Health 10-14-2011

Typing using a cat as a wrist rest is not advisable, though I am doing so at the moment.

Yesterday went well, the optometrist was surprised how well I am doing with the bifocal contacts. 20/15 for the wall projection and able to barely read the smallest line on the hand held card. It looks like his saying I was an ideal candidate for the lenses was dead on.

Also picked up the cheapest plastic lensed prescription glasses I could at Wal-Mart. They are not bifocals, but are for working on models so I can peer over them for detail work. Being nearsighted is an attribute rather than a defect for working on miniatures. Weird getting dizzy from new glasses, but the old ones were fifteen years old. I can’t say I like the frames, but they are for home use only so I should not complain.

Got another session in on the home gym. Years of catching up to do, sadly. One of the rollers popped one end of its cover and I need to see if the lifetime warranty covers replacing it. Mostly a cosmetic issue, fortunately.

I am hoping the workouts will help with the bad lower back problems that intensified this year. Hopefully there will be synergy from the H2O2 therapy and the weight training. There should be plenty of oxygen getting to the muscle tissue now.

This week I started doing meditation daily again rather than sporadically. It simply was not enough doing it once in awhile and once again I hope for some synergy with everything else I am doing. After an aborted attempt to put together a music playlist to continue the mood after meditating, I finally have gotten an initial one functional. But I still need to comb through my music library for more.

Some of Pink Floyd’s tunes work, as do songs from The Alan Parsons Project, but most are instrumentals from classical, electronic, and game genres. The music from the old Sierra game RAMA is particularly suited to the purpose.

I seem to be adjusting to the downturn in temperatures better than usual and reactions to the soybean fields being harvested was less than expected. While the sinuses still objected, it was not nearly like before.

It may be the H2O2 therapy helping there. I despise drinking the vile stuff, but it is having positive effects. It is also nice to be consuming yogurt on a daily basis again without any bowel distress. So far, so good.

Adding Insult to Injury

That story about the trojan keylogger infection of the drone control system somehow managed to get worse. It turns out the base’s officers did not notify their superiors about it and they found out from the media. CYA at its best, folks. This really instills confidence about the competency of those in charge at Creech.

It also raises the possibility that this is a garden variety infection, rather than a deliberate hack. The stupidity on display is embarrassing and I hope some careers get black marks for this. Looking for a silver lining here is difficult, but maybe the military will finally do something about the security in place and harden the systems against hacking.

Oh yeah, this whole going mainly to drones is going to work out well…

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) Review

To celebrate Halloween season, Hammer Time begins with a review of the horror film that made the movie studio famous world wide. Plagued by last minute changes to the story and makeup, Hammer’s interpretation of Mary Shelley’s famous novel still chills and thrills over fifty years later. But do not think it a shallow experience, for there is a real story in there too.

In the late 1950’s, British film studio Hammer Films decided to revive the old Universal monsters for another go around. Known mostly for their Quatermass adaptations, the studio focused on remaking Frankenstein. But Universal got wind of the plan and that forced rewrites to the script to avoid a lawsuit. The planned makeup had to change too. Sounds a bit messy, doesn’t it?

Thankfully, a good director, a competent script, and standout acting by Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee combined to produce a true classic in the horror genre. Not to mention the movie was a killer at the box office, partially due to it being in color – a change made due to Universal’s threats.

That ability to use color is pressed into service right away with a nice matte composition featuring a lone rider on his horse. Right away the appropriate gothic mood is set and further expanded upon, for it is a dank and dreary prison that the rider has arrived at. The priest (Alex Gallier) has come to the prison at the behest of Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), a possibly insane inmate with a curious story to tell before he is executed.

Health 10-12-1011

Yesterday was qualifies as a good day since I got some things done. Best of all, I was able to get in a workout on my home gym. Sore today, but given that I have a touch of chest congestion to go with mild sinusitis, this is a victory.

The new bifocal contact lenses are behaving so far, but I will give it until the end of the month before I render final judgment. Hopefully the body will not decide to react to them, since they are a big improvement.

Crossword puzzle was barely acceptable with some mitigation due to running into words I had never encountered before. Audiosurf was much better.

Health 10-10-2011

It can be hard to collect one’s thoughts when you feel lousy and have a headache to boot, but here goes.

I am now at the 25 drops three times a day point on the H2O2 therapy and that level will last for a while longer than the norm. While not 100% effective, it has reduced IBS symptoms by at least 95% in occurrence and significantly lessened the severity. That alone makes it a success in my book. The nausea is not improving though.

I dread drinking the concoction and am now using Sunny D to flavor the water. Why? I hate the stuff and I was beginning to have a visceral reaction to fruit juice. So Sunny D is something I do not like anyway, but still tastes better than the straight water with the peroxide in it.

Other benefits experienced include sinusitis symptoms lessening, but not going away. It is strange being able to breath through the nose while suffering them, I must say. Breathing in general is easier, much to my surprise. Walking is easier, which is a welcome change.

Energy levels have been slowly rising to the point I am starting to enact some long planned changes in lifestyle, with a resumption of hobbies being a big part of it. A desire to limit time spent on the Internet means I will be cutting back on that. Not a hard thing to do, since I was already well into the process of doing so.

While things have been improving, you could not judge that by today. Not a good day and the crossword puzzle and Audiosurf confirmed it. Though I did slip into tired and stubborn mode playing the latter, which led to playing too many rounds of it while getting worse scores with each play. It occurs to me that behavior is much like a little kid refusing to admit he is tired and does not need to go to bed. I guess some things never change.

You Cannot Beat Reality for Weirdness

The perfect illustration of why.

Of course when you have a tinpot Marxist dictator in charge of the country, just about anything becomes possible. To me this is utterly insane, simply because it would inspire me to be worse. Frankly, if I found a video game involving running down mimes, I would buy it and play it too much.

While I do not “road rage”, I could easily mime rage.

Not So Shocking News: Drones Are Vulnerable to Hacking

Every time I read someone proclaim the era of human flown combat aircraft is coming to an end, I roll my eyes. It is highly reminiscent of the proclamation that guns were no longer needed on fighters back in the 1960’s. Go check YouTube for videos of strafing done to protect the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to see how false that was.

There are so many vulnerabilities to automated remote systems and guess what, our drones have already been hacked. This is far worse than having Iraqi dissidents intercepting unencrypted real time footage from drones. A keylogger records all the inputs and commands sent to the drones, which means somebody out there is figuring out how the actual control can be disrupted.

The most likely culprit is China, but it could be anyone in this overly wired age. But the most distressing part of this incident is the inability of the military to get rid of the trojan. That should be relatively easy unless the network itself is compromised.

I am no fan of moving warfare to drones for a variety of reasons. Taking out the human risk in warfare risks dehumanizing it to the point of playing a video game. Flexibility is not there in reacting to unforeseen situations, unlike with a human in the cockpit and on site. If we go up against an opponent with real air defenses, drones are very vulnerable to being shot down. Last, but the biggest, is the vulnerability to hacking.

It reminds me of the beginning of the most recent Battlestar Galactica series where the newest Viper fighters were disabled by a virus. Ah science fiction, you always tend to predict the future!