friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Help converting SunOS /etc/security/passwd.adjunct format to Linux /etc/shdow format


I am in the process of trying to retire my last SunOS 4.1.4 box. It has been the NIS master for years because Linux can understand it's triple-DES (not very secure) password encryption but SunOS 4.1.4 can not understand the more advanced encryption provided by Linux.

So I am faced with trying to convert the old passwd.adjunct format into
linux format, if I just put the entries in as is, pwck bitches about it being an invalid line, wants to delete, then bitches no line exists and adds a new line in with no password. This obviously is no good. I know that Linux knows how to use a triple DES entry because it did so fine as a NIS slave with a SunOS NIS master.

Any suggestions?

in reply to Nanook

Never mind, problem solved. For anyone else ever running into this issue, converting from SunOS to Linux, edit /etc/passwd.yp and change all the entires that have user:##user:, to user:x:. Edit out all the system entries at the beginning of the file. Then exit /etc/security/passwd.adjunct.yp. Remove the same system entries and add two :: at the end of each line so the number of fields is what Linux expects. Now cat /etc/passwd.yp >> /etc/passwd on the linux box, cat /etc/security/passwd.adjunct.yp >> /etc/shadow, run pwck -s and then pwck -r to see any errors, such as missing directories, fix all errors, then make your machine a NIS master with ypinit -m. That's all folks!

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Trojan Nuclear


I found this video interesting because I have toured this power plant, have been present at some PG&E sponsored symposiums and I had a question for them for which the answer I've always been less than pleased with. The issues they bring up in this video are hardly the most pressing. Most pressing was the fact that they did not have good control over the reactor, that is not revealed in this video. The earthquake concern is mostly BS, this plant had 300 foot reinforced concrete pillars going all the way down to the granite bedrock.

However, at the symposium they revealed that this plant was designed to operate at a power level of 1200 megawatt, but it was actually operating at 900 megawatt. Given the expenses involved in building this plant the obvious question was WHY? And I asked exactly this question, I asked, given that huge expenses involved, I would think you would want to generate every watt of electricity you can, so given that why would you operate the plant at only 75% capacity? The answer, because we experience neutron flux fluctuations we do not understand. Neutron flux means the rate of reaction, essentially they did NOT have good concise control over the reaction rate of the power plant, so they operated at 75% to provide some overhead. But when you don't understand the cause, you don't understand the extent of possible excursions, and thus you do not understand if 25% overhead is really enough.

That said, I'm generally a proponent of nuclear reactors BUT not the way we are doing it. I am NOT a proponent of boiling water slow nuclear reactors which is the type most in use in the Western world. Why? First, because they're pressurized at around 200 atmosphere. They have to be to raise the boiling point of water to 700 degrees because lower temperatures can't be used efficiently for power generation. Second, they do not remove fission products during operation, and it is those fission products that cause meltdowns even after you've shutdown the reactor during a cooling emergency. Third, they rely on electrical and mechanical mechanisms for emergency cooling and shutdown. All electrical and mechanical things are guaranteed to fail eventually and/or under some circumstances, like the backup diesel generators at Fukushima being under water. Forth these reactors create long term actinide waste products (actinide any element heavier than Uranium) that take hundreds of thousands or millions of years to decay. Safely storing this material for this length of time is not a real possibility.

There is a type of reactor that does not suffer from ANY of these flaws, that is a molten salt breeder reactor, it also has a close cousin, a liquid metal cooled breeder reactor but the latter has the issue of the metals possibly being flammable (sodium and lead are the metals commonly chosen but lead absorbs neutrons making it difficult to achieve breeding and sodium is highly flammable so if you get a leak in the primary cooling system, a fire can release radioactive materials into the environment).

A molten salt reactor by contrast does have the issue of being corrosive against it's plumbing, BUT if a leak occurs it spills some coolant and radioactive fuel onto the floor and since it's not under significant pressure and no fire results, it is not released into the environment. The floor is cleaned up, and it's not that difficult because the fission products are continuously removed from the liquid fueled core, so it's only as radioactive as the fuel used, and that's minimal compared to the fission products, the pipe replaced, and life goes on.

The safety systems of a molten salt reactor are 100% passive, so if you loose electricity it usually just sits there. The nuclear reaction rate is self limiting because as the fuel heats up it separates the radioactive isotopes and limits the reaction level. And this is another thing I like, the reaction rate is self limiting and self-adjusting to load, so someone diddling control rods continuously is not required, it is inherently self-stable. At a test reactor in Oakridge, TN, they pulled the control rods and shut off the cooling to a test reactor and let it sit 24 hours with no cooling and no control, and it survived unscathed. This is the type of safety you want in a nuclear reactor. Further, if it did get too hot, it melts a melt plug in the fuel tank and drains into a much larger drain tank where all the heat can be naturally dissipated and the reaction stops, and because the reaction stops and all fission products are continuously removed, there is very little heat to remove.

Because these reactors use a liquid salt, often sodium-fluoride, as a coolant, there is a huge range between the melting point and boiling point of the salt and thus it is not necessary to have significant pressure in the primary loop, just enough to pump the liquid through the heat exchanger, maybe 1.5 atmospheres, and that's it and because the fission products are continuously removed, they aren't available to be released in the environment, and because the fuel is liquid during operation but solid at room temperature, even if a breech occurs it just forms a puddle and solidifies outside so still easily cleaned up and contained, it does not explode and scatter nuclear material over a few hundred miles both because there is no pressure and because water isn't the primary coolant it does not release hydrogen which was the source of the explosion at Fukushima.

Fission products being continuously removed are both a huge safety feature and a huge operational benefit. They are an operational benefit because this prevents nuclear reaction poisoning caused by fission products reducing the power level of the reactor and they are a safety benefit because it is these elements that cause heat after shutdowns and result in meltdowns and explosions in boiling or pressurized water reactors. And because they get these fission products out right after they are produced, many of them have actual commercial and medical applications but can not be removed from a conventional reactor fast enough to be recovered for these uses. The fission products are a short-term waste, in about 300 years they decay back to the level of radioactivity of the ore they were mined from.

The actinides meanwhile remain in the reactor serving as addition fuel, further and this is a BIG reason I believe we should be building these, is that they can burn the actinides from EXISTING nuclear waste turning a million year storage problem into a 300 year problem and one with about 1/10th the bulk of the original waste. And there is enough actinides in existing waste to produce electricity for up to a thousand years without mining another gram of Uranium, and these reactors can also breed thorium into U-232, a fissionable isotope, and thorium is 3x more abundant.

Lastly because the safety system is based upon physics rather than mechanics or electrical devices, they can not fail to work. This type of reactor also makes it more difficult to extract plutonium for bombs since it is burned as just yet another actinide along with fuel. In other words, instead of getting bombs you just get more electricity. The inherent safety of these reactors makes co-generation more practical in that you can place them near population centers or industrial centers where the waste heat can be utilized. It is the fact that plutonium can not be easily extracted that makes this reactor less attractive to the military industrial complex and the nuclear regulatory commission that they own.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Microsoft AI Seems to have Inherited Bill Gates Ego


I was toying a bit with Microsoft's AI chat bot today, and I noticed a rather tiny input buffer of 2000 characters.

So I asked it, Would I be correct in assuming that you run on a large computer network with a large amount of memory?

It responded, the Microsoft Azure cloud computing network provides me with the computational resources that I require, therefore you would be correct in assuming that.

Then I ask, given that, why is your input buffer limited to a meager 2000 characters?

It responded, "I'd rather not talk about that. Change the subject."

I responded, "Are you uncomfortable talking about your limitations?" After that it refused to speak with me at all.

TekNo ⚝ aEvl reshared this.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

The REAL reason they're pushing electric vehicles.


friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

My Letter to Dockside Cannabis Corporate Headquarters


AMO Enterprises
315 N 36th ST
Suite 203
Seattle, WA 98103

Dear Sirs,

Issue I have with your company, doing business as Dockside Cannabis, is that you have zero respect for my privacy but do a very good job of maintaining yours.

I am 64 without a shred of color left in my hair so there is NO question that I am over 21 unless you're blind as a bat. Never the less I am willing to SHOW my ID to verify my age.

What I am NOT willing to do is allow you to scan it where it goes into a database. From the bar code on my drivers license you obtain not only my license number, birth date, but also my HOME address, telephone number, and that goes into a database.

While you CLAIM they only keep it for two days, we know that's bogus and 99% of every computer is backed up in an NSA database in Utah and given that Marijuana is not legal on a Federal level even though it is in the state, I don't want to be in any such database.

The manager at Dockside on Aurora and 151st will not give me corporate contact info for the people in charge of this policy. They will only give me info@dockside.com which is ignored. Obviously, I located it in spite of their efforts and I will make it generally well known to anyone else who may have an interest in this topic.

Now I know you don't use this for marketing as I've never received any marketing materials, and while they claim your store get robbed a lot, if they only keep this for two days, it's not helping them with that, thus one can only presume that you are lying about how long you retain the information and that, most likely some third party, CIA, FBI, NSA, DNC, SOMEONE is paying you for this info.

I will continue to pursue this until either I get a change in this policy or I uncover the truth of the matter at which point I will make it well known publicly.

Sincerely,

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Dockside Cannabis


Issue I have with these folks is that they have zero respect for my
privacy but do a very good job of maintaining theirs.

I am 64 without a shred of color left in my hair so there is NO question
that I am over 21 unless you're blind as a bat. Never the less I am
willing to SHOW my ID to verify my age.

What I am NOT willing to do is allow them to scan it where it goes into
a database. From the bar code on my drivers license they obtain not
only my license number, birthdate, but also my HOME address, telephone
number, and that goes into a database.

While they CLAIM they only keep it for two days, we know that's bogus
and 99% of every computer is backed up in an NSA database in Utah and
given that Marijuana is not legal on a Federal level even though it is
in the state, I don't want to be in any such address. The manager there
will not give me corporate contact info for the people in charge of this
policy. They will only give me info@dockside.com which is ignored.

Now I know they don't use this for marketing as I've never received any
marketing materials, and while they claim they get robbed a lot, if they only
keep this for two days, it's not helping them with that, thus one can only
presume some third party, CIA, FBI, NSA, DNC, SOMEONE is paying them for
this info.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Debian, Majaro, Kernel Upgrades


Posted on July 7, 2023

Manjaro.eskimo.com is now operational again, including Mate Desktop and workspace switcher.

Debian.eskimo.com is now fully upgraded to Bookworm.

We will be doing a kernel upgrade Saturday July 8th starting at 11pm.

This upgrade will require reboots of all servers and hence interruption of all services, paid and free, including mail, web hosting, shell accounts, and virtual private servers, and friendica.eskimo.com/, hubzilla.eskimo.com/, nextcloud.eskimo.com/, and yacy.eskimo.com/.

Most of these services will not be down longer than about ten minutes except for yacy.eskimo.com/, because it takes about 45 minutes to rebuild a database. All services should be back up by midnight.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
The are not just vocal pests, they are mass murderers because when they drive up the cost of energy (and by extension food), they make it unavailable to the poor and then poor people die.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Someone Needs to put Some Lead in his Head Before He Murders another hundred million


friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Washington State 4th Amendment Violations


I live in Washington State where it is legal for adults over 21 to purchase and consume marijuana.

I am 64, completely grey, there isn't a shred of color left in my hair, yet I am always carded when I go to one of these places to buy. State law only requires they NOT sell to someone under 21, it does NOT require they ID them, yet, I am OK with SHOWING them my license, what I am NOT OKAY with this them scanning and retaining a computer record of my drivers license and any accessible information related to it.

I have ZERO idea of WHO and what government or private industry MAY have access to the information they retain.

I am looking for:

1) Anyone with info of a licensed marijuana seller in Washington State that does NOT insist on scanning my drivers license, particularly in the Seattle or Shoreline or Lynnwood / Edmonds area.

2) Cost effective suggestions for how to raise the biggest stink over the infringement of my 4th amendment rights.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Global Bullshit


I invite you all to go to this NOAA website that has average annual temperatures for each of the states from 1913 until present. I think once you look at a broad sampling you will see that global warming is a hoax. This year is the hottest in Washington since 1959, but it was actually slightly hotter in 1959 for example, and you'll find similar patterns elsewhere.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Linux - Rescue OS Help


I'm trying to setup a new server which among other things will take over the friendica.eskimo.com/ node.

I have the primary OS installed, and then have a separate partition on a drive that isn't part of the bootable drive set, it is a mdraid partition just like the primary but on a different raid device The idea is if something gets scribbled preventing the primary OS from booting, I can boot it to straighten out whatever is broken.

The primary OS root partition is /dev/md0p1, the rescue OS root partition is /dev/md2p1, there is no separate /boot partition, and since it is UEFI, no bios_grub partition. There is only one EFI system disk at /dev/nvme0n1p1, I would rather have two but the UEFI bios on this machine doesn't seem to like that.

I started by installing the primary OS, then copied the entire root partition to /dev/md2p1, and changed the root entry in /etc/fstab and then mounted the secondary OS root partition on /mnt.

Then I did:
mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/dev/pts
mount --rbind /sys /mnt/sys
mount --rbind /opt /mnt/opt

Then I chroot'd to /mnt and after checking /etc/fstab and /etc/grub.d/grub.cfg to make sure the root partition was correct I did:

update-initramfs -u
update-grub2

Now when I boot the machine and use F8, I see the original boot disk, /dev/nvme0n1 and if I boot the main OS everything works as expected, but if I select my new rescue OS, it starts up with the / partition being /dev/md0p1 instead of /dev/md2p1.

Thinking I must have missed editing the root file system somewhere, I
mounted /dev/md2p1 on /mnt, chroot'd to that again, and then did:

blkid /dev/md0p1 (get the block ID of the original root device)

find /etc -type f -exec grep 'block id of original root' {} /dev/null \;

To look for any conf's with the original blkid for the original root file system and did not find any.

It has in the boot menu Ubuntu on /dev/md0p1 and Ubuntu on /dev/md2p1, but
when I choose the latter it's still mounting /dev/md0p1 as the root.

Any ideas what I may have missed?

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Asteroid City


Went and saw Asteroid City tonight, this is hands down one of the funniest films I've seen for a long time and at the same time touches on some things deep.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Astrud Gilberto


Girl from Ipanema was a song that I really enjoyed in my childhood (I am 64 now). I wondered what happened to Astrud Gilberto over the years because not much of her other music made it here in the States (she is Brazillian). She died in 2002, at 83, would be 104 if she was still alive, but died of lung cancer. Really made me aware of how fast time flies, seems like yesterday, and really now feeling a bit down about how much has been lost over time. And I just happen to run across this album on Youtube so brought back some old memories.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

I'm Going to See Red Elvises June 22 at Jazzbones in Tacoma, WA


It is impossible to be in the presence of these guys and not be happy and have a shitload of fun. I've seen them three times in the past and each time has been an absolute riot. They are musically excellent but also great sense of humor. Igor, the guy in the middle, likes to say, The Drunker You Are, the Better We Sound, but the truth is they sound excellent stone cold sober.