The Substantially Similar Weblog

I just tried ‘evil’, and to my dismay (but not surprise) my custom built kernel is vulnerable. My system locked before I could even see the results of having pressed ‘return’ after typing the ‘evil’ command.

If you’re in charge of a public Linux system, please get patches immediately—they’ve got one for 2.6.7-rc3 as well as 2.4.25 and 2.4.26.

I wonder if the mainstream press is going to pick up on this and say “Look, Linux is just as insecure as Windows!” It’s basically impossible to get the mass media to understand that even a major exploit like this one pales in comparison to any one of the dozens of trivial Outlook or IE cracks that are circulating.

I’ve been back from the honeymoon almost a week and too busy to blog thus far while I’m working part time and studying for the bar (it often surprises civilians that law school doesn’t give you any specific bar exam preparation). But here is a “taste” of our honeymoon for your enjoyment:

We stayed at Le Chat Botté, a wonderful little bed and breakfast in North Hatley, Quebec. Every morning the innkeeper cooked a wonderful three-course breakfast for us, three days of which are captured above (each row is one day). For the first four days, we were the only guests so we got especially individualized attention. All of the meals were vegetarian, and started out with a glass of frothy fresh-squeezed juice—a different juice each day. The garnishes always came from the innkeeper’s garden, right outside the dining room window. I was going to try to put captions to explain what the dishes were, but I don’t remember all the subtleties so I’ll just have to leave it to your imagination.

Okay, I lied. One more blog entry—but only because the honeymoon hasn’t started yet.

We’re currently driving down Route 89 in New Hampshire on the way to our wedding in Vermont, with our friends (Greg, Dylan, Ken, Nirmal, and Steve—all five GNU/Linux users) in the car behind us. When we stopped at the New Hampshire liquor store (famous for cheap, tax free alcohol), we decided to set up an ad hoc WiFi network between the cars with essid ‘wedding’. I had just copied my 60 gigabytes or so of music to my laptop for the trip, so now as we drive up Route 89 I’ve set up a server so they can listen to whatever interests them.

And this area doesn’t even get cell phone service, so the only way we can communicate between the cars is SMTP. Actually, it turns out it was more efficient to set up an ssh account for the other car on my laptop so we can use ytalk locally on my laptop.

I haven’t been blogging for the past couple of weeks, and won’t for the next couple of weeks either, so here’s a quick life update and explanation for the radio silence.

In the last week, I’ve gotten a post-graduation job at an intellectual property firm, Wolf, Greenfield, and Sacks; I graduate from Northeastern Law School tomorrow morning; I’m going to sign the papers to buy a house in Roslindale tonight and finish up the mortgage bureaucracy tomorrow morning (during my graduation, I guess); I’m getting married on Sunday, followed by a weeklong honeymoon (during which I have covenanted not to use the Internet!).

And those are just the life-changes that are publicly-disclosable. It’s been a busy time.

Here’s the latest salvo from the Christian Coalition. I was trying to think up some witty commentary on this, but I think it’s funny enough without any exegesis:

LEFT-WING FEDERAL JUDGE JOSEPH TAURO AFFIRMS 4 RENEGADE MASSACHUSETTS SUPREME COURT JUSTICES WHO ARE FORCING HOMOSEXUAL “MARRIAGES” ON AMERICA SET TO BEGIN ON MONDAY, MAY 17TH
On Thursday, a left-wing federal judge in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro, declined to grant an emergency stay on homosexual “marriages” set to begin in Massachusetts on Monday, May 17th. Matthew Staver, who is one of the attorneys representing 11 Massachusetts lawmakers and a Catholic activist said regarding the federal judge’s decision: “We will appeal this case as far as necessary to ensure that the separation-of-powers principle is upheld in Massachusetts. The Republican form of government must be restored so the people can have a chance to define marriage”. Four Justices on the Massachusetts Supreme Court led by ultra-liberal Chief Justice Margaret Marshall in a 4-3 decision, tyrannically overstepped its authority as it unilaterally redefined marriage law to allow homosexual “marriages” in its November 18, 2003 Goodridge decision. Massachusetts Episcopal Bishop Thomas Shaw, leader of one of the most liberal Episcopal dioceses in the country, actually is banning his diocese clergy from solemnizing homosexual “marriages” stating that “…marriage in the Episcopal Church is between a man and a woman”. Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-225-3121 or you can go to http://www.cc.org/legis/contactcongress.html and urge your Congressman and two Senators to co-sponsor the Federal Marriage Amendment that will finally help stop the judicial tyranny in America.

Nice use of adjectives, at least.

Here is my Hackergotchi. I’ve never been too adept at The Gimp, but I think it’s not too bad, right? The real problem is that it’s hard to have a beard and a proper drop-shadow. Maybe if I lightened up my beard a bit so the shadow is more obvious… (probably won’t look quite right in Internet Explorer, which still can’t render transparent PNGs properly).

Having to pay $815 to take the Massachusetts Bar Exam is a little like having to pay Information Retrieval Charges:

“I understand this concern on behalf of the taxpayers. People want value for money. That’s why we always insist on the principal of Information Retrieval charges. It’s absolutely right and fair that those found guilty should pay for their periods of detention and the Information Retrieval procedures used in their interrogations.”

(cf. Brazil)

Does anyone know whether common so-called “generic” PCI WiFi cards work under Linux? pricewatch, the Internet’s best competitive marketplace for technology (often beats eBay), lists 802.11b PCI cards as cheap as $16. I’ve tried contacting the vendors of these “generic” cards but haven’t been able to get anyone to tell me the chipset or whether or not the card will be useable under Linux. Can any of my readers give me a tip?

At this past weekend’s March for Women’s Lives, about 1,000 antiabortion counterprotesters heckled the marchers. I thought the following line of argument, as described in the Boston Globe, was fairly remarkable:

A few blocks down the street, Randall Terry, president of the antiabortion Society for Truth and Justice and founder of the Operation Rescue, stood atop Freedom Plaza and — with the help of loudspeakers — told marchers they should be ashamed: “Remember, Adolph Hitler had big crowds in the 1930s.”

Well, sure. Adolf Hitler also had a mustache. Not to mention that he is alleged by some to have been vegetarian. Does that mean vegetarians or mustached men (I fit into both categories) should be ashamed?

Moreover, the New York Yankees have big crowds. So do George Bush and Britney Spears.

Maybe the Globe took Terry’s quote out of context, but it’s hard to believe anyone would find that bit of the analogy even vaguely persuasive.

Democracy Now!, my favorite webcast radio news, has great coverage of the march, including several extended video segments of the speakers. If you couldn’t make it down to DC last weekend, I suggest watching this footage online to get at least a little taste of the events.

(Minor update: apparently the Boston Globe got the spelling wrong—it’s Adolf, not Adolph. Fixed in my text.)

Via Sarah: check out the Worcester Computer Co-op. They make high speed Internet access available to anyone for free, and have special after-school programs and senior computer classes. Particulary noteworthy is that they use free software for everything in their lab:

Free software setups such as ours are very well-suited to a learning environment. The Co-op network administrators have created a situation in which users are free to play with the computers at will without fear of breaking something. This freedom is fundamental to a user’s computer education. Learning about computers is 90% experimentation and 10% instruction. Once a user is comfortable clicking any button and capable of actually playing with a machine, they will quickly be able to transform the computer from an intimidating piece of expensive electronics into a useful tool for career development, education, entertainment, and communications.