terriko

Posted by Jen

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2013/5/20/five-years-baby.html

Remember this?

And these?

How about this one?

Five years ago today I started a goofy little cake blog, just for fun. I never intended for anyone other than a few close friends to read it, and I was terrified the first time a stranger found it and commented.

Within two months, though, my goofy little cake blog went viral, garnering about 50,000 visitors in a single day.

It's been a wild ride since then. I realized my life-long dream of becoming a published author not once, but twice, and Cake Wrecks even landed on the New York Times Best Sellers List. John and I got to travel across the U.S. and Canada meeting thousands of you readers, sampling dozens of your bakeries, and only almost-dying that one time.

I was invited on more TV shows than I can remember, including David Letterman, Rachael Ray, and I think even Martha Stewart - and one of my proudest achievements in life is that I turned them all down. I've also turned away TV producers, web content "gurus," and website conglomerates offering a pretty penny to purchase Cake Wrecks and turn it into something else - something less personal, something not ours.

Cake Wrecks has been a labor of love from the beginning, and I've fought - and will fight - to always keep it that way. It's not a vehicle to make me famous, or a stepping stone to get me to where I *really* want to be in my career, because I'm already here. True, it has become my job - John's, too - and like every job it causes heartache and frustration and burnout sometimes. But at the end of the day, I get to check my e-mail, find a cake that makes me giggle, and share it with all of you. That's pretty frickin' awesome.

Five years ago I never would have dreamed my goofy little cake blog would last this long, or that it would amass such a devoted readership. I mean, this blog was supposed to fizzle out four and a half years ago, and yet here you all are! I always told John I'd quit when the readers left, but it turns out you guys are more stubbornly loyal than I anticipated. Curse you.

So here's to us, my dear wreckies, five years, 1,800+ posts, and roughly 8,000 cakes later.

And if all that doesn't deserve cake, then I don't know what does.

So here's Brent Spiner trying on a Carrot Jockey necklace:

Let's be honest: it was all downhill from here. :D

Oh, and I have to give a million thanks to John for getting me through these past five years - and also for not dying that one time - as well as to Lindsey, who writes more than half of our Sweets posts these days, and to Sharyn, who helps me write to the wrecks. You guys are awesome, and get a lifetime pass for extra sprinkles.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2013/5/20/five-years-baby.html

bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by schneier

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/security_risks_8.html

All of the anti-counterfeiting features of the new Canadian $100 bill are resulting in people not bothering to verify them.

The fanfare about the security features on the bills, may be part of the problem, said RCMP Sgt. Duncan Pound.
"Because the polymer series' notes are so secure ... there's almost an overconfidence among retailers and the public in terms of when you sort of see the strip, the polymer looking materials, everybody says 'oh, this one's going to be good because you know it's impossible to counterfeit,'" he said.

"So people don't actually check it."

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/security_risks_8.html

frith posting in

ponyville_trot

Source: http://ponykillerx.deviantart.com/art/Meh-370390567

puzzlement posting in

incrementum

V is experimentally working his way towards having good arguments for things he wants. For example, he knows that things often have a reason, but his grasp on what is a convincing reason for his point of view is very sketchy.

Tonight:

Me: "V! Stop jumping on that chair."

V: "Yeah but! I was trying to!"

Me: "Yes, I realise."

V: [confounded silence]

He also has moved beyond "well I said yes!" for example to realising there's something special about me saying yes to things, and now commands "Mama, you need to say YES."

xkcd_feed

http://xkcd.com/1214/

I'm not sure if you can get Epcot, but my friend just got LegoLand. He guessed California but it was the one in Denmark. Meanwhile, I'm rapidly becoming a connoisseur of unmarked dirt roads over flat, barren landscapes.

http://xkcd.com/1214/

tko

May 20 00:03 GMT : I'm quite amused by the placement of Dr Who merchandise right beside the addiction/recovery section in my local http://t.co/RCmQNEWMs6 #

May 19 23:56 GMT : I spent most of the afternoon dealing with #gsoc related stuff. Still waiting for a few people to get back to me, though. #

epbot_feed

Posted by Jen

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/epbot/fOpU/~3/Db_Hv5_7t5U/disneys-star-wars-weekends-2013.html

Star Wars Weekends just started out at Disney Hollywood Studios, so yesterday John and I braved the heat and crowds to go check it out!

Before we even got to the front gate I was chasing down these two sisters to get a photo:

(That's their parents smiling in the background.) I love that you're just as likely to see a girl toting a play sword or blaster as a tiara these days at the parks - or even all three together. ;)

And check out these girls' fabulous fascinators!

They even dressed to match!

We hung out in the gift shops for a while while we waited to meet up with Martha, a long-time reader from Canada. If you follow me on Twitter, then there's your explanation for all my wacky merchandise tweets:

Here's one I didn't post, though:

I actually love these Angry Birds foam balls, but they were like $15 each. YEESH. Ah, Disney pricing...

Once we met up with Martha, we moved on to the day's big attraction:

BABY DUCKS!!!

This momma and her babies were pacing back and forth on a raised planter:

She kept jumping down from the planter and looking up at the ducklings expectantly, but they were all, "What, you crazy?" Then the momma duck looked at ME, but I was too busy taking videos of her with my phone. Eventually a lady walked up, scooped the ducklings up, set them down by the mom, and herded them all across the path to the lake side. I was both mildly horrified and horribly jealous.

What's that? I'm supposed to be looking at Star Wars stuff? Oh. Ok. Here, have a Chipmunk Ewok:

The lines for photos with the characters were pretty crazy, as were the crowds jostling around, so I couldn't get the characters by themselves. Instead, enjoy these photos of random children alongside them. :D

This Darth Maul is the same guy every year, I believe, and he is incredibly intense - spot on perfect, whipping around into different poses like he can't even feel the 90 degree heat. So that girl's finger point and grin cracked. me. up.

(Did I mention it was like surface-of-the-sun hot? Why can't they host these things in February?)

Not long into the day I spotted a tweet from another reader named Jennifer at the park, and convinced her to come say hi. We ended up hanging out with her family and Martha for the next few hours, which was super fun.

Jennifer's daughter Emily was sporting a Jedi robe her dad Jeff had made (go, Dad!) and she was a real (storm?) trooper when it came to facing down the dreaded Tusken Raider photo op:

Whatever you do, don't look beside you.

This backlot area is where the characters definitely have the most fun, playing with the crowds and doing their best to freak people out.

Here's a shot of Emily's dad Jeff playing a game of mirror, mirror with the same Raider, who took it upon himself to stalk our group for a little ways:

Next he went after Jennifer, poor thing, while John looked on:

Such a Casanova.

I'm pretty sure these walk-around characters have been told to get in your face at every opportunity, because that seems to be their go-to tactic. It's either funny or terrifying, depending on your disposition, and I found having a camera in front of my face was both a shield and a target.

Here's Aurra Sing closing in on me:

She locked eyes on the camera and then slowly stalked off to the side:

Next I spotted my perennial favorite, Zam Wessel, walking by:

I caught her mid-stride giving me some serious side-eye.

I chased her down and asked for a photo of just her, which of course is like volunteering to be messed with. She let me snap one quick photo:

And then started closing in:

She got closer, and closer, until:

HI THERE.

This photo isn't cropped, and I didn't use a zoom. In fact, her nose was practically touching my lens, something I didn't realize until I went to move and stumbled into her - and then realized everyone around was laughing. No complaints, though; these shots were my favorite to play with in Photoshop.

We wrapped things up at the Darth Mall, aka a Star Wars fan's shopping heaven. New this year is a 3D printing service that puts your head on a Storm Trooper's body:

It's about a hundred dollars plus shipping, and they ship it to you about two months later.

They also had Roxy the Rancor there for photos, which some of you may remember from MegaCon and Star Wars Celebration:

I guess the fans who created Roxy agreed to lend her to Disney for the event. Nice of them!

Donald seemed to be the stand-out character this year in merchandising, which was great for me; after classic Mickey, Donald is my favorite of the Fab Five:

Talk about the perfect set: Donald's butt frozen in Carbonite, and Donald as Boba Fett!

The art area is filled with fantastic original Star Wars and mash-up art:

The registers are overseen by Darth Donald:

And some fun Jawa set ups:

I managed to resist the siren call of most of the goodies, but I did cave on this deck of 3-D/lenticular playing cards:

Every card has a lenticular face - not just the face cards - and it comes in a metal tin. Not bad for $12! (And how appropriate that Jar Jar is the Joker...)

Here's a close-up of Vader's card:

We ended the day with the Hyperspace Hoopla, which is always a toe-tapping spectacle of goofy fun. People get in place for the show two to three hours ahead of time, though, so unless you're willing to wait that long you're not getting a great spot. I caught glimpses of it through a forest of trees and kids-on-shoulders, but I saw enough to still enjoy it. The show seems to be getting longer each year, too, since this one clocked in at over 35 minutes.

Here's a snippet from Inside the Magic that includes one of my favorite bits:

They used to play Robot Rock at our local skating rink when I was a kid, and I've loved it ever since - so that was a fun surprise. (And I love the controller DJ. Ha!) The only other bit that really made me hoot and holler, though, was the surprise finale - because I am just that much of a Dizgeek. :)

Head over to Inside the Magic to watch the entire show, or Ricky's also got it separated into clips if you just want to watch bits and pieces.

If you're in the area, definitely come check out the Weekends if you can! They run for the next three weeks, and there are plenty of shows and events (like the parade!) that we didn't catch this time.

Oh, and this coming Friday is also the 24-hour Disney Day at the Magic Kingdom, so if you're going to that and want to meet up, let me know! I've heard from two or three people already, so it might be fun to have a little Epbot party - maybe we can all grab a Citrus Swirl together!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/epbot/fOpU/~3/Db_Hv5_7t5U/disneys-star-wars-weekends-2013.html

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Jen

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2013/5/19/sunday-sweets-game-on.html

This week I've been talking video games over on Epbot, swapping recommendations and researching the best non-violent titles for adults, so naturally I HAD to see if some of my favorites exist in Sweet form!

First up, if you like puzzles and adorable robots, and you haven't check out Machinarium, then you're missing out:

Submitted by Amy S. and made by Sweet Disposition Cakes

Look how perfect! And I could have sworn those were real lights, the little light halos are so convincing. Ah-MAZING.

Do games you play on your phone count? I hope so, because I will never get tired of amazing Angry Birds cakes:

Sub'd by Elizabeth M. and made by Artisan Cake Company

Look at the detail!

Have they made an Angry Birds playset yet?* That comes with Lincoln Logs and a slingshot? They totally should. I'd buy it just to line up a row of Piggie heads on my office shelf. :)

One thing I've learned from the last few days of reading video game recommendations: I totally missed out by not playing any Zelda games as a child:

Sub'd by Sarah and made by Flickr member Junebugg79

In fact, I'm not sure which game this cake is from**, and that makes me sad. How could I have frittered away all those hours on Mario brothers when characters this cute existed?

I've promised the Epbot readers that I'm going to remedy this, though, just as soon as I figure out which Zelda games will work on my current consoles, and what order to play them in.

And based on this next cake alone, I'm REALLY looking forward to playing The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:

Sub'd by Kimmy R. and made by Cakecrumbs

Isn't it gorgeous? I love the colors!

And another long-running series gamers all know and love: Final Fantasy!

Sub'd by Donna M. and made by Cake Rhapsody

I still remember the year I bought John a used PS1 for Christmas, and we spent our whole week off playing Final Fantasy 7 together. Ahh, those were the days.

Speaking of Ye Olden Days, let's get SUPER old school for a minute:

Sub'd by Aliza R. and made by Highland Bakery

Q*bert!

Now, I'm not going to admit that I've played Q*bert, because that would be revealing my age, but... that snake guy is a TOTAL JERK.

I know I was mean to him just a minute ago, but really, how could you ever hate on Mario?

Sub'd by Mira C. and made by Fays Cakes

Especially when you can (sometimes) beat your husband at Mario Kart?

Speaking of husbands, John's an Angry Birds guys, but I am TOTALLY a Plants vs Zombies girl:

Made by Chef Sam

Check out the little triple pea-shooter! Hee! To quote Crazy Dave, "HEAUAHKKAAAHH!"

I've yet to get sucked into World of Warcraft - which is probably a good thing, since I tend to get a little obsessive with games - but I'm still in awe of this Deathwing head by my friend Renee:

Sub'd by Wendy Q. and made by Renee White

It looks like your knife would CLANG if you tried to cut through it! Wow! (Get it? WOW? No? Oh, c'mon, that was perfect.)

Remember how I said I get a little obsessive with games? Well, John does, too, so one time for a good two or three weeks I was what they call a "Skyrim widow." (Fortunately that game *does* have an ending, though, or else our Xbox might have suffered a little "accident.")

Sub'd by Unmuse and made by Baking Obsession

This feisty little dude is Alduin, aka the World-Eater from Skyrim. He looks... grumpy. And hard to chew.

If there's one thing better than a cake themed to a video game, though, it's a cake themed to a BUNCH of video games!

Sub'd by Jamie K. and made by A Piece of Cake Bakery

Ahh, what a great mix of old-school and new-school games! It's all TERRIBLY educational. Plus there's a companion cube, so I can rest easy knowing this post has at least ONE reference to Portal.

(It's NOT a lie! Woot woot!)

Hope you guys had fun this week! Now, go play!

Have a Sweet to submit? Send it to sundaysweets(at)cakewrecks(dot)com.

*As it turns out, there is an angry birds game! It's called Angry Birds: Knock On Wood. Now I have something to get Jen for our anniversary! You think I'm kidding... -john (the hubby of Jen)

**Apparently, this cake is from Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Thanks everybody! Looks like I've finished my Christmas shopping, too. -still john

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2013/5/19/sunday-sweets-game-on.html

tko

May 18 18:37 GMT : "It's served with a grilled cheese lolipop" -- I love this food festival already. also, candied bacon on ice cream! #

geekfeminism_feed

Posted by yatima

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/05/18/book-club-coding-freedom-part-i-histories/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=7666

(Sorry this is so late! Life kept happening, and then the blog went down :)

Since this is a book that deserves and rewards attention, and since we all seem to be reading it slowly as a result, let’s just discuss it one section at a time. From the introduction:

Free software hackers culturally concretize a number of liberal themes and sensibilities— for example, through their competitive mutual aid, avid free speech principles, and implementation of meritocracy along with their frequent challenge to intellectual property provisions.

(I’ll get to that “meritocracy” bit in good time.) One of the great points Biella makes early on is that hacking, while recognizably part of the liberal tradition, uses liberal techniques to critique liberalism itself. This restless contrarianism showed up earliest around IP, of course:

The expansion of intellectual property law, as noted by some authors, is part and parcel of a broader neoliberal trend to privatize what was once public or under the state’s aegis, such as health provision, water delivery,
and military services. “Neoliberalism is in the “first instance,” writes David Harvey (2005, 2), “a theory of political economic practices that proposes human well- being can be best advanced by liberating entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong property rights, free markets, and free trade.” As such, free software hackers not only reveal a long- standing tension within liberal legal rights but also offer a targeted critique of the neoliberal drive to make property out of almost anything, including software.

Oh, the 1990s. On the one hand you had a set of corporatist states seeking to exercise ever-more-restrictive controls around, for example, the precious, precious image of Mickey Mouse and music of Metallica; on the other hand you had a ragtag crew of approximately-libertarian hackers still simmering over the injustices handed down in the Unix wars. In between you had every other imaginable nuance of position. Shenanigans, naturally, ensued, and both Biella and I were on hand for the fun. I met her at various Bay Area Linux User Group and EFF events while she was conducting fieldwork in San Francisco around the turn of the millennium.

Those were glory days. The brilliance of Richard Stallman’s GPL was just beginning to make itself apparent. The GPL has radically transformed both the culture and the economics of software in ways that will continue to play out for the foreseeable future. Biella justly celebrates the terrific humor of hackers and hacking – I don’t think I really understood software, or my life partner, until I first looked into the Jargon file – and the GPL is one of hacking culture’s best and subtlest and most effective jokes.

Stallman approached the law much like a hacker treats technology: as a system that by virtue of being systemic and logical, is hackable. In other words, he relied on the hacker technical tactic of clever reuse to imaginatively hack the law by creating the GNU GPL, a near inversion of copyright law… By grafting his license on top of an already- existing system, Stallman dramatically increased the chances that the GPL would be legally binding. It is an instance of an ironic response to a system of powerful constraint, and one directed with unmistakable (and creative) intention— and whose irony is emphasized by its common descriptor, copyleft, signaling its relationship to the very artifact, copyright, that it seeks to displace.

What the GPL and the Jargon file share with the code itself is the ways in which they resemble literature – celebrating and codifying a culture – and the ways in which they resemble law – functioning as the constitutions of public spaces of the mind. (I think of the Unixes as a kind of Colossal Caves, only somehow more real.) And this, ultimately, is why we talk about coding freedom, and why the freedom part matters. Software systems are at once frontiers, meeting places and societies.

In the words of one programmer who helped me (a novice user) fix a problem on my Linux machine, “Unix is not a thing, it is an adventure.”

That’s the way I see Debian: alive.

This book is reminding me how much I love it here, but it’s also refreshingly blunt about hacker culture’s failings:

Along with the awkwardness I experienced during the first few weeks of fieldwork, I was usually one of the only females present during hacker gatherings, and as a result felt even more out of place.

That said, the answer is right there staring us in the face. Just as hacker culture uses liberal techniques to reform liberal techniques, geek feminists can and do hack hacker culture.

During cons, participants make crucial decisions that may alter the character and future course of the developer project. For example, at Debconf4, the few women attending, spearheaded by the efforts of Erinn Clark, used the time and energy afforded by an in- person meeting to initiate and organize Debian Women Project, a Web site portal and IRC mailing list to encourage female participation by visibly demonstrating the presence of women in the largely male project. Following the conference, one of the female Debian developers, Amaya Rodrigo, posted a bug report calling for a Debian Women’s mailing list, explaining the rationale in the following way:

From: Amaya Rodrigo Sastre <amaya@debian.org>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: Please create debian- women mailing list
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 2004 22:12:30 +0200
Package:lists.debian.org
Severity: normal

Out of a Debconf4 workshop the need has arisen for a mailing list oriented to debating and coordinating the different ways to get a larger female userbase. Thanks for your time :- ).

Given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow, right? I’m trying to feel my way towards an evidence-based geek feminism, in which my ideas and practices are continually tested and assessed for usefulness or otherwise. Maybe the trick is to be woman enough to cull my ideas when they are bad?

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/05/18/book-club-coding-freedom-part-i-histories/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=7666

badgerbag

I made a up nice recipe! It is green apple rhubarb crumble and is gluten free.

- crumble stuff is brown sugar, butter, oats, tapioca flour, coconut flour
- 4 green apples, maybe 8 stalks rhubarb, brown sugar, tapioca flour, cinnamon, ginger, honey

I sauteed the rhubarb for a few minutes to see if it was very juicy, but it wasn't. Threw a spoonful of honey in there and about as much ginger as my thumb. Then mixed it with the apples and sprinkled some sugar, cinnamon, and tapioca flour on it all figuring that would thicken the juicy inside.

Mash the brown sugar into the butter, then mix in the oats and various kinds of flour.

I cooked it maybe 40 minutes at 375. It is perfect! The ginger really makes it. If I could have found the cardamom I would have put a pinch into the apple/rhubarb filling. This much stuff filled a 9 inch square glass pan.

Gluten free stuff is for Zond7 who is trying this out and seems to be doing better on it. Hard to stick to. Next I will try making gf cornbread again and then gf mac and cheese with brown rice pasta.

Day of domesticity and naps - I put up a lot of hooks and brackets and did a lot of laundry. A. continues excitedly doing things to create a Paradise for Birds. At 7am she was up asking me for "chores -- chores that might be like watering the garden or filling the bird feeders." OK! Chores! 7am! hop to it, kid! Over the course of the day she helped me drill holes, screw screws, and oil the patio benches with teak oil.

She duct taped a yogurt container up on top of the highest fence for crows. Her rambly singing has switched between lullabies and fake crow calls all day. Moomin did some homework (but has WAY MORE) everyone but me played a board game called zooloretto and A.'s friend from school came over.

Zond7 slept off his jet lag. I also did some worky things over the day when I was resting my ankles and not asleep. We're hoping to see the star trek movie tomorrow!

So lovely to have more energy, be able to walk around today, etc. and use my hands so much for things like drilling, screwdrivers, laundry, and carrying things. It may not feel very good tomorrow. And yet Enbrel <3 <3 <3 <3

Crossposts: http://badgerbag.livejournal.com/547257.html

pleia2

For each Ubuntu release I spend a little time finding a toy or other representation of the codename animal to use at booths, Ubuntu Hours and other events. I wrote about Quetzals and Pangolins here and you may have seen Raring here.

When the salamander came up I was confident that a toy would be easy to find, and indeed they were! Even better, I found that the World Wildlife Fund offers a $50 Hellbender Salamander Adoption Kit that ships with 2 plush salamanders! Mine arrived yesterday, I’ll be keeping one to use at our events and will find a way to give away the other (perhaps as part of the Ubuntu Women contest we’re planning? Or at some LoCo event?).

Event decoration + helping to save the actual animal, hooray!

Oh, and it is a release late, but while I was in Mérida, Mexico we stopped in to Miniaturas where I picked up some adorable quetzal earrings:

I think I’ll wear them to our San Francisco Ubuntu Hour on June 12th, and bring along the salamander!

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

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

(For some California local definition of 'morning'!)

About 30 minutes ago one of our databases (sb-db03) locked up and stopped serving traffic. This was an active database, so the site quickly stopped when it could no longer serve requests. Alas.

I have failed us over to a backup database and now everything should be working again.

I'm not sure yet what happened to db03, but am currently investigating and will update this post if I come up with a root cause for the problem. Edit: It's back up and doesn't have any visible problems. Disks are fine, data's intact, etc. The graphs and logs show nothing. We'll have to keep an eye on it and see if it manifests further issues.

Sorry for the trouble, please let me know if you still see any problems!

frith posting in

ponyville_trot

Source: http://sandara.deviantart.com/art/Mlp-Queen-Chrysalis-372105927

Insectoid magical mare, and she wants _your_ love! And some shampoo. Yes, a shampoo would be nice. Don't forget the conditioner.

tko

May 17 17:37 GMT : @storming Expendable by James Alan Gardner. #

May 17 16:07 GMT : Today, all the Earthquake? Earthquake! statuses are coming from Ottawa, not California. #

pleia2

Since I left for my wedding and honey moon a bunch of things happened! Ubuntu 13.04 was released, 13.10 was given the code name “Saucy Salamander” and Debian 7.0 Wheezy came out. Plus lots of exciting OpenStack development discussion that came out following the Summit (I left right after it). When I got back into the country on the 12th I had a lot to catch up on! I did my best to cram before sessions and certainly had to limit involvement to a handful of sessions that I was particularly keen on attending and so could get up to speed with quickly.

This was the first virtual UDS I was able to participate in, so it was all new to me. Essentially the the “fish bowl” (as seen here, I took this photo from my spot in the wider attendee seating) is replaced by a Google Hangout and the “wider attendee seating” is an IRC channel. For the 4 sessions I participated in this worked very well, session leads were pro-active about asking who wished to participate in the Hangout so everyone who wanted to was able to. A great deal of attention in all these sessions was given to the IRC channel, which is a contrast with in person UDS where the channel can sometimes get a bit left behind (even though it’s being projected, it was easy to forget once you get talking). I didn’t use the summit.ubuntu.com page for anything aside reference, preferring to pop out the etherpad and use my standard IRC client, but I appreciated it all being there as a resource (and I’m sure it was super helpful for newcomers to follow along!).

Cheri Francis and others in the Ubuntu Women session

I found the sessions I participated in to be productive and focused and when applicable resulted in a solid list of action items. I hope that the event also lessened the experience gap that was always present for in person vs. remote participants, we all got the same experience. Now I have to admit to not being a fan of using Google Hangouts for this (I like Google, but it is still a proprietary, closed-source tool that we have no control over), but I understand that the ease of use and immediate availability of videos on YouTube makes a compelling case. Perhaps my only other complaint is lack of cohesiveness that comes from an online event, I didn’t watch the introduction or the wrap up. I also didn’t participate in the “beer hangout” – I didn’t even know it was happening, and sitting in front of my computer with a beer in the middle of the day wasn’t particularly interesting to me. I only attended a few specific sessions and there was no “wandering into something that looks interesting” (instead I just went back to work) or the regular social down time we get to relax or sit down to hack on things. I do hope we can find some kind of replacement for the in-person events, it would be great to see something on the LoCo team level at conferences where we seek to have an expanded Ubuntu presence focused on contributors (perhaps an Ubucon with a participant track?).

And the venue… it was at home! In order to participate in the hangout I did feel the need to leverage my multiple monitors.

My desk is a bit chaotic

Now the sessions themselves…

– Planning for Ubuntu Community presence on the Ubuntu Website –

This was not a particularly productive session as far as action items were concerned, but it turns out that while I was gone the removal of the “Community” link from ubuntu.com took on a life of its own (and boy was I surprised to see my name end up in a recent Datamation article about it). Personally I was satisfied with Daniel Holbach’s blog post on the subject a day after the change was made, but it was nice to speak with with some folks from the Design team and allow everyone to confirm that no ill will was intended and that plans for a new and improved community site were moving forward. The session was kept short given the more structured session about the community site specifically planned for the following day.

YouTube video of the session here

– Ubuntu Women UDS-1305 Goals –

Huge thanks to Silvia Bindelli and Cheri Francis for doing all of the leg work for this session while I was gone, I felt very comfortable reviewing their pre-session notes and found a really great, collaborative environment upon joining in. The discussion began talking about an information scavenger-hung competition that the team will be doing in the coming months, seeking volunteers to assist. It then moved into a topic that I was really happy to see on the agenda – a user poll to see how the team could be most effective in serving our audience of women interested in Ubuntu. I find that the project needs a bit of an adjustment every couple of years to refocus on our current targets as Ubuntu and the open source ecosystem evolves, so I’m excited that we’re doing this. Finally, much of the session was spent discussing our intention to further collaborate with other groups seeking to encourage women in open source (and in technology in general).

YouTube video of the session here and I uploaded session notes here

– Revamping ubuntu.com/community –

Picking up from where discussion left off the previous day, this session was a focused on on concrete things that need to be done to get the proposed community website that was under development reviewed and published. I admit that job change + wedding planning had my attention diverted this past cycle so I wasn’t able to contribute to this project, but I made sure to spend time the night before to do a review of the content so I’d be prepared. I was able to go through some of my suggestions during the meeting and took a few action items to continue with a more thorough review and to collect some quotes and photos from the community to make the site more personal and approachable.

YouTube video of the session here and I uploaded session notes here

– Shaping a plan for the future of Ubuntu Documentation Team –

I can’t begin to say how pleased I was to see this session land on the agenda. The Ubuntu Doc team has been a very small team for a long time, and new contributors have struggled to participate as the docs for writing the docs got stale to a point where they were not useful. We’re at a very exciting time now where we have limited support from a couple of the (very busy!) former drivers of this team and at least two strong contributors who have committed to moving the project forward. The first thing on the agenda was addressing the updating of docs so that more contributors can get on-boarded. I was able to pitch in with a couple action items to nudge things along a bit, but I’m hopeful that this is the beginning of an exciting new phase for the team.

YouTube video of the session here and I uploaded session notes here

A Slimy Salamander (wait, you said Saucy?)

– Xubuntu –

Since the event was online, the Xubuntu team took advantage of the flexibility and ended up pulling their sessions from UDS proper and scheduling our sessions for the hour after UDS each day to tackle a series of blueprints designed for the coming months. I was able to use my YouTube account + Hangouts to replicate that portion of what main UDS was doing.

Discussion of most interest to me centered around our testing+release plans (should we do alphas? betas? which ones?) and documentation, but discussion of our limited developer force (want to grow it!), a proposal for a shortcut overlay and default applications also were discussed. A much better summary was posted on the Xubuntu website yesterday: Looking towards Xubuntu 13.10. Pasi Lallinaho also wrote bullet-point style summaries of Night 1 and Night 2 which include links to their respective YouTube videos.

In all, a productive UDS for me, I have a lot of work to do… :)

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

pleia2

The second half of our honeymoon was full of adventure (and ok, a bit more luxury). We decided to spend 5 days traveling through the Yucatan peninsula visiting Mayan ruins, cenotes and local cities. We wanted our visit to be stress-free so MJ did some research and found William Lawsons Personal Driving Service which would not only take us around the peninsula but our driver would also be a registered tour guide! We met our guide, Angel, at the resort on Tuesday morning to begin our adventure.

Our first visit was to the ruins of Ek’ Balam. This was a really cool site, with multiple structures to climb, including the huge main temple. It wasn’t until I climbed to the top that I fully appreciated how hot it was out (and that I hadn’t brought enough water!).

More photos from Ek’ Balam

I was pretty tired after wandering around those ruins in the heat, so I was delighted when our tour guide was able to find Cenote Hubiku, just north of Valladolid where we were spending the night. A cenote is a “a deep natural pit, or sinkhole, characteristic of Mexico, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneat” (wikipedia). There are thousands in the Yucatan and many that are equipped for people to swim in. Cenote Hubiku had a small admission fee and full, modern facilities for changing before swimming. We caught them at the tail end of their day, but got a good 20 minutes of swimming in the beautiful, cool cenote before being on our way. It was the perfect thing for post ruin exploration.

Photos from Cenote Hubiku.

For dinner we went to Taberna de los Frailes for a delicious dinner that included a grilled watermelon with cheese appetizer (which I wouldn’t have ordered, but the waiter recommended it). We retired for the night at Casa Hamaca Guesthouse which was a cute little inn in the heart of Valladolid. Even better, the proprietor Denis Larsen is a northeast US expat who was exceptionally welcoming and helpful the next morning as we enjoyed banana pancakes and chatted about everything from our shared love of Google Docs for collaboration to tips for the rest of our stay in the Yucatan.

We then spent the day exploring the beautiful city of Valladolid. We visited the small San Roque Museum and then spent some time walking around the main square. From there we did some shopping and I picked up a couple of the traditional embroidered blouses that Valladolid is famous for. We also got a couple of brimmed hats for further ruin exploration. Mid-day we met up with Angel who took us to the Convent of San Bernardino de Siena and Cenote Zaci – a cenote right in town! We didn’t swim but it was nice to visit.

Photos from Valladolid

Come late afternoon it was time to start driving toward Mérida to check in to Hacienda Xcanatun boutique hotel for the night. This former hacienda was one of the many in the region that used to be a sisal (fiber) plantation. This was my favorite hotel. The rooms were sprawling and while modernized, still held an architectural feel and basic layout similarities to what I’d expect from and old hacienda. We had dinner at their famous on-site restaurant of the same name.

Photos from Hacienda Xcanatun

The next day was Uxmal! Plus a couple other sites on the Puuc Route. Uxmal was a major city and so touring the ruins takes several hours. We managed to see most of it and had a lot of fun climbing around several of their major structures (only the largest and a few minor sites had climbing prohibited). This site really rivals Chichen Itza in how big and amazing the ruins are, definitely one of my favorites.

More photos from Uxmal

Next on our list to visit for the day was Kabah. Most amazing about this place was its famous “Palace of the Masks” which was a whole building covered on one side with ornate faces of stone. You’re allowed to climb up to and around the palace, making this probably my favorite small site we visited.

More photos from Kabah

The last ruin site we visited was Sayil where we just visited the Palace of Sayil (the site was very spread out, with buildings up to 1 mile apart). Like so many of these palaces, it was an impressive and imposing sight! No climbing up the structure allowed though.

Photos from Sayil

Our final new site of the day was the Ecomuseo del Cacao. Our first hint that this place wasn’t quite up to par with the rest of our day was the clue from Angel that, while a traditional Mayan thing, cacao doesn’t actually grow naturally in the Yucatan because it’s not humid enough. The museum had it’s moments but was a bit too polished and cheesy. It was nice visiting the grove of artificially maintained cocoa trees and the hot chocolate tasting at the end was probably worth the entrance fee.

Photos from Ecomuseo del Cacao

From there we headed back to Uxmal for a sound and light show. I hadn’t read great things about it online, so I was prepped for something really cheesy, but I admit having really enjoyed it. The main track being broadcast is in Spanish, but you can rent headphones in several languages so you can hear the stories going along with the show that paint a picture of what it may have been like in the height of civilization there. It was also then that I noticed how beautifully clear the sky was out there, you could see so many stars.

That night we checked into Hacienda Temozon. It was a beautiful property, advertisements for it are quick to tell you that Bill Clinton stayed there once and the only owned by a major American company. The rooms were large, but it turns out perhaps not the right place to stay during ant season. Staying true to some of the age of the place, it didn’t have glass on the windows so everything was quite open-air and the doors covering the windows didn’t seal (you could put your finger through some of the gaps). I did enjoy a wonderful Mexican omelette in the morning.

Photos from Hacienda Temozon

Angel picked us up in the late morning and, knowing our interest in cenotes, decided to take us to a less touristy one that he knew of, Cenote Kankirixché. It wasn’t a fancy, staffed cenote like the previous ones we’d been to, we had to change in the van and then it was just a hole in the ground and a somewhat questionable wooden staircase taking you down to the water. It was beautiful and refreshing though!

More photos from Cenote Kankirixché

From there we were off to the city of Mérida! First stop was to check in to the stunningly modern Rosas and Xocolate boutique hotel before heading across the street to the Anthropology and History Museum. The museum is located in the former Canton Palace and while all in Spanish the exhibits mostly spoke for themselves. My favorite exhibits were one of one of the earlier expeditions to the Yucatan where many of the Puuc sites we explored, seeing photos from those sites before they were uncovered and restored was really cool. They also had a local embroidery exhibit upstairs which, seeing them in context, made me really happy about my beautiful blouse purchases in Valladolid.

Then it was off to the Grande Plaza district of Merida where we had lunch at Amaro. We did some shopping and were able to visit the Casa de los Montejo and the Palacio de Gobierno with it’s captivating murals by Fernando Castro Pacheco. We enjoyed dinner back at the hotel and in all a relaxing night.

Photos from Mérida

Unfortuantely the adventures had to come to an end at some point, our last day was spent visiting the famous Chichen Itza.

Chichen Itza is a huge settlement and we spent over 3 hours exploring it. It was more crowded than any of the other sites we went to, but the benefit of going in the hottest part of the year is that it wasn’t overwhelming with people at all. One of the interesting things about it though was while it’s expensive for tourists to enter (up to 5 times as much as other sites), the whole inside was filled with vendors! Angel told us it was because it used to be privately owned and they owner brought in all these vendors, and when it was transferred to more government run thing they kept the vendors. At first it was a little off-putting to have so many vendors throughout the archaeological site, but I came to realize that these vendors were selling on-topic keepsakes that tourists (including myself) were interested in buying, and technically these people are descendants of the Mayans who built this city – this is theirs. It also brought a liveliness to the site that was lacking at the other sites, I appreciated them by the time we were wrapping up our day there. And what a day. You couldn’t climb any of the ruins but it’s probably for the best, even just walking among these giants in the heat was enough to tire me out considerably.

More photos from Chichen Itza

We spent our last night in Mexico in Cancun so we’d have easy access to the airport the following morning. MJ picked a hotel on the beach where we could have a romantic private cabana dinner. Perfect wrap up to our honeymoon :)

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

loganberrybunny posting in

ponyville_trot

Saturday has crept up on us again, so it's episode discussion time. Chris Savino has only written two episodes of Friendship is Magic, and they're both in season one. Oddly enough, the one that's become something of a fandom favourite of the early eps is also one I don't, myself, find all that engaging. So, let's have a slightly more detailed look at "Boast Busters"...

...or, as it should more properly be known, "The Trixie Show". Let's face it, the Great and Powerful Trixie is by far the largest reason why so many fans rate this episode highly. I will give the creative team props for successfully finding a way in which a pony could make a living out of being a magician in a world where magic is an everyday occurrence -- though I think she might have done better as an out-and-out conjurer, since Twilight's actual magic is stronger but Trixie seems a born showmare.

That, of course, is what's behind the running theme that eventually leads to the episode's moral: that there's a distinction that needs to be drawn between being proud of what you can do and plain old showing off. It's a good lesson, too. We also learn a bit more about Twilight, in particular her unusual talent for magic, though it will be a while longer before how ponies' "special talents" work is more fully explained. When she gets rid of the Ursa Minor, though, there's clearly some serious power there.

Snips and Snails are unbelievably irritating characters. I appreciate that they're meant to be so, but I still tend to groan inwardly whenever they appear in an episode. Spike's reaction to the "G&P T" line was pretty similar to mine. The rest of the Mane Six, though, are bit-part players (at best: Fluttershy and Pinkie are nearly invisible) although Trixie's early successes on stage against Rainbow, AJ and Rarity are amusing. The Ursas are both interesting creations, and well animated by S1 standards.

I do wonder whether Trixie would have become quite such a cult antihero for a large chunk of the fandom if it hadn't been for the near-obsessive support she's often had from Equestria Daily owner Sethisto. Maybe the fact that I'm only a sporadic EqD reader has something to do with the fact that I can take or leave the blue unicorn, as indeed I can this episode. I certainly wouldn't rank it top of the six up to this point ("Applebuck Season" gets my vote) but that's not to say it's bad. Just not amazing.

USians can buy the episode from iTunes. European DVDs and European iTunes downloads are coming, but for the moment non-Americans can either import the American R1 DVD or buy the German Blu-ray. And YouTube, though you sometimes have to do a little more searching than you used to.

Current Mood: okay

bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by schneier

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/friday_squid_bl_376.html

Technically, it's a cuttlefish and not a squid. But it's still nice art. I posted a photo of a real striped pyjama squid way back in 2006.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/friday_squid_bl_376.html

bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by schneier

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/applied_cryptog.html

In the episode that aired on May 9th, about eight or nine minutes in, there's a scene with a copy of Applied Cryptography prominently displayed on the coffee table. This isn't the first time that my books have appeared on that TV show.

Applied Crypto on Elementary.jpg

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/applied_cryptog.html

bokunenjin

As I hear friends and acquaintances express eagerness to see the Ender's Game film that will be released this fall, I have a hard time responding. I want to ask, have you read the book? After you were fifteen years old? And you enjoyed it? I can't understand how it won the awards it did. It's not just poorly written, it's repugnant. John Kessel articulates why in his essay Creating the Innocent Killer:
Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality. An excerpt:

We see the effects of displaced, righteous rage everywhere around us, written in violence and justified as moral action, even compassion. Ender gets to strike out at his enemies and still remain morally clean. Nothing is his fault. Stilson already lies defeated on the ground, yet Ender can kick him in the face until he dies, and still remain the good guy. Ender can drive bone fragments into Bonzo’s brain and then kick his dying body in the crotch, yet the entire focus is on Ender’s suffering. For an adolescent ridden with rage and self-pity, who feels himself abused (and what adolescent doesn’t?), what’s not to like about this scenario? So we all want to be Ender. As Elaine Radford has said, “We would all like to believe that our suffering has made us special—especially if it gives us a righteous reason to destroy our enemies.”

But that’s a lie. No one is that special; no one is that innocent. If I felt that Card’s fiction truly understood this, then I would not have written this essay.

frith posting in

ponyville_trot

derpy_in_forest_16_9_small_by_mysticalpha

Source: http://mysticalpha.deviantart.com/art/Derpy-in-Forest-16-9-368458637

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Sharyn

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2013/5/17/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-fire-swamp.html

According to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there are NOT three dangers of the Fire Swamp, my friends; there are seven.

Don't Panic!

Instead, grab your sonic screwdriver,

(With both hands...)

and your ugliest tie-dye beach towel,

(You know, the one with the ugly flowers and the nutrient-soaked hem.)

...and let's go see if we can find the other four!

Wait, I'm forgetting something...

Hey! You! In the red shirt! Wanna join the team?

Great! We wouldn't think of leaving without you.

*
***
********

Look, up above! It's a Cthulpoo Pony!

Watch out for their aerial bowel assault!

Now, step lively! The Guide warns of AFGs. You could fall and break your neck.

"Areas of Fluctuating Gravity? I don't think they exi-- aiieeeggghhhh!"

Listen! Do you smell something?

As I suspected: it's the herbivorous blast-ended skrewt!
("They call me... Tim.")

Mind the pincers; they've got nasty, big, pointy teeth!

Well, that's three. There's just one more danger --

The Excitable Squirrels of Amorosity!

Look out, men! They'll go straight for your nuts!
(Whose idea was it to bring all these peanuts, anyway?)

*SPROING!*

RUN AWAAAAAY!

Thanks to Robert S., Stacy, Gillian, Anony M., Kellee C., Rachael E., and Jane B., for sending us pictures of cakes that are mostly harmless.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2013/5/17/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-fire-swamp.html

badgerbag

Just realized this evening my sinuses really are going haywire. This maybe explains why I feel so generally rotten, and my head hurts, and I spent a day dizzy and sick. Maybe it's just that I actually am sick. Well, whatever.

Not a bad day. Though very long and I cried on the way home from the pain clinic. Before my appointment I went to the fabulous House of Paincakes (not really called that) and had a totally delicious hummus/falafel/tabouleh/dolmas plate with toasted pita bread. it is all very fresh and homemade and was 8 bucks for the lot. Yeah! Worked from the cafe, then oozed over to the Pain Rooms.

The waiting room smelled unbelievable like someone had just crop-dusted with farts, or a disco fog machine but with old armpits, farts, yawns, and gym sock mold. Really, what was wrong with that place! Along with the other people trapped there I delighted in a 2 year old who was being entertained by a nice lady with an iphone. Fish! Dora! Bubbles! Etc. Then they looked at a highlights magazine together while the father beamed proud & nervous that maybe the kid was going to start annoying the nice strange lady. Then a new lady came in and went "Huh! This place smells like MUSKY BALLS!" (2 year old: "Ball? Ball? Catch? Bounce? Ball? Bounce? Dora?) I could not believe I had just heard this out loud. Whose balls has this woman been smelling, anyway? Gross! Did she really say it? Was there something else she could have said that I mistook for "musky balls?" Should I ask her? Was I smirking? Hahahah! Holy wow!

The rest of the people left over the next few minutes for their appointments or as their partners came out of the PAIN ROOMS inside the super secure drugs-inside-here door. It was just me and Ms. Muskballer. She mentioned the weather. I agreed that it had been foggy and cold, but was getting nicer outside. We agreed the sun is awesome. She told me how she loves to go in her back yard and sunbathe. Me too!

"And I sprawl out. I don't care, maybe someone way up there (gestures towards imaginary 3rd floor window) can see me but I just don't care, I'm all in my altogether out there in the sunny morning now that I'm in Union City instead of Alameda where the fog would just get at me." "Oh, me too, morning fog, goes right into my bones." "So I sprawl out like THIS" (demonstration of Sun Worshiping Wide Open Beaver yoga pose, arms up)

Hahahha! No one can see me in the yard either except maybe from way up! So I just, you know, get a little sun in there too! (We both crack up as I mime coyly lifting up my shirt).

"Well I just love the sun. I go down to the Caribbean 3 times a year just to get my sun but now I get it in my own back yard. You know, it's close in here. "

"Yeah it's not very..."

"It smells like MUSKY BALLS in here. It's not right." This time I know I heard it! GLORY TO THE BALLS LADY. It is the best time I have ever had in a waiting room especially one that stinky. I went over to the door and wedged a trash can in it to get more air in. We then discussed how much sun was optimal on the skin and whether we used sun screen (only sometimes). Then the doctor came out.

The new resident or guy on rotation was very nice, though, he did the horrible rotating-outwards thign that hurts like fury to test me, and my blood pressure was unusually high. (still high normal) Maybe I will stop eating butter and go back to olive oil and vinegar for my toast. Rotation guy suggested I try the old compound ketamine cream on my ankles. Dr. Major General was awesome as always but impressed me extra with a special, gentle, two handed flat palmed handshake that had NO SQUEEZING. Genius of the pain clinic! My next injection is at the end of June.

Bus ride hard and crowded and jolty. I was a bit teary-eyed. Finally home. yarnivore was here with A. who came home early (there was a plan , with a friend, but it fell through) Baby birds discovered in the birdhouse in the backyard! A. declared she would make the yard a paradise for birds! We could hear them peeping in there and see nest material but the birds seemed to be huddled up against the front just out of site. Birdseed scattered! expedition to the park to get sticks and dead leaves so that bugs would live there and the birds could eat them! Beans and flowers planted! (this all happened while i laid on the couch.) Yarnivore and i laid about talking about arthritis. We ate bean soup. Hours later A. broke the news there are no birds. The peeping noise was the wood of the birdhouse rubbing against the fence! Chagrin.... "But we will make it an awesome bird paradise anyway because the birds put nesting stuff in there so they will come back!"

Video chatted with Zond7 in Norway. He is stuck there an extra day but on his way home now! Hurrah!!!!!

Going tomorrow to see A. play the flute for the school concert.

OK, taking some more sinus meds and then to sleep.

Oh wait. Stranger in Olondria was very good! I loved it! I knew I would from the excerpt booklet from last year's WisCon. Dreamy and lovely....and all the quotations and literary allusions from the narrator! I didn't want it to end. I'll read anything Sofia Samatar writes!

Crossposts: http://badgerbag.livejournal.com/546952.html

xkcd_feed

http://xkcd.com/1213/

If you see two numbers but they're both the same and you have to squint to read them, you have synesthesia, colorblindness, diplopia, and myopia.

http://xkcd.com/1213/

tko

May 16 23:56 GMT : Not quite sorry enough to build a motion-activated birdcam, but sorry enough to contemplate it for a few minutes. #

May 16 23:54 GMT : Apparently @warthog9 saw a robin trying to eat out of the hummingbird feeder. I am sorry I missed this. #

May 16 20:41 GMT : Fisheye lens https://t.co/AGd2lXG7jw = "omg, @MarsCuriosity looks gigantic" Now I want to see posters for "Curiousity vs Godzilla" #

May 16 20:09 GMT : RT @gvwilson: "Side effects are bad, so we should use functional languages" is like "Cream in coffee is good, so let's add some brie." #

May 16 19:28 GMT : @asayeed The parade is a giant water fight and our band is usually desperate for clarinets for the gig. It's so worth it. :) #

May 16 19:24 GMT : @asayeed Alas, probably not. I've got a parade I want to be in here on July 4th and the travel logistics around then would be crazy. #

May 16 18:45 GMT : @asayeed Done and done. Drama! Confusion! Alumni spam! #

May 16 18:34 GMT : @asayeed Does that mean you'll get to attend the apparently disastrous sim reunion? I'm tempted to book a flight and bring popcorn. ;) #

May 16 17:50 GMT : @asayeed Maybe rather than a memoir, you could simply tweet possible titles as an art project where the readers fill in the blanks ;) #

May 16 17:37 GMT : @asayeed Your new memoir title can be, "I was a teenaged prophet." #

pleia2

On Tuesday the 30th we flew from Philadelphia to Cancun, Mexico. From there we took a shuttle south for about 40 minutes until we got to the Riviera Maya district and Grand Velas, the all-inclusive resort we had reservations at for the first week of our honeymoon.

We then spent a much-needed week relaxing.

We had a stunning view from our room.

Hours to spend relaxing on the beach, or in one of their several pools where they brought us all the food and beverages we wanted.

Plus, chocolate strawberries.

I read my way through several books that I’d been wanting to read but never could find time for. Pretty much the only decision we needed to make all week was which of the top notch restaurants they had on site for each meal. I quite enjoyed room service for breakfast.

More photos from our stay: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157633490351996/

We did end up making one excursion during the week, and that was to Rio Secreto, a nearby series of underground caves and waterways. I wasn’t sure what to expect since it was quite close to such a touristy area (tourist trap?) but my expectations were surpassed in all ways. We were geared up with water shoes (we opted to buy new ones for $10/pair), helmets and wet suits and we had a great tour guide, but it was far from a risk-free, polished tourist experience. We got a real feel for the natural caves and we had an amazing time swimming through some of the pools we were taken through in our 3 hour tour through 600+ meters of cave.

A photographer came along with to take photos and we paid the charge to download them all royalty-free, I uploaded several of them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157633479166189/

Alas, the luxurious stay had to come to and end at some point. The following Tuesday we packed up… but not to end our honeymoon! Instead we repacked to spend the next 5 days traveling through the Yucatán visiting Mayan ruins and modern Yucatán cities! But that’s for the next post…

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

frith posting in

ponyville_trot

Source: http://madhotaru.deviantart.com/art/The-Breakfast-371841616

valerie_fenwick_blog_feed

Posted by Valerie Fenwick

http://bubbva.blogspot.com/2013/05/valerie-appearing-in-musical-9-to-5-at.html

I am so excited to announce that I will be singing and dancing in the ensemble and as a hospital intern for West Valley Light Opera's production of Dolly Parton's "9 to 5". The show is running on weekends from June 29 to July 27. There is a Saturday matinée (instead of evening performance) on July 13th. The matinées are approaching sell out.

The show will be familiar to many of you who saw the original motion picture starring Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dabney Coleman. Much of the same music (plus so much more) and scenes appear in this show. Come take a flash back to the 1980s. See how far we've come - and in which ways office politics are still the same. We've got a strong cast and it's shaping up into a great show.

We're well into rehearsal now, busily learning all the songs and many dance numbers.

This is very exciting to me, as many of you may recall, I had a serious injury in 2010 (3 cm x 1 cm tear in my quadricep tendon), which had a treatment that led to a back injury. In January 2011, I could do about 1 flight of stairs a day, walk for short distances (often with aid of a cane), and could not ride my bike nor get dressed without pain.

My old doctor and physical therapist told me that was "as good as it gets at your age"! I found a new doctor and a new PT, received additional treatments and - well, I'm DANCING! I'm a bit rusty, but a patient choreographer and fellow cast members are getting me back into the rhythm of things.

Please come and see the show! If you call the box office, you'll get to skip some of the ticket fees, or you can buy online. Either way, let the box office manager know you're coming to see me - there is some kind of reward for bringing the most people into the theater. I hope it's chocolate! :-)

http://bubbva.blogspot.com/2013/05/valerie-appearing-in-musical-9-to-5-at.html

bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by schneier

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/bluetooth-contr.html

Here is a new lock that you can control via Bluetooth and an iPhone app.

That's pretty cool, and I can imagine all sorts of reasons to get one of those. But I'm sure there are all sorts of unforeseen security vulnerabilities in this system. And even worse, a single vulnerability can affect all the locks. Remember that vulnerability found last year in hotel electronic locks?

Anyone care to guess how long before some researcher finds a way to hack this one? And how well the maker anticipated the need to update the firmware to fix the vulnerability once someone finds it?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use this lock, only that you understand that new technology brings new security risks, and electronic technology brings new kinds of security risks. Security is a trade-off, and the trade-off is particularly stark in this case.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/bluetooth-contr.html