20 Thoughts for April 10, 2014

It may look long, but it is not TL; DR; it's all bite-sized, even if a small chunk will fill you up.

1. Just been too busy with work / (mostly) life to post anything.  
2. Count on me as your QA tester who will manage to crash the system.  I got to play around with an Oculus Rift last Thursday and, well, someone had to reset it after I found a rift in the time-space continuum.  In my defense, I'd had two free pints of beer by that point and there was zero fear of walking off the cliff and into the water.  In my 
3. My two cents on how to help the unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed Americans: Let them go to school to boost their skills and bona fides, while paying them to do so.  Despite the rhetoric of conservatives, unemployed folks would prefer to be doing something than doing nothing.
4. Heartbleed Bug.  It's a significant compromise of Open SSL, allowing anyone with the proper exploitation tool or knowledge to suck and decrypt your data between the server and you / you and the server, which is rather ironic, because if you didn't use https, you wouldn't necessarily be vulnerable directly.  You can sort of test websites if they are currently vulnerable, but the major websites have all generally been rushing to implement fixes and temporary work-arounds, so the test is somewhat less useful at this point.
5. As a result of the Heartbleed Bug, you're going to have to change nearly all of your passwords, but you must wait until after the service providers have implemented the fixes and updated their digital certificates.  Even with patched up Open SSL, once a hacker has a certificate and the private encryption key for that certificate, they'll be able to read your information.  Therefore new certificates must be issued with new encryption keys before you can reset your passwords.  In the mean time, 2-step authentication prevents hackers from accessing your data from afar.  You have 2-step authentication enabled, don't you?
6. About cloud storage safety.  You would think that the Heartbleed Bug implies that cloud storage is a bad idea.  In many instances this could be true, but with companies like Tresorit and Spider Oak, there is no practical means of accessing your data without your password, because it relies on client-side encryption.  Therefore, even if Tresorit's / Spider Oak's SSL were compromised for a period of time and unbeknownst to you or them, your data was still safe as the encryption starts and ends on your device.  That's solid shit.
7. I want to thank my fellow condo neighbors of past, present and future, who have ignored the fact that your oversized vehicles cannot adequately fit within the boundaries of your stalls, and have therefore seized the initiative to ding my doors, bumpers and minimize the clear aisle width of the driveway aisle; without your damage, my otherwise 15,000 mile vehicle would have looked brand new, rather than its 7 years of age.  I want to thank you for your lack of concern for your leaking oil and cooling fluid, and the open flaunting of building rules to keep your shit stored away in the provided lockers, rather than piling them up in the vicinity of your storage locker and stall.  I want to thank you for farting in the elevator and failing to clean up the poop and pee in the hallways and staircases from your lovely dogs.  I want to thank management for not knowing anything about proper construction means and methods, such that you'll schedule painting of doors and frames in the middle of winter and without prepping of the surface, such that after a couple of years the paint is peeling, or schedule concrete sidewalk repairs in the middle of a freezing period, so that we can enjoy the cracked concrete sidewalks in a couple of years.  Truly, a blessing.
8. This 3D printer's Kickstarter campaign probably blew out some records for achieving goals; initially seeking just $50K, it now sits at $1.4M, and here's why: They propose to make 3D printing about as costly as some higher-end paper home printers, with a remarkable 50 micron minimum print resolution, variable up to 350µm.  I like the proposal, but I'm not sold on filament deposit modeling; I'm still waiting for the wave of laser-sintering 3D printers to come out, following the expiration of some early patents.
9. I've noticed a major shift at Dell.  Their Dell-branded consumer side laptops no longer have high-end CPUs.  Instead, you either have to buy a Alienware-branded gaming laptop or a business side Precision laptop; either way you're ponying up way more money as a result.  Or you can buy an HP with higher, better specs for less...which is probably where I'm headed for my next laptop.
10. A GAO audit showed that out of a random selection of 19 tax preparers across the country, 17 made errors.  Which simply goes to show that the tax code is too complicated for even the professionals let alone the average American.
11. Truly, still the best cookie at Trader Joe's is their Chocolate Hazelnut.  On a slightly similar note, I would like to mourn the passing of a dear cookie: The (~$6 USD) imported maple leaf / syrup cookies from Canada, which used to be stocked at the Dollar Store (and priced at $1 USD) has been MIA for the last several years, now presumed dead; everyone I know misses you.  The ones at TJs really do not compare.
12. All right, I'll say a few words about Brendan Eich's debacle at Mozilla, makers of Firefox.  All the stuff being written on either side of the issue has apparently forgotten a simple concept: Live and Let Live means tolerance is quid pro quo.  Brendan Eich was actively working to stop his own coworkers from getting married; he didn't have the right to expect others to back off from being critical of his actions.
13. And no, voting for Barack Obama who was against gay marriage in 2008, does not equate to hypocrisy.  No one gets the perfect candidate; if you understand your own ego, the only perfect candidate is yourself.  Instead, you strategically determine which candidate's values come closest to yours, and what are the consequences for voting for one candidate over the other.  Trying to distill down a vote for Barack Obama in 2008 as hypocrisy is lower than simplistic; it's duality in a pluralistic world.
14. The rise of the IKEA KALLAX is here; Expedit is truly going buh-bye.  The good news is, all of the accessories for the Expedit works for the KALLAX.
15. The Portland IKEA is the only place you can get Northwest Clam Chowder in a sourdough bowl; I tried it and love it.  Good only for April, by the way, so get it while it's hot.  At the cafe tables were signs pointing to a really awesome May special: Crab Cakes!  Nom, nom, I'm gettin me some!
16. Why the heck do touchscreen laptops have touch pads?  I hate touch pads.
17. Played around with the Chromebooks at Best Buy...there's a tiny Google section set up.  The touch screen on the Acer C720P isn't quite as good as the ones on your tablet,  Chromebooks in general are superbly executed.  Across the line, they're all light in weight, extremely thin, and the basic tools you'd want and need are up front and easily used.  The dream machine however, is not available: A 13"~14" 1920x1080 touch screen.  Cut out the touch pad, to save money.
18. Every time I handle a Samsung Android tablet, I am impressed with its weight and size.  But the TouchWiz UI, I doth protest.  Having a stock Nexus Android device is truly, the best.
19. Nope, the ending of Windows XP support does not result in a short-term spike in Windows 8 / 8.1.  Rather, it has resulted in a bump of Windows 7.  You can even see the sudden change the last several days, in GS Statcounter's daily tracking.
20. Got my hands on a treasure trove of negatives and slides from my pops when he brought them up in a grocery bag, all jumbled.  Sadly, the 6x6 show signs of wear from improper storage, so I dragged him to Pro Photo Supply to grab several hundred archival contact sheet pages to properly store and catalog them.  We're talking photos from the 50s through the 80s...lots of historical photos from my parent's trip to Southern California in the mid-50s.  The plan is to scan them to digital and retouch the best ones, and pop them into a series of photo books and print them onto canvas.