Silicon Asylum

I just came across this bit about asteroid Apophis and the chances of it impacting earth.

"NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid known as Apophis and now say it has only a very slim chance of banging into Earth.. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields, and updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036 for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million, NASA stated."

Sp here's the bit that rubs me wrong: "four-in-a million". Why not say "one-in-250,000". If the authors are really stuck on the whole "four-in" thing then they should have said four-in-180,000 to start with.

I really find inconsistencies like this baffling, I wish I knew the author and could understand what they hoped to gain by reporting the number in this way.

Labels: rant

Here's a short list of shows starting this month that seem interesting.

Returning:
Burn Notice (USA) June 4

The title refers to the burn notices issued by intelligence agencies to discredit or announce the dismissal of agents or sources who are considered to have become unreliable. When a spy is burned, they are wiped off the "grid". According to the narration during the opening credits, the burned spy has no prior work history, no money; basically no identity. The television series is a first-person narrative (including frequent voice-overs providing nuggets of exposition) from the viewpoint of covert-operations agent Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan.

After fleeing a Nigerian operation blown apart by the sudden and unexplained non-cooperation of his U.S. contact, Westen finds himself in his hometown[3] of Miami, Florida, attended to by his ex-girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne, but abandoned by all his normal intelligence contacts, under continuous surveillance with his personal assets frozen. Extraordinary efforts to reach his U.S. government handler eventually yield only a grudging admission that someone powerful wants him "on ice" in Miami; if he leaves the city he will "heat up fast", i.e., he will be hunted down and taken into custody, whereas by staying there he can remain relatively free. Consumed by the desire to find out why he has been burned, and by whom, Westen goes to work as an unlicensed private investigator/spy/soldier of fortune for anyone in town who can pay him any money in order to fund his personal investigation into his own situation as a blacklisted agent.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_Notice
* http://www.usanetwork.com/series/burnnotice/

Eli Stone (ABC) June 20

The show starred Jonny Lee Miller in the title role of attorney Eli Stone. In the first episode, Stone is discovered to have an inoperable brain aneurysm which is causing hallucinations. His acupuncturist, Dr. Chen, suggests that his hallucinations are actually divinely inspired visions of the future. These visions often foreshadowed future cases and events, including an impending earthquake.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Stone
* http://abc.go.com/primetime/elistone/index?pn=index

Cleaner (A&E) June 23

William Banks, played by Benjamin Bratt, is a drug addict. With the birth of Lula, his daughter, William makes a deal with God arguing, if he is given a second chance, he will end his drug abuse and help others to end their addictions to sex, drugs, and gambling. William Banks and a small team of recovering addicts work to help others in recovering from their addictions. Banks and his team will resort to unethical and illegal tactics in order to end their clients' addictions.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cleaner_(TV_series)
* http://www.aetv.com/the-cleaner/

New:
Listener (NBC) June 4

he Listener is a Canadian supernatural drama about a young paramedic named Toby Logan (Craig Olejnik) with the ability to listen to people's most intimate thoughts. Aided by his partner Osman Bey (Enis Esmer), Toby Logan is a 28-year-old paramedic who did not know his parents and grew up in foster homes. Until now Toby has kept his ability secret and the only one he has shared it with is his old counselor and confidant, Dr. Ray Mercer (Colm Feore). While he crosses the city of Toronto in his ambulance with his partner Oz, Toby tries to help persons in crisis and on the way treat his own wounds. With the help of Detective Marks (Lisa Marcos) and his ex-girlfriend Olivia (Myléne Dinh-Robic), an E.R doctor, Toby realizes that his gift can serve to help other people.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Listener_(TV_series)
* http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/show/CTVShows/20090505/listener_airdate_090505

Survive This (CN) June 17

On this show, Les Stroud takes eight teenagers into the wild to teach them how to survive.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survive_This

Merlin (NBC) June 21

Merlin is a British television drama series that began in 2008. It is loosely based on the Arthurian legends of the mythical wizard Merlin and his relationship with Prince Arthur, but differs significantly from traditional versions of the myth. Produced by independent production company Shine Limited for BBC One, the programme was designed to run in the same Saturday evening family drama slot as other UK series such as Doctor Who and Robin Hood.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(TV_series)
* http://www.merlinsite.com/

(I was kind of rushing to get this done so all synopsis quotes above are taken from wikipedia.)

Just caught this over on slashdot

"The unmanned vehicle is remotely operated by pilots aboard a surface ship via a lightweight tether. Its thin, fibre-optic tether to the research vessel Kilo Moana allows the submersible to make deep dives and be highly manoeuvrable. Nereus can also be switched into a free-swimming, autonomous vehicle. ... The Challenger Deep... is the deepest abyss on Earth at 11,000m-deep, more than 2km (1.2 miles) deeper than Mount Everest is high. At that depth, pressures reach 1,100 times those at the surface."

Hmmmm lets see 11,000m that's 11km. Yup 11 > 2 ... good job!

For anyone in a nation that hasn't switched to the metric system and still cares how long the king's foot is, that's >6miles.

Orignal source seems to be the BBC.

As Homer would say "SMRT".

Labels: rant

"The script is adapted from elements of the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. The story follows the Heir of Isildur; the "greatest huntsman and traveller in Middle Earth" as he sets out to find the creature Gollum. The creature must be found to discover the truth about the Ring, and to protect the future Ringbearer."

I just watched two trailers and two teasers and all I can say is "Wow!"

http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/

"By fans for fans", it looks like they've done an excellent job.

Release date is Sunday May 3rd 2009.

So how did the City of Ottawa do for EarthHour 2009?

http://www.hydroottawa.com/NewsEvents/news_display.cfm?LANG=e&act=form&News_ID=175

The FACTS:

• Hydro Ottawa measured the city’s usage at 697,270 kilowatt-hours (kWh) between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. a reduction of 43,581kWh (6%) – compared to the same hour on the previous Saturday.


• This represents enough electricity savings to power 58 homes for a month.


• Hydro Ottawa is responsible ... delivery of electricity to more than 291,000 residential and business customers in the city of Ottawa and the village of Casselman.

So ~1.1 Million people in Ottawa Carleton managed to save enough power for ~0.000199312715% of Hydro Ottawa's customer base for a single month. (Rounded that's 2/10,000ths of their customer base).

I'm still trying to find numbers that show how 9:30-10:30 right after Earth Hour compare to the same hour the week before. I also tried finding Ottawa's annual consumption numbers with little luck (if anyone has any ideas please leave a comment).

Here are some posts from a friend of mine on the topic:

• http://www.squidzone.ca/the_squid_zone/2009/03/earth-hour-yay.html


• http://www.squidzone.ca/the_squid_zone/2009/03/the-environmental-savings-of-not-populating-the-earth.html


• http://www.squidzone.ca/the_squid_zone/2008/03/index.html

Caught this on another blog I read now and then and thought I'd take it myself.

It's slightly unfair as there are a few things that are in the "never gonna happen" category. From a UI design point of view I think they should give you the option of stating so and then have a section for standard results (as seen in the first few lines below) and a section refined results (based on the "never gonna happen" selections you made). But that's just me.
(Say there were 10 things that fell into my "never gonna happen" set, that'd mean I'd actually score closer to 55%).

The Life Experience Test

Overall, you have partaken in 87 out of 169 possible life experiences. Your average life experience score is therefore 51%. The average score is 51%, making your experiences more than 46% of the people who have taken this test. The average for your age group (26-35) is 53%. Broken down by category: Art: 6/17 (35%) Career & Work: 7/13 (54%) Civics & Technology: 5/7 (71%) Crime & Disarray: 4/11 (36%) Education: 12/18 (67%) Fashion: 6/10 (60%) Fitness, Health and Sports: 2/7 (29%) Life in General: 9/14 (64%) Relationships: 12/14 (86%) Religion & Politics: 2/4 (50%) Social: 14/22 (64%) Travel: 4/20 (20%) Vices: 4/12 (33%)

Take the test and see how YOU compare

I just ran across this on some forums and was VERY happy to see it.


It partially restored my faith in literacy amongst today's youth. Sadly there is actually a minor grammatical error in it but it's still a step in the right direction.

As some of you may know I have a pretty healthy TV addiction so without further ado here is the fall premiere schedule I've put together. Please feel free to comment if you can think of anything I've missed. (Especially new series).

Gossip Girl (CW) Sept 1 8PM
Prison Break (Fox) Sept 1 8PM (2 Hours)
One Tree Hill (CW) Sept 1 9PM

New 90210 (CW) Sept 2 8PM (2 Hours)

Bones (Fox) Sept 3 8PM (2 Hours)

Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox) Sept 8 8PM

House (Fox) Sept 16 8PM

Survivor: Gabon (CBS) Sept 18 8PM
Smallville (CW) Sept 18 8PM

Big Bang Theory (CBS) Sept 22 8PM
Heroes (NBC) Sept 22 9PM (2 Hours)
CSI: Miami (CBS) Sept 22 10PM
Boston Legal (ABC) Sept 22 10PM

NCIS (CBS) Sept 23 8PM
Law & Order: SVU (NBC) Sept 23 10PM

New Knight Rider (NBC) Sept 24 8PM
Criminal Minds (CBS) Sept 24 9PM
CSI: NY (CBS) Sept 24 10PM

Ugly Betty (ABC) Sept 25 8PM
Grey's Anatomy (ABC) Sept 25 9PM (2 Hours)
The Office (NBC) Sept 25 9PM
ER (NBC) Sept 25 10PM

The Amazing Race (CBS) Sept 28 8PM
The Unit (CBS) Sept 28 10PM

Dragon's Den (CBC) Sept 29
Chuck (NBC) Sept 29 8PM

Private Practice (ABC) Oct 1 9PM

Ghost Whisperer (CBS) Oct 3 8PM
Everybody Hates Chris (CW) Oct 3 8PM
Numb3rs (CBS) Oct 3 10PM

CSI (CBS) Oct 9 9PM

My Own Worst Enemy (NBC) Oct 13 10PM

While I was out in Vancouver during the summer someone recommended this little restaurant, I REALLY enjoyed myself and wanted to put my thoughts out there for everyone else.

Their website is still under construction (currently just addresses and phone numbers).

I dined at the following location:
1479 Robson St, Vancouver
Tel: 604-689-4272

When we arrived (we walked from our hotel), we were greeted immediately at the open front door. Once inside the greeter said something in Japanese and all the staff in sight welcomed us (as they did for everyone that came in while we were there). To some this may seem obnoxious but it really wasn't. We were promptly given the choice of a 'normal' (North American) table or a more Asian table (you take your shoes off and put them on a shelf, sit at a low table with room for your legs to dangle). We chose an Asian table (as we would have had to wait for normal table.

We'd previously gone out for Sushi at another place so we tried for the same Sake*. Unfortunately they didn't have it but suggested another cold unfiltered sake that was pretty good (Pearl Momokaw).

After reviewing the menu we decided on the following:

Kimchi - Pickled Spicey Cabage

The co-worker I was out with suggested this, it was interesting and I ate more that I expected when it was first described to me. I don't think it's something I'd eat all the time but a few times a year when I'm traveling, definitely.

Yaki Udon - Thick Noodles

This was a really tasty Udon with pork and veggies, if you enjoy noodle dishes I'd definately recommend this.

Bintoro - Grilled Tuna w/ Mustard Seed Sauce

If you don't like Sushi/Sashimi then you probably won't enjoy this. The tuna is grilled but very rare. I thought it was really tasty, and the Mustard Seed sauce was prepared perfectly (not too hot not too mild).

Ishi-Yaki - Hot Stone Bowl cooked rice, egg, pork, scalions, etc.

This was really cool, they bring out a stone bowl that's been headed in the oven (or whatever) filled with steaming rice, etc and mix it up table-side. You wait a few mins for the egg and stuff to cook then dig in.

Kakuni - Steamed Pork Buns

We expected this to be kind of traditional Chinese style steamed BBQ pork buns (well maybe what I'm used to isn't actually "traditional", but there is definitely an expectation of Pork buns that I've seen from restaurants in North America). We were wrong, it came as an assemble your own kind of thing. A few big chunks of pork in a very nice sauce, cooked nice and tender. With a steamed bun that looked more like a pita which you folded like a taco and loaded up with pork. The people next to us seemed to enjoy it more than we did, the buns we received were actually a little tough. (I'd go for the pork without the buns next time :) )

Kabocha - Whipped Japanese Pumpkin with Whipped Cream and Melba Toasts.

This item was on the appetizer menu but once we saw it we saved it for desert. It was very tasty with just the right amount of sweet vs savory.

* For anyone that is keeping score the sake we'd had at our sushi dinner was Hakutsuru Sayuri Sake. It's an unfiltered Nigori Sake which is meant to be served cold (Nigori is generally the sweetest of all sakes). I just checked quickly and it is available from the LCBO.

A colleague of mine sent this along yesterday:
Are you a computer security professional?

It's a very accurate description of me and basically everyone I work with directly, kind of scary that it's so close actually.

I came across a neat little screencast that covers a bunch of the new features in Firefox (about 4 mins long). If you're a fan and haven't installed a beta or release candidate you might wanna check it out. Maybe even if you have installed the beta you'll wanna check it out as it can give you some tips that you may not know.

* Hancock. Will smith, dysfunctional comic book superhero movie. Just caught a commercial for this one last night while watching TV, looks pretty good.

As some of you may know I do work involving IT Security for a living. To make my life easy I often use BackTrack. BackTrack is a Linux LiveCD that includes a whole load of IT Security tools (nmap, kismet, nikto...100s of tools). As with many online communities these days they offer forums for their users to ask questions etc.

What amazes me is the sheer idiocy of some of the people we get on the forums. I can completely understand that lots of people want to been a l33t h4x0rs. But SERIOUSLY...WTF PEOPLE!

For every good post (someone with a decent technical question or someone that wants to share something cool) there are 20 posts from truly clueless individuals, like:

"If i Don`t have any clients connected to my wep ...."

WTF are people doing trying to crack WEP and "test" Wireless Access Points, if they don't even know how the freaking things work.....actually strike that not how they work but just the basics of the terminology surrounding the thing. You don't connect to WEP. Perhaps you connect "via" it or "using" it.

I'm not even going to get into the fact that consumer products are insecure to start with and how breaking WEP should be completely irrelevant if you're using decent WPA or even better WPA with Radius auth.

The next big DUH! related to all these stupid posts is the people always claim "I'm trying to break MY WEP" etc. We know very well you're trying to hi-jack your neighbor's service and get free internet access (or similar circumstance) so STOP BSing us and wasting everyone's time.
1) You're wasting time with something you obviously don't understand.
2) There's no point in testing your own setup if you just do it right in the first place.
3) 99.999% of the time you're breaking the law. (Even if you tell us you have "permission"....we'll trust ya really...WTF?)

While IANAL, I did manage to dig some info up. Here is some of the relevant Canadian Criminal Code (Federal):
C-46, Section 326

Theft of telecommunication service

326. (1) Every one commits theft who fraudulently, maliciously, or without colour of right,
(a) abstracts, consumes or uses electricity or gas or causes it to be wasted or diverted; or
(b) uses any telecommunication facility or obtains any telecommunication service.

Definition of “telecommunication”
(2) In this section and section 327, "telecommunication" means any transmission, emission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images or sounds or intelligence of any nature by wire, radio, visual or other electromagnetic system.

R.S., c. C-34, s. 287; 1974-75-76, c. 93, s. 23.

Possession of device to obtain telecommunication facility or service

327. (1) Every one who, without lawful excuse, the proof of which lies on him, manufactures, possesses, sells or offers for sale or distributes any instrument or device or any component thereof, the design of which renders it primarily useful for obtaining the use of any telecommunication facility or service, under circumstances that give rise to a reasonable inference that the device has been used or is or was intended to be used to obtain the use of any telecommunication facility or service without payment of a lawful charge therefor, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

Forfeiture
(2) Where a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1) or paragraph 326(1)(b), any instrument or device in relation to which the offence was committed or the possession of which constituted the offence, on such conviction, in addition to any punishment that is imposed, may be ordered forfeited to Her Majesty, whereupon it may be disposed of as the Attorney General directs.

So if it's not yours then don't use it. If you do use it then know you have to prove a "lawful excuse" for such use and that you'll likely forfeit your gear for at least the duration of the investigation and trial(s).

C-46, Section 430

Mischief in relation to data

(1.1) Every one commits mischief who wilfully
(a) destroys or alters data;
(b) renders data meaningless, useless or ineffective;
(c) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use of data; or
(d) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with any person in the lawful use of data or denies access to data to any person who is entitled to access thereto.

Punishment

(2) Every one who commits mischief that causes actual danger to life is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.
Punishment

(3) Every one who commits mischief in relation to property that is a testamentary instrument or the value of which exceeds five thousand dollars
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years; or
(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

Idem

(4) Every one who commits mischief in relation to property, other than property described in subsection (3),
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

A good summary of relevant US law can be found here:
http://irongeek.com/i.php?page=computerlaws/state-hacking-laws

Looks like I missed some notable ones:

* X-Files 2: I Want to Believe. (Downloadable trailers here and other info here.)
* Journey to the Cener of the Earth. Based on the Jules Verne classic.