terriko

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2014/3/12/10-bakers-who-would-really-suck-at-pictionary.html

Posted by Jen

Ready, Set, DRAW!

1. Steak:

I guess "T-Bone" doesn't like his steak well done.
(HEYO!)

2. Guitar:

Strings are for sissies.

3. Truck Tire:

Yes, really.

4. The Eiffel Tower:

Try as I might, all I can see is the Leg Lamp from A Christmas Story. Just me?

5. Basketball:

*sigh*

6. Flip-Flops:

Made from only the freshest diseased lungs.

7. Alligator:

Post-digestion.

8. Fire:

"Fire" going down in flames. The irony, it burns.

9. Airplane

"Surely you can't be serious."

"I am serious... and don't call me 'Shirley.'"

10. Elvis:

...left the building a long, LONG time ago. This looks more like David Bowie wearing a skunk.

Thanks to Teresa, Anne D., Mattia M., Julia B., Sherri C., Katelyn C., Rachel, Emily D., Jen M., & Heather R. for drawing all the wrong conclusions.

Editor's note- Some of you have told me that you're having trouble seeing the pictures today. If that's you, would you send me an email to let me know? Thanks so much and Wreck On! -john (the hubby of Jen) (comments(at)cakewrecks.com)

*****

Thank you for using our Amazon links to shop! USA, UK, Canada.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2014/3/12/10-bakers-who-would-really-suck-at-pictionary.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KrebsOnSecurity/~3/8yPGxCLuhS0/

Posted by BrianKrebs

http://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=25191

For the second time since Aug. 2013, online retailer NoMoreRack.com has hired a computer forensics team after being notified by Discover about a potential breach of customer card data, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.

Over the past several weeks, a number of banks have shared information with this reporter indicating that they are seeing fraud on cards that were all recently used by nomorerack.com customers. Turns out, nomorerack.com has heard this as well, and for the second time in the last seven months has called in outside investigators to check for signs of a digital break-in.

Vishal Agarwal, director of business development for the New York City-based online retailer, said the company was first approached by Discover Card back in August 2013, when the card association said it had isolated nomorerack.com as a likely point-of-compromise.

“They requested then that we go through a forensics audit, and we did that late October by engaging with Trustwave,” Agarwal said. “Trustwave came out with a report at end of October saying there was no clear cut evidence that our systems had been compromised. There were a few minor bugs reported, but not conclusive evidence of anything that caused a leakage in our systems.”

Then, just last month, NoMoreRack heard once again from Discover, which said that between Nov. 1, 2013 and Jan. 15, 2014, the company had determined there were more incidents of fraud tied to cards that were all used at the company’s online store.

“So, as of last week, we engaged with Trustwave again to undergo another audit,” Agarwal said. “We have been hearing the complaints from banks, but apart from that, and we’ve done our analysis and due diligence, and there is nothing seriously we can find that may have resulted in customer cards being compromised.”

NoMoreRack also has engaged with Trustwave to ensure that its systems are compliant with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards, a set of requirements designed to ensure that all companies that process, store or transmit credit card data maintain a secure environment.

For the purposes of PCI compliance, merchants fall into one of four tiers. The tiers correspond to the volume of cards a merchant processes per year: For example, Tier-1 merchants are those which handle more than 6 million transactions a year. Tier 4 merchants, on the other end of the spectrum, are those which process fewer than 20,000 e-commerce transactions per year.

All merchants that handle credit card transactions are required to be PCI compliant, but most are able to self-certify that they are compliant. Only Tier-1 merchants are required to be audited by an independent “qualified security assessor” or QSA. However, companies that self-certify and later experience a breach may be required by their bank to place themselves into the Tier-1 category and undergo a QSA assessment.

Agarwal said NoMoreRack is now in the process of certifying itself this time as a Tier-1 merchant, even though the number of credit and debit cards it processed in 2013 placed it squarely in the Tier-2 range.

“What we’ve also done is we’ve engaged with Trustwave to do a full PCI compliance audit,” Agarwal said. “Not only are we going through another forensics audit, but we will be going through PCI compliance Level 1, just to make sure our systems are secure and that we are doing everything we can to protect consumer data. We are hoping that Trustwave can point us in the right direction so we may plug any gaps that are there already.”

NoMoreRack has grown significantly since its founding in October 2010. In 2012, the company had online sales of more than $100 million; by the end of last year, sales had reached $340 million annually. It’s possible that this rapid growth is what has been contributing to a poor reputation for consumer complaints against the online retailer. That is, at least according to the Better Business Bureau, which gives NoMoreRack a rating of “F” (its worst).

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KrebsOnSecurity/~3/8yPGxCLuhS0/

http://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=25191

accidentallyincode_feed

Posted by Cate Huston

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AccidentallyInCode/~3/pAT5YB5N6W8/

http://www.catehuston.com/blog/?p=12649

Credit: Flickr / Martin LaBar

Sub parts of the Thing are described as “shared” or “reusable”… but no-one else is using them.

The Thing has lots of unit tests, but few (or no) integration tests because they are so much harder to write.

No one can explain clearly what the Thing does, because the generalised use case has obfuscated the actual problem it was originally supposed to solve.

It would be helpful to see a UML diagram of the Thing, because no one can even begin to map the dependencies in their head. Or on paper.

More time is spent worrying about elaborate corner cases than use cases.

The word “framework”.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AccidentallyInCode/~3/pAT5YB5N6W8/

http://www.catehuston.com/blog/?p=12649

puzzlement posting in

http://blog.xkcd.com/2014/03/12/what-if-i-wrote-a-book/

Sleep: I feel like I got Steph's baby by accident.

Ever since she was a few days old, A has naturally gone to sleep well in the early evening. For six weeks we kept her downstairs with us until we went to bed, I guess in case there was something magical about our presence. Then we tried just putting her in her cot just before V goes to bed, and that works fine. She coos and chatters and grumbles in the darkness, and goes to sleep without further input.

She wakes once (twice last night) in the middle of the night to feed, is usually awake and grumbling when V wakes me up (his internal alarm is set to 7:28am precisely and don't we all look forward to the end of daylight savings when that's 6:28am?), has another feed then and then sleeps again until about 9. Recently she's been spending more time awake during the day, probably six hours or more, but that's a fairly new development. I would guess she's having three naps after the 9am one now, but I haven't been keeping track. She also settles herself for naps, although they usually follow a feed.

It's all very different from shushing and patting V to sleep on me, and then geeently transferring him to the cot, and then re-patting him and then sneeeeaking away and then being caught at it and starting again.

She had her first vaccines a few weeks ago without incident: it created red marks on her legs but she seemed not to notice.

Feeding: not painful or anything, but not as nice as feeding V was. This is because while V reacted to milk by passing out into a blissful sleep once his belly was full, A reacts to milk by squawking and flailing when her belly is full. So she suckles and then gets restless and cross because she can't yet release by herself, I break her off, she screams at me for a minute or so, and then passes out, or looks around, or whatever her inclination is. Gee, thanks a lot. Half the time, well trained by V, I even try and re-latch her thinking she's still hungry.

As at six weeks, she has a wide range of conversational noises. "nnn GEH" is her favourite. Judging from who she coos at the most, I think she prefers Andrew to me, and she prefers her mobile (as in, dangling thing above her car seat, not a phone!) to either of us. That mobile is her real parent.

We no longer get reluctant smiles, she now smiles fit to break her face in half. This was a bit tragic with the vaccines as they asked me to hold her down and she smiled beautifully for her special cuddle before BETRAYAL.

Motor: she still doesn't lift her head from the floor when she's on her tummy, not even for a moment. But she lifts it from my chest when I lie her on me, and when I'm holding her and carrying her around, she holds her head off me for ages and turns it all around looking at everything. She can even do that planking thing young babies do where you support their belly and they lift their head and legs to horizontal. So her neck muscles clearly dance to her tune. She's working hard on rolling from her back to her front; she can't yet get her torso to follow her legs over. Since she doesn't even lift her head when on her tummy, there's no hint of rolling the other way (my notes from V say that I thought that he was about to roll that way).

We're not being as attentive to the tummy time concept this time, of course, and we're also not carrying her in a sling as much. That'll start more when it's less humid and the idea of a baby pressed against me isn't awful.

She's enjoying hitting and kicking at her baby gym, although it's hard to tell if that's what she intended to do. She also wiggles herself around, moving up to half a metre or so if placed on her back.

Size: She's still in 000 baby clothes because she's a skinny baby. But in our big cloth nappies and with her giant head, it's really time to graduate her. She's super close to outgrowing all three of her car seat, her downstairs crib that we use during the day, and her co-sleeper bed in her cot.

With V I did a second entry on what I was enjoying and finding hard, that's tempting this time too.

xkcd_feed

xkcd_feed

http://xkcd.com/1341/

http://xkcd.com/1341/

frith posting in

ponyville_trot

Source: http://sokolas.deviantart.com/art/Bath-437514623

Squeaky clean.

pleia2

Today the OpenStack Infrastructure team hosted their third bug day of the cycle.

First, I created our etherpad: cibugreview-march2014 (see etherpad from past bug days on the wiki at: InfraTeam#Bugs)

Then I run my simple infra_bugday.py script and populate the etherpad.

Then I grab the bug stats from launchpad and copy them into the pad so we (hopefully) have inspiring statistics at the end of the day. Once bugday makes it into infra proper I hope to update that to include us too, there is a bug for that, which I updated today.

Then comes the real work. I open up the old etherpad and go through all the bugs, copying over comments from the old etherpad and making my own comments as necessary about obvious updates I see (and updating my own bugs).

Last step: Let the team go to town on the etherpad and bugs!

As we wrap up, here are the stats from today:

Bug day start total open bugs: 293

50 New bugs
51 In-progress bugs
5 Critical bugs
23 High importance bugs
15 Incomplete bugs

Bug day end total open bugs: 245

0 New bugs
45 In-progress bugs
4 Critical bugs
24 High importance bugs
21 Incomplete bugs

Thanks again everyone!

Originally published at pleia2's blog. You can comment here or there.

geekfeminism_feed

Posted by gfspamspam

http://geekfeminism.org/2014/03/11/i-dont-want-to-change-the-world-im-not-looking-for-a-new-linkspam-11-march-2014/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=10748

How to add more women to your story | The Black Board: “Are the “tips” no-brainers and self-evident? Yup. Because this stuff isn’t rocket science: if you want more women (or people of color, or GLBTQ characters, or other marginalized/erased characters), write them into your scripts.”
Libre Graphics Magazine Dedicates Issue to Gender and Free Culture | Global Voices: “Libre Graphics Magazine, “a print publication devoted to showcasing and promoting work created with Free/Libre Open Source Software” (F/LOSS), dedicates its latest issue to representation and gendered work in F/LOSS. “
A Diversity Follow Friday Challenge | Life as I Know It: Because Guy and Bryan don’t have to spend time out of every day just proving their right to exist in the tech space, or any space for that matter, they have no idea how their actions relate to the larger context of the bullshit patriarchy we live in. And they won’t, until they decide to actually listen to people with experiences that are different from theirs.
Getting More Writers of Color to Workshops: A Modest Proposal | K. Tempest Bradford: “So how can we make workshops more widely available to writers who are more likely to miss out on these opportunities? A few good ideas I’ve seen lately:”
10 inspirational women engineers and scientists | EDN: “Odds are you haven’t heard of many of the women we’ve included in this list. While their names aren’t Grace Hopper or Lady Ada Lovelace, read through for a small sampling of this current generation of engineers, entrepreneurs, and encouragers, and see what they are doing to share knowledge and inspire more STEM in the world.”
Where do all the women go? | Infectious Thoughts: “According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, just 30% of science researchers are women. They have produced a nifty tool to see where those women work and in what fields.”
Empowering Girls and Women in the Digital Age |Diplomatic Courier: “As we celebrate International Women’s Day, let’s also focus on how we can advance the rights and well being of girls and women worldwide. Technology must be part of this discussion.”
Fan Expo Canada’s “Cuddle a Cosplayer” Controversy and Ignorance of Convention Harassment | The Mary Sue: The title says it all.
Not Being Sexist Isn’t That Difficult | A life unexamined: “it wasn’t until three quarters through the game that I really noticed what I was enjoying the most: the lack of that casual sexism and misogyny that worms its way into so many games.”

We link to a variety of sources, some of which are personal blogs. If you visit other sites linked herein, we ask that you respect the commenting policy and individual culture of those sites.

You can suggest links for future linkspams in comments here, or by using the “geekfeminism” tag on Pinboard, Delicious or Diigo; or the “#geekfeminism” tag on Twitter. Please note that we tend to stick to publishing recent links (from the last month or so).

Thanks to everyone who suggested links.

http://geekfeminism.org/2014/03/11/i-dont-want-to-change-the-world-im-not-looking-for-a-new-linkspam-11-march-2014/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=10748

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KrebsOnSecurity/~3/NY7tALHBr8Y/

Posted by BrianKrebs

http://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=25272

Adobe and Microsoft today each released software updates to fix serious security flaws in their products. Adobe pushed an update that plugs a pair of holes in its Flash Player software. Microsoft issued five updates, including one that addresses a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer that attackers have been exploiting of late.

Microsoft’s five bulletins address 23 distinct security weaknesses in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer and Silverlight. The Internet Explorer patch is rated critical for virtually all supported versions of IE, and plugs at least 18 security holes, including a severe weakness in IE 9 and 10 that is already being exploited in targeted attacks.

Microsoft notes that the exploits targeting the IE bug seen so far appear to perform a check for the presence of Microsoft’s Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET); according to Microsoft, the exploits fail to proceed if EMET is detected. I’ve recommended EMET on several occasions, and would encourage any Windows users who haven’t yet deployed this tool to spend a few minutes reading this post and consider taking advantage of it to further harden their systems. The latest version — 4.1 — is available at this link and requires Microsoft’s .NET Framework 4 platform. For those of you who don’t mind beta-testing software, Microsoft has released a preview version of the next generation of EMET — EMET 5.0 Technical Preview.

This month’s updates include a fix for another dangerous bug – deep within the operating system on just about every major version of Windows – that also was publicly disclosed prior to today’s patches. Microsoft’s Technet Blog has more details on these and other bulletins released today.

Readers still using Windows XP should remember that after next month, Microsoft will stop releasing security updates for that version of Windows. Microsoft recently announced that it will make available for free a Windows XP data transfer tool to ease the hassle of upgrading to a newer version of Windows. I would submit that if your PC runs XP and came with XP installed, that it might be time to upgrade the computer hardware itself.

In any case, using Windows XP beyond next month is not the greatest idea, and it’s time for XP users to consider other options. Don’t forget that there are many flavors of Linux that will run quite happily on older hardware. If you’ve been considering the switch for a while, take a few distributions for a spin using one of dozens of flavors of Linux available via Live CD.

FLASH UPDATE

Adobe’s Flash update brings the media player to v. 12.0.0.77 on Windows and Mac OS X. This link will tell you which version of Flash your browser has installed. IE10 and Chrome should auto-update their versions of Flash. If your version of Chrome (on either Windows, Mac or Linux) is not yet updated to v. 12.0.0.77, you may just need to close and restart the browser.

The most recent versions of Flash are available from the Adobe download center, but beware potentially unwanted add-ons, like McAfee Security Scan). To avoid this, uncheck the pre-checked box before downloading, or grab your OS-specific Flash download from here. Windows users who browse the Web with anything other than Internet Explorer will need to apply this patch twice, once with IE and again using the alternative browser (Firefox, Opera, e.g.). Adobe does not appear to have released any updates for AIR as it often does when pushing new Flash patches.

As always, please drop a note in the comments section if you experience any issues with the updates released today.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KrebsOnSecurity/~3/NY7tALHBr8Y/

http://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=25272

valerie_fenwick_blog_feed

Posted by Valerie Fenwick

http://bubbva.blogspot.com/2014/03/oracle-solaris-cryptographic-framework.html

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that Oracle has received our FIPS-140-2 certificates for the userland Solaris Cryptographic Framework as well!

I wrote in December about receiving our certificates for the kernel side.

These new certificates, certificate #2077 for Intel and SPARC64 processors and certificate #2076 for SPARC T4 and T5 processors, completes our story for FIPS-140-2 Level 1 validation for Solaris 11.1.

This was a long and difficult process, and I am very proud of the team of engineers, program managers, testers and documentation folks who made this all happen.

http://bubbva.blogspot.com/2014/03/oracle-solaris-cryptographic-framework.html

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2014/3/11/flotsampoowreckitis.html

Posted by Jen

Do you frequently need to abandon your work for sudden emergencies?

Are your trips to the beach often cut short?

Are you perplexed by the constant trail of crap that follows where ever you go?

If the answer is yes then you may be suffering from Flotsampoowreckitis, or FPW, a common condition afflicting literally millions of plastic cake toys.

While there is no cure, FPW is nothing to be ashamed of! Why, just look at all these celebrity toys living loud and proud with THEIR frosted poop piles!

"I tell everyone it's the grease in 'greased Lightning.'"

"Then she was all, 'Can YOU say 'sexy?!'"

Even Merida knows being ashamed of FPW is just horse... rocks.

So brave.

So don't turn your back on Flotsampoowreckitis, flotsam!

Embrace it!

"Oooh, commmmfy."

Then you, too, can move on with your regular duties, knowing life won't pass you by!

So go on, cake flotsam: get out there, and embrace life to the fullest.

And just, uh, try to ignore all those giant turds beside you.

Thanks to Anony M., Laura N., Heidi T., Melissa C., Alex M., Miranda H., Cassandra M., Paula M., Amber G., and Chera D. , who are still giggling over "regular duties." (No? Just me?)

*****

Thank you for using our Amazon links to shop! USA, UK, Canada.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2014/3/11/flotsampoowreckitis.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KrebsOnSecurity/~3/MqBB2xul2VE/

Posted by BrianKrebs

http://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=25268

In February, this blog and its author were recognized for three separate awards. At the RSA Security conference in San Francisco, KrebsOnSecurity.com was voted the “Most Educational Security Blog” at the Security Bloggers Meetup (for the second year in a row). The judges at the meetup also gave KrebsOnSecurity.com the honor of the “Best Blog Post of the Year,” for my reporting on the Adobe breach.

Separately, I am honored to have received the Mary Litynsky Award for Protecting the Online Community, a lifetime achievement recognition given by the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group. M3AAWG’s announcement about the award is here. Past recipients of this award are listed here.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KrebsOnSecurity/~3/MqBB2xul2VE/

http://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=25268

puzzlement posting in

http://geekfeminism.org/2014/03/10/on-being-geeky-disabled-and-also-kinda-smokin/

I once told someone that our biggest ambition for V was that he be physically adventurous. We spent lots of time at playgrounds encouraging him to run around by himself and go down giant slides at young ages and whatnot.

Well, sometimes, you get what you ask for…

( V-dio )

frith posting in

ponyville_trot

Source: http://mysticalpha.deviantart.com/art/Rarity-in-Mud-432632621

puzzlement

Suggestions for topics are still open.

What language(s) would you like to learn? —

pfctdayelise

I have the typical image-conscious and not overly extroverted engineer approach to language learning, that is, it makes me want to go and hide because it's hundreds of hours to basic competency and probably (since I'm an adult) never true proficiency. (I am similarly stuck on music at present, weirdly since I have some prior competency there.)

Howver, leaving that aside as much as possible: Spanish, on practicality grounds. It has a very large number of speakers, Latin alphabet, close-ish linguistic relative of English, and widespread resources for English speaking learners.

Andrew and I did roughly a high school year's worth of Spanish in the first 6 months of 2007. It hasn't entirely left us, at least for comprehension: I still remember a lot of the very common verbs in a few tenses, and of course in a Romance language I can guess at many nouns. Having just learned about Duolingo, I'm thinking of having a go. It may not be immersion because nothing other than immersion is, but almost anything would be better than nothing at all.

Other possibilities: many people I know who love learning languages have especially loved learning Arabic (Standard/Literary, I assume), so that's obviously tempting; Cantonese or Mandarin, because they're also widely spoken (and if I could learn to read the characters, there's an enormous literary canon) but are harder for English speakers; French because I know a few advanced learners who could hook me up with conversational resources. Latin is an interesting possibility: very free word order compared to English, and while it's a dead language you get an automatic level-up in many of its descendants, plus studying a dead language removes the need to converse with native speakers…

I would like to learn more about the linguistics of Australian languages (I'll return to that in answer to

skud's question) but as best I understand it, me becoming conversant in them is likely to be considered cultural appropriation by at least speakers of some languages, so I'd probably say I'd study these rather than learn them, and only the forms they've allowed outsiders to document.

I'm trying to think how we could possibly give our children the chance to learn Latvian, given that they'll perhaps be citizens. This is at least theoretically possible in Sydney, but it involves driving them to Strathfield every Saturday morning (which involves buying a car), and accepting that we'd be adding half a day of schooling to their lives indefinitely.

geekfeminism_feed

Posted by gfguestblogger

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=10746

This is a guest post by Cecily Kane. a writer, business professional, and sci-fi and fantasy geek. She blogs at Manic Pixie Dream Worlds , where she reviews books, talks speculative fiction, and rants regarding intersectional feminism, sometimes even coherently.

I am a geek, and a writer, and was born with a mild disability — thumb hypoplasia, type II/III.

Effectively, on my right hand, I have five fingers and no thumb. I possess a digit that looks quite thumb-like but has no thenar muscles, no flexor tendons, and an undeveloped joint — in short, it is devoid of all of the manual characteristics that make our species more highly evolved than other mammals.

There are many jokes in my household about my primate status. I make most of them.

I am also right-handed. This makes life awkward at times.

I began to disclose my disability regularly about a year ago, with the new knowledge that birth defects which limit one’s physical functions are, in fact, disabilities. Medical professionals are always curious; this defect only occurs in about 1 out of every 100,000 live births, so meeting me is often their only opportunity to see it. This curiosity does not bother me. I compare myself and my gimpy hand to Nemo and his flappy fin.

When I disclose this disability to men who are not in the medical profession, however, I almost invariably get the exact same response:

“Well, you don’t look disabled. You’re very pretty.”

Given that most of the men in my social circles are other writers, you would think the existence of a writer who is physically unable to write longhand would merit a mention, that there is something more to discuss here than my aesthetic qualities.

You would even think, perhaps, that there’s a smidge of a heroine’s story in there, a narrative of someone who overcomes a serious roadblock in order to pursue her dreams and do what she loves, a protagonist who has a dragon to slay daily.

You would think that authors would pick up on this.

They don’t.

I realize there is some confusion about the difference between a disfiguring disability and one like mine, one that limits my body’s functionality but is invisible unless one knows to look for it. Not that disfiguring disabilities make someone unattractive; I grew up with a beauty pageant queen who was born with half a left arm and half a hand. But it’s easy to see how these well-intentioned dudes who say this exact same thing are trying to reassure me that I’m, you know, bangable or whatever.

For me, it’s brain-jarring. Level of physical ability and level of physical attractiveness are not in the same registers. A dude thinking I am good-looking — well, that’s nice to hear, especially on a day I’m feeling bloated, or when the humidity levels make my hair do strange and awkward things.

But it’s not a consolation for an inability to hold a coffee cup without discomfort, perform common household repairs, use sharp tools safely, write longhand…

And given that this aspect of my life typically arises during discussions of writing with other writers , this response — “You don’t look disabled. You’re pretty” — clearly manifests the male gaze, and derails the nature of the conversation:

I transform from subject, writer , to object, she whom the writer finds pretty .

And it’s not like this agency-removing comment comes from the mouths of unapologetically sexist douchecannons that I’d be better off not knowing. It comes from colleagues, friends, a boss I had once who added “intelligent” to the mix, since I’d just found him a rather substantial tax credit for hiring the disabled. Several of them are even male feminists and allies. However, I’m pretty sure it’d take an entire Women’s Studies 101 class to give any of these dudes the beginning of a clue about why “You’re pretty” is a head-spinning non sequitur and not, despite its good intentions, an appropriate response to a disability disclosure.

And so my response to these guys is, likewise, always the same. I smile and say:

“Thank you.”

http://geekfeminism.org/2014/03/10/on-being-geeky-disabled-and-also-kinda-smokin/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=10746

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2014/3/10/say-what.html

Posted by Jen

Remember, boys and girls, NEVER ASSUME.

'Cuz that's not 'awesome.'

(It was supposed to say 'Happy Awesome Day.' Keep up, now.)

So let's eat, drink, and... er...

Suddenly all those "Marry Christmas" cakes are starting to make sense.

So in conclusion:

AWK.
WORRRD.

Thanks to Amy M., Heidi Ann, & Jennifer H. for keeping us abreast of the situation.

*****

Thank you for using our Amazon links to shop! USA, UK, Canada.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2014/3/10/say-what.html

accidentallyincode_feed

Posted by Cate Huston

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AccidentallyInCode/~3/ZKLtUcJbJsE/

http://www.catehuston.com/blog/?p=12310

See the full set on Flickr

I should start by saying, I loved Iceland. However, there were a number of disappointments, and we were thwarted by the weather – we didn’t see the Northern Lights – but it’s such a beautiful special place, that even with that I still really enjoyed it.

Common belief is that Iceland is extremely expensive, but the exchange rate is dramatically lower than it was. We found prices to be comparable to prices in the UK or Australia.

We arranged our trip through Inntravel, but I think we would have been better to book ourselves and arrange tours at the hotel. The one tour they booked us on was with a great tour company (lovely guides), but ended up being 6+ hours in a bus with the windows iced over, for less than 90 minutes of glacier walking, and the weather was not conducive to seeing the lights. The glacier walking was cool, but the amount of time we spent on the bus, unable to see anything out the windows even, wasn’t the greatest. It would have been worth it if we’d seen the lights… but we didn’t.

Day 1

We flew Iceland Air from Heathrow, not a lot of airlines fly to Iceland and other options are Wow Air (the Icelandic budget airline), and Easyjet (nothing would induce me). We flew into Keflavik International Airport, which is about an hour from Reykjavik. There is a bus service into Reykjavik from the airport, which can take you direct to your hotel – with wifi all the way (awesome). This is the biggest tour company, so you could take all your tours with them, but we preferred to book with the smaller companies.

We stayed at the Hótel Óðinsvé, which was lovely. Comfortable beds (and they have single rooms, which is nice), nice breakfasts (ask for a teapot, the mugs are tiny) and the staff were really lovely, so helpful. We got in relatively late and we were pretty tired, so we just went to Café Paris for dinner, which was lovely.

Day 2

All day in Reykjavik – we started the day with a walk to the waterfront, where the famous Sun Voyager sculpture is. Walking around and up, past the hot springs where people used to do laundry, and through the Botanical gardens. Not the most scenic of routes but still charming! Lunch at Café Babalú (meh), and then a trip up the Hallgrímskirkjuturn (the tall Cathedral that can be seen from most parts of Reykjavik). From the top, you can see incredible views of the city. Unfortunately, we walked into the building from blue skies outside… and by the time we got to the top of the tower, there were grey clouds, driving wind, and snow/hail. We waited around for a while, decided to leave, walked out to clearer skies… and went back up again. This is Icelandic weather!

We finished with a trip to the local swimming pool, Sundhöll Reykjavíkur, which was nice. Very clean, and a nice big pool. I got some laps in before hanging out in the hot tub for a bit. It’s the hot springs water that is supposed to be great for your skin, and entry was maybe $10 for 3 people – so much cheaper than many of the tourist traps! And less than 10 minutes walk away from the hotel – win. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, Snaps, which was nice (fish and meat heavy, like most local food in Reykjavik though).

Day 3

We are off on our pre-booked trip, we’ll be glacier walking, seeing a waterfall, and if we are lucky, the Northern Lights.

I gave the ending away earlier, we weren’t lucky.

The bus is cold and the windows coated in ice, so we don’t really get to see much of the scenery on-route. This isn’t a huge issue for me as I have a habit of falling asleep in any moving vehicle, but it would have been nice to see stuff en-route! We stop briefly to see the farm where the first picture of the 2010 volcano was taken.

Our guide is full of stories, and talks whilst he drives most of the time. He explains the Icelandic naming system to us, and also the winner of the most beautiful word in Icelandic. He also told us the myth of Katla (slightly different version). Along with lots of information about living in Iceland, where it’s a question not of if the volcano will erupt, but when.

The glacier was beautiful, and using crampons I found to be pretty easy. We walked up, and around, and then down. There is a light dusting of snow, but underneath it is sheet ice (hence, crampons). You have to keep to the path, because there are random holes and crevices all over, and you don’t know how thick the snow is – if you end up falling down an icy hole, you are going to have a bad time.

Afterwards, we had a brief stop at a Folk History Museum (I was too tired to appreciate it), and dinner at Hotel Anna. The hotel is named for, and has an exhibition about, Sigríður Anna Jónsdóttir, who has a great biography, of a life in pursuit of learning and adventure.

Then, we went to a waterfall which is lit up at night. It was incredibly beautiful, but so very cold! The weather was too cloudy for there to be any hope of seeing the Northern Lights, so we just had a long drive back to Reykjavik.

Day 4

We are planning to take a helicopter ride later (over sunset), to see some of the fascinating geological features that abound in Iceland. So the morning is a good time to go shopping, and there are lovely little shops will many gorgeous things created by local designers. I buy a beautiful hat, two necklaces, and two bracelets – including one that is the first piece the designer has sold from that collection – and a wonderful ceramic lamp. We have lunch at the Laundromat Cafe (good sweet potato).

Out helicopter trip has to be cancelled due to poor weather, which is disappointing, especially as we planned our whole day around it. Instead, we head to the Blue Lagoon. It’s a tourist staple, and as it’s located near the airport good for a visit immediately after arriving, or before leaving (they have a left luggage area for this). My dad got the standard experience, whist my mom and I opted to be pampered with the luxury experience. I thought this would be good as we were a little short on time, but it was really the opposite. Still lovely though! We had to wait a while for our host to show us to our private changing room, and then after we were changed we had to wait again, but once we were in, it was delightful. There’s a small private pool, and then you exit out into the main area. In the spirit of research, I swam/walked/crawled around the circumference, and then across and back. Temperatures varied, and it truly is a massive place. We applied the silica mask to our faces (my dad, for reasons known only to himself, applied it to his hair – not a particularly successful experiment, and one I don’t recommend) and relaxed. Best to find a sheltered spot for this, the cold mask and the cold wind gave me a headache! Then we went back to the private pool, where our host bought us drinks, and a lava mask and an algae mask (lava mask first, it’s exfoliating). Afterwards, we had dinner at Lava (the Blue Lagoon restaurant), which I wasn’t super excited about as the ratings were pretty low, but was in fact fantastic. Especially the cheesecake, which I photographed.

We headed out for our Northern Lights Tour, and spend 4 and a half hours on a bus trying to find clear skies only to find… no activity. So disappointing. Apparently it was the first night in days that there was even a chance of seeing any, so I could stop beating myself up about not trying to go and see them day 1! But still really disappointing. Apparently one of the groups out (the last one in) saw some, but it was just a tiny flicker.

Day 5

This is the day we are going on the Golden Circle Tour – it’s really popular, and features many of the most incredible sights of Iceland. Most tour companies have one. I’m not going to say which tour company we had, because we had the worst tour guide I have ever had. He opened with some light misogyny, took us into a church and preached at us, and also made some homophobic remarks. I was livid. Especially as the part of the point of the break I was on is a break from the misogyny of the tech industry!

Anyway, such is the spectacular beauty of Iceland, that this guy couldn’t completely ruin it. Thankfully he was also too lazy to actually come with us and talk about things (well, except the Church) so mostly we were left to our own devices.

We went to a national park, saw where the European and American tectonic plates met, an incredible waterfall, and a geyser. I was standing right next to it when it blew, on a patch of ice, and wow it made me jump!

Day 6

Our last day, well morning. We had rescheduled our helicopter ride, but once again the weather was too bad to take it. Instead, we walked down to the harbour, where we watched some sailors practise emergency rescues. It was amazing – all these men in orange suits swimming attached together, and climbing into what looked like a floating tent. There’s an area nearby with information about boat disasters, which was also interesting.

I headed to the Reykjavik Art Museum, which was small but had some interesting things. I really liked the section of work by Erró and the Zilvinas Kempinas exhibit, Fountains (fans and magnetic tape). I think I saw one of his other exhibits in Melbourne, which transfixed me.

After that, time’s up! Back to the Airport, and to London.

Suggestions for travel to Iceland (in winter)

Book more time than you think you need (the weather will thwart you).
Take a drivers license (if you have one) so you can quad bike/skidoo. Long story – I currently do not have one.
Don’t book X and Northern Lights tours – just book a Northern Lights tour, if possible the night you arrive. They don’t go out every night, only when there is a chance of seeing them and if you don’t see the lights, you can go again for free (and get a 3 year voucher if you don’t get lucky). If it’s a combination tour you might end up out late for nothing.
All tourists are entitled to Tax Free shopping, so make sure you get a tax receipt if you buy anything.
The hotels book tours for you, and have lots of recommendations, so don’t worry about scheduling things in advance.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AccidentallyInCode/~3/ZKLtUcJbJsE/

http://www.catehuston.com/blog/?p=12310

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KrebsOnSecurity/~3/DP4V_VvjDaA/

Posted by BrianKrebs

http://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=25125

In October 2013, KrebsOnSecurity published an exclusive story detailing how a Vietnamese man running an online identity theft service bought personal and financial records on Americans directly from a company owned by Experian, one of the three major U.S. credit bureaus. Today’s story looks deeper at the damage wrought in this colossal misstep by one of the nation’s largest data brokers.

Vietnamese national Hieu Minh Ngo pleaded guilty last week to running the ID theft service Superget.info.

Last week, Hieu Minh Ngo, a 24-year-old Vietnamese national, pleaded guilty to running an identity theft service out of his home in Vietnam. Ngo was arrested last year in Guam by U.S. Secret Service agents after he was lured into visiting the U.S. territory to consummate a business deal with a man he believed could deliver huge volumes of consumers’ personal and financial data for resale.

But according to prosecutors, Ngo had already struck deals with one of the world’s biggest data brokers: Experian. Court records just released last week show that Ngo tricked an Experian subsidiary into giving him direct access to personal and financial data on more than 200 million Americans.

HIEU KNOWS YOUR SECRETS?

As I reported last year, the data was not obtained directly from Experian, but rather via Columbus, Ohio-based US Info Search. US Info Search had a contractual agreement with a California company named Court Ventures, whereby customers of Court Ventures had access to the US Info Search data as well as Court Ventures’ data, and vice versa.

Posing as a private investigator operating out of Singapore, Ngo contracted with Court Ventures, paying for his access to consumer records via regular cash wire transfers from a bank in Singapore. Through that contract, Ngo was able to make available to his clients access to the US Info Search database containing Social Security, date of birth and other records on more than 200 million Americans.

Experian came into the picture in March 2012, when it purchased Court Ventures (along with all of its customers — including Mr. Ngo). For almost ten months after Experian completed that acquisition, Ngo continued siphoning consumer data and making his wire transfers.

Until last week, the government had shared few details about the scope and the size of the data breach, such as how many Americans may have been targeted by thieves using Ngo’s identity theft service. According to a transcript of Ngo’s guilty plea proceedings obtained by KrebsOnSecurity, Ngo’s ID theft business attracted more than 1,300 customers who paid at least $1.9 million between 2007 and Feb. 2013 to look up Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, previous addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and other sensitive data.

The government alleges that the service’s customers used the information for a variety of fraud schemes, including filing fraudulent tax returns on Americans, and opening new lines of credit and racking up huge bills in the names of unsuspecting victims. The transcript shows government investigators found that over an 18-month period ending Feb. 2013, Ngo’s customers made approximately 3.1 million queries on Americans.

“At this point the government does not know how many U.S. citizens’ [personally identifiable information] was compromised, although that information will be available in the near future,” U.S. Attorney Arnold H. Huftalen told Judge Paul J. Barbadoro in New Hampshire District Court earlier this month. ”And we don’t know because the way the process worked was a bad actor could type in the name of an individual and a state…”

Huftalen’s explanation was interrupted by Judge Barbadoro, who told the courtroom he was late for another engagement. However, based on my own experience with Ngo’s service, I believe Mr. Huftalen was trying to explain that because of the way that Ngo set up his identity theft service — variously named “Superget.info” and “findget.me” — each customer query in fact returned multiple records.

The “sourceid” abbreviations in Ngo’s Superget.info identity theft service pointed toward Court Ventures.

When I first became aware of Superget.info, I conducted a search on my own information, asking Ngo’s service to return any information on a Brian Krebs in Virginia. That query produced several pages of results, with each page containing at least ten different records full of personal data on multiple individuals — including my correct records. Revealing the more sensitive data for each record — including the date of birth and Social Security number — merely required clicking a link within each listing on the page; each click would result in a small amount being deducted from the customer’s balance.

The point is that each query on Ngo’s service almost always exposed multiple records. That means that if Ngo’s clients conducted 3.1 million individual queries, the sheer number of records exposed by Ngo’s service is likely to have been many times that number — potentially as many as 30 million records.

EXPERIAN: ‘WE’RE GOING TO MAKE SURE THEY’RE PROTECTED’

Beyond acknowledging the broad outlines of the government’s claims against Ngo, Experian has refused to discuss the matter. “Due to an ongoing federal investigation, we have been asked not to comment beyond the information we have already shared to ensure nothing impedes the progress of the investigation,” Experian spokeswoman Susan Henson said in an emailed statement.

Experian’s Tony Hadley, addressing the Senate Commerce Committee in Dec. 2013.

The few public statements that Experian has made regarding the incident came in a hearing last December before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation, which was examining the data broker industry.

In that hearing, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill grilled Tony Hadley, Experian’s senior vice president of government affairs. Every other senator on the committee focused on Experian’s practice of profiling consumers, but McCaskill used her time to question Hadley specifically about the company’s role in Ngo’s ID theft service.

Hadley acknowledged that Experian failed to conduct the due diligence needed to detect Ngo’s activities prior to or anytime after acquiring Court Ventures. Indeed, Hadley said that Experian didn’t learn about Ngo’s activities until after being notified by the U.S. Secret Service.

“During the due diligence process, we didn’t have total access to all the information we needed in order to completely vet that, and by the time we learned of the malfeasance nine months had expired, and the Secret Service came to us and told us of the incident,” Hadley told McCaskill and other panel members. “We were a victim, and scammed by this person.”

The Missouri Democratic senator shot back: “Well I would say people who had all their identities stolen are the real victims.”

“And we know who they are, and we’re going to make sure they’re protected,” Hadley assured the panel. But incredibly, in the very next breath Hadley seemed to suggest that nobody had proven or alleged that any of the records its company sold to Ngo had resulted in harm to consumers.

“There’s been no allegation that any harm has come, thankfully, in this scam,” Hadley said.

I asked Experian to explain the apparent inconsistencies in Mr. Hadley’s statement, and to clarify whether the company had already begun to offer protection or service to anyone impacted by this scheme. So far, the company has declined to respond to those questions, citing the ongoing investigation.

But the evidence offered by the U.S. government strongly suggests that many people were injured by Experian’s lack of due diligence. Addressing the court at Ngo’s guilty plea hearing last week, U.S. Attorney Arnold H. Huftalen said the evidence was clear that Ngo’s customers purchased data from Experian’s firm with the intention of stealing the identities of consumers.

“The U.S. Secret Service has conducted investigations into many of his customers, all of whom have stated that they only obtained the information from Mr. Ngo to engage in criminal fraud,” Huftalen said. “The evidence would establish that at the time Mr. Ngo knew that he was providing the information for others to engage in fraud.”

It remains unclear whether Experian will ever be required to answer for its costly oversight. Mr. Ngo, on the other hand, is facing a lengthy prison sentence. He is charged with wire fraud, access device fraud and identity fraud. The maximum possible prison term for all three offenses combined is 45 years. Ngo may also be fined up to twice the gross gain resulting from his offenses, or twice the loss to consumers, whichever is greater. Ngo is slated to be sentenced on June 16th.

A full copy of the transcript from Ngo’s guilty plea proceeding is available here (PDF).

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KrebsOnSecurity/~3/DP4V_VvjDaA/

http://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=25125

xkcd_feed

http://xkcd.com/1340/

If our current civilization lasts another 8,000 years, it's probably fair to assume the Long Now Foundation got things right, and at some point we started listening to them and switched to five-digit years.

http://xkcd.com/1340/

mjg59

I've spent a while trying to make GPU switching work more reliably on Apple hardware, and got to the point where my Retina MBP now comes up with X running on Intel regardless of what the firmware wanted to do (test patches here. But in the process I'd introduced an additional GPU switch which added another layer of flicker to the boot process. I spent some time staring at driver code and poking registers trying to figure out how I could let i915 probe EDID from the panel without switching the display over and made no progress at all.

And then I realised that nouveau already has all the information that i915 wants, and maybe we could just have the Switcheroo code hand that over instead of forcing i915 to probe again. Sigh.

epbot_feed

Posted by Jen

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/epbot/fOpU/~3/kDjGL6lNb3s/bay-area-ren-fest-2014.html

On Saturday John and I made our yearly pilgrimage to Tampa for Florida's largest Ren Fest. Thanks to about five separate accidents and a big county fair we spent more time in the car than at the festival (roughly 3 hours each way), but I kept the panic monster in line by tracking our progress on my phone. Then on the way home John plugged my phone into the car stereo and had me watch Ghostbusters on Netflix. (See, I knew that man was a keeper.)

Medieval Ariel!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not really a Ren Fair person. I'm a classic introvert, and all the boisterous performers, vendors, and barkers are my own personal boogeymen. I live in fear of one of them noticing me, pulling me from the audience to be forced up on stage, or singling me out in the crowd for an embarrassing Q&A about my pickle-buying-habits. (Don't laugh: it happens.)

But despite these fears I keep coming back year after year, because dangit, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE.

Marty McFly wins.

Plus when you get down to it, most of the Ren Fair crowd is really just a boozier and more interactive convention crowd. They're ridiculously nice, open to everyone, and frankly have way better age-diversity than most other geek events.

I helped this lovely lady tie up her corset in the parking lot. Because, really, how often do you get asked to tie up someone's corset in a parking lot?

Where even the dogs wear armor!

Most of my photos this year were of my friend Christie, but I'm going to show you those in another post. (It's a surprise!) I didn't take too many pics other than hers; after a while all the pretty dresses and suits of armor start to look the same, so I only stopped folks who caught my eye with something unique. For example, this blue fairy wore latex gloves, so she could blow bubbles through her fingers:

Fun!

The Festival offers elephant rides, so we stopped to watch the two big creatures munching on hay and begging for treats, which the handlers would tuck into their giant mouths with almost comical nonchalance:

During one stop the elephant was pretty intent on pestering his handler, who, after sharing her nuts with him, completely ignored his trunk tickling around her arm and waist. I was fascinated, and snapped a photo. The pic turned out to be a happy accident: my spot metering was off, making it way over-exposed, but I've decided I like the look:

In fact, this is my favorite shot from the whole day. I love the contrast of textures, and the lady is just stunning.

And speaking of stunning ladies:

Lady Knight!

On our way out John and I stopped to watch the final jousting match, which started with the two knights' squires doing a test run with padded lances. As the opposite squire approached our end of the field, John squeaked, "JEN. It's a GIRL!!" And then we both did little happy dances.

Here's the squire Lady Knight ran against:

And some action shots from the real joust:

I like how this shot makes it look like there's a hell mouth opening up in the middle of the field. :D (It's really just the light hitting all the kicked up dust.)

Both knights were unhorsed, and the girl in the foreground was off and running before they even hit the ground. (She was in charge of fetching the horse.)

After a tense moment or two, both knights were up and throwing comical punches at each other:

Lady Knight's knight was defeated, but she retaliated by sneaking up behind the victor and knocking him over the head with his own shield.

It was pretty great. :D

After that I tracked her down for a photo, but she was such a celebrity I didn't get the chance to ask her name or age:

So I'll just keep calling her Lady Knight - and I'm guessing she's somewhere between, um, 12 and 28.

(I am very bad at guessing ages. Can you tell?)

K, that's it for me! And if any of you locals want to check it out, the Bay Area Renaissance Festival runs every weekend through April 6th.

Oh, and also for my fellow Floridians: MegaCon is less than 2 weeks away! Rest assured John and I will be there all three days, and I *think* Lady Vadore may make an appearance. I'll have plenty of pins to give away, so please say hi if you see us!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/epbot/fOpU/~3/kDjGL6lNb3s/bay-area-ren-fest-2014.html

miko

Next in my series of trying to read classics that I never got to previously is The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. I'm sure you've probably all read it, and I'm not sure I have a very good description of the plot anyway... it felt like a slice of life novel from the perspective of a woman developing a mental illness. The main character and the most focussed on secondary character both seemed to be incredibly disconnected emotionally from the world around them, which was probably commentary on something but I don't think I particularly got it.

That said, I really enjoyed the writing. The side thoughts of the main character were hilarious and exactly the sort of random things that float through my mind when I'm not really that invested in a topic (like watching TV - always focusing on the background absurdities instead of the plot). I think I just needed a bit more coherence in the plot; I guess I wasn't really in the mood for this one.

frith posting in

ponyville_trot

I'm in the mood for music! I've made my selection for the month of May 2013 and I'm slowly working my way out of a nine month backlog. December 2013 and January 2014 are done, now to fill in the six month gap!

DongleKumquat - Hoofdachest. A snappy tune with a funky beat and soaring vocals, so put your hooves in the air because I don't care.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxzMBVgaZZk

Download: http://donglekumquat.bandcamp.com/album/hoofdachest
Download instrumental: http://www.mediafire.com/?2j9tdz5xcv62100

Melancholia - Blue Scars. I think this is glitch step enhanced with vocal slices. It grew on me. Firefox snuffed it and took all my open tabs with it, including this one, so I went back and found it again. Ha!

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3faK9piGdA

Download: http://eqbeats.org/track/4408/mp3

Haymaker -- Sister Rock. Rockabilly. Vocal, electric guitar, drums.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SteT2FyE7xY

Download mp3: http://bit.ly/194S1X4

Magnitude Zero -- One Mare Band. Chillstep, drums, keyboard and Pinkie voice clips. Relaxing.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RojRN6t-cjo

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/magnitudezero/magnitude-zero-one-mare-band
Download as a mp3.
Download as a wav.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2014/3/9/sunday-sweets-art-nouveau.html

Posted by Lindsey

After our Art Deco feature, we figured it was high time for some Art Nouveau goodness!

(By Anna Taart)

Or more like art nou-WOAH, am I right?

I'm a huge fan of this style, so it's fun to see it translated so beautifully onto cake.

(By Comper Cakes)

Yeah, I'd hit that.

(With a fork.)

No one's ever asked me to describe art nouveau in four words or less, but if they did, I'd say it's "in-your-face elegance." This style is meant to be noticed, dahling!

(By Rosebud Cakes)

See? No shrinking violets here. There's pretty stuff up top, fancy things down low, and the middle looks like it's made out of sugar-coated dreams. Everywhere you look, BAM! Gorgeousness.

Not that it can't be understated, too.

(By Nevie-Pie Cakes)

Sweet and simple, with a suggestion of stained glass.

Or if you prefer your stained-glass cakes on the other end of the spectrum...

(By La Bella Torta)

[Insert angelic hallelujah chorus here]

I bet you could look up 'art nouveau cake' in the dictionary and find this picture, it's so perfect:

(By Elegantly Iced)

Or if not the dictionary, then Google for sure.

This next one's as pretty as Boston in the Fall*:

(By Lindy Smith)

Plus the topper reminds me of the fiber-optic lamp my grandma had in her basement. BONUS.

[*No, I've never been to Boston in the Fall - but I hear it's awesome.]

I can't decide which I like better: the dragonfly or the "beading" on the bottom tier:

(By Tortenherz)

See my dilemma? So fantastic!

And I'd have a hard time stopping myself from breaking off this topper and making a run for it:

(By WOW Cakes)

Fun fact: the technique used to make that topper is sometimes called a 'run-out', so it's pretty much asking to be kidnapped anyway, right? Right.

You guys. This cake. I can't even. I just ... WOW.

(By Cakes By Beatriz, more details shots here)

It's spectacular! Look at the precision! The perfection! The intricate details in the stained glass. The relief designs on the side. I have no words. (Unless ooooh, ahh, and woah count.)

And finally, if art nouveau St. Patrick's Day were a thing, (and why not?!) then I have just the cake for it:

(By The Cake Whisperer)

Gorgeous greens, glittering gold - it's magically delicious!

Happy Sunday, everyone! And as always, check out our Sunday Sweets Directory if you want to see which bakers in your area have been featured here on Sweets!

*****

Thank you for using our Amazon links to shop! USA, UK, Canada.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2014/3/9/sunday-sweets-art-nouveau.html

accidentallyincode_feed

Posted by Cate Huston

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AccidentallyInCode/~3/wD3BYJQmobg/

http://www.catehuston.com/blog/?p=13209

manipulated pic of me in prage

LIFE

Not much going on, I had dinner with a friend’s girlfriend, which was nice as I finally got to meet her and we had a lot in common! Also had lunch with a friend, and caught up with another on video chat but spent a lot of time in front of my computer this week, as I was submitting my code for review on this side project I’ve been working on (will reveal soon). So I was frantically dealing with that, working my way through 3 different mocking frameworks only to end up back at the first one, getting github set up etc etc.

Also, one of my talk proposals was accepted – will post when/where soon.

Made it to the gym just 3 times, so nowhere near as much as I should have, but the up side of this week being so busy and exhausting is that I think I finally made it back properly to British time… before I leave for SF and MTV next week.

I did make it out to a school to talk about working in tech, and also to the Accenture International Women’s Day event, which was amazing.

WORK

Busy busy busy. Meetings about planning, wrote up a doc, and of course – lots of coding! Ended last week feeling frustrated and like I was getting nowhere, and then Monday was really good as I finished stuff… and then ended the week feeling overwhelmed and confused again. I guess this is learning.

PLACES

Had dinner at Addie’s Thai cafe, which was fab and very convenient for my apartment, desert at the Troubador Cafe (always lovely), lunch at the Japanese Canteen after this school visit (I was so hungry anything would have tasted good), and breakfast at The Muffin Man which was really nice – they have crumpets.

MEDIA

Finally up to date on Keeping up with the Kardashians, which I think is a good thing for me… reading A Year Like No Other which I’m unsure about so far.

Product links Amazon.

PUBLISHED

ON THE INTERNET

The coolest helicopter ever? pic.twitter.com/kesR8v6Kwz (picture by @kand)
@MavenOfMayhem: Your support has been overwhelming for our family. Can’t thank you enough My Son Has Changed. My Love Hasn’t. http://www.themavenofmayhem.com/2014/03/my-son-has-changed-my-love-hasnt.html
Adore these pictures of a Lego Photographer and his adventures – http://buff.ly/1mB7ZOr
.@juliepagano‘s bad ally quiz – http://buff.ly/1dDOAGx
This is good – Your work-life balance hangs in these four quadrants – http://buff.ly/1lniUNz /via @skamille /by @laurenbacon
Pickup artist who has never had a relationship lasting longer than a year, is confident about marriage+kids – http://buff.ly/1lpxlRe
Most visited website per Country, weighted by Internet. The new risk board. http://buff.ly/1lpxPqr
On teaching communication, interesting – http://buff.ly/1hZze6D
Right on – “If San Francisco men want more women in their city, they should hire them at their tech companies.” – http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/03/04/the_dating_ring_a_service_to_fly_nyc_s_single_women_to_male_dominated_san.html …
Yep. Yep. Yep. The Responsibility of “Diversity” – http://buff.ly/1obQvqR /by @ashedryden
@triketora: What are some of the ways women are discriminated against that men are often unaware of? http://qr.ae/t62Wz
Like this – Traveling While Female has drawbacks, but are they so different from at home? http://buff.ly/1lpEgd9 /by @JillFilipovic
Interesting, on BroApp – Today’s Apps Are Turning Us Into Sociopaths – http://buff.ly/1fBLW9W
Fascinating article on the changing role of mormon women – http://buff.ly/1hBe2Bd /via @feraldata
This is good, on taking a step backwards to move your career forward – http://buff.ly/OTfcy2 /via @felsull
Lots of good points in this – Good Tech Lead, Bad Tech Lead – http://buff.ly/1kTs3dI /via @katemats
As a mobile dev, I think a lot about designing for distraction – from the other side, so do the TV networks – http://buff.ly/1eVlkPR
I am super excited for this workshop with @dontgetcaught in Oxford next month! http://buff.ly/1oq2ocF
This man is a hero. http://buff.ly/OWC2EZ /via @ErinLouise
I’m quoted in guardian saying I spend my day surrounded by dudes, wonder if my team will think this is a complement? http://buff.ly/PbIsQJ

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AccidentallyInCode/~3/wD3BYJQmobg/

http://www.catehuston.com/blog/?p=13209

puzzlement posting in

Planning to return to work (probably in June) has sharpened my sense of the ticking clocks of my children's childhood, yet again.

V starts school in 2015. He's very used to his weekly routine now and A is still very little, so my plan is, at present, to see out the year working three days a week rather than mix things up. From 2015, I will probably be looking to work four days a week.

This is the last year that I will have V at home on weekdays. A bunch of his allegedly quality Mum years were eaten by the PhD I was in the midst of between when he was born and when he was 2½, the business I founded when he was 1, and my pregnancy with A. (Well, really, that was just the last two months or so of 2013, when I got really lumbering and tired. But still.) I don't think there will be any radical innovations in my time with him, but I'm thinking of adding some outings to get him out of the house and trying new things.

Candidates so far: Kids Workshops at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Kids Program at the Australian Museum. I'd say the Powerhouse, but it's spookily quiet on weekdays, I'll see if they have preschool workshops. Others? I am mostly looking for scheduled events which will have other children present. It would be good to have 10 things, one a month for the rest of the year.

puzzlement posting in