Mundanity

Observations on Everything

Although "It's Fixed in the Next Release" is a mantra from software development (or rather technical support), the intent here is to apply the phrase to a broader context, for example, "It's fixed in my next reincarnation." This broad interpretation means that the entries here cover vastly unrelated subjects.

If you're looking for a tightly focused blog with short, pithy entries, you are in the wrong place (although there are some). Here, blogging is about content.

I have done one thing to make things easier on non-technical readers. All of my comments that deal with specific aspects of software development are in a category that doesn't show up in the main list. you have to select It's a Code, Code World to see these posts.

Instead of maintaining an increasingly diffuse presence on this site, where not knowing what the hell I'm going to do next gets mixed visitor reactions, I've been branching out to multiple web locations, each with a clearly defined focus.

This blog will remain diverse in topics and erratic in frequency, but instead of following the "about everything" tag line so literally, I've started moving new things to their own topic-specific places. I figure this will make this blog slightly easier to label and the new locations will benefit from a tighter focus.

This also means that this blog will suffer from something I have never really liked about blogs: updates that are about me, instead of about something I find interesting. The only upside is that I'll try to restrain myself to pointing at stuff that's interesting.

Documenting the Redevelopment of the Valhalla Inn

I live beside the Valhalla Inn, which is undergoing a transformation to the One Valhalla condo complex. As construction got underway, starting with demolition of the old hotel, I started taking pictures. I'm now posting them on posterous. They're just snapshots taken through the window of my condo lobby, so they're more documentation than art.

Canadian Entrepreneurialism and Venture Media Canada

My Internet broadcast channel, Venture Media Canada just posted its second show. After considerable frustration in trying to raise the production value of the show, I just gave up and posted the best I could manage. Fixing a Skype call in post-production is just too much work for the return you get back. That's the bad news. The good news is that the actual interview is exactly what I was hoping for when I started this project. I talk with Erika Hanchar, who with her partner Ryan, started a wedding photography business on a dream, some government funded business training, and a $500 credit card. She was 20 when they started. Seven years later, Rowell Photography has a worldwide reputation as one of the best in the business. Erika's story about the process and how they managed it is compelling.

I think all the excitement I initially had about the Venture Media Canada concept was justified. Production issues aside, these interviews offer a unique insight into what it means to start your own business. That's exactly what I was hoping for when I started and it's amazing to see it become real. I also know it will take months or even years of work before it starts to catch on. I plan to have fun with it along the way!

Movie Reviews

The small number of you who are fans of my recently launched movie reviews will notice that the flow of new reviews has stopped. This is largely because I'm dependent on a flow of premieres from studios, and making these connections takes time, and most of my effort has been on producing new content. I'll keep working on this, so bear with me.

These days things are really busy over here. Aside from neglecting this blog (partially Twitter's fault), it's a good busy. Too much work in a recession is a nice problem to have. I've been working early mornings and late nights to find quiet times when I can concentrate and keep up with the load.

So now it's a four day long weekend. My spouse has the time off, my stepson is in town, and it's going to be really hard to get stuff done. For a split second I resented the weekend as interference with work, and that's when one of my alarm bells went off.

Let me back up for a moment. I've always been a little ahead of the curve. I started my first home based business shortly after university, in 1981. Back then it was radical, now it's an established practice. There are many advantages to running a business from home, like my ten second commute to work. But there are disadvantages too, and one of them is that same ten second commute. Over the years I've learned to identify destructive thought patterns and to change course before doing much damage. "I wish everyone else was at work" is high on that list.

Over the past three decades, I've had times when I was so involved with my work that my friends forgot I existed. I did a lot of exciting work, but for the most part the results of my efforts have long since disappeared. Meanwhile most of my friends are still around. More poignantly, some of them are no longer around. The hard lesson is that the time I spent on work is time I didn't spend with them, and now there's no way to address the imbalance.

So if you find yourself resenting the long weekend, take a step back and get a new perspective. Most of us are working hard to bring benefits to our immediate families. Don't focus on that to the point where you deprive them of what they want and need most... your full attention.

[Updated: watch my line speed improve over time!]

There's not much to say, these numbers speak for themselves. I figure I'm about 3Km from the nearest CO.





Okay, I lied 121ms pings?? Give me a BREAK!
I may just give up on DSL.

Hey my line went dead for about half an hour today (no dial tone even) and look:



Moving from "effectively non-functional" to "pathetic" Way to go.

More news... 7:40 on a Saturday morning, and finally things seem to be up to par:





Now we know the connection is definitely up to snuff, although the ping times are a little pathetic. The next question is how well does this hold up during peak demand. Even though the line isn't shared, there's network hardware at the other end that needs to keep up with peak loads. We'll see...

Since my Skype Fraud post is one of the most popular here, I thought I'd throw in a few references to some other similar tricks. This one is particularly funny:

Bad Luck Facebook Scammer, You Picked A Target Who Reads Consumerist with the wonderful phrase "Once I deposit the funds, you can print it out of any colour printer and it's real money!"

Then there's the original article referenced in the one above: Nigerian Scammers Break Into Your Gmail, Ask Your Friends For Money.

We can only hope that one of these days the scammers just go out of business because everyone has enough information to spot them and waste their time. Not likely, but one can hope.

Possibly the Internet's most valuable contribution to society is it's ability to foster dialogue. Unfortunately that dialogue is frequently not constructive. Among the least constructive techniques is the "attack and run" method, because there really is no way to control another person's ability to communicate. The attacked person merely opens another channel. This is a case in point.

Earlier today, the nameless writer behind a seemingly useful site, http://www.space.gs/, known as "Astronautics" (formerly "astrospace") on Twitter, decided to communicate information about a mail server security problem. He or she posted several tweets on the subject (many now absent). This is the remaining one:

Astronautics: JSC mail server may have been hacked. If you get an HSFNEWS email from NASA check that the urls in the email are not Chinese

Then some time later, this tweet:

Astronautics: I lost many followers making that public service announcement - it's strange how so many people have no sense of duty.

I thought I'd offer an explanation. Honestly I thought I was polite:

alan_langford: @Astronautics You assume all your followers are affected and/or can't recognize spam. You flooded twitter with what amounts to noise. Not good

Just in case, I added (fixed a typo):

alan_langford: @Astronautics I happen to think your "regular" feed is interesting enough to tolerate the odd lapse, but obviously not everyone else does.

The public response was:

Astronautics: I do my duty and make public service announcements. I make a difference. I will not bend to court popularity.

Which is all well and good, but it seemed to me that the author was trying to understand why many followers left, which is unrelated to one's sense of duty. Maybe it was my sense of duty to try to offer an explanation in the first place. Then I got this rather shocking direct message:

DM from Astronautics: It is not a 'lapse' and I do not care what some loser like you thinks. I am a professional journalist with a sense of DUTY. Go to hell.

The individual subsequently blocked me, removing the opportunity to respond as well as depriving me of his "journalistic" feed and forcing me to respond in a public way. I suppose in hindsight that's not much of a loss.

So here's my response: this person is clearly using a definition of "professional" with which I am not familiar. Maybe I'm out of touch. If anyone has a link to a credible reference that lists name calling, not identifying yourself, and telling people to "go to Hell" as professional, please send it to me. Considering the increasing meaninglessness of "professional" when attached to "journalist", I am now questioning the credibility of anything on this site. That's too bad, because credible news on space and astronomy would have been a good thing.

This one probably isn't new, but it's worth noting. An associate recently got this bogus "security warning". Appropriately named "irony", the message warns the user that "Security Center has detected Malware" and directs the user to a site where they can download a patch. Click on the image for a full sized version.

The "patch" will install malware on the user's computer. At least they can't forge the link as belonging to Microsoft, but this could easily fool an unsuspecting user.

This is simple and effective. If you suspect that the company who is calling you is not legitimate, ask the caller for their web site address.

If the call is a fraud attempt, the "agent" probably won't be able to give it to you. One of these things will happen:

• They won't "remember" it. For extra bonus fun, ask them if their sales manager knows it.
  
• They'll give you a legitimate site that isn't theirs. Ask them to hold on while you pop it up. If that doesn't make them hang up, ask them where the information relating to their offer is. They might tell you it's an exclusive offer that's not available on the web, but if the site has nothing that seems to be related to the offer, it's a big warning that they're not telling the truth.
  
• They'll give you a fake site that is theirs. This would be pretty stupid on their part, since it would provide the authorities with a path back to them. Do a search on the site to see what the world has to say about them. If they're not in the search index, then the site was probably set up a few days ago. More sophisticated users can do a whois lookup on them... look at the registration date. Also if the site owner is masked for privacy, you can be sure it's not a large established company. Either way, report the site to your local authorities as soon as possible.
  

These fraud schemes depend on leaving the smallest possible trail back to them. Legitimate businesses want to open as many possible channels of communication with their potential customers as possible.

So it's as easy as this: no web site equals no legitimacy. Protect yourself.

Here's a crime for modern times: make the transmission of an intentionally false Caller-ID message a minor criminal offence.

There's an established mechanism for blocking identity through caller ID, namely the "Private Number" message. Therefore the only conceivable use of false information is to mislead the person being called. Most of the fraudulent calls I receive use bogus, rather than private numbers.

But what should the penalty be? How about something proportional to the impact on the victim? In and of itself, direct victim impact is pretty small, so how about three hours in jail per occurrence?

What, you say that's ridiculously low? Well then how about this: mandatory consecutive terms, no concurrent sentences. Fraudsters have to make a large number of calls in order to find victims (see footnote). Three hours in jail works out to about a year for every three thousand calls. These guys need to make tens of thousands of calls a day, so in a month or so they could easily rack up a sentence in excess of their entire lifespan.

A slap on the wrist for people who flirt with the idea, major hard time for the fraudsters. Works for me.

Footnote: One operation I led on started with an automated dialler, transfered to a "qualifier" who made sure I had a credit card, and then transfered to a "closer", who was none too thrilled when I finally admitted that I was deliberately wasting their time, eight minutes in.

The great thing about Skype is that people can get in touch with you from just about anywhere, and that can lead to great friendships and business. The not so great thing is that any dork from anywhere on the planet can use this same convenience to rip people off.

Here's a message I received today: