tanstaafl

Language Barrier

2007-01-02T21:47:00.000Z

"... to fight this. the language. barrier." - Mike Doughty

iyi yıllar

I had to learn something today.... this is what it was.

No resolutions, just trying to do all the stuff that is already in the air.

Hope that all 2.5 readers are well.

Lots going on, but trying to keep this from being a SYAB (scratch your ass blog).

Here is something to get the dialogue going... was Saddam Hussein's execution a morally correct action? Why/Why Not? How do you feel about the video leakage? Did the US play a role in where he ended up? What, if any, result will come from his death?

stolen...

2006-10-01T14:38:00.000Z

dw (which means "dear wife".... I had no idea... must not be trolling the right places....I always think of dw as drum workshop... but hey whatever) came up with the following that is accurate enough and funny enough for the highest level of flattery... theft:

"my real life happens in my head"

more to come on the implications... but since I am cramming a whole bunch of garbage on one post, some other quick thoughts:
-FF (that is Fantasy Football) is tough. ;-)
-BG (that is Battlestar Galactica) starts in one week

P.S. Spellchecker wanted to replace "Battlestar" with fatalistic... that is funi.

Peace.

Hello,,,, Is there anybody out there?

2006-07-28T21:43:00.000Z

So I was reading one of my all time favorite books, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and I got to thinking... what if there is an aware non human entity (AI, Alien, Dolphin, No limitations here) out there somewhere just waiting for someone to be nice to them...

If you read the book this idea will make some sense...

So... Here is what I propose:

Any non human intelligence is welcome to respond here. I am not sure what I have to offer to entice you, other than an honest interest in the spread of knowledge, but maybe that is enough.

Any humans are welcome to _pretend_ to be non-human, set up a bot to generate posts, whatever you want... might be interesting/thought provoking in a turing test sort of way.

Strange Readers

2006-07-07T14:55:00.000Z

So a while ago I said that anyone that posted a word would get 100 words from me working that word into this blog. A few smarty pants gave me some tough words ;-), but it was fun.

I then fell into life and did not check back to see if anyone else had posted any words until just today... a non related conversation resulted in me reviewing any comments to this blog... there has to be a way to get emails or something when someone comments on this thing... I will look into that in just a minute... after all, for such a sparse set of thoughts, if someone takes the time to comment, I should at least be aware and try to respond... apologies to IWishIWasFlying... check out his blog here... good stuff... but that is not the strange part.

The strange part is that for at least two full minutes I thought that I was looking at the blog of someone else that I know. I thought that Daedelux (see his blog here had maybe started an alternate blog or something... then I read enough to get clued in to who this blog belongs to... funny ... these two people are very different, but apparently they are also very similar... ;-) ... BTW ... I have no idea why iwishiwasflying chose the word that he chose... but I will endeavor to practice abstinence from the overuse of ellispses ... for at least a while ... starting ... the day after tomorrow ... ;-) ...

Firefly / The Outlaw Josey Wales

2006-06-15T14:42:00.000Z

watched OLJW last night and it occurred to me midviewing why it was that firefly was familiar to me and why i liked it...

definitely _not_ the same story and i am _not_ saying that firefly is unoriginal.... but the overall theme of the guy who lost the war trying to find his way in a hostile world sort of thing along with a few other similarities made me draw the connection. if you liked one and have not seen the other, it is worth checking out.

subtitles

2006-06-14T17:11:00.000Z

i have been watching movies in foreign languages with english subtitles
it will be interesting to see if this results in an improvement in my language skills

either way, it has resulted in a new media experience that has been strangely enjoyable.

damn it feels good to be a gansta

2006-06-13T21:33:00.000Z

<<
real gansta ass niggas dont flex nuts
'cause real gansta ass niggas know they got em.
>>

damn right.

break

2006-06-13T21:27:00.000Z

going on holiday this coming weekend.
not a moment too soon.

zoom zoom

2006-03-28T03:06:00.000Z

for no apparent reason I stumbled onto the aftermarket parts that are available for my car.... and now I have the bug.... I want a cold air intake so bad I can taste it (well ok, that would be foul...but you know what I mean) and if I was going to bother doing that then I could get those mazdaspeed springs... (see a pattern here?)

the worst part about the whole thing is that I am NOT handy with cars or much of anything else really. I have 100 things that I need to fix, paint, etc BEFORE I spend $250 to get a little more power and an extra 2 or 3 miles to the gallon.

but... the allure is there... the feeling that YOUR CAR is different than everyone else's... the same feeling that you got when you put together your first ferrari model.... (you know the one... the red 308 from magnum pi... the one where you mangled the engine parts that you still can't name and the paint job was awful... but it still sat of the bookshelf as a prized possesion...)

p.s. was going to post a pic of what my car looks like... but blogger is broken today it seems. ;-(

what is an ontology?

2006-02-08T20:47:00.000Z

An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualization. The term is borrowed from philosophy, where an Ontology is a systematic account of Existence. For AI systems, what "exists" is that which can be represented. When the knowledge of a domain is represented in a declarative formalism, the set of objects that can be represented is called the universe of discourse. This set of objects, and the describable relationships among them, are reflected in the representational vocabulary with which a knowledge-based program represents knowledge. Thus, in the context of AI, we can describe the ontology of a program by defining a set of representational terms. In such an ontology, definitions associate the names of entities in the universe of discourse (e.g., classes, relations, functions, or other objects) with human-readable text describing what the names mean, and formal axioms that constrain the interpretation and well-formed use of these terms. Formally, an ontology is the statement of a logical theory. [1]

Ontology is the theory of objects and their ties. The unfolding of ontology provides criteria for distinguishing various types of objects (concrete and abstract, existent and non-existent, real and ideal, independent and dependent) and their ties (relations, dependences and predication). [2]

=======================================
This is what I am working on right now.
Thought I would share.
Below are some good links.
1st is more CS, 2nd is more PHIL
=======================================

[1]http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html

[2]http://www.formalontology.it/

nervous by nature

2006-02-06T14:55:00.000Z

Check this out.

"A computer virus succeeded in bringing down the main Russian stock
exchange on Thursday. The Russian Trading System (RTS) was forced to
suspend operations in its three markets between 1315 and 1420 GMT
after unnamed malware infected systems. Viral infection resulted in a
huge upsurge of outgoing traffic, interrupting normal network
operations."

====================================
scary. this sort of stuff
(and worse)
is going on all the time.
====================================

Two for One -- Biological Models for Wireless Sensor Networks

2006-01-31T17:50:00.000Z

If you are having trouble remembering what the word epithelium means, just remeber that old joke, "Your epidermis is showing!".

Consider the following:

Epidermis is the outermost layer of the skin. It forms the waterproof, protective wrap over the body's surface and is made up of stratified squamous epithelium with an underlying basement membrane. [1]

Epithelium: A layer or layers of cells that provide protection for the body. Epithelial tissue also often contains cells which secrete or absorb various substances. The skin, the coverings of most organs, and the linings of the body's passageways are made up of epithelial tissue. When these tissues become cancerous, they are called carcinomas. [2]

This in and of itself is not so interesting to the world of computers and this blog, but when considering apoptosis or even more generally Programmed Cell Death (PCD) as the functionality of the body that regulates growth then I wonder if there are applicable models where it could be used to design self healing networks that utilize these concepts?

Sure enough, I found this paper:
http://arri.uta.edu/acs/networks/WirelessSensorNetChap04.pdf

Which does reference this:
J. Choi, C. Conrad, C. Malakowsky, J. Talent, C.S. Yuan, and R.W. Gracy, “Flavones from Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi attenuate apoptosis and protein oxidation in neuronal cell lines,” Biochemica et Biophysica Acta, 1571: 201-210 (2002).

There is a great amount more that could be done here... stay tuned.

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidermis_%28skin%29
[2]
http://www.baymoon.com/~hpvinfo/library/glossary/bldefepithel.htm

compulsory cannibalism

2006-01-30T19:00:00.000Z

“I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.”

-Abbie Hoffman

I always did love this quote, and it allowed me to work in the word 'cannibalism' into this blog in a way that is more or less consistent with my existing theme.

Which is sort of a fun way to think about things... so ... I propose that anyone who posts a word as a reply to this message I will dedicate at least 100 words to working that word into a post that is relevant to the theme of this blog to the best of my ability.

I strongly suspect that other people do this all the time... how else did Mike Doughty end up with, "she may cleave me like a snowplow"?

Bring it. ;-)

just goes to show...

2006-01-27T18:06:00.000Z

you put crazy stuff on the Internet... and people will read it.

Interesting. I propose:

IF the Internet is unmoderated THEN there can be no successful thought police.

Comforting. I do not KNOW that this is true, but I hope so.

<--------------------------------------------------------------------->

Calculating the cost of murder is sort of like caluclating the cost of Open Source Software...

Vg vf gbb rnfl gb sbetrg gb snpgbe va gur pbfg bs GVZR.

Thought Police

2006-01-20T22:58:00.000Z

If you think that you remember that there was something else in this place, you are double plus ungood sick and we will fix you.

sudoku

2005-12-28T04:16:00.000Z

crazy little game... but good for your brain.

is very interesting to see the code that has been generated surrounding it... when I first saw the game, I found the problem of determining the total number of possible unique 9x9 sudoku even more interesting that the game.

so did these guys it would seem:

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~pm1afj/sudoku/sudoku.pdf

Interesting. Not ideal, and I think that there is more work that could be done, but interesting.

Kludge ... Kluge ... Whatever

2005-12-11T01:40:00.000Z

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=kludge

Your code is like an outhouse!

This was too funny to not share. You have to read the whole thing to get the history of the word.

If I could drive to the moon...

2005-09-23T16:05:00.000Z

Distance from the Earth:
perigee (closest): 363,000 km
semimajor axis (mean distance): 384,400 km.
apogee (farthest): 406,000 km

Let's assume:

I can schedule to wait for the closest distance.

I have a hybrid that gets 32 km/litre.

Fuel costs $0.82 USD/litre

And most importantly we have a whiz bang gadjet that not only allows us
to drive our car to the moon, but it counters and effects of gravity, lack of
oxygen, etc. This is a thought excercise people, relax.

726,000 km round trip requires 22,687 litres fuel:

$18,603.75 USD for a round trip to the moon.

;-)

EFF

2005-09-18T02:59:00.000Z

http://eff/org/bloggers/

Not only is the message important... the art is super cool throwback (or so says me).

Word Verification

2005-09-16T12:34:00.000Z

Thanks to Daedalux and missy,I decided to go ahead and turn this on to fight SPAM.

So now my next question, since I am too lazy to read how to blog and just ask here... is there any way that I can delete the SPAM comments? I see that I can hide them if I hide all comments (no big deal, I guess)... but I really would rather delete them than hide them... I don't want my blog linking to their crap and adding to their pagerank. ;-)

***Not getting sucked into CS... but I bet it is possible to write software that can do word verification... hard, but possible.***

Anyways, thanks... and just for you D, I will stay focused on Space! I am thinking about really trying the idea I talked about here. And since you said, "Let's do it", I am counting on your support!

Space Ghost -- Where Are You?

2005-09-13T20:08:00.000Z

Here is a good photo to help keep the space dream alive. The pains of the real world make it hard to remember to look up sometimes...

On a side note, my life is about chok full o Computer Science right now... I am thinking that I might start focusing on Space and Space Travel for a while as things to ramble about... as I only have a readership of about 2.5 I am not guessing that anyone will care/notice. ;-)

Sunday is Back

2005-09-12T13:30:00.000Z

For most of the year Sunday is not Sunday. Yesterday was.

melodrama

2005-08-25T03:52:00.000Z

…Nothing
Always Is
Always Was
Always Will Be
Nothing
Always Is…

============================
what is in my head right now
should not be there
time for sleep

Google Clear Text?: Defcon 1101

2005-08-01T05:18:00.000Z

Why is the username and password for my blog passed in clear text? This is a serious issue. For this blog it might not be a huge deal... but what about people who are generating serious traffic/adsense revenue? If they try to post from the road in clear text and this gets sniffed...

game over.

This occured to me Saturday night when I was sitting by the pool at the Alexis Park... and resulted in my choosing to avoid the wall of sheep and to wait to post about the fun that has been had by all. ;-)

I am going to forward this text to Google as an email and will document any response that I get back.

Red Rocks: Defcon 1101

2005-07-30T05:03:00.000Z

On Saturday after we had gone to all of the sessions that we were interested in, we rented a van and the 5 of us went out to red rocks for what ended up being a pretty intensive hike.

Here are some photos of the view:

In the Air: Defcon 1101

2005-07-29T07:55:00.000Z

So I am posting comments to the original defcon post...

but certain things seem to be their own thread...

so here is the first of those...

I left the office with plenty of time to swing by the Best Buy and get a usb cf reader... which I am really glad that I did, because I had a window seat and got what I think is a pretty cool photo of the prop of the plane while we were in the air.

When I hit the ground in Vegas (1 AM EDT, 10 PM local) it took me 90 minutes to get my bags and get a cab to take me the 2 miles to the hotel. While checking in, there was a lady from California who was hassling the hotel staff about was she going to be safe on a first floor room... he told her that no one was safe in Las Vegas, which I thought was hysterical, but she did not seem to agree.

Either way, I found it funny that she was concerned becuase the hotel is next door to a 'gentleman's club'... sex is always selling in Las Vegas and it is big money... I would be willing to bet that we are quite safe from any trouble where we are.

While waiting I ran into Mr. Brown, Mr. Blue, and Mr. Orange... they had hit the strip and said that they had a good time. Mr. Brown said that his RCE class was great, and I am excited about grilling him about it tomorrow. They also confirmed that Mr. Blond is fine, he had just gone to bed.

In general, all is well, I have spent about an hour unpacking all my books and gear and am really excited about all the stuff to do tomorrow. I will try to update as much as possible so that everyone back at the home office can be entertained.

Either way, take care and be sure to call me if you need anything.

Mr. White

Space Shuttle Launch

2005-07-26T19:51:00.000Z

www.cnn.com/shuttle

It is happy news that the launch was able to happen today, and it is even happier news that everything seems to be going well.

Our space program is one of the most important long term programs that we have, and I am thrilled to see it start to get back on track.

On a side note, I leave for defcon in 2 days... so start checking that thread for a record of the goings on. ;-)

20 Questions

2005-07-18T21:00:00.000Z

Got this off of my RSS feed for "Got Root?" -- try it out, it is frighteningly simple and wicked.

20Q.net is an experiment in artificial intelligence. The program is very simple but its behavior is complex. Everything that it knows and all questions that it asks were entered by people playing this game. 20Q.net is a learning system; the more it is played, the smarter it gets.

Visit it: http://www.20q.net

Privacy

2005-07-13T13:39:00.000Z

TOR
http://tor.eff.org/

Privoxy
http://www.privoxy.org/

Firefox
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Three products that are very easy to use and install that when used together can provide enhanced privacy and security to your web expereince.

Check it out, let me know if you need any help getting them to work.

Secure Code, Secure Application?

2005-06-29T16:34:00.000Z

There are some interesting looking products that do automated high level code review, and I am trying to get a demo so that I can play with one of them. Not only am I interested in how this works to identify security issues in high level language code, I am also interested in how this can be coupled with optimization techniques such as coding principals, complier options, and maybe even low level optimization techniques such as the ones talked about here:
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/Articles/GreatDebate/debate5.html

Finally, after being concerned about low level optimization, the question much be asked: Understanding that High Level Source can generate any number of different binaries based on compiler and compiler options... not to mention the fact that we cannot trust our compiler (see www.acm.org/classics/sep95 for a real treat) doesn't it seem like a better idea to write a program that can scan binaries for possible security issues in their code?

Apparently this is not a new or original idea, at least one company is trying to sell a product that does just this: www.logiclibrary.com

Solaris also has a tool for scanning binaries: www.iforce.sun.com

This is very interesting technology that I will try to dig deeper into at some point soon.

Brave New Prediction: Lunatic Fringe

2005-06-28T16:26:00.000Z

There will be a colony on the moon in the next 25 years.

I have been kicking around an idea to write a story about getting a colony on the moon that used nothing but existing technology except for the fact that the cost of getting to the moon would be much smaller than it actually is today (say 1/100). No pretensions about being a good writer, the goal would be to try and get a rough blueprint of how it could be done if it were only cheaper.

This is an obvious fixation of any sci fi fan, and it is really amazing how close we are to being able to do this not only technically, but socially and economically as well. The following link is a good article about some of the things that are in the works:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/moon.html

What do you think? Prove me wrong.

defcon 1101

2005-06-27T15:42:00.000Z

www.defcon.org

It is getting close, and I am getting excited. I am going to use the thread to track all of the shenanigans that are planned and/or executed at this years' defcon.

Right now the update is that I have approx. 20 people going that I know and it is going to be a mess. ;-)

My First Audio Blog...

2005-06-24T16:59:00.000Z

Check it out! My first audioblog post. All that it says is, "This is a test." This is a cool first step, now I am going to start working on my modified telephone to see if I can get a decent enough sound quality to post live acoustic versions of my songs.

It would be cooler if I could have copied this link into my A/V blogging thread, but when I tried to do so I got errors (the required tags were not allowed).

Stay Tuned!

rootkits

2005-06-23T18:48:00.000Z

www.rootkit.com

Seriously nasty stuff and really cool technology. Stay tuned for updates to this thread.

Some seriously smart people run this site, and I have had the pleasure of seeing some of them speak and I highly recommend anyone who is interested in information security to check these guys out. I think that I am going to try and setup a blogroll so that I can link to their blog... it is hysterical... and a great source of information. Check out this sample where Greg Hoglund reams McAfee:
www/rootkit.com/blog

4400

2005-06-22T02:35:00.000Z

So this show is kinda neat, the characters are OK, and the world has room for another X-files. The show itself is not what I want to talk about though, what I am most interested in is the concept.

In short, people from the future abducted people from various times and then returned them all to a single spot with the goal of preventing some unknown/undefined catastrophe.

This is a common sci-fi theme that I would like to use to start a semi-serious discussion on the possibilities of time travel. ;-)

Could this ever happen? If the people that were sent back were successful then they would never get abducted unless maybe the people in the future have not actually suffered the catastrophe and only have seen it by traveling into their future, (would that be our future future? Would that really matter?). There are all sorts of theories on this sort of stuff... and they can get pretty hairy so let's set the discussion to be as follows:

I say that time travel to the past is completely and utterly impossible and therefore time travel in any direction is impossible.

prove me wrong.

*** Note that this may or may not reflect my actual opinion

Side question: are there only 2 possible directions for time travel?

A/V Blogging

2005-06-21T13:18:00.000Z

I have finally added my first picture to my blog, it is not hard, I am just lazy. This is interesting, but not really anything special.

fr33lunch.blogspot.com/haughty-melodic.html

What is interesting is audioblogger. I set this up yesterday and just tried to post my first audio test and was not able to get through. I will blog this testing in this blog... (can use the word as a verb and a noun!) and have some interesting ideas about where this could go....

I am a songwriter, and I would love to share my songs with people via my blog as opposed to linking to another server. Some questions that I will try to answer are:

• Could I get my mp3 files directly uploaded somehow?
• Could I modify a phone to use one of my home studio microphones so that the sound quality would be better and do live versions of my songs for this blog?
• How bad would this sound? Obviously there are serious frequency limitations on what is sent over the PSTN, but using a better mic should at least make the frequencies that do get sent better quality.
• Is there any processing that I can do to enhance the quality of the sound given that I know it is going to be transmitted over the PSTN?
• Are there any other questions that I have missed? Feel free to contribute; I think that I might make a science project out of this!

2005-06-20T18:59:00.000Z

Contact management can be a real pain. I have started using linkedin, a web based contact management system, and I am really happy with it. It follows "bottom up" design principals and is sort of like a reverse CRM... instead of one person working hard to keep their contacts updated, everyone has their contact info in linked in and the maintenance is distributed.

Either way, enough geeking about the design issues, I think that it is a cool thing, and I suggest that everyone give it a try:

https://www.linkedin.com/home

Happy Fathers Day

2005-06-19T11:45:00.000Z

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads everywhere. I woke up earlier than I wanted to (if you are a dad, you know why) and I am typing with my youngest son (5 months) sitting on my lap and drolling on my arm. ;-)

I would not trade it for anything.

newsgator

2005-06-18T14:40:00.000Z

RSS is one of the coolest things going right now, and the folks at newsgator have a great web based aggregator. Not only is it free, and easy, and cool... they actually respond to requests in a timely fashion!

Check out this response:
<<
Hi, I got your request for inclusion in the NewsGator taxonomy. It has been accepted and can be found in the appropriate category.

Thanks for having a NewsGator button.
>>

So now tanstaafl is listed in their choices for feeds. Neato Torpedo. ;-)

Haughty Melodic

2005-06-17T16:58:00.000Z

Mike Doughty Rules! I highly recommend that everyone give Haughty Melodic a listen. It is nothing like Soul Coughing or his solo acoustic stuff, but still good... yeah still good.

There are some tunes that long time fans will recognize and some new ones. Current favorites of mine at the moment are White Lexus and American Car.

Mike has a good website (and a very entertaining blog) that can be seen here:
www.mikedoughty.com

RSS feed for tanstaafl

2005-06-15T19:03:00.000Z

Click on the link at the bottom of this page and you can add tanstaafl to the free newsgator RSS reader.

If you have an RSS reader of your own here is the link to the RSS feed:

http://fr33lunch.blogspot.com/atom.xml

If you do not know what RSS is and if you are not reading your news with a newsreader, you should really check it out. In addition to being a super cool way to stay on top of the news in 15 minutes a day, if you use this technology with blogs, it is easy to go to one place to see if any of your favorite blogs have updates.

as they say where I sleep... wicked cool.

-est

Early Adoption of a Forgiveness Strategy

2005-06-15T18:23:00.000Z

Hypothesis:

The early adoption of a forgiveness strategy is the only ratioinal solution of a two party conflict when both parties have the long term goal of continued partnership.

said another way: there is no sense in prolonged conflict. if one party determines that they no longer wish to cooperate, then they should strike early and quickly for maximum advantage, otherwise competition should be minimized for mutual benefit.

some of the work that is driving this thinking is the work by Robert Axelrod and specifically the tit for tat strategy.

Tit for Tat is wonderful and I am interested in testing a few ideas on modifications to it.

Law and Philosophy

2005-06-13T19:46:00.000Z

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
OR PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL RIGHT
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
1762
Translated by G. D. H. Cole, public domain

http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

This is really worth reading. I will try to post my thoughts on it later after digesting.

Game Theory

2005-06-12T19:34:00.000Z

My previous post was about the pirsoner's dilemma (I chose a specfic example with a twist, the classic example is in the link below) There are some other games that are very interesting as the bottom of this link... I need to find a way to pose them as questions so that people can respond...

prisoner's dilemma

prisoner's dilemma

2005-06-11T21:50:00.000Z

You and another person, whom you love more than any other person, are captured by unknown forces.

You are each placed into a separate room with no possibility to communicate with each other and told the following things:

1. You are each in a separate room with a clock that is accurate
2. You are each being told the same thing at the same time
3. There is a red button on one of your walls
4. If you press the button, you die and your loved one goes free
5. If they press the button, they die and you go free
6. If one hour passes and neither of you have pressed the button, you both die

What do you do?

For the Love of Money

2005-06-10T17:39:00.000Z

Question: Why should there not be multinational corporations that are dedicated to nothing but profit?

Answer: because there are people who are starving to death.

Thoughts: This seems counter my TANSTAAFL premise. Does a free market system where achievement is a virtue require the tolerance of unbounded greed? Is it possible to stand up for individual accomplishment while still searching for equity and unity between people? On an individual level I believe that the person who brings the most value should reap the most reward, but at the macro level there seem to be forces at work that are not quite so pure or simple.

Where Does All My Time Go?

2004-12-31T02:54:00.000Z

I was out having dinner with some friends this evening when in the middle of conversation I realized that we were boring the living bejesus out of the 11 year old that was with us.

We had been talking about work for a good 30 minutes.

My first response was to try and come up with something that I could say that might interest an 11 year old girl. That was when her cell phone rang and I realized that an 11 year old girl in the 21st century is a monster that I am ill prepared to deal with.

After her call ended, I did the only thing that was left that I could think of.

I rationalized.

And this is how the story went:

There are 24 hours in the day.

We sleep for 6 of them.

We eat for 3 of them.

We work for 10 of them.

We dedicate 1 of them to personal hygiene.

This leaves us 4 hours to contribute to society and better ourselves as individuals in between loads of laundry.

And then we have kids.

Which gets us into negative free time before you can say binky.

Privatization of Space

2004-12-28T15:15:00.000Z

Wired magazine's last issue was focused on space exploration and it really got me excited. There are so many reasons that we should get our butts into space...

1. Get all of the eggs out of one basket.

Although arguments can be made against the survival of our species, I am predisposed to eat, subjugate, or make jewelry out of anything that tries to make them. Getting our genetic material to other places would greatly increase the likelihood of our long term survival.

2. Learn.

How are we ever going to truly understand our planet until we can separate ourselves from it for observation?

3. Discover.

This is obvious... it is space for crying out loud. Who knows what we will find?

4. Reduce Poverty

Earth is a limited resource. Expansion of our environment, if done correctly, should allow for population pressure relief and an increased standard of living for those who are willing to take the risks of migration.

5. Globalize Our Cultures

If we remove the physical barriers between the different peoples of the world, maybe we could remove the social ones that are stopping us from being one people.

There are many more reasons that we should focus on space exploration and I am very excited to see that it is starting to happen at the private level.

Just Because You Are Paranoid...

2004-12-21T21:31:00.000Z

Does not mean that they are not after you.

sdelete is a good idea.

Info on sdelete can be found at www.sysinternals.com

This is nothing new, just a small thought for the day.

Military InfoSec...

2004-12-15T13:36:00.000Z

"Air Force Lt. Gen. Harry Raduege also revealed that military networks were hacked 294 times in 2003."

That they know about....

Good grief, did a PR person fall asleep when they allowed that stat to go public? Not that the American masses will bother to read the fact or think more than two steps past what it means.

Google Tools

2004-12-07T19:14:00.000Z

Wicked Cool. I have been doing some client coding with the google API since it was released in beta and it is super cool. Am starting to look into some of the other features that they are offering... google is really getting it right. I hope to do some more playing with their tools and post findings/code snippets etc.

RFID Research

2004-07-15T18:09:00.000Z

This is something that is just plain scary. I am interested in getting my hands on a development kit for RFID so I can see what can/can not be done.
I saw a talk about this at DEFCON 12 by Lucas Grunwald and it was off the hook.

http://www.rf-dump.org/ has a slew of great info and a tool as well.
http://www.rfidnews.org/ also has some good general stuff.

http://www.rfidexchange.com/purchasing.aspx gives a run down on some kits that can be purchased. I think that the really important thing will be to make sure that the kit that I choose will have support for the rf-dump software so that I can play with that as well as full API support for C++ (some of the cheaper kits do not have API's).

TANSTAAFL

2004-07-15T14:57:00.000Z

TANSTAAFL = There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

started 20040715
overhauled 20050629