tcpip: (Default)
Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2004-05-27 10:51 am

CCNA, Network Engineering, Mutazilites, Journal Articles, Taxes!

First off, some deep-geek news. I'm enrolled to do get CCNA certification. How does this happen? I mean, I'm qualified to be a sociologist, a philosopher and a political scientist and I end being a network engineer.

The most troubling task of the week was fixing up the Borderlands network. With the world's most "no frills" ADSL modem, a rather impressive mini router, a Netgear switch and a Dec repeater and about fifteen or so clients (heterogenous of course, WinXP, WinNT, Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux, Mandrake), they decided to broadband provider to a dial-up account and then to a different broadband provider. Then the entire network fell over. I couldn't even ping 192.168.0.1 - even when connected! A couple of days of extreme frustration led to two important discoveries. One was a seriously FUBAR ethernet card (file under 'b' for 'bin') which was chewing up resources at a rate of knots and the other was some disturbingly sporadic behaviour by the router. Net result? Basic ICS with a a gateway with dual ethernet cards and send the router back to the manufacturer. It all works. Good.

Nobody likes a heretic, and it seems that some Muslims disklike suggestions that all it not well with the Quaran. I've been in a debate on the convert me community, where my suggestion that the Quaran is a imperfect text has been met with some resistance. Most disturbing of all is the lack of knowledge concerning the Mutazilites. Still, the practical upshot is that I know have an article for the Journal of Liberal Religion in the making.

Speaking of journal articles, I've also sent off a brief to the International Journal for Problems of Nonlinear Analysis in Engineering Systems on dissipitative structures in social systems, which I'll co-author with my colleague in mathematics, Dr. Cameron Jones. Finally, I've also pitched to present a paper at Ruxcon, the IT Security Conference at UTS although my subject matter (Australia - East Timor military intelligence) may be considered a little off-topic.

Other good news includes doing my tax for the first time since (ahem) 1997 and discovering, as I suspected, that the Australian Tax Office owes me a few thousand dollars. That should pay for a few weeks (at least) in Ha Noi with caseopaya if and when Australian Volunteers International get their collective act together and organize the visas etc properly this time. Grrr....

On other religious matters, apparently in Texas the Unitarians arent't a religion. But they fought back and won. Whilst on the unitarian topic, an old championof the creedless church, Kurt Vonnegut expresses his thoughts on the state of America.

Whilst I'm not usually a strong subscriber of the orthodox undergraduate Marxist doctrine of "Faire payers les riches" as a solution to economic problems, gross quantities of wealth sicken me, and the Australian example is quite revolting. "The total wealth of Australia's richest 200 people is $71.5 billion, up 13% from the $63.2 billion in 2003." If we divide that some by 20 million and you get (71 500/20) = $ 3 575 for every man, woman and child in the country.

From Erudito, Jose Ramos-Horta proves that he will be remembered as war-monger.
Sometimes, a War Saves People. Whilst the principle he espouses - a just war - is sound, the implementation is compeletely false in this instance - as pointed out by the people who developed the doctrine, the Roman Catholic Church. Also in the realm of faulty logic, Horta tries to suggest that because the French, Tanzanians and Vietnamese acted without UN approval this somehow justifies the invasion of Iraq. Apparently two people act wrong that makes their same action by a third person right.

More news from Iraq. Wonder of wonders, the New York Times admits to making errors, and no surprise, the United States again indicates that they will not be
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First off, some deep-geek news. I'm enrolled to do get <a href=" http://www.cisco.com/en/US/learning/le3/le2/le0/le9/learning_certification_type_home.html">CCNA certification</a>. How does this happen? I mean, I'm qualified to be a sociologist, a philosopher and a political scientist and I end being a network engineer.

The most troubling task of the week was fixing up the Borderlands network. With the world's most "no frills" <a href="http://www.ozcableguy.com/dlink1.html#dsl300g">ADSL modem</a>, a rather impressive mini <a href="http://www.micronica.com.au/catalog/sharer/wip400/">router</a>, a Netgear switch and a Dec repeater and about fifteen or so clients (heterogenous of course, WinXP, WinNT, Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux, Mandrake), they decided to broadband provider to a dial-up account and then to a different broadband provider. Then the entire network fell over. I couldn't even ping 192.168.0.1 - even when connected! A couple of days of extreme frustration led to two important discoveries. One was a seriously FUBAR ethernet card (file under 'b' for 'bin') which was chewing up resources at a rate of knots and the other was some disturbingly sporadic behaviour by the router. Net result? Basic ICS with a a gateway with dual ethernet cards and send the router back to the manufacturer. It all works. Good.

Nobody likes a heretic, and it seems that some Muslims disklike suggestions that all it not well with the Quaran. I've been in a debate on the convert me community, where my suggestion that the Quaran is a <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/163366.html">imperfect text</a> has been met with some <a href=" http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/165638.html">resistance</a>. Most disturbing of all is the lack of knowledge concerning the <a href=" http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/163651.html">Mutazilites</a>. Still, the practical upshot is that I know have an article for the <a href=" http://www.meadville.edu/archives.html">Journal of Liberal Religion</a> in the making.

Speaking of journal articles, I've also sent off a brief to the <a href="http://www.kcn.ru/tat_en/science/ans/journals/ansj.html">International Journal for Problems of Nonlinear Analysis in Engineering Systems</a> on dissipitative structures in social systems, which I'll co-author with my colleague in mathematics, <a href="http://www.swin.edu.au/chem/bio/fractals/refslist.htm">Dr. Cameron Jones</a>. Finally, I've also pitched to present a paper at <a href=" http://www.ruxcon.org.au/index.shtml">Ruxcon</a>, the IT Security Conference at UTS although my subject matter (Australia - East Timor military intelligence) may be considered a little off-topic.

Other good news includes doing my tax for the first time since (ahem) 1997 and discovering, as I suspected, that the Australian Tax Office owes me a few thousand dollars. That should pay for a few weeks (at least) in Ha Noi with caseopaya if and when Australian Volunteers International get their collective act together and organize the visas etc <i>properly</i> this time. Grrr....

On other religious matters, apparently in Texas the Unitarians arent't a <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/legolastn/80783.html">religion</a>. But they fought back and <a href="http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/local/local/story/1944373p-2252261c.html">won</a>. Whilst on the unitarian topic, an old championof the creedless church, Kurt Vonnegut expresses <a href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cold_turkey/">his thoughts</a> on the state of America.

Whilst I'm not usually a strong subscriber of the orthodox undergraduate Marxist doctrine of "Faire payers les riches" as a solution to economic problems, gross quantities of wealth sicken me, and the <a href=" http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/24/1085359552381.html">Australian example</a> is quite revolting. "The total wealth of Australia's richest 200 people is $71.5 billion, up 13% from the $63.2 billion in 2003." If we divide that some by 20 million and you get (71 500/20) = $ 3 575 for every man, woman and child in the country.

From Erudito, Jose Ramos-Horta proves that he will be remembered as war-monger.
<a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005071">Sometimes, a War Saves People</a>. Whilst the principle he espouses - a just war - is sound, the implementation is compeletely false in this instance - as pointed out by the people who developed the doctrine, the <a href=" http://www.americancatholic.org/News/JustWar/Iraq/">Roman Catholic Church</a>. Also in the realm of faulty logic, Horta tries to suggest that because the French, Tanzanians and Vietnamese acted without UN approval this somehow justifies the invasion of Iraq. Apparently two people act wrong that makes their same action by a third person right.

More news from Iraq. Wonder of wonders, the New York Times admits to making <a href="http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/26/1085461831616.html">errors</a>, and no surprise, the United States again indicates that they will not be <a href="http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/26/1085461831613.html"">subject to any Iraqi 'democracy' that they set up</a>

The death-knell of the telephone? <a href=" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/18/cisco_ibm/">IBM and Cisco team up for VoIP</a>

the_siobhan has a meme. 10 stories in 3 sentances or less. I'll try it, but not in this post (too full already!). Go do this in your own LJ.

Brain-breaker of the week award goes to Leoz. "Which came first ? the chicken of the egg? I tackled the question experimentally, using a chicken, an egg, and the United States Postal Service (USPS)."
http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i4/chicken_egg.html

On a final note, the universe is big. Real big. How big? <a href=" http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/25/1085461764914.html">Universe 741 billion, trillion kilometres wide (we think)</a>.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2004-06-01 10:57 pm (UTC)(link)

I think that AVI will get their act together, but I rather suspect it will be a somewhat confused process at best. Remember what it was like with me? Months of uncertainty followed by ten days notification.

*shakes head*

Something seriously wrong with that organization..

[identity profile] caseopaya.livejournal.com 2004-06-01 11:02 pm (UTC)(link)
That may no longer exist at all by the end of the year....

Great - many months of uncertainty - just what I want!!!