Here you guys go, another comic to swallow. Be sure to take with plenty of water.

epic fail - FAIL Nation: Probably Bad News: Damn Route Changes

(Restaurant | Margarita, Venezuela)

Me: “Evening! Welcome to [restaurant]. How can I serve you?”

Customer: “I’m sorry, I don’t see the Californian wine in the menu.”

Me: “That’s because we don’t have it, miss.”

Customer: “And why is that, exactly? I am a wine lover. The Californian wine is the very best and I only drink the very best.”

Me: “Well, ma’am, because the Californian wine has a very low demand in this country, it is extremely hard to find. We have Chilean and Argentinian wine, if you like.”

Customer: “All right. I guess i’ll have to adjust to your low standards. Give me a bottle of the Chilean.”

Me: “All right, miss. Would you have Cabernet, Malbec, or Carmenerè?”

Customer: “I don’t want any of that! I just want red wine! Is it so hard to understand that?

Me: “All right, ma’am, I’ll bring you the Cabernet then.”

Customer: “I said I don’t want that? I only want red wine! Please get me the manager!”

Seriously Steam, stop reminding me that I have all these great games I could be playing instead of doing work.

What’s that?  L.A. Noire?  I haven’t played it in a couple weeks and you want me to play it, steam?  Haha, … ok.  Ok ok, no need to yell.

Oh yes, and remember, I just got these handshake consultant shirts in for the preordering!

I went to Club Lash this weekend with my partner S and three friends, all of us dressed as 1920s gangsters (and winning the costume prize, for our take on My Sinful Valentine – we were, of course, the Valentine’s Day Massacre mobsters).

Most of the night, as is usual with Lash, was spent wandering around, finding seats where we could, chatting and drinking, flirting and playing with the comedy tommy gun fetched along by one member of the group, plus a couple of wonderful sessions in the dungeon space, subject at various points and in several positions to a flogger, a paddle and an Wartenburg pinwheel.

It was the first time S and I have really played together properly, and the first time in public, which made the night all the more thrilling. Before playing, we agreed upon two safewords – amber for “slow down” and red for “stop, right now”.
S took me up to the point I called amber several times, each time stopping and standing close to me, holding and talking to me until I was ready to start again, looking after me. The second time I called, I eventually asked to stop completely, needing a longer respite than I’d first thought, and S took me over to a bench to cuddle and come down from my subspace with him. We returned to the dungeon later with the other three members of the group for further play, and our safeword changed to a squeezed hand, so that we didn’t have to contest with increased music volume.

I’ve been around the scene long enough to know the attitude from some doms that subs should not safeword, that safewording is seen as a sign of weakness. I know that safewording is strong and I know that S would far rather I safeword than push myself too far, and I was shocked to find myself feeling more and more guilty each time I raised my head to call out. But I safeworded when I needed to, and tried to ignore my guilt, reminding myself as much as he loves flogging, he’d rather that I was safe and happy.

As S stood by my side, holding my hand, he whispered “Good girl. You’re so brave.” and my heart lifted. Several times, he said it, calling me brave and wonderful, and each time I felt a little better about asking for a break, and asking to stop.

I’d never expected that I’d feel guilty. But the most wonderful thing S could have said, he did without even knowing I needed it. (I asked him later, and he told me that he didn’t know, but “in that moment I was struck by how brave and strong you are and wanted to tell you so”.)

I didn’t feel brave or strong, but hearing my top tell me that it was okay, that I was strong – it made my night.

My article yesterday about the vendor prefix mess garnered quite a few interesting comments, and today I’d like to respond to those that object against my proposal to replace the current system by a universal -beta- prefix by proposing an additional -alpha- prefix.

Before delving into the pros and cons of -beta-, let’s briefly restate the problem:

1. It’s clearly in the interest of IE, Firefox, and Opera to start supporting -webkit- prefixes, and they will do so.
2. Currently the onus of maintaining the system is laid on web developers, and they’re just not going to do that. The movement to make them aware of the problem is going to fail because it’s just too much work and doesn’t solve the real problems. It only addresses the symptoms.
3. Thus the current vendor prefix system is dead.
4. Still, there should be a way of creating a “beta namespace” for experimental CSS features.
5. Thus, we need proposals for a new system. Unfortunately, except for the -beta- solution I haven’t heard of any yet.

I’m not saying -beta- is perfect. I am, however, saying, that we need something new. Unfortunately opponents of the -beta- solution refuse to acknowledge that the situation has changed, and continue to beat the dead horse of getting web developers to solve what’s essentially a W3C problem.

If you don’t like -beta-, propose something else. We can only make the best choice if we have several alternatives to choose from.

Update: I was directed to this proposal. Although I think it's too complicated (especially the versioning), it's good to see others thinking about alternative systems.

One other point needs to be cleared up before we proceed: the fact that the current system is dead does not mean that the current vendor prefixes should be removed from all browsers. On the contrary: they are still necessary for backward compatibility, and will probably continue to exist forever. Only new experimental CSS declarations should use the new system.

-beta- pros and cons

The main advantage of the -beta- system would be that it puts the onus of maintaining it on the standards bodies and browser vendors instead of web developers. Web developers who want to use an experimental feature just add -beta-coolfeature to their CSS, and they’re done forever — unless the feature changes (but they run that risk nowadays, too).

Still, there are also disadvantages. Stuart Langridge worded them first and clearest:

if opera adds -beta-ppk: 100% and mozilla adds -beta-ppk: 1.0 then there is no way a dev can write a style sheet that works in both

This is totally true. If two browsers use two different values, your -beta-coolfeature will work in only one.

My take is: so what? Isn’t this how experimental features are supposed to work?

The underlying assumption is that we as web developers should be able to use all -beta- features in production code from day 1. Although I admit that this is what’s currently happening, we should wonder whether it’s the desired outcome. Unfortunately I know too little about the history and stated purposes of the current vendor prefixes to answer that question.

Still, the contention that a beta feature is used at your own risk, and without certainty of cross-browser support, doesn’t strike me as entirely unreasonable.

Underlying web developers’ desire to start using beta features is the fact that W3C is so terribly slow in moving features to final specification. This problem is not new, and there’s even something to be said for slow and careful deliberation, but right now the costs of maintaining this system rests squarely on web developers. That, to me, is the true problem.

-alpha-

Then Twitter user Philippe Antoine proposed an additional -alpha- prefix. After thinking about it for a few seconds I decided that I like it, and that it may solve some of the objections against -beta-. Essentially, it provides a basic versioning mechanism.

It would work roughly as follows:

1. A browser wants to implement a new CSS feature, and creates -alpha-coolfeature: 100% for web developers to evaluate it.
2. Another browser agrees with the basic idea but disagrees with the syntax and decides on -alpha-coolfeature: 1.0.
3. These differences of opinion are quite allowed in this stage, and web developers will not be able to use coolfeature cross-browser with a single line of CSS. It’s an alpha feature, after all.
4. After some discussion and an initial submission to W3C, let’s assume everbody agrees the feature is a good idea, and the first browser agrees that 1.0 is better than 100%. Now we’re ready to move to the next stage.
5. All browsers implement -beta-coolfeature: 1.0, and make -alpha-coolfeature an alias that points to it. Note that the style sheets that use -alpha-coolfeature: 100% are going to break now. That is perfectly all right: alpha features cannot be expected to stick around forever.
   Update: After thinking about it I'm not so sure any more the -alpha- should stick around. Maybe it's better to remove it entirely, so that the temporary nature of alpha declarations is stressed.
6. By this time, web developers will be certain that the -beta-coolfeature: 1.0 syntax is one for the ages, and may implement it in production code without fear of future breakage.
7. Still, in this stage there are likely to be some differences in implementation. This is comparable to the current situation where -webkit-coolfeature may differ slightly from -moz-coolfeature.
8. Once the standardisation process has moved on and all browser differences are resolved, the browsers implement coolfeature: 1.0 and -beta-coolfeature becomes an alias. Breakage of style sheets does not occur, although minor side effects in some browsers are possible, just as they are under today’s vendor prefix system.

Thus the most visible part of the change from -alpha- to -beta- would be that the syntax stabilises. Browser vendors should also have reached an agreement on the basics of the new feature, but that’s generally less visible.

The best part of this proposal is that it’s pretty easy to explain even to newbies: -beta- is reasonably safe, while -alpha- isn’t. If you use -alpha- you’re totally on your own. If you use -beta-, on the other hand, you’re in the same situation as with today’s vendor prefixes, and you can safely expect the syntax, at least, not to change any more.

So I modify my proposal to an -alpha-/-beta- system that solves most of the objections that were brought in against a pure -beta- system.

If you still don’t like it, by all means propose your own system. But please don’t pretend that maintaining the current system is an option. Vendor prefixes are dead, and any further discussion should take that fact into account.

funny puns - His Ex Got Impaled? Haddaway to Go!

Submitted by: Unknown

Via: Vlad the Impale Her

(Restaurant | Baltimore, MD, USA)

Me: “Hi, can I help you?

Customer: “Yeah, when do you start lunch?”

Me: “At 10:30, ma’am.”

Customer: “Okay, so can I get [large lunch meal]?”

Me: “No, ma’am, it’s still breakfast.”

Customer: “But you just said you start lunch at 10:30!”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, but it’s not 10:30 yet.”

Customer: “What time is it?”

Me: “6:00 am, ma’am.”

Customer: “Oh.” *long pause* “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was this high when I left the house!”

One of the handiest tools in the OpenSSL toolbox is s_client. You can quickly view lots of details about the SSL certificates installed on a particular server and diagnose problems. For example, use this command to look at Google's SSL certificates:

openssl s_client -connect encrypted.google.com:443

You'll see the chain of certificates back to the original certificate authority where Google bought its certificate at the top, a copy of their SSL certificate in plain text in the middle, and a bunch of session-related information at the bottom.

This works really well when a site has one SSL certificate installed per IP address (this used to be a hard requirement). With Server Name Indication (SNI), a web server can have multiple SSL certificates installed on the same IP address. SNI-capable browsers will specify the hostname of the server they're trying to reach during the initial handshake process. This allows the web server to determine the correct SSL certificate to use for the connection.

If you try to connect to rackerhacker.com with s_client, you'll find that you receive the default SSL certificate installed on my server and not the one for this site:

$ openssl s_client -connect rackerhacker.com:443
Certificate chain
 0 s:/C=US/ST=Texas/L=San Antonio/O=MHTX Enterprises/CN=*.mhtx.net
   i:/C=US/O=SecureTrust Corporation/CN=SecureTrust CA
 1 s:/C=US/O=SecureTrust Corporation/CN=SecureTrust CA
   i:/C=US/O=Entrust.net/OU=www.entrust.net/CPS incorp. by ref. (limits liab.)/OU=(c) 1999 Entrust.net Limited/CN=Entrust.net Secure Server Certification Authority

Add on the -servername argument and s_client will do the additional SNI negotiation step for you:

$ openssl s_client -connect rackerhacker.com:443 -servername rackerhacker.com
Certificate chain
 0 s:/OU=Domain Control Validated/OU=PositiveSSL/CN=rackerhacker.com
   i:/C=GB/ST=Greater Manchester/L=Salford/O=Comodo CA Limited/CN=PositiveSSL CA
 1 s:/C=GB/ST=Greater Manchester/L=Salford/O=Comodo CA Limited/CN=PositiveSSL CA
   i:/C=US/ST=UT/L=Salt Lake City/O=The USERTRUST Network/OU=http://www.usertrust.com/CN=UTN-USERFirst-Hardware
 2 s:/C=US/ST=UT/L=Salt Lake City/O=The USERTRUST Network/OU=http://www.usertrust.com/CN=UTN-USERFirst-Hardware
   i:/C=SE/O=AddTrust AB/OU=AddTrust External TTP Network/CN=AddTrust External CA Root
 3 s:/C=SE/O=AddTrust AB/OU=AddTrust External TTP Network/CN=AddTrust External CA Root
   i:/C=SE/O=AddTrust AB/OU=AddTrust External TTP Network/CN=AddTrust External CA Root

You may be asking yourself this question:

Why doesn't the web server just use the Host: header that my browser sends already to figure out which SSL certificate to use?

Keep in mind that the SSL negotiation must occur prior to sending the HTTP request through to the remote server. That means that the browser and the server have to do the certificate exchange earlier in the process and the browser wouldn't get the opportunity to specify which site it's trying to reach. SNI fixes that by allowing a Host: header type of exchange during the SSL negotiation process.

Using OpenSSL's s_client command with web servers using Server Name Indication (SNI) is a post from: Major Hayden's Racker Hacker blog.

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Or, as Petrarch said, we go together like ramalamalamakadingadydingdadong.

Yep. I’m slowly releasing my CYOA to the world, a page every two years.

wtf photos videos - Untitled

Submitted by:

Norwegia

Tweet

First of all, yes, I know that all homonyms are technically homophones, but that would be boring to explain as a comic.

Awwww! I feel kind of bad for the Homonym Vampire and his very silly power! He doesn't explain it in this comic, but he's a close relative of the Homophone Vampire (sometimes called the Heterograph Vampire).

I feel like I could do some more work with linguistics/grammar jokes and supernatural creatures. Like exploring the family tree of the Interrogative Wherewolf: the Whenwolf, the Whatwolf, the Whowolf, the Whichwolf, and the lesser-known Whitherwolf (among others).

...actually, I think I will do that. Now to begin brainstorming!

Hey look at that!  It’s an exaggerated version of my mom!

Yesterday, I took part in the very fun Hourly Comics thing!  If you have ever wondered what I do during the day, this will give you that sneak peek you’ve been waiting for!  I will have those up for you hopefully this weekend.  If you can’t wait until then, you could look at the one from 2010 and/or the one from last year over on my other site, Left-Handed Toons.

Oh yes, I’m also working on a handshake consultant shirt for you =)  Should be done very soon.

NASA orbiter gives glimpse of moon’s far side

I loved the far side. You just can’t find any funny comics these days…wait…never mind that last part

Here’s a comic for today! It’s here even though Tony was solving crimes while Wes had a close call.

white trash repairs - Meanwhile, At Aperture Labs

Submitted by:

phil2811

sacrifices must be made to attain glory

My science friend Andrew gone did a blog about dem Voyager probes, go have yourselves a look.

white trash repairs - Power Peeling

Submitted by:

Dar-Kfrei

Via: rrron.livejournal.com

(Bookstore | Michigan, USA)

Customer: “Hi, I’d like to return this item, I can’t give it as a gift .”

(He hands me a copy of Pygmalion.)

Me: “That shouldn’t be a problem. Is there anything wrong with it?”

Customer: “Turns out it’s a play. They wont be able to read it.”

Me: “Oh, they don’t like plays?”

Customer: “No, they can’t read it because there aren’t enough people to read the parts!”

Me: “Might I suggest that they just read it like a regular book?”

Customer: *looks at me like I’m crazy*

Click and laugh.