Monthly Archives: August 2014

DDOS and WAFs

incapsulaI found a company called Incapsula that is able to easily front-end a website to provide services such as Web-Application-Firewalling, (WAF), Caching (CND), and DDOS attack protection (Distributed Denial-of-Service).  I’ve activated it for this site, but I only did the free version since this is only a blog after all!  Still, very cool technology.  Implementing it was a simple 3-step process which really boils down to changing your DNS to point to their many servers.

Change Log of August 27, 2014

At the end of every day (or, at least every day that I change something), I make a post that highlights all of the changes and/or posts that have been made that day. This way I can update previous posts and actually have the changes be found, plus readers will be able get easy access to all the new posts without scrolling down too much. Note: Since this post will be the last thing I post each day, it is less likely to be properly cleaned up, as I will be rather tired at that point

New posts:

Major Changes:

  • none

Minor Changes:

  • none

Of Special Note:

  • none

 

~ George

Story Idea: “Spoiler:…” part 2 of 2 – “…Everyone Dies”

Please read part one before reading this, so you can understand the conversation this came out of.

After thinking about the last idea, the “Spoiler: Someone Lives”, this came to mind. What if there was a book which had a cliffhanger in which everyone is about to die, then the book ends. Actually, there are a number of books like that, and when you read one you just have to wait for the next book to see how they save themselves from dying. But what if the sequel, when published, was simply “They all died” or something similar. Then there was never another book afterwards, and “They all died” was simply the ending, not a fake ending. Perhaps the book would have a preview of the next book at the end, and it was simply:

  • TITLE: They all died.

Or perhaps:

  • THEY ALL DIED: The End.

I can just imagine how horrible that would be. I don’t know what the story would be like, but it’d sill be interesting to see if someone could pull it off. Perhaps the story was about a bunch of immortals who’s dearest wish was to die. Then at least the ending would be good. Either way, “Spoiler: They all die” would indeed be a huge spoiler.

~ George

 

Story Idea: “Spoiler:…” part 1 of 2 – “…Someone Lives”

While me and a few friends were talking about the Ranger’s Apprentice books, someone said “Spoiler: Someone Dies”. If you’ve read the books, then this would be an extremely obvious spoiler, because the series has many wars and fights. I then said “Spoiler: Someone Lives”. After laughing, I thought: What sort of book, outside of the horror genre, would it be a spoiler that someone lives? How could you craft the book in such a way that at any point in the book it is a legitimate spoiler that someone actually lives? Remember, this isn’t a horror book, and in general most people think that the hero will do something miraculous and they will all be saved. How could you trash that thought, without making the book a horror book? I don’t know, but it’d be interesting.

~ George

Change Log of August 26, 2014

At the end of every day (or, at least every day that I change something), I make a post that highlights all of the changes and/or posts that have been made that day. This way I can update previous posts and actually have the changes be found, plus readers will be able get easy access to all the new posts without scrolling down too much. Note: Since this post will be the last thing I post each day, it is less likely to be properly cleaned up, as I will be rather tired at that point

New posts:

  • The Ultimate Wish: Part 1 of 3 – The Wish is something I’ve been wanting to post for about a week now. Part 2 is going to be about what happens immediately after the wish :D, but unfortunately might take another week to put out 🙁

Major Changes:

Minor Changes:

  • I checked off Add the new “Humorous Post” tag to the posts that it applies to from the  To Do List, tonight I plan on checking a few off of it. Click the tag’s link to see what I marked! I also partially marked off something else, involving the new page for misc. posts.
  • I added the top 3 items to the To Do List. As fast as I cross them off, I find new things that I want to do 🙁
  • I added the “Magic” tag to a few posts. Note: this is not fantasy, so Story Idea: Benedite wouldn’t be included

Of Special Note:

  • 🙂

 

~ George

The Ultimate Wish: Part 1 of 3 – The Wish

You’ve done the impossible and found a real Genie of the Lamp. You have three wishes. What do you wish for?

As the sort of person who tries to find the best answers to any question (“What’s your dream car?” someone once asked me. I said “The Batmobile”), I’ve come up with what I think is The Ultimate Wish, the wish to be able to grant wishes. I’m also the sort of person who wants everything specified, so that the genie couldn’t misinterpret it in any way. This post is going to focus on the three first wishes and what those three wishes would be, down to every last detail. I’ll edit this post as I think of either better phrasing of the wishes or better wishes.

Wish One:  I wish to know and understand everything that there is to know about genii and wishes, in such a way that will not cause me physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual harm, and does not involve tampering with my body, mind, or spirit in any way that would cause me distress or to not realize that I am in distress.

Wish Two (The Ultimate Wish): I wish that I have the ability to grant any wish to myself, at any time, in any place, in any dimension, in any timeline, in any body that I may be in, up to 9 googolplex times, without causing harm to me emotionally, physically, mentally, or spiritually.

Wish Two (alternate): If I learn something from my first wish that would stop me from getting The Ultimate Wish granted, then I would use this wish to compromise whatever would stop my wish from happening, from wishing that the genie would forget a rule to wishing that the genie had the power and want to grant me my wish. If the genie would try to misinterpret my wish then I’d wish that he would have to interpret the wish as I think. I should probably add the word for word wishes for any scenario that I think might happen, so I may do that in the future.

Wish Three: I would keep this as a redundant wish, in case the second wish failed or I lost my wish granting powers.

Wish Three (alternate): If I used the alternate for wish two, then wish three would be used for The Ultimate Wish

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Hopefully any problems that the genie causes would be fixable through my own wishes. If you notice anything that I should add/change/remove, please comment. Part 2 is about what wishes I’d make immediately after making The Ultimate Wish

~ George

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This post is part of a 3 post triad, each focusing on a specific aspect of “The Ultimate Wish”.

The Scientific Ideal World

After reading this comic, I’ve been trying to find a site that has a scientific opinion on what the “ideal world” would be, but all my Google searches keep coming up with people philosophizing and talking about good people, or talking about dictatorships trying to rule the world and make everything “perfect”. If anyone could find a link to a site, article, video, etc., that approaches the question from a scientific point of view, please post it in the comments. I will continue looking for one, and when I’ve found one I’ll make this a real post. Thanks!

~ George

Change Log August 25, 2014

At the end of every day (or, at least every day that I change something), I make a post that highlights all of the changes and/or posts that have been made that day. This way I can update previous posts and actually have the changes be found, plus readers will be able get easy access to all the new posts without scrolling down too much. Note: Since this post will be the last thing I post each day, it is less likely to be properly cleaned up, as I will be rather tired at that point

New posts:

  • The Alphabet Game: Fast Version is a version of a semi well-known game that I adapted to suit myself a bit better
  • The Scientific Ideal World is about an idea I want to have but can’t yet. I’ve categorized it under misc. until I can find what I’m looking for, which is explained in the post

Major Changes:

  • none

Minor Changes:

  • I added three new things to the To Do List, the three that are second, third, and fourth from the bottom.

Of Special Note:

  • In the future I think I’ll add things to the top of the to do list instead of the bottom

 

~ George

The Alphabet Game: Fast Version

There’s a game that I learned how to play about a year ago called The Alphabet Game. I suggest reading the Wikipedia article that I linked so that you understand the game before reading the rest of the post (it’s not too long).

One thing that make the game harder to play is how long it takes to finish the alphabet. So I made a few modifications to make it easier to play on shorter trips:

  • I made it Single Player: This way you don’t have to race for the needed letter, and the third change works better
  • You can use licence plates: When I learned it, you were allowed to use words on vehicles so long as they weren’t on the licence plate. You can still play like that if you want, but being allowed to use licence plates for letters like J, Q, X, and Z can speed up the game a lot, making the game more playable for shorter trips
  • This one is the main difference: All you need to do to pass off a word is to say a word that you’ve seen already and remembered. For example, while looking for a word that starts with “A”, I might see a sign that says “Bus Stop”. After I’ve found a word that starts with “A”, if I can remember that I saw a sign that said “Bus” I can just say “bus” in my head and pass off the letter “B” without waiting for another word that starts with “B”. However, if, for instance, I need a word that started with a letter “S”, and I can’t remember that I saw the sign that said “Stop”, then I have to find another word that starts with “S”, or wait until I can remember that the word I’d seen earlier was “Stop”.

Put together, especially the last one, the game can be finished much faster and is easier to play on shorter trips, although it still might take a few hours to complete if you’re unlucky.

Other versions I’ve played to keep myself entertained:

  • Instead of looking for signs, watch the subtitles in a movie for words starting with the needed letter
  • Another way to play it without signs is to listen to people talking, looking for the needed words in the conversation
  • When you start looking for the letter “Z”, start a new game at the same time. You then continue to look for Z-words, but also whatever you’re on in the new game. One time I almost had both games to “Z” before I found what I needed.

Have fun,

~ George

Change Log of August 24, 2014

At the end of every day (or, at least every day that I change something), I make a post that highlights all of the changes and/or posts that have been made that day. This way I can update previous posts and actually have the changes be found, plus readers will be able get easy access to all the new posts without scrolling down too much. Note: Since this post will be the last thing I post each day, it is less likely to be properly cleaned up, as I will be rather tired at that point

New posts:

Major Changes:

  • none

Minor Changes:

  • I added a new item to the To Do List, the second to bottom one

Of Special Note:

  • The reason I’ve been on crutches for the past two weeks (not that you’d necessarily know ) is that I was jumping of a dock and hit a rock on the bottom of a lake. Luckily nothing was broken, but I had to be on antibiotics for a few days, crutches for a few weeks, and in a boot for another month. I just figured I’d explain why there was a post about crutches.

 

~ George