Flutterby™! From 2010-09-01 to 2010-09-03

For the most part, I'm okay with no longer being a river guide. There are things that are fine when we're self-destructive twenty somethings that I'm cool with having grown out of, even if it doesn't mean scaring the crap out of the rookies by surfing Grumpy's, or swimming into Double-Suck when most paddlers are happy just to get through it in their boat. "Yeah, that rapid that scares the hell out of you? I body surf it for fun on Sunday mornings."

There are, however, occasions where I get little twinges of "damn, I wish I were back on the Ocoee" (and willing to take the punishment and in good enough shape to swim the thing), as is the case every time I hear about the Bubble Baba Challenge, because running the Ocoee on an inflatable sex toy would be as badass as body surfing Double-Suck.

Violet Blue has a roundup from this year's race with YouTube video from a participant's perspective.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Robotics Chattanooga Sports Whitewater Video ]

A New Hampshire high school student, Kyle Dubois is suing his shop class teacher, Thomas Kelley, for allowing Mr. Dubois to shock himself:

During class on March 11, Kyle Dubois willingly placed an alligator clamp on one of his nipples while a second student placed one on his other nipple and a third student plugged in a cord providing electricity, sending an approximately three-second jolt through Dubois, police said in a statement following an investigation of the incident.

Uh. Yeah. To be fair, the article mentions that the suit alleges that the teacher egged the kid on, a previous article says more on that:

"There appears to be somewhat of a conflict in terms of what the students are saying and what the teacher has said on the record," O'Connor said. "My job will be to sort out what is the truth."

[ related topics: Children and growing up Cool Science moron ]

Despite the amount of posting online I do, I'm a bit of a privacy/security nutcase. The difference being what I choose to be private is possibly different from other people. I'm reading a summary of: this that includes: " a new privacy leak in residential wireless ubiquitous computing systems" and "..can observe private activities in the home such as cooking, showering, toileting, and sleeping by eavesdropping on the wireless transmissions of sensors in a home, even when all of the transmissions are encrypted. We call this the Fingerprint and Timing-based Snooping (FATS) attack".

And I had to laugh. It transcends my paranoia by large factors, has a kewl acronym, and my immediate response is: This is part of why mission critical command and control systems should not be wireless. Even minor home area networks and especially security systems. It's really easy to disable them with RF noise.

Walking around with Nancy last night, I joked about what I should have right after 9/11 was started a security consulting company. It's part of what I do now with some clients, but it's more of a perk. If I didn't like my customers and was more predatory consultant-ish, I'd be rich. Makes me think a small RV full of wireless/wired sniffing gear would be a great way to travel and work.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Wireless Privacy Invention and Design Food Work, productivity and environment Cryptography ]

I know we have at least one person whose spouse is a hockey fan here. RT @fpaynter:

Hockey's first gonad guard, the Cup: 1874. First helmet: 1974. It only took 100 years to realize that a man's brain is also important.

[ related topics: Sports ]

Violet Blue: Comment Period Now Open on .XXX – Make Your Voice Heard. Here's my letter:

I'm writing in opposition to the Proposed Registry Agreement for the .XXX sTLD by ICM Registry. The .XXX sTLD should be rejected.

• The .xxx TLD is opposed by all potential customers. There is no evidence of support in the adult entertainment industry and community for support of .XXX, despite ICM's assurances.
• The .xxx TLD is opposed by anti-porn religious organizations.
• The .xxx TLD is opposed by thought leaders in the technology and by civil liberties organizations including the ACLU.
• There is no concrete, agreed-upon definition of “adult content.”
• There is a serious concern that .xxx is a slippery slope towards a content ghetto, where regulations, especially outside of the U.S., will push any "offensive" content into a space that's more easily blocked. Even inside the U.S., Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) have introduced legislation to make the use of .XXX compulsory for all web sites that are “harmful to minors.” This phrase has been used in the past to attempt to censor basic health information.
• .XXX raises serious issues around spurious and unsupported TLD’s in regard to the impact of ICANN on rulings on civil and human rights, and ICANN’s role in content-based discrimination.

In light of the above, I object to .XXX and urge ICANN to reject .XXX.

[ related topics: Religion Erotic Sexual Culture Health Free Speech History Political Correctness Space & Astronomy Writing Civil Liberties Community ]

Reddit thread of bad science jokes:

So Helium walks into a bar and orders a beer.

The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve noble gases here."

Helium doesn't react.

Further down the thread we find a response from "planetfour":

He He He

Groan. Via.

[ related topics: Weblogs Beer ]

Bjørn Lomborg has decided that there's no more money in being a climate change skeptic, so he's switched sides. Normally I try to hold off on some of the snarkier MeFi threads, but in this case I think it's justified: Via this MetaFilter thread.

[ related topics: Nature and environment moron Global Warming ]

Canon announces that they've built an 8"x8" CMOS sensor

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Sighting Half Dome from Mt Diablo.

[ related topics: Yosemite ]