnet to a particular server in the DMZ, and then telnet from there outside. Yeah, believe it or not, they think ssh isn’t secure (or more likely, have never heard of it because it’s not part of a default Windows installation) but telnet is ok. Of course, imap, pop and nntp aren’t allowed either. Heck, even DNS isn’t allowed – you can’t resolve any external domain names from internal machines.
And because I don’t run a telnet server on my home server, I have to telnet to their relay, then telnet to a friend’s server, and then ssh from there. But that’s what I go through in order to access my home email, Usenet, check files on my home server, and do a million other things.
Today I got the word – no more telnet access unless you can make a business case for it. The smarmy email from corporate IT says “please try to find a more secure means of communication”. Well, sure, I’d happily switch to a more secure means of communication IF YOU HADN’T FUCKING BLOCKED THEM ALL AT THE FIREWALL.
It’s coming up to the end of my contract. My boss’s boss’s boss asked all the contractors for copies of our resumes to help him get approval to renew the contracts, as we’ve all been here far longer than is allowed by company policy, and so he has to do whatever crafty tricks he does in order to keep us. But I figured a good resume isn’t a bad thing to have if his tricks stop working, so I spent some time on it and asked some friends to review it.
My old resume was, in the words of one person who looked at it, a “bit last millenium”. He suggested that I find a nice template somewhere and redo it. The problem is that I like having the resume there on the web both for portability and accessibilty, and most of the templates you find are Microsoft Word. But in googling around, I stumbled across a pretty nice looking resume that was implemented as an XML file with an XSL file to translate it into html. Now that is 21st century! Unfortunately, I lost the link and the guy’s name in my rush to stealadopt his technology. The XML has optional “hide=’true'” attributes so you can leave out different bits for different applications, although I haven’t made use of that.
The new resume looks pretty good. Have a look. Offer me a fulfilling job with lots of money.
So after the first day’s comedy of errors, we decided to go the CableCard+TiVoHD route. We ordered the CableCard installation, which was scheduled for a few days later. I figured I’d set up several TiVos in my day so that shouldn’t be any problem, so I left if for the night before the installer appointment. That was my first mistake.
Continue reading “Paul & Vicki get HD – A Comedy of Errors, Vol II”