Crime and Punishment

I finished reading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. A few years ago I tried to read "The Idiot" but got distracted about a third of the way in, and never finished it. So this is my first successful foray into 19th century Russian literature.

I must say, I actually rather enjoyed it. It was somewhat of a tough read that took some energy, but it was rewarding. I probably would have more enjoyed a better translation, but this one (the 1914 Constance Garnett) was mostly intelligible. There were passages every so often that wouldn't make any sense, which I'm not sure if it was just due to poor translating, or if the phrases used made more sense in 1914 than they do now. I will admit, Svidrigailov's suicide was a bit of a surprise to me, perhaps I wasn't picking up on all the nuances of his character or something. I had to do some online reading to fully understand why he did it.

I'm not really sure what it was about the book, but I just liked it. Perhaps it was brutal honesty of Raskolnikov's character, or maybe it was something completely different. Either way, I enjoyed it. Just thought I'd say that.

Ahhh, poor IT management is my gain

I'm sitting in a hotel (hotel to remain unnamed) room in Rexburg (I'm here for a wedding) and the hotel is supposed to have wireless internet. The connection was working for about 10 minutes and then crapped out. So I started doing some troubleshooting. Luckily the access points are mounted outside on the balcony completely accessible. So the first step was to try connecting to another of the access points they have, no luck. So I disconnected one of them and plugged in my own ethernet cord, that worked beautifully, so the problem was with the access point itself. So I came back inside and re-associated with the access point. Then I pinged the broadcast to see what IP address would respond, just one. Good, that must be the access point. So I do a port scan on it and discover it indeed has port 80 open (web page access).

I point my browser at the IP address and I get the expected login prompt. I quickly try a few default passwords (usually Linksys devices are setup with no username and the default password is 'admin') this, and a couple of variations didn't work. However, on like my fifth try I got in. Username: 'admin' Password: 'admin'. [shakes head slowly]. If I were a jerk I could simply go around and reprogram each of their access points and cause all sorts of mayhem. But since my goal was to get internet access I moved ahead with that in mind.

Note: First of all, allowing admin logins over the wireless connection is a very stupid idea. Second, leaving the default name and password on access point which allows wireless admin logins is a very bad idea.

But in this case, it worked quite nicely. I then did a wireless scan to find the least cluttered channel (guessing that the connection issues were due to channel congestion). I then switched the access point to run on channel 8, and low and behold everything is working marvelously.

So the moral of the story is: Don't leave admin accounts to your wireless access points using the default information especially if you allow wireless admin logins--- unless, of course, you want to allow a friendly guest hacker to fix your poorly configured network.

Maybe the country can still be saved

Finally some order and respect is returning to the treatment of the Constitution in this country. It turns out that the Supreme Court feels that a US controlled military base, like Guantanamo Bay, still has to abide by the Constitution despite the strongest wishes of Bush and his administration. Finally, the people being held here will be able to demand that our government tell them why and present evidence supporting that reason. If our government doesn't have the proper evidence, the people will be released. This is the first step in restoring our country to what it claims to be, a beacon of freedom and the rule of law. The fact that anyone believes it is OK to keep people imprisoned indefinitely without needing to explain why is disturbing. The fact that the Bush administration has been doing so for years is despicable.

This quote from the right-wing Justice Scalia is rather disturbing: Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority "warps our Constitution." [http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/12/scotus/index.html]

I wouldn't consider applying the Constitution in the way it was meant to be applied a "warping", more like saying that anyone the government decides doesn't get to benefit from the Constitution is a warping. Especially since we've also declared those same people to not be prisoners of war, and therefore the Geneva Conventions don't apply either. So the Bush Administration (through Bush's direct consent) declared that the people being held at Guantanamo Bay were neither Prisoners of War (military prisoners) nor civilian prisoners, therefore their treatment could not be defined by either the Geneva Conventions or the Constitution.

I'm glad something is finally being done about it. Hopefully Kucinich's articles of impeachment against Bush will make some progress and we can show the rest of the world that we actually don't like having lying, war-mongering tyrants leading our country.

Too Smart to be a Cop?

According to the NY Times a man attempting to join the New London, CT police force was denied employment because he scored too high on the intelligence test. A judge decided this wasn't discrimination because they deny anyone scoring that high a job. I'm not really clear on how that makes sense, in my opinion that's kind of like saying "well they deny everyone who's black a job, so it's not discrimination." Sadly police officers tend to get a reputation for being not-incredibly-smart bullies; this doesn't help that. Now, I understand that there is very likely a minimum allowed score for the test as well. Someone does need to be smart enough to perform the job properly; it just seems kind of stupid to say that someone is too smart to be a police officer.

I have a theory as to why people don't like police very much. When is the only time most people ever interact with a police officer? When they get pulled over. So the majority of people's experiences with officers is when they are getting in trouble. That's not going to produce good feelings. I think Provo could help improve the relationship between the police officers and the public by creating a couple of foot patrols. Have a pair of officers that walk up and down Center Street (where there seems to always be at least 2 patrol cars). They can speak to people and be friendly, improving the public opinion of the officers. Have one or two officers that walk the neighborhoods around campus saying, "Hi" to students walking to/from class. Let people know that the police are good, friendly people (I hope they actually are).

Just some random thoughts.

My Birthday

My mom has incredible luck in finding unavailable Wii items. I got my Wii last Christmas because she happened to be in Wal-Mart walking by the electronics department and saw them bring their entire shipment of 3 out to the cabinet. She was able to get this Wii Fit because she was in the electronics department at Wal-Mart planning to buy something else, but asked if they had any just in case. The person went in back and brought one back from their entire shipment of 2.

Thanks Mom!

[Addendum]
Oh, after I set it all up, when I played again after everyone left it wished me a Happy Birthday, and the little dancing Wii Balancing Board cartoon thingy was wearing a party hat. It's the little things like that that Nintendo does right that make their stuff awesome.

Friends

I just wanted to take a minute and say that I have awesome friends. Some of them might not be the most on-top-of things so far as planning is concerned, but they are genuine people who have a lot of heart. I appreciate everything they do for me.

The Second Interview: Are you legit?

So earlier this week (Wednesday) I had my second interview with the company previously mentioned. Not that I mean to criticize, but they probably should have planned ahead as to what they wanted to ask me questions about. It mostly ended up being a general information gathering type session. The developer I spoke with mostly just asked me if I knew things like, have I used X before, how much work have done in X, how familiar am I with X, do I feel confident programming in X, why do you want to work with us, what do you plan to do when you graduate, what do you want this job to do for you and your future plans... those kinds of things. I was never actually asked to exhibit any of my programming skills or system design skills. Towards the end of the interview I actually offered to show him some of my work, which he let me do. He seemed pretty excited with what I'm able to do in my various non-pay capacities.

On Thursday morning the HR guy called me to see if I wanted the position. So I accepted and headed into the office to sign all sorts of papers about Non-Disclosure Agreements, company policies, At-Will employment, etc. Then we were waiting for one of the developers to come in so he could setup an account for me, during which waiting time I was sent to play the Wii, which I did. I played about 10 bouts of boxing without losing, taking a guest account from 0 to ~800 skill level. I also played some tennis, then I was starting to get tired so I turned it off and went to chat some. The developer showed up and got me an account setup. Due to the startup nature of the company, I'll be using my own laptop to work on, not a big deal, but a little silly. So I spent a few hours that evening installing software and setting up the SVN connections on my laptop. Not a bad way to spend the day getting paid at a pretty decent rate.

So, assuming this position continues as anticipated, I will have gratefully solved my financial problems which would have come to a head next March. And I can start feeling like I can buy groceries again without worrying if I really really want something or if I can live off of a cheaper cheaper set of food products.