Finally free of GoDaddy!

Posted on January 9, 2012 by dword

It took like a week and a half but I finally managed to transfer this domain off GoDaddy and I have zero intentions of ever going back to those retards.  Considering it takes no time at all to setup a new domain the fact that it took over a week to transfer off of them says they are either incompetent or just outright assholes who intentionally inhibit the transfer process in hopes that people will just give up and stick with them.

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Obama signs the NDAA!

Posted on December 31, 2011 by dword

From CNN:

“I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists,” he said of the $662 billion legislation

So why the fuck did you sign it if you have “serious reservations” about it?  Last I heard it was his job not to sign such bills but to veto them and force congress to either come up with the votes to bypass him or submit a bill that he would sign.  This honestly is one of the final nails in the coffin of freedom here in the US since it makes possible the indefinite detention of US citizens.  Fuck everything about this piece of legislation and every worthless sack of shit who voted in favor of it, may your legs grow together!

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Fresh SCADA hacks

Posted on November 20, 2011 by dword

http://pastebin.com/Wx90LLum / http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/hacker-takes-aim-homeland-posts-proof-hacking

Jesus H Christ on a pogo-stick, why are these things still being left attached to the damn internet?  People have been ragging on the utility industry to get their shit in gear and lock down their SCADA equipment for years now, especially Bruce Schneier.  I can’t even fathom how this has been left alone for so long and nobody has managed to take out the power and water to a major city like say Chicago.  I just hope those who do tread upon the various SCADA systems out there continue to be like pr0f and not some anti-social miscreant who thinks its a great idea to plunge a city into darkness for shits and giggles; at least until we finally realize this is a very real threat and address its accordingly.

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OWS Finally being cleared out!

Posted on November 15, 2011 by dword

According to the NY Times the police there have finally had enough of the louts laying around in Zuccotti Park and have moved in to clear the encampment from the park this morning.  Funny that for all the supposed support they had and how hardcore and devoted they all are only maybe 100 put up a fight when the police moved in to clear things out, and a large portion of those got arrested for their troubles.  Maybe by the time it gets properly cold outside the movement will have finally vanished and quit wasting everyone time.

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A silent room full of people

Posted on November 2, 2011 by dword

That’s what the office is this morning, and its of note because even though few people are actually talking a good portion of us are conversing over the in-house IM system.  Its kind of strange to look around at a room with about 15 to 20 people in it and not hear anything but the sounds of clicking on keyboards.  To compound the humor of this situation (or at least the humor I find in it) is some of these people are sitting in close proximity to each other but rather than talk they type.  I can’t help but wonder if this is the direction all offices will go eventually; morphing from buzzing productivity to stately silence except for the clicking of keyboards and mice and the quiet hum of computers processing information.

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Something missing from Nerdcore?

Posted on October 24, 2011 by dword

So I was driving home the other day listening to a selection of nerdcore songs including Nursehella, Ytcracker, Ultraklystron and a few others when something struck me, most of the computer related topics covered tend to be either general use such as downloading things, posting to blogs, posting items on craigslist and ebay, etc or the nefarious side of things such as piracy, spam and hacking.  The white and gray hat side of things is almost never represented in the genre, and I can’t help but feel that the scene is a little lacking because of this.  Surely there must be some NetSec folks out there with a little skill at rhyming that could contribute something, even if only a hand full of tracks about smacking down DDoS attacks, dismantling botnets and interrupting hacks in progress.

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Overboard Control

Posted on October 7, 2011 by dword

I’ve been sitting in training for the past three days now learning a new host of tools for a client that we are taking on at work and it comes time to actually install the software to my work computer. Some of the software is simply a module to something already installed, however a handful of the tools are brand new to me and need to be installed.  To get the ball rolling I hit up the help desk and landed in line at position 6.

Forty-five minutes later I finally got a human being on the line (who happened to be somewhere in India I think) and got to explaining the problem to them.  Another 15 minutes later and they have told me nothing and done less; according to the second person I got on chat (they had to transfer me to a US tech) I was informed that there was “a new process” for requesting admin access to my system.

The following day I decided to attempt to contact the Help Desk people again, this time I checked out the main site a little more closely and saw a link where I could request admin access to the computer.  Upon inspection of the request page I was  informed that this request had to be approved by a VP, then after that it was evaluated by the IT department for security concerns at which time they could still deny the request.

Now comes the part where I rage about this, because its so absurd that I have to go through a VP and the IT department (in that order) to get a few pieces of software installed on my computer to support an existing client.  I cannot fathom why the VP would be consulted before the IT department, it seems so backwards that I would expect it from the Federal Government and not a business.  It really is a shame that I can’t use this as an excuse if I don’t get my software installed in preparation for the next phase of taking on this client, because its not like the process is friendly or efficient if a VP who probably has a pile of stuff on their plate has to approve my request (which they probably don’t even understand) and then pass it to the IT department ( who takes a month to get anything accomplished) before I can actually get the password so I can install the software and start ghosting around in it to get better accustomed to it.

If your organization is stupid enough to do this please for the love of god fire the moron who was responsible for this as they are probably a power-hungry douche bag who wants to feel like some sort of demi-god as opposed to an effective manager or VP or whatever their bullshit title is.  Nobody but the jackholes who create this kind of police benefit from it and I can assure you that your employees don’t appreciate being jerked around.

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Occupy Lawlstreet!

Posted on October 4, 2011 by dword

This clown is rolling around the Occupy Wallstreet protests carrying his G-series Asus laptop which probably cost him between 1100 and 2000$ if the prices I checked out are correct, not to mention he has fairly expensive looking HD webcam on top, yet hes going to piss and moan about not having money or a job or whatever the hell it is they are going on about.  Its no wonder nobody takes these people seriously when they do this kind of shit.

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Some days…

Posted on September 26, 2011 by dword

Today has been one of those days (or rather nights) that I just don’t feel like doing much of anything and especially don’t feel like doing work.  I don’t know if its the night shift getting to me, my piss poor eating habits sending my body chemistry into a tail spin or just the usual blah of the changing seasons kicking in but I can’t see the point in much of anything right now.  These kinds of funks tend to leave me questioning my profession and career path, looking for a reason to just drop it all and go do something simple instead where I don’t have to think or use my brain for anything more than regulation of bodily functions

Further introspection on my choice of career makes me wonder why I’m really here in the first place, its not like I create anything useful or provide a service to people.  All I create is more data (and not all of it useful) and the service I provide by showing up to work is aimed at businesses more than people.  Colleagues are progressing onward or expanding into new directions yet my position at the new company is not that different from my old position and it all starts to feel like the same old song and dance.  Friends are developing lives and generally growing as people yet I’m still the same person I was five or even ten years ago just with more disposable income.

Money is another thing I find myself thinking about a lot recently, and how much I make in relation to the work I do in order to earn that money.  For all intents and purposes I am a glorified ticket monkey; I process tickets and direct them to the necessary groups for investigation and resolution but I don’t actually do anything technical other than wrangle the various ticketing systems into some semblance of order; yet I get paid twice what I did at my previous employer for quite literally half the quantifiable work.  I was having a conversation with someone the other day who said that if they made 200 to 300 dollars a week that they would be doing damn good.  I crunched a few numbers in my head and realized that I make more than that in a single night and I didn’t do even half the work that the other person did.  This of course lead me to wondering how its even right that I make so much for doing so little and more importantly how much is enough as far as money is concerned.

I would like to be able to tell myself that this job is just temporary and will be a stepping stone to either building the retreat I’ve always wanted or a jumping point to higher echelons of Information Technology but I honestly don’t know what this job is to me right now.  It would be nice if I could feel immersed in my work and have that sense of satisfaction when I leave work in the morning but I just don’t have that right now.

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New Project Time

Posted on September 13, 2011 by dword

So I finally decided to start a complete re-write of the code that drives The Bushwick Dream from scratch.  Not a single piece of existing code is going into the new site in hopes of cutting down on some of the fat that its developed over the course of two years.  Upon looking through the code I’ve realized that there were whole classes floating around for managing podcasts, source code and various other things that were used when I originally started Pure Defect.  A quick check shows that the site has grown to a whopping 7,063 lines of code over the course of its lifespan, and some of that definitely needs to go.

The re-write also lets me address issues with the site that have been long-standing but would take far too much effort to fix in the current code without potentially breaking everything else in the process, such as the outdated and archaic template engine that accounts for roughly 1400 lines of code across two different files.  The WYSIWYG used for editing content is also a kludged together mess that seems to break just about everything it touches unless handled with kid gloves, with the re-write its going away in favor of a much more unified system with a proper media management component.

Last and hardly least are the new features like modular plugins allowing for new features to be integrated into the site without breaking existing features.  Currently two monolithic files do about 80% of the work for the site, but with the new design everything will be broken out into separate files based on the role of the code allowing for a much cleaner back end when I have to make changes.  This approach also means I won’t have to rip my hair out of my head when a certain someone asks for a new and exciting feature because it will be a matter of dropping the plugin file into a folder, adding a few quick tweaks to the template and then going back to watching Netflix or staring into the abyss that is reddit.

Its probably going to be a long process to do properly, but in the end not only will this make my life much easier from an administration standpoint but it will also allow me to use the code base in the future to deploy other sites much faster and improve my coding chops by forcing myself to learn new methods and styles.

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