Diary of a Network Geek

Not by me, though!

Hey, this is really just a link to an article about RSS Aggregators on WiredNews. It is a good article, though. And it sums up the different options quite nicely.
I thought I’d supply a quick link to it, though, since I know several people read my blog via RSS.

As a father, this hits home.

I’m personally against medicating every feeling that we might have that doesn’t meet with society’s “norm”, but that’s what so much of modern psychology seems to want to do. I’m especially against medicating children who are labeled by teachers, not medical professionals, as having attention deficit disorder. Well, it looks like I may have been right all this time. At least, according to this article on Wired News.
What’s even more criminal, to me, is that this report was supressed. Why? Why else, greed. The drug companies want to keep selling thier legalized smack to us to medicate our feelings away. Pretty soon, we’ll all be like THX1138 or like something out of Brave New World. Does anyone else find it ironic that “soma”, a drug described by Huxley in Brave New World is a reality?

It’s time to wake up, people. We have to deal with life on life’s terms and not try to medicate uncomfortable feelings away.

Me, or my provider?

When a hacker does something to someone on the Internet, who’s responsible? Just the hacker? What about the company that supplied him with bandwidth? Or the company that supplied the computer that he compromised to effect his hack? If you haven’t thought about this, you probably should. This article on Wired News talks about that some. It’s a couple of weeks old, but still quite relevant.
See, it’s like this. The Feds are cracking down on security. Or, at least, they allege they will be soon. In any case, there are a number of bills and suggestions and commissions and whatever else the government uses to get things done floating around out there talking about making executives who’s companies don’t secure their networks liable for the damages done. Neat, huh? Say, are your security patches up to date?

Computer virus hunters, that is.

Ever wondered how anti-virus companies go about making those “updates” that so many of us download? Well, this article on Wired News gives us a little insight. Basically, they sound like any other IT department, to me, except for the somewhat added time-pressure I imagine most of them feel. I mean, at the rate new viruses (virii ?) appear “in the wild”, these folks must be busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest!
The interesting thing about the article, though, was that it’s getting harder to find people who want to do this kind of work and are qualified for it. Of course, the qualifications are somewhat “esoteric”. For one thing, you need to know assembly. How many people know assembly these days? Besides my brother, I mean. (See, I *am* the non-nerd in the family!) Then, of course, you have to have a very creative mind, because computer virus hunters basically have to reverse engineer these little suckers. I would imagine it’s very tedious work that only someone really focused and detail oriented is able to do well.

In any case, it was an interesting article.

Not quite the “ultimate” geek job, but it would still be fun.

Being an official LegoLand Master Builder, that is. According to this article on Wired News, LegoLand California is looking for a Master Model Builder. The person filling the position will be the seventh on staff and needs a creative mind. They seem to prefer an art background, but it doesn’t seem like a really hard and fast requirement. In fact, the hardest “requirement” sounded like building a sphere out of cubic Legos. I can see in my head how that would look, but I’m not sure I could actually make it happen.
Anyway, I thought this would be a fun article for all you folks out looking for work still. God knows, there’s still a lot of IT folks out looking for jobs. Good luck, everyone, and hang in there. The market really is starting to turn around. Hang tough, and follow up on every lead that might, possibly lead to any kind of interview. I’m pulling for you!

Linux is certified to be a civil servant!

No, really, according to this article on Wired News, at least one vendor has gotten a US Federal Government certification. Sure, it’s only one, and only on a particular hardware set, but still, it’s a start!
Yep, feelin’ good about that Linux+ cert now!