Ask TOMBOT

kevin, for lighter fare, I have recently enjoyed Atul Gawande's "Better," the works of Walker Percy, and John McPhee's "Uncommon Carriers."

In fact yeah definitely check out the last one, it's in paperback now.

(btw "for lighter fare" I am just disclaiming that you probably would not want to read the shit I have been educating myself with lately)

In fact yeah definitely check out the last one, it's in paperback now.

my sister's boyfriend gave it to me as thanks for letting him crash at my place when he was driving from boston to portland, oregon. i really dug that book, the canoe trip on the merrimack would have taken him right through my hometown.

Tom, what topics are of interest to you lately ("educating")

mostly hard sociological and psychological stuff on the cognitive issues contributing to systems accidents

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mad_scientist&diff=98023606&oldid=96706991

right now, what is your favourite anecdote/example of cognitive issues contributing to systems accidents?

insufficient documentation on the format of crontab entries at one organization caused a critical server to almost tip over one morning because a developer had plugged a task in there that was generating 60 instances of itself every night. nobody noticed that anything was malfunctioning for months because 1. nobody ever ps greps the cron user 2. "that server is always slow" 3. expected outputs were being generated each morning with no problems until the tipping point was reached. had a certain astute individual not immediately identified and run down the source of the fire who knows what would have happened. the offending programmer was told to clean it up and spent the next hour committing process genocide. this was no boat accident.

i take it you can't say which organization?

I can't wait until the cron scripts I have to generate static versions of query heavy pages fail.

Perhaps when I leave my job, locking my account will disable them!

http://grigbertz.com/gallery/v/nethack/

What do you think about THIS?

semi-nsfw

also, i am afraid i am going to get that chatter book unless you can suggest a better book about 20C or later US intelligence, why becaue it look interesting, even if it is horseshit. suggestions welcome!

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/bamford/images/cover3.gif

What do you think about THIS?

I don't think about that.

ty

semi

waht

gbx, please be more specific.

dear tombot,

how come you don't step up and pwn these clowns?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/07/china.hackers/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

What exactly are you asking me to do? Phone Interpol and tell them to read CNN?

I mean I read variations on that "news" every day, I'm not a cop though, and I definitely don't have jurisdiction in the countries where all these douchebags live. Also, script kiddies are braggarts, film at fucking 11.

so you're just going to sit there with your thumb up your ass?!?!?!?!

i thought you were a PATRIOT

I do homeland SECURITY, not homeland BUSTING FOREIGNERS WITH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

also I'm pretty sure typing "US DOD" into google counts for "hacking the pentagon" nowadays

T, can the new Stephen Chow film be as mediocre as the reviews say?

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=US+DOD&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

check out my sweet pentagon haxx

real hackers delete the client and language string, n00b

now I know where u live and ur OS!!!

nah bro i hacked those too, im in karachi using firefox PWN3D

Morbs: Judging by the average career arc of semi-brilliant stylish genre filmmakers from overseas I'd say he's due for a real clunker, sadly.

for clarification, if chaki hadn't said anything, nobody would be having a problem right now, would they?

-- El Tomboto, Friday, March 7, 2008 10:27 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

wtf there about 400 posts of fighting before i said anything and all i did was repost a jw thing. u r such a butt biter.

you're a shit stirrer. I'm tired of dealing with the shit you stir. mind your own goddamn business once in a while.

but please do keep feigning ignorance, it's charming.

its a public forum. i only comment on things posted on ilx. i mind my own goddamn business when it comes to you for example.

blaming me for that thread was total bullshit obv. the bitching and fighting was well underway before i said anything. just an example of your lame totally biased modding.

Sure!

http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050616/050616_tyson_mcbride_hmed_7a.h2.jpg

Or like when you reposted pretty fucking evil libelous stuff that had been deleted so that the mods had to delete your post off the mod board? Grow up man

QUESTIONS FOR TOMBOT PLEASE

ANGER RISING

TOMBOT,

Should I, neither Lutheran nor gay, go to the 'games' party tonight with the pretty-dull Lutheran teetotalers, or should I let the gays take me to 'a major bash in this awesome designer's apartment' where they will give me a whole bunch of drinks and try to convince me that everyone is just a little bisexual.

'Neither' is unfortunately not an option.

no offense to anyone but I am all over the lutheran games party in that scenario. if you're a straight (where straight is defined as completely incapable of being interested in getting oral from another man) getting drunk with a bunch of gay guys cannot be underrated enough. it SUUUUCKS. also "lutheran teetotaler" is an oxymoron, isn't it?

Mr. TOMBOTo,

So, what's the deal with the Dutch board? The people demand to know the truth. Where did it come from, why is it here, what is it for, and why is it tolerated?

Domo arrigato,
Bobby

Bobby,

I don't know, shit was before my time. But it probably came from the Netherlands, is here because the Netherlands have access to the internet, is for people from the Netherlands to have conversations on the internet, and it is tolerated because ILX's own existence is a product of the continued prosperity of NATO and the EU as well as APEC, therefore, we seek to further international goodwill wherever possible.

i appreciate your thoughts, sir. personally i am in very much favour of it, largely because of the sheer randomness of its very existence, and i hope it can be safeguarded for future generations to be puzzled by.

wat did u think of the movie "breach"?

what was your favourite bar in tallin?