Diary of a Network Geek

I finished Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge last week.

There's a reason Rainbows End was awarded the Hugo for Best Novel in 2007. It is, to put it simply, a great book. There were parts that got a little slow for me, but, over all, it was a great piece of work. Of course, it probably didn't hurt that I knew Vernor Vinge taught Computer Science and that the book had won the award. That is why I got it to read, after all.

The story follows one Robert Gu, a famous poet who's fallen victim to Alzheimer's Disease, as he's cured and reintegrates into society.  The "down side" of his cure is that he's lost the miracle of his poetry.  Somehow, whatever the cure does to fix the dementia alters Robert's brain in such a way that he is no longer the man he used to be.  And, he'd do just about anything to get that magic back.  The story also follows Robert's son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter as they deal with his regained ability to interact with the world.  The twist comes in with the fact that his son, Bob, and daughter-in-law, Alice, are in the military as part of the group who keeps America, and the world, safe from terrorists of all stripes.  International spies find a way to use Robert's desire for regaining his poetic skills to get inside Bob and Alice's command.  Their goal is somewhat less clear, but it involves a plot to manipulate the minds of the unsuspecting world public to "improve" everyone's way of life.  Of course, things rarely work out the way anyone intends.

Well, as you can imagine, there are some very good reasons this won the Hugo for 2007.  It is a very good book.  I got a little distracted in the middle when life got a little strange, but, for the most part, the plot moved along at a good pace and always had something interesting to offer.  One of the attractions for me was the view of future computer technology that Vinge describes in this book.  His concept of wearable computers that are partially integrated into clothing and contacts seems like a logical step from where scientists are experimenting today.  Vinge presents this, and all the hard science-fiction in this book, in a realistic, no-nonsense way that makes it all seem very plausible.
He also draws some believable characters who's actions are logical and reasonable given their motivation and the circumstances.  I can easily see myself doing some of the same things these characters do, both good and bad.

In short, if you enjoy science-fiction, there's plenty to enjoy in Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge.  Definitely a change for me, but a good one which I heartily recommend.

Everything is still clear.

The doctor said my blood work was excellent.  I put on a couple of pounds, but, then it beats the way I took off all that weight last year!  My blood pressure was lower than it's been on a Monday in a very long time, though, that's probably because I wasn't at work.  The scar tissue on my right lung is about as small as it's likely to get though, and the doctor seemed fine with that.

Everything else, medically, satisfied the doctor, who seemed quite pleased with my progress.
The one thing I do still worry about is the money.  Even with what my medical insurance pays, I'm probably going to owe several thousand dollars this year and next year and, possibly, the year after that!  The thousand dollar deductible and 20% the insurance company doesn't cover adds up pretty quickly with all these scans.  At least I'm on the right side of the grass to deal with them, though, so, I know things will work out eventually.
And, even though we're paying big money at the pumps, I'm very grateful to be working in an industry that services the oil fields right now.  We have work for the next three to five years and they keep me busy.  That's something else I'm really thankful for: having a job.  It's not too many years ago I was out of work and didn't know when I'd work again.  I try to remember that when I have problems on Mondays or have to work late on a Friday to update the firmware on the server drive array.

On a sad note, I found out this morning that an old friend whom I'd fallen out of touch with died yesterday from pancreatic cancer.  Even though I hadn't really talked to him in years, knowing that he's gone makes my own results a little bitter-sweet.
Cancer touches so many lives and I count myself as truly blessed to have been spared so many of the worst aspects of it.  In many ways, I've been very fortunate.  I do want you all to know that I'm more than willing to talk about cancer or my treatment with anyone who may be dealing with it elsewhere in their life.  I hope no one has been touched by cancer more than they have through me, but, if you all have, know that you don't need to be alone with it.

Thanks again for all your prayers and positive support and thoughts!

Simple.

Follow these eight rules from IO9. No, really, just follow their Eight Unstoppable Rules for Writing Killer Short Stories.

Now, 'scuse me while I go write something.

By the time most of you read this, I'll be fully irradiated and probed with God-knows-what-kind of rays.

Yes, the joy of being a recovering cancer patient is that the doctors keep close watch on you.  Today, I'm having the second of four scans I'll get this year.  This time, it's a PET scan, not a CT scan.  Unlike a CT scan, I don't have to drink the barium which messes up my digestive tract for days afterward.  Instead, I'll have an I.V. put in and get injected with a kind of mildly radioactive glucose.  Then, I get to sit quietly and contemplate my sins for an hour while the glow-in-the-dark glucose gets sucked up by my body's tissues.  Anything that's more metabolically active than the surrounding tissue will get a higher dose and, therefore, show up more on the scan.  The theory is that a tumor would use more of that glucose and be an easily identifiable dark spot.

And, I have to admit, the geek in me loves to see the results of this.  When I was near the end of treatment, one of my doctors showed me a side-by-side comparison of the before and after PET scans.  It was like something from the Discovery channel.  Two ghostly, skeletal images of me, in basically the same position, rotating in unison on the screen.  One with a tumor the size of a football in my lung, the other with something more like a big lime, or a kiwi.  The difference was quite startling and the pictures themselves were fairly impressive.  Sometimes I wonder at the age of technological marvels in which we live.

In any case, I'll be fully probed and, hopefully, done by lunch.  My plan is to take my keeper for the day to a decent sushi place for lunch, since I haven't been able to eat since midnight, the only big downside to the PET scan.  And, for a change, I'll get the results Monday, not a whole week later, too.  Normally, I have a very long wait to find out what, if anything, they may have discovered floating around in me, so this will be a nice change.
Naturally, I'll report the results when I get them!

hummus bread with eggs

Originally uploaded by carmen maria

You know what I want to ask LK?

Why didn't you ever fix my kitchen? You were going to make my kitchen efficient and work better, in some way that you never were able to explain to me. I was always secretly hoping that you would find a way to fix my kitchen and, by so doing, somehow, fix me.

I wanted to be a good cook, you know. I wanted to be the kind of man that Padma Lakshmi apparently pines for, one who would cook for her. I have to admit that cooking for a food person like LK was very, very intimidating and, well, I did a poor job of it. It's funny, though, because she wanted a man to cook for her. I think I won her over by making macaroni and cheese. LK, that is, not Padma.

And, I do like to cook, most of the time. Though, I have to admit, I really do think it would go better if I had a more efficiently arranged kitchen. I mean, I might actually accomplish more and finish more of the strange culinary experiments I try.
The picture that I've sneaked from Flickr, which inspired this post, has toasted hummus bread in it. And eggs. I think it would be rather perfect if it included bacon. But, whatever hummus bread really is, and really tastes like, it sounds like an adventure to me. Something to challenge and excite the taste buds. And, of course, I love bread. And toast.

But, I need someone to fix my kitchen.

Strangers

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

Quite possibly the least frightening scary movie I've ever seen.

Well, Child's Play may have been worse, but The Strangers really is a bad, bad movie.
Granted, I am not the biggest fan of so-called horror films because I find them sadly formulaic and predictable, not to mention generally not scary, either. Also, mostly, the people in these movies never seem to learn and they make giant, ridiculous mistakes. Sadly, as much as I hoped this movie might surprise me, it did not.

So, the basic premise of The Strangers is this: A "happy" couple has a bit of relationship trouble after a friend's wedding but end up out in the country at an isolated house where they're stalked by persons unknown. One of the many formulas for horror films. So, naturally, here's this couple, played by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, and they're having a fight about the fact that he's asked her to marry him but she's not ready to marry. And, of course, their fight leads them to sex. Well, almost... As they're starting to get their freak on, a girl knocks at the door asking for some other girl by name, but, of course, not anyone the couple knows. That's the last drama for almost an hour. Yes, that's right, an hour. He goes out for cigarettes and she changes clothes while she dashes about the house hearing the usual "is someone there?" stuff that end up in horror movies. By the time he gets back with her cigarettes, she's freaking out and we know that someone else is there. And, finally, there's some hope that plot will occur and someone will die.

Well, there are finally a couple of deaths and a little bit of suspense and a bit of violence. But, let's look at the mistakes now, shall we? First of all, they're eating Bluebell Ice Cream. Now, that means that these folks are in the rural South somewhere, since that's mostly where Bluebell is available. In fact, I'm betting they're supposed to be in Texas, which is home to the Brenham-based dairy. So, that would mean that there should be guns in the house somewhere. Not just the shotgun they find, but one or more revolvers. I mean, seriously, can anyone believe that a rural Texas home doesn't have more than just a shotgun? Really? Or that a guy would not have at least a passing understanding of how to use it? C'mon! I bet Live Tyler in real life has a better understanding of guns than the "hero" of this story!
Then, Liv Tyler spends most of the movie running around barefoot. Can you not take the time to put on shoes before trying to outrun a someone you think is going to kill you? I mean, seriously, am I going to make a mad dash to a barn over an unknown hillside trying to get away from a murderer without putting on shoes? Yeah, I don't think so, either.
And, do I really need to go into the whole "stay together" thing? Or, do I need to reinforce what a good idea it is to keep your cellphone charged? Or how silly it is to stand by the windows when the killers are right outside and have an axe? Seriously, the two characters in this movie deserved to die. They were too stupid to live. It was just evolution in action.

Honestly, if this isn't the worst movie I see all year, I'd be shocked. In fact, if I hadn't only spent four dollars on the matinee to see The Strangers, I'd be really upset. Do yourself a favor, though, and don't bother seeing this movie, or even renting it. Trust me.

At least, as much as you can secure anything.

Some time back, I pointed you all toward an article about extending your wireless connection. Some of you expressed concern regarding security in relation to wireless connections in general and, specifically, after expanding the range of your wifi router. So, I thought I should get you all some links on how to batten down the hatches, so to speak.
I do think it's important, though, to say a little something about security in general first.
Nothing is totally secure. If a computer is on a network, it can be compromised eventually, given enough time and money. Security is a matter of degrees, of balancing ease-of-use with peace-of-mind. And, while having wifi makes mobile communication easy, it is, by it's very nature, insecure. Anything that broadcasts over an unsecured medium can only be so secure, you know? So, I think it's important as you look at the links below to keep in mind that a determined attacker is going to get into your wifi network, no matter what you do. And, personally, I am more than a little paranoid, so there are just some things I wouldn't do over a wireless network.

Okay, so, without further ado, here are the links:
First, if you don't mind the pop-ups on About.com, here are Ten Tips for Securing Your Home WiFi Network. They're not bad, but, really, some of them aren't all that secure. Or, rather, they just give a somewhat inflated sense of security. Still, they're better than nothing.
Better than those tips, though, is the Lifehacker Guide to Setting Up a Wireless Home Network. This takes you through setting up a wifi router and network from scratch and gives you fairly good tips about securing it along the way. (But, make sure to follow the link to their article ToDo - Secure Your Wireless Home Network!) Better still, follow the article at Ars Technica titled The ABCs of Securing Your Wireless Network.
Freakishly, Microsoft, who's not known for their security practices, has an article about making Windows XP wireless a little more secure. If you run XP, it's worth a look.
And, finally, for those of you with a little extra time, some spare computer resources, and a high level of paranoia, read the Step-by-Step Guide at SearchWindowsSecurity.com titled How To Create A VPN For Your Wireless Network. (Or, if you'd rather download a printable PDF, check out TechRepublic's A Secure Wireless LAN Hotspot For Anonymous Users. It's another way to do the same thing.) Frankly, it doesn't get much more secure than that!

Hopefully, that gives all those curious minds out there enough to chew on to keep you off the streets at night!

I am, however, a Level 5 Perl Monk.

Monday, I was informed that I had gained enough experience to be granted the status of Beadle, or Level 5, on PerlMonks.org as of Monday morning. Now, this may not mean much to you non-geeks, but for Perl geeks this is really something. Granted, it's not as impressive as getting that rank in a week or getting all the way up to Level 13, which gets you listed on the "Saints in Our Book" node, but it does represent a certain achievement in my book.

And, yes, I will still be working toward higher levels. 'Cause that's just the kind of geek I am.

ChroniclesofNarni

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Friday night.

First of all, let me say that this was as good as or better than the first Chronicles of Narnia movie. Also, I read the books when I was a kid, but I haven't read them again since. I do remember some of the books, but, most importantly, I recall that I enjoyed the books quite a bit at the time.

This movie was about the four "Sons and Daughters of Adam" of legend, and from the first movie, coming back to find a very different Narnia than they left. Naturally, as we found out in the first movie, time moves quite a bit differently in Narnia than it does in our world, so when Lucy and Susan and Edmund and Peter go back, they've become ancient history. The kingdom they built with Aslan has fallen to a foreign invader. They've ruled for more than ten generations, driving the Narnians into hiding, after trying to kill all the former subjects of Narnia, that is. So, as you can see, there may be a bit of tension between these two factions. Now, picture if you will, a prince who's been taught all the old stories and has a very different view of his people's ancient enemy. And, there, in a nutshell, is the central conflict of the movie. Prince Caspian fighting his own people to bring about an age of peace and prosperity between traditional enemies.

Now, as I generally do on this blog, to keep from ruining the movie for you, I'll stop here lest I accidentally fire off a spoiler. I will say this, though, the movie was great. Also, to a Christian and a writer, there were quite a few very obvious references to not only the Bible but many ideas central to Christian theology. The idea that we must come to God through faith and that He cannot be truly proven or disproven, but can only be found via faith, for instance. And, that God's way may not be the most obvious way or even the simplest, most straight-forward way to do things. And, of course, all the images that are echoes of Biblical stories and images which run through the movie are far too numerous for me to count. But, I don't think that a non-Christian would be put off by any of this, as it's presented in such a non-intrusive way that they'd probably never even notice.

All in all, this was a great movie, with a good plot and excellent production values. Well worth seeing and, even seeing again.

Don't panic, but, today is Towel Day.