Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Come-on, Give Me A Break

"Now this really pisses me off to no end!" - David Lo Pan, Big Trouble In Little China

Excuse me, but I am tired of the sycophantic, whiny, brain-dead morons who insist that because some money gets taken away from them due to their cavernous piehole spewing forth unintelligent political statements against the people who are giving them the money that their "rights" have been abridged.

What am I talking about?

Well, Jack's referring to Mr. Theo de Raadt (Is it pronounced "Rat"? It should be), the lead developer of OpenBSD, an allegedly secure Operating System (Based on Berkley's BSD Unix-like system). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently awarded a 2.3 million dollar grant to Mr. Raadt's group to increase security and do other research and development with the software system to make it even more secure, so the military may use it as well.

You would think that a person with a highly developed technical brain would figure out it was asinine to make disparaging statements about the organization giving him the money.

Let's see, someone hands you millions of dollars from another country to help you work on your project, and you say things like: "I actually am fairly uncomfortable about it, even if our firm stipulation was that they cannot tell us what to do. We are simply doing what we do anyways — securing software — and they have no say in the matter," Mr. de Raadt said in a recent e-mail exchange. "I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built." He also goes on to say: "We're not doing anything for them. They just fund us to do what we do," said Mr. de Raadt, a 35-year-old graduate of the University of Calgary's computer science program. Mr. de Raadt is no fan of the U.S. military at the moment. He calls the war in Iraq an oil grab. "It just sickens me."

Then, he has the gall to whine, bitch, moan, and complain when the military pulls funding for the project.

What the hell was he thinking? Obviously there's little in his brain other than 1s, 0s, and computer code. If he's going to shoot off his mouth, he has to understand there will be consequences. Then get this, somehow he relates the money-pull to somehow limiting his speech: "In the United States today, free speech is just a myth," de Raadt said.

WTF? I just don't get how these people's brains are wired. I always knew that programmers were a different sort. Though you have to be to sit in front of a little computer screen and type out excruciatingly tedious and meticulous instructions for your very stupid but very fast computer to follow. How in the hell is this limiting his free speech? I didn't see the military holding a gun to his head and forcing him to take the money. I don't think he's in jail or has been charged with any crime, other than gross stupidity.

However, the sugar daddy took the cookie jar away, and now he's whining and crying like a 3-year old.

This is US Taxpayer money Mr. Raadt, we've worked hard for it, don't slap us in the face with your emotional rants and then complain when we take it back.

If he didn't agree with the US Government (and especially the military), which he is welcome to do, he should have never taken the money in the first place. Of course, most of the time those researchers have no idea how to put that amount of money to good use. They were using some of the cash to foot the bill for a conference of some sort, and now they can't pay for it. Serves them right.

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Wow, I Found My Champions Stats

Champions is a role-playing game (Dungeons & Dragons is probably the most famous) where the participants create and play Super-Hero type characters.

You know: the Flash, Spiderman, Superman, Batman - those types of guys.

Seems that someone made up the Champions' Stats for Jack Burton. Even if you don't understand most of the article, it makes for an interesting read.

Check it out.