A Popcorn Mystery — Solved
By Daniel Miessler on April 23rd, 2005: Tagged as Humor | Science
This one’s been on my mind for sometime and has caused a significant number of sleepless nights. Thank God we can put it behind us now…
“CNN is reporting that scientists have solved the problem of unpopped popcorn kernels left in a bag or bowl. The short answer is that unpopped kernels have leaky hulls (seed coats) that prevent the buildup of sufficient pressure to cause the pop.”
If that’s the short answer, I’m fairly sure I don’t want to hear the long one.
PR Spin In Mainstream Media
By Daniel Miessler on April 22nd, 2005: Tagged as Writing
Jason just sent me an awesome article about how PR firms are responsible for much of what we see in the mainstream media. In fact, according to the article, these organizations are almost solely behind the “hype” and “buzz” behind certain ideas and products. E-bay actually used one of these firms to create buzz around them early on. As it turns out, the campaign was moderately successful.
Anyway, the article is a must read; here’s one of my favorite pieces which is discussing an article that came out a while back about the return of suits to the office environment:
“Trend articles like this are almost always the work of PR firms. Once you know how to read them, it’s straightforward to figure out who the client is. With trend stories, PR firms usually line up one or more “experts” to talk about the industry generally. In this case we get three: the NPD Group, the creative director of GQ, and a research director at Smith Barney. [5] When you get to the end of the experts, look for the client. And bingo, there it is: The Men’s Wearhouse.”
Podcasting + Excercise : A Perfect Match
By Daniel Miessler on April 20th, 2005: Tagged as Health | Productivity
I think a big part of a person’s strengths is knowing how to properly handle his/her weaknesses. In my case, I hate to be bored. This is particularly devestating to the prospect of getting regular excercise, as the majority of tasks such as running, biking, etc. are all somewhat boring to me when done by themselves.
The thing is, when I am doing something else — something engaging — while participating in an othewise boring activity, e.g. driving, walking, biking, it’s not bad at all. This isn’t a new concept; people have been using Walkmans while running for decades. The spin I’m going to put on it is real-time intellectual benefit via Podcasting.
The thing that got me thinking about this is the fact that I’ve been talking on the phone a lot lately. When I do this, I do it from my cell phone while out walking around my neighborhood. Well, if I were to tell myself that I need to go walking 3 nights a week for at least 20 minutes, it’d never happen. I don’t like excercise for the sake of it; it’s not within me. When I’m discussing some interesting topic or even just listening to a friend’s opinion, however, the time disapears at break-neck speed.
I frequently spend well over an hour pacing at quite a high rate of speed while engrossed in these conversations, and the key is that I never even notice I’m excercising. Of course I enjoy the fact that I am; it’s a great feeling to get out and get some air and elevate the heartrate some, but the key is that I would not be able to do those things unless there was some benefit involved — in this case sharing ideas with friends.
So that’s where Podcasting comes in.
My thought is that I will find a program or three that has the right sort of content for daily consumption. I’m thinking technology, politics, philosophy, some combination of all of them, etc. I find content that fits this bill that fits within say a 30 minute period, and I pull it down daily via Podcast. Then, every night, every other night, or as time permits during hectic periods, I take my iPod and go for my nightly walk.
What this does for me is absolutely essential — it gives me the assurance that I’m not wasting my time. I feel completely unable to go out and walk or ride my bike when I know I could be doing something online that will improve me in some way. Of course I know that the excercise will help me more in the long-run, but that matters not because of my horrible distaste for being bored.
This way, using Podcasting, I can catch up on all the stuff I’ve been wanting to soak in but been unable to because I don’t have a commute. I have XM radio and would love to be able to get consistent news via it or iPod while commuting. Unfortunately I haven’t had that time every day to spend soaking something in during idle time — until now.
My excercise time will be my commute.
Essentially, I have two things that I want desperately to do daily but can’t do individually — excercise and soaking in a daily, intellectual input. This hybrid between the two will enable me to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone. In fact, the hybrid is what facilitates me doing either.
I’m enthused.
Ok, so where’s the good content? I have a few ideas:
- NPR’s All Things Considered
- Some sort of tech commentary ala Chris Pirillo
- Old 2600 episodes
- BR Magazine episodes
- Philosophy content?
- Foreign language osmosis?
- SANS Training
Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?
Self-Publishing — Not All Bad?
By Daniel Miessler on April 20th, 2005: Tagged as General
As this blog post points out, self-publishing isn’t necessarily all bad. As it turns out, O’Reilly (the animal computer-book Gods) self-published 100 copies of his Learning The Unix Operating System in 1985. Well, today O’Reilly is on the way to becoming one of the biggest names in publishing.
This is interesting because I have several friends who are interested in being published (dead tree format), and I think all of them cringe when they hear the words “self-published”. Perhaps there’s potential for it afterall?
Tool : Antiword
By Daniel Miessler on April 18th, 2005: Tagged as General
The Maturity Dilemma
By Daniel Miessler on April 16th, 2005: Tagged as Musings | Personal
More and more I’ve run into a particular dilemma in life, and I think it’s worth exploring a bit. As I get older, my friends are becoming increasingly “mature”, which is to say that they are buying houses, having babies, going to bed earlier, etc. I find that there are some major benefits to this sort of development; the attraction of “settling down”, saving 10-15% of my income, working in my own yard, or doing work on my own home is not lost on me by any means. In fact, I feel like I’m behind the curve because I haven’t yet started doing these things myself.
The financial benefits of moving into this mode of thought are what interest me most. At my age I’m starting to consider alien terms like “upside down”, “equity”, and “total net worth”. The notion that I’m simply carrying on my reckless, youth-oriented lifestyle from 10 years ago (only on a larger scale) is quite frightening. I’m renting, paying exorbitant amounts per month for a new car, and spending what’s left on eating out. I’m one of those guys who buy a brand new hard drive from CompUSA or Circuit CIty and never turns in the rebate. My company is even offering to pay for my broadband access here at home, but I haven’t got off my ass to fill out the expense form. It’s a very wasteful lifestyle. I’d much rather be preparing my own meals using organic foods, getting regular exercise, taking advantage of every financial advantage available, etc. — it’s a whole package – a paradigm of efficiency.
So that’s the one side of it – I want the mentioned benefits of “growing up”. On the other hand, I also fear this lifestyle like the plague.
The dilemma is that I tend to feel more alive while living like this. I like the idea of being able to take a job in Canada or Arizona if I wanted to. Living this lifestyle I can give two weeks of notice and simply drive away. I can’t stand the notion of being bound to a certain set of options based on a self-imposed lifestyle. And I firmly believe that once a person gets locked into the mode of thought mentioned above, it becomes quite easy to lose the appreciation of spontaneity and adventure that I’d like to at least think I have now.
In short, I don’t want to plan vacations a year in advance. I don’t want to stick to itineraries. I want to be able to drift as I’m taken with a desire to do so. Let’s go to Seattle. Let’s go ice fishing. Let’s spend 6 weeks straight learning LISP. I hate the idea of any of these events interfering with a well-established, self-imposed system that I’m reluctant to break. I want to be able to eat pizza 4 days in a row if I’m in the middle of implementing something new on my network, writing something, reading an important book, etc.
The dilemma is that I know the path of conservative maturity is healthier and ultimately safer for me long-term. My current diet and lack of exercise is nothing short of horrific, and doing this for 10 more years is bound to cause problems, yet the lifestyle changes required to “settle down” and get into the right frame of mind are, to me, at least as dangerous in their own right.
I almost feel like discovery, creativity, and exploration are all directly stifled by the forces that bring about the safe, healthy, efficient lifestyle mentioned above. In my mind, ones best work comes when no external forces are limiting random bursts of thought and motivation. The requirement to be in bed every night at 10:00 p.m. is one such force, as is the quite logical rule that one should not consume pizza and mountain dew for 7 days in a row and get 3 hours sleep before going into work the next day – all on account of some interesting project going on at home.
So, in other words, the very lifestyle that I think is unhealthy and unsustainable is the one that makes me feel alive. It’s freedom. The alternative is quite attractive in its own right, but I fear it’s a curse in disguise. Ultimately, my goal in life is to think, consume the thoughts of others, and discuss those thoughts with those who are interested in learning about the world and finding ways to improve it. My fear is that moving into a stable, predictable lifestyle will quell both my desire and ability to carry out this goal.
Ideally, as in countless other cases, the best system would an eclectic one that combines the strengths of the two approaches into a single, hybrid lifestyle. This is actually what I’m looking to try and pull off, but thus far it’s proven difficult. The two systems seem to be the proverbial oil and water, and I just don’t see how to combine them in a long-term, sustainable way. Being able to exercise every night when I just heard about a new security tool earlier that day is an utter impossibility for me. I’m either conservative and working out every night after a quality, home-cooked meal, or I’m reinstalling my honeypot for the 15th time, updating IDS signatures, while writing an essay.
I can’t find the balance.
Oh well, I’m not giving up yet; I just wanted to try and articulate the struggle. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Schneier On Solving Identity Theft
By Daniel Miessler on April 16th, 2005: Tagged as General
Bruce Schneier has just published an excellent article about how to go about combatting identity theft. His solution is actually quite simple and elegant: make the finiancial institutions liable for fraudulent transactions.
It’s definitely worth the read:
Munich Goes With Debian
By Daniel Miessler on April 16th, 2005: Tagged as Culture | Linux
It appears that Munich, Germany has elected to go with Debian for its 14,000 desktop migration from Windows to Linux.
Rock on.
