View From the Bushes

Sometimes I post something and I think that it will generate some comments, and I get nothing (yesterday would be an example of that) and sometimes I post something which I think won't get any comments (there was a short entry a few weeks ago that was an example of that) and it gets quite a few. I guess the point is that, much like Mark Twain (or so I hear), I'm stylisticly tone-deaf. I can't tell which of my stuff is good and which is bad, but rather like the monkey at the zoo, I hurl crap at passersby and hope that I occasionally hit someone.

I took the family to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night. I liked it quite a bit, especially the Oompa Loompa songs. I've heard lots of unfavorable comparisons between this version and the older version with Gene Wilder. I've only seen the older version once, and I can't really remember that much of it, but the impression I got was that it was a mediocore movie. As my wife and I discussed it, she concurred and mentioned that for her it stemmed from reading the book first. That was the case with me and I wonder if people who like the Gene Wilder version better than this version are people who've never read the book?

As a finale, I was going to link to an article on Slashdot about some students who had managed to recover 96% of the keystrokes in a 10 minutes typing session using only a recording. (Rhere is a link to their research paper available.) This method of cracking passwords does require a certain level of access, but it goes to show how so much of our security is weakened because of the human element.

Chief cook and bottle-washer
Ross