Vital Vector

Apple's big iPad announcement last week has been sinking in for the past few days, and I've concluded that the iPad sucks. I could live without multitasking if push notifications work (with only one exception). The lack of a camera and the silly USB and SD card adapters were dumb design choices, but the iTunes syncing bothers me the most. iTunes is slow, bloated, and horrible.

And the iTunes syncing proves to me that Apple really doesn't understand what makes Amazon's Kindle so great. Yes, the eInk screen is awesome for reading in direct sunlight (except in temperatures below 41° F), and yes, the free wireless 3G service is a nice perk. But there's one reason why the Kindle is a perfect gift for anyone in the family:

Kindle owners never need to connect their device to a computer.

Until this is true of the iPad too, I don't see it mimicking the success of the Kindle.

Science is an amazing thing. A slew of studies released over the past year have simplified weight loss. Stop worrying about carbs, meals after 8 PM, miracle pills, or colon cleansing. None of that makes a significant difference. Even exercise alone is not an effective strategy for weight loss, since people tend to eat more after exercise. (Exercise has other health benefits, so keep the gym membership.)

But reducing your calorie intake works. Every pound of extra weight equals roughly 3500 calories. To burn off that energy, you need to maintain a calorie deficit. If you eat just 500 fewer calories than you burn everyday, you'll lose about a pound each week.

That's easier than you might think. Most individuals burn between 1600 and 2500 calories daily, depending on age, weight, and activity level. Maintain a journal for a few days of everything you put in your mouth. You might be surprised by the calories in your favorite foods, and snacks between meals can really add up.

I found that most of my extra calories came from soda, office snacks, large portions of pasta, and those large tortillas at Chipotle. Back in January, I switched to water, diet soda, only one afternoon snack, smaller portions, and Chipotle bowls. I'm 40 pounds lighter now.

Pre-orders for Windows 7 went up yesterday. If you expect to upgrade an XP or Vista computer anytime in the next year, pre-order Windows 7 before July 11 to save half off retail. Home Premium (super-duper edition?) is only $50.

Mac and Linux remain my environments of choice for real work, but Windows 7 does look promising. I definitely expect to upgrade my gaming rig at some point, and $50 feels right for a Windows upgrade.

In other news, I'm having too much fun with my iPhone to write about it. More later...

Apple unleashed the 3.0 software update upon iPhones and iPod Touches everywhere yesterday. I've been enjoying all the new goodies, particularly search, copy and paste, and landscape keyboards, which you can read about elsewhere.

This iPod feature caught me by surprise! Apple finally revamped the podcast playback controls, eliminating the repeat, genius, and shuffle buttons that made little sense for audio podcasts. The new left button e-mails an iTunes link to the podcast. The center button leaps backwards thirty seconds, an operation I've frequently needed with audio content. The right button doubles or halves the playback speed, a feature I've quickly come to love. The position slider has been revamped too: while seeking to a new position, I can slide my finger down the screen to reduce the speed of movement. This makes finding a particular spot in a long podcast tremendously easy!

Expect my next several posts to be about the iPhone. My favorite IM client has yet to be updated for push events and my new iPhone 3G S is sitting in a box in Kentucky. I'm quite excited to finally be retiring my well-worn nerd taxed model.

California voters, if you want to see a proposal to restore marriage equality in 2010, sign the petition. We'll need 600,000 signatures to place it on the ballot.

This morning the California Supreme Court announced a decision in favor of Proposition 8. Under the twisted web that is our state constitution, voters may "amend" the document with a simple majority, whereas a two-thirds vote of the legislature is required to "revise" the constitution. All but one justice agreed that Proposition 8 constituted an "amendment" and not a "revision."

This is a huge blow to civil rights in the state. Not only has a 50% majority succeeded in stripping a civil right from a minority group, but the State of California has officially sanctioned a conservative Christian definition of marriage. This is a clear violation of the Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

I think churches should be free to define marriage within their congregations however they please. There are churches where gay marriage is accepted. They have just as much right to exercise that conviction under the law. The government and the state constitution is no place for this debate.

If you haven't seen the new Star Trek yet, go. Now. It's amazing.

I haven't enjoyed a movie this much since The Return of the King.

Kathy M. Kristof wrote an intriguing column in the Los Angeles Times this week. She asserted that CEOs need to cut their pay to save capitalism. The reason? Stockholder trust is eroding.

Kristof offered James D. Sinegal as the model example. As the CEO to Costco, Sinegal earns a salary of $350,000 and a bonus of no more than $200,000. Sinegal has refused raises, and Costco's board feels Sinegal is underpaid.

As investors lose trust in the management of publicly traded companies, investor capital will shift from stocks that pay a share of the profits (and losses) to company bonds that carry a contractual rate of return.

To the drivers of West Los Angeles,

Given my past experience sharing the road with you, I'm not sure why I expected you to know this, but when the power goes out, dead stop lights are stop signs. That means you should wait your turn, yielding to the vehicle on your right. It also means that you cannot follow the vehicle in front of you into the intersection!

Earlier today I witnessed dozens of vehicles running a dead light. Were these drivers even looking for a green? Who taught these people to drive? The sane drivers were backed up, confused, and honking.

To be fair, I see someone blatantly run a red light almost weekly here.

I don't think anyone in California understands four-way stops. Most drivers will enter an intersection with the vehicle opposite them. That works fine for simple intersections. In a large intersection with heavy left turn traffic, that system quickly breaks down. If everyone observed clockwise right-of-way, then three directions could share the same intersection simultaneously. It's that much more efficient.

As any user of SSH is aware, the first time you connect to a remote host, OpenSSH caches the server's public key in ~/.ssh/known_hosts. If the server's private key ever changes, SSH will raise an ugly error alerting you of the risk that an untrusted third-party could be intercepting your new connection.

Unfortunately, the known_hosts file represents a small security risk. It contains a convenient list of all servers to which you connect. An attacker who gained access to your password or unencrypted private key would simply need to iterate down the list until your credentials were accepted.

OpenSSH can optionally hash the server names in known_hosts. This renders the file useless to prying eyes without impairing SSH's ability to check hosts against the list. Enabling this feature and hashing your existing known_hosts file is easy!

1. Add the parameter "HashKnownHosts yes" to your ~/.ssh/config.
2. Run "ssh-keygen -H".

Below the fold, I included a handy shell script that accomplishes the same thing.

One final consideration is your shell history storing your ssh commands. It's easy to configure bash to forget these. Just set HISTIGNORE="ssh *:scp *:sftp *" in your ~/.bashrc.