Let’s take it on the road

Well, folks, it’s time to pack it up and head over to the new place. And that place is:

http://www.hoodathunkblog.com

HoodaThunk? will continue to cover what I’ve been covering up to this point, it’s just going to do it over there. Barring some issue, I don’t intend to update this WordPress.com site any further. While there are a few items that still need to be straightened out (the blogroll, for example) the basic functions are all there and are all working.

So, I look forward to seeing you all over there and let’s get back to blogging!

OK, so what’s going on at HoodaThunk?

OK, so the combination of being out of town for a few days and a decision about the blogging here have made for very light posting for the past week or so. Time for an explanation.

The part about being out of town is self-explanatory, but there was an additional twist to this one. I was doing some serious electrical work at my Mom’s house which involved me crawling around in the attic for a couple of days and cutting holes in the bedroom ceilings. Given that I also want to put in an attic fan in her house this year and the high degree of confidence that it’ll be me doing the electrical work on that project as well, I made certain additions to my design to make it easy on me the next time i show up. That takes time. And, when you’re crawling from joist to joist in the attic, you’re not banging keys for a blog post.

The other issue is this: I’ve been doing some research into moving this blog to a hosted server. The reason for this is simple: I’ve been wanting to add functionality to this blog for a long time that I’ve been unable to add due to it being hosted at wordpress.com. Please don’t get me wrong – this is a great service and it’s handled my needs for at least 3 years. But there are tools and widgets I’ve wanted to use that I can’t unless I move. So… I’m moving.

I am in the process of setting the new place up. At first, I was working to make the new blog location look as much like this one as I could. I’m still working on some of the basic functions (which I do like and do want) but I’m taking the opportunity to rework the page a bit and see what I can come up with to reflect the new status.

Lastly, I’m going to be playing around a bit with some of the monetizing features to see if I can get this hobby to actually generate some capital. We’ll see how that part goes but I can assure you I’ll not sacrifice the readability here. So again, stay tuned and see what comes.

Weapons of choice

I saw this in the paper this past Sunday but life’s little events have conspired to make blogging time very tight this week. This is from Tom Rick’s Inbox and comes from a retired Marine. The topic was “How Marines Feel About Their Gear” and deals with the viewpoint of what the boots on the ground think about the weapons they carry.

The M16 drew very low marks and this is something I’ve heard from other soldiers and marines. They say it jams a lot but more importantly, it lacks stopping power. The general consensus appears to be that the 5.56mm rounds just don’t have the punch. One of the things I was a little surprised about was the write-up of the M243 SAW:

The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon), .223 cal. Drum-fed light machine gun: Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of junk.

I didn’t think it was regarded poorly, but I’ve never had to carry, maintain, and shoot it. I liked the item on the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle:

The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular range and accuracy, and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to take out vehicle suicide bombers (they’re actually stopping a lot of them) and barricaded enemy. Definitely here to stay.

I’ve had the opportunity to look at one of these close up and pick it up. Not a light weapon, folks, but she’s got a very mean look. Nice to see that beauty’s not just skin deep in this case.

Go have a read of the whole thing and I’d like to hear from any active duty or vets on this one. Does this article accurately describe your feelings about the gear listed?

Immigrations raids in northern Virginia

ICE agents have implemented raids in northern Virginia to detain illegal aliens. Many of those captured were apparently in prison and released (yeah, that’s just great) before ICE got on their trail.

Bill Reid, the ICE special agent in charge of the sting, tells WTOP 34 alleged illegal aliens were apprehended in the sting.

Among those, 23 were felons released from jail, but were allegedly still in the country illegally.

“They were drug dealers, burglars, committed larcenies, sexual assualts, members of gangs, etc.,” Reid says.

Federal prosecutors tell WTOP only a few of the people will be prosecuted for other crimes — most will be turned over to ICE for deportation proceedings.

More, please.

More stupid laws

Is it just me or is there a real rash of stupid laws being proposed lately? This one’s from New York where, evidently, a state Senator feels people are too stupid to cross the street without the State mandating their behavior. Senator Carl Kruger’s offering a bill that would make it illegal to cross the street with an iPod plugged into your ears, a cell phone held up to your head, or with a video game in your hands.

You see, there’s been a couple of people killed in Brooklyn in the last 6 months or so because they stepped off the curb and couldn’t hear the oncoming bus because their iPod was jacked up too loud. Because of that, in true nanny-state fashion, Senator Kruger wants to slap everyone with the threat of a $100 fine if they don’t cross the street in a manner Senator Kruger finds acceptable.

Oh, and I’m sure the NYPD has nothing better to do than hand out citations to people who don’t pop the headphones out of their ears before they enter the crosswalk.

Senator Kruger’s bill is a crisis resolution in desperate search of a crisis. Out of a city of millions, there’s been 2 idiots get killed. Yes, I called them idiots. Anyone who voluntarily inserts earplugs that blast noise into their heads at a volume such that a city bus can’t be heard while also (clearly) not increasing their visual awareness of what’s going on around them isn’t just an innocent victim of an accident. I feel sad about their deaths. I feel much more sad about the families who are now living without a loved one because of such an inane accident. But the bottom line is this: who was responsible for cutting off their sensory data that would have allowed them to avoid getting hit?

They were, not the rest of New York. Senator Kruger should quit wasting everyone’s time and bend his efforts to matters more important than regulating how people walk.

Root DNS servers attacked yesterday

In case you were wondering why some of your web searches might have slowed down yesterday I direct you to this story over at FoxNews.com. Seems that hackers directed some large-scale attacks against 3 of the 13 root DNS servers out on the Internet.

Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.

Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet’s most vital pipelines.

This kind of attack is called a “denial-of-service” attack where the point is not necessarily to gain access to something but, rather, to deny everyone else access to it. With those 3 servers out of the picture, any system relying on them for domain name services would have to fail over to their backup systems and that takes time. When the 1st request is made, a system waits for a preset amount of time before deciding to try someone else. If that someone else is also under attack, then it waits again before trying a third server, and so on. It’s the additive delays that make everything appear slow.

HPV, “Abraham’s Law”, and parental decisions in medicine

Cancer. The word, spoken in reference to a medical condition, is one of the most frightening utterances a person can hear from their doctor and that goes double for a parent hearing it about their child. We still know so little about what causes it and how to fight it that it is, in many case, akin to a death sentence.

What if I were to tell you that a virus is responsible for a common type of cancer? Further, what would be your response if I were to tell you that there’s a vaccine for this virus? If I were to assert that there’s a vaccine you can give your kid that would provide nearly complete protection (yes, nearly. Nothing in medicine is absolute.) from this common type of cancer for the rest of their life, how would you reply?

This is not a hypothetical, folks. There is a virus that’s responsible for a common cancer type and there is a vaccine for it. HPV, the human papilloma virus, has been conclusively shown to cause or permit several types of cervical cancer in women. A vaccine against this strain of HPV is now available and there are government agencies who are recommending that all girls be vaccinated before they’re 11 or 12, presumed to be well before they begin sexual activity. I’ve written about this before and I’ve written about the resistance to this vaccine being offered by the more socially conservative side of the conservative side because – and I’m not making this up – they think that offering such a vaccine would promote premarital sex. I think that’s ridiculous and that they’re being incredibly irresponsible in their parental duties by knowingly leaving their daughters vulnerable to this disease.

That said, I’m not sure I disagree with the notion contained within the bill passed by the Virginia House yesterday that gives parents more say in whether or not to vaccinate their daughters with this drug. The amendment is to a bill that has passed both the State House and Senate that would require girls to be so vaccinated before entering the 6th grade. The amendment would permit parents to review information about the vaccine and exempt their daughters if they wished. There are already exemptions available for religious or medical reasons. I can’t think of a good reason to exempt someone other than a medical or religious reason, but that’s just me.

The issue is also part of a wider debate embodied in the passage of “Abraham’s Law” that would permit parents to refuse a medical treatment regimen for their children. Named after a then-16-year-old boy named Starchild Abraham Cherrix, it would permit parents to refuse a specific treatment and not face neglect charges under specific circumstances. Abraham-Cherrix was diagnosed with cancer and wanted to refuse another round of chemotherapy. His parents agreed and his doctors took them to court to force the treatment. The courts initially agreed with the doctors and ordered the treatment but a higher court overruled them.

While I’m sure they mean well, I think doctors should always – and I mean in every case – come in behind parents in deciding what medical treatment a child must undergo. I find it disconcerting that we even need a law to protect parents in that regard, but it’s apparently necessary.

What do you guys think?

Think Pink

Rather than my usual weekend routine I tackled the task of re-painting my kid’s room. She’s been wanting the decor changed for a bit and the onslaught of Barbie/Disney Princess stuff at Christmas only focused her on the glaring inadequacy of her previous room color.

It wasn’t pink enough.

Let me tell ya, if you’ve never spent the weekend slowly surrounding yourself with a shell of paint the color of Pepto Bismol, you just haven’t lived. I managed to talk her into making 1 wall a different color and she was happy to make the choice. Purple.

Little girls. What can you say? Me, I’m going to enjoy this phase of our lives when she can walk into the room, see all that pink and purple on the walls, and wrap and big thank-you hug around me while telling me I’m the best Daddy, ever. You bet it was worth it. Every drop of pink.

Gotta watch that horse…

When I left the restaurant my wife and I went to, I took note of the Super Bowl on the screen over the bar. The Bears were up 14 to 6. By the time I got home and turned on the game less than 15 minutes later, it was Colts up 16 to the Bears’ 14.
There’s going to be some seriously peeved Bears fans in the office tomorrow if they don’t pull it together.

The Spam Man commeth

I guess you know your blog has reached some kind of threshold of notice when the spam starts rolling in. The anti-spam filters look like they’ve nailed over 1000 of the diseased little weasels since I last took note of the number a couple of months ago. In the last 12 hours, there’s been nearly 25 of them.

A pox on them all, and I mean that literally.