Well, as of the end of last month, I no longer live in New England. I'm still in the same time zone.

I went from one Commonwealth to another.

Note sure who from the old group is left here. I haven't posted in over a decade and I'm here with a question. :) If anyone is using OPNSense or PFSense, you might be able to weigh in. Story time... I started using OPNSense (based on PFSense) as my internet gateway at home in January of this year because I had a need for speed. My WRT54G with ddwrt wasn't up to the task of my new gigabit internet connection since it only has 100 Mb/s ports. I had an old PC lying around and an extra gigabit PCIe card, so I did what any Slashdotter worth his salt would do: I built a gateway. (Heheh, actually about as prefab as ddwrt).

I chose OPNSense over PFSense since PFSense wouldn't boot on that machine (an old 64-bit AMD CPU) no matter what I tried, and I tried a LOT. Things were fine until something in early September. One morning I woke up to no internet access. I checked a bunch of other things first because I had literally built a new DHCP/DNS/NTP server a day and a half earlier. Eventually I realized there really was no internet access and when I checked out the PC, it was off.

This happened one more time two days later, and with what appear to be missing syslog entries (I just don't know enough about BSD and OPNSense to know if that is OK or not), I started wondering if the box was compromised somehow. I doubted that since FreeBSD is supposed to be about as safe as you can get for a internet facing machine and I've NEVER had a Linux box get compromised out in the wild in the 25+ years I've been using it. As a result I'm really leaning towards the idea that this is a hardware bug or potentially failing hardware. The PC is at least ten years old. Given that PFSense wouldn't boot on it at all (it would lock up from the boot DVD once it attempted to load the kernel), it's likely there is something about my PC that just doesn't work well with FreeBSD.

Given that, since I still had a slight suspicion that someone might have been messing with the machine, I connected to it from another machine using a GNU screen multiplexer session so that if I got disconnected, I'd have a logged, searchable history even if the syslog got wiped. I was watching the syslog with 'clog'. It sat there for 13 days without shutting down and nary a new syslog entry in sight. I didn't check it daily and given that it had been up for over a week I stopped checking the screen session. Yesterday, I connected to the screen session to take a peek, and there was a disconnect message just after the syslog which still had no new entries in it. What's interesting to me is that this time it wasn't off, it was a reboot while I was at work. Since I'm working from home and use a different part of the network for work, I didn't notice the outage. Neither did my wife and kid since they were both not using the internet connection at 9:20 in the morning that day.

So I connected to see what the logs showed. This time the log picked up from where it was before the reboot, It just showed standard boot stuff starting at 9:20 AM, a redundant disk rebuild and that's it. It's been like that since last Tuesday. I've run the updates and audits on it, and there is only one vulnerability in an XML library that's been in FreeBSD since January and is not fixed yet.

I'm still leaning pretty hard on hardware failure or a CPU bug that didn't cause issues with booting the OPNSense installer DVD like PFSense, but those are both just guesses. I don't know if a normal syslog would show shutdown info on FreeBSD, but I assume it would. If that's true, then it's possible a hard crash would explain the missing shutdown info in the logs. Otherwise, I'm still in the dark.

As a side note, I've also confirmed that there were no power blips at any of these times. My Linux laptops showed no change to battery during the days these shutdowns and the reboot occurred. The only other item that I noticed that seemed odd was that after I powered on after the first shutdown, a few hours later there were some messages on the console from a service (can't remember the name) that slows down the restart of a process if it continually segfaults. This is supposed to discourage attackers. I think the process that was segfaulting repeatedly was flowd (for netflow).

So anyone here familiar with this and have any recommendations? Agree that this is likely a hardware issue since it should theoretically be harder to compromise a internet facing BSD box than a Linux box? Or have I been h4x0r3d by a 1337 d00d and should I kill this system with fire and get a new fanless PC to start over with?

Myself, I am fortunate enough to be able to work from home, so that is not a problem. I know several of my friends in Meat Space aren't quite as fortunate. :(

How are you all passing the time?

I started off 2018 by finally getting my Amateur Radio license. I went in with nothing and came out with General class.

I finished the year by going for Amateur Extra, and I passed. I was a little surprised, but it took a lot of work to learn what I needed to know for the exam.

What's that got to do with the title? Simple: The tests prove that I know a certain amount of a few topics. That's "the more you know". The rest of it is demonstrated by a common phrase in Radio: "Now, the real learning begins."

I'd like to get involved with emergency communication (look up "ARES" if you're curious) and try my hand at building antennas. I have a few in the queue and one in progress for the 2m band, so we'll see how it goes.

Take that however you wish.

I was given a Yaesu FT-450D as an early birthday/Christmas gift. (My dad and step mom can be cool that way, though I do admit that this was a bit much.)

That means I have to figure out a scheme for an antenna that works for my property, that I can get put into place with a minimum of hassle. I have just shy of a half acre, but it's the layout of the buldings, trees, and a buried (but filled-in) septic tank I have to deal with.

Last week I went to a local Amateur Radio club and took the Technician Class test. I passed it.

Then I took the General Class test. I passed that.

I didn't even try for Extra. Not yet.

I expected to pass Technician, but I was (pleasantly) surprised to pass the General.

I get my call sign later this week. :D

This one is Security+.

I bought the voucher last March and kept putting off taking the actual exam. I don't like exams as a general rule, and I like them less if I don't really know what to expect.

Resume candy for the next three years. Yay.

I finally gathered the nerve to try to boot up my Apple IIgs for the first time in about 12 years.

A few of the connectors on the system are corroded, but not horribly so. This is not really surprising, as it has spent a large part of the last 12 years in a musty cellar.

The only part missing right now is the keyboard itself. It got misplaced during a move, but I'm pretty sure where it is. (I've actually got its location narrowed down to two or three places.)

At any rate, I booted it up and it came up just fine. The OS is System 6.0.1 and boots off an internal hard drive I installed years ago.

The thing that impressed me the most? The system clock was actually about 40 minutes FAST. Other than that, it kept pretty good time, if you ask me.

I'm likely going to take some time tomorrow and find that keyboard. I wanna play with this again! :)

I was given a Kindle Fire 8HD for my birthday. It's a beautiful device. I love it.

That's the Good news.

The "bad news" is that it's supposed to come with Alexa, which I cannot get to work. At all.

The device is a Kindle Fire 8HD (7th Gen) running FireOS 5.4.0.0.

I've tried several things to get it to work, but it's just not going there.

I long-press the Home button and nothing happens. I've tried to go to Settings > Device Options, but there's no "Alexa" option to enable.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? It isn't exactly a show-stopper if Alexa never works, but if it's not going to work, I'm going to start looking for ways to remove Alexa-related software.

If it matters, I do not have a Spot or anything like it. This Kindle is it.

Suggestions would be appreciated.

My watch has bought the proverbial farm. Usually this means that the strap has broken in a way that makes it difficult (if not impossible) to repair. In this case, the strap was part of the body and it tore straight through.

Do not feel bad for my watch, as it has served me well for several years. Considering how things are made these days, I see this as a Good Thing. It is not unusual for me to replace my watch every three to five years.

At any rate, I'm on the market for a Smart Watch. I'm aiming for the US$150.00 price range. I understand the maxim of "you get what you pay for", so the el Cheapo $20 ones from China are out of the question. This being my first Smart Watch, I want to get a good idea what they are capable of doing versus what I'll actually use it for, so I don't want to drop $200 or more on it.

I'd like something that lets me change the face (analog or digital display), maybe weather updates and/or text notices are a plus.

If it matters, my phone is an Android.

Do any of you have any suggestions that I could consider?

I've been hopping Linux distros since I decided (for reasons of my own) against intentionally using systemd-based distros. I'm not interested in systemd flame wars, so don't bother here.

At any rate, I've come across SalixOS, and so far I think I like it. It's a direct Slackware derivative, which I find quite interesting because Slackware is the first distro I ever used.

Waaaaay back in the early-to-mid 1990s, my dad sent me a box of 3.5" floppies. On these floppies was Slackware Linux. I don't remember the version, but I think I have most of them kicking around still, so if I felt the need, I might dig them up and see if I can install enough to get a version number from it. What I do remember is that it had kernel version 0.99pl10 on it.

Since my introduction to Linux on Slackware, I've used Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS (professionally and personally), Debian/Devuan, Arch, and Aurora (a Red Hat derivative for use on the Sun SPARC platform), in no particular order.

It's interesting, having to find all the dependencies again and having to re-compile kernels to get something newer than what comes in the box.

I'm writing this here, largely because I don't trust Facebook to not remove the post when someone gets all butt-hurt about the subject matter.

If you're going to read this, I encourage you to read through the whole thing before you decide to trigger off of one or two phrases I choose to use.

That said...

I have one simple reason why people (in the US) should vote for Donald Trump: he's a white man.

I don't mean that in the raaaacist sense. Consider this:

• The President of the United States can be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors". The details are pretty-much up to the House of Representatives to decide what constitutes "misdemeanor". This could be evidenced as recently as December 19, 1998, when Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives.
• If Hillary were elected, nobody in Washington would even dream of attempting to impeach her. Who wants to go on record as being the one to initiate impeachment proceedings against the first woman president? Seriously, that's the same mindset that has protected Obama-- There have been lots of people trying to get the House to consider impeachment proceedings against him for any of several dozen actions he's responsible for, but nobody wants to have that hanging over their head in an election year, especially if the impeachment failed to pass. A win for Hillary would give her permission to do whatever the heck she pleased, with absolutely no concern for repercussions. It has worked for Obama, it will work for her.
• If Trump were president, there is not a soul in Washington that would not hesitate to attempt to impeach him if he messed-up. People in Washington hate him so much, I'd be surprised if he finished his first term (remember that first point?). Even if he did finish it, the likelihood of him performing well enough to justify a second term is pretty slim at this stage of the game.

In short: Nobody wants to take the blame for attempting to impeach the first $CHARACTERISTIC president. Trump has no characteristic that would possibly protect him if he screwed things up: he cannot play a race card or a sexism card. He's got nothin'.

He's got everything to lose by getting impeached and everything to gain by doing the Right Things.

First thing: I see that articles and Journals on /. now have icons to facilitate sharing said articles on other sites. How would one request adding others, like Voat?

Second thing: I got myself a new computer, an Alienware Alpha. The system I have has the i7 processor. It's been in my possession a couple days and I have to say that so far, I am quite happy with it. It's not a top-of-the-line system, but for the price point (less than $700, and I had a discount on top of that), it appears to be worth every penny. The only thing I'm not thrilled about is that it came with Win10, but there's not much one can do about that these days.

So, Dice.com. Why do you give me a check box to disable ads if YOU ARE GOING TO DISPLAY ADS ANYWAYS?

Well, it looks like I'll be teaching one of my kids how to program.

To an extent, he's already familiar with some programming, as he's figured out how to program a TI calculator (not sure of the model, but it's in the 80s). Whether he understands the instructions he gives his calculator or not, I don't know. He'll know far more when I'm done. :)

I've decided to go with Python instead of any of several other languages available. One thing that I thought was important is that the base installation (in Linux and in Windows) has a module called "turtle". If you're old enough to remember learning Terrapin Logo or Karel (by way of Apple Pascal), then the idea behind turtle should not be foreign to you.

The idea is that you have a "turtle", a cursor that represents where all the action is going to happen. You give it instructions and depending on whether the pen is "up" or "down", it will draw as it goes. Tell it to move left, right, forward, or backward, and off it goes.

turtle is cool because its programs are really Python, whether the student realizes it or not. New functions (methods) can be created. What is drawn by the program is displayed with no hassle.

In all, it's pretty cool. I'm actually looking forward to playing around with it as I teach it to my son. Maybe one or both of the other two will become interested as well? Only one way to find out. :D