Rick Moen, Unix Guy

If I had a real home page, it would be here.

In the meantime, it might be worth mentioning that I'm a recovering sysadmin, working with Linux, WANs/LANs, and sundry network servers in the San Francisco Bay Area. . .

. . .WINOLJ-OOW2.0C (Who Is Not On LiveJournal — Or Other Web 2.0 Cults).

Where? Here!

USPS: 1105 Altschul Avenue (aka "---x---r-t Altschul"), Menlo Park, CA 94025-6601 (map) (directions).
POTS: +1 650-283-7902 (mobile)
ICBM:122.204196°W, 37.430410°N, 49.28 metres elevation
e-mail: rick@linuxmafia.com
Mastodon: @unixmercenary@infosec.exchange
Genome: mtDNA haplogroup V2, paternal haplogroup R1b1b2a1a1 (marker U106): All you Doggerland refugees might be distant relatives. (And all hail Mother Velda!)
household info: Emergency contacts, elected district info. for household members' benefit
Local gardening sales and the gardening clubs running them
Archive of Rick's Election Analyses and Recommendations
Weather: What NWS predicts for our address
Sunrise/sunset times (1, 2)
All farmers' markets near us
Household wine reviews

I don't guarantee that either my links or my Rants page will be of interest, but some people like to be able to find them.

Where to Find It:

Scandinavian? Interested in Scandinavian events, businesses, and cultural institutions? Norwegian propaganda here.

All my lecture notes, essays, and net information pieces have now been merged into my PerlHoo-based Linuxmafia Knowledgebase. (Some misc. picture files, and sundry unclassified Linux information files remain to HTMLise and catalogue.)

If you're still interested in Windows Refund Day, please read my interview by IT journalist Sam Varghese in The Age (Melbourne, Australia) and Sydney Morning Herald (local mirror).

"Litigious"? A member of the Linux community — a person whom I've never met and apparently knows me only from his online advocacy of Prof. Daniel J. Bernstein's software — in 2001 launched a rumour (on a user group mailing list 4500 km from me) that I'm lawsuit-happy. Here's my refutation of that claim, and my request that he please not do that again.

In Feb. 2005, an ex-Director of BayLISA made a similar charge, claiming on two public mailing lists that I (a BayLISA director and officer) had threatened litigation against our group. He was likewise profoundly mistaken.

I'm proud to be a feminist. Yes, I am. (Hint: equity feminism.)

Women's rights, particularly reproductive rights, are under attack and need our support. Your first step is to be informed, and I recommend as sources of information Rewire News Group, Reproductive Equity Now, Rewire News Group Senior Law & Policy Editor Imani Gandy, Rewire News Group Executive Editor & SVP Jessica Mason Pieklo, Mini Timmaraju, Renee Bracey Sherman, and former USSC clerk & law professor Courtney Milan.

Since Friday, Sept. 22, 2000, I have been happily married.

I was a longtime volunteer editor and author for the monthly magazine Linux Gazette, but now apparently am obliged to wait for new management.

There are hot springs both nearby and less-nearby.

Popular pieces of mine:

Hardware Help and other primary Linux information sources
Source code management tools list
My SVLUG 2006 Independence Flyer and supporting documentation, including post-election Q&A
Read A Linux Pre-IPO Cautionary Tale
Why you should avoid installing software from upstream tarballs, and stick to your Linux/BSD system's package regime if humanly possible. (Karsten M. Self has similar thoughts.)
Some acid-tinged definitions, including the sundry Moen's Laws
The household's strictly amateur reviews of locally acquired wines
Comparison of mail transfer agents (MTAs) for Linux
All 120+ mail user agents (MUAs) for Linux
All 100+ IDEs / RAD tools / GUI-builders for Linux
All known groupware suites for Linux
All known virus scanners for removing MS-Windows viruses stored on Linux boxes
The popular Fear of Forking essay
My true-life story of attempting to serve jury duty, and getting thrown out
My review of Lois McMaster Bujold's novel Memory.
Licensing & Legal FAQs on contract elements, cryptography export, the Unisys LZW patents, public domain, and trademarks
A list of all known ftp daemons for Linux and *BSD, and justifications for their continued use
A list of all known SSH software for all OSes
Information on audio-video apps for Linux
A collection of OpenOffice.org tips
All known Debian installers
All primary Debian information resources
Open-source Java on Linux
NTFS resizing on Linux
Recommendations on swap space.
My writings on the Intel Pentium F00F bug
Hard drives utils/diagnostics for all brands
All known options for Linux on SPARC
A Recipe for a Successful Linux User Group (reprinted in the USENIX association's ;login magazine, among other places)
The WordPerfect on Linux FAQ
My lecture at LinuxWorld 2001: "The Sysadmin's Secret Weapons"
My Linux security article for IDG, "Attacking Linux"
My article about open-source software advocacy for IDG, "Effective Advocacy"
My exposé for IDG of the dot-com firm LinuxOne, "The Strange Case of LinuxOne"
The Linux User Group HOWTO, which I maintain for the Linux Documentation Project
Article in Linux Journal: "Floppies for the New Millennium", about how to use USB flash drives in Linux.
During the period when Linux Gazette magazine was being harassed by SSC, Inc., I published in the former A Brief History of Linux Gazette and a rundown on SSC's tactics.
Likewise, the beginning of the Linux Gazette conflict with SSC in December 2003 covered in the former.
My Linux Gazette article on 2003 object-lessons in why security measures including preventatives like IDSs and preventatives like using SSH cautiously are necessary to counter the threat of system break-ins even without remote vulnerabilities.
Presentation of Dec. 15, 2004 at East Bay Linux User Group: "Viruses and Trojans and Worms, Oh My! Linux Security and the Bad Guys' Tools" — [StarOffice] (52 kB) [HTML].
Brief article in the January 2004 Linux Gazette: "PerlHoo Rocks".
Brief rundown on server-end DNS in the December 2005 Linux Gazette.
I also detailed the numerous varieties of DNS service, in The Village of Lan: A Networking Fairy Tale.
Related to that is my DNS software bestiary
I explained What's Up with Google Public DNS?
Observations in September 2007 Linux Gazette on Preventing Domain Expiration and the d-check utility.
Followup on the State of the antispam regime for Linux Gazette's mailing lists.
Analysis of Qmail, Forged Mail, and SPF Records, and a separate one on SMTP Relaying, Authentication, Forwarding, and DSNs.
I remember Fred, a great American and inspiration to us all.
The twenty-odd firms producing so-called open source software under "Exhibit B" badgeware licences are deceiving the public and harming open source.
Follow-up on Exhibit B badgeware.
Ever wonder about options for custom printed cheques? I've researched online offerings for the USA.
Herewith, the best, most reliable way to test for bad RAM: [1, 2, 3]
Considering using Firefox? Here's an rundown on The Gentle Art of Firefox Tuning (and Taming).
In 2008, I explained why source port randomisation is so crucial to DNS.
I wrote a book review of the second-best book on open-source licensing, Andrew St. Laurent's Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing.
Something completely different: Words, Words, Words, a non-styleguide.

I'm co-author (with Eric S. Raymond) of How to Ask Questions the Smart Way.

I've been known to write humourous songs ("filk") from time to time to time again. (The first link is "The Naming of Cons" -- the second is "Modern SCO Executive" aka "Pirates of Penguinance", the latter ditty co-written with Karsten M. Self. The third I wrote about the 2015 Sad Puppies 3 contretemps.)

Cherish the irony of DeCSS.

My Notes on Upgrading to Linux 2.2 are here (of historical interest, only).

Some archived Web pages (saved from oblivion):

Ecology Action has kindly permitted me to re-publish the Common Ground Palo Alto Growing Chart with the following notice: "The chart is probably good for most parts of Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Redwood City, Stanford, Sunnyvale, and some of Los Altos, The chart is not good for San Francisco and many parts of the San Francisco Peninsula."
The Canonical List of OSes That Suck.
Kenneth R. Kinder's Linux Myth Dispeller.
Stanley Milgram's heirs have denied permission to continue republishing his brief, out-of print article "The Perils of Obedience", about his always timely experiments. Pity, that. Direct any comments to Alexandra Milgram, c/o Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923. (Please do not be disrespectful towards Ms. Milgram, who deserves every courtesy. Also, I hope to post here a non-infringing piece of my own to take Prof. Milgram's piece's place, soon.) Meanwhile, Prof. Milgram's article can still be found here and there around the Web. Almost as significant over the long term, and often neglected, are lessons of the Milgram obedience experiments, especially the 19 variation scenarios he ran to isolate other factors.
Tim Pozar's All Possible Netmasks Expanded, from the late, lamented TLG technical pages.
Piotr F. Mitros's Linux Standards Association Clearinghouse.
Jahn Rentmeister's "This Page Optimized for"... Arguing with Customers essay. Truer words were never spoken.
Jules Bean's Unofficial Debian Testing FAQ.
Tom Christiansen's "What's the plural of 'virus'?" article.
The late, great informational pages for the infamous Moaning Goat Meter.
Sven Guckes's fabled, illustrious alt.fan.warlord FAQ.
Akiva and Ilene Miller's "Have you ever wondered what Xmas would be like if it were a Jewish Holiday?"
John Cowan's peerless essentialist explanations page.

Obligatory boring crypto stuff:

Gale public key for rick@linuxmafia.com.
SSH DSA and RSA keys
GnuPG public key

Last modified: Wed Jan 3 17:02:13 PST 2024

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com