Tour of the Pyrenees so far

Day 1 Hendaye to St. Etienne, 98.5km, 2026m climb
Day 2 St. Etienne to Ochagavia, 78.8km, 1765m climb
Day 3 Ochagavia to Bielle, 97.9km, 2116m climb
Day 4 Bielle to Luz, 74.5km, 1762m climb
Day 5 Luz to Arreau, 62.4km, 2037m climb

Yes, it's quite rugged out here. Our mileage is dropping even while
our climb stays the same. The descents have been steep but fun.
Consistent 9-10% grades, with controlled tight turns. Feels a bit more
like sky diving than cycling when you're dropping out of the sky like
that.

Even Roberto admits to feeling fear on some of these descents. He even
braked on sone straightaways! The roads are pretty rough, and it's
been warm. A nice change from Germany.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Pyrenees

So far, in 3 days, we've covered 250km with about 6000m of climbing.
The tour of the pyrenees is turning out to be far more rugged than the
tour of the alps are --- we had a long climb this morning with a super
short 16% grade descent. So fast and furious even Roberto called it
scary.

I was afraid the Pyrenees would be disappointing after the alps, but
it's really quite pretty in its own special way. Much more bucolic
than the alps, which is more majestic.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Satellite tracking for the 2008 Pyrenees trip

You can follow Piaw, Mike and My (Roberto) adventure through the Pyrenees this year here!

The backstory: I received a satellite tracker (and S.O.S. system) as a present from my family, and this seemed like a fine time to use it!

Lets hope for no rain, just enough sun, and making good time!

Review: Matter

Matter is Iain M. Bank's latest novel set in the Culture universe.

It starts out with the classic story of a betrayal of a King by his trusted Lieutenant, witnessed by his son, the Heir to be, named Ferbin. The son flees with a trusted servant, hoping to seek help from his sister, who was gifted to the Culture and is now an agent in the Special Circumstances unit of the Culture.

Along the way, we discover that the world Ferbin is from, Sursamen, is actually a Shell World, a huge constructed world with many levels, each harboring a different habitat suitable for different beings and in the center a machine to control it all. The makers have long abandoned such shell worlds, and the inter-level access is controlled by different species.

The narrative switches between several viewpoints --- the capital, with the evil Lieutenant now running a boy-prince as Regent, Ferbin and his trusted servant, and then his sister, Djan Seriy, who is now a Special Circumstances agent. There's quite a bit of the usual Banks misdirection, but unlike The Algebraist, where I felt the mystery was well constructed and the plot puzzle fair, the build-up, world building, and construction does not quite match up to the ending.

The ending felt very much as though Banks wrote himself into a corner, and then basically solved it all with big explosions. Not that I don't like big explosions, but the result is definitely not one of Bank's best works. Still, mediocre Banks is very good, all things considered. Recommended, but read his other works first, if you haven't already.

$70 off Kindle

Chase & Amazon are offering $70 off the Kindle by using the discount code VISACARD on checkout. The promotion is for the Chase Amazon.com card (which is a reasonable card to use for Amazon purchases), and I don't know if it'll work with any other credit card if you don't already have one.

On the other hand, if you don't already have an Amazon.com, applying for one will get you $30 off, giving you $100 off the Kindle directly. Not a bad way to go.

Review: Grossan Nasal Irrigator

So like i mentioned in my previous post, I've been on a bit of a cleansing fix these last few weeks. The name of the game this time around is "irrigation"...my last review was on the Waterpik oral irrigator, and now, I'm on my second irrigation machine, but this time for the nose.

Nasal irrigation has been going on for a while. The original techniques for nasal irrigation involved a tea-pot and simply sticking the spout into one side of the nostril, tilting your head as you raise the pot, and letting the warm saline water pour through until it exits on the other side.

Sounds gross doesn't it? Well, here's my favourite youtube video on this. =)



Please note that coffee and whisky aren't recommended at all as you can judge from his reactions =).

Anyhow, a quick note on why I got interested in such a bizarre contraption to irrigate my nose. I've always been a chronic allergy sufferer. I was officially diagnosed almost 10 years ago with allergies, and since then have been on various nasal sprays such as Flonase, Veramyst, Nasonex, Nasalcrom, the various claritin flavor du jour, and other over the counter medicine like benadryl and sudafed.

I also have a deviated septum and my left nostril is significantly smaller than my right. On a breath test, the air flow of the left nostril is about 1/2 that of my right nostril. The deviated septum creates a massive obstruction and things just don't come out easily.

This leads to fairly chronic sinusitis. All my life, mucous and phlegm from my respiratory tract has always been yellow or green, once in a long blue moon, its clear, but for the most part its yellow or green. As the link explains, this means my sinuses are infected fairly often and although it didn't really affect my quality of life, the difference was made clear to me when I started on allergy medications.

Being able to breath from the nose is a pretty wonderful thing.

So anyway, I was introduced via the web to nasal irrigation a few years back, but the typical response to that is to laugh at it, in a not so nice manner. =) As I got older, and got a little more intelligent, and suffered from things like post-nasal drip and lingering coughs and also diagnosed with sleep apnea, I decided to take things up a notch and do some more research into nasal irrigation. The results were fairly conclusive, nasal irrigation done on a regular basis does a lot for one's sinuses and can even help with allergies.

Well, that was that, I went out to Amazon, bought the Grossan Hydro Pulse and waited patiently for it to arrive.

Why did I spend a 100 bucks on something like the Grossan instead of a simple Neti-Pot? Its mostly because I can afford something like that now. Were I cash strapped, I'd probably just have gone for the neti pot. Besides, I like my gadgets, and even though its questionable if this cleans better than the neti pot, the amazon reviewers had pretty much glowing things to say about it.

The package is fairly simple. It comes with two nasal irrigator tips, and two tounge/throat cleaning tip, along with the unit itself. Use of the unit is even simpler, the included DVD is a bit of a joke, but its probably worth the 2 minutes of so to watch it. Basically, you fill the tank up with water, add a salt solution packet, stir it up, stick one tip into one nostril of your nose, and turn the unit on.

Wait till the tank is half empty, take the tip out, stick into other side. Repeat till the tank's empty.

The results were astounding. I could actually breath through my nose for the first time in years! By trait, I'm a mouth breather due to not enough airflow thru my nostrils, but about 10 minutes after I used this unit, I could actually get enough airflow that I could stop mouth breathing for extended periods of times!

The second benefit didn't really manifest until the evening. Recall that I had post-nasal drip and a lingering cough because of the PND. That went away too. I didn't really make the connection until I realized I had stopped coughing for more than a few hours.

That basically sold me the machine, but I wanted to use it for at least two weeks before I could make a recommendation and that it wasn't just confirmation bias or buyer's bias.

Well, two weeks have come and gone. I use the machine twice daily, once in the morning, once in the evening. The results are pretty amazing. My sense of smell has improved, my PND cough has gone away, my breathing has improved, I want to say my riding has improved due to better breath control, but that's probably not 100% due to this.

Suffice it to say that I highly recommend this product as well. If the price of the Grossan HydroPulse is too high, I'd still suggest going to your drug store and just picking up a nasal irrigator. I am going to be trying one out for the next few weeks while I travel, so look for an update to this review when I finally use a manual nasal irrigator.

I consider nasal irrigation to be a a life changing habit, and I highly encourage everyone to try it. As usual, perhaps talk to your doctor first to make sure you have no special conditions, but I suspect 99% of the population have no problems and will benefit greatly from nasal irrigation. As a personal anecdote, I've stopped using all my allergy sprays and haven't suffered from any allergy syndromes for the last two weeks. This sampling might be inaccurate as I'm also undergoing allergy shot treatments and perhaps the pollen count is not terrible this year. But as mentioned above, the real dramatic improvements is my ability to breath through my nose and my sense of smell has never been better.

Review: Waterpik Ultra

So I've been in a bit of a cleansing mood these last few months. A combination of sickness, the dentist telling me that I need to better take care of my teeth (and i floss, do 10 minute brushes, and mouthwash every day!), and a lingering cough finally got me off my butt to order a couple of items. This review here will talk about the Waterpik Ultra. You can get it from Amazon at below 50 dollars.

I received the unit two weeks ago and has been using it for that long. First the Aesthetics. The unit itself is quite small, smaller than you expect, consisting of a water tank capable of holding 600ml of water, a case so you can put all the spare piks the unit comes with that also doubles as a lid for the water tank, and the sprayer/nozzle.

The tips that comes with the unit are as follows:

# Two standard jet tips -- Cleans deep between teeth and below the gumline
# One tongue cleaner -- Removes bacteria that cause bad breath
# One orthodontic tip -- Cleans hard to reach areas around braces and other dental work
# One Pik Pocket tip -- Gently delivers therapeutic rinses into gum pockets
# One toothbrush tip -- You can brush and water jet at the same time

So all in all, the package is pretty featured packed.

So how does it work? You basically fill the tank with water or mouthwash, pick the pressure settings and then turn the unit on. In minutes, water starts pulsing out of the pik itself. Place the pik with your mouth closed at a 90 degree angle from where the gum meets the teeth and the cleaning starts. The first time I used it, I put the pressure on 1 and it felt like a cleaning from the dentist.

Now, feeling as clean as it does from the dentist, and it being as clean are two separate things, but the amazing thing is that the waterpik does clean out stuff from way back, the wisdom tooth area where the pockets are typically the biggest and you'll also find the biggest chunks of stuff. A good flossing can remove about 70% of the stuff that lodges back there, but the waterpik actually gets over 80 to 90% based on what I feel. Usually after I floss, I can still feel a bit of stuff back there, but the effort to dig it out is usually too difficult. With the Waterpik, a good spray and its usually out. So I'm fairly impressed.

On the topic of accessories, as can be seen from the list above, it comes with a ton of stuff. I've used the pik pocket and the tounge cleaner and the brush, and they all seem to be...less than useful. Perhaps I just like the high pressure feel of the regular pik, after two weeks, I'm on pressure setting 6, and can use 10 if I want to, but the rest of the accessories seems more interested in diffusing the water so that it floods rather than pulses. It just doesn't feel as clean after I used the pik, and the brush, as I mentioned above is useless. Stick to your automated toothbrushes folks!

The other nice side effect of using the Waterpik thus far is the feel that it gives you a gum massage.

Research has also proven that the Waterpik does do the job. Note that it does read like a Waterpik commercial, but I could detect no real bias as others are mentioned and the reason for the seeming Waterpik bias is because they've been on the market forever.

In short, if your oral care is less than ideal and you feel like you could spend less pain at the dentist, I highly encourage you pick up a Waterpik. Even if it breaks like some reviewers on Amazon states a year into it, it'll still be less than the price of an extra cleaning at the dentist! I go 4 times a year and pay 70 dollars each time out of pocket for the 2 extra cleanings, so spending 50 dollars more a year to improve my dental hygiene? Its a no brainer!

Highly recommended product, based on the research and my personal experience so far.

Wolfrathausen/Schielersee/Holzkirchen

 

It was a beautiful day, so we rushed out to the S-Bahn to catch the train to Wolfrathausen with barely seconds to spare. Leaving the train station, we immediately headed East, following the route I once found to Holzkirchen, but ignoring a detour that had gotten us lost and making very good time. The weather was really nice, giving us nice views of crepuscular beams coming through the trees, and gentle mist rising from the ground (it had rained the day before) giving the impression that the ground was smoking.

We rode past Wolfrahausen and immediately followed the route I had used before to Scheliersee, this time paying close attention to where I had gotten lost before --- it turned out that the GPS signaled for a left turn where there was no road! This was the first time I'd found a bug in the Garmin Mapsource, so it was truely unique. The tour this time involved a lot less dirt (in fact, no dirt at all), and as we approached Scheliersee, we started looking for places to eat. After a few false turns we made it to Scheliersee where the tourist information office was open on a Sunday, of all things!

The woman in the office (who spoke no English, but fortunately my German is decent enough) directed us to a Biergarten, where we ordered half a roasted chicken, a shrimp salad, and pork chops, and ate it all down. Mike & Roberto made quick work of their beers but as usual I couldn't even finish my Radler (which is only half alcoholic). We debated doing maybe an extra ride up to a higher lake, but looking at how much more riding we had to do, we decided against it.

Riding back along the ridge I had planned before, I was impressed at how pretty it was, even though most of the wildflowers were gone. There was a bit of annoying traffic here and there, but whenever I spotted a turnoff we found something good to ride on, and there was enough bike paths for many of the really bad sections. We made our way past Seehamer See, and then went on to see the town of Valley, at the bottom of a 24% grade. We made it into Holzkirchen around 4:00pm, with enough time to eat a lot of ice cream and catch the train back to Solln at 5:02pm.

Not bad for 70miles and 4192 feet of climb.

Panoromic Photos from Rosenlaui

Phil has put together a bunch of panoramic photos from our tour of Rosenlaui. To get the full impact, click through, and select "Download Photo". Be impressed. He said that these pictures were constructed using Hugins

Review: Soul, by Tobsha Learner

Soul was one of Tor's giveaways. The novel revolves around Julia Huntington, a geneticist/researcher who comes home from trying circumstances in Afghanistan to find that her husband has run away with her best friend. Since her research is into genetics, she tries to figure out whether or not there's a gene for violence --- i.e., whether there are folks who can kill without regrets or post-traumatic stress disorders.

The parallel narrative of the story is about Lavinia Huntington, one of Julia's ancestors who was accused and convicted of the murder of her husband. We learn of her marriage, her son, and the circumstances which lead up to her husband's death.

The theme here is that of biology is destiny. We wonder whether or not Julia will end up murdering her ex-husband in a fit of anger, and the author deliberately tries to draw parallels between the two genetically linked women. The message seems to be that we shouldn't do such research (which is hogwash), and that we do have free will. Any serious study of genetics however, will reveal that genes definitely don't for instance, lead you to murder someone, so I think either the author didn't understand his research, or just wanted to write a morality play, which unfortunately is awfully heavy-handed and obvious.

Not recommended.

Review: To Home and Ehvenor

Home and Ehvenor (DRM-free kindle-compatible edition) is the third in the series of Joel Rosenberg's transplanted D&D players story-line.

Since the last viewpoint character was dead, we now have a new viewpoint character in the form of Walter Slovotsky, the party's Rogue (or thief, in OD&D vernacular). The plot this time revolves around two issues --- a rift in reality that the main characters have to track down, and a raider from their own side gone rogue. The first novel in this omnibus deals with the first. This one could have been a great fantasy story --- the twists in time, and the party figuring out what's going on could have been great. But Rosenberg fools around with showing us how smart Slovotsky is, and then has one of the characters Deus Ex Machinas the ending and figures everything out without actually providing any revelation as to the nature of his world's reality to the reader. That's a bummer.

The second half of the omnibus is even worse --- it's like a bad D&D campaign where the DM has run out of ideas and decides that a side-quest is what the party needs. Well, this particular side-quest is so boring and pointless, I don't see how a reasonable PC wouldn't say, "Screw this, it's not my problem!" Finishing the book was a chore, and I only did it because it snowed in Rosenlaui. Not at all recommended.

Trip Report: Rosenlaui

Rosenlaui

When I first accepted my Munich assignment, I sort of had this vision that I'd get a nice big apartment, and I'd have plenty of friends come to visit. To my surprise, all through the best travel season (June, July, etc), I had no visitors. Then this past week, Phil Sung, my former intern arrived for a visit. Apparently, when he asked me for suggestions 6 months ago, I mentioned Rosenlaui, and Phil was kind enough to get reservations for him and me. I've visited Rosenlaui 3 times now, on all previous tour of the Alps, but each time was for one night each, and being on a bicycle tour, we just rode through.

We decided to drive up, instead of taking the train. This theoretically would take us less time, and give us more flexibility, and cost less. In practice, with better planning we could have saved some time and money, but we would have had to give up a wonderful meal at the Lammi restaurant, and I guess that's worth a little bit of money.

The drive was interesting, and I got to ues my GPS' navigation function --- interestingly enough, this was the first time I compared it head to head against Google Maps, and found that the Garmin City Navigator NT was quite a bit better --- every time the two disagreed, Garmin's directions were much more likely to follow the "official designated route" as shown by the highway authorities.

We arrived at the Lammi Restaurant at 1:00pm, and had the wonderful home made brat-wurst with Noodles. This is the place that made all other sausages (yes, even many German sausages) a disappointment, and we thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful meal and ordered ice cream after wards to top it off. We then headed up Grosse Scheidegg, stopping at the Hotel Zwirgi to have a quick peek at the famous Reichenbach Falls. The road was narrow and winding and I remembered why I enjoyed climbing it so much on the bike --- it's too narrow for there to be a lot of traffic, and what traffic there was had to go slow because of the Post Bus (which has right of way), and the scenery.

We got to Rosenlaui around 3:00pm, and checked in with Christine. After putting in everything we brought with us into the tourist room, we decided to take advantage of the good weather and go for a hike. We initially started out down the Valley to Kalterbrunnen, where we picked up the trail to Hohbam. Once we got there, we discovered we had enough time to make the hike more extensive, and chose to go all the way to Engelthornehutte at 1901m. We got there around 6:00pm, and headed down the hill, along glaciers and beautiful rock gardens. The descent was a little challenging, and we wished we hadn't left the hiking sticks in the car. We got back to the Hotel at 7:30pm, just in time for the nightly 4 course dinner.

The next morning was gray and cloudy, and after a quick breakfast, we headed down the hill in a drizzle to see Lauterbrunnen. I was just there in July, but figured Phil should have a chance to see the touristy sights as well, since he was quite worn out from the day before. We saw the Staubbach Falls, the Trummelbach Falls, and walked around Stechelberg, but the rain kept coming down. We didn't manage to make the Lammi for lunch, but stopped in Meiringen to see the bottom of the Riechenbach Falls, and to learn that we would rather see the Gorge at Rosenlaui than the one in Meiringen.

So we went to that one, and enjoyed the gorge, with its underground swirls of water. We liked it so much we did it a second time, and it was just as impressive. Then it was back to the hotel for hot showers to warm up and another glorious 4 course dinner.

Saturday morning looked foggy when I woke up, but when I ran into Andreas he told me to look outside, and sure enough, it was brilliantly clear! I showed Phil how to perform an exposure lock on his camera so we could capture some of the spirit of the moment, then quickly got ready and started out on an ambitious hike. We first headed up the trail on Grosse Scheidegg. I've done this bike ride many times but the hike is prettier --- lots more water exposure, and grand views of the glaciers and open space. At the top, I asked Phil what he would rather do, take the Post Bus to Grindelwald to catch the Jungfrau Bahn, or keep going on the hike. He chose the hike, and we paused at the summit to look at the amazing scenery right in front of us --- fresh snow had capped all the local summits (including the Eiger and the Jungfrau), and everything looked so clean and white it was blinding.

On the bike, I always just descended to Grindelwald, but I'd always wondered where the hiking trail went. It looked like it went quite a bit higher, and I turned out to be right. It headed up to 2000m, where you could split and head over to First (2200m), or back down to Rosenlaui Valley. The Rosenlaui Map indicated that the route might be a little challenging, so I offered to Phil my opinion that it was better to delay First for a future visit and just do the Hornseeli Trail.

Sure enough, the trail started heading upwards after a short descent, and the going got steep. Right after a corner, we saw that not only did it get steep, it got muddy. I should have switched back to hiking boots then, but I stubbornly thought that it would get better at the lake. Well, the lake was pretty, but had too many cows visiting it recently, so there I finally gave in and put on hiking boots to stomp through the mud and water. Phil, unfortunately was not as well equip, and after a while gave up and switched to sandals.

The scenery was gorgeous. To one side, fall after fall could be seen. To another, streams cascaded down right into the trail. Ahead of us was beautiful farmland where a river ran through it. All this was framed by gleaming white peaks, with strands of clouds and fog hanging in the air, lending our mountains an air of mystery. I could have cried, for it was all so precious.

At the bottom of the hill, Phil took some time to wash his feet, and I switched back to running shoes and fresh socks. We looked around and were amazed at the landscape before us. Unfortunately, at this point, Phil's camera battery chose to give up the ghost --- heart stricken by all the physical beauty before us, no doubt. Well, we kept going down the Romantik Weg (Romantic Way). At this point, we had choices between longer routes or shorter routes, but Phil's knee was starting to hurt so we picked the easy route to Schwarzalp, stopped there for ice cream and to buy some alpine cheese, and then headed back to Rosenlaui, where hot showers and another fabulous meal awaited us.

Sunday wasn't as pretty --- the snows were almost all gone, and it started to drizzle an hour into a 2 hour walk we had saved for ourselves. So we bundled ourselves reluctantly into the car, and headed back to Munich, vowing that we would find a way to come back to this hauntingly beautiful place.

Take note: Rosenlaui has no TV, no internet access, no cell phone coverage, and no running water in its rooms. Our room had no electrical outlet but Christine told us it was an anamoly. Don't go there expecting a modern resort. Do expect a fabulous fixed menu dinner for an amazing price, and excellent hiking. Next time I do a bike tour there, I'll be staying for more than one night --- it's too nice not to!

Rosenlaui comes highly recommended. You won't find it in most of the guidebooks about the area, and you will need reservations if you're going to be there during the weekend. By its very nature, it will not draw too many tourists, but if you're the adventurous type, go there for a week. You won't regret it.

P.S. Phil found some photo stitching software and applied that wizardry to one of the pictures:

Another Rosenlaui Picture

 

Couldn't resist. Look at it and be jealous.

Back from Rosenlaui

 

Just got back from Rosenlaui. It was gorgeous. Full trip report to come later.

The True Cost of Cheap Parts

I was recently in a debate on a mailing list about using cheap standard hubs versus low-maintenance hubs like the Phil Wood. Most people take into consideration only the up front costs, and the pain that ensues, rather than the total cost of ownership. Here are two models for modeling that:

The resale model:
In 1993, I bought a pair of Phil Woods for $120. 13 years later, I sold the pair for $110. The expensive hubs cost $10 over 13 years. No matter how cheap the Deore LX hubs are, you can't beat the resale value of the expensive hubs.

The TCO model:
A typical hub overhaul costs about 30 minutes per hub. Let's say it costs you $15 per overhaul (valuing your time at about $30 an hour at half an hour per overhaul, and ignoring the cost of grease, cleaner and ball bearings). Let's say an overhaul happens every 5000 miles. I can get Phil Wood hubs for about $450 a pair. Since we're talking about a pair of hubs here, that's $30 every 5000 miles. At that rate, it'll take 75000 miles before the Phil Woods are cheaper from a Total Cost of Ownership perspective. Every mile after that, the Phils are saving you money. Over a total life time of around 300,000 miles (which is what Jobst reports for his ball bearing hubs), the Phils will save you about $1350 in maintenance costs. And then don't forget to add in the money you spent buying the special cone wrenches, and the additional time you need to preload the bearings, and the Phil wins even more.

Most people who make enough money to have multiple bikes or to be able to buy a nice bike value their time more than $15 an hour (and most people do have to pay something for ball bearings --- the cheapest place I found on ebay sold DuraAce/Record quality ball bearings for about $10/100, grease, and cleaners), so do the math for yourself as to whether using cheap hubs actually save you money.

Over and over again, I've learnt over the years that cheaping out on outdoor equipment is just not worth it. In the long run, you'll pay more for the cheap stuff than for the expensive goodies that come with lifetime warranties.

The Security Boondoggle

I've been having to think about security at work recently (never something good for my mood), and despite rarely wanting to blog about Computer Science, I ran into something too funny and endemic of typical security issues that I'll break the rule this time.

First, I read the MIT presentation about subway hacking, which is in itself hilarious funny and very much worth a read. Go ahead and read it and then come back --- the rest of this post assumes that you have.

Well, I happen to know people who used to work on that kind of transportation security system, so I sent them e-mail to tease them about the security work. Here's a response (names and details redacted):
[they hired] a security guy who guards all the encryption code zealously. I mean.. he was quite the nazi and because of his position, he let's people know it. Everyone who wanted to work on the encryption code for XXX subways had to go through him.

One day, the worse programmer I ever know (although he claimed he invented the keyboard) was assigned to debug an issue on the fare cards and encryption god was out of town. Well, he basically reversed engineered the encryption code by manually trying everything until it worked. Took him a week but he did it. That scared the shit out of XXX because he was quite possibly a sanitation engineer who pretended to type on the keyboard.

Anyway, these MIT kids need to take a lesson from some of those tricksters in XXX. The most creative ones know exactly where to crease a magnetic stripe so that the fare card will give unlimited rides. This is without the benefit of any technology. Another one would manually tape several cards over each other to create a super ride card. Of course, there are the ones that just brings a gun and a bat and just shoot the machine until they can get in. Those ones are much less creative.

That description of the security Nazi unfortunately matches my experiences with computer systems in general --- when systems designers think about security, they immediately think of complex crypto system, encrypting everything everywhere, and in general making life difficult for the legitimate user. In reality, most security attacks work on the weakest link --- the social engineering approach, or the physical system. So your most valuable security people isn't the guy with the PhD in cryptography, but your UI designers and engineers. If you make a system so painful to use because of security, then users will actively find a way to defeat it. (For instance, if I buy a computer game, I usually end up finding a pirated version anyway and installing it because the user experience is better!)

A few years ago, Eric Rescorla gave a talk at Google entitled The Internet is Already Too Secure. It was a great talk, and it makes the very important point that it's too easy to get academic respectability for designing and implementing complex crypto systems for security. What's really hard is designing easy to use systems that users will adopt and achieve widespread adoption and success (like ssh), with good-enough security that the rest of the system is the weakest link. But whenever I talk to security experts that's never what I hear. It's always about making life hard for the legitimate user!

Consider this story about two payment systems: one system was much cheaper than the other, but required additional input from the user to verify security. The other system was much more expensive, but required no work from the user to use, and hence was much less secure. Both systems were widely available at all point of sales. The higher security system had next to no fraud. But the lower security, more expensive system was much more popular. The maker of the lower security system made so much more money than the other system that it more than paid for reimbursing merchants for fraudulent use. In case you haven't figured it out, the lower security system is the Visa/Mastercard payment system, and the higher security system is the pin-required debit card system. Convenience, and making things easy for the legitimate user should trump all security concerns --- if that's not in your design goal, you've already screwed up big time and it doesn't matter how much security you put in --- commercial success will be out of your reach, so you'll never have any security problems to worry about.

And for those who are wondering, the Munich MVV system uses the least secure method of all --- the honor system. Until you get caught a few times, it's actually cheaper not to navigate the difficult-to-use ticket system. In the time I've been in Munich, I've only been checked once (yes, I had a ticket when I was checked) --- but the system still works (when the ticket inspectors came through, not one person on my incredibly crowded train was a cheater). My guess is, going with a more complex security model would have cost the MVV money, rather than save them any. In that sense, more security is just a tax on legitimate user, rather than helping anyone at all.

Walchensee Loop

Walchensee Loop

After rather successfully killing myself last week, I decided to take it a bit easier this week, so when Radina told me that she was going to head out from Wolfrathausen to Walchensee, I agred to join her. The morning was cool, so I started with arm warmers and knee warmers. It also helped that we started out on the Isar Radweg, which while mostly unpaved, was also very well shaded (so much so that the trail was still muddy from yesterday's rains --- yuck!).

Soon, the trail gave us two choices, an 16km ride to Bad Tolz, or a 10km ride to Bad Tolz. Well, mama didn't raise no dummy, so I chose the 10km ride, which turned out to make the distance shorter by climbing a hill. That was fine by me, though on dirt, the climb was a bit difficult --- I had mounted 700x28mm tires the day before, however, so I was quite pleased that I had done so.

The day shaped up to be pretty warm, and by the top of the hill, I decided to shed my leg and arm warmers and put on sun screen. The short descent down the hill wasn't very fun, but a few rollers later, we were dumped out onto smooth asphalt and a fantastic descent. A few jiggles of the road, and we were finally on the bike path into Bad Tolz. I had previously only ridden into Bad Tolz from the South, and coming from the North was quite different --- you hit a lake to your left and a river, and the view of Bad Tolz from the bike path is quite impressive.

We then followed the Isar bike path again, something I had never done before. Somewhere in the vicinity of Lengries, however, the bike path crosses the river, and not wanting to do so, we stayed on the West side of the river and got onto the road. From here, it was a straight shot up the Jachen river into the Walchensee. I had first ridden this road from the opposite direction in April, and at that time there was a strong wind headed this way, making the descent not much fun. The climb was so gentle that I hardly felt it at all, and certainly didn't think much of it until we got close to the Walchensee.

At the Walchensee, I spotted the bike path which I didn't realize existed the last time I had been there. Well, Radina wanted some pictures, and this was a good place for lunch anyway, so we rode down to the closest beach, ate lunch, took pictures, and then got going again. The bike path was unpaved, of course, but crowded nonetheless. At one point the bike path goes up the hill while the walking path goes along the lake. That reduced the traffic some but as soon as the climb was over and the road became paved again the place became crowded.

Wind-surfers dotted the lake like bees around a field of flowers. Sunbathers, swimmers, and rubber rafts paid court to the rocky beaches. It hadn't been nearly as crowded the last time I rode here, so summer must have arrived! After a bit of contemplation we immediately rode to the end of the road and turned right. I remembered this road from our hike a month back. The traffic was annoying as I remembered but no buses passed us. The climb, fortunately was short and not steep at all, and the descent down into Kochel was fun!

When the road flattened out, however, the traffic was not so fun. I proposed following a route I had planned, but Radinaa took a look at the climb I was proposing and would have none of it. So we tooled around along the flatlands, taking the direct route back to Wolfrathausen, where we had ice cream before getting onto the train.

Not bad for 820m, and a thoroughly nice day.

Review: Steel Beach

Reporter Hildy Johnson has a problem: He keeps trying to kill himself. Each time he does, so, however, he is rescued by Luna City's central computer, in complete violation of his civil rights.

When I first read this book in 1994, I thought it was a great novel --- it covered all the interesting parts of science fiction --- a world in which humans had been evicted from the planet by an alien species to save the whales, a world in which humans change gender just as easily as they can change clothes, and a world where the central computer (CC) is so integral to humanity's day to day life that it was impossible to do without it.

Unfortunately, this is one of those books that don't seem to hold up to repeated reading. The libertarian creed that seems to be continuously tossed at you is really annoying, and the much of the plot is pointless --- with human life being effectively immortal, Varley seems to think we would spend our time gossiping about celebrities, getting drunk, or engage in historic re-enactments. (OK, perhaps as a D&D player I shouldn't laugh at the latter)

The plot is rambling, and the narrator is narcissistic and shallow. The world is nicely realized at first glance, but on second read through one realizes that the technology is never described, is highly implausible, and the null-suit, for instance is definitely a deus ex machina, an instance where the writer basically wrote himself into a corner and set it all up so his heroine can survive long enough to tell the story.

All the while reading this story, I tried to remember what about it that I loved so much. I think the big one is when the narrator changes gender as casually as he changed a wardrobe. It's an interesting point of divergence from other science fiction, and it was great to see Varley put subtle changes into the character's narrative to the point where you forget that the character used to be male and start thinking of her as she. I'm afraid, however, that just one writing trick does not make an entire novel worthy.

I didn't feel like I wasted time reading this book, so it comes recommended. I'm just disappointed because I expected to come back to this book enthusiastic and raving about it but ended up not liking it as much as I remembered.

Holzkirchen Loop Ride

It rained last night, and it rained this morning, but I saw what I thought was a patch of clearing around noon and decided that what the heck, I'd paid for an IsarCard this month, I might as well get my money's worth. I caught the 12:44 train to Solln, and there switched to the fast train to Holzkirchen, getting there in 20 minutes. During the train switch, however, I got caught in a heavy down pour, and started wondering whether I had made the right decision.

By the time I got to Holzkirchen, the weather didn't look nicer, with ominous clouds in the sky, but at least it wasn't raining --- as I rolled out of Holzkirchen, I felt a few drops here and there, but nothing serious. The roads were wet though! I'd picked out what I thought was an interesting loop this time, and sure enough, it was interesting --- in 35 miles I'd climbed about 2500', which is quite reasonable for the area.

The climbing wasn't a big deal, though --- it was the headwind. A strong South West wind blew, so I was getting either a headwind from the South, or a headwind from the East the entire ride. The ride was pretty, but I couldn't see much --- hopefully, tomorrow's ride will yield nice pictures of the alps.

Review: The Munich/Paris Night Train

There's nothing so romantic as the idea of a night train. Get onto one of the night trains at 9:00pm in Munich at night, wake up in Paris the next morning at 6:00am. Coming back from Paris to Munich, it's 11pm to 9am. The cost is about 75 Euros each way per person, which compares unfavorably with the 93 Euros round trip on the plane. One would think that given the cost of fuel, and the carbon footprint of the train versus the plane, the train should be cheaper, but while Airlines in Europe are largely deregulated now, trains are still National Monopolies, and so are still priced that way. Naturally, if you're only on it one way, it's cheaper to take the train, and there are student specials that can get the price down to about 50 Euros each way if you're a student, etc.

Each cabin in second class has 6 bunks, dormitory style, stacked on top of one another. There's barely any room for luggage --- there's a rail on the top, and there's room below. I'm 5' 10", and the beds are just about an inch too short when I stretch out. Fortunately, I sleep in a fetal position anyway, so the roominess is not an issue.

Bring ear plugs --- not only is the train not as quiet as the regular trains, the chances are that you're sharing with 5 other folks on the train, and if any of them are men (or if you're unlucky and end up in a compartment with me), then one of them will snore. Lisa didn't sleep well at all on our trip. I, on the other hand, slept very well and didn't have any issues at all.

The cabin is tight and crowded, so other than reading and sleeping, don't expect to get much done. There does seem to be an unusual number of beautiful young ladies on our trip from Paris back to Munich, so perhaps if you're a single guy there's appeal there.

All in all, the experience isn't particularly romantic, so if I were to be asked to recommend a way to get from Munich to Paris or vice-versa, I'd tell folks to fly. Oh yes, and you have to book in advance. Don't expect the prices I quoted to be available if you're booking last minute.