Hacker for Hire

As most any Linux user, I like to thing that I know what I’m doing with the systems I have to work on … but that does not imply that I am above reading the damned documentation. If you go to any person in this community with a blatantly stupid or obvious question that could be answered by reading the F.A.Q. or the documentation, you’ll generally find the first response is “check the website” or “rtm.”

For those of your who aren’t good with acronyms, you’ll find everything you want to know about RTFM here.

I only say this because at 4:30 today, my boss decided that it would be a fun idea to install a Honeywall. Now, I’m familiar with the project and the concept behind it; however, I’ve never implemented or read anything about design the “honey net.” So anyway, my boss, downloads the CD, burns it, and tried to install it. First question I get, “What do I do now?” … What the hell do you mean what do you do now??? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve head all day! How the hell am I supposed to know what you should do? So here’s as close as I can come to the dialogue:

Boss: What do I do now?
Wyatt: What do you mean what?
Boss: Well, it’s done installing … now what?
Wyatt: Do you have a login screen?
Boss: I don’t know.
Wyatt: (looks at screen) I’d login if I were you. What’s the username and password you setup?
Boss: I didn’t set one. So what now?
Wyatt: Well, if I were you, I’d read the manual.
Boss: (chuckles) No, seriously, what should I do now?
Wyatt: Seriously, I would read the documentation.

The pain goes on in the same Abbott and Costello fashion until I decided that I was done. Fortunately, a good friend retried the “Lets go out and shoot stuff!” routine from Monday. It worked tonight. I have to say, shooting is so relaxing … not just the bang, but the concentration and skill required as well. The bang makes it all the concentration and effort worth it though :-).

Popularity: 8% [?]

As Brak would say, “Yea Buddy!!! I’m going to Fish-Pockets!” without the bit about the Fish-Pacos, I have acquired a pool table. Thus, I feel the need to share the story behind it. More than likely, this will contain interesting content.
Continue reading ‘Pool Table-tastic-action!’ »

Popularity: 9% [?]

I remember at a previous NNO (not the one with the foreskin) that there was mention of our senior design late night coding sessions. As I remember, Joe and I were in the 8th floor lounge and had been writing code for about 6 hours straight. At some point after midnight, Joe found this comparison of airlines to OS-es and I found it so funny I couldn’t work for the rest of the night. This is shamelessly stolen from one of 10,000 other sites on the Internet … pick your favorite and cite that one. Windows NT 4 is where I lost my composure.
Continue reading ‘What if Operating Systems Were Airlines?’ »

Popularity: 10% [?]

Wow … that was just … wow. I feel the need to put this down in words because I don’t have a video of it. This as close as I can come to a detail description of the occurrences of NNO 3/9/2006. Be warned though, if you are uncomfortable by the use of the word ‘foreskin’ and me paraphrasing, you may want to skip this post. I will have to say though, I think this was the funnies NNO ever.
Continue reading ‘Nerds Gone Wild’ »

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It occurred to me today that the blogosphere is not only a really stupid word, but really stinking repetitive. I noticed this while I was on digg.com and I saw three stories with slightly different titles that linked to different stories through the same method … personal blogs.

It seems to be that the custom these days is to read something on a news site (e.g. BBC, Fox, Fark), select about five key points/arguments from the main article, post these five key points on your little blog on the Internet, and then write a few sentences that basically reword the statements that were previously made thus ensuring that there is no original content on said blog. Quite a waste of effort and time I would have to argue; however, taking it one step further, people attempt to increase traffic to their blog by submitting it to social content sites like digg.com or newsvine.com. I think I’ll give it the term “blinking” if someone hasn’t come up with one already.

Now before you get in a tizzy, just know that I’m perfectly fine with someone wanting to promote their little corner of the Internet. There is no shame in shameless self-promotion to unique and original content that brings to light new ideas, opinions, or information that may not be followed by the main stream media; however, I see plenty of shame in regurgitating the same information time after time only to change the font and the background.

Of course, I could be completely off base. Maybe being a recent graduate, I think that half of the stuff that people write their blogs like this could never fly with any professor as an acceptable document. It could be the fact that standard logic has been beating into me so much from school that I can’t see how anyone would think that repeating and linking to someone else’s information would be a good way to increase reoccurring traffic to their site. Sure it will get you X more hits because people will have to use your site as a jump off point to the real story, but how many of those people will really return to your if you offer them nothing more than a site scattered with the same links that are available in hundreds of thousands of sites out there that look exactly the same.

Give me something new … hell, give me something old … I don’t care, just make sure it’s your own and you didn’t five-finger special it off of someone else’s site and take the time to draw a well thought out response if are going to link to their site.

Definition: blink(v)
1. To link to other information from your blog or web-based journaling application without providing any information of sustenance.

Usage: I was looking at this news site, but all I could find were idoits blinking to the real articles.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I’m not generally prone to the blogging someone else’s blogged item that they blogged while someone was blogging about how they blogged something that someone actual did real work on; however, I will make an exception in this case because I want to remember where it was I found this cool tool. This is a tool for optimizing existing algorithms. Here’s the link to the digg.com story and here is the actual page.

Popularity: 7% [?]

As our HTG Limited finally seems to be gather some steam, I figured that I might as well start killing down some potential customers. I say killing because hunting implies failure. In order to network and find some people that are hoping to find people of our skill, I’ve joined biznik. Supposedly, it doesn’t suck according to the tag line. We’ll have to wait and see on that; however, I am relatively impressed with the interface thus far as well as the search capabilities. I do think that it is missing a regional search type of function though (chances are someone will implement it later on down the line). Even if it fails to gather any business, it might be worth it to see what other people out there are really looking for.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I think that there are really more than 5 senses that the human body has. Personally, I don’t know how many I have for sure, but I know it’s a number greater than 5. One of that has been going off a lot recently is the “You’re going to screw me” sense. I don’t know if anyone else has such a refined sense of it as me, but I think everyone has felt it at some point in time.

You know the feeling too. Sometimes you are talking with someone, sometimes all you have to do is look at them and you know that this person is not going to help add to your general happiness quota for the day. I have several really good examples and of course, I am going to share them with you.
Continue reading ‘Ah, You’re Going to Screw Me’ »

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