Of viruses, blogs and jet fuel

I did my bit for computer security today. The Internet connection at work got progressively slower through this morning. When we looked into it a number of computers were generating lots of illegal traffic. It turns out they were early casualties of a new variation of an old virus – but it we had to work that out pretty much from first principals as none of the antivirus sites (or even Google!) had any reference to the virus or its pathology. I got to submit my first specimen (virus) for analysis. Hunting it down was the highlight of an otherwise dull day.

I read a couple of articles on the wires today about the huge increase in blog readership and also the problems it can cause for employers when employees write about their work in (usually unflattering) detail. Seems it’s on the increase and that most blog writers are “likely to be young, well-educated, net-savvy males with good incomes and college educations.” Eeek! I’ve been categorised and put into a box! There were a couple of blogs given as examples of anonymous writing: The Policeman’s Blog and Random Acts of Reality (A paramedic’s blog.) I had a look and think I’ll keep an eye on them for a while as they looked interesting.

Our CDs from the show we did at the GALA Festival in Montreal in July (finally!) arrived today so we listened to that after dinner. I was very impressed by how we sounded. We really did showcase ourselves in that half-hour performance and the recording is very good quality – although a few voices do stand out from time to time. Think I might play it at work tomorrow…

After dinner we watched a Discovery Channel reconstruction about a passenger jet that ran out of fuel over the Atlantic. I found it fascinating but I think Brett was mildly disturbed by the idea that it could happen at all. It was an interesting program showing how an apparently minor ‘business-need vs. regulation’ decision can have such a serious impact. But, as I imagine it was meant to do, it was also reassuring to see what fail-safes and other options exist in even the direst circumstances. Modern jets are so thoroughly engineered and simulated and tested that every contingency is planned for. Disasters almost inevitably result from human error somewhere along the line. Fortunately in this case, though, the jet landed safely – it even made it to a runway! You are way safer flying than you are driving a car.