OpsanBlog

My Origami Hobby

In my spare time (mostly defined as “electronic devices off” in airplanes), I fold like a madman. If you’ve been by my office in Building 18, you’ll see a number of models that I do while on conference calls or during meetings. It helps me concentrate.

My first Origami hero is John Montroll, who publishes several step-by-step books on a variety if high-detail models. He does an amazing work with these, and not just simple models either; he does dinosaurs, insects and a variety of animals. He does a black widow spiders, a lobster and an elephant (with tusks!). Incredible stuff. Check out his books; my favorites are “Prehistoric Origami” and the book from which I learned: “Animal Origami for the Enthusiast”.

My NEW Origami hero is my son, Connor, who let me teach him how to fold the Crane. He is now going on to demonstrate the art to his school class.

I’m waiting for my boss’s, boss’s, boss, Vic to report back on his progress with his kids.

Create Windows XP PC with Ghost and sysprep

I’ve been meaning to write this article, and here it is!

Thanks to Hisham for “How-To: Image Windows XP with Ghost and Sysprep”.

"Bubble" released in simultaneous formats

This came out a few days ago and I missed it. CBC: “U.S. cinemas back out of Soderbergh’s ‘Bubble’”. Theatres in fifteen states refused to show the film.

This is the story about a film released to theatres, cable and DVD all on the same day. I first noted the concept of early low-value DVD releases in “Theatre and DVD: Mind the Gap” and the opportunity to do a Pay-Per View deal that included a follow-on DVD in “Watch the movie tonight, "the DVD is in the mail"” Then I got crazy and advanced the possibility that you could pick up a copy of the DVD at the theatre.

It would seem those days have arrived, at least a year before I expected. Moving at the speed of data, I guess.

January 2006

I’ve been toying with running a contest lately. I think about it every time I find myself waiting for, or on an elevator.

What would an elevator algorithim look like? How would you measure it? How to get the highest customer satisfaction (for transit; not elevator music) possible? Some thoughts:

• Please the most people in transit. This might include skipping floors for single riders.. Upside: You’ll please the masses. Downside: Individuals will hate you.
• Pick up the floors where the most people are waiting. Assume you have a way to count passengers-in-waiting. Upside: You’ll please the masses. Downside: Individuals will hate you.
• Change directions to satisfy the first bullet. Upside: Doing so will make it possible to drop off the groups in order of size, increasing customer satisfaction. Downside: Everyone will hate you, because you’ll be making them ill.
• Change speeds over extended transit to satisfy the first bullet. Upside: You’ll be able to drop off the groups faster. Downside: Everyone will still hate you, because you’ll be making them ill even faster.

Of course, you’ll need some sort of service-level agreement in place for the one poor sod who gets caught up in ‘the system’. This person will wind up riding up and down, up and down, potentially never being in the largest group until there’s no one left on the elevator but him.

How would you do this?

Scary Chase Online Phish

Scary Chase Online phish in my inbox today:

Naturally, we don’t want our online accounts to be hacked. However, I don’t have a bill pay account with Chase.

For fun, I thought I’d assess the quality of the phishing attempt. It’s a goodie; but not perfect. The fact that the “Service” at risk list appears as a bulleted list is expected. But but the actions / information are part of the same bulleted list, which is suspect. If you ignore that bit, the only other suspect bit on the solicitation email is the URL to which the “Login Now” button posts; only available after a “View Source”. Non-technical users may well click this link. If they do, they haven’t done themselves any harm as of yet.

I captured the URL to which the button will send you. The page you are sent to is a legitimate Chase path: “/colapmgr/auth-logon/login.htm”. The domain and port are bogus though: “http://chase-online.xyzzy.cn” (xyzzy to mask the actual domain). Clicking on it sends you to this page:

The fact the page is served over http (and not https) should clue the user. If not, the .cn domain suffix should raise a red flag. Besides those two deficiencies, EVERYTHING else you see on this page is legitimate: the images, all the links to get more information, sign up, view demos, even the user id / password retrieval link. The links and images direct you to the proper pages at the Chase.com site to support the illusion.

Watch your inbox and be careful.

The Orion Nebula, really, really, really close up

The Hubble Site posts a link to an Ajax site that lets you zoom in and out on the Orion Nebula.

The Seasons Explained

MSNBC posts “What causes Earth’s seasons?”, an informational article you can send to your kids. This is a update to the article that was originally posted in 1999.