Captain Justice Productions

Travel, Sickness, and Star Trek

2011-11-11T06:19:00.001Z

This has to be one of the longest trips that I have had thus far - outside of a permanent move. I went to Houston for two weeks to meet with some vendors, as well as to present at the API IT Security conference. (I received a lot of good feedback on that session - I'm glad that I can still make a room full of IT security professionals laugh)

The next leg of the journey took me to Jakarta, Indonesia to help teach a course. Unfortunately - the route that I had the pleasure of undertaking was Houston -> Moscow -> Singapore -> Jakarta. (Or 3/4 the way around the world - with a total of 27 hours flying time). Since I don't really sleep well on planes (especially since I can barely fit into some of the economy seats nowadays) I was awake and sleep deprived for the majority of the journey. And - when you are over-tired - your immune system is weakened. And since you are trapped breathing recycled air with the rest of your co-passengers in the flying metal tube for 27 hours - you can wind up getting sick.

Which is what I did.

(I'm pretty certain that this analysis is accurate)

It was so bad that I had to skip one of the days instructing the course and hand over the curriculum to the other instructor. And - since we also had one of our special guest star attendees as well - we put him to work presenting some of the material while I went back to my hotel room, turned off the A/C and tried to turn the place into my own personal sweat lodge.

I was so drained that I did something that I rarely do - I ordered room service instead of heading down to the hotel restaurant to eat. Of course - being as sick as I was - my voice was as raspy and baritone as Tony Jay after gargling gravel. So when I was ordering something to eat - all I really wanted was some soup, a sandwich, and a pot of tea. However - since my voice was impacted by the vicious variant of Rhinovirus that I had acquired - I had some difficulty in explainning that I just wanted some Earl Grey tea to drink.After a couple of rounds of back and forth trying to explain what I wanted, and being thwarted by my sinuses - I had a thought. I simpply uttered the phrase:

"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot"

And that seemed to have solved that problem.

10 Years after 9/11

2011-09-15T21:06:00.003+01:00

I don't really have anything to say about this. While I recall the events of the day, there's really nothing profound that I can add to the multitude of articles published on this topic.

I do want you to read what Ken from popehat.com has to say about this - I think that he's written a very rational and thought provoking article.

And of course - visit what the Onion has to say about the whole thing using humour of a darker sort.

Star Trek: Rebooted

2011-08-13T21:24:00.000+01:00

So the Star Trek franchise has been re-booted and infused with new, younger blood, and there are more movies in the works. By my reckoning, it's time for a new television series. There isn't really a really popular science fiction series active right now, and with the cancellation of Eureka; it's going to cause a gap in the collective imagination of science fiction fans across the world.

So - with a re-booted Star Trek movie franchise, there is a great opportunity for a television series to boldly go again to a time in the future where humanity travels the stars - and tend to place critical plasma conduits behind the crew's control panels.

The details behind the new crew and new adventures are irrelevant at this point, the folks who write Star Trek episodes have a really good imagination in creating all sorts of nasty and alien situations for the crew to get into. They're also fantastic at creating believable names and back stories for the characters - I trust them there.

The one thing that I need to impress upon anyone thinking of creating a new Star Trek series is that the actor that portrays the captain of the ship needs to be able to make the audience believe that he or she is heroic. That's the great thing about all the actors that have been chosen before is that they could truly convey that - each in their own way. (I'll even concede that the Chris Pine does a good job as the new Kirk - as well as anyone could do trying to fill Shatner's shoes)

I think that I know of an actor who would excel in a role as a new captain.

Who indeed?

You know that I am right.
Face it: resistance is futile.

Dammit! I'd watch that show!

2011-08-07T15:15:00.001+01:00

**Warning – foul language (multiple f-bombs) ahead ** ¹

I've been following the amusingly entertaining blog posts of The Bloggess (aka Jenny Lawson) for a number of years now. The internet loves her – and why shouldn't it? She is an award winning blogger (you can't just say that you've won blogging awards if you haven't – this stuff gets posted on the internet!) She's also contributed a number of valuable additions to my lexicon, such as “stabby”, “cock-knuckle”, and “douche canoe”. Essentially – she has kept me sane by posting her unique brand of hilarious insanity on the web.²

And we're not talking “Oh-I-just-sprayed-hot-coffee-out-my nose-while-laughing.”

We're talking about”Oh-my-god-I-think-I-may-have-shit-my-pants-because-I've-been-laughing-so-hard” So go read – but have spare pants on standby.

In 2010 CBS ran a show called $#*! My Dad Says based on the twitter feed of Justin Halpern, and it starred William Shatner. And it was darn funny. Unfortunately – due to Hollywood being what it is, and I suspect a well funded campaign from those filthy liars at the “Picard was a better Captain” camp, it was canceled mid season. Yet it has still left me with a large number of quotes that I try to work into conference calls, and is yet another reminder that Shatner is distilled awesome.

Now my question is: Why hasn't Hollywood made a television show out of her blog?

It would be frikken awesome! And I would totally watch it. And let's face it – you would too. Why? Because I've already put far too much time into this project as it is, I can document the sheer awesomeness of transition from blog to sitcom for your reading enoyoment.

While I think that it would be a good thing to put this on network television there are a couple of problems with trying to put this on the major networks.

So first things first – there is the issue of language. I'm not saying that there is occasionally some strong language there – there can sometimes be enough f-bombs to knock a buzzard off of a shit wagon. Plus – the main character writes articles about sex – so there's way more fun that you can have with that on Showtime or HBO than ABC or NBC. That way you can have dialogue exchanges with characters that would make a sailor with Tourette's blush.

Second - the location for the show. Texas is filled with a veritable cornucopia of hilarious stereotypes of gun toting bible thumping redneck type neighbors – unless you want to have the show take place in Austin – where there are a veritable cornucopia of hilarious stereotypes of pot smoking tree hugging hippie type neighbors.

Third – there is the issue of for the name of the show. I think that we can take a hint from some some of my favorite shows: Chuck, Dexter, Titus.

Single word title – a person's name.

Simple – elegant – powerful – and funny as all hell.

The name of the show: Jenny.

Hmmm. What might that IMDB entry look like?

Click for a big ass version of the IMDB page

Lets' take a look at casting these characters:

Jenny

The protagonist of our show – haven't you been following along? Now this particular character will definitely be hard to cast – it would take a the right mix of “Crazy” mixed with “Funny.” Go too far one way and you get a kind of a goofball who smears themselves with peanut butter and runs naked through the park. Too far the other way – and well, you've pretty much got a female Dexter.

I do, however – have a couple of suggestions for casting this role:

Nicole Sullivan

Nicole is an amazingly talented comedienne whose range of talent could very likely be able to portray Jenny Lawson. Plus – she's had experience working with William Shatner on $#*! My Dad Says – and that might become important for the season finale of the first season.

Jenna Elfman

Jenna has played a large number of highly amusing characters – and as such might make a good candidate for this role. Especially if the sitcom is based in Austin – there is a ample opportunity to draw upon the role of the somewhat flaky Dharma from Dharma and Greg

Jennifer Carpenter

While I am not certain about Jennifer's experience in a comedic role, her ability to delicately spew approximately the correct amount of profanity for this role, based on her performance as the indomitable Debra Morgan on Dexter.

Victor

There's really only one person who could play Victor: Patrick Warburton. I think that if you read the post about Beyonce the six foot metal chicken – you have to read Victor's response to the UPS delivery guy in Patrick's voice as either Joe Swanson or even The Tick:

IT IS NOT A NICE CHICKEN!

Lisa G

Jenny's friend who she describes as “. . . the smartest woman I’ve ever met but when she talks she sounds a lot like if Kenneth from 30 Rock and Brittany from Glee had a baby. She is awesome and I want her to live in my closet

This could only be played by Kristin Chenoweth – if you have ever watched The West Wing – you know that she is right for this role. .

Non people Characters.

There are a variety of non-persons that exist in the internet world of The Bloggess. Personally, I think that these characters need to be voiced. Perhaps these are the sort of thoughts that kept me out of the really good schools and yet one more reason that I'll never be a TV executive. That being said – it is a recipe for funny.

The cats

There's three cats. This is simple – they will be voiced by Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett.

James Garfield

The stuffed boar head. This really needs to be voiced by Gilbert Godfried.

Copernicus the homicidal stuffed monkey.

Assuming that we can't bring Tony Jay back to life to voice this role, I think that this should be down to Steve Buscemi

Beyoncé the six foot metal chicken.
Seriously? I thought that this one would be obvious, We should have Beyoncé voice the chicken.

The plot

There is way more than enough things on her blog that could fill Season 1 – just sitting there right now. (Possibly Season 2 if you only have 12 episodes per season). Given the popularity of the metal chicken blog post – it could be saved for mid season – say episode 7 – so that Jenny can dominate sweeps week.

Season 1

Episode 1 Hello World

Pilot episode about a mother and blogger as she starts to collect a loyal following of devote readers on her blog, and how she deals with her new found internet fame.

Episode 2 Hello James Garfield

An irresistible mounted boar's head almost seems like it is speaking to Jenny – but perhaps there is more to this inanimate stuffed animal than meets the eye.

Episode 3 Hello Wine Slushies

Discovery of a new method of recreational beverage make Jenny the hit of her community.

Episode 4 Eight Pounds of Uncut Cocaine

The amusing name that Jenny has been using for selling on-line merchandise arouses the interest of the Drug Enforcement Agency, who pay the household a visit.

Episode 5 All hail Satan

As internet analysis tools pick up on her social media streams, Jenny is revealed to be influential on a couple of surprising topics. As a result, she has to reassure her whacky neighbors that she is not, in fact, an agent of Satan.

Episode 6 Celebrities Collating

A dispute with potential sponsors of the blog requires the intervention of a powerful celebrity. Guest star: Wil Wheaton.

Episode 7 Knock Knock Motherfucker!

After being banned from purchasing towels, Jenny and her friend Laura adhere to the letter, if not the spirit of the law.

Episode 8 A Hard Man to Rattle

Victor gets his own episode when reporters follow some of Jenny's family and friends, with flashbacks to his point of view to some of Jenny's hijinks during previous episodes.

Episode 9 The Conference

Attending a blogging conference leads to hilarious hijinks when Jenny meets some of her fans IRL.

Episode 10 My Psychiatrist gave me Roofies
A trip to the therapist yields a slightly less than traditional therapeutic medication.

Episode 11 Copernicus the homicidal monkey

Jenny falls immediately in love with an odd looking stuffed monkey that she found in a thrift shop – but her new house guest may have more ominous intentions.

Episode 12 Jenny versus Shatner

All is well in the Lawson household . . . until Jenny finds out that William Shatner has blocked her from his twitter feed. So she enlists the aid of the internet to help get her unblocked. Guest star: William Shartner as William Fucking Shatner.

I'll just leave this here in case some mucky-muck Hollywood exec wants to pick up this winning formula for a sitcom.

¹I've been using OpenOffice to draft these posts. The auto-complete function is starting to adapt disturbingly fast to my writing style.

Disturbing and fast

²Of course – the jury is still out on the degree of my sanity.

I'm a bit of a lazy bastard

2011-07-31T14:15:00.000+01:00

I'm not ashamed to admit that I am lazy. But lazy in a good way.

Perhaps I should explain.

It's my opinion that at the the heart of every good IT professional is someone who is lazy, in that they don't want to mundane, tedious or repetitive tasks if it can all be avoided, like if it is something that you can outsource to meth addicts.¹

It's probably something that Eric S. Raymond best describes in this essay “How to Become a Hacker” (Note that the definition that he is using is the more traditional definition of the word hacker, not the more sensationalized definition that the media tends to use – which would be synonymous with what has traditionally known as a “cracker” on the interwebs, but let's not get into that can of worms here.)

3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because when this happens it means they aren't doing what only they can do - solve new problems. This wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil.

To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to want to automate away the boring bits as much as possible, not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers).

(There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will sometimes do things that may seem repetitive or boring to an observer as a mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire a skill or have some particular kind of experience you can't have otherwise. But this is by choice - nobody who can think should ever be forced into a situation that bores them.)

If you're an IT professional like myself – it's probably a good thing to read through the entire essay. You should take away a couple of items from the essay:

Learn Perl. I am by no means an expert at Perl – but it has vastly allowed me to automate a great deal.
Learn scripting for your OS. I'm about 50% of the way replacing myself with a small bash script. It's just not as pithy or witty as I am. *YET*
If you need to do a repetitive task more than three times – it might be worth time investing in automating that task. I'll spend 4 hours working on the solution to a 5 minute problem – but once I have solved it – that's 5 minutes that I never have to spend doing that task again.

Put another way – When I was younger – I was always the shortest and lightest of the kids at school – at least until grade 10, where I simply became the tallest, lightest and scrawniest. As a result of being puny, attending a “jock” school and having a higher intelligence than that of an eggplant – this led to some interesting confrontations on the way to and from school.²

As a result, I enrolled in Judo as a kid. It's known as “The Gentle Way” and you can read about it on the internets if you're curious. It was more of a way to keep in shape more than anything else – although the discipline and competition makes for good training for any number of situations.³

What makes Judo “The Gentle Way” is that the vast majority of techniques involve using your opponents momentum against him. (Or her- there was a girl in our dojo who would consistently kick my ass – which didn't really do my ego a whole lot of good since she was lighter and prettier than I was.)

However – the real take away lesson from that adventure was that if you are grappling with a problem, try to use your opponent’s strength against him or her. Computers are very good at doing repetitive things that can be distilled down to what essentially amounts to a recipe. So - try to figure out what it is that you want a computer to do for you - and get cooking!

Now – to the topic that I really wanted to talk about today:

Social Media.

As an Internet Geek™ - I get a perverse sense of joy out of making one computer system talk to another. And – being and Attention-Whore™ – I love the fact that there are so many places that I can publish my own opinions. An being a lazy bastard – I hate having to type the same thing over and over again to try to reach my audience. (And speaking of my audience, from the bottom of my heart – I would like to thank you both.)

I am not a social media expert. (And I think that the vast majority of people who identify themselves as “Social Media Experts” are folks who are repeating the same thing over and over again in the hopes that they and others will come to believe that it is true, and then pay them lots of money for getting them followers on Twitter.)⁴

However – the one thing that I can say about the plethora of tools that are out there for folks to use – there are just as many ways to use (or not use them) What follow is the way that I use social media. For some of you this may be old hat, and others might learn something, but the most important thing is that you are reading the words that I have carefully placed here. (Attention Whore™ – remember?)

How I use social media:

(Click for a big-assed view of this map)

Nexus: Twitter
http://twitter.com/

I use Twitter as a central hub to drive most things. Why? Simple – I'm lazy and the 140 character limit makes for less typing. Sure there are a host of APIs that Twitter has that are used by a gazillion free applications out there, but the basic tenet that I am lazy tends to drive most of the updates I send to Twitter. The manner in which that I use it also tends to afford me some flexibility in where my updates go. Things that I send to my FaceBook friends might not necessarily be what I want to send to the LinkedIn stream, and replies to tweets are probably something that don't need to go to either. More on that later. Twitter is incredibly easy to update via the web, via apps on your phone, or even SMS, if you need to tell the world instantly about the fact that you are in the middle of a bank robbery, or if you've just taken a poop.

Blogspot

http://captain-justice.blogspot.com/

I don't always blog – but when I do – I blog on Blogspot.

I see what you did there

Obviously – you have found your way here. But since I haven't really done anything to try to optimize this site for search engines, or host whacky memes that draw visitors in, I have to have some way to alert my ~~minions~~ loyal followers that I have posted something; like a NWO-style manifesto, or spaghetti sauce recipe, or what-have-you. And you want to do this in the least keystrokes as possible (i.e. none if possible)

(Lazy Internet Geek™, remember?)

The way that I choose to do this is via . . .

Twitterfeed.

http://twitterfeed.com/

The first thing that you should care about in this case is that twitterfeed.com (and all of the tools that I am highlighting today) will allow you to sign in with some sort of OpenID – meaning that you do not have to store your password for blogspot, twitter, or anything else there. While they will be able to post updates to your account, the damage is somewhat minimized should the site get compromised, in that the attackers would be limited to posting updates about how you want everyone to visit “Harry's erotic spatula emporium” - as opposed to being able to rifle through your e-mail because they have your password.

I have this updating my Twitter feed with the hashtag “#fb” appended at the end (more on that later) so that it will update Facebook status automatically. The newer features of the site will allow you to update FaceBook and LinkedIn directly, and I suppose that I should look into optimizing that at some point in time. You will notice that there is a red line between Twitterfeed and LinkedIn. That's just because there are some blog posts that might interest my friends on FaceBook, but I might not want to automatically publish to LinkedIn. Of course – they might not interest my friends on FaceBook, but I'm less sensitive about spamming them with ignominious drivel.

FriendFeed

http://friendfeed.com/

It is a great aggregator for RSS feeds, and twitter posts, and can update your FaceBook status if you let it. However – it will end up spamming folks in your friends if you plug too many feeds. (Hence – you can see that updates to FaceBook are disabled for me.)

LinkedIn

http://linkedin.com/

Dubbed as “FaceBook for Business” it is a good way to connect professionals, share experience and knowledge, and help folks find new jobs. However – posting ALL of your tweets to LinkedIn, might not be the best idea.

Sometimes inside jokes don't translate too well across mediums. Luckily enough for you – LinkedIn allows you the option to only post those Tweets that you have the #in hash tag.

FaceBook

http://facebook.com

Everyone is on FaceBook nowadays. So if I need to reach my ~~minions~~ close and dear friends, I probably need to post status updates here every now and again. Again – sending every single tweet to your FaceBook feed is one sure way to lose friends and gain restraining orders (or so I have heard) There is a handy FaceBook application called “Selective Tweets” which can help you only post that include the #fb hashtag. (Extra added bonus – it will filter out the #fb and #in hashtags from your status

Extra bonus prize: Selective tweets will remove the #in and #fb tags from your status – but leave other tags intact. Something that the folks at LinkedIn should probably take a look at.

Google+

http://plus.google.com

While still new - Google+ has been dominating the news as of late – and seems to have a fairly rapid uptake, much unlike Google Wave or Buzz. That being said – it is a fledgling Social network – and Google engineers are frantically adding and debugging features as quickly as people can break them. As soon as they can release some APIs (or have support for this functionality natively) to allow for selective updates from Twitter. (Just in case anyone from Google is reading this - hint, hint)

This is by no means a complete list of the tools that are out there to help make your life easier when using/updating your social network profiles, nor does it cover tolls that can help you learn more about how you use these networks – like klout, for instance.

As time goes on – I may update the way that I use these tools, and I should update my social network map diagram as a result.

Chances of an update are fairly slim since I am a bit of a lazy bastard.

But you know that now, don't you?

1. I'm just saying that meth addicts can (generally speaking) be a bargain to hire and they're really good at tedious tasks when they're high. I'm not saying that you should outsource any of your development work to them – unless you're running a botnet or identity theft ring. In that case – fill your boots.
2. Indecently – this is where I learned Tim's Tenet #2: “I can run faster scared than you can mad.”
3. Although what my friend Brad and I primarily focused on was attempt to perfect our technique at Tomoe-Nage (otherwise known as the “Captain Kirk Throw™”).
4. I know there are Social Media experts out there. You're probably one of them, and the previous statement doesn't apply to you. Now go tweet your displeasure with me to the world by calling me a disingenuous hack.

Food porn

2011-01-18T16:56:00.000Z

I like the folks at EpicMealTime.

Not just because this group of culinary misfits are Canadian, and not just because of the fact that they seem to be particularly amenable to bacon and bacon related products.

But most importantly - they have created something that can only be classified as "food porn" - grotesque abominations of traditional recipes and portions that are obscene in a way that make them look perversely appealing.

Even better - everything fists nicely into a 3 or 4 minute webisode - which is about the right length for the attention span of your average netizen.

Slaughterhouse Christmas Special
"Many steaks . . ."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rUEpmbdZLw
Breakfast of Booze
"We getting drunk off pancakes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZDv9pgHp8Q
Death of the Double Down
"Yeah we got drunk again"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpKtarjTvqU
Turbacon Epic
"I'm here for my pig."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xc5wIpUenQ
Fast Food Sushi
"Roll one up homie"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXjxHQQxcLw
Meatball Deathstar
"It's been a week since I had the meat-sweats"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCROpchUjQI
Epic Egg roll
"And we got a goof to eat it"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9iz3KVT0Y0
Chilli Four Loco
"Tastes like crazy alcohol rainbow pig"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eah23WvLYsQ
Worst Pizza Ever
"Hi it's me. I'd like the Baconator - again"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz2SxGNy-Mw
The Angry French Canadian
"It's not a race - you're both going to die at the end of this sandwich"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQX2kC1jUB8
Triple Meat Log
"We all know that no one wants to see a douchebag eat a corndog"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIzzx2OolfI
The Black Legend
"Two Girls - 1 crepe"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaKcl0Qg13o

Meat Salad

"We got drunk and now we're going to enjoy a bowl of meat"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFB_vHVFM_8

and speaking of Christopher Walken [NSFW]

2010-10-12T21:24:00.001+01:00

This made me laugh so hard I cried.

Dave Coyne: Comedy genius

http://www.dclugi.tv/Biography.htm

Hi - I'm not dead

2010-10-11T22:19:00.000+01:00

Just busy.

Here's a funny video from Chris:

Cooking with Christopher Walken

The Middle Name

2010-05-09T11:54:00.001+01:00

**Warning** Lots of foul language (f-bombs) ahead.

There are a lot of people on the internet - and some people are cooler than others. (I, myself - likely rate approximately a 2.173 out of 10 - and that's only if I can take credit for being here for such a dreadfully long time.) That being said - there are some people who are innately cool - interwebs or no.

Take Amanda Palmer - for instance. Singer, songwriter, director, photographer - any one of which could grant her an 8 or 9 on the coolness scale - let alone taken together. However - this is not really what sets her apart from the rest of us on the web. What sets her apart is that she has an "official unofficial" middle name - and it is awesome:

Amanda Fucking Palmer

It just kind of rolls off the tongue. Sound it out loud. It has a certain poetic, iambic rhythm to it.

And it's not just anyone who can get away with a middle name like this - you have to be badass enough to support a middle name like "Fucking" - and the name also has to "sound right". Even if I had enough street cred to pull this one off, the metre of "Tim Fucking Hergert" has the harsh abruptness of a command given from Colonel Klink to Sergeant Shultz.

But this got me to thinking - that there has to be more people who are cool/badass/influential enough to have earned the right to have a middle name such as this - but also have one that - with the addition of an obscene middle name - has a certain poetic ring to it. Or conversely, in the case of actors and actresses - have played characters who have left a legacy in our culture, led to societal change - or who I simply thought were cool.

And what kind of a host would I be if I didn't categorize and share these thoughts with you?

Actors/Actresses

I enjoy a bit of TV/Movie escapism from time to time, when I'm not trying to extinguish smoking firewalls, or stomp on flaming malware with asbestos boots. As such, I think that there are a number of actors and actresses who might be under-represented at awards ceremonies, and if I can help spread the word - then this entire blog isn't a complete waste of electricity.

Bruce Fucking Campbell

With a career in film and TV that spans decades, you may remember him from roles in Spider Man, Spider Man 2, Spider Man 3, Hercules, Xena Warrior Princess, Jack of all Trades, The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr, the most awesome Old Spice advertisements ever, and more recently, Burn Notice. But where he actually accumulated the Sheer-Amount-of-Badass™ needed to support having this middle name comes from the Evil Dead series of films, which he made with his friend Sam Raimi in the eighties, culminating with what could likely be the best movie of all time - Army of Darkness.

Incidentally - that movie has provided me with the single most effective way to open a conference call I have ever used:
"All right you primitive screw-heads - Listen up!"

Burn Notice looks like it will be going into a fourth season, and critics rave about the dynamic between Jeffrey Donovan's and Gabrielle Anwar's characters on the show - I think that it can be safely said that the real reason that the show is enjoying such a resounding success is that there is a large group of rabid, hard core Bruce Campbell fans who absolutely love to see him play Sam Axe. To them, he will always be the wise-cracking, trash-talking, reluctant hero Ashley J. Williams, or as that character is more well known - simply "Ash."

Adam Fucking Baldwin

Adam may be best known for his role as the somewhat psychotic Animal Mother in Stanley Kubrik's "Full Metal Jacket" and "not-being-one-of-those-Baldwins™." However - it is likely his role as the somewhat psychotic "Jayne Cobb" on "Firefly" ( and subsequently "Serenity") that most would argue who have granted him the sheer bad-ass-itude to warrant earning this middle name. While I think that may be true to an extent, what really has put him over the top in my books is his role as the somewhat psychotic NSA agent "John Casey" in "Chuck". While the twitter-verse is panicking whether Zachary Levi's "Chuck" is ever going to get together with Yvonne Strahovski's "Sara," I tune in to see what Adam's character will be up to that week, because you can be guaranteed that's what will likely be most entertaining - at least for me.

From all accounts - he seems to have an incredibly good time on shows such as Firefly and Chuck, where the characters that he plays make effective foils for the protagonists. The writers in these shows seem to be able to create roles that could only really be executed effectively by Adam. But some of the most entertaining gems that are created for these productions are the things that Adam does as extras for the DVD sets, such as The Ballad of Jayne Cobb, or So You Want to be a Deadly Spy.

Pauley Fucking Perrette
Her exploits as the lead singer in an all-girl punk band, owning her own record company, and as an accomplished published poet should technically be enough to earn an obscene middle name. However, I don't there's anyone who does not know her as Abby Sciuto, the quirky, geeky, goth forensic scientist on NCIS.

Not to diminish from the acting talents or roles of her co-stars on the show - she must have a special relationship with the show's writers - enabling her to consistently steal just about every scene that she is in.

And it doesn't hurt that she is totally smokin hot.

William Fucking Shatner

Unless you don't have a television set or have never been to the movies, chances are that you have heard of or seen William Shartner in action. [And if you haven't, you're likely to be Amish - which begs the question: what are you doing on the Internet anyway?]

If you are a nerd like I am, you will know him as "Captain James T. Kirk" from the "Star Trek" television shows and movies. If not, you may have seen him on T.J. Hooker, Third Rock from the Sun, Or Boston Legal.

With over 50 years in the movie and TV industry, his unique acting style has made an indelible mark on the entire film industry, and in the process - had made him a legend in the business.

Henry Fucking Rollins

While being the front man for bands like Black Flag and, of course The Rollins Band, are certainly bad-ass, as are the characters that he generally plays on TV or in the movies, this isn't what gets him included on this list. He has done a number of spoken word engagements that - while they aren't labeled as motivational speeches, they put anything that Tony Robins could produce to shame.

While most people would expect that the lead singer of a punk rock band would make for some angry commentary, the truth of the matter is that these are some of the most entertaining and inspiring (and yet refreshingly non-sugar-coated) monologues that I have heard. He's also responsible for some of my favorite quotes:

"If you hate your parents, the man, or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your parents: outearn them, outlive them, and know more than they do."

That's better than any of the shit you can find on a bumper sticker.

Comedians

I truly believe that comedians see the world the way that it is, in all of it's true horror, and somehow make us laugh at it. They are some of the most under-sung heroes of our age and I draw more inspiration from this group of people than from any philosopher, religious organization, or new-age-spiritualist-whack-job combined. In the movie The History of the World Part I, Mel Brook's character Comicus describes is profession as a 'Stand up Philosopher." This, I feel, is a more accurate description of the individuals listed below.

Bill Fucking Cosby

While I can't say enough good things about this man - he would probably not be entirely too enthused with being included on this list. And it's for this reason that I hold this man in such high regard - his plethora of genius comedic routines were all done without the use of profanity. Which tells you a lot about him - and I guess a bit about me. (That is to say that profanity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers.)

Aside from his numerous successes a in Hollywood on the small and silver screen, it's his stand-up routines that would be alone enough to immortalize him in this list. However - he has emerged in the last couple of years as an agent of social change, giving speeches that would challenge some of America's greatest presidential inspirational orations.

George Fucking Carlin

George Carlin could be considered one of the patron saints of rationalists, and his departure from the planet was a great blow to the intellectual, as well as the comedic communities. Carlin was a trailblazer who now has 7 words that will forever be associated with his name.

As someone who regularly challenged established social mores (and limits) he has acted as an inspiration for literally generations of intellectuals and comedians. His cogent social observations and commentary on (and contribution to) the English language will prove themselves to be a lasting legacy not because he used profanity - but because he challenged the social boundaries surrounding it's use.

Christopher Fucking Titus

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life gives you on ongoing shit-storm-train-wreck of such magnitude that it would make a military coroner cringe - well - you turn that pain and suffering into comedy gold - at least if you're Christopher Titus.

His stand up comedy routines take the tragedies and characters from his own life, and shares that with his audience in a manner that actually has one laughing at topics like alcoholism, mental illness and suicide. For two and a half seasons - he translated this comedy routine into a sitcom - before some drama and intrigue had his show preemptively canceled in its prime. And now that he has had yet another virtual flaming napalm enema in the form of a divorce, he's turned that into his "Love is Evol" comedy tour.

Bill Fucking Hicks

Comedian. Rebel. Hero.

"By the way - if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself."

When you have something to say - and you don't care whom you offend because you don't really have anything to lose, you just might become a visionary. And the visionary in this case is Bill Hicks. While his shows were usually punctuated with profanity and dark observational humour - the thing that made this man a genius was his underlying message of "hey - lets all try to be just a little more tolerant of each other." I'm paraphrasing, of course.

After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer - he simply carried on performing - keeping this fact hidden from the general public. And he continued to work at his comedy until his death in 1994.

Doug Fucking Stanhope

"When I get on stage its like I'm leading you into battle: some of you won't be here at the end."

First things first - many people have indicated that Doug Stanhope is the heir to Bill Hicks. This is not the case - Doug Stanhope is Doug Fucking Stanhope. Just because he delivers his message in an angry tone of voice, or perhaps because he challenges your views, sometime in an offensive or disgusting manner. But he remains a powerful commentator on what's wrong with society. If you haven't watched his "Voice of America" bits that he's done for the BBC - you should probably head on over to YouTube and check that out.

But probably not from work.

Unless you're wearing headphones.

Scientists/Skeptics

Bill Nye was right when he said "Science Rules!"

Bill Fucking Nye

What the heck - why not? This man has done more to make science cool, fun and entertaining for more kids than the Betty Crocker's "My First Meth Lab." He is the Mr Wizard of our generation, and quite frankly - it's hard enough to encourage kid to get interested in science nowadays anyway - since most anything that they are required to do from a scholastic perspective is nothing more than a few Google-search-copy-and-pastes away from completion.

In today's environment - where the public demands information fed to them in thirty second soundbites, it;s hard to make science interesting. Yet Bill, and his trademark bow tie, seemed to make even the most mundane of scientific fact interesting to the youth of America (and by proxy - the youth of Canada).

Richard Fucking Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is probably the most eloquently outspoken person when it comes to being an advocate for the theory of evolution. And while he may come off to some as a "militant atheist," I have seen some of the zealous believers that he has squared off against, and I think that in comparison, he shows incredible restraint and poise. If I had to talk to these folks for any appreciable length of time - I'd be rabid, frothing at the mouth, and chewing on my arm to try to avoid spewing obscenities - and that would be within the first 5 minutes of conversation.

While any of his books one evolution and gene theory could have earned him a spot on this list - it's actually his evangelism for atheism that has earned him a place on this page. While it does not take a whole lot for someone to speak more eloquently that I, his dictation and oratory abilities are among those of today's greatest speakers.

James Fucking Randi

In the immortal words of Dr. Evil: "One million dollars."

That's what the James Randi Foundation is offering anyone who can demonstrate paranormal or psychic phenomena under mutually agreed upon experimental conditions. And - that sum remains unclaimed.

He has inspired generations of free thinkers (such as Penn and Teller) and will likely continue to do so for generations to come.

And something tells me that the million dollars in that vault is going to stay there until the sun burns out.

Mister Fucking Deity

Normally I wouldn't resort to giving middle name to a character that someone portrays, but Brian Keith Dalton already professionally uses that middle name - plus - Mister Fucking Deity sounds has a metre to it that is incredibly bad-ass.

The Mr. Deity webcasts are a treasure trove of bite-sized skeptical humour - if you're into irreverent sketch comedy. Perhaps the only thing that could be considered funnier and made me laugh-out-loud (much to the chagrin of my neighbors) is the Words series that follows the lives of people very much like the actors and actresses who are featured in the Mr. Deity show.

Dammit - it's funny even if you are Christian, and even more if you are an ex-Christian who was subjected to study more than you wanted in Sunday school.

Authors

I have the opportunity to do a lot of plane travel from time to time, and as such, need to bury my head in a book when I'm flying for 15 hours or waiting for a connection, or am working through a case of jet lag and can't seem to stay asleep at 2:00AM local time. As such, I depend on those people to help me pass the time and enjoy a bit of escapism while on the road.

Terry Fucking Pratchett

Anyone who has ever read a novel in the fantasy genre can note that they are pure escapism. But the one thing that is a fairly common thread is the fact that not only do the characters in these novels seem to take themselves fairly seriously, the fans of these series tend to take these subjects fairly seriously as well.

It is refreshing to see that someone can poke fun at both the many and varied fantasy genres - and do it with a wealth of characters who are entertaining to follow in their own right.

Neil Fucking Gaiman

Neil could technically get a pass because he's engaged to Amanda Fucking Palmer, however - he's earned his way on here through publishing novels that were as entertaining as they sometimes were creepy. His magnum opus, in my not-so-humble opinion, was a collaboration with Terry Pratchett for a novel called Good Omens. Needless to say - I have injured myself laughing along with the storyline of this book on more than one occasion. Reading his solo work has also been entertaining, although normally somewhat more dark than Pratchett's work.

Dark as they sometimes can be - he also apparently writes children's books as well.

Jeff Fucking Lindsay

Where on earth would I be without my daily "Debra Morgan phrase" to intersperse in to a conference call or use as my status message in my IM client of choice? Jeff is, of course the author of the amazingly successful "Dexter" series of books - which have been successfully translated into the massively successful Showtime series. And -he's made a cameo on the show n season 3.

Internet

There are people that I would never have heard up it it were not for the magical intertubes and the TCP/IP packet fairies. These are people who have been extraordinarily inspired, showed some spectacular ingenuity, and have posted their exploits in the internet, as an example (or a warning) to all.

George Fucking Goble

Men have a defective gene - just look how the Y chromosome looks like in comparison to the X chromosome. And we are as transfixed today with fire as we were when we competed with Neanderthals for the best places to hold a big bonfire. George Goble took charcoal grill lighting to a whole new level, with the use of charcoal briquettes, a lit cigarette, and liquid fucking oxygen. To this date it remains the fastest charcoal lighting time - 3 seconds from cold briquettes to ready to cook - and created internet history when he posted these images and videos on-line. While I have some serious doubts that I could tell this story any better than humorist Dave Barry - you have to be seriously bad-ass to have your local fire department tell you that they never want to catch you with LOX in the vicinity of a bar-b-que ever again.

Jenny Fucking Lawson

Or as she is known on the interwebs - simply "The Bloggess." While there are a number of things that I have learned from her blog - the most important thing is that you should not be drinking anything (especially anything hot) while you are reading her blog - because there is a greater than average chance that this liquid will be coming out of your nose at some point.

She has also given me phrases that I have been able to use in conference calls such as "stabby", :cock-knuckle", and "douche canoe." (Although I did notice that Merriam-Webster did officially document the word "stabby" under "New words and slang" - so I really think that she should get the credit for introducing it to the English language since it's probably the most frequently used word on her blog, and she was using long before 2009.)

Captain Justice

While there are likely way more people who could be added to this list - this is as long as it's going to be, otherwise it will be my life's project to complete it. Indeed there were a number of people who I wanted to include on the list - but since I an not a full -time blogger - just couldn't find or make the time to flesh this list out any more than it already is, as this post has been in my drafts in for well over a month.

If there's anyone else you you feel deserves honor on this list - don't e-mail me - just enter the information in the comments below.

And on a final note, as previously mentioned - "Tim Fucking Hergert" doesn't have the sheer bad ass accomplishments, or Shakespearean metre to the sound of it. However, "Captain Fucking Justice" sure as hell does.

.

An open letter . . .

2010-04-30T20:39:00.000+01:00

This isn't actually the blog entry that I have been working on - I am still working on that one - and should have it published just before the Americans land someone on Mars. But don't hold me to that.

I have arbitrarily decided that April 2010 is the month of the "Open Letter."

I have received a number of them from different CEOs this month.

One open letter was from Willie Walsh - CEO of British Airways - commenting on the disruption that the Icelandic volcano heaved upon the travel industry. While I wasn't directly affected by the closure of European airspace (aside from the eerily empty Gatwick Airport during my morning commutes during that time) I could understand how some folks were justifiably chafed.

Translation: We were pretty much as unprepared for this as anyone. Sorry things are such a mess but don't hate us too much because everyone is pretty much screwed right now. Don't sue us for compensation! Please?

There was another open letter from Steve Jobs to Adobe, detailing why Apple won't support Flash and how much Flash sucks - sentiments that I agree with for the most part.

Translation: Apple's my party - and I'll cry if I want to. Love Steve.

Not to be out done, there was a response from the folks at Adobe.

Translation: We weren't really interested in going to your party anyway, Steve.

And finally - you know I do love to save the best for last - Dave Dewalt wrote an Open Letter to describe why McAfee's AntiVirus product proactively disabled hundreds of thousands of machines across the planet.

You know what - I don't even have to translate that one - you can just read the comments on Dave's blog to get the impression of how well his customers received his open letter.

Where are the updates?

2010-03-01T20:39:00.000Z

Been pretty slim on the updates - was on a stealth mission to the states to show up at my old boss's surprise retirement party - which was a resounding success since he was quite surprised. Also managed to catch some bug that was kicking my butt for the better part of the week now (Stock tip: invest in Proctor & Gamble - they make NyQuil.) But work is now gearing up to be even more insane as is the travel.

Newlyweds on the Job

2010-02-16T23:10:00.002Z

I think that that this has to be one of the most sick, depraved, vile invasions of privacy that a friend could possibly inflict on a newlywed couple. Also - since I am not harmed in any way by this prank - I also happen to find it pants-slappingly hilarious! (as to whether this is a joke or PR stunt - I can't say. I'll assume that it's legit, even though it's really hard to verify any of the facts given the scenario.)

Scenario: Best man at his friend's wedding (who obviously desires revenge for some past transgression) receives explicit instructions: "No Pranks before the wedding." Well - "letter, if not the spirit . . ."

(if you're not familiar with twitter - read from the bottom up . . )

Inspired by the "Auto-Tweeting-fart-detecting-chair" (Scooter - if you are reading this: "No! Please don't do this") He rigged up a custom sensor with motion and pressure sensors, and . . . well . . .

And tweet it does. . and provide some snide commentary based on the data collected:

And while this provides an opportunity to provide some insight into the unique and interesting application of IP enabled technology, I think that this provides a much better opportunity to take a peek into the collective psyche of the internet:

22,000 people have decided to follow the voyeuristic twitter adventures of the oblivious anonymous couple. Some of these people have undoubtedly elected to receive sms notifications delivered to their phone when it's magic time. And a website is now sponsoring the couple every time they get busy - whether they realize it or not.

It sounds like the oblivious part will come to an end on February 26th - as a part of the demented birthday celebrations for the new groom. Which should provide an interesting story in an of itself. In an anonyous interview - the Evil Genius™ behind the prank confesses:

So, as it turns out that the motivation was much more common than one might expect from such an elaborate and invasive stunt.

It was simple "pier pressure".

Kevin Smith, SouthWest Air and My Fat Ass

2010-02-15T21:12:00.001Z

Kevin Smith (aka SilentBob and director extraordinaire) was kicked off a SouthWest Air flight because he was "too fat". I have a confession to make: I'm not what most people would consider fat. I have put on a couple of pounds (half a hundred) over the last couple of years (although I have lost 20 lbs since moving to England). Although technically - at least according to the BMI - I am overweight, but not by too much - and there's plenty of places to hide extra weight on my frame.

"Oh, and remember: next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans."

At the time that I flew on my last SouthWest Airlines flight I weighed 230 pounds, from what I like to refer to the "Texas years" - see picture above. (But to be fair - deep fried pickles are frikken AWESOME.) At the risk of sharing too much information - my ass hasn't gotten any smaller since that flight.

But I had problems fitting my big, not-so-fat-six-foot-two-inch-ass into the seat on that plane. Both seat rests were down and as I lowered my buttocks into the seat - I found that it got caught on the edge of both of arm rests, so much that I actually had to push on the seat in front of me to plant my ass in a position that I would be able to keep my seat back and table tray in an upright and locked position for take off and landing.

Not to say that Continental or American seats are any better, but what I am saying is that if I have trouble fitting my ass into one of the standard economy seats in all major American airlines - what chance does your average American have?

IT ARE SNOW . . .

2010-01-20T17:22:00.002Z

From the "Office of the Ministry of Emergency Preparedness In Response to Extreme Weather Conditions to Promote Safety and Efficiency of Public Transport Department " branch of the Home Office.

Looks like another snow day tomorrow folks.

Lucky for me, I can tele-work.

Lucky, lucky, lucky me.

Interesting commentary by Ricky Gervias

2010-01-16T19:57:00.005Z

Amusing Google captcha

2010-01-15T19:15:00.002Z

One might even be tempted to think that there was some hijinks afoot:

From the Twitter feed , , ,

2010-01-13T20:00:00.001Z

Maybe Symantec is trying to tell us something about twitter spam as well . . .

(from my twitter feed)

Tracking Santa . . .

2009-12-24T21:08:00.000Z

There was a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that I especially enjoyed during the holiday season, where Calvin is concerned that Santa might not be a kindly old elf - but rather a CIA spook.

Looking at the route that he seems to be taking from the NORAD Santa tracking site - I am wondering if Bill Watterson might have been on to something there.

Arrival in Calgary

2009-12-17T00:21:00.000Z

I am taking some time off in Calgary - visiting with family and friends. Was greeted at the airport with some -30C weather - not at all pleasant.

The price of Ethics

2009-12-16T19:05:00.000Z

It's vacation time - long overdue - and I am logging off the corporate network - assuming that this is the absolute last emergency that will present itself while I am supposed to be taking a break. (We'll see how that goes . . . )

In the mean time - I have got a couple of musings that I have been meaning to finish and post on my blog - and add just a little bit of new content to the stale, cobweb-infested bits of faux-wisdom that you can find in these hallowed annals.

One of the things that I have noticed about my time here in England is that there is a bit of a different social conscience about the things that you can find in the supermarket. From Fairtrade products to "Happy Egg" free range eggs - there is this underlying sales pitch with this type of social branding:

"Buy our products - it helps [the environment/local farmers/people in developing nations/by not contributing to animal cruelty] unlike our competitor's products - which quite obviously are produced by a bunch of evil planet-ruining, developing-nation-exploiting, animal-torturing bastards - since they don't have authorization to use our logo."

Which is fine - if you're running a marketing campaign that casts aspersions on the morals of your competitors - and I'll all for that. [This is reason # 232 why Tim is explicitly banned from employment in the field of sales and marketing.]

All of the products that I have examined that use this type of marketing seem to have a higher price than the non-approved-type of similar product (i.e. £1.74 vs £0.84 for half a dozen eggs) meaning that people will pay the extra price for something that they believe is more [ethical/environmentally friendly/socially responsible].

But in my case - I'm looking for eggs for breakfast the next day. I have to assume that the products are local - since importing eggs onto an island doesn't make too much economic sense - especially if there are egg-producing farms located on that island. I've been on farms where chickens have been raised , and while a chicken coop probably isn't going to get you any Hilton Honors points to accumulate - the life of a chicken is not something that seems to be fraught with the ponderings and musings of eternal existential questions.

In fact, their thought process seemed to be more of the type of "scratch, scratch, peck" and then repeat. (Or for those of you versant in lol-speak - it might look more like "Nom-nom-nom") In either case though - the life of a chicken is not a pleasant one - free range or otherwise. And in this case - I'm going to opt for the cheaper eggs. And - given the global economic meltdown - I am not the only one using this sort of logic in my thinking.

I tend to get to work early and leave the office late, meaning that when I do get the opportunity to go shopping for groceries, it's usually later in the evening - when everything seems to have been picked over. During the downturn in the economy I have been noticing that by the time that I arrive at the store - all of the non-fairtrade, non-"happy-animal" type products and produce seem to be pretty much picked over, with the upstanding, ethical - and more expensive products - seem to be stocked in surplus - even though these items are stocked and staged in the the more obvious, high-profile shelves. You do have to hunt for the non-socially-responsibly-stamped products.

So - when it comes down to it, it seems that given the choice, people will choose bargains over "ethical consumerism" - in the name of tightening one's belt during a financial crisis. Either that - or I need to move to a more affluent neighborhood.

But the actual point that I was trying to make in this case is that it would seem to me that there is a logical progression in terms of pricing of commodities, and I haven't seen someone take that final step - but it's there - waiting for some entrepreneur to take the leap and reap the benefits of my ingenious marketing plan. [Reason # 233 why Tim is explicitly banned from employment in the field of sales and marketing - see below]

Ethical and socially responsibly branded products - We hold our suppliers to a higher ethical, moral and environmental standard - we have crack inspectors who ensure that no animals were made to suffer any indignity as a result of the farming/transport/slaughtering processes. We ensure that people in developing nations are paid a premium market price for their products, and that green energy is exclusively used and carbon offsets purchased for each and every one of the companies who is lucky enough to proudly display our logo on the front of their packaging. Sure our products seem to be artificially inflated, but what price can you put on the equivalent of giving the planet a giant, life-affirming, self-actualizing, carbon-footprint-reducing hug?
Ordinary consumer products - While no special procedures are in place to attest to impact towards social causes or the environment - we do have to adhere to local laws with regards to animal cruelty, minimum wage and environmental impact. We attempt to get the best value for the commodities that we procure in our supply chain and try to get the best market price for the items that we sell. While our prices may be average, the quality of our goods is second to none.
Un-ethical, immoral and downright Evil™ branded products - if there is a corner - we cut it. If there is a regulation - we grease palms to circumvent it. We pay the locals in trinkets, and our factories belch carcinogens and pollutants into the atmosphere at a rate that startles even ourselves, quite frankly. Any animals that enter our supply chain are routinely and methodically abused, processed in the most painful methods we could devise, and finally coated in lead-based paint produced using PCBs and CFCs. Just for good measure - our executive team goes on retreat once a year to club baby seals and eat their raw hearts. And due to our unethical treatment of animals, exploitation of people in developing nations, and complete disregard for the environment in general - we are capable of substantial savings - which we pass on to you - the consumer.

I'm thinking that if you do adopt my genius new marketing strategy - that's OK - no need to credit me.

Swirly.

2009-11-07T21:36:00.000Z

Because I care about you, the dear reader, I feel it is my duty to share with you part of the collective wisdom of the interwebs.

http://1cup1coffee.com/swirly.swf

This link comes with a harsh warning: If you have an predisposition for epilepsy - it's probably a good idea to give this one a miss.

This was harvested from the Tosh.0 blog, and since it has caused me an immense amount of pain - I felt that it should be shared amongst others as well.

Bacon Laser

2009-11-06T18:59:00.000Z

Because I care about you, the dear reader, I feel it is my duty to share with you part of the collective wisdom of the interwebs.

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=7910

This link comes with a harsh warning: If you follow this link - you may never get this little meme out of your head - even with an ice pick.

Thanks to Hausen for infecting me with this one.

Flaming Bag of Poo

2009-10-31T08:00:00.000Z

Because I care about you, the dear reader, I feel it is my duty to share with you part of the collective wisdom of the interwebs.

And because it's that Halloween time of year again - I have the distinct pleasure of sharing with you one of the holiday traditions that have been with us now - for yes - 10 years now.

And thanks to our good and dear friends at Mondo Media, I can direct you to

The Flaming Bag of Poo

Happy hallwoeen, yall.

The Fox Hat

2009-10-27T21:44:00.000Z

Because I care about you, the dear reader, I feel it is my duty to share with you part of the collective wisdom of the interwebs.

Today's pick:

The Fox Hat

(Thanks to Mr. Buckley for the link to the video and Mr Bauhuis for the joke in the first place)

The Religion Flowchart

2009-10-26T20:46:00.000Z

Because I care about you, the dear reader, I feel it is my duty to share with you part of the collective wisdom of the interwebs.

Today's pick:
The "What religion should you follow Flowchart"
Brought to you by our friends at The Holy Taco - which is probably NSFW - if you happen to be at the office

That's a Yotta money!

2009-10-23T21:19:00.000+01:00

I have stumbled across the word "Yotta" (note: not "Yoda") independently twice this week.

The first time was in an article on the NSA on Bruce Schneier's Blog, and the subsequent link to Dave Brillhart's blog, detailing Sun's ZFS. (non-geeks - just focus on the bits in red)

Just how much information will be stored in these windowless cybertemples? A clue comes from a recent report prepared by the MITRE Corporation, a Pentagon think tank. "As the sensors associated with the various surveillance missions improve," says the report, referring to a variety of technical collection methods, "the data volumes are increasing with a projection that sensor data volume could potentially increase to the level of Yottabytes (10

²⁴

Bytes) by 2015." Roughly equal to about a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text, numbers beyond Yottabytes haven't yet been named. Once vacuumed up and stored in these near-infinite "libraries," the data are then analyzed by powerful infoweapons, supercomputers running complex algorithmic programs, to determine who among us may be -- or may one day become -- a terrorist.

Aside from the scary stuff concerning the NSA - that's a lot of data. And of course, as always with Mr. Schneier's blog - while the blog postings themselves are entertaining, the stuff that finds its way into the comments is sometimes equally entertaining, which leads us to the article on ZFS:

If we could implement a physical system with the storage capacity that matches the 128-bit address range of ZFS, that we would "literally evaporate all the oceans on earth".

This got me a little curious... Let's see: ZFS = 128-bit = 3*10²⁶ [3E26] TB (per filesystem)

Using 300GB spindles, you'd need about 1E27 spindles. Seagate's modern drives consume ~10W idle, and ~14W for both startup and in operation. So, lets go with 10W each, for round numbers. That's 1E28W or 8.8E31 KW-hr (over a full 24x7 year). That's 3.2E38 Joules.
http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/enterprise/tech/0,1084,362,00.html

If we apply E=mc^2, we'd need to annihilate 3.5E21 kg of something (old beer cans?) to produce this much energy (power those spindles for a year). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) experts figure that the world's oceans consist of 275 million cubic miles. Seawater weighs 1027 kg/m^3. That means all the oceans of the world weigh about 1.2E21 kg. Perfect conversion of the oceans to energy would spin those disks for about 4 months!!

But I digress - I just thought that it was amusing that we now have a scheme whereby we could boil off all the world's oceans to finally find a place to store all of the world's porn. "Free Willy" indeed.

The second place that I encountered this was the bizarre news of a gentleman by the name of Dalton Chiscolm who is suing Bank of America for 1,784 Yottabucks.

Judge Chin called the complaint "incomprehensible", in an order released in court.

Many zeroes

The actual number, 1,784 billion trillion, is equal to 1.784 multiplied by 10 to the 24th power, or roughly 1,784 followed by 21 zeroes.

Using the International System of Units, this number is called a Yotta.

And using my head for a moment - I shudder to think that the American Taxpayer is paying real money to have this insanity being considered in a court room. Apparently Dalton is upset at some poor customer service he received. Dude - it's a Bank! That is their speciality.

What did I learn about this experience?

America is the most litigious country in the world, apparently because they don't have any daft protection. (i.e. any lawsuit which provokes the question "What? Are you daft?" should probably be immediately discarded.)
BT could boil the oceans and melt down the moon, and still not come close to the supposed 8 Mbps that they're definitely billing me for.
Thinking about large number makes my head hurt. But I definitely want a job at one of those Pentagon think tanks. That way I can make shit up all day and get paid for it - as opposed to the "actually having to produce results" drag that you get exposed to in the private sector.

Anvil Shooting

2009-10-23T19:27:00.000+01:00

Because I care about you, the dear reader, I feel it is my duty to share with you part of the collective wisdom of the interwebs.

Today's pick:
Gay Wilkinson - World Champion Anvil Shooter.

405 - The Movie

2009-10-22T19:41:00.000+01:00

Because I care about you, the dear reader, I feel it is my duty to share with you part of the collective wisdom of the interwebs.

Today's pick:
405 - A short movie created by Bruce Branit and Jeremy Hunt.

Ah L'Amour

2009-10-21T19:13:00.000+01:00

Because I care about you, the dear reader, I feel it is my duty to share with you part of the collective wisdom of the interwebs.

Today's pick:
A fantastic piece of animation from Don Hertzfeldt

Okay - I suck as a blogger

2009-10-19T20:20:00.000+01:00

I am aware of my immense failure as a prolific blogger - one of the things that I wanted to do when I moved to England was to document all of the cool things that I do and see for the good of all the interwebs, as well as share my unique and amazing perspectives on a large collections of items that can be collectively referred to as "stuff."

There have been a couple of snags in my plan, however.

First, is that I tend to get drawn into work rather than blogging. I have a really interesting and challenging job, and to be frank - it is sometimes easy to look up from the computer in the evening, look at the clock, and realize that the reason you are tired is that it is 2:00 in the morning, and you have a 6:00 conference call that you have to be at.

This is really nothing new for me, or for most everyone that I work with. Although I am single, I have no idea how some of these people put that amount of effort and time into their job, and still manage to update their blogs, deal with family things like soccer, karate, hockey, ballet, (some of these folks have 3-6 kids) and also manage to spend enough quality time with their significant other that they don't wind up getting murdered in their sleep. Sometimes I read their itinerary on Facebook, and I feel that I need a nap.

The second problem that I have encountered is that I haven't really had any cool adventures to speak of - meaning that most of what I am capable of writing here at this time is the type of naval-gazing drivel that constitutes this article (and, indeed to vast majority of blog postings that are in existence.) Introspection can be good if somewhat insightful or especially humourous, but if you're looking for humour - you can go to many places on the internet that are infinitely more amusing or insightful.

I mean - aside from tales of destroying some of my American electronics or advice on plugging computers into the interwebs - there really isn't much here that is entirely all that amusing. And there most certainly isn't anything here that will be archived, printed on vellum, and reviewed by future generations as part of the collective gestalt of the gift that the collective collaboration organism that is the internet gave to society.

At best - all I can aim for is that I can achieve a footnote of recognition in the annals of history, and hope that it's not in the "see below for the incorrect usage of the word neoteny" section.

Of course - it has also been said that there is no such thing as bad press.

Conference calls

2009-09-15T20:59:00.000+01:00

Conference calls can be boring at times - as can be preparing or responding to RFPs. But if you're attending a conference call that is all about clarifying questions about an RFP - well - the urge to gouge out one's eyeballs out with a staple remover might become unbearable. That's why I am a big fan of interjecting a bit of humour into a call - but you have to get the mix right.

Too much humour - and no one takes you seriously. Too little, and you're back to wanting mutilate yourself with things from the stationary supply cabinet. Here is the one that hit the mark on the recent call:

Consultant 1		So this is the answer that you are all satisfied with?
Co-worker 1		Yes.
Co-worker 1		Yep.
Me		Yes.
	..::Pregnant Pause::..
Me		So say we all.
	..::Raucous Laughter::..

As some of my co-workers are fond of saying - I sometimes do have my moments. unfortunately - they're about one in a hundred - and soon a I peel off a good one, one can be sure that there is 99 groaners to follow.

The cult of Schneier

2009-09-14T19:19:00.001+01:00

While Bruce Schneier has been accused of leading a cult - it's be one that I'd be happy to drink the kool-aid in. Most for the reason that his blog makes me laugh out loud, much to the unease of the people in the surrounding offices. His Blog post today is one such post:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/robert_sawyers.html

Robert Sawyer's Alibis

Back in 2002, science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer wrote an essay about the trade-off between privacy and security, and came out in favor of less privacy. I disagree with most of what he said, and have written pretty much the opposite essay -- and others on the value of privacy and the future of privacy -- several times since then.

The point of this blog entry isn't really to debate the topic, though. It's to reprint the opening paragraph of Sawyer's essay, which I've never forgotten:

Whenever I visit a tourist attraction that has a guest register, I always sign it. After all, you never know when you'll need an alibi.

Since I read that, whenever I see a tourist attraction with a guest register, I do the same thing. I sign "Robert J. Sawyer, Toronto, ON" -- because you never know when he'll need an alibi.

Who are these clowns anyway?

2009-09-09T20:45:00.001+01:00

As it turns out - they're professional ones.

As I'm making my way from the flat to the trains station on Monday, I'm presented what appears to be a scene from Snatch where Tommy is trying to buy a new caravan.

As it turns out - the circus is in town.

The view at night - on the way home from the train station.

Now - I don't believe in fate, karma, or cosmic irony (although I do believe in the mischievous and often evil nature of man). If I did though - I'd say that it was tempting fate to have a canvas tent where you collect a large number of people, perform all sorts of amazing stunts (some of them involving fire) inside the canvas tent, and then name your travelling circus after a brand name of refillable cigarette lighters. I'm just sayin' - is all.

Update: September 14th:

The circus has left town - packed up and left with about as much notice as their arrival on Friday of last week. The thing that amazed me about the entire thing was the fastidiousness of the carnies in that there was no sign of trash or debris left behind. A credit to their profession.

Shocking - really

2009-09-07T20:49:00.000+01:00

I guess that this little experience had to come sooner rather than later - I have had my first encounter with the 240V mains versus the 100 volt appliances. Result: "fwoompf!" - and "huzzah!" - followed by a bit of "Oooh - Ahhh" - and then "Hmmmmm." Nary an adventure so bold as the time that Scooter tried to fish out some cable from behind a cabinet and made contact with an electrical socket, but electrically charged nonetheless.

This little incident involves the old Pentium 4 computer system - you know the system I use for testing various sorts of nasty software- the one with the already finicky power supply.

I'd like to state for the record - that this is a dual voltage power supply and that - yes - it was set to the correct power setting. Moreover, it had been successfully been powered up here before on a number of occasions and even been connected to the internets at least for the brief moments that BT was capable of keeping the connection up for more than 20 seconds at a time - but they've got a 10 day window to get their crap sorted out before I unleash my unpleasantness upon them.

But I came home one evening to try to power it up and clicky-clicky - no joy. So I figured that the cable had come loose -as the back of the power supply where the cable is inserted is a bit wobbly, so I reached back to jiggle it a bit and then re-try the power up - made sure that the cable was secure, and the clicked on the power button and

fwoompf

Actually was a cross between a "fwoompf" and a "crack" - but no one has every phonetically described a "cra-whoomph" as far as I remember. Everything went dead at the computer station - monitor, KVM, internet hub. Laptop stayed powered up - but it does have a battery. But it was time to take a look at the damage - if any.

huzzah!

First - there was no smell of ozone - a definite sign that something has headed to the mainframe in the sky. No scorch marks on the back if the ATX power supply - promising - although there doesn't seem to be a reset switch on the fancy UK power bar - I hope that I don't have to dismantle it to look for a fuse.

Oooh - Ahhh

Turns out that this little adventure threw the circuit breaker at the fuse box - the same breaker that the oven, fridge and freezer are on - but I'll leave that investigation for another day.

Hmmmmm

Doesn't look like the computer was damaged, nor any of the surrounding electrical appliances - perhaps just gave the neighbors a show when there was a brief flash of light with my silhouette outlined on the curtains - maybe they thought that it was some sort of "bat-signal" for SurprisedMan or some similar superhero. At any rate - I'll leave it until the weekend to figure out - but I suspect that it was the fuse in the power supply, and I'll either have to try to find an North American style fuse here or buy a new power supply (which isn't a bad idea - all things considered) but have no idea where to do either in this town.

All of the other systems are up and running, and I'll leave them to test BT's ability to get an ADSL stabilized sometime before the end of year, with the monster machine off to the side - lest it's negative electrical karma incite any of the others to revolt.

OMG - Yes!

2009-08-21T16:31:00.000+01:00

Was looking through the classifieds looking for a used car.
I think I have found one:

Ferrari 348 Coupé, ts 2d

Essentials

Price	£21,995
Mileage	32,000
Colour	Rosso Red
Year	1997/P

House is sold.

2009-08-20T17:12:00.000+01:00

I am in full-on Ed Grimley mode again - as it look like I have sold the house and everything will be coming through relatively quickly. I miss that house already though - it was nice and spacious - -unlike the current flat, and had central air - also unlike the current flat.

Operation Vortex sucks

2009-08-12T19:08:00.000+01:00

The police are engaged in something called "Operation Vortex." I'll let you do the heavy lifting and then come back:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8192748.stm

Here'e the crib notes for people who are lazy - like me:

Last year 262 people were killed on roads in the south west of England.
Police statistics also revealed that more than 19,000 people were injured on roads in the region.
Routes such as the A30, A38, A303, A46, M5 and M4 stretching across the south west will be among those targeted in Operation Vortex.
Insp Richard Pryce, of Devon and Cornwall Police roads policing unit, said: "We want to heighten motorists' attention on their journeys to the presence of these unmarked cars dealing with any motorists at the roadside.

Now, I'm not a military strategist - nor do I play one on TV, but I do have access to the intertubes. I'm not entirely certain that this effort is worthy of the austere of having the title of "Operation" or even that of and "Exercise."

Operation Barbarossa - the ambitious (and arguably insane) plan for WWII Germany to invade Russia
Operation Sealion - the plan (which was never initiated) for Germany to invade Britain
Operation Overlord - the invasion of Normandy by allied forces
Operation Stonewall - Allied operation to intercept blockade runners in the bay pf Biscay
Operation Nimrod - rescue of hostages in the Iranian embassy, London

And now . . .

Operation Vortex - the foisting of fines and tickets by officers using unmarked cars on an unsuspecting public.

No offense to the police officers involved in the enforcement campaign - they didn't pick the name anyway - some desk jockey with too much time on his hands at "central commend" did that. Is it just me - or does the use of the classification of "Operation" in this case diminish the planning, effort and sacrifice that went into some of the other operations listed?

Besides - it's clear what this is: It's a Police Action.

Just like Vietnam.

I love the Pundit Kitchen.

2009-08-09T19:32:00.000+01:00

http://punditkitchen.com/2009/08/08/political-pictures-jong-il-putin-batshit-crazy/

Giant Space Mirrors

2009-08-07T20:12:00.000+01:00

Climate fixes 'pose drought risk'
Giant mirrors in space?
Are you kidding me?

Isn't this the part of the movie where Billy Bob Thorton's character steps in and says:

"Okay - Lets hear from someone who's had just a little less caffeine."

Information Overload

2009-08-06T21:30:00.000+01:00

It's official - this week has been crap at work - as one wise sage from kbellco would say "all meet and no do." The signal to noise ratio is off the chart at the moment and I'm trying to cut through the din and then it hits me.

All the voices in my head are idiots.

I'm out of the office tomorrow - should be getting the keys to the rental flat - not that my stuff arrives until next week at some undisclosed time. (Purportedly will be here on Monday - but then the customs folks will need to comb through my gear for contraband - like guns, alcohol, or tasteless music CDs) So I can stare at the empty walls of the flat - and plan and plot where I am going to put all of my furniture - such as the pimped out couch.

Twitterfeed - perpetual web motion

2009-08-05T22:41:00.000+01:00

For those of you who don't know . . . I have just discovered Twitterfeed - a tool that has the potential to make me immensely more annoying. It pretty much closes the loop between the blog, Twitter and Facebook for me - such that a single update to the blog triggers a cascade of updates to all of the happy social networking sites that I happen to have an account at.

Soon, my goal to replace myself with a small bash script will come to fruition. And then I can focus on my goals of world domination.

Digging through the e-mail archives

2009-07-31T19:38:00.000+01:00

I was digging through the e-mail archives of exchanges that I have had with folks over the years, and and found a good one. This was an e-mail from Darrick to his his buddy David who had been somehow convinced that he did not need to run any sort of AntiVirus on his whiz-bang new Windows PC. Below is the e-mail exchange, edited only to protect the innocent, meaning that this now marks the departure from my "trying to keep the blog clean of bad words."

I guess it had to happen sooner or later.

If posted it here for two reasons - one - it's pretty damned hilarious, Two - some intrepid web wander might just find these points helpful in their random wanderings across cyberspace.

From: Darrick

Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 9:42 PM
To:David; Tim
Subject: Anti-virus

David,

Your Dad tells me your hesitant to install anti-virus on your computer.

I've cc'd this e-mail to my buddy Tim, who is a mucky-muck who works in IT security. He is responsible for helping protect the worlds 2nd largest private IP network in the world.

Having no anti-virus on your computer is the same as going to Thailand and not taking any condoms. A couple of things will happen:

1) You're going to suffer a lot of pain and discomfort. Granted they will be in two entirely different areas (unless you're doing freaky shit with your computer - in which case I DO NOT want to know)

2) You'll find that for a couple of dollars, the pain discomfort and itching could have all been spared.

I highly suggest that you install a virus scan. Currently a computer that is on the raw internet (like your computer) will be infected and/or compromised in about 7 min. Here's the link I used for that little tidbit. http://isc.sans.org/survivaltime.html these guys are pretty smart and keep track of this stuff.

So if you're into itching and discomfort by all means leave anti-virus off your computer. Otherwise I suggest using the anti-virus program that I recommended to your dad.

If you want any assistance or want to set up other security on your computer let me know. If I don't know the answer I'll ask Tim. He's way smarter than I am with this computer stuff :-)

Later dude.
d.

From: Tim
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2009 3:16 PM
To:David; Darrick
Subject: Re: Anti-virus

Hi David;
Pleasure to meet you. Most of what Darrick says about me is true, except that bit about that stuff that never happened in Vegas. When it comes to that - he's a filthy filthy liar, but other than that, a nice guy.

You'll find about a hundred web articles decrying the death of antivirus (not to be confused with hantavirus) at various tech websites. Antivirus programs are indeed getting less effective at preventing more complex attacks. While this is true, connecting a computer without an antivirus program to Mr. Internet™ is roughly equivalent to skydiving into a pit fill of alligators.

While on fire.

The lock on my car can be opened in less than 7 seconds by someone with a slim jim.
Doesn't mean that I've stopped locking my doors.

Here's a quick "Top Ten" things that you can do to prevent getting ass-hosed* on the internet:

1) Use a firewall. I prefer a dedicated hardware firewall like a Linksys. D-link, netgear, Checkpoint or what have you as opposed to software firewalls like Zone alarm or (even) Windows firewall. Using a software firewall is like using a swiss army knife to carve a turkey. Sure - it'll get the job done and it'll make a hell of a mess, but there's probably a better tool for the job. But using one is better than not using anything. Keep an eye out for sales at electronics shops. Usually you can find a hardware firewall for free or 10 dollars (After the mail-in litigation - er rebate). However - if you get one of these devices with Wireless - turn that function off if you're not using it, or lock it down if you are using it.

2) Use an antivirus program. 'nuff said. Also - make sure that you back up your data to some sort of external media (cdrom, flash disk, external hard drive, punch cards, reel-to-reel tape - whatever) Hard drives don't last forever, and you're going to want to be able to keep all of those pictures of your adventures in Thailand if your hard drive fails, or you wind up getting infected and you need to install from bare metal.

3) Keep your OS up to date. Whether it's Microsoft OS. Linux or Macintosh - make sure that you configure your OS to automatically update itself. With Microsoft - if you're asked to re-boot as a part of the process, then do so. Yes it's a pain in the ass - but less so than getting infected.

4) Don't use Internet Explorer(IE). Use Firefox to browse the web. Yes, it is targeted for attacks but not near as many as IE. If you're an intermediate level of computer user or higher - install the NoScript plugin for Firefox. It can be a giant pain in the butt to try to manage, but is another tool that can help manage your risk while surfing the web. Oh, and make sure that you update this software as well. (Although it does a pretty good job of doing that itself.)

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
http://noscript.net

5) Don't use pirated software. This is a great way to get an unintended surprise as a part of a free (or suspiciously low cost) piece of software. If someone offered you a free Ferrari - your first question would be "What's the catch?" The catch with pirated software is that you run the risk of getting your computer infected with something nasty.

Again - if cost is a problem with regards to a program - there are many open-source projects that can be used that are normally as good as the products that you might be tempted to pirate. OpenOffice, for example - is a great way to save a couple hundred dollars and not buy Microsoft Office, and can create and edit MS compatible formats. And it's also free. In this case, Google [usually] is your friend.

http://www.openoffice.org/

6) Don't use "File Sharing" or "Peer to Peer(P2P)" software. Hey - free music and movies are great, but is it worth running up the flag up the pole to hackers that you've got this software running? Many people end up sharing the entire contents of their hard drive, not just music files when they configure whatever software that they are using. Even If the software is configured safely, many P2P software programs are susceptible to compromise - and malicious individuals can peruse the contents of your hard drive whether you want them to or not.

And then there's the inevitable legal quagmire involved with pirated music and movies. Let me very clear with regards to this point: if you use this software to obtain media without the consent of the copyright owner (aka pirating music and movies) you can be detected, and you can get sued - big time. A good portion of my time at the office is spent kicking people in the nads for running this type of software when I detect it.

For me - it can sometimes take as little as a single packet for me to determine that a person is running this type of software on their computer. If it's this easy for me - imagine how easy it is for companies with teams of people dedicated to detecting illicit sharing and how much pain and suffering can be heaped on you by the RIAA, MPAA, and other assorted organizations with four letter acronyms. 7) Stick to the mainstream websites.

Just like in a city where there are safe neighborhoods, and neighborhoods where the cops won't go to retrieve your body - there are good and bad neighborhoods on the internet. Even though sticking to the good neighborhoods doesn't guarantee that you won't get mugged, going to the bad neighborhoods (especially with IE, running no AV) is kinda like the Bruce-Willis-Die-Hard-3-

Sandwich-board-in-Harlem-type scenario.

Now I know that this may come as a shock - but some people use the internet to advertise porn sites. Following one of those spam messages to a free porn site is heading for sandwich board territory. This goes double if you're doing freaky shit with your computer that neither of us want to know about.

8) There is no Nigerian prince who desperately needs your help to get money out if his country.

Likewise:

Microsoft does not send patches out via e-mail. There's no greeting card at the end of that link in the e-mail youjust received - it's piece of malware that's going to ruin your day.
There's no compromising picture or video of a celebrity [such as Angelina Jolie or Paris Hilton] at the link in the e-mail you just received. It's a fake flash player update that's going to take over your machine.
It's not hot off the presses - even though it says that it comes from CNN or MSNBC. The only newsflash in this case is that you just got infected.
Update for Internet explorer? Not quite - it's just another virus.
Your credit card hasn't been billed. There's no invoice attached in a zip file or rar file. There's no UPS invoice attached to the e-mail either. Opening up the attachment is just a bad idea all around.

9) The Internet is forever. That embarrassing photo of you at a drunken frat party in '96 might just pop up during a job interview, or that way-too-personal blog might be saved for eternity at archive.org. (for poops and grins - take a look at version 1 of Microsoft.com, or even captain-justice.com for that matter, using the internet wayback machine.) Think before you post, and wonder if it's something that you wouldn't mind seeing show up at a job interview, over dinner with the family, or at a divorce hearing.

10) A little paranoia goes a long way. There's an amusing saying that goes "Are you paranoid if they actually are out to get you?" Well - they ARE very bad people who ARE out to get you on the internet. Every piece of advice that your mother gave you could probably be good rules of thumbs on the internet:

"If it sounds too good to be true - it probably is."
"Don't accept candy from strangers."
"Don't pick at it - or it'll never heal."

A final note:
There's a lot of "Don't do this" and "Don't do that" instructions that are included in the top 10. This is not because I am a stick in the mud security curmudgeon who's constantly yelling at kids to get off of my lawn. (The fact that I am is totally unrelated - damn kids . . .) The reason that I say these things is that risk outweighs the rewards for engaging in some of these behaviours. One of the things that I have noticed about viruses over the last 10-15 years is that there has been a fundamental shift in the paradigm that the attackers are using. (Sorry about the verbiage - used to be a project manager and that kind of language just keeps sneaking out.)

Virus writers of old were in it for fame - see how many machines they could infect, see if they could get on CNN (or conversely- take down the CNN website) and the goal was to gain notoriety in the hacker/cracker/virus writer community. Clean up of an infected machine was pretty straight forward, they were pretty obvious and AV at the time was actually up to the task.

Today's viruses are all about crime. They will try to be stealthy and sneaky, and try to avoid detection. They will try to subvert your computer to send out Viagra spam (or worse). They're looking for personal information that can be used to commit identify theft. They're looking to install key-loggers to capture your bank about number and PIN when you bank online or your credit card numbers when you make an on-line purchase. They can subvert your operating system to the point where it cannot be cleaned - you will need to re-install the OS from the original media. (Hope you have a good backup. . .)

So if I seem like I am alarmist, it is because the stakes are higher. There's a mis-quotation attributed to the bank robber Willie Sutton that I think can illustrate this point:

According to the myth, when asked "Why do you rob banks?" he responded "Because that's where the money is."

The corollary in this case is "Why are attackers trying to compromise your computer?"

Because that's where the money is.

Darrick's smarter than he lets on with regards to matters of internet security. He could have written this diatribe, as none of it is new information for him - I had the choice between writing this e-mail or
changing my nephew's poopy diaper.

*But by no means willl it be a 100% foolproof method for prevention of internet-ass-hosing.

The New Office

2009-07-30T17:23:00.000+01:00

So the new office is at the Gatwick Airport - which is really kind of neat and convenient when it comes time to travel. The cafeteria has a wonderful selection of healthy food (don't worry - I can always find the unhealthy stuff) and is reasonably priced - for the UK anyway. The noise in the office from the airport is not even noticeable - which either means that they've done a good job of sound proofing, or I just get waaaaay into e-mails sometimes.

The one thing that is of note is the restrooms. These are - bar none - the most aggressively-pleasant-smelling bathrooms I have been in. I have to assume that they are piping some sort of perfume into the room somehow - the aroma kind of clings to you for about 15 minutes afterward.

I hope it's not an actual perfume brand, lest I encounter someone wearing the same brand on the Subway, and it reminds me of the toilet at the office. That's never a good conversation starter.

Woman Criticized For Tweeting NYC Bank Heist

2009-07-28T20:45:00.000+01:00

Yeah - some people need therapy to cope with their addiction to social networking site and their crackberries.

Go ahead - read the article:

http://cbs2.com/business/twitter.bank.robbery.2.1085987.html

Nice excuses though - Having phone problems - so she had to tweet her situation.
What's the next milestone for this social networking Juggernaut (or train-wreck depending on your point of view)?

First person to 'tweet' in sick?
First person to get released over twitter?
First congressman to suggest that terrorists are using twitter to plan attacks?

Monday Funny

2009-07-27T15:47:00.000+01:00

Q:
What type of filling does this cake have?

A:
It's been SQL injected!

Image courtesy of www.failblog.org

Google ads

2009-07-25T08:04:00.000+01:00

Sometimes Google ads are amusingly inappropriate given the context of a webpage, or sometimes they advertise ridiculous goods or services. This is an example of the latter.

I'm not sure who's reading their G-Mail and thinking to themselves "Hmm... now what was it that I was supposed to do this weekend? I've done the shopping for groceries, I've walked the dog and I've mailed my cheque for the starving child that I am sponsoring in a far-away land. I think that's just about . . . OH CRAP!!! I know what I forgot! I sure do hope that there's some place that I can get that done in right away!"

Made it to the Tower - now kill me

2009-07-19T11:59:00.001+01:00

I did make it to the Tower of London - despite the whinging protests of my Gastrocnemius and Soleus muscles. And while I think that I won't be walking that damned far for some time, I did learn a couple of things from the journey. The first is that I am terribly out of shape. Google Maps™ says that it's 3.7 miles to the Tower from here, meaning that I walked for only 7.5 miles.

However, if you listen to my ass, it's pretty sure that we walked to Scotland and back. [At least that's the impression I get from the nasty memo it sent me, and I'm pretty certain that it's circulating a petition to other major muscle groups to have a ASBO issued.]

I can live with being out of shape - I just spent the previous four and half years in Houston, where being out of doors for any length of time is not healthy for my pasty-white-IT-guy complexion. [I was once told that Houston has two seasons - they have 8 months of summer and 4 months of Hades. If you've spent any time there, you know this to be true.]

Now using the fact that extended periods outside in this environment tend to make folks like me spontaneously combust is not actually a valid excuse for not exercising - it was just a convenient excuse for embracing my "inner lazy." [Of course owning the Z4 helped - who wants to go for a run when you can go for a drive? I already miss that car . . . I also believe that the Z4 is specifically mentioned on page 2 of the petition that my ass is circulating ]

So my adventures took me to the Tower of London and to the Tower Bridge today [and back again - see previous references to the petition.] On the way to the Tower, I caught a fairly decent shot of the "Gherkin" (Although John (Louise's husband) tends to refer to it as the "Glass Penis" - both names seem to fit, and I hate to argue semantics.)

The 3.7 mile walk to the Tower was menaced by some clouds which threatened to piss down rain, and finally did when I reached the tower. Luckily enough - I could take refuge inside of a nearby Starbucks, and order myself a pretentious sounding beverage.

The tower itself was surrounded by throngs of tourists - in full gawk - which made navigation somewhat difficult. While I don't normally suffer fools lightly, my tolerance for gawky tourists is even less so. So I merely snapped some pictures of the morbidly historical place and started to wander back to the hotel, instead of paying the £17.00(!!!) or "two roundlets of wyne" to mingle with the great unfocused.

On the way back, I snapped this shot of the Tower Bridge. This bridge is most often mistaken for "London Bridge" by visitors to the city, such as the aforementioned throngs that I previously navigated. But after being briefed by Louise (John's wife) on the state of affairs, I felt confident that should be able to drive ignorance from the minds of all those around me - should the opportunity arise.

Sadly - as is often the case - no one asked me to share my wisdom with the world.

Making the walking today more difficult was the bicycle riders. There was apparently a bike ride to raise funds for leukemia research. While I am all for raising money for cancer research (I may someday benefit from that) I did have to make note of some of the support staff standing around wearing the logo-ed "Ride for Leukemia" t-shirts while enjoying a cigarette. One of my fellow countrywomen may have referred to the scene as "ironic," when in fact it was simply a case of people displaying some rather shocking cognitive dissonance.

My observation doesn't make for a catchy song title or lyrics mind you. That's probably why she made millions with that song, and got to play "god" in "Dogma" and I merely got served with a cease and desist order from MasterCard™ for flagrant mockery of their 'Priceless' franchise.

On the way back to the hotel - I decided that I did need to document the following, should a war crimes tribunal be called in The Hague and documentation needed. This *was* a Lamborghini until it was defiled with that colour choice and all of the tacky decals. The photo doesn't do justice to the sheer horror of the actual colour. I bought a new cameras (after I sat on my last one) and this one has all sorts of whiz-bang jiggery-pokery so that even a photographic klutz like myself can take a good picture. I think that the camera did some sort of cleaning up or enhancing of the colour, as I only get slightly ill when I look at the photo, while standing next to the car made me physically want to wretch.

That's it for this post - quite surprised that you made it this far. Stay tuned for more updates on my adventures in British-land, which is the name of this island theme park, if I am not mistaken.

New Blog . . .again

2009-07-18T19:50:00.000+01:00

So I have decided that it's time to start blogging/writing on the web again. Unfortunately, due to the recent move and search for a place to live here in England, that means that I don't have the [time|inclination|desire] to prop up another CMS on the official website - so I have decided to take advantage of the free Blogger/Google infrastructure. [It can be plugged into just about every social media site anyway.]

One of the things that I was looking forward to in the move to London was the opportunity to get a little more exercise than I got when I was based in Houston. [There's about 50 pounds I should probably drop - coincidentally - it's the 50 pounds that I gained in Houston.]

So I went for a walk today to get out of the hotel for a bit and get some of my bearings around here, and figured that I would just explore until I got tired of walking. I took a path that was likely to be easy to trace back - right along the river Thames. Found a couple of fellow Canadians along the route. ;)
[Yes - they're Canadian Geese.]
Of course - I had neglected to take my camera with me while walking, so I had to take these snaps with my cellphone. (I'll have to remember it for my next frenetic wanderings.)

Wandered a bit further and found London's "oldest riverside inn" - and while it was not open, as it was morning - I'm thinking that I might have to go back at some point in time. However - since I was wandering aimlessly through the city, when I got back to the hotel, went to Google maps to figure out how far it was that I walked, since I was feeling like I had just crossed the Himalayas - according to what my legs were telling me.

Turns out that it's approximately 2.4 miles from the hotel to this pub, and I wandered a little past that before reaching a locked gate and turning around. So my leg muscles were screaming with agony because I walked five miles.

Now I know that I am thoroughly and completely out of shape.

In doing a little more poking on the ever-helpful Google Maps™ - it turns out that I made it about half way to the Tower Bridge* (right next to the Tower of London - hence the name). Since I didn't bring a map or anything (and can't really use the data feature on the cell phone until I get a BT SIM) I wouldn't have known that when I was wandering about.

I think that I will try to make my way there for tomorrow and do the tourist-y thing, and see how much walking that I can actually bear.

*Many people who are not familiar with London, assume that this is the London Bridge (of nursery rhyme fame) but it is not. Thanks to Louise, John's wife, who made sure that I was properly briefed before heading out to the city.

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10 Years after 9/11

Star Trek: Rebooted

Dammit! I'd watch that show!

Beyoncé the six foot metal chicken. Seriously? I thought that this one would be obvious, We should have Beyoncé voice the chicken.

I'm a bit of a lazy bastard

3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.

Food porn

and speaking of Christopher Walken [NSFW]

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An open letter . . .

Where are the updates?

Newlyweds on the Job

Kevin Smith, SouthWest Air and My Fat Ass

IT ARE SNOW . . .

Interesting commentary by Ricky Gervias

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From the Twitter feed , , ,

Tracking Santa . . .

Arrival in Calgary

The price of Ethics

Swirly.

Bacon Laser

Flaming Bag of Poo

The Fox Hat

The Religion Flowchart

That's a Yotta money!

Anvil Shooting

405 - The Movie

Ah L'Amour

Okay - I suck as a blogger

Conference calls

The cult of Schneier

Robert Sawyer's Alibis

Who are these clowns anyway?

Shocking - really

OMG - Yes!

Ferrari 348 Coupé, ts 2d

Essentials

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Operation Vortex sucks

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Giant Space Mirrors

Information Overload

Twitterfeed - perpetual web motion

Digging through the e-mail archives

The New Office

Woman Criticized For Tweeting NYC Bank Heist

Monday Funny

Google ads

Made it to the Tower - now kill me

New Blog . . .again

Beyoncé the six foot metal chicken.
Seriously? I thought that this one would be obvious, We should have Beyoncé voice the chicken.