Monthly Archives: November 2008

Broadcasting your data is asking for trouble

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So if you transmit data through the air, such that anyone can read it without any physical security, it’s not a question of if the encryption used it broken, but when.

From ITWorld,

Security researchers say they’ve developed a way to partially crack the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption standard used to protect data on many wireless networks.

The attack, described as the first practical attack on WPA, will be discussed at the PacSec conference in Tokyo next week. There, researcher Erik Tews will show how he was able to crack WPA encryption, in order to read data being sent from a router to a laptop computer. The attack could also be used to send bogus information to a client connected to the router.

Clearly you have to assess what you use your wireless for and how likely it is for someone to be listening in, but it’s growing more and more clear that any broadcast technology is going to be broken eventually.

Update 7th November 2008.

It’s not as bad as it first sounded, but it’s still an issue.  Read more here.

Wired

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Wow, wired.  Feeling physically very odd, like hyper-tense.  Usually I feel like this when my blood sugar is too high, but at the moment it’s 4.6 which is perfectly fine, although it got down to that 90 minutes after I ate lunch which is also odd.

Certainly don’t feel very comfortable.

Dentist was … as expected.  Lower molar (tooth #7) is too damaged and needs to come out, there are small cavities in at least 4 teeth, two on the same side as the molar.  Dentist recommends taking the tooth out and filling the two teeth on that side and then seeing how I feel.  Total price for all that and today’s consultation is £260.  Go back in two weeks for the tooth work.  Joy.

It’s never as bad as you fear it to be, total consultation was about 20 minutes, no pain, and he seemed ok.  He’s obviously professionally ‘unhappy’ at my 5 year absence but he didn’t nag me too much.  Grete managed to build the courage to arrange an examination as well.  I guess we’ll just have to suck the cost up – some things you just have to pay for.

I don’t think dental insurance would have helped, if we’d been covered for five years it would have cost around £18 a month so around £1000, as long as the total treatment for us both stays below that, we come out ahead.

Generally I’m pretty lucky with my teeth, I don’t take the best care of them and I’ve only got small cavities.  It’s the impacting wisdom teeth which are causing the most damage.

Just wish I knew why I felt so spaced out.

king of procrastination

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if i don’t go to bed

then i won’t go to sleep

and if i don’t go to sleep

i don’t have to wake up

and if i don’t have to wake up

the morning will never arrive

and if the morning never arrives

i won’t have to go to the dentists

Chasing Amy

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Well well Mr Smith.  Chasing Amy isn’t as entirely comic as Kevin’s previous movies, but it’s far, far deeper and emotional.  It has comic moments and plenty of laughs, but it delivers a sophisticated and intelligent look at relationships, gender and sexual choices.

Jay and Silent Bob are in evidence but far less prevalent, as the more mature material dictates, and while the backdrop is essentially ‘two guys who are life long friends and who’s friendship is strained when one of them gets involved in a love relationship that is complex’, and so almost the same as Clerks, the details of the relationship and the depth of the material is much greater.

Chasing Amy is intelligent, funny, incisive and emotional.

Kevin Smith made me watch another love story (in which a girl kissed a girl), and I liked it.

Mallrats

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I’m sad.  I’m sad that it took me this long to see Mallrats.  I’m sad that I didn’t realise before what I was missing.  I’m sad it didn’t do too well in the cinema.  I’m sad I wasn’t there to support it.

Mallrats is an honest to goodness homage to John Landis and John Hughes and the movies of a generation.  It pays tribute and builds upon movies many people my age grew up with, including Kevin Smith.  It’s quirky, it’s truly funny, it’s heartwarming and it’s well worth watching.

Some of the acting is a little stiff, I’m not sure all the actors were as onboard as they could have been especially in some of the early scenes with Claire Forlani, however that smooths out and what we get is a classic comedy of teen angst.

The movie tells the story of two newly dumped guys who finally realise what they’re missing and work to gain back the girls they discover they love.  Jay and Silent Bob ensure everything goes to plan, no matter how crazy the plan, and chaos ensues.  But, funny chaos.

It’s not sophisticated, it’s not deep, but it evokes a memory of movies that I lived with and loved deeply, and it made me laugh and laugh.  I loved it, I’ll love it again, and I’m glad I own it.

Odd movie connections

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One of the weird things about writing down all the movies you ever saw (work in progress) is that when you go to add movies you watched recently, you find out the other movies from that year.

Did you know, Chasing Amy was out in the same year as Flubber (1997)?  I remember watching Flubber, but I have no recollection of hearing anything about Chasing Amy at the time.  It was the same year as Fifth Element and Con Air and Liar Liar.

Mallrats came out in the same year as Twelve Monkies, Judge Dredd and Mortal Kombat (1995).

Not really enlightening, just something that amused me as I was adding new entries.

Kevin Smith – wow

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So, wow.  Apparently I’m a dick for ignoring all the Kevin Smith stuff I’ve heard over the years, and dumb for never managing to catch any of his flicks in the cinema.  I mean wow, I sorta knew, but can’t believe I missed it.

Fantastic.  We just watched Mallrats and Chasing Amy (reviews for both soon).  Superb.  I love the dialog, the style, the control and the pitch.  I can’t believe a single director has so far gotten me to watch four love stories and love them all (clerks, clerks ii, mallrats and chasing amy).

Kevin Smith wrote this in a reflection on Mallrats,

See, I grew up on those movies; all through the eighties, it was stuff like ‘Porky’s’, all the John Landis flicks, and the twisted classical tragicomedy ‘The Last American Virgin’.

And John Hughes movies.

I was there, right next to him, watching that stuff with him.  National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Ferris Bueller, Stripes, Weird Science.  It’s part of me too, part of my love of cinema and movies.  I can watch Animal House a hundred times and never get tired.  I can watch John Belushi a thousand times and never get tired.  I can watch John turn around on that ladder and waggle his eyebrows at the camera and laugh, every, single, time.

Kevin Smith’s Mallrats is a brilliant homage to those movies, his performance at the end of Mallrats is a brilliant homage to Belushi in Animal House.

Kevin Smith – I’m sorry I missed your previous movies in the cinema.  I’m sorry this blog post reads like a wet fanboy love letter.  I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you man, when you needed me.  I’ll try harder, I promise.

Ah America, shame on you

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Well, not all of you, but anyone who voted for this,

California has voted to ban gay marriages only months after the practice was legalised, in a move which left thousands of homosexual couples stranded in a legal limbo.

The proposal to limit marriage to members of the opposite sex was approved by 52.1 percent of voters, compared with 47.9 percent who voted against, with 95 per cent of votes counted.