81

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2016-12-18

« on: December 14, 2016, 07:03:41 PM »

The homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about five minutes on 2016-12-18, between 08:00 and 08:15 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EST (USA east coast):
2016-12-18, 03:00-03:15

UTC (UK):
2016-12-18, 08:00-08:15

AEDT (Australia east coast):
2016-12-18, 19:00-19:15


The intent is to install security updates on the server which hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC. These will be non-disruptive to functionality, as the server is running a stable OS release that gets critical fixes only.

82

Philosophy, Religion & Society / gab.ai

« on: December 03, 2016, 01:45:32 PM »

https://gab.ai/

gab.ai is a social media network, aiming to fill a similar role to Facebook and Twitter, but without the increasing level of censorship those platforms partake in. For a longer and better explanation, see their Wikipedia entry and community guidelines.

I'd encourage anyone who cares about freedom of expression and uses social media to give it a try. There's a 2-week waiting period, presumably to throttle the rate of new accounts while the platform is still growing, so I'd sign up right away even if you have doubts.

I'm posting this in PR&S because it's as much a part of the broader current global resurgence of free speech as it is a social media platform.

83

Philosophy, Religion & Society / PolSpectrum

« on: November 27, 2016, 09:22:25 AM »

PolSpectrum is a quiz that places you on the original left-right spectrum, rather than the modernised version.

http://www.politicallyincorrect.work/extras/polspectrum/

Here's my result:

84

Philosophy, Religion & Society / 2017 Dutch general election

« on: November 25, 2016, 09:48:59 PM »

On 15 March next year, the Netherlands will go to the polls and decide their next government. Recent developments have made this look likely to become as big of a deal as Brexit or Trump.

Currently, if the polls are to be believed, the most likely next Prime Minister of the Netherlands is Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV, Partij voor de Vrijheid). Among their policies are holding a legally binding referendum on Nexit (a Netherlands exit from the EU), restricting immigration from Islamic countries, and denationalising and deporting dual nationals who commit serious crimes. Wilders has recently seen a popularity boost after being prosecuted for making "racist" comments about Moroccan immigrants -- specifically, asking his supporters if they want to see fewer of them.

His most likely (and only serious) opposition is Mark Rutte, the current incumbent. Rutte leads the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD, Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie), a fairly moderate centre-right party. Sadly, like many incumbent powers across Europe, VVD has largely ignored the current immigration crisis, though I like basically all of their other policies.

Because of the way the Dutch electoral system works, no one party has ever had an outright majority in the Second Chamber (Tweede Kamer, analogous to the UK House of Commons or the US House of Representatives). This means that whoever of Wilders or Rutte becomes Prime Minister, they are very likely to need to work with the other to form a coalition government. I say "likely" because there is the possibility that either one could work with other, smaller parties instead.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what happens regarding Nexit. It will be even more difficult for the Netherlands to leave the EU than it is for the UK, because they are also a part of the Eurozone and the Schengen Agreement. Most of PVV's other policies hinge on a successful Nexit, since they require autonomy over the Dutch immigration policy.

I'll post some more background information on the parties involved here when I have time.

85

Suggestions & Concerns / So junker is a mod now

« on: November 13, 2016, 07:22:56 AM »

I'm too drunk to make a proper announcement. Just letting you know he's making this shit better.

86

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2016-10-29

« on: October 28, 2016, 03:32:54 AM »

The homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about five minutes on 2016-10-29, between 07:00 and 07:15 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EDT (USA east coast):
2016-10-29, 03:00-03:15

BST (UK):
2016-10-29, 08:00-08:15

AEDT (Australia east coast):
2016-10-29, 18:00-18:15


The intent is to install security updates on the server which hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC. These will be non-disruptive to functionality, as the server is running a stable OS release that gets critical fixes only.

87

Suggestions & Concerns / Lounge (possible IRC webchat replacement)

« on: October 01, 2016, 09:18:16 AM »

Lounge is a spiffy potential replacement for our current webchat. Aside from having a nicer interface and some convenient features like auto-reconnect, it would allow regular IRC users who connect over webchat to remain always connected. Their session would remain open after closing their browser, and next time they log on (possibly from a different device), they would see things said since they left.

The complication is that it doesn't support having both anonymous access and registered users (and thus persistent connections) simultaneously. That can be fixed, since it's open-source, I'm just not sure if it's worth the effort.

What do the IRC users here think? Is this something worth setting up, or is our current webchat good enough?

88

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2016-10-01

« on: September 27, 2016, 07:58:52 AM »

The homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about five minutes on 2016-10-01, between 07:00 and 07:15 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EDT (USA east coast):
2016-10-01, 03:00-03:15

BST (UK):
2016-10-01, 08:00-08:15

AEST (Australia east coast):
2016-10-01, 17:00-17:15


The intent is to install security updates on the server which hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC. The forum software, SMF, will also be updated to the latest 2.0 release during this window.

89

Technology & Information / Parsifal is getting a laptop

« on: September 07, 2016, 07:49:36 AM »

In a surprise switcheroo with SexWarrior, I will soon be semi-nomadically scouting for a home in the Netherlands, and thus my current (and still very OP after four years) desktop is no longer suitable.

I have already bought a laptop to replace it, though I still need to buy some extra storage and other accessories. I might also be getting a good quality backpack with a dedicated laptop compartment.

What I have ordered is:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (4th gen)
CPU: Intel Core i7-6600U (3.4 GHz)
Memory: 16 GiB LPDDR3 SDRAM (1866 MHz)
Storage: 128 GB M.2 mSATA SSD
Display: 14.0" 2560x1440 IPS

I have also ordered a OneLink+ dock (for use as a stationary workstation) and a OneLink+ to VGA/RJ45 adapter (for use as a mobile laptop).

I will be replacing the 128 GB SSD (which also has Windows 10 Home preinstalled, since I couldn't select no OS) with a 1 TB NVMe SSD bought elsewhere at some stage.

It is going to dual boot OpenBSD (as my primary OS) and Fedora (mostly for Steam, but also any other software I can't run on OpenBSD).

I will also be getting a couple of external SATA drive docks for things that won't fit on internal storage.

90

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2016-09-03

« on: August 28, 2016, 08:47:14 AM »

The homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about an hour on 2016-09-03, between 07:00 and 09:00 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EDT (USA east coast):
2016-09-03, 03:00-05:00

BST (UK):
2016-09-03, 08:00-10:00

AEST (Australia east coast):
2016-09-03, 17:00-19:00


The server will be upgraded to a newer stable release of its operating system. This introduces the risk that problems will arise after the maintenance; in case any are noted, please create a thread in Suggestions & Concerns so that we can deal with it. Thank you.

91

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2016-07-23

« on: July 19, 2016, 12:25:08 AM »

The homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about an hour on 2016-07-23, between 04:00 and 06:00 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EDT (USA east coast):
2016-07-23, 00:00-02:00

BST (UK):
2016-07-23, 05:00-07:00

AEST (Australia east coast):
2016-07-23, 14:00-16:00


During this time, the server which hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be migrated from Linode's aging Xen platform to the more modern KVM platform. This downtime would be required regardless due to maintenance on the Xen platform; we are proactively upgrading instead to avoid future downtime.

At the same time, security updates will be installed on the server. These will be non-disruptive to functionality, as the server is running a stable OS release that gets critical fixes only.

92

Status Notices / Unplanned outage, 2016-07-16

« on: July 16, 2016, 04:19:15 AM »

The server that hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC was down for approximately 40 minutes, from 01:28 to 02:08 UTC, 2016-07-16.

This was caused by emergency maintenance by the hosting provider. Due to the emergency nature of the work, very short notice was given, which is why I was unable to post this until after the event.

93

Philosophy, Religion & Society / 2016 Australian federal election

« on: May 29, 2016, 10:26:01 AM »

tl;dr: Australia is fucked.

After the thoroughly underwhelming performance of Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister for the past year, we now have a choice between him and the most underwhelming Opposition Leader we've had in the past decade, Bill Shorten. They're both by and large in agreement on all their worst policies, and where they differ, they prefer to fling shit at the other guy's policies rather than back up their own with anything substantial.

What's more, the Greens -- who I have severe disagreements with as well, but they look like angels compared to the two big parties -- have gotten into bed with Turnbull to cement the major parties' power in the Senate with some half-baked voting reforms. Now Turnbull has called a double dissolution to get rid of minor party Senators, and it's doubtful whether a single one will be able to scrape up enough votes to return.

The only possible outcome of this election that won't be catastrophic is a hung Parliament. The less the circlejerk of powermongers that is Capital Hill can accomplish, the less they can fuck up.

Here you can see the two candidates for Prime Minister flinging shit at each other while failing to convince anyone why they should be in Parliament, let alone running the country:

http://livenews.abc.net.au/Event/Politics_live_May_29

94

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2016-05-28

« on: May 24, 2016, 05:44:33 PM »

The homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about five minutes on 2016-05-28, between 07:00 and 07:15 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EDT (USA east coast):
2016-05-28, 03:00-03:15

BST (UK):
2016-05-28, 08:00-08:15

AEST (Australia east coast):
2016-05-28, 17:00-17:15


The intent is to install security updates on the server which hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC. These will be non-disruptive to functionality, as the server is running a stable OS release that gets critical fixes only.

95

Status Notices / Unplanned outage, 2016-04-08

« on: April 09, 2016, 04:01:14 AM »

The server that hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC may have been intermittently unreachable throughout a 2-hour period, from 19:00 to 21:00 UTC, 2016-04-08.

This outage was caused by network problems with the hosting provider, which they have now resolved. For more information, see Linode's status notice.

96

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2016-03-05

« on: March 03, 2016, 12:38:50 PM »

The homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about five minutes on 2016-03-05, between 08:00 and 08:15 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EST (USA east coast):
2016-03-05, 03:00-03:15

UTC (UK):
2016-03-05, 08:00-08:15

AEDT (Australia east coast):
2016-03-05, 19:00-19:15


The intent is to install security updates on the server which hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC. These will be non-disruptive to functionality, as the server is running a stable OS release that gets critical fixes only.

97

Technology & Information / e-readers

« on: March 02, 2016, 01:05:08 PM »

So I ordered up a Kobo Glo HD last week and it arrived today. I had previously bought, and have just transferred to it, the entire Harry Potter series in Dutch. Now I get to read some serious Dutch for the first time.

This is my first e-reader, and so far I love the E-Ink screen, though of course I'll have a better idea of how good it is once I've read some stuff. Anyone else have some fascinating tales to tell?

98

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2016-02-21

« on: February 17, 2016, 12:26:34 AM »

The homepage, forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about five minutes on 2016-02-21, between 08:00 and 08:15 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EST (USA east coast):
2016-02-21, 03:00-03:15

UTC (UK):
2016-02-21, 08:00-08:15

AEDT (Australia east coast):
2016-02-21, 19:00-19:15


The intent is to install security updates on the server which hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC. These will be non-disruptive to functionality, as the server is running a stable OS release that gets critical fixes only.

99

Technology & Information / Local privilege escalation in Linux kernel

« on: January 20, 2016, 02:20:15 AM »

Linux version 3.8 and newer, which accounts for most modern desktop and server Linux systems, as well as most Android devices, is subject to a local privilege escalation attack.

http://perception-point.io/2016/01/14/analysis-and-exploitation-of-a-linux-kernel-vulnerability-cve-2016-0728/

I don't have time to write a lot now (I'm posting from my phone at work), but basically this allows any untrusted application to gain full administrative permissions. There are situations which make this bug more difficult to exploit, but as the consequences are dire, you should patch any systems you maintain which are affected.

In case you missed it before: This affects Android, at least most recent devices (from the past couple of years or so). If you have an Android device and you see a software update available, install it now!

Edit: In case anyone was wondering, we're not vulnerable. The server hosting this forum is running a kernel too old to be affected.

100

Status Notices / Degraded service, 2015-12-31

« on: December 31, 2015, 06:37:08 PM »

The server which hosts the homepage, forum, wiki and IRC is currently being affected by a DoS attack on the hosting provider, which may cause slow loading times and/or sporadic unavailability. The hosting provider is aware of the situation and there isn't much we can do but wait for a resolution.

For full details, see Linode's status page for the incident.