Random Rants 92 - Not Enough Snerk

[Hygro]

MUN continues after undergrad?

 

[Takhisis]

If by MUN you mean a certain ongoing football comedy troupe masquerading as an English club, they do continue, sadly and hilariously.

But if you mean that weird debate-challenge thing Ajidica insists on, then, as wiki says:

Model United Nations is a popular extracurricular activity for middle school, high school, and college students in the United States.​

 

[EgonSpengler]

So the month-long shutdown of the subway line I use the most begins on Friday night. It actually might not be a huge inconvenience for me, but I'm probably in the minority. I read this morning that the station that serves Tufts Medical Center downtown will not be one of the stations getting shuttle-bus service during the shutdown. I mean, WTH. It's not some little clinic, it's a 400-bed research and teaching hospital. I've no idea how many outpatients they see a day, or how many staff they have, but I suppose it must be in the thousands, on both counts. I've never been a patient at that hospital, but I've been to the cafe and shop in the lobby, and it sure looks busy to me. The subway station that serves the hospital is right underneath it. When asked why the hospital wouldn't be a stop for the shuttle-buses, the guy in charge said something like, "well, there are other subway stops a few blocks away." A few blocks away? Is he kidding? First of all, the stops he's referring to are on different subway lines. How are people who live near the line that's being shut down supposed to get to those other lines? Second, how many people who normally use the station under the hospital are mobility impaired? I mean, it's not like elderly people or pregnant women or people on crutches or people with kids would ever need to go there, it's only a [forking] hospital.

Spoiler :

 

[EgonSpengler]

Walrus Freya who became attraction in Norway's Oslo Fjord put down​

A walrus that had become a popular attraction in the Oslo Fjord has been put down out of concern for the safety of the public, Norwegian officials say.
The walrus, nicknamed Freya, rose to fame after clambering on to boats to sunbathe - sometimes sinking them.
People refused warnings not to get too close to the 1,300lb (600kg) animal, putting her and themselves at risk.
On one occasion, police blocked off a bathing area after the walrus chased a woman into the water, local media say.
Last week, Norway's fisheries ministry issued a photograph of a large group of people, including children, standing within touching distance of the animal.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62539485

Wasn't Freya (among other things) goddess of beauty?
A walrus can be cute in its own way, but hardly a symbol of that

Maybe she was beautiful to other walruses.

When she was good, she was very good; but when she was bad, she was better.

 

[Takhisis]

When she was good, she was very good; but when she was bad, she was better.

Oooooh, a Schwang Schwing reference.

 

[Ajidica]

MUN continues after undergrad?

No, I'm a staff member. I am one of those that run the conference those little degenerates* attend.

*Unsupervised often drunk polisci nerds.

 

[tjs282]

Oooooh, a Schwang Schwing reference.

Adapted from the original...

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,​

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,​

She was very good indeed,​

But when she was bad she was horrid.

 

[Samson]

How do people get paid to code actual car systems when all they do is copy and paste stuff from the web?

I am in the wrong job (except I do not really have a job ATM).

A developer says he was able to run his own software on his car infotainment hardware after discovering the vehicle's manufacturer had secured its system using keys that were not only publicly known but had been lifted from programming examples.​

​

Daniel Feldman, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based software engineer, wanted to modify the in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system in his 2021 Hyundai Ioniq SEL.​

​

To do so, he would have to figure out how to connect to the device and bypass its security.​

​

But it wasn't going to be that easy: some part of the supplied data, at least, would need to be cryptographically signed using an RSA private key, and Feldman didn't have it. The updater would use the private key's corresponding RSA public key to check the data was signed using the correct secret private key.​

​

"Turns out the [AES] encryption key in that script is the first AES 128-bit CBC example key listed in the NIST document SP800-38A [PDF]," he added.​

​

Looking for a second key, Feldman found within the firmware image the RSA public key used by the updater, and searched online for a portion of that key. The search results pointed to a common public key that shows up in online tutorials like "RSA Encryption & Decryption Example with OpenSSL in C."​

​

That tutorial and other projects implementing OpenSSL include within their source code that public key and the corresponding RSA private key.​

 

[EgonSpengler]

Oooooh, a Schwang Schwing reference.

Had to Google that. No.

 

[Synobun]

Big day for buying things. I finally bought a mattress for the other room

The bad part about this: the new mattress is 70 lbs. The delivery person will undoubtedly just schluff it off at the front of the property, so I will need to find a way to get it from there to my apartment. This is problematic. When I bought my smaller mattress, it was around 40 lbs, and I had to wiggle the box from the front to the back, and I barely managed. However, I bought that mattress when I was one week off from being on death's door in the hospital, so I wasn't working with my best then.

More recent comparison would be the AC I got two months ago. That was 40 lbs, and that too I had to wiggle from the front to the back. It wasn't terrible to do that, though. It was just because it's impossible to lift a big rectangular box by yourself unless you are built like Andre the Giant. I lifted a heavy wooden table on Monday that was 50 lbs or so and that went okay. It had pretty bad consequences afterward, physically, but I could do it. That table, however, had the benefit of having solid edges to lift.

So it's looking like I will be sadly wiggling a 70 lb box about 20 to 30 meters, somehow. I anticipate a lot of trouble with this. I have asked in the neighbourhood group if anyone has a dolly I can borrow, but no takers yet.

 

[Takhisis]

Hmmm. There's a forest fire ~100 km. away from the city and we're ‘enjoying’ a dense cloud of smoke.

 

[EnglishEdward]

@ Synobun

I suggest await its arrival and then diplomatically conscript two neighbours.

 

[Takhisis]

Ah yes, neighbours can be enticed into doing heavy lifting in exchange for sandwiches and tea/beer.

 

[EnglishEdward]

They might do it for free, if spared unnecessary sarcasm.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So the month-long shutdown of the subway line I use the most begins on Friday night. It actually might not be a huge inconvenience for me, but I'm probably in the minority. I read this morning that the station that serves Tufts Medical Center downtown will not be one of the stations getting shuttle-bus service during the shutdown. I mean, WTH. It's not some little clinic, it's a 400-bed research and teaching hospital. I've no idea how many outpatients they see a day, or how many staff they have, but I suppose it must be in the thousands, on both counts. I've never been a patient at that hospital, but I've been to the cafe and shop in the lobby, and it sure looks busy to me. The subway station that serves the hospital is right underneath it. When asked why the hospital wouldn't be a stop for the shuttle-buses, the guy in charge said something like, "well, there are other subway stops a few blocks away." A few blocks away? Is he kidding? First of all, the stops he's referring to are on different subway lines. How are people who live near the line that's being shut down supposed to get to those other lines? Second, how many people who normally use the station under the hospital are mobility impaired? I mean, it's not like elderly people or pregnant women or people on crutches or people with kids would ever need to go there, it's only a [forking] hospital.

I'm reminded of a jerk who used to be the mayor but was running for city council. This was years before we got a downtown transit depot, and the idea people had back then was to put it in the former train station (since the tracks had been relocated out of town, thus removing train service).

This would have been a very bad place, for multiple reasons that included being many blocks from the main shopping/business district, people would have had to cross one of the busiest streets that run through the city, and would also have had to go through a crime-ridden part of town.

I pointed all this out to the jerk, reminding him that many transit passengers are elderly and young women with babies and children.

His answer: "People are lazy. They don't want to walk a block or two."

I reminded him that this was considerably more than "a block or two" and asked if HE had ever ridden public transit.

His answer: "Of course not. I have a car."

My parting shot: "Then this means you have no idea what you're talking about and you are unqualified to have an opinion on it."

This exchange took place in the lobby of the auditorium of the place where the election forum was being held, just after everything was over. I tried not to yell at him, but by this time the local newspaper reporter noticed and was inching closer. I figured no, I don't want to get into this. I left, and could hear him calling, "Come back, ma'am!"

"Ma'am"? I guess he'd forgotten that I used to work with his snooty wife in the theatre and he's the politician I mentioned in a post some time ago, as having been drunk and wrapped up in a bed sheet at a production party...

Yeah, I could have embarrassed him that night. I opted not to, though, and eventually saner heads prevailed. The train station got turned into offices for lawyers and accountants and they turned a sporting goods store and parking lot into a combination transit depot/parkade, in a nice central location well within walking distance of the shopping district, banks, and library.

Ah yes, neighbours can be enticed into doing heavy lifting in exchange for sandwiches and tea/beer.

The usual thing to offer here would be pizza and either pop or beer (depending on their preference).

In my case, I happened to have some old Star Wars stuff in my collection that the guy who helped was willing to trade labor for. No pizza required.

 

[Synobun]

@ Synobun

I suggest await its arrival and then diplomatically conscript two neighbours.

Diplomatically? Nay, I shan't be seen acting in such a way.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Well to me, the obvious alternative to neighbours is to bribe the delivery person with a small cash sum.

 

[Broken_Erika]

One of my cats broke my mom's computer.

 

[Synobun]

Bed frame came early, which is technically a rave, but I elected to put it together tonight after carrying it inside (and the frame was 45 pounds). Took two hours.

I am... going to feel the consequences of this over the next week. And the 75-pound mattress is coming on Friday.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Bed frame came early, which is technically a rave, but I elected to put it together tonight after carrying it inside (and the frame was 45 pounds). Took two hours.

I am... going to feel the consequences of this over the next week. And the 75-pound mattress is coming on Friday.

Round up a helper or two and a pizza menu. At this rate, you'll put yourself in the hospital around the time your friend comes to visit, and that rather defeats the purpose of the visit.

Would they bring the mattress inside for an extra fee?