Syndicate

No excitement thus far, just standard air travel. The one exception is that my name must have hit some watchlist. The check-in agent in Denver had to call my passport info in and I was just called up to the desk for my passport in Philadelphia.
Curious…

While I’m not exactly a globe-trotting travel junkie, I do enjoy it quite a bit and have been to Europe each of the past two years. We time we refined our packing technique, hopefully this year will present another evolutionary improvement.

Here are a few tips for things to consider before you go:

• Pack light: This doesn’t just mean that you should pack bare essentials and drill holes in you toothbrush for weight savings. Just consider what you actually need to have with. Don’t pack every last thing you think you might need. Once you try lugging your bags on and off the Paris metro you’ll thank me.
• Multiple bags: Granted, this only applies if you’re traveling with someone. Transporting 2 small bags is immensely easier than trying to move a single huge bag. We have tried the single big bag. You run into problems getting up tight staircases, stowing them on trains, etc. This also makes it much more likely that you’ll stay below the “heavy bag” fee on your return flight when you’ve purchased souvineers.
• Electronics: This covers more than just your digital camera and phone. Take a look at every device you plan on plugging in. Make sure to verify the voltage needs and allowances. You can buy power transformers to make foreign power suitable for your U.S. devices (or the other way around), but most things work happily anyway, you just need a “plug adaptor.” Here’s a hint, most of the world is 220v@50hz, the U.S. is 110v@60hz. As a general rule: anything with an AC adaptor is likely to work fine with just a plug adaptor. Anything that heats (hair dryers/curling irons) will cause problems if you plug them into power transformers (but most have a little voltage switch on them, so you wouldn’t need to anyway).
• Phones: If you intend to carry your cell phone, it’d be wise to make sure it’ll actually work when you get off the plane. Call your cell provider to see if your phone will work where you’re going and if you need to enable International roaming. T-Mobile did this for me while I was in an airport during a layover.
• Use ATMs: Trying to exchange and carry sufficient cash for your entire trip is a foolish endeavor. Its also a money-losing proposition. In my experience, banks charge significantly less to do currency exchange when you use a foreign ATM than they would if you ordered currency ahead of time. You can usually locate an ATM in an airport and fairly easily in most cities without problems. Whatever you do, don’t use airport-based currency exchange. They typically charge exorbitant fees.
• Extra Bag: Pack a collapsible bag as an extra carry-on bag for your return trip. Its hard to know before hand if you’ll have sufficient space to tuck away souvenirs for your return flight.

In case you’re wondering, King Kong is fantastic.

Quickie non-review: Mobile GMail works quite well. Its fast, clean, and usable.

Up until yesterday all of the webmail clients I’ve come across were horrible for mobile use. It seems like our Google overlords have done a decent one for GMail now.

GMail Mobile info site and the actual Mobile GMail site.

That said, I still use IMAP to my real mail account for things I care about.

For anyone looking at developing different stylesheets for various CSS media types, keep in mind that some browsers implement multiple media types.

Pocket IE 2003 is one of them. I was thinking about defining a handheld CSS definition so my hordes of mobile readers (me) could have an optimized CSS definition. It turns out that PPC IE implements screen and handheld. So, you won’t be very happy if you define your rules like this:

<style type=”text/css” media=”handheld”>
@import url( handheld.style.css );
</style>
<style type=”text/css” media=”screen”>
@import url( screen.style.css );
</style>

Make sure that your higher-priority media types are later in your style definitions list. Like this:

<style type=”text/css” media=”screen”>
@import url( screen.style.css );
</style>
<style type=”text/css” media=”handheld”>
@import url( handheld.style.css );
</style>

You’ll also have to override any rules that are defined in earlier style-sheets. Things like turning off header graphics (currently the only thing I have bothered to change) have to actually be redefined in the handheld style sheet, not just left out.

Hopefully this saves someone out there 5 minutes and/or a little frustration.

Before the September 11, 2001 attacks airline security was almost a joke in most places. I’d experienced everything from accidentally going through security with a not-so-small pocketknife to a checkpoint that was nothing more than a sheet of paper exclaiming “No Knives, Guns, or Explosives Past This Point” (Durango, CO circa 1995). That said, the wakeup call that struck America was fielded with security measures to counteract movie-plot threats and give appearances of security.

I’m not entirely sure what removing my shoes and sending my laptop through the X-Ray machine separately is supposed to accomplish, aside from slowing down lines and giving the vague appearance of vigilance. Thus far I think the best security checkpoints I’ve passed through didn’t even look in my luggage. Instead they asked where I’d been, what I’d seen, where I stayed, what I was traveling for, what kind of things I’d packed (the security screener in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport sighed when I started listing my electronics), etc. They’re trained to look for intent. Someone who seems overly anxious or at least not kosher in some way. They introduce an intelligence to the process that can decide for itself how to proceed with questions, not some machine that rolls carry-on bags past.

When I last flew out of Amsterdam I talked to someone about my trip while waiting to check in. I talked to the check-in clerk. I passed through a metal detector (leaving my laptop and shoes where they belonged). I then talked to yet another security screener at the gate. For the post part all of this screening was done in lines I would have been in anyway. It doesn’t add time, just workers.

Admittedly the depth of scope like this may only exist for international flights, but they sure seem a lot more effective than the screening in the US. I’ve never waiting in line at an x-ray machine in Europe; a far cry from normal travel times in the US.

All of this has been brought up due to the recent relaxation of carry-on restrictions, my upcoming flight to Europe for New Years, and the recent Air Marshall shooting of Rigoberto Alpizar. I won’t debate the actions of the Air Marshals–I don’t know all of the details of what went on. I just think that US flight security is more about appearance than effectiveness. Nobody wants to appear soft on security lest they be attacked for it. I’m not convinced anyone is being particularly productive either.

One of the problems with integrating web apps together is fighting with link beautification (Permalinks, URL Rewrite, mod_rewrite). WordPress and Gallery2 are two web apps that integrate fairly well but suffer from this problem.

I couldn’t find concise instructions elsewhere, so here’s my quickie HOWTO on getting mod_rewrite to play nicely between WordPress, Gallery2, and the WPG2 plugin.

Read on for more information.
(Read on …)

* NOT FOUND *At our last visit to the doctor they took a blood sample to run through AFP (Alpha-fetoprotein) screening. This test is used to check for open neural tube defects (Spina bifida, Anencephaly, Abdominal wall defects), Down syndrome, and Trisomy 18 (Edward’s Syndrome).

On Monday Tiff got a call from the doctor’s office saying that her “AFP test came back high” and that we needed to schedule a new appointment for genetic counseling and a different, higher-resolution, ultrasound. They also mentioned that we had an increased chance of Spina bifida. Unfortunately they only qualified it, they didn’t quantify the risks. After a few nervous days talking with friends who also had received similar information during their pregnancies we had our appointment today.

It started off talking to a genetic councilor who quantified our risks (1 in 59 for Spina bifida, 1 in 29 for neural tube defects, 1 in 10000 for Down syndrome, and no increased risk for Trisomy 18). That alone helped greatly. Then she collected information on our family tree and any medical problems there-in.

After that the ultrasound tech was tracked down and the baby was inspected for possible open neural tube defects. The short version is that everything looks great. After checking the head and entire spine no defects were found. Finally we felt relieved. Once the diagnostic portion was done a few pictures were printed out and we checked the gender. We’re having a baby girl!

We’re told that the high AFP results indicate that we still have a 50:50 chance of third trimester issues such as pre-term labor and pregnancy-induced hypertension. Of course we’re hoping that nothing bad will happen, but we’ll handle it if and when it does.

As a side note on ultrasound pictures. Previous to seeing a live ultrasound image I had a hard time seeing much of anything in the printouts. Even now the printouts can’t do justice to actually seeing the image move around in real time.

Scientists at the University of Manchester have worked out a way to quantify the beer-goggles effect. Roughly speaking, the phenomenon where alcohol transforms ‘ugly’ people into someone you’re attracted to; until the next day that is.

Nathan Efron, Professor of Clinical Optometry at the University of Manchester, said: “The beer goggles effect isn’t solely dependent on how much alcohol a person consumes, there are other influencing factors at play too.

“For example, someone with normal vision, who has consumed five pints of beer and views a person 1.5 metres away in a fairly smoky and poorly lit room, will score 55, which means they would suffer from a moderate beer goggle effect.”

In case you’re wondering:

An = number of units of alcohol consumed
S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)
L = luminance of ‘person of interest’ (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)
Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)
d = distance from ‘person of interest’ (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)

The curious bit, to me, is who funded the research: Bausch & Lomb PureVision. Expect ads…

Periodically someone comes up with the “good” idea to use a computer virus as a means to immunize security problems. Here is the latest: Viral cure could ‘immunise’ the internet. At the surface it sounds like a wonderful idea to utilize infection vectors to apply patches then continue on to the next machine. Using the same path a worm takes to close security holes even sounds clever and each time it is proposed there is a new twist. This time around the twist involves using honeypots.

They propose developing a network of “honeypot” computers, distributed across the internet and dedicated to the task of combating viruses. To a virus, these machines would seem like ordinary vulnerable computers. But the honeypots would attract a virus, analyse it automatically, and then distribute a countermeasure.

A honeypot is simply a host that masquerades as a vulnerable computer on the network. It fakes security holes in order to collect data on attackers. This application intends to automate the application of fixes for the attacks across the network.

The problem is that this assumes the honeypots are able to provide an appropriate fix for the security hole and propagate that fix to all of the vulnerable hosts on its network. The justification for this approach is:

Simulations show that the larger the network grows, the more efficient this scheme should be. For example, if a network has 50,000 nodes (computers), and just 0.4% of those are honeypots, just 5% of the network will be infected before the immune system halts the virus, assuming the fix works properly. But, a 200-million-node network – with the same proportion of honeypots – should see just 0.001% of machines get infected.

If you were paying attention you may have noticed that excerpt includes the words assuming the fix works properly. Thats a big assumption.

Assuming this works out properly, there is also the added issue of how the honeypots will distribute the intended fix to the network.

Security measures, such as encryption, would be needed to prevent viruses from exploiting the honeypot network.

Since they assume multiple machines on the network, for the math to work out acceptably, you must have the honeypots talk to each other. Encrypted or not this exposes another infection vector, the difference is this one is extraordinary tempting. Instead of possibly infecting a handful of machines with a worm, attacking the honeypots potentially exposes the entire network of machines.

Since the honeypots must be able to distribute patches to clients, they could be used to distribute the worm. Only this time around it’s your trusted network guardians that are doing the dirty work.

More discussion on the topic, from someone more authoritative than myself can be found on Bruce Schneier’s blog:

• Benevolent Worms (Dec 05, 2005)
• Benevolent Worms (Sept 2003)