My car registration needs to get “up to date” with the DMV. I tried to do it online, but the system just gives me errors and non-sense. So, yay, time to go visit the DMV.

I tried to schedule an appointment, but waiting over 40 days for the next available slot seemed ludicrous. I can spare the 2-3 hours and just go wait in line, I don’t want to wait nearly two and a half months to save me that much time; that’s just silly.

So, I cleared out my Saturday to go do this — wrong! After checking out several offices on their site and a quick google search, it was revealed to me that the DMV no longer operates on any weekends and they’re closed most fridays as well.

How incredibly dumb.

I have to take off work to go to the DMV.
And while I am not working, I am not getting paid.
And while I’m not getting paid, I’m not paying taxes.
And when I’m not paying taxes, the DMV isn’t getting any funding.

So, due to budget issues, I can now only go to the DMV on days which would continue to hurt their budget. Genius!

A short letter:

Dear DMV,

I understand times are tough and the Governator is ‘cuttin ur bugets’, but if you’ve only got enough cash to be open 4 days a week, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday would be ideal days. Then people can keep working and paying taxes so you can stay open, yay!

Thanks,

Everyone who has to wait 2-5 hours with ticket in hand after taking off time so you don’t get tax revenues

Seriously.

I can tell you that nothing, nothing, in that article made my eyes pop out of my head or my anger rise to boiling levels. They aren’t doing anything that users haven’t explicitly agreed to.

• Tracking profiles you visit
  Of course they do this. So does every single website you ever visit that is worth its salt. It’s called web analytics. We not only can (and do) track what pages you’ve been to, but we also track the paths you take to get from A to B to C and so on. This is an industry standard since the invention of cookies.
• Storing snapshots of data
  This is called making backups. It’s a smart thing to do. How many of you very active users of Facebook have your pictures elsewhere? How about all those status updates? Friend connections? Notes? If Facebook lost all the running data, you’d probably be up in arms over the fact that they couldn’t recover your data — so backups are essential.
• Global Login
  This is, again, a standard industry practice. Support engineers and technical staff always have need for this. Perhaps to verify a bug that just your account is experiencing or to diagnose some other problem specific to your instance. There’s always the off chance that people (as this employee even admitted to) use it for invasive purposes, but that’s generally not the goal. Also, you should take solace in the fact that Facebook seems to take this very seriously and even fires people when abuse is discovered.

What it boils down to is that you have no real privacy on Facebook — but this is not news. And if it is news to you, welcome to every website you visit and have an account at (and some you don’t…) Twitter knows who you visit and tracks you. Flickr support reps can login as you and see all your photos. Google probably knows you better than you do: email habits, favorite websites, calendar events, uploaded documents, and way more!

In any case, any international move is tough. Sweden to US is a bit easier, however, because the two regions can each marginally speak English. The move is particularly less hassle for me because I am a US citizen — which lifts a lot of red tape out of the way.

There are a few key things that moving back, I’ve needed to take care of:

• Leaving the previous job
• Preparing/getting for a new job
• A place to live where I was headed
• Banking
• Moving my belongings
• Transporting cats

I’ll talk about how each went for me.

Leaving the previous job

This one was sad. The job I had in Sweden, working as a web producer for DICE, was why I went there in the first place, and it is what kept me there through that first winter. I built many great relationships and helped to create a product which I’m astoundingly proud of. That said, there were a few things to get in order. I reviewed my contract and made sure all my benefits were taken care of. (Turns out I’d missed 2 bonuses — oops…) I sold off all my stock options because you can’t take those when ya go. And I made sure that my replacement had a few weeks with me on site so as much knowledge transfer could happen as possible. All things considered it went quite well. In an unfortunately brief good-bye party, I was quite honored by the enthusiasm of the send off.

Preparing for the a new job

Getting a job in the US, when you’re not yet in the US, sucks. Telephone interviews at weird hours, people not fully understanding your situation (one place thought I was a Swede IN the states already…) and so on. The fact that I was already moving and already a citizen made this process a bit better though — I can’t imagine how impossible getting a job in the US without having both of those checked off could be. Sheesh.

A place to live

I was very fortunate in this regard. I was planning on moving in with a friend from the states, so we’d been comparing notes about places that looked nice for a few months to get a feel for what the both of us wanted. About a month before I moved, we hit upon a nice 2 bedroom apartment just one block from where I used to live in SF. It was pretty much exactly what we wanted. So we took it — turned out, it also included a 2 car garage in the price — for SF, that was huge news. In any case, having a place to definitely say, “When I get to the US, I will be living here.” was immensely helpful when filling out customs forms, shipping forms, etc etc.

Banking

Wow. Just wow. Here’s the tale of “Jeff, the Money Runner”.

A week before departure, I went to the bank and (in true Swedish fashion) took a number, waited my turn, and got to the teller. I explained my situation and asked for the checklist of things to do before leaving the country for good. Got the info I needed and was ready. The next week, two days before my plane leaves, I go again and ask to make the transfer. I give them the “IBAN” number they asked for. This new teller says I need 2 other numbers as well. Wait. “What? Just last week that lady (pointing) said I only needed this one!” Ok now what? Well, I waited to 4pm for the US bank to open, called them to get the new number and found out my US bank doesn’t even HAVE one of these numbers and they are quite adamant that I only need the IBAN. Soooo, go to the Swedish bank again, get number, wait turn, relay discoveries. Nothing they can do, it seems.

Yay, let’s leave all my money stuck in a Swedish bank account! How about you just write me a cashiers check. Oh wait, no, they don’t do those. So instead I asked for the cash. Just cash me out — well, for the amount I had saved, that can only be done with 3 days notice. AAAarrrgggg, but you said I’d be able to make the transfer and now I’m out of time! The lady talked to the manager and withdrew the cash anyway.

And thus I traveled with 2.5 years worth of savings tucked into my carry on bag. My whole monetary foundation wrapped up in a tightly taped up envelope. Man, one serious way to turn the “super paranoid” mode on. This is part of the reason I didn’t sleep a wink the entire 26 hour journey.

After it was completed, however, my money did make it here and has is now safely in my account. Phew.

Moving my belongings

This is quite tricky. I actually needed to use some of those business skills here, namely, ROI. See, you can ship everything you want back — no problem. Toss it on a boat for a month or two and it’ll show up at your door. However, it’s bloody expensive. My quite modest accomodations would have been nearly 6,000 $ to ship back. This is where ROI comes into play. See, I could have, instead, not ship anything at all back, pocketed the 6,000 and buy it all again in the states. The cost to replace everything? About 4,000. See — makes much more sense to ship nothing!

Of course, you find a middle ground. Some things you don’t want to replace, some are hard to get rid of, some are sentimental. I shipped back maybe 1/3 of the stuff I had.

I did try to donate the rest, but that was a fairly epic fail. I arranged for a donation company to come by and pick everything up. I figured, must be like the donation center in the US, Salvation Army. They take your used/well-used goods and resale them at steep discounts. The people in Sweden flat out refused to take any of my items stating that, “Lightly cat-scratch-marked furniture can’t be resold.” I was astounded. How affluent can the society be that even the donation center won’t take a functionally perfect bed and couch for a few minor cosmetic flaws. Blew my mind. Instead a company had to come by to simply haul all of it to the dump. What a massive waste.

Transporting cats

Actually, this was remarkably easy. Put cats in crate, add to flight, inspect at US, move on. As long as your cats show no signs of infectious disease, they are clear to come in. Pretty easy. They didn’t like the flight much, but they are just fine and dandy (and spoiled, Heather) in the new place. The inspection at the US customs went like this:

*Ding dong* (Ringing the bell to get the attendant)

“Oh hi! I am just in from Stockholm, taking these two freaked out little ones to SF”

“How are they doing then? Looking well?”

“Yeah, they are a little skitish, but fine.”

*Scrible scrible scrible*

“Ok dear, take this paper to the other gentlemen and you’ll be right on your way”

“Erm, ok, thanks”

The whole exchange happened in less time than it took to get the lady to answer the doorbell thing.

End Game

All things told, my move was mostly smooth. With the exception of the whole bank fiasco, it went quite well. I owe a lot of gratitude to Anna Kylin for her amazing help in getting a lot of the roadblocks out of the way. If you EVER need any assistance moving into or our of Sweden, you would do very well to hire her.

Now, about that job… :)

Dear California Host,

Hello! I would like to book your services to host a get away training seminar for my staff of 20 in Hawaii!

Please book a 5 star hotel and first class round trip flights — only the best for my folks! Additionally, I’d like to make sure we’ve got after day plans like skiing, snorkeling, a luau, etc. The conference center you arrange must be secure, well situated, and absolutely gorgeous. We’re going to require several projectors, advanced white board systems, sound equipment, and other high end devices to properly run this event, so please have those arranged for as well.

Please also have a trained wait staff, fully stocked bars, and masseuses at the ready as this is going to be an intense session and we’re going to need lots of attention. We expect you’ll have a representative ready to attend to any needs we have while we’re on this trip — just in case anything comes up. We require that your staff has at least 10 years of training and experience and must be deeply familiar with the intricacies and nuances of serving our needs and ready to react at a moments notice.

Also, we’re planning several other small, day trip training sessions for focused groups over the next few weeks and we’d like you to set those up for us as well.

Naturally, this is a project based non-paid internship which is great for our bottom line.

Thanks, can’t wait to hear back!

- Jeff Minard

p.s. Fuck you, assholes.

Un-freaking-believable.

I awoke today to my cats sitting on my bed, chewing on loose threads. The sun was streaming in through the window and I felt nicely rested — I’d had a late night.

I got up, ate some breakfast, and lazily watched a tv show. 2 hours or so gone by and I was feeling restless. After cleaning up a bit, the outside was calling — it was a wonderfully beautiful day. I figured I’d go for a walk.

I got myself together and headed out. I took my usual route — down towards the station, but veering off towards the park. I continued into the park and stopped at the water fountain. I enjoy sitting, watching, and listening there. Something was off though, not quite right.

I was the only one there.

This is a rather large park — there are almost always people there: picnics, walks, biking, out with the kids, sunbathing, etc. Today, however, I was the only one. I looked around, behind me, and all I found was a seagull and another bird fighting over a piece of bread.

I whipped out the iPod i was carrying to check…

8:13 AM

Damn you Sweden, damn you and your extreme lattitude.

The project was bouncing around my head recently and reminded me of these “OS Sounds turn into music” compositions as well. So I spent some time youtubing it up and pulled out quite a few good ones.

Enjoy!

• SndRec.exe (swf)
• Re: Windows Remix
• Still alive using only Windows 98/XP sounds
• XPerience the Music
• Windows generations – Music using only Windows sounds
• Weendowz XP House Edition
• Apple Soundtrack
• Music using ONLY sounds from Windows XP and Vista
• Music using ONLY sounds from Windows XP and 98!

Here are a few image comparisons of the speed of Firefox 3 running speed tests, followed then by the results from Chrome running the same tests.

(Each image links to the test)

http://dromaeo.com/

http://mootools.net/slickspeed/

http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/

http://celtickane.com/webdesign/jsspeed2007.php

 

As you can see Chrome delivers on that promise in 3 out of 4 cases and does so exceptionally well. I don’t use many of Google’s services (like mail, calendar, etc) but I imagine those JS heavy services are feeling a LOT snappier in their own motherships browser.

As for the rest of it, being a very heavy FF user, this feels pretty dang nice. Outside of missing all the snazz add-ons I have for firefox (Web Developer Extention, I’ll never leave you!) I haven’t found any reasons to use one over the other. Chrome is a truly outstanding first step into the browser market and I’ll be giving it more of a fair chance than I did Opera. :)

This post brought to you by Chrome.

This apartment building had a central stair case which twisted upwards around a central shaft elevator. Also all elevators in Stockholm of these types have a 3 person limit. So, on our way to the roof, me and two other people clamber into the elevator and get ready to go to the roof. However, a fourth gentlemen starts stepping into the elevator as well. Despite our shouting of “No! 3 people only! Serious! Wait!” he stumbled in.

When the sign said “3 people only” it really meant it.

As soon as his other foot hit the elevator floor the counter weight was out done. The lift door still open the elevator started moving downwards. At this point, all I can recall thinking about was hoping that the last guy was all the way in because we were going past that opening and I didn’t want him half in and half out. Shudder.

The next concern is, of course, “oh shit, this isn’t going to nicely stop…” However, I was hardly able to finish that thought before SMASH and we’d arrived at ground floor. Holy Shit. Elevator was still in tact and no one was dead, but lights were blinking and we were half way into the floor — not at quite the right level with the floor outside. We’re all standing there and one of the other guys who had dropped a beer on the floor, decided to pick it up. Upside down. Pointed at my pants. Sigh. After a few moments collecting his sanity, the fellow at the front finds the handle to open the door and we all step out.

End of the story: I’ve survived being in a 2 story drop in a small metal cage of death with 3 other men and I managed to walk away with nothing more than some jitters and a long beer stain down my pants.

Fun.

* 08 is the Stockholm extension. It’s like saying “I’m a 415er” for people in San Francisco

I run a decent amount of websites (roughly 12 or so) and some of them quite popular. Popular enough that, long ago, I’d outgrown shared or VPS hosting packages. I tried dedicated for a bit, which was nice but expensive. So, in the end, I built a kick ass server and sent it off for colocation. There’s nothing like knowing the machine you built and getting the best in prices.

However, one of the great perks about shared/vps type hosting is that they come with all the “extras” already hooked up for you –  web server installed and setup, databases ready to go, and an email server prepared. I can not emphasize how under appreciated that last item on the list is. After 3 years of self hosting, I can say that, without a doubt in my mind, email services are the toughest part of running a web setup.

Email is not only complex from a theoretical point (understanding MTX’s, routing, user/virtual local/remote delivery, and more) but also very difficult to setup — relying on a large number of interdependent packages that (in my experience) aren’t very easy to get tied together. (Take this with a grain of salt as I am not a trained Linux Master, but I’ve got enough experience to compile a webserver, php, and mysql in a morning where as getting a mailserver up takes me a day with precompiled code and a tutorial.)

However, you still have to be able to provide email for the websites you host so I had two options:

1. Take all my email and do a simple ‘dump’ off to some other service like GMail.
2. Figure it out.

I’m too much of a control freak (somewhat a part of deciding to self-host), so I went with 2. However, I didn’t want to break my primary hosting machine with all this mail server gunk. Plus, my main server has a habit of needing down time or location shifts and I did not want to deal with server backups directly.

To solve these problems, I spend 20$ a month on a VPS slice from SliceHost. Amazing service, fast, great control panel, automatic complete system backups, and overall a 100% awesome experience. I use this slice for specificaly hosting my email (and Trac/SVN) services. All of my domains point to this machine to deal with email. I had managed to cobble this together with Ubuntu 6.06 last year to take any mail (for any domain!) and save it for a single user — it took me nearly 3 days to get that working right.

Obviously, that solution is somewhat lame: What if I want other users? What if one domain needs mail to go else where? I couldn’t address any of these options really.

In addition to these dilemmas, the Ubunut 6 was rocking Trac0.9 and python2.4 — ew. Time to upgrade.

5 minutes later (that’s how long it takes Slicehost to completely reimage your VPS for a completely bare OS install — wow) I was up and rocking Ubuntu 8 and its shinny, new repositories.

Using two tutorials, Complete Mailserver Setup in Ubuntu 8.04 and Trac on Hardy Heron, I’ve got the machine now setup to server as a Trac/Subversion hosting machine as well as a mailserver capable of gracefully handling mail for multiple domains and users as defined by a pleasant-to-work-with mysql database.

With the Trac/SVN/Email server and the larger Web/Database server setup, I’ve not got a complete, fully self-hosted solution and I’m ecstatic about having all the pieces tied together.

However, not having access to the plain mysql_* functions makes Wordpress very sad. In WP2.3 there was a work around that was pretty painful, involving some core editing. However, between then and WP2.5, the meek sobbing of folk like myself have been heard!

Simply download this updated db.php and place it in at wp-content/db.php.

You’re done. No really. That’s it! From what I can tell this should even work for fresh installs, not just current installs. If you find anything broken with it, let me know and I’ll give it an update.

Update! I’ve updated to work with Wordpress 2.8.4. You can get the new db.php file here: http://jrm.cc/extras/wp-mysqli-2.8-db.txt

Made. My. Day. :D :D :D

Regular

Mouse Over’ed

This is a very neat effect — simple, useful, intuitive, and easy to degrade (click would enlarge). Love it! I plan on keeping this little gem in my back pocket. :)

The algorithm introduced originally was fairly simple:

In this method, you would choose a “grid” (in the above, 3×3). The image would have 9 lines drawn through it and where those lines meet, the color of the underlying pixel would be used as the “palette”. While this wasn’t “wrong”, it wasn’t perfect. Many times the pixel under it would not be incorrect, per se, but it wasn’t very accurate.

Since writing the code, a few other methods have surfaced, one of my favorite, however, is the resize-and-sample. This process is very straight forward, and tends to deliver reliable results despite appearing to “wash out” some of the more vibrant portions of the image.

In this method, the image is resized down to the grid size (so, 3px by 3px) and the resizing causes a “blurring” of the image and all the colors get averaged down to 9 total pixels. These remaining pixels are now the average colors of the image.

Both methods are valid, and sometimes one is better than the other, however now they are both available. Pick a favorite and enjoy :)

Additionally, the updated source code is now freely available for download. Please note! I will not provide support for this code.

Anyway, some photos!

Kim in the park

I head the top of this tower is a restaurant

The place had a really cool light up “Where is something” navigation piece

Another label, this time on a turbine

A Steam Engine Plate

Driver in the back, two passengers in the front

Lucy goes for the kill

Lucy nom noms …

… and naps

Sam sat it out till later, when he found a way to SIT in the plant :(

Thus follows the destruction of drapes — and the rod holding them up.

Seems like I could use a jungle climbing gym thing…

A 30″ Samsung 305t ($1,300 monitor) left San Francisco in brand new condition and packaging in September, 2007. For the next week it was solely in DHL’s care and custody. When the package arrived on my doorstep, there was no monitor in the box and it had been retaped with DHL branded yellow tape. Any intelligent person would deduce from the perfect condition of the interior items, the fruitless search for a “misplaced” monitor, and the retaped package that someone within DHL stole my property — and I want my money back.

Some Back Story

In September 2007, I moved to Sweden. As part of the move, my new company here allowed me to use their corporate account to quickly ship across my computer components. My girlfriend, Kim, lives with me in Sweden and was home most days at the time.

“The Second Shipment”

I sent two shipments to myself. Heather, my good friend of 5 years running and roommate from SF for many of those, was my local SF help. I had already left for Stockholm (complicated last days schedule) so she stepped in to handle the final shipments. The first shipment arrives without issue. The second shipment consisted of three boxes:

1. My computer
2. A new 30″ Samsung 305t monitor
3. A box of misc. computer components

Boxes #1 and #3 were perfectly fine. A little worse for wear, but I expected nothing less from a trip around the world. Box #2, however, was a different story. When the shipment arrived, Kim was the one home to accept it. Not knowing exactly what was coming, she had no idea what to expect and what not to expect. So when she pulled the boxes inside she didn’t note anything was wrong…

When I returned home that evening, I was elated. The monitor which I had bought in the US but hadn’t gotten to try was here and I was excited. I put my belongings down and went to haul the monitor out to the living room to get it setup when, to my surprise, it lifted with almost no effort. A bit shocked at having heaved a mighty ho only to find the box sprung up into my hands like a coiled snake did the realization that something was horribly wrong hit me.

The Discovery

After toting the far-too-light box to the living room, I was filled with dread; there could be only one reason this was so light and I didn’t want to believe it. I was holding out in the hopes that I was wrong. I thought, “Perhaps when they said 25lbs, they meant …. I dunno!”

I opened the package from the top edge — cutting across the packing slip seal. Upon opening the case, I found the following:

1. Two undamaged halves of box filling styrofoam
2. Power cable
3. Registration card and install cd
4. DVI cable
5. A blanket

The blanket was a present packed into the box before it left San Francisco. Heather put it in there for me. She also very securely retaped the box afterwards knowing what precious cargo it carried.

The odd thing about this dilemma, however, was that the styrofoam pieces were packed correctly — it was as if the monitor had simply vanished from the box. Then the worst fear of all arose. I put everything inside the box aside and flipped it over. The box had been copiously resealed with DHL branded packing tape. Almost as if someone had opened it, carefully removed the monitor, replaced the contents correctly, and resealed the whole thing. I was livid with anger. I trusted this company with my precious commodities, my beloved belongings, my valuable assets and they (or one of its responsible agents) had opened my box, removed a $1,300 monitor, packed it back up, and sent it on its way.

Taking Up The Cause

I couldn’t seem to make contact with the DHL claims department over email, so Heather offered to start the process on her end in the U.S. After a few calls, she was hooked up with a guy we only know as Steve. Steve started processing the search for my, as he put it, “lost” monitor. I understood he had to do his thing, but knew without a shadow of a doubt that his search would uncover absolutely nothing. I was correct. I took over the badgering of Steve for progress updates soon after the initial contact. His constant explanation was something like this:

Well, sometimes when packages move through the conveyors, they may split open and the contents fall out. When that happens, an agent will put it all back as best they can and tape it up to continue shipping along.
– Steve

This kind of scenario I could, perhaps, believe if a box with lots of small items burst open and a few got shuffled away. But, here, this is positively a load of bull crap. How does a HUGE 30″ monitor “fall out” of a box without damaging the styrofoam and not get put back in? Or even more to the point, how did none of the other small, easily lost, loose-packed items (cords, manuals, etc) not also fall out and get lost?

At this point, the claims process started…

Where It Stands

DHL has put me through 2 stages of their “collection deflection” process now. First, they held me up for 35 days, claiming that they’ve been backlogged (with your company constantly stealing property, that’s not big surprise) and eventually sent me a settlement for $727.11 — about half of the monitor’s value. Their rationale was that I hadn’t insured the package, so they would not cover the cost of the monitor but only a predetermined about based on its weight.

As that settlement was unacceptable to me, I expressed my discontent with it and sent a formal letter in which put my case back in the “collection deflection” queue. Almost 20 days later, today, I received their response: Essentially, they reprinted their first letter and had a new person sign it. They’ve refused to pay me back for stealing my property.

My Rationale

I understand there are inherent dangers in shipping goods. Moving a package halfway around the world can be difficult. Inevitably, the contents of some packages will break or entire packages can go missing. I accept these facts and, had one of those been the case, would be willing to concede on the settlement amount proposed due to the lack of purchased insurance.

Theft, however, is not a risk one should account for, nor accept, when the thief is in the employ of the company itself. To be expected to pay for the protection of my goods against theft by the company I’m shipping with is tantamount to running a protection racquet on the goods DHL ships. As if to say, in your best gangster slang, “Well your stuff might make it there, but every once in a while packages get opened and looted en-route, so you should pay us double to ‘protect’ your items.”

Next Steps?

This is why I’m posting this publicly. I’ve been a nice boy and run through their process now. I’ve jumped their hoops and barked when they clapped to try and do this right. I’ve been polite (firm, but polite) and never once lashed out at the people trying to make this happen.

However, I’m stuck. Apparently the second time around is the last time they will review a claim with their customers and the decision is “final” in their eyes. So, after playing the game by their rules, I’m looking to see how else I can attack this problem.

If you have any suggestions, I would really appreciate it. Perhaps you know someone who has fought for a claim with DHL and gotten it. Perhaps you know some people there I can contact about this. Perhaps you can help me push this publicly to make it cost them more than a simple $1,300 check would hurt them.

Thanks, and wish me luck.

Since Kim’s been gone, I’ve spent the last week by myself here with the cats. Dropped in at work a bit (no point in taking mid-season days off if I don’t need ‘em), done some shopping and cleaning, and LOTS of programming. Oh man. Can’t get into what I’ve been working on yet, but it’s pretty awesome.

My “presents” box got here from my dad the day after christmas. Outside of some personally wonderful gifts from Kimmy and a package still at my moms, this is it for my xmas gifts this year.

It’s a car box filled with lots’o'goodies my dad thought I’d be missing here, along with some power cords I requested (can’t get power to the bedroom, etc, from the one massive unit adapter I have in the living room.)

Two other random images I grabbed while being around the house…

:D hehehe

It was a stunning morning one the 26th

This is an awesome logo. At first glance it makes a bit of sense. If you look at the white space (like the FedEx logo) it becomes even more compelling. Very nice.

I find that interesting. I wonder what else they scan for. More so, I can’t decide if I should press the submit results button or not. Hrm.

Give it a moment to sink in.

My preference is for rifles. I don’t like the kick to my wrist/arm that pistols deliver. Additionally, if I had to use a weapon, I’d rather be 50-300m from the danger.

I’d even more so prefer to be 1-2000 meters away…

b.f.g

And it’s legal in California, if that’s where I end up back at.

“Let’s go do something … some exploring!”

“What be over yonder?”

“Its a monster!”

“OMGNOWAI!”

“Oh, it’s just you!”

“Tee hehehehe”

Yes, the narrative is awesome. I know.

I grew up with lots of animals. Dogs, birds, tarantualas, and more. However, our real stock of animal was cats. So much so that at one point our house was home to 11 cats! Since moving out on my own, I’ve really been missing having cats around. Between owning a bird and living with an allergic roommate, I had no opportunities.

Moving to Sweden, however, changed that. Within about 3 weeks of my arriving we found an adoption center, laid down a few bucks, and brought home two rambunctious fun kittens. They are brother and sister, commonly referred to as “boy” and “girl” since it took us nearly 2 weeks to name them (now Sam and Lucy).

Anyway, Kim has taken tons of pictures of them, but I figured I’d pull a few from the group.

So small!

Amazingly blue eyes — they have since changed to a yellow brown. :(

“Gimme dat!”

Lazy bums.

She likes to jump up and sit on my shoulder. I call her Pirate Kitty.

He likes to hang out in front of me at my desk. In fact, as I write this, both of them are laying in the space under the monitors you see there. :)

Terribly adorable!

Real encryption standards all have their entire source published. The basis of this idea is that “security through obscurity” is a fallacy. Simply because someone doesn’t know your password is “lovemydog” does not make it a good password. In fact, it leads you to an entirely false sense of security. In this same way, THP is making the development of the project open so that no one tries to make it secure by saying “well, no one knows XYZ, so they couldn’t possibly break in!”

I wonder how long the **AA will let this project live on Google code and, when they begin file papers (as they are so good at), if Google will ask that the project be removed from their system.