Dansguardian and Google through the Firefox Search Engine

I have Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop and I run DansGuardian as an internet filter on my machine. Sometimes it can get a little frustrating when it blocks something benign, but I found my patience wearing thin when I realized that DansGuardian was blocking searches from my Firefox Google search engine and the exact same search was going through on Google's home page.

Let me clarify that the searches I was doing through Firefox were benign (i.e. they should not be getting blocked). The reason DansGuardian is complaining is that the searches through Firefox do not require Google to have safe searching on. My DansGuardian configuration does require it. To fix this without weakening the filtering integrity, it is a relatively simple process in Firefox.

1. In Firefox, type about:config in the url line. (You may already be familiar with this if you are using TinyProxy as well.)
   
2. A window will display asking you if want to continue. I promise we'll be careful, so click yes.
   
3. In the filter bar, type keyword.url You should now see a single entry that has something like: "http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q="
4. Add &safe=active into the string: "http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&safe=active&q="

You're done! Safe browsing using either method. If you want to get really secure (you've got a code cracker in your home) you can always lock down the Firefox preferences. I have that applied to my proxy settings, so that no one can bypass my filters by using another port.

If you want more information about setting up DansGuardian, TinyProxy, and Firehol, check out this discussion.

For a discussion on how to lock Firefox preferences, check out this discussion.

The Christmas Spirit

I love Christmas: the joy, the carols, the houses decorated with enough lights to throw a breaker, Salvation Army bell ringers, silly Santa hats, eggnog, live pine trees, snow, choral pieces, parties, nativity sets, the ornaments on the tree, candy canes, and snowmen, sledding, gingerbread houses and tinsel. It is the best time of year!

I remember a Christmas when I was 11 or so and I realize now that my parents went WAY overboard on our gifts (I am the oldest of four and we always had a pile of gifts on the big day). I have memories of piles of gifts surrounding the tree we had in the corner. If the pile wasn't higher than the third branch of the tree, we were having a tight year. But that year was a bit different and looking back now I think that my parents saw how focused our family was becoming on the gifts that we received.

About a week before Christmas, Dad and Mom gathered us as a family and told us that we were going to do something different this year. Each of us kids had three 'big' gifts each that year and we were going to get to open one of them early today. But there was a catch: the gift that we were going to open was to be donated to a local shelter. I can remember agonizing over that decision and I don't remember the two gifts that I kept that year. I do remember the green army helicopter that I finally choose to give up! I hope that I was as thoughtful then as I'd like to be now, but that probably wasn't the case. I bet I pouted for a couple of hours and my parents may have wondered if the damage to my character was already done.

Fast forward three years: my parents are going through a very ugly divorce and my mom is going to school and working full-time. We live in a two bedroom apartment which is an upgrade from the Salvation Army, where we had spent a nightmarish week earlier in the year. I'm struggling in a new school and the neighborhood is about as ghetto as Peoria, IL can get. Christmas is going to be very sparse. Mom pulled the oldest two of us aside and let us know that we're not getting much so that the younger two can have more. It's a depressing time for our struggling family.

I don't think I can express how grateful I am that during that Christmas because when Christmas came, we had three volunteers from a charity (I don't remember which) come to our house and give us gifts and food. At first they scared me because they wore biker outfits and looked pretty rough. (Are there biker charities?) I remember being shy and embarassed because we were so poor that total strangers were giving us gifts.

Now that I'm older I understand why those two Christmases are so important to my vision of the season. The whole point of Christmas for me is embodied in these two experiences. It is never about what is or isn't under the tree; it's about a Savior who came to live and die for us and gave us a gift we couldn't purchase ourselves, and our silly gift-wrapped presents are a small and meager attempt to emulate His divine gift to us all. I am grateful for my Saviour's love for me, who doesn't deserve or merit His attention. And yet He knows me and loves me and hopes I will return to Him! Truly and sincerely, merry Christmas!

"And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

Challah for a dolla'

I made Challah bread for Easter! It was delicious, but so hard to braid! There must be some genetic Jewish grandmother gene that gets passed down to only the nimblest of fingered sisters... seriously. At one point, Michelle had to cut me out of the dough because I had somehow braided my arm into the loaf- up to my elbow!

But here's some pretty pictures. Eat your heart out!

Oh, and here's the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Shabbat-Challah/Detail.aspx

Be warned: You will have a LOT of dough to worry about! (Don't you wish that was the least of your worries.)

Shave & a Haircut

I've always been a bit confused by the difference between the pictures of Christ and the standard of dress missionaries of my church are required to observe. Back in the olden days, men of God could be Men of God and go farmhouse to farmhouse wearing their Fu Manchu's and Mutton Chops without people barricading themselves in their homes and calling the local constable (with those wind-up phones, apparently.)

Now-a-days, the likes of Joseph Stalin, the Unabomber, and David Koresh have given the facial facade a bad reputation. It's now commonly linked to the uneducated, the unclean, and the psychotic. Which is why I'm still surprised that contemporary pictures of the Savior still show him with a beard. Even though we subconsciously associate those attibutes to the living humans we encounter on the street, when we view pictures depicting the Savior those associations are not made. Which is why I couldn't help posting this:
Click the image to see the text:

To set the stage, the wife and I got an email about our Stake missionary efforts (a stake is like a diocese for LDS). It was a survey asking us how we could best be assisted in sharing the gospel with our friends. Unfortunately, the good brother who composed the survey didn't catch the typo on the last question. I didn't send this one in, but I had to share!

I'd like to open this up to comments. What would be the best response to the last question? (And don't get serious on me. That's not what this is about! :0)

Ul71m473 lov3 5oN9

For my wife:

Look what you're doing to me
I'm utterly at your whim
All of my defenses down
Your camera looks through me
With its X-ray vision
And all systems run aground
All I can manage to push from my lips
Is a stream of absurdities
Every word I intended to speak
Wind up locked in the circuitry

Chorus:

No way to control it
It's totally automatic
Whenever you're around
I'm walking blindfolded
Completely automatic
All of my systems are down
Down down down
Automatic
Automatic

What is this madness
That makes my motor run
And my legs too weak to stand
I go from sadness
To exhilaration
Like a robot at your command
My hands perspire and shake like a leaf
Up and down goes my temperature
I summon doctors to get some relief
But they tell me there is no cure
They tell me...

Thanks for loving this geek! Now, I'm off. I've got a Breakdance Club meeting and then I have to hack some code...

All I Wanted Was Socks

"Ode to My Socks"
by Pablo Neruda (translated by Robert Bly)

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

When I first read this poem, it was shortly after I received my first pair of hand-knit socks, socks so warm and soft that I woke up early every morning just so I could put them on, sit on my bed, wiggle my toes, and pretend my feet were two retarded snakes trying to wrestle. Alas, the relationship which saw the birth of 5 more pairs of socks was a victim of the dreaded "knit-your-boyfriend-anything-and-it'll-end-disasterously" curse, but I became a disciple of Neruda and sock adoration.

My wife found this out when she first enquired about my brightly-colored accessories one night: "Oh, these. They're the greatest socks in the world. My ex-fiance made them."

Men, never, ON PAIN OF DEATH, tell your future wife that you own ANYTHING from a previous relationship.

• this shirt - gift from my brother
• those cds - stole them
• that picture of me and an attractive female of comparable age on a beach - Skin Cancer Awareness leaflet canvassing event

And the reason is this: she will have to outdo the previous woman. It's not a conscious act at all, it is a completely subliminal response. In other words, she cannot help it. She MUST undo your mistakes of the past. Or outdo, as the case may be. It's like nesting. They don't know why they are cleaning the bottom of your shoes with a toothbrush, they just know that they have to!

This is what Neruda never says: it will only become MORE. At first, you're like "But Dave, I'd LOVE to have more socks! This is great!" But no, that's not how it works. First, she starts on your first EBO sock (Eternal Bride Original), but then her mind realizes "Hey, I'm just doing what the last girl did! This is not right!" All she knows is that she becomes bored with sock making, other projects interest her more, and you mourn silently to yourself.

But there's more! One day, she says to heck with all these side projects! I need something more fulfilling! (Bear in mind, she has completely lost sight of the original purpose of this skill: to make you socks!) She discusses her milaze with you and you kindly remind her that your socks are still only one ankle warmer. So she buckles down, but alas, the reprieve is short. She has fiber bug and nothing will sate her craving until her has a sheep farm, a spinning wheel, three drop spindles, a closet full of yarn that will never become socks. Should there be a random subatomic particle from CERN that leaves the containment field, passes through the Earth, and just happens to strike an atom within a ball of yarn in said closet, causing a sock-shaped warp in the fabric of space-time localized within that closet, you will never get socks. EVER. Just be glad that you didn't date a metalsmith before her...

My Dog is the Antichrist

There are two types of dog owners in this world: there are dog owners and there are dog parents. I pride myself on the fact that I am the former. My wife, on the other hand, cries whenever we watch Dogtown. This leads to very conflicting attitudes that my dogs must react to. When people knock on the door, my beautiful bride shouts "Hush!" in unison with my "Good girls!!!" There is a fundamental difference in motivation between us. My wife wants polite doggies; I want them to earn their keep. That dog food is expensive, yo! Allow me to illustrate:

Reasons for owning a dog: Me

1. Home protection
2. Companionship
   

Reasons for owning a dog: Wife

1. Companionship
2. ...

Granted, we adopted beagles so I don't expect to come home and find the Dynamic Duo keeping a cat burglar at bay on top of the piano... I just want them to make enough noise to get someone annoyed enough to pick the next house to rob. Is that so bad?

We both agree on one thing, though: no POO in this house! Unfortunately, someone didn't get the memo- Savvy, the Crapmiester. Before we got married, I wanted to get a dog. So we looked online at this great no-kill shelter in Saint Louis and we found these two beagle sisters. two were strays, but Savvy seems to have had a lot of bad experiences with humans and her reaction to any alarming stimulus is to drop any extra weight in case she needs to run. A couple of weeks ago, she went in the house right after she came in from a potty break.

I vowed then that I would not rest until she was trained not to poo in the house. I am a Pack Leader! Do you hear me, Cesar!?!

So I got online and looked up my options. Here's a hint, people: don't yell at your dog! Who knew? If I went on the carpet, my parents would have flipped! Now we are trying to train the dogs to ring a bell to let us know when they have to go. But yesterday, the neighbors were fighting and we could hear the yelling through the ceiling. I look down, and Savvy has 'the look': the look that says "You're not going to be happy with me in about 5 minutes." So I look around, and there is a present on the floor. I was really happy about that, because now was go-time! I took her to the door, got her out of the house, and she did a little more outside. Good girl!

Wrong! She came back in and proceeded to resume her initial task! And that is why my dog is the Antichrist.

The Flood of '09

It's been a quiet week at my hometown Coralville, Iowa.

It's been cold here and cabin fever has been setting in. Especially here in the Biomedical Engineering department, where we sit for hours upon hours staring at dispassionate computers that refuse to give us the output we need to complete our thesis projects. So we had a badminton tournament in the Field House this Saturday.

It started like this:

My advisor took the lonely few of us who stayed during winter break out to lunch and he mentioned that he liked to play badminton.

Badminton is a funny thing. I told him that I had played with my grandparents when I was a kid and that I was pretty good at it. He said, "No,no, no, no! You've never played badminton before." Not really understanding, I reiterated my position that yes, in fact, I had played badminton before. He just shook his head at me, which was a bit puzzling, I have to tell you.

Well, I got back to the lab and was recalling the fun that I had associated with the game and how I would like to play again when I thought up the idea of a lab tournament. Only not between ourselves, but we'd challenge the lab a few doors down since they had a lot of people during the holidays too.

Well, I brought it up with the professors, and the next thing you know it's on. Because it was my idea, I had to plan most of it so I got up early on Saturday to go print out the tournament bracket and my advisor happened to call just as I was leaving to ask for a ride. So I got him, and then went by the engineering building.

It turns out that a pipe had burst Friday night, and most of the labs on the floor had an inch to an inch and a half of water throughout! Computers, files, power cords, backpacks: all soaked. And by the time we were finished, our shoes as well!

We still had the tournament, but we were about two hours late to it. Luckily, our lab wasn't as damaged because most of the computers there were up off the floor. But there were some very unhappy people this weekend.

It's Wednesday, and we still have air dryers going full blast in the hall. I now work in a wind tunnel.

I learned two important lessons:

• always store your electronics off the floor, and
• you can not win a badminton tournament barefoot.
  

Unfortunately, I've discovered that I'm a terrible person. While everyone else was using their day off to give service: going to homeless shelters, shoveling snow for the nursing home, eating fruitcake nobody was willing to throw away, I went sledding. Yes, its true. But I did salvage some of my humanity- my Indian (tandoori, not wigwam) colleague Rohini has never "shredded the powder" before. So I invited her and some of my lab mates and friends to go sledding. A few were busy sleeping off too much fruitcakes, but there were some available to come, so we helped her learn the art. She happened to bring along a video camera. Let's have a watch...