When I lived in San Diego, I would go to Julian and pick up some apple cider. Supposedly I was getting the REAL stuff. True, it was better than what you got in the supermarket in San Diego. I lived happily with that reality until tonight.
Tonight I tasted some Colorado apple cider.
DAMN!
this shit got bite! How do you like them apples? Who’s your daddy now? Seriously, I’ve never REALLY had apple cider until tonight. That supermarket crap will never touch my lips again.
Yay! I think I’ve started a San Diego exodus. A husband/wife pair skipped out on the San Diego office of my company and joined me in Colorado Springs. Now the rumor mill has it that yet another SD engineer is considering the possiblity of a move.
For some dumb reason a lot of San Diegans think that they are living in a corner of paradise… What a sad delusion.
My house was built in 1899. Still standing!!! This house and I get along quite well.
First, my bedroom. Yes, I am sleeping in a green room on an air mattress. I haven’t slept on a mattress since … well, I think since high school. There are some significant advantages to air mattresses. They are cheap, and move quite easily. There is something to be said for simple living. About that color; I lived in a yellow room for years, so why should green bother me?
Now for my walk-in-closet. I only mention it because I actually slept in my closet for months. The closet seemed pretty cozy, so why not? It was the perfect width for my air mattress.
Now for my kitchen. Tiny! So very small. Notice the gas range oven. I can’t stand electric stoves. Still there is just enough room for my small coffee maker and my throwing knives. J/K. I don’t throw knives, thats my brother 
And now for the part I like best; the view out of all sides of my house! I like this picture because it shows the elevation differential between Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs
In the summer of 2002 my churches college group went to Colorado to whitewater raft, hike, climb, etc. It was during that trip that I decided in my heart that I wanted to live in Colorado. Nearly 4 years later it became a reality.
A couple of weeks ago I thought I would take a couple of days and hit all the great motorcycle roads in Colorado. The weather kinda sucked and I canceled my plans mid-trip. I did make it as far as Buena Vista, which is where my college group went. Memories!
Apparently people are using Tor for child porn. This is a good example of how TOR works. The Geman police siezed about 10 TOR servers. In all probablity these servers were the last hop on the network before reaching intended child porn. If this is the case, the police were able to track the IP of the last TOR server, leaving the real suspect hidden. The police are going to have to use some other means to catch smart child porners.
Given this development, ISP’s will probably ban TOR from their servers to avoid potential police raids on their server farm. On the other hand, police might finally get the clue that chasing a TOR server is useless.
I am highly knowledgeable in matters of computer and network security. I nearly got hired at the National Security Agency some years ago. Damn polygraph test
Anyways, about Torpark. When you browse a website, the website you go to can record your internet address, a.k.a. you IP address. What are you supposed to do if are doing something illegal? Well, that sounds bad. Perhaps you are a political dissenter in China. Perhaps you are publishing your underground blog or website that undermines the government. In the past, such people would go through a web proxy. A proxy is a machine that does something on the behalf of someone else. In our case, you send your data to the proxy and the proxy in turn sends to wherever you wish. As long as you can trust the proxy, you cannot be traced - period. The downside to this is that you have to trust the proxy. Suppose the government knows that you are publishing from a single proxy. Suppose the government decides to hack into that proxy and start logging traffic. Suppose then you find yourself arrested and/or dead. Ooops.
Enter the Tor network. For the layman, the tor network is a network of proxies. Instead of using a single proxy, your data is routed randomly between various Tor routers in the network before getting sent off to the desired destination. This network is secure even if one or more of the routers are comprimised.
Enter Torpark. Torpark is a hacked version of the Firefox browser that communicates via the Tor network. Now you don’t have to be technical AND paranoid. Now you have the freedom to be just paranoid.
I should note my position on electronic privacy. I oppose regulation, monitoring, and censorship of the internet. The Torpark browser could be used by Islamic terrorists just as well as a political dissident in China. Free communication of ideas is a very important check to governments that think too much of themselves.
The U.S. Government has its dirty little fingers all over the Internet. I assume that the N.S.A. is monitoring traffic at the routers of most or all of the major internet service providers. Apparently a lot of other people assume the same thing! The recent attempts by our government to control and observe the internet are only encouraging innovative approaches to further secure communication.
A further note on security. Modern cryptography is provably uncrackable when used properly. For instance, if I were to encrypt a document using 128 bit AES, it would take a single machine on the order of a hundred trillion years for a single machine to crack. Even if you were to get a billion computers working together to solve the problem, you might not even crack the encryption in a lifetime. Thats with only a 128 bit key. AES supports up to 256 bit keys. This is why for a while cryptography was considered a weapons grade export. Face it folks, if terrorists use cryptography, there is nothing our government can do other than wait for mistakes. For some people that might be bad news; I find it comforting.
I found this particular quote to be particularly apropos. This was written in the 1700’s, so the language is a little funky. Try to ignore the excessive use of semi colons.
“It is by no means necessary to imagine that he who is offended at advice was ignorant of the fault, and resents the admonition as a false charge; for perhaps it is most natural to be enraged when there is the strongest conviction of our own guilt. While we can easily defend our character, we are no more disturbed at an accusation than we are alarmed by an enemy whom we are sure to conquer; and whose attack, therefore, will bring us honour without danger. But when a man feels the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment and revenge, either because he hoped that the fault of which he was conscious had escaped the notice of others; or that his friend had looked upon it with tenderness and extenuation, and excused it for the sake of his other virtues; or had considered him as too wise to need advice, or too delicate to be shocked with reproach; or, because we cannot feel without pain those reflections roused which we have been endeavouring to lay asleep; and when pain has produced anger, who would not willingly believe, that it ought to be discharged on others than on himself?”
Samuel Johnson
Everyone has their good sides and bad sides. Christianity says that this bad side is part of us by our very nature, and this is referred to as sin.
I’ve had some run-ins with other people where our bad sides just collided head on. When that happens, there are no winners, only loosers. God cannot be found in such interactions, and the landscape is strewn with the debris such as after a battle. Sin brings only devastation. It confounds me to no end how some people live constantly in such an environment. For me, such things drain my soul.
I was laughing so hard I cried.
For the third straight month, sales on preexisting homes dropped, leading realtors to call it a “buyer’s market.” Here are some strategies sellers are using to entice buyers:
Dropping price by 50 bucks
Carrying around wad of money; acting like owning this house got them that money
Pointing out dishwasher several times
Explaining to potential buyers how fulfilling it is to make mortgage payment on time
Telling long, touching story about how grandmother needs $312,500 for kidney operation
Letting third blouse button go
Drowning out sound of noisy furnace with soulful vocals of Michael McDonald
Reassuring buyers that people purchase things they can’t afford all the time
Apparently the nonsense over the Pope’s recent speech continues. An excerpt:
An Iraqi insurgent group threatened the Vatican with a suicide attack over the Pope’s remarks, according to a statement posted yesterday on the Web.
“We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life,” said the message posted in the name of the Mujahedeen Army on a Web site frequently used by militant groups. The message’s authenticity could not be independently verified. The statement was addressed to “you dog of Rome” and threatens to “shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home.”
Could you have proven the Popes point any more? If the Popes links your religion to violence, you simply prove him right by threatening more violence. The Pope was a panzy to apologize. He should have said something that these people would understand. He should have told them to kiss his pontifical ass.
Hardcore muslims do not negotiate with infidels. The only way to appease one of these guys is to give him an early meeting with his 72 virgins.
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