I went swimming with my wife again and swam 10 laps. Not as exhausted as last time but pretty tired.
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Note from Jan Dembowski: This post is from my friend André Quitta. André sometimes shares his stories here.
My son, Aaron, is six years old and just lost his first tooth. It was one of his bottom front teeth, one that had been loose for about a week. He had heard about the Tooth Fairy and was excited about the nighttime exchange that was to come. He had lost the tooth somewhere at sometime during the day and became sad about the missed opportunity. However, his mother had convinced him that a visit from the Tooth Fairy would still be possible. The next morning he was happy to see a quarter under his pillow and planned to ensure that future teeth were safely put aside.
He called me last night to tell me about his monetary gain and I mentioned to him that there may be additional funds possible at our house, because I knew a thing or two about the Tooth Fairy. He was convinced it was the lack of tooth under his pillow that caused the shortfall in expected funds. His solution was that we should build a tooth by making a small white box with the prongs that hold a tooth in place. We could go to Home Depot and get the right supplies. He suggested we get a kind of paint to make the manufactured tooth “super white, whiter than anything, like yellow.” He also said we should buy paint of a different color so that when the tooth fairy comes, she’d be splattered and we would know she was there.
I shared with him that paint tends to dry quickly. His solution was to apply multiple coats of paint on the constructed tooth so that it stays wet. I also expressed my concern that the Tooth Fairy may not appreciate getting paint splattered on her and it could impact future financial transactions. Ever quick thinking, Aaron said we would buy clear paint at Home Depot. I had not heard of this before but told him that we could ask the people at Home Depot for guidance. The last detail on the manufactured tooth was that we would need to buy cotton to fill the tooth. He reasoned that because the Tooth Fairy is clever, she would know if the tooth was just a hollow box and thereby feel tricked, thus diminishing any future financial funds. Ultimately, we may go with tissues or paper towels, depending on availability and most importantly authenticity. I’ll let you know how the project turns out.
That WAS quick. The name of this downloadable (hint: the Reborn part?) content should tell anyone who played the original F.E.A.R. what this was about.
The game play was okay and I hope that Monolith either releases more content. If there is a F.E.A.R.3 then this mini-episode will set things up nicely for the return of the original protagonist.
Now to turn off the lights, crank up the volume and replay F.E.A.R.2.
I’m exhausted, my ears are clogged up, and I smell like chlorine. I’ve signed up with Lily to go to the Half Hollow Hills West Natatorium once a week for laps.
See, I’ve only been used to swimming at a leisurely pace to hang out. I have successfully avoided going to a gym my entire life. But Lily has been taking lessons for more than a year. Last semester she cast off all of her fear and swam in the 12 foot deep section.
Swimming is great exercise and tomorrow I will ache. I don’t think there is a muscle in my body that I have missed. I’ll keep up with it but I have to do something about my ears. My right ear’s hearing is off by half and that bugs me.
The things I do to spend more time with my wife.
I was playing the new F.E.A.R.2 add on when my PC froze up hard again. Looks like I’ll be getting a new one in October.
I wanted to get a new FPS so I installed F.E.A.R.2 via Steam and bought F.E.A.R.2: Reborn (DLC) (also via Steam).
So far it’s plain fun mayhem. This expansion is supposed to be short (plays in less than 2 hours) but maybe I’ll re-play F.E.A.R.2 once I’m done.
Update: Look before you click. The McAfee component is optional and you are given the chance to not install it on the Abobe web page.
-Original posting below.-
So I downloaded the updated Firefox 3.5.3 and when it came up it said “Hey, your Flash player is outdated. Click here to get an upgrade”. You can read about this feature here.
I keep my software up to date so this was news to me. But what the heck, Mozilla’s rep is good and Adobe Flash and Acrobat are popular attack vectors. Why not upgrade? So I ran Adobe’s download manager extension in Firefox which promptly installed the updated Flash and McAfee System scanner.
I was not asked if I wanted the McAfee software, it installed it without my permission.
I have no problem with being provided the option, but seriously, installing third party software without getting explicit approval from the end user is just plain stupid.
Keeping up your software is a responsible thing to do especially if you want to keep the use of your PC to yourself. Why rent out your PC to a zombie army? But installing software without your permission is a tactic of the “bad guys”.
I don’t care if it’s an anti-virus company or not, don’t put software on my PC without my permission. I promptly went to my control panel and removed the McAfee software. I already have an up to date anti-virus product on my PC and don’t need unwanted code.
No obvious changes from iPhone 3.0.1 to 3.1 but iTunes 9 is a huge refresh. Worth the download.
Naturally I am about to update my phone to the 3.1 version of the iPhone OS. I’m hoping I can manipulate play lists within my iPhone now; I have not checked out the new features yet.
That’s a catchy title. Keeping up with the versions of any software that you have installed is almost always a good thing. If you have any WordPress version pre-<insert-latest-version-here> then you should upgrade.
To me, open source software is best if only for one reason: vulnerabilities get discussed openly and often fixed very quickly. Open discussion is not a bad thing; people who exploit software on the Internet have their own forums too.
There is currently some hacks going on involved with older versions of WordPress. I am sure the details will come out but for now the remediation is upgrade to the latest version.
That’s not unreasonable. WordPress is not a paid software company (spare me the comments about Automattic, that’s a service company and the service they provide is the blog hosting) and there are no SLA or support contracts on a specific version of WordPress. Why should developers maintain multiple version trees of the software? That was tried with the 2.0.x release for Debian reasons but that didn’t work out.
Using software on the Internet is a game of keeping up with the Joneses and being responsible. Your hacked server is not just hurting you, it’s making the whole neighborhood look bad and ruining it for everyone else.
So Upgrade or Die. Keep your software current.
Update: This is a fun read on the WordPress support forums. Most of the hacked/security threads turn into real name calling entertainment which in turn targets people who are trying to help them. Here’s how it works: someone gives solid practical advice, and someone else complains that their feelings were hurt. Name calling ensues.
Sad to say, but some people believe that free open source software means that the community must keep them safe from their own laziness ignorance stupidity inability to manage their own installations.
Sometimes a site gets hacked regardless of best effort. It happens and you deal with it. But these end users who don’t do what they need to? They continue to hang out in Darwin’s waiting room.
