Hard Cider

On a lark, I ordered a hard cider for my gf at the Outback, a few weeks ago.  It turns out that we both liked it.

I've only had Angry Orchard and Cider Boys, but if hard ciders are half as interesting as Samuel Adams brews, the this is going to be a fun journey.

So far, I don't like ginger or strawberry (my gf liked both), but cinnamon rocks!

Sound on old laptops with Debian

After struggling to figure out how I had sound working on a Compaq Armada 1750 until an update broke that, I finally found out why I cannot fix it.  I also found out why I could never get sound to work on my Armada 7750MT.

It is because the assclown that maintains the alsa-utils package removed alsaconf from the package, citing its intended purposed as the reason for its removal, see link below.  WTF!

https://wiki.debian.org/alsaconf

So, let me get this straight.  The one distribution that heralds itself as the bastion of freedom and stability has removed a tool from a package for reasons other that freedom or stability.

This is fucking ridiculous.  An update breaks my sound, and the tool that can fix it was removed on a whim!  I guess my coworkers aren't the only people who have been eating paint chips.

Oktoberfest!

Is there any greater word in the English language than that?  I mean, really?  Samuel Adams, Brooklyn Brewery, Blue Point, and Spaaten all have their "Oktoberfest" brews out.  This is a beer lover's dream come true.  It is a 2 month orgasm, for those that love the taste of a good beer.

St. Patrick's Day is great for people that want a reason to get drunk and justify why they are not alcoholics, but Oktoberfest is for me, a beer drinker who appreciates beer for the taste.

My Oktoberfest will not be complete until I go to a German restaurant and have a full Oktoberfest meal.  I have my eye on this one place on Metropolitan Ave., that I hear is pretty good.

My gf & my beer

This is the time of year when I stop drinking mediocre beer and start drinking Oktoberfest beers, fuck yea!  The best is Sam Adams.  Beck's is really good, too.  As I type, I'm working through a 12-pack of Spaaten.  I'm waiting patiently to get my hands on some other brands' Oktoberfest brews, but I need to know one thing, before I do so.

Why does my gf only drink my good beer?  She never drinks my Miller Lite, PBR, or Molson Ice, but I can't enjoy all 144 ounces of the only proof that god may exist, because she wants to have 12 ounces of my reason for living.  WTF?

F*k

In a text message exchange, between my niece and myself, I jokingly asked, "What's facebook?"  Her response:

This website were people socialize by making themselves more lonely

Nuff said!

Sick days and personal days

Is it me, or is there something with my employer expecting me to perform work duties on days that I call in sick or take as personal days?

What's worse is, it seems like I'm the only one that is called on to do these things, in these situations.  If anyone else calls in sick, that's it, they are out sick for the day and business goes on without them.

Should I be flattered that business cannot go on without me, or am I being taken advantage of?

Fuck the press

So, this is my first Sunday that I am not downloading the audio of "Meet the Press".

Why, do you ask?  Because David Gregory is a piece of shit journalist, undeserving of the role once held by Tim Russert, the pinnacle of journalistic integrity.  "Stretch", as he was nicknamed, by Bush the moron, decided that instead of questioning members of Congress or the Obama adminstration about the NSA spying on American citizens, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, he should question the exercising of the First Amendment rights of Glenn Greenwald.

David Gregory, you are an asshole.  Tim Russert is turning over in his grave, because of you and what you turned his platform of holding politicians accountable into.  I'd asked what your justification is for holding Glenn Greenwald's feet to the fire, instead of the Obama administration, but I really don't care.

Why don't you have a heart attack and die?  It would probably be the only worthwhile thing you would ever accomplish, you pathetic excuse for a journalist.  You are a disgrace to your profession.

Sound on old laptops with Linux

Anyone who has read my previous posts knows that I love both Linux and old computers, specifically because Linux runs on old computers.  Knowing that laptops are a bit touch and go, I am reticent to buy newer laptops, unless they are IBM Thinkpads, but I cannot afford to buy IBM Thinkpads.

Here is my problem (uh-oh), Compaq Armada 1750's are as old as IBM Thinkpad 600e's, yet getting sound to work on both of these laptops (both of which I owe) is still a bitch and a half.  Given that my distro of choice is Debian, I can understand the hoops that I have to jump through on the Thinkpad (because of licenses), but when it comes to a Compaq Armada 1750, WTF!  There is nothing that I have been able to find on the interweb that would indicate that the 8 hours I spent getting sound to work is related to licensing.  I have seen, through my research, solutions dating back to Debian 3.1 (Sarge).

Debian 7 (Wheezy) was released this year; how the fuck is this still a problem?  Just in case the poor, suffering developers of Debian want to feel victimized, sound doesn't work on Legacy OS either, and that is based on Puppy Linux.

How can I be expected to advocate for Linux, when I can't play a wav file on a computer with a Pentium 2, because of an oversight by the developers?  Based upon my research, this is not isolated to Debian, but I do not see as how it is the problem of ALSA's developers, because when you follow the instructions on their webpage, it works.

Why do I have to go to the Alsa project webpage to figure out how to get this shit working?  I put up with the hoops that I had to jump through for the Thinkpad 600e, and it made me a better Linux user for it, but I cannot figure out why I spent 6 hours (2 hours trying to find any distributions to work, and 6 hours on a clone of one of my other debian laptops) trying to get the same result, without the licensing restriction.

Is it time for me to say 'fuck you' to Linux, or should I just say 'fuck you' to Debian?  Should I move forward, to BSD (that is never expected to work but does), or regress to Windoze?

Medical School

I have a niece that wants to go to medical school, to become a neurologist, maybe it is because her parents are both retarded, but I digress.

Living in the bastion of mental retardation, she wants to move from Texas to New York City, because the morons that re-elected Mien-Fuhfur Bloomberg are only slightly less stupid than the intellectual black hole that gave this country George W (the W stands for 'what') Bush.  Because she wants to get a good education, so that she can become (in my biased opinion) the best neurologist this undeserving country has ever seen, she has to find a way to pay for school.

Here is the problem, she can't afford NYU or Columbia.  There are students from other countries that can afford to come here, but we cannot provide education to the sons and daughters of us.  Thanks to our government's ability to do nothing other than protect there own interests (and let's not forget the asshole of the universe, Rush Limbaugh), we get to hear that our jobs are being outsourced to foreigners.  Well, given that we give all of our taxpayer dollars to India and are indebted to China, is it any wonder why they are our tech support and doctors?

Do you think I am a radical?  Here is a challenge.  Look at the last amendment to our Constitution (it is number 27, for those of you that can't count that high).  Do you agree with it, you fucking idiots?  You should pay me to point out what you are obviously are too fucking stupid to recognize for yourselves.  I would use half of it to pay for my niece's college education, and still have enough to pay that guy that hit Nancy Kerrigan in the knee to punch Sarah Palin in the mouth.The other half, I would put to good use, buying beer.

Harry Reid is a pussy!

I'm listening to this prissy on "Meet the Press", and suffice it to say that David Gregory is a douchebag, but the Senate majority leader is FULL OF SHIT!

I saw that smug smirk on his face when Tom Brokaw announced that the successor to Tim Russert (probably the most respectable journalist to cover Washington DC) was Stretch, as the first retarded president called him.  As a member of the White House Press Corp., you should not have a lovable nickname, asshole.

But back to Harry Reid.  You need to go see a doctor and get a prescription of "MAN THE FUCK UP!", to cure you of your case of being a little bitch.  If you have a problem with the filibuster rule that you allowed to continue, here is a solution: Make John McCain stand up, with his walker and filibuster!  Simple solution to a simple problem.  Wendy Davis did it in Texas, and look how popular she is, in comparison to you, you castrated fuck!

Go to Florida, if you want to kill someone.

Based on the Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman verdicts, murder is legal, not because of the laws, but because of prosecutors being incompetent.

Enough said!

Hawthorne PD

So, this guy walking his dog decides to videotape some police activity, and gets arrested.  The end result is a dog ends up shot dead by a cop.  Here is the problem:

1) the person walking his dog and filming the police did nothing wrong,
2) the "suspect" put his dog in his car,
3) the dog got out of the car, to protect his owner,
4) an officer attempted to approach an obviously agitated animal, and
5) said dipshit shot that animal 4 times.

I'm not particularly fond of dogs, but I hate cops.  Exactly what part of their training instructs the Hawthorne Police Department to attempt to approach an animal and treat them in the same fashion as a human being?  WTF?  Officer shithead approaches an obviously hostile dog and then feels threatened by its response!

What transpired on the video that I saw is sickening.  That the officers involved have received death-threats is well deserved, as are the death-threats against their family members.

Thank you to the Police Department of Hawthorne, California for further validating my statement that the only good cop is a dead cop.

Fuck you!

Compaq Armada Laptops

My first laptop was a nice, slick, black Compaq Armada.  I forget what model; it may have been an M600, or something like that.  My mom bought it for me, as a birthday present, in my second semester of college, and it almost made it the 15 months to my graduation.  The screen died, and I was not quite yet the computer/Linux/1337 haxor that I am now.  In fact, at the time, I was running Linux, but it was Smoothwall, on a second pc, just so I could share a dial-up connection between my desktop computer and this laptop.

Fast-forward a few years, now I'm an underpaid Excel specialist, with access to tons of old hardware, which I love.  So, one day, I come across a 366MHz PII Compaq Armada 1700.  This was a temporary joy, as my company was obliged to dispose of it, but that was not the end of my quest.  For anyone that knows me, they know that finding and buying a 1750 online for $50 is not shocking.  Why, because I have a Thinkpad T410, issued by my employer, which I could upgrade to a T430, but I would prefer to fiddle away on the 600e that one of my college mates gave me years ago.

I love playing with old hardware; you know, the stuff that you want to throw away, because Firefox opens in 7 seconds instead of 3.  What I can do with a 366MHz PII, 128 MB RAM, 20GB of hard drive space, and Linux is an adventure of exploration.  Should I set up a firewall, a file server, a print server, a DNS cache, a proxy server/web filter, or a VPN concentrator?  How about a command line based workstation, capable of playing mp3's, browsing the web, and such?  What about combining all of them?

Any ideas are welcome.  Suggestions to install Windoze will be met with ridicule.

A picture is worth 1000 words

I saw this, and I think it perfectly states how I feel.

New York's Finest MY ASS!

So, I'm walking along the boardwalk at Coney Island today, when I notice two things, first, three people (within 10 seconds) step on a corner of wooden planks that flexed to the point that each of them almost fell, and two cops, about 20 feet away.

So, being a good citizen, I approach the people who are supposed to be working in the interest of public safety and point out this obvious safety issue.

What does fucknut do?  He asks me what is in the can that I am holding?

Is this what my tax dollars go to?  I present a person lacking observation skills with a problem, and he decides to persue another problem.  It is piece of shit cops that make me want to buy a gun and stop paying taxes.    It seems that I am better capable of protecting myself, and based on what I have observed, the entire citizenry of New York City should consider doing the same.

So, to officer douchebag, thank you for validating my statement that the only good cop is a dead cop.

Bradley Manning & Edward Snowden

My girlfriend and I have been arguing about this for the past week, and it is because she fails to understand one thing, neither of these two people betrayed the United States of America.

They are being called traitors because they betrayed the United States government, by informing the citizens of the United States about the things that the government was hiding from the citizens.  The AP claimed that the U.S. military killed their reporters, the government denied it, and Bradley Manning proved the AP right.  Various citizens and civil rights groups have filed lawsuits to stop the warrantless surveillance that had been established to have been started under the Bush administration, and continued under Obama, only to have the their cases dismissed because they could not prove that they were illegally targeted.  Now they can prove it, thanks to Edward Snowden.

My question to you is: who is a greater threat to the United States, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, for informing the citizens of what the government is hiding from us, or Grover Norquist, whose stated goal is "to make government so small that can drown in a thimble full of water"?

Fuck UPS!

So, I have been a bit busy, and nothing has really pissed me off lately, but that has changed.

To make a long story short, I saw a power supply tester for $15 on Newegg, on Memorial Day weekend, and decided to buy it.  After four days of work, I see one of UPS's InfoNotices, with the "Final Attempt" box checked.  Needless to say, this was the first one that I saw.  After some phone calls and emails, my package is being returned to Newegg.

The long and short of it is, I contacted Newegg and requested a refund of my money and stated that I will not do business with them as long as they do business with UPS.

I now know what UPS means, USELESS PIECE of SHIT.  I do not find it coincidental that the company's color is brown; in fact, I think it is appropriate.

What bothers me is that not only are they shitting on their own revenue stream because of their incompetence, but they have now negatively impacted Newegg, through incompetence and/or indifference, and all of the other online retailers that I will not do business with because they choose to use UPS as their shipper.  Way to help the economy assholes!

In closing, fuck you UPS!  What can brown do for me?  Absolutely nothing!  Here is a tip, buy stock in FedEx, and pay your taxes, so your local Post Office doesn't close on weekends.  Since I'm in a pissy mood, I'm gonna give a shout out to DHL, just to FUCK UPS!!!

Linux: Fragmentation vs. Duplication of Efforts

If you look on distrowatch.com (or any other Linux resource) you will find a wealth of Linux distributions.  With some know-how, you can do a search that will provide a list of distributions that are tailored to what you are specifically searching for.

When I look for a firewall, I find a good selection of distros, and pick the one that suits my needs.  When I look for a distro tailored for a P2 or older, I find the same.

Here is my problem.  Any and every penetration testing/forensics/hacking/1337-hax0r distribution is the same fucking set of software, built on Debian or Ubuntu (read as Debian), with a different window manager/desktop environment, and unique artwork.  There are a few that are not based on Debian/Ubuntu, but (as with any category) the majority are Debian derivatives or quick respins of Ubuntu.

So, here is my proposal (I will list the distribution with the significant attribute below).  To the developers of:

Dracos (Ubuntu, fluxbox )
Backtrack (Ubuntu, multiple desktops)
Caine (Ubuntu, XFCE)
Blackbuntu (Ubuntu, GNOME)
Forlex
INSERT (Knoppix, fluxbox)
Kali
CoreSecLinux (64 bit)
Hackshark (Fedora-based)
Ophcrack (Slitaz based)
Santoku (I forget the WM, but the name and graphics are cool)
and to all the countless others

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!!!  Do we really need X number of distributions delivering the same goddamn applications with different window managers/desktop environments?  Does it really matter what fucking GUI is being used for pen-testing/forensics?  Personally, I think that if you have to rely on a GUI, pen-testing/forensics are way over your head.  I did data recovery a week ago, and I used CAINE for one reason, because I just so happened to have it available at the moment,  I was able to get the data, but it wasn't because of XFCE or the artwork.

So, to all of you, why are you wasting time/effort doing the same fucking thing?  Get yourselves under one umbrella.

Jeez, for geniuses, you guys are a bunch of idiots!

Opera

I have been trying to find a way to get as much done with as few windows open as possible.  I think I now have found the one browser that will reduce my window count by at least two.

I have found Opera!  With a downloads tab and integrated torrent client, integrated email client and RSS reader, and the Google Calendar and ScribeFire extensions, I have all of the features I need in one window.

I am currently using a separate torrent client, because Opera currently has no support for magnet links or UPnP (the later is needed because of my piece of shit Verizon DSL modem/router), and I have to have a filemanager open, so I'm up to three windows, right?

Wrong!  Thanks to fluxbox, I can drag the titlebar of one window into the titlebar of another and merge the windows into tabbed windows.  So I really only have two windows, one for all of my internet activity and the file manager.

If I want to get my CLI freak on, I'll open a terminator window and split it into 4 consoles, for some quadro-commandline action.

So now, I can have 3 open windows and multi-task up to 10 tasks.  WTF?

Ubuntu & Unity

So, I finally got around to trying Ubuntu with Unity, and I must say it sucks out loud!

OMG, WTF?!?!

I'm going back to Debian, with IceWM or Fluxbox.  Hell, after dealing with Unity, I may just stick to the commandline and text-based apps.

I don't know what they were thinking, but I almost reinstalled Vista after dealing with that hot pile of dog mess.

PartedMagic & Clonezilla

I'll make this short. I thought that I was going to make a 3 hour process into a 90 minute process, but the whole thing took less than 1 hour.

Here are the particulars:

I work for a major health care network. Our new computer deployment is based on using a ghost image provided by some smug group of faceless something-or-others, that really don't give a shit about what the people that have to deal with their output have to deal with. So, one of my techs goes out to do a deployment, and after the fact, the user (don't get me started on the users) hands him a terabyte hard drive and says that she needs that installed. That would be easy enough, if the computers that we deploy had the facilities (space and connections) for a second hard drive.

Enter me. Given my company's business model, the tech finished what he was doing and left. So now, I have to deal with doing a re-image (20 minutes), running post-install (30 minutes), installing applications (just shoot me), and then doing a data transfer (shoot me twice).

Knowing what I was dealing with, I brought my SATA dock, a PartedMagic CD, a cup of coffee, and about 2 hours worth of paperwork. I was in and out within 1 hour. Through PartedMagic, I used Clonezilla to do a disc copy and Gparted to resize the partition. That took about 37 minutes. The next 15 minutes was spent swapping the drives, doing all of the reboots that WinBlows requires, and deleting the data from the old drive (it wasn't a DoD wipe, but I didn't take the drive - I left it with the department, for use as a backup, no HIPAA violation).

Nobody believed that I was done that fast. When asked, my answer was either "You wouldn't believe me,' or "You wouldn't understand." Such is the life of a Linux geek in a WinBlows shop.