This year the youngest Child-Unit did the Cub Scout's Pinewood derby again. Like last year he designed the car and I helped him with the electronics.
Motorized Pinewood Derby Car 2013
For this year's Pinewood Derby race I made another remote controlled car for the Outlaw class. Unlike last year, this year I spent a little more time than the few hours before the race designing and building the car.
What I ended up with was a car powered by two micro DC motors, capable of multiple speeds, forward and reverse, controllable with an IR remote.
Minecraft Steve - Halloween Costume
This past Halloween the youngest child unit™ went as Steve from Minecraft. This was a pretty easy and cheap costume to make. For the head I used the pattern from stevelange.net. The hardest part was cutting all the paper out. An old hat (with the bill cut off) was secured to the head via a screw and nut. Some extra cardboard was glued in place to raise the head's eye level so the child unit could see out the eye holes.
With Respect to the Presidential Election
a) No, you didn't actually vote. What you did was tell a faceless, uncountable, unelected entity how you'd like them to vote. Contrary to whatever wishful thinking you're suffering from, they are not required to oblige you. b) In any case it's meaningless since you likely threw your vote away by not doing anything other than voting for the person who had the right letter next to their name. Put Hitler on the ballot with the right letter next to his name and you'd of voted for him. You'll forgive me if I consider you part of the problem in this regard.
On WordPress Security
It's no secret that WordPress is a popular target of malicious hackers. One of the least sophisticated attacks against a WordPress site is to brute-force the administrative login. This type of attack -- which is simply an attacker (or an attacker's bot) attempting to guess the admin password -- is simple but the ramifications of success are profound. Imagine what an attacker can do if they have complete control of your WordPress install. It's tempting to think that only large sites are targeted and that small sites have little to worry about. While it's true that a high traffic site may, for a number of reasons, make for a more tempting target as my test results show an attitude of security through obscurity is a mistake.
Architectural Mailboxes’s “Security” Mailbox [UPDATE]
After posting my video demonstrating the easily exploitable security flaw in Architectural Mailboxes's security mailbox I was contacted by the CEO of Architectural Mailboxes who had this to say:
VPC - Firearm Deaths vs. Motor Vehicle Deaths
The Violence Policy Center recently released a report in which they compare firearm related deaths to motor vehicle related deaths. The VPC's conclusion - based on the higher number of firearms related deaths compared to motor vehicle related deaths - is that firearms need to be regulated like cars are.
To support their conclusion the VPC managed to find just ten out of the fifty-one states (yes, I know DC isn't technically a <em>state</em>. I'm just lumping it in for ease of discussion.) where firearm related deaths outnumbered motor vehicle related deaths in 2009.