This will be a somewhat scatterbrained… err, random post.
First off if you are having problems with a certain contest, then plugging the secret letters into the Internet Anagram Server could be very helpful.
I like RPGs and play in a couple now & then. I have also run the occasional session or two, but lately I got this itch. The itch to play in a campaign world of my own devising which means I’ll need to run more than a single session or two. In trying to prepare myself for that, I’ve been following some new blogs and today read the logical article I’ve ever seen on the subject of war & international relationals.
This week while staying home sick1, I finally got around to upgrading my work laptop from Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10. I had been holding off mostly because it is my work machine and I had the idea I should keep it on Ubuntu’s LTS releases. Then I realized while I was keeping the system on a theoretically more stable version, I kept adding 3rd party packages/repositories to update specific programs I wanted (which contradicts the point of sticking with a LTS release). So I did the upgrade and was pleasantly surprised at how smooth the upgrade went. However I did run into one minor and one major problem after the upgrade.
- Minor problem: My dual monitor configuration got screwed up. Most likely because I did the upgrade at home (where I don’t have a 2nd monitor for the laptop).
- Major problem: All my SSH keys stopped working. I ended up recreating them and getting them pushed back out to all the servers I need to access using keys. Still that was disconcerting, especially since nothing about the keys (client/server) had changed. Even our network admin at work was confused by that one.
On the positive side, Adobe Flash Player 10.x is available for Ubuntu 8.10, so now I can watch Comedy Central’s clips of the Daily Show again (under Flash 9.x, they always crashed Firefox). Additionally there are prebuilt packages for Gnome-Do 0.8.x for Ubuntu 8.10, which like Mr. Pibb + Red Vines is crazy delicious! Specifically, Gnome-Do with the Docky theme. I believe the idea behind the Docky theme was to mimic some functionality of OS X’s dock, but could be mistaken (don’t own a Mac). The performance is bit slow on my older desktop2, but it works great on the work laptop.
1 Nausea + dizziness + complete lack of energy. Fortunately I’m mostly over it now, though still working to get my energy levels back up.
2 Based on an AMD 1800+ CPU.
New blog post: Lucky Day http://tinyurl.com/dh4uvj
So, was the SSH keys debacle due to the “blacklisted” Debian keys? Debian had a predictable crypto vulnerability a while back, and any keys made during that window have been revoked. And since Ubuntu is downstream from Debian, you probably caught it. I think there was a flag you could use to for ssh to use the key with a warning … but rebuilding them is still the best option. A pain, to be sure, but security always is.
I thought of that and checked my keys with ssh-vulnkey but it told me they were not blacklisted. So I wouldn’t say that was the problem but I don’t know for sure as that does seem like the most likely cause.
I had some keys that were ok when the vulnkey tool was first release, but were tagged as compromised a few weeks later. I think their net got wider as the crypto kids figured out what their data set encompassed.
P.S– CotCB? Honestly? It’s the Flintstones with porn, you know?
Well the vulnkey tool’s been out for a while and still says my keys were clean. *shrug* I guess since my new keys are working fine the why is not all that important (ran across numerous threads of people continuing to have problems after the upgrade).
As for CofCB, all I knew before I read it was there was a movie of it when I was a kid. A movie I wasn’t allowed to watch and when I was a kid I had a hankering to see. As I turned into the old man I am today, I forgot about it. Then at the last CRPL annual book sale I found a copy. As they sell books at $5 per box, I figured what the heck and picked it up. Having now read the book, I can say it’s much better than Flintstone porn but I can see how people might hold that opinion.