I'd like to have one of my staff trained in Nagios. Maybe some other managers would like to send an engineer to a class my firm hosts in New York City. This way, we'll split the cost of the instructor and instructor travel among several attendees.

I wonder what other people do when they are added (or removed from) "friend" or "foe" lists.

Mostly lurking on Slashdot, I haven't waded deeply enough into a hot topic to get involved in a flame war. I haven't made any waves that put me on friend or foe lists.

My "friend" list is too long for me right now. I'd like to cull the list to get to a manageable number of slashdotters whom I'll actually read. What happens to the slashdotters I remove? Will they be offended? Will they be curious? Does it happen frequently enough that they won't care or notice?

I wish I could track the reason I added the slashdotter in the first place. A comment (or a link to their comment, more likely) about why they made the list would help me categorize the list. I could then track down their comments when it was relevant to the news.

Just musing.

SANS Internet Storm Center published a list of approximately 600 compromised sites.

I didn't recognize any of the sites, but I suppose IT managers could load the list into their web filtering software and protect the users from inadvertently browsing (or being cross-linked) into one of these sites.

I received this letter via e-mail yesterday:

Good Afternoon,
Please read email in its entirety:
As of today, January 29th, 2007, Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 has been released on all Dimension and Inspiron models! We will no longer offer Windows XP (Home or Professional) as an option on neither the Dimension nor Inspiron lines. With regard to the Optiplex, Latitude, and Precision Workstations, Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 will be released onto those models February 7th, 2007. However, we will still continue to offer Windows XP (Home and Professional) as an option on all Optiplex, Latitude, and Precision systems for the next 12 months.
Thanks!
Sara

In other words, in 9 days from the receipt of the letter, Dimension and Inspiron computers will be shipped with Vista, ONLY.

I feel this is short notice.

Fortunately, a) we just completed our purchasing for most desktops and laptops until November, and b) we generally purchase Latitude laptops. I do not expect my company to be affected. However, I'm sure our industry colleagues will be surprised by this when they go to purchase machines next week.

I want to be some girl band's groupy. That would rock! Any girl bands out there that want a groupy?

So I'm holding a miniature Magic 8 Ball, and I ask it, "Should I rely on chance?", in front of all my friends, and it replies, "Can't tell."

People shouldn't get overly upset if they feel like they're being censored. Reading Slashdot for objectivity and journalistic integrity is about as dumb as watching Fox News for the same reasons.

Do health insurance companies sponsor research for cures to diseases and illnesses? I would imagine it would be in their best commercial interest to do so, but I have no idea. Of course, this is something so common sense that I doubt it happens.

I thought about this question when I thought about the accusation that drug companies specifically do not sponsor such research since they make money off of people buying their drug treatments at semi-regular intervals, and profits from a cure would be temporary and sporadic. I don't know whether this accusation is pure conspiratorial myth or completely true or somewhere in between, but I have heard it before.

I don't know the answers to any of these questions. Maybe both industries do research into various cures. I can see the reason behind not wanting to find a cure and keeping people on treatments perpetually. Any such research would be for purely humanitarian reasons, which, I guess, would be a good commercial reason as well, or at least the guise of there being research would be a good commercial reason.

What's "rediculous?" I've heard of "ridiculous", but not of "rediculous." Is it something is so ridiculous that it should be red or something so ridiculously red that it becomes "rediculous?"

I'm beginning to notice a general trend about movies lately, at least within my close circle of relationships (friends, relatives, etc.) Many of the males within this circle, inclusive of myself as well, have a pretty good idea of many of the plots of so-called "chick-flicks", and I am often able to predict the entirety of the plots within them. Let's turn the coin over and I can say that many of the women within my circle of relationships have a similarly uncanny ability to predict the entirety of the plots of action, horror, and other such largely male-targeted movies. Such occurrences are are not simply limited to movies either. I have noticed as such with similar mediums.

Am I alone in this oddity of such a situation?

I got an interesting email to this journal entry. I've posted my response below, along with the email.

On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 10:47:25AM -0400, <name_protected_but_encourages_author_to_respond_here> wrote:
> >>No war is justifiable, nor will there ever be a justifiable war, not even
> WWII. Was WWII necessary? Yes, it was to protect the lives of innocent
> people. Justice would have been convincing the Nazis that what they were
> doing was wrong, and making them stop without force, but protecting the
> lives of innocent is a more important issue that can necessitate force.
>
> Do you know your history lesson on the root causes of WWI and WWII?
>
> Not a chance in hell anyone could have convinced the Germans (note, not
> Nazis...Germans) that their "exapansion" policy was wrong, in their eyes, it
> was extremely justified.
>
> Bad japanimation aside, try not to mix your ideals. Concentrate instead, on
> backing up your opinions. "Justifying" a war is tricky, but I'm certain
> there are several hundred thousand Brits who would disagree with you on
> whether WWII was "justified" or not.
>
> Something to think about.

I'd rather debate you on my /. journal than over email. If you repost
this there, I'll gladly respond, but...

What makes something justifiable, doesn't necessarily make it moral.
The moral actions that were taken for WWI and WWII were the necessary
actions that were taken. Part of the reason I wrote that journal was
in response to many things, much of which I will not mention, but I
will say that too often, people try to do the "justifiable" actions,
when what they really do is dismiss a person and any possibility for
that person to become better. That's exactly what happens in the
justice system here in the US. People get locked up, and the key is
"thrown" (metaphorically, not literally) away. There are very few
attempts at rehabilitation or helping them to find job skills that
would keep them out of prison when/if they get out. I'd rather have
tax payer money spent on something that may have a small success rate
than just locking them up and hoping they get better.

What the hell is "vauge"? Is it some new French-inherited English term? Is that how all the "young-uns" speak these days?

All dem yoots be speakin' all dat fangle'y new lingo dese days.

Dean lost Wisconsin, which saddens me, but does not surprise me. I had invested so much time and energy into trying to get students at my campus to vote. There seems to be such a blasé attitude around here towards politics, but I blame part of that on campus policies, which were originally intended for solicitors and evangelizers, but people have been using it to depress any sort of political campaigning as well. It seems to be such a shame from my perspective. Noting that, I hear students complain about tuition hikes, unfavorable policies placed upon college students, etc. and they all act as though they are things that just happen to them, outside of their control. If they are not willing to participate within the politics of this nation, then they should not be surprised with what happens to them. Some people expressed the notion that they did not vote because they had not gathered enough information to make an informed decision, which is something of which I understand, but I still place blame upon them since it is simply an extension of the blasé attitude that I had mentioned earlier.

However, going back to Dean, I cannot figure how people can just seemingly ignore what he had done in Vermont. He balanced the budget there (in fact, he turned a $60M deficit into a $100M surplus), brought in jobs, got almost everybody health care coverage, particularly those under 18 (~96%, with an additional 3% that are eligible). Not only that, he's not trying to promise everything plus the stars. His promises are realistic goals that can actually be met.

About that last point, one should take into consideration that he is a medical doctor. That means he is a scientist. Scientists must often make decisions based upon preponderance of evidence. A preponderance of evidence allows for objectivity when making a decision. That is, however, somewhat of a weak, and fallacious argument. It is, nonetheless, something to consider, although a decision about political candidacy should not be made upon such a characteristic.

Some people do not like that he was born into a rich family, however, that is as fallacious as my point about him being a medical doctor.

Overall, this is simply my own rant. I needed to write about it somewhere, and I decided to write it here.

Dean may not become the Democratic nominee, but the first link that I provided gave me some hope that something will come out of Dean's historical campaign anyway, and I sure as heck hope so. I want something for all my time and effort here on campus. Maybe he will become the running-mate to who ever wins the nomination. Even if he does not get that, I hope that maybe some type of political action committee will be formed with all the funds. I voted for him, not because I agreed with everything he stood for, but because I felt he could do the best for our country out of all the people running for the presidency. Perhaps, by some miracle, things will turn around in the next few elections. I have heard that Dean's campaign is very large in New York (as was related to me by some of his campaign managers that came here to Oshkosh).

Interesting links:
A very interesting post about Dean's positions on various issues
Selling Dean Short
How not to argue

What the hell is "whinging?" I'm seeing people use that word here more and more often. From whence the eff did it come? I understand that it is to mean "whining," but poor spelling is just a sign of a thoughtless troll.

People also need to learn the proper utilization of "there," "they're," and "their." It is not of much difficulty. If something or some group is not possessing some other entity/object and replacing it with "they are" does not make sense, then "there" must be used.

The "dict" command is available and installed on many *nix systems, and yet it seems underutilized.

For a site that prides itself upon its knowledge, and extols the virtues of *nix systems, I find myself boggled that such erroneousness is so prevalent.

I could write a composition detailing all the spelling and grammar errors that would be of equitable length to that of a modern novel.

I apologize for the rant, but the grammar and spelling here is getting worse everyday, which is both frustrating and demoralizing.

I've been spending too much time writing stupid little scripts (and other things that I'm too lazy to link to) over the last few days. I need to get some real work done. I need to earn some money. Money, yes, I remember money. I remember being able to get stuff with it. These days, I just make the lame excuse that I'm a poor college student, ok, so that's not really an excuse, but I'm too lazy to have my employer come around and drop off the checks he owes me. Wait, that doesn't seem right. Oh, that's right, I remember now, I get paid crap.

I should ask Elizabeth out. I know that everyone is going to think she's rather odd, but I don't really care.
</streamofconscience>