Browsed by
Month: November 2018

1.7 days – on average

1.7 days – on average

Glad to know our doctors and academics are still producing lots of great papers. While some things like magnets are seriously dangerous if swallowed, the goal of this one was to get over-protective parents to calm down about the risk of many other commonly swallowed household items.

Six pediatric health‐care professionals were recruited to swallow the head of a Lego figurine. The professionals then examined their stool samples for the next few days to determine:

  1. If Lego pieces passed through their system or got stuck
  2. The time it took to pass the Lego piece.

Full paper here:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14309

SMB1 is unsafe

SMB1 is unsafe

If you use samba and connect to it via Windows, you might get a message that says:

You can’t connect to the file share because it’s not secure. This share requires the obsolete SMB1 protocol, which is unsafe and could expose your system to attack.

The right solution is to update the Linux Samba share software/service. Unfortunately, that’s not always possible – especially if the server is not yours. The only recourse is to find another solution, contact the server owner to update it, or accept the risk.  Installing support for SMB1 opens you to the risk of various attacks – including a brutal man-in-the-middle that exposes everything. It’s a good idea to do whatever you need, then disable the protocol, because a compromised server/man-in-the-middle might block safer SMB2.x/3.x protocols which might make your system fall back to the unsafe v1.x without you knowing it.

At any rate, sometimes you have to accept the risk. Here’s how to install/enable smb1 on Windows if all else fails:

  1. Run Powershell command processor in elevated mode (run as admin)
  2. Type the following command:
    get-windowsoptionalfeature -online –featurename smb1protocol
  3. Once SMB has been installed please type the following command to activate it:
  4. enable-windowsoptionalfeature -online –featurename smb1protocol
  5. Once done, press Y and hit enter to restart your computer.
Snowboarding from Camp Muir

Snowboarding from Camp Muir

I’ve climbed up the shoulder of Mt Rainier to Camp Muir (10,188 ft) and glissaded down; but I should have brought my old snowboard instead like these guys!

This clip brings back some memories for sure. I need to do that hike again.

Eric Chien’s magic

Eric Chien’s magic

Without a doubt, Eric Chien is taking the magic world by storm. His movements are so smooth as to defy belief. I remember seeing an act of his just a few years ago and being quite astounded. It appears very clear he’s gotten even better.

Here’s his recent act at The Ace Assembly in Hong Kong in which he rightfully won the competition. To be fair, there is decent evidence that there was some post-processing done on the web footage so that if someone slowed down the video the tricks secrets weren’t revealed, but it would likely have been no less amazing to witness first-hand.

Garbage bag art

Garbage bag art

Two hundred and seventy white garbage bags hang like ghosts in the columned hall of Vienna, Austria’s Museum für agewandte Kunst (MAK) for the exhibition Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty. The piece is by Nils Völker, and is titled after the number of bags present in the installation. Over 1000 precisely installed fans and 45 circuit boards keep their movement on track, helping to rhythmically inflate and deflate the hanging plastic objects.