November 20, 2008
November 13, 2008
No one would listen to a voice of reason...remarkable video
June 30, 2008
"Once" the movie; if you haven't seen it, this song should do it
December 3, 2007
And now, an uplifting experience...
April 5, 2006
Don't blink!
LASIK@Home is a DIY Lasik kit. I find it hard to believe and I certainly would not advocate trying this at home.
Update: According to this, the site and product are a hoax. Glad to hear that! Thanks Steve.
February 19, 2006
First, it's cashiers that don't have to compute change...
Now, it's drivers who don't have to learn how to parallel park. This is a movie (10MB avi) of a self-parking Toyota Prius. It seems that BMW has developed similar technology and has a similar video.
Probably pretty useful as we've all seen (and done) poor jobs of parallel parking.
December 22, 2005
Spell it out
What's wrong with the image below? Note that there's weather info for "Today" and "Tomorrow", both fully spelled out. Yet, why can't "they" spell out the days of the week. I find it particularly funny that on "Sun", we're expecting showers.
December 9, 2005
Dave doesn't want pictures of snow in New Jersey?
Dave Winer says he wants pictures of snow in New York and Boston. Yo, Dave! What's wrong with pictures of snow in New Jersey?
By the way...what's wrong with this picture?
November 10, 2005
Phishing in the Amazon
I received yet another phishing email today. In the past, most of the ones I've received have been trying to get me to sign into my PayPal account. Others, a bit more obvious phishing schemes, try to get me to login to bank accounts. Fortunately, they're for banks where I hold no accounts.
Today's email (see below) appeared to originate from Amazon. It is well-written and since I've recently bought several books from Amazon, got my attention.
(Click image to enlarge)
I was "this close" (fingers held nearly together) to clicking on the link, when I thought "does this look phishy?". So, I right-clicked on the link and posted it into my browser address bar. Lo and behold, it looked like this (Clearly, not somewhere to go to do any business with Amazon.):
http://mail.rihes.cmu.ac.th/help/en_US/.amazon/index.html
If you *do* go to the site, it looks very much like a real Amazon sign-in page.
(Click image to enlarge)
Feeling a tad disturbed and expecting that this may be a new wave of phishing that Amazon might not be aware of, I put on my good net citizen hat and decided to attempt to report this to Amazon. Clearly they have a mechanism for such reporting. They seem to have thought of nearly every conceivable situation that a customer might encounter.
Sure enough, they have quite a bit of info on phishing and they even have a way to report various aspects of phishing. I chose that I wanted to "report a spoofed email" as one of their canned email subjects. I followed their instructions, providing the header as well as the body of the email and noting that the link that is shown in the email was really the link I wrote above.
(Click image to enlarge)
Regrettably, after several attempts to send the email, all I got was the following error.
(Click image to enlarge)
Being good blog fodder and hoping that this could perhaps prevent further abuses by those b*st*rds in the phishing community, I close this entry.
UPDATE: Comments have been closed due to irritating comment spam.
Technorati Tags: security
October 26, 2005
US Customs: Common sense fails to prevail...a personal story
While not as severe a case as Bruce Schneier's "Infants on the Terrorist Watch List", today I had a personally disappointing experience with U.S. Customs.
I had flown 3,000 miles from New Jersey to California to attend the wedding of a dear friend. The wedding was scheduled to take place on a cruise ship, after which the wedding guests would get off the ship and the wedding couple would proceed on a 10-day Mexican Riviera cruise. This was to be a rare chance to spend time with several old friends and colleagues.
Since the ship was to exit the U.S. (for the cruise, not the wedding), security has since been tightened for passengers as well as "temporary" wedding guests like myself. The groom had contacted me to get my driver's license number and other identifying information so that it could be checked at several security check points as we were to board the boat. In addition, our driver's license would be held so that they could verify that all of the wedding guests had gotten off the boat before it sailed.
The dilemma occurred when I arrived at the port, along with several of the groom's family, and we proceeded to get out our driver's licenses so they could be checked at the first point of entry to the ship. Regrettably, my name was not on the list. Not misspelled, not out of order, but simply not there. Being fairly easygoing about the whole thing, we were early and I was sure that such a simple oversight could indeed be corrected with the right escalation process.
The groom arrived and said that he would go through security, contact the wedding coordinator to see what could be done and then call me via cell phone. Meanwhile, I talked with several friends and eventually, after encouraging everyone to go on through security (as I was sure that I would join them shortly), the groom called and said that someone was looking into what could be done.
Someone from the ship's crew came out, asked me a few questions to verify to her satisfaction that I was indeed a U.S. citizen, and then asked if she could take my driver's license to the security people and see what she could do. She did say that I did not appear on the list and I acknowledged that.
About 10 minutes later, the same person from the crew returned, handed me my driver's license and said that, although she was deeply sorry, my name was on none of their lists and that there was a 48-hour notice requirement by U.S. Customs, and as a result she could not let me on the ship.
I did not press the situation as there was clearly nothing she could do. It was rather sad not being able to attend the wedding, although one friend later sent me a camera-phone photo of the lovely couple and they looked fabulous.
Chalk this up as another case where common sense security failed to prevail.
Technorati Tags: security
October 3, 2005
Stress
Haven't posted in several weeks for a couple of reasons...both stress-inducing.
First, and most important by far, my brother was stricken with severe back pain, combined with a very high fever. So, off to the hospital emergency room we went (after a brief detour to the chiropractor, which the fire department obliged via ambulance...don't ask).
After an X-ray and an MRI, he was admitted to search for the reason for the high fever. Initial speculation centered on the possibility of an infection, which it was theorized could have manifested itself partly as back pain.
A blood culture and a few days of growth revealed a strep infection in his blood. Additional tests included a bone scan, a CT scan and a white cell scan...not to mention a TEE. The fear about this particular flavor of strep was that it could cause a heart infection; specifically, one known as bacterial endocarditis. Not a good thing to get or have.
After 10 days in the hospital, being filled with a combination of two antibiotics (ampicillin and gentamicin) as well as doses of a pain killer called hyrdromorphone (avoid it if you can), my brother was pretty much out of it. I came to find out after he came home that he didn't remember a lot of what transpired in the hospital (visitors, etc.). I spent a good part of each day (8 hours or so) at the hospital so that if any of the doctors were to come by, I could provide the necessary coherence to a conversation on behalf of my stricken brother.
For those of you who have had family in the hospital, you all know that it is not fun. For me it was all-consuming, both emotionally and intellectually. While I had work that I wanted to get done and tried to make myself think I could do some of it in the hospital while he was sleeping, I could simply find no available brain/heart cells to allocate to anything but my brother's care.
One of the reasons I no longer like to go into hospitals is that both of our parents, after being admitted (separate events), died due to complications from surgery. While these events were 13 and 9 years ago, to this day, I don't get a good vibe being in hospitals at all.
Without any exercise for about two weeks and eating plenty, I managed to lose 2 pounds on this stress-induced diet.
My second stress inducer over the course of the last week or so, has been my work on trying to sell a company. I am an investor in the company and the company has had more than one inquiry about being acquired. Among the more difficult things to do in such a situation, particularly as the lead negotiator (my role in this instance) is to make sure that the company's (the selling company, that is) stakeholders are all on the same page with respect to what a reasonable deal could be for this company. So far, so good, but it certainly can be trying. At times it can be a relief to deal with the prospective buyer(s) as there is a clear separation of interests and both sides know when the other is dealing reasonably. For the "insiders", the agendas are not all consistent and often hard to discern.
Anyway, just a quick note on my most recent stress-related weeks of life.
September 11, 2005
Schneier on Security: Katrina and Security
In Katrina and Security, Bruce Schneier has, in my opinion, nailed a fundamental issue about how our government (and perhaps most other governments) deal with security funding...with a focus on what he calls "movie-plot threats". Scenarios are developed and funding goes toward dealing with those scenarios. The spending on the movie-plot threats winds up going to very specific prevention measures, often based on the last attack. As a result, the attackers are now clear to find other soft spots to attack, e.g., shopping malls instead of airlines.
What Bruce calls for is to allocate funding to two primary areas: intelligence gathering and emergency response, both of which make us safer. In the case of Katrina (or any other natural disaster), there are certain fundamentals required for emergency response and those can be well-understood, whether what is being responded to is a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. You can imaging the logistics related to food/water/shelter as well as transportation. Transportation was one of the planning items that was left unfinished in New Orleans' efforts to work out their response plans over recent years (sad).
Intelligence gathering, be it the CIA or the NSA, or in the case of natural disasters, agencies like the National Weather Service.
Sounds like a whole lot of common-sense to me.
Technorati Tags: security
September 5, 2005
And FEMA didn't know what to expect?
What I find amazingly distressing is the level of surprise expressed by FEMA officials in the aftermath of what they have referred to as a "perfect storm" of events that resulted from Katrina.
In fact, Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, clearly recalls the briefings which were given to both the FEMA director and the director of Homeland Security prior to the storm.
Worse yet, in a FEMA press release that followed an emergency preparedness exercise that was conducted last July (2004), the assumptions that were made during the exercise eerily predict the resulting disaster:
Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.The exercise used realistic weather and damage information developed by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies to help officials develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana.
UPDATE: The Washington Post has a new piece about the preparedness exercise that took place last year and the lack of heed to the results of the exercise.
September 4, 2005
Saddened by the tragedy
I am deeply saddened by the tragedy being suffered by the people of the gulf states.
I am following the local news and perspective through the Times-Picayune newspaper.
I encourage all who are able to make donations, large and small, to the Red Cross.
The people affected will remain in my prayers.
August 25, 2005
Significant events: 3.2 and 50
August 25th marked two relatively significant events. The first was the release of MovableType 3.2, a very nice blogging platform (on which this blog runs). The second, yet far more personal was my 50th birthday.
I am calling this blog "Second Half", somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as it represents the second half of my life. Not that I expect to live to 100 years old, but more for the milestone it is with respect to various aspects of my life.
The things that currently make up my life and consume my cranium, including...
- Family, i.e., wonderful wife and son (and dogs)
- Serving as a trustee at my son's private school
- Serving as a board member in a privately held technology company in the RFID field
- Learning about web site design and related standards-based construction
- Studying the new pheonomenon known as Ruby on Rails
- Playing a lot of tennis, and this week, attending the US Open
- Staying fit so I can keep on playing like I'm 50 until I'm 80
- ...and starting this blog (and keeping it going this time)
I'll be writing about all of these things and more over the coming days, weeks and months and hope to experiment quite a bit with what this could all become.