Heroes Spoilers for next episode

Please forgive the fanboy in me:

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Potterland to come to Florida via Universal Studios

I knew this day would come. Now where's my VR-playable, gesture-recognition Harry Potter Universe user-modifiable MMORPG? (And NO, the Wii game is only gesture recognition with a tether.)

Geocoding pics of the recent Nor'Easter / Flood

I'm on a bit of a campaign right now to tell everyone with pictures on Flickr tagged as "flood" or "flooding" and taken since last Friday to "geocode" or mark the closest street address to where they were taken.

Here's what I'm sending them via "FlickrMail" in their profiles. Feel free to pass this onto friends and family who have taken pictures.

There's an option for you to go and plot where each of your flood photos were taken right on a map on Flickr. It's practically drag and drop under "Organize". This would help all the folks looking at your pics, including Red Cross Disaster services and the National Weather Service have an accurate record of what went on.

Use the "Hybrid" mode to let you see Satellite and Street maps for the best and most detailed placement. I'll be happy to help if you aren't sure how to do this.

You can see other flood photos since Fri geocoded here:
http://www.flickr.com/map/?&q=flood&fLat=41.819976&fLon=-73.95996&zl=13&min_upload_date=1176436800

If you can place each picture near the closest street address where it was taken, that will allow for the most accurate map.

Who Me? Whaddya Know?

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want — good or bad. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.

Heroes Fan Comic by HP Fandomer

Longtime friend Anna (), has branched off as the Harry Potter fandom wanes (or climaxes depending on how you look at it) into "Heroes", a TV show I have a lot of interest in - especially with its extras from a weekly graphic novel/comic that continues even when episodes are on hiatus to an Alternate Reality Game that leads to an incredible amount of insight into the show that we just don't see - such as the last miniseries of 5 that explained the Petrelli connection to Linderman.

Anna started noodling around with graphic "Dolls" of the Heroes characters and eventually expanded them out. Today, I see she's started her own fandom comics from the series, which already has a rich, rich canon being tracked over at the heroeswiki.

Penny Arcade Meets Harry Potter

Absolutely hilarious matchup of one of my favorite comics with one of my favorite book series. (Language may be considered inappropriate.)

Globe Theater Web Forum - from the 16th Century

If the Globe Theater had a Web Board.

Continue reading "Globe Theater Web Forum - from the 16th Century"

WEP Wireless security USELESS

"Now it takes just 3 seconds to extract a 104-bit WEP key from intercepted data using a 1.7GHz Pentium M processor. The necessary data can be captured in less than a minute, and the attack requires so much less computing power than previous attacks that it could even be performed in real time by someone walking through an office."

Yikes. Time to move to WPA.

The FBI just doesn't do national security

I just came across this editorial by Richard Clarke and his partner Richard W Cressey detailing just how dangerously horrible the FBI is at overseeing cases involving national security and directly refuting current FBI Director Mueller's statements to Congress that if he had the current unfettered access that national security letters provide before 9/11, then he would have caught the terrorists before the bad thing happened.

Uh huh. Clarke raises all the excellent refutations about how the information was out there but bureaucracy and egos got in the way of information being acted upon. It also mirrors my direct experience with some FBI counterterrorism folk with regard to their complete cluelessness when it comes to secure Internet communications and knowledge about what is possible.

This editorial is particularly timely as I just started reading Clarke's "Breakpoint novel this morning. I'm only through the first 30 pages and am as giddy as a kid in a candy store to be reading the scenarios I've been venting about as plausible for years. (No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist - but my involvement in both Information Security and the Red Cross makes me think a lot about these issues.)

Pick up the book or the book-on-CD from your local library and definitely listen to it. It's gotten to the point that our nation's infrastructure is so reliant on technology from satellites to SCADA to undersea fiber cables that it wouldn't take much to cripple our country's financial, military and government services.

Of course, I've barely started the book but between the editorial, knowing the people who are friends with Clarke and are referenced in the book's forward, and meeting the man himself while press liaison for the Black Hat security conference in 2002 when he was our keynote, I think it's safe to say the book will be excellent.

Sure, his editorial is not without loaded political desires such as the hint of a need for a new agency and a reminder of his own qualifications but I don't think the American people truly realize what's going on behind the scenes.

For instance, take an interesting gander and do some research at the recent efforts to play around with the GPS system, (something run and managed globally by the US Military and not managed by the UN which many countries don't realize), and take into account the reasons given as to why the British allegedly strayed into Iranian waters.

Hrm.