Fear is also what our leaders may wish

Last year, I’ve published a short article titled “Fear is what terrorrists want” with a reference to Bruce Schneier. I also think fear may might what our leaders may wish, as a way to have more control on the people, as a way to justify privacy violation by the gouvernments in many countries with the main consequence to have our freedom reduced.

Today, on the same topic, Bruce Schneier he tells us to «Refuse to be Terrorized», by Schneier, referencing the action «I am not afraid», which proposes to contact your officials and tell them to «stop being afraid, and stop acting out of fear». This action is specific to the USA, but I think it may apply to other countries, including France and the UK.

L’hymne du motard

Tout est dans le titre : l’hymne du motard. On passera (ou pas) le deuxième couplet un brin machiste.

Voici le début (premier couplet + refrain) :

« C’est pas l’homme qui prend la brèle
C’est la brèle qui prend l’homme, tatatin
Moi la brèle elle m’a pris
J’ai du passer l’permis
J’ai troqué mes tatanes
Et mon porte-clé Peugeot
Contre un bon vieux nolan
Et un blouson de tarmo
J’ai déserté les crasses
Qui m’ disaient "Sois prudent"
La moto c’est pas stable
Tous les platanes te l’diront
Dès qu’le printemps reviendra
Je repartira
Dès que les routes tourneront
Nous nous arssouillerons »

Final shutdown of my historical server

Thursday 20 December, 2007, 03:00 GMT+1 :

indiana:/# halt -n -f -p

This is the final shutdown of my «historical server» , indiana.

In 2001, when I was still a student, I’ve had the opportunity to put my own machine at a small local ISP near Bordeaux (France) named Atlantic Line. The machine was already set and running at home for a year for homework. One year later, this ISP was merged into a bigger local ISP : Alienor. My server moved to Alienor with all the other machines without any kind of requirement from the ISP, which I appreciated much. Some time ago, I was the sysadmin for the French LUG ABUL which was hosted by Atlantic Line and is hosted by Alienor for a couple of years by now. This justified my own server. As long as I have quit this LUG for a while, it made sense it was time to have my server removed.

Thank you very much, Alienor and the ABUL, for having let me have my first own server on the Internet for these years.

This machine let me discover Debian GNU/Linux and has been through many releases :
  • 2000 : a mix of Potato as stable + Woody as testing,
  • 2001 : Woody as stable,
  • 2004 : Sarge as stable,
  • 2007 : Etch as stable.
All apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade were operated remotely (from Japan for the upgrade to Woody !) without a hitch, only minor problems. It has run Apache, OpenLDAP, Cyrus+Postfix+Amavis+SpamAssassin+Clamav, MySQL, Nagios, Cacti, OpenVPN ... and obviously GNU/Linux.

Since its beginning, I’ve had to change the hardware once in 2005 but the running system was strictly duplicated (tar c|tar x), so for me, it was a seven year old system that I have shutdown tonight.
By the way, the hardware was failing for a few days (some block disk errors with SMART and CPU/MB temperature peaks - some fan issue ? - were monitored). It was really the time to end it.

For those who may think «hey guy, seven years does not make it historical», I tell you : it is, to me. It corresponds to a period where we started the battle against software patents in Europe, where the first Libre Software Meeting sessions were organized, where I personally discovered the Free Software state of mind, not just the technical aspect (my first Linux experience was in 1996). It does matter to me.

And for those wondering why I’ve done a halt -n -f -p, the reason is : a couple of dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hd? just before, still remotely. You guess ?

Balade moto de Noël

A l’occasion de Noël, une balade moto a lieu sur Paris qui regroupe des dizaines de forums et associations moto, avec en trame de fond la récolte de cadeaux pour des enfants (orphelins, parents n’ayant pas les moyens, handicap, etc). Il est demandé de venir en costume de Père Noël et/ou la moto décorée, ainsi qu’avec au moins un cadeau neuf (sans emballage cadeau pour savoir si c’est "garçon", "fille" ou "unisexe"). Cette année, les deux associations retenues sont l’association des pupilles des pompiers et l’oeuvre des orphelins de la préfecture de police.

Cette balade a été initiée en 2002 avec 20 participants, puis a grandi chaque année pour atteindre dans les 2000 motards (!) en 2006.

C’est le groupe Caramotards qui organise cette balade . Regardez ici pour la balade du 20 décembre 2007. Pour ma part, je vais y participer avec l’association CBF Attitude que je rejoins, si ma cheville va mieux ... petite entorse au pied gauche : pas très commode pour passer les rapports. Voici le lien sur le site de l’association.