This article is a must read for anyone in the software development world. My favorite quote: "If there is a Michael Jordan of hacking, no one knows, including him."

My post from a few days ago regarding that woman's trip on a passenger plane that was fraught with danger is apparently a complete overreaction on her part.  I feel pretty foolish for just accepting a report like that as fact.  Snopes has more on the truth of the matter.   And check out this article with a great composite photo.

Want a Gmail account?  I have 3 invites for the first 3 comments of this post.

I finished Far Cry!  Yea!  I'd say I had a good 60 hours into this game.  Probably because I like to kill everything on each level instead of just running through it as fast as possible.  This is quite easily the best game I've played in the last year and I'd put it right up there with the original Half-Life, if not better.  Blasphemy: I know.

It appears that terrorists have been staging "dry runs" on various flights in the United States.  Unfortunately, our focus on political correctness is going to get us in trouble again.  Here's an article from a journalist who experienced what must have been the longest flight of her life. 
 


The photograph referenced in the second article.
The writer follows up with another article that discusses the communications she has had with the airline industry and TSA.
 
A unnerving quote is provided by Gary Boettcher, Member, Board of Directors, Allied Pilots Association.  "Folks, I am a Captain with a major airline. I was very involved with the Arming Pilots effort. Your reprint of this airborne event is not a singular nor isolated experience. The terrorists are probing us all the time."
 
Sobering.

This weekend I achieved the next level in culinary creation.  Um, not.  But I did manage to make a souffle, which I've always thought of as a near impossible task.
 
Again, my hats off to Alton Brown of Good Eats.  The man quite simply is a genious.  I could sit here and yammer until I'm blue in the face about how good a cook I am.  The fact of the matter is:  I'm not.  I am however good at following instructions, and Alton gives you plenty of them to create a souffle that can withstand my best attempts at destroying it.
 
What do I mean?  Well, Mr. Brown understands the chemical reactions of cooking, so he understands the "why's" better than any other television chef I've seen.  More importantly, he does his best to impart his knowledge in a creative and entertaining fashion that fits within my 5 minute attention span.
 
Voila! My masterpiece! 
For example, he recommends using just a bid of an acidic compount (Cream of Tartar) when whipping all that air into the egg whites.  Why?  Because it helps the proteins hold together while they are stretching to their limits, which makes it easier to achieve our cooking goals for those of us with less than stellar talent for this task.  Talent may be on Wolfgang Puck's side, but chemistry is on mine!
 
Lessons learned for the next souffle:
 
1.  Must acquire a big ole giant spatula.  I'm talking huge.  When folding the base with the whipped egg whites, the bigger the spatula the better.  I could see that I was losing more bubbles than I wanted to in the egg whites because I had to mix more because of the smaller spatula I used (and it wasn't all that small).  I actually think this is the key to making this souffle perfectly.
 
2.  I should have left the souffle in the oven a couple of minutes longer.  Just a bit longer.  It was a bit too runny in the middle.  I think that this was a direct result of not having a big enough spatula and losing some of the bubble in the mixing process, which resulted in a runny middle (not by much though).
 
 

Excuse me while I trip over myself to get as many photos as I can entered into the new Disneyland Family Album.  Oh my!

Disney Family Album