Archive for August, 2008

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Time Stumbles Onwards….?

Friday, August 29th, 2008

I say ‘time’ even though it’s potentially a flawed perspective. Here’s an idea for the world!! Time is a man made concept and measure used in all fields of science (pretty much) and something around which we base our entire existance. What if our concept of time is flawed? Who is to say our current definition of time is correct? Who invented the concept of time anyway?!! I will put some more thought into this and post a more indepth view over the weekend as this philosophical exploration vexes me.

In other news. I watched ‘Hellboy II’ last night and it didn’t dissappoint; as sequels go – this knocks the socks of the first Hellboy film in a way that only a ‘Pan’s Labrynth’ director can deliver. There’s a growing focus in the media in multi-culture/dimension etc… for example – ‘The Golden Compass’ as well as the afformentioned films; which has kind of focused my current philosophical thought processes on time in general.

I’m an open minded person – I like to think most of the time, and I’d like to believe there are multiple dimensions around us, it would certainly help explain a lot of things that have happened in my life to date I can tell you! I just need a little bit ‘more’ impiracle (spelling?) evidence to go on. I guess we will see as time (however flawed it may be) goes on…

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The 12 Networking Truths (also known as RFC 1925)

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

(1) It Has To Work.

(2) No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority,
you can’t increase the speed of light.

(2a) (corollary). No matter how hard you try, you can’t make a
baby in much less than 9 months. Trying to speed this up
*might* make it slower, but it won’t make it happen any
quicker.

(3) With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is
not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they
are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them
as they fly overhead.

(4) Some things in life can never be fully appreciated nor
understood unless experienced firsthand. Some things in
networking can never be fully understood by someone who neither
builds commercial networking equipment nor runs an operational
network.

(5) It is always possible to aglutenate multiple separate problems
into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases
this is a bad idea.

(6) It is easier to move a problem around (for example, by moving
the problem to a different part of the overall network
architecture) than it is to solve it.

(6a) (corollary). It is always possible to add another level of
indirection.

(7) It is always something

(7a) (corollary). Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can’t
have all three).

(8) It is more complicated than you think.

(9) For all resources, whatever it is, you need more.

(9a) (corollary) Every networking problem always takes longer to
solve than it seems like it should.

(10) One size never fits all.

(11) Every old idea will be proposed again with a different name and
a different presentation, regardless of whether it works.

(11a) (corollary). See rule 6a.

(12) In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there
is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take
away.

Acknowledgement:-

Ross Callon
Internet Order of Old Farts
c/o Bay Networks
3 Federal Street
Billerica, MA 01821

1st April 1996…

still cracks me up when I see this!

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Favourite Metaphor to date!!

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

‘She grew on him like she was a colony of E.coli and he was room temperature prime beef…’

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‘Phishing’ pollutes the net way too much!!

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

‘Phishing’ for the uninitiated out there is the fruadulent use of emails in an attempt to gain information from a user by pretending to be from an authoritative source. Most common of these being a bank. Here’s a typical layout of such a “Phishing” email (minus any URLS for your safety) -


Dear Valued Customer,

During the regular update and verification of the CitiBank Online Banking
Service, we could not verify your current information. Some of the possible reasons
for this are:

Changes in your current contact information.
Incomplete contact information.
Hence, your access to use our services has been limited.
To restore your online banking access, kindly update your current information by
following the link below.

https://www.click-my-dodgy-url-please.com.etc…./

Thank you for banking with Citibank.
Sincerely,
©Citibank Customer Service
Code #843934022

I have chosen a bank email as a example because over 90% of phishing scams come from these. Reason I am posting this? Maybe it’s just me but I have seen a recent increase of these appearing in my inbox. Along with a newer flavour of scam which takes the form of an email ‘claiming’ to be from a reputable media company such as CNN with a most likley fictitious link to a story.

ALWAYS BE WARY OF ANY EMAILS ASKING FOR PERSONAL INFO

just wanted to make that abundantley clear, generally banks will NEVER email you for personal information or to ask you to update your personal information, even if the scam email threatens your account will be closed; it’s a lie!!!! If you are concerned simply contact your bank directly either on the phone or even in person and confirm whether or not they are canvasing customers via email (which I seriously doubt).

Same goes for the dubious CNN emails that have started appearing of late, unless you remember specifically going to CNN’s website and signing upto regular emails from them – HIT THE DELETE BUTTON AND WALK AWAY!

Ok….the walking away bit is optional….

Sermon over. I’m off laters!

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Geeks Playground!!

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

I was taken on a walk around one of our vendors’ ‘R&D’ areas today; so they could show off all the flashy things they are looking at both today and for tomorrow; whilst some of it in my personal opinion is a little bit of a pipedream at this moment in time, certainly not against the realms of reality; all technically feasible stuff only things that hold this ‘stuff’ back is the world of open source and ubiquity I guess? Anyhoo….they took us to that place where all the engineers work real hard, I know for a fact it was kocher; because of the low ceilings and lack of any windows or natural daylight! Interesting stuff anyways – whilst I wasn’t given a specific none disclosure form; I am savvy enough to realise that I can’t really talk in depth about the ‘stuff’ I have been privy to today. All boring stuff anyway – I don’t wanna send you all to sleep …??? (nudge -ed) dang too late!

In other news? I’m about to embark on installing Open BSD on one of my home machines. Yes UNIX not Linux….ok!! It’s all good :)

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No Rest for the Wicked!

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Well…what can I say; seems like the brass band have dominated my life this year – and the culmination of all the hard work hopefully will pay dividends in a couple of weeks, when we head up to some place near Palmerston for the regional contest. Our 4th competition in 12 months of undefeated winning!!! People have high expectation since we are the current B-Grade Australasian Champions.

so….

no pressure?!

In other news – yup!! I did it – I went low maintenance on the hair style again….it’s all gone =p Jason sooooooo owes me a week of Chinese at work :P

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Some pictures just don’t scan well….

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Back in the day As you can see, I got bored with my theme, so I now have a bran spanking new one to accompany my latest upgrade of the wordpress backend; I always like to stay as current as possible you see ;p

Anyhoo – As promised Alan!!! Here is that photo taken waaaaaaaay back in the distant past just outside the farm. I think this was when we were around….actually I forget when exactly; but it was most certainly post primary school years.

It’s always funny when you look back at pictures so old, the main thing going through my head is…..what on earth posessed me to wear glasses like that and spike my hair when it was so long?! What a freak I was!!!

Oh Well….back to the current timeline, and not much happening other than me updating the blog a bit, although in other news, I have decided to enter a poem competition to write a Sonnet about Wellington; I’ll let you know if it gets anywhere – although I won’t be able to post it here until after the competition ‘obviously’

Right well…I’m off now; my work is done for the time being; blog ya’s later!

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The ravaging conquest of time…

Friday, August 15th, 2008

I spent some time as a child growing up in a small village near Southport (UK) called Banks. Where my dad worked at the then Greaves Hall Hospital; not your average institution; and a place prior to the twinkle of me where both mum and dad spent time in there nursing training years. This place was for the time I was there a psychiatric institution of some size for the region; and in it’s height the administration centre looked like this:-

In it\'s former glory

I have many fond memories of my time in this place; so imagine if you will how heart-broken I am when I see the current state, of this once statley mock Tudor mansion :(

desolate and broken

Now this once iconic building is as broken and desolate as the inhabitants that once upon a time people like my parent’s tried to fix….

There are simply no words to say….

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