Archive for February, 2008
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More on Bluecoat Shenanigans
I wrote about BlueCoat blocking blogs on the 24th – Wired Magazine did it on the 28th – their story was much better than mine – I just beat them to the punch.
They even did a follow up – check it out right here!
Read their article if mine was even remotely interesting – they did research – I just wrote what I knew. I guess thats why advertisers pay to put content on their site.
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Back when I was a kid…
Conversation topics can be far ranging when working with a diverse group of people that are brought to one location from across the globe. A few days ago, we discussed how parents are discouraged from using physical means to keep their children in line. The days when you can spank your OWN child for acting a fool might be behind us if we don’t do something to turn the tide. There was a proposal in a California city (of all places) to punish parents who spank their children.
One person spoke of a time when her child was acting a fool – she swatted him once on the behind to keep him in line. Family members present at the incident chastised the individual and claimed that it was abuse.
Another individual spoke about children carrying on in public places with exasperated parents doing nothing to quell the noise.
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Run away! Run away!
Check out this article about the fault line that is in the pacific northwest – somehow it reminds me of this – whats your take?
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The invincible MRAP
I received some amazing pictures of a MRAP that got hit by an IED. The truck hit a 500 pound explosive device – all occupants were able to walk away from the truck. The only injury to the occupants was to the driver who broke a few ribs on the steering wheel. The truck was thrown into the air and rotated 180 degrees by the explosive device
The engineering on the MRAP is cool as hell and it did exactly what it was supposed to – it saved the lives of US soldiers.
Check out these amazing photos
Edit – found out this happened last year and that it has been previously posted on I guess I was a little behind on this one – oh well
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The end of global warming?
For quite some time I’ve thought that we didn’t have information to conclusively determine that humans are causing global warming and the contention that it is irreversible unless we change our carbon consuming habits.
Some interesting research has come out and it points to the idea that we may not be as involved as some would like to think. This winter has been cold
According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.”
Check out this interesting article – it doesn’t draw the conclusion that we aren’t on a pattern of global warming or that we aren’t polluting the heck out of our planet but rather alludes to the fact that we may have less to do with it than some scientists believe. Read on at the National Post
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If I could bike 15 miles I could bike 500 more
My workout routine is always up for a revision and and I always try to do something a little different to keep my body guessing. The one thing that doesn’t change is that on days where I don’t lift, I do cardio. I loathe cardio but its a necessary evil so I must do it. My normal routine consists of using the cross trainer for 25 minutes followed by a gut busting “gut day.” My ankle has prevented me from using the cross trainer so my only option was to get on the bike. I was aiming for 30 minutes of high intensity biking – to me – high intensity is to keep the rpm above 100 for as long as possible. In an attempt to increase my motivation, I make sure that my mp3 player is loaded with intense music – there are no ballads and the temp is always cranked.
So, to begin my arduous bike workout, I set the level to 8 (of 20) and started to bike away – I biked to 5 miles, then 10 miles and before I knew it I was already at 35 minutes of elapsed time. I felt like I was in the groove so I aimed for another 5 miles before I got off the bike without dropping my intensity – I wanted to make up some time and get the next 5 miles done in under 10 minutes. It was a lofty goal but I know how to push myself past the breaking point when needed.
I selected an Ill Nino song and went to town – at 135rpm. Sweat that was on my brow began to come down in a torrent that obscured my vision – the searing pain in my legs caused tears to form in my eyes – I wasn’t going to be defeated. I was not going to surrender to the pain. Nobody could tell that my eyes were watering because my entire body was soaked – it appeared as if I had jumped in front of a fire hose. I kept on pumping my legs as hard as I could until I reached 15 miles – at that point I looked at the clock – 44:58 – I had done it.
I really couldn’t believe that I could push myself that hard – I’m completely worn out at the moment but I know that there has got to be some sort of energy reserve left. I tried to do the “gut buster” workout but my body was shot – I guess it will wait till tomorrow.
FYI – gut buster is comprised of no less than 6 gut exercises – I am for 200-300 total reps. The pain is quite intense – but – I’ve got free time and I’m still young. I often wonder how much further I can push myself – I guess I’ll just have to find out for next time.
On a side note, I try to title all of the blog posts in a creative manner – some titles don’t make the stringent selection process
Todays rejected post titles include
1. Push it, push it real good Salt-N-Pepa wrote as song called Push it – and push it I did
2. Bike it out, bike it out – my take on Walk it Out
3. My humps, my humps, my lovely lady humps. – this in an homage to Will Ferrel in Blades of Glory as he was on his bike cranking out some cardio – well, he really wasn’t cranking much. There was discussion about what this song meant and nobody really knew – they just knew that it was promiscuous.
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Death to BlueCoat
I live inside of a fenced and concrete walled compound. Blast walls and revetments surround every building on base. Sand bags can be found everywhere – they surround most of the buildings. Construction crews, scurrying around the base like ants, build new walls daily further fortifying the nearly impenetrable fortress. Larger buildings are fitted with a secondary roof to deflect the blast of an indirect round. Arrays of sensors scan the perimeter of the base for incoming rounds and intruders – nothing will get past our defensive nets.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the only type of barrier that I deal with on a daily basis. I spend a few hours every day browsing the internet for the latest and greatest – well, everything. Downtime at work is inevitable – the unofficial Air Force motto is “Hurry up and wait.” At the moment, we are spending most of our time waiting for something to happen. When it does happen, we all jump at the chance to do some work. In fact, we often fight over who gets to do the work yes, we are that bored. I tend to stay in the news/science/technology vein but I do like to have a good laugh once in a while. Many of the most popular sites on the internet are available for me to browse at my free will – many other sites are blocked by a demon known as BlueCoat.
BlueCoat is a content firewall that classifies websites based upon perceived and real content. If the algorithm determines that a website contains profanity, the filter will label the website accordingly and block the domain from being accessed. The filter is designed to restrict content so that it falls within acceptable use guidelines for military networks and it also restricts content to preserve bandwidth. We are given the luxury of being able to surf the internet to improve morale – often we do not have this luxury.
My gripe with BlueCoat is that it does a crappy job of filtering – instead of using a M82 sniper rifle and popping the target square between the eyes the algorithm tends to grab an AK47 with a spray and pray method. The filter, from what I can ascertain, blocks all pages with the word “blog” in them. These pages are classified “personal” and are subject to being blocked. Instead of looking at the content of the website – the filter looks for one single word and instantly adds it to the ban list. My website is blocked and I am unable to access it from work – not a huge deal but it means I have to type this article, email it to myself, check my email at the cyber cafe, and post it there at a later point in time. Some websites – like the NY Times – use a sub domain “blog” for articles written by members of their journalistic staff that appear on a re-occurring basis. Other websites use the loosely defined definition of the word blog in their meta name (tags used to help a search engine better classify a website) and are banned from access.
The definition blog – Short for “Web log,” a specialized site that allows an individual or group of individuals to share a running log of events
They have a log of events – written by an individual or a group. So, we can have logs written by groups or individuals but we cannot call them blogs? We cannot view any website written by an individual that is not part of a corporation or larger entity?
I am at the mercy of a poorly written web filter – where is a good coder when you need him?
Hmm… I wonder if I can get a local cleric to issue a fatwa against it?
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Camoflage art
Ok – this is just a quickie
I saw a cool article about a painter who paints acrylic suits that blend a person into the background around them. You’ve gotta check out the pics – its quite cool.
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Russia has no love
It turns out that there was quite a bit of response, from Russia no less, about the NY Times article. Some of it was very much in line with that of the author, some was written from the viewpoint that he should keep his nose out of their business, and the rest suggested that he had intercourse with himself. Check out the comments here
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From Russia with love / The Idiot
Russia is supposed to be a democracy – from what I’ve been reading lately its more of an autocracy.
Our president speaks – too often at times – and we’ve had the joy of technology to record some of his most eloquent moments. Someone took the time to list the top 50 Bush quotes – I know that he has speech writers but he has a hard time speaking on his feet. The list is well worth it if you are a fan or a hater. Either way, its a good way to waste 5 minutes.
I wish I had something else but there is nothing else – damn, I am bored.
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