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So there's been a fair bit of coverage recently about how bad it is for you to sit for 8 or more hours a day. In particular, the link to deep vein thrombosis (blood clots, often in the legs) concerns me. I have a family history of cardiovascular problems, and out of four grandparents, heart attacks killed all four of them at various ages.

Spurred on by boingboing editor Mark Fraunfelder's recent standing desk kick, I decided to make my own.

One of my previous roommates had abandoned his Ikea desk years ago, and it had laid dormant and disassembled in my storage closet for a few years. So I simply cut down the side boards of the desk on a table saw and reassembled it on top of my existing workstation. Some minor adjustments were required, but now I also have extra storage space on the lower level.

I definitely feel like my circulation and energy have improved, and I can actually appreciate sitting down after work. Foot pain was definitely the biggest hurdle to overcome. I had to get some insoles for my shoes, though I feel a gel mat will be a better long-term solution. A few of my co-workers have expressed what a great idea the standing desk is, while my bosses can't imagine why I'd want to stand when I could sit.

Posted at 02:08 PM | Comments (3)

(in response to the Globe and Mail's decision to endorse the Conservative Party in the 2011 election)

Dear Globe and Mail,

Let me tell you what else is an important in this election: democracy. Canadians take it for granted. They can't be bothered to watch the debate. They can't be bothered to be informed about the issues. They often don't even bother to vote. They don't need you to tell them how to vote, they need you to help them decide how to vote. There's a not so subtle distinction there, and you blew it.

And while Canadians take that democracy for granted, people in places like Libya are fighting, and indeed, dying for that right.

That's why when the Conservatives LIE to parliament, Canadians should care about that. How can the Globe and Mail, an organization that is supposedly dedicated to the pursuit of truth, endorse a party that was held in contempt of parliament?

Posted at 09:17 AM | Comments (1)

So, the recent crisis at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Plant has caused many to question the safety of nuclear power at large. This is shortsighted. We, as a society, have growing energy needs, and nuclear power is the only source of energy that can meet the kinds of demands we're facing.

Rather, we must face the fact that many of our reactor designs are flawed. However, there are solutions available.

First of all, we have to realize that fission is an outmoded form of nuclear power. The elements involved, like uranium and plutonium, are in finite supply. Fission reactors also produce spent fuels which can only be isolated in storage facilities, rather than recycled or permanently disposed of.

The future lies in nuclear fusion, which uses hydrogen and produces only helium as a waste product. Many will say that fusion is a pipe dream; vapourware. But we have a fully-functional fusion reactor at the ready. This reactor produces more clean energy than all total known fossil fuel resources combined. It's already been operating for many, many years with no accidents or malfunctions.

For those who claim that fusion power can also be dangerous: your concerns have been noted. That's why, for your safety and comfort, the reactor is located in space at a very safe distance of almost 150 million kilometres from Earth.

Naturally, this distance can present a transmission problem. However, we've taken a great leap forward with wireless power technology which will allow all the power to be transmitted wirelessly to almost anywhere on Earth.

All you need to do is set up these wireless receivers.

Posted at 01:51 PM

WE ALL GONNA DIE

Well, not really.

Naturally, however, you're probably worried about the growing nuclear crisis at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Plant. And while there is cause for concern, there's also a lot of FUD being spread around, and as someone who considers himself a scientist (even if only in the armchair capacity), that doesn't resonate well with me.

Let's get some things out of the way first:

EXPLOSIONS at the facility are not nuclear events. They are an unfortunate side-effect of trying to cool superheated nuclear materials with water, something you often have to risk doing during an accident. The problem is that the conditions involved (intense heat and ionizing radiation) tend to break apart water into it's components: hydrogen and oxygen. This, as you might imagine, creates a highly flammable gaseous environment, which can inevitably lead to explosions. These explosions are lethal and damaging to facilities and equipment, but frightening as they are, they're probably the least of your worries.

RADIATION is not exactly what YOU have to worry about. If something, like the melting plutonium-uranium core of a nuclear reactor, is emitting a lot of radiation, just get far enough away from it and/or behind something thick enough that will block the radiation. This is something workers at the plant and anyone immediately nearby will have to worry about, not you, especially if you live on a different continent.

PARTICULATE MATTER is much more worrysome when events conspire to create large amounts of it, such as smoke from a fire. These particles, which are radioactive, are then lofted high into the atmosphere by the heat, and then dispersed over large areas. This can contain very fine plutonium and uranium compounds, which are very radioactive. Essentially, the concentrated nuclear fuel from the reactor is being ejected from containment.

Naturally, to get a handle on how bad things could be, we need to start making comparisons to the Chernobyl accident, and the lessons learned there. But for all the errors committed in the design and operation of the plant, the intense environmental damage caused by Chernobyl can be blamed on one element: NO CONTAINMENT BUILDING. In the United States, federal regulations require that a nuclear reactor must have a containment building strong enough to withstand the impact of a fully-loaded passenger jetliner.

Chernobyl's reactor was in an ordinary industrial building. When it overheated, it suffered a steam explosion, which blew the reactor apart as well as the building containing it. Graphite control rods, intensely hot, and exposed to the open air, ignited. And so an incredibly hot fire was able to burn and loft all sorts of nuclear materials up, up, and away. It took several days to extinguish the reactor fire.

Now, all of that said, here's the problem:

The buildings used in Fukushima's plant are not strict containment vessels in the sense I've defined above. All of them have been through a major earthquake and several powerful aftershocks. Three have been damaged by hydrogen explosions, and reports say that at least one has been damaged to the point where reactor elements are exposed to the atmosphere.

Currently, workers are attempting to keep the reactors, and their spent fuel, submerged under water. This keeps the fuel cool and prevents it from getting to the point where it could melt completely, which is where things get problematic and even more difficult to control. This is becoming increasingly difficult, as local radiation (the stuff mentioned up above) is getting too intense for anyone to work for extended periods in or near the plant without getting a potentially lethal dose of radiation. Naturally, this creates big personnel complications.

Dr. Michael Allen, dean of graduate studies at Middle Tennessee State University, spent much of his early career at Sandia National Labs studying and simulating nuclear accidents with real materials under controlled conditions. It's his job to know what to expect when nuclear reactors break. In a recent interview, Allen explained what a "worst case" scenario for Fukushima could look like. You should probably read the article yourself, but I'm going to paraphrase:

It is possible that local radiation levels around Fukushima will become too high for anyone to work around. If that happens, the nuclear fuel will eventually just boil away all the cooling water, and start heating up the floor of the reactor. The risk then is that, in a total meltdown scenario, molten nuclear fuel will find its way through the floor to a reservoir of water underneath, leftover from cooling efforts.

This was also a concern during the Chernobyl accident, before drastic measures were taken to cool the molten fuel. The problem is that if you drop a blob of molten metal into a pool of water, you get a pretty violent reaction: a steam explosion.

That would, in turn, create a cloud of radioactive particulate matter. In such a scenario, you might be surprised to learn that the best case scenario would be a prevailing easterly wind. The Pacific Ocean is a very big place, and there's plenty of room for the radioactivity to become diluted to the point where it would become harmless background radiation.

However, if the winds were light and headed southwest, the fallout would occur over most of Japan's most heavily populated areas. That would be a disastrous outcome, and could result in a near-total loss of the entire country.

I doubt that anyone is going to let that happen. Even Chernobyl, as bad an accident as it was, could have been much, MUCH worse, were it not for firefighters, divers, and other accident workers who gave their lives and exposed themselves to lethal doses of radiation to bring the meltdown under control. I fear that's what this will come down to.

I have a number of other sciency friends, and I'm eager to hear their thoughts, feelings, fact-checking, correction, science, etcetera on this matter.

I would also like to encourage everyone to donate generously to the Red Cross Japan Relief Effort, because God knows Japan has their hands full with Fukushima.

Good luck, Japan. And Godspeed.

Posted at 06:17 PM | Comments (2)

"hack-er |ˈhakər| noun
¹ informal  a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data."

This word, hacker, it is not a thing.

Generally, I'm pleased with the technical aptitudes of my friends and co-workers. People know how to use their e-mail, organize their photos, install software and hardware. Generally speaking, you're all a few shades brighter than the average user.

But one thing that has consistently gotten under my skin over the past decade or so is the use of this family of words: hack, hacker, hacked, hacking. "How did he gain access to the network? Well you see, he hacked it. He is a shrubber hacker, you see, and he has elite hacking skills."

The definition up above is fairly broad, essentially defining a "hacker" as any person who uses computers to do something unauthorized. Given this, sitting down at your co-worker's desk after they forgot to lock their computer and reading one of their e-mails would qualify as "hacking".

Indeed, there was an enormous flap during the 2008 US Presidential Campaign when the e-mail account of then-vice presidential candidate and noted asshat Sarah Palin was, for as the media was quick to point out, hacked. How did this totally L33t hacker bypass the US Government's awesome Executive brach security?

Sarah Palin was using a Yahoo account.

So despite immense personal resources, as well as those of the Republican party and the Alaska government, Sarah Palin couldn't bear moving to a proper, independently operated and monitored, more secure e-mail solution. Upon realizing Sarah's folly, David Kernell, a 20-year-old college student, decided to gain access to her e-mail account because it was so bloody easy. Using well-known, publicly-available information about Palin, Kernell was able to answer all the security questions Yahoo required to reset the password on the account, after which he simply walked in and read what he liked.

This, apparently, is what most people would call "hacking". To me, this is akin to leaving your doors unlocked at night and rationalizing it by saying: "Well, it's illegal to enter unlawfully, so therefore no one will. Rock-solid logic, right?"

*facepalm*

We LOCK our doors at night because we know very well that there are people out there who want to steal our stuff, rape us, or kill us. Sure, the vast majority of the people outside are good, but that doesn't mean you can ignore those who do pose a risk.

Indeed, to me, it's a crime that David Kernell is the one serving a year in prison, because the man did an amazing public service. His actions grabbed America (and hopefully, some of us, too) by the shoulders and shouted: "YOU ARE BEING NAIVE!"

There was a time, you see, when "hacking" actually meant manipulating systems at the bit-level, inserting machine code into RAM, forming custom TCP/IP packets that would crash routers. Even now, the generally harmless script kiddies, who don't even develop their own methods, demonstrate a level of knowledge far beyond anything most users understand. Today, we don't hack computers; they're too complicated. Instead, we take an easier approach: we hack the stupid users who use said computers. This, somehow, still qualifies as "computer hacking".

Indeed, recently, a security firm auditing a major company's network discovered a novel way to penetrate their client's network. They came to the office, posing as representatives of the company's technology supplier. They presented the office with a free network printer, which employees willingly plugged into their network. Little did the employees know, the security firm had placed a VPN router inside the printer, allowing the firm to completely bypass all the company's security defences from the inside.

I guess the heart of the problem is this. Let's say James Bond breaks into a Soviet embassy. He uses a zip-line to get onto the roof, then slices through a skylight with a diamond-tipped cutter. Mission-Impossible style, he suspends himself from wires and acrobatically dodges security lasers mid-air. Making no noise, he cuts open a safe with an ultrasonic pulse-drill, and steals a folder full of sensitive documents. A guard catches Bond in the act, and Bond kills him, bare-handed, without making a noise or alerting anyone else. Bond then slips out the way he came in. The next day Soviet agents are baffled as to how someone slipped in and out of their heavily-guarded, state-of-the-art facility completely undetected.

Then let's say you have a gaul to call him a burglar.

And not just a burglar, but the type of burglar who goes from door to door at 3AM just to see who was stupid enough to leave their door unlocked. Obviously, there's a bit of a disconnect in the terminology being used here.

So in conclusion, "hackers" do not hack the central mainframe. They do not backtrace the IP. They do not use crazy VR goggles to view the network as some kind of 3D battleground, since that would not actually be conducive to "hacking".

And they never, EVER prefix any word with "cyber-".

Any questions?

Posted at 10:19 AM

So apparently it's been almost exactly six years since I first posted about Staplerfahrer Klaus, the amazing German workplace safety parody video. Take a trip down memory lane and enjoy:

Posted at 09:44 AM

I just can't get enough of CollegeHumor's latest video, "Rudolph the Regular Reindeer", which shows the folly of medical staff whisking away babies at birth in order to make them "normal". There's a fantastic euphemism in there that I'm sure you can figure out on your own.

Posted at 09:12 AM | Comments (1)

For those of you who are uncomortable with the inability of many of Assange's supporters to address the sexual assault accusations against him, this may provide you with a little solace. Naomi Wolf of the Huffington Post explains how such a lightning-fast Interpol warrant and efficient extradition trial come as a slap in the face to all women whose sexual attackers are walking free in other countries

Posted at 05:33 PM | Comments (1)

Dear John: we miss you.

Posted at 10:41 PM | Comments (1)

The big numbers in my recent posting are pretty incredible. So here's some extra data (mmm... data):

Firstly, the image I posted with the story is a bit misleading: it is a pretty dinky ship as far as container transport goes. A better example of the ships we're talking about would be the famous (or infamous) Emma Maersk, which is almost 400 metres long (if you walk, the movie will be over) and has a gross tonnage of 170,974. Saying that it's a big ship is an amazing understatement. The engine itself is 2,300 tonnes, and at maximum load it consumes 3.8 litres of fuel per second. The engines run continuously for power, and with crew changes most of these ships can operate 24/7.

Next, we need to talk about what makes these engines so dirty. Container ships consume something called "bunker fuel", which is a fairly generic term for any blend of low-quality fuel oils. During the oil refining process, higher-quality hydrocarbons like gasoline, propane, methane, etc are extracted, then heavier oils such as diesel and engine oil are removed. What's left over? Bunker fuel, and some even heavier solids which would be added to asphalt.

Bunker fuel is incredibly dirty, and burning it releases (literally) tons of pollutants into the air. Mentioning the carbon footprint in my last post was a bit misleading, as the majority of pollutants will be particulate matter, Sulphur Dioxide, and Nitrous Oxide, all of which are still very harmful to our atmosphere and environment at large. Automobiles, on the other hand, use cleaner fuel and have technologies like catalytic converters to minimize the impact of their exhaust (outside of Carbon emissions).

So saying that, worldwide, container ships have four times as big a Carbon footprint as automobiles? Perhaps no accurate. But the conclusion still stands: international container shipping has a terrible environmental impact, and needs to be minimized wherever possible.

Posted at 12:34 PM