WIJFR: The Girl Who Played with Fire

Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.

Moving on to the second book of Steig Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, I’ve finished “The Girl Who Played with Fire.”

“Fire” picks up about a year after the events in “Dragon Tattoo” and we learn that hacker Lisbeth Salander has been traveling the world (anonymously of course) using her recently acquired wealth. Back in Sweden, Millenium editor/journalist Mikael Blomkvist has spent the past year dealing with the aftermath of the Wennerström affair and also searching for Salander who, for all practical purposes, has completely disappeared without explanation.

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Happy birthday, Big Blue!

Today IBM is celebrating its 100th birthday. From bar codes, to the floppy disk, to the IBM PC, to Watson, there’s no shortage of contributions IBM has made to the world over the past century.

I was an IBMer for just over a year, part of the Global Services division when they purchased PwC Consulting (my employer at the time) back in 2002. I remember it being a big adjustment, going from a large, private (formerly a partnership) firm of 30,000 employees to a giant public company of over 300,000 people. At the same time, as a tech guy, going to work for one of the largest technology companies in the world was an exciting opportunity (and the employee purchase program was nice, too). In hindsight, it was better than working for Monday or being bought by hp … it couldn’t hurt having IBM on my resume’, right?

I left IBM in 2003, not because I didn’t like working there but more because I was ready to get out of consulting. I still look back with pride on being a part (albeit very small) of that company for 13 months. So, happy 100 Big Blue! You don’t look a day over 50. 😉

World IPv6 Day

WORLD IPV6 DAY is 8 June 2011 – The Future is ForeverIt’s a big day for the internet … today is World IPv6 Day:

On 8 June, 2011, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai and Limelight Networks will be amongst some of the major organisations that will offer their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour “test flight”. The goal of the Test Flight Day is to motivate organizations across the industry – Internet service providers, hardware makers, operating system vendors and web companies – to prepare their services for IPv6 to ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out.

Why does IPv6 matter?

We’ve been running out of IPv4 addresses for some time on the Internet, but few sites already offer their services via the next generation of Internet addresses, IPv6. Despite the fact that we’re now down to the last few IP addresses, indeed Asia is already out, of major sites, only some of Google’s sites; Netflix, to a degree; Germany’s Heise Online; Facebook at www.v6.facebook.com; and Limelight currently offer IPv6 addressing on a regular basis.

IPv6 will increase the current 32-bit IPv4 addressing scheme to 128-bits, which means a lot more available addresses. “A lot” is a bit of an understatement, though:

So we could assign an IPV6 address to EVERY ATOM ON THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH, and still have enough addresses left to do another 100+ earths.

Yeah, wow.

While the average internet user probably won’t notice the eventual switchover to IPv6 it will be interesting to see how (and if) it affects internal/corporate networks. Instead of using addresses like:

  • 192.168.1.1

we’ll be seeing things like

  • 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

Yikes! Time to start learning …

Nintendo announces next-gen (strangely named) console

Today at E3, Nintendo announced their next generation game console, the Wii U. The console itself looks pretty much the same but boasts (presumably) increased specs, including HDMI for full HD output (no more 480p!).

The real news, though, was the new controller: along with the standard D-pad, buttons, and motion control it sports a 6.2″ color touchscreen (and stylus) and can stream games from the console to the screen (sound and all), no TV required. That’s a cool feature when Junior wants to play Mario Kart but Mom and Dad want to watch TV. I wonder, too, if that would make the Wii U a more portable entertainment system (think: in the car on road trips).

The Wii U will be backwards compatible with all Wii games and controllers, another smart step, similar to how the Wii can read GameCube discs.

What to say about the name? At first glance it looks like some sort of video game school. I can see where they’re going with the “we” (console) and “you” (controller), and everyone got used to saying “Wii” eventually, but now we’ll have to go through all of that again. Oh well.

Would I get one to replace my Wii? Probably not right away. The Wii U won’t be out until 2012 and the pricing has yet to be announced. Since I’m a casual gamer the lack of HD output hasn’t really bothered me and I’m sure the new controller is not going to be cheap. For playing Mario Kart online with my siblings, or Lego Harry Potter with my daughter, the current console works just fine.

 

Small shrine at site of “Macho Man” crash

My daughter and I were out bike riding this morning and on our way home noticed this small shrine on the site where former WWF star Randy “Macho Man” Savage crashed his truck into a tree and was killed last month.

I was not really a WWF fan when I was a kid but of course it was impossible to not know about wrestling and its flamboyant characters like Macho Man, Hulk Hogan (who also lives in the area), Andre the Giant, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, etc. It’s weird that this happened less than two miles from my house … sad.

Hurricane Season 2011

It’s time for the 2011 hurricane season. 15 named storms are predicted this year, but let’s hope it’s quiet like last year:

2010’s historic season had a total of 19 named storms and ranks as the third most active season on record, but there was little impact on the United States coastline. Twelve of these storms became hurricanes, five of which were major hurricanes. Two names from the 2010 season were retired on March 16.

Usually we spend Memorial Day weekend re-stocking our hurricane closet supplies but since we were out of town this year we did that two weeks ago. Hopefully we’re all set, just in case. Oh, and if you’re wondering, here are this year’s storm names.

WIJFR: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch – and there’s always a catch – is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues.

Today I finished reading “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson, the first book of his Millennium series.

Recently disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist is approached by industrialist Henrik Vanger to write a book about the Vanger Family history in return for information that can clear his name. The book is just a cover story (pardon the pun) for Henrik’s ulterior motive for Blomkvist: solve the mystery of his niece’s disappearance over 40 years ago.

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Lightning strikes!!

After going down 3 games to 1 to Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup playoffs quarterfinals, the Tampa Bay Lightning have won 7 straight games and just completed a sweep of the #1 seeded (Southeast Division champions) Washington Capitals. Incredible!

The Bolts now await the outcome of the Boston/Philadelphia series (Boston currently leads 3-0).

I had tickets to Game 6 of this semifinal series against the Caps, but I’m more than happy not to get to use them. Instead I’ll try to snag some finals tickets.

GO BOLTS!!

Ah, the promise of spring sports

At the beginning of this month I posted about how the Lightning had clinched a spot in the playoffs and it was the first day of baseball. Now, as April ends and May begins:

Yep, my Cleveland Indians are in first place in the AL Central and the American League overall (2 games ahead of the Yankees, with my Tampa Bay Rays only 1.5 games behind them). Seeing Boston in last place in the AL East certainly doesn’t hurt my mood either! 😉

I know it’s only one month into the season, so it’s definitely early, but I still need to take a moment to bask in the glory of the current standings.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Lightning staged an amazing comeback, down 3 games to 1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL quarterfinals, winning three in a row including a Game 7 shutout. Then yesterday they won the first game of the semifinals against the #1 seeded Washington Capitals. GO BOLTS!