Friday, 22/Oct/2004

Living on a University Campus? Show 'em Where to Stick it!

For those of you wondering why this site hasn't been updated since the first time you eroticised yourself, now you get the answer you didn't deserve. Since I don't live in New Orleans (I'm from Texas), I was confined to the shittiness of my university's dormities. (I mean "residence halls," because a politically correct term makes a huge difference from a term that implies shittiness.) So I say, "Fine. They have what they believe is a high-speed connection, so I don't have to deal with the bullshit of dialing to their nonfunctional phone lines for a mediocre connection." Well, I've seen a lot of internet servers, and I've seen everything for a 28.8Kbps to a T1 back in the old days of 1996. This server, despite it being a LAN, proves that it cannot work on a consistent basis, and on top of that, they go to piss me off even more.

So back home, I had my web designing materials (vi, WebSphere, Photoshop, and Flash) and I figure that I should bring those with me. The only problem was that I didn't have enough time with all the stupid shit I had to run around doing my last day in San Antonio, so it didn't get to follow me to France #2. A little irritated, I at least could depend on the fact that I knew the school had an available list of software, only one problem, my ITC "Department" consists of failures. I try to connect to my server to update my site, and *bam*, this school has a firewall. Now, I know most universities have firewalls, but let's look over this for a minute. Firewalls are allegedly supposed to protect dumbass Internet users fucking around on porn websites from the inevitable Spyware they will receive after they searched for a site with a 12 year old girl with no development getting fucked by a horse. Okay, fine, whatever, but they also implemented a firewall for "[the students'] safety." Or, you could've simply said that you don't want us downloading music from Kazaa or whatever the hell people use for that shit. Let's be serious: firewalls disallow direct connections to remote computers. Most reasons for connecting to a remote computer on a college campus is apparently to "steal" music, which is against the university's network use policy. Maybe it's just me, but I've gone to many other rooms just in this dorm and watched people downloading music from all sorts of peer-to-peer programs. Gee, it sure seems like that firewall isn't doing shit but pissing people off who really need a remote connection. So, with that in mind, here's a little hint ITC: you won't prevent anyone from downloading ROMs, MP3s, movies, etc. so STOP TRYING.

To piss me off even more, I can't even use a UNIX connection. What's sad is that right before I moved here, the ITC department was hiring for Senior UNIX operators, yet these dumbasses take seven days to tell people the reason their network connection isn't working is because the students are dumbasses who used a phone cable to plug into an Ethernet connection, despite the fact our "wonderful" ITC department showed everyone what an Ethernet cable is and said not to use a phone cable. I'm pretty sure the Computer Science Department can't even tell UNIX from a door knob. Why implement a firewall on a UNIX connection!? Hint: you're not going to get a virus with me using a UNIX machine, so stop using a shitty firewall. If that firewall was so allegedly awesome, why is the university's network notorious for having nothing but virii? Everyone has said their network always shuts down every year because their impenetrable firewall allowed a virus to work its way in. Just do away with the shit; nobody's protected by it and people that really know what they're doing with computers are not permitted to do so. I've only met one staff member (Vice President of a department that handles the ability to use our ID Cards like debit cards) who knows what UNIX is and wishes that our dumbass ITC department would stop using shitty Windows machines to control everything and start using UNIX. The rest of the faculty can't even explain binary WHEN IT'S IN THE CURRICULUM. I'm not even a Computer Science major (dual major for Communications and History), and I've done more services for people than the ITC has. With this in mind, people should stop having computers. I see a lot of dumbasses in this dorm walking around with shitty and flashy laptops that induce seizures and homicidal tendencies from me and when a simple Spyware problem arises, they piss in their pants, change into a skirt, and cry underneath their beds. The entire human population doesn't need computers; computers are not supposed to be entertaining and flashy, they're supposed to challenge your intelligence and be filled with cryptic code that only real computer operators know.

So anyway, I was pretty pissed off about that, but I saw that the ITC did at least offer software. Gee, Photoshop 7, Flash MX 2004, WRQ Reflection 8, kickass! A great deal of licences (Actually, they didn't have licences. When I worked on a website for the school, they put a bunch of Macromedia demos on the workstation.) left for these gems of software, and all you have to do is call and ask. Or so they would have you think. I go through the process of calling only to be told out of the department's ass that these pieces of software are only for the staff. What the hell!? Half of the staff members can't even use Excel (nor do they need to; seriously, how many cafeteria workers need Photoshop unless they were trying to steal it for personal use?) nor do they need to use WRQ Reflection. If 90% of the staff doesn't know what UNIX is, why are they priveleged to getting software they don't know how to use, when I have a remote UNIX server that I need to connect to, and web pages to design. People here ask me to design web pages for them all the time, yet I can't do it because of some illogical reasoning. Don't bother e-mailing me with the reasons, either. A staff member would do the same (if not less) with Photoshop than any other student. In fact, most of the software I hear about from staff members that use them don't even like the shit, so why do they get licences for shit they don't need? How many English professors really need Flash? My English professor does nothing but bitch about feminism in literature, but she does it without the annoyance of technology. I want/need to make web pages, but apparently I can't but some teacher bitching about shit that's old and tired can and fuck up her computer not knowing what's she doing.

I've decided to give the University something to think about. I'm updating the site now, right at my dorm. Hmm... Yeah, that's right. I screwed you. Damn you and your firewall. I'm connected to a UNIX server, what the hell could possibly infect your already-infected piece of shit network? The stupid shit you already use. Get your head out of your ass, ITC, I've already proven I could take you down.