The Obligatory Harry Potter Posting

Sunday, November 18, 2001

It's the movie of the year so of course I'm obliged to write about it. Heck, I've even read the book (in fact, all four and waiting for the next three). No spoilers here (Harry saves the world from Ultimate Evil); just some comments on the film.

Daniel Radcliffe wasn't a horrible Harry. Neither was he a great Harry. He was just there. Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger and that's “her‧my‧oh‧knee” not “her‧me‧own”) were much better. I'm not sure if it's because of the direction by Chris “Home Alone” Columbus; it's a very difficult role to pull off or he just isn't all that great. I don't know but I felt he was a bit wooden. Everybody else was wonderful (especially Alan Rickman as Severus Snape).

The special effects. Very uneven. They did a wonder job with Hagrid—I'm sure the technology developed for use in The Lord of the Rings was used here to make Robbie Coltrane into a nine foot tall giant (instead of a three foot Hobbit). Very effective. But for me, most of the computer generated effects distracted me. They looked like computer generated effects. The dinosaurs from Jurassic Park were much better done and that was eight years ago! The Quidditch match would have looked great for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within but here they were out of place.

Overall the movie is worth seeing (I wouldn't mind seeing it again) but they could have done a better job overall.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Philosophical conumdrum found on a bag of microwavable popcorn

Instructions on the cellophane wrapper around a bag of microwavable popcorn:

[none listed]

Instructions on the bag of microwavable popcorn once the cellophane wrapper has been removed:

1. REMOVE OVERWRAP. …

The philosophical question this brings to mind:

What the XXXX were they thinking when they printed this?

Saturday, November 18, 2006

“I mean, if they're stupid enough to buy it … ”

I sometimes think I'm in the wrong line of work.

Each week I read James Randi's weekly newsletter where he mentions the latest scams and fuzzy New Age thinking going on in the world, and some of the scams are just …

People believe and pay money for this stuff?

One of the many recent scams is this CD, DVD and LP demagnetizer.

Yes.

It's a degausser for plastic discs.

Demagnetizing both sides of optical media before play results in a greater sense of power, dynamics, and resolution, with cleaner, blacker backgrounds and a larger, more stable soundstage, vivid tonal colors and deeper extension at both ends of the frequency range. Demagnetization also allows the delicacy, refinement and nuance of a performance to shine through, along with micro- and macro-dynamics you need to realize the full potential of music and movies.

“Blacker backgrounds?”

We're talking about sounds, right? Not paintings, right?

“Blacker backgrounds.”

Sheesh.

And here's a demagnitizer that sells for $400.00! What a deal! $400.00 for “four patented electromagnetic beams that penetrate the disc during rotation; in addition to this the rotation speed has been increased for an even dispersion of the specialized beams. What this means is that you can expect far more hidden information to be retrieved. The patented processes ability to reduce the noise floor even further, allows you to enhance your listening pleasure to the extreme.”

As I asked Wlofie the other day, “Is it morally wrong to separate a fool from his money?”

Is it?

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Nine Inch Noëls

The thought of singing Head Like A Hole in the style of the Chairman of the Board has always been amusing to me, but now I've found something that's just as amusing, yet actually exists—Nine Inch Noëls, a medly of classic Christmas songs sung with Nine Inch Nails lyrics (link via Joey deVilla).

And yes, it is just as funny as it is wrong.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Authenticating web users via SSL, part II

Back in September, I set up web authentication via signed certificates but it was primarily a manual process. After creating the certificate authority (and installing the certificate authority into my browser so it wouldn't complain), I then generated a certificate request (on the command line), signed the request (on the command line) and installed the freshly signed certificate into my browser, so I could use that certificate to authenticate myself to my webserver.

If that makes any sense.

Anyway, it is possible to have this handled automagically between the browser and webserver, but sadly, there isn't much information out there about doing so. I only found three pages with any real information; two cover the same material, and one just covers part of the openssl command required to work with this stuff.

And of course, it doesn't work with IE (thank you so much, Microsoft).

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Again going into the breech

I may have been a bit unfair towards the network policies of the Cleveland Clinic yesterday but I was surprised by their apparent draconian network policies (does that make me an optimist because I tend to believe corporate networks are open, or hopelessly naïve about corporate policies towards their own employees?).

Of course Cleveland Clinic can run their network as they see fit. And I can see why they would be hesitant to run a looser, parallel network just for visitors. It's just that as the Network Engineer for The Company (Dan the Network Engineer technically works for another company, one where we share some infrastructure and he currently handles the connection to our Internet peers, which is why I defer to him on occasion) I run an open network on the “assume innocent until proven guilty” principle (or, blacklists) rather than the “assumed guilty until proven innocent” principle (or, whitelists). And it always pains me to see the latter principle in production (and yes, I understand the mindset behind it; I just don't like it personally).

Looking back on it, I'm rather amused that I couldn't even get to the Cleveland Clinic website from their own network (heh). And now that I know what I'm up against (Bunny has a follow-up consultation later today and on Friday), I can plan accordingly.

Or at least know what I can expect [1].

I've set sshd listening in on port 443 on my home box, and checked—yes, The Monopolistic Phone Company isn't blocking inbound port 443 (yea!). As that is the HTTPS port, it should be forwarded, but not through the invisible proxy. Muahahahahahaha! [Back]

Update from the Cleveland Clinic

It works! Muahahahahaha! Port 443 goes straight through the firewall, and I'm able to ssh straight into my home computer. Woot!

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The Psychotherapy of Racter might be possible

I may have spoken too soon. Today I came across a reference to vm86(2), a Linux-only system call (which is okay because I'm running Linux) for the x86 32-bit architecture (which is okay because I'm running the x86 32-bit architecture). It can run x86 code in 16-bit mode (which is okay because the version of Racter I have is x86 16-bit code) and while I don't have MS-DOS (which is okay because who runs that any more?) I can probably fake enough of it to get Racter running.

The tricky part of this was to figure out how to set up and successfully call vm86(). And like most things related to this project, there's not a lot of documentation on what I'm trying to do. I finally got a test program working, so I know in theory I can do what I want to do (and it says something that using an obscure non-portable system call and writing my own half-baked version of MS-DOS system calls is the easiest approach, but I don't think I want to know what that something is).

I had to dust off my copy of The MS-DOS Encyclopedia to read in and properly load an MS-DOS executable into memory (which I think I got right—the relocation records appear to be simple but the devil is always in the details) And Racter did make a valid MS-DOS system call, and better yet, it was one I was expecting Racter to make.

So it looks promising.

I also found what claims to be a faithful implementation of the original Eliza program which requires rewriting my Eliza implementation but that's okay since it seems to be a bit more fleshed out than the version I used.

So it may be that a second attempt at this is warranted. We shall see.

Saturday, November 18, 2023

The Temptation, Part II

I did not wuss out this time.

Yes, yet more email to another Sean Conner that arrived in my Gmail account. This time, informing me I should change “my” password to “my” Instagram account.

Oh? Really?

And not just one, but multiple emails about this.

Okay, time for some tough love. It took a few attempts, but I finally changed “my” password to “my” Instagram account. Sorry the other Sean Conner, but not really. You should have known what your email address was. Is that so hard? (I know the answer—apparently yes, and I'm sill receiving emails about my non-existent child in Memphis)

WTF Instagram? Seriously, WTF?

So I'm trying to update the profile on “my Instragram account” when I see this: “Editing your links is only available on mobile. Visit the Instagram app and edit your profile to change the websites in your bio.”

Really?

I can edit my bio, and my gender, but I can't update a link? Because I'm on a desktop computer?

I figure, maybe I can hack the form to enable that field? I toggle the Web Developer Tools in Firefox and immedately see this:

 .d8888b.  888                       888    
d88P  Y88b 888                       888    
Y88b.      888                       888    This is a browser feature intended for 
 "Y888b.   888888  .d88b.  88888b.   888    developers. If someone told you to copy-paste 
    "Y88b. 888    d88""88b 888 "88b  888    something here to enable an Instagram 
      "888 888    888  888 888  888  Y8P    feature or "hack" someone's account, 
Y88b  d88P Y88b.  Y88..88P 888 d88P         it is a scam and will give them access 
 "Y8888P"   "Y888  "Y88P"  88888P"   888    to your Instagram account.
                           888              
                           888              
                           888              

See https://www.facebook.com/selfxss for more information.

Heh. But in the meantime …

… and nope. The link field has no name, and even if I remove the disabled attribute, it won't let me type in it (and as an aside, the “gender” field isn't even an HTML field element, but the word “Male” wrapped in four <DIV>s and a <SPAN>, each with fifteen classes attached to them—what the hell?). I'm so far removed from “modern web development” that I probably can't hack this without significant effort that I'm too lazy to do.

Sheesh.

The Boston Diaries

Sunday, November 18, 2001