I converted a few Samba 3.0 servers from doing local authentication to using our primary domain controller. I'm not quite sure why, but I thought it would be fun. It seemed to work but every time I would try to connect I would get this error:

[2005/05/16 14:11:15, 0] auth/auth_util.c:make_server_info_info3(1134)
make_server_info_info3: pdb_init_sam failed!


Took me a while to find the right answer on google, so I figured I'd preserve it here for posterity's sake. This post had the correct answer. It was because I was using a username map to map my name on the domain controller to the local *nix user name, which happened to be different. Apparently that's the message that means "unknown local user".

Title: The Ultimate Spy Book
Author: H. Keith Melton
Published: 1996 by DK Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 0-7894-0443-5

Just over 2 weeks ago my local PBS affiliate, Idaho Public TV, started running a BBC show titled Spy. It's a reality show about 8 regular Brits who are going through spy training. Their instructors are former CIA and MI6 officers. So far it's been a really great show and I highly recommend you check your local listings.

So, I got really curious about how to be a spy. Not like I'm thinking of actually becoming a spy or anything, but I'm insatiably curious. And I want to be a spy. Oops, I hope the feds didn't hear that...

Title: The King of Torts
Author: John Grisham
Published: 2003 by Doubleday
ISBN: 0-385-50804-2

John Grisham is an excellent, and rich, writer so I was a little disappointed by the quality of this book. The last one I read was The Rainmaker and it was a lot better. It did finally end better than I expected, which I was grateful for, of course, but the middle of the book was rather lacking.

The story is about Clay Carter, a D.C. lawyer stuck in a low paying job as a public defender. It's a job he's been working for 5 years since he passed the bar, but not one that he's enjoyed at any point along the way. He has the bleak resposibility to deal with the worst part of society, and in a city where crime is a major occurance no less. To think that only a few years ago he had such grand plans of graduating from Georgetown and going into practice with his father.

Title: Ender's Shadow
Author: Orson Scott Card
Published: 1999 by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
ISBN: 0-312-86860-X

I decided my second foray into scifi should also be a sure fire good read. I've known of Card for a while and have heard plenty of good things about his books, but choosing where to start was a tough one. I can't just jump into the middle of a series, but it seems that my library has the fewest of the the first books. It was either wait a few weeks or try to find a suitable alternative. Luckily, Ender's Shadow was in, probably because this particular book was pretty haggard and beat up.

Congress is set to pass a bankruptcy reform bill which aims to close loop holes where people who can repay debts are getting out of them. Sounds fair, and maybe it is. I haven't done a ton of research on the bill but on the surface I can support something like that. Certainly people shouldn't be cheating out of debts which they could pay.

This bill strongly favors creditors. I think to really do any justice we need to also introduce credit reform that will benefit potential debtors. There's no point in forcing people to be responsible for their debts without helping them stay out of problems in the first place.