Clumsy

Bit my tongue yesterday. Stumbled down stairs today, managed to right myself before doing damage. My throat is sorer than usual after a day's training. Checked biorhythms - my physical is way down there, nearly at minimum. Hmm. Jury's still out, but either every time I've checked it's been a coincidence, or it's true.

Of course it could just be the fact that I worked all weekend, got up at 6am this morning (hey, I'm not used to it! I usually get up at 8), and have just finished work at 6pm. And have the same to look forward to over the next few days. Yum.

Oh, and this is a weird time for relationships. People are coming into the country, leaving the country, making new relationships, breaking relationships, and all are friends of mine. I'm babbling.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 18:21  |  

Friday, June 27, 2003

Virus warning!

Yet another "virus" making the rounds (actually a "worm", not a virus). And as usual, the mode of transmission is via PEBCAK. Solution: do not open attachments that you do not trust. That is getting to be nearly ALL attachments.

Here are my guidelines (in case you're interested):

• In Windows Explorer, click Tools/Folder Options, select the View tab, and take the tick out of "Hide file extensions for known file types"


• Only open attachments from people you know well, that are sent in character, i.e. not unsolicited but apparently in reply to a request you didn't make, and definitely not if it doesn't sound like them typing


• Only open attachments that end in .TXT, .HTM, .HTML, .JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .MPG, .AVI - these files contain text or other "document" type information like pictures, but no programming information


• Open .ZIP attachments if you wish, but if they contain anything but the above-named files, exercise extreme caution


• Grey area attachment files: .SWF, .DOC, .XLS, .PPT, .PPS - these files are also "document" type files, but are in a form where they can execute code, and can fool you into doing something potentially dangerous. Exercise extreme caution


• Avoid like the plague all of attachments ending in the following: .VBS, .SCR, .PIF, .COM, .EXE, .BAT, .CMD - unless you definitely know otherwise, assume they are dangerous

Any file not listed above may still be dangerous. Obviously I can't list every known file extension, but these are the most popular. If in doubt, call or email the sender and verify that they did in fact send the item. If it is in the danger list, it may still contain a "trojan" - a dangerous payload buried within an otherwise useful or entertaining program. The dancing baby video from a few years back was a prime example of an entertaining program that could be used to transport a trojan.

Finally, one of the worst forms of "virus" is the hoax virus warning. If you receive a "virus warning" email that does not contain links to specific related articles on trusted security sites, please do not forward it to all and sundry. If you feel morally bound to warn others, do a little research - two minutes on Google should suffice - to see if the virus is actually real, and not some semi-ignorant attempt at FUD and scaremongering. If you find a valid reference online, add a link to the email and forward it.

Here are two links to sites on Symantec's website. I don't endorse them - there are several similar sites - although I have used these from time to time.

Common hoaxes

Current threats

Happy, and safe, mailing!

posted by Jeremy Smyth 11:38  |  

Thursday, June 26, 2003

Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow

I've got this personality trait - I like being busy. My family know this. My friends know this. People know when they call me I'm in the middle of something. Always. Anyway, I notice myself procrastinating from time to time, so my solution is to set myself tasks, goals, and keep busy. Well, from time to time this backfires.

Next week, I'm teaching a fairly important course that is aimed at some fairly important people, from my company's perspective at least. And it's a tough one. So I've been quite busy with it for some time, had to travel to learn the material, then come back and research the material etc. At the same time (outside of work) I've been playing catch-up with my OU stuff, and failing. As you may know, I moved home a few months ago, which totally upset my cushy home working environment, and left me trying to settle in to the new place. It's comfortable, don't get me wrong, but it's not what I was getting used to, so I hadn't been able to work there effectively. The end result was that my home work suffered, and I was late with a number of things. And that trickled forward, so I was late with the next.

I took to bringing my home work to work with me, and staying late, knowing that I'm used to my work environment being a work environment. But then I ended up doing other work stuff instead, and playing games, and basically not getting my work done. The end result is I've got two big deadlines hanging over me, vying for my attention, and guess what? My work ethic is suffering.

Instead of working more efficiently, I'm wasting more time. I know I have a lot to do, so I've been spending time saving my energy so I can work harder, and not actually getting around to the work. I'm getting it done, just a lot slower than I should. In fact, a lot slower than before with the same workload. The difference this time is pressure. I fell behind at the beginning of the year, and the pressure piled on, I haven't been without an impending (or late!) deadline in several months, and I think my urgency gland is broken. Which is rather amusing, because one of the courses I teach includes a section on stress management and protection, and I've become a bad example. Sigh.

To top it all off, the weather for the last week has been glorious. I've been cooped up in a darkened room (the projector, you see) during the days I'm teaching, and stuck back late either learning (for next week) or correcting (for my learning students) and leaving to see the sunset. The only sun I get is the 25 minutes I get between walking on the way to work and running across the road for lunches. Still, today was overcast, so I'm not missing much.

Oddly, my biorhythms for today are OK ish. For the last few days, all three have been above the line (three not including intuitive, which isn't widely used apparently). Today's a crossover for physical, so if I were to believe in it, that'd explain why I'm a bit tired. Or it could be the darkness if I were hypochondriac. Or it could be the chronic stress if I hadn't been so stressed I'd gone out the other side to anti-stress and utter bliss and ignorance. Oh, if only...

So tomorrow I'm going to start working on my procrastination. Or maybe next week. No, I'm teaching that course next week. OK, so after the course, next week. No, then I've a tutorial. So after that. I promise.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 17:00  |  

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Democracy is dead. Fnord.^*

"Something like three-quarters of the American public gets whatever news it receives from TV. And we all know what's become of TV news. As the line between informing and entertaining disappears altogether, so does the notion that news departments exist for any purpose other than entertaining--getting the best live shots, telling a tidy and gratifying "human" story, making sure the heroes look like heroes and the correspondents look like models. The Bush administration has excelled at crafting bedtime stories for the TV news, and the networks show no sign of tiring of them."

http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/sperry/



"...I am forever grateful to Orwell for alerting me early to the danger flags I've tried to watch out for since. In the world of Animal Farm, most speechifying and public palaver is bullshit and instigated lying, and though many characters are good-hearted and mean well, they can be frightened into closing their eyes to what's really going on.

The pigs browbeat the others with ideology, then twist that ideology to suit their own purposes....How quickly the precept 'All Animals Are Equal' is changed into 'All Animals Are Equal, but Some Are More Equal Than Others'. What oily concern the pigs show for the welfare of the other animals, a concern that disguises their contempt for those they are manipulating."

"...the regime's need for enemies and wars - fictitious though both may be - which are used to terrify the people and unite them in hatred, the mind-numbing slogans, the distortions of language, the destruction of what has really happened by stuffing any record of it down the Memory Hole....Orwell was writing a satire about Stalin's Soviet Union, ... but he did it so well that I could imagine such things happening anywhere."


http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,978278,00.html



"In the United States people are very much afraid, there's no question about it. The support you see in US polls for the war is very thin, but it's based on fear. It's an old story in the United States. When my kids were in elementary school 40 years ago they were taught to hide under desks in case of an atom bomb attack. I'm not kidding. The country is always in fear of everything. Crime for example: Crime in the United States is roughly comparable with other industrial societies, towards the high end of the spectrum. On the other hand, fear of crime is way beyond other industrial societies."

http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1555839.php


"Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels said that, if you repeat something often enough, the people will believe it. On October 7, 2002 Bush said, without any evidence to support it, that what is to be feared is that in Iraq's case, the "smoking gun" could come in the form of a "mushroom cloud." National Security Adviser Rice repeated this on October 8, and Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke did so on October 9. On October 11 Congress voted for war."

http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern06232003.html


"In the US, news that Washington ignored the testimony of its own intelligence agencies has been greeted by the plunging of heads into sand. For conservatives and much of the US mainstream, such matters are best not thought about. The four-square solidarity behind the White House following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks will admit no imperfection on the part of government."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,978593,00.html



_{^*"The first conditioned reflex was to experience the panic reaction (the activation syndrome, it’s technically called) whenever encountering the word "fnord." The second conditioned reflex was to black out what happened, including the word itself, and just feel a general low grade emergency without knowing why. And the third step , of course, was to attribute this anxiety to the news stories, which were bad enough in themselves anyway…The fnords produced a whole population walking around in chronic low-grade emergency, tormented by ulcers, dizzy spells, nightmares, heart palpitations, and all the other symptoms of too much adrenaline…All my left wing arrogance and contempt for my countrymen melted, and I felt genuine pity. No wonder the poor bastards believe anything they’re told"
Shea, Robert and Wilson, Robert Anton. The Illuminatus Trilogy. 439.(What is a fnord?)}

posted by Jeremy Smyth 13:46  |