The Falcon's View

User Friendly has been running a series of comics about people creating blogs, getting that first entry out there, and then being completely brain-dead. Ironically, it seems to be happening to me, too. It strikes me that part of the problem is the realization that publishing thoughts to this blog means saying things out loud, in a public forum. That can be daunting and scary. For one thing, what about privacy?

Well, anyway, here's another post. My next post will likely deal with figuring out how to get MT plugins like StyleCatcher to work through "system-wide configuration." I also need to figure out why the contextual help files are inaccessible.

I did not watch the State of the Disillusioned Union last night. It's too painful. I mean, come on, seriously. Since when did eloquent speaking get thrown out, only to be replaced by mindless, mind-numbing applause after every 1-3 sentences? Nauseating.

So, here's what I'm wondering, having read the highlights...

In Scott Adams' original "Dilbert Principle" he mentions that we all have idiot moments. I can certainly recollect dozens of my own. But then there are those Darwinian moments where you stop and realize "wow, some people just aren't all that bright." Take this story on CNN.com for example. Researchers found that microwaving a WET sponge for 2 minutes kills most bad things lurking about. So, what did people do? They tossed DRY sponges into their microwaves, and then had the hilarious nerve to complain to the reporting news agencies that it was their fault. If only people could read - and comprehend!

The irony of No Child Left Behind: the parents of the children are already long lost. :)

I've always been a fan of George Carlin (comedian) because of his witty analysis of the English language. This amusement has often caused me to evaluate words and phrases and the intended versus literal meaning. Today's example is the common question to men too lazy to shave (like I've been for a few days): "Are you trying to grow a beard?"

The answer is 'no' I'm not "trying" to grow a beard. There's absolutely no conscious effort involved in making the beard grow. In fact, it seems to grow quite well despite any attempts I might make to stunt it.

The correct question is "Have you decided to let a beard grow out?" Such a question would more accurately speak to the actions I am or am not taking; namely, shaving. If whiskers grow on their own, and a beard is the result of not shaving those whiskers over a certain period of time (days for me, weeks for others), then this question best addresses my intended (in)actions.

And, in case you're wondering, I have no "plans" for a beard. I'm just feeling lazy and thought I'd give my face a break from the daily scrape. :)

I keep asking myself "Is it Friday yet?" I don't know what it is about this week - maybe the colder temps (actual winter weather for a change) - but I'm just having a tough time this week. Getting up in the morning has been a chore and require a major act of willpower. Going to work out has been challenging. It's just kind of a general malaise. I'm sure I'll get back to posting something more interesting soon. Until then, sorry to disappoint the one reader I have (yeah, that'd be me).

Rest of the week looks like this:
Thursday - climb @ SportRock
Friday - flag football @ Dulles Sportsplex (allegedly)
--> backup plan: running (maybe 4.5 to make up for my abysmal run tonight)
Saturday - lift legs, maybe run PM
Sunday - SUPER BOWL!!! Oh, and tennis in the morning...

I could go on and on... droning... :)

First a short letter...

Dear Advocates of Political Correctness,

You represent a parody of America that is so absurd today that it should be shunned. What a pity that the media takes you seriously, since it means we all have to listen to the endless drivel. Please make it stop.

Sincerely,

Americans sick of your lunacy

The triggers for my rant today? I'm fed up with all the endless coverage of the endless stupidity. Specifically, yesterday's Boston bomb scare and Senator Biden bombing in his attempt to compliment Senator Obama.

The Star Tribune has a nice piece on the official re-launch of Storyhill - my old favorite acoustic duo, first encountered in college. These are, hands-down, two of the nicest guys you'll find, with their niceness only exceeded by their talent. They counter-balance each other extremely well and have produced some of my all-around favorite pieces. Check out the show listings on their site to find info on their Valentine's Day release party and other upcoming performances. Preview their new self-titled release up on Amazon.com today!

Well, I'm back in the swing of things. Energy levels have been mostly normal since Wednesday, but I'm still unable to eat much. It's like my stomach shrank significantly while I was sick. All told, I think I lost about 12 real pounds in 3 days (excluding any related dehydration losses). I hit a low yesterday morning of 189 and was back up to 192 this morning. Jogged a couple miles tonight at a slack pace to try things out. Was remarkably limber while stretching, but the joints were all crackly (unsurprising). Will try for a full run tomorrow, I think.

The big news around the area is the weather. It looks like on Tuesday we received about a quarter inch of ice, then about 3 inches of heavy, wet snow, then another good half inch of ice on top of it. This made scraping the car a chore on Wednesday. Would have been worse today, though! And then there's the fun of watching southerners trying to handle the conditions...

Nothing too exciting to tell, so today let's have another grab bag of random thoughts, shall we? Let's see what topics I can think of... ok, here we go! Topics covered today:
- annual review
- sore joints
- random bruising
- going home to Moorhead
- anxiety and panic attacks
- redefining my role
- where is my MS confirmation?
- ah, it's coming soon!
- possible upcoming research efforts
- migraine treatment

Not a whole lot to relate today... will be posting later this week about some new research begun on Friday. Until then...

Big news! I finally received on Saturday my official "Congratulations. I am pleased to inform you that you have satisfactorily completed the academic requirements for the Master of Science degree..." letter! w00t! I'm now just needing the official diploma. Nonetheless, I have taken the bold step of adding MS behind my name.

In other, completely non-related news, we had lovely weather today. Actually, I like true snowy days - especially after the first couple inches are down, but it's still snowing. It's so peaceful and lovely. All told, our "wintry mix" forecast amounted to somewhere around 3-4" of heavy, wet snow. Plows have, thankfully, been running most of the afternoon. A marked difference from the storm a couple weeks ago. It's unclear if schools will be delayed or closed tomorrow, though it's increasingly looking like they'll be on time. Hard to believe that we keep getting actual winter weather here. It's so out of place.

Nothing much to tell, just had a very productive day, for once in a long while. Was up at 6am for tennis with the wife at 7am. Didn't hit very well, can't move freely with the hamstring and hip bugging me (Monday makes it a week since I pulled it). Doc says it'll be fine, just give it time. Anyway...

This sounded so much funnier in my head today:

My brain uses a hash function to compress memories. This is great for speedy comparisons, but makes recovery of the original memory impossible. And don't even get me started on birthday attacks and collisions...

Like I said... seemed... so... much... funnier... *sigh*

For something funnier, check out XKCD.

I had a rough morning today. "Why?" you may ask. Well, I locked my keys in a running car at my parents house. Dumb, eh? But here's my tirade and how it relates...

Locking the keys in one's car is not an uncommon occurrence. However, since buying a Honda Civic, I have not had to worry about this problem. This is because Japanese designers think about the smallest of details when designing new cars and they consider that people might accidentally do something that could result in a "bad event" such as locking keys in the car. Here are some distinguishing features between my Civic and the Jeep Liberty that I have as a rental car:

It's Monday and I'm back to work after my brief trip to Minnesota. Visited my parents, spoke to 3 groups of students at Concordia, had an excellent conversation with Dad's psychology prof colleague M about research I'm working on, hung out with my friend B for a while, and went for breakfast and a brisk walk with my (new-found?) friend R. Overall, aside from locking my keys in the rental car on Saturday while it was running, it was a pretty darned good trip.

Outline of thoughts...
* Speaking to audit class - tough!
* Speaking to comp sci majors class - fun! mythbusting!
* Speaking to comp sci 101 class - also fun!
* Good to see the 'rents
* Great chat with M about psychology and security
* Changing perspectives on driving times/distance
* Changing perspectives on my career

I'm feeling hyper tonight, no idea why, just completely buzzed. No, I did not consume caffeine, thank you very much. I'm in a very random mood, though, and really have no idea why that may be. So, before I post my serious entry, I (*pause: switch to iTunes, queue music*) need to get some of this energy out, set a better mood, and just generally shake out all this hyperness. No, that's not a word, I made it up. Pretty common, actually. Just let it go. :)

Let's see, what else do I know? Oh, not much, so that's it. Junk post is out of the way, am feeling more betterer, can now get on with "other stuff."

*puts on serious, focused, concentrating face*
*walks away to do other things for a while*

:D

Thaaaaaank goodness it is indeed Friday. It's been a very busy week, and I'm just glad it's over. Ran a few times (mostly poorly). Lifted on Tuesday (very well). But, the theme, by-in-large, has been work, work, work!

Overall, it's been a good week. A good couple weeks, in fact. And this coming week, we're heading to Colorado for a little skiing/boarding and, more importantly, R&R. I do, however, have to confess to being a bit annoyed this evening...

It's been about 24 hours since the terrible shooting incidents began at Virginia Tech. Let the second-guessing begin! Frankly, the second-guessing game began within hours of the incident, with headlines like "why weren't students notified sooner?" and the sort (of which CNN.com still has on their site).

As we've come to expect, journalists believe erroneously these days that they are subject-matter experts in all topics. Case in point, we watch ABC News in the morning. Today the Good Morning America (GMA) staff is in Blacksburg, VA, to cover the VT shootings in person. All good and fine, I suppose, since it should give them easier access for human interest stories. But, my, how arrogant and disrespectful they're being to the local authorities! Consider, for example, the literal interrogation that Diana Sawyer gave to the university President.

It's a couple days after the VT tragedy, and now the second-guessing is amping up a level. It seems this psychotic fellow may have provided indications that he was anything but mentally sound. Multiple people filed reports, and yet the response was "there's no explicit threat, there's nothing we can do." The blame game is, of course, swirling quickly. Allow me to take a few minutes to discuss my take on placing blame against a few key targets...

Regarding the VT massacre last week (noted here, here, and here), the killer is the primary person to blame. Time magazine had an interesting essay this weekend titled "It's All About Him" stressing that this act is purely about narcissism and his strong desire to put himself ahead of all others, to promote himself, and to make others know and revere him. I have another word for his actions, too: cowardice.

For those keeping score at home, common sense is losing, and badly. I ran across a couple articles today that should make you wonder "how out of touch are people with reality?". The first target is organized religion in the United States and their apparent lack of cluefulness when it comes to keeping out of politics. The second pertains to Disney -- the owner of the non-expiring, lobby-dominated copyright for that quirky mouse -- making a deal with a cable provider to disable fast forwarding through embedded commercials in on-demand shows!

Here is a somewhat sparse article from the BBC that talks about the "first international forum for indigenous peoples in the Congo basin". It's actually an interesting read, though a bit short on details. What I found most interesting was the closing thought that there are things we can learn from them.

In the last 24 hours I've had both workouts interrupted by jerks. I have to say, it's getting rather wearing. Last night, before doing my upper body workout, I did my "Power to the People" workout of 2 sets deadlifts, 2 sets side press. After my first set of deadlifts (5 reps), I took a break, walked around, etc., for about 5 minutes, as the routine prescribes. On my way back to the squat rack, some guy says "hey you better keep it down." I had my headphones on, so turned around and took them off and said "what?" and he said "you better put some pads under that weight, otherwise someone back here is gonna kill you for making that much noise." I was like "whatever, dude, it was 1 set of 5 reps at heavy weight." Clearly the guy had no clue how you do a full deadlift properly. No, I wasn't dropping the weight, but I certainly wasn't letting it down slow and easy, either. Do that and you hurt yourself! I did a proper form deadlift. Anyway...

Tonight I blog on a few different topics. Tomorrow morning I hope to post my thoughts on the Harry Potter books and movies, including a summary of thoughts on HP7: The Deathly Hallows (which will be heavily labelled "spoiler alert"!!). I also hope to get my Europe travel photos processed and posted on my photos site by the end of the weekend, along with a lengthy post about the trip. Lots to do! First and foremost, I just to start doing a brain dump...

So, first up, my favorite workout implement: kettlebells! I mentioned a couple weeks ago that Hanna was interested in trying them out. So, as promised, I ordered an 8kg bell for her yesterday, along with a pair of 24kg bells for myself. I highly recommend this workout system to everybody, young or old! Start light if you need to, there's no shame in that. The shame is in not doing anything. These wonderful tools provide a full body workout with only a few simple exercises. To quote Pavel:

When we say "strength," we mean "kettlebell." When we say "kettlebell," we mean "strength."

We've all probably guessed that the next major global armed conflict will revolve around access to natural resources, much as the last regional conflicts in the Middle East have been. But, did you ever stop to think that such a conflict (possibly even WW III) might be spurred on by the receding polar ice cap and global climate change? I've noticed several articles in the past few weeks, including this one from the BBC, that show Russia, Canada, and the US (among others) beginning to enter a somewhat tetchy standoff over who has rights to the resources under the Artic.

Call me paranoid, but if I were to guess at the cause of WWIII, this would be it. Especially given the strong posturing Russia has been doing lately, such as over the proposed American anti-missle defense system in Europe, I'm strongly reminded of the Cold War era. Add in economic instability globally, as we have today, with the significant economic influence of the Asian Tigers, and you have the ingredients for quite the mess.

Food for thought...

I've found myself wondering at length lately about what it means to be a leader and what good leadership is. I certainly don't think that I'm a very good leader these days because my attitude, frankly, sucks. It's certainly not an easy thing to be a leader, though there are certain behaviors that I think are endemic to leadership that should be taken as serious factors.

First off, I think it's instructive to explore where I think that I've succeeded and failed as a leader myself. In terms of failure, as already mentioned, my current attitude is not productive or useful, though it may be understandable, and even excusable, to a degree. To be quite honest, I'm a little burned out these days, not just from work load, but also from what seems like a lack of good, quality leadership around me. Let me come back to that.

Where I think that I've succeeded as a leader is in not accepting first answers as a given, in being a good example for performance (attitude aside), and in becoming moderate in emotion (most of the time), while maintaining passion and direction. I try very hard to ask thought-provoking questions, and I simply do not accept "that's the way it's always been" or "that's how we do things here" as valid explanations. If you weren't present for the decision to do something, and you don't understand why the decision was made, then you should be asking questions, not defending it. I digress...

If only we could all have lives like Zits... honestly, I wonder how many people had/have dreams like this? What's keeping us from living these dreams? Some sort of false obligation to the working world? Food for thought...

It's been a busy couple weeks, with the hallmark chaos trailing in the wake of time. As far as I can tell, this really extends back to the end of vacation in August. We got back from Europe and - shock of shocks - we were exhausted! Hanna, fortunately, had a couple weeks to recover while between grad classes and before the public school year began. I was not so fortunate, and really suffered the toll ever since (well, until now, anyway). This leads to what I consider to be the opposing concept from the movie title "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (see movie info here). Allow me to attempt to articulate without rambling endlessly for hours on end (oops, too late!).

We've had an interesting, though sadly disparaging, thread on the cisspforum this week. I can't post any direct quotes for you, since that would be a violation of the forum guidelines, but I can talk about the issues in a generalized sense. I wish to do this because I find it indicative of some larger problems within the security industry, and in fact within American society at large.

The core point of contention in this thread was whether or not so-called "off-topic" posts were appropriate. The forum guidelines clearly prohibit content that is not related to security. A couple people argued quite vehemently that anything that diverged from that rule should be strictly omitted. This stance seems reasonable, perhaps, at first glance, but it begged a larger question: given the extremely broad subject that is security, how does one gauge whether or not a post is relevant? Moreover, who's opinion holds more weight in answering that question.

The major airlines represent a relic of the past that have been artificially sustained by the government for far too long. There have been two such bailouts since 9/11, and I think I recall another in the 80s, too (though I can't be certain). The problems are myriad, but I wanted to rant about something that has irked me very recently...

Frequent flier programs... I hate them (as they are)! Case in point, due to my international gallivanting this past year, I've accrued over 50k miles on my United Mileage Plus account. Wishing to use them for a short holiday over Presidents' Day weekend, I attempted to find a use. Unfortunately, they're not interested in letting me use my miles - at least not for 25k miles per ticket. When a flight is available, it's only available for 50k miles ("standard" vs "saver" award), which would require me to purchase the second ticket, at a cost of more than $600. Seriously?!?

The problem is this: if I've flown so much as to accrue enough miles for a free ticket, then give me the stupid ticket. What's with limiting the number of award seats per flight? The limitation only serves to piss me off, and generates ill will against the airline. And it's not like the majors have much good will these days going for them that they can afford to blatantly piss off their customers. It's just patently ridiculous and, worse, it demonstrates an arrogant short-sightedness. They'd rather pass up filling 2 seats than to keep a customer happy, build loyalty, and take slightly lower realization off that flight.

Of course, herein lies the problem. The airlines are commercial, and often publicly traded. They're trying to maximize their realization based on old principles. There could be better ways to generate revenue (as other startups have demonstrated), but because of the prop-ups by the government, they're disincentivized to use them.

Here we come 2008! It's hard to believe that 2007 (or 2006, 2005, 2004, etc.) has already come to pass. We were able to get back to our traveling ways this past year, but do not foresee being able to continue these ways as we shift our plans to starting a family. It will, however, be anything but a dull year, as we buckle down financially, finally getting some old debt paid off, and beginning to put money into savings and investments. The predictions of a recession in 2008 actually play very well to our hand in this regard, providing an opportunity to reduce some of our interest load, while also reducing investment costs to below what may be their actual value.

If you're anything like me, you're probably exhausted here on the first day of the year. For me, there are a few reasons. The first reason was work-related. While AOL was very good to me, it was also extremely stressful. Since returning from vacation in August 2006, when I had a huge case dropped in my lap, things just went berserk from there, with a major restructuring, major layoffs, a complete change in executive management, and so on. That stress has been relieved by changing jobs, and I fully expect to recover.

We could potentially subtitle this as "Serbia takes on the world of tennis" in the grand scheme of things. For those who don't follow tennis, let me sum things up for you in a quick nutshell. The Australian Open is currently going on in Melbourne. It's the first of the Grand Slam tournaments of the year given their southern latitudes. This weekend will be the final matches.

Going into the tournament, Justine Henin and Roger Federer have completely dominated singles play, both easily establishing and maintaining their position at #1 in the world in their respective leagues (WTA for Henin, ATP for Federer). Both were expected to do well in the tournament, as were two American sisters, Venus Williams and Serena Williams. In the end, none of them made the finals, and Serbian players are the reason.

I've been diligently working on a few articles, plus fighting a cold, over the last few days, so you'll have to excuse the decreased blog output (or not - feel free to hold a grudge for a while, if it makes you feel better:). Anyway, I ran across a few articles today that were interesting enough to make me want to talk about them. So, here's a hodge-podge of topics, ranging from politics to infosec to cool new technology, including a brief review of the latest book I've read, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf.

I went to Target to buy face wipes tonight... with tax, the total came to $6.66. My immediate compulsion was to buy gum or mints to get around that omen, but I resisted. Instead, I said "that's kind of creepy." The cashier looked up and said "yeah, those wipes are kind of expensive, aren't they?" It was very difficult to stifle a smile at her failure to recognize my attempt to be clever. I guess humor is in the ear of the beholder...

Is it worse to let go unchallenged a fool making known factually incorrect statements in a professional forum (like a mailing list), or to challenge the fool and potentially have the thread devolve into flames?

From a risk perspective, I view the trade-off analysis as being setup thusly:

1) Let the fool go unchallenged. The cost (impact) is that less experienced and/or impressionable participants in the forum may take the fool's comments as accurate, giving them a life of their own. Overall, this has the effect of reducing the quality of professionals in the industry, leaving some worse off than when they entered the forum.

2) Challenge the fool. The cost (impact) is that the thread may devolve into flames, causing people to disengage, possibly permanently. Overall, this has the effect of decreasing learning opportunities for these professionals, but hopefully does not leave them worse off than if they had not joined at all (though outcome #1 above is still a possibility).

Which risk is greater? It's unclear to me, and strikes me as a lose-lose situation. Perhaps there's a third option that someone could point out.

I know, I know... peanut butter and bananas are the classic snack (add raisins and you have "bumps on a log," right?). Well, I'm here to tell you that Banana Cream Muscle Milk is not a banana, and it therefore does not taste good with peanut butter. I know, because I just tried it, and am now somewhat grossed out (the stomach and tastebuds are not pleased). In case you were curious. :)

As mentioned yesterday, Google's image is starting to tarnish thanks to reports from the interview process. Now comes this article from IT World about how (courtesy Slashdot), some day, we'll likely view Apple and Google less favorably, much as has happened to Microsoft. It's an amusing read about the fickleness of consumers.

This concept seems to generalize fairly easily, too. The US is a good example, in that we were the golden child for a long time, helping out in WWI and WWII. Then, as our prevalence and dominance expanded, we became targets of our own allies, until today, as our economy stumbles (possibly taking down others with us), we're looked at as the horse's rear. Environmental policy is a good example, in that the US opposed the absurd Kyoto protocol, refusing to sign (unlike the hypocrites who have signed it, but concluded that it's too expensive to implement) on the basis of its being inadequate, ineffective, too costly, and unfair.

I find it interesting. It's so easy to hate the big leader. It's so much harder to create constructive criticism and actually initiate meaningful change.

Being sick the past few days, I've had plenty of time to lay around pondering life, the universe, and everything (42!). Well, sort of. At any rate, in my musings, I've been trying to think of a good blog topic, and the idea that has kept coming back to me is that of why I blog. I suppose that there are really only a handful of reasons why people write one of these posts on a reasonably regular basis, but I thought it might be interesting to explore my own thoughts on the matter, since writing has seemed quite natural to me.