Entrance Transition

Untitled 2

2011-08-31T05:29:31Z

Aug 29: Fraudulent google.com SSL Cert issued by trusted CA

Mar 23: Comodo CA hacked and issues fraudulent certs

If the CA trust scheme is torn down for SSL, what will replace it? Worth reading: SSL and the Future of Authenticity

The Soyuz Special!

2011-08-31T05:20:54Z

This infographic is awesome. It's a great design once you let go of the idea that the descent stage has to be reusable, suddenly you get this incredibly reliable and minimal setup, with plenty of room for storage, living space, and instruments.

Space Policy explained by cartoons is good too. via metafilter.com

Chance for Peace

2011-03-19T13:40:20Z

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

President Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

Castles Castles Castles

2010-12-22T07:45:42Z

Mostly we focused on castles.

While this was the first castle whose gift shop sold bows, we found the swords and weapons in the gift shops got better and better the further we went. Which meant our weapons load got heavier and heavier...

In the Loire Valley, with some of the best chateaus, there's a park with mini-castles to give kids and adults a preview before you go to the real ones.

and costumes:

Costumes could be augmented, if necessary:

but given the default level of cuteness, not necessary:

Postcards from the Summer

2010-12-22T07:27:20Z

We've finally started looking at the photos from our trip to France and Germany last summer. Maybe we can find a Christmas Card in here somewhere...in the meantime I'll post a couple of the interesting ones.

St Malo, Normandy.

Looking out at the North Atlantic.

Thanksgiving Slideshow

2010-11-29T00:57:27Z

Here's the slideshow that we watched at Thanksgiving. Mary Ann gathered most of the photos; I just arranged and cleaned them up a little.

It looks like your browser might not support HTML5. Try the latest Chrome? If the video player doesn't work, try Chrome. It's a 250MB download, which you can save by rightclicking this link and choose Save Link As... It might be easier to download it and play it in a video player on your computer.

Enjoy the Silence

2010-10-04T00:52:28Z

Elijah on the beach at Dinard (near St Malo, France, the north Atlantic), in his SitNStroll.

Reminded me of this:

I Get Knocked Down - But I Get Up Again

2010-10-04T00:29:18Z

He's a little punching bag for the bigger kids, but he doesn't mind at all...

Finnegan's Favorite Things

2010-10-04T00:20:11Z

I just noticed this picture has all four things that Finnegan likes:

Lego
Batman (shirt)
Lightsabers
Not wearing pants

Monica's Visit

2010-10-04T00:17:13Z

Monica and John came to visit us out in Seattle. Monica got to stay an entire week! She hadn't been out since Elijah was born. We were very happy to see her. Hiking in Discovery Park, near the city:

Looking out at Puget Sound:

We took the extra long trail towards the lighthouse (called "West Point"):

Walking through the University of Washington:

At the center for Wooden Boats, near South Lake Union:

At the Fremont troll, Finnegan knows how to handle himself around monsters.

Walk slowly, never look them in the eye, and never EVER touch their noses. Whoops! Sadly, this angered him and he grabbed her with his claws.

John had a quick decision to make : rescue his girlfriend, or take a picture. Tragically, he first reached for the camera, and so that was the end for Monica.

Well, it was a good visit while it lasted. Next time we'll feed it a tourist before we take a family member into this dangerous area. I lose more sisters that way...

Elijah's New Toys

2010-10-04T00:01:02Z

Today was a pretty cloudy rainy day, and we'd had lots of sunny fun yesterday. On such rainy Sundays we have a little tradition of going swimming at this fabulous indoor pool, hitting the Toys R Us for a small toy, and then having lunch nearby, and getting to play, eat, and talk as a family. Well, usually it's a small toy, but this time we brought a gift certificate from his godparents, sent last Christmas, and he cashed in! Even better, the restaurant's kids menus could be assembled into a red cardboard corvette, so the trooper had wheels too.

Elijah is actually overwhelmed by such generosity - we put the Legos away for another day, and he gave the Luke figure to his brother. He just wanted a trooper to have a little picnic with and drive in the corvette. Mostly he wants you to have your guy stand around with his guy and they say "Hi" to each other. Then often one falls off a cliff with a long Wilhelm scream, and... repeat. "Hi." Better plot than Episode 1 anyway.

Le Napoleon

2010-02-01T04:33:18Z

Puff pastry in three sheets (this I get from Pillsbury Farms, not made from scratch). Spread the layers with "pastry cream" - kind of a soft egg custard, kinda tough to make. At the last minute I had the idea to use the new Starbucks instant coffee Via packets - they are perfect, blending and adding the perfect flavor and colour without adding any liquid. Finally of course powdered sugar and chocolate syrup over top. Voila, le triomphe de Napoleon.

Lemon Tart

2010-02-01T04:23:11Z

Did I make this one on baking day? I forget. I saw Lemon Curd in a gourmet food store for something like $12.95 a bottle. This one is super easy - I use a wok so it doesn't boil or curdle. It's 4 eggs and a cup of sugar, the rind grated off a lemon, squeeze in the juice (try not to drop any seeds in!), and add another 1/3 cup of lemon juice. Then heat and whisk til it thickens. It's pretty fantastic all by itself but I add the raspberries for color and to make it look pro.

Nancy makes the crust in the food processor for me. It's not a French-style cookie crust, more of an American style flaky crust. She's pretty much got that kind of crust perfected via the processor . Finn won't touch it, of course. Makes a great breakfast or dessert with coffee. The lemon flavour is super-strong.

Baking Day

2010-01-25T05:50:19Z

We hit the Seattle Restaurant Store yesterday for about $300, replaced the dishes and got excited about cooking even more.

Nancy got a new stockpot and made a killer soupe a l'oignon. Apparently the key is to buy the purple onions - I would've thought we needed the sweet ones. The onion acid permeated the kitchen so we wore the new ski goggles. Also a thin crust pizza (Nancy is great at crusts from scratch).

Today while Finn and Nancy went skiing at Snoqualmie Summit and Elijah and I baked. We started with creme puffs which are pretty easy - you boil a cup of water and a stick of butter, then throw in a cup of flour and mix. Then let it cool a little and mix in 7 (seven!) eggs. No sugar! These turned out perfect on our aluminum baking sheets without any butter or nonstick coating or parchment paper.

Then Elijah wanted "black cream!" and I asked him how one made that. He insisted on brown sugar, heavy cream and vanilla. Dad's idea was to add a cup of Dutched cocoa, which really did turn black. This chocolate whipped cream didn't have nearly the volume, but it tasted wonderful and it was plenty to fill then twenty or so puffs.

Elijah types: b

Then we started on the creme brulees. (Elijah pronunciation: kremah bay!) I only wanted to make this to test out the torch we got. Since I was out of heavy cream we used the creme caramel recipe instead, which it turns out is lighter (milk and whole eggs, rather than the cream and yolks of creme brulee), and is kinda more eggy and separates a bit...if you've had both you'd know the difference. But the sugar/melty/firey/crackey thing is where the excitement is anyway. Those went in the fridge til Finn and Nancy came home.

Finally we made a chocolate cake (at Finn's request). The cake is just a mix, but I did a professional buttercream icing (sugar syrup to softball stage into 6 heavily whipped yolks, then add a pound of butter on high for 20 minutes or so - and we added half cup of cocoa too). This is incredibly light and yummy. Mom taught me everything about baking cakes but I got some new ideas from James Patterson's book. I cut the cakes into 4 layers, and used springform pans. I brushed the layers with an orange liquer before putting the buttercream between them, and covered the whole thing. It really is a lot lighter-feeling than the powdered sugar and butter I'm used to. This cake is incredible and so far we've only eaten the scraps from cutting the layers with leftover icing.

So, no meals today (just a salad) but a whole dinner of desserts. Finn claims he likes desserts more than me...heh. Maybe the eating of them...

Keeping up with the Programmers

2010-01-25T05:30:22Z

Weird flash today on the idea that self-esteem is relative to surroundings. That idea is used to explain why people with more wealth are only marginally more happy; why lottery winners don't feel better off a year later, etc. And why otherwise poor people in miserable conditions often report feeling good about their situation. It's relative. If you are wealthier and more successful than your neighbors (or are on your way there) then you are happy. I wonder if surrounding yourself with people who are very similar to yourself (such as, when working at a big company or on a medium sized team) feeds into this. The stuff I know and work with is meaningless jargon and trivia to people who work in other (maybe more meaningful) professions. It's performance review time - is it silly to measure people who are all so similar against each other? We're vastly more productive and knowledgeable than 99% of the world's people; yet in 50 years who will weigh human worth in i/o wait times on a i386 architecture or type-inference on embedded query syntax ?

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

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