I seen a pair of bumper stickers on a car at the mall a few days ago that caught my attention. Both were good. Usually I just see ‘em, laugh, and move ‘em, but these have stayed in my mind since then. Both reflect my opinions perfectly.
The first read “I’m much too informed to be a Republican” and the other “It’s not Jesus that I mind, it’s his fan club that I can’t stand”.
Nice. =)
First, a bit of background…
Last Tuesday evening (a week ago), I was playing around on MySpace when a friend of mine (who we’ll call “Betty Lou”) sent me a message. After a number of messages back and forth, I sent her a final message telling her that I was leaving (and on my way to her house). It was right about 8pm when I got there and probably between 9.15 and 9.30pm when I left to come back home.
At 1.27am, Betty Lou sent me a message saying “so i just got word that u were sending $idiot a mssg that said uwere on ur way to my house
Okay, couple of things…
First, $idiot is a friend of Betty Lou’s and doesn’t like me. Boo fuckin’ hoo, get over it. Second, there were exactly two people that knew that I went to her house that night: her and I. 1.27am is when she sent me that message, I have no idea when it was that $idiot talked to her and said I told him I was coming. Something was up…
Last Thursday afternoon, Betty Lou stopped by my office at work. While we’re talking, she mentions that she thinks that someone is reading her MySpace mail. Now, for those of you who don’t use MySpace, your messages have a “status” similar to standard e-mail (”unread”, “read”, “replied”, etc.). The main difference is that once a message is “read”, you can’t make it “unread” anymore. Betty Lou said that she would log in to check her mail and see “read” messages that she had never read.
So, a red flag goes up in my head and $idiot immediately comes to mind. It’s time for a trap.
With MySpace, you can enter certain HTML tags in your messages. <img src …> is one such tag. A plan quickly formulated in my head. Enter Google.
One Google image search later and I’m staring at an image of George W. Bush flippin’ the bird. Perfect! I upload it to my web server and pull it up in Firefox to make sure it’s accessible. It is.
As Betty Lou stands and watches, I send her a message (click here to see it) on MySpace with a subject line of “your nudie pics” Surely someone who was reading her mail would read this one, right? devious grin. I instruct her that she is NOT to open it. She agrees. We talk, she leaves, life goes on…
By the way, $idiot goes to Indiana State University, which is about an hour away…
So, later that night, we end up hanging out and I leave her house around 9.30pm to come home. At 11.50pm, Betty Lou sends me a message saying, in part, “someone read that mssg. and it wasnt me.” I was in bed then, however, and she called me a bit later. She told me on the phone that the message had been read.
I felt around for the laptop and booted up. I SSH into the server running Apache and head for the logfiles. A quick grep for the filename of the image I specified in the <img src…> tag turns up two hits:
x.x.x.x - - [28/Sep/2006:17:33:52 -0400] “GET /images/bushmiddlefinger.png HTTP/1.1″ 200 90003 www.jeremygaddis.com “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7″ “y.y.y.y”…and…
139.102.249.199 - - [28/Sep/2006:21:42:30 -0400] “GET /images/bushmiddlefinger.png HTTP/1.1″ 200 90003 www.jeremygaddis.com “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)” “-”The first hit, represented by IP address “x.x.x.x” was me. “x.x.x.x” is my proxy server at work (”y.y.y.y” is the IP address of my XP workstation, if you’re wondering).
The second IP address, 139.102.249.199, wasn’t me. It’s also not in any of the netblocks that would’ve showed up had Betty Lou accessed it Since I didn’t leave her place until around 9.30pm anyways, and it would’ve been physically impossible for her to make it to ISU in 10 minutes, it couldn’t have been her anyways… hmm, wonder who it belongs to then:
[jlgaddis@apollo ~]$ whois 139.102.249.199 [Querying whois.arin.net] [whois.arin.net]I’ll be damned, it’s allocated to Indiana State University, the same school that $idiot goes to. Coincidentally enough, it’s only an hour away from the .edu that I work at, and I know some people in I.T. there…OrgName: Indiana State University OrgID: ISU-1 Address: Office of Information Technology Address: Rankin Hall Address: 218 N 7th St. City: Terre Haute StateProv: IN PostalCode: 47809 Country: US
NetRange: 139.102.0.0 - 139.102.255.255 CIDR: 139.102.0.0/16 NetName: INDSTATE NetHandle: NET-139-102-0-0-1 Parent: NET-139-0-0-0-0 NetType: Direct Assignment NameServer: GATE.INDSTATE.EDU NameServer: CCTS.INDSTATE.EDU NameServer: WASHINGTON.IND.NET Comment: RegDate: 1990-02-25 Updated: 2003-09-24
RTechHandle: CE56-ARIN RTechName: Edwards, Champe RTechPhone: +1-812-237-2961 RTechEmail: cchampe@isugw.indstate.edu
OrgTechHandle: CE56-ARIN OrgTechName: Edwards, Champe OrgTechPhone: +1-812-237-2961 OrgTechEmail: cchampe@isugw.indstate.edu
ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-10-04 19:10
Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.
[jlgaddis@apollo ~]$
dials phone
So, to skip the details of a phone conversation and avoid incriminating anyone in the OoIT at ISU, I now know 100% without a doubt who that IP is assigned to. Yep, $idiot.
I sent him a few MySpace messages after that, but he never answered. Weird.
Ironically enough, apparently Betty Lou had mentioned to $idiot that she thought someone was reading her messages and he, of course, acted dumb and innocent. He also told her something to the effect of “…why don’t you get your computer geek friend to find out who it was?”
And she did. Isn’t that beautiful? =)
Oh, and in case you’re wondering who $idiot is… feel free to check his MySpace profile or Facebook profile.
Damn I’m good. ;)
Napoleon Dynamite is a dork. He is not a nerd, he is not a geek. The real question you have to ask yourself, however, is: what are you? Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Yes, friends, there is a difference, and this test will ultimately, finally and conclusively answer that question in the eyes of God and man. Along the way, you’ll learn for yourself what the differences are between these oft misunderstood and confused categories–that’s right, this test has a social mission–and, I hope, grow a little bit on the inside.
My results:
For The Record:A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.
The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the “dork.” No-longer. Being smart isn’t as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.
Congratulations!
Check out the new Weird Al video, “White & Nerdy”, a spoof of Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty”. The geeks out there will understand. =)
UPDATE: Apparently, the RIAA didn’t like the video being on YouTube. Sorry!
They see me mowin’ My front lawn I know they’re all thinking I’m so white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy Can’t you see I’m white and nerdy? Look at me, I’m white and nerdy I wanna roll with The gangstas But so far they all think I’m too white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy I’m just too white and nerdy. Really really white and nerdy.First in my class here at MIT Got skills, I’m a champion at D&D MC Escher - that’s my favorite MC Keep your 40, I’ll just have an Earl Grey tea My rims never spin, to the contrary You’ll find that they’re quite stationary All of my action figures are cherry Steven Hawking’s in my library My MySpace page is all totally pimped out Got people beggin’ for my top eight spaces Yo, I know pi to a thousand places Ain’t got no grills but I still wear braces I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise I’m a whiz at Minesweeper - I could play for days Once you see my sweet moves you’re gonna stay amazed My fingers’ movin’ so fast I’ll set the place ablaze There’s no killer app I haven’t run At Pascal, well I’m number one Do vector calculus just for fun I ain’t got a gat but I got a soldering gun Happy Days is my favorite theme song I could sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong I’ll ace any trivia quiz you bring on I’m fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon
They see me roll on My Segway I know in my heart they think I’m white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy Can’t you see I’m white and nerdy Look at me, I’m white and nerdy I’d like to roll with The gangstas Although it’s apparent I’m too white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy I’m just too white and nerdy How’d I get so white and nerdy
I’ve been browsin’, inspectin’ X-Men comics, you know I collect ‘em The pens in my pocket, I must protect ‘em My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored Shopping online for deals on some writable media I edit Wikipedia I memorized Holy Grail really well I can recite it right now and have you ROTFLOL I got a business doing websites When my friends need some code, who do they call? I do HTML for ‘em all Even made a homepage for my dog Yo, I got myself a fanny pack They were havin’ a sale down at The Gap Spend my nights with a roll of bubble wrap Pop, pop, hope no one sees me Gettin’ freaky I’m nerdy in the extreme And whiter than sour cream I was in AV Club and Glee Club and even the Chess Team Only question I Ever thought was hard Was do I like Kirk Or do I like Picard Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Fair Got my name on my underwear
They see me strollin’ They laughin’ And rollin’ their eyes ’cause I’m so white and nerdy Just because I’m white and nerdy Just because I’m white and nerdy All because I’m white and nerdy Holy cow, I’m white and nerdy I wanna bowl with The gangstas But, oh well, it’s obvious I’m white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy Think I’m just too white and nerdy I’m just too white and nerdy Look at me, I’m white and nerdy
“All men of the world can find common ground in these simple rules of ‘evacuation’ etiquette.”
–http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzO1mCAVyMw
There’s an interesting (to me) article on forbes.com called The Cost Of Being Married Versus Being Single.
It’s got some interesting statistics and facts in it and makes me glad I’m still single (and plan on staying that way!)
Last night, Sarah and I went and watched “Clerks II“. It was the most hilarious f**kin’ movie I’ve watched in a good while. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard since watching “The 40 Year Old Virgin” last year.
The first “Clerks” movie was good, but this one is awesome. Definitely go check it out, just make sure to leave the kids at home…
Choose no life. Choose no career. Choose no family. Choose fucking big routers. Choose switches big as trucks, modem racks, bridges and repeaters, coffee makers, all networked. Choose no sleep, lots of caffeine and no time off. Choose no friends. Choose black clothing and long hair. Choose tons of mail and wondering why the fuck you’re logged on on a Sunday afternoon. Choose sitting in a swivel chair looking at mind-numbing network maps and galloping counters, stuffing junk food into your mouth while trying to solve someone else’s problem. Choose having ‘IOS’ tattooed on your wrist.
Choose your future.
Choose internetworking.
I’m a Democrat, but thought this was pretty funny (from Martin McKeay):
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like many others her age, she considered herself to be a liberal Democrat, and was in favor of the redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party. She didn’t have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, “How is you friend Audrey doing?” She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus, college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”
Her father asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”
The father said, “Welcome to the Republican Party”.
While it is tough to be a woman, being a man can be downright deadly. Women live longer than men. And now scientists suggest a simple Darwinian reason: Competing for a mate can wear a guy out or get him killed. “Women live longer in almost every country, and the sex difference in lifespan has been recognized since at least the mid-18th century,” said Daniel Kruger at the University of Michigan. “It isn’t a recent trend; it originates from our deep evolutionary history.”
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