Just saw this - as the reporter says, the implications here are pretty scary.

SecurityFocus HOME Columnists: The Subpoenas are Coming!: "Citing a provision of the Patriot Act, the FBI is sending letters to journalists telling them to secretly prepare to turn over their notes, e-mails and sources to the bureau. Should we throw out the First Amendment to nail a hacker? "
posted by MikeM at 10:39 AM    

 
Had a good weekend - saw several movies. We seem to be going to movies far more often in the last few months than in the prior year! I guess there are more good ones out.

Saturday we saw Rundown - excellent. Good acting, good script, and Christopher Walken is, as always, creepy.

Sunday we saw Underworld - also good, if you have ever read or played any of the Vampire: The Masquerade books or games, the movie is similiar. Not as much emphasis on the varied Clans, just families. Great look about this movie, and the transformation scenes are very well done.

Then Sunday night we rented Gangs of New York. Waste of 3 hours. I'm sorry, but I didn't like the movie. Nominated for awards, eh? Who pays those nominators? if you want to see a lot of racist & violent criminals fighting each other for three hours, see it. There were no good guys in this movie, everyone was petty, violent, etc - no tenderness, no redemption.
posted by MikeM at 7:25 AM    

 
As it turns out, the earthquake in Japan only caused a few hundred injuries, no major damage. Apparently even though it was VERY powerful, at a final 8.3, it was over 50 miles out to sea and a few miles under the seafloor. The Tsunamis were all under 10' or so and other than some minor flooding there were no problems.

Looks like they dodged that one. The one that leveled Kobe was only a 7.6, as I recall, but it hit directly under the city.

In other news, the new movie trailer for Matrix: Revolutions is out today!
posted by MikeM at 12:27 AM    

 
The NEIC has just reported a Magnitude 8 Earthquake in Honshu/Hokkaido, Japan. Tsunami Warnings are going out now.
posted by MikeM at 4:51 PM    

 
Last night the power went out several times, but only for 1-2 seconds each time. Just long enough to whack all the clocks again. I won a game of Trivial Pursuit against Patty and lost a follow-up game of rummy 500. Big surprise there, I usually get stomped at rummy - she's a card shark!

It rained all night and most of yesterday after 6pm, so the roads are starting to flood and such - still no water in the sunken den! *Crossing fingers and knocking on wood* Apparently my drain is working! Of course, the smaller ditch I dug to keep water and mud off of the deck failed miserably - the deck has a nice coating of mud after last nights rain. I don't know what to do there. Maybe dig it deeper so the water can get under the deck? Might have to do that. Maybe get some cement and make it a more permanent job.
posted by MikeM at 8:26 AM    

 
Well, after 45 hours of being in the dark, the power came back on at around 9:15 PM yesterday. We lost most of the stuff in the freezer and fridge, except what we took to a friend's house yesterday morning. The fridge needed cleaning out anyway, and the freezer was full of those things you buy at Sam's Club that look fantastic but you never actually eat. We go shopping tomorrow, I think.

Strangely enough, we have internet but no cable service. I have no clue why. At least with power comes the AC - it got over 80 indoors yesterday, and opening the windows did no good. We went to the mall to cool off for a few hours. Upstairs was worse - we were preparing to sleep downstairs when the power came back on. WOO!

At work we had no major problems, and the minor ones were quickly taken care of. One of the remote servers was apparently unplugged for some reason Thursday morning, we still don't know why. No biggie, it isn't a primary server, and the purpose it serves is kinda optional. Maybe we can fold it's purpose into another server to consolidate boxes.
posted by MikeM at 11:10 AM    

 
Well, we dodged the bullet this time! Hurricane Isabel came ashore farther away, moved twice as fast, and degraded far quicker than the forecasts. I feel bad for the people in N.C. and VA that got whacked, but all we got were some impressive sustained winds of 40+ and about 3" of rain. While that was enough to flood the patio, the new ditch/drain pipe that I installed a few months ago did its work and kept the floor dry inside, and I think it even helped keep the water level fairly low in the floor vents. I can hear water in there, but I can't see it or reach it with a shop-vac, so it must be a fairly small amount in the lowest parts of the system.

We suffered no damage other than quite a mess to clean up - the front and back yards are strewn with leaves and pine needles, as well as small branches and such. The pool caught its share as well, needs a good skimming and vaccuming before we close it down for the year.

Last night we watched the rest of the 3rd season of Buffy - the showdown fight with the Mayor, etc. Then we watched the weather channel and local news until the lights started flickering a lot, so we went to bed and read until 12:35, when the power went out. I was constantly getting up to check things as the wind and rain continued, and finally things settled down around 2, when I got to sleep.

Hopefully the power will come back on soon - or we will be making all sorts of frozen items on the BBQ grill. Good thing we stocked up on aluminum foil!
posted by MikeM at 2:26 PM    

 
Anyone out there ever used BackupPC? It supposedly is a very good package for backing up linux/windows boxes to a target hard drive on the network. This is exactly what we need to look into doing, so I'll be checking it out over the next few weeks, unless I hear Bad Things about it.
posted by MikeM at 7:55 AM    

 
When I got home yesterday we moved everything in the backyard over to a fence, tied or strapped stuff to the fence, and/or weighted it down with other stuff. I think everything should be fine. We had 60+ mph winds during a storm about 3 weeks ago, with 80mph gusts reported in some places, and we didn't have any major problems other than that large tree branch... Here's hoping that the rest of that tree is in good enough shape to withstand this coming storm.

Yesterday was spent updating a large number of 'reserve' computers in preparation for the emergency center's activation - we may not need them, but its better to have them stacked in the corner ready for use than to be frantically reconfiguring and updating when they are needed immediately.
posted by MikeM at 7:53 AM    

 
Here is a great idea on how to deal with SCO and their legal circus : A Measured Response to the SCO Problem
posted by MikeM at 10:06 AM    

 
Isabel is still on the way, they expect a landfall sometime late Wed/early Thurs, with the 'eye' reaching us Thursday night, perhaps. She has dropped to a Cat4, and still dropping, so perhaps we will just get a normally bad storm out of it. Of course, she could pick up speed and power again, hard to tell at this point.

Last night I inventoried the batteries and flashlights. We have 7 or 8 flashlights, and lots of c, aa and aaa batteries. Problem is that all the flashlights take D, and we have none. *sigh* After checking four stores, I hit the motherlode and bought five 4-packs of D, a lantern cell, and two 8-packs of C, as well as a small, portable radio that uses C. Now we are in good shape. Batteries are flying off the shelves though, especially D cells! We have lots of water and other drinks, like juices, etc stockpiled, and canned food, etc. I told Patty that if we lose power for a few days we will have to use the BBQ grill to cook with - should be interesting. Have to cook all the food in the freezer too! Of course, I'm still hoping we just get a little wind and rain, and it all blows over with no damage.
posted by MikeM at 7:36 AM    

 
Nice day today - not hot, not cold. Went to see 'Once Upon A Time In Mexico' - my advice? No kids. Definitely not for kids. A lady just behind us had her kids there, and there were some rather harsh scenes that were more reminiscent of 'Hellraiser' than an action/adventure movie.

Everyone betrays everyone, most of them die. Quick summary, that, but accurate. Good acting, but I wish we had waited for the DVD.

Other than that, we watched 'The Core' Sunday as well, and it is a rocking action story with some great effects. Really bad science, but great effects. A good ride as long as you don't take the science and physics as gospel.

We are also watching Isabel as she gets closer - most forecast tracks show a good chance of her coming right through here, and since shes a category 5 right now, that is not good.
posted by MikeM at 11:27 PM    

 
Got to watch another episode of Buffy last night - The one where Buffy can read minds and 'overhears' someone thinking about killing everyone in the school. Good episode, ends happily, and Buffy finds out that Giles and her mother had a fling. ;)

Today we are considering going to see 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico'. I'm hesitating because Johnny Depp has supposedly said some rather anti-american things recently. I wonder how many people won't go simply because he ran his mouth?

Looks like we get to close the pool soon. Perhaps next week, even. Kinda sad to see it go into hibernation for the winter, but it's also a relief not to have to worry about it for several months. Seems like something was always going wrong with it this season. We replaced the main switch-valve, the DE filters, and parts of the piping and such. Last year we had to have repair work done on the wall itself (underwater) and several tiles had to be re-mounted and even one of the big coping stones was coming loose and had to be repaired. Always seems to be something. Hopefully the winter won't damage it anymore.
posted by MikeM at 10:43 AM    

 
Well, another week behind us, and closer to Christmas. Scary, eh? I have found myself looking forward to the crisp air and snowy days. Although I hate driving in the stuff, I love snow - it is beautiful. As long as it doesn't snow so much I have to shovel the driveway. Ugh. OK, the more I think about it the less I like it, so I'll drop the subject before I change my mind.

I do like the cool air and chilly nights - less bugs. ;) I hate mosquitoes in particular, and they are getting fewer by the day. Hopefully at some point this winter we will have a hard freeze (below zero...) that kills off an appreciable percentage of the critters. We have a new heat pump, so perhaps I shouldn't be wishing for a hard freeze that would test its ability to heat the house!
posted by MikeM at 12:50 PM    

 
Last night several channels had specials on the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks, I think we need to be reminded just why we are in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many people have short memories, call the attacks 'disasters' and 'tragedies' to dehumanize them, make them sound as if they were caused by forces of nature or happenstance.

No - humans did this. Evil humans who desire to inflict pain and suffering upon total strangers because we do not worship the same way that they do. We, who treasure and protect every person's right to worship as they wish. We, who believe that all people deserve certain human rights. We are the targets because we have been taught this way.

A very wise man wrote several articles on this exact topic, and said it far better than I ever could.

The Mirage of Moderate Islam
What al-Qaeda Wants
Mirror, Mirror: Why Americans Don't Understand the Threat of Jihadism
Why Diplomacy Is Doomed
Winning the War Against Terror

Follow up : 2002

posted by MikeM at 9:23 PM    

 
Today is my Dad's birthday! Happy Birthday!
posted by MikeM at 10:22 AM    

 
Figures that right after configuring the message filters to stop most of the sobig.f virus emails that the thing self-destructs... Apparently it was set to stop working today, so it has stopped sending itself around the world. The next version is expected to hit at any time, so be wary!
posted by MikeM at 10:22 AM    

 
Saturday and Sunday were nice - cool outside, but not cold. Rained a little, not too much, and we got to relax and watch TV a bit. We watched a few more episodes of Buffy (3rd season), and rented 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days' - really funny, not a bad movie at all, for a chick flick.
posted by MikeM at 8:07 AM    

 
Friday just as I was leaving work, one of the users got hit with over 3000 copies of sobig.f - he said 'I was gonna open one up just to see what it was, but I figured I should tell you first.'

Here is the insidious part of this new incarnation of sobig : The 3000 copies of it that the user got were from other people, unknown people, and were discarded out of hand. The 85 copies that actually showed up in his inbox instead of being filtered into the trash were from HIM. So he got 80+ messages with 5-6 different subjects and attachments, all to him from him, and several of those had the appearance of bounce messages from mail servers saying that his email had bounced and he needed to read the attachment to see why. Nasty.

If you get ANY email with an attachment, DON'T OPEN IT. Even if you know the sender, even if it looks like it came from a mail server. It's just not worth it! Even if you end up not reading the latest joke or funny picture of the day, it's not worth it! If you think your friend sent you a funny screensaver, click on it, and infect your home computer, which then sends thousands of emails to all your friends, or even worse, all of your coworkers and you end up being the starting point for a network shutdown that YOU caused at work - well, that is a Bad Thing. Don't open attachments.

And better still, don't USE attachments. If you need to send someone a file, send them an email FIRST that lets them know it is coming, and only then send it. Stop sending jokes and such as attachments. If it's not worth your time to cut and paste it into the body of the email itself, it's probably not worth reading in the first place. We all have to be more careful - there are a lot of really bored people trying to ruin your day with these viruses and worms.
posted by MikeM at 8:06 AM    

 
Tuesday night Patty and I made dinner - a recipie loosely based on one I found in the WWF Cookbook (Undertaker's Tetrazinni). When we make this, we usually use half-measures so we don't make too much, and this time I decided to go for broke. We used over a pound of pasta, nearly a pound of chopped smoked chicken breast, a jar of prego, a can of italian style stewed tomatoes, a large onion, 4 carrots, etc etc etc.

We ate well Tuesday night!
We ate well last night as well.
We barely dented it. There is still enough for tonight, and perhaps tomorrow night!

So we probably won't make the full measure again. Would feed 8 or 10 people, easily. The Undertaker said "Feeds 4". Right. *grin*
posted by MikeM at 10:05 AM    

 
This morning we turned on the TV and... nothing. No cable. We apparently still have internet, but no cable signal now. *sigh*

Hopefully the cable tech will fix everything today.
posted by MikeM at 10:01 AM    

 
Want a good-looking, high-performance car that doubles as a jet boat? Gibbs Aquada. Looks nice. 100mph on land, 30mph on water. Just what I need! I can go fishing on the way home and never leave my car!
posted by MikeM at 9:59 AM    

 
Oh, by the way, today at around 11am the internet connection started working again. Wierd thing is that the cable is still fuzzy and we don't have the high channels...
posted by MikeM at 8:14 PM    

 
Today at work we verified that an older NAS unit (Network Attached Storage) was well and truly dead. A Quantum SnapServer 2100, with four 30gb IDE drives, booted after being powered off for a week or so, churned the drives for a few minutes, then powered off and would not power back on - nothing helped!

So today I removed the 4 drives and put them into an old server chassis we had - a Precision 610 from Dell - and installed Red Hat 8 on it. Now the existing 9gb scsi drive is the root drive and had RH8 on it, and the four 30gb IDE drives are RAID0 concatenated together into a single 120gb drive. We figure that with non-dynamic data and weekly backups we should be fine. I might not even have to back it up that often. Once a month could work if the data is changed that rarely!

Of course, the alternative approach was to buy a single 250gb IDE drive and plunk it into the unit, giving us twice the storage for about $200, but we had no money and no time, so this approach was the solution, short-term anyway.
posted by MikeM at 7:42 PM    

 
Just a quick warning - if you have an ebay account, and have configured a 'secret question', you may want to ensure that your answer is neither simple nor common knowledge. Anyone that knows certain things about you can hijack your account if your question/answer is simple or easily guessed, bypassing your password and changing it on you so that you can't get back into your own ebay account!
posted by MikeM at 7:37 PM    

 
It has been quite a while since I have been able to make an entry here. Quick synopsis:

Thursday - Best Buy exchanged the modem, no problems. What a great retailer. :) No comcast cable OR internet yet. Started playing a new game "Syberia", recommended by Brian. So far it is pretty good, in the nature of Myst but not as difficult for the most part. Also the graphics and sound are stunning.

Friday - New modem hooked up, called Comcast with new MAC, they said it would take a few hours. WHAT? Since when? Last time it took a few seconds - they put in the mac, sent a signal, and I had internet. Something fishy going on here. Still no internet, although cable came back partially. Fuzzy on all channels, and the digital ones aren't coming in at all. Weak signal is my guess.

Saturday - called Comcast again - the soonest a tech can get to us is THURSDAY. Oh geez. Still no internet, partial cable (fuzzy) and no help til thursday.
On the bright side - watched Chicago and Two Towers! GREAT MOVIES! We watched all the extras on the Two Towers DVD and played 'Gollum's Song Video' three or four times.

Sunday - Tried Comcast again, perhaps a nearer date? Nope. Thursday. Played Syberia a bit more. Stuck on the mammoth picture. *sigh* This is why I prefer fisrt person shooters. You can usually shoot your way out of any problem. ;) Watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - great movie!

Monday - HOLIDAY! WOO! Called comcast again, I'm sure they are tired of me, but no nearer date than Thursday. Watched Star Trek: Nemesis and "Die another Day" (Bond). *sigh* The Trek flick was OK for the fans, but no substance for anyone else. Boring. The Enterprise is still the Wuss-Ship of the universe, getting bitch-slapped around the Neutral Zone. Wah Wah. Wesley Crusher had about 2 seconds at the very beginning of the movie, he was part of a background wide angle shot, no dialogue at all. Fitting.
Overall, I'm glad this one was a freebie. ;) Bond - blah blah - Suspension of disbelief is not enough for this movie - so many improbable and impossible things happened and were done that I started the joke that whenever anyone did something impossible, they were an 'expert'. Like when Bond shaves and cuts his hair himself and does an impeccable salon-style job, he must be an 'expert hair-cutter', and when Jinx comes out of the ocean, shakes once, and is completely dry, even her hair is perfect, she must be an 'expert air-dryer'. Even in a military prison, tortured daily for over a year, his new growth of beard and mustache is immaculate and perfectly trimmed. His unruly hair is clean and free of tangles. Sheesh. The whole thing is silly, and makes for a wasted two hours. If you have seen any other Bond movie, it is pretty much the same plot, churned about a bit, with new angles, but nothing worth watching. Oh yeah, one of the villains has diamonds embedded in his face from an explosion, and modern medical science that can use DNA therapy to make one person look exactly like another can't seem to extract them. Sheesh.
posted by MikeM at 7:55 AM