I completely forgot about this movie, but George Romero’s new zombie movie is coming out April 30th on Xbox Live VOD. May 28th in theatres.
Some people didn’t like Diary of the Dead, but I really enjoyed it and I think this one’s going to be more like Land of the Dead was. I’m a little biased and just like Zombie movies in general though.

Check out the trailer:

source: [ZombiesAreComing] via the [Official Site]

Today I switched the dns for thesh17.com to point to a new VPS. I’ve had thesh17.com on dreamhost for a long time and it’s done well, but has been pretty sluggish the last few months. I’m still keeping my dreamhost service active since I have a few other websites hosted on it, and like the idea of having an extra place to keep everything backed up.

I purchased a Linode VPS about a week ago, and so far it’s pretty awesome. They’ve done a great job with how they have their provisioning is set up and everything. I installed a basic CentOS set up and a few tweaks. After the dns finishes propagating and all of the traffic goes to the new server, I’ll do some apache/mysql tuning and possibly switch PHP to fastcgi. I’m also considering switching to lighthttpd instead of apache, but haven’t used it enough to want to try yet.

Anyway, if you’re seeing this post then it means you’re already loading the site from the new server. Everyone else should within the next 24-48 hours. In the mean time, the site will stay up on both servers.

If anyone runs in to any random errors or problems, shoot me an e-mail: johntash [at] thesh17.com

Edit: Apache’s been swapping like crazy most of the day and would keep bringing the load up to 140+. I tuned the process/thread limits down quite a bit and it seems to be okay so far. Hopefully it can still handle the traffic it was getting though.

It’s that time of the year again. International Talk Like a Pirate Day is upon us again. September 19th, every year.

There’s a lot going on again this year, so here’s a few links to get you started:

• Flickr Photo Group
• World of Warcraft Pirate’s Day
• Xbox Live Allnighter – Playing Age of Booty, The Secret of Monkey Island , Sid Meier’s Pirates!, and Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball
• Eve Online – Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any specific events for today, but hey the game is full of pirates already! http://www.eve-pirate.com/
• Pirate Songs – Chanteys for Modern Pirates
• The Pirate Name Generator
• Be sure to check out the official page for lots more links!

Also.  A Comic and video for you to enjoy:

Ye scurvy doggs have fun!

-Cap’n Guideon Leadblade

Just a quick news update.    Nmap 5.00 was released today!

In case you’re not aware, Nmap’s a free/open-source network scanner, and this is the first major release in quite some time.      I’m installing it now and will update when I get a chance to try some of the new features out

Head over to their website for a detailed list of the changes, but here’s the top 5 improvements(as listed by them) :

1. The new Ncat tool aims to be your Swiss Army Knife for data transfer, redirection, and debugging. We released a whole users’ guide detailing security testing and network administration tasks made easy with Ncat.
2. The Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) is one of Nmap’s most powerful and flexible features. It allows users to write (and share) simple scripts to automate a wide variety of networking tasks. Those scripts are then executed in parallel with the speed and efficiency you expect from Nmap. All existing scripts have been improved, and 32 new ones added. New scripts include a whole bunch of MSRPC/NetBIOS attacks, queries, and vulnerability probes; open proxy detection; whois and AS number lookup queries; brute force attack scripts against the SNMP and POP3 protocols; and many more. All NSE scripts and modules are described in the new NSE documentation portal.
3. We released Nmap Network Scanning, the official Nmap guide to network discovery and security scanning. From explaining port scanning basics for novices to detailing low-level packet crafting methods used by advanced hackers, this book suits all levels of security and networking professionals. A 42-page reference guide documents every Nmap feature and option, while the rest of the book demonstrates how to apply those features to quickly solve real-world tasks. More than half the book is available in the free online edition.
4. The addition of the Ndiff scan comparison tool completes Nmap’s growth into a whole suite of applications which work together to serve network administrators and security practitioners. Ndiff makes it easy to automatically scan your network daily and report on any changes (systems coming up or going down or changes to the software services they are running). The other two tools now packaged with Nmap itself are Ncat and the much improved Zenmap GUI and results viewer.
5. Nmap performance has improved dramatically. We spent last summer scanning much of the Internet and merging that data with internal enterprise scan logs to determine the most commonly open ports. This allows Nmap to scan fewer ports by default while finding more open ports. We also added a fixed-rate scan engine so you can bypass Nmap’s congestion control algorithms and scan at exactly the rate (packets per second) you specify.

I’d say this is a good reason to get arrested

From WRAL:

“Raleigh, N.C. — Raleigh police arrested a North Carolina State University student last week who was accused of creating a “monster” out of construction barrels and placing it on the side of the road.”

And of course, here’s the awesome monster he created out of those orange barrels.  I really want one..

Raleigh Road Monster

I came across this piece of [old] news at CIO.   Apparently IBM is working on a new super computer code-named “Watson”.   They’re trying to take Artificial Intelligence to the next level with this machine, and think it’ll be capable of competing with humans on game shows like Jeopardy.

“Watson, in its final stages of development, is a question answering system that has been in development for nearly two years. Underneath Watson’s hood, natural language processing and other technologies analyze meanings behind words. This gives Watson the ability to identify relevant and irrelevant content, interpret ambiguous expression and puns, decompose questions into sub-questions, and synthesize information to form an answer, IBM says. Watson considers massive volumes and varieties of natural language, then quickly analyzes and scores supporting or refuting evidence—in a matter of seconds.”

With Wolfram Aplha out now and Google Squared in the works, it seems like there’s actually quite a bit of work going on with AI-ish programs lately.     I’m looking forward to hearing more about AI development.

Read more at IBM Supercomputer to Compete on Jeopardy.

Anyone see this in the news?     This guy in New Orleans comes up to a guy in his yard gardening, and starts yelling in Spanish.    He ends up biting the guy’s arm and eating the flesh in front of him while the neighbor dresses the bite wound.

It sounds like he did this all pretty calmly before wandering to a parking lot a few blocks down, and he was even treated for a finger injury at the hospital earlier in the day.

Sound like the beginning of a zombie outbreak to anyone?    It’s most likely not anything to worry about, but hey.   Always be prepared, right?     Start stocking up!

Here’s the full story:

A Metairie resident is recovering after a stranger bit a chunk of flesh out of his arm, and swallowed it, Saturday afternoon.

Joseph Lancellotti, 67, told authorities he did not know the suspect, later identified as Mario Vargas, 48, or why he was attacked in his front yard.

Lancellotti was gardening at his home in the 4400 block of Kawanee Avenue about 2 p.m. when he noticed a man walking toward his house, shouting angrily, the report said. Lancellotti said he couldn’t understand the man because he was yelling in Spanish. But when the man got within two feet, he slugged Lancellotti in the head, the report said.

Lancellotti said he tried to defend himself with a garden rake. As the men struggled over the rake, the stranger bent over and bit Lancellotti on his right forearm, the report said. Lancellotti’s flesh ripped away as he fell to the ground. The man then got on top of Lancellotti and began choking him, the report said.

It was then that neighbor Chantal Lorio, a podiatrist and director of the Wound Center at East Jefferson General Hospital, came out to check on Lancellotti. Lorio said Monday that she first thought Lancellotti was having a heart attack and the other man was trying to help him.

The stranger was still gripping Lancellotti as Lorio noticed her neighbor was lying in a pool of blood. She didn’t learn what happened until she began dressing the wound — with the stranger still clutching her neighbor’s shirt.

“He said, ‘He bit my arm, chewed the flesh and swallowed it in front of me,’ ” Lorio recalled. She said the bite measured almost 3 by 1 1/2 inches, and was less than 1/4-inch deep.

The pair tried to calm the stranger, who never made any attempt to run away. He eventually let go of Lancellotti and walked two blocks to a parking lot, where he hovered near an empty police car, the report said. The suspect was still standing there when deputies arrived and took him into custody.

Vargas, of 724 Camp St., New Orleans, was booked with second-degree battery. He was being held Monday at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna in lieu of $25,000 bail.

Lancellotti’s wife, Bonnie, 60, said Monday that her husband was recovering from the bite, physically and mentally. She said his sense of safety in his neighborhood has been shaken.

With all the bacteria involved, Lorio said a bite from a human is worse than an animal bite.

Bonnie Lancellotti also has concerns about the suspect, who apparently had been treated at East Jefferson General Hospital earlier in the day for a finger injury. Vargas was released 45 minutes before the attack, according to the incident report.

Bonnie Lancellotti wondered whether hospital staff noticed anything amiss while treating Vargas. “This person’s clearly lost his sense,” she said. “I mean, what else can you say, eating people’s skin?”

Keith Darcey, spokesman for the hospital, said, “We cannot comment on any individual patient because of privacy laws. But as a matter of general hospital policy, the emergency department has behavioral health nurses available to help diagnose patients who might require mental health assistance.”

Read the article at nola.com [via ZombiesAreComing]

We can’t be having a zombie outbreak already.   We don’t even have ZIRP online yet =[