1. Belfast City Hall

2. Harland & Wolff cranes, Samson & Goliath (H & W is the company that built the Titanic)

3. Guernica mural near the Falls

4. Broken walls, shot somewhere in the Shankill/Falls area

5. Anti-IRA Mural on Shankill Road

6. Sinn Fein offices in the Falls area

7. Red Hand of Ulster mural off Shankill Rd.

8. Protestant mural off Shankill Rd.

9. Mural off Shankill Rd.

10. Garden of Remembrance, Falls Rd., honoring many IRA members.

Learn more about the Catholic/Protestant conflicts in Northern Ireland (The Troubles), the Shankill Butchers, and the murals themselves. Scary and fascinating stuff.

I love jars.

Taken with my film camera.

For some students, Vassar’s mistake brought a moment of clarity. Posting on the College Confidential thread, Mr. Leggio mused that perhaps he preferred a school in a city after all. Kareen Troussard, a student in Paris, said the episode might have saved her. “I want to major in computer science,” she said in an e-mail, “and Vassar doesn’t even know how to use a computer on the biggest day of our lives.”

Okay, whoa there missy. Back up a second. I get it, you’re frustrated, you’re bitter, and clearly you’ve never been to a Flaming Lips concert because you think this is the biggest day of your life. Vassar really messed things up big time, and what happened to you was cruel and unfair. But I want to make a fine distinction here. Vassar Computer Science department (CS), and Vassar’s Computer Information Services (CIS), are two very different organizations. Vassar CS department is a group of bright and talented people working together to promote young people’s understanding and love of technology. Vassar CIS is a bunch of bright and talented people and a bunch of asshats working together for a bunch of asshats. There’s a huge difference.

Here’s how the admissions process would have gone down had Vassar’s CS department had anything to do with it:

First of all, Vassar’s CS department is perfectly equipped to handle admissions. Need to sort a list fast? We’re got Dr. Scheme. Lots of data to analyze? Not a problem, Junior can handle it. Why? Because Junior has 156 cores. Harry and Voldemort’s wands shared one core, and they got into some crazy shit. Think of what you could do with 156!

The other nice thing about the CS department is that it has its own private network, so you can do really cool stuff that you can’t on the school’s network because it’s controlled by a bunch of asshats. To gain access to the CS network, and to use any of the lab computers, you have to be added as a user by the sysadmin (that’s the person who maintains the network). Vassar’s former sysadmin was a brilliant guy who crafted a set of wearable computers that allowed him to literally wear the network around. He now works for Google, leading a research team that’s working on Google’s implementation of the Borg as a social network. It’s like Google+, except they +1 you.

Alright, Prospective Student! By this point you have submitted your application, been added as a user to the system, and waited patiently for a couple weeks for Junior to do its thing. It’s time to see your results! Now, the folks at Vassar CS value your privacy, and they would never put your admission results on the internet. Which means that in order to actually SEE your admissions letter, you’ll have to VNC into their machines. VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing: a way of possessing another computer’s computery spirit from your desktop, and making it do stuff.

For the record, RDP is Remote Desktop Connection, which is like VNC only different, and VPN is something you don’t use if you work for startups.

So, you’ll need to VNC. If you’re a hipster, you’ll want to download a good VNC client for Mac, like this one. If you’re a hipster and allergic to aluminium, you will need to install an SSH client as well. If you use Linux, you’ll probably want to volunteer as a CS101 coach. Trust me. It’s the only way you’ll ever get laid.

Either way, you’ll eventually end up typing something like ssh -L 5901:localhost:5995 username@mote33.cs.vassar.edu with light letters on a dark background, and you’re on! Now you just need to log in.

Here is where things get really tricky. Your username is usually something simple and easy to remember, some shortened version of your real name. But Vassar CS really really hates it when some slacker hacks into their system, so they request that your password be iron-clad. It should not be something you use for any other account. It must have letters, numbers, and obscure symbols all mangled together, but it absolutely cannot spell any words, not even in 1337, because there are robots out there who are better than you at 1337, and they will hack into the Vassar CS network and open up your homework and turn all your nice recursions into infinite loops, and we can’t have that.

So, you forgot your password.

If you’ve made it this far, you have three options. You can either email the sysadmin and ask to be re-assimilated, you can pull a Mark Zuckerburg, or you can not forget your password. Let’s go with the third option.

So, you’ve VNC’d, you’ve authenticated, now what? Well, first off, congratulations, you are now using Linux! Linux is the operating system of choice of academics, proponents of free and open source software, and cute penguins.

You’re almost there! Your hands are sweaty. Your knees start to shake. You see the folder called “My Admission Results”: it’s right there, on the desktop. If this were a Mac, you’d click it. If this were Windows, you’d click it. But this is Linux, and you are a ninja, and that is not the Way. We must learn to use the command line.

What do you mean, a bad time? There’s never a bad time to learn some bash! Fine, we’ll cut you some slack just this once. Once you’ve figured out cd and ls, you can probably just go ahead and open your document.

Well, what are you waiting for. Read it. It says “YES”! Excited? You should be. Congratulations, you’re in! (it’s real, we promise)…

Now you may be wondering, how did the system get so smart? And how exactly did it come to choose you? It didn’t. Everyone got the same letter. Every single student that applied. But you’re one of only 46 that read it. Why? Because you remembered your f***ing password, that’s why. And you didn’t even have to google it. You’re going to do great things for the world.

Welcome to Vassar! Take this time now to change your desktop background to an anime character and make Reddit your homepage. You’ll need it.

(And to Ms. Troussard: Don’t let Vassar’s mistake be your own. This is not the biggest day of your life, and you will get a chance to do awesome things wherever you go to school, and especially wherever you end up going after. It’s more in your hands than they lead you to believe).

sincerely yours,

ka11isto

I wish there was a hack for this.

]]> http://www.browser-cookies.net/blog/2012/01/27/making-the-magic/feed/ 167 http://www.browser-cookies.net/blog/2012/01/26/and-now-we-recover/ http://www.browser-cookies.net/blog/2012/01/26/and-now-we-recover/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:34:37 +0000 ka11isto http://www.browser-cookies.net/blog/?p=1318

Wisdom teeth, January 26, 2012

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