Entries by Chris

I hate Internet Explorer. The hate stems from all the issues I've ran into over the years with web sites and web development while accepted web standards having to be bastardized to support IE. You add in all the security holes in that software with Active-X and all the COM exposed facets of the program and you have a nightmare for potential hackers intruding on your computer.

Today's news in the BBC simply highlights another in a long line of failures on Microsoft's browser:

Users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer are being urged by experts to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed. The flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of people's computers and steal their passwords, internet experts say.

So PLEASE change over to a standards compliant browser that can fix vulnerabilities much faster: Firefox, Opera, or Safari. (I'd advise against Google Chrome for now)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Its hard not to be excited for the change in leadership that will occur as a result of the election next week. Whether you agree with Obama or McCain (or even Barr), don't forget to vote!

Sakura is finally getting enough hair to do things with to make her look less like a little boy. I'm not sure why but I've lost count of the number of times that Sakura was decked out in full body pink outfits and frilly shoes and yet people will ask if she is a boy or girl. I'm hoping hair ties, pig tails, etc. will finally stop those questions.

As a side note, I'm about to jump on a plane and am looking forward to getting home for a bit.

I've been in the US for a couple of weeks on some business travel. I was thumbing through the photos I stored on my local machine from our Korea visit (which we'll be posting stuff about in the near future) and came across this photo. It pretty much sums up why I miss them in one shot.

Sakura is a bug from Yokogaijin on Vimeo.

Sakura has changed so much in the last few months. This video was taken about a month ago and it is even dated! In this video we're playing with locating body parts. Sakura now knows 7 or 8 body parts on her and us! She also likes to stand on the couch which gets her in lots of trouble.

Kim and I are watching this presidential race with detatched morbid curiosity. This is the first presidential race we've witnessed from outside the fish tank of the horrible US news media. Being outside the country certainly provides a different perspective of the state of the country, our problems and potential solutions. The 24 hour news cycle on cable networks generate a ridiculous amount of inane comments and manufactured hype that ends up on YouTube or overtly partisan blogs like Huffington Post. It is no wonder that the majority of my generation and younger turn to the Daily Show and Colbert Report to help frame the really important stuff from all this noise.

Regarding the election, I personally think if McCain were to win this election that the remainder of the free world would help build the border fences the GOP is pushing so hard to finish. In their minds it would not to keep illegal aliens from getting in the US but to keep US citizens from getting out and infecting the world with their stupidity... and I'm a registered Republican.

I'm always amazed at business models can be created out of identified business needs. I guess the adage "when the demand curve of people with more money than time intersects with the supply curve of people that have more time than money, a business opportunity exists" is really true.

This specific entry is about CAPTCHAs. These tools are appended at the end of blog comments, bank account login forms, web board submission pages, etc. to ensure that the data being submitted is coming from a human and not a 'bot' programmed to spread SPAM around the interwebs. Many people have put tons of effort into cracking CAPTCHAs so the bots can continue to do their work but a new development in the SPAM arms race is developing: human CAPTCHA crackers.

Dancho Danchev, writing for ZDNet, reports on the emergence of CAPTCHA-breaking as an economic model in India. He reports that it's impossible to untangle the corporate web that's unfurled, given that large CAPTCHA-breaking companies often farm work out to multiple smaller businesses, but all available information suggests that CAPTCHA-cracking (referred to as "solving" in marketing parlance) is a booming sector of the Indian tech economy. Danchev reports that CAPTCHA-crackers can earn more per day than they can as legitimate data processing centers.

Seems like we're destined for more SPAM in the near future... Great just what I was looking forward to.

Here is the full URL of the story: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080901-captchas-flummox-bots-but-may-be-doomed-by-captcha-farmers.html

I came across this picture on Weird Asia News. It really does defy the need to explain it after you've lived here for a little while. I've lost track of all the weird shit I've seen to the point where it becomes numbing.

If you want the full size pic you can go here to get it.

This is required viewing for everyone. In fact I suggest watching it at least 3 times to get the full effect. All I can say is someone has a lot of time on their hands.

So far we've been pretty fortunate with our weather. It hasn't been too hot or too rainy. The humidity is off the chart high, but that is pretty much normal in the kanto region of Japan year round. However, looking at the 10-day forecast on Weather.com and a few other sites, I have the feeling the rain won't stop for some time.

It gets pretty monotonous pretty quickly. Anyone outside of Iowa want our rain?

I wanna play blocks from Yokogaijin on Vimeo.

Sometimes Sakura is pretty insistent about playing with some toys, her blocks especially. If you listen close at the beginning you can hear her grunt as she lifts the whole bag of blocks. Its pretty cute.

Happy Dad's Day! We hope you enjoy your Sunday off, free from honey-do lists.

Sakura + Spaghetti = Mess from Yokogaijin on Vimeo.

This is one of the first times we've let Sakura completely feed herself with a food that could cause permanent stains in our carpet. She did have her nylon coverall on to protect her clothes but she could have easily chucked handfuls of food past the safe radius of the mat below the chair.

We couldn't have been happier with how well she did. She was still a big mess though.

CNN Coverage of the attack

There are crazy people all over the world, the US certainly doesn't have a monopoly. This attack is a little disconcerting to me though as I've taken Kim and Sakura there and we've walked in the area where the attack occurred. I guess this is just confirmation that you can never be too careful and you never know when crazy stuff could happen.

PS> Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Luckily, the work situation is calming down some and I should have some free time to get some stuff posted. It has been a busy few weeks.

I found this gem on BBC's feed this morning:

An unwitting passenger arriving at Japan's Narita airport has received 142g of cannabis after a customs test went awry, officials say.

A customs officer hid a package of the banned substance in a side pocket of a randomly chosen suitcase in order to test airport security.

Sniffer dogs failed to detect the cannabis and the officer could not remember which bag he had put it in.

Anyone finding the package has been asked to contact customs officials.

"This case was extremely regrettable. I would like to deeply apologise," said Narita International Airport's customs head Manpei Tanaka.

Strict laws

The customs officer conducted the test on a passenger's bag against regulations. Normally a training suitcase is used.

"I knew that using passengers' bags is prohibited, but I did it because I wanted to improve the sniffer dog's ability," the officer was quoted as saying.

"The dogs have always been able to find it before... I became overconfident that it would work," he said.

Japan has strict laws against drugs and possession of small amounts of cannabis can lead to a prison sentence.