/dev/chat

8:03 AM

@Braiam I suspect India could give any country a run for its money on that score.

12:20 PM

@FaheemMitha I think most people from the US are just really surprised by the way the roads are in basically every other country. We see mopeds zipping around in and out of lanes and call it crazy but for most countries that is just normal

1:22 PM

@Jesse_b Isn't Western Europe quite orderly? And parts of Eastern Europe too. Also AU, NZ, Japan, South Korea possibly?

I remember how impressed I was with British traffic, at least.

@FaheemMitha Certainly not Japan. Japan has the crazy weaving in and out of traffic as the norm

Germany is very orderly

@Jesse_b Oh, does it?

@FaheemMitha Yeah, every "American" out in Japan talks about how "crazy" the driving is but it's very tame compared to many other countries, just strange compared to what we are used to

@Jesse_b So you lived in Japan? If so, how was it?

I've never been there. But I had a friend who lived there for a while, and really liked it.

He's English.

@FaheemMitha I really liked it. I lived there for 3 years, granted it was Okinawa which is an island south of mainland Japan and has it's own unique culture

2:28 PM

@Jesse_b Was that when you were in the military?

@FaheemMitha It was

I've heard that Japanese have no love for the US bases.

But they are there, presumably because the Japanese Govt. considers them strategically a good idea, or something.

@FaheemMitha eh, it's a weird situation. A lot of them are mad for several reasons but the economy of Okinawa also depends on them

Of course, there are even odder situations, like Guantamano Bay.

Which was leased by Cuba at the point of a gun, as I recall.

@Jesse_b Weird about sums it up, I'd say.

But lots of things in this world are weird.

There are an extraordinary number of US military bases worldwide. And they must be incredibly expensive to maintain. Plus, what do those people actually do all day?

The sad fact is US service members commit atrocious crimes over there

2:31 PM

I read an article once that estimated those bases had the carbon footprint of Bangladesh.

Of course, the author might just have been making it up off the top of his head.

@Jesse_b Yes, I've heard that too.

While I was in Japan someone had raped a 14 year old girl and that caused a really big conflict. We were all restricted to base for over a month

And they're not subject to Japanese law, I believe.

By the end of the month there were dozens of Japanese locals protesting outside of the bases for us to be let back out

because their businesses were suffering

oh no they absolutely are, that man is still in a Japanese prison I believe

@Jesse_b Life is full of ironies, isn't it?

@Jesse_b Oh. My mistake.

Sometimes the Japanese authorities will turn them over to the military police though

2:33 PM

If I have the right place, then the Okinawa base is very big.

There was a guy in my unit that was driving drunk, crashed into a family with children and then got into a fist fight with the local police and they turned him over to the MPs

One of those left over from WW II, I expect.

honestly the military punishment is harsher than the local punishment would have been though

@Jesse_b Yikes.

Don't they do psych evals of something, when they recruit people?

I heard that at least in some sections, they're quite picky.

Though maybe I'm thinking of the Marines.

naw, in fact they try to make you capable of murder which in a sense would ensure you fail a psych eval

2:35 PM

And I don't understand why the local economy doesn't generate enough business. Japan is a big busy place, isn't it?

@Jesse_b Huh. Yes, I guess that figures.

Back in a bit...

Okinawa is a small island with mostly farms. There are a lot of bars and night clubs for the service members though. When we finally got let off base after that one incident I mentioned at least 70% of the bars had shut down

@Jesse_b Oh. Sounds like their economy has specialised around the troops.

If the base was to shut down, I suppose they would have to find other things to do.

But I still have to wonder - what do that huge number of US military do with themselves? When they aren't fighting wars, I mean.

2:54 PM

@FaheemMitha really dumb stuff

But yeah the island is probably close to 50% US service members, there are actually like 10 bases there

@Jesse_b For example? Playing cards? Video games? Basketball? Football?

@Jesse_b Oh. I didn't know that.

@FaheemMitha Getting drunk, fighting, jumping off balconies trying to use a bed sheet as a parachute

I did a lot of waking up in places I shouldn't have been sleeping

@Jesse_b Oh, worse than I thought, then. Are you serious about the bed sheet thing?

Yeah that happens quite frequently

Are the bases a mix of men and women, or mostly men?

2:56 PM

Yes, probably 80% men 20% female

@Jesse_b Interesting ratio.

This reminds me of one of my mostly uninteresting semi-anecdotes. When I used to go dancing in Raleigh I met this really attractive young lady, who at the end of one of our dances, perhaps the first one, I forget, asked me - do you still teach at UNC? I was like, what? Turned out she had been in one of my classes once. I must have been blind.

@FaheemMitha She was stalking you

Anyway, turned out she was training as a vet. I ran into her some time later, and she said she was stationed on a military base. Though I've no idea what use a vet would be on a military base.

@FaheemMitha Probably used as a medical doctor, service members are just cattle anyway

She looked more beautiful then ever. I remarked that she must be very popular, and she sort of giggled.

@Jesse_b Unlikely. They have very different training, don't they?

Animals used to be important in the military. But in the 21st century?

Dogs, perhaps.

3:00 PM

@FaheemMitha Not that different, they go through a lot of the same training as regular doctors

but yes there are a lot of bomb sniffing dogs and such

@Jesse_b Oh. Why not just hire a regular doctor then?

@Jesse_b And you said you enjoyed the military thing, but I don't quite see why. I'm sure I would have hated it.

I don't do well at close confines with strangers. I remember how much I hated school.

I was kidding about her treating the service members, although the doctors the military attracts are usually the bottom of the barrel

Spending all day in a small hot classroom with a bunch of uncongenial kids. Ugh.

@Jesse_b Really? Why? Don't they pay enough?

@FaheemMitha Everyone in the military is paid based off rank so the military doctors pay wouldn't come even close to matching what a civilian doctor makes

there is also almost no liability

@Jesse_b I see. Do doctors automatically have low rank, or is it something that you would have to work your way up to?

@Jesse_b Isn't that good for the doctor?

As you can see, I know almost nothing about the military.

Schools really are inventions of the devil. Imagine wasting a substantial portion of your short life like that. Excuse the rambling.

3:06 PM

they are officers so their pay is high compared to enlisted but I currently make about the same amount of money as some of the highest paid generals

as a person with no college education

@Jesse_b That's surprising.

it's all public information:
https://www.navycs.com/charts/2018-military-pay-chart.html

3:26 PM

If I'm reading that correctly, it tops off at a surprisingly low rate. Around 20k a month.

Which actually sounds like a lot of money if you happen to be in India, but I know that isn't true of the US, at least.

@FaheemMitha It's a lot of money here as well but not for someone in that high of a position of power

@Jesse_b Yes, that's what I meant.

I didn't express myself clearly.

A doctor would likely never make general though

for officers to get promoted past o-4/o-5 they normally have to be in leadership positions and even more than that, in combat leadership positions

@Jesse_b Yes, I see.

Actually 20k a month isn't particularly high for a US doctor, so I take your point.

Based on the insane US medical costs, clearly somebody is raking it in over there. Though I don't know if it is the doctors.

3:55 PM

Most doctors are o4 so I think they are actually only making between 6-8k per month

the only people in the military actually making the $20k cap are four star generals with 30 years in

38 years actually

@Jesse_b Like Powell.

I wonder how one becomes a 4 star general. Maybe willing to lie publicly about imaginary threats has something to do with it.

@FaheemMitha it's a lot of complying with orders of politicians

Officers are selected by congress

or promoted by them anyway

@Jesse_b That sounds similar to what I said. :-)

@Jesse_b Presumably only very senior ones.

I don't remember

I see the WP page on Powell forgets to mention his role in the US entering the Iraq War.

This Mother Jones article covers it adequately - thenation.com/article/…

Of course, there are lots of other articles.

And let's not forget all this fun was had at the expense of the American taxpayer.

4:21 PM

beep

Hi @Kusalananda.

Hi @FaheemMitha

I'm tired. Just wanted to say I'm alive.

I'm happy it's Friday.

@Kusalananda Good to know you're alive. Get some rest.

I might just sit down with my Nintendo Switch for the rest of the evening, unless the girl needs help with a shower...

@Jesse_b Speaking of 20k a month, I read an amusing article some time ago which praised the spending habits of actress Zooey Deschanel. Her lawyers "accidentally" leaked her tax returns during her divorce, or something.

And I think she spent 20k a month, approximately. Which was apparently restrained.

And the article went into more detail about how her spending broke down. Though I don't know how one would get that from a tax return.

@Kusalananda Is a Nintendo Switch a game thing?

4:27 PM

@FaheemMitha Hand-held game console.

Apparently yes.

Playing video games is probably not good for you. Go for a walk. Or dancing.

@FaheemMitha It's my equivalent of reading a novel, to shut down and "be somewhere else" for a while.

@Kusalananda Oh. I watch movies/tv for that, mostly. Sometimes reading too.

But, yes, doing something physical would be better.

Though I find reading a bit too "immersive". I literally lose track of time.

@Kusalananda Dancing is good. I strongly recommend it.

Though it can take some effort to find a dancing style that suits one.

And avoid line dancing. It's what hillbillies do.

(Actually, that last was a bit mean.)

4:31 PM

@FaheemMitha To hillbillies, yes.

@Kusalananda Yes, hillbillies are people too.

@Kusalananda You wrote like 10 answers in the last 24 hours. No wonder you're tired.

And that's just on U&L.

4:52 PM

@FaheemMitha That's the only place I'm at.

@Kusalananda You should wander over to Stack Overflow. Lots of questions to answer there.

@FaheemMitha Not the friendliest of places always, and I'm relying on interesting questions being passed over to us here from there instead.

Was just looking at unix.stackexchange.com/q/428721/4671

I wonder how a Unix computer gets infected witheyshcjdmzg.

@Kusalananda They get quantities of Unixy questions. And no, they don't always get passed over here. In fact, I suspect most of the time they don't.

5:56 PM

@FaheemMitha first result on Google, blog.avast.com/2015/01/06/… explains

But really, sometimes people update their malware installers, so really that's the same as "I wonder how an attacker gets root on a Unix computer"

Stephen Kitt

6:40 PM

@terdon thanks :-)

6:54 PM

@StephenKitt There's more to life than points, you know! :P

But these points can be redeemed for unicorns!*

*Unicorns don't actually exist.

Stephen Kitt

@derobert sniff boohoo

@derobert edition.cnn.com/2016/03/29/living/real-unicorn-remains/…

@terdon but... were they tasty?

Not sure what else you'd want with one... :-D

7:10 PM

@derobert They're VTDs, silly.

(virgin transportation devices)

@terdon I think Richard Branson already has plenty of transportation devices.

snort

Q: Why do we need SUID, SGID and Sticky?

7:27 PM

@terdon If that is a unicorn wouldn't a modern rhino also be?

or a narwhal

I guess all rhinos have two horns but if the only criteria to be a unicorn is having a single horn than a narwhal should be fine

nvm Indian rhinos have one horn...unicorns

user9303970

I ask to open the following question because asking "why do we need concept X" is different than "how does concept X works?".

2

I understand what is an inode user (owner) [u], group [g], and other users [o]. I understand that we could also effect all users [a], hence the term ugoa. I understand that each of the 3 groups can have rwx- (4,2,1,0), while r = 4, w = 2, x = 1, and - = 0. I think I also understand the concept...

8:54 PM

@user9303970 The question of why it's needed could easily be closed as mostly opinion based though

Q: setuid and setgid confusion

9:09 PM

I'm pretty sure it is a duplicate, but it isn't a duplicate of that

5

I'm trying to fully grasp the concept of setuid and setgid, and I'm not quite sure in what way permissions are actually elevated. Let me provide an example: Users userA (groups: userA groupA) userB (groups: userB groupB GroupC) Executable Permission owner group filename -rws-----x userA gro...

permissions setuid

Seems like it better addresses what's being asked, but I'm sure there's another one around

A: Bash: Command stored in variable not executing

10:00 PM

Does anyone know what this person means when they say "But I get the command string as is during runtime, I just stored it into a variable as an example."

0

As Kusalananda pointed out this is failing because you have added the literal quotes to your variable. When you execute exec "/bin/ls" the quotes are not literally being sent to exec, they are used to remove the special meaning of certain characters or words to the shell, to disable special trea...

@Jesse_b Sounds like they're doing something in a trap handler with $BASH_COMMAND. I can't think why they'd ever want to be doing this though.

Or the prompt

VTC unclear, X-Y?

I'm not familiar with BASH_COMMAND

googling

It's just set to the interactive command about to run/running now

Okay but would that be escaped like he is saying?

Yeah, it's as-entered

e.g. echo "$BASH_COMMAND" outputs itself

10:08 PM

Thanks, yea I figured he was adding the escapes