UPenn Stuff
Quotes from the Penn Networking department
A range of utterances from the mildly amusing to the bizarre. Many of them fall into the "you had to be there" category. Political and diplomatic considerations preclude hosting this page on the department's official website.
I've never been so excited to crash a router before!!JoDe Beitler; after many days of being unable to reproduce a problem in the lab.
2014-04-30
May I be the keeper of the quotes file when you leave? I want to usher in a new era of inclusivity by increasing the number of Ops quotes, and quotes about cats.Kristina Victoreen; making a powerplay to take over the quotes file!
2014-02-20
Shumon Huque: I apologize for being such a geek.
Diane Galeone: I have a shirt that says /usr/bin/girl, so no worries there.Diane answering Shumon's admission that he has the 9-layer OSI model t-shirt.
2014-02-19
John Speno: This alarm cleared in 1969 and I'm just hearing about it now?
Deke Kassabian: A truly epoch moment.2014-02-01
Shumon Huque: Okay, so I'm wondering then if they want only social-media involved IT folks ..
Deke Kassabian: That's everybody! I see all your tweeters on the interwebs and your posts on the blogosphere and all that. So I think you and your +1 "friends" can "Like" that post and flash mob that event, taking Instagram snapchats all the way.
On how inclusive some campus IT event is supposed to be
2013-12-03
Andrew Mortensen: Oh, hey, dozens of Spectrum messages. It must be late afternoon.
Tomo Takebe: alarm threshold "time > afternoon" has been violatedIn VoIP Jabber chatroom
2013-11-21
That's another stumbling block. We are outrageously Pennkey compliant.Peggy Yetter
2013-10-04
Finally I was endorsed for "IPv4" skill on LinkedIn - I've been waiting all my life for that!Shumon Huque
2013-10-03
Now you've made a disaster area of *two* offices."Criss Keating; berating Shumon on his office move and the amount of junk accumulated in 13 years.
2013-09-20
Shumon Huque: ZFS max file size is 16 exabytes - should be enough for anyone
Tomo Takebe: I'll quote that and people will laugh at you soon!
Shumon Huque: As long as I make as much as Bill Gates, I won't care!(This started out as a discussion about CHOP sending a 33TB file over the network, and somehow got here)
2013-09-10
Throwing out code is always going to be the cheaper option.Garick Hamlin
2013-08-23
John W. O'Brien: Any problems with the reloads?
Ed Urmston: You know, i don't even know yet. i biked all the way here in shorts and realized i had forgotten my pants and walletFrom this morning's router code upgrade
2013-08-13
We do it right because we do it twice!Steve Fredricks; re-iterating the motto of the Network Operations team!
2013-08-13
John O'Brien: Incidentally, I think I just overheard Jorj's dulcet tones a moment ago.The soothing effect of your comrade's voices!
2013-08-13
I also smell pee ocasionally in the suite air system.Tomo Takebe; on the topic of weird plumbing in the building.
2013-08-05
Shumon Huque: Sorry, sometimes my inner protocol-geek cannot be suppressed.
Diane Galeone: Sometimes? When were (not) the other times?
Shumon Huque: Hmm, you might have a point there Diane ..
After yet another geeky thing he did (involving DNS and TXT records)
2013-07-09
The tool is broken, and I am the tool.Adam Preset; about performance metrics reports after he leaves.
2013-06-18
I'll keep quiet that I had to google what WWDC was -- my first guess was that it's a sporting event)Tomo Takebe, clearly not an Apple fanboy!
2013-06-10
Amendment: We don't care about love and wish it to be ignored.Mike Dunne
2013-06-07
We don't even have Joanne assimilated, and we're already interviewing other people?Peggy Yetter, about Drexel co-ops/interns
2013-06-06.
I shall suggest this as a netman project - ventriloquism classes and wooden dummies in tuxedos as next gen notification.Matthias Wegner; in email to Speno
2013-06-03
Ned Rhudy: margaret and i broke almodev and we are both stumped and would like to throw the problem open to the floor
John Speno: there is no floor. it's just a bottomless pit.2013-05-02
Good night, new facilities web site. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.John Speno, After getting woken up at 3am due to a failed web server.
2013-04-11
Doing nothing has really helped us.Colleen Szymanik; on not upgrading Aruba wireless controller code.
2013-04-05
Jorj Bauer: Diane did what now? So... when are we going out for celebratory drinks?
Diane Galeone: Oh, so THAT'S what you meant by not low-key.
Jorj Bauer: I am many things, Diane. Subtle is not usually one of them.
Diane Galeone: Actual, full-on, no-bullshit LOL.An exchange after discovery of a secret knot tying.
2013-03-04
He who has guns wins.Mark Wehrle; on why he won't get his way in a discussion with Public Safety.
2013-03-01
I don't think not doing this is smarter than doing this.Garick Hamlin
2013-02-21
I do use CVS - because I'm a luddite.Margaret Frances
2013-02-12
I don't read that rag.Jeff Ballentine; CampusNet meeting; regarding the university student newspaper.
2013-02-01
Deke Kassabian: We'd love to pilot one of the IPtv solutions like the one Harvard is piloting with Tivli. But right now they still seem kind of shady.
Shumon Huque: Who seems shady, Harvard or Tivli? :-)
Deke Kassabian: Harvard may be shady, but in the most stately way possible.A discussion at the CampusNet meeting.
2012-12-21
And I'm going to be crazy all day today.Criss Keating; being frank at the N&T director's offsite strategy meeting.
2012-12-20
If they can teach a dog to drive, they can teach me to drive. Just feed me enough treats.Peggy Yetter, in response to a news report
2012-12-05
Dave Anstine: I can lead him to water, I can't make him drink.
Peggy Yetter: Just drown him and be done with it.
Identity of "him" concealed to protect the innocent (or guilty).
2012-12-05
I talk a lot.John J Mulhern III; A self-explanatory proclamation :-) following John's talk on "The Death of the Desktop" at the All Staff meeting.
2012-11-29
Shumon Huque: The exchange config has thrown me off before. Have to remember that the noc1 network is like a 1980's era ethernet hub.
Andrew Mortensen: I think I saw that movie!
While debugging a network performance issue and being fooled yet again by the ridiculous Microsoft clustering hack
2012-11-20
Jeff Edwards: Juniper was asking about our ISDN plans.
Shumon Huque: Huh? You mean SDN right?
Peter Heverin: Even I knew that was wrong!
[Much laughter]
MAGPI meeting - it's easy to confuse vaporware with archaic-ware!
2012-10-24
Arggh, I wish these people would stop endorsing me!Peggy Yetter; (Editor note: I'm fairly sure this is about LinkedIn)
2012-10-22
It's just that I have post traumatic migration disorder.Margaret Frances; reliving the bugzilla to Jira migration.
2012-09-04
I had to do a git clone of like 90 million things, before I found it.Margaret Frances; about the somewhat precarious state some of our code repositories are in ..
2012-08-30
Perhaps noc1 will go on to challenge server-02's 6 year uptime record!Shumon Huque; on foregoing a planned reboot of the venerable system, which now has close to 4 years of uptime. (However it was soon discovered that a performance test server in MAGPI has been up for more than 7 years!)
2012-08-29
We have all the disadvantages of being a vendor, with none of the advantages.Deke Kassabian; about how the central IT division is treated by the rest of the university!
2012-08-15
Salt Lake City is the opposite of Hawaii.Shumon, to Deke, on locations of Joint Techs meetings.
2012-08-08
That's okay, my wife still calls me her roommate.Tomo Takebe; in response to Diane's remark that she needs to stop referring to her fiance as her boyfriend.
2012-07-27
If there's one thing I'm good at, it's describing an impossible situation in a small number of words.Deke Kassabian
2012-07-20
BYE: SIP:blairs@upenn.edu FROM: SIP:tomo@upenn.edu REFER-TO: blairs@polycom.com CONTENT-TYPE: TEXT BODY-LENGTH: 4 bye!Tomo Takebe's note on Steve Blair's farewell card. Perhaps it's time for Tomo to take a break from VoIP work! :-)
2012-06-20
"If you ignored 'em ..."
"... they'd have to cry."Tom and Criss, talking about a ringing intercom phone number on Centrex reported by J. Bauer.
2012-05-24
I was trying to be polite, but you can only hold out for so long!Shumon Huque, in some context that you're welcome to fill in more politically correctly than I'm likely to write here (via Jorj)
Engineering Leads meeting.
2012-05-22
John Speno: Isn't this the most fun thing you ever worked on?
Diane Galeone: The only good thing i have to say about it is that at least i know its not cause i made some stupid mistake.
While working on free/busy interop between Zimbra and Microsoft Exchange.
2012-03-30
Adam Preset: rightsizing
Deke Kassabian: cheapsizing
CampusNet meeting; regarding customers managing their wireless dhcp ranges too closely to save money. causing bad network experiences.
2011-03-18
It's like a vendor/toddler fight club.Jeff Edwards; describing the wiring closet vendor selection process.
2012-03-02
Today CA asked me for the hostid and host name to generate a license for ehealth, and I just thoughtlessly sent them the output of hostid and uname. They wrote back: "Is the host named bash? I thought you said the host name was pixie".Kristina Victoreen; apparently CA's UNIX "wizards" have a baked notion of the contents of a shell prompt!
2012-03-02
Getting woken up by NES on-call on birthday. Priceless.John Speno
2012-02-14
I'm sure you can imagine the amount of self-restraint it took for me not to launch into a diatribe about nslookup.Shumon Huque; to Speno and Deke, after helping debug a DNS problem for another department, after they incorrectly identified a non-problem with that tool.
2012-02-10
Is it wrong to feel slightly giddy upon receiving 336GB of RAM? If it is, I do not wish to feel right.Michael Dunne; on some upgrades destined for our VoIP dev environment.
2012-02-07
You won't hear me say this often; but here's one case where Exchange does it better than Zimbra.Peggy Yetter
2012-01-18
ECCGOST too? .. neat! The KGB will be pleased.Shumon Huque; after learning from Speno that our psz tool supports all DNSSEC algorithms.
2012-01-14
I would pay cash money for the on-call phone right now.Diane Galeone; at the ISC All Staff meeting
2011-12-14
Signet fall down go boom!Jorj Bauer
2011-11-09
If you throw a thong at the stand-up, you have to bring doughnuts.Jorj Bauer; at the VoIP stand-up
2011-11-04
Shumon Huque: It's going to be hard to come up with an ideal name for this clump, but I think Deke's suggestion works for me.
Jorj Bauer: "Common Layer of Underlying Mechanisms for PennNet"On names for functional teams
2011-11-03
Everyone who has a petty opinion on this should weigh in. [To Jorj:] You look like you might have one.Deke Kassabian, CampusNet meeting, re: the use of SSL certificates.
2011-02-04
The opposite of my Remedy is my friend.Adam Preset; CampusNet meeting.
2011-10-28
It's that time of year..time for the bloodless coup/peaceful succession that is Mardi Gras..the eating of the baby-infested cake and crowning of a new ruler. I'm afraid I am still living in the reign of Akowitz the First ..Kristina Victoreen
2011-02-28
Who put the catapult in my office? And thanks :)Jorj Bauer, in e-mail.
2011-01-13
I like to get a head start on freaking out.Peggy Yetter, to John Speno, regarding the impending Zimbra upgrade.
2010-10-08
Yeah, its a tangled mess. eric chen may have made changes to the system postfix on mbx-levy but i'm not 100% sure what, if anything he mostly worked under cover of darkness and at the pace of a jackrabbit the answer was always 'yes ill have it done tomorrow' and noone really cared how it got done.Michael Jastremski, to Speno via IM
2010-09-24
Mark Sirota: Email is dead
Josh Beeman: Sorry, I was reading my e-mail and I missed your tweet on that.
NPC meeting
2010-08-18
The only thing "simple" about SNMP is the brain that crafted it.Jorj Bauer
2010-08-18
Peggy: You're a Dexter fan?
Speno: He's my hero.
Peggy: That explains a lot.
2010-08-17
It looks like it was a crash due to some bug.Tomo's expert analysis of an opensips software crash!
2010-08-05
We need to plan how to escape the crushing weight of Remedy's useless, bloated and stinking corpse.John Speno; to Joe and Peggy
2010-07-09
Shumon, your demand is popular. This says nothing about you yourself :)Jorj Bauer, to Shumon Huque
2010-07-09
This wasn't meant to be scary, it was meant to be reassuring. Apparently I don't do reassuring well. :-( It would be a pity if CA with all its blatant incompetence and hegemonic machinations had us scared to drop their overpriced marginally useful service.Kristina Victoreen; to Deke
2010-07-08
Stop doing such a good job. Just do the job.Deke Kassabian; to Mark Wehrle, discouraging him from going the extra mile
2010-07-07
I suggest we stone Rosetta.Deke Kassabian; on decomissioning the venerable web authentication server
2010-07-02
Half of the XXXXX-OS are hacks for various customers.Our (redacted wireless networking vendor) representative explaining how various often suspect features got into their operating system.
2010-06-11
I just hear blah blah blah DNSSEC blah blah blah.Jeff Edwards; Campusnet meeting
2010-06-25
It's like a data closet back here.A worker from Corporate Interiors, while trying to reconfigure Shumon Huque's office desk
2010-06-23
The ACUTA award is spending a week's vacation in my office, where someone has thoughtfully filled it up with foam puzzles. I've added a sheep. The sheep is very happy.Jorj Bauer; in e-mail
2010-06-21
I'm not saying Criss is a tool, but .. you should use all the tools in your toolbox.Adam Preset; in a meeting
2010-06-11
Deke Kassabian: OMG! It *is* checked! I assume I should uncheck that :)
Matt Miller: Yeah... I would uncheck it. :) I sense a new FAQ entry in the near future.
Diane Galeone: I sense a new entry in the quotes file in the near future...
Deke is apparently not good with user interfaces!
2010-06-03
Dan, you put the 't' in 'suck'.Andrew Mortensen; to Dan Akowitz, describing how the difference between 'stuck' and 'suck' is one letter.
2010-05-18
John Speno: Our apache configs never cease to amaze me
Shumon Huque: I wanna see some amazing apache configs!
John Speno: No, you really don't.Apparently, amazing in a bad way ..
2010-05-14
Jorj Bauer: Do we even have a boardroom?
Adam Preset: Well, we certainly have plenty of rooms that I'm bored in.2010-05-11
I'm not against it, but it's fraught with peril.Mark Sirota; HARTS meeting, regarding application-level failover for Penn Groups
2010-05-11
Found on the internet: "What do Quakers look like? The Quaker is a small parrot , reaching 11 to 12 inches in length."Jorj Bauer; who is apparently a parrot
2010-05-10
I saw her and Brian doing a hot swap of the twins in the lobby later on. i guess one got worn out and needed replacing.Ed Urmston; regarding Colleen's son Noah, on Take Your Kids to Work Day
2010-04-22
If we can find a way to manually delete Jorj, then I'll do that.Criss Keating; discussing issues with Jorj's calendar
2010-04-09
The trouble with "bad idea jeans" is that they're so comfortable. Once you have them on, you don't want to take them off.Andrew Mortensen
2010-04-01
I was going through OpenSIPs code in my dream last night. Surprisingly vivid and detailed.Tomo Takebe; apparently this isn't an April Fool's joke.
2010-04-01
OT: Cloud-sourcing and Crowd-sourcing in Japanese is exactly the same spelling so even IT professionals think it's the same thing. I guess it sort of is the same in the sense of having lots of people/things in unknown locations do things.Tomo Takebe; a classic!
2010-03-22
I just sat through a session where the vendor, who will remain nameless, claimed Open Source solutions can only support small numbers of users, around 25. I think that means we need to redesign PennNet Phone because it is obviously out of spec.Steve Blair; at Voicecon
2010-03-22
Peggy Yetter: I didn't realize you were that tall.
John Speno: Only when startled.2010-03-19
Jorj Bauer: That will work with proftpd. Actually we can't. I'm not sure if it's nature or nurture.
John Speno: I blame the toxic environment. so nurture.
Shumon Huque: "The blank circuitboard: the modern denial of a computer's nature."
Chatroom exchange (and the possible title of Shumon's upcoming book)
2010-03-19
They're terrible when armed with information!Colleen Szymanik; CampusNet; about an unnamed department whose wireless network she has to support
2010-03-19
Colleen Szymanik: What, we have five females today?
Diane Galeone: The history of Tampax!
During Jeopardy, Diane proposes an apropos category
2010-03-17
Let me tell you something. I've been fixing Speno's code for 4 years.Margaret Frances
2010-03-09
Deke: Shumon and I are supporting each other over here.
Shumon: From my point of view, the support went fine because mine works and yours doesn't.
Deke: I think that means I'm better support than you are.
CampusNet meeting; debugging wireless problems on their laptops.
2010-03-05
OK, I'll remember to SUBMIT all my emails without those keywords.
Which is unfortunate, since I was going to share with you my poem titled
SILENT DELETE USER esnyder FROM *
which I'm presenting soon at a poetry slam downtown.
It's a poem about feeling ANONYMOUS repression in the 21st century, by a person who decides to REMOVE ALL SUBSCRIBERS from his LIST and STOP DISTRIBUTION when he feels that technology based in the 80's is restricting his ability to write whatever he wants in his emails.Eric Snyder; after his prior e-mail was trapped by our stupid Listserv because of embedded keywords.
2010-03-04
Change "Criss Keating's iPhone woes" to "Keating takes a beating" ...Mark Wehrle; updating a CampusNet meeting agenda item.
2010-03-04
John Speno (by the coffee machine with an empty mug): "Tea. Earl Gray. Hot. ... Now how long do I have to wait?"
Jorj Bauer: "Until you're bald."
2010-03-02
I'm, like, one of the chief compromisers around here.Mark Sirota; lamenting the (de-)evolution of our organization from the days of "Engineering never has to help" to "That's a stupid idea, but yeah ok, we'll do it anyway."
2010-02-19
We'll call it "World of Penncraft".Shumon Huque; offering a name for the proposed Resnet wireless gaming network.
2010-02-19
Old dudes are awesome for stuffDarian Patrick; in response to Mark Sirota's remark that Control-v (literal next) has been in the terminal driver since at least UNIX V7.
2010-02-17
I actually understand this movie more than what you just said... and I have no idea what's happening.Diane Galeone; to Dan Akowitz's blabbering about Shibboleth and CoSign; while watching the second half of the "The Third Man".
2010-02-12
What it comes down to is that the vendor may not be able to find his ass with both hands.Andrew Mortensen; perennial saga with outsourced vendors
2010-02-09
Criss: It still smells like wings in here. It smells delicious.
Adam: No it doesn't. You're just having a stroke.
Upon arrival in 337A following an obviously more palatable meeting
2010-02-09
If all goes well, then I'll come back with hot sausage.Mark Sirota; men's room
2010-01-29
We can't pass. Passing is cowardice.Ned Rhudy; during Jeopardy
2010-01-27
The chicken is a noble and concise animal.Deke; when Mark was accused of being one.
2010-01-22
Only very important people are allowed to have weak passwords and low assurance.Garick Hamlin
2010-01-12
He's going to feel stupid when he goes over there and doesn't have a tin of baked beans.Diane Galeone; about Shumon not having his "food donation" for the office party
2010-01-08
This website is making me vomit.Darian; after finding yet another security problem with a Penn web application.
2009-12-22
Now I'm being accused of killing people!Dan Akowitz; after not being helpful enough to a Med school app that needed instantaneous access to PennID information.
2009-12-22
Darian: RCS is touching my files in an inappropriate manner.
Jorj: Isn't there some HR policy against that?
2009-12-18
(12:09:18 PM) Diane Galeone: "These go up to 6."
(12:09:32 PM) DaveDimm: ??
(12:09:42 PM) Diane Galeone: you still listening to the webcast
(12:09:44 PM) DaveDimm: yeah
(12:09:48 PM) DaveDimm: the logging level goes to 6
(12:09:50 PM) DaveDimm: but what about it?
(12:09:54 PM) Diane Galeone: god i'm old
(12:09:56 PM) Diane Galeone: nevermind
(12:10:02 PM) DaveDimm: lol...
2009-12-16
One of my jobs is to be the Sirota surrogate, the "Sirotagate".Andrew Mortensen
2009-12-15
You're hijacking my server, which is broken in just the way that I like.Margaret Frances, to Garick
2009-12-01
Hey, I'm all about karma. Or carmel. Whatever.Beth Logan, VoIP meeting
2009-12-01
I've had an odd combination of not enough coffee and too much coffee.Diane Galeone
2009-11-20
zmprov2 is still all crapified.Margaret Frances (something about our mail server)
2009-11-19
This morning I accidentally left a pair of drinking glasses on the back kitchen counter in 221a. They were not for a freebie pickup (sorry).Mark Wehrle; desperately trying to recover his misplaced SJU glasses
2009-11-13
All the work I do for public safety and they still won't give me a gun.Mark Wehrle; Campus Net meeting
2009-11-13
Penn e-mail addresses provide better control, speed, and are less likely to get lost out in the cloud.Adam Preset, as quoted in the Daily Pennsylvanian in an article about Penn email addresses
2009-11-10
DNSSEC is also used to incorporate digital signatures, which can be used to verify user authenticity and prevent Web-based attacks.Attempted press release re-write by the office of University Communications. Apparently the DNS is a user authentication system now!
2009-11-05
So, how do we resolve this? I doubt decnet is the answer.Don Roeber
2009-10-30
Dave Dimm: "What... ???"
Diane Galeone: "Oooooh! You almost said a potty mouth!"
Hallway conversation
2009-10-02
Eric C: I'm a big fan of rsync
Tomo T: I used to be a big fan of nsync
2009-08-26
I also recommend not bringing it up. Please don't bring it up. I'll give you a dollar.Darian, about whether to bring up the capitalization of WebLogin again.
2009-08-05
Thank god for firewalls!-Deke, after report of a sister department's firewall blocking our access, impeding our ability to help them!
2009-08-04
Can we get one of those "prod control" outfits too!?Shumon Huque (during debugging session for a sister department's app)
2009-07-14
All donuts are IPv6 compatible.Jorj, answering Tomo's question
2009-07-10
I've been here 3 and 1/2 years. ... I know who Mark Wehrle is, but I forgot his name the other day.Margaret Frances
2009-07-07
Deke didn't come back from Second Life.Peggy Yetter
2009-06-23
I hate to tell you, but that looks like a really really ugly condom.Peggy Yetter; don't ask ...
2009-06-23
Adam Preset: Peggy reports that the label on the cookie is paper, and, while she has proved empirically that it is eatable, it is not meant to be edible.
Peggy Yetter: "It's definitely edible, but it tastes horrible."
In reference to the paper coating on the Sun cookies.
2009-05-27
I knew I shouldn't have come to this talk.Margaret Frances, during Garick's Unicode/Character Set encoding talk
2009-05-21
I have no plans to drain Tomo.Peggy Yetter, Engg Leads Meeting
2009-05-12
Expected behavior is expected behavior, whether it's positive or negative.Peggy Yetter.
2009-05-12
Shumon is a warlock. He can tell the future!Alec (Margaret's kid, on "Bring your Sons and Daughters to Work Day", after Shumon Huque successfully predicted there would be chocolate)
2009-04-23
"I know I made it sound like something was wrong, but it was just different."
...
"And I didn't say 'Ewww.' No, I guess I did. Yeah, I did."Peggy; talking about Dan Akowitz's hair
2009-04-22
Diane Galeone: Is the powerpuff character called mokojono or mokojojo?
Shumon Huque: Mojojojo is the evil monkey. Mokojono is the fake performance artist monkey that mojojojo was infatuated with in the episode "Meet The Beat-Alls". Don't you know all this stuff!?
Diane Galeone: Now i'm officially scared of you ...A flurry of powerpuffery on display
2009-04-21
I sometimes get the feeling that they are like an 80's sitcom where someone put a brick on the gas pedal of a bulldozer, and just let it roll.Darian, about working with another (unnamed) Penn department's web applications.
2009-03-13
I enjoyed the holiday because I got a piece of cake and didn't get to eat the baby.Margaret Frances, during Mardi Gras.
2009-02-24
It appears that Greg (Palmer) has successfully conquered all of Pennsylvania.Jeff Edwards, upon reviewing the Internet2 Regional Optical Network map.
2009-01-12
You know that i have a bachelors in philosophy and psychology and a masters in philosophy, so it is in the tradition of a good liberal arts major that I say what I am about to say...Margaret Frances, about to critique Shumons IPv6 talk rehearsal.
2008-12-22
It's a big community. It has its share of yahoos.Deke Kassabian; Network Policy Committee.
2008-12-17
Wait, I'm the world's best googler.Margaret, to Shumon, after he couldn't find his answer in Google.
2008-10-16
I would be happy if I were passive aggressive. Unfortunately, I'm just aggressive.Peggy Yetter
2008-10-08
I have suspended my search for a USB cable in order to concentrate on this current economic crisis. I urge my opponent to do the same.Don Roeber; with apologies to a prez candidate.
2008-09-24
Adam Preset: I need a TCP offload engine for this client so I can be Pidgin-TOE'd. Then it would seem like I'm chatting really fast.
Shumon Huque: good job your IM client isn't a camel.
Adam Preset: I was thinking of switching to DromedarAIM.
Zimbra chatroom
2008-09-24
Tomo: Everything in Peggy's office is strange.
Peggy: Including Peggy.
2008-08-27
Eric, Mark had to come to my office and have a discussion to clear this up, and it's basically all your fault. If you could, in the future, please refrain from commenting obliquely on your own comments. It really disrupts the group.Dan Aharon; geekorama chatroom, to Mark S. Sometimes intra-office chatroom conversations require clarifying in-person follow-ups.
2008-07-18
I found the sweetest looking dead bird this morning.Peggy Yetter
2008-07-02
When you have Java, you never know what's going to happen.Michael Jastremski; while working on Zimbra
2008-07-02
I should have known that was a honeypot instead of a coffee pot!Dave Taylor
2008-06-27
You guys are such geeks. I swear to God ..Margaret Frances, to Jorj and Garick
2008-06-13
Building redundancy - it's a good idea. We should have two of every building on campus.Jeff Edwards, CampusNet meeting
2008-06-13
Shumon Huque: According to a recent Internet2 press release, the world is becoming flatter! I thought we'd debunked that theory in pre-biblical times!
Mark Sirota: I'm guessing Dr. Todd meant "smaller", not "flatter". He just thinks primarily in the third dimension.
Shumon Huque: Or perhaps the author is actually a square from flatland, who isn't capable of perceiving the 3rd dimension!
Deke Kassabian: Everything looks like a line
Shumon Huque: Arrghh, i'm seeing too many dimensions now! everything looks like vibrating strands of energy! help!
Deke Kassabian: Back to your pitiful reduced dimension universe! Back I say!Random conversation
2008-06-05
It'll be two dirty old guys whaling on Ray for a while.Steve Fredericks, (context deleted to protect the innocent)
2008-06-05
Boy, time sure flies when you're not having fun.Peggy Yetter; to Deke about something (ask her for details!)
2008-05-12
To get started, I think we need an artistic sketch of the candidate.Dan Aharon; an interview debrief
2008-04-09
Unless they dye my thumb black, I'm going to try and hit all 3 Starbucks in the 3 block area. Heart palpitations, here I come!Eric Snyder; motivated by free coffee
2008-04-08
You are the biggest geek I've met in my entire life.Margaret to Eric Chen; (it seems that variations of this remark are made with distressing regularity around here involving a variety of different people)
2008-04-03
There's only one answer to this question, and it's my answer.Darian Patrick; Engineering re-organization meeting
2008-04-01
BACK OUT PLAN! HA HA Ha Ha ha ha ..... Sorry. But seriously what's a back out plan? In order to deter the wedge the upgrade must work! That's POSSITIVITY!Steve Fredericks; something about code upgrades on our Juniper M120 routers
2008-04-01
Our virtual hosting isn't complicated enough? Let's add a few layers. Add in Message Labs, and you're looking at a few hours to debug a simple mail delivery problem.Dave Anstine; bitching about our e-mail configuration
2008-03-25
I'm going to rewrite my script with some suggestions that Peggy gave me. Apparently there's a second kind of variable called an "array" that can contain multiple elements. So I've got some work to do.Dan Aharon; Services Meeting
2008-03-25
Shumon Huque: How do you logout of the sc> prompt?
Don Roeber: logoutStruggling with the Sun system controller. He tried exit, quit and control D.
2008-03-24
You know you're the laziest active person I've met.Peggy Yetter; to Shumon Huque
2008-03-19
Peggy: So, I was telling Mark Levinson a little about the PennAlert testing. He was saying he thinks we should just get an air raid helmet and an air horn and run around to alert people in an emergency. You know, Levinson kind of has a point.
Deke: Yeah, but luckily his hat covers it.
During the emergency notification testing, in the "war room" (aka as the 3rd floor conference room)
2008-02-29
Basically, they're good for awesome.Darian Patrick; about Freezy Freakies on Valentine's Day
2008-02-14
Deke Kassabian: iPhone2. GPS, 64G, flip out keyboard, integrated light saber ..
Mark Sirota: They'll never offer an integrated light saber - the licensing costs would be too high.
Shumon Huque: Yeah, those Jedi are real intellectual property nazis!
Deke Kassabian: away put your patent suits, free the technology is.
Random discussion in MacNet chatroom.
2008-01-15
Your password is only 3/4 inches longer.Jim Choate; on usability issues with longer passwords; Strong Authentication Working Group
2007-12-??
I'm constantly uttering words of wisdom, but no-one listens to what I have to say!Kristina Victoreen
2008-01-04
I found pee again!Margaret Frances; reporting on her cat troubles at home
2007-12-13
Arghhh, I can't spell that high!Peggy Yetter; on her inability to spell correctly when writing high up on the whiteboard.
2007-11-29
Deke Kassabian: Still working on your weekly status report?
Mark Wehrle: Yeah .. :-(
Deke Kassabian: Ha, ha. Greg and I are done.
A MAGPI meeting; Our very mature senior directors in action!
2007-09-21
Deke and Mark want answers, they want the truth from deep inside Cisco ..Jeff Coke's transcription of a CampusNet meeting.
2007-09-21
Peggy Yetter: I like Drama.
Eric "M". Chen: "As the PennKey turns."While trying to figure out why Lee Stetson's Pennkey was mysteriously deleted.
2007-09-20
Steve Blair: We can monitor Ira's VoIP calls to help debug the problem.
Deke Kassabian: You don't actually mean eavesdropping, right?
Shumon Huque: TIA - "Total Ira Awareness!"
CampusNet meeting; with apologies to the Dept of Defense ...
2007-09-07
The Intel Pro 100 is an asshole card.Andrew Riley; while helping Paul Grossman troubleshoot a network problem.
2007-08-20
Adam Preset: Anything to say about netman replacements?
Don Roeber: We've been trying to hire new people, but ..
Systems Meeting; (I'm sure Kristina will be amused!)
2007-08-07
Eric Snyder: Hi Adam, did Vladimir V. send a schedule for Hank for the 30th & 31st, or not yet?
Adam Preset: No schedule, just a confirmation of the dates.
Eric Snyder: ok
Adam Preset: I'll be on vacation those days, btw. :-)
Eric Snyder: I think I might reschedule my VD for that day.
Eric Snyder: My PTO.
Eric Snyder: PTO is better than VD
Adam Preset: That should be considered an axiom.
Eric Snyder: haha
A Geekorama chatroom exchange
2007-07-16
All anti-Potter voters need to unite behind one choice!Dave Anstine, on voting names for the new RADIUS servers
2007-07-13
There is laughter, but it's no joke.Shumon Huque; hallway.
2007-07-13
MBSA or nothing!Mark Sirota; Network Access Control Meeting; we all hope he's joking.
2007-06-12
Don Rober: Mine does. I saw the dancing turtle!
Shumon Huque: Excellent! That is in fact the only worthwhile IPv6 application, so now you know what all the fuss is about :-) IPv8 will have a unicorn that does synchronized swimming ...Contemplating what competition the dancing Kame IPv6 turtle will have.
2007-03-21
Hmm, this is a concern. Whom would I approach if I had some "Web candle + a monkey" questions?Adam Preset; worried about lack of expertise with cutting edge web standards. We may have to "ask a Ninja"!
2007-03-14
Mark Wehrle: What and when should we be charging for IPv6 service?
Shumon Huque: I think we should charge $1 per IPv6 address assigned. SEAS has a /54 sized allocation. So that means we can charge them roughly 18.9 sextillion dollars!
Mark Wehrle: You're too cheap. I'd say we should charge 1.5 times the ipv4 Central Service Fee.
An e-mail exchange regarding IPv6 service at Penn.
2007-03-06
My question is: is it possible to make a proposal that is independent of reality.Deke Kassabian, in PA State Net meeting.
2007-03-02
It's just that Steve is crazy, that's all.Adam Preset; Services meeting (context unknown, but does this quote really need one?)
2007-02-13
Apparently, our routers can't do ARP!Shumon Huque, in reference to a claim on the SUG mailing list
2007-02-06
Normally I can talk most candidates under the table.Melissa Muth; disappointed that she, as a manager, can weed out most candidates for senior network engineer positions.
2007-01-26
Steve: ""Paul and Nick reported some call transfer problems with iPhone. Would you mind if I tried some calls to your phone and asked you to be one of the testees?"
Adam: "You've gotta lotta balls coming in here and asking me that, Blair."2007-01-18
We do it without laughing or apologizing ... on demand!Deke Kassabian; referencing MVV, in Exchange Planning Meeting
2007-01-03
You just can't keep people on the correct side of the @ sign.Deke Kassabian; about user@upenn.edu and friendly name lumping.
2006-12-12
So, Dave's a revolutionary and Shumon's an agrarian.Eric Chen; incorrectly ascribing political proclivities to colleagues. It's possible that Dave is some sort of revolutionary, but Shumon is an anarchist (aka libertarian socialist).
2006-12-08
TODO LIST:
__ Liquidate customers
__ Create t-shirts
__ Perform behavioral conditioning of your staff (use drugs if needed)
__ Recruit corporations to lie to your wife
__ AirPennNet -> AirKassabian
__ Don't worry about inaccurate billing
Anonymous ISC staffer notes scooped off table at the All-Staff Meeting
2006-11-01
Matrix Management is a system Kristina. That system is our enemy.Shumon Huque to Kristina Victoreen (with apologies to Morpheus), MMAP meeting
2006-09-29
I thought PennKey and Kerberos were the same thing, like the web and the Internet.Shumon Huque; in e-mail.
2006-09-22
I want a joke, preferably a funny joke, about oysters. The all-known internet has so far failed me.Mark Dominus; in e-mail
2006-08-03
The organization isn't making good use of the Peggy headspace.Mark Sirota; in a staff meeting
2006-07-27
I am renowned for my typing "boot" prowess.Russell Nordquist; after being thanked for quickly bringing a server back online.
2006-06-28
Shenanigans. It's on the bonus buzzword list, along with genre and fisticuffs.Deke Kassabian; CampusNet meeting, attempting to justify his characterization of kludgy network & application designs
2006-06-02
Some things are only acceptable when you're in an unacceptable state.Russell Nordquist; Services meeting (something about our favorite machine pobox)
2006-05-23
I'm scared of all things I don't know about.Adam Preset; Systems meeting
2006-04-18
Shumon's light is on, but no-one's home.Don Roeber; hallway comment
2006-04-04
We're managers. We're probably using the wrong words with each other.Deke Kassabian; Network Engineering meeting
2006-05-11
You should ignore what I send. It's what I don't send that you should care about.Steve Blair; VoIP meeting
2006-03-30
Both diseases are detrimental and people like you who run, walk, and donate to irradiate these diseases are applauded.Margaret Smith in e-mail; we hope she meant "eradicate"!
2006-02-02
I suggest we organize an N&T staff trip to go visit this guy and kick his ass.Mark Dominus; exasperated by poorly written code in some open source software
2006-01-30
We'll bring Information Security in for marketing.Deke Kassabian; in in two-factor authentication meeting
2006-01-13
That doesn't blow my dress up.Steve Blair; in response to a suboptimal VoIP solution.
2005-??-??
If I understand what just transgressed here ...Peggy Yetter; VoIP Process Meeting; "transpired", "took place"?
2005-08-18
It's much more difficult than you might expect to smother a baby.Mark Dominus; who recently had one. We all fear for his current and future progeny.
2005-06-30
Tiger is the pinnacle of the big cats -- so it's all downhill from here.Shumon Huque; commenting on the future of Mac OS X.
2005-06-06
Wow, I think I just found something Mulberry can't do!Mark Sirota; unexpectedly finding a flaw in the omnipotent mail reader.
2005-05-31
Is there a way I can bypass message labs and send mail directly to pobox?John Speno; guess why? :-)
2005-05-31
I suppose that means that if I do not have a wonderful day, my wasted time will be refunded.Mark Dominus; something about "ISC Fun Day" :-)
2005-05-31
I thought lunch was the meal between elevensies and ice cream?Mark Sirota; geekorama
2005-05-24
Is Kofi Annan really that much less popular than Bono?Shumon Huque; pondering which commencement speaker will draw the largest streaming video audience
2005-05-11
The fastest way to Don's house, for those that live in the city, is mrouted?Deke Kassabian; a typical chatroom spiralling misinterpretation. Apparently tunnelled multicast routing is needed to get to Don's place.
2005-03-04
There's no practical application for this security crap anyway.Mark Sirota; geekorama, possibly getting fed up during one of our endless discussions on the topic!
2005-03-04
Dear dreamers,
Last night I had an epic dream in which the great Kristina Victoreen
liberated me from the evil American occupiers and their neocon masters.
-- Republic of IraqE-mail from the nation of Iraq, on the dreamtag mailing list!
(It's possible that this e-mail was a forgery. What, e-mail can be forged?!!)
2005-02-02
I think it's some sort of ISC self admiration publication.Shumon Huque; on Open Line, the department's new newsletter
2004-11-17
Kristina Victoreen: "What is geekorama and why is it interesting?"
Shumon Huque: "It is the place where you can hang out with glitterati like Fiercer Dragon, Gaara Sandmaster and the Mad Owl .."Divulging the mysteries of our new chatrooms
2004-09-15
Shumon Huque: "Is this geekorama?"
Don Roeber: "It's geekorama 2"
Jon Moore: "revenge of the son of the bride of geekorama"
Geekorama chatroom exchange
2004-07-28
Walmart is like going to Honduras.Dave Anstine; comparing K-Mart, Walmart and Target
2004-03-24
I love wireless so much that I'm just going to tether myself to it.Colleen Szymanik; while sitting in hall with a cable connecting her laptop to an AP.
2004-02-05
Colleen Szymanik: Do you like fortune cookies because I've got some at home that I dipped in chocolate?
Shumon Huque: No, I don't like fortune cookies. Wait, did you say they're dipped in chocolate?
Colleen Szymanik: Yes, I dipped them in chocolate.
Shumon Huque: Well then .. yes, I like fortune cookies.
Hallway conversation reported by Reni Roberts in the office newsletter!
2004-01-05
You know me. I leave the door wide open. But when you screw up, I'll kill you.Peggy Yetter; introspections on management style.
2003-12-23
Mark Levinson will soon depart from Penn
Me thinks he was just bored with my haiku
I heard him cry "Oh no, not that again!"
So here's a sonnet, Mark, this one's for you!
You've dumped your brain so everyone could learn
The esoteric wizard things you know
But I predict Mark Levinson's return
You'll soon fly back to us like Odin's Crow
To tell us of of the world beyond the gates
The life outside our precious ivory tower
The world of Leah, Karmi, Boone and Yates
Perhaps you'll even find a higher power
'Tis time to end this poem lest you yawn
Erase the whiteboard, Levinson has gone!
Kristina Victoreen; a farewell sonnet
2003-05-28
I defy someone to try to make sense of what's in my head.Peggy Yetter
2003-05-28
John S.: ``We spend too much time kissing Python's ass.''
Mark L.: ``Oh? I thought not enough.''
2003-05-07
There's nothing like having Bill Gates running around inside your head with an eraser.Kristina Victoreen
2003-01-30
I know I'm more obsessive-compulsive than you are, but....Peggy Yetter
2003-01-27
We have achieved maximum Graffleization.Andy Diller; exact date unknown. Andy is responsible for giving Google some serious competition, by making Graffle a verb, adjective and noun!
2003-00-00
The price is based on the price.Deke Kassabian
2002-11-18
Thirty times scary is crazy.Deke Kassabian
2002-11-12
It's handy, but crappy.Mark Sirota; on PHP
2002-10-08
If we can reduce the number of headstands in the world, that seems like a good thing.Mark Sirota
2002-10-08
Kerberos is some new security thingee that makes everything all better.John Speno
2002-07-25
That's another aspect of the design that lacks cleverness.Mark Levinson on one of the PennNames database's many design flaws
2002-06-10
Surplus should be proportional to the stupidity of the job.Mark Sirota; on service pricing
2002-07-12
I'm in favor of the glass ceiling. Depending on what's above it.Kristina Victoreen
2002-02-14
You don't need them. It's better to be without them. They're holding you back.Kristina Victoreen; commenting on teeth
2002-01-17
Shoes are just cornerstones of what makes people.Colleen Bruno; rebutting Mark Sirota's denigration of footwear
2002-01-04
Cat like readiness, tensions lapping,
waiting for network links to start flapping.
Often found with a puzzle
drinking beers that they guzzle.
The waiting turns into cat napping!A poem by Jeff Edwards
2002-04-12
Trash the OpenMash cache, rehash.
Sigh. Hopes dashed.
Mark Levinson; a little doggerel on debugging multicast
2002-04-12
His RCS files
Are roach motels, they check in
But they don't check out
Mark Levinson; a haiku on Steve F's router config problems
2002-04-12
Seems okay now it does, yes? The TCB and prpasswdd -- turned to the dark side they have! Killing them helps not. Crash the system we must. A crash dump we obtained, hmm?Noted Jedi master Mark Levinson; in e-mail, something about pobox
2002-01-24
It's never the network. That's our motto.Mike Palladino
2002-01-23
The whole point of having a core is to use it.Brian Yates; on the routing core
2002-01-07
Mark L.: ``Oh, it's fake Websec?''
Deke: ``Faux Websec.''
Mark L.: ``Faux PAS.''
A pun on the legacy PennNet Authentication System ..
2001-12-11
Dave A.: ``You're a man of principle, Mark Sirota.''
Mark S.: ``Sometimes. Other times I'm just hungry.''
2001-11-13
If I may editorialize ..Dave Anstine; about to launch some sort of tirade ..
2001-11-10
I want to say, "Did you try IP, Dr. Cerf?"Deke Kassabian, in response to Vint Cerf's description of a problem he was having with AppleTalk
2001-11-09
From a security aspect, there's a reason why the largest U.S. corporations choose Exchange.Scott Williams of Microsoft Research; after blaming UNIX servers for security holes in Microsoft's client software; he went so far as to claim he's never seen a security problem in Outlook that wasn't caused by bad server administration.
2001-11-05
The mutilation risk is only part of it.Deke Kassabian, on biometric authentication
2001-11-09
I.T. is not a core competency of education.Scott Williams of Microsoft Research; asserting that only the corporate world really knows how to provide Information Technology services (ironically, this guy's title was "Program Manager - University Relations")
2001-11-05
Mark L.: MAGPI: Uncertainty on demand.
Stan V.: You can dial up your latency at any time.
2001-10-11
Brian: We have a multitude of multicast routes.
Mark L.: Do we have a unitude of unicast routes?
2001-10-03
It's not broken, it's Swedish.Mark Levinson; correcting Bill's assertion that a particular software package was broken
2001-06-19; Arboretum Day
If we can't get to the fruit, let's have the fruit come to us.Mark Sirota; "encouraging the low-hanging fruit"
2001-05-09
Engineering never has to help.Deke Kassabian
2001-04-24
The blood may spurt very far; that doesn't mean that the wound is large.Mark Sirota; on applying large "band-aid" solutions to small problems, e.g. having mail servers perform virus scanning for everyone just to solve the problem of a small number of users without desktop virus-scanning software
2001-03-23
You know it's bad when you've reached the point where you recognize your own username in hexadecimal.Mark Levinson to Shumon Huque; while debugging RADIUS packets from raw tcpdump output
2001-01-11
640 megs -- that ought to be enough for a thousand anybodies.Mark Sirota
2000-09-26
No blue networks in the core! The red and blue networks are for customers!Mark Wehrle; at Campusnet?
2000-08-18
Shumon Huque: Ok, I've had enough. I've eliminated the term "normalcy" from my document
Mark Levinson: What does it say now, "abnormalcy"?
Shumon Huque: "Anti-abnormalitarianism". I'll be sure to include it in the glossary.
An exchange during editing of the PennNet-21 document, in which Shumon was rebuked for using the obtuse term normalcy rather than the simpler normality.
2000-06-06
If you don't have anything non-null to say, don't say anything at all.Mark Levinson; on ExtremeWare (which immediately terminated telnet sessions upon receiving a nul character)
2000-05-30
Deke: "When you roll out a crepe ..."
Mark L.: "... you can't sniff it."
On network architecture models for firewalls.
2000-05-23
Ten years out, nanobots will be big.Bill Magill; on the future of nanotechnology (but is this forecast positive or negative?)
2000-04-07
you have no music
I am going dance ing now
show me how to walk
anonymous magnetic haiku in the NESS Library
1999-10-08 [author later identified as Katie Convery]
History isn't what it used to be.Mark Levinson, on INN 2.x
1999-08-30
I'm not a good talk-- person who talks.John Speno
1999-06-03
Anything other than everything would be awkward.Mark Sirota; on what files to include in a backups retention policy
1999-02-03
If it quacks like a dog, it's a dog.Mark Sirota
1998-10-21
Don't stop counting your chickens before they've stopped hatching.Mark Levinson
1998-04-08
It's always pinkest before the dark.Kristina Victoreen; describing the symptoms of her failing monitor
1998-02-27
Bill: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...
Mark L: ...creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable
of recorded time. And all our yesterdays... (Mark, your turn.)
Mark S: Uh, and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.
Bill: Whose woods these are I think I know...
Mark L: ...and not a creature was stirring, not even a horse.
It must be poetry day or something ..
1997-05-07
Anything that doesn't kill your program only makes it stronger.Mark Levinson
1997-02-24
Mark L.: "I'm hoping that this month we'll see the light at the end of the remote access tunnel."
Mark S.: "The thing about tunnels is if they're straight enough you can see a light from really far away."
1997-01-07
Dolphins without morals are useless.Kristina Victoreen's take on Penn's coat of arms and motto.
[cf. http://www.archives.upenn.edu/memorabilia/heraldry/guide.html]
1996-10-31
I have altered the web form. Pray I do not alter it further.Jon Boone
1996-09-12
Oh, right. I forgot I was in another dimension.Mark Sirota; learning Perl
1996-08-01
Whoever decided that screw-heads should be round just didn't have fingers.Mark Sirota
1996-07-02
That's the nice thing about sarcasm: You only need one to play.Jon Boone
1995-10-03
One time 3Com tech support called me to ask what the word "concatenated" means.Mark Levinson
????-??-?? - the precise date of this oft-cited quote is unknown.