CrowdStrike out of the news, but still a problem

 

This is out of the news because of all the politics. It's a shocking case of arrogance. The story sounds like LAUSD incompetent principals who are kicked from one school to another. I put in some bold to direct your attention.

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CrowdStrike Didn't Just Affect Windows But Linux Too! (Kind Of)

CrowdStrike wreaking havoc everywhere!

SOURAV RUDRA

July 23, 2024 . 3:06 PM  3 min read

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At the end of last week, the IT industry saw a catastrophic event take place thanks to a faulty patch pushed into Windows by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm based out of Austin, Texas.

Even though its timing might've been a boon for those looking to get off work early.

Many critical infrastructures such as Airports and Medical facilities had to bear the brunt of it, raising many important questions over dependence on such centralized pieces of tech.

Luckily, the issue has since been addressed, but this didn't stop many, including us, from creating some funny memes on CrowdStrike's plight.

Sadly, Linux was also affected by Crowdstrike weeks before this catastrophic event occurred, which largely went unknown, until now, that is.

CrowdStrike's Incompetence: A Heavy Price To Pay For Second-Class Treatment

Back in May, a Rocky Linux user posted an issue on the forum which reported that upgrading to Rocky Linux 9.4 on servers equipped with CrowdStrike's Falcon platform would result in a system freeze due to a kernel panic.

Other users also chimed in, facing similar issues, and after going around looking for potential fixes, they finally found one in Red Hat's Customer Portal, more on that in a bit.

On Hacker News, another user suffering from CrowdStrike's incompetence shared that a fleet of production machines running Debian were taken offline when CrowdStrike pushed an incompatible patch for Debian stable.

When they initially contacted support, CrowdStrike took a day to respond, then asked for more proof, beyond what was already provided, they then took some days to acknowledge it.

And, after making them wait for a couple of weeks, they sent a root cause analysis, which mentioned that they didn't support this specific scenario of Debian stable running version N-1, which the user believed was a supported configuration.

But, wait, there's more!

In a similar situation, many Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) users also faced issues due to Falcon, for which Red Hat had to issue multiple warnings.

The first case (subscribers-only) was the one I mentioned earlier for Rocky Linux, in which kernel panic was observed after booting on Linux kernel 5.14.0-410 and later systems due to the falcon-sensor process.

The second case was a system crash issue on RHEL 6 and 7, where Red Hat offered a workaround, by suggesting users disable Falcon to mitigate the issue, with the other option being to contact CrowdStrike support for assistance.

By now, we know how prompt CrowdStrike's customer service is.

Unsurprisingly, thanks to all the chaos, the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee has officially sent a letter to George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, asking him to testify on the massive outage.

I would have liked to think that this was due to Linux-based OSes being affected, but, as we all know, Windows is the favorite child among all the operating systems for a bulk of the population.

Fun (or ominous!?) fact, George Kurtz, CEO of SrowdStrike was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of McAfee back in 2010, when the infamous DAT 5958 antivirus update managed to cripple millions of Windows-equipped computers around the world.

Beginning the Empty Summer

 As I wrote earlier, I went to the SCI-Arc event Wed. (also visited the Hauser&Wirth Gallery and surrounding shops. Unfortunately, the arts and crafts stores have died and beer halls have replaced them. Many empty storefronts. The long apartment complex, Santa Fe one, looks half alive. Very sad. After the departure of Eric Moss even SCI-Arc has morphed from an exciting inspired fountain into a stagnant pool. 

For some strange reason the dnj gallery on Ocean Park Blvd, SM emailed me an invitation to attend a performance of Arnold Schoenberg's 1st and 3rd String Quartets. I remember never visiting the place. I almost didn't go, but it's the beginning of the empty summer, so why not. Fabulous performance by the Webern String Quartet. The owner of the Gallery is the grandson of the composer. I include a link to his film, Fioretta,  made with his son, chronicling their European journal of family discovery. Link to the film trailer:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15846788/

Nothing today.

Saturday I'm off to the Hammer Mus and a UCLA Fowler Museum Opening. You know me...there will be food, drinks and music.

About the Exhibition
Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal offers an expanded understanding of Indigenous cultivation and production of cochineal, an insect-derived red dye developed by the Zapotec peoples around 500 BC. Interdisciplinary fiber artists Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez present both new commissions and existing work, displayed alongside Oaxacan textiles from the Fowler collection. This multivocal exhibition centers ancestral knowledge and technical experimentation, and brings a special attention to issues of immigration and labor justice.

David Hertz: The Resilience Imperative

David Hertz: The Resilience Imperative

SCI-Arc

Tonight 6pm, 2023 11 08

Maybe the high point was his construction of the "Wing House" made from a 747 plane acquired from the waist yard near Mojave. Nice that I could listen and view  the event online and not have to travel.

Hertz, when compared to the Rios lecture at USC, knocked the ball out of the park.

Such a variety of design, materials, and technologies. Amazing.

I've been reading a couple of biographies of Dylan Thomas. There are several recordings of him reading, but there seem to be no videos showing him reading. The biographies describe observer's delight in "seeing" him read.

An Evening with Enrique Martínez Celaya Including a Conversation with Martin Brest

An Evening with Enrique Martínez Celaya Including a Conversation with Martin Brest
November 2, 2023, at 7 p.m.
Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108

Fantastic event at USC

Video of Enrique working

This video lasts 38 minutes. It shows Enrique painting over sections of his painted canvas. It was not shown at the USC event. 

Before the presentation at USC they showed a video of Enrique working on his painting, The Cabin. It was a time lapse video. He started with a large cabin that became progressively smaller due to over painting. It became a small cabin with one lighted window. The window became progressively smaller and dimmer until is vanished almost completely along with the cabin itself. [Sorry, I cannot find either the video, or the final image.] Please refer to the video below where the cabin reappears as part of a portrait of his son. 

During his lecture, he showed a video of the apple Tree (2023). On a canvas with the bare branches, highlighted in bright red, of the apple tree, he painted in a variety of bright colorful single flowers. He added a white boy figure and then overprinted the flowers which all but disappeared. 

During the entire time of Enrique's talk and his conversation with Martin Brest Enrique's works were projected on a screen. The series of images were an engaging counterpoint to the talk. One media type complemented the other. 

The apple tree(2023)

The overprinting and the single lonely, often white, figures captured my interest. Any painting you see includes other images that are hidden, but integral to the artist's process.

The Miles McEnery Gallery site shows Enrique's works in the show The Foreigner's Song.

https://milesmcenery.viewingrooms.com/viewing-room/126-enrique-martinez-celaya-the-foreigner-s-song/ 

Other works:

The traveler's dream

The music (age)

The loveless and the loved

Boy raising his arm

Sunset at sea

The eternal stain

Song of freedom

The child's song

also: a video of Enrique working on The child's song

 The child's song video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8WkyhMvO1k

Please see other videos on this site.

Enrique explains his idea of portraiture in a video, Self and Sea.

Enrique on images

Enrique paints one portrait of his son holding a snow globe containing a cabin. This cabin was the subject of  a work-in-progress video shown before the USC lecture. His son, now 18, was at the lecture. Enrique said that his relation to his art is similar to his relation to his son. When his son was a year old he might be able to understand what was in his head, but now that his son is 18 it is impossible to know. It's the same with his works. He stands outside them and cannot completely understand what they mean. 

                 

Enrique explains his approach to art to Claremont Graduate University students. This video give an idea of his presentation at USC.

CGU Stories: Enrique Martínez Celaya

During the Q and A Enrique said that he approaches art as an experiment. In the process of producing the art if some element emerges that is contrary to the experiment then it is removed. 

 

The beginning and the end

The dandelions

The angel of wait

The ice bound carriage

The gift of revisiting

The intolerable shirt of flame

The Mystic

The Prayer

The Redeemer

Who What When Where Why

CF,

I think the above are the five questions reporters are supposed to consider.

I heard the program Aug 4, 2021 on NPR, Fresh, Air Peter Bergen, "Osama Bin Laden Biography Goes Inside Al-Qaida Leader's Final Hideout," interviewed by Dave Davies. Much interesting information, but it soon became clear that interviewer, Dave Davies, seriously lacks the grey matter of Terry Gross. Two or three times he asked Peter Bergen," Why did Bin Laden do such and such?" Each time Peter clearly said that he asks "how" and "where" in his reporting, but never "why" because he feels it's impossible to know "why" people do what they do. Some of the decisions made by Osama were incomprehensible. 

Quick transition to the film, "John and the Hole," which USC kindly presented last night online. The 13-year-old son of an affluent family of four puts his parents and sister through an ordeal. The filmmaker, Pascual Sisto,  coaching his fine actors expressly told them that the question of why this adolescent does this to his family is never answered. Further, as a filmmaker on the fringes rather than in the mainstream where films often answer the "why," he prefers to continue considering the unanswerable questions about human nature. 

These two events reached my consciousness almost simultaneously so I felt inspired to write.

	12:05 PM (2 minutes

Silicon Beach Professionals - JUNE 23rd 2016 Mixer by Google

I get invitation after invitation to these types of events. By the time  your communication appears in my in-box the "FREE" spots are gone and only the paid spots are available. I check my in-box regularly. 

Are you running  a scam? Do you release the email to your "friends" first and then the rest of us later? 
The price of the ticket is trivial, but I find the Eventbrite fee intolerable.

I'm a regular attendee at Creative Mornings LA and I know that if I sign up promptly at 10:15 AM on Monday I will get a spot. They are democratic and transparent. Are you?

Percussion Is Difficult: Letter to Chris

C

I thought of you last night. I attended a concert, "Jazz for the City: The Bill Cunlife Trio: music from the Movies." Bill and his bass player, Darek Oles, have been together for 20 years. Their improvisations were amazing, tasteful, innovative, surprising, delightful.

After listening to their first two numbers I wondered, "What the hell is the matter?  What's wong?" I was the young drummer, Jake Reed, who obviously has not played with the trio because he's not old enough. And he was definitely not good enough. However, he looks great.

It's like buying an expensive Hi-Fi system. When you get great sound reproduction you start hearing all the imperfections that you didn't

Cunliffe and Oles are so damn good that when Reed on percussion is just off the beat, usually late, or banging endlessly on his largest cymbal with little variety it's really obvious and disturbing.  I found it difficult, but necessary to tune the percussion out and just listen to the piano and bass.

So I thought of you and wished you were there to provide the necessary support on percussion for the other two great players.

Also, I wish I could attend a concert and just enjoy it like most others, but.......Well, you know.

Percussion is really difficult.

R