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This past Friday was an open mic night at the Wesley Student Center. It was an awesome time! There were instrumentals, vocals, poetry, and some really great bands. The turnout was amazing; at some points there were a lot of people standing around because there weren't enough seats.
If interest continues, there should be an open mic night once a month next (Spring) semester. Keep an eye on the WSF calendar for more details.
I installed a new Netgear WGR614v6 wireless router in my home. Boy, they sure do dumb these things down! I'm not happy with the utter lack of flexibility in its configuration.
Lacking:
- authenticated SMTP for sending log files
- NTP host/IP setting - In the manual, they say they use a variety of time servers. I looked at the binary config file; in that, there's a single IP for NTP. Liars.
- can't edit numerous settings through the web interface. Nor can you edit the exported config file. The config file has some sort of CRC signing in it, as I can't get it to accept it as a "restore from backup" after I've edited the config file with a hex-editor. This is a major drawback, making this router a royal pain for users who want more control.
- absolutely no configuration of the SPI firewall. It's either on or off.
- no configuration of what gets logged. Note that DHCP events do not get logged. I see this as a major security flaw. It means that I can't keep track of who is joining the network. I guess that limits my legal liability. "Sorry CIA/FBI/Homeland Security, I did my best to keep logs of user activity; go complain to Netgear."
Cool stuff:
- I do like the log email function, although I ran into problems w/ rules my ISP has for SMTP. This shouldn't be a problem for 99% of the other folks. Of course it's a pointless feature, since the logging on this model is so crippled that's it's utterly useless!
- DynDNS (and others) automatic updating. No need to run an updater on your PC! :) (but no value to me at this time)
I set up the wireless router so it broadcasts its SSID. I turned off WEP, so anyone can join. Of course, there needs to be some security.
At this time I'm not giving broadband access to the internet. The wireless just gives access to the LAN and anyone else on the wireless. So if files are shared, that's the users' business. The router's subnet is isolated so it doesn't touch the internet. There is a secure proxy on one machine so my PDA can still get on the inernet. I installed bind so I could serve my own DNS for the WAN subnet. Also, if anyone tried to go to google.com, they get automatically redirected to a web page that explains they are part of a free high-speed WAN that doesn't connect to the internet. It's all pretty cool, and quite transparent to the users.
Why is the lack of NTP (network time protocol) setting in the router a problem? Since the router isn't bridged to connect to the internet, it doesn't know what time it is. (And there isn't even a way to manually set the time!) If Netgear had smartly used hostname(s) for their NTP server list, I wouldn't have a problem. My DNS server would redirect that to my server on the WAN and I could then use a port forwarding tool to direct it to whatever time server on the internet *I* want to use. Unfortunately, I never saw any activity on the webserver's NTP port. I finally tracked down from an exported configuration file that there is a single IP saved for NTP use. The router's manual indicates that a list of nameservers are used. It lies. Since it is using an IP, it's just getting a "no route to host" type of error, as it isn't being redirected by my local DNS.
It sure would be nice if Netgear added a lot more settings options to future WGR616v6 firmware.
"Psychologists don't consider that there are, in fact, truly happy people, which is why they base their studies on the morose." -- Jason - commenter #5
This is the first time a post here is inspired almost entirely by a comment to a news article. Congratulations, Jason. He noted that there wern't any "happy" traits associated with the foods we like to eat... according to some psychologists.
The story is about how psychologists have determined that our personalities (one per person, please!) can be determined by the foods we like.
Angry: Meat
Sad: Sugary food, caffeine
In need of comfort: Custard, ice cream
Lonely: Rice, pasta
Stressed or ambitious: Crisps, soy sauce, onions
Sexually frustrated: Biscuits, bread
Jealous: Pile the plate with anything
No wonder I eat so much pasta and bread with an ice cream chaser. And don't get me started on chocolate (sugar and caffeine) *sob*
I posted these as a reply to a friend's question in her blog: What rules should be followed for a crush? (paraphrased)
Rules of a crush, by NASAdude:
1) Think about him every free moment you get. Actually, think about him even when you're supposed to be doing other things.
2) Dream about him. You know you want to.
3) Write your name and append his surname. Try a variety of fonts. If you write it *just so*, it will come true.
4) Really OBSESS on your crush. It's the most important rule.If it is a "silent crush" where you don't even hint to him about the crush, you may want to avoid these rules:
5) You have to tell at least one friend the name of the person you have a crush on, and expect that friend to keep the secret.
6) Have lunch with the person and talk about absolutely nothing important. Try to read his mind and find out if he likes you.
7) Arrange to show up at his home so you can borrow/lend a book (and find out how much of a slob he really is)
8) Conspire to have your friends stalk the guy and report back everything they learn. It's not a true crush unless you compell your friends (via guilt or blackmail) to do things they'd rather not.And the "silent crush" stipulation completely eliminates the possibility of these rules:
9) Send the person anonymous messages saying you think he's the cutest guy... to frustrate him to the point of insanity
10) Send him flowers anonymously (yeah, guys can enjoy flowers, too!)
11) Slip a love letter into his backpack on campus (It brings out the inner stalker in you.)In any case, don't forget rule #4. It's the most important, and it applies to all types of crushes... even the silent/secret ones.
If you haven't figured it out, these are all tongue-in-cheek. If you really like a guy, just tell him. Life is far too short for these types of games.
What rules do you recommend?
Yeah, it's a slow news week. I bought the domain nasadude.com.
If you haven't noticed, the blog you're reading is now found at blog.nasadude.com. I set up Apache to serve the blog through a virtual host. It took a few iterations until everything was working properly. I forgot to update the blog's .ini file. I had to redirect queries to the /blog/ directory so images in old posts would still load. My anti-spam settings had to be tweaked so they wouldn't block all comments. Everything seems to be working. I think. Maybe.
What else should I do with the domain of nasadude.com? Do you want a subdomain to point to an IP/hostname that you run? Those are easiest. If you have a really good bribe, I can even set up web-forwarding. If it's a *super* good bribe, it can even be recursive file/directory web forwarding and not just a single URL. So what do you want, and what's it worth to you? I.love.NASAdude.com; hacked.a.computer.at.NASAdude.com. You get the picture.
