pwn consulting

Monday, February 19, 2007

Friday, February 16, 2007

Horseshoes & Hand Grenades

For someone in my line of work (loosely described as tech research - better described as custom data collection - accurately described as monotonous), this is an awesome screed on the biz as it is.

Oh, and the worst: fielding emails from PR parasites eager to suck away precious time in a half-hour phone meeting while the Senior Vice-President of Smoke Blowing tells me about how his company's software—based on an idea cribbed from Google—is going to change the way I look at something I didn't care about in the first place. (Inevitably, "forever.")

CH did his crazy thing - skied 70 km carrying his sleeping bag and food, slept outside, then skied another 70 km faster than I could without a pack...
SI and PS both finished 70 km both days as Coureur des Bois Silver, so they can now enter CH's category Coureur des Bois Gold next year should they be so foolhardy (and yes, of course, they are that foolhardy :)
I entered the "tourer" category, and started at 8:30 am (not the 6:30 am start of the CdB's) after missing the first bus- then tried to catch up and beat the time cut-offs (like the Ironman, they close the course to stop people from skiing in the dark). I made the time cut-off at the last checkpoint by 3 minutes - going >50k in 6 hours - then I bonked. And couldn't move - next year I'll remember to drink more fluids/eat more, so I can finish the whole course. Anyway, on Sunday, seeing as I wasn't eligible to finish as a CdB, I skiied a fun 30k with L (well I had fun - she seemed kind of zonked at the end :)
It was interesting as I've never really been an endurance sport kind of person to see what it was like - over 6 hours of going hard, your mind/body goes through all sorts of weirdness. Anyway, burning >6000 calories in a day means that I don't feel bad about eating well for a while :)
And it's the furthest I've skiied in a single day ever - and same for L, so good for us (and to P, S, & C, thanks for dragging my as out to this after 5 years of procrastination ).

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Hmm

Dunno anyone like this at all...

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Data becomes Art

Fascinating video of flight patterns in the US and how they illustrate other socio-economic-geographic data, all set to vaguely Buddha Bar-like tunes.

Monday, January 29, 2007

CSM Changes

This is good to know about...

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Working Diligently

Current location

Thanks to Google Maps

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Gosh, it's hard to focus

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Stanford Prison Experiment: Now on YouTube

Thanks to Accordion Guy for the references. A classic psych experiment, now on ww video for all to see - rather than just read about in text books...

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Bartleman's Book Drive

This is a great initiative that I'm sure we can help out on.
For more details, please see here or here for this year's program. In short, it's:

From January 1st to January 31st, new and gently used children’s and young adult books can be dropped-off at any OPP or Toronto Police Services detachment in Ontario (including Toronto Police Services headquarters on College Street in Toronto). With the support and assistance of the Canadian Forces, other voluntary organizations, and shipping companies, these books will be shipped and distributed to aboriginal communities.