Health 6-19-2012

The pain I have been suffering has been slowly getting less intense. There is an odd rash on my neck that popped up around the time this started and it has gotten larger. Part of the pain at night has been an abnormally stiff neck and coughing. If it does not go away, time to see a doctor.

Something I forgot to report: A couple of weeks ago, I stayed overnight with some friends who had the air conditioner cranked up beyond what I was used to. Despite having covers and a blanket, I began shivering violently. While I have had this happen before when cold, the severity was a new experience – as was actually generating significant heat from it. This is interesting and a positive change, I think.

My suspicion is that the H202 therapy I went through changed quite a few small things in my system. It made me tolerant to rice, it has helped my circulation, helped stave off bronchitis, and I did not have a bout of eczema this winter. I’ve thought of CFS as being a “death by a thousand cuts” kind of illness, so it is strange to experience something positive working along the same lines.

Odds and Ends 6-16-2012

I have spent some time going back through old review posts and have done some minor editing to improve layout and add needed tags. Tagging is still underway, because I had previously thought of it in a master index way instead of how people actually use tags. If a tag is used to look up other posts, it is off of the post, not the side bar and I finally got that through my thick skull. New genre categories of science fiction, fantasy, comedy, and classics have been introduced to help with that.

One consequence of looking over the older reviews is finding the need to rewrite or update seven of them. In one case, that will require a newer and better DVD, but fortunately that will be under ten dollars to do.

Health 6-15-2012

The last few nights have been ones of utter misery as pain has made sleeping very difficult. Swelling in the head, pinched nerves, and muscle pain have combined to make for a nasty mix. Add in a slight cough to make things interesting and I am not pleased.

There is much to do this weekend, even if the weather does not cooperate. Speaking of that, it may be the wildly fluctuating weather fronts that may be causing the pain. Time will tell.

Health 6-13-2012

Rain, rain, go away!

Being a human barometer is annoying, for every time a significant front goes through the pain index shoots up like mercury in a thermometer on an August day. Last night featured quite a drop in temperature, so sleep was fitful at best.

At least I got my Civilization V strategy testing over with yesterday afternoon. That was a pain of a different kind, one of playing a game you do not like to find a way to beat it and yes, it cost me hours of sleep the past week.

Why do I mention it in a post on health? Because the Civilization series is the most dangerously addictive games I have ever played. In fact, I removed Civilization IV from my computer due to becoming addicted to it.

The good news is that I am burned out on gaming other than with friends online, which is sporadic. Other than that, it is time to take a break from it. After all, summer is nearly here.

Insecurity

The more we connect electronically, the more we invite crime it seems. This past week, I have had to change my passwords to LinkedIn and lastFM – the latter I had only tried out briefly in 2009. Both services have suffered cyber break ins with millions of passwords compromised. League of Legend European site had user data stolen along with passwords as well. After logging in on another service on a friend’s laptop, I was so appalled by his meager security and use of shady pirating sites that I changed that service’s password once I got home.

An over reliance on antivirus and firewall software, deleting browser history and cookies, and running malware scanners is no substitute for smart browsing in the first place. While useful tools, they mostly are of use after your system has been compromised. IP filtering via service such as OpenDNS is more proactive, but no substitute for avoiding where you should not be in the first place.

Yet there is no real protection once you sign up somewhere online for something. At that point, you are at the mercy of the security employed by that service. It turns out that a lot of them are not that secure. With so many people willing to hack for money and kicks, the attacks are escalating. That is not even counting what is going on with cyber attacks from government, China in particular.

So you can add cyber dangers to the economic insecurity we are already feeling. Get used to it, it will not be getting any better. No wonder some of the white nights in cyber warfare have bailed out.

Culling the Herd

While I am no longer active on Facebook, I did go back today to remove the remaining hundreds of “friends” I accrued while gaming there in past years. As it stands, I have 67 people left, most of whom I know in reality or through politics. Read what you will into that.

I doubt I will ever be active again there, as I forget it even exists until someone brings it up. Meanwhile, Google + is a bust, which can be of no surprise to most. Over at LinkedIn, I had to change my password due to the massive hack attack that exposed many passwords.

Social media sites, or the Web 2.0 as the wits dubbed it, are losing their luster since they are inherently superficial. But the greatest threat is the lack of security and the fact that hackers are targeting their databases more and more.

Blogging at least allows coherent thoughts to be put up, so I am content to write here where nobody pays attention. I would rather post substance and be ignored than to post twaddle and have “likes” dinging it up!

Thoughts on the Scott Walker Win

What can be learned from the fiasco that was the recall effort?

First, the Democratic Party will do anything to win. There is no depth too low, no line that cannot be crossed, and no limit to their harassment/bullying. Locally in La Crosse County, brand new roofing nails were tossed into driveways of residences that had Walker signs up. Signs were stolen, vandalized, and I directly know of one renter who had her sign taken by her landlord and replaced with a Barrett one.

So much money, time, and emotions were invested by the unions and their puppets in the Democratic Party that things got more than a little out of control. The image of Barrett being slapped for conceding illustrates that in a way no words can. All of this rage only netted State Senate District 21 for the Democrats, which gives them control of the Senate. However, that will most likely end in November due to redistricting. I should note they got another seat to flip in earlier recall elections, so they got two. Unless there is a special session called, they will not even meet until after November.