The Alchemist

PBS and NPR are the newest targets of our oh-so-compassionately conservative Republican congress. The House Appropriations Committee approved a bill Thursday that would cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by $100 million or 25% (although some argue that the cuts would ultimately be closer to 45%!).

Both PBS and NPR are extremely valuable institutions and this is extremely disturbing to me. My kids (and I) love the children’s shows on PBS. They are both educational and entertaining… compared to the commercial television… which, although arguably entertaining are not even generally close to educational! I also love to listen to NPR. It is one of the few sources of information that I can still trust for in-depth reporting.

Please consider taking action…

Read more about the cuts then sign the petition!

Hey, Dad! I wanted to be very sure to wish you a happy Father’s Day since we tend to be quite distant in many ways. In fact, since I haven’t told you recently how much you mean to me, let me tell a story about how you made a positive difference in not only my life, but now in the lives of two of your grandchildren, too:

Now, I don’t generally reminisce much… For good or for ill, it’s just the way I am. (Those readers that know me probably know this already.) There are certain memories, however, that mean a lot to me and one in particular struck me recently. As I’ve mentioned recently in this blog, I went to see Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith opening night at the midnight show. Some readers may now be thinking that I am going to talk about how I saw the original Star Wars when I was eight and that it brought back memories of being a little kid… well, despite that being true, you would be wrong about what matters here. In fact, I was actually more moved by one of the previews they showed for an upcoming film from Disney (of all things): The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

You see, when I was a child, my father sat and read The Chronicles of Narnia to the family. Now, it’s a wonderful set of stories of children and fantasy and adventure by the enchanting author C. S. Lewis and I highly recommend them, but it is also much more than that… to me it is a wonderful memory of family and togetherness that I hold dear even today. As I watched the preview, all this came back to me and I immediately realized that I wanted to share this with my children as well. Needless to say, Amy and I purchased the entire series and I’ve started reading them to the kids. How dear a thing to be able to give to my children such a special gift once given to me by my father.

Thanks, Dad. I love you.

Just because it’s funny:

A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet dachshund along for company. One day, the dachshund starts chasing butterflies and before long becomes lost.

Looking about, he notices a leopard stalking toward him with the obvious intention of having lunch. The dachshund thinks to himself, “Boy, I’m in deep trouble now!” but then notices some bones on the ground close by. The little dog immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Then, just as the leopard is about to pounce, the dachshund exclaims loudly, “Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here?”

Upon hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride as if struck by lighting. A look of terror crosses over his face and he slinks away into the trees. “Wow!,” says the leopard. “That was close! That dachshund nearly had me!”

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. The dachshund notices the monkey racing off and figures he must be up to no good. The monkey soon catches up with the cat, tells the story, and strikes a deal with the leopard. The leopard, furious at being made a fool of, says, “Come on, monkey. Hop on my back and you’ll see what will happen to that conniving canine!”

Now the dachshund sees the leopard coming back with the monkey on his back and thinks to himself, “Now what am I going to do?” Thinking quickly, the little dog sits down once again with his back to his attackers and pretends he hasn’t seen them yet. Then, just as they get close enough to hear, the dachshund says, “Now where’s that monkey? I sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard!”

MY: Lord Vader, how did you come to the dark side of the Force? What was it that really turned you bad? Was it truly your inability to find a good anger management class?

DV: Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The Sith Lords are no darker than your average Republicans. The Emperor wasn’t an Emperor, the Rebellion wasn’t a Rebellion. It was all politics. Palpatine won a closely contested election, and the Jedi got ticked. The Sith may have controlled the Chancellorship and the Senate, but the Jedi had the damned media behind them. And the academics, and they’re the ones who write the history books. The truth is, I started out with the Jedi, and Palpatine ultimately converted me to the Sith. The Sith political party, not some scary cult that went around lopping off people’s hands.

So as it turns out Darth Vader isn’t evil, he’s just a Republican. Who would’ve thunk it?

Why Crunch Mode Doesn’t Work: 6 Lessons

When used long-term, Crunch Mode slows development and creates more bugs when compared with 40-hour weeks.

More than a century of studies show that long-term useful worker output is maximized near a five-day, 40-hour workweek. Productivity drops immediately upon starting overtime and continues to drop until, at approximately eight 60-hour weeks, the total work done is the same as what would have been done in eight 40-hour weeks.

In the short term, working over 21 hours continuously is equivalent to being legally drunk. Longer periods of continuous work drastically reduce cognitive function and increase the chance of catastrophic error. In both the short- and long-term, reducing sleep hours as little as one hour nightly can result in a severe decrease in cognitive ability, sometimes without workers perceiving the decrease.

Interesting article. Most of the data is taken from physical or factory labor and not knowledge work, but I believe that knowledge work may be even more sensitive to a tired mind. And jobs that require creativity may be especially sensitive to this effect. I find my level of creativity drops quickly toward zero as I tire. What do you think?

There are now some photos posted on The Belfry’s website of one of our rehearsals for “Three Men On A Horse.” Enjoy!

And just a reminder: We open Friday, so come see it if you can!

This Rapid coloured afterimage is one of the best optical illusions I’ve seen. Watching the green spot run around in circles, I find it very strange to consider that although one generally assumes that what one sees is real, the reality may be very different indeed…

This one’s for Naomi… since I keep forgetting refer this to you, I’ll just blog it and hopefully you’ll read this! I think you’d really like this album:

Fun vocal jazz “organ pop” music. Well, I like it anyway.

Just after I posted my little Mac security article, The Register published an article titled “Hackers plot to create massive botnet“. You Windows folk seriously need to watch out. Not kidding around. Here’s a bit from the article:

Computer Associates has warned of a co-ordinated malware attack (CMA) described as among the most sophisticated yet unleashed on the net. The attack involves three different Trojans – Glieder, Fantibag and Mitglieder – in a co-ordinated assault designed to establish a huge botnet under the control of hackers. CA reckons that access to the compromised PCs is for sale on a black market, at prices as low as five cents per PC.

And they end up with this little piece of advice:

It almost goes without saying but all the MyTob variants, along with the Bagle downloaders, infects only Windows PCs. Apple, Linux and those few souls out there still running OS/2 are all immune, as usual. Standard defence precautions against viral attacks apply in defending against the various new Windows worms and Trojans released this week. Windows users need to apply the latest security patches, update anti-virus tools and to resist the temptation to open suspicious-looking emails. Applying a personal firewall wouldn’t go amiss either.

If you can’t abstain from Windows, at least please practice safe computing. Watch your back.

From the The Security Awareness Blog comes the article Mac OS X Safety and Security (5-28-2005) extolling the virtues of running on OS X.

…what is the platform of choice for those in the Computer Security Industry? Many are using Macs. If you don’t believe me, then go talk to Kelly Martin over at Security Focus. Or even Winn Schwartau at The Security Awareness Company. Why not use the system the security professional use for a living?

Hey, I’m only posting this for you Windows people because I care. Seriously. Shut up, I do!