A day at work and then ultimate at Jericho followed by a team bbq at the sailing center. Ultimate game was okay but blew out my left ankle on a hole in the field I hit at high speed about halfway through the game. Lots of rest, ice, compression and elevation. First picture shows the other two players lost to injury last week, one just had surgery and the second is waiting for the swelling to decline so he can have surgery. Had a nice bbq with hotdogs and hamburgers at the windsurfing shack down at locarno beach. Very little breeze, beautiful view of vancouver and good friends.

Joel on Software - Bionic Office: "Most software managers know what good office space would be like, and they know they don't have it, and can't have it. Office space seems to be the one thing that nobody can get right and nobody can do anything about. There's a ten year lease, and whenever the company moves the last person anybody asks about how to design the space is the manager of the software team, who finds out what his new veal-fattening pens, uh, cubicle farm is going to be like for the first time on the Monday after the move-in.

For a person working on intellectual capital intensive industry this office sounds like heaven.

So I'm blogging when I should be sleeping. For those of you living in the U.S. and feel that you really could get a rant or two off your chest using your cell phone on your way to work or even commentary on your day to existence in metropolitan new york check out this link.

For those of you with ipods and disposable cash - the perfect accessory for your Ipod- an Bmw.

I went a couple rounds with my computer tonight trying to get it to talk to the Internet. Tried installing Mandrake Linux 10.0, Mandrake Linux 9.1 and OpenBSD. I think my ethernet card which allows your computer to transfer data to other computers and the internet has gone to the great computer graveyard in the sky. Of course things are never simple. Still getting power to the card but no data transfer. The computer is a pentium II I use as a web server which means hunting for obscure commodity parts to hopefully replace the card and get everything running again. Computers are so much fun.

Wife went to visit some friends and their new kitten. Click photo for an expanded view of general cuteness.

For comparison purposes this is the size of the baby one day after birth at 5lbs. 15 oz. She now tips the scales at over 16 lbs.

Oh how they grow. Our baby has pretty much outgrown her bassinet and will need to move up the pack and play. Sort of like moving from the trendy downtown loft to the starter home in the suburbs. 

Had my first father's day on Sunday. Wonderful start to my day looking into my daughter's eye and sharing that with my wife. Spent some time with a friend watching the second half of the spain portugal euro 2004 game and a bit of time throwing the disc on the beach. Then out to bbq steaks with family in burnaby. 

I was offered a 5 month fulltime contract on Friday with Natural Resources Canada. This is the same group of people I have been working with in the past. The main part of the contract will be to build an english version of the Geosemantica application (link). This application will support groundwater projects we are working on in the Okanagan and another set of projects in the Gulf Islands. I'll also continue contributing to the research and development of the next generation of this application and do ancillary web page creation, project management etc. Looking forward to it. Makes the whole mortgage thing seem a lot more manageable. I'll be back working downtown at Robson and Seymour. Good news. 

On thursday my old friend Chris came downtown with his 2 year old daughter and we went down to Kits pool to take my daughter swimming for the first time. A bit of shock on the first entry but after some splashing around we went back in and she liked it a bit more. The pool may have been a bit cool. Beautiful day in Kits ... walked Chris along bikini row on the way to the pool - he couldn't understand why we would ever move. :-) After everybody dried off we headed down to the swingsets and the playground and hung out with the kids. Chris spent 45 minutes putting a kite together for his daughter....talk about obscure instructions. Nice to hang out with someone you've known for 25 years.  

Wednesday night I attended the first meeting of this committee. I was one of 20 people selected from 67 applicants. We'll be contributing to the development of the Vancouver - UBC transit area plan in combination with staff from the city of vancouver and translink. Quite a diverse group with a lot of planners, transportation experts and generally interested people. Most of the meeting was introductions and goals for the committee and a stack of reading to work on for next time. Kind of group where you throw a stick and hit a planner. Good people to know and get an idea if this is something I really want to do. I love thinking about cities and how they work so should be a pretty intellecgtually interesting experience - - especially since the RAV line was voted down on Friday so transit options are now in flux. 

So after visiting city hall headed back downtown to pick up my wife and child and then headed back to BCIT to attend an information session on the entrenpreneur training program which is funded by HRDC. It is a start your own business program, 10 weeks in the classroom and 38 weeks of followup, you have to show financial committmet for business startup, submit a well thought out business idea and be selected to be one of 20 in the program. BCIT funds you to a tune or 300 dollars a week to participate for 48 weeks. Any money made by the business you get to keep. I'm going to keep an eye on it and think the process through as one of the options for what I want to do with my life.  

Started the day on wednesday by going to Burnaby city hall to have them take a look over the rough drawings for the construction of the ramp. Father had a binder full of engineering diagrams and explanations but ran into a junior clerk who was more interested in telling us what he knew then acutally answering questions. Numerous occasions of him making a point and us bringing to his attention that we had just tried to discuss that and he was too busy talking to listen. Add to that inane applications of the building code. For example, since a ramp falls into the residential construction section of the building code each 6 x 6 post must be supported by a concrete footing 26 inches by 26 inches and 4 inches thick buried 18 inches into the ground. This post must then be surrounded by concrete to a height of 8 inches above the ground. So a width of 52 inches of concrete, a veritable sidewalk under ground to support a ramp 36 inches wide. Did I mention there are 8 posts in the proposed design? Means a return to the drawing board. Of course all drawings must be submitted on paper 2 feet by 3 feet and etc., etc. etc. ....Frustrating. Writing this on saturday we're going to find another way to proceed. We thought of putting it off till next year and quietly building it but too much of an opportunity cost. Rain soaked steps and a wheelchair are a bad combination. On the absurdity of bylaws, the entire house sets 3.6 feet from the fence however new bylaws say any structure must be 4.9 feet from the fence - i.e. the ramp. Of course you can apply for a variance which is more paperwork... 

A little something I'm working on.... 

When boy bands go bad....Went out to a friend's wedding reception on Saturday night in Hatzic held in the barn. The wedding was in november in tofino and saturday night was the party. Much cooler then expected for june but lots of fun none the less - especially will an open bar and dinner. Great to get together with friends. The longest we'd been away from the child in 7 months. Stayed overnight at sister-in-laws and spent the day hanging out. Wife went to 50th birthday party for old dance teacher back when she and sister were hotshots on the child dance tour. Back to when boy bands go bad...Apparently, thirty years ago, Maurice in the bandanna and his cousin had a band being 12 and 14 at the time - 30 years ago. So someone had the brainstorm why don't they play a few songs...Lots of fun - the 70 classics pounded out with the heavy power chords - taking care of business, some kind of wonderful, and a 2 others which exhausted their repotorie. We raised a glass of their beer for the effort.  

This is the final view with the ivy pulled away from the tree. 

Down view 

ivy contained and corraled and ready for transport 

Halfway done - note depth of ivy :-) 

Spent the day out at the house removing ivy to see what was underneath. Ivy a foot thick in places. Tenacious stuff. About 5 hours work to remove a majority of it. Need to see what was underneath while planning a yard rebuild and addition of a wheelchair ramp.

We met with the orthothist (sic?) who custom makes the helmets out of foam and laminate. First the cotton balaclava, followed by the marking of the midline and the ears with a pen followed by plaster of paris molding. The gauze with the plaster of paris on it is wet, molded to the skull and allowed to set. Removed and a cast made from that. We're back in 10 days and then in a month. She'll be in the helmet for up to 6 months. Pink of course... :-)  

Today was a red letter day. We were both showered, dressed, had breakfast and lunch, fed and changed the baby twice and managed to leave the house by 11:45. :-) We headed out to Surrey to show off the baby at wifes previous workplace. They showed her lots of love, asked the wife when she wanted to come back to work for them again and generally showed a little love. Always nice to know they haven't replaced you the moment you went out the door. We then headed over to see the orthortist about getting a helmet for the baby to reshape her mostly flat head. Unlike her father, it is not doctor recommended as a preventative safety measure for day to day living. :-) You can see a sample helmet in the background of the attached photo. It is not a pressure induced change since she is young enough to let the growth curve take care of it. The helmet will fit snugly on the sides of her head and create an empty slightly rounded space on the back of her head for her skull to expand into.  

My wife says my baby really looks like me in the previously posted photo. As Mr. Burns would say... Excellent, my plan is working perfectly.... :-)

Isn't life great. Wife and daughter off to party with mother-in-law and other assorted ladies. I'm busy reading documentation for my new content managment system and planning ways to make money. Played ultimate last night. Not a lot of fun. People cranky with each other. Today is going well. Quiet time with my computer, laundry, and business planning. 

E-mail Confidential - Who's afraid of Time Inc.'s legal disclaimer? By Jack Shafer: "E-mail Confidential Who's afraid of Time Inc.'s legal disclaimer? By Jack Shafer Posted Tuesday, June 1, 2004, at 3:42 PM PT

The other day, a Time Inc. journalist of my acquaintance sent me an e-mail from his corporate e-mail account. I read it quickly and was about to hit the delete icon when I spotted this extraordinary 114-word "disclaimer" sloshing around at the bottom. It read:

This message is the property of Time Inc. or its affiliates. It may be legally privileged and/or confidential and is intended only for the use of the addressee(s). No addressee should forward, print, copy, or otherwise reproduce this message in any manner that would allow it to be viewed by any individual not originally listed as a recipient. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any unauthorized disclosure, dissemination, distribution, copying or the taking of any action in reliance on the information herein is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender and delete this message.

Thank you.

Ignoring the e-mail's threats, I forwarded it to my 175-pound Samoan attorney for his opinion, and he convinced me that Time Inc. has much more to fear from me than I have to fear from Time Inc. In fine Socratic fashion, my counsel walked me through the disclaimer, sentence by sentence, encouraging me to add my own thinking to our exercise. Here are my notes.

International Symposium on Online Journalism Home: "Welcome to the 5th International Symposium on Online Journalism! Check out the photo slideshow, research papers, and stories below to find out what the buzz was at the symposium."

Went to the 25th anniversary celebration of my elementary school on Friday night. This made it my third trip to the deep suburbs in three days. I'm using up my quota awfully fast. It is strange to go back to an elementary school and look at the pictures and realize how young many of your teachers were. I bumped into some teachers who remembered me but it is an awkward conversation. So, you got bigger, moved on to another school, then university, then work, I haven't seen you since I was 11. While have a nice day. I remembered the physical plant aspects more that the people. What the library looked like, the feel of the halls, how long it used to seem to walk from the school to the playground, the sloping tree we used to run up as a contest. It was worn smooth from generations of kids feet. Rushing to school in the morning on your bike to get the first slot in the bike rack. Riding my bike through the paths in the forest or going to a friends house for lunch. A short stroll down memory lane but interesting none the less. 

How I'm spending my morning. She's got the sitting up idea and only falls over about 60 percent of the time. Went out to Maple Ridge last night to play cards with friends and will be out there today for the 25th anniversary celebration for my elementary school. 3 days in a row - I'm going to use up my quota. :-) Also working on getting some resumes off, picking up the keys to our house, visiting grandma and getting some resumes and committee applications out the door. There's also the playing with my daughter. Idyllic lifestyle but the cash burn is starting to hurt.  

We started with peas yesterday. Think about only knowing three flavours. Formula, rice cereal and now peas. She was less than overwhelmed and possible felt slightly betrayed and alarmed. Some pretty strange looks and grunts and other associated noises.  

It was a fairly momentous day yesterday. We became homeowners. We met with the lawyer at 11:30 and signed everything in triplicate. I wasn't nervous before but I started getting shaky putting down my name. Mortgages, land survey, property taxes, utility fees, lawyer fees, drafts for large sums of money. 20 minutes and we were done and walking out again. We went out to Maple Ridge and dropped the baby with the grandparents. Dropped by the bank out there to transfer more money and then a celebratory lunch at the GM restaurant. Great indian food and belgian cheesecake for desert. It seemed like a full circle. My wife and I had one of our first dates 6 years ago at that restaurant. 6 years later we're married with a house and a kid.  

One of our favorite photos. Took our daughter to childrens hospital today to meet with the occupational therapist. Her head is flat on the back but thankfully not overly asymetical. We're looking at getting a orthotic helmet for her head. It will look a little strange but should make the head a little more round. :-) 

I found a new application that lets you easily upload photos to your blog. Google is leveraging the commodity hardware - free photo storage, 1000mb for email. Fun, fun, fun. Picture shot about a week ago.  

openDemocracy.net
is an online global magazine of politics and culture.

We publish clarifying debates which help people make up their own minds.

We seek the finest writing, the strongest arguments, the most compelling views and truthful voices on key issues, great and small.

We use the web’s potential to build and map intelligent discussions which we accumulate and index in our back pages which now include over 1,500 articles.

Written by and for people across the world, from South and North, from the powerless to the influential, we seek to bring together those who are not well-known with writers and thinkers of international repute.

It’s in our name: openDemocracy.net is dedicated to opening up a democratic space - free thinking for the world.

Elsewhere on this site we hope you will find ideas and arguments that engage, annoy, stimulate and surprise you.

You will be invited to take part - in the forums or by submitting your own material to the editors. You will be asked to engage with other sides of the argument, not just the ones that are popular - or promoted by the large companies who dominate the media today. You will be encouraged to draw on your own experience.

The Rebirth of the 'NYRB': "The manner in which Kiesling's letter arrived on these shores points to a significant new development in the higher echelons of American culture: the re-emergence of The New York"

CBC News - Viewpoint

Stumbled across a series of writers on the CBC website. Good writing, interesting viewpoints.

World is Green : Suhit Anantula's Blog on Rural India: Quote of the Day: "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

"I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's concepts:

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."


Source: The Scottish Himalayan Expedition by W.H.Murray

Chaos in Washington

inDiscover - Helping artists get heard, and others to discover independent music.

inDiscover is a service designed to help bring independent music to new listeners. We appeal to both musicians and people interested in hearing fresh new music, by recommending songs based on our user's tastes. Songs are provided by independent artists from around the world in mp3 format (the artists themselves are responsible for hosting the mp3s).

By using a technique called collaborative filtering, we are able to predict how much a given user would like a specific song based on how they have previously rated other songs. After a user rates a song, they are presented with 2 playlists; one of songs that we KNOW that they like, and one of songs we THINK they will like.

By having users rate along different categories (eg. how well would a song be to listen to while working out?) we are able to compose playlists for each of those categories (eg. a playlist of songs we think you would like to workout to).

The Freenet Project - index - beginner

Paypal has frozen the account we use to accept donations over the web, they refuse to give any reason other than "use of an anonymous proxy", which suggests that someone at Paypal took a dislike to the goals of our project, since I have never used an anonymous proxy to access Paypal (this being the activity I assume they sought to prevent). It is fortunate that Johann Gutenberg did not rely on Paypal to fund his work on the printing press, which also allowed anonymous publication of information, since his account would probably have been frozen too.

The Globe and Mail

A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections - National Information Standards Organization (NISO)

Putting this somewhere so I don't lose the link.

Blogger has updated their service. Note the addition of the comments link to the bottom of posts. Feel free to add....

Adult responsibility...

It's been a busy week and a bit. In no particular order...

Signed mortgage papers on Friday. What's several hundred thousand dollars between friends. Almost over all the hurdles around owning a house. Mortgage, line of credit, life insurance, house insurances, chocolate for reaassurance :-).

Spent Saturday moving two trailerloads of soil from my parents to the new house and piling it in the back yard. Sunshine, shovelling and compost. Set the baby in her car seat in the yard to watch us work. Talking with wife and dad and very friendly neighbors about trees to remove, stumps to dig out, ivy to strip, shovelling to be done, ramps to be built...and then there are the water features. Man does dad love those water features.

Submitted a proposal to company for a website redevelopment on thursday. First major potential commercial job. Work with a graphic designer and I'll handle all the coding etc. Thinking I should have put more time into the proposal for project management. Plan to get my own domain name, upload an open source content management system I found and build a business model on top of it. Felt good to make that first step. Also found a cold fusion based open source content management system. Could build business model on it for web design company.

Saturday put in application for teaching job in the urban studies diploma at harbour center. urban development, policy and planning... would be great... find out in june about that

ultimate is going well - we're .500 and the team is playing well together. Good mix of people.

baby is lots of fun. 2 teeth, slightly flat head :-) very joyful

life keeps moving along :-)

From: Bruce Schneier [SMTP:schneier@counterpane.com]
To: crypto-gram@chaparraltree.com
Cc:
Subject: CRYPTO-GRAM, May 15, 2004
Sent: 5/15/2004 1:46 AM
Importance: Normal

CRYPTO-GRAM

May 15, 2004

by Bruce Schneier
Founder and CTO
Counterpane Internet Security, Inc.
schneier@counterpane.com



A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and
commentaries on security: computer and otherwise.

Back issues are available at
. To subscribe, visit
or send a blank message to
crypto-gram-subscribe@chaparraltree.com.

Crypto-Gram also has an RSS feed at
.

** *** ***** ******* *********** *************

In this issue:
Warrants as a Security Countermeasure
Counterterrorism in Airports
Crypto-Gram Reprints
News
Counterpane News
Security Notes from All Over: Bypassing the USPS
The Doghouse: Markland Technologies
The Doghouse: IQ Networks
National Security Consumers
Comments from Readers

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Warrants as a Security Countermeasure


Years ago, surveillance meant trench-coated detectives following people
down streets.

Today's detectives are more likely to be sitting in front of a
computer, and the surveillance is electronic. It's cheaper, easier and
safer. But it's also much more prone to abuse. In the world of cheap
and easy surveillance, a warrant provides citizens with vital security
against a more powerful police.

Warrants are guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment and are required before
the police can search your home or eavesdrop on your telephone
calls. But what other forms of search and surveillance are covered by
warrants is still unclear.

An unusual and significant case recently heard in Nassau County's
courts dealt with one piece of the question: Is a warrant required
before the police can attach an electronic tracking device to someone's
car?

It has always been possible for the police to tail a suspect, and
wireless tracking is decades old. The only difference is that it's now
much easier and cheaper to use the technology.

Surveillance will continue to become cheaper and easier -- and less
intrusive. In the Nassau case, the police hid a tracking device on a
car used by a burglary suspect, Richard D. Lacey. After Lacey's
arrest, his lawyer sought to suppress evidence gathered by the tracking
device on the grounds that the police did not obtain a warrant
authorizing use of the device and that Lacey's privacy was violated.

It was believed to be the first such challenge in New York State and
one of only a handful in the nation. A judge ruled Thursday that the
police should have obtained a warrant. But he declined to suppress the
evidence -- saying the car belonged to Lacey's wife, not to him, and
Lacey therefore had no expectation of privacy.

More and more, we are living in a society where we are all tracked
automatically all of the time.

If the car used by Lacey had been outfitted with the OnStar system, he
could have been tracked through that. We can all be tracked by our
cell phones. E-ZPass tracks cars at tunnels and bridges. Security
cameras record us. Our purchases are tracked by banks and credit card
companies, our telephone calls by phone companies, our Internet surfing
habits by Web site operators.

The Department of Justice claims that it needs these, and other, search
powers to combat terrorism. A provision slipped into an appropriations
bill allows the FBI to obtain personal financial information from
banks, insurance companies, travel agencies, real estate agents,
stockbrokers, the U.S. Postal Service, jewelry stores, casinos and car
dealerships without a warrant.

Starting this year, the U.S. government is photographing and
fingerprinting foreign visitors coming into this country from all but
27 other countries. CAPPS II (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening
System) will probe the backgrounds of all passengers boarding
flights. Over New Year's, the FBI collected the names of 260,000
people staying at Las Vegas hotels. More and more, the "Big Brother is
watching you" style of surveillance is becoming a reality.

Unfortunately, the debate often gets mischaracterized as a question
about how much privacy we need to give up in order to be
secure. People ask: "Should we use this new surveillance technology to
catch terrorists and criminals, or should we favor privacy and ban its
use?"

This is the wrong question. We know that new technology gives law
enforcement new search techniques, and makes existing techniques
cheaper and easier. We know that we are all safer when the police can
use them. And the Fourth Amendment already allows even the most
intrusive searches: The police can search your home and person.

What we need are corresponding mechanisms to prevent abuse. This is
the proper question: "Should we allow law enforcement to use new
technology without any judicial oversight, or should we demand that
they be overseen and accountable?" And the Fourth Amendment already
provides for this in its requirement of a warrant.

The search warrant -- a technologically neutral legal requirement --
basically says that before the police open the mail, listen in on the
phone call or search the bit stream for key words, a "neutral and
detached magistrate" reviews the basis for the search and takes
responsibility for the outcome. The key is independent judicial
oversight; the warrant process is itself a security measure protecting
us from abuse and making us more secure.

Much of the rhetoric on the "security" side of the debate cloaks one of
its real aims: increasing law enforcement powers by decreasing its
oversight and accountability. It's a very dangerous road to take, and
one that will make us all less secure. The more surveillance
technologies that require a warrant before use, the safer we all are.

This essay originally appeared in Newsday:
ory> or

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Counterterrorism in Airports


It's just a pilot program, but undercover security officers are roaming
Boston's Logan Airport, looking for suspicious people who may be
planning a terrorist act. It's got a fancy name, "behavior pattern
recognition," but basically it means "be on the lookout for suspicious
people."

I think this is the best thing to happen to airplane security since
they reinforced the cockpit doors.

I've long argued that traditional airport security is largely
useless. Air travelers -- the innocent ones -- are subjected to all
sorts of indignities in the name of security. Again and again we read
studies about how bad the checkpoints are at keeping weapons out of
airports. The system seems to do nothing more than irritate honest
people. (Remember, when airport security takes a pair of scissors away
from an innocent grandma, that's a security failure. It's a false
positive. It's not a success.)

Well-trained officers on the lookout for suspicious people is a great
substitute.

The devil is in the details, of course. All too often "he's acting
suspicious" really translates to "he's black." Well-trained is the key
to avoiding racism, which is both bad for society and bad for
security. But security is inherently about people, and smart observant
people are going to notice things that metal detectors and X-ray
machines will miss.

Of course, machines are better at ducking charges of prejudice. It may
be less secure to have a computer decide who to wand, or to have random
chance decide whose baggage to open, but it's easier to pretend that
prejudice is not an issue. "It's not the officer's fault; the computer
selected him" plays well as a defense. And in a world where security
theatre still matters more than security, this is an important
consideration.

For about a year now, I've been saying we can improve airport security
by doing away with the security checkpoints and replacing them with
well-trained officers looking out for suspicious activity. It'll
probably never happen, but at least this is a start.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/16/terror/main612369.shtml

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No Doubt?

Wired News: Sick of Spam? Prepare for Adware

Or why you shouldn't install kazaa on your computer...

Copyfight: Why Use DRM If It Doesn't Work?

OJR article: Surf's Down as More Netizens Turn to RSS for Browsing

hear you are --- [murmur]