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I recently found a letter that I wrote myself back in 6th grade (I was 10) and was supposed to read when I was 20.  It’s pretty simple, and my handwriting hasn’t improved much since then, but I was surprisingly insightful.

P.s.  You are a fool and are probably not doing what you want to do (oceanographer).

My 6th grade self is right.  I’m not an oceanographer.  And I am foolish from time to time.  Go figure.

I’m working on the invasion now.

A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.
–William Shedd

If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.

~Dale Carnegie

Hear hear Mr. Carnegie!  Though sleep is useful, worry is good too.

Symbion is a tiny animal about half a millimetre long, shaped like a bulbous tube with a ring of tiny hairs – cilia – at one end.  They live on the hairy mouthparts of Norway lobsters, with tens or even hundreds per lobster. They feed on bits of leftover food and seem to be harmless to their hosts.

Ok, fair enough.  Strange, but such is life.  So what’s so labyrinthine about them?

Things start to get complicated when you consider their life cycle. Let’s start with a feeding animal living on a lobster’s mouthparts: this individual – it’s hard to assign a sex – can then produce one of three kinds of offspring: a “Pandora” larva, a “Prometheus” larva or a female.

Wait, what?

The Pandora larva develops into another feeding adult – a straightforward case of asexual reproduction. By contrast, the female remains inside the adult and awaits a male – but, attentive readers will be crying, what male?

Not sure about crying, but I’ll bite.  What male?

The answer lies in the Prometheus larva. This attaches itself to another feeding adult, then produces two or three males from within itself. These dwarf males, which are even more internally complex than the other stages, seek out the females and fertilize them – though the details are unknown.

It produces males from within itself?  Who’s sole purpose is to find women and have sex with them?

Once the female has been fertilized, she leaves the adult’s body and hunkers down in a sheltered region of the lobster’s mouth-parts. Her body, no longer needed, turns into a hard cyst. Inside this, a fertilized egg develops into yet another stage: the chordoid larva.

In due course this larva hatches and swims off to colonize another lobster. Once it has attached itself to one, it develops into another adult and the cycle begins again.

Of course, now that I think about it, I think I saw that about 10 years ago on Jerry Springer.

Yep.  Definitely saw that on daytime TV.

So the initial read (admittedly from slashdot), made the impression that there was a flaw in the software that categorized the calls.  The actual article, and some further research, however points to the software’s configuration by the administrators of the system.  Apparently they “they altered the program used by most control centres [sic] in an attempt to manage demand for 999 services,” and “five of England’s 12 ambulance trusts did not allow call handlers to upgrade such calls.”

I used to work in EMS.  I understand the need to manage resources and provide the best possible services for everybody involved.  That being said, there are two things you have to remember:

• you never know what you’re getting into get until you get on-scene
• a problem with A(airway), B(breathing), or C(circulation) is a serious issue.  You need all 3 of those to survive.

I don’t have the audio of the 999 call, I don’t know the staffing in the area at the time, nor am I very well versed in the EMS system over across the pond.  I do know however that “unconscious, and breathing abnormally after falling more than 12ft” is serious.  I also know that the first two of those alone would have required a paramedic emergency response where I live.  If you’re unconscious, you can’t manage your airway.  If you’re having trouble breathing AND are unconscious, especially if from a 12 foot fall (think jumping out a second story window), you’ve probably got other serious problems.

Any green Aide (Charge EMT) from my Rescue Squad would have recognized the problem with the event above.   You’ve got to be able to think on your feet and give appropriate attention to the issue at hand.  Be it the local drunk who starts to bang on the bay doors at 2 am or the woman going into labor at McDonalds who “didn’t know she was pregnant.”  You also expect the worst and you prepare for it.   If you’re not sure, you ask somebody with more experience than you.

If you set a policy, you’ve got to think about all the ramifications of that policy.  And you need to allow for the ability to change it if the need arises, or put in some sort of compensating controls to fail back on.

Same goes for IT Security.  Sure, we’d all love to require a sandboxed machine that’s 100% patched with only whitelisted applications for every desktop user 24/7, but that’s not possible, be it due to the user environment, financial situations or time limitations (and if you think you do have it, you’re lying to yourself and your boss).  You have to be able to say, “Yes, I understand your $30,000 hardware bought 10 years ago can’t be patched and is vulnerable to flaw X of the week and on a high risk network.  I also understand that you need this to do your job, so I propose we do… blah blah blah.”

What’s that? You can’t secure that because it’s so old and not patched?  Shenanigans!  You don’t know how to secure that device?  ASK!  Talk to the vendor.  Talk to other InfoSec folks.  Think outside the box.  You can’t patch that 7 year old Apache install without breaking the website that’s needed by Federal law?  Fine!  Don’t!   Move those 15 ancient static pages to another host.  Can’t do that?  Fine! Don’t!  Setup a web application firewall.  You have 100 different options.  Use them and audit your shit.

“But we setup this network program years ago because we had to comply with policy X and we can’t not have it running.”  Ok, setup a separate program and duplicate the service for a week while you move over and validate your new system.  Or see if policy X even exists anymore!  If doing one extra step voids the need for a system, why spend the time and effort on it?  Audit your shit.

Is the manpower crunch that was the driving force behind the England EMS software configuration still in effect?  Is it present in EVERY district?  If you fall more than 6 feet, nothing else could possibly be wrong with you, right? Audit your shit.

England is not a third-world country.  They can afford proper EMS services.  And somebody with a clue to review it and keep up with it.

play a little,

eat a lot,

scratch where it itches.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You might have to be a bit of a History nerd to appreciate it, but… well I plead the fifth.

Here is the site to get the lyrics, download the mp3, and see other stuff by the same group.

That of course has nothing to do with the soup being good, but just the same.

I would also like some of these.

And the goal for the new year is to start this (again).

Eat your heart out fat man.

I’m going to try to use it as a log to keep people up to date with how the trip is going.   Also so that people know I’m still alive (or can come save me if something goes horribly wrong).  If you read “They put me in the trunk and are headed south”, please call MI5 or something.  Don’t bother with the police or FBI, they won’t go near the Federales and I’m going to need all the help I can get (the British accents might distract them).

For those of you that are entirely confused, I’m flying out to San Diego today with Karen (from college) and meeting one of her friends and driving back.  On a whim.

In 4 days.

In a Cavalier.

Should be an adventure.  Will try to take lots of pictures and not to get arrested.

Note: I’ll probably have extremely limited access to email/phone.  Don’t expect a response right away, if not for a few days.

The evil that men do lives after them.
The good is oft interréd with their bones.
~WS

Cloves are potent and should be used sparingly. Because whole cloves are difficlult to grind, it’s suggested that you buy them ground. Reserve whole cloves for infusing flavor into hot liquids or for inserting into ham/bread.