Friday November 07, 2008

wordle analyzes my drivel Interesting. A friend of mine tipped me off to the Wordle analysis he did of Jonathan's Blog. I thought it looked neat, so I ran it on my own blog. Here's what it found:

Tuesday July 31, 2007

OUCHIES! I broke my big toe this morning!

I can't beleive I broke my big toe. Not, I think I broke it. I know I broke it. I went to the hospital and had them X-RAY it. It's broke!

I was carrying my son (15 months old) down the steps, and I slipped. My only though was "Don't let Jason get hurt."

So I grabbed him and wrapped my arms around him, as my left foot missed a step, and my right foot slipped off the step it was on, hitting the step below that toe first, which toes consequently folded underneath that foot at the same time as they became the primary weight bearers for all 250 lbs of me.

Jason was not hurt. I think he was scared that daddy was screaching like his 19-month old cousin Jade when they're fighting over a toy (actually he's the screacher, not her), but he was fine.

Here's a pic of the X-RAY:

After I hurt myself, I took about 5 minutes to gather my wits, then I took Jason to daycare, and drove
myself to the hospital, which is quite pleasant at 8:45 AM.

A few X-RAYS, and a silly post-op shoe later, and here I am on a diet of Advil and ice-packs. Hopefully the bones won't need to be pinned in place, but I won't find out till the end of the week, when I have a follow-up with the orthopedic specialist.

Thursday June 14, 2007

2 birds with 1 stone. The IDstride pedometer badge holder. What a great thing.

http://www.idstride.com.

Just what I need. A badge clip with a built in pedometer.

I'm big on consolidation. Pretty much any time I can consolidate two or more of the things I find myself carrying around on a regular basis, I take the opportunity. Last year I consolidated my PDA and my Cellphone into a T-Mobile Dash, which has all the functions of both items that I use. It also has really good reception, so that's a plus.

I've already got a badge holder. Doesn't everyone?

I've already got a pedometer, but it's just one more think to connect to myself. I already feel like I need a Batman Utility belt. With a phone, a bluetooth headset (when I'm not wearing it, and I only wear it in the car because I think people look stupid wearing their bluetooth headsets in public places), a swiss army knife (the Cybertool 34), a badge, two secure access tokens, wallet, two sets of keys, pedometer, and assorted pocket sundries (rubber band, paperclip, lint, etc), I'm full up.

I haven't accepted a Murse as an option yet. My brother in law carries a man bag. It's like the one Indiana Jones carried. On him it's a manly masculine accessory, so I may have to start thinking about it.

After watching "You on a Diet" with Dr's Oz and Roizen (from Reader's Digest, and Oprah), I've been trying to keep track of how far I walk each day. They recommend at *least* 10,000 steps per day. I've had my pedometer for about 2 weeks now, and wanted to spend a month seeing what I do now, without augmenting my routine with any additional exercise.

So far I seem to be averaging only about 4500 steps per day. Pretty sad.

I think I'll pick up an IDstride, though. Maybe if I consolidate 2 items into 1 item that weighs less than the original 2 items, I'll feel more like walking. :)

Wednesday December 13, 2006

How to buy your wife or girlfriend a present they'll like

Yesterday I was watching the Today show on NBC, and Jean Chatzky showed how little she knows about the inner workings of men, and simultaneously provided great insight into women, and a problem that most of us men have experienced: What do you buy your wife or girlfriend for Christmas?

First off, she said that women like to surprise men. They like the feeling of suspense when they buy us something they know we'll like. She seemed surprised to hear that men would like some big bold neon sign -like hints as to what a women wants for Christmas. She thinks it should be obvious to men what women like, like it's obvious to women what men like. Cute, eh? Unfortunately for her, men's brains are not wired that way. We're wired to look for meat.... hunting, fishing, computing. We're wired for taking things apart, rarely for putting them back together.

She then went on to ask, like it's obvious, "Why don't you just go to your wife's closet, look through her clothes, and look at the tags. You'll get the brands we like, you'll get our size, and you'll get an idea of the styles we like. Or notice what perfume we wear, and buy us the whole line. We'll be happy."

I sometimes wonder at how the male brain is wired. None the less at why I never thought of that. Why in all the years that I've been married, or previously, had a girlfriend at Christmas, have I never thought to look at the brands and size of her clothes, or at her perfumes, to buy her a gift? Is it because men are terrified at the thought of buying clothes for a woman? Maybe, but with the right brand, style, and size at hand, it's much less terrifying a prospect.

Thank you Jean Chatzky for getting on national television and giving the men of America (and beyond) a big, bold, neon sign -like hint. :) (yes, we really do need it!)

Here is her full article on the subject. It has a more big bold hints, like "Talk to her friends", and "Don't over look electonics", and "Kitchen appliances are not sexy gifts".

Now I feel much more confident about the Christmas present I'm getting for my wife.

Thursday September 14, 2006

SCARY: Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine Security Analysis

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine

From the site: "This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates."

See the whole thing here.

Then, once you've watched it, write your congressman or senator or something.

Tuesday November 01, 2005

Did Sony put a rootkit on *your* PC, too?

Interesting article here about Sony Music's Copy-Protected CDROMs. Apparently the "Copy Protection" is actually a root kit that installs some software, device drivers, and driver filters onto your PC so that you can a) Only make 3 copies of the CD, and b) Only listen to the CD with the accompanying Media Player.

As the EULA with the CD fails to mention that any software is being installed, and fails to actually ask you if you'd like it installed, it seems to run afoul of the law in many countries. I can think of a few reasons, installing software onto a computer with neither the owner's consent or knowledge, and invasion of privacy, for starters.

Give the article a read, then check your PC if you're up to it.

I had this installed on a PC at home. Yes, I run Windows at home. Actually, my wife does, to be clear about it. I run Solaris 10 x86.

Saturday September 03, 2005

Random thoughts on Katrina, Darts, and Emergency Management

Along came a hurricane and drowned a city. In the process, many Americans learned just how prepared their government is to handle a disaster of such proportions.

In fairness to the folks who's job it is to respond to these events, it wasn't your typical hurricane response. In Florida when a hurricane hits, there are generally not many people who just aren't reachable. Trees block streets, but they can be moved. The main difference, I think is that Florida is above sea level. The water flooding New Orleans is the big differentiator in this hurricane response, and it necessitated a new way of thinking about the response. And in Florida, armed thugs aren't shooting at the Search and Rescue teams, or the police, or the civil engineers.

I am completely in awe of people who put their own lives on hold to go down and pull people out of NO by helicopter, and going down to distribute food and water. You are all truly inspiring.

In the wake of 9/11, FEMA has joined the evergrowing Department of Homeland Security. In the wake of this, I bet that you go look at the upper echelons within FEMA, you'll find a lot of folks who've been there less than 5 years, who have little to no disaster assistance/management experience, who are political appointees. Many of the real experts have gone to DHS or to state agencies, after all DHS is supposed to take over this type of response soon. I guess this disaster happened at the least possible convenient time for FEMA/DHS/White House.

Hopefully we'll learn some good lessons from all this, and we'll be able to make sure that while one organization is transitioning to take over a function from another agency, let's not gut the existing agency until the new agency has a handle on it's functions.

Here's a good selection of articles for more info:

• Destroying FEMA
• Storm Exposed Disarray at the Top
• White House punts as the Wackenhuts blitz!
• The Gulf Between Rhetoric and Reality
• A Day of Contradictions

Also, I know that USAID has a Disaster Assitance Response Team which is a group of highly trained and experienced professionals that have responded with humanitarian assistance to the Tsunami of last winter, and to countries like Iran and Albania, and Japan, and all sorts of places where humanitarian assistance is required. I know that some of the SAR teams associated with DART have deployed to the Gulf region, like Virginia Task Force 1, but why not deploy some of the stashed resouces they had set aside like generators and water and food rations?
I guess maybe USAID is only authorized to deploy overseas for that type of humanitarian assistance.

The only guy I can think of who was happy to see Hurricane Katrina come along was Joran Van Der Sloot, as for the first time in 3 months it took him right out of the news.

Thursday August 11, 2005

DaVinci Code, fact or fiction?

Who cares?