Published on Friday 18th November 2005 .
Well, I felt empty for a good portion of the day. Our internet connection at work went down late this morning, and it didn’t come back until after school ended today! Worst of all, when I tried to send e-mails to notify our staff that we were aware of an internet problem and we are working to resolve it, our e-mail system decided to pooh pooh my message and never sent it. So, we continued to field calls and walk-ups about the internet problems 
This was on top of the fact that Dreamhost had some network issues of its own. They think it was related to a switch error, but they are still investigating. In the meantime, they’ve got most of their servers up and running again.
Back to work and my lack of internet: I could not do much work because my current tasks rely heavily on my having internet access (i.e. Windows Updates, software updates, research, etc.). Luckily, just before our internet connection went down, I had found Bush in freefall. This is an entertaining mod to an already great ragdoll Flash movie by Pekka Sandborg. Seriously, I have been running the animation in a Flash player for more than 4 hours (not to mention the hour or so I was running it in a Firefox window using a Flash plugin) and I’m still not bored! Amazing!
So, the moral of the story is to always find something interesting while you’re working on the internet because you never know when it will go down and leave you with only the pages you have open! Have you found any fun things to do on the internet lately?
Published on Saturday 12th November 2005 .
Rich has a post about metadata and how it has tripped up some "some political wonks." There have been many a document that have revealed too much through metadata. It does not pose a risk to just politicos, although I am having trouble finding a link to a story I read about how metadata has even been problematic for Microsoft. IIRC, the story reported taht documents Microsoft released on their website were chock full of tracked changes and comments posted by employees who reviewed the documents before they were posted.
This slashdot post tells of an Italian PDF that revealed classified information through copy and paste. Whoever converted the PDF did not realize that by simply highlighting the text and setting its background to the text color does not remove the text after it is converted. The text is still readily available, it is just difficult to see because of the colors. It’s just like highlighting the spoiler text on some of Hersch’s posts about Naruto.
This post relates to how several UK officials were linked to the Blair Dossier relating to Iraqi intelligence. Word apparently tracks the usernames that open a document and the file paths of documents saved from it. From the dossier, one can find four users who opened and saved the document, two users saving the document to a floppy disk, and two users using some form of Windows NT or XP.
So, the moral of the story is to be wary of what you open and save because it may come back to bite you in the ass later, despite how anonymous you think the document seemed.
Metadata is so bad that a company has released software to help remove metadata.
Published on Friday 11th November 2005 .
I finally got a chance to look at some news today, and I found this Reuters article about some things Bush said today. Here is what was able to gather from the video clip on Yahoo!’s website (the video can also be found at ABC News):
…While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct with the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began…
…As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way [of] life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them…
What I’m trying to figure out is how Bush thinks history is being rewritten. From everything I am seeing, hearing or reading in the news, investigations are being held to correctly determine what actually happened leading up to the invasion of Iraq. I understood three years ago that the US was invading because there was "solid evidence" that Iraq purchased weapons-grade materials, with the potential to use them for WMDs. What I understand now is that there were no WMDs to be found and the evidence supporting their existence was likely fabricated. The US invasion was approved under false pretenses. I don’t see anyone rewriting history except for those impeding an investigation into the facts. There is plenty of blame to go around, and plenty of yet-to-be-printed pages in history books to document who was responsible for this mess.
Published on Thursday 10th November 2005 in Uncategorized
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You gotta see this animation. I remember back in the day (I’m doing a lot of reminiscing) when I could draw kind of like that. I was not nearly as good, but I was better than average…
Should have gone to art school…
Published on Thursday 10th November 2005 .
During my childhood I used to build models. I built both paper models and plastic models. I was actually a member of the Young Model Builders Club (I believe it was affiliated with Revell-Monogram). The plastic models I built started coming from the YMBC and were of varying subjects. I built cars, planes, warships and even tanks. The YMBC was sort of like the Columbia or BMG clubs where you get a model each month and you can also order from a selection in a catalog. The monthly model could be returned for the cost of shipping if you didn’t want it.
The paper models I used to build were usually space-oriented. I remember building a model of the then non-existent International Space Station. I found the printed model in a magazine called Odyssey, which was a space magazine geared towards kids. It looks a little different now, but it’s still chock full of science for kids. Anyway, when I was building the ISS, I remember gluing the pages from the magazine to file folders and cutting them out with scissors (I didn’t know about XACTO knives, and I probably shouldn’t have been playing with them anyway). I’d painstakingly glue the little tabs to the appropriate spots to create the living spaces and docking bays for the space station. I used toothpicks around which I would wrap the solar panels. I think I had that hanging from some thread in my room until junior high.
The reason I reminisce about building models is that del.icio.us/popular did it again. It has pointed me to a site with a great paper airplane design, which led me to Modellismo, a site made by an Italian guy. Modellismo has downloadable PDFs with designs for a paper model of the ISS. He’s got designs for shuttles, capsules and the station modules themselves. They are all to scale, so you can put them together to make a nice diorama.
I’m hoping to eventually find some time to take a closer look at his models and actually build one. I’ve got a couple Corvette models that Chris gave me a few years back that I still have not finished. I’ll have to dig those out and finish them, too. Then I’ll put together another Enterprise, but I haven’t decided which one yet. I’ve put together the NCC-1701-A, but never got to painting it fully. I’ve always wanted to construct the NCC-1701-D (for obvious reasons), but I never found a model to my liking. I’d also like to get back to building fighter jets and carrier ships. I just hope that my hands will be able to take the different stress. All those years of keyboarding can change a hand. I can write for barely five minutes before my hands cramp up!
Published on Tuesday 8th November 2005 .
I cannot second Vicki’s comment to Jessi’s post of her first few days out of the country. Despite the Philippines being the home of my parents’, I am not fond of the thought of visiting the islands anytime soon.
What can I say? I’m American. Between my two sisters, five cousins in the area, Herschell and me, I’m the most Filipino, and that’s saying a lot. Not to put any of them down, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one of the bunch that ever spoke Tagalog fluently or even understands much of it today. I do honestly wish I could still speak the language, but I don’t know that it would be of much use. The people that I would visit in the Philippines would all speak English, and I can understand most Tagalog. I just wouldn’t be able to speak it back to them.
If Chris and I ever visit the Philippines, we’d probably stay with Annie, one of my mom’s best friends. We’d stay with her because her and her husband Ted are well to do out there, and I’d rather not leave behind some of the comforts to which I am accustomed. Also, they’d be able to provide us with some sort of security. I am a bit paranoid of bringing Chris over because she would stick out and I’m afraid that would attract unwanted attention and maybe even prompt a kidnapping. I have been told that that sort of thing happens frequently enough to be cautious about it. So, I am not planning on making a trip out to the islands for many years, if ever again.
I will have to experience such a visit through Jessi. Frankly, I’m happier that she’s there instead of me.
Published on Tuesday 8th November 2005 .
This stuff really does happen when you put people and technology together before they’re ready to be mated.
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