YesAllWomen

I suppose i've been doing a little bit of reading on the #YesAllWomen hashtag like a lot of people and after a while some of the things i read sounded strangely familiar. I realize this might sound condescending or patronizing since i am a male but i think i know, at least a little bit, about what women have been and are going through.

It's because a lot of the behavior modification that women do matched what i remember from Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection training given to deployed military.

Some of the recommended behaviors were things like changing clothes to dress more conservatively, to never travel alone especially at night, always being aware of your surroundings, never let your possessions leave your sight, etc., are pretty much an exact match.

There is one major difference in the AT/FP recommendations. It is to disregard any preconceived notions of who could be a threat. Any man, woman, or child could be carrying a weapon (conventional firearm, bomb, knife, etc.).

In case you're curious the "JS Guide 5260" or "CJCS Guide 5260" is Public Domain and should be easy to find.

To Mr. Tal Fortgang

I don't consider myself a blogger or whatever but since Mr. Tal Fortgang's essay has shown up on my feed multiple times, i felt a bit compelled to write an open letter.



Mr. Tal Fortgang,


I have to say first i agree that "Check your privilege." is a trite phrase and should not be used to try to stifle discussion or debate.


I also absolutely agree that you should feel no personal responsibility for slavery, lynchings, internment camps, etc. and that you should not be expected to apologize for any of those things.


I most definitely agree that people should not judge other people solely on physical appearance and that it is the content of their character that matters most.


I will also agree that a good work ethic and self-discipline are key to success.


There are some things that i would like some clarification on since i think there are some privileges you may not have been aware of having.


Have you ever had the privilege of not being asked to "Go back to wherever you came from?" or questioned about whether you're a "real American"?


I also would be curious if you have the privilege of not being illegally detained and frisked on suspicion of shoplifting if you  happened to decide to not buy anything from a store:

http://nypost.com/2013/02/17/forest-whitaker-claims-he-was-falsely-accused-of-shoplifting-frisked-at-manhattan-deli/


I honestly don't know if you wear a yarmulke or if you've ever appeared in court, but if you do, i'm fairly certain the judge wouldn't tell you to remove "that rag" off your head like what happened to Mr. Jageet Singh, a Sikh in Mississippi:

http://www.businessinsider.com/judge-ejects-sikh-jageet-singh-from-court-for-his-turban-2013-9


I also hope that in the event that if you ever have a medical alert device and it inadvertently triggers in your own home, you also have the privilege of not being being hit with beanbags, tasered, then shot and killed by police officers like Mr. Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr. :

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/09/marine-new-york-police-kenneth-chamberlain

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/03/justice/new-york-chamberlain-death/

I hope i didn't come off as being too sarcastic in my past few statements but i sincerely want to emphasize that although the days of lynching parties and other such deplorable things are thankfully over, there is still progress to be made in the realm of human dignity and human rights.  I think that perhaps the first step is free and open communication and discussion and rational discourse with a bit of empathy and compassion.

Installing Debian GNU/Linux 7 Wheezy on a Sun Fire V240

I've been a user of Debian GNU/Linux on my personal machines for a long time now and have recently been able to start offically deploying Linux servers in my work environment.  I'm not sure why i've generally just been limiting myself to lurking.

A request showed up on the Debian Sparc mailing list for help with keeping the port alive and since i have access to an UltraSparc server that's not being used anymore, i decided to set one up and see what i can do.

I'm not sure why the d-i (Debian Installer) seems to have had a reputation for being difficult or limiting.  To me, it's a consequence of Debian supporting more architectures than most other Linux distributions and supporting multiple installation methods including installing on systems without a video card

It's probably considered obsolete by today's standards and is a bit of a power hog but it's nice to get away from x86 stuff once in a while.


Sun Fire V240

CPU(s): Sun UltraSparc IIIi 1.33 GHz

RAM: 2048 MiB Registered ECC DDR

Video Graphics Adapter: None

Network: 4 x Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet

Note: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5704 requires non-free firmware for full-operation

Storage Direct Attached Storage Internal Optical Disc Drive 1 x Slimeline DVD-ROM

Storage Direct Attached Storage Internal 4 x 3.5 in. 9.1 GiB SCSI HDD


Software
OS (Operating System)

Debian GNU/Linux 7 Wheezy Sparc
Initial Install

boot CD Debian GNU/Linux 7.1 Wheezy Sparc netinst

NOTE: There is no video card on this server. Using Serial Console to install.

at OpenBoot "ok" prompt:

boot cdrom

at Debian Installer "boot" prompt:

expert DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text

"Debian installer main menu" > "Choose Language" > "English - English" > "United States" > "United States - en_US.UTF-8" > enter "135 136" to enable additional support for locales "en_US" and "en_US.ISO-8859-15" > "Continue" > set default locale as "en_US.UTF-8"

"Select a keyboard layout" > "2. No keyboard to configure"

"Detect and Mount CD-ROM" >

"Load installer components from CD" >

"Additional Components:" > "1" for" cfdisk"

"Detect network hardware" >

"2. No" for "Load missing firmware from removable media?" >

"1. eth0: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet" for "Primary network interface" >

"Configure the network" > "No" to "Auto-configure network with DHCP" > "x.x.x.x" for "IP adddress" > "x.x.x.x" for "Netmask" > "x.x.x.x" for "Gateway" > "x.x.x.x y.y.y.y" for "Name server addresses" > "Yes" if information is correct > "abcd" for "Hostname" > "example.com" for "Domain name"

"Set up users and passwords" > "Yes" for "Enable shadow passwords" > "Yes" for "Allow login as root" > enter and confirm password for root user > "Yes" for "Create a normal user account now"

created normal user

"Configure the clock" > "Yes" for "Set the clock using NTP" > "ntp.example.com" for "NTP server to use" > "Eastern" for "Select your time zone"

"Detect Disks" >

"Partition disks" > "Manual" for "Partitioning method:" > select "SCSI1 (0,0,0 (sda) > "Yes" to "Create new empty partition table on this device?" > "sun" for "Partition table type:" > do the partition table for other disk "SCSI1 (0,1,0) (sdb)" > etc. etc.

Looks like can't do software raid on /boot due to SILO bootloader, allocated empty partitions on other disks equal to /boot to keep disk alignment the same on all drives, RAID 6 with LVM for root and swap

"Finish partitioning and write changes to disk" > "Yes" if all settings look ok.

"Install the base system"

"linux-image-sparc64" for "Kernel to install" > "generic" for "Drivers to include in the initrd"

"Choose a mirror of the Debian archive" > "http" for "Protocol for file downloads" > "United States" for "Debian archive mirror country" > "ftp.us.debian.org" for "Debian archive mirror" > leave blank "HTTP proxy information"

"Configure the package manager" > "Yes" for "Use non-free software" > check "security updates" and "volatile updates" for "services to use"

"Select and install software" > "No" for "Participate in package usage survey" > "No" for "Should man mandb be installed 'setuid man'?" > check only "SSH server" and "Standard system utilities" for "Choose software to install"

"Install the SILO boot loader on a hard disk" >

"Finish the installation" > "Yes" for "Is the system clock set to UTC?" > "Continue"

Post-Install Configuration

edited /etc/hosts.deny and /etc/hosts.allow after making backup copies to only allow access for local network

edited for clarity /etc/apt/sources.list after making backup copy

a little housekeeping, this clears the screen when you log out as root "cp -p /etc/skel/.bash_logout ~/"

Edited /etc/adduser.conf after making backup copy so new users will get added to supplementary groups

Reconfigure local MTA exim "dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config"  >

firmware

aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree

filesystem utilities

Support for POSIX ACLs and Extended Attributes

Note: XFS as well as JFS has built-in support for these, so there is no need to edit /etc/fstab options like for ext3 or ext4.

aptitude install acl attr bsdtar

NTP

aptitude install ntp

edit /etc/ntp.conf to add timeserver

SCSI tools

aptitude install lsscsi

Open Source technology of IBM Watson computer (the one that won "Jeopardy!")

While i was on vacation, i went down to Columbus for the Ohio Linuxfest

https://ohiolinux.org/

and while most of the panels were geared toward home users and small
installations, at the other end of the spectrum, there were also
representatives from IBM that discussed the Watson computer which
recently won "Jeopardy!".


There was an episode of NOVA titled "Smartest Machine on Earth"

http://video.pbs.org/video/1786674622/


However; the NOVA special didn't mention is that Watson runs Linux as
its OS (Operating System) and uses FOSS (Free Open Source Software)
extensively.

http://www.novell.com/promo/suse/ibm-watson.html

http://ibmsystemsmag.blogs.com/you_and_i/2011/02/ibm-watson-nova-episode-and-a-few-details.html

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/davidian/entry/what_runs_watson_and_why16?lang=en_us


The official IBM terminology for the natural language processing and
search technology is called DeepQA:

http://www.research.ibm.com/deepqa/faq.shtml

which uses Apache UIMA and Hadoop:

http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-announce/201102.mbox/%3C273680.9076.qm@web30804.mail.mud.yahoo.com%3E

Today's history lesson that should be in schools: Not all Japanese were the "bad guys" during World War II.

The 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team were composed of Japanese-Americans, many of whom volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army even after being forcibly relocated to internment camps and went on to serv with distinction in Europe fighting against Nazi forces. Go For Broke National Education Center has a lot more information. "Go for broke" is also the name of a 1951 film detailing their exploits.

The quiet juggernaut of Free Open Source Software

We are now well into the 21st Century and although we don't have flying cars or a base on the moon as shown in some quaint old science fiction movies, we do have something that wasn't popularized in those films. We have a worldwide communication network that allows people to communicate and collaborate like never before, it's a little something called the Internet. The majority of people have at least heard of the Internet, but very few have ever heard of Free Open Source Software. This is rather unfortunate as FOSS (Free Open Source Software) has enabled the growth of the Internet and continues to be a major force driving innovation and technology.

Free Open Source Software is a modern term combining the idea of something being free as in cost or "gratis" and free as in freedom or "libre" when applied to software. Richard M. Stallman, Eric S. Raymond as well as many others have written extensively about these ideals.


Ideals and theory are all well and good, but the practical pragmatic advantages of FOSS is just as important. The nature of FOSS encourages competition by allowing each program or application to compete on merit outside of any particular company as well as creating an ecosystem where different ideas or implementations can be unleashed and when something works well, it is practically impossible to destroy. It is basically a meritocracy. Many good proprietary software programs have been left to decay once their commercial companies folded or lost interest in the product. The term "abandonware" has been coined to describe these programs.


The interesting thing about FOSS is that practically everybody is already using it and have been for some time. Sendmail, qmail, and other FOSS is responsible for much of the email that gets sent worldwide on the Internet. The Apache Software Foundation's httpd server powers the majority of the world's web sites according to Netcraft:

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html


FOSS has also enabled many new companies to quickly implement new ideas which speeds innovation and progress. Google uses the Linux operating system, not Microsoft Windows, on their massive server farms, Yahoo uses the FreeBSD operating system. Up and coming companies such as
Facebook has leveraged FOSS to quickly get into market:

http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php

MediaWiki, the software that powers Wikipedia is FOSS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About#Technical_attributes

which is a spiritual successor to WikiWikiWeb, the first wiki application initially made in 1994. The Linux or GNU/Linux operating system can be found on devices ranging from small devices such as wristwatches and cellphones to netbooks and laptops, on many servers, up to mainframes, and the majority of the top 500 supercomputers in the world:

http://www.top500.org/stats/list/32/osfam


Weta Digital, creators of the incredible special effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy makes heavy use of the Linux operating system as well as the Python programming language:

http://www.wetafx.co.nz/jobs


Apple makes extensive use of FOSS in their flagship operating system OS X:

http://developer.apple.com/opensource/


There are FOSS programs for almost every conceivable application ranging from databases such as PostgreSQL and MySQL to 3D animation programs like Blender:

http://www.blender.org/


GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software such as GRASS (originally Army corps of engineers)

http://grass.osgeo.org/


OpenOffice.org is a fairly complete productivity suite:

http://www.openoffice.org/ or

http://www.neooffice.org/ for a better integrated Apple Mac OS X version.


Among the many US government, military, and educational institutions that have embraced FOSS are:

NASA http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Resources/Software/Open-Source/opensource.html

the DoD (Department of Defense)

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080910-how-the-dod-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-open-source.html


and the NSA (yes, that NSA):

http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/


Even video games use FOSS. Crayon Magic, used the Box2d engine:

http://www.box2d.org/

which is FOSS.


There are many large commercial companies that have embraced FOSS:

IBM http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource

Intel http://software.intel.com/sites/oss/

AMD or ATI http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~119372,00.html

HP http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/309906-0-0-0-121.html

Nokia http://opensource.nokia.com/

Dell http://www.dell.com/linux/

Sun Microsystems http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/

Oracle http://oss.oracle.com/

Sony products including cameras, and the PlayStation 2 and 3.
http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/

Netgear
http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/open_src.asp


There are many groups aside from technical ones that have also adopted FOSS. From small commercial companies like Ernie Ball, manufacturer of guitar strings and other accessories:

http://news.cnet.com/2102-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=st.util.print

to municipalities like the city of Munich, Germany:

http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39162746,00.htm

national government institutions like the French Police:

http://www.webinfrance.com/police-france-microsoft-linux-201.html

or entire countries like Brazil:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3445805.stm

or Vietnam:

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2009/01/822425/


Even though FOSS has been in the background quietly serving for many years, it has only recently begun to gain a foothold in the minds of the general public. Even though the Mozilla Firefox web browser is one recent application that has popularized FOSS, the reputation of FOSS has been tarnished by some commercial companies such as Microsoft which has called it a "cancer":

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/

The irony or perhaps hypocrisy is that they have switched their websites and windows update servers to Akamai who use linux exclusively on their servers.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39115920,00.htm


Microsoft has also claimed that Linux violates over 200 patents:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/

though Microsoft still has not named them. The patent violations seem highly unlikely as Linux runs on far more hardware platforms than Microsoft Windows.

They also have used BSD code in their ftp.exe client and other utilities that ship with Microsoft Windows for some time. FOSS is also in their Services For Unix product. In addition Microsoft used MIT Kerberos as the basis for their Active Directory product. Recently even Microsoft has started to quietly push FOSS to developers:

http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/


Although FOSS has many advantages, adopting FOSS is not an automatic panacea solution. It may have no direct monetary cost, but there can be costs in training or retraining personnel, time searching for solutions or customizing software that may not fit specific needs perfectly. Even so, Free Open Source Software is the quiet juggernaut that will not be so quiet in the 21st Century.

I wonder when there will be an openly agnostic/atheist PotUS ...

and why people swear on a Bible when it itself says not to:

"But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven for it is God's throne; Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." Matthew 5:34-37

"But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation." James 5:12