K-Squared Ramblings

Power on its way

Last night’s mutual cyber-binge after only two days away from the keyboard was the kicker: If we’re going anywhere for two weeks, we’ll want to bring a computer along.

And so tonight I finally ordered a dual-boot PowerBook from TerraSoft. We’re splitting the cost as a combined wedding and belated/early birthday present to each other.

Sometime this weekend, we’ll have a new computer in the house!

Wedding write-ups

We’ve both just posted write-ups of the last two days over on LiveJournal:

• The Bride’s Perspective
• The Groom’s Perspective

M Butterfly School of Dance?

Found in the Bug’s World section of Disney’s California Adventure:

Funny, I didn’t think Disney would be interested in teaching kids about gender ambiguity…

Hobbit Center

On our way out of Laguna Beach, we ended up on a side street parallelling PCH. Fortunately, we spotted this gem of a corner shopping center:

Now, the nearby city of Lake Forest has had Tolkien-named streets for years (Gondor, Elrond, and others), and of course UCI has its Middle Earth dorm complex. I have no idea how long this one has been there, but it’s interesting to think that we never would have found it if we’d been able to make a left turn out of the hotel parking lot!

Gallons? It comes in gallons?

We were looking through the room service menu at the
Surf and Sand, and noticed the prices for coffee, tea, and a few other beverages were for rather high-volume orders:

We made it!

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the wedding on Sunday, and thanks also to everyone who came!

It really was like a play - one with no rehearsals and only a half hour of blocking. (Sometime last week it hit me that what I was really nervous about was that this was the Actor’s Nightmare: performing a lead role in a play you barely knew and hadn’t rehearsed.) And like a play, it had its share of things that went wrong behind the scenes, but all the important things worked!

No, we’re not off on a honeymoon right now. Getting the wedding together was enough to plan, so we just spent Sunday night in a really nice hotel (the Surf and Sand resort in Laguna Beach) and went to Disney’s California Adventure today. (We’d never been to it.) We’ll work out where and when we’re going when we’ve got the time.

To anyone who’s curious: the Surf and Sand is very expensive, but it’s very much worth it. The view, the service, the amenities and the food are all fantastic, and there’s a lot of the resort we never even saw just for lack of time.

Anyway, I’m going to post a few Strange World photos and then go to bed.

Mugzilla

I am now the proud owner of a Mozilla Coffee Mug!

When I went to order a new batch of Mozilla Coffee, I saw that RJ Tarpley’s is now offering mugs with their logo. Something about it just screamed “Buy me! Buy me!” - something in the combination of “Mozilla” and the lizard’s expression as he holds up his coffee mug, all of it appearing on a coffee mug…

(Ironically, I’m posting this using Konqueror.)

But don’t say it where they can hear you

More in the unfortunate store name series…

(And right around the corner from Leisure World, no less!)

Worst. Computer Store Name. Ever!

Another gem from Joshua Tree (actually Yucca Valley), courtesy of Jason, who first spotted it:

Give me an N!

Megajelly

In case you were wondering, this is what 5 kg of jelly beans looks like:

Mentawhat?

OK, I’m all for spiritual retreats and the like, but what the heck is “mentalphysics?!?”

(Thanks to Jason for the photo!)

Good Timing

Sometime early last year I decided I’d like to get a PowerBook. Ideally, one dual-booting Mac OS and Linux. I spent several months saying “I don’t really need a laptop,” but I really started to like the idea after a while, and Katie started to like the idea too, and this January I went so far as to contact TerraSoft Solutions about pricing. TerraSoft maintains their own PPC Linux distribution, Yellow Dog Linux, and their stock in trade is selling Macs preconfigured to dual-boot Mac OS and Linux.

I decided not to buy one then for two reasons: We had the wedding coming up, and I figured Apple was likely to upgrade the line by summer.

Well, the wedding is next weekend, and Apple has just announced upgrades to the PowerBook line.

It may be time to start looking at PowerBooks again.

For the procrastinator in all of us

From an email I got this morning:

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 01:55:22 EDT
…
Hurry, the clock is ticking on your taxes! Pay your federal taxes with your Discover Card

Last I looked, the deadline was yesterday. And while it may technically have still been April 15 here on the west coast when they sent the message, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a post office open at 11pm.

Aside from that, I find the idea of putting taxes on a credit card somewhat disturbing, though if you don’t have the money on hand, I suppose it may be the best you can do.

You’re two tents

Here we observe a specimen of that rarest of species: the Walking Tent.

And here are two natives, apparently acolytes of the Tent, worshiping at its altar.

</Richard Attenborough>

Would you like fries with that?

Evidently yes:

At first the In-N-Out frame caught our eyes, since we’d just driven past one. Then Katie noticed the FRY on the license plate, and we had to get a picture.

Living in Harmony

On Highway 62, in Twentynine Palms, we saw this first coming from the other direction. On the other side it says, “Where if not now?”

At first we thought they had just messed up the wording, but when we came back along the same road and saw “When if not here?” it all made sense.

Something Missing

This is just around the corner from the “roller coaster.”

But think about it. If she’s a real patient, shouldn’t they show, well, her breasts? Not like that, you pervert, in a bikini or something! Gyms tend to show before-and-after (or just after) shots of people with muscled or trim torsos. The whole reason you put an “actual customer” in the ad is to show the results, right?

(Oh, this journal is going to end up getting filtered for sure!)

High Rise Roller Coaster?

This is out off of the 60, not far from Hadley’s Orchards and two new casinos. It seems to be a hotel, but the curves in the scaffolding really do look like a roller coaster!

Frighteningly popular

Out of curiosity, I did a Google search for the phrase “blood of the innocent” to see where APK would come up. Given that my poetry pages seem to be very popular with search engines (and that the phrase is at the top of the frikkin’ page!), I expected it to be pretty high up in the listings. 72 pages of results later, I have a thorough education in just how popular this phrase is, and with whom. Even adding in “nothing” to the search, I still got 72 pages of religious diatribes and political blogs. Sheesh. If this is what’s popular, I’m glad I’m not it.

Linspire?

It seems Lindows has changed their name again.

I think I liked LinDash better. Even if it was obviously a temporary gimmick.

It never fails

I finally get around to downloading Mandrake Linux 10 Community Edition, and they release the “Official” edition.

(Mandrake has moved to a release model where they release a download-only “community” version, refine it and fix bugs for a couple of months, and then release the “official” version to put on CDs and sell in boxes. Essentially, it’s recognizing the fact that new bugs are always found shortly after release of any software, because the average user and average beta tester are not the same, and a lot more people will install the “final” version of a product than will beta test it.)

Earthsea

Last week, Sci Fi Wire announced casting for Earthsea, a 4-hour miniseries to air in December. This was promptly lost amid all the cries of “Why the frell is Sci Fi picking up the Farscape miniseries?”

(Trying to keep this spoiler-free for those who haven’t read the books…)

As I understand it, they are only adapting the first two books. This in itself is odd, as the original trilogy is essentially one work about Ged’s life - youth, adulthood, and age - and key events in his life’s quest. Additionally, the books serve as a travelogue, and by the end of the trilogy you’ve seen nearly every part of the Archipelago. When originally announced (three years ago!) in May 2001, they planned to adapt all three novels, and announced it as a 6-hour mini when Philippa Boyens was attached to the project in August of that year. Well, we’re only getting 4 hours, and there’s been no mention of Boyens at all in the last two press releases. (I imagine if she were still on board, they’d be shouting about the Oscar-winning screenwriter.)

Presumably someone declared they were only getting 4 hours, and they decided it would be better to give full time to two books than chop up all three.

Casting includes Shawn Ashmore (Bobby/Iceman in X-Men) as the young wizard Sparrowhawk, Danny Glover as his master Ogion (from book one, A Wizard of Earthsea, and Kristin Kreuk as his opponent/ally Tenar (from book two, The Tombs of Atuan).

Glover sounds like a good choice, and Ashmore should do well at least as the younger Ged. I’ve never actually watched Smallville, so I’m not familiar with Kreuk’s acting.

What’s interesting about this casting is that they’ve (sort of) reversed the races of Tenar and Ged. Earthsea is set in an island archipelago not unlike the South Pacific, and the people tend to look like Pacific Islanders, with skin ranging from light brown or red to dark brown. Tenar’s people are considered unusual for having very light skin (and sometimes blond hair, though Tenar’s is black). When she becomes known outside her homeland, they call her the White Lady. Ged is often described as having red skin. It’s probably a business decision to maximize viewership, since there is a prevalent notion that films with minority leads are geared toward that minority.

Anyway, I’m straddling the line between cautiously-optimistic and cynical. Hey, if nothing else, knowing the series was finally on its way prompted me to pick up the books again.

Look in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section for Ursula Le Guin.

Episode III

Hmm, I see that Rise of the Empire is the most popular title for Star Wars: Episode III at this week’s Sci-Fi Wire Poll.

This, of course, guarantees that Lucas will instead choose The Creeping Fear.

(Or maybe Cowboy Neal Strikes Back?)

Interesting omission

CNET posted an article today, Concern grows over browser security, about the rise in browser-based attacks (mostly spoofed sites for phishing, but also attempts to install viruses and other malware through web browser security holes).

What’s interesting about the article is that nowhere does it mention Mozilla, Opera or Safari.

Could it be that attacks through these browsers are less common than attacks through Internet Explorer, even adjusted for market share? (Sure, IE has more than 90%, but there are a lot of people using the others.)

Or could it be that the author has succumbed to the “Web Browser = MSIE” belief?

If nothing else, you’d think that their statistics would have a bit more information, but it’s a single number for “browser” attacks. Nothing more detailed than that.

To be fair, the press release doesn’t provide any better numbers. In fact, it mentions no browser by name at all. (One can hope their data is a bit more detailed, but the purpose of the study appears to have been to identify trends in types of attacks, not in the software targeted.) And yet IE is the only browser CNET mentions, despite the alternatives’ better security records.

Doorway to Mac Viruses?

Apparently a security firm has discovered a way to trick Mac OS X into running a trojan horse. The technique involves creating a data file, but embedding a Carbon program in it. (Carbon is a programming interface aimed at making it easy to convert older Mac applications to run on Mac OS X without switching into Classic mode.)

According to Intego, Finder will see only the file type data display a spoofed icon identifying the file as (in their example) an MP3, but actually double-clicking on the file will cause the OS to notice the program code and run it. Their proof-of-concept code runs itself, then opens the file in iTunes in order to avoid looking suspicious.

This is very similar to a (fixed, but still present in a zillion unpatched systems) bug in Internet Explorer for Windows that was exploited by many mass-mailing viruses. In that case, IE would decide whether a file was safe by checking the MIME type sent by the server, then use the file extension to decide how to load the file. Viruses would generate messages embedding supposed MIDI files that Outlook would try to play, but instead of handing it to a MIDI player, it would ask the OS to open the file. Without the MIME info, Windows would see it was a program file and run the virus.

If this is confirmed, it will probably not be a vector for e-mail viruses, because the standard mail and web apps for Mac OS X don’t automatically run things the way Outlook, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer do.

No, the real danger will be viruses that spread through peer-to-peer file sharing networks. Download a supposed MP3 off of Gnutella, open up your music folder, double-click on it, and you’re infected.

Apple has said they “are aware of the potential issue… and are working proactively to investigate it.”

(Why is this news? Because it’s Apple, and because it’s so similar to a popular virus vector in Windows. Exploitable vulnerabilities are found so often in Windows I hardly blink.)

Updated slightly based on some real analysis (see comments).

111111

While driving home from work today, I glanced down at the odometer and saw it read 111,110. So I drove around the parking lot a bit, then stopped to snap a photo at 111,111:

OK, this isn’t exactly fascinating photojournalism, but really, how often are you going to see all odometer digits the same? Your car probably has a few miles on it when you drive it off the lot, so you never see 000000. And what are the chances that you’ll still be driving the same car after 222,222 miles?

(In case you’re wondering about the trip odometer, it didn’t roll over at exactly the same time. I zeroed it because I figured it would make a better picture - all 1’s on one row and all 0’s on the next.)

Not where I was expecting it!

The mystery of where the Farscape miniseries will air has been answered! From Sci-Fi Wire:

SCI FI announced it will be bringing back Farscape with an all-new miniseries — called Farscape: Peacekeeper War — slated to air in the fourth quarter of this year.

WTF? OK, it’s not the last place I’d expect - that would be Fox, or maybe Lifetime - but the Sci Fi Channel has spent the last year and a half distancing itself from Farscape, and a good chunk of that trying to move away from actual science fiction. I guess Dune must have done better than Scare Tactics.

Hmm, it might be worth getting cable again.

Further reading: Save Farscape, in particular Sci Fi Picks up the Mini [archive.org].

Congratulations to the Farscape cast and crew! We’ll be watching!

Gold circle

I just glanced at and closed a mailing list post. The post itself was fairly inconsequential, but I had to reopen it to check something in the footer:

This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials

In my initial glance, I had misread it as:

This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM, Linus Torvalds!

April Fools Around the Net

I’m collecting some of the April Fools jokes I’ve seen on the Net today:

• Mezzoblue and Stopdesign have swapped layouts, with Stopdesign claiming originality and Mezzoblue calling foul.
• NetBSD has announced their new logo — and it’s Tux!
• As reported on Slashdot, the first alpha release of IF Quake, a text adventure in the style of Zork.
• DeadJournal has announced selling out to LiveJournal

Updated 11:00pm

• I heard a report on All Things Considered about the post office’s plan for portable ZIP codes, complete with quotes from people who want to keep their trendy Manhattan ZIP code when they move to a new city. It was done very nicely, fully in the style of an actual story.
• Slashdot was full of April Fools stories today, but none were as good as the poll.
• Snopes has posted a similar list of April Fools stories on the web, and they’ve collected a lot more than I have.

And that’s it. I’m going back to bed.