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4101

Living Room / Re: Payphones - Thoughts?

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2013, 07:24 AM »

Tons of memories. The Bell System before AT&T...

(Ah the joys of...um...watching a friend...playing around with a phreaking box or two.)

I can't recall however when was the last time I saw a payphone in the US. Must be at least seven or eight years since I've seen a working one.

Interestingly, many were decommissioned and left "abandoned in place" for a few years before they were finally removed. I do remember seeing many boxes with big "not in service" stickers on them. Most were repeatedly vandalized before they were finally taken away. Guess the cost of dismantling them exceeded their surplus/scrap value so they were only removed when a landlord or municipality finally forced the issue.

4102

Living Room / Re: Legitimate app breaks popular encryption - EFS, BitLocker, TrueCrypt ...

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2013, 07:09 AM »

Perhaps this (is a good thing) will get people to start thinking seriously about the equally important other layers of security.

-Stoic Joker (February 07, 2013, 06:59 AM)

Systems people...they're so cute when they tell you their dreams...

---------
P.S. I agree.

4103

Living Room / Re: Legitimate app breaks popular encryption - EFS, BitLocker, TrueCrypt ...

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2013, 07:07 AM »

Yup. Nothing new here. Although I'm guessing some wannabe hackboys just might end up with their wallets or Paypal accounts being  $300 lighter if they don't do their homework before reaching for their plastic.
 

-40hz (February 07, 2013, 06:51 AM)

To be fair, the product is probably more targeted at government agencies - those tend to like high pricetags and support and all that kinda stuff

-f0dder (February 07, 2013, 06:56 AM)

Like I said: wannabe hackboys.

4104

Living Room / Re: 50's military computer porn

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2013, 07:03 AM »

One of these days I'm going to sit down and learn a hellava lot more about WWII.

...

Learning about them gives me hope for the future.

-Rover (February 07, 2013, 12:21 AM)

When you're done with that take a look at the events surrounding the founding of the United States - or what really happened during the American Civil War, or...well...really any major historic event born out of calamity and/or necessity.

Humans can be quite amazing. And usually, much like Hobbits, when you least expect them to be.

That gives me hope not only for the future, but also for the present.

4105

Living Room / Re: One of the most interesting, and fun websites ever.

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2013, 06:54 AM »

You don't expect the sheep to remember last year, do you?

-TaoPhoenix (February 07, 2013, 04:03 AM)

Forget sheep. I wish some of my clients could remember as far back as last week.

4106

Living Room / Re: Legitimate app breaks popular encryption - EFS, BitLocker, TrueCrypt ...

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2013, 06:51 AM »

Yup. Nothing new here. Although I'm guessing some wannabe hackboys just might end up with their wallets or Paypal accounts being  $300 lighter if they don't do their homework before reaching for their plastic.
 

4107

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2013, 06:47 AM »

1. As soon as a court can rule against an unpopular and unjust law protecting powerful and well-connected financial interests, a new law will be drafted.

2. As soon as an unpopular and unjust new law can be drafted, people will quickly decide to defy or evade it.

3. As soon as people start defying or evading an unpopular and unjust new law, they will find themselves in court.

4. As soon as....

4108

Developer's Corner / Re: Discourse - A discussion platform by StackExchange's Jeff Atwood

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2013, 06:36 AM »

Interesting new product...

Not sure I agree with some of the concepts and design philosophy behind it however. They seem to be wanting to wed certain elements of "social" sites to a more traditional 'flat' discussion forum. From what I've seen, every attempt at doing that wound up producing a hybrid that wasn't as good (or usable) as either. And I think that's largely because online "socializing" and "discussion" are two separate things even if they do share many surface resemblances. To my mind it's the difference between indulging in chit-chat or 'small talk' and having a real conversation. But I'm getting old - which means I don't mind reading and I have a decent attention span - so that's probably just me.

I also can't help but wonder how well it will scale because it's written using ROR.

Fans of Ruby often argue it's not Ruby itself that's the problem (as in sloooooow) - but the way people (who don't understand it well enough) code it. I don't have sufficient expertise to know which is more correct. But my own experience with Ruby and ROR apps has been that while it seems great for prototyping, it's invariably sluggish in operation. Especially under load.

I know a few coders who sometimes use ROR to test concepts and designs before doing their actual production coding in Javascript. None of them are amateurs. So I'm guessing they have very good reasons for not using Ruby for their final deployments.

I did like one comment on the tryout page. Somebody said it "felt much like Google Wave - except the interface works." That cracked me up.

And it does feel a lot like Wave now that I'm thinking about it.

4109

Living Room / Re: Futurama Icon Set: I think we can all agree that this is the best thing ever.

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2013, 01:02 PM »

am I being overly pedantic?

-f0dder (February 05, 2013, 05:23 PM)

@f - Can't speak for everyone, but I'd be very disappointed if you ever stopped being so picky about things. I often learn something by reading your hardcore tech diatribes and comments. Please don't ever change.

4110

Living Room / Re: Yet another reason why I often wish I lived in Massachusettes

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2013, 12:54 PM »

Emphasis mine.  They're fighting a war on multiple levels.

-wraith808 (February 06, 2013, 09:05 AM)

Agree. But I also think this move is a well thought out transitional strategy.

Too many states are getting increasingly strident about the sales tax issue. And with the federal government cutting state level funding now that so much has been spent on homeland security and the never ending war on terror, the money needs to come from somebody. And the feds are not about to introduce new taxes if they can possibly avoid it. Nor do the states want to do the same.

Unfortunately, the common practice of cutting back on state funding to its own municipalities is reaching a limit now that the municipalities are pushing back because their property and local taxes have been increased to the absolute threshold of what their residents can still afford to pay.

So the current state of affairs with online retailers not charging sales tax is a temporary one at best. And it will be a quick tech fix on most order entry servers once they're required to collect it. So it's not as if it impractical or not doable from an order processing perspective. It's just a sku + zipcode + tax table lookup + calculation loop on their system. No big huhu. This stuff is old hat - and the code has already been written anyway. The computer handles the heavy lifting so it's really just a "set & maintain a tax database" thing.

About the only tricky part will be if somebody in state A buys something - but has it shipped to an address in state B. In most places that wouldn't be taxable under current 'destination-based' sales tax laws. In my state something purchased with the intent of shipping it out of state within 30 days, and actually shipped within that grace period, is usually exempt since we're a destination-based state for sales tax purposes.

I think Amazon saw the writing on the wall and decided to move quickly to capitalize on the current state of affairs while it still existed.

A year or so from now, when charging sales tax is the norm, there won't be any point to approaching states to cut a deal. Unless somebody gets enterprising and gets most states to switch over to 'origin-based' sales taxes. If that happens, then it becomes a very attractive proposition to get a business like Amazon in-state. Because under that scenario, the hosting state would (theoretically) receive sales taxes on ALL the transactions.

(Note: It wouldn't really be that simple. But it would still be advantageous to be the hosting state for a mega-retailer. And for far more than just the 'job creation' opportunities.)
 

4111

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Free Linux DNS server

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2013, 08:50 AM »

^LFS is a science fair project. Gentoo might be the ultimate tech wanker's distro if Gentoo could just get its act together a little better - and which they seem to be doing better lately. Besides, you can't say you've really experienced Linux in all its splendor and mystery until you've successfully done at least one Gentoo Stage 3 install. (@f - Since I'm sure you have, you'll know what I'm taking about.)

re: Centos support, take a look here. Check out their customer list.

And yes, you are correct. In business it isn't (or shouldn't) be the software itself so much as how well it can be supported. No argument from me on that point since my entire business is based on that very premise.

4112

Living Room / Re: Yet another reason why I often wish I lived in Massachusettes

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2013, 08:30 AM »

I am also wondering what incentives from the state  Amazon had been offered (or suggested) in exchange for their coming to CT? Because I'm positive CT didn't approach them first.

Which makes me wonder if this is an emerging business strategy for Amazon and other big web retailers?

Consider: Amazon is in an ideal position to cut such deals. They can easily approach a state and tell them exactly how much sales tax revenue they're currently losing.

Then they can offer a 'sweetener:

"Gentlemen, Amazon will not only create x number of jobs and/or spend x dollars setting up a facility in your state. We will also become a local business operation. That will make all your resident's purchases subject to your local taxes under existing tax laws! Ka-ching baby! Even the Tea Party will have nothing to object to! ... But in exchange, we'd like x in tax breaks for x years. But don't worry. These breaks will pay for themselves in that your state will now be getting x dollars in sales tax revenue you wouldn't have otherwise. And best of all - everything made over the tax cut you'll be giving us will be pure gravy. Did somebody already say ka-ching?"

Love it! The better a customer the collective consumers of a state are, the better a bargaining chip they become for Amazon when approaching some tax and job hungry legislature.

Looks like the "Ugly American" has finally come to America.

Hmm... How does that song about being "sold down the river" go?
 

4113

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Free Linux DNS server

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2013, 07:55 AM »

Does having "enterprise" in the name make it any better, though?

-f0dder (February 06, 2013, 07:47 AM)

It does when it's a 'free' rebuild of  RHEL.

And commercial support for CentOS has been available for some time.

Purpose of CentOS

CentOS exists to provide a free enterprise class computing platform to anyone who wishes to use it. CentOS 2, 3, and 4 are built from publically available open source SRPMS provided by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policies and aims to be 100% binary compatible. (CentOS mainly changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork.). CentOS is designed for people who need an enterprise class OS without the cost or support of the prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor.

Neither the CentOS Project (we who build CentOS) nor any version of CentOS is affiliated with, produced by, or supported by the prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. Neither does our software contain the upstream vendor's product ... although it is built from the same open source SRPMS as the upstream enterprise products.

Note: by agreement, RedHat is never to be explicitly named in anything CentOS publishes, hence the "prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor" reference.

All that said, Debian, installed as a server, is a fine choice too.

Of course if you really had a big pair, you could also do a complete custom solution based on Arch. That would muy Macho and good for serious bragging rights come next Friday over pizza with the geeks!
 

4114

Living Room / Re: Gummiboot restructured to allow Linux to work on SecureBoot systems

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2013, 07:45 AM »

Be interesting to see what happens with all this on Dell machines now that the company has gone private. Microsoft is in on this deal to the tune of a $2 billion loan. Wonder if there will be a quid pro quo to help Microsoft sort out this problem.
 

4115

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Free Linux DNS server

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2013, 07:36 AM »

I'd be more inclined to stick with CentOS or something similar. Not exactly lightweight. But it was designed for things you want to do. All the security and stability issues were taken into consideration when they built it. It is a server distro. And it is intended for enterprise.
 

4116

Living Room / Re: Free Nationwide WiFi

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 10:00 PM »

Wow! Uncle Sam as your friendly and free wireless ISP?

Hmm...look at it this way: if the government owns a public wifi network, it can pretty much do and monitor anything it wants on it. And all without an authorizing law, warrant or finding. So long there's wording in the TOS that says any "use of" or "information transmitted" over the network may be monitored and recorded, they have carte blanche.

But on the positive side, this idea may also provoke some positive changes in the way the telcos and big ISPs are doing business.

Maybe all those arbitrary and pointless data caps will finally fade into memory should Uncle Sam start providing free bandwidth to the masses.

4117

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Free Linux DNS server

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 09:45 PM »

@x16 - interesting and thx for the link. I'm working my way (slowly) through it.

A crony of mine also just sent me a copy of this post found over on linuxquestions.org

It's fairly long:

Spoiler

Actually Microsoft has made it even easier with Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012.

How i got bind as primary DNS server for domain (.home) running alongside Windows ADDS Domain running on 2008 R2 (homedomain.home) running on same network:
in bind on linux (ubuntu):
in /etc/bind/named.conf.local add:

zone "homedomain.home" {
type slave;
masters { $IPv4_addr_of_DC ;};
notify yes;
allow-transfer {any; };
allow-query {any;};
};

zone "_msdcs.homedomain.home" {
type slave;
masters { $IPv4_addr_of_DC };
notify yes;
allow-transfer {any; };
allow-query {any;};
};

then on your DC and load the DNS mmc snap-in:
for both Forward Lookup Zones
_msdcs.homedomain.home
homedomain.home
select Properties and on the Zone Transfer tab select "Only to the following servers".
click edit and add ipv4 address of your linux bind server.

reload configuration in bind
Your Windows Vista, 7, 8 and Server 2008 R2 and 2012 workstations and servers will now identify the SOA for the Active Directory Directory Services.
This works from installer and from change computer name dialogs.
I found that as soon as i added the _msdcs forward zone domain was found immediately.

As stated in the thread, _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.DOMAIN.COM is the really important SRV pointer for adding machine to domain bootstrapping, but hardcoding it into a subzone in bind is a silly idea.
by setting up the _msdcs forward zone as a slave you will have full AD functionality being served from your bind while AD DS maintains state of your domain in its structure

hope this helps someone


EDIT:

From "Pro DNS and Bind" by Zytrax:
---
check-names

check-names (warn|fail|ignore) ;
check-names fail;

The check-names statement will cause any host name for the zone to be checked for compliance with RFC 952 and RFC 1123 and take the defined action. Care should be taken when using this statement because many modern RRs e.g. SRV use names which do not meet these standards (they contain underscore) but which are permitted by RFC 2181 which greatly liberalized the rules for names (see labels and names). The default is not to perform host name checks. check-names may also appear in a view or options clause where it has a different syntax.
---

you may need the check-names ignore directive in your slave definitions as lots of AD DS style queries use underscores if you are enforcing RFC 952 style hostnames.
Last edited by MiWLinuxQuestions; 10-27-2012 at 06:18 AM.

I don't know if this solution is specific to the 2k8-R2/2k12 servers, although I would suspect it is since integrating BIND with AD didn't seem to be very workable for 2k3 and earlier. Possibly MS changed their data structures to be more standards compliant? Either way, the above may be worth a try. Doesn't look too complicated to set up.

 

4118

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Free Linux DNS server

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 04:31 PM »

I heard it's been attempted. And it's not worth the effort based on everything I've ever read about it by those who tried - and failed.

Windows has that fairly weird implementation of DNS for AD that we all 'love,' which doesn't like it not being under the control of a Windows server.

The present setup you're describing is absolutely doomed to failure. As in epic. No two ways.

Holding out false hopes only gets your client pissed off. Best just let it happen and skip the science fair projects. Once it really tanks on them they'll let you fix it correctly.

Just my anyway.

4119

Living Room / Re: Gummiboot restructured to allow Linux to work on SecureBoot systems

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 04:00 PM »

@f0dder -thx for the link. I knew about that one. But AFAIK Microsoft nothing to do with it. And it is a very inelegant hack at best.

What most of us were hoping was that any computer owner could elect to permanently disable UEFI/SecureBoot and still have Windows 8 function the same way it does on a non-UEFI machine. That would allow users who wish to dual-boot (or simply not use WIndows at all) to sidestep this entire issue and continue working as they did before.

Since Microsoft insists UEFI is not a requirement of Windows per se, but rather a whole separate initiative, I still don't see why any of this should be so difficult or require so much discussion.

Why can't they make it a simple setup option to use - or not use - and let it go at that?

It shouldn't take to much by way of logical deduction to come up with the reason why UEFI is being made an issue - or who is mostly responsible for it becoming one.

I can turn off and manipulate and a host of other powerful features (including overclocked settings which could easily destroy my CPU) in my current BIOS - and still not have an issue with any operating system installing or loading.

Why do I have to have that problem now if I prefer not to?


 

4120

Living Room / Re: Gummiboot restructured to allow Linux to work on SecureBoot systems

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 02:48 PM »

40hz: wrt. the bricking, shouldn't you blame Samsung?

-f0dder (February 05, 2013, 10:16 AM)

I do. Their device = their responsibility. If they supposedly understood how to implement UEFI, it shouldn't have happened. If UEFI weren't there...it wouldn't have happened.

Or blame the linux kernel driver developer?

Nope. Cardinal rule of the kernal team is: you do not ever break userland. The changes that resulted in the bricking were not made by them. I put the responsibility squarely on the manufacturer's shoulders.

Microsoft already signed the Shim that will allow you to boot anything

News to me. Hadn't seen that they had. If so, I'm a much happier camper. Could you post a link?

Also, thanks for the jab about paranoia levels. Much appreciated. Especially since I'm not. And I think most of us here are savvy enough not to indulge in that sort of nonsense.

But by the same token, Microsoft has a long and documented track record of breaking agreements and engaging in exceedingly aggressive and willfully deceptive business practices. Whenever they think they can get away with something, more often than not, they'll try to do so.

Is knowing that about them being paranoid, cynical - or simply realistic?

4121

Living Room / Re: Yet another reason why I often wish I lived in Massachusettes

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 02:29 PM »

The solution to bad laws is not to allow some people to get away with violating them, but to replace them with better laws.  The same goes for taxes.

-xtabber (February 05, 2013, 01:13 PM)

Ok. But considering how incredibly unresponsive to the wishes of its voters most legislatures are, exactly how does one bring that blissful thing about?

Because I've heard that exact same suggestion being made since about 1977. And so far, little if anything has come of it.

Interestingly, the gentlemen behind the creation of the United States had a very different notion of how to deal with this very issue. They considered it a moral necessity and the civic duty of people to evade or ignore unjust laws once all procedural attempts at remedy (and direct appeals to those in power) had been exhausted.

The clearest indication that a law is either unjust, or does not reflect the will of the people, is the degree to which it is ignored or flaunted by the general public.

Americans - and their legislators - should understand that better than most.

4122

Living Room / Re: Download Every Free MP3 given away by Diffuser.fm in 2012.

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 10:28 AM »

downloaded them all easily enough using FF + Download Helper add-on.

-tomos (February 05, 2013, 10:25 AM)

Agree. Eassy enough to do - and I'd do the same.

But I didn't really relish plowing through 100 songs to find maybe one or three I'd actually like and want to keep.

And I do have a lot of faith in DCer's music recommendations as the music vid thread we have running here usually nets pure gold.
 

4123

Living Room / Re: Download Every Free MP3 given away by Diffuser.fm in 2012.

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 10:25 AM »

^There's a link for each band on the website. Add a general classification. Most are listed as indies.Whatever that means these days. Still a lot to read.

4124

Living Room / Re: Hardspace

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 10:23 AM »

Too late. Barbarella will always be first.

4125

General Software Discussion / Re: How much have I downloaded?

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2013, 10:21 AM »

Curt, you really should find out if you can check the traffic at the router level.

-f0dder (February 05, 2013, 10:05 AM)

+1

Easy to do if you're running something like Tomato firmware on your router. (And home users should if they can.)