Category: General
Ballooning Birthday Style
Ali gave me a hot air balloon ride for my birthday. I had no idea what I was getting even though she had been giving little hints all week.
You’ll need to wear old pants and shoes that can get dirty
We may be walking through fields or tall grass
We have to leave the house by 4:45 am
It involves going up
You get the picture. The closest guess I made was a bi-plane ride, though I really didn’t think too hard on it. Ali said, “If you guess it, I won’t be able to lie about it, so don’t guess it.”
Early Saturday morning (two days before my birthday) I roll out of bed at 4:15. We arrived at the place by 6:15, and we’re the only ones there. “Are you sure we got the right place,” I asked. … Read More »
DRM
I am hugely against DRM (digital rights management). I have been meaning to write a editorial on this for some time, but I just haven’t made it a priority. The bottom line is that I refuse to buy ANY music that contains DRM. This means I mostly buy physical CDs, and only occasionally buy songs online. For instance, when I found out that Dave Matthews Band released Weekend on the Rocks in a DRM free lossless format I happily shelled out $57.99 for the 8 CD collection. I really hope initiatives like these will show the music industry DRM is not where it is at.
Anyway the catalyst for this post: Apparently I was asleep at the wheel yesterday because October 3 was “Day Against DRM,” at least according to Defective By Design. I stumbled
across … Read More »
Backpacking Catskills Style
Another year, another backpacking trip; sans Will, David and I started at the Middle Mountain trail head on the Western side of the Catskills. In the past when picking trips we have purely looked at distance and time as the active variables. We learned this year that we should add a third variable — difficulty. This year’s trek was by far the most challenging we have undertaken. We did almost 30 miles with 6600 feet of ascents spread across 4 days (2 full and 2 partial).
The first day on the trail we discovered a plant known as the stinging nettle. These are quite distracting when doing a technically challenging ascent and the trail is littered with the things. Of course, we had no idea what this wicked plant was until we ran into a … Read More »
Apple Virus Commerical Revisited
It seems my observations on this topic were quite timely. Apparently some people have demonstrated a hack at the Black Hat conference which allowed them to take over a Macbook in less than 60 seconds.
The interesting thing is that this attack is not limited to just MACs, but could affect Windows and Linux too. However the presenters chose a MAC to demonstrate the hack due to the commercials. Quoting from the article:
The presenters said they ultimately decided to run the demo against a Mac due to what Maynor called the “Mac user base aura of smugness on security.”
“We’re not picking specifically on Macs here, but if you watch those ‘Get a Mac’ commercials enough, it eventually makes you want to stab one of those users in the eye with a lit cigarette or something,”
Does this mean people are starting … Read More »
Detroit Rock City
I never traveled much until I moved to New York. I still can’t say that my travels are diverse; I primarily fly to and from Evansville for a semi-regular trip back to corporate headquarters.
I had a somewhat interesting thing happen to me on my way home last week. I plane side checked my roll-on along with about half of the people on my flight. When we got to Detroit my suitcase failed to materialize, along with four others on the flight, at the side of the plane. This was a first for me (and apparently the others as well). Now I know the saying is, “nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.” Well, I sort of thought plane side checking went in that category, in the sense that it would be impossible … Read More »