Black Hat and Defcon: all the drama you’ve been craving
This is great, Defcon16 is a mere few days away, but already, the drama has started! Of course there’s the excitement about security guru/celebrity Dan Kaminsky discovering the DNS flaw a few months back that will be revealed this week (so that folks won’t be able to reverse-engineer them to exploit the vulnerability…ahead of time at least), but now there’s a reneg by Apple that’s sure to raise a few feathers, as well as highlight how they weren’t the most forthcoming with their DNS fix (which hasn’t hit yet even though all other vendors have released patches). In an interview, Kaminsky talks about the ‘bug’ he found in DNS, “We got lucky in this particular bug, because it’s a design flaw,” Kaminsky said in an interview. “It shows up in everyone’s network, but the fix is a design fix that doesn’t point directly at what we’re improving.” After peer review it was deemed this was indeed a huge deal, and even the original developer of BIND (the dns software in question) urged everyone to patch. “It took a couple of hours to find the bug,” said Kaminsky, “and a couple of months to fix it.” Kaminsky said he stumbled across the hole in the so-called DNS system for steering people to the websites they are seeking “by complete and total accident.” Smaller DNS flaws have been used before to “poison” the servers that send people to the numerical address of the website name they enter. [...] “This is about the integrity of the Web, this is about the integrity of e-mail,” Kaminsky said. “It’s more, but I can’t talk about how much more.” So learning more about that exploit will be very interesting, and should lead to more people investigating and deploying DNSSEC, a DNS option built with security in mind from the ground up. So there’s that, but now there’s something even more fun because it deals with a companies lack of openness in regards to their security methods. A talk at Black Hat yesterday was scrubbed at the last minute by folks over in marketing at Apple. It seems that they blocked the scheduled presentation that was, “…to give an inside look at the ultra-secretive company’s security response team. “Marketing got wind of it, and nobody at Apple is ever allowed to speak publicly about anything without marketing approval,” a Black Hat organizer told IDG News.” This is unfortunate for Apple, who are reeling after a week of beatings in the ‘blogosphere’ over their handling, or non-handling, of their update for the DNS flaw we mentioned above! “Apple’s policy of saying next to nothing about how it goes about protecting its users from escalating threats is, to say the least, unfortunate. Just last week, the company said it had patched its software from a serious flaw in the net’s address lookup system. Three days after two separate researchers warned Mac clients are still vulnerable to the flaw, Apple hasn’t uttered a word, an omission that generates confusion and doubt in those who depend on the vendor. Apple’s tight-lipped policy.” Come on Apple, you preach about how you’re ‘Open Source’, but then continue along the path of the old school hide and seek ways. Hell, people are already pointing out how their methods are less open than Microsoft’s in releasing information about security. What are they so afraid of? Ah, but we’ll learn more come Thursday, I’ll be in Vegas for my third Defcon and can’t wait. Watch for updates here, or more timely ones over at our Twitter profile.
4 reasons why Macs are moving into the enterprise
With the barriers lowering, and other market factors creeping in, Macs are slowly making a move into the enterprise. While this may/may not solely be Apple driven, the fact is that people like choices, and the Macs are now far more compatible with other systems than they once were, so finally folks have options. In my recent travels to Woods Hole we had ~14-15 developers from around the world, and there were 4 Macs there. Of course we had the normal thing where someone couldn’t get something working in Windows, Mac folks would chime in with, “just works on a mac” and later when Mac folks couldn’t plug a projector into the certain Macs, the windows folks throw the, “just works in windows”, so it was all in good fun. So while I don’t consider these folks “enterprise” as in working for a corporation, it clearly shows that more people can use what they want, and have IT adapt for their needs. I talked to a friend up there about his MacBook Pro – it’s a beauty of a machine, and he loves it b/c he can do everything he needs, plus run windows for dev work that you can only do in Windows. Of course if I had such a beast it’d be running Linux, and that’s my argument for my buying my Dell laptop; while the Apple is nicer, it was also ~2500$ more than the Dell. Yes, maybe when my work buys me a ‘top I’ll rethink it – but now I’m thinking smaller again – and I really like the Xseries Thinkpads (used be by IBM, but now it’s Lenovo – but the same otherwise) and they’ve always had excellent Linux ability. two devs in WH had those, and I had to borrow them – not to work on them, just to pick them up – nice and light, thin, but with high screen resolution. of course for a full fledged system like thatI could also look at the MacBook which shares most of the Thinkpads features – but for a Mac I’d prefer the black MacBook after my long, drawn out suffering with my old iBook…but I digress. Now, what was the question? Oh yeah, more Macs in the workplace, yeah, it’s how I’ve always said it should be, and it’s more that way now. I run Debian Linux at work now, on my work provided HP desktop machine, on my personal Dell laptop when I bring it, on my Development server, and (soon) on my production server. What kind of support do I need from IT? Gimme an IP and a gateway IP and I’m all set. So, in conclusion, I believe four reasons for Apple’s success with people using more Macs at work is due to the following reasons:
- x86 processor which allows the bridge to those who still *think* they need Windows.
- Microsoft’s epic fail with Vista has frustrated users to no end, witness the stay of execution XP has recieved from Dell.
- Apple’s awesome design sense, which cannot be duplicated, puts it in that “wow, gotta have that gadget” bucket
- and lastly (and maybe to a lighter extent) the fact that Darwin is a Unix derivative, so *geeks* can use it and get the same thrill they do via Linux. I’ve seen this not only on my trip, but to the annual DefCon, where Macs are shown alongside the blocky black laptops of yore.
Look, business is like everything else, to survive it must evolve. Plus, choice is freedom, which makes it an inherint human desire. Wouldn’t you rather work somewhere that allowed, and TRUSTED, you to work with whichever OS you perferred?
Running XP on a Mac – is Boot Camp active when Windows is loaded?
Today at work someone running Windows on a Mac was having an issue communicating through the third party firewall software. The response from the third party was that they don’t support Mac, but my contention is that Mac has nothing to do with someone running Windows, after installing it via Boot Camp. I want to know the answer to this, so I’m posting it here, feel free to educate me if I’m missing something. (Note: names have been changed to protect the (non) supporting party). So, it is my understanding that Boot Camp only installs Windows on a Mac machine (does the partitioning, installs some drivers for the hardware and guides you through installing Windows from an existing CD) after that when you boot the system you can choose Mac’s OS X or Windows, and that after choosing Windows it’s running ‘natively’ on the hardware and not under any kind of virtualization. From Apple’s site:
Boot Camp simplifies Windows installation on an Intel-based Mac by providing a simple graphical step-by-step assistant application to dynamically create a second partition on the hard drive for Windows, to burn a CD with all the necessary Windows drivers, and to install Windows from a Windows XP installation CD. After installation is complete, users can choose to run either Mac OS X or Windows when they restart their computer. (more…)
Buying a Linux laptop in 2007
It’s time for a new laptop, as I’ve detailed, I’ve ripped apart, inserted coins and duct-taped the old iBook back together again enough times, and it’s no longer viable. It’ll work fine on a flat surface, but if you try to use it as a laptop the minor flexing must loosen the video chip, because you quickly find your video locked, with a hard reboot the only fix. The wildcards are me as a buyer, since I’m hardly ordinary with my expectation that any laptop or desktop I’m going to buy is only going to run Linux, and the recent announcements by HP, IBM/Lenovo and Dell about their Linux support (some even pre-installed), I knew I’d finally have choices to consider. In the end I came up with a pretty current system, that Debian or Ubuntu will be 100% compatible with, and will be proud to call home. The detailed specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, 1.6GHz, 800Mhz FSB, 2M L2 Cache
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD display
1GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 DIMM
128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
120G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem
8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Integrated High Definition Audio 2.0
Intel 3945 WLAN (802.11a/g) Mini Card
Integrated 2.0 mega pixel webcam
Integrated Bluetooth
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
This is more system that I originally spec’d out, but the price was right, so I’m very happy. Before I reveal which brand I picked, I’ll tell the interesting story of how I ended up with the ‘top I did, and how things compare for laptop Linux options these days, it’s an interesting ride.
NOTE: feel free to Digg this article if you like it.
80G Black iPod classic FTW!
UPDATE: Hold the phone here, before going too gaga over the new iPods, it’s been revealed that they’ve been ‘re-engineered’ to lock out folks trying to sync their iPods using 3rd party apps, or (gasp) Linux! That’s right, they want you to use ONLY Windows or OSX and iTunes…this is ridiculous. See my post on our sister site Left to chance to learn more. This is what we talk about when we say Digital Rights, we can’t give them up now and expect to have them in the future!
If you didn’t see, hear, or read the announcement on the new iPods, go to Apple now and check them out. While refreshing the entire line, they made the (useless in my opinion) shuffle different colors, the Nano shorter and fatter (to allow for video), re-branded the traditional looking iPods to iPod classic, and revealed the hotly anticipated iPod Touch, basically an iPhone without a phone, but with Wifi and Safari. All in all, very cool, but the Touch is just silly, it seems far more the novelty/status symbol, with the real sweet spot for me being the iPod classic. They did away with the shinny plastic (that only serves to collect scratches) of the old iPods for brushed metal, and it looks very cool in the silver (white?), but for me, it’s Black FTW! Damn that’s nice, and here I am listening to the latest release from The Shins (name dropped because it’s such a great CD) on my old 20G click wheel! I have tons of music at home, so larger capacity would be nice, but damn, with that much space I could slap vids of unreleased live shows I’m gathering via bitorrent, and even shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Yeah, that has me written all over it (no, I would not get my name engraved on the back, still trying to think of something witty I would put on there though…’you don’t have to kick it’ would be nice!)
Download iPhone ringtones
In a sure bid to quickly tap out out his bandwidth quota, Jason Romero posts a set of iPhone ringtones. “Until you are ready to shell out $600 for the new iPhone, you can trick out your current phone with the ringtones taken straight off of the iPhone. Dowload them HERE.“ I’m a fan of the ‘pinball’ one, that may fit well on my Razr with the help of moto4lin.
HOWTO: fix a G3 iBook with a “bad logic board” for 26 cents
I’ve had a 12″ G3 iBook since ~2002, and I’ve really liked it. Of course me being me, I’ve run Linux on it for almost the whole time, even running a dual boot of OS X and Gentoo Linux back when I used this puppy on the job. The only thing I (and likely millions of other customers) didn’t like is the systemic “logic board” failure. Yes, the logic board, which is just Apple’s name for the motherboard, would fail, prompting a call to Apple, followed by about a one week turnaround on the repair, which was all covered under warranty. The only thing is, this only reset your iBook back to the original state, after using the iBook for so long, this issue would occur again, leaving you with a shinny door stop. Mine had come and gone 3 times, so this final failure fell far outside of even the extended program to cover the fix. Fast forward to last week, I had resigned from my gig at Mastercard, thus turning in my work laptop, leaving with no convent way (I can go downstairs to my desktop, but…) to work on a system and check my email. I got the iBook out of the drawer and started looking around for info online to solve this from a DIY angle. One interesting way was to burn a tea light directly on the video chip, eventually making it hot enough to resolder itself to the board! I was going to do this, when I found a lower tech, less risky, fix, with perhaps even more permanent results. You open the iBook, put some sort of shim just underneath the video chip forcing it to stay in contact with the logic board; that’s it! There are plenty of sites out there now talking about this, but this one seemed the most direct. So I opened the iBook, found that little square you see in the pictures, duct taped a penny topped by a quarter to the metal, and all of a sudden had a revived laptop. It’s fun when things are so easy. Oh, and Ubuntu Linux Feisty (7.04) for the PowerPC runs very, nicely on the iBook! So much more power saving features, and the promise of Gnash to cover all the flash sites makes it a great laptop.
Quake II Universal Binary released
Anyone that knows me (or Chuck Bucket) knows that Quake II is my all time favorite online game. I can’t even imagine the time I spent playing that game, I’m just glad it didn’t come out when I was in college, because then it would have just taken over everything. As it was I spent plenty of late nights fragging away with friend and foe. I fell in with a particular mod called Weapons Of Destruction back in 1997 or so, on a server out in Orange County, CA called DugDogs. We’d always have a great time late at night, making friends who would email and talk back on Doug’s forum on the same server. A virtual community that lived to tweak their systems and configuration files to give them the edge on the insult binds, a faster draw, or whatver would cause the most death, chaos and laughs. Last year I even launched a WOD Quake II Server online to allow for others to join in the fun. I’ve played newer games, Return to Castle Wolfenstein being my favorite, but nothing matched the sheer excitement that Quake II (modded or not) would generate. The ‘kill em all’ mantra just left you running down each coridor, aiming high and low around each corner. So, why do I bring this up? Someone has ported the Quake II client to a Universal Binary, so now it plays on OS X under the Intel Macs. We know the Mac Mini’s graphics card is far superior to whatever Voodoo3 we used to play online with, so what fun it’ll be to drop this on a new Mini, configure the WOD mod, pop open a beer and head out looking for servers online…
Linux speeds past OS X (again)
Alright, so now that you can run Linux and Mac OS X on the same native hardware that Linux was originally built, a more direct comparison of speed and efficiency can be achieved between the two venerable operating systems. (You know, because before Apple moved to Intel chips, PowerPC/RISC was tons more efficient and x86/CISC instruction set was so old, crappy, etc…or as the marketing folks wanted you to think…) Yes, in the past we saw how Linux was far more efficient as a server when running on an Opteron vs a G5. In the first round of test, ”…The MySQL database running on Mac OS X and the Dual G5 was up to 10 times slower than on the Dual Opteron running Linux.” Later, more tests were attempted running OS X and Linux on the same G5 hardware, with almost no change in results since, ”Mac OS X is incredibly slow, between 2 and 5(!) times slower, in creating new threads … the performance of server applications depends greatly on the threading, signaling and locking engine. … a PowerPC optimized Linux such as Yellow Dog is a better idea for the Xserve than Mac OS X server.” More server tests using popular Database MySQL and web server Apache showed only more grief for OS X, ”Running Yellow Dog Linux, the Dual G5 simply wipes the floor with Mac OS X: 411 versus 113 queries per second. It gets worse at 10 concurrent users: 443 queries per second on Linux versus 62 on Mac Os X. Around 20 connections, performance declines only very slowly just like all the x86/Linux machines.” With Apache results predictably poor as well, showing, ”Apachebench on Mac OS X gets in trouble again. Version 2.0 is slightly faster on OS X, but it still trails by a significant margin. On the other hand, YDL and the Xeon platform are roughly 3X as fast with version 2.0.” And concluding with, ”Even if we ignore the Apache results, our MySQL tests – and the queries used in these tests – are based on a real world usage pattern of a real world database. The G5 is partially crippled by a chipset that takes a long time to access the memory, and it’s not the fastest integer CPU; still, it performs like a 3 GHz Xeon on Linux. The problem clearly lies in Mac OS X, and is worth further investigation. …if you plan to run MySQL on Apple hardware, it is better to install YDL Linux than to use OS X. If you need excellent read performance, the maximum performance of your server will be up to 8 times better.” Ouch, so for a server OS X falls flat on its face, regardless of what tests it gets put in next to Linux, but how about on the Desktop? Surely the Intel Duo Core chips can keep up with basic low level operations needed to push desktop windows around…or does it? Well now we have answers on that front as well.
Unfortunately for Apple, the results for more basic desktop apps is still staggering, with the latest set of numbers just showing how powerful and tuned Linux really is. His comments on the tests, ”Both Linux and Windows XP are vastly faster than OS X: more than twice as fast. And Linux is somewhat faster than Windows XP … This second benchmarks looks better for OS X, but it is still about 1.2 times slower than Linux. And the gap between Linux and Windows has grown from about 5 to about 10 percent.” Amazing numbers. His conclusion is obvious now, ”Linux is found to be much faster than Apple’s OS X for statistical computing. And although Linux is 5 to 10 percent faster than Windows XP, both are markedly faster than OS X. For example, in one benchmark both Linux and Windows XP are more than twice as fast as OS X. The results on this page were conducted on a MacBookpro with a 2.16Ghz Intel Core Duo chip and 2GB of RAM.” Eek, so there you have it, same hardware now, and finally we’re comparing Apples to Apples (pun intended). Give Microsoft credit for almost keeping up with Linux, this despite all it’s legacy handlers getting in the way is an achievement in it’s own right. And so it continues, with many of the issues with threading and forking being blamed (again) on OS X’s kernel design, which includes the Mach kernel, then BSD, then the I/O Kit, file systems, and networking components. Again, folks that understand this more will be more qualified to debate this approach versus Linus’ path of a Microkernel, but now that all things are ‘even’ we can finally see some real world performance comparisons of OS X on Intel versus Linux on the hardware on which it was natively designed and developed.
People on the web have recently been speculating whether ”Apple with drop the Mach micro-kernel portion of XNU. These rumors have picked with the departure of Avie Tevanian, an important figure in the development of the Mach Kernel first at Carnegie Mellon and then at Apple.” Clearly something needs to change so that OS X’s full potential can be realized on the awesome hardware platform they’ve plugged it into. Does this sway me from still wanting an Intel Mac Mini? Na, it’s got the photo and movie apps I want, plus I can still run Linux on it, so it’s really the best of both…I mean, all worlds since I could have XP running the latest Steam games online too.
OS X: 6 new zero-day exploits
Logic dictates that as Apple gets more popular it will increasingly become a more popular target for nefarious types, thus more vulnerabilities will be discovered, but this one is huge; OS X hit by 6 new zero-day bugs. ”At least six zero-day vulnerabilities in Apple Computer Inc.’s Mac OS X were disclosed earlier this week by an independent researcher, who noted that all can crash applications or the operating system, and some may let attackers hijack systems. Four of the bugs relate to how the Mac’s OS parses various image file formats – including BMP, TIFF, and GIF, one to how OS X decompresses malformed ZIP archives, and “several” affect Apple’s Safari browser, said researcher Tom Ferris in numerous advisories posted Wednesday to his Security Protocols site. All impact OS X 10.4.6 – the most-current edition – as well as earlier editions, said Ferris, who added that they can result in localized denial-of-service (DoS), in other words “crashes,” and may be further exploitable by attackers installing their own malicious code on compromised Macs.” As is usually the case, the researcher revealed these bugs only to the company at first, but after no action he’s now effectively forcing the issue with Apple. ”Apple was notified of some of the vulnerabilities in January, others in February, but has not yet patched any of them, claimed Ferris.”
Mac Mini doing fast OS switching
Wowser, here’s vid of a Mac mini Duo, doing some fast OS switching. It’s running OS X with Parallels and Virtue Desktops which allows it to run Windows XP and Red Hat 4 ES all at the same time. The switching between the 3 OSs uses the ‘cube effect’ just like the fast user switching of OS X, and looks to be just as swift. I think that’s about all I need to see, if I can have a Mac Mini Duo running a triple boot like that, I think I’ll be all set (for a few weeks).
UPDATE: it looks like it would only cost an additional about 78$ for a 512Meg RAM chip to bring this puppy up to 1G total. OS X seems to ‘need’ at least 1G RAM in my experience, plus this would be way more than enough to run a few OSs at once, or at least the ones I need; OS X and Linux. Looking around it seems that replacing the RAM is quite the adventure! Time to find my tweezers.
New features in Windows Vista!
Here’s a nicely done overview of the great new features you can expect from Windows Vista, whenever it’s released that is. A really nicely done comparison of what is new, and what is borrowed.
The (BSO) death of an iMac
Not much to say on this, one, so here’s the article. ”Well, that didn’t take long. It seems that Windows’ crash-tastic tendencies aren’t limited to PCs. Check out this post by Deal Catcher forum user dbaxter. He writes that after installing Boot Camp, things were going swimmingly…for thirty minutes. While browsing USB devices, Windows did what Windows does best. Nothing. Since this is the first we’ve seen the BSOD as generated by Windows on an Mactel following a Boot Camp install, it would seem that dbaxter has produced the 1st “official” BSOD on an Mac. What an honor.” Here’s a full sized image, or a parody video.
Run Windows on Intel Macs with Apple’s blessing
First let’s recall after Apple announced it was moving to Intel chips this quote, ”We haven’t done anything to explicitly prevent it, but we haven’t done anything to encourage it either,” Apple Senior Product Line Manager Wiley Hodges said of running Windows on Macs. If this was ever true, it is no longer. After all the talk about how to get Windows XP running on the new Intel Macs, and the subsequent contest that made some hacker 13,000$USD richer, Apple has gone ahead and released Boot Camp, software that sets up and allows for dual booting of OS X and Windows XP. They even released a ‘firmware update’ so that Macs will have the native BIOS support boot other OSs (like Windows, Linux, BSD, Beos, etc) on all of their present Mactels, and we suspect future releases will just include this ‘update’, making Boot Camp unnecessary for Linux/BSD fans. But get this, once you install the BIOS update, boots of your Mac will include ”…a very loud, un-Mac-like system beep is normal at the start of this process.” Ekk! As you can tell I’m unsure of how to feel about this, so of course first let’s go to Apple’s sales pitch, ”More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.” Of course this will fan the flames of conspiracies promoting the theory that Apple is going to base its next major OS upgrade on Windows, but I think it’s just what it seems; another way of Apple trying for a bigger piece of the pie. I don’t know if I think it’s a good or bad idea, or if Apple envisioned this before or during the switch to Intel chips from PowerPC; but regardless, this changes everything. The tradional Mac user’s “You run Windows? Yuck” comment will be turned on it’s side now as more and more will opt for the beautifully designed Macs instead of the standard/drab Dell boxen that are so prevalent, but I’m sure at the heart of the matter is the enterprise, where Windows has always reigned supreme. Would Apple really want to sell more Macs to companies just so they can run Windows on them? I doubt it, I suspect Boot Camp will provide the ‘virtualization’ that everyone is talking about, and yes, Boot Camp does support running both OSs side by side, but look to the future where you can click on an icon and have a Windows app come up in OS X just like OS 9 (classic) apps do now. Strange times? Yes, but hey, Apple stock holders will be happy, many more people will consider and buy Macs now; but long term what will it mean for the Apple experience? That indescribable feeling of being outside of the mainstream? I know the Mac faithful will say this is another, “Brilliant move!” by Steve Jobs, and I truly hope it is, but I don’t know right now. I want it to be, but my gut says it’s not. Please quote me on this, as I so much want to be wrong.
Ok, so enough of my ‘what if’ babble, back to my passion of ‘what if Linux’ babble! Clearly many geeks are holding out on their next computer purchase waiting to see when Linux distros will not only successfully boot on Intel Macs (alas, you could boot Linux on an Intel Mac before it could boot XP, and runs the standard Gnome desktop on Linux now too) – but after today’s Boot Camp / new firmware release, people already have Ubuntu Linux running on Mactels without any funny tricks (picture). The cat, as they say, is out of the bag. Even though I’m highly allergic to cats, my next computer will likely be a Macbook to replace my aging G3 iBook and it’ll run at least OS X and Linux, with Windows as an option if I work somewhere that allows me to run my own laptop, but not a non-win OS – and then FreeBSD just because I can. Quad-boot. Cool? Sure, but I feel weird, it’s the kind of weird I felt when I heard Apple was going Intel; it’s like, where’s the punchline? Of course in the geek community this story is moving at the speed of light, just now there’s a new Slashdot article that includes comments from a PC World (!?) review which includes comments like, ”…preferences page that Boot Camp installs to ensure that XP was set as the default OS” and ”I’d think I was working on a standard Windows PC with a wide-screen monitor. And that’s exactly what you’d want from a usable dual-boot system.” I am starting to worry that Apple *is* going the way that all the na-sayers said, more mainstream, less unique and perhaps in the future less focused on the OS, and just on hardware. If OS X slips away and people are just buying Macs to run Windows on it the whole dynamic is lost. I’ve already slept on it, and I’m still conflicted. Oh well, what else is new! And this whole thing has me thinking, I wonder what I can get if I wanted to sell a 3.2Gig Pentium 4 Dell with a 6600GT Nvidia card…and how much one of those new iMacs go for? So, to close with a Wall Street Journal’s comment, ”All in all, Boot Camp works really well. Whether you want to run Mac or Windows programs, an Apple computer may be the only computer you’ll need.” Indeed.
Hi, I'm fak3r and I've been online for over 15 years, blogging for 10. I work with open source software, various hardware and whatever else that I can hack on. I enjoy learning by doing, painting infrequently and listening to more music than the law allows. Feel free to follow me and comment on my thoughts and ideas; we're all in it together kid.
