Air Canada: Never a better time? Really?

On hold with Air Canada, enjoying the helpful messages:

"There's never been a better time to fly. Now there are no fuel
surcharges within North America and you can check a second bag free!"

I think I can remember a time like that actually. Not that long ago.

Busing by wire(less)

Gotta love new bus route feature in iPhone 2.2 Maps.

It gives real time guesses for when the next bus should have arrived.

And when you miss your stop it maps your trudging progress back to
where you need to be through construction zones and snow banks.

All it needs now is a screen heater so your fingers don't freeze while
you compose a blog post about it all.

P.S. If you're at the bus stop at Moodie and the Queensway and waiting for an eastbound Queensway ride like the 101 make sure you press the button that looks like a cross walk button. Otherwise the secret light a kilometre away on the Queensway doesn't light up and no bus will exit to pick you up. Much hilarity ensues as you decompose by the side of the road over the next few days.

Shine on Unknown Soldier

Unknown Soldier
Originally uploaded by acodring

Right about now the sunlight should be shining on the headstone in Memorial Hall.

Inspiring writing for you - Obama's speech

I sent this to my kids today and copied their teachers.
One of their teachers got it at lunch and replayed the video for the class in the afternoon, as well as some Martin Luther King.
Way cool kids, way cool teachers, way cool times.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andrew Codrington
Subject: Inspiring writing for you - Obama's speech
To: Kid 1 <kid1@kidsemail.com>, Kid 2 <kid2@kidsemail.com>
Cc: Teacher 1 <teacher1@school.ca>, Teacher 2 <teacher2@school.ca>


Hi Kids!

Here's a link to the words from Obama's acceptance speech last night (a 'transcript').
You are both interested in writing so I thought you might like to read it - it's very well written and extremely inspiring.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.transcript/

There's even a link there to watch the video of him delivering the speech - there's lots to learn from his oratory skills as well. It's not just the words, but how you say them!

So much of politics is boring because it's not inspiring, but Obama has been showing us how to be an inspiring leader.
He's got a tough job to deliver on all the expectations his country and the world have for him, but he's off to a great start.

Love,
Daddy

The Canadian Dream

Great unreleased tune from Andrew Vincent and the Pirates on CBCR3 Podcast #179 got me thinking about what the Canadian Dream really is on my run today.


I soon realized that it is to see your children playing better hockey than you were ever able to.

For me, achieving that dream is closer than for most...

Don't worry, I've Got Your Back

This morning I needed a knife and two other product managers quickly offered their's from their back pockets.

Is there something I don't know about the next resource allocation meeting?

Drawback of technology

It makes it harder to ignore the harsh reality that I'm slower than I think.

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Polaris Prize PEI Road Trip Mixtape Special!

CBC Radio 3 is on another tear with their summer lineup of podcasts.

The Polaris Prize shortlist edition is a keeper. I've got 4 of the albums on it already, and will likely have more of them soon. For me so far its Stars or Kathleen Edwards. For my youngest it's Caribou all the way.

The Polaris Prize is awarded to a Canadian album released in the last year, and selection is based on artistic merit, not sales. Selection is by music industry pundits. Full disclosure: I am not a pundit.

Polaris Prize Shortlist MP3

Then the summer roadtrip mixtape special tradition continues with another spectacular mix. Almost no talking, just a quick interruption in the middle to change sides and hear a road trip disaster story from Grant involving flip flops the footwear, flip flops of a gastric nature, a cop, and a breathalyzer.

2008 Mix Tape MP3

We'll be putting it on continuous loop along with the 2007 and 2006 editions on our trip to PEI.

2007 Mix Tape MP3

2006 Mix Tape

Go on, give them a listen. They sound pretty good even when you're not in the car.

Enjoy!

Desperate Housewives was the gin of our times - Web 2.0 Expo

Years ago I subscribed to an email newsletter called The Wave Report, by John Latta.
It's become one of the few I don't automatically filter off into the 'For a Rainy Day Reading' folder.

John suffers through endless technology industry shows and conventions and summarizes them succinctly, without wasting time on fluffy things like graphics or editing. It's raw reporting, commentary, and insight and it's great if you fear flying or have a CFO who fears travel expenses.

In WAVE0807 (online version not yet posted at time of writing, but that link should work when it is) he covers the Web 2.0 Expo and I'm compelled to share some tasty snippets.

On Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, both from Forrester Research:

Groundswell is a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.

A Groundswell example that comes to mind is Bookmooch, a neat little service that connects book traders in a global book swapping network. My youngest has become a rabid moocher, unloading her "Flat Stanley" collection as fast as she can and getting all sorts of new books in return.

On Clay Shirky's talk:

The issue is that TV has masked for 50 years the great surplus of human time.

In the transition from the agrarian society to the industrial society one of the most important components was gin. The pace of change was so radical that gin became the means for society to cope. It took 30 years before the institutions of industrial
revolution we recognize came into being. This happened only after society was able to cope with and assimilate the changes which happened.
In the 20th Century the social lubricant was the sitcom. This occurred with the rise of the 5 day work week and creation of the middle class. As a society we had too much free time. This was filled with TV. Desperate Housewives was gin of our times.
Only now are we starting to see cognitive excess as a plus Where do we now find time which can be used creatively by society? Now it is being placed in TV. We should ask the questions what should be done with this time? The issue is that TV has masked for 50 years the great surplus of human time. For example, Wikipedia has taken 100 million hours of human thought. TV is consuming 200 billion hours every year. This equates to 2000 Wikipedia projects a year if television watch was turned to more creative uses.

If the reference to gin as a societal pacifier during the transition through the industrial revolution intrigues you I'd recommend Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason

John also summarizes talks by Jonathan Schwartz, Tim O'Reilly, Art Balogh, and David Recordon on different aspects of Web 2.0.

My Moo MiniCards came!

My Moo MiniCards came!
Originally uploaded by acodring

I'm really happy with how these turned out.

I let moo pick 100 random shots from 'My Favs' set on flickr, then spent 5 minutes adjusting the automatic cropping.

I've been thinking about getting these since Phil handed me a 'personal' card in addition to his business card a while ago.

Glad I finally did!

Fail and fail often

Seth inspires us to fail:

The object isn’t to be perfect. The goal isn’t to hold back until you’ve created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.

cant fail cafe - red line
Originally uploaded by pbo31

I'm feeling a theme building here.

"GrandCentral Me"

[Edit 2: Based on a few confused calls, I need to clarify that I don't work for Google, and Google have disabled GrandCentral invites. I'd really like to be able to help you get your own GrandCentral number, but I can't. Since I'm Canadian, I'll say sorry.]



[Edit: GrandCentral have that 'Keep my number private' thing checked by default. If you leave it checked, you show up as 'Unknown' and you'll be filtered out of my day.]

The Basics:
Type in your name and the phone number you'd like to talk to me from. When you click submit GrandCentral will call you first on the number you provided, then call me on one or more of my phones. No charge to you. No charge to me. Gotta love Google.

The Backstory:
Last year I was hearing a lot about a "one phone number" VOIP service called GrandCentral. I was intrigued but figured it couldn't last so it wasn't worth signing up. Then I saw Google bought them and quickly signed up before invites closed.

It's only marginally useful since they don't have Ottawa numbers to choose from, but I can put up these 'Call Me' buttons that allow you to set up a call from a number of your choice to me. Free. From anywhere. You can also call me direct from a real phone with the service, but I don't think I'll put that number up here...

What Are Your Solstice Plans?

I'm not a "scoop" kind of blogger, but this is close.

If you live near the Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge uberopolis you're sure to enjoy the launch party of the Solar Collector project. From what I know of the Gorbet's, they don't do things in half measures. Druid costume optional.

Evening launch party and performance June 21st, 8:30pm (the sculpture comes to life at dusk, ~9:30pm)
We invite you to celebrate the summer solstice at the launch of Solar Collector on June 21st. Bring an evening picnic out to the grassy lawn under the apple trees, and enjoy live music to accompany the sculpture’s performance. 100 Maple Grove Road, Cambridge, Ontario (Google satellite map)

In a collaboration between the community and the sun, Solar Collector gathers human expression and solar energy during the day, then brings them together each night in a performance of flowing light.

Twelve aluminum shafts rise from the grassy hill in front of the Waterloo Regional Operations Centre. Their graceful shape reflects the angles of the sun through the year. The tallest shaft is perpendicular to the sun at winter solstice, when the sun is low in the sky. The flattest shaft faces the high sun at summer solstice.

Sun Burn Remedy

Chilling on the porch
Originally uploaded by acodring

Flickr's got a new 'stats' feature and it's way too addictive.

It allows me to see that 4 people in the last week have googled "Sun Burn Remedy" or something close on google images and then clicked through to my goofy lobster face.

Original photo caption:

"One snorkelling trip lasted longer than expected and resulted in nasty sunburns. Here I am trying a homeopathic cure for sunburn - beer and grilled cheese."

There's got to be some big adwords revenue in that somewhere! :-)

Pudgy Daddy vs Puff Daddy

Crazy Unkel Stephen about half way
Originally uploaded by acodring

Epic battle pitting Crazy Unkel Stephen against crowd favourite celeb marathoner Puff Daddy.

"Sean (Diddy) Combs ran the ING NYC Marathon in 2003 with a time of 4:14:54. In the process, he raised about $2 million for NYC schools."

Oprah didn't stand a chance.

Crazy Unkel Stephen team apparel by Josh Phillippe at Organik Graphyx (+1.613.569.5100, 9 Florence St., Ottawa, ON, Canada).
Josh did a fantastic job designing the team crest in real time, maintaining deep concentration despite me looking over his shoulder and a colleague snoring loudly on the couch behind him the whole time... :-)
He didn't charge me enough for his efforts, so consider this post 'promotional consideration'.

Last Weekend at the Cottage

Last Weekend at the Cottage
Originally uploaded by acodring

It's not our place, but we're generally welcome and the gracious owners are moving to a different lake this week.

I snapped this while setting up for another shot. The other shot was boring, but I find this one magic. Maybe it's the Mill Street Stock Ale gleaming in the foreground...

Students break down marathon into bite sized pieces

The Nortel Kids Marathon - a kilometer a day, leading up to running the last 1.9 km of the Ottawa Marathon amidst the sweaty crowds.

CBC Radio Ottawa did a feature on the marathon and covered the class's participation. You'll understand why I'm posting about it if you listen.

Why Did The Turtle Cross The Road?

Why Did The Turtle Cross The Road?
Originally uploaded by acodring

Apparently to check out the underbody of my car. He was crossing Highway 10 between Perth and Westport.

Doing the right thing

With so many causes and issues flying around it's pretty easy to find contradictory positions and advice on almost anything.

"Researcher discovers breathing is bad for your health", etc.

I'm going to take on a some issues and causes here to figure out and share what I think is the right thing to do. Not big ones, mostly small ones. No answers today, just a list:

• Plastic shopping bags - The latest fad is to not use plastic shopping bags for groceries etc, using cloth instead. OK so far, but for years I've been re-using those same plastic bags in the kitchen garbage. If my supply is cut off, and I start using regular plastic garbage bags, is the world any better off? What's the alternative in the kitchen?
• The kids had $20 lying around from a recent pet sitting gig. They've been donating profits and for Malaria Day yesterday I suggested they buy some nets. Then while explaining the Malaria issue to them I noticed a mention of the nets being diverted for use as overly effective fishing nets. I'm hopeful the nets are really a 'net' positive but will do more research. We donated the nets anyway.
  

Zimbabwe: Olympic Torch Relay Returning To Africa?

Could this boat have the Olympic Torch Relay entourage hidden in one of the containers?

It seems certain whatever is in the hold is intended to ignite something.

When I was a kid we went to the Ontario Science Center in Toronto pretty regularly.
They had a simple forest fire-fighting simulation game. Graphics were REALLY simple back then kids, so the fire started as a single square in the middle of the screen and spread to surrounding squares. You could build firewalls by bulldozing swaths of squares, water bomb areas, etc.

You soon learned that if you immediately dropped a water bomb on the single square you won. If you missed it, you were toast and the whole forest burned down.

That boat reminds me a little of that single square of fire - kudos to the dock workers for refusing to unload the weapons. A beacon of sanity!

At some point the world missed it's chance to waterbomb the single square in Darfur and Rwanda. Let's not miss it again.

China shouldn't be allowed to play with fire - someone take that torch away!

Mugabe orders partial recount as boat containing regime's 77 tonnes of Chinese arms is marooned off South African coast

From This is Zimbabwe:

Enquiries over the contents of a cargo of arms aboard the An Yue Jiang have sparked a media frenzy, however various government departments have declined to comment over the ship and its cargo.

Noseweek editor Martin Welz told Sapa on Wednesday that “the cargo ship was openly delivering a containment of arms for Zimbabwe”.

He said that he had copies of all the documents.

The controversial cargo packed into 3 080 cases includes three million rounds of 7.62mm bullets (used in the AK47 assault rifle), 69 Rocket Propelled Grenades as well as mortar bombs and tubes.

Chinese troops are on the streets of Zimbabwean city, witnesses say

By Ian Evans in Cape Town
Saturday, 19 April 2008

Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of Zimbabwe's third largest city, Mutare, according to local witnesses. They were seen patrolling with Zimbabwean soldiers before and during Tuesday's ill-fated general strike called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Earlier, 10 Chinese soldiers armed with pistols checked in at the city's Holiday Inn along with 70 Zimbabwean troops.

One eyewitness, who asked not to be named, said: "We've never seen Chinese soldiers in full regalia on our streets before. The entire delegation took 80 rooms from the hotel, 10 for the Chinese and 70 for Zimbabwean soldiers."

Officially, the Chinese were visiting strategic locations such as border posts, key companies and state institutions, he said. But it is unclear why they were patrolling at such a sensitive time. They were supposed to stay five days, but left after three to travel to Masvingo, in the south.

China's support for President Mugabe's regime has been highlighted by the arrival in South Africa of a ship carrying a large cache of weapons destined for Zimbabwe's armed forces. Dock workers in Durban refused to unload it.

Dock workers and police send China arms ship packing from South African port

The South African government gave customs clearance for the weapons, which include more than three million rounds of AK-47 rifle ammunition, 1500 rocket-propelled grenades and more than 3000 mortar rounds and launchers.

But Randall Howard, general secretary of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), to which the Durban dockers belong, warned: "As far as we are concerned, the containers will not be offloaded. The ship must return to China. If they the Mbeki government bring replacement labour to do the work, our members will not stand and look at them and smile."

Prep for Ottawa Tulip Festival

Prep for Ottawa Tulip Festival
Originally uploaded by acodring

These beds are on track for the May Tulip Festival. www.tulipfestival.ca/en/index.php

These shots were mostly an excuse to play with my new 50mm F1.8 lens. I had forgotten just how shallow you can make depth of field...

Closed: Michael's Classico Barbershop

Closed: Michael's Classico Barbershop
Originally uploaded by acodring

Mike moved to Belleville to be closer to family.
This was a real, old school, Italian style barber shop, except for the reading material.
Mike knew pretty much everyone's name and waved even if he didn't.
Bank Street and Old Ottawa South will miss his style.

Server Gated Cryptography (SGC): Aiding and Abetting?

I’ve made my views on SGC known before, but this week I was asked to restate in a more condensed way.

How’s this?

Enabling Server Gated Crypto on your web servers is tantamount to aiding and abetting cyber criminals.

“Of course it isn’t!” your SSL certificate salesperson will say. “SGC enables all your customers to use super strong 128 bit cryptography, even if they have older browsers.”

There’s the rub. Those older browsers are the only ones that need SGC. Unfortunately , those older browsers are also so full of unpatched security holes that you could encrypt the pipe between the browser and the web server with 256-bit AES and the criminals wouldn’t break a sweat as they collected your customer’s login information or credit card number.

The bad guys are able to install software on those older, unpatched systems that lives inside the browser or inside the operating system. That malicious software can log keystrokes or view submitted information before it is encrypted by SSL. The rogue software can then submit the collected information to a central place for aggregation and collection by the criminal group.

If you haven’t heard of botnets yet, that’s what we’re talking about here. They’re not new - if you’re a details person this three year old paper on botnets is a good introduction to the topic. Shadowserver Foundation has some interesting stats on bot counts and locations – today they’re showing ~110,000 infected systems. These are only the ones that are actively being controlled by a command and control server, and obviously they’re only the ones that they know of.

As for the accusation of “aiding and abetting”, it’s mostly tongue in cheek, but think about it. I’m no lawyer, and neither is Wikipedia, but this is what the Wikipedia community consensus says:

Where available, aiding and abetting liability generally requires three elements:

1. an underlying violation by a principal; [AJC: Credit cards are being stolen. Check!]
2. knowledge of that violation and/or the intent to facilitate the violation; and [AJC:You’ve read this post. Check! ]
3. assistance to the principal in the violation. [AJC: You put up the SGC cert. Check!]

You have visibility into your users' configuration through user-agent info when they connect. Don't give them a false sense of security.

You owe it to your customers to help those with unsafe systems understand the risks and to strongly encourage them to upgrade their systems.

Are you doing the right thing?

Feedback welcome in the comments or by email.

Spammer shamelessly exploits young girls with customized hockey mats

Hi Alaina,
Not sure if you 'bought' access to this OGHA girls hockey team mailing list, but every time you send an email through it you are building your reputation with me as a spammer. Someone I don't want to do business with.

As far as I recall you haven't asked for or received permission to interrupt my day. Am I wrong? I'll assume you're not officially a sponsor since your name doesn't appear in the sponsors list on the OGHA site.

I'd recommend starting with Seth Godin's books and/or blog to get an understanding of what permission based marketing is about.

Instead of spamming have you thought about improving your search ranking? Google doesn't think you're relevant to Canadian people looking for custom hockey mats and that's very bad for you. Look into 'search engine optimization', soon.

While you're at it, look into Google Adwords too. While I'm wasting my time replying to your email, your competitors have sponsored ads all along the side of this email message in my browser window - you don't show up. Gmail knows I'm reading something about custom hockey mats and they're showing me ads related to that topic.If this was a legitimate conversation about hockey mats and I was interested in buying some, then those ads would be very timely.

I had a look at your web site and I couldn't see any signs of a web analytics tool. For your sake I hope you're on that at least.

The neat thing is, I've BCC'd Andrew Codrington's Unprofessional Blog with this email. If things work as expected two things will happen:

1. My (admittedly small) readership will see you referred to as spammers, and
   
2. Google Adwords will see the term 'custom hockey mats' throughout the blog post and show an ad for one of your competitors beside my blog.

That last link from the term "custom hockey mats" back to my blog was just for kicks. Oops! I did it twice! As a result my blog could very well show up higher than your web site in searches for 'custom hockey mats'. Doh! Just can't stop linking! :-)

You should be able to click through to my blog to see if it worked. I know I will!

Cheers,
Andrew

2008/4/16 Pulse Inc. <alaina@pulse.ca>:

Alaina Boven

Pulse Inc.

Sales Manager

Tel: 416.357.4818

Fax: 1.888.819.6112

alaina@pulse.ca

Commuting with economists

Despite Ottawa suffering from both low density and sprawl my commute is only about 1/2 hour. To keep it interesting on Sunday night I sync my iPod Touch with a load of podcasts and listen to them in the car through the week.

The first ones I listen to are almost always from The Economist.

"From the Paper" is a short summary of the in print edition and "The World Next Week" takes a stab at guessing what issues will bubble to the top.

Here's the summary of "From the Paper" for this week:

April 12th 2008
Selections from The Economist
America's recession, a public-relations tip for China, malaria's breakthrough moment, and the Princess Diana inquiry

The World Next Week was obviously recorded before Obama's "bitter" comments as they don't even mention it. The dangers of the crystal ball! Still a good listen.

Their summary notes:

World leaders gather to discuss Iran, the Olympic Torch Relay continues and Gordon Brown visits Washington for talks with George Bush

Both podcasts are highly recommended for fellow commuters!

Under New Management

Under New Management
Originally uploaded by thealmightyprophetgitboy

This morning's commute was lightened by a truck delivering some signs. The sign I could see reminded me of Seth Godin's post on the negatives of "Under New Management" signs.

"If I liked your store before, now I'm on notice to be careful--it might not be as good.
If I didn't like your store before, why on earth am I paying attention to your little sign and why should I go out of my way to take another chance?
This is a vivid symbol of the ego-centric nature of most marketing. The sign is about the owner, not about the prospect."

Maybe the bar owner had read the post, because they had a definite message for the prospect. I don't have a camera phone, so I'll just have to type in what it said:

"Under New Management. Colder Beer."

It didn't include the name of the bar, otherwise I might be there now!

Rideau River Flooding at Brewer Park

Rideau River Flooding at Brewer Park
Originally uploaded by acodring

You can't see it, but there's a scuba football game going on here.

Heaping Praise: CBCR3, HypeMachine, and MusicIP

Originally uploaded by e-magic

One of my goals in life is to not be listening to the same music in the old age home as I did in high school.

As a parent it's tough to actively follow the scene's and find out about new music. Lots of tools and services on the Internet make it easier, but when it comes down to it you need to quickly find stuff and be able to listen to it.

CBC Radio 3 has been a huge part of finding out about new Canadian music for me. It's pretty stunning that it exists and even more amazing that it's been able to maintain such a high level of quality and freshness over the years. As I told Grant, it makes me happy to pay my tax bill. Daily and weekly podcasts on my iPod make running and the commute a lot more fun.

The Hype Machine is another one that surprises by it's ability to continue operating. I'd expect the RIAA to treat it as a WMD (Weapon of Music Destruction). It aggregates huge volumes of podcasts into a single RSS feed of mp3 tracks that pile up in a folder on my machine. Lots of crap, lots of gems.

MusicIP Mixer is what brings it all together. Wendell tirelessly helped me and thousands of others get it set up - in my case plugging into SlimServer - and Rachel was kind enough to give me a full licence for Christmas a couple of years ago.

MusicIP Mixer analyzes and fingerprints all your tracks and then can create mixes based on seed tracks you select. It doesn't suffer from the memory problems and unfounded biases that I do ("I forgot I had that John Bottomley", or "Led Zeppelin, Herbie Hancock, and Sparklehorse do not mix") and puts together mixes of whatever length you ask for. It dips into my regular collection and also pulls out the tracks that come in from HypeMachine to introduce me to new artists and styles all the time. I think I've just made a big step towards Shari liking it too, as I figured out how to create a filter to keep Tom Waits out of any mix - the sound of his voice turns her off within milliseconds!

You can download and try MusicIP Mixer anytime - without the full licence they limit mixes to 75 songs and disable a few advanced features but it's still completely usable. Be patient if you've got a big collection - the initial analysis can take hours or days! Dig around in the preferences first to turn on 'Archive Analysis' - that'll save the fingerprint right in the mp3 file and save you tons of time if you have to start over and re-analyze. The new iTunes plugin might be better suited for people who live in that app all the time.

You know when you're in a cool cafe and some great tune comes on - if you're like me you run over and ask "Who's that playing?". With the above three tools and services that happens in my house pretty regularly.

Then, like a good consumer I run off and buy it. I'm an emusic.com subscriber and have used other services but so far I haven't spent a dime at iTunes. Can't get my head around Steve Jobs or another music exec being able to "turn off" my music collection with his DRM. If you decide to try emusic let me know and I'll "introduce you" - they give both of us extra free tracks!

Poophoria

I never said I was going to stick to one topic here....

CBC Radio's The Current interviewed a scatological author this morning and when he described 'poophoria' (a feeling of elation after a quality movement...) I would have crashed the car if I hadn't already stopped in a parking space.

"Also, Oprah's getting scatological and ads for pro-biotic yogurt are everywhere. Since when did it become acceptable to talk about poo in public? And is it really necessary, or just grossly self-indulgent? We'll talk to the author of the new book, What Your Poo is Telling You."

The audio wasn't available yet, but should appear here later today.

RSA Show Summary - Security Incite

Break Time
Originally uploaded by makelessnoise

Mike Rothman seems to have the right take on the show, mostly written before he went.And no, there's no sour grapes that my plans to attend fell apart at the last minute. :-)

10,000 vendors and 2 customers
RSA Day 2/3: Yawn...
Top 3 RSA Themes:

• Virtualization Security
• GRC
• Security in the cloud
• What you won't see:Innovation

I didn't get the memo that 'Compliance' got it's own TLA (GLC for Governance, Risk and Compliance). Mike is always educational!

The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting On What Matters

This book review from here caught my eye and highlights a better approach to difficulties I've often run across. Haven't read the book...

The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting On What Matters

Block, Peter

Another set of insights from Peter Block. This one is less about specific tips on how to be a better consultant/advisor. Instead it focuses on the impact of our default attitudes and assumptions on how we handle change, particularly in organizational settings. In particular, Block takes aim at the debilitating affects of always and quickly shifting discussions about any kind of proposed change to discussions of how things should be done or how they are impossible to do.

He argues, successfully, that our disposition toward leaping into questions of implementation is a disguised way to block change. The first question should never be "how can we do this?" as pragmatic as that might appear. Instead, we need to begin with questions of value. "Is this something that we want to do or that we need to do?" If the answer to that is truly "yes" then we will find the answers to the "how" questions as they appear.

Chocolate = Willpower

Very important findings here:

What limits willpower? Some have suggested that it is blood sugar, which brain cells use as their main energy source and cannot do without for even a few minutes. Most cognitive functions are unaffected by minor blood sugar fluctuations over the course of a day, but planning and self-control are sensitive to such small changes. Exerting self-control lowers blood sugar, which reduces the capacity for further self-control. People who drink a glass of lemonade between completing one task requiring self-control and beginning a second one perform equally well on both tasks, while people who drink sugarless diet lemonade make more errors on the second task than on the first. Foods that persistently elevate blood sugar, like those containing protein or complex carbohydrates, might enhance willpower for longer periods.

I extended the research by eating chocolate before writing this post.

Post written. QED chocolate is a willpower enhancing substance.

Self-Centred User Sends Warm Wishes to User Centric Interop Team From Afar

LOLCat and My Identity Crisis
Originally uploaded by DBarefoot

From where I stand (far away from San Fran) the user centric identity interop event at RSA is a good thing.

Career Wildfire?

Mt. San Miguel is on fire. San Diego County wildfires
Originally uploaded by slworking2

On constantly dealing with fires in the workplace, Seth says:

Add up enough urgencies and you don't get a fire, you get a career. A career putting out fires never leads to the goal you had in mind all along.

Note to self: Take heed.

Hannaford: Has PCI Met Its Killer Rabbit?

How far do you have to go to be ‘safe’ from such insidious evil?

I don’t normally bother to comment on the stream of ‘breach’ stories but Hannaford was different from the beginning. They were doing the ‘right thing’ and were PCI compliant, yet were the apparent source of a large number of credit card fraud cases. Hordes of security vendors building franchises around the credit card industry’s self imposed Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard cowered as the story took shape, and one of Hannaford’s own PCI providers engaged in some ‘customer reference’ gymnastics.

The story is still emerging, but it sounds like Hannaford didn’t detect it internally, rather normal card fraud alerts pointed back to them. Despite missing the breach itself, kudos to Hannaford for fessing up once they became aware.

Most of the ‘how it happened’ guesswork is pointing to malicious software that was able to spread inside the Hannaford network onto systems behind the protective measures prescribed by PCI DSS: “One piece of malware on one machine leaped to 300 other servers”. “Leaped”? That must be a new malware attack vector they’ll reveal this week at the RSA Conference.

Some are saying this shows PCI is ineffective: “In other words, PCI is worthless”

I disagree. (Even though one of my own credit cards was apparently duplicated in the last couple of weeks, giving someone a lucrative weekend shopping spree through central Ontario…)

While the Hannaford breach clearly demonstrates that PCI needs to go further before it is an effective weapon, there is no doubt that it is moving the payment industry in the right direction.

Societal ills

I'm listening to a CBC Ideas podcast that's exploring the roots of good and bad health this morning.
No easy answers, but it goes far beyond "an apple a day", or "eat your veg and get plenty of exercise".
It includes compelling arguments for investing in people's health very early in life (<4yrs old). Do you read to your toddlers? Apparently they'll thank you when they're 40.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20080310_4869.mp3

Can I Haz Pictures?

I hope so.

Mailing it in

Hey Codrington,
You coulda mailed that in.

Well. Here I am.

Pretty simple so far.