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[ My Blogger ]
[ posted 11:21 AM ]
\> War Plan Red
Too many things that I *don't* blog about, so here's something rather random.
In War Plan Red, the assumption was made that Britain would use Canada as a staging point; therefore, the U.S. planned to invade Canada in several areas. First, a joint army-navy force was to capture the port city of Halifax, thereby cutting the Canadians off from their British allies. The next objective was to "[s]eize Canadian Power Plants near Niagara Falls" (Carlson, 2005). Then, the plan was to invade along three fronts: from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, from North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and from the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario. Meanwhile, the Navy would seize the Great Lakes and blockade Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.
And as a bonus, Defence Scheme No. 1, drawn up before War Plan Red:
... details a surprise counterattack on the northern U.S. as soon as possible after evidence was received of an American invasion of Canada.
According to the plan, Canadian troops stationed in Pacific Command in Western Canada would immediately be sent to seize Seattle, Washington; ...
When resistance stiffened, the Canadians would retreat to their own borders, destroying bridges and railways to hinder American pursuit.[1] The purpose of the invasion would be to allow time for Canada to prepare its war effort and to receive aid from Britain, or to limit the American invasion before the US government opted to discontinue the incursions.
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[ posted 8:55 PM ]
\> Teacher Arrest at JFK
I think this is pretty old, but I got this in e-mail and thought I'd share it, given the higher average IQ of this blog's readership and the focus on math-related vocations. Enjoy.
Teacher arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport
A teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, the Attorney General said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al-Gebra is a problem for us," the Attorney General said. "They derive solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values." They use secret code names like 'X' and 'Y' and refer to themselves as "unknowns", but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.
As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle'.
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Obama said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes." White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President. It is believed that the Nobel Prize for Physics will follow.
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[ posted 11:08 AM ]
\> Google/Blogger Shafts FTP Users
I received this e-mail in my inbox this morning:
Dear FTP user:
You are receiving this e-mail because one or more of your blogs at Blogger.com are set up to publish via FTP. We recently announced a planned shut-down of FTP support on Blogger Buzz (the official Blogger blog), and wanted to make sure you saw the announcement. We will be following up with more information via e-mail in the weeks ahead, and regularly updating a blog dedicated to this service shut-down here: http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/.
. . .
WTF! Screw you, Google/Blogger. I'm not in a good mood today.
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[ posted 5:14 PM ]
\> Adventures in Espionage
[ I have a handful of blog topics in my head. Need to find time to write. This is somewhat of a technical post. ]
Several days ago, HL was having a bad day. On top of that horrendously bad day, a window kept popping up on her machine, "Antivirus Vista 2010", looking something like this:
I have to admit-the UX looks pretty convincing as official antivirus software. What was extremely annoying about this virus was that it would pop up again and again as it "detected" hundreds of viruses. Also, it completely broke Internet Explorer, though Firefox continued to function.
Neither Google nor Bing provided anything really useful about this spyware, other than the fact that others had been infected by this, and that in order to remove it, one could download this software, and, after paying for a sum of money, one could rid oneself of this annoying little bugger. I convinced HL to let it be, and that I would take a look at it after work.
When I finally got a chance to look at the machine, I realized that the "infection" was worse that I thought. Clicking on any antivirus options in the Windows Control Panel would open up this stupid dialog. It was indeed frustrating.
What I first did was take a look at the running tasks, and found one suspicious executable: av.exe. I tried killing it, and the annoying dialog went away. Bingo! Unfortunately it would come back moments later. Hmmm. I tracked av.exe down to %LOCALAPPDATA% and nuked it (for some reason this was tricky as not only was the file marked as hidden, there seemed to be some other protection placed on it as well. Shrug-renaming a file worked).
I thought I was all done, when I noticed that Internet Explorer was even more messed up; it kept asking me to choose a program to open IExplore.exe in. Wtf?! After I chose IExplore to launch IExplore, it would ask a bunch of other .exes as well (like svchost). Wtf!? After puzzling for a moment, I decided to go hunting in the registry.
A quick search and what did I find? The little bugger had added several entries in the registry, the most interesting one being this:
HKCU\Software\Classes\.exe\shell\open\command "(Default)" = "av.exe" /START "%1? %*"
Take a moment to internalize that. After I did, I realized that it is BRILLIANT! What an ingenious way to ensure that your own (malicious) code is always running, even when killed/shutdown, and to log everything the user starts!! (In other words, it routed all executables on the system through itself, launching each one as it saw fit.) Absolutely brilliant!
Cleaning the registry resolved all issues with Internet Explorer, and the machine was back to good health. I love good detective work.
Aside: As I write this up, I found this article online, "How to remove Win 7 Internet Security 2010", which happens to be exactly the steps I took to clean the machine. How neat.
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[ posted 11:56 PM ]
\> Modus operandi
I used Latin in an email today--specifically "modus operandi". The
exact phrase was, "Is this normal modus operandi ...". I was debating
between that and M.O., "mode of operation", or just plain old
"operation". I hesitated for a moment, worrying that it may make me
look like a snob, before thinking (literally), "hey, I might as well
put my Ivy League education to good use.". In reality I don't know
much Latin at all, and all that I do know I learnt in high school
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[ posted 7:06 PM ]
\> Occam's Razor
I'm not a very hairy person. I never have been, and probably never will. I barely have any hair on my arms, and have a hairless chest and back. Keisuke can verify (lol!). I can go a couple days without shaving and not have much noticeable facial hair. I couldn't grow a beard or a mustache if you paid me to (instead, I'd get a handful of strands of hair; I'd look like a vagabond).
I've always shaved using an electric razor. This morning was the first time I've ever used a disposable razor (yes, it took 26.5 years). I was quite worried about cutting myself, and took it very slowly. I'm pleased to report that although it took a while, the whole process went fairly smoothly (no pun intended) and I didn't cut my face.
Of course, while trying to put the cap back on the razor, I managed to slice off a good layer of epidermis on my left middle finger. Not deep enough to draw blood, but deep enough to sting when running water over it, like a paper cut. Ouch.0 comments </Comments:Post a Comment
[ posted 1:28 AM ]
\> Happy New Year! (2009/2010 Edition)
Another year, another set of successes, failures, regrets, goals, and hopes.
A Look Back
- Jan-Mar: CityLeague Ski Racing
- Feb-May: EMT school
- May: Sis' graduation, Ottawa Marathon!
- Jun: Alim's Wedding, Palouse
- Jul: Seafair Triathlon, Steve's Wedding
- Aug: HL :), Park to Park Swim, Enchantments
- Sept: Motorcycle Safety Training
- Oct: Kalaloch/Olympics, Mah jong (13 'yiu'), puzzling
- Nov-Dec: Hong Kong/Taiwan
- X-mas: Victoria
The composition of 2009 was quite different than 2008. In fact, it can be summed up in just two points:
(1) Physical Fitness.
Dang. I ran and finished a marathon this year. My time wasn't too great, but oh well. I ran a lot (in the first half of the year) and picked up swimming again. I was probably in the best physical shape I've ever been in my life. The second half of the year involved considerably less exercise, probably due to the following point.
(2) Holly.
Aw shucks. *blush* Trips to Kalaloch and the Olympics, to Hong Kong and Taiwan, to Vancouver and Victoria. Happiest I've ever been in my life, for sure.
That's actually about it. Very different from 2008 indeed. How did I do against my resolutions?
- Physical fitness? Check.
- Work smarter? Hmm, I didn't work very hard in 2009. My interest has been waning, and the work not very stimulating.
- Vacation? I took a good deal of vacay this year. Sweet. (Yet it still doesn't feel like enough.)
- Dwelling? Sigh. I did pay a neighbour to clean up my yard and trim my trees. Not enough though.
- Photography? I bought the 80-200mm this year. And got into the Photographers @ MS book. :)
- Blogging? Whoops.
- Schooling? Passed EMT school. Uhhh GMAT.
- Skiing? Nothing happened here. The El Nina this winter season (09-10) isn't helping at all.
Funny that this past year's resolutions was the first year I didn't put anything about finding a special someone in the resolutions. It wasn't a question of trying too hard, it was just a matter of luck. Whatever "inflection point" I felt at the end of last year may or may not have happened. Something did change, but it was quite unexpected.
Looking Ahead
Resolutions for 2010:
- Physical fitness. I let this slack in the second half of 2009. Though I'm not sure I'm going to run another marathon this year, I really wouldn't mind picking up biking to participate in a triathlon. I'll probably do more relays. I need to improve on my swim time. I'd like to get outdoors more.
- Work. I definitely need something new in 2010. I thought I'd make a big change in 2009, but I didn't. 2010 it is.
- Blogging. This blog has been neglected for the past 5 months. Hehe. I'll do better.
- Sleep. This is a new one. My sleep schedule's been pretty messed up recently. I hope to try to return to a more regular routine in the new year.
- Organization. I've gotten disorganized and a bit lazy over the past several years. I need to get organized.
Many things are up in the air right now. I'm still adjusting to this new life. 2010 looks to be an exciting (and possibly busy) year, if things go well. I certainly hope they do.
Happy New Year!
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