Disk space, cabling, and general randomness

[Dan Brosemer <odin@cleannorth.org>]

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Spare Hard Drives

The 2G drive that we picked up at the last BOYD was sent back to Fujitsu for
a replacement.  That replacement came, and when I opened it, I found bad
sectors on it, but that's not all... I found what looked like our data... a
pre-release of Debian potato where the contents of /etc/hostname read
'obiwan'.

Much confusion ensued.  Meanwhile, I found a temporary means of working
around the bad sectors, and we used the drive to mirror our data to.

I got the chance, on Wednesday, to replace the drive with another, so TL
called up Fujitsu to find out what was going on.

Apparently the drive they sent us has a different SN from the one we sent
them, but neither they, nor we, can explain how (what looked like) our data
got on the drive.

In any case, we get to send it back (again) and get a new drive (again)...
maybe this one will actually work. :)

The drive they finally give us will be used entirely for user data to give
everyone some more space.  Right now, we're only using ~300 of 900MB, so
really in no rush.

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Blue Wires Runneth Amok

Clean North got a roll of Cat-5, a crimp tool, some bags of ends, keystone
jacks, and wall mounts!

I recabled the office entirely with Cat-5 (568b standard), and added two
machines back in IS/NG on to the network.  So now we can round up all the
floppies in the office and bring them to BOYD, right?  right? :)

This cable should be more reliable, more plentiful, and faster than the
previous cable.  It is also built all to one standard, so it should be
easier to maintain.. just remember O/W,O,G/W,B,B/W,G,Br/W,Br... or don't.
It's in the list archive now.

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New Old Hard Disks

The systems we got from HRDC for BOYD were reasonably interesting.  I've
salvaged 4 ISA network cards from them (scratch NICs from the wishlist
unless something great comes up like an EtherExpress Pro -- I can dream,
can't I?).

We also got 3 (count 'em, 3) Quantum Fireball 1GB drives!  They have found
new homes in Shane's PC in the back, Wedge, and Leia.  I wasn't about to let
those things leave the C/N office.

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OpenNIC

Earlier this week, I was asked to maintain a top-level domain for OpenNIC
(http://www.opennic.unrated.net/ or http://www.opennic/).  OpenNIC is an
alternative to the ICANN (who provides .org, .net, .com, .mil, .edu, .gov,
and .int) and IANA (who provide .ca, .us, .uk, and the other country codes
(but not Tuvalu(.tv) and Tonga(.to))).

OpenNIC adds the AlterNIC names (.exp, .llc, .lnx, .ltd, .med, .nic, .noc,
.porn, and .xxx) and their own domains (.opennic, .null, .oss, .parody, and
.glue).  I'm debating blocking access to .porn and .xxx, since their use in
the office would be questionable at best, and they were partly designed for
the sake of giving net admins the ability to block such things without
blocking info such as breast cancer research, etc.  The only thing to stop
me would be the futility (there's so much more porn in .com than the other
two combined that I fail to really see the point in blocking them right
now... maybe at a later date).

I have been asked to host .bbs (which will be added to OpenNIC shortly), and
I am planning to propose a .ngo for non-governmental organizations (because
.org has become polluted).  I will likely run that TLD as well.

The OpenNIC domain names will resolve from any machine in the CN office.  If
you want information on how to configure your home PC to use OpenNIC,
contact your ISP, myself, or go to http://www.opennic.unrated.net/.

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Call for Help.

Would anyone care to help put a proposal together for a .ngo top-level
domain name?  I don't need anyone with technical expertise, so don't let
that scare you off (though I won't turn you away if you grok zonefiles).
What I need is to create a charter for the domain (who we allow to
have subdomains of it (registered NGOs?  do other countries have such
a concept?  does _this_ one?), what we do if two organizations lay claim
to a domain name, what documentation we require before we grant a domain
name)... policy stuff.  We'd also need an acceptable use policy (Anything
goes?  No hate speech?).  Any takers?

-Dan