lix blog

Source / Video

On my Nagios Server I use twitter to send status alerts. It works nicely with Identica & Twitter.

The setup is easy. First install twidge with

root@host:~# apt-get install twidge

Then write a twidgerc file with the according twidge configuration

nagios@host:~# vi /etc/nagios3/twidgerc
[DEFAULT]
oauthaccesstoken: %(serverbase)s/oauth/access_token
oauthauthorize: %(serverbase)s/oauth/authorize
oauthdata: [("user_id","XXXXXX"),("screen_name","YOUR_SCREENNAME"),("oauth_verifier","XXXXXX"),("oauth_token","XXXXXX"),("oauth_token_secret","XXXXXX"),("oauth_callback_confirmed","true")]
oauthrequesttoken: %(serverbase)s/oauth/request_token
sendmail: /usr/sbin/sendmail
serverbase: https://api.twitter.com
shortenurls: yes
urlbase: %(serverbase)s/1

Make sure the file is readable by Nagios user. (!)

nagios@host:~# chown nagios /etc/nagios/twidgerc

Then add the following lines to /etc/nagios3/conf.d/contacts_nagios2.cfg (on GNU/Linux Debian).

define contact{
contact_name twitter
alias Twitter
service_notification_period 24x7
host_notification_period 24x7
service_notification_options w,u,c,r
host_notification_options d,r
service_notification_commands notify-service-by-twitter
host_notification_commands notify-host-by-twitter
email twitteraccount_to_contact
}

… and add “twitter” to the members in the contactgroup (in the same file).

members root,nagiosadmin,twitter

Then add these lines to etc/nagios3/commands.cfg:

define command {
command_name notify-service-by-twitter
command_line echo "#Nagios $NOTIFICATIONTYPE$ $HOSTNAME$($SERVICEDESC$) is $SERVICESTATE$" | twidge -c /etc/nagios3/twidgerc update
}
define command {
command_name notify-host-by-twitter
command_line echo "#Nagios $HOSTSTATE$ alert for $HOSTNAME$" | twidge -c /etc/nagios3/twidgerc dmsend $CONTACTEMAIL$
}

Nagios will tweet the service notifications and send a directmessage to the according user with the host notification.
Here’s an example:

=^.^= Lx

إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَاهُ فِي لَيْلَةِ ٱلْقَدْرِ
وَمَآ أَدْرَاكَ مَا لَيْلَةُ ٱلْقَدْرِ
لَيْلَةُ ٱلْقَدْرِ خَيْرٌ مِّنْ أَلْفِ شَهْرٍ
تَنَزَّلُ ٱلْمَلاَئِكَةُ وَٱلرُّوحُ فِيهَا بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهِم مِّن كُلِّ أَمْرٍ
سَلاَمٌ هِيَ حَتَّىٰ مَطْلَعِ ٱلْفَجْرِ

“We have indeed revealed this (message) in the Night of Power: And what will explain to you what the Night of Power is? The Night of Power is better than a thousand months. Therein come down the Angels and the Spirit (Jibraeel) by Allah’s permission, on every errand: Peace! This until the rise of Morn!” (Surah 97)

اللَّهُمَّ إِنَّكَ عَفُوٌّ كَرِيمٌ تُحِبُّ الْعَفْوَ فَاعْفُ عَنِّى

“O Allah, You are forgiving and love forgiveness, so forgive me.” [Sunan Tirmidhi, Vol. 2, Page 191]

Belief in angels is the second pillar of faith in Islam and on the shahadah (declaration of faith in Islam). Not only do Muslims believe in Gabriel, but the Muslims believe in all angels sent from Allah.

According to the Quran, “The Messenger believes in what has been revealed to him from his Lord, and so do the believers. All believe in Allah, His Angels and His Messengers.” (Sura Baqarah, verse 285)

Angels are made from light, where the jinn were created from a smokeless fire. To believe and love the Angels is part of the Islamic faith. It’s said that Angel Gabriel was the angel who gave the verses of the Quran to Prophet Mohammad, so he is much-loved by all Muslims.

On this topic, the Quran says, “Say: Who is an enemy to Jibreel (Gabriel)? For it is he who brought it (this Quran) down to your hearts, by Allah’s permission, confirming that which was before it, and as a guidance and a mercy to the believers. Whoever is an enemy to Allah, and to His Angels, and to His Messengers, and (in particular to) Jibreel and Mika’el (Michael), then let him know that Allah is an enemy to the disbeliever.” (Sura Al Baqarah, verses 97-98)
Link

The current president of the U.S. was dazzling his “fellow citizens” during his election campaign in 2008 with promises about change, making the citizens believe “they can”. Turns out that the holder of the nobel peace prize, which he got just for raising hope and not for his actions, is another hypocrite acting as warlord in the interest of neo-imperial terrorism, causing exploitation, indoctrination without respect to human laws and international agreements. – Just not keeping his promises.

Guantanamo Bay is still not closed, the war in Iraq has not ended, international corporations not held responsible for their financial and ecological disasters, but protected by the administration, the U.S. still have not accepted and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, Osama Bin Laden a hoax, etc. Now he’s the one to invoke the “Patriot Act” (ref.), – what a silly name for a law btw, – against Wikileaks to ensure his misgovernment remains intransparent. Total LULZ! Didn’t he promise he’ll dump this Act once he’s President?

Whether the United States are directed by a Democrat or a Republican, the jankies remain a horde of imperialists, culture destroyers and terrorists. In two weeks these creatures are going to celebrate their 10 years self-deception at “Ground Zero” and zero ground is the average intellectual level this country is being governed upon…

Source

… worth reading:

Copy me: Technological change and the consumption of music

CC-by-sa 3.0 2009 by Nick White

For those who worry about the cultural, economic and political power of the global media companies, the dreamed-of revolution is at hand. The industry may right now be making a joyful noise unto the Lord, but it is we, not they, who are about to enter the promised land. (Moglen 2001)

Introduction

Technological changes have political implications. Changing the way we interact with things encourages a reconsideration of the rules and institutions that have governed previous interactions with them.

The current debate about copies of recorded music using the Internet is an excellent example of this, and by examining it one may better understand the relations between people and recorded music, and between listeners and the traditional publishers of music.

While undoubtedly a great deal may be usefully said and examined in other technological changes in music recordings, I will here focus primarily on filesharing, as it is something I have been somewhat involved in myself, and hence I have significantly more knowledge ‘from the inside.’

I will begin by discussing traditional definitions of ‘commodity,’ and then move on to a very brief overview of historical trends in copying and music recording. I will also touch upon the printing press in order to discuss the creation and rationale behind copyright laws, which form a major part the present filesharing debate. I will then go into greater depth into the current practises of people who share music on filesharing networks, and the response by the recording industry, before embarking on an analysis of the meaning and significance of some of these new practises and dialogues.

It should be noted that I’m speaking primarily of England and the United States of America, and the situation will be somewhat different in other parts of the world.

[…]

Download the paper
or visit http://njw.me.uk/pubs/2009-copyme

by artist Marc Johns

DuckDuckGo is a beautiful, fast and secure search engine, which actually cares about the users privacy and does not track you.
As too few people yet know about that amazing search engine I thought about a way how to promote it.
Here’s my solution for sysadmins and webmasters:

Include the following rewrite rule into your .htaccess on the Apache Server.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

SetEnvIf Referer "google.([_a-zA-Z-]+/)" promote_duck
SetEnvIf Referer "yahoo.com" promote_duck
SetEnvIf Referer "baidu.com" promote_duck
SetEnvIf Referer "bing.com" promote_duck

Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=promote_duck
ErrorDocument 403 http://duckduckgo.com/?q=$1&kz=-1

This will cause that every referrer request by Google, Yahoo, Baidu and Bing will be redirected to DuckDuckGo, showing the according search results.

=^.^= Lx

P.S. Here’s the forum discussion regarding this issue.

Rabaka_2009_Africana Critical Theory – Reconstructing the Black Radical Tradition, from W. E. B. Du Bois and C. L. R. James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral

Rabaka, R. (2009). Africana Critical Theory – Reconstructing the Black Radical Tradition, from W. E. B. Du Bois and C. L. R. James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral. New York.

Download: [ogv],[mp4]
Source

A Social Simulation Experiment on the UK Riots

Abstract:
Following the 2011 wave of political unrest, going from the Arab Spring to UK riots, the formation of a large consensus around Internet censorship is underway. Beyond all political consideration of consequences in terms of freedom of expression, the present paper adopts a social simulation approach to show that the decision to “regulate” or restrict social media in situations of civil unrest results in higher levels of violence. Building on Epstein’s (2002) agent based model, several alternative scenarios are generated. Systemic optimum, represented by complete absence of censorship, not only corresponds to lower levels of violence over time, but allows for significantcant periods of social peace after each outburst.

Antonio A. Casilli
Telecom ParisTech

Paola Tubaro
University of Greenwich

August 14, 2011

Source
Download study

[Update 20th August 2011]
Article by Slavoj Žižek on the meaning of the riots