passwords

I went to log on to my Group RRSP provider’s website today Thanks to a misguided policy that HR introduced this year, my January RRSP contributions ended up in a non-registered plan, and I wanted to fix it. It turned out that I can fix this particular problem on the web, but that’s beside the point.

When I logged in, I was informed that my password had expired, and must be changed. It’s been 18 months since I logged in (yes, I check my quarterly statements, but I’m happy with the results; no changes required). I dutifully filled in the boxes, only to be faced with password strength requirements. Now, the whole point of these things is to prevent high-speed, dictionary-based password guessing attacks. You can’t launch a high-speed guessing attack against this website because it’s really slow, and after a certain number of failures, your account is locked out. And we have the research to prove that these kinds of passwords are less secure, because people cannot remember them and are forced to write them down. But a bunch of security consultants are getting paid to write password policies, and they’re an insurance company so care greatly about liability, so there you go.

hah!

[stock options are] like my boyfriend’s idea of giving me a diamond. He puts a lump of coal in my hand, tells me to squeeze real tight and be PATIENT.

from Sand Hill Slave

trends

Apparently ex-starship captains go on to become the local authority in small-town horror flicks:

• Kingdom of the Spiders
• Slither

Have Patrick Stewart or Kate Mulgrew done insect/reptile horror flicks yet?

power and virtualisation

I have three (linux) servers in the office, stacked in the corner behind the desk.

One is my original server, an old P-75 that I bought from Secure Computing seven years ago. It’s been upgraded over the years; I added a new harddrive, a bit more memory, and I upgraded the CPU up to the awesome power of a P-133. These days, it’s stuffed in the corner as a firewall and my wife’s email server, and is otherwise consuming kWh and manufacturing dust-bunnies.

it’s good to be nine

Gareth had a bad fall/collision while skating this morning. We were in and out of ER (including two sets of X-rays) in less than two hours.

(Yes, he’s fine. A really bad bruise, but no breakage or dislocation.)

Christmas Morning

Mummy, I suck more than you do!

— C. and M. playing C’s new dance dance revolution game…

cold

Having windows installed during the second and third weeks of December makes the house very cold!

rabbits

In a wide ranging discussion about endangered species, overpopulation, and the enviroment, I mentioned the rabbit problem in Australia.

H: Unfortunately, rabbits have no natural predators in Australia.

G: Except the Tasmanian devil. But I guess Tasmanian devils don’t actually eat rabbits.

three seconds later, M bursts out laughing….

(think about it :-)

comedy film canon

Also from John Scalzi, here’s the comedy list. Again, bold the ones you’ve seen (28/50).

• Airplane!
• All About Eve
• Amelie
• Annie Hall
• The Apartment
• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
• Blazing Saddles
• Bringing Up Baby
• Broadcast News
• Caddyshack
• Le diner de con
• Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
• Duck Soup
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
• Four Weddings and a Funeral
• The General
• Ghostbusters
• The Gold Rush
• Good Morning Vietnam
• The Graduate
• Groundhog Day
• A Hard Day’s Night
• His Girl Friday
• Kind Hearts and Coronets
• The Lady Killers
• Local Hero
• Manhattan
• MAS*H
• Monty Python’s Life of Brian
• National Lampoon’s Animal House
• The Odd Couple
• The Producers
• Raising Arizona
• Roxanne
• Rushmore
• Shaun of the Dead
• A Shot in the Dark
• Some Like it Hot
• Strictly Ballroom
• Sullivan’s Travels
• There’s Something About Mary
• This is Spinal Tap
• To Be or Not to Be
• Tootsie
• Toy Story
• Les vacances de M. Hulot
• When Harry Met Sally
• Withnail and I

sf film canon

The list is from The Science Fiction Film Canon, from the book The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies by John Scalzi. He describes it as “Reviews and commentary on the 50 science fiction films you have to see before you die”…

I’ve bolded the ones I’ve seen. 34/50; Not too bad…

• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
• Akira Kaneda!
• Alien
• Aliens
• Alphaville
• Back to the Future
• Blade Runner
• Brazil
• Bride of Frankenstein
• Brother From Another Planet
• A Clockwork Orange
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Contact
• The Damned
• Destination Moon
• The Day The Earth Stood Still
• Delicatessen
• Escape From New York
• ET: The Extraterrestrial
• Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
• The Fly (1985 version)
• Forbidden Planet
• Ghost in the Shell
• Gojira/Godzilla
• The Incredibles
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
• Jurassic Park
• Mad Max 2
• The Matrix
• Metropolis (Extended version)
• On the Beach
• Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
• Robocop
• Sleeper
• Solaris (1972 version)
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
• The Stepford Wives
• Superman
• Terminator 2: Judgement Day
• The Thing From Another World
• Things to Come
• Tron
• 12 Monkeys
• 28 Days Later
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• La Voyage Dans la Lune
• War of the Worlds (1953 version)

car update

So the car wasn’t stolen after all.

The night guy at the parking lot realized that he still had a key and a car, so he locked the key in the little safe in the booth, called his boss, and headed home.

The boss concluded that while nobody was at the lot, Michaela would have arrived at her car, found no key, and headed for home some other way. In an unusual display of customer service, he came downtown, retrieved the car key, and parked our car in an underground lot across the street so that it would not get broken into or stolen. (Oh, the irony :-)

standing out from the herd

Apparently we’ve been Noticed.

Last month a bunch of fraudulent charges showed up on my Visa card, and I was forced to replace it.

Last night, one of our cars was stolen from a downtown parking lot.

Where is my herd, and how can I go hide back in the center?

combover

Did you know that in 1977, a U.S. Patent was issued for the combover? Yes, it’s true, Patent 4,022,227 - Method of concealing partial baldness was issued to Frank and Donald Smith, of Orlando, FL.

I read about it at Damien Katz: Combover where there’s also a link to Combover: The Movie…

EBEs

I’m sure if there’s something out there they’re wise enough to stay away from us.

— Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Crime Lab

change

Change is mandatory, survival is optional; choose wisely!

atrributed to François Tavenas, but I think it’s actually older…

Fall

The first leaf of fall!

I thought it was strange that one leaf on my whole tree had changed colour.