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A weekend of firsts (part 1)!

I started writing about my weekend of firsts but the post just started to get really long so I decided to break it up into a few blog posts. They say that things always happen in packs and this weekend was no exception. This weekend I flew over to Winnipeg to attend something called a wedding social. My buddy John, is getting married to a nice girl named Cheryl and apparently wedding socials are the tradition. I flew in Friday evening and left Sunday afternoon. This blog post is the official part by part Ritchie Recap of the weekend.

First, let me just say that people who are able to live through minus 50C weather are both amazing and insane. Especially when you find out that Winnipeg is composed mainly of Filipino’s who we all know come from a tropical country and like tropical fish should not be able to function outside of tropical weather. There must be some DNA altering that is happening because I think that when I stepped out of the airport my hands became permanently frozen and fused to my luggage handle.

Winnipeg is the first city that I’ve gone to that spontaneously enters snow blizzards within a 1 hour timespan. I walked into mass (a 1 hour ceremony which involves a lot of kneeling and standing up for Catholics) and the weather was clear blue skies; after mass however this is what happened.

Ritchie: Alrighty, mass done. We’ll go get a bite to eat and then off to the airport.

I crack open the door while everyone is walking behind me. I see the following:

1. Snow… snow falling sideways; I start thinking that snow should not be falling horizontally, but instead vertically. Clearly weather in Winnipeg has no regard for the laws physics or gravity (and temperature for that matter)
2. No roads, or sidewalks are visible. At this point, it has been snowing hard enough during the past hour that it has covered all walkable areas. This usually happens over a few hours or even days in Vancouver.

My reaction: I look up to the sky just to make sure that the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse are not visible. I then immediately close the door, turn around, close my eyes and wonder if I somehow got stuck into the Twilight Zone.

Jaime: Dude, whats wrong. You look totally freaked out, like you just saw a ghost or something.
Me: Erm… it’s snowing… and snowing pretty hard… I don’t think I saw it correctly, but I think it’s snowing.
Everyone: *laughs*

Winnipeg was a good experience. The people there are incredibly nice (maybe it has something to do with the weather being so cold). However, the next time I go to Winnipeg I’m bringing matching portable heaters and an Ethiopian kid to carry around a portable generator.

3:52 pm 2 Comments

One laptop per child

I’m usually not one to push charitable organizations on my blog but I’ll make a definite exception with this one.

The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. During this time, you can donate the revolutionary XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution.

And If you donate $399, you not only send a laptop to a child that needs one; they’ll send you one as well! How cool is that?

10:35 am 3 Comments

Dear neighbor

I know, it’s hard but it might be a good idea to start encrypting your wireless traffic. You see, I’m as lazy as the next guy. Having to enter a key to use your system is pretty painful, especially when you want to ‘just use the net’.

Trust me, it’s a good idea. Especially when I’m your neighbor; your neighbor with networking homework.

Let me explain, you see in school I took a networking class. Nothing too hardcore, but I wanted to take it because I like the instructor and the topic is interesting. I still like the warm touchy-feely topics from my HCI specialty, but this networking course offers a cold hard contrast to it. Think of it as network security 101, but I digress.

You see, the latest assignment was to demonstrate the vulnerabilities of wireless networking. Now, I’d like to stress that the assignment was to only demonstrate and collect information and not to exploit it. Information that is for the most part free and floating around in the air. Exploiting it would be a different story. When you leave your access point WIDE open with your house address as the network identifier; you are making it way too easy.

Anyway, given that you and I are both insomniacs that tend to stay up later than the usual person I suggest that you start encrypting your wireless traffic because I can see what you’re doing. I can see what you’re downloading, I can see what you’re listening too, and worst of all I can see what websites you’re surfing. Which in your case, ummm isn’t a good thing.

Your neighbor (that won’t be able to look you in the eye anymore),

Ritchie

9:32 am 1 Comment