don’t worry, all that extra time redmond put in to securing windows vista was well spent. now, your system can be marginally secure as long as you don’t actually expect to turn on any of your peripherals…

the firm [microsoft] has pointed out that in order for the flaw to be exploited the speech recognition feature would need to be activated and configured and both microphone and speakers would have to be switched on.

some vista users have already tested the exploit and were able to delete files and empty the trash can so that the documents were not retrievable.

see the original story here.

in syndicated columnist molly ivins’ last column before she died she wrote:

we are the people who run this country. we are the deciders. and every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. raise hell. think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. hit the streets to protest bush’s proposed surge. if you can, go to the peace march in washington on january 27. we need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “stop it, now!”

but unfortunately our decisions about what’s most important was captured this past saturday when a suicide bomber killed more than 130 people in baghdad but a tattooed fish makes the most popular video on cnn. i won’t even bother to tell you what was on the front page of fox news.

read the entirety of molly ivins’ “stand up against the surge” column.

i remember back when i was a young kid getting it in to my head one day that i wanted to have a plant in my room.

when i asked my mom if we could go to the store to get a plant she initially brushed off my request. so i asked again. and she said “no” again. so i continued to ask again, again and again… until ultimately i got a plant.

looking back on this event i can recall how after the second or third “no” i decided that i really didn’t have anything else to do, so i could devote myself to asking for a plant until we got in the car to go get one.

its this singular commitment to a task that i both envy and fear in my own children.

after living in cleveland for five years a lot of the joy of snow in the forecast was taken away by knowing it meant nothing other than you better wear your shoe rubbers in to work that day.

but now that we’re in north carolina the threat of snow is much more exciting. so exciting in fact that the mere mention of snow by the weatherman has coworkers calling off work days ahead of time.