you are the th visitor since October 17, 2001
Welcome to my personal web server, here on eärendil.ath.cx. There isn't any single 'main site' here, just a collection of various stuff.
To all of you who have been a-knocking at my box's doors (yes, even you people from the local net at NonStop) - please, either e-mail me (at eyalroz _at_ technion.ac.il) or leave me be. I'm not a professional when it comes to network security, and I know Debian is not as air-tight as OpenBSD, so even though it may be possible to break my 'defences' - I politely request that you don't. I'm not the Pentagon; you won't find anything of interest here (well, not anything I won't give you if you ask me, anyway).
"Half-elven Dragon-slayer. Eärendil the Mariner was the son of the Edain lord, Tuor, and the Elven lady, Idril of Gondolin. Eärendil was born in the year 504 of the First Age in the Elven haven of Arveniern. He became the Lord of Arvenien and married Elwing, the Elven daughter of King Dior, the inheritor of the Silmaril. They had two sons: Elrond and Elros. For Eärendil, whose name means "sea lover", Círdan built a miraculous ship called Vingilot. While he was at sea, Arvenien was attacked and Elwing was forced to flee. Seeing no means to escape she threw herself and the Silmaril into the sea. Ulmo, the Ocean Lord, saved her by transforming her into a sea bird and allowing her to fly to Eärendil. The couple used the power and light of the Silmaril to find their way to the Undying Lands, to ask the aid of the Valar. In response, the Valar and Maiar host, along with the Elves of Eldamar, came out of the Undying Lands in the War of Wrath. It ended in the Great Battle, in which Eärendil the Mariner also fought. With the Silmaril bound to his brow, and his magical ship given the power of flight, Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the greatest Dragon the world has ever known. After the end of the First Age, Eärendil led the surviving Edain to the new island kingdom of Númenor. Ever after, Eärendil was destined to sail Vingilot through the firmament. Called the Evening Star and the "flame of the west", the Silmaril on his brow shone down from the night sky forever after."
--from the Tolkien Encyclopedia,
edited by David Day.
Here's a copy of Tolkien's poem of the same name.
It's a Debian 3.0 (Woody), on an AMD Duron 600MHz. It used to be an Intel Klamath 233MHz system , the pieces of which I had scavenged from various locations - but the power supply fan went dead, and the system heated up, and the board started missing interrupts, so I had to upgrade.