Soopy-kun and I are prodigal degraders of network resources:
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posted by weather boy @ 12:13 AM
0 comments
I will be less than accessible the next few days as I decide how to reformat my system. I finally finished backing up my system on DVD (Nero to the rescue!), and my hard drive is now wiped clean, so it'll be knoppix for at least a few days I think.
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posted by weather boy @ 1:40 PM
1 comments
The Cornell Legal Information Institute runs a web service with, among other things, law information and court opinions.
It also runs a website begging to be hacked, as when you cause one of its forms to have its guts fall out, it spills some interesting guts:
If you view the full picture, you happen to notice that it shows the EXACT perl code being executed. Most of the time, when a process fails, it will fail at the point of vulnerability, so that kind of thing gives the hacker exactly what they want.
Their raw error is even more helpful. It's like they attached an "ls" of their directory free of charge.
METAR KRDU 110351Z 18004KT 10SM FEW100 BKN150 BKN200 11/M02 A3007 RMK SLP182Labels: computing
posted by weather boy @ 12:27 AM
2 comments
This weekend I disabled roughly half of XP so I could do some serious CPU usage, someone decided to irritate me, and so every time IE starts up, it changes HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Favorites to point to c:\Windows\Favorites instead of c:\Documents and Settings\[my account]\Favorites . Needless to say this is quite annoying!
METAR KRDU 031151Z 18005KT 3SM FG SCT065 BKN200 15/14 A2991 RMK SLP126 10170 20150 60034Labels: computing
posted by weather boy @ 8:16 AM
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Symantec claims the MD5 checksum of the latest rapid release is 05F3B74E892B9691E56FA273AC89829E; the only trouble is that the file hashes to 6F7D1F822B5166140C58BA24D8E8224D. Why me?
METAR KRDU 012051Z 27013KT 10SM SCT075 BKN200 27/10 A2987 RMK SLP114Labels: computing
posted by weather boy @ 4:33 PM
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To escalate the dispute between administrative and Student Government forces, presumably someone took the next step and escalated the debate to the holiest of media--Sysnews! This post showed up on Sysnews Sunday night:
vote.ncsu.edu website shut down
Security - Service - OutageThe student government elections website vote.ncsu.edu was shut down just after 11pm on Sunday 3/26 due to an improper ballot submitted by the Elections Commission.
Information on when the Spring elections will be rescheduled will be posted once it is available.
Last Update: 2006-03-26 23:02:17
By: jsw
vote.ncsu.edu is currently redirected to said sysnews post. I suspect this is because the current "final" ballot contains references to lifelong education senators and changes to the constitution allowing prorated fee payers the ability to run for student senate.
However, I think it is because everybody has been dissing ITD and Sysnews, and this is just their way of getting a piece of the action. So the only way to solve the impasse is for everyone to vote the ITD ticket: Sam Averitt and Mladen Vouk!
METAR KRDU 270451Z 27002KT 10SM CLR 04/M03 A3022 RMK SLP236Labels: computing
posted by weather boy @ 11:56 PM
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The FrSIRT has raised their threat level (see sidebar) on the basis of two vulnerabilities: a sendmail vulnerability as well as an unpatched Microsoft Internet Explorer vulnerability. Both vulnerabilities would allow a remote user to take root control of the system, and both have public exploits. I'm not really sure which one is more important--sendmail can be patched, but everyone and his mother uses it, so there are bound to be some unpatched systems. On the flip side, the IE vulnerability does not have a patch yet, and most people aren't going to think to disable ActiveX.
METAR KRDU 250351Z 31502KT 10SM BKN085 BKN150 05/M01 A2997 RMK SLP152Labels: computing
posted by weather boy @ 11:03 PM
0 comments
Just finished the Topcoder Open online qualifying round. I actually managed to submit both problems, although I am not very sure that I got the 750 one right (probably didn't). But if holds up through the system testing (probably tomorrow around 1pm), I should have a high enough score to make it to Saturday's first online round.
Of course, I know exactly what will happen if I make it to Saturday--I'll get smashed. But hey. You have to give yourself the opportunity when it comes.
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posted by weather boy @ 7:29 PM
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This weekend, Soopy-kun found out that he was not in ENG 221-003 as he thought he was; he was actually in ENG 221-002. All three sections of ENG 221 had been closed hard for several weeks, and classes start next Wednesday. But this evening, I spotted an open seat when I was randomly using the Open Section Inquiry tool as I have for the past day or so, saw the open seat, told him, and he snagged it.
I just love NCSU's live system, don't you?
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posted by weather boy @ 11:18 PM
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Swimming:
On the 450yard swim from Tuesday, I did it in 6:43, beating the nearest swimmer by about 40 seconds. I think I lapped everyone at least once.
Today in the 1650: 27:33, lapping everyone by about 4 times, and beating the nearest swimmer by about 2.5 minutes.
And as an added bonus, I won the auction on the domain name I wanted ($61). So I get a year of Network Solutions.
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Labels: actual swimming, computing, swimming
posted by weather boy @ 12:16 AM
0 comments
So I find out that my name's domain name is potentially available. That type of opportunity doesn't show up very often, so I placed a hold on it. If I get it, it's going to cost me $60 for the hold, and then the yearly fee. I guess I can have it for a hundred years for $1000, but that's just kind of outside of my price range right now....
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Labels: computing
posted by weather boy @ 8:30 PM
0 comments
We started in at about 66, and now it's gotten down to 59.
Break even point: 55.
Guaranteed point increase point: 50.
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posted by weather boy @ 5:12 PM
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Today we heard the story of a code tester:
This guy, who was a tester, totaly despised the software engineers (he also happened to be a big guy, so he could probably shout down any of the pesky engineers). Not to mention the fact that he probably got paid a third of what they got paid, but the software engineers thought they were above testing (and of course hated it).
So each Monday, he'd get some donuts and coffee and invite the managers and software engineers to his office. He would then proceed to show off the week's bugs.
Now of course being confronted with bugs in your pristeen code is unbalancing enough, but having the managers see them at the same time is even worse. So this tester compiled what the six most frequent responses for a software engineer to see a bug in his code:
6. The customer doesn't need that.
5. I fixed that a month ago.
4. It's working as designed.
3. I'll explain it in the Readme file.
2. It works fine in my office.
1. SH*T.
Another great recollection from Dana Lasher....
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posted by weather boy @ 5:20 PM
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Esrap is finally finished. Thank goodness.
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posted by weather boy @ 2:21 AM
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Problem: Find the integer n for which this is true.
8n log2n < 4n2
The answer is 5, which is what I deduced (the two terms equal each other when n=2 and n=4), but it was extremely fun trying to figure out if I was right.
Unfortunately, I missed the related problem:
Find the given c and n for which 4n2 is in Ω(8n log2n).
I set c=1, and I had thought the answer would be the same as above. Wrong! If c=1, n=4, since 4n2 ≤ c*8n log2n for Ω.
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posted by weather boy @ 12:17 PM
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...If the University thinks you aren't enrolled in any classes. But the Wolfware Lookup tool thinks I'm not:
Unity ID: [you don't need to know that]
Full Name: [you really don't need to know that]
Enrolled in: Not enrolled in any courses
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posted by weather boy @ 7:48 AM
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