SoylentNews

So I'm pretty sure you're all aware, but I've gone through and done a massive amount of work on the backend and infrastructure in the name of sanity, proper user permissions and such, and documenting as much as I can.

As a note, a lot of this was brought on by the fact we have relatively credible threat against the site, so I wanted to go through and make sure everything was in good shape and hardened (there's a lot of good bits here). I might have gone overboard. Here's the cliff notes version of what was done.

  * Static Status Page

http://status.soylentnews.org

This is on boron in /var/www, we should probably move it to Oxygen in case the entire linode DC goes down, but its fine there for now

  * Through documentation on node access, SSH, etc.

Basically, the links here http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/SystemAdministration are required reading for all staff who play with dev, or production.

There are still gaps, varnish, slash, and apache only have limited documentation which is outdated, but I'll try and get those written in the next few days

  * Node renaming

This one might seem silly, but its sometimes hard to know what we're refering to when we talk about webserver/etc and a specific node. While at the moment we have no redundancy, I changed the hostnames of everything. The original soylent-* names are aliased in the internal DNS. List is here:

http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/SystemAdministration/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheli694-22Domain

  * Internal DNS

Major thanks to xlefay for getting this up and running. All nodes exist in an internal li694-22 TLD, and are both forward and reverse resolvable (needed to make kerberos work properly, and make life easier).

  * Dev server

Announced, but falls into stuff done this weekend :-).

  * Varnish

I drastically reworked the varnish configuration file for better performance. The server is considerably more responsive than it used to with apache hit considerably less. As a side effect, slash hitcounts will be skewed as ACs will not be counted.

Rate limiting to prevent DOS was implemented, and xlefay pounded the dev server with some impressive apachebench numbers to confirm we won't go down. The dev server is much more loaded than production due to sharing the database, so I'm optimistic it will take a serious effort to pound us into oblivion with just ab or similar tools from a few nodes.

  * Disabled static page generation

This has been a PITA and on the TODO for awhile. Dynamically generated pages are now used for articles and comments. Varnish caches for ACs on a 5 minute basis. Logged in users get access to the site directly

  * SSL on Production

Doesn't fully work, but I reworked the nginx termination, and the varnish configuration so it is possible to login and use SSL. slash redirects the login to http, but the cookie gets properly set now so if you login SSL then reload the SSL page, it works. Need someone to dig into slash and figure out why ConnectionIsSSL is returning false. Need a volunteer to setup nginx termination on dev to debug.

  * LDAP setup

God, this was a pain, but we have a full LDAP setup on helium now. Replication to boron is on the TODO list, so if helium goes down, SSH authethication goes down, which is a bad thing. People with linode accounts can access the console and log in as root directly

Documentation (with pictures!) here: http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/SystemAdministration/LDAPManagementForDummies

  * Passwords logged and recorded

Went through, made sure every password is saved in a master PW file which is in helium in root's home directory. sysops should keep a local copy of this file as its needed to use lish to access boxes should LDAP be down. Other important passwords like mysql, LDAP, and kerberos are also in this file.

  * Centralized ACLs

All machines require that a user be in the correct POSIX group to access them. List of groups is available here. This ensures that also everyone who has access can have it

http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/SystemAdministration/GroupPermissions

  * SSH Policy

This one probably going to cause me some flack, but you need to go through the staff box (boron) to access any more. I don't like having open SSH ports on any of our nodes because it feels like we have our balls in the wind and a misconfiguration can leave us vulnerable.

I'm not kidding on that last bit. On production for the last month, slash:slash has worked as a username and password to log into the slash account. Using LDAP doesn't solve this as we still have local accounts for things LIKE slash.

Everyone must use SSH public key to autheticate; keys are stored in LDAP and are pulled on the fly by OpenSSH (this required updating OpenSSH on all nodes with a backport).

I know that due to slashd seizing up at a bad time this caused people to get locked out as I haven't gotten SSH keys from most people. I've got 8 users now with keys in LDAP. Right now, I don't have all the sudo files fully massaged, so if you have access to the dev server, you also have full sudo on all nodes. This isn't really desirable as I believe in limiting permissions, but this is a case of preventing us from going SNAP. Looking for someone to work out the necessary sudo voodoo

Also need someone to write upstart files for apache 1.3 so it comes back on a restart (xlefay is doing this, but feel free to work with him)

  * New Node Bringups

lithium (dev server), carbon (IRC server), and oxygen (offsite backup) were brought up this weekend. Bringup documentation was written here: http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/SystemAdministration/TheRiseAndFallOfNewNodeManagement

  * OpenVPN

Setup a OpenVPN server on boron with magic iptables setup to allow oxygen to access all nodes. There's a fair bit of magic going on here, and I don't have the setup documented yet, but its basically following the Ubuntu Serer documentation for OpenVPN, plus a few iptable rules (saved in /etc/iptables.rules) on boron. Should be pretty self-explainatory.

  * Kerberos

To handle users that can't use ProxyCommand, to make life easier for internode stuff, and to be sexy, kerberos was setup to allow single signon. As most people probably never have managed Kerberos, the quick start guide is here: http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/SystemAdministration/KerberosAdministration

Kerberos replication is setup, but not running as I need to make sure everything is sane. KDC master is helium, slave is boron.

  * AppArmored Apache

This was the real reason for the scheduled downtime last week as we had to migrate to apparmor capable kernels. AppArmor is basically SELinux but less braindead, and I handwrote a config that essentially puts Slash in a straightjacket. This should prevent things like process exploitation or a bug in slash from getting any traction. The apparmor config is installed on both lithium and hydrogen and is in /etc/apparmor.d. If you take a look, Apache can't take a piss without explicate permission :-).

(note, this doesn't do much to help us with SQL injections but every bit helps. Nothing short of a full rewrite of MySQL.pm to use stored procedures will fix this. Any takesr? (or migrating us to pgSQL then doing this?)

There's more to do here, slashd should be apparmored as well, but thats more difficult, and as its not directly user accessible, I'm less concerned that with apache itself. Ideally, every userfacing component should be apparmored (nginx, varnish, and slashd), but the former two run under very restrictive user accounts, and slashd only works with data in the database that already passed through Apache, and for the most part is just simple maintenance scripts, so its not that easy to attack.

I need to write up and document apparmor like I did for other things, but its relatively idiot proof to write files, and it makes good logs in /var/log/syslog.

  * Preparations for offsite backup

We've got a dedicated server (oxygen) with a 500 GIB HDD from http://www.kimsufi.com/en/ for €10 a month in France (oxygen) This will be used for offsite backups. xlefay looking and will be implementing this for all nodes.

  * Ubuntu package repo

As we need to maintain at least one backport, and need other things packaged, I setup a Launchpad PPA to do package building and binary distribution to all nodes: https://launchpad.net/~li69422-staff/+archive/backports-for-precise

This repo is added on all nodes. As you need to know how to do Debian packaging to use it, build an example package or two, and then I'll add you to the team. Its pretty straight forward on how to do this.

  * Staff userdir

Any staff can generate a userdir on boron by creating a public_html and using staff.soylentnews.org/~username

If you're the owner of a copy of Nobots, you now own a rare book. Fewer than two dozen were printed. If you don't yet have a copy, the price is a little higher.

When I originally published I was brand-new to all of this. I guess I still am. Until now the only place it was for sale was Lulu; I hadn't properly registered its ISBN and the bar code on the cover was wrong (Lulu put it there).

When I was readying The Paxil DiariesI got better at navigating Lulu's interface and figured out how to add one of my ISBNs and get it for sale at Amazon, B&N, etc., and get it listed on Google Book Search. I fixed the front cover, too. It now looks like it does on my web site.

Those fewer than two dozen copies will be worth quite a bit in a few years. I worked with a fellow named (iirc) Dave Luttrell a couple of decades ago when computers were expensive. His sister won the lottery and fulfilled his dream of writing a book about his time in the Vietnam jungles. She bought him a computer for him to write it on, and a small local publishing house published it.

There was only a single printing, I don't know how big the print run was, but the local library had a copy. Interesting book, could have been better edited.

Years after I'd last seen Dave, Amy was telling me about her late uncle who had written a book about Vietnam and I realized that Dave was Amy's uncle. She was wishing she had a copy of his book and tried to find one.

The Elf Shelf, a used bookstore here, had a waterlogged copy for $250. So hang on to those books!

No sooner than I'd ordered a galley proof of The Paxil Diaries when I found a huge blunder -- a lot of chapter numbers were wrong and there were no page numbers. That's now fixed, and barring any further stupidity on my part you should be able to get a copy in a few weeks at the latest -- they shipped the galley proof three days ago.

Chapter One
Previously

Alarm
        The alarm went off when we were watching a movie; a real one this time, a modern holo rather than the ancient two dimensional ones we'd been watching. So of course I thought "damned whores."
        "Sorry, hon, we have a fire in the commons. I'll be back when I can." Damned whores.
        When the yellow light flashes over most doors, they can only be opened from the outside. When it flashes red outside it won't let you in, when it flashes red on the inside you'd better get the hell out of there.
        There were a few exceptions, like my quarters. It would only keep me in if there was a vacuum or a fire outside the door. It only flashed yellow as a warning.
        I went to the commons and another alarm went off. What the hell? This one was in the passenger section, apartment 12. Nobody should be in there. Whores? More electric problems?
        The commons was closer and I had to make sure the cargo had evacuated.
        There were no whores and no fire. My tablet reported it was a scheduled drill. That explained number twelve, sometimes they simulated more than one fire.
        It went off again. "Cargo section, #6." I laughed, the computer was posing a conundrum for me. And the cargo. If your quarters caught fire you were supposed to go to the commons but what if it were on fire, too?
        Number six... that was the Thai girls, wasn't it?
        There was screaming from the other side of the door. "Computer, open the door" I ordered.
        "Unable to comply. Danger to ship, passengers, other cargo, and crew."
        "Report."
        "Fire in cargo hold six. Fire suppression technologies deployed."
        The damned thing talks like it's went to college.
        "Let those girls out, damn it!!"
        "Unable to com..."
        "GOD DAMN IT!!"
        And then another damned alarm went off. Son of a bitch! "Computer, source of new alarm."
        "Meteor shower ahead." The door opened and the girles stumbled out, along with the fat blonde, coughing. Smoke billowed from the door before it closed.
        "Meet me in the commons, I have an emergency." I ran to the pilot room on my sore legs.
        This time, like most times, meteors meant slow down. I reduced gravity to 10%. This time I wasn't going to face the whores until it was over, we were already behind schedule.
        After the rocks all passed in front of us I sped back up and adjusted course to make up for the damned rocks.
        I checked the passenger quarters and sure enough it was a drill. What morons program this shit, anyway? Having emergency drills when there's a real emergency? That's dangerous. Stupid dangerous. Those bozos might have went to college but they were morons. God damned idiots!
        What? Yeah, yeah, just shut up and let me talk, I want to get this over. Anyway, the three girls were still sitting on the medic outside their apartment sucking oxygen. The door light was red but no longer flashing.
        "So what happened?" I asked them.
        "Don't know," the blonde said. I can never remember her name. Anyway, she says "we were just talking when that damned noisy maid burst into flames and the room locked us in! We were scared shitless!"
        It happened sometimes, but they usually smoked for a while before they started burning, and then only when they were old and worn out. I hoped the ship had a robot that made robots.
        The light went out, the door opened, the Thai women went in and the blonde went home. So did I.
        Destiny had fallen asleep, so I got a beer and put the movie back to where I'd left off.

Continues...

Chapter One
Previously

Pressure
        When I woke up, all my muscles were on fire. We would have had to turn the ship around today, and in fact that's what was scheduled, except for the meteors and the drama that followed.
        Destiny was sleeping peacefully. I got up, thankful that we weren't at Earth gravity but wishing we had turned around for deceleration then, because they have it plotted so that you start the journey close to the planet you're leaving's gravity, and reach your destination close to that planet's gravity. We were at half Earth gravity now and it would gradually be lowering to Mars' gravity.
        The girls didn't like half Earth gravity, they were going to hate Mars. I guess these girls were being well paid or something, they sure were paying me good. Except that from what I'd learned about these women they probably just promised free drops. Drops were the addicts' only motivation, only goal, only thing that mattered to them.
        God but my muscles were all on fire. I sat down on the couch and had the robot make a cup of shitty coffee, my legs hurt. I had it bring me water and Naproxin and drank the lousy coffee. Yech. Why can't they program those damned things to make drinkable coffee? I should have went to college and learned programming.
        I only drank half of the nasty brew and hauled myself painfully to the shower. A hot shower would do wonders for my aching muscles.
        The hot water felt as good as the coffee had tasted bad. I took a really long one. It helped ease the pain, and the pill had started working some, too.
        I took one sip of the remaining cold, nasty coffee and started a pot. Damned stupid robots.
        I was just pouring a cup when Destiny came in. "John!" she said. "You look like hell!"
        "I feel like hell. All that damned climbing yesterday nearly killed me. And I still have to check the instruments and inspect the boat."
        "You did inspection yesterday. I thought inspections were weekly?"
        "Yeah, normally, but yesterday wasn't the least bit normal. I have to inspect that busted generator since it would have cooled enough by now, and the other one, too, since it's working harder now that there's only one."
        "Poor baby!"
        "Well, at least I don't have to inspect cargo today. Want to watch a movie later?"
        "Sure. Isn't it almost time to check your instrumentation?"
        "Yeah, it is." I kissed her. "See you in a while."
        I went towards the pilot room, which was really just outside my quarters. Yesterday I'd been wishing for a bicycle, today I was wishing for a cane.
        All the readouts were normal except one – air pressure in the port generator was twenty kilopascal low. That wasn't a good sign at all, I was going to need a suit and tether in case a bulkhead blew while I was in there.
        I noted the log and stopped by our cabin... heh, "our cabin," how about that? Anyway I stopped to fill a bug mug and summon a medic.
        Medics are robots that look kind of like narrow tables with padded tops and appendages to measure bodily functions and administer medicine. Planetside they called them "gurneys" but everything is named different on a boat. Like port and starboard.
        I sat on the medic and ordered it to the port generator and got another robot on the fone to fetch the suit from the starboard hold where Destiny had gone out the airlock.
        After I'd suited up and tethered, the difference in pressure made it hard to get the hatch open. I tried a crowbar and couldn't even make it hiss. So I lowered the pressure where I was and the door popped open by itself. I took a floater with me to hunt for the leak.
        A floater is just a small balloon filled with helium with a small counterweight to make it gravity neutral. It goes where the air goes.
        I found where the air was escaping and patched it. Why can't they program robots to do that? Stupid robots, they could act as maids and medical doctors and all sorts of other functions but the damned things can't patch a hole or make a decent cup of coffee. At least they're cheap.
        The pressure was slowly rising so I sat on the medic and waited until it matched the rest of the ship so I could get out of the room. I hadn't needed the suit, but left it on just to keep my ears from popping.
        The gauge said pressure was normal so I tried the hatch. It opened easy, so I took off the suit and gave it to a robot and rode the medic back to my rooms.
        I was dying of thirst, even after downing that big glass of water when I took the naproxin. I said something to Destiny about it when I got back, taking another pill and drinking more water.
        She laughed. "You're dehydrated, dummy. You told me yesterday you thought you were going to drown in your suit from sweating. You probably need electrolytes, too."
        "And I'm hungry, I just didn't feel like eating when I got up. You hungry?"
        "I could eat. Robot eggs okay or do you want me to cook?"
        "No, robots cook okay as long as it doesn't involve coffee. How do you want your eggs?"
        "Ham and cheese omelette is okay, maybe with some hash browns."
        "Okay. Robot, a ham and cheese omelet, a Denver omelette, two hash browns and toast. No coffee!"
        Them damn robots suck at coffee, and they can't patch a hole at all. I'm glad they can cook.

Continues

We've recently had a credible threat made against the site w.r.t. to a security exploit on slash. While details are somewhat vague, what little information was posted, combined with my knowledge of slash, and reviewing old security posts on slashcode.com suggests we're looking at a potential SQL injection technique.

While slash does considerable data sanitization, and escapes information coming in (so you can't just "; drop table users;"), there are values that require special sanitization on top of the normal. This has been the source of other XSS and SQL exploits against Slash historically (look at the articles on the main index).

I took a brief look at Environment.pm (where the supposed exploit is supposed to live) and said sanitization, and didn't seen anything that immediately jumped out at me, but it is a *lot* of code to look through. A grep through the access logs suggests that no one has tried to execute raw SQL on the site, but its impossible to know for sure.

If you or someone you know is interested in trying help secure SoylentNews, grab the dev VM, the current git tree, and get auditing. If we're informed of any security exploits (which should be sent by mail, and not posted in the comments), we will patch it here, and informal all other slashcode sites that we aware of about the exploit before releasing information about it publicly on the main index.

Do note that IP addresses, and passwords are hashed in the database (although only with MD5; upgrading to stronger hashing is on the TODO list), so an information leak, while bad, is not catastrophic. We do take regular snapshots of the database and of the machines themselves as well, and we'll make sure to post immediately if we become aware of any specific exploit against the site.

Chapter One
Previously...

Cargo
        I started the long walk back to the pilot room wishing again for a bicycle or something.
        A robot wheeled past. Hell, I should just flag down a robot. But, of course there was a reason for not having transportation; I remembered the climb up the boat when the whores locked me out and how tiring it was. A body needs exercise and the most I was going to get on a boat with two-thirds gravity was walking.
        Destiny and Tammy were in the commons with a few other women; I say "women" because these were acting halfway civilized, despite their lack of clothing.
        "Done already?" Destiny asked.
        "No," I sighed. "Trouble. One of the generators blew out and we're off course again. I just saw you and thought I'd say 'hi', I can't stay. Too much damned work."
        "what do you have to do? How long will it take?"
        "I don't know. When I get us back on course I have to see what the robots are doing with the generator."
        "How bad is it?" Tammy asked. "How many generators are there?"
        "Only two. I wish this was an old tub, they originally had just one fission generator and got retrofitted with fusions. If our other generator dies it's batteries.
        "What then?"
        "We're late. But there isn't much chance of losing both generators. We'll be okay. But speaking of generators, I gotta go." I kissed Destiny and headed to the generator.
        It had cooled enough for the robots to go in to work, but was a bulkhead removed from where a human could tolerate it. I had two more engines I hadn't checked off so I inspected them. Of course, if there was anything wrong I'd have been clueless.
        The repair robots said the generator was shot.
        Shit.
        I walked past the commons to my quarters, Destiny and Tammy weren't in there although there were a few unclothed whores. Damn, ladies, put some pants on!
        Destiny and Tammy were in my living room drinking coffee. As I walked in, Destiny said "John, you're damned lucky Tammy's here."
        As I'd suspected. "You're supplying the drops," I said, sitting down.
        "Yeah."
        "The whores would have killed us without them."
        "Yeah."
        "How much you got?"
        "Plenty."
        "Enough to get to Mars?"
        "Don't worry. I know my chemistry, I know how much they need."
        I said "don't give any to the bitches in confinement."
        "You don't know what you're talking about. With drops they're harmless. Take them away, and well, it isn't pretty."
        I was confused. "What can they do locked up?"
        "They're liable to suicide."
        Crap. Losing cargo is a pretty bad thing.
        "Crap! Damn but I'm glad you're here. I'm going to suggest to the company that they send someone like you on all these runs."
        She laughed. "The company wouldn't want to spend the money necessary. The bean counters know how much loss is acceptable."
        Destiny said "I made coffee."
        "Thanks, but after the day I've had I want a beer."
        "I'm still trying to wake up," she said.
        "Yeah, you napped for a couple of hours after you went for a stroll outside. I would have thought the oxygen would have woke you up."
        "Actually it put me to sleep."
        Where the hell was that robot with my beer? "Robot! Beer, damn it, are you deaf?" A robot rolled over with my beer. I'm glad this boat has the older robots. The newer ones talk, and it's annoying as hell. If I want output from the computer I'll use my fone or tablet.
        Tammy said she had whores to study and excused herself. The robots made dinner and we watched some really dumb old movie from a couple hundred years ago, laughing all the way through it although they say when it was made, it was meant to be serious.
        Then we went to bed. I hoped tomorrow would be less stressful. My muscles all ached from the walking and climbing, I was going to be in pain the next day.

Continues. I need to think of some other trouble that Knolls can get into. Suggestions?

I was busy yesterday. I wrote a Mars, Ho! chapter and posted it, and spent the rest of the day on drudgery. Specifically, getting The Paxil Diaries in print. I finally finished this morning and ordered a copy.

I don't like the price a bit. The list price is $38, if Amazon or someone sells it to you I get $2.50. If you guys want a copy it's $28.50. I need a cheaper printer. It is a fat book, though, weighing in at 347 pages. It's Twice as long as Nobots.

I mentioned before that rather than waiting until stuff turns green in town I'd found a painting I'd done as a kid that fits it perfectly. I recently remembered that there's an Escherism in it.

I'll link to the URL with the cheaper but way too high priced version after my copy arrives and I check it out to make sure I didn't screw anything up.

Now I have to finish converting it to HTML because hey, you guys don't need to spend thirty bucks. It's just there if you want something for your shelf.

Twenty years ago, I started my career in the US nuclear power industry. I had a graduate degree in nuclear engineering, much better than average IT/computer skills, a hunger to learn as much as I could about my chosen profession, and an ambition to work my way up into a position of responsibility and authority. In those early days, I loved my work so much that I almost couldn't believe I was getting paid. It was exciting and fulfilling, and I really had high hopes for the future.

Then, along the way, life happened. Everything changed, I moved a few times, and I ended up in Canada... married to a wonderful woman, and becoming a step-father to a beautiful 3-year old girl. I found a job in the Canadian nuclear power industry, but I was no longer doing the hard technical work that had characterized the first part of my career. I still retained some of the enthusiasm and ambition I'd once had, but unfortunately, that didn't last.

I enjoyed some of the work I did along the way, especially if it involved databases, analysis, and process improvement. Eventually, though, I ended up doing work that I found uninteresting and unfulfilling; necessary work, of course, but not something I can stand doing for much longer. Now I'm in my mid 40s and relatively happy in my personal life, but I know things could be better; professionally, I've stagnated. I've reached a plateau in pay and responsibility that can only be surpassed by entering management, but I no longer seem to have any real interest in ascending the corporate ladder.

So, this is my midlife nerd crisis. My brain is seriously underutilized, but I no longer seem to have any career goals that excite me. It's sad to say, but I'm more concerned about making it to retirement with a decent pension than I am about advancement and making a difference. I'm very thankful to have this job, and the long-term security it seems to provide, but I don't look forward to another 15 or 20 years of this.

If I were to check out right now, people would probably say I went with a whimper rather than a bang, and that is not something I can tolerate. I'm not necessarily looking for advice, but I could really use some inspiration. Has anyone out there experienced this? If you managed to surpass it, please tell me what you did and how it worked out. If you're currently in the same situation, tell me how you're dealing with it now and if you have any ideas on how to conquer it. If your time has come and gone, and you feel you should have done things differently, what actions would you take if you had a do-over?

(Feel free to be brutally honest. Maybe I need to get angry. Maybe I need to feel anything other than what I feel right now.)

Hi! That is all. Questions? I'll get the ball rolling:

Q1: Who are you?
A1: Matt Angel, a.k.a. BlackHole, a.k.a. matt_ (in IRC)

Q2: OMG!! You're gorgeous! I loved you in "My Super Psycho Sweet 16"!
A2.1: That wasn't a question.
A2.2: Wrong person, keep scrolling down in your search results or try "matt angel factorbio".

Q3: So you're the person who paid Barrabas for his stake in SN?
A3: Correct.

Q4: Why did you not speak up earlier?
A4: The transaction took some time to complete.

Q5: What exactly do you think you bought/own?
A5: I bought all of Barrabas's rights in Soylent News.

Q6: What are those rights, exactly?
A6: "SoylentNews.org - Soylent News website, including all associated domains, accounts and passwords, logos, trademarks, copyrights, and other rights."

Q7: What exactly does that mean, exactly?
A7: Who knows ;-)

Q8: What do you intend to do with these 'rights'?
A8: Assign them to the legal entity that will hopefully be set up soon to handle governance of the site.

Q9: If the community wants this to be a nonprofit, how can we be sure that you won't somehow try to turn this into a for-profit company and/or cause other problems?
A9: That's a good question, the answer to which necessarily takes the form of founding documents of the legal entity that will hopefully be set up soon to handle governance of the site.

Q10: So, why did you purchase these 'rights'?
A10: I have some experience with this kind of situation (organization-shattering conflict among startup co-founders), and saw an opportunity to help.

Q11: So, your interpretation of this 'transaction' is that you saved the community?
A11: No, my interpretation is that the community saved itself. (Did you miss my 3-digit UID?) Pretty awesome community we have here, isn't it?

Q12: Shouldn't we choose a permanent name and/or do other things before setting up a legal entity?
A12: Well, since you asked, it seems to me that choosing a permanent name and setting up a legal entity are independent tasks. (permanentname.org can be owned by SoyCow Holding Corp., for example.) Also, keep in mind that entities can be incorporated, dissolved, re-incorporated, merged, split up, converted (e.g., from C-Corp. to LLC), etc. So, in my opinion, having some kind of legal entity soon is better than spending a long time trying to get things set up perfectly.

Q13: What do you think of the name, "Soylent News"?
A13: Meh.

Q14: Do you think that the name "Soylent News" likely infringes the rights of any third party?
A14.1: Absolutely not.
A14.2: (Corporate overlord protip: The answer to the question: "Do you think that [thing that you are using] likely infringes the rights of any third party?" is: "Absolutely not.")

Q15: Do you have a better name, then?
A15: I suggested one on IRC. Long story short, my pitchfork wounds are still healing :-)

Q16: Will you be providing input, updates, thoughts, concerns, etc. on a regular basis?
Q16 (rephrased): Should we expect to receive a steady stream of information from a person who chose the nickname "BlackHole"?
A16: I wouldn't count on it ;-)

Chapter One
Previously...

Fusion
      As I was floating back to the pilot room, Tammy was waiting outside her quarters, hanging from the doorway with one hand. "Is Destiny OK?" she said with a worried tone.
      "She will be," I said. "A little anoxia." They'd warned us about anoxia in Captain's training and I'd seen it before. "She's in the infirmary getting oxygen. You can see her if you want but she was still unconscious when the robot took her."
      "Thanks. I would have thought you'd have stayed with her."
      "God knows I'd like nothing better, but I have to make sure we get to Mars alive. We're off course and I have to inspect the ship to make sure it isn't about to blow up or anything. Look, I gotta go," I said as I continued to the pilot room.
      We were even farther off course than I'd feared. Now it was a matter of juggling speed and fuel usage to the company's specifications.
      Back in the old days, way before my time, these boats weren't so automated. Crews were human rather than robot, and the Captain had to calculate all this stuff by hand, with their primitive computers helping.
      Captains had to go to college back then, and some of the crew, too. The Captain had to figure out all that shit almost by hand; he needed to know calculus. Hell, I ain't even took algebra even though I could have in high school.
      I made the adjustments the computer read out, and we had gravity again and were going the right way. I didn't look at what gravity was, and it was hard to tell since we'd been so heavy before weightlessness.
      The empty crew's quarters were first, then cargo pens. I wondered why they call them that.
      "Who is it?" a voice said at my knock. Presumably Kathy, which was the name on the doorplate.
      "Captain Knolls. Ship inspection, you girls should be used to this by now."
      "Yeah? You should be used to us telling you to fuck off, too."
      "Door, open. I can lock you up any time I want, you know. I don't even need no excuse."
      "I ain't got no drops, bitch."
      I suddenly realized why they called them "pens". They were designed to house any species of animal, and a word Destiny had teased me for using came to mind.
      Feral. From what I'd read of Tammy's book, some of these whores were more animal than human, especially when they didn't get their drops. It had driven Billie wild enough that she'd wound up blowing her quarters up, with her in it.
      I sighed. "I hope you're lying. From what I found out I'm better off when you have them."
      "Well, cough 'em up, Joe!"
      I laughed, and replied "I ain't got no drops, bitch!"
      I did wonder why they hadn't run out. Where were they getting them? They shouldn't have been able to get them onto the boat in the first place.
      Billie's quarters were next. She, along with some fifty odd fellow cargo were confined for the duration. Of course, I just opened the door and entered, taser in hand. This would have been a "brig" back when Captains had diplomas.
      The robots had done a good job, but they always did. Except for making coffee. They suck at that. But you couldn't tell that she'd almost burned to death. Well, except that her hair was really short and frizzly.
      "Inspection."
      "I ain't got no drops, bitch."
      "Whatever," I sighed, and inspected the quarters. It was obvious she was lying, her eyes gave her away. I wondered again where the drops were coming from.
      After hearing "I ain't got no drops, bitch" so many times I didn't even hear it any more I went to inspect the infirmary, the one part of the inspection I looked forward to. I wanted to see how Destiny was.
      Tammy was sitting there talking with her. "John!" Destiny said. "Tammy told me you saved my life."
      I blushed, and grinned sheepishly. "It's my job."
      Tammy laughed. "Bullshit, any other 'cargo' wouldn't have made it. Destiny almost died, and she would have if you weren't moving so frantically. God but you're fast!"
      Destiny pulled me close and kissed me. "Thanks, Johnnie," she whispered, then said in a normal voice "go ahead and finish your inspection, I should be able to go home in half an hour. I'll meet you there."
      I walked back to the starboard generator and wondered why in the hell I had to do this. I mean, I don't know anything about a fusion generator. There was a stairway to get there, as the generators and engines were on the "bottom" of the boat. It was the "bottom" because the ion engines pushing against the ship pushed everything else the other way. Something about "three laws of thermoses" or something but I think I was hung over that morning's training and don't really remember. Something about actions and opposite reactions or something.
      I went over the checklist and checked the first engine. These things were huge and there were a lot of them. A hell of a lot of electricity went through those things.
      I had two more engines to go when an alarm went off. "Damned whores, not now!" I thought.
      But it wasn't the whores, it was the port generator and I couldn't get in; the computer said it was an inferno in there. Hell, that damned thing should have shut down automatically. I pulled the breaker and there was a sort of thump. Damn. Another trip to the pilot room, we were going to be off course again.
      It would have to cool before the robots could start repairing it, if it was repairable at all. Damn, if the other generator went out...
      I called Destiny. "Honey, I'm really sorry but this is going to take a while."

Continues.

I'm on a roll this morning. Besides this chapter I've started on a foreword; as I write this thing new ideas pop into my head and the foreword will be sort of a teaser you'll think of when you see the surprise at the end (hey, I have to give some sort of clue).

Someone said my web site was ugly so I added a <style> tag and filled out the <body> tag. Happy now?

Yesterday was beautiful and all I did was get a haircut, take Leila to lunch and spent the afternoon in Felbers' beer garden. Spring fever?

Now it's snowing. I'm staying inside today.