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  • The Fog of War - Lesson #9: In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
  • The Fog of War - Lesson #8: Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
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  • The Fog of War - Lesson #6: Get the data

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DD-WRT is, by far, my favorite third-party firmware for the Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I, personally, have three of these on my network — one as the primary access point and router and two as bridged repeaters — on which I have used several versions of dd-wrt. (I’ve also used Sveasoft and Hyper-WRT on these devices.)

Previously, I have endured spectacular failure when trying to flash version 8 devices. composite triple beat (My devices are all version 2. The Wikipedia article I linked to above explains the differences in the hardware versions.) It turns out, the critical misunderstanding I had related to flashing the stock firmware with vxWorksKiller (prior to transferring the DD-WRT image to the router via TFTP). I did not realize that the upload of vxWorksKiller needed to be done from a special management screen that is only accessible after unplugging the router, holding down the reset button while plugging the router back in, and continuing to hold the reset button for 20 seconds. This implies that the upload should not be done from the default firmware’s upgrade page. This understanding was gained this week when building a PC, and flashing two routers, for a friend of mine.

Given that the preponderance of WRT54Gs on shelves now are version 8.x, this realization bodes well for me in future purchases.

I resolved this year that I would take time to pursue one of my passions — computer science. As such, I am learning how to write applications for Linux. I’ve just spent 30 frustrating minutes trying to figure out why on earth my deliberate segmentation fault in the small C program I have written is not producing a core dump in Ubuntu 9.04. It turns out that Ubuntu disables core dumps in Bash by default. The fix is simple enough — use the ulimit command to enable core dumps.

bash$ ulimit -c 100

In this case I have enabled core dumps and given them a limit of 100 blocks. Problem solved! Hopefully this makes it into the search engines and helps someone else frustrated by this same issue.

I simply had to share this sketch. It’s from a delightful British sketch comedy series called “A Bit of Fry & Laurie.” Stephen Fry is so very funny in this bit. His wordplay never ceases to make me laugh out loud. Without further ado, I present to you A Bit of Fry & Laurie - 2×03 - “Jewellry”.

One of my goals this year is to learn Latin. I recognize it is a rather impractical pursuit, but I am an avowed linguaphile and Latin has always intrigued me. I am, admittedly, only a few weeks into my studies, but I have wanted to develop an appropriate title for this blog and I thought I’d give it a go in Latin. The title of the blog is The Prisoner of Curiosity — A Treasury of Wisdom and Rubbish.

I spent a couple of hours on Saturday morning studying Latin inflection — particularly the six declensions. I believe I have correctly declined the nouns in the title. I remain, however, open to suggestions!

McNamara explains the fog of war:

What “the fog of war” means is: war is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily. Wilson said: “We won the war to end all wars.” I’m not so naive or simplistic to believe we can eliminate war. We’re not going to change human nature anytime soon. It isn’t that we aren’t rational. We are rational. But reason has limits.

McNamara, choking on emotion, shares the following in the last scene of the film:

There’s a quote from T.S. Eliot that I just love:

We shall not cease from exploring
And at the end of our exploration
We will return to where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Now that’s in a sense where I’m beginning to be.

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