Though no official carrier has been announced yet, producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse of ABC's Lost are currently filming 20-minute "mobisodes" of the show in Hawaii. Called The Lost Video Diaries, the shows will feature two new characters with their respective backstories. Though the new characters won't be featured in the televised version of the show, there's already talk of possibly featuring them in later episodes. Currently, Verizon seems like the most likely distributor of the new shows.

Boy, whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry for Theo de Raddt was spot on when they said "De Raadt is noted for his uncompromising and confrontational manner." So much so, in fact, that I think he can take the OS he founded and shove it.

Seriously, I don't care what this guy's written. I don't care what awards he's won or who's using the operating system he loves to boast about writing. A lack of mutual respect is just that, and I have no tollerance for someone throwing uncalled for, childish profanity and insults at me. And to think I actually paid money to OpenBSD for their software. Makes me sick to know he's gotten some of it.

You know, everywhere I work, there's always a guy just like de Raadt. They're in-your-face and do not tollerate anything at all that they disagree on. Everything they do is right, and those things that you think they just cannot get out of claiming wrongness, they throw blame elsewhere. There is no middle ground and there's no reasoning. They use CAPITAL LETTERS to say things like "you are WRONG" all the time, and you just know they felt all warm inside when they told you that. They go home at night to their wife or their cat and tell them how much they hate peons and how better the world would be without them ruining it for them, and their wives pat them on the head and tell them they're the best and they're always right. That they're superior. They continue to be employed for one of two reasons: 1) they're really good at the work they do, and there's no time to find someone who can do the same quality of work who has a better attitude, or 2) they own the company.

I have no room for these people in my life. None. Just as little as they'd like to see me asking for help or making small mistakes in their midst, I'd like to see them gloat and flaunt their arrogance in my face. My only solace is to know I will live a long, healthy stress-free life, and they likely will not. They are the people who continue to tollerate those who they feel are lowly and insignificant to their causes and find it insufferable to deal with them. Lucklily there are many more of us and a lot fewer of them on this planet.

Here's an email exchange I had with him, showing his raging arrogance and ego in full form.

A history first. Below is a bug report I filed to openbsd.org along with de Raadt's replies verbatim. It doesn't matter how little I know about the inner workings of ypbind. Just watch how he responds and you be the judge. (UPDATE: here is more insight into this guy's arrogance and low tollerance for anyone other than himself).

-----

X-sendbug-version: 3.97
Submitter-Id: net
Originator: Gudlyf
Organization: net

> Synopsis: ypbind fails to authenticate over time
> Severity: critical
> Priority: high
> Category: system
> Class: sw-bug
> Release: 3.8-current
> Environment:

System : OpenBSD 3.8
Architecture: OpenBSD.i386
Machine : i386

> Description:

When the system is set to authenticate via ypbind for logins (ssh, telnet, terminal),
authentication will suddenly fail over time. For example, a user attempting to login
via SSH will report an unknown user in the system logs. However, ypbind remains running
and a 'ypcat passwd' command shows what one would expect to see, so communication to
the NIS server is still intact.

Sometimes restarting ypbind seems to clear up the issue, though not always. Usually a
reboot of the system is required.

This bug has been in existence for several revisions of OpenBSD, but it has finally come
time I report it.

> How-To-Repeat:

After a reboot, the system usually will allow logins as normal for a few hours up to
a few days later, then suddenly authentication fails. Logging in as a local user (root)
on the console succeeds at all times, though logging in as a user on NIS fails.

> Fix:

Not a "fix", but rebooting the system puts things back to normal and logins are able to
proceed.

-----

From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>

Run ypwhich. What does it say? I have never seen this, nor have I
heard of this. I will be closing this PR because it really does not
say much.

-----

To: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: system/4506: ypbind fails to authenticate over time

ypwhich shows the server name:

bouncer# ypwhich
service3

'ypcat passwd' shows entire passwd database (I am not pasting that information here, obviously, for security
reasons).

Here's a log snippet of me trying to login (from /var/log/authlog):

[cut for length]

bouncer# ypmatch gudlyf passwd
gudlyf:...:5000:360:Me:/home/gudlyf:/usr/local/bin/bash

Password cropped down to "..." for security reasons.

Contents of /etc/passwd:

bouncer# cat /etc/passwd
root:*:0:0:Charlie &:/root:/bin/csh
(usual stuff, then)
+:*:0:0:::

-----

Subject: Re: system/4506: ypbind fails to authenticate over time
From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>

Try using ypmatch.

There are a few databases. Don't use just the one.

ypbind just keeps track of where your ypserv is.

It does not keep data. None.

If ypwhich is working, then your master is known.

If ypcat works, then your master is there.

ypbind killing will affect nothing.

You have not diagnosed this right; it has nothing to with ypbind
and you have not shown what is really failing.

-----

To: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: system/4506: ypbind fails to authenticate over time

I supplied the information you're asking about.

ypwhich shows 'service3', ONE of our NIS servers which has an uptime
of 125 days.

'ypcat passwd' spews out the NIS passwd database. Again, I will not copy that
information here for security reasons. Rest assured that it looks as it should.
It looks the same as it does on many of our other OS systems on the network, ALL
of which are able to contact the NIS server fine and authenticate by it fine.
Our only two OpenBSD systems fail to authenticate via NIS over a non-specific
amount of time. Then suddenly, users are unable to authenticate via NIS whether
it's by telnet, ssh or logging into the system directly. Logging in as a local
user (i.e., root) works at all times.

I'm aware of how ypbind works, though it does not simply tell the system where
to locate the ypserv. It also provides the communication between server and
client. Of course I realize it does not retain any data -- it's a client
communicating with a server. However, for whatever reason, OpenBSD loses touch
with the server for authentication purposes.

What more information would you like? You are not telling me what you want. Do
you want full stack trace information? Simply telling me I'm not diagnosing this
right is useless to both of us.

-----

From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: system/4506: ypbind fails to authenticate over time

Bullshit. You are wrong, and now you are being antagonistic.

ypbind ONLY says where ypserv is. I wrote this shit, so don't go
spewing to me. ypbind does NOT do the communication between client
and server, that is what the /var/yp/bindings files are for.
You are WRONG.

Your diagnosis is wrong.

-----

To: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: system/4506: ypbind fails to authenticate over time

What help are you bing using profanity? Uncalled for.

Then please tell me what part of the OS communicates authentication between the
OpenBSD client and the ypserv server so I may diagnose the problem right.

Jesus, you don't have to be so arrogant.

-----

Then this gets tacked onto the bug:

Synopsis: ypbind fails to authenticate over time

State-Changed-From-To: open->closed
State-Changed-By: deraadt
State-Changed-When: Tue Sep 13 18:34:20 MDT 2005
State-Changed-Why:
submitter is unable to provide test results as asks
does not understand how YP works
attempts to preach to me about how it works
what he is describing as broken must be a local configuration
issue.
since he totally does not understand the code, does not want to
give me test results, does not trust the guy who WROTE THE CODE,
screw him. this PR gets closed because it does not describe a real
bug.

-----

THEN he writes to me:

From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: system/4506: ypbind fails to authenticate over time

I am not helping you. You are an arrogant prick.

You run my code. Yet you won't even share information with me so
that I can debug it?

I wrote that damn YP code you are running. I know how it works
and I will not put up with your self-righteous yelling at me.

You are the prick here.

If I am the prick, kindly PLEASE STOP RUNNING THE CODE I WROTE
IMMEDIATELY. And you better be careful since almost ALL the fre
YP code is based on what I wrote.

Screw you. We write code precisely because not everyone is as
much an ass as you are.

Telling us how it works, like fuck.. who do you thikn you are.
You're just an admin, or you'd have written a hot shit patch
already.

---

Yeah...WOW. Well I'm sorry, but I don't give a rat's ass how much code you've written, I'll be happy not to run it if it doesn't work and there's a lack of want to help users of it get things working. Why he jumped down my throat like he did. I mean, what the fuck?

A site for any space buff or self respecting astronomy geek to sip their morning coffee/tea/tang to, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day turns ten years old today. I've been using their image of Markarian's Chain of Galaxies tiled onto my workstation desktop for the past couple of months. Another favorite, though not "astronomy" in the strictest sense, is the Tornado and Rainbow over Kanasas from just the other day. What favorites do you have?

After many months waiting by the WordPress community and multitudes of others looking to convert to the popular blogging system, version 1.5 (dubbed "Strayhorn") has finally been released. Among the new features worth mentioning are multiple themes support, a better admin interface, static pages and additional plugin hooks. There are some helpful instructions for upgrading from version 1.2 and transfering from other blogging systems.

In an interview with about.com, Nathan Fillion makes a clear indication that the entire cast of the upcoming 'Firefly' movie, 'Serenity', is signed on for two additional 'Firefly' movies, should the first one do well at the box office. "If this first movie does well... We're all roped into a trilogy. We all signed for a trilogy so if this first one does well, we're going to do two more."

Google now has the Google "Suggest" beta up for trial, which does auto-completion as you type. Pretty cool. Maybe this has been up for a while, I dunno.

"Twas the day before audit, and all through the net..."

According to Dark Horizons , the talk of a Quantum Leap movie has come up again. This time they're discussing a two-hour TV movie with the possibility of an ongoing series based on the movie's success. Cool!

According to Dark Horizons, Terminator 4 is moving forward, with filming expected to begin next year. No word yet on whether Ahnold will be making an apperance or not, but his role would be limited should he sign on. I wonder if aspects of the fanfic Terminator 3.5 script will be making it in.

According to Variety (RR) and Dark Horizons, Fox Searchlight is planning to remake the 1984 college comedy "Revenge of the Nerds," about a fraternity for socially awkward types, who exact revenge on the jocks who've repeatedly humiliated them. The movie is set to be "similar to the original," but does that kind of mentality really exist these days as much as it did in the mid-1980's? I was under the impression that the past twenty years has been good for the geek.

Perhaps one step closer to something like a miniature Mr. Fusion, robotics experts at the University of the West of England in Bristol have created a robot that "digests" flies for power. This is actually not all that new -- the 'Chew Chew' runs on digesting meat.

It's time once again for all Sysadmins out there, as the 5th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day is upon us! Why not honor that special uptime-giver you love by giving them Christmas a little early, or better yet, enter them into the 2004 Sysadmin Pageant.

Sent off an email to my friend Robin (of Team Fortress fame) at Valve about the reported news regarding Half-Life 2. Here's the text of that message:

Yep, it's real freakin close. Nothing but bugs to fix and then we ship.
If we miss September, it won't be long afterwards. And if we miss, it'll
most likely be stuff other than the game (like the fact we have to ship
9 localised foreign language versions at the same time).

Robin.

-----Original Message-----
From: [Me]
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 7:48 AM
To: Robin Walker
Subject: August?! Can it be true?!

Heya Rob, Gudlyf here. How's things?

So am I really going to see HL2 next month so I can get a good couple of
months of playtime in before I have a baby in my lap? ;-)

Take care...

From Variety (RR): "With Sony apparently unable to construct a final offer for MGM, it's looking increasingly likely that Time Warner will swoop in and grab the prize. Bagging the Lion would give Time Warner a nice little bonus -- worldwide theatrical and television rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." What a sweet addition to New Line's "The Lord of the Rings" franchise..."

Looking for something to get the gadget geek you love who has everything? They'll impress friends and wow others when they whip out there new folding bicycle out of their backpack. What they do with it next is anyone's guess.