From Ye Old Blogge: 3 Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Near my mole

Some old pre-Blogspot.com posts, recycled.

3 Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Redmond's Latest Security Stumble?

Hey this is SECURITY with a capital U - "You Dickheads!!!"-

I quote from one of the manuals, the Sybex one (Mastering WindowsServer 2003):

.........With Server 2003 you can take a backup of your AD domain database with you to the remote site, and DCPROMO then lets you start a new DC out from the backup of the AD, rather than forcing a complete initial replication over the WAN. From there, you connect the new DC up to that unreliable phone line, and all the DC must do is to replicate whatever’s changed in AD between when the backup occurred and now, which usually isn’t much.

... so it now appears I can, if I get access to an open DC somewhere, take a copy of the catalog, I can then run up a new DC in my bedroom and join the domain? It may not get me full access right away but it's a loophole I could use to access stuff, maybe change passwords, whatever.

Also, (and more importantly) it lets me, as a determined system breaker, maybe get my hands on the DVD which that system admin is carrying around and reverse engineer it for ALL the passwords and other stuff like where the cream of the files are stored?

Damnit, it breaks every security rule I can think of... Am I stupidly not seeing something here, or is it Redmond that have done YAST?

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These are random blog posts I recently rescued from a text dump of my earliest recorded blog posts from Ye Good Ole Days of writing stuff in Notepad and using some weird software that basically uploaded your entire blog every time you added a new article or edited an old one.

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Find Anything In Your Documents - Fast.

Not sure if any of you have this problem: You have a Google Docs chock full o' documents you've written or collected over a decade, you have a Documents folder on your home directory on your server that's also chocka doccas, you *know* you had one (or wrote one) that was about the exact topic you want to write about - and . . . *blank*

I was desperate enough to forego all formatting and images if it meant I could just feed all of that into a huge database-based app that let me keep future notes on it as well - even if that meant b&w, dreary reams of text to go through and meant changing my whole workflow. I looked them up. Argh. So few features that I wanted.

I had a brainfart and asked ChatGPT. Among other suggestions, Copernic Desktop got thrown at me. But. (And this is my recurring plaint, the song of my pensioner people:) I can't afford an extra monthly fee... But I did go to one of those "apps just like xyzzy" sites and found a heap more. Near the top of the heap was a free open source software named DocFetcher. Installed it just this morning and I don't think I need to look further. 

DocFetcher is a bit more tech-fiddly to set up if you've never done this before, but even as it comes right out of the install, all you need to do is read the first page, point it at your Documents folder or whatever (the first page tells you how) and that would answer most of your needs. So don't be scared of it. It's bloody marvellous. 

If you know regexes (REGular EXpressions) then fine tuning what you want is a piece of cake. I just needed it to ignore MP3s and MP4s because why would I want to search for text in those? And so " .*\.mp* " was pretty much all I added to the exclusions list, which sped things up hugely. 

My Documents folder has text, Word docs, PDFs, videos, images, spreadsheets - but only the videos take ages for DF to search and are generally not great sources of text anyway. Images - I'm not sure if DF does OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on those but on the off chance, I'll save myself the trouble of writing another one or two dozen regexes to exclude those.

And it's fast enough anyway - PDFs only slow it a bit, and all the other formats seem to get recognised and recorded. 

But what about a way to grab stuff off my Google Docs? A moment's head-scratching and a flash of light: Install Google Drive, let it synchronise locally, and then point DF at that folder, same exclusions - and now I have all my text searchable inside this one app. (For those that don't know, Google Docs stores all your documents in Google Drive but - as far as I know, at this point in time - those documents don't count towards your Gb space quota. So every document appears in your Google Drive folder when you install it, with the extension ".gdoc" )

So now I can type in "non-struct" and all document with non-struct in them will show up for me. ("non-struct" is non-structural and refers to lumber from the timber stores and hardware stores around the place that I have a few pages with dimensions etc noted down.) 

I've found that DF opens documents in their default applications, which means your Google Docs will show up in your web browser, docx in your word processor, etc. 

Any of that helpful for you? I hope you found something useful in this short article. And I'm hoping you'll help me by sharing this post and my many others like it to your social and messaging networks please. Also if you want to spread the word just ask them to search for "teds news stand" online and they (and you!) can see my latest twenty or so posts across all my blogs, and sign up for the once-a-week newsletter so you'll always know when my next posts are coming out.

You can also help by donating the cost of a cup of coffee, one-time or monthly. And use the Mastodon link to chat with me. 

Thank you for your attention, hope to see you in the next article!

From Ye Old Blogge: #2 Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Remy le Moan

Some old pre-Blogspot.com posts, recycled.

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Out of memory Errol

Here's a thought for you (be careful though!):

Medical professionals told us that we only ever really utilised a tenth of our brain's capacity. None of them can tell you what would happen if we used *all* of it. I mean, are they talking computing power or memory capacity here?

If they meant processing power well then we're probably safe - after all, it takes the same amount of specialised knowledge to be a woodcutter as it does to be a system administrator, just in slightly different areas. We may have to process a bit more than our woodsman ancestor, but I doubt the difference would add much to that 10% load average...

On the other hand, we have so much more information flowing through that processing power, and since it's believed that we never truly lose any memories, that could be a problem for our brains. (We might forget *where* a particular memory is in our brains, but unless the braincells die, the memory will be there, just forgotten...)

We are reading a LOT more information than our ancestors ever got out of tracking game or sitting at their local inn, we are required to process a LOT more data than they ever were, and this information overload is a recognised condition nowadays. And it's growing exponentially, meaning the first real information overload should be happening anytime in the new year...

In fact, this could be a good way to can spammers once and for all, if it can be shown that their actions constitute reckless endangerment of people's mental faculties...

So - at what point will a person's brain throw an 'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given the view expressed above) or would you just start being unable to add any new memories?

...what point will a person's brain throw an 'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given the view expressed above) or would you just start being unable to add any...

...will a person's brain throw an 'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given the view expressed above) or would you just start being...

...'s brain throw an 'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given the view expressed above...

...'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given...

...take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting...

...forget older or...

OUT OF MEMORY ERROR HAS OCCURRED. PLEASE ADVISE - ... SOMEONE... ABOUT... UMMMMMmmm....

Sorry - couldn't resist that one... Back to the show...

Luckily, we can sort of deal with this sort of amnesia already, (or watch the movie 'Memento' for a great insight into anterograde amnesia) so we'll just carry on until someone invents a Compact Flash card for our brains, and then start adding a whole new personality or skillset... hehehe yeh right. Since when have we ever had enough CPU or memory?

But be more selective about what you put in your brain from now on, you hear?

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These are random blog posts I recently rescued from a text dump of my earliest recorded blog posts from Ye Good Ole Days of writing stuff in Notepad and using some weird software that basically uploaded your entire blog every time you added a new article or edited an old one.

I'm shamelessly adding that little mini-banner graphic with links for you to donate, check my newsletter site, and generally get more entangled in my weird world. 

 

From Ye Old Blogge: Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Reno My Male

Some old pre-Blogspot.com posts, recycled.

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Happy New (Accurate!) Year!

So the Earth's gone back to being right on time in its orbit around the Sun.

It's an interesting thing, really. We invented atomic clocks to track time better and then found out that Earth hasn't been tracking time accurately, so we validated the leap year which had been previously introduced to account for this.

Our ancestors believed in whims of gods and random variability. To them, it was quite acceptable that winter might be followed by more winter, or that a day should be cut short because of a god's displeasure. What they attributed eclipses to bears testimony to their way of thinking back then. And lo! - the universe complied, by providing them with an Earth that slowed down and made years a different length.

Our physicists and astrophysicists (now *there*'s a blast from the past term!) tell us that slowing down is the natural course for bodies in orbit, so we also believe in a certain amount of variability, but a predictable variability.

This is unpredictable. So were the ancients right, does everything really depend on the whim of gods, or are we missing some laws of physics? Or is the Universe adapting itself to our new demands on it?

I don't recall who in the last century said that 'the Universe looks less and less like a machine and more and more like a thought' but I'm beginning to think they're right. In which case, there are two consequences to this Earth-moving news:

ONE - we're all on time again, but we still have leap years, so we're actually ahead by about a quarter of a second per day, so you can all stop worrying about being late for appointments! and

TWO - since the Universe is a thought, and since I am experiencing this thought, it must be *my* thought, so why am I typing this weblog to figments of my imagination?

Happy New Year all you figments!

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These are random blog posts I recently rescued from a text dump of my earliest recorded blog posts from Ye Good Ole Days of writing stuff in Notepad and using some weird software that basically uploaded your entire blog every time you added a new article or edited an old one.

I'm shamelessly adding that little mini-banner graphic with links for you to donate, check my newsletter site, and generally get more entangled in my weird world. 

 

From Ye Old Blogge: Monday, December 29, 2003

Lemony Amore

Some old pre-Blogspot.com posts, recycled.

Monday, December 29, 2003

Where are they today? Scientific breakthroughs that have vanished into limbo.

I've just picked up a book that's been in my bookshelf for a LOOONNNGGG time - written sometime in the Seventies, it's titled 'Breakthroughs' by one Charles Panati. In the first few dozen pages, I've already found enough material to keep my curiosity motor ticking over at hyper rates.

In the section on dental care, for example, he mentions 'Lauricidin' - go ahead, Google it if you like, there are results to be had - but here's the mystery - you tell me what happened here, I'd be most grateful:

You see, Lauricidin is lauric acid and glycerine. And Mr Panati goes to the trouble of mentioning that it has great antibacterial properties against the bacteria which cause tooth decay and caries, is tasteless, and just undergoing approval by the FDA for use as an additive in foods and motuhwashes and whatever, in order to lessen the chances of these bacteria forming plaques on teeth.

Where is it now? Why are there still dentists making money hand over hand over our teeth? Why does Lauricidin apparently now have a bad taste when in the 70's it was definitely 'tasteless'? Someone needed a reason not to put it into general use? WTF is going on here?

There are a variety of diet things mentioned, and one in particular I remembered, after reading about it again, that I'd heard about it again in the early Nineties, when it was said (on several of the better news magazine shows on TV at the time) that it was only a matter of a few years before we'd see a cheap weight reduction treatment from it. The material was perfluorooctyl bromide, a chemical which was also used in some underwater breathing experiments some 10 - 20 years ago. The stuff has large molecules that we can't easily absorb trhrough alveoli or stomach linings, so it's ideal for carrying oxygen into lungs or blocking food and passing it through the stomach.

Nowadays I find that it seems to be used as a contrast agent for xrays and microscopy, and not much else. And instead of the (and I quote Panati) 'expensive - about $50 a quart' bromide, the latest fad 'fat pill' is more like $500 a month's course, and comes laden with safety warnings and caveats and you try getting a doctor to prescribe them.

Sucrose Polyester - turned out to be a flop. Think Olestra, stomach cramps, etc. But that was in development when Panati wrtoe his book, and it has gone right through all the stages and become first a publicised breakthrough and then a PR disaster. But if it got developed, approved, and then shitcanned in the intervening 20 years, why didn't some of the other products?

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These are random blog posts I recently rescued from a text dump of my earliest recorded blog posts from Ye Good Ole Days of writing stuff in Notepad and using some weird software that basically uploaded your entire blog every time you added a new article or edited an old one.

I'm shamelessly adding that little mini-banner graphic with links for you to donate, check my newsletter site, and generally get more entangled in my weird world.