Norway turns out to be the “world’s happiest country“.
And on an almost unrelated note, that makes me think of Ivi and Happy Camp. Remember?
Month: March 2017
rDay Seven-Hundred-Twenty-Five
rDay Seven-Hundred-Twenty-Four
Warm enough to shed jackets today. The snow is nearly gone from the foothills. The Third Street creek is running at high capacity. Rain clouds alternate with sun. Charlie continues his mischief. And Chuck Berry passes on.
rDay Seven-Hundred-Twenty-Three
rDay Seven-Hundred-Twenty-Two: Brahms
Last night we attended a 150-musician, four-county, four-choir, seven-movement performance at EOU of Johannes Brahms’ German Requiem (Ein deutsches Requiem). Conductor was Zeke Fetrow, music director of the Grande Ronde Symphony. Soloists were Peter Wordelman, EOU Choral Director, and Rebecca Replogle, Treasure Valley CC Director of Choirs. (Of course, Kim’s hiking buddy, Denise — also mother of Marina — was there in her position as first viola.)
If you’re not familiar with the Brahms’ Requiem, you can get a sense of it from this full-length performance several years ago at UC Davis:
rDay Seven-Hundred-Twenty-Two
The Dreaded Boxes, Nearly Seven Years Later
In August 2010, some may remember that we were in Iowa for my mother Thelma’s funeral. At the conclusion of that visit, running out of time, my two siblings and I ended up with a number of very large cartons of photographs and other possessions that we divided up and shipped to our respective residences for further sorting and consideration. The Dreaded Boxes. We mutually promised to reunite annually in rotation to go over these things. None of us, apparently, has found the time to address this matter, or even get together, until recently when my brother starting inspecting the material in his assigned boxes. He sends a few examples along, none of which I had ever seen before.
The Comfortractor
Brother Dennis, apparently in a Iowa farm-nostalgic reverie, directs my attention to a 1938 Minneapolis-Moline “comfortractor”, intended originally to serve dual purposes as both farm utility implement and as roadworthy passenger vehicle. One of these rarities already sold at auction for $200,000. Read more here. 
Gekeler Potholes
Near Birnie Park. As sent to the City …
QR Code Spoofing and Related Security Issues
For years and years, my internet provider colleagues and I have preached about phishing and other ways that unwitting email and web users click on links that are not what they purport to be or are otherwise harmful. And, ever since they came into existence quite a few years ago, I have advised web clients to place QR codes into their printed material, like newspaper ads and business cards, so that QR reader software — typically built into or easily installed into devices like smartphones — can be used to scan and automatically jump to web addresses encoded and embedded in the QR codes. Turns out that QR codes, affixed to physical objects that their creators cannot easily control, can be replaced by fake QR codes that mis-direct users, such as codes attached to rental bicycles, or route payments made by smartphone, as described in this article about such security issues in China.
SIDEBAR: What is a QR code? QR stands for “Quick Response”, to begin with. It is a matrix of black dots on a white square background, and is commonly seen in magazine and newspapers ads to encapsulate a web or email address that is activated when scanned by software such as an app on your smartphone. Here is a (safe) example that would jump you to a Wikipedia page upon scanning:
