A fun and eventful weekend...Friday after work started out with me breaking my phone (cracking the screen which pretty much makes it useless since it's a touch-screen). More on that later...but Friday evening I went to a final happy hour for my good friends Brian and Jossie who are moving back to Florida. We will miss them lots, and I look forward to visiting them sometime. We were able to sit outside at Whistle Binkies for awhile before the rain/storm hit, and then found tables inside to talk, laugh, reminisce, etc.
Saturday after a leisurely morning, we headed up to St. Paul for my cousin's wedding. A very fancy affair, at one of the University buildings on Summit Ave (next door to the Governor's Mansion, so you know it was pretty nice). Again, beat the rain and storm enough to have an outdoor ceremony (the reception was of course indoors). Much talking, laughing, and catching up with friends and family.
Sunday evening was my final Notochords jazz band gig for the "season" (we start back up again in the fall). Pine Island - again, the weather just looked like it was going to be ominous, but after some cloudiness during the day and 5 minutes of hard rain (which stopped me from finishing the lawn), it actually got pretty pleasant in the evening. We had a good crowd at the band shell, 100+ people they said, and a fun evening of big band music.
A few dates of note...the important one being today, marking 4 years that Erin and I have been together. Yes, 4 years...hard to believe. Somewhere in the next week or two are also the 2-year birthdays for our kittehs (we don't know the exact dates), as well as both Erin's and my birthdays the first half of July. AND, the first week of July will mark 13 years for me at IBM. Combine that with the 4th of July and another fun wedding event this weekend and there's a lot of fun going on :)
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Bionic Kitties!
OK, this one is near and dear to me for so many reasons...
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-06/british-amputee-cat-first-get-bone-grafted-exoprosthetic-paws
I've seen so many cat and other pet accidents, disabilities, etc. and am always amazed at how resilient they are. The most recent story my friend Bill told me was about a cat with one leg missing that his friend adopted - the cat pretty much just dealt with it and made it work and after being around it awhile you hardly even noticed.
I'd certainly take a pet with a disability in a heartbeat. But it's cool that they can do things like this now (hopefully some of this pioneering is going on in the "people" medical field as well!)
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-06/british-amputee-cat-first-get-bone-grafted-exoprosthetic-paws
I've seen so many cat and other pet accidents, disabilities, etc. and am always amazed at how resilient they are. The most recent story my friend Bill told me was about a cat with one leg missing that his friend adopted - the cat pretty much just dealt with it and made it work and after being around it awhile you hardly even noticed.
I'd certainly take a pet with a disability in a heartbeat. But it's cool that they can do things like this now (hopefully some of this pioneering is going on in the "people" medical field as well!)
Star Trek meets Ke$ha
I have to be a little proud when my wonderful (and non-geeky) boyfriend finds things that combine our interests:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/21/star-trek-gets-much-neede_n_619791.html?ref=fb&src=sp
(in fairness, he DOES like Star Trek but probably not as much as I do)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/21/star-trek-gets-much-neede_n_619791.html?ref=fb&src=sp
(in fairness, he DOES like Star Trek but probably not as much as I do)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Landscaping
A great start to what will likely be a long, multi-year project...
From top to bottom, there is some variety of lilac (with rosemary cover), lamb's ear, parsley, wine & roses, lamb's ear, and some kind of azelia (with rosemary cover).
The weather wasn't the most cooperative yesterday, but it didn't pour so I guess that's a good thing (it cleared up about an hour after we finished of course :)
From top to bottom, there is some variety of lilac (with rosemary cover), lamb's ear, parsley, wine & roses, lamb's ear, and some kind of azelia (with rosemary cover).
The weather wasn't the most cooperative yesterday, but it didn't pour so I guess that's a good thing (it cleared up about an hour after we finished of course :)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Massive Birthdays
My niece is rapidly becoming famous for her over-the-top birthday parties - both activities and number of guests. Here is a picture of one of the primary attractions of this year's:
and the present I got her (if you don't get it, you need to watch the "Big Bang Theory" TV show):
A fun day!
and the present I got her (if you don't get it, you need to watch the "Big Bang Theory" TV show):
A fun day!
Holy Close Calls
OK, I guess I need to pay more attention to the local news occasionally. Thursday night Southern MN was hit with some very strong storms and weather. It was very windy and hard rain that I could see. I was keeping up watching the local TV station, and as the sirens went off, they were insisting that there were no tornadoes in Rochester and they assumed it was because of the high winds (70mph). Wrong I guess:
Graphic of the Tornado's Path
(and original article: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/arx/?n=jun1710)
Now...if you look at the picture, and you know where I live, I was less than half a mile away. The article said it was an EF1 on the scale, the "weakest" of tornadoes (if you can use the word "weak" and "tornado" in the same sentence). Still...kinda scary now that I know. I saw where it must have gone across 50th ave when I was driving to work the next morning, and obviously with the damage it did to the Menard's building and all the town houses in Lincolnshire, it must have been strong enough.
I guess I'll be thankful I didn't see it, and that we had no damage.
Graphic of the Tornado's Path
(and original article: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/arx/?n=jun1710)
Now...if you look at the picture, and you know where I live, I was less than half a mile away. The article said it was an EF1 on the scale, the "weakest" of tornadoes (if you can use the word "weak" and "tornado" in the same sentence). Still...kinda scary now that I know. I saw where it must have gone across 50th ave when I was driving to work the next morning, and obviously with the damage it did to the Menard's building and all the town houses in Lincolnshire, it must have been strong enough.
I guess I'll be thankful I didn't see it, and that we had no damage.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Bazinga
I saw my 5-year-old niece this weekend, and one of the first things she told me was "Bazinga" - Sheldon Cooper's word from the Big Bang Theory. I couldn't have been more proud of her :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSqestqf63k
(CBS, HD)
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skQGve3XksU
(more bazinga but lower quality)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSqestqf63k
(CBS, HD)
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skQGve3XksU
(more bazinga but lower quality)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Legal Ridiculous-ness
Warning: Rant ahead...proceed with caution.
If you want to read one of many articles about what I'm going to talk about, look here: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/google-wifi-sniffing/ or just google "google wifi legal".
Google recently launched a project which was to help map out wi-fi hotspots and connectivity in relation to physical geographic location. They have done similar projects in the past like the "street view" many of us have seen on Google Maps (where you can type in an address and then click on Street View and actually SEE a picture of the building, street, etc.).
Well, as a consequence of how they did this wi-fi mapping project, they also collected a bunch of random wi-fi traffic. I won't go into all the technical details, but basically, if you have a wireless router, it runs in a "broadcast" mode, which means that all the traffic being sent back and forth between your laptop and the router is "out in the air" for everyone within range to see - much like a radio or TV station broadcasts their signals, but on a much smaller scale. Of course almost any modern router can be configured to encrypt this traffic, so that only the device that initiated a particular connection can decrypt its own traffic (and no one else's). Which is totally fine for the purposes of what Google was trying to accomplish - they didn't care WHAT the data being sent back and forth was, all they cared about was the unique ID of the router and mapping that to where geographically they were at when they picked up the signal.
However...not everyone configures their routers to encrypt traffic, sometimes intentionally - if you configure for encryption, you must have a password to connect to the router, and if you want a router to be an "open hotspot" like they have at coffee shops, etc. then you can't be set up for encryption. So, while Google was capturing the data it actually wanted (the router ID, etc.) it also captured bunches of random unencrypted data.
The amount of data they "collected" from any one router was 5 seconds or less.
Despite all of that, various law enforcement and legal branches of countries around the world have decided that this was not an accident, that Google must have had malicious intent, and that they should be prosecuted.
There are MANY problems with this. So here we go...
1) Google didn't do anything that ANYONE else with a wireless device can't do. Sure, they did it on a large scale, but if the owner of a router is making their router "open" by not encrypting traffic, they are assuming the risk of all their traffic being seen BY ANYONE who is in range of that router. Period. End of story.
2) Google has the LEAST motivation or anyone to use such a manpower-intensive method to try and potentially collect personal data, given that they have more data available to them than anyone on the planet with searches, gmail, etc. (yes, you should all remember that we all TRUST Google when we use all their great neat free stuff - all our "personal" data is still on THEIR servers somewhere). If they were really after the kind of data you can get doing random wi-fi captures, they have much better, easier, quicker, and cheaper ways of doing it.
3) Google has been cooperative, shown how this process works and turned over all their source code, and has followed the requests made of many countries to either given them the data collected, destroy it, etc. They don't want it, need it, and don't care if it's just destroyed.
The reason this bothers me so much is that all of this has now entered the political, corporate, etc. realm. We are spending time, energy, and resources prosecuting something that doesn't need to be prosecuted, when we don't even have a legal system that is capable of keeping up with the "real" technology bad guys out there. So since we have no laws or means of finding the people that need to be found and prosecuted, we're prosecuting the big, visible target because it's available.
The message that SHOULD be coming out of all of this is that it is YOUR responsibility to manage YOUR privacy in this networked world. If all router owners configured for encryption, this would have been a non-issue. And people need to realize that whatever they put out onto the internet, "in the cloud" is out there and is no longer completely in your control. Not only do you trust someone like Google or Facebook to keep your data private (and even then THEY have access to it should they choose to) but you also trust your ISP, phone service provider, etc. because THEY have access to everything you do, should they choose to. It is certainly in all these companies best interest to provide you with privacy but there is no guarantee of that.
You can have your opinion about how much power Google is going to wield as time goes on with how much information and data they have and control. And that should be watched. But our legal system needs to be changed or updated to handle the fast pace that our world changes.
If you want to read one of many articles about what I'm going to talk about, look here: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/google-wifi-sniffing/ or just google "google wifi legal".
Google recently launched a project which was to help map out wi-fi hotspots and connectivity in relation to physical geographic location. They have done similar projects in the past like the "street view" many of us have seen on Google Maps (where you can type in an address and then click on Street View and actually SEE a picture of the building, street, etc.).
Well, as a consequence of how they did this wi-fi mapping project, they also collected a bunch of random wi-fi traffic. I won't go into all the technical details, but basically, if you have a wireless router, it runs in a "broadcast" mode, which means that all the traffic being sent back and forth between your laptop and the router is "out in the air" for everyone within range to see - much like a radio or TV station broadcasts their signals, but on a much smaller scale. Of course almost any modern router can be configured to encrypt this traffic, so that only the device that initiated a particular connection can decrypt its own traffic (and no one else's). Which is totally fine for the purposes of what Google was trying to accomplish - they didn't care WHAT the data being sent back and forth was, all they cared about was the unique ID of the router and mapping that to where geographically they were at when they picked up the signal.
However...not everyone configures their routers to encrypt traffic, sometimes intentionally - if you configure for encryption, you must have a password to connect to the router, and if you want a router to be an "open hotspot" like they have at coffee shops, etc. then you can't be set up for encryption. So, while Google was capturing the data it actually wanted (the router ID, etc.) it also captured bunches of random unencrypted data.
The amount of data they "collected" from any one router was 5 seconds or less.
Despite all of that, various law enforcement and legal branches of countries around the world have decided that this was not an accident, that Google must have had malicious intent, and that they should be prosecuted.
There are MANY problems with this. So here we go...
1) Google didn't do anything that ANYONE else with a wireless device can't do. Sure, they did it on a large scale, but if the owner of a router is making their router "open" by not encrypting traffic, they are assuming the risk of all their traffic being seen BY ANYONE who is in range of that router. Period. End of story.
2) Google has the LEAST motivation or anyone to use such a manpower-intensive method to try and potentially collect personal data, given that they have more data available to them than anyone on the planet with searches, gmail, etc. (yes, you should all remember that we all TRUST Google when we use all their great neat free stuff - all our "personal" data is still on THEIR servers somewhere). If they were really after the kind of data you can get doing random wi-fi captures, they have much better, easier, quicker, and cheaper ways of doing it.
3) Google has been cooperative, shown how this process works and turned over all their source code, and has followed the requests made of many countries to either given them the data collected, destroy it, etc. They don't want it, need it, and don't care if it's just destroyed.
The reason this bothers me so much is that all of this has now entered the political, corporate, etc. realm. We are spending time, energy, and resources prosecuting something that doesn't need to be prosecuted, when we don't even have a legal system that is capable of keeping up with the "real" technology bad guys out there. So since we have no laws or means of finding the people that need to be found and prosecuted, we're prosecuting the big, visible target because it's available.
The message that SHOULD be coming out of all of this is that it is YOUR responsibility to manage YOUR privacy in this networked world. If all router owners configured for encryption, this would have been a non-issue. And people need to realize that whatever they put out onto the internet, "in the cloud" is out there and is no longer completely in your control. Not only do you trust someone like Google or Facebook to keep your data private (and even then THEY have access to it should they choose to) but you also trust your ISP, phone service provider, etc. because THEY have access to everything you do, should they choose to. It is certainly in all these companies best interest to provide you with privacy but there is no guarantee of that.
You can have your opinion about how much power Google is going to wield as time goes on with how much information and data they have and control. And that should be watched. But our legal system needs to be changed or updated to handle the fast pace that our world changes.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Bad Adobe Flash plugin exploit - consider upgrading
Described in this Steve Gibson article:
http://steve.grc.com/2010/06/06/adobe-flash-forward-to-v10-1/
The "official" version 10.1 will be out soon anyway, but given how much Flash is used all over the internet, you might want to consider downloading the uninstaller and install 10.1 RC7 as described - Firefox won't automatically do that if you do "check for updates" because this is still a release candidate.
http://steve.grc.com/2010/06/06/adobe-flash-forward-to-v10-1/
The "official" version 10.1 will be out soon anyway, but given how much Flash is used all over the internet, you might want to consider downloading the uninstaller and install 10.1 RC7 as described - Firefox won't automatically do that if you do "check for updates" because this is still a release candidate.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Rue McClanahan
The 3rd "Golden Girl" to pass away, this morning:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100603/ap_on_en_tv/us_obit_rue_mcclanahan_13
She was only 76, sad...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100603/ap_on_en_tv/us_obit_rue_mcclanahan_13
She was only 76, sad...
Blood Donation Ban
Another article about the need to lift the ban on blood and organ donations by gay men. Besides the fact that the American Red Cross and American Blood Banks Association have long said that that the ban is scientifically and medically unwarranted (in light of better testing coupled with the fact that risk group factors among all populations are getting close to even now), this report estimates that the blood supply would increase by 1.4% and the organ donor supply would increase by 2.9% if the ban was lifted.
I know that on me alone, they lose the 8 pints a year I used to donate - I'd estimate that they've lost about 50 pints from me by now. My blood is fine, I'd gladly be donating 8 times a year.
I know that on me alone, they lose the 8 pints a year I used to donate - I'd estimate that they've lost about 50 pints from me by now. My blood is fine, I'd gladly be donating 8 times a year.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
IBM Muppets
This was on slashdot this morning:
http://technologizer.com/2010/05/31/ibm-muppets/
Kinda fun that even in 1967 the company I work for had a sense of humor :)
http://technologizer.com/2010/05/31/ibm-muppets/
Kinda fun that even in 1967 the company I work for had a sense of humor :)
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