Once in a while, you see something special...

I will admit it's not that special, but it took me a while to do it...

Perfect Wii Sports Resort 100 Pin Bowling Game

Not the easiest thing to do... no cheating involved, no use of the secret strike.

Basketball shoes (again)...

As some of you may know, I like basketball shoes in particular the Air Jordan branded ones - but only some of them. I've owned several different shoes in my lifetime, but now I have decided to do something I have never thought of doing before. I have purchased shoes with the idea not to wear them.

The idea behind this is to possibly make money through purchasing shoes which may become desirable in the future, but as many of you know that know me personally, I like to purchase several items of the same model if I like something. I always hate buying a pair of shoes and then finding them really comfortable, then when they wear out, I can't purchase a replacement for them. So now, I have purchased some shoes that I have no intention of wearing immediately. This is opposed to my current "working" shoes which I do wear - the Jordan 6 Rings being apart of the ones I rotate and wear. So here are the shoes I currently wear:

Air Jordan 6 Rings

More Air Jordan 6 Rings

I'll post up pictures of the other shoes purchases I've made in the near future. Feel free to comment or query on the shoes I've featured.

Help out with some causes...

If you looking to help out a charity (and score yourself a tax deductible donation - in Australia, at least), a few people I know have donated their time and efforts to raise money.

• Marcus - Yoga for MS
• Nathan - Ride for MS
• Jackie - Shave for Leukaemia Foundation
  

Help out if you can. And if you are looking for goofy comments to write, use the page that I got inspiration from - "Strangest Comments on Ebay".

Open Source saves power grid

I was reading in the news recently that a power grid in Australia was infected by a Windows virus. The quick thinking technical specialists there quickly swapped over to Linux machines that they were using for another use, and thus no major outage occurred.

This is a great example of how Open Source is not cheaper, but better than the proprietary offerings from major companies that are only in it to make profit. It came down to "security through transparency" over "security through obscurity". I have no real problem with people making money from their work, but when it comes to systems that are mission and life critical, I do not think they have their customer interests in their agendas. It may sound like a conspiracy against the major organisations, but how far fetched is it, really? Short term plans may be to enable their customers to do what they need to do, but long term strategies would be to ensure that customers do not leave to utilise the services and products of another competitor.

"Security through transparency" is not new - although it may have only been termed recently. The person who came up with the concept, Auguste Kerckhoffs, did it over 100 years ago. "Security through obscurity" is marketed by proprietary companies that are hoping that no one will be able to figure out their secrets, and thus keeping their systems safe and working as expected. The problem is that over time, someone seems to always figure this stuff out, and then figure out how to exploit it. It tends to give individuals and companies that rely on these systems a "false sense of security".