BigCat's Blog of DOOM

This Weeks Twitter Updates - 2009-01-04

BigCat — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 04:59:59 +0000

http://vineyardusa.org has reworked their website. So far I really like it. I wonder what CMS is under the hood here. First guess is drupal. #
Happy 2009! Currently chillin’ in Indy, getting ready to visit Cham-bana. Who is ready to party w/ Lauren and me? #
Living it up w/ my friends in Chicago. Drinkin beers, mocking Daniel. Good times. #
Stupid weather. Got a stuck in a storms agian this year. And this time I got so close to gettin all the way. In Eau Claire WI. #

Does Stage 4 Faith have a ‘Hill to Die On’

BigCat — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:00:08 +0000

Originally I wrote this as a possible guest-submission to Dave Schmelzer’s Blog, but silly-me, I had forgotten that a similar topic had been covered in a couple previous posts around September-October time-frame. So, in the future, Lauren may submit something as a guest-blog over there that extends upon this idea and proposes some other questions that are related. This had accidentally appeared once on LJ while still in draft status, due to a mistake in how I handled the cross-posting plugin, so I’m deleting a few old comments (sorry Rob and Bob), and opening this up for new comments because after editing the post took a different tone than originally was planned.

Please share your thoughts, I’d love to hear what some of my friends who don’t frequent Dave’s blog think about this topic.
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Every year for my wife’s birthday she has a movie marathon and shows 6 of her favorite movies throughout the day. A perennial favorite has been Iron Jawed Angels, a movie about Alice Paul fighting for women’s suffrage.
( The 'Ethanol Effect' when tackling the worlds issues )

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-29

BigCat — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Chillin at an urgent care clinic waiting to see if they can take care of Lauren’s nasty cough. Only an hour left to wait to get seen. #

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-28

BigCat — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Setting up Dad’s new MacBook, and getting files transfered over. Gonna try open office for a while and see how that works out for him. #

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-26

BigCat — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Lauren got me a bluray player, and family is giving me movies! Super-duper excited! #

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-25

BigCat — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Just recieved The Dark Knight from my little brother. Super excited to put it on my iPhone. #
Yay Christmas! #

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-24

BigCat — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Loving the ‘Noel-athon’ at Jazz, Blues, and Soup resturant in St. Louis. Some guy is currently rocking the ukelyle - pure awesome. #

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-23

BigCat — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Now in O’Fallon IL, chillin’ with Dad and Mom - unfortunately Lauren has come down with a cold and I left my bluetooth in Davenport. #
Paine actually did it. He injured a fellow Bear with his stupid reckless head-down tackling. Now we get to play w/o Tillman for a while. #
Da Bears! Suck it packer biatches. #

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-22

BigCat — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Chillin’ in Davenport with Dirk and Val. Wondering why their desktop can’t share files with my laptop. #

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-21

BigCat — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Not snowing in Mason City my ass. Stupid weather chanel. #

Twitter Updates - 2008-12-18

BigCat — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Looking forward to visiting friends and family starting this weekend. Hoping the weather is nicer than last year for the trip. #

Injustice in Prosecuting Tech-related Crimes

BigCat — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:15:45 +0000

http://thejuliegroup.blogspot.com/

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081124-teacher-in-porn-popup-case-dodges-jail-loses-creds.html

This type of thing makes me really mad. This woman suffered pretty horrible consequences of a hacker/virus, and no official can admit that.

The worst part is the people brought in to testify as ‘expert’ witnesses.

Maybe it is my tech-background chip on my shoulder, but these are the people that stifle innovation and forward thinking. School IT administrators, law enforcement types, etc, who think that their position makes them moral authorities. And what is worse is that they are incompetent at their jobs.

A slightly more in-the-know lawyer (oddly a profession that is slow to adapt to new technologies according to my father-in-law) could have blown holes in these testimonies with just a little bit of prior discovery, and a counter-witness who could demonstrate exactly how quickly a computer could be compromised and the effects that happen when it is.

It is simple cause-and-effect - you can install windows in half an hour in a court-room, set it up with basic drivers while a jury is watching, and then install the virus and show immediate effects of it.

Case closed, trial over, IT guy fired, cyber-forensic guy fired.

There is a similar case where a really insidious virus puts child-porn into the browser cache and local RAM w/o ever visiting websites or other content providers that may cause the problem.

So you have evidence of being a child pornographer who is only half-way competent at covering your tracks. Which of course makes you look more guilty initially.

Maybe it is my over-inflamed sense of justice that my wife accuses me of having, but this type of thing gets me really incensed when I read about it.

The lessons learned here are: don’t be quick to judge when it comes to computer crime, be open to being wrong if you form an opinion in cyber-crime cases, and make sure you use a secure browser and don’t install things from websites just all willy-nilly and install virus scanners. (there are free ones like AVG free edition, ClamWIN, AntiVir, etc)

Being Green is about more than being Green

BigCat — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:10:03 +0000

Lauren and I have been trying to do better at recycling (unfortunately Minneapolis makes you sort it, so I forget a lot) and we have probably cut our actual trash in half or better in the last 6 months.

Also, I’ve been doing a lot of work over the last year for the solar market (CIGS solar to be exact), and I’ve been attending a lot of talks on Green buildings (particularly churches) at the conferences I’ve attended and I’ve had an interesting realization.

Being Green, particularly the principal of understanding where things you consume come from, and where the waste and other end products of consuming those things goes, and who that affects, can be really relevant to other areas of life.
( A application that matters to me )

So, let me know what you think. Am I over-thinking here, or is there a way you think that I or we as global citizens could be more ‘green-minded’ in areas that aren’t necessarily considered green.