During dinner tonight I noticed some kind of movement in our backyard.  At first I thought it was a rabbit or something similar.  We’re on the edge of town, near some woods, and we get an awful lot of wildlife in our backyard.  So a rabbit wouldn’t be at all unusual.

What is a little unusual is that wasn’t a rabbit, but a fox.  And not just one.  It looks like we’ve got a family of foxes in our backyard.

I saw one large fox and about four small ones - a parent and its young I’d assume.

Unfortunately, nobody managed to get a picture of them during dinner.

Slashdot | Prototype EU Airplane Spy Cams Watch For FACECRIME

“You can’t make stuff like this up. The EU is actually testing a prototype system of cameras in airplanes to monitor passengers’ facial expressions in order to detect both terrorism and ‘air rage.’ The Security of Aircraft in the Future European Environment (SAFEE) project used an Airbus A380 fuselage with six wide-angle cameras to watch for people running or loitering near the cockpit door, as well as a camera in the back of every seat to watch for facecrime like sweating too much, or acting nervous. But that’s okay, because the system won’t alert anyone until it sees a ‘combination of signs,’ instead of just one stray expression, or they might accidentally catch a lot of people who are afraid of flying or of being watched.”

I really don’t see how anyone can think this is actually a good idea…

I can see maybe putting a couple cameras around the plane to watch for people rushing the cockpit or something, but one in the back of each seat?  How is that supposed to be helpful?

Are we really supposed to believe that suicide bombers are all going to have some kind of obvious facial expression?  Do they all have some kind of maniacal scowl?  Is there a certain look you get in your eyes before you blow yourself up?

And how are we going to know the difference between a terrorist who’s ready to strike and a nervous passenger who’s ready to hurl?

Tons of time/money/effort is going to go into this system and ultimately I doubt if it will have any impact on passenger safety.  Just like the ban on liquids/gels here in the U.S.

That was…frustrating.

I just got back from a call to some company located on our old military base.  It was some kind of subcontracted service call…  Usually these are very easy and absolutely anybody can do them.  They literally walk you through the whole thing with plenty of big pictures and clear instructions.  But this call was to install a new WIC in a Cisco 1760 so they sent me.

The first problem was simply locating the office.  All the buildings on this old military base look identical and hardly any of the companies have decent signage.  The offices turned out to be located in the basement of an old concrete bunker with nothing but a suite number on their front door.

And nobody was there.  I knocked on the door, I twiddled my thumbs, I waited around…  After about 5 minutes I decided to try calling someone to find out what was going on.  That’s when I noticed that I had absolutely no cell signal.

I had to leave the building entirely in order to get a decent cell signal.  Eventually I got in touch with our contact person and he gave me the combination to their office’s front door.  That’s right, they just let me wander in unsupervised.  Sure, I’m trustworthy, but they don’t know that.  I could easily have made off with a whole stack of Cisco equipment.

The next challenge was logging in and getting in touch with tech support…  Again, no cell signal in the building.  The only landline I could find was in another room - away from the equipment I was working on.  So I called to log in, got permission to shut down the equipment…then scurried into the other room to do the work…then scurried back to ask a couple questions…back to work…  You get the idea.

Once the work was done they had to test the equipment out, which meant the guy I called had to call someone else…  And I had to wait on hold while they tested everything…

The actual work only took about 15 minutes to accomplish.  I literally just turned off the 1760, installed the WIC, plugged in a cable, and powered it back up.  That was it.  But the whole process took over two hours.  Two hours spent almost entirely waiting on hold, or waiting for a call back, or trying to get through to someone.

Friday at last.  All I have to do is make it through the day…  Which, honestly, seems like quite the challenge right now.

Only one day left before the weekend…

I just have to make it through Friday and then I’m done for two whole days.

This week has been brutal.  I’ve been crazy busy every single day with more stuff popping up constantly.  It’s been a struggle just to keep up with everything.  And I’ve been absolutely exhausted all week long.

Every single day it’s been a struggle not to just call in sick and go back to bed.

Just one more day…