I was using Ubuntu to do some network latency tests with traceroute and constantly got three stars or asterisks after the first couple hops. Doing this fixed it:
sudo traceroute -I
Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
TSA, airport security, etc.
I fully acknowledge that it is highly unlikely anyone will ever read this, but nonetheless, I felt the need to get it down on paper. I haven't read anyone that shares my viewpoint yet, but I'm sure they exist and I just haven't seen it.
There has been significant uproar around the new TSA backscatter scanning devices/groping. I'm pretty sure I went through one earlier this year on a trip to LGA-NYC, but I was caught so off-guard I just went through. I don't think it was even explained to me what was going on. Ultimately, I'm all for security, but I feel the TSA hasn't done anything to benefit security. They've just made the lives of normal people much worse (when traveling).
I remember I used to be able to get to the airport 30-45 mins early and have no problem catching a flight. I believe now the recommended wait time is two hours? What a waste. Surely there are people opting to drive rather than fly because of all the controversy and extra time needed, which hurts the bottom line of the already crippled airlines.
So here is my proposed solution:
But what about 9/11? I'm fairly confident this won't happen again. Not confident it won't be attempted, but confident it won't be successful. I'm pretty sure any decent sized plane full of passengers is going to go absolutely nuts if someone tries anything. They may know they will die, but they will not take more than necessary with them.
I'd go so far as to say that you could get away with NO security in airports and be just fine. People always want what they can't have (even terrorists). I can take a bomb on a plane?! Well that's not fun anymore, now I don't want to do it. I mean ultimately, WHAT EXACTLY are we being protected from with all the security? I can still go to any regional airport and get on a charter plane, or take flying lessons, with absolutely no security screening before I get in the plane. Clearly 9/11 demonstrated the power of what could happen, but as I stated above, I don't see that happening again. So who cares if Joe Blow has a 9mm in his pocket on a 737? What if Joe Blow on the train, or in the cubicle next to you has one? Do we want security EVERYWHERE just so that we are "safe"?
The "reactive" nature of the TSA is plainly not working and just downright frustrating. I hope somebody sees the light soon.
There has been significant uproar around the new TSA backscatter scanning devices/groping. I'm pretty sure I went through one earlier this year on a trip to LGA-NYC, but I was caught so off-guard I just went through. I don't think it was even explained to me what was going on. Ultimately, I'm all for security, but I feel the TSA hasn't done anything to benefit security. They've just made the lives of normal people much worse (when traveling).
I remember I used to be able to get to the airport 30-45 mins early and have no problem catching a flight. I believe now the recommended wait time is two hours? What a waste. Surely there are people opting to drive rather than fly because of all the controversy and extra time needed, which hurts the bottom line of the already crippled airlines.
So here is my proposed solution:
- Go back to the basics. AT MOST we need a metal detector and a carry-on x-ray
- Eliminate "random" selection for groping
- Leave your nasty shoes on
- Bring a gallon of water (or any other liquid you so desire - even toiletries?! gasp)
- Fully secure cabins for pilots - pretty sure this is already done (maybe some knockout gas they can deploy...? That's a bit extreme, I agree)
- Angry passengers that will no longer stand for a hijacking (already have that)
But what about 9/11? I'm fairly confident this won't happen again. Not confident it won't be attempted, but confident it won't be successful. I'm pretty sure any decent sized plane full of passengers is going to go absolutely nuts if someone tries anything. They may know they will die, but they will not take more than necessary with them.
I'd go so far as to say that you could get away with NO security in airports and be just fine. People always want what they can't have (even terrorists). I can take a bomb on a plane?! Well that's not fun anymore, now I don't want to do it. I mean ultimately, WHAT EXACTLY are we being protected from with all the security? I can still go to any regional airport and get on a charter plane, or take flying lessons, with absolutely no security screening before I get in the plane. Clearly 9/11 demonstrated the power of what could happen, but as I stated above, I don't see that happening again. So who cares if Joe Blow has a 9mm in his pocket on a 737? What if Joe Blow on the train, or in the cubicle next to you has one? Do we want security EVERYWHERE just so that we are "safe"?
The "reactive" nature of the TSA is plainly not working and just downright frustrating. I hope somebody sees the light soon.
Monday, September 27, 2010
DataNerd meet Frugal
We have been a PNC (formerly National City) customer for the last five years or so. We were signed up for their Points program (visaextras) from the time it was announced I believe. Recently we noticed we have been expiring points, so I hopped on the site to see what kind of cheap freeness we could get for our imaginary currency.
I was surprised there actually are some things of value, however you seem to need a unnatural amount of points to get the really cool stuff. I started wondering if they had an internal "point = $x" equation to figure out how to price stuff. So, I wasted a couple hours to find out.
It took some manual scraping, but I eventually got a nice, albiet small, sample of items to analyze.
One thing you'll notice right away, is that it's clearly not even accross the board. However, what jumps out at me is that, for the most part, they seem to have a static value of 1 point = $0.0025. It's not exact, but on a majority of the gift cards, this is what it came to.
The high dollar gift cards seem to have a significantly higher value, up to $0.003 on the $500 Talbots card. So of the items I compared, that is by far your best "bang for your point."
*Also of note, all prices are lowest available price available via internet order for physical items. On Gift Cards it is the actual value of the card.
I was surprised there actually are some things of value, however you seem to need a unnatural amount of points to get the really cool stuff. I started wondering if they had an internal "point = $x" equation to figure out how to price stuff. So, I wasted a couple hours to find out.
It took some manual scraping, but I eventually got a nice, albiet small, sample of items to analyze.
One thing you'll notice right away, is that it's clearly not even accross the board. However, what jumps out at me is that, for the most part, they seem to have a static value of 1 point = $0.0025. It's not exact, but on a majority of the gift cards, this is what it came to.
The high dollar gift cards seem to have a significantly higher value, up to $0.003 on the $500 Talbots card. So of the items I compared, that is by far your best "bang for your point."
*Also of note, all prices are lowest available price available via internet order for physical items. On Gift Cards it is the actual value of the card.
Friday, October 23, 2009
How often do TechCrunch posts pertain to Twitter?
I too was curious, so I decided to find out. Clearly 2009 has been "The Year of Twitter" both in national press as well as TC's. What is also interesting (and a fact you may find in many a comment on such a post) is that MG Siegler is by far the top poster on Twitter related topics. Just in 2009 he has posted nearly 28% of Twitter posts from the beginning.
(click to enlarge)
The data was all gathered from http://www.crunchbase.com/company/twitter/posts.
Of course it was all manually scraped and put in the proper format. I'd love to get access to all of their data and see who tends to post about what, at what times, what days of the week, etc. Sometimes it's disturbing that mere data like this is "cool" to me.
(click to enlarge)
The data was all gathered from http://www.crunchbase.com/company/twitter/posts.
Of course it was all manually scraped and put in the proper format. I'd love to get access to all of their data and see who tends to post about what, at what times, what days of the week, etc. Sometimes it's disturbing that mere data like this is "cool" to me.
Monday, May 4, 2009
HOW TO: Connect to SSAS in Excel via VPN
I recently had trouble connecting to Analysis Services in Excel via our companies Cisco VPN on my personal non-domain PC from home.
Making a shortcut with the following target fixed it for me:
%windir%\system32\runas.exe /net /user:YOUR_DOMAIN\YOUR_USERNAME "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE"
Making a shortcut with the following target fixed it for me:
%windir%\system32\runas.exe /net /user:YOUR_DOMAIN\YOUR_USERNAME "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE"
HOW TO: Query SSAS 2008 Cube via Excel 2003
I searched high and low for this information and could not find it anywhere. I finally by chance figured it out in reading a few different forum posts on unrelated issues. I figured someone should post it somewhere.
To connect with an Analysis Services 2008 cube in Excel 2003, you will need the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services 10.0 OLE DB Provider:
The standard connector that comes with Excel 2003 will not work with SSAS 2008. Though I would highly recommend an upgrade to Excel 2007 if you will be doing a lot of work with SSAS.
To connect with an Analysis Services 2008 cube in Excel 2003, you will need the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services 10.0 OLE DB Provider:
The standard connector that comes with Excel 2003 will not work with SSAS 2008. Though I would highly recommend an upgrade to Excel 2007 if you will be doing a lot of work with SSAS.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Introduction
Hello - my name is Kyle and I am a Database Analyst at a local start-up in the Indianapolis area. This blog will serve as a location for me to post my thoughts, ideas, and findings typically pertaining to Pentaho Data Integration (aka Kettle or PDI). PDI is an open source ETL (extract, transform, load) tool I use on a daily basis to aggregate data into mini "data marts" or "data warehouses."
I hope that at the least I can help people through some of the initial hurdles in using ETL tools to their advantage.
I hope that at the least I can help people through some of the initial hurdles in using ETL tools to their advantage.
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