Older blog entries for kelly (starting at number 430)

I ran across this article the other day (after someone at the Spiceworks Forums posted a link to it).  It made me cringe, repeatedly, to read it.  This post will address why this other article is so wrong, and why you should not do what this guy suggests. 

The key to understanding how to approach this lies in understanding what a "broadcast domain" is.  A broadcast domain is the set of devices all of whom will receive a broadcast sent by any other member of that set.  Normally, every device connected to a standard LAN switch will be in the same broadcast domain; in short, switches define broadcast domains.  Every device connected to the same LAN is a member of the same broadcast domain.

What VLANs allow one to do is treat a switch as if it were multiple independent switches, coexisting in the same box.  The switch is told to group its ports, some to one virtual switch, others to another.  The end result is to have multiple LANs (virtual LANs, or VLANs) coexisting on the same hardware.  You could get the same result by buying multiple switches, one for each independent LAN.  VLANs just let you do this with fewer switches.  That's all.  (There's some added complexity when you start talking about trunking and about layer 3 switching, but neither of these is essential to understanding what a VLAN is.)

The author's definition of a VLAN (Virtual LAN) as a "technology that enables dividing a physical network into logical segments at Layer 2" is, I suppose, not entirely inaccurate; however, it's less than useful to understanding what a VLAN is.  The problem this author has is that he's viewing VLANs as a partitioning of a physical network.  But that's not the right approach.  While VLANs have this effect, that's not the way to understand them.  It's far better to think of VLANs as a way for multiple LANs—that is, multiple broadcast domains—to independently coexist in the same hardware, much the way that virtualization hypervisors allow multiple computers to independently coexist on the same hardware. 

A few lines down from that is another flat out wrong statement.  VLANs are not used to "join physically separate LANs or LAN segments into a single logical LAN".  You cannot do that with VLANs alone; doing this (if for some reason you wanted to) is the role of a bridge or a tunnel—or just a cable between two switches.  You might use a VLAN in the course of setting up a bridge or tunnel, but VLANs don't allow you to do this on their own. 

The discussion on page two about the use of VLANs to control broadcast traffic is fundamentally correct; this is one of the major reasons for separating a network into multiple broadcast domains.  The statement "Small LANs are typically equivalent to a single broadcast domain" really illustrates the fundamental mistake this author made: a LAN is, by definition, a broadcast domain, and so a small LAN would necessarily also be a broadcast domain.  There's also some discussion about IP multicasts that is all entirely incorrect and should be just ignored.  The reason IP multicasting is disabled on most consumer routers is because the routers aren't smart enough to handle them correctly; it's got nothing to do with bandwith consumption.  In actuality, the proper configuration of IP multicasting in switches and routers that support it fully reduces, rather than increases, bandwidth use, and most large networks will turn these functions on to maximize bandwidth utilization.

And a little bit later we have another killer doozy statement: "VLANs can be configured on separate subnets".  Indeed, not only can they be, but in fact they pretty much have to be, assuming you're using VLANs properly.  Since each VLAN is a separate broadcast domain, and each separate broadcast domain needs its own subnet, each VLAN (in a properly constructed network) will have its own, distinct, subnet.  The author here gets away with breaking this rule only because the switch he's using allows a port mode that allows a port to simultaneously exist in more than one VLAN, which breaks the virtualization model I talked about earlier.  This port mode is found on low-end devices like the Linksys switch he's using; it is typically not found on larger, enterprise-grade switches.  You simply cannot set up a Catalyst 3760 to behave the way this guy has set up this little SRW2008.

Here's the problem with how this guy is abusing VLANs.  Instead of making each VLAN its own broadcast domain, he's taken an existing broadcast domain and broken it into three pieces.  That, by itself, would be ok, provided he then provided routing between those domains to enable them to communicate (at layer 3 instead of layer 2).  But he doesn't do that because the switch he's using doesn't offer layer 3 switching.  So what he does instead is he selectively violates the integrity of the segregation between the VLANs.  This works only because this switch permits the "general" port access mode, which allows multiple VLANs to present on the same port untagged.  I've never seen an enterprise switch, at least not from a major vendor, that allows this, and it's generally not a good idea, precisely because it enables a violation of the cardinal rule that every device connected to the same (V)LAN is in the same broadcast domain.  (He admits that the ability to do this is "key to our example".  Scary.)  The crazy thing that ends up happening with this configuration is that traffic that is sent to a device on one VLAN will be replied to on a different VLAN entirely.  While this may not create a problem when you're only using one switch that shares its MAC tables across all VLANs, that won't scale up to multiple switches, and this configuration will cause excess unicast flooding in a multiple switch environment (exactly one of the problems it was supposed to avoid), especially if the switch has independent MAC learning on each VLAN.  And it's a very tricky and tedious configuration to set up and maintain, far more complicated than a proper setup using access mode ports and a layer 3 switch.

So please, do not ever configure a network like this.  The simple fact is that this sort of configuration only works in a small network—and if you have a small network you almost certainly don't have a need to do this sort of thing anyway!  In fact, please don't use the "general" access mode even if your switches support it; any time you do you are violating the integrity of the VLAN broadcast domain, and you'll probably end up with hard-to-diagnose network gremlins somewhere down the line, not to mention a configuration that's simply impossible in most upper-end switches.  Just stick to one untagged VLAN per port, please; if you find yourself breaking this rule, you've probably done something wrong in your design.

So, now that you've read my rant about why this is the wrong way to go about it and for the wrong reasons, I should tell you a bit about the right reasons.  For that, go here.  I'm not going to get into the details of how because that varies a lot between switch types.  If you want specific help on a specific problem, go here.

The following is a letter I've just emailed to my Congressman regarding H.R. 607, the Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011. This has been a matter of some discussion by amateur radio licensees in the United States of late. Paper copy will go off in the mail tomorrow.

Please feel free to adapt for your own purposes.

February 27, 2011

The Honorable Mike Quigley
1124 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative Quigley:

I am writing you today, as a constituent and an amateur radio operator, in reference to H.R. 607, the Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011. This bill claims to seek to establish a supply of radio spectrum available for a public safety broadband network, a goal I have no objection with in principle. However, I wish to bring your attention to a problem with this bill. As introduced, the bill would, if adopted, compromise national security, potentially breach an international treaty to which the United States is a party, and significantly harm the interest of amateur radio operators, all for a purpose that does not clearly serve the stated purposes of the bill. Given that the bill's primary purpose can still be largely met without these negative affects by a relatively simple amendment, I urge you to oppose this bill until the necessary changes are made.

Specifically, I draw your attention to Section 207 in the bill's text. This section seeks to mandate that all current public safety service radio operations currently between 170 and 512 megahertz be moved to the 700 megahertz band. This is mandated not so much to improve public service communications or for any of the other stated purposes of the bill, but instead for two specific purposes: to free radio spectrum to be subsequently auctioned off to wireless communications providers for commercial broadband services, and to force public service entities to purchase new radio equipment. Neither of these purposes directly serves the broader purposes of the bill. Notwithstanding this objection, there is a fatal flaw in this section, relating to the references to the frequency range of 420-440 megahertz. As a brief glance at the Table of Frequency Allocations (47 CFR § 2.106) will reveal, the 420-440 megahertz frequency range is, quite simply, not presently allocated to the public safety service, and so there are no public safety service users to remove from this band.

The 420-440 megahertz band is currently allocated to two separate purposes in the United States. The primary user is the United States government, which uses it primarily for a variety of radiolocation purposes (that is, radar) intended for national defense and border control. The PAVE PAWS early warning radar system, which monitors our coastlines for submarine-launched ballistic missiles and other airborne threats, makes use these frequencies. In addition, the Border Patrol and other federal law enforcement agencies use radar systems on these frequencies to monitor for persons attempting illegal entry into the United States in border areas such as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Florida. The secondary user of this band are amateur radio operators, who use it for a variety of purposes with the clear understanding that the military has primacy in the band. Reassigning the band to commercial purposes would almost certainly result in interference with national security objectives.

In addition, within the 420-440 megahertz band there is a subband at 432-438 megahertz that is allocated to amateur radio as a result of treaty obligations that the United States has agreed to by virtue of being a member of the ITU. Part of this band is used by amateurs specifically to communicate with orbiting amateur radio satellites. Those satellites cannot (for fairly obvious reasons) be retuned to different frequencies. While the United States' obligations as a member of the ITU allow the United States to use, or allow the use of, these frequencies for other purposes, allocating them to broadband services (as this bill proposes) would be likely to create a breach of the convention, as those uses would likely cause harmful interference to amateur service operations in other countries as well as to operations in the Earth exploration satellite service (the other internationally-protected user of the band).

It is fairly obvious that the author of this bill labored under the misapprehension that 420-440 megahertz was a public service band, when the reality of the matter is that this band is a radiolocation and amateur service band. Given that the bill was drafted on a mistaken understanding of the current use of spectrum, the only proper thing to do is to correct the bill so as not to refer to this band. I would urge you to refuse to support this bill unless it is amended so as to either remove the references to the 420-440 megahertz band in section 207, or to remove entirely the spectrum reassignment mandated by Section 207.

I urge you to confer with representatives of the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Adminstration, with representatives of the divisions within the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security that make use of the spectrum at issue, and with the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) in deciding how to proceed with respect to this bill. I also suggest you speak with public safety officials in and outside of Illinois to find out how they feel about being mandated to once again purchase new radio equipment, but that is independent of the issue regarding the 420-440 megahertz band. I am confident that you will determine that reassigning the 420-440 megahertz band away from its current allocation as a military radiolocation and amateur band is not in the best interests of the United States.

If you have any questions regarding my objection to this legislation, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely yours,

Kelly Martin
(address and telephone number redacted)

This post is a direct reply to G4ILO's neo-luddite post on his blog entitled "Is technology good for ham radio?" In it, he makes the startling comment, "The more high-tech ham radio becomes, the less magic there is."

Let me put it in short, simple words: there is no magic in ham radio. Ham radio is nothing but technology. Without technology, ham radio is nothing.

Yes, Julian makes a legitimate point regarding the possibility of amateur radio turning into poor copies of existing networks, and I agree with him on the lack of merit of D*STAR specifically. However, there is just as much "magic" in getting a network that combines computer and radio technologies up and running as there is in sending CW with a transmitter made out of parts salvaged from a compact fluorescent lightbulb.  Of course we need to keep the ability to do it "simple", because the complicated ways are, fundamentally, built on top of the simple ways. But that doesn't mean we have to stop at simple, and in fact if we do we shoot ourselves in the foot. (It should be noted that Julian states that he uses PSK31 and other digital modes, all of which are less than ten years old or so, so even he doesn't practice what he preaches.)

It never fails to amuse and amaze me how luddite some hams are. I just don't understand how someone who, thirty or forty or fifty years ago, was using a totally newfangled technology to do something can, now, today, be totally unwilling to even entertain the notion that there might be some merit to the newfangled way of doing things.

I heard today about some noise that's going around about how astrologers have added a new sign to the zodiac, and how this changes everything or some such nonsense. It's sadly fascinating to see stuff like this, because it really exposes the degree to which the Internet has not only not made people less ignorant, but in fact increased the rate at which ignorance spreads. Apparently even Time Magazine is in on this nonsense, based apparently on a press release from the Minnesota Planetarium Society.

Here's the real story.

The ancient Babylonians divided the year into 12 segments, the Babylonians being fond of the number 12 (and also the number 60), and gave names to star groupings that corresponded to each of those twelve segments, enabling them to observe the sky and determine where in the year one was, a very useful skill in a place where the timing of planting is important. The zodiac has exactly twelve equal divisions because that's how it was constructed. It's a human construct, with no natural meaning whatsoever; basically a bookkeeping device. The leading edge of Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, arbitrarily corresponds to the position that the sun is in in the sky on the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring, which is anciently the first day of the year. The key point is that a "sign of the zodiac" is one of twelve equal divisions of the solar year. (These are not to be confused with months, which are anciently defined by the moon's cycle.)

There are, of course, other asterisms in the sky, such as the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and Orion, which are well known to most people but which are not part of the zodiac because they are not in or near to the plane of the ecliptic, the path the sun takes on its apparent annual cycle through the sky. Now let's fast forward to 1922, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally adopted its constellation map, dividing the celestial sphere into 88 named chunks of astronomical real estate. In so doing, they largely kept the traditional Western names for these asterisms (although some of the Southern hemisphere constellations have modern names because those asterisms were not visible to the Babylonians and so they never named them), but the boundaries they settled on did not take into consideration the Babylonian origins of the signs of the zodiac or their astrological significance. As a result of their lack of concern, the ecliptic ended up passing through not twelve constellations (as it would had they remained faithful to their Babylonian predecessors) but indeed thirteen, and the division is not even remotely equal. The thirteenth is Ophiuchus, the Serpentbearer; the ecliptic passes through one corner of the constellation's defined area, although not particularly close to any major star in the constellation. The key point here is that a constellation is one of 88 (unequal) divisions of the celestial sphere.

The thing is, this isn't new. Astrologers and astronomers alike have known about Ophiuchus' intrusion on the zodiac since, presumably, 1922. Some astrologers think this matters; others don't. I've seen complete astrological systems based on the Ophiuchus being part of the zodiac, and I've seen so-called "sidereal" astrologies that take into account precession, which I talk about below. The ones that don't are called "tropical", for some reason I don't recall anymore. Diehard skeptics, of the sort who have a compulsive need to prove astrology wrong, often trot the Ophiuchuan issue forward as "proof" of the wrongness of astrology, along with the precession issue, and it's quite likely that the press release that started all this was motivated by that attitude. Astrology, like all forms of divination, involves the use of essentially randomly-generated symbols to spur self-reflection. The symbols used and their correlations are basically arbitrary; as a result, whether the symbols correspond to anything "real" or not is completely irrelevant. You'll get essentially the same results from astrology using the classical Babylonian/Greco-roman zodiac as you will with using this not-really-new 13-sign approach. Or you can play with Vedic astrology from India if you want something completely different, although the cultural context there may be too foreign for most Westerners to get much from it. Or not. Whatever floats your boat.

In addition, there's an additional complication. The Sun's position on the first day of spring, which originally defined the leading edge of Aries, as I mentioned above, is no longer in Aries. The axis of the Earth's rotation precesses in a cycle of about 26,000 years, causing the apparent position of the Sun against the celestial background to make a full cycle around the sky over that 26,000 year cycle. We're a couple thousand years into the cycle that was started when the leading edge of Aries was defined as the vernal equinox, and as a result the Sun is actually in Pisces on the first day of Spring. In about five hundred years, it'll be in the constellation of Aquarius on the first day of Spring, and according to most astrologers it's already in the sidereal sign of Aquarius, which is the origin of the popular phrase "Age of Aquarius". However, the astrological sign of Aries always starts on the first day of Spring, because that's how it's defined; where the Sun is against the stars in the sky simply isn't part of that definition. The Babylonians almost certainly didn't know about precession of the equinoxes.

Fundamentally the error here is with the Minnesota Planetarium Society, who has unnecessarily (and likely willfully) conflated the astronomical concept of "constellation" with the astrological concept of "sign". A constellation is not a sign, even though there is a historical relationship between two, and in fact twelve of the constellations have the same names as the twelve signs. The IAU did not, in 1922, create a thirteenth sign of the zodiac when it decided to define Ophiuchus to include a bit of the ecliptic. Unless, of course, you decide that you want that to be the case, in which case they did—but only for you.

So if you're a fan of traditional astrology, you can go on using it the way you always have, without worrying about this. It doesn't matter. On the other hand, if you want to worry about it, you can do that too. Just don't lose any sleep over it; that would be foolish indeed. As I mentioned, astrology is an entirely human creation, as are the astronomical names for the asterisms, and these definitions and symbolisms can be changed by humans whenever they want, but only if they want to, and not just because some "skeptic" demands it of them.

Addendum: Apparently AOL's article on this nonsense suggests that the Babylonians deliberately skipped Ophiuchus because "they wanted there to be 12 signs". This claim ignores reality, which is part of the basis of my rant on the Internet being used to spread ignorance. Ophiuchus is certainly near the ecliptic (and there is evidence that Greek and Roman astrologers even read some significance into this, treating the sun's near-passage to a bright star in the asterism as a meaningful event), but the fact remains that the zodiac is defined to have twelve signs in it. The modern fictitious "discovery" of a "thirteenth sign" is merely a consequence of the modern definition of the constellations and has nothing to do with the Babylonians.

I did this back in September, when "instant search" became available on Google.  Basically I typed each letter in and noted the first result.

A is for "Amazon"
B is for "Best Buy"
C is for "Craigslist"
D is for "Dictonary"
E is for "Ebay"
F is for "Facebook"
G is for "Gmail"
H is for "Hotmail"
I is for "Ikea"
J is for "Jewel"
K is for "Kohls"
L is for "Lowes"
M is for "Mapquest"
N is for "Netflix"
O is for "Orbitz"
P is for "Pandora"
Q is for "Quotes"
R is for "Ravinia"
S is for "Sears"
T is for "Target"
U is for "UPS"
V is for "Verizon"
W is for "Weather"
X is for "XBox"
Y is for "Yahoo"
Z is for "Zappos"

I took Thanksgiving off from the blog, it being Thanksgiving, and there wasn't a lot of movement on the hot list since my last post on Tuesday; just the same topics jockeying about.  However, today there's several new ones, most of them variations on "Black Friday".  Black Friday is, of course, the colloquialism for the first day after Thanksgiving, traditionally considered the first day of the Christmas shopping season, although these days that starts around the middle of October now.  Black Friday first started showing up back on November 4th, but the term has been increasingly prominent and appearing in more variations over the past week or so.  Best Buy, the electronics retailer, is the first name to pop up; not surprising as their portfolio likely matches best with the interests of internetoholics.

Turkey and the Food Network no doubt both pop up because of Thanksgiving itself and its tradition of gorging ourselves on turkey and other such foods.  Although it's now after the fact, I recommend brining your turkey; Alton Brown has a good recipe.

The odd one out (that is, a topic not apparently related to Thanksgiving) is Nicki Minaj, apparently a pink-haired rapper from either Jamaica or Queens.  (The pink hair is apparently a wig.)  The only interesting thing about her that she seems to be claiming to be bisexual in order to get media attention (or appear sexier) then subsequently denying that she's bisexual to avoid controversy.  Most of her gossip-rag media attention (other than the present week, which appears related to an album release) seems centered on speculation about her orientation.  The consensus appears to be that she's a "fauxmosexual": fundamentally straight, but willing to act otherwise because that creates buzz and sells records.  Whatever; I've already learned way more about this whole cluster of concepts than I ever cared to.

After a weekend of the same old topics jockeying about (the only one new one to show up was Erin Barry, who is just another player in the petty drama that I mentioned on Friday), a completely new term showed up late last night. And for once it's actually a matter of some real significance: the TSA, or Transportation Security Agency.  The TSA is in the news lately because of John Tyner's now-famous "Don't touch my junk!" ultimatum, issued in San Diego to TSA agents who decided he needed a "pat-down".  His outrage has led to a groundswell of complaints and commentary regarding TSA screening practices and made the TSA the whipping boy of the day.

And to be fair, the TSA deserves it.  Current US airport security practices were never really calculated to stop determine terrorists.  Their main intention was always to increase the general anxiety of the American public about foreign terrorism, in order to perpetuate the need for such invasive practices.  This was done for two reasons: one, to make Americans more complacent about having their privacy, and right to travel freely, shredded, and two, to create revenue for the companies that manufacture and sell security solutions.  The actual practices used are designed to be extremely visible; that they're annoying just adds to the effect because it just adds to the visibility and thus keeps public anxiety at a high.  That they're almost completely ineffective (either as designed or as implemented) in actually stopping a determined terrorist is, quite simply, irrelevant; that was never their purpose anyway.  This is "security theatre", plain and simple: the government is pretending to provide security as a cover for what it's really doing, which is eroding your rights a bit at a time, and hoping you won't notice because you're too scared to care.

There is now an Internet-organized boycott of TSA body scanners scheduled for this Wednesday, which is (because of the Thanksgiving holiday) anticipated to be the busiest travel day of the year.  The government has already whined about this, urging people not to participate in the boycott because it would create delays at airports.  That is, I imagine, the point.

Oh, and for those of you who think you'll just travel by train: Amtrak passengers are subject to security screenings too.  For now these aren't as intrusive as those mandated by the TSA at airports, but that could change at any time.  TSA has authority over Amtrak and can, at any time, change the regulations for riding on the nation's passenger trains, as well.

Today's only new item is Tony Parker, a basketball player who is in the spotlight apparently because he was caught sending sexually explicit text messages ("sexting") to the wife of another player (whose name is apparently Erin Barry).  This seems to have come out in the context of his divorce, which is, of course, totally unsurprising.

I'm sure this sort of thing goes on all the time, and this is only making the news now because it involves both a basketball player (Parker) of some repute and also a television celebrity: his soon-to-be ex-wife is Eva Longoria, who is apparently somehow involved in Desparate Housewives, which I understand is a TV show of some fame.  Ok, whatever: two people who are famous for things I don't generally pay attention to.

Oh well, I suppose the masses need their opiates.

Three new items today, this time from an upcoming movie (Emma Watson), an upcoming royal wedding (Kate Middleton), and an energy drink (Four Loko).

Emma Watson presumably shows up because of her appearance as Hermione Granger in the upcoming Harry Potter movie.  I haven't been able to bring myself to read the HP books: first, I am still peeved at Rowling for going after fan websites for "copyright infringement", but more importantly, from what I have read in excerpt and in summary, I just don't like her sort of writing.  She breaks at least some of Lawrence Watt-Evans' laws of fantasy; at the very least the second, fifth, and sixth.  As far as I can tell, in her books magic is used almost entirely as a macguffin to advance the plot or to create a desired effect, rather than being an integral and necessary part of the fabric of the universe against which the characters interact.  (Contrast the role of magic in LWE's Ethshar books, which I adore, or in his equally excellent Dragon trilogy.)  I also don't like the racist and classist overtones in her writing.  Also, like so many fantasy novelists, I have caught the glimmer of what I call "superman disease": as a series like this progresses the main characters become increasingly powerful, with experience and time, forcing their opponents to be equally inflated so as to make for interesting conflicts.  This typically results in each book ending with some massive conflagration, only to be outdone in the next book by an even more massive conflagration.  (This does make for good movie material, admittedly.)  For another example of this, see Raymond Feist's Riftwar saga, although I think he did well in recovering from that with the later Serpentwar saga, set many years later with entirely new primary characters.  Avoiding this basically requires the author to create a complete and consistent universe in which many stories with different characters can be set; this is far harder than just creating a handful of characters and just enough of a universe for them to move around in.  Another reason I like Lawrence Watt-Evans. 

Kate Middleton is, for those who don't follow the British royalty, Prince William's recently-announced fianceé.  Royal-watching is not one of my major pastimes, but apparently both the dress she wore and the ring William gave her are hot items on the "celebrity replicas" market.  Ok, whatever. 

The last item, Four Loko, is of somewhat more interest: it's one of those caffeinated alcoholic beverages that the FDA has been going after of late.  Four Loko is apparently the first such beverage to be decaffeinated in response to the FDA's effective ban on the addition of caffeine to malt liquor beverages.  One has to wonder if this will also apply to Cuba Libres or to Irish coffee.  Then again I don't think anyone sells a premixed Cuba Libre or Irish coffee (nor would I want to drink such a thing), and besides those are made using distilled spirits instead of malt liquor.  Frankly I find energy drinks revolting; while I have no problems with caffeine (I have three or four cups of rather strong coffee a day, and also occasionally drink Mountain Dew or Pepsi when I can find the 'throwback' formulation made with sugar instead of corn syrup), one of either guarana or taurine (I know not which) has a flavor which is nearly vomit-inducing for me.  So I'm not going to cry any tears over the loss of these products.

Today brought two new items to the top ten list: Manny Pacquiao (a boxer) and Skyline (a movie).

I'm a bit annoyed to be writing about a boxer or about a boxing match.  And so I won't.  You want to find out r Frankly I think boxing is just about the most barbaric of the competitive sports we still engage in, even more so than American football, and would be quite happy to see it go away entirely.  Boxing was a far higher profile event when I was younger; I think Mike Tyson did a lot to make the sport disrespectable.  Which, to be frank, I'm quite entirely happy with.  I will admit when I first saw the search term ("Pacquiao v. Margarito") my first thought was "Is a pacquiao some sort of new cocktail?"  But that would have been "margarita".  My bad.

The other rising item today is Skyline, which is apparently a low-budget alien invasion movie.  MTV doesn't seem to think much of Skyline: not good enough to be good, and not bad enough to be good for being bad.  I'm almost as uninvolved in movies as I am in sports, so I won't be seeing this one.  This is another one where I wasn't able to predict what the search was for; I was kind of hoping it would have been for the chili, but again my hopes were dashed.