Good points, though the it's funny how many smart people and/or people in secure positions use stupid passwords. In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, he explains how, where he worked, a lot of people had the same type of padlock for their filing cabinets, safes, and such. Feynman liked to try to pick locks or guess combinations. Turns out, each lock of that make had a "default" combination, and he discovered--by sneaking into their offices when they weren't around--most people only used that combination. Guess where/when this was?
Los Alamos. While the group was working on the Manhattan Project. o.O
So yeah, stupid passwords are stupid and mostly unbelievable, but then again, people are lazy and predictable.
(The beakers-filled-with-different-colored-bubbling-liquid stuff in labs annoys me too.)
(The beakers-filled-with-different-colored-bubbling-liquid stuff in labs annoys me too.)Actually that part doesn't bug me. Sometimes it makes me laugh a bit but mostly I just wish science, or at least the science that I do, was more like that. And occasionally it is. The cell culture media is a nice red or pink then changes to yellow as the CO2 levels change. One of the medias turns a gorgeous shade of purple when you add bleach, another pH indicator I believe. And then the liquid nitrogen. I'm in charge of topping off the LN2 and it's kind of awesome. The storage tanks kind of look like big washing machines and about ten 500 liter dewers are in an old looking room with dim lighting. I wheel one of those bad boys over to the tank I'm filling and attach a hose (with a wrench!) then crank open the valve and fill the tank to the appropriate level all while fog is rolling off of the top of the tank. Every now and again one of the other tanks will vent and sometimes one venting will trigger another to do the same. It startles me
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HAHAHAHA! Awesome! :D You get to play with lots of cool stuff. We don't get to do any of that. :-[ But I guess we do get to go to telescopes in exotic places, so that's a perk.
LN2 is sooo much fun to play with! If you ever have any extra that's going to get thrown out (for some weird reason...or if they'll just let you "borrow" some), you should make LN2 ice cream.
We don't really throw it out, mostly it just evaporates. I also don't have a way to transport it *sad face*. Also, I'm not really sure if I want to eat anything that comes out of there. I guess the main tank would be okay but I am not eating anything that came from the coolers where the samples are stored. I had to scrape out one of the tanks because the door wouldn't shut. Apparently ice doesn't melt when submerged in LN2, go figure. Eventually enough accumulated at the bottom and the sample shelves were sitting on top of it keeping the door from shutting all the way. I managed to fill a cooler with ice bits but also random bits of labels, trash, and a couple of lost sample vials.
At Penguicon we'll be making ice cream with it all weekend long, sometimes with booze. Mead makes a really nice, smooth, honey flavored ice cream. Fancy a trip to Detroit end of April?
That's why I'm a liking Sanctuary so much. Amanda Tapping actually has a fairly heavy science background so while there's a few "leaps of faith" in the tech that go with "Helen Magnus is nearly 300 years old now, she made a few improvements with all that time since she didn't have to worry about the whole dying in the middle of a half finished project" the stuff that isn't a major rule bend, at least from my point of view (And I haven't done as much lab work as you but I know my way around one) looks pretty solid.
Speaking as someone who's done more than a little research on folk models of information security, you do not even want to *know* the stupid shit people do with their passwords. It will just make you sad.
Which is why security systems are designed to not let you do some of the dumber stuff. I'm sure people still find ways, but there is no excuse for someone on TV to guess a six letter password in a secure government facility. I would much rather see them trying to work out security questions, they have a much larger potential for people to do stupid silly answers. Most security question answers are probably on peoples facebook profiles.
The second season of BBCs Sherlock did the easily guessed password thing and it made me very sad inside. Not only did it take me out of the show but it could have done so much more with it. It's especially frustrating when the show does most everything else so well.
The password thing really bugs me when there are other high-levels of security in place suggesting that the particular character WOULD know better, like the "guess it wrong three times and the harddrive is erased" types (tho I guess if I had that I might choose a simple password just so I don't mistype it and accidentally erase my harddrive. =D)
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Los Alamos. While the group was working on the Manhattan Project. o.O
So yeah, stupid passwords are stupid and mostly unbelievable, but then again, people are lazy and predictable.
(The beakers-filled-with-different-colored-bubbling-liquid stuff in labs annoys me too.)
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LN2 is sooo much fun to play with! If you ever have any extra that's going to get thrown out (for some weird reason...or if they'll just let you "borrow" some), you should make LN2 ice cream.
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At Penguicon we'll be making ice cream with it all weekend long, sometimes with booze. Mead makes a really nice, smooth, honey flavored ice cream. Fancy a trip to Detroit end of April?
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The second season of BBCs Sherlock did the easily guessed password thing and it made me very sad inside. Not only did it take me out of the show but it could have done so much more with it. It's especially frustrating when the show does most everything else so well.
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Have a good birthday this week!
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