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30/12/2009Here are some interesting facts.
- Some Nigerian tried to blow up a plane and failed. Nobody got killed. Actually, nobody even got hurt.
- Putatively because of the above point, the entire US airport system is now in effective lock down with "enhanced security", which is a euphemism for people being patted down and interrogated on their way to every flight.
- The Dutch and Nigerians are now doing body-scans on anyone travelling to the US.
- People all over the world are getting used to being body-searched. It's becoming part of normal life if you venture outside your own neighbourhood, which most people don't. When I was growing up, the idea of being searched was nothing short of shocking.
- On the weekend of the flight, several hundred people were killed in the US by drunk drivers. No enhanced security for drivers is planned.
- Four people a year die in the US by electrocution from dropping hair dryers into the water. This is more than have been killed by terrorism since 9/11, and that terrorist probably lives in Texas. Again, no emergency security measures are currently planned for hair dryers.
- I listened to a US talk radio show while driving the other day, and heard the announcer describe the incident as chilling to the bone. I wonder what he'd call it if someone had gotten hurt.
- Nobody seems to notice how absurd it all is. Nobody cares that nobody got hurt. Nobody cares that, even if the guy had succeeded, fewer people would've been killed than drunk drivers killed that weekend. People buy in to the drama and they glory in their chains. The abandonment of a few more personal freedoms is clearly justified. "Whatever it takes to be safe!" they say smiling, as they spread their arms and legs to be patted down.
- In 1947, Reichsmarschall Herman Goering wrote, "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
24/12/2009I made my annual pilgrimmage to church, tonight. We had a really good meal before, and I managed to stay awake for much of the service. A nice time.
06/12/2009 Two years ago when I last moved, I threw out most of my books. I didn't have a huge collection but I had five or six boxes of them. I saved about 20 books that were world-changers to me and the rest got junked. Last week, after I moved again, I threw out those last 20. The dinosaur is dead. 23/11/2009
 Microsoft just may have something. They're talking about paying some major news and information producers to remove their pages from Google search results. By doing this, they force users to use Bing to find those pages, and since those pages are often of value, smart users will start doing double searches, both Bing and Google. Google has long provided page owners the right to remove themselves from search results, knowing that almost nobody will, since doing so results in your site getting no traffic. Now, by throwing cash on the table, Microsoft gives people a motive. This could change the net drastically. If this strategy works for Microsoft, there's no reason it'll stop with News Corp. Anyone who produces useful content may find the search engines offering them a bit of cash for exclusivity. It could affect everything from blogs to technical information sites, in addition to news sites. Google will likely withdraw its option to delist in order to protect its dominant position, but that will surely result in copyright lawsuits that Google will defend citing the fair use exemption. The results of those suits could vary by country, making a big mess of the relatively clean Internet world we have right now. I think it's great. Things are too stable. We could use a shakeup. 27/09/2009 Several little news items merited notice, today. Iran tested missiles shortly after announcing a second enrichment facility. Those boys aren't going away. Die Hexe Angie ist Kanzler noch einmal ( loose translation: the witch, Angela Merkel, is Chancellor of Germany one more time). I don't care much. I didn't like Steinmeier any better. Portugal also held elections but nobody outside their nation, including me, cared (or even knew). Seems the socialists won again. Roman Polanski finally got arrested for screwing a 13 year old in the 70s. Angelica Huston, who was there at the time, said that she looked 25. The alleged victim is one of the people calling for this all to be thrown out. I don't know what happened. I wasn't there. On the surface, it sounds silly. Former Honduran leader Jose Manuel Zelaya has holed himself up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa saying he returned for "homeland, restitution or death." Right now, the latter is looking like a good bet. Michael Vick played his first downs for the Eagles. As expected, he sucked. I still hope he wins big in the end. I really think far less fuss would have been made over him if he had killed a few people instead of a few dogs. William Safire died. I liked him when I was young, conservative, and everything was black and white. I haven't even thought of him for 20 years, and I doubt I'd think well of him if I revisited his work, so maybe it's best that I just learn of his death and smile at the memory of someone I used to like. Bill Clinton says the "vast right wing conspiracy" is alive and well. I see nothing conspiratorial about it, myself. It's just a huge group of right wing nuts in the US who worship Reagan and small government. It's getting smaller each year, thankfully. It's reasonable to hope they die out soon as many don't have health care (and think any effort to provide it for them will destroy civilization as they know it). Robert Mugabe talked to Christiane Amanpour and, unsurprisingly, said nothing worth a damn. Lewis Hamilton kicked ass in Singapore. He's out of it this year, but next year looks good.
09/09/2009I stumbled across a couple of interesting world maps on Wikipedia. There seems to be a clear and fascinating correlation between the two.
Countries of the world by Population Growth
Countries of the world by Alcohol Consumption
The nations that don't drink much appear to be responsible for almost all of the world's population growth. Those nations that do drink a lot appear to be either shrinking or barely growing. 14/08/2009For those of you who haven't heard of it, g.ho.st is an interesting new startup that offers users a virtual PC from within any web browser. It's a highly attractive idea for those who want to centralize their activities and protect their local PCs from malicious websites and attacks. I signed up tonight and everything apparently worked well, but after mucking with g.ho.st a bit, I've lost confidence in how private the browser is. On the surface, g.ho.st seems very private, with a browser that runs in what appears to be a totally virtual machine. In reality, however, it seems to be less virtual than I had initially thought. Here's what I found.
- When I log in to BBAD in g.ho.st and click any links from the virtual browser, I find they open in new tabs in Chrome on my local computer. They do not stay inside the virtual machine.
- I can beat that by entering http://forums.bbad.com/chat1.php in the address line of the g.ho.st browser which causes the site to open inside the g.ho.st browser. However...
- If I surf to whatismyip.com in the g.ho.st browser, the IP displayed is simply my local computer's IP.
- I've posted this very message from the g.ho.st browser and will check the IP recorded when I'm done. UPDATE: Sure enough, this post was recorded under my own local IP even though it was made from the g.ho.st browser.
- I also note that my chat settings were loaded from cache (avatar, etc.) even though I had never gone to BBAD from g.ho.st before, indicating that it loaded those settings from my local browser.
- Just for kicks, I tried the online version of Photoshop, knowing it would need AIR and also knowing that AIR was not installed on the computer I happened to be using. Sure enough, AIR had to be installed, but on my local computer, not in any virtual machine. Once it was installed on my local computer, online Photoshop worked fine in the g.ho.st browser.
- I note for the record that I did these tests in Chrome only and not in Firefox or IE. I'd expect the results to be the same but haven't tested. UPDATE: I went back and did the IP tests in both Firefox and IE. Same behaviour.
From these findings, I'd suggest that the g.ho.st browser isn't really virtualized at all but is simply creating new instances of the parent browser which are presented as though they are contained in the virtual machine even though they are not. I'd also suggest that your browsing activities from within g.ho.st can be logged and traced as easily as if you were doing them from your local computer (which it turns out you are, despite their making it look like you're contained in a virtual machine). Finally, I'd suggest your local computer is every bit as vulnerable to being compromised if you surf from within g.ho.st as if you surf from your local browser (since in both cases, you're just surfing from your local browser regardless of how it looks). If you're hoping to have a safe environment where you can surf anonymously, g.ho.st does not appear to provide that. If you're hoping to have a way of protecting your local machine from malicious websites, g.ho.st does not appear to provide that, either. These facts don't detract from its other appeals, but you should be aware of them if they're among your reasons for using g.ho.st. Speaking purely personally, I don't need any of g.ho.st's other features. For me, it just became useless. 26/07/2009
I just read another article on whether computers will one day surpass mankind. Personally, I don't have much doubt. They are doubling in capacity every 18 months. Humans are barely evolving anymore.
Some predict a hybrid creature...part man, part machine. I have no doubt that will be tried and may even succeed but, in the long term, the biological component of such a merger will likely become irrelevant and the artificial component will emerge alone.
Imagine a species that can control its own evolution. One that can see weaknesses in design and change them. One that can see a need and then change itself to fit that need. A species with perfect memory, endless endurance, unlimited strength and intelligence, which doesn't age or die.
If computers learn to desire things, and I realize that's a big if, there's really no way we biologicals can compete. Our place in history will have been to create God.
28/06/2009Typical Sunday. I woke up late, glanced at the data center monitoring system to make sure all was well, had an hour-long shower, then sat down to read emails.
Three were from a female name I didn't recognize, which in itself isn't unusual, although they usually contain a link to erectile dysfunction ads. This time, it turned out to be from an Iranian girl I had seen in BBAD chat a few times. I hadn't seen her for awhile and I assumed she had grown bored and moved on.
It turns out that BBAD, from the main page to chat rooms to forums, is now being totally blocked in Iran. Ahmedinejad has made clear he won't be relinquishing power without a fight, and he's the one with all the big guns.
I won't mention even her first name, here. I can't help her. I'm on her side, though. 11/06/2009
 A few weeks ago, I saw some cute little stickers that made a bit of a phallic joke of light switches. Fun things, I thought, and checked on the net to see if I could buy a few. Well, a few PayPal dollars later, I got my order confirmation and promptly forgot about them.
They arrived a few days ago. I opened the envelope, threw away the 20 or so pages of promotional crap encouraging me to buy more stuff, found the stickers and immediately threw them out, too. They were junk. They didn't fit on a light switch cover. They were just stickers with a picture of the light switch that had that on it. Stupid and misleading.
Now, if I had been smart, I would've just accepted that small loss and gotten on with my life. Not being so smart, I thought to myself that it would be trivial to get these things made, and if they sold for a few dollars plus some handling charge, there might be a bit of a cottage industry in them. It was an eBay business waiting to happen. I printed out a picture and took it to a few local printing places. One, a place that I've dealt with many times in the past, said "sure we can make these".
So now, a week later, I have 60 stickers of little male figures that fit on light switch covers. Will I ever sell them on eBay? Probably not, but if eSecureData.com ever dies, it's nice to have a backup plan. |
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Copyright 2010 Reg Natarajan. All rights
reserved.
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