I often think I know networking pretty well. Then I'm reminded knowledge is no match for stupidity. I set up a server, on a private LAN. Then when I turned it around to be on the public LAN, it wasn't able to reach any other devices. I checked all the things, and made sure to edit the switch config to put it on the right VLAN. All good, no joy.

Then, after reloading the OS from scratch (no change), I thought to check the trunk at the *other* switch. Which blocked that VLAN. Doh!

@mwl

Want to know what movies you're missing because Hollywood refuses to take risks? Here's the Black List:

https://blcklst.com/lists

@michal

After Hegseth criticized NATO, European leaders went through their progress since January 2025, or so...

"The list included their hike in defense spending, investment in industry to boost the production of military equipment, best use of lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, and the need to buy or develop drones, air defense systems and long-range weapons."

All lost billions for the USA. Those are MY jobs going away.

But Europe will be just fine. Better, most likely.

@mwl My book has arrove. But I'm at work so I can't revel in the defenestration of a beloved text. ;)

You know, when you're looking at your logs, and see someone try to log in as "test_user_26", you have to wonder why that's in their dictionary. Are there enough systems out that using usernames like that to warrant these attempts?

@cascheranno @1dark1

The Bureau of Dangerous Goods. This actually exists. Every time I see this logo, I am tickled at how wonderful that name is. Some people are just damned good at naming things.

FWIW, this is a company which specializes in compliance. If you have to ship something considered hazardous, these folks can ensure you do it correctly. Which is worth money.

Someone needs to make a movie about this. "Dangerous" could mean just about anything a clever writer wanted to write about.

@mwl

@cascheranno @mwl @thedarktangent @thegibson

Laura Chapell to the rescue:

https://www.chappell-university.com/post/hot-tip-removing-ads-in-wireshark

This is incredibly rude of Wireshark.

Why am I getting *ads* inside Wireshark?

I just downloaded the latest (4.6.5), opened it, and the whole right side is flashing banners.

Mind you, I'm off-net. This machine has no Internet access at all. And yet: ADS!

WTF?

@cascheranno @mwl @thedarktangent @thegibson

@mms So...I decided to test out the latest FreeBSD on a Thinkpad 440 I have here. I decided on 14.4, because I've heard things about 15.0, plus ".0" just seems like the wrong way to go.

Anyway, I get the image, verify the checksum, and install. Which goes very well. Until I reboot the system. At which point it tried to netboot.

Not the best way to start. I'll go back through the BIOS and see if any settings need to be tweaked.

@mms I'm considering moving my main desktop to FreeBSD. I am quite happy with OpenBSD, but there are just some things which I do all the time that don't work (out of the box) with OBSD.

For example, I just digitized another book. And the main tool for that is "Scantailor". This is a port for FBSD, but not for OBSD. There are others, but you get the point.

FBSD and OBSD have enough differences that I've tried to just stick with one. But I may need to change my mind.

I've been seeing a spike in attempts from Bulgarian IP addresses. This started right when the USA bombed Iran (the one this year, not last year).

I'd say it's time to add a geo-block for Bulgaria to your firewalls.

@mms @mwl @pitrh

Today I learned that the Macbook Neo, which is selling like hotcakes, is based around _defective_ CPUs. Some smart person at Apple saw they were about to scrap a bunch of CPUs because they wouldn't run above a certain speed. So they proposed just building a cheap laptop with them, and run it at that lower speed.

Apple can't fill orders fast enough, and has run out of "defective" chips.

Here's a documentary which every American should watch. This is how to strike a blow against the Empire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9lr3-7EYHI

I wonder if there's an opportunity here. They allow me to buy Chinese MiniPCs, which can run OpenWRT just fine. So if I buy some of these, install the software, and sell them to home and SOHO users, there might be more money to be had than will fit in my bank.

@mms @mwl

I explain to users that our Security people require that any email with a password in it must be encrypted. I get a Reply, including the password, unencrypted.

And they wonder why we call them "lusers"...

@mwl @mms @cascheranno

@pitrh I would be surprised if you weren't aware of Jef Poskanzer's Acme[.]com, and his extensive mail filtering pages. On the off-chance you weren't aware, it's quite extensive, and I particularly like his analysis of the impact to the computer of various filters.

Did I mention that one of my all-time favorite RAH novels, The Door Into Summer, was made into a movie? I was able to watch it online, but had to hit ebay to find a proper DVD.

They did a *really* good job with this. If all book-to-movie translations were done this well, we'd have a lot more great movies. And none of them licensed from Marvel...

@mms @mwl

Today I was struggling to configure a Cisco switch for multicast. The Cisco docs were no help, since they assume you want to configure a "standard" setup. The web was no help; they were also "standard" setups. (I.e., pushing mc across a set of routers over the Internet.)

And I kept thinking, if @mwl wrote a book on this, he'd explain each protocol, how they fit together, and cover a variety of situations.

This is too narrow a topic for him, but he's set a standard for tech books now.

Here's something I didn't know existed: Complete source to all Infocom games. (I suspect this is all in IDL, and I'm not sure they include any compilers, but source is source...)

https://github.com/historicalsource?tab=repositories

Have you ever wondered why Germans didn’t do anything about Hitler? Well, the rest of the world is wondering exactly that about Americans and Trump.