I love watches. Being a techie, I really can’t accept a watch that isn’t accurate. The accuracy of a quartz-crystal based watch is the minimum. I wish I could get a Rolex, Omega or other really nice looking watch, but I just can’t accept the accuracy I’ll get from a watch like that. So all the beautiful Swiss watches are out for me. But there are alternatives: I have a Certina DS-Action  quartz watch (shown right) and a Casio PRW 2000T

I’m currently taking a Cryptology course at Stanford University via Coursera. It came recommended by Bruce Schneier on Security: Free Cryptography Class, and I find it a great way to expand my knowledge. I really appreciate the level. Just enough for it to be challenging and stimulating, but also not too hard or too much work, so I can still fit it in with family and work. And in addition, the courses are free!

So now here in Copenhagen, apparently traffic experts are suggesting that instead of a congestion charge similar to London’s, in the future we should have a GPS receiver in our cars that transmits our position continuously to the tax authorities. And I’m sure that somebody (who won’t be re-elected and who therefore can’t be held accountable) will declare that this is for the sole purpose of Congestion Charging. And it wouldn’t surprise me if it becomes the law.

I’ve written before about how to access SNMP agents (or other TCP or UDP services) in a network when you only have SSH access. Running a SSH VPN and then running IP Masquerading (NAT) in the remote end is the solution for me so far. Here is how it is done. In the figure above, the Remote Server could be any TCP or UDP service in the remote network. My personal itch was to access SNMP agents in a remote network.

I’d like to recommend an Android App for seeing the Sun’s path in Augmented Reality (AR): Sun Surveyor. There is also Sun Seeker for iPhone/iOS, which I haven’t tried since I don’t have an iPhone. We’re out looking for a house to buy, and for me getting the afternoon and evening sun on the terrace during summer is so incredibly important. This way, I don’t have to take the real-estate agent’s word for where the sun goes down in the summer and whether the trees will create shade on the terrace.

Honestly, I don’t understand how somebody can prefer PDF to HTML for on-screen viewing. Really? That is possible? If you’re one of them, can you help me understand? It is a different environment. My web browser buttons, extensions, history don’t work. Selecting text works differently. Searching works differently. Right-clicking, cut’n’paste all work differently. It’s a completely different environment from that page I came from. Why? I’m served a “individual page metaphor”, rather than a “continuous page” one.

Here in Denmark, we’ve just had an election, and the previous government has been replaced. A newspaper article [lang=“da”] looks back at what people liked and disliked about what the previous government did. I have trouble believing, much less understanding, that 68% consider increased surveillance to have had a positive effect for Denmark, 16% believe the effect to be neutral and 16% believe it to be negative. Wow. The people who believe that our society is better off when the government monitors us more out numbers people like me 4 to 1?

NSA proposes Accumulo NoSQL database to Apache, writes The H. This is a big deal (at least in my book) because it demonstrates that the NSA does not believe in security by obscurity. It is a common misconception that open source is inherently less secure than commercial or closed source software, exactly because hackers supposedly can’t inspect the code to find weaknesses. The flip side is, of course, that you also have fewer white-hat eyeballs looking to find, report and fix weaknesses.

Really cool list of 34 Cleverly Designed Inventions. I especially liked the USB connector, the stair case drawers, and the crawling lamp on the wall. Thanks to the Userfocus Usability Newsletter for the link. The site also has lovely 32 Pictures To Help You Appreciate The Awesomeness Of Nature but I better let you go now :-).

A Danish Minister approves an ad-agency to pose as real users and stuff a forum with bogus posts to kick-start it. I’m appalled, surprised at my own ignorance and worried about the lack of credibility of even government-funded sites.Today there is an article in Politiken (a Danish newspaper) about the Danish Fødevareminister (== “Minister of Food”?) having hired an advertising agency to create a campaign for healthier fast food. The advertising agency created a website and stuffed it with bogus postings posing as normal users.