Cousin Camping '08

It's that time of year again. Cousin Camping '08 has finally arrived. This year we will be heading up to Stephanie's cottage. I can hardly wait! It's absolutely gorgeous up there, and time with the cousins is always enjoyable. Swimming, relaxing... that's my kind of long weekend. Plus, I've got Friday off.

Bicyclist Assaulted by NYPD

On Friday a New York Police Officer body checked a bicyclist off of his bike. He has since then been stripped of his badge. The "Critical Mass" bikers are out to promote a green form of transportation. They bike in cities all around the world on the last Friday of every month.


Click here to watch the video.

IPETEE to Encrypt the Internet

The guys at The Pirate Bay have set out to encrypt the internet. They have a proposed a technology called IPETEE, less technically known as "Transparent end-to-end encryption for the internets." It's basicly an encrypted layer between the IP-stack and application. For more information about the proposal visit the trf.org wiki.

Childhood Memories

I found a site late last year that brought some childhood memories back.

My parents didn't really want us playing many video games, but we did have a Nintendo. The games we had were...

• Super Mario Brothers & Duck Hunt
• Mega Man 2
• Double Dragon

I found all the games on virtualnes.com where you can play them right on the site. I don't really care for the games anymore, but I remember how much fun my brothers and I had playing together. Good times.

Dear World

Dear World,
If by money, fame, fortune and wealth you mean God, family, friends and relationships...

I completely agree with you.

The Rope

I don't know where this story came from or who wrote it, but enjoyed it, so here goes!

The Rope

The story tells of a mountain climber, who wanted to climb the highest mountain. He begun his adventure after many years of preparation, but since he wanted the glory just for himself, he decided to climb the mountain alone.

The night felt heavy in the heights of the mountain, and the man could not see anything. All was black. Zero visibility, and the moon and the stars were covered by the clouds.

As he was climbing, only a few feet away from the top of the mountain, he slipped and fell into the air, falling at a great speed. The climber could only see black as he went down, and the terrible sensation of being sucked by gravity. He kept falling... and in those moments of great fear, his mind was flooded with memories of the good and bad episodes of his life.

He was thinking about how close he was to death, when all of a sudden he felt the rope around his waste pull tight.

His body was hanging in the air... Only the rope was holding him, and in that moment of stillness he had no other choice but to scream: Help me God!!!

All of a sudden, a deep voice coming from the sky answered: What do you want me to do?

Save me God!!!

Do you really think I can save you?

Of course I believe You can!

The cut the rope that is tied to your waist...

There was a moment of silence; and the man decided to hold on to the rope with all his strength.

The rescue team tells, that the next day a climber was found dead and frozen... his body hanging from a rope. His hands holding it tight. ONLY 10 FEET OFF THE GROUND...

How attached are you to your rope? Will you let go?

Totem Destroyer

For the most part, I find games a big waste of time. But I saw a friend at work playing this one, and it's quite enjoyable.

You can play it here. (I think the hardest levels are 16 and 24.)

Developers, developers, developers, developers...

I originally saw this video about two years ago. When I ran across it again, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share it with the world.


Developers

Relaxation Station

As expressed two posts ago - could life get any better?

• Everyday my health is increasing by leaps and bounds which can only be attributed to God's mercy.
• My new found ability to go for long walks with Steph is a real blessing.

Even though I'm currently enjoying life to no end, I anticipate and wait upon abundant healing and blessings from the hand that holds the world.

Gentoo 2008.0 Released!

If you know me, you'd know that Gentoo and Ubuntu are my favourite linux distributions. Gentoo for speed and flexibility, and Ubuntu for easy of use. Finally, Gentoo 2008.0 has been released.

Here are some linux questions that I get asked a lot. Maybe some of my responses will be of benefit to you.

Q. You compile your whole Operating System from scratch?!! Isn't that a waste of time?
A. Nope, I let it compile overnight.

Q. What about updates? Open Office takes like 5 hours to compile.
A. Again, I compile updates while I catch some Zzzs.

Q. Do you recommend I try Gentoo linux?
A. If you are new to linux, No. I recommend Ubuntu. But if you currently enjoy linux and would like to dig a little deeper.. Yes! Go for it!

Q. I tried the cli install, but it was too hard.
A. I recommend the cli install, but there is a new gui installer you can try.

Q. KDE, Gnome, etc...?
A.
1. Gnome
2. Fluxbox
3. Xfce
4. KDE

Q. What operating systems do you currently run?
A. My currently active computers are...
Toshiba Laptop: Dual boot Ubuntu 8.04 (Custom Kernel) / Windows XP (SP2)
eeePC Laptop: Linux (Kernel 2.6)
Desktop: Gentoo 2008.0
NAS Server: Ubuntu 8.04
Old NAS Server: FreeBSD (Power supply died.)
Pentesting Server: nUbuntu 6.10 (Soon Backtrack 3)

Precious Times

Yesterday was absolutely fantastic.

Steph and I celebrated our 1.5 year anniversary.

The Agenda:

• Royal Ontario Museum
• Eat
• Walk
• Relax
  

The ROM was awesome! We got lots of memorable pictures from dinosaurs, birds and tigers to medieval armour and mummified mummies. After the ROM we went for a drive to find a nice place to eat. We parked at a park and eventually found a restaurant called "One of a Kind". And wow, was it ever good. I had fettuccine alfredo, and Steph had penne rose. After lunch we went for a stroll. We stumbled upon a starbucks where I got a girly Strawberries & Cream Frappuccino. Steph drank something a little more manly. Anyway, we came to rest at the park, where we watched cars go buy as if we were porch sittin' in a small town. Our relaxation came home with us as we spent the evening in the hammock eating Jelly Bellies and talking about our blessings, our lives and how we can use the gifts that God has given us.

I'm not sure if it could have been any better. I love that girl.

IE8 to follow web standards by default

Microsoft has announced that Internet Exploreer 8 will follow standards by default! The W3C web standards are being followed by virtually every browser except IE, until now. Everyone has been hacking their css files for far too long. Soon your website will look good in all browsers, just like it should.

Yay, Microsoft! (You should have done this sooner.)

Home At Last

Whew, I'm home at last.

The last week has been amazing and a real blessing. I just came back from West Virginia on a mission trip. Our group worked at four locations, but I personally just worked at one. For most of the week I was framing Barry's (the homeowner's) living room and washroom as well as lots of digging. Barry was paralyzed two years ago in an accident involving high voltage lines. Some of the pictures from the trip will be going up on facebook as soon as Steph and I have time.

Thank You to everyone who supported us in prayer and finance!

Unscrambler

The unscrambler project is complete. Long story short, you can give it a scrambled word and it will try and unscramble it for you. It's pretty cool.