Everything Day Logs
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Everything Snapshot

Time: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 00:03:22 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 628457 (1336 new since July 28, 2000)
Number of users: 17240 (17 new since July 28, 2000)
Number of links: 2642236 (19584 new since July 28, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.453 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.204 links per node
Link to user ratio: 153.262 links per user

New Nodes: [Jordan] [gender language is stupid] [I Am Not a Lawyer] [The Lord's Prayer-Gaelic] [Napster] [July 28, 2000] [i was such an idiot as a child] [Steal This Node] [topologically fucked up shit] [Invocation Artifacts] [bandes dessinnes] [zoophagus] [What is wrong with Netscape Navigator/Communicator] [If you downvote me] [Bell of Opening]

Users Online (36): [Pseudo_Intellectual] [dannye] [yossarian] [wharfinger] [ophie] [dragoon] [whizkid] [iain] [achan] [heropsychodreamer] [gnarl] [burnboy] [freeborn] [ketaset] [kaatunut] [moa] [urbanmisfit] [freezeup] [siren] [kanon42] [hackthemainframe] [StopTheViolins] [Art Tatum] [ifeeldizzy] [mE123] [Toastie] [amiawakeyet] [samgrover] [Andar] [sydnius] [johnruss] [blukens] [factgirl] [eviscerated] [oldworldmafia] [sethrussell]

JeffMagnus node count: 4000 (107 new since July 28, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 8932 (196 more since July 28, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.233 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.637%
JeffMagnus node of the day: E2 server facts

Ugh. Just got home and decided I'm long overdue for a little 1am Noding. So here I am in the day log blinking back sleep.

What hath kept me out so late? A defining characteristic of life right now is unemployment. Time has little meaning. My friends are getting a bit weary of me asking what day it is - and meaning it. Annoying lack of time-orientation aside, I can stay out late pretty much whenever I want. Tonight I watched Chicken Run and enjoyed it immensely.

I've been on foot since Tuesday. My car is kaput. That's okay - walking is therepeutic. Except when it's midnight and I have to get from downtown (Seattle) to my place, which is in the midst of a bad neighborhood. So tonight I dared the bus.

A man in a sort of mobile cart boarded just after me. He had to go through the whole beeping lift experience and then somehow navigate the crowd of stander-upers to get to the disabled persons parking area. People couldn't get out of his way too well as the bus was packed and most of them were drunk and not paying attention. About half way to the space he lost his temper and just started running over feet and ramming shins. The bus driver was amazingly diplomatic about getting the situation under control and calming the injured drunks and the frustrated guy in the mobile cart - all of whom were swearing quite creatively at eachother.

I said a silent prayer of thanks for several things -including my mobility and sobriety - and kept my eyes glued to 'Tales of the City'.

At 23:00 last night the doorbell rang. We were sitting upstairs having a beer but it's still a strange time for someone to ring at the door. We looked out from the upstairs window.

It was our neighbours. They'd found one of the pillars of our wall lying across the pavement and were letting us know about it before putting it in our front garden out of the way.

So, today, we'll be taking the rest of the wall down. It was obviously unstable when we moved in. But given we had expected to have the builders in almost straight away, we didn't do anything about it. Now, a year later, it's started taking itself down! Oh well - it's something to do :-)

Two hours later and we've tidied the rubble up. One half of the wall seemed quite stable, so we've left that, along with the lowest course of blocks on the other half, standing.


I'm on holiday for the next two weeks (as I mentioned yesterday). We've decided to start the rewiring. It's a reasonably straightforward task to plan but needs some delicate investigations. I rewired our previous house (*grin* and got a certificate (of safety)), so I'm hoping I can remember how to do it. Hmmm, ring main... yes...

The plan is to start with the front bedroom, then move the boxes from the back bedroom to the front. Then rewire the back bedroom and move the beds into there from the middle bedroom. Then do the middle bedroom and anywhere else upstairs that needs doing.

Today I lost M-Noder status! Yay for me! I've been locked out of the Everything M-Noder Bathroom, my pending M-noder T-shirt has been given to the EDB and torn to shreds. The recent copyright nuking spree has claimed around 200 of my nodes.

Just a few questions for the postal node nuker:

  • Who are you? I think I have a right to know who is going insane nuking my stuff.
  • Why don't you notify me of the nuked nodes? I would like to know which ones they are, thank you very much.
  • Some of the nodes can be edited. All the more reason to tell me what nodes are going to be nuked.
  • How do you sleep at night?
In addition, today, on a bet, I ate six bacon cheeseburgers. I won.

Yesterday | Dizzy->Day_Logs() | Tomorrow


9:25 BST

Tried explaining Unified Change Management to some IRC dudes last night and failed... I really should update that node. (update: I did update that node, and put a fair amount of work into it...)

The sun is shining but the garden needs work, the house needs tidying, the laundry needs doing, houseplants need cleaning and Alpha Centauri is looking very attractive.

I kept having vivid dreams about being on Big Brother - I only watched it for the first time last night, and didn't find it that compelling. Why has my subconcious mind placed that much importance on this programme?

Sigh. I probably gained all the weight I lost last week when I ate loads of chocolate last night. :(

10:45 BST

Sensei, Yossarian: I hope to one day meet you. Your nodes have an uncanny knack of reaching me when I need it: The Brightness of Your Eyes and This music crept by me on the waters

14:00 BST

Decided to reinstall Mandrake 7.1, but now my X server takes a heck of a long time to start up. ReiserFS is cool tho'

What am I doing here when I could be swimming with the Dolphins? - if anyone wants to node that, feel free

18:00 BST

"I send you nothing but love, just wait for me, wait and see - you know all the right words to say" Sometimes a fragment of a song will hit me with the perfection of it's words - these words were Beth Orton's

Noding all of The Sermon on the Mount has left me quiet and tranquil inside. I feel happiness from anything right now :)

I slept pretty badly last night and when I awoke I felt tired. Then I remembered my dream (see Dream Log: July 29, 2000). The symbolism of the dream is pretty clear, it's about my recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome. Jung says that dreams are important messages from your subconscious and that they can even predict what is going to happen to you. Of course, I don't really believe that but all the same the dream gives me a positive feeling.

I'm wearing my new tee shirt, that J made me, and looking pretty damn spiffy.

I've just noticed that Silent Running is on the tv tonight. That's a really great (albeit sad) film. Proof if proof were needed that the bbc are scanning getting to know you nodes to determine their listings.

There was a torrential downpour. After it had finished I went for a walk. Nice to be out in the fresh air. On the way back I saw a butterfly whose wings had been damaged by the force of the rain. It was fluttering its wings but it couldn't fly any more.

Yesterday, Tomorrow

Frustrating day of download. First, I spent time from midnight to 7 am trying to download files. n+1 times they got interrupted, and when I finally got it... a bug in the downloader removed it. Stupid server wouldn't let me HTTP resume. Waking up at 4 pm, I continued it. Again got interrupted. Writing this at the moment of download finished. If the file's there, you will never hear of me again. Nobody will.

All this for Neon Genesis Evangelion, episode 4. It better be good.

I attended my friends funeral only two days ago. I saw his body and was absolutely devastated at death's power to turn a human into an object. It wasn't Chris. His power to animate himself had been removed. I never really saw life till I was forced to see the absence of it. I was so sad at our tenuous grasp on death. All the flowers and the ceremony and, the idea, that we actually kept the body for some time seemed, oddly, absurd to me. I could feel our inability as humans to really understand death. I could actually feel our struggle to make sense of it. I cried so much that I really don't think I'll ever cry for anything again. I cried at everything. I could not put into this node all the thoughts that rushed my mind and caused me to cry but I learned so much that day. Only two days ago I was a completely different person and now I am new. There are so many new questions in my life and it actually makes me happy. I know I'm going to grow from all of this and really deep inside I can feel Chris guiding my spirit toward a new day. I understand your lesson, Chris, and I will work every day to live with a renewed passion. I will respect the things I have and understand that they can be taken away at any moment. I love you so much, Chris. I miss you more than I ever thought I could miss someone. I will see you again.

saturday afternoon

wake up. buy cigarettes and water. return movie. fill the gastank. vacuum. steam clean. vacuum. vacuum. vacuum. the man calls. it wrenches my heart to hear his voice. i am lonely and i miss his closeness. but i know he is having fun.

i ordered some chinese food. green beans in brown sauce.

me and the animals are just chilling. i rode my bike a bit, painted a bit, and now we're all piled on the couch.

more later...
After (once again), waking up at 5 am after just a few hours sleep, then around 8 crashing out for an hour, I finally got up again and decided to get going. My temporary houseguest was sorting his climbing gear (as usual), having already sucked down a bong or two from the smell of it. Not a bad idea, but I gotta go to work.

Drank a cup of cold coffee from yesterdays forgotten espresso. Hurtled out into the day and everything was much better. Beautiful Seattle Summer! The scooter ride along the waterfront is always my favorite, as you can see the Olympics over the sound. Unfortunately there are always gawking peds everywhere, so one can't really hurtle as fast as one truely wants to.

Got to the ferry, and there is one of those BSA motorcycles I like so much. I was admiring it (has anybody noticed how many motorcycle riders are short and bald?), when an even cooler British bike rolled up behind me, hipster male, cute hipster female. There is something about young folk on motorcycles that turns me on. A little picnic I think, she in black pants and sandles, with blonde hair, he in a green bowling shirt, tricky sunglasses. They joked with each other, I admired the bike.

The ferry ride was slightly unusual, as a massive fog bank shaped like a lense was across the sound. We were chugging along as usual, when all of a sudden we found ourselve at a near standstill, the ferry like some huge beast hooting it's confusion. Added a few minutes to the ride, but it make me think of that one sci-fi movie where the aircraft carrier goes back in time. I think that involves fog, but not sure. just the boat, the people and the fog.

Then Bainbridge Island, and now work. Interviewing another near diety of OOP, this time we are going to grill him alive :-)

Skipped a daylog yesterday, this is mostly because I wrote most interesting day occurrences in an e-mail to you, thusly leaving nothing but content that wasn't so worthy of a repeat that I should have bothered to type it up again. Still smiling.

I cooked some rice this morning, managed to mess it up but it still tasted pretty decent all in all. It was too wet, though.. wonder how I always mess things up like that.

I wanted to go into town tonight but it turns out my uncle and aunt are coming by, which is *highly* annoying. ho-hum. Oh well.

I'm just sleepy today. Sleepy and not too entirely full of any dreamy content. Actually, once again, I poured any thought'y matter worth writing about into an email, so there is nothing left at present.

I can't say that this day was terrible because I'd be lying but I'm just frustrated for some reason, maybe tired.. I'll probably wander off to sleep in a little while. I did a lot of biking today, sort of a lot, anyway, it probably just seemed like a lot because it's all I really did.. heh help me, oh help help i need some sort of life or something.

I'm going to go read and write. I'll have a decent daylog tomorrow.
Wow. I actually spent about four hours at work slipping small pieces of thick paper into plastic holders to made ad signs... Ah, well, at least I was alone in the confrence room doing so. No pesky customers, and nobody ever came to check up on me.

With a freshly compiled kernel ready to go (With any luck at all), I'll reboot the Linux box. After I've got 200 days of uptime. Then it's networking time. Pure, unbridled, out-of-control networking bliss, baby! Yeah!

My latest ThinkGeek order oughta come around Monday. Hmph.

ADDED TO MP3 PLAYLIST TODAY: Goody Two-Shoes, Adam Ant; She Blinded Me With Science, Thomas Dolby

I think I've stopped thinking. Or maybe I'm thinking too much.

All my creativity has been sucked out of me from somewhere and I have zero inspiration to make music. I don't have the desire to begin anything new and all else that I've been working on sounds like crap. It bothers me a little.

I have other things on my mind and I guess. Yeah... sure, that's it.

Today I cleaned up the mess that the contractors left in my bathroom during their ongoing project to generate further inconveniences in my life. Tomorrow, I have to pack up most of what is in my kitchen and put it somewhere (I'm not sure where) so they can begin the demolition of my kitchen.

I just wish they'd finish the bathroom first.

I've found that I really like reading other people's day logs. I had been ignoring them for a while since (really) I don't know very many people at all here. I almost never go to #everything and the chatterbox is usually off of my screen. But even without knowing the people involved, I find the day logs really compelling. I like reading about the small joys and triumphs and disappintments of my fellow noders. It's sort of addictive and voyeuristic.

Anyhow ...

Still sick. I would've spent all day in bed if not for the fact that I had to pick my parents up from the airport. I distracted myself from my feeling ill while I drove by listening to "This American Life". The first to acts were pretty good, the first being a half-an-hour with David Sedaris, who is always funny. Afterwards we went out for lunch and had good chinese food that was only slightly spoiled by a whiney twelve-year-old girl sitting at the table next to us. She was complaining incessantly about how she wanted to go to Burger King and how poorly her father always treated her because they weren't at Burger King and how miserable she would be until they got to Burger King. I wanted to slap her silly. I mean, really! Burger King? I don't think she could possibly think of a less trivial to complain about? What was even worse was the mother kept on taking the whiny daughter's side. I'm sure that can't be a good parenting strategy to let your kid divide and conquer.

No big plans for tonight. I'll either try to rest some more, if I can (but it's hard because my room is so damned hot. I think it must be close to 100o today and my room is facing south so I get a lot of sunlight and my computer is on 24/7 so that acts as a little space heater so it's really, really uncomfortable.) or maybe do some work. Oh, I got news that the company I'm contracting at thinks it can stay afloat for at least another 4-6 weeks, now that it's decided to sell off some of its assets (another company that it had acquired about six months ago.) That's nice. If I stick around it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Today I found everything2. it made me happy to find somewhere not filled with a bunch of idiots (or, at the very least, a bunch of idiots not afraid to think for themselves and voice their own opinions). I think I needed e2 to occupy my thoughts for awhile. My day went like this:

Woke up at 9, went and rode about four miles on my bike. It was a good ride, i'm finally getting back in shape. Today, I did the last hill before i turn onto my street without downshifting once. HUGE difference from two weeks ago when i had to walk up a third of the hill because I couldn't breathe.

After that, I came home and showered and called around looking for some friends that were available, but found none. So I went back to my hometown and spent a few hours with my parents at The Lumberjack Days in Stillwater, Minnesota. i got free lunch, i got to see a few pretty ladies, some huge houseboats and a local band called The Dweebs.

I then went to my aunts to help move some more of her useless junk still in her friend's garage a year after moving out of that house (with two more moves in between, which i was also lucky enough to have the chance to help out with0 (I REALLY need to get rid of my lil baby truck, I'm tired of moving my aunt). So we dropped half the shit at The Goodwill and dropped the other half at her other appartment.

After that was all done, i drove home and ate some ribs off the grill with my roomate and a friend, then the other people started showing up. You know the type of night. You're sitting there with a few friends chillin over some good grub, then the rest of the expected people show up, with beer in hand. Let the stupid drunks take over! so now i'm the only sober person in the house, with crap music blaring and stupid people tripping everywhere.

So once this classic display of desparation to flee from whatever it is that drove them here for this artificial escape began, i began to peruse /.. i looked over to the links on the side, and saw a link to everything and I figured I HAD to see this site, where they've managed to cram everything into one http address. i loved it, and i spent three hours figuring out what the fuck was up with this site. And now i love it. yes, I think I love it.

After several hours of learning, reading, teaching, chatterboxing, a friend IMed me on AOL instant messenger and i talked with her for awhile. She had been out riding her horse Zammy earlier, and her friend Nutmeg had taken 5 rolls of film of my friend Ang and her horse. She was happy. She can make me happy. Very few people can make another person happy. But she can make me happy, even if we'll never date or have sex. i still love her and she loves me and we're great friends. She's the first person i've driven 6 hours to spend a day with, then drove 6 more home. That says something. (and she's done the same to my house over the summer). I talked to her. I talked about my week, my day, the drunk people behind me, the girl I asked out on thursday, and asked ang's opinion on what this girl meant by "i'm sorry, but I've got plans already, but maybe another night?" You see, I'm very new to being upfront. This is the first time I've asked anyone out after talking ot her for a total of twenty minutes or so. And I decided she meant what she said, even though my paranoid ass says to run and cower and feel sorry for myself. But i resisted. I will ask her out for coffee tomorrow.

And then i went to sleep. I slept well. Good day.

DEF CON

Woke at 05:30 and had breakfast at 07:30. Strange that we kept that schedule for a week. We had breakfast at the same restaurant every day, and usually had the same breakfast, but anyway...

We got to the Alexis by 09:45 to see the USAFA cadet hacking case talk given by Gregory White. He was a good speaker, and went over the background of the case, what people on both sides can learn from what happened, and how the prosecuting side took the presence of traceroute (they thought it was a nefarious tool), BitchX, and one or two other tools on the cadet's box, and two failed log in attempts, as the basis for a possible 15 years in Leavenworth (which he didn't get...).

At 11:00 we saw Robert Graham's talk on evading IDS, then an overview of LDAP. A bunch of people left during that one. We stayed in the room for lock-picking (missed it last year) but it was postponed and we got a Pentagon briefing (I'm being facetious) from a Fed who is a part of the management layer above the CIA, et al. He did an intro then took questions. There was one guy - who pines for the Fjords - who bombarded the fed with questions. He just wouldn't stop. There was another guy with green hair who was picking at his zits then biting the fingernails on the same hand. And one guy in the front asked what was the smallest thing they could see with their imaging satellites. The Fed said that he couldn't answer that, so the guy asked "Okay, what's the next smallest thing." Everyone in the room cracked up, and the Fed admitted "sub-meter."

We took a break for lunch and had pizza in the snacks area while standing, then I snagged a table just before this script kiddie with a huge chip on his shoulder. We ended up sharing, which wouldn't have been a problem except for the fact that the dude couldn't be considerate about it.

At 15:00 I went to Greg Hogland's advanced buffer overflow techniques talk, which he had given at Black Hat. He got into detail, but later said "If anyone wants to talk about some really insane stuff you can do, see me later." Then at 16:00 I stuck around for ghandi's talk on buffer overflows on the SPARC. It was good, though I'm not so hip to assembly. He covered writing optimum assembly, system calls from assembly, using GDB and ADB, assembling instructions to hex, stack altering, et cetera.

We left at 17:00. I didn't see Hacker Jeopardy this year, or a few other events that I was at before. They didn't have the TCP/IP drinking game at all.

Back at the hotel we shared a margarita at MargaritaGrille, then had chinese at the Golden Dragon. And passed out early, of course.

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