word of the day

laconic (luh-KON-ik) adjective

Sparing with words, concise, terse.

[From Latin Laconicus, from Greek Lakonikos, from Lakon, Laconian, a resident of Laconia, an ancient country in southern Greece (Capital: Sparta). From the reputation of the Laconians for terseness.]

Good Morning!

Rainy day today... I don't think I'll be doing walkies (Well, maybe... I sort of like to walk in the rain sometimes). Hurricane season has officially begun...Moist Mama Allison is whisking her way North, even as we speak.

Hobbit Names - I've been meaning to post this link for some time, since seeing it in gardengnome's journal way back whenever... :)

Lotho Chubb-Baggins or Lotho Gamwich of the Bree Gamwiches (depending how you do it.) are my hobbit names. I think I prefer Oso to Lotho! My sweetie turns out to be - Peony Moss of Lake-by-Downs or Daisy Boffin of Whitfurrows (grins)

Also... trust me on this one... if you have AIM, add SmarterChild to your buddy list. I've played with the beta, and it rocks. super duper reference source. Add as a Buddy, Send Message

I have a hankering for a big ol' cheese omelette, whole wheat toast, a carafe of OJ, and some coffee. IHOP is within walking distance. (in the pouring rain) I don't imagine I'll succumb to this desire, but it's certainly there. Pouring a cup of morning tea instead, and talking to my darling, dearest love.

song playing on the radio.. pretty...


My love must be a kind of blind love
I can't see anyone but you.

Are the stars out tonight?
I don't know if it's cloudy or bright.
I only have eyes for you, Dear.

The moon maybe high,
but I can't see a thing in the sky,
'Cause I only have eyes for you.

I don't know if we're in a garden,
or on a crowded avenue.
You are here. So am I.
Maybe millions of people go by,
but they all disappear from view.
And I only have eyes for you.

why LJ was down last night...

from lj-maint - (profanity edited out)

We got SYN flooded by a DDoS. 50 Mbps of incoming SYN packets isn't good. Things broke.

We setup a bunch of firewall and rate limiting rules on the BIG/ip now, though. Shouldn't happen (as easily?) again.

Whoever did it is a punk. These little d-less morons can't break into the car, so they decide instead to slash its tires. Well now our tires have metal guards. incompetent sysadmins at the sites where the hacked machines were flooding from didn't have their routers configured correctly, so the packets got out onto the net with forged source addresses.
- end quote

for more info about this sort of stuff -

http://packetstorm.securify.com/papers/contest/
http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/ddos/
http://packetstorm.securify.com/distributed/

the first link was back towards the very begining of DDoS existance. the latter are updated...

Weird.. I just did a post about good firewall software and DDos attacks... Maybe I should post about LJ'ers being given huge sacks of money?

(no subject)

*WARNING*

Improper use of the glow text feature will open you up to mockery, and painful commentary..."That looks like a fuzzy commode lid at an old folk's home!"

i'm sorry for not telling you daizee!

{table style="filter:glow(color=lightgreen, strength=4)"}i'm sorry for not telling you {lj user=daizee}!{/table}

now everybody knows! (replace curly braces with appropriate greater/less than signs)
( Read more... )

Unverifiable Scotto Factoid

When I was young, I'd anonymously mail packets of salt (like the ones you'd get with french fries) to people I didn't like, in case they were witches, zombies or evil space slugs living in human guise.

No, not really.

In its thirteenth season, "COPS" will continue to bring viewers squalid scenes of bored policemen harassing dispirited, shirtless losers -- but this time with a laugh track!

(no subject)

I thought that this was cute... a test to see how healthy your feces are. (Nothing gross, little cartoon poopies)

( Read more... )