Hussam's Website

I got an email a few days ago from an engineer who works at an Internet Service Provider (ISP) asking some weird questions. Before anyone starts to giggle, no he isn’t Lebanese and the ISP is not in Lebanon.
He asked if squid can cache https requests. Squid is normally used to cache static http objects so they aren’t retrieved from parent servers every single time those objects are requested.
Caching https requests means decrypting those https requests and installing a custom certificate on every client’s web browser. This defeats the idea behind https. I simply told him that doing so would be unethical and I won’t help him.
He sent another email asking if squid can block facebook through https.
I suggested he looked at iptables. I didn’t like what was trying to do but I didn’t comment on it.

So if you guys think Lebanese ISPs are horrible, this is what happens outside Lebanon .

Two seconds later, he attacked my phone lol

There is always some article in a news website about guns, gun control and violence. Most of the comments that follow those articles indicate that people feel they should be allowed to carry guns in public.
There are obviously legitimate uses for this such as self-defense.
However, it makes me wonder if that is indeed the reason everybody defends gun ownership. Could it be a western cultural thing? It’s clear that most of news outlet websites and the comments are authored by people living in Europe or North America. Maybe people feel it limits their freedom rights if they were not allowed to carry weapons in public.
There have been many occasions where murders have happened because someone was allowed to purchase a gun. We hear about school shootings every so often. A while ago, some guy accidentally shot his wife. Wouldn’t the occurrence of those incidents have been mitigated if people were not allowed to carry guns unless they have a legitimate reason to do so?
I don’t believe the argument that since it won’t stop all murders, we shouldn’t ban guns. You can still stab people with a knife, run them over with your car or throw them off a cliff. However limiting gun ownership to people who have reasons to own guns still decreases the occurrence of murders and that is enough for me.
Let us go back to the freedom argument. Everyone has the right and responsibility to defend himself or herself, family members and country.
But we seem to be abusing that right when we direct our weapons towards the wrong people. People need to understand that they live in modern cultures where everything they do has social implications. This isn’t the middle ages anymore where anyone can run havoc. There are practical solutions to every problem and it shouldn’t always hurt our feelings when someone yells “limit weapon ownership to create a safer neighborhood”.

Norman Hendrickson was known for telling jokes and never wasting money. So when he died suddenly while en route to his wife’s funeral, the couple’s daughters knew there was only one thing to do: Hold a doubleheader service.

Source.

Aww..he couldn’t live without her

From Opera Press Release

To provide a leading browser on Android and iOS, this year Opera will make a gradual transition to the WebKit engine, as well as Chromium, for most of its upcoming versions of browsers for smartphones and computers.

“The WebKit engine is already very good, and we aim to take part in making it even better. It supports the standards we care about, and it has the performance we need,” says CTO of Opera Software, Håkon Wium Lie. “It makes more sense to have our experts working with the open source communities to further improve WebKit and Chromium, rather than developing our own rendering engine further. Opera will contribute to the WebKit and Chromium projects, and we have already submitted our first set of patches: to improve multi-column layout.”

Not enough resources to develop their Presto rendering engine anymore?

My Android 4.2 custom ROM HTC phone won’t let me set a wallpaper without cropping it even when the height/width is proportional to the size of the screen.
When I open the gallery application and navigate to a saved picture and choose to set it as a wallpaper, I get the following:

I did a quick Google search and found suggestions for third-party applications which didn’t work so well for me.
Then I remembered that Firefox on Linux allows me to set a picture as a desktop wallpaper.
I installed Firefox (I chose a nightly build) and opened a picture. Then I pressed on the picture with my finger and held till I got a dialog window which gave me an option to set the picture as a wallpaper without cropping or re-sizing it.

And it worked!

I saw this today while checking for available networks on my phone. I am a alfa subscriber.

I asked around and I was told that OM was short for Ogero Mobile.

Anyone knows what this means? Does this mean that Ogero plans on opening a mobile network service similar to Alfa and MTC Touch?

A longtime French and Spanish high school teacher is suing the Mariemont school district, alleging it discriminated against her because she has a disability – she has a phobia of young children.

Maria C. Waltherr-Willard, 61, of Greenhills says the district in which she worked for 35 years discriminated against her when it reassigned her in 2010 from its high school to its junior high and then pressured her to resign.

The suit claims the discrimination is based on her age and her disability, a rare phobia called pedophobia, which in this context means an extreme fear or anxiety around young children.

Source

This must be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. If you have a phobia of kids, just don’t be a teacher. It’s funny how every little quirk is a disability these days.

“LENEXA, Kansas — Police say a northeast Kansas man accidentally shot his wife at a restaurant when his concealed weapon discharged.

Lenexa police say the man had a small caliber handgun in his pocket while dining at the Longbranch Steakhouse last week. Officer Dan Friesen says the man reached into the pocket and accidentally discharged his weapon. His wife was treated and released at a hospital for a wound in the leg.

Police say the man had a valid concealed carry permit and the proper training but the state likely will revoke his permit.”

Source

Take away guns from civilians and idiots can’t kill each other, plain and simple.

On the other hand, perhaps carrying guns has some benefits. Since the smart people don’t carry guns, let the idiots carry guns and allow them to shoot each other. In 10 or 20 years, all the idiots will be dead. The world will be a happier place.
I love the part where they are “likely” to revoke his permit.

F1 must prepare for end of Ecclestone era.

Luca di Montezemolo says Formula One must prepare itself for the end of Bernie Ecclestone’s era at the head of the sport.

The Ferrari president recently said that Ecclestone was getting too old for the job as commercial rights holder, as he turned 82 in the latter part of last season. In his Christmas address to the team Montezemolo was more kind with his words but said Formula One needs to have its next leadership plan in place.

As much as I agree with this, I don’t really trust Luca or Ferrari’s motives. They have always tried to manipulate the sport.