Wired.com has published an interesting article about the cost effectiveness of antivirus and firewall software.  According to the article, a significant amount of security professionals do not use the software.  The article states, “If someone is going to try and attack them, they’re likely to use a new technique, one that most antivirus products will miss.”

I would agree on the validity of that statement to a point.  Of course a hacker with dubious motives is going to utilize the latest and greatest technique, but I would remind them that the hacker only does so because he is put into a situation that demands a new approach.  That situation is a result of the antivirus/firewall community catching on to current techniques and “patching up” systems, thereby reducing the amount of potential threats to a machine.  By increasing the effectiveness of the software, the antivirus community has reduced the potential tools at a black hat’s disposal. This, in turn, makes it more difficult to be an effective hacker and may potentially reduce the amount of wannabe 1337 h4x0r$ prowling the web.

I also agree that a machine riddled with viruses is almost always the result of undisciplined internet activity, but I don’t think that we can abandon antivirus software just yet. 

(Source: Wired)

This semester I’ve been studying trigonometric functions and so far I have to say that it may be one of my favorite studies so far.  I’ve also been reading a great little book called Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace by Leonard Mlodinow.  One of the chapters describes Pythagoras’ struggle to reconcile his mathematical model with those enigmatic irrational numbers.  

One particular problem of Pythagoras’ was to take a square whose sides were of length equal to one and divide that square along the diagonal to form a triangle. Then, attempt to determine the length of the hypotenuse using the theorem that bears his namesake.  

We know now that the answer is √2.  However, in Pythagoras’ time, mathematicians, knowing about the existence of irrationals, hadn’t yet developed a way to notate them.  He and his followers could not express the diagonal of that square as any number they knew of.  According to Mr. Mlodinow, Pythagoras forbade, upon pain of death, any of his followers to speak of this “number” that could not be expressed as a ratio to any outsiders; lest any of his opponents catch wind of it.  The story says that, people being people, someone did eventually spill the beans and that person was subsequently assassinated…

Fast-forward to present day.  My nose buried in a Precalculus book, I read a passage about finding the exact values of the six trigonometric functions of π/4 = 45º.

Given this information we can conclude that the triangle is isosceles; two sides of which are equal length.  Because trigonometry is cool and trig functions of an angle are only dependent upon the angle and not the lengths of the “legs” that compose such an angle, we can make their lengths anything we want.  The book chose the length one.  

So now we have an isosceles triangle with legs equal to one and using the Pythagorean Theorem we can determine the hypotenuse to be equal to √2…

The irony of it all practically smacked me in the face.  I have to wonder if the authors of the book chose this example on purpose or if it’s just a coincidence.  Either way, it is still intriguing to me to think that at one point a man such as Pythagoras had another man killed over what is, nowadays, simply my math homework.

Today was the first day at my new job working at a local electronics repair shop.  I can honestly say that I’ve never appreciated the amount of work that goes into retail or customer service until today.  It wasn’t a particularly busy day.  It was, however, full of education.  By that I mean the type of education that isn’t gained in a classroom.  It’s the type of wisdom that is gleaned from attentiveness and a willingness to make mistakes.  This new job proves to be an excellent chance to learn so much about people and problem solving. Not to mention, I get to tinker with electronic gizmos!  I honestly believe that learning stops when we fail to give proper attention to life’s messages.

It’s been a busy week, but I’ve survived. Finals week is of course, the most stressful period of any semester of school and I’ll be among the first to begin celebrating the holidays a little early this Thursday.

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.
-Abigail Adams

Seventy years ago today the United States Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese fleet.  The surprise attack claimed the lives of 2,402 citizens of the United States with another 1,282 wounded.  

Veterans of the second World War are still alive today although their numbers are few and shrinking.  I consider myself lucky to have met a man who served in the United States Marine Corps during the Pacific Island-Hopping Campaign of WWII.  His name is Mr. Perrin and he currently lives next door to my Grandmother in Richmond, Virginia.  He was an infantryman and did his part in the beach-head landing at Iwo Jima.  

I, myself, had just returned from a stint overseas and was able to visit “Sulfur Island” during my time in Japan.  Even after having visited that battle-site, I still find it hard to imagine what that landing must have been like.  Hearing his story made me realize that up until this point I had only been learning about these events from people who weren’t there; or books written by the same.  

Mr. Perrin is one of just a few good men left that can tell us firsthand what it was like.  Before long, we will only have history books left to tell the tale.  If you are reading this and you know a veteran who has served, especially one such as Mr. Perrin, listen to their story if they are willing to tell it.  Help preserve history so that we may learn from these men’s example and work to prevent a similar situation from ever happening again.

Grandaddy and Grandma Powell with my little brother Josh.