http://thesdsa.com/ The Super Dooper Student Association! Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:24:14 -0500 http://backend.userland.com/rss/ weBLog weBLog en http://beta.thesdsa.com/images/sdsalogo.jpg http://thesdsa.com/ 88 31 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=53 So I just got a new blackberry pearlOMG it friggin rocksi have zelda on it!!!!! and regular NES (although i have yet to activate it and try out what games there are, apparently there are 23)how cool is thatand its got a camera, mp3 player and applications to download!! yay!!! Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:47:26 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=53 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=52 So I noticed you guys playing the Geography game on the forum... and decided to cheat. So I'm a cheating bastard like that, so bite me! Yeah, yeah, yeah, you cheat too, probably with Google or Wikipedia, but my way is much cooler. Well, OK, it's definitely much geekier. Interested? Read on!WARNING! Toxic amounts of computer geekiness ahead. And it gets even worse: it's Linux geeky. The good news: it won't make your head explode.OK, so what do I need in order to cheat at this game? A list of all the countries in the world! That's easy. OK, now that I got my list, what do I do with it? The lame assed way to do it would be to search that page for a particular letter. Eventually, we'll hit a country that begins with the letter we need. Heck, we can even scroll down (after all, the list is alphabetically sorted) and just pick one once we hit the right letter. But that's just lame, and you actually have to search. Sheesh! Since I'm such a lazy ass, I just want to be able to type a letter on my computer screen, and get all the answers I need. So, how do I do that?Step 1: Get the countries in text format. Naked. Your first reaction is probably to copy paste the list into Notepad or Wordpad, or just bookmark the Wikipedia page for future reference. LAAAAAME!!! Here's what a true smart-ass Linux geek would do... First, try to find a "cleaner" list of countries, that is preferably already in text format. Of course, finding exactly what you need isn't always easy, but hey, with Linux I bet we can make all sorts of crap work.After a bit of Googling, I found this nice list. So let's grab it on Linux (stuff that I typed is in bold and italicized type): curl --silent http://schmidt.devlib.org/data/countries.txt 1;Afghanistan;AF;AFG;004;1;1;NULL;af; 248;�and;AX;ALA;248;0;1;66;NULL; 2;Albania;AL;ALB;008;1;1; ....SNIP.... 216;Yemen;YE;YEM;887;1;1;NULL;ye; 218;Yugoslavia;YU;YUG;890;1;0;NULL;yu; 220;Zambia;ZM;ZMB;894;1;1;NULL;zm; 221;Zimbabwe;ZW;ZWE;716;1;1;NULL;zw; Well, that was easy. Note that we didn't actually download the file. We ran the special curl (pronouced "see URL" rather than "curl" as in "curl up in a ball"; i.e. literally take a look at a web address), which basically downloads any webpage (or file off the web) and spits it out on your screen. If you try this on a webpage, you will see its HTML code, because curl won't bother trying to render it for you; it's not a friggin web browser, mmkay? You can try it with other webpages yourself, but let's keep focused!OK, so we got a list of countries, but there's a whole bunch of bonus crap that we don't need. How do we get rid of it? Well, if you take a look at the data closely, you will notice that it has a specific pattern: some number;country name;two-letter country code;crap;crap;crap;more crap;even more crap And what do we need? Basically, the second column... and our friend awk can help us with just that.So what we need to do, is tell curl to send the raw country list it just grabbed to awk, and in turn we need to tell awk to spit out only the entries in the second column. Easy as pie! By the way, the --silent option tells curl to just spit out what it downloaded and hold the progress bar. To see curl's normal behaviour, try it without the --silent option. curl --silent http://schmidt.devlib.org/data/countries.txt | awk -F';' '{print $2}' Cool! Now we're getting closer. We're still seeing some crap (hey, this list is far from perfect, but it will do for our little game), but at least not too much of it. OK, if you're half the geek I am, you're probably asking yourself: how the heck does this work? What does it do exactly? Well, I'm gonna tell ya!The little aptly named "pipe" character (vertical line: |) literally hooks up two commands. The output of one command, to the input of another one. I know, very, very sexy and perhaps even somewhat erotic. I can't believe I just said that. Anyhoo... moving along. So basically, I handed off that crappy messed up list of countries to the awk command, which is, among other things, like a command-line version of Excel. And Excel is pretty good with columns... of stuff. The first option to awk tells it that the columns in the data it's receiving from curl are separated by semicolons (we know that, but awk doesn't, so we need to keep it in the loop). That I accomplished with the -F';' option. We need to put things in single quotes to prevent Linux from trying to do something too smart with the commands we type; in other words, semicolons can mean something else, and quotes tell Linux that this particular semicolon is just a... semicolon. The second option to awk basically tells it to print column number two ('{print $2}'). Commands to awk need to be placed in curly brackets. We all have odd eating habits and awk likes its curly braces OK? Don't look at me, it's not like it was my idea! So to summarize, we told curl to download (let us "see" that "URL") that raw list and pass it on to awk. Then we told awk that the list we passed on to it has columns, and that they are separated by seimcolons (yes, just plain vanilla semicolons) and that we want awk to print the second column for us.Step 2: Start searching.This is the easy part. Now we have a nice, naked, plaintext, sexy country list. But... what's the friggin point? Ah, but the point is, that now we can search it really easily using the grep command! Check it out: curl --silent http://schmidt.devlib.org/data/countries.txt | awk -F';' '{print $2}' | grep 'ing' Cocos (Keeling) Island Singapore United Kingdom US Minor Outlying Islands Sweet! We just got a list of countries that contain "ing". Oh the awesome power!!! That's pretty cool and maybe kinda useful, but... it's not exactly what we need. What I really need to become an effective cheater and pwn n00bs on the forums at geography is to be able to search for countries starting with a specific letter. And if I really want to pwn people, I could search for countries that start with a specific letter and at the same time end with the same or some other letter. Imagine that! Why imagine, when you can actually do it. Yeah, just do it, dammit! Let's start with searching for "begins with," for example, "begins with a". The "begins with" phrase here is symbolized by the little hat thingie ^ (Shift + 6 on the keyboard). As usual, don't forget your single quotes: curl --silent http://schmidt.devlib.org/data/countries.txt | awk -F';' '{print $2}' | grep '^a' Hmmm... Nothing. I wonder why... Oh, that's because proper names must be capitalized, silly! Let's try capital A: curl --silent http://schmidt.devlib.org/data/countries.txt | awk -F';' '{print $2}' | grep '^A' Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Ascension Island Australia Austria Azerbaijan Allllrriiiiighhhht! Now let's move in for the kill, that is, begin with "A" and end with "a" (or any other letters for that matter). Now, we need to be a bit more straightforward (computers are after all incredibly dumb and need everything to be explained in excruciating detail), so we need to say "starts with A, don't care what's in the middle, ends with a". The "ends with a" part is easy, that's just a$ (a followed by the dollar sign, Shift + 4). If we try "ends with... ummm... say q" (to pick an odd letter) we'll get this: curl --silent http://schmidt.devlib.org/data/countries.txt | awk -F';' '{print $2}' | grep 'q$' Iraq Hmm, Iraq, eh? Cool. So it's the only country that ends in a q. None other like it! Can you think of another country that ends in a q? No? HAH! Because there is no other country that ends in a q!!! PWNED!!!!! OK, moving on... The "don't care what's in the middle" will be a bit trickier. We need to break it down further. Any SINGLE letter, symbol or digit is represented by a period (no, not that kind of period, ya dummy ). But we don't want just a single character (letter, number or symbol), we can have more than one! And that's exactly what the asterisk * (Shift + means, more than one. So together .*, they literally mean "one or more of anything," in other words, "don't care what". So all that's left is to stick the "don't care what" in "the middle" to get "don't care what is in the middle"! Let's try all countries starting with B and ending with s (I can think of Bahamas and nothing else, but with my new tool here)... curl --silent http://schmidt.devlib.org/data/countries.txt | awk -F';' '{print $2}' | grep '^B.*s$' Bahamas Barbados Belarus British Virgin Islands Paydirt!! Now I can start really kicking ass!!! Move over n00bs!P.S. If you haven't figured it out by now, this isn't an actual tutorial. In fact, this is completely useless crap (as far as practicality goes), but it does illustrate what is possible with command-line on a Linux system! So go, explore! Try stuff!P.P.S. You can certainly try this on fissure, but keep in mind that curl is not installed in the "usual" place, so you can't just run it by typing "curl". Instead, you have to indicate the full path to the curl executable file, which is /usr/local/curl/bin/curl on fissure. So in all the above examples, simply replace "curl" with "/usr/local/curl/bin/curl", or just run the following before running all the other commands: fissure[1]:~> alias curl /usr/local/curl/bin/curl to tell fissure that when you type "curl" you really mean "/usr/local/curl/bin/curl" but you're just too lazy to type it all out by hand.Well, that's all folks, go on, I know you're itching to try this out... yeah right! Tue, 21 Nov 2006 23:58:55 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=52 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=51 Yeah, long time no post! What can I say in my defense? Nothing much other than I've been crazy busy... And to add insult to injury, this post is somewhat technical, so if you're interested in the techie geekspeak type stuff (not too much of it), read on...You may have experienced minor outages of the website here and there. I've experienced them too, and quite frankly I'm not too pleased about them. Every time I see them happen I notice one thing: some other user's PHP scripts keep hogging the CPU on the server. Now since I don't have full control over the server, the best I can do is log CPU usage whenever a spike happens to establish patterns as well as present a viable argument (documented with cold hard evidence), rather than just bitch at the techs for not watching the server load closely.I whipped up a little bash script, which will run as a scheduled task on the sdsa webserver, and it will record the top 50 CPU hogs (other users on the same server) whenever the server gets too busy. The cron (scheduled task) is set up to run every 5 minutes, but it will only dump a log if the load average is greater than or equal to 5 (i.e. five active processes asking CPU for attention, which is a lot). Hopefully I will be able to see a trend and make a case to the admins of the server. If they jerk me around too much, I'll just switch webhosts... that's my last resort, though, since I rather like this webhost.P.S. My initial rant on this was posted here. Thu, 07 Sep 2006 01:31:26 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=51 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=50 Dear log,My life is like an abyss. Sitting in my room all day is boring knowing I can't access that website I like to go to, I was banned for no good reason... and it couldn't turn me any more on! The thought of her grabbing that mouse and thrusting it around the mousepad so in-control like a beautiful dream. And then her jabbing with her index finger the 'right button' to finish the deed and forevermore forbid me is so taboo I want to jizz all over the monitor.I tried to go to confront her (at work) but when I tried to go on the elevator it attacked me. Those harsh metallic doors swooshing in on both sides of me, closing in on it's prey is so taboo I want to jizz all over the monitor.I'm tired I'm off to bed. Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:53:04 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=50 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=49 Beware. A few days ago an elevator attacked some poor kid. Today, my computer took extra long to reboot. I think they've become self aware and will attempt to take over the world! The prophecy will be fulfilled and the death rates on campus will rise!! Tue, 08 Aug 2006 03:11:23 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=49 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=47 I was trying to install the new FC5 Linux onto the V-PC of one of my relatively new PC. To my surprise, the V-CD/DVD driver of my V-PC cannot accept any ISO image exceeding 2.1G! (It's the 31-bit limitation .) I googled for a workaround for the virtualization limitation and interestingly found a virtual workaround! All I have to do is to mount the FC5-ISO onto my host machine as a V-CD/DVD drive, fake it as host's CD/DVD drive, connect that fake drive back into the V-PC as a V-CD/DVD drive. Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:14:51 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=47 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=46 I'm trying to see whether I can setup a WikiEngine for weBLogging.It's at http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~01chanwk/blog .There's still some minor issues to iron out. If it works, I might move my blogging there.By using the RecentChanges page as the default main page, it's providing a reverse chronological order in some way.(Maybe I'm just too lazy to learn another software.)On another note, I decided to setup virtual domain at fissure.http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~01chanwk andhttp://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~01chanwk now display different sites. Thu, 20 Jul 2006 04:13:30 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=46 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=45 The wiki is now back up.I changed the WikiEngine to UseModWiki from PhpWiki.I started a new database.Sorry to all for the lost of old data.http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~01chanwk/wiki/ Sat, 15 Jul 2006 20:21:47 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=45 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=44 Welcome to Issue #4, the Special Double Sexy Affair Issue of The Cookie Lady's Sex Ed Helpdesk. Thanks to Lou for the title! As a result of one last-minute (well, really, past the deadline but I took it anyway) submission, it is a true double issue - engorged and swollen with the answers to SIX questions instead of the usual three!Inside, you'll find answers and discussions on these topics:#1: Shaving And Weird Sensations That Are A Turn-On;#2: Sex Toys;#3: Casual Sex And Saucy Individuals;#4: Effects Of The Pill On Pregnancies;#5: Really Stupid Ways To Try Not To Get Pregnant; and#6: Making Out (Or Not) With Rock Stars.Read on!#1: I shave, myself, and I've noticed in my travels that I tend to turn on myself much easier shaven then when I've grown in a little bit, even when not stimulated in any way (i.e.: walking down the street). Is it a brain thing, or sensation thing, or why is that?To be quite honest, I have absolutely no idea. Maybe it's both. Maybe it feels a little different and something in your head (either one) really, really likes it. That's my theory, anyway. If you're really curious about it, try keeping track of times you notice it and see if there's a pattern. Then let me know, 'cause that's kinda neat.#2: What's your take on sex toys (i.e. vibrators, dildos, as well as some of the less vanilla ones, handcuffs - fuzzy or standard - blindfolds, desserts like whip cream and chocolate syrup, etc.) used in conjunction with sex? Do they add to the experience or take something away?Sex toys are fun! They can definitely add to the experience. What you choose to use is really up to you and your partner (if you have one). You can use vibrators on yourself, or have a partner use them on you or use one on them. Same for dildos. "Less vanilla" toys like restraints and blindfolds can be kind of cool too, as it means one partner is giving up control to the other one, which some people are turned on by. For example, not being able to see what your partner is doing might be pretty hot. And desserts, they're just plain fun, really, and usually imply a lot of licking. Make sure you learn how to use toys and how to play safely. So yes, I think sex toys can definitely add to the experience of sex.However, like everything, it's not universal. Some people just aren't cool with certain kinds of toys or styles of play. This is an occasion where using toys might take something away from sex. It's important to think carefully about what you yourself like and dislike, and to discuss with your partner the kinds of toys or play you'd like to introduce, in particular things people might consider "kinky" and things that involve an element of control or submission. If your partner's not into it, you shouldn't try to coerce them into doing something, but suggest exploring this area of your relationship together. A very good, Toronto-based resource on sex toys and different forms of play is Good For Her. You can check out their website or head over to their store on Harbord Street downtown and check them out. They're intentionally women-friendly, including women/trans-only hours at their store, but also very welcoming to men. They sell different products, are willing to answer a variety of questions (there are FAQ and Toy Guide sections on their site), and also run workshops and seminars. The UTSC Women's Centre had them in twice last year, once for "Discovering Your Erotic Sensual Self" and then again during GRRLFest! with "Maps of the Clitoris." The facilitators and staff from GFH are all very knowledgeable and friendly. Babeland is also a good resource on toys. They have articles, an advice column, a "Men's Room," and they also sell toys and can help recommend some.#3: What are some of the dangers for Montreal girls to have sex with unidentified, saucy individuals?Ah, casual sex. Definitely an issue with opinions as diverse as the people who think about it. Personally, I don't like it, but I've got nothing against people who do. I still admonish them to take good care of themselves, though, and that applies to everyone, not just women from Montreal. Something to consider - for some people, sex isn't just a physical act, it's an emotional and psychological one as well. You might be one of those people, the unidentified, saucy individual might be. At some point it should be made clear exactly what the nature of this arrangement is - whether it's a one-time deal, or a friends with benefits arrangement, or something that could become a little more serious. Otherwise, signals and intentions could get crossed or lost and someone might get hurt. Learning their name might help, so at the least they're not unidentified. Sauciness is a little more difficult to change, I think.Secondly, an obvious risk is that unidentified, saucy individuals may also carry unidentified, saucy diseases. Therefore, one must always insist on properly using condoms and dental dams when having sex (any kind of sex, including oral). This should be standard practice for any and all sexual relationships but I especially stress it for unidentified, saucy individuals, since it's probably unlikely that you'll get a copy of their STI tests. Of course, this is not to mention the saucy liquid explosions one might have to deal with. That's another story.#4: If by whatever tiny chance I were to get pregnant while taking the pill, would the pills I would have taken between getting pregnant and finding out, harm the fetus?No, they shouldn't. According to the little leaflet that came with my pills (Ortho Tri-Cyclen), continuing the Pill if you find out you're pregnant won't stop the pregnancy (so there's no need to keep taking it), and there isn't any evidence that it will harm the developing fetus. Other readings have backed this up.However, if you're taking a progestin-only oral contraceptive (a "mini pill&quot, continuing your pack while pregnant increases the risk of an ectopic pregnancy. This is when the fertilised egg starts to develop somewhere outside the uterus, usually in the fallopian tubes. This is very dangerous, and can be life-threatening. (source: Go Ask Alice!) You can find out more about ectopic pregnancies at Our Bodies, Ourselves.#5: Is it ok to have unprotected sex for a very short while to get some sensation, but then put a condom that has spermicide, and continue penetration to kill the sperm that's gotten inside? Thus, only precum will enter and be killed off by spermicide and the condom catches the rest so pregnancy chances are nil?No. Abso-fucking-lutely not. Not on your life. Never. No. Non. Nada. Ne. It is this kind of ridiculous non-logic that gets 13-year-old-girls whose only sex "education" is the ludicrous myths and misinformation spread by their peers, and Cosmo, pregnant by their 13-year-old boyfriends whose only sex "education" is locker room shenanigans and their dads' old pornos. This kind of ridiculous non-logic gets a lot of other people pregnant too, I'm going to extremes with the 13-year-olds just to show exactly how ridiculous it is. Pulling out absolutely puts you at a pregnancy risk, absolutely puts you at an STI risk, and no amount of spermicide you use after the fact will change that.I personally don't even recommend spermicide, as nonoxynol-9, the most common spermicide around, has a number of disadvantages, including:-Increased risk of HIV transmission (due to causing irritation and damage in tissues that allows viruses into the body's system)-May irritate the vulva or vagina and increase the risk of UTIs-It has to be applied BEFORE penetration (hence why the scenario in this question won't work) and it can be messy-Can interrupt spontaneity and make oral sex rather unpleasant (because it sure as hell won't taste good)Furthermore, according to recommendations that the World Health Organisation made in 2001, condoms with nonoxynol-9 don't provide any more protection than regular lubricated condoms. Hence, unless the barrier method you choose is a diaphragm or cervical cap (which generally require spermicide to be effective), there's really no reason to use N-9. It doesn't protect against STIs, either. And NEVER use N-9 products for anal sex, because the tissues in the rectum (I damn near killed him, Lou), are much more fragile than the ones in the vagina, and as stated, damaged tissues increase the risk of STI transmission, including HIV. (source: Our Bodies, Ourselves online companion)FINALLY, unprotected vaginal sex at any time can put you at risk for pregnancy. Period. Or lack thereof should you get pregnant. It will also put you at risk of STIs. Safer sex or no sex, people! *sigh* I could probably spend an entire issue debunking myths and illogical ideas about sex if you really wanted me to.#6: Hey Sexlady, is it true you made out with Treestar sexpot guitarist, Louis Stamos?- Wondering in New YorkHe wishes. Unfortunately it was merely one kiss that he owed me for even going to the show in the first place (those MySpace bulletins are binding contracts, don'tcha know), and then I had to convince him to actually come over to my table and deliver. Can you believe the guy actually wanted ME to go over THERE? To the STAGE? After I went all the way downtown from Scarborough to see him? Honestly. In the middle of the show and everything. It wasn't even long enough for me to tell if he's a good kisser or not. Sexpot my ass. If he is one, he certainly didn't show it there. Treestar did put on a very good show, though. I won't hold Lou's stingy kisses against them. Aaaaaaand that's it for the Special Double Sexy Affair Issue #4 of the Helpdesk. I hope reading it was a pleasurable experience with a satisfying climax. Expect Issue #5 sometime towards the end of August, since exams will take over most of the month. In the meantime, submit your questions to the Helpdesk link at the right, and as they say at Scarleteen be safe, sound and sexy!Love,The Cookie Lady Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:52:35 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=44 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=43 Trying to resolve the minor problem.May have lost the database.Should be considering a newer version of engine. Tue, 11 Jul 2006 22:42:55 -0500 http://thesdsa.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=43