thorfinn

I'm on the various social networky/chat thingies:

http://twitter.com/thorfi (thorfi) is where I put random micro thoughts, general chatter and some types of linkspam;
http://facebook.com/thorfinn is where I handle social events, gossip, more link spam, some photos and suchlike;
PingChat (iOS/Android/Blackberry chat client) user id: thorfi
http://thorfinn.dreamwidth.org/ (thorfinn) is where I put more useful things like actual recipes, discussions of more substance, and similar actual blog-like things; If you're coming from LJ over to Dreamwidth, log in after reading DW OpenID Help then you can comment. If you're on DW and I've subscribed to you, I've most likely given you access too. Please don't feel obligated to give me access back unless you want to. I use tighter filters for any seriously sensitive content, access list is just for "don't want this content permanently cached anywhere else".
Apple social networking: Game Center Nickname - thorfi ; iTunes Ping - David Goh (find your own URL with iTunes - Ping - My Profile - ctrl-click your name).
http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/ (thorfinn) is, of course, where I originally kept all of the stuff that is now on Dreamwidth, but I have migrated all content to DW and will be posting on DW and crossposting to LJ.

I shall not be auto gatewaying stuff between the various social networky places, since I am using them for quite different purposes.

Migrating from Livejournal.com to Dreamwidth.org (if you want to)

( Why you might and how to migrate from LJ to DW if you want to... )

Current Mood: cheerful
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/46699.html

So, last time I posted about Jedi swing dancing it was blindfolded couples...

This time, the final two couples at Lindy Focus X do some swing dancing without physical touch ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm-amalwIX8 )

I am amazed by the winners' abilities - both by the lead's ability to body lead without actually touching ... and by the follow's even more amazing ability to follow those body leads without physically feeling them. There is "shared vocabulary" trickery going on, but I suspect less than you would think.

Mad skills. If anyone knows the names of the competitors, let me know, the Lindy Focus website doesn't have winners lists up yet. :-)

Current Mood: amused
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/59536.html

Just a super quick drop in - I'll make a more substantial post in the next few days I suspect. :-)

In the meantime, here's a link to one of the two Swing dancing routines I performed on the weekend:

Swing Patrol North Melbourne Level 3 Performance Ball 2011

Not a perfect performance, but I'm dancing partnered with a teacher I've been learning from since I first started this thing nearly six years ago, and managed to avoid being blown off the stage by her sheer awesomeness, so I'm happy with that. :-)

I've definitely come a long way since the first time I performed this routine - four years ago with St Kilda for the same annual Performance Ball...

ETA: Also,

seedy_girl is the lead in the green vest, white sleeves and red tie starting at the top right.

Current Mood: happy
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/59309.html

Apropos of:

Asylum seekers decision set to rule out other offshore centres

High Court sinks asylum strategy

I wrote the following to my MP and the Minister for Immigration:

Subject: Asylum Seekers - Let them arrive and be processed humanely, instead of treating them like criminals.

Dear Martin Ferguson (my local member of parliament) and Chris Bowen (Minister for Immigration),

I arrived in Australia aged 7 as an immigrant, having been brought here by my parents under the skilled migration scheme in 1982, and we all became Australian Citizens some years later, and have been ever since.

I know that my parents chose to emigrate to Australia because they felt that their country of origin (Malaysia) was bereft of opportunities for their children, and that they were under significant levels of ethnic discrimination from the Malaysian government.

If that discrimination had been worse (for example, threats of death, rather than merely restrictions in employment opportunities), and my parents had not been so fortunate as to fit within the skilled migration scheme, I have no doubt that they would have chosen to flee the country as asylum seekers, climbing on a leaky boat if that was the only means available.

I would hope that Australia would have welcomed them with open arms, as is our responsibility under the UNHCR conventions, rather than shipping them off to a deserted island, imprisoning them and their children in a stark prison, placing them in isolation for having the temerity to complain, and other such unpleasant treatments that we normally reserve purely for individuals who have been proven criminals in a court of law.

Seeking Asylum is not a crime, and does not deserve criminal punishment. There are several means by which asylum seekers could be given humane treatment and processing within Australia whilst we still retain protection from those rare asylum seekers that turn out not to be actual refugees. Please consider them, rather than simply maintaining the stance that seeking asylum deserves criminal punishment.

The second verse of the Australian National Anthem contains the words

/ For those who've come across the seas,
/ We've boundless plains to share,
/ With courage let us all combine,
/ To Advance Australia Fair.

My family and myself came here across the seas to Advance Australia Fair, and these asylum seekers merely look to do the same, regardless of how they arrive here.

Please end the unjust policies of your government (and the previous Howard government), and allow asylum seekers to be processed within Australia.

Yours Sincerely,

David

Edited To Add: On a more indirect note that I didn't mention in the letter, all four of my grandparents were taken to Malaya in the 1920s/30s as children by their own parents because they were fleeing oppression and famine in pre-communist China. Rough times, and I hope to never undergo such trials.

Current Mood: annoyed
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/59023.html

Presented without much comment:

DuckDuckGo - Privacy enabled search engine
Duck Duck Go's explanation and list of other privacy helpers
Ghostery - Anti Cookie tracking plugin
Adblock plugin (search link so you can find your browser(s), as there's no single website
Disconnect.me - A different anti-tracking plugin
Flash/Java/Plugin blockers:

Current Mood: bitchy
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/58694.html

In Australian Greens MP Adam Bandt's post "Do you think should people be able to enrol to vote online?", a number of people in the post also wanted to actually vote online (or electronically).

My response to that is that electronic voting is currently not possible to secure because of the requirement to preserve anonymity of voting.

With most electoral voting systems today, an essential part of the system is that the vote cannot be linked with the original voter. If votes can be linked to voters, then you open the likelihood that people may not vote honestly, because they can targeted due to the nature of their vote.

The difficulty is that all electronic data is essentially trivially copiable, and an edited version is usually indistinguishable from an original. For example, your computer copies the digital original every single time you look at something online - that's how it gets from the server to your computer so that your computer can even display it to you.

This text you are reading now has been copied in that way lots of times, and you could trivially make more copies of it, edit it however you like, and release a digital text which has been modified, but is in exactly the same format to the original text and nobody can truly verify which one was the real original.

There is only one kind of electronic data that is not editable in that way - that is electronic data which has been securely digitally signed in a non anonymous fashion. That means that if the data is edited, the digital signature will no longer match. For example, digital signatures are used by online banking systems to verify to your web browser that the online website you are talking to is actually the bank you think it is, not someone else pretending to be the bank.

The problem is, digital votes that are secure and verifiable must remain attached to their original digital signature - which fully identifies the voter. Once you detach the digital vote from the digital signature, they can immediately be trivially copied and faked (just like this unsigned digital text you are reading), and cannot be verified using any means.

No matter how much auditing you do on the software and hardware, at any point between the detachment of the digital signature and the final vote count, there is the possibility of trivial and currently impossible to check and verify against digital vote fraud.

Paper votes are physical objects which are much much harder to create copies and fakes of. Once the voter is identified, they can be given a blank voting paper, and the physical vote can then be passed around and verified without having any link to the voter any more.

As regards the original question posed, enrolling to vote online is actually fine, just like Internet banking and similar systems, the point is to be identified to prove that you are you. It could even tie in well to the electoral system at booths - secure identification that ties in with your digital enrolment at the tick off point in order to receive the physical voting papers would actually improve voting security, not decrease it.

In short: Online voter registration, no worries. Online voting, just no.

Current Mood: cynical
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/58564.html

Some of you may know seedy_girl and I's cat, Archibald. He's been in seedy_girl's family for a while, but we inherited him in October 2004, and he's been living with us ever since.

He's been an awesomely amazing cat, but today, after a fairly long struggle with a variety of health issues, we had to take him to the vet for his final sleep. He got to spend a last night and day with us, snuggled into bed with us, ate some chicken, sat outside in the sun, curled up in our laps and had plenty of pats and head kisses from both of us.

I've uploaded a small gallery of Archibald pictures.

He went peacefully and happily, surrounded by people who loved him (including the vets at the Cat Clinic).

We're going to miss him forever. Vale, Archibald.

Current Mood: sad
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/58195.html

Found the singleserving food community, so I posted there with this Not-quite-instant noodles recipe. Crossposting it here to my own journal. :-)

I tend to mostly cook big batches of food - cooking for two busy people who go out dancing a lot, plus "dinner parties" occasionally, so most of my recipes aren't quite appropriate for here.

But, I do tend to get home after a long night of dancing and make myself a midnight snack, which, given my relatively insane metabolism, is what most people tend to define as a single serving meal. The most common item I make is "instant noodles", except dressed up. I also vary the amount of stuff I put in based on how hungry I am. :-)

The ingredients list is not as fixed as I present it below - any kind of protein based stuff works a treat (I often have pre-cooked diced-chicken-in-garlic-and-rice-wine lying around to add), but this is the quick and easy midnight snack with nothing prepared version.

Not-quite-instant noodles

Ingredients

eggs (1-3, either beaten or just cracked and left whole)
bacon (1-3 rashers, optional)
tofu (diced, good vegan option instead of the bacon and eggs)
garlic (fresh diced, or dried chips work as a cheat)
oil (amount and type to taste - I often use a mix of corn oil, peanut oil and sesame oil, volume is dependent on taste and fattiness of bacon)
about a litre of water (boiling)
dried noodle cakes (1-2) (maggi, or ramen cakes, or a zillion other options)
seasonings: e.g. curry-powder/chilli-powder/soy-sauce/tamari/salt (to taste, possibly added to beaten egg mixture in advance)
scallions/lettuce/spinach/fresh green leaf (cut roughly or torn); and/or frozen peas/beans/corn
fried shallots

Method

If using dried garlic chips, put them in a small bowl and wet them to "reconstitute" in advance.
If using bacon, I usually dice it, but if I'm really tired/lazy I just tear it up into a few chunks.
Fry bacon and oil in wok (or bottom of appropriate size metal pan)
If using "dried" tofu, possibly choose to fry them here, or simply add them later, either is fine
If you're using beaten eggs, add them here once the bacon is cooked, and slosh the eggs around carefully and turn occasionally to make an omelette, then break it up into spoon sized chunks once it's mostly cooked
Add garlic (the reconstituted you'll have to watch very closely) and wait until it starts to brown
Pour boiling water over it (watch the steam cloud and don't splash!)
add the tofu (if you didn't already fry it)
add the dried noodle cakes, add more water if necessary to cover the noodles, more or less water depending on how "soupy" you want the noodles
If you're using whole eggs, gently slip them into the water to poach whilst the noodles cook
add seasonings to your taste
simmer for slightly less than the suggested noodle cooking time on the packet, occasionally stirring. If you can avoid breaking the egg yolks if you're poaching, that's one option, otherwise, don't worry, it's tasty anyway.
toss in green vegetables, bring back to simmer
serve in a large bowl with fried shallots on top for fun and crunch

Current Mood: hungry
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/57754.html

I'd already decided I was going to stop complaining about LJ - at this point it's just useless annoying noise. I'd been thinking I should instead talking about what's nice on Dreamwidth.org and why I like it as a blogging platform, without comparing it to anything else.

shanaqui posted a meme in lj_refugees specifically on that, so I copied it. :-)

Favourite thing(s) you think everyone should know about DW:
Favourite feature(s) that is/are unique to DW:
Favourite comm(s) on DW:
Comm(s) I wish would get more attention:
Favourite user(s):
The kind of comms I'm looking for:
The kind of people I'd like to befriend:

( ... my answers inside ... )

Current Mood: happy
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/57475.html

( ... details cut for those who are bored of the issue or are not on LiveJournal... )

So, in short, I'm still on LJ for reading and crossposting my blog posts, and I don't plan to change that. However, if you want to comment on content that I post, I really am sorry for the inconvenience, but you can either sign in on dreamwidth.org with OpenID (for unlocked posts) or obtain your own DW account (for all posts included locked ones). If you don't want to do that, I am sorry, but that's what I feel I must do to protect my privacy.

ETA for anyone who wants a DW account: news from dw_news Weekly Update: 8 September 2010:

VOX
Speaking of promo codes, Six Apart has recently announced that their Vox service is closing doors as of September 30. If you or a friend would like to move your Vox blog to somewhere that has the fine-tuned privacy controls that other options such as TypePad or Wordpress doesn't have, Dreamwidth would be a perfect fit! You can use the account creation code "VOX" to create an account.

Current Mood: sad
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/56769.html

There's been a new wave of people acquiring iPhones around me, either the 3GS or the 4. I have an older iPhone Fu post, but it's time for an updated version, more focused around usage tips and newer functionality that's available. This is a pretty long post, but do take the time to read it sometime, especially if you're new to the iPhone.

Also, if any of this post is confusing, tell me about it? I'm hoping that this is readable for non-geeks. :-) If there's something you don't understand, it's me, not you, please let me know so I can work out how to explain it better!

Usage Basics

Smartphone Security

Firstly, if this is your first "smartphone", please note, this thing is a small portable Internet Connected computer, not just a phone. As a result, you need to plug it into a real computer with iTunes installed on a regular basis to:

automatically make a backup of your iPhone's data so it can be restored if something goes wrong;
Check for software and security updates and install them on your phone.

For more info on computer security for non-geeks, see my post Computer Security Alerts for End Users - Be Alert, Not Alarmed. Also, I recommend against "jail-breaking" your phone unless you understand what it does and fully understand the potentially bad security implications of doing it. If you don't know what jail-breaking is, probably best to stay away from it.

In addition, do set a phone Passcode (or password if you want to be ultra secure - see Settings - General - Passcode Lock - Simple Passcode). It's going to have a lot of personal data on it, plus it's your phone, so requiring a passcode helps prevent others getting access to your personal data and phone if you accidentally lose the phone.

Usability

Secondly, after playing with it for a short while to get familiar with the relatively obvious things, go to Apple's iPhone Tips. That's pretty much the one-stop shop for all the iOS (Apple's Mobile Operating System - runs on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) interface features that aren't immediately obvious. Good information on things like rotation locking, camera focus control, etc. Some of this stuff doesn't apply to iPad yet, iPad is still on iOS version 3.2, iPhones/iPod Touches are up to iOS version 4.0.2.

A few things that page doesn't mention are:

Reorganising Apps: Once you have downloaded a number of apps, you'll probably want to move them around or group them in folders to make them easy to find. On the phone, you can touch-and-hold on an App's icon, which will start all your apps going wibbly wobbly, give them a little "X" to delete, and make them draggable. You can then drag them around and release to drop. Drop an app on top of another app to create a folder which you can rename. You can also do this quicker and easier in the iTunes "Apps" tab of your phone whilst it's plugged in. Note that you can pull apps on and off the bottom bar, so you can choose what you want as your "always available" 4 apps.
Multi-Tasking: The multi-tasking interface is brought up by "double press" of the home button. That brings up your recently-used apps at the bottom bar. Swipe left (touch left, drag right) to go to the "iPod Control". Swipe right (touch right, drag left) to see more recent apps. If you touch-and-hold, that will cause the app bar to go wibbly wobbly just like reorganising your apps. The little X icon causes an app to be removed from the "recent apps" and therefore to "quit" if it happens to be running in the background.
Voice Control: Hold down the home button to access Voice Control. See Apple's Voice Control Info for more details, but it's fairly self explanatory.
FaceTime: Wi-fi video calls, iPhone 4 only. See Apple's Face Time Info for how to try it. May not work with some wifi connections due to firewall issues. Works well for calling someone down the other end of the house actually. :-) I expect this will become available over 3G at some point, but data charges are still too insane and the Telcos are just not ready for it yet.
iPhone Settings: On the iPhone, go to the Settings app and look through it when you have some time. There's a lot of stuff in there that you may wish to configure, and it's also a centralised location for application configuration information. If you don't understand something, it's usually okay to leave the default setting there.
In App Purchasing: In addition to buying Apps, some Apps have the option of purchasing "upgrades" or "items" within the App to get you additional features or suchlike. I recommend turning this off unless you specifically encounter a situation where you need it. Settings - General - Restrictions - Allowed Content - In-App Purchases - "Off".
iTunes Configuration: Plug the iPhone in, select it in the left hand bar in iTunes, and go through the rather a lot of tabs that then pop up. There's a lot of configuration there for what you want to synchronise, etc. You can also right-click (or ctrl-left-click) the phone to bring up a little menu to take an immediate backup or similar. Double-click the "iPhone" label in the left hand bar and you can give your phone a nice name.
iTunes Synchronisation: I recommend turning off synchronising Mail and Calendar and Contacts using iTunes, and using Google Mail, Calendar and Contacts synchronisation on the iPhone directly instead. See the "Cloud Life" section below for details of that.
iTunes Library Apps Updating: Do regularly go to iTunes - Library - Apps - Check for Updates in order to update your applications to the latest versions.

iPhone 4 Case Program

Due to "antennagate", if you buy an iPhone 4 before 30 Sept 2010, you are entitled to a free case (Apple iPhone Case Program Info). The actual iPhone 4 antenna story is that with no case and with your thumb on the gap, the antenna is still as good as iPhone 3G.

That said, a case is good anyway for protection. I've drop-kicked my old 3G across a road, and without a case, it would've taken serious damage. With the case, no problem. For details and reviews of the free cases you can choose between see: iLounge: iPhone 4 Case Program or Macworld: Free iPhone 4 Cases.

Telco/ISP Fu

If you received your iPhone from a Telco in Australia, it comes network-locked so you can't take it anywhere else. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that we have very good consumer protection laws, provided you got it on a post-paid plan, you can ring up your carrier and tell them to remove the network-lock from your phone. They are required to do that for free - some of them may try to charge you a fee, don't let them. Threaten them with an ACCC complaint if they try.

Depending on your plan, you may or may not have "tethering" available to you. If you do, you can turn it on and off on the phone in Settings - General - Network - Internet Tethering. (That option isn't visible if tethering is not available to you on your carrier's plan). If it's on, simply connect your phone to your laptop whilst you're out and about, and voila, your laptop is internet connected.

Settings - General - Usage tells you how much mobile data you're using, go to that screen and hit "Reset Statistics" at the start of your billing period, so you can check if you're going to go over. Your carrier usually has some kind of website where you can go to check your data usage. If you're with Optus, get the "My Account Optus" app. The "Consume" app for the phone also lets you get much of this data.

Get Wi-Fi on your home internet connection (and please secure it with a password), and configure your phone to use that when you're at home, to save on mobile data usage.

Cloud Life

There are two main options for synchronising data on your phone with your computer (particularly calendar and address book). The first option is to synchronise using iTunes - this means the information is compared when you plug your iPhone into your home computer, and updates are shared only at that time.

The second option, if you want changes to your data to be synchronised without needing to plug the phone into your computer, and you want access to email from anywhere, you will need to set up a "Cloud" service. This service will use the internet to synchronise your data, but it will use your phone plan's internet data allowance to do so. You will also need to set your home computer to synchronise with the "Cloud" service.

There are essentially two available to you:Google or Mobile Me.

I'm actually using Google for Mail and Calendar; and Mobile Me for Address Book, Find My iPhone and iDisk; but there's no real reason to use both.

Mobile Me is quite good, and the major point-of-difference is the "Find My iPhone" web service, where you can log in and make your iPhone beep even if it's on silent, see where it is on a map, send it a message, and potentially remote-wipe it if you want to do that. It's pretty good insurance if you're the sort of person who might leave their phone somewhere accidentally. If you choose Mobile Me, I'll let you sort that out the cloud life, Apple gives you pretty good instructions, I think.

If you're starting fresh and/or don't want to spend money, I recommend using GMail and Google Calendar and GMail Contacts, as they are free and also work just fine.

Google Cloud Setup Details

If you don't already have mail and calendar set up, do that at https://mail.google.com/ and https://calendar.google.com/ respectively.
See GMail Managing Contacts Help for setting up GMail Contacts. Make sure you upload or enter all your existing contacts to there before you try and synchronise things.
Follow this help page on Enabling IMAP in Gmail to turn on IMAP.
Set up your iPhone using instructions from here Mail, Calendar, & Contacts: Set Up Your Apple Device for Google Sync Help
Set up your computer to sync your email using IMAP too: GMail IMAP help
And for syncing your Calendar to your computer too: Google Calendar Sync Help
And if you're using a Mac, Apple Address Book Google Contacts Sync Help tells you how to synchronise your Address Book to Google Contacts. I'm not sure if there's anything available under Windows to synchronise the computer's address book directly to Google Contacts (someone let me know if there is).

Websites to find Apps at

There are quite a few more, but these two are the best in my opinion:

App Recommendations

( ...giant list of apps... )

Current Mood: nerdy
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/56383.html

Just a quick note: If anyone does want to help out with emergency relief efforts with the floods in Pakistan and doesn't know who they might want to send money to, I highly recommend donating to Médecins Sans Frontières. I'm signed up with them as a regular donator.

They do very good work in emergency medical relief, and being a secular organisation, they don't clutter their efforts with any other activities.

They also typically already have people on the ground in many of the places likely to require emergency relief, and even if they don't, they are geared up to deliver that kind of emergency relief effort in a way that many other aid organisations are not.

Current Mood: hopeful
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/56191.html

I'm in Higgins: http://www.aec.gov.au/election/vic/higgins.htm

We appear to have a Greens house of reps candidate, so my $2.31 worth of primary vote will be heading to them. Then in order, Independent I.T. Nerd, Blind Young Labor Guy, Liberal Ms I'm Not Costello Honestly, and Family First Goes Last.

For the Victorian Senate, I started with the Australian Sex Party ticket, and played with it until it made me happy... ;-) So my ticket looks like:

https://www.belowtheline.org.au/editor.html#vic-GFEDC76543fhjlnokmTSRpqVUabcQPvwxYXON0ZMJLK21BWAzydegirstuIH

Thus, my $2.31 primary senate vote goes to the Australian Sex Party - who are standing up against pretty much everything that I consider very wrong with what's going on in Australian Politics.

The rest of the ticket is scattered around issues parties, and preference flow will no doubt primarily wind up landing on Labor in the middle of my ticket. I've put Conroy towards the bottom of the ticket, but not last.

The switch-over point on my ticket (where I go from numbering in group ticket order because I'm "for", instead of numbering upside down because I'm "against") is at the Lib/Nat coalition ticket, starting at number 36.

Pretty much everyone below that point, including the Lib/Nat coalition, are mostly religious nut cases of one stripe or another that wish to do things that are bad for me and my friends. I have absolutely nothing against religious people, but the groups in politics are truly nut cases who wish to do harm to me and my friends.

Current Mood: anxious
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/55983.html

So, if you haven't been living under a rock or overseas, you probably know that there's an Australian Federal Election on 2010 August 21.

Here's a bunch of online utilities and instructions that are likely to be useful. Lots from the Australian Electoral Commission, but some others too.

I am deliberately not linking to any partisan or issues based organisations in this post - there are plenty of places to find that sort of thing, and I may make some other posts of that nature another time. This is a pure non-partisan informational/utility post. Please keep it so in comments also.

AEC: Your Vote
AEC: How To Vote: House of Representatives (Your Local Member)
AEC: How To Vote: Senate (Your State's Representatives in the Upper House - including the fun fact that your vote is still valid if you correctly fill at least 90% of boxes below the line.)
AEC: Your Vote - Practice Tool
AEC: Find My Electorate
AEC: I'll be overseas (or otherwise unable to vote at a booth on the day)
AEC: Public Election Funding (and FYI the Current Election Funding Rate is 231.191 cents per eligible vote, so that's what your vote gives to whoever you tick as box 1).
electionleaflets.org.au - Live election leaflet monitoring ( so you can report on and see what the various parties are dropping off as leaflets )
BelowTheLine.org.au ( web utility for voting your Senate ticket below the line, currently has 2007 data, but will be live with 2010 data as soon as the parties lodge their preference tickets )

Current Mood: optimistic
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/55714.html

Hello, especially to anyone reading me who is on LiveJournal. LJ have recently started purging accounts that are ~~idle~~ inactive/suspended (Edited for accuracy).

This means that those account names can be claimed by people other than the original owner. (ETA: This has already been the case since 2005 with deleted accounts and renames, apparently, but I failed to notice that.)

Unfortunately, this fundamentally breaks the trust relationship of OpenID - which is based around the URL of the logging in site. Essentially, I cannot trust that the OpenID user http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/ will remain to be the original user, without continuously checking that that is so. I can't do that for more than a few users, so essentially, my only effective solution is to be unable to trust any OpenID from livejournal.com.

So, because I cannot trust OpenIDs from livejournal.com, I cannot allow those OpenIDs to access my DW content. This means if you are on LJ, you will be unable to see my locked posts on DW, even if you log in using OpenID.

Most of you will get to read the post anyway, because I will keep cross-posting to LJ, but as I will not be allowing comments on LJ, there will be no commenting.

In short, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but due to the lack of security of LJ OpenID ~~introduced~~ made even worse by this new policy, I can't allow LJ OpenIDs access to Dreamwidth directly.

If you wish to discuss anything in my locked posts, then come to Dreamwidth. For further references, see:

Current Mood: annoyed
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/55546.html

Hi. I keep seeing a lot of "Apple are stupid" comments going around the place.

Don't get me wrong - there are certainly a lot of rabid and stupid Apple fans out there. But there are a lot of rabid stupid Google fans, or Microsoft fans, or Linux fans out there too. There's plenty of stupid to go around for everyone, and it's not magically unique to Apple.

This "Apple is stupid" meme seems to primarily be based around the idea that Apple's latest product release doesn't have some common feature that "everyone else has", and therefore they must be stupid.

The lack of certain common features in a variety of their products is not stupid on Apple's part. It's an absolutely crystal clear, conscious, heavily researched, deliberate, end user tried and tested decision to keep the feature set and number of options down to a useful minimum.

The simple reason for that is that they do not wish to present the average consumer and user with choice paralysis. Most normal people open up a common application or system options dialog box and go, "argh, what the hell do I have to tweak, I see six million options none of which are what I care about?"

That's what Apple are avoiding. If you open up an Apple product, the odds are you'll be able to figure out how to use its basic functions without needing to read a manual or search for instructions. Contrast that with my latest recently work acquired Nokia phone, where I, a hardcore geek who has owned several Nokia phones, had to open the manual to figure out where the power button was.

This difference is precisely because they're willing to cut features that "everyone else has" when they are reasonably certain those features are not actually a common use case, and particularly so when there is some alternative method to get to that use case that isn't too bad.

Yes, that means that you (and me, and everyone) probably have some pet desired feature or features that don't exist in Apple Product Du Jour.

You know what? That's fine with me. And if you don't like the featureset offered by a particular product, nobody is making you buy it. There are plenty of options elsewhere.

That kind of gap is also what the third party software market exists to fill - whether it's the hundreds of thousands of apps on the iOS app store, or a similar volume of mac freeware and shareware apps, or the vast volumes of Windows and Linux applications out there, etc.

I don't know any geeks using any operating system who don't immediately go and install a bunch of third party stuff to make things go the way they want to. And the set of stuff they install? All different for each of them. Doesn't matter what OS you're using, everybody does that.

Essentially, the fact that some product doesn't have some features you desire doesn't make it stupid. If you need those features, then just get them elsewhere, don't complain that product is stupid, when those features are available from somewhere else.

So can we stop calling Apple (and anyone that happens to use their stuff) stupid now?

Thanks.

ETA: I totally don't mind if you call Apple annoying for what they're doing. That might even be true. Stupid is just not factual.

Current Mood: annoyed
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/55233.html

Yo. Australian Citizens. Apropos of our sudden change of Prime Minister to Julia Gillard, and the fact that we'll have a federal election within the year, go check your electoral enrolment at https://oevf.aec.gov.au/, and please vote.

I feel pretty strongly that it's every Australian's civic responsibility to at least attend a polling booth on election day (or postal/pre vote as appropriate).

Not simply because it's required by law, but because I think it's your one chance to participate directly in the political system of this country. People have protested, fought, and died both historically and to the present day around the world to secure the right to vote. Don't waste yours.

You don't have to do anything other than get your voting paper on election day and then vote nothing at all - if that is a genuine expression of your actual political preferences.

I personally think that you should seek to be more informed about politics and thus have more complicated political preferences than that, but I'm really not going to argue with anyone who believes that that is their actual preference, so long as they still exercise a citizen's right and responsibility to obtain a ballot paper.

Current Mood: quixotic
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/54910.html

I don't normally do linkspam here, but this is worth posting. :-)

One of my regular swing dancing venues held a Jedi Jack and Jill swing dancing competition last night, starring a number of the local teachers. For those not in the know, a Jack and Jill competition is where you line up and have randomly selected partners... Then you have to swing dance to whatever music is played, making the whole dance up as you go. A true test of the madness that is swing dancing, essentially.

Jedi Jack and Jill, well, all competitors are blindfolded, then away you go...

Video of the final two songs with the final two couples are here:

I'm occasionally in shot clapping like a mad thing in the background, sometimes hidden by another audient, but if you can tear your eyes away from the potential death action to spot me, I'll be impressed. :-)

Current Mood: excited
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/53922.html

Congee
is an awesome food for when you're ill, or just feel like something hot and tasty and soft and nice. It's easy to make, and extremely easy to digest.

Put about 2 cups of washed rice in a pot.
Add a bit of olive or sesame oil and garlic (dried garlic is fine), fry it up for a few minutes. Skip this step if you don't want any oil.
Pour in about 4 litres of water. Bring to boil, then turn down to low simmer.
Leave for 15-25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add some kind "stuff" for interest, one or more of the below:
- Sliced white fish into it about 5 minutes out
- Chicken cut into small bits and put in about 15 minutes out
- Some random selection of chopped veges, e.g. carrots (10 mins out), broccoli (7 mins out), zucchini (5 mins out)
- Minced pork + cornflour + white pepper, gently hand squeezed into balls (15 mins out)
- sliced (already rehydrated) shitake mushrooms
- Diced Century Egg
- Whatever you may feel like adding that will poach well
Serve with optional condiments:
- good light soy sauce (optionally with sliced chillies in the soy)
- fresh ground black pepper
- fresh spring onions
- dried fried shallots/onions
- fried egg(s)
- Chinese Donut

If you have time, you slow simmer the congee for about 4-5 hours, adding a bit more water, but I find that the above is a perfectly adequate shortcut.

Tastes good the next day, and it's all perfectly microwaveable, with the addition of about half a cup of water into a full bowl.

Current Mood: chipper
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/53538.html

If you use a computing device that is not maintained by a corporate IT department, you need to know that your device is likely vulnerable to security issues. It doesn't matter whether it's a Mac, a Windows PC, a Nokia Phone, an iPhone/iPad, an Android phone, a Windows Mobile, a Linux laptop, an XBox or Playstation, all computing devices have security issues from time to time. What does differ a little is how quickly they get fixed, and how quickly you can find out about them and install the fix, and the type and scale of problems, but really, the take home message is that all computing devices have security issues.

If you own a device that connects to the Internet in any way (and pretty much everything does now), then you have a device that can be potentially be hacked by any random other person on the Internet. If that happens, you are really stuffed. Your computer (or phone, or whatever) will be used to conduct all kinds of illegal activities (like hacking other people, sending spam, etc), all your personal data can be made public leading to identity theft, online banking theft and worse,

Ultimately you, as the end user, need to be informed. If you don't even know that your computer/phone/games console/whatever might have a security problem, that means it is sitting there waiting to be hacked and controlled by someone else.

The first place you should be looking for timely information is a known security updates publisher. For normal people, I highly recommend the Australian Government's Stay Smart Online Alert Service (AusCERT funded by gov.au) and the US CERT: Non-technical users page.

US CERT and AusCERT also have much more detailed alerts, which are more focused at professional systems administrators than for "normal" people. If you have the time and inclination, I recommend AusCERT.

I know those security updates may look daunting and confusing for many people, especially ones not involved in the IT industry. Please, really, really, take the time to learn enough to understand what the security updates mean and how to take appropriate action, and get informed about the computing devices you use, at least enough to know how to update your Operating System and any Software you use. Use Wikipedia to search out any terms you don't understand, ask around any computer geeks you know for help. We want you to stay safe, I promise.

The main things you need to care about on any given security alert is:

Does it apply to you (does the Operating System match one you use, and/or is it about Software you use)?
Do you need to do anything (is there an "update your software here" link in the update, or other instructions)?

If the answer to both of those is yes on any given security alert, then please, go and update whatever needs updating. If you don't, your computer will remain vulnerable to a known security exploit - which means that at some point in time, your computer will eventually be hacked by some bad person, leading to all the issues above.

So please, for your own safety, Be Alert, not Alarmed. The world needs more lerts.

Edit: This post was originally written before the existence of the Stay Smart Online Alert Service, which was launched shortly afterwards. The post has been edited to recommend non-IT experts to go there first, rather than directly to US/AusCERT.

Current Mood: pessimistic
Crossposts: http://thorfinn.livejournal.com/53484.html

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