Today is International Women’s Day. I know a few international women but almost all of the women that I know are domestic and apparently have a separate holiday. I am not sure when that is though.
The new US Passports are so easy to copy that people are already able to make full copies of the new biometric security mechanism without even removing the passports from their shipping envelopes! This is a whole new level of “no security” in the US Passport system – just like I predicted.
Last night we ran to Food for Life and grabbed a quick dinner before coming home and watching Zoom: Academy for Superheroes. I had never heard of the movie before but Min was able to borrow it from someone at work. It was cute but nothing special at all. I’m not even sure if this movie made it to theatres or if was a direct to DVD deal. It sort of had that low budget “B” movie feel so I wouldn’t be surprised. It didn’t have any big names in it just television stars Tim Allen and Courtney Cox. It was okay, definitely don’t actively avoid it, but I wouldn’t take any time out of my schedule to look for it either. Would I buy it from the Walmart bargain bin? No.
I had to stay up late last night working on the server that is going to Scranton this weekend. I ended up staying up until just after midnight working on it. Not the evening that I had been hoping for. I finally decided that I just had to get some sleep and the rest of the work will have to wait until today so I went to bed.
I was up just after five this morning. It is a bright, sunny day and quite a bit warmer than it has been the last two days. Winter might finally be over. We are into the second week of March and so far it has been so warm with only a few days of cold here and there. You sure can’t complain about the cold this year. It’s barely worth owning a coat these days.
I put in an hour or more working on the server before I left the house and finally got things to a pretty good state before I headed to the office. Knowing that the server is working will make being at work a lot easier today. I only have tonight to get that machine ready to travel to Scranton since we are taking it there tomorrow night. One thing that I did discover, though, is that the machine does not have as much memory as I had thought that it did and it does not have nearly enough. So I need to deal with that. It is always something. But at least that is something that is easy to deal with. I am hoping to be installing a second processor in a machine while I am in Scranton tomorrow which is a bit of a pain but only so bad. Installing memory is nothing. Getting a hold of it might be a pain though.
I managed to leave at a very decent time this morning and had a nice drive into the office. This morning was actually quite slow compared to recent days and it was a nice chance to relax. I was able to catch up on my blogs and the tech world news and stuff like that and to watch Rocketboom. I even got a chance to discover some new videoblogs. You can check out cool videobloging goodness from Josh Leo and KellyBelly.
Boeing Aircraft is talking about implementing a new “secure autopilot system” for its planes. While there is a certain logic to a system like this you can just imagine the problems. First of all you have to wonder what legal counsel at Boeing is going to approve this. And secondly just think about any situation where a plane cannot be rerouted. Weather or runway conditions could prove to be hazardous. And imagine the lawsuits over multiple deaths caused by a plane landing on a runway full of – fill in the hazard here – without anyway to stop it. Or a terrorist who sneaks a large bomb onto the plane, has it discovered and then triggers the “secure” autopilot feature. Suddenly everyone is on a ticking time bomb that is flying directly to its predetermined “safe” location to destroy it and the pilots can’t even stop it. Now the only option is to shoot it down mid-flight. I don’t see the families of the people on the plane – who probably already killed the terrorists and have control of the plane again – being happy when all those people have to die because of an “anti-terrorist” feature. Even if a feature like this saves lives on average it will never be able to save enough lives to make it worthwhile in the long run.
During lunch I ran down to Warren to the UPS Store to find a Notary Public and to send out some documents that I need to get to the courts to deal with a speeding ticket from two months ago. It is so difficult to deal with every little thing when you consult outside of your home area.
I got a note from Audible today that said that they have over eighty Star Wars books available now for download! I looked a long time ago and they didn’t have many or maybe any. Not that I am too excited about Star Wars books or any fiction for that matter but I know a lot of people who would be thrilled to be able to get loads of Star Wars books that way. Now if they have the really good Timothy Zahn Episodes seven, eight and nine books maybe I could listen to them as I haven’t read them in many years.
While watching Josh Leo’s Vlog I stumbled across Josh on Sports (QuickTime Movie.) This video really tells a lot about why I am not into sports. I just don’t have that part of the brain that makes in enjoyable. I can’t even empathize with people who watch sports. I have no idea what it is that they enjoy about it. Strangely, I do seem to understand sports business and sports professionals more than the average sports enthusiast. I understand the economics of the business and appreciate the work that goes into creating “sports experience” and I have no problem with the high salaries often paid to top athletes. I see athletes as performance based professionals earning a prevailing wage that is based on solid results like we see in any industry. Now I simply appreciate their hard work and have no problem with them getting paid so much. I do not feel any need whatsoever to open my wallet and buy their “products”. What amazes me is how many people are willing to spend insane amounts of money to watch a an athlete perform and then get mad when a good portion (maybe 1% at most) goes to that athlete. Apparently many sport spectators really feel that their dollar should go to the businessmen who hire these athletes but lets face it – a top athlete is much harder to find than a business manager capable of not driving a sports franchise into the ground. So who should earn more? And who gets a longer productive career path? And who takes more personal risk?
If you are wondering where Amanda Congdon has been since leaving RocketBoom you can now find Amanda on ABC News.
Right at the end of the day we had a major emergency and we ended up going into “lockdown” where no one can leave the office. I was originally planning on escaping the office early around five but just before I was able to leave I got stuck on a conference call that turned into an all out crisis. It is going to be a really long night leading into a really long weekend.