Mountain Biking Today...

That is me and DC Rob Berube on Belle Island today!

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Mountain Biking...

We went to the Buttermilk Trail System this morning. It was about 38 degrees and cloudy. We ended up getting 11.39 miles or ridding today.  I have some pics and video to put up next week as soon as I get them.  Yester day I was able to get in 9.38 miles so I feel really tired but also good after nearly 21 miles for 2 days!!

 

Have a good evening…

 

RMStringer

+++++++++++++++++++++++

"We are all geniuses when we dream"

- E.M. Cioran

 

Bell Isle Trails...

Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Birthday...

I just wanted to wish my Wife a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
I love her very much!!!
xxxoooxxx


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Mountain Bike Stuff...

My Wife bought me a set of Kenda Nevegal 2.35 inch tires for our Wedding anniversary. I installed them lastnight with Mark's assistance. My old tires were 2.2 inch tires.

She also bought me a XPORT Splistream 4-Bike 2'' hitch rack for my truck. The rack is made by Thule.

I am going to do a ride with Jeff today at Pocahontas Park and them do Buttermilk tomorrow morning with Mark and a few other people. I hope to get in about 15-18 miles over the next 2 days.

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New bike rack!

Xport by Thule
From RMStringer

Work Update...

Well folks, it happened…

 

I am going back to days! It has been nearly 11 months that I have been on the night shift and starting on Monday, I go back to working like most of the world and I will be on the day shift.   It is going to take me a little time to get adjusted to being on days. I am glad and I was going to have to go back in January anyways, it just happened a little early. Have a good night and a good weekend.

 

RMStringer

********************

"To open the eternal worlds, to

open the immortal eyes Of man

Inwards, into the worlds of thought, into Eternity". ITN

 

 

Funny Pictures...

A friend IM'ed me this link the other day. She has some very funny drawings. There are just too many to view tonight.I just placed a few that i really like.


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


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One thing that pisses me off...

You know when you are driving down a road and you have various vehicles that are beside you traveling at your rate of speed and then someone tries to get out ahead of the pack. Well, Minivan drivers piss me off!!  These West End Wandas act like they are driving a racecar and will nearly run you off the road to get ahead of you! One tried to overrun me on a very small 2-lane road several days ago and they always try to blow you away on the toll road.  I try to do the speedlimit and a Minivan came speeding by me the other night and the funny thing is that we both got to the toll at the same time!!  They are not high-performance 500 hours powered vehicles, they are nice passenger vehicles.  People, SLOW DOWN in them!!  The soccer game will be there when you arrive and the Starbucks will still be open!!

 

RMStringer

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You have no conscience and it seems you never will - Cyberaktif

 

Test

This is a test.



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Hazy Lake...

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Waste P2P Project

With the RIAA trying to crack down more and more on P2P networks, WASTE is looking like a more viable alternative. This came out several years ago but did not catch on like the inventors had hoped for, but now it looks like a good alternative that is secure from prying eyes!

 

 

Welcome

WASTE is an anonymous, secure, and encrypted collaboration tool which allows users to both share ideas through the chat interface and share data through the download system. WASTE is RSA secured, and has been heralded as the most secure P2P connection protocol currently in development. For technical information please see "information", but for more information on download and installation, please see "downloads". Looking for other WASTE projects? Please choose "projects", or if you are interested in the main WASTE sourceforge project, see "sourceforge". Or, if you just need some help with WASTE, see "documentation".

 

 

Overview

WASTE is a software product and protocol that enables secure distributed communication for small (on the order of 10-50 nodes) trusted groups of users.

WASTE is designed to enable small companies and small teams within larger companies to easily communicate and collaborate in a secure and efficient fashion, independent of physical network topology.

 

Some bits of information about WASTE:

 

WASTE is currently available for 32-bit Windows operating systems as a client and server, Mac OS X as a limited client and server, and as a limited functionality server for Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Windows. Porting to other operating systems should be a breeze, as the source is provided (and the network code itself is pretty portable).

WASTE is licensed under the GPL.

WASTE currently provides the following services:

Instant Messaging (with presence)

Group Chat

File browsing/searching

File transfer (upload and download)

Network architecture: WASTE uses a distributed architecture that allows for nodes to connect in a partial mesh type network. Nodes on the network can broadcast and route traffic. Nodes that are not publicly accessible or on slow links can choose not to route traffic. This network is built such that all services utilize the network, so firewall issues become moot. more information.

Security: WASTE uses link-level encryption to secure links, and public keys for authentication. RSA is used for session key exchange and authentication, and the links are encrypted using Blowfish in PCBC mode. The automatic key distribution security model is very primitive at the moment, and may not lend itself well to some social situations. more information.

 

Network

WASTE creates a network of hosts, making whatever connections possible, and typically routes traffic via the path of lowest latency (which effectively ends up as load-balancing, though it is far from ideal).

With at least one host outside of firewalls (or behind a firewall but having one incoming port open), a WASTE network can enable all supported services (including chat and file transfer) between any two hosts.

WASTE uses three main classes of messages: Broadcast messages, routed reply messages, and local management messages.
Broadcast messages are sent from a host when the host wants to either notify or request information from all hosts on the network.
Routed reply messages are sent in response to a broadcast message, routed back to the host that initially broadcast the request.
Local management messages are sent directly between two nodes to negotiate link configuration parameters etc.
The network messaging structure is flexible and there is plenty of room for new message types to enable new services and functionality.

Each link on the network is secured and authenticated, but messages are not secured point to point, which means a trusted user on the network can theoretically spoof and/or sniff traffic. For more information, see the security section.

 

Security

WASTE builds a distributed network of hosts, and secures each link in the network. In securing each link, WASTE also authenticates each link using public keys.

WASTE also provides a mechanism for hosts on this network to exchange keys automatically with each other once a host is trusted on the network.

How WASTE Secures Links
WASTE secures the links of the WASTE network by using RSA to exchange session keys and authenticate the other end of the connection. Once the hosts have authenticated each other and both have the correct session keys, the connection is encrypted using Blowfish in PCBC mode (using different IVs for each direction of the connection). The oversimplified process for bringing a link up is (see comments in the code and the code itself for a more in depth view):
Both sides exchange public key hashes, and verify that they know that hash
Both sides exchange session keys and challenge-response tokens encrypted with each other’s public keys.
Both sides decrypt and verify the challenge-response tokens, and begin encrypted communication (a stream of messages, each message is verified using an MD5).
There's a lot more to it than that, but that's the basic idea. The reality of it is that there is also a "Network ID/Name" feature that allows you to easily keep networks from colliding, as well as efforts to obfuscate the whole process (to make WASTE connections difficult to detect). Another unique feature is the way session keys are exchanged and combined so that in order to decrypt past (recorded) traffic, both private keys of a connection need to be recovered.

Note: It might be worth implementing WASTE using a subset of SSL, to avoid any concern of flaws in this protocol. Feedback is gladly accepted on any potential weaknesses of the negotiation. We have spent a decent amount of time analyzing this, and although we have found a few things that are not ideal (i.e. if you know public keys from a network, you can sniff some traffic and do an offline dictionary attack on the network name/ID), but overall it seems decent. The current implementation probably needs work, too.

Why WASTE requires a trusted group
Since the security in WASTE relies on encrypted links, and messages are not encrypted point to point, a node on the trusted network could easily sniff or spoof messages. So yes, your friends can spy on you. But you were not really worried about them, were you?

How WASTE Prevents Information Leakage
WASTE makes an effort to prevent information leakage. WASTE sends all traffic through the same encrypted link(s), and does not (by default) bring up or drop connections in response to any user actions. WASTE messages are sent completely inside an encrypted channel, so a snooping party would have a VERY difficult time determining what kind of traffic is being sent across a link, or where the traffic originated from, or where the traffic was headed to. And because there may be redundant paths in the network, and traffic is load balanced across those paths, it further complicates things.

In addition, WASTE has an optional saturation feature, in which connections can be saturated to a particular rate (with random data, if necessary), so that a snooping party cannot see how much real data is being moved.

How WASTE Exchanges Keys Between Trusted Hosts
In order for two WASTE hosts to connect to each other, they need to know each other’s public keys. This can happen two ways. The first way, which is how you would initially connect to a WASTE network, is by manually exchanging public keys. This is clunky, and generally a PITA.

Once a WASTE host is on a WASTE network, however, it can (and is by default) be configured to automatically exchange public keys with other hosts on the network. This happens through the secure links of the network.

The main drawback to this is that it is very difficult to remove a key from the network. Each node on the network that that person could potentially connect to has to remove the key. This may be addressed in a future version.

 

 

RMStringer

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You have no conscience and it seems you never will - Cyberaktif

 

No More CompUSA...

This really sucks for us in Richmond.  We have no big chain computer stores here. All we have are Circuit City and BestBuy.  It would be nice to have a Fry's Electronics here, but that is not going to happen anytime soon.  I used to shop at CompUSA often when i lived in Austin Texas as well as in Southeast Texas.

 

Off the wire:

103 stores to be sold or closed after holiday sales.

(12-08) 04:00 PST Dallas -- - Consumer electronics retailer CompUSA said Friday that it will go out of business after the holidays following sale of the company to Gordon Brothers Group LLC, a restructuring firm. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

CompUSA of Dallas operates 103 stores, which plan to run store-closing sales during the holidays.

Privately held CompUSA, controlled by Mexican financier Carlos Slim Helu's Grupo Carso SA, said discussions were under way to sell certain stores in key markets. Stores that can't be sold will be closed.

Gordon Brothers will also try to sell the company's technical services business, CompUSA TechPro, and its online business, CompUSA.com. It would be up to the buyers whether to continue the CompUSA name.

CompUSA has struggled for nearly a decade with falling prices on personal computers, its most important product, and competition from big-box retailers such as Best Buy.

The slowing growth in computer sales has affected other companies.

Dell Inc.'s U.S. consumer sales fell 26 percent in the first half of this year, which could have accelerated the PC-maker's announcement this week that it will sell machines at Best Buy.

CompUSA was founded in 1984 as software seller Soft Warehouse, then branched out into computers. It took on the CompUSA name and went public in 1991. It bought Tandy's Computer City chain.

Slim bought his first stake in the company in 1999 and took it private the next year in an $800 million buyout. The chain went through several CEOs and tried different turnaround strategies, such as a move this year to focus on core customers such as gadget lovers and small-business owners.

CompUSA closed more than half its stores this spring and got a cash infusion of $440 million to restructure.

During the wind-down, Bill Weinstein and Stephen Gray, managing partner at CRG Partners, will run the company. The chain's current chief executive, Roman Ross, will serve in an advisory role, CompUSA said.

Gordon Brothers created an affiliate, Specialty Equity LLC, to handle the deal. DJM Realty, a Gordon Brothers Group affiliate, will review leases of CompUSA's store locations.

James River Plaza...

Here are a few pics from this place in downtown Richmond.

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Fire Bush...

DSC02886, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

This was one of the bushes at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens that had some very nice lighting effects on it. It looks like the brining bush at night. I tried to get all of the bush in the picture, but I couldn’t fit it in the field of view on my camera, so I got all that I could.

Sondra and Robert...

DSC02882, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

This is me and the wife before we went out last night.

The Walk of Lights...

The Walk of Lights..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

GardenFest of Lights
Friday November 23, 2007 to Monday January 7, 2008
5 - 10 p.m.

It was freaking COLD last night!! It was colder than i thought it would be and i did not take gloves and my hands were freezing all night long. This was were you walked into after you bought your tickets. It was an enchanting evening to be out...

More Of the Botanical Garden lighting...

More Of the Botanical Garden lighting..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

GardenFest of Lights
Friday November 23, 2007 to Monday January 7, 2008
5 - 10 p.m.

This was the beginning of the walk to be taken last night.

More Of The Conservatory at Lewis Ginter

More Of The Conservatory at Lewis Ginter, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

GardenFest of Lights
Friday November 23, 2007 to Monday January 7, 2008
5 - 10 p.m.

This was the best of the set . I took several more but they were blurry. Night photography is my bane!

The Greenhouse...

The Greenhouse..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

The Conservatory is the "Jewel of the Garden." This 11,000 square-foot complex houses exotic and unusual plants from around the world in its permanent collection and features beautiful seasonal displays. Crowned by a 63-foot-tall dome, the Conservatory includes a central Palm House, a semi-tropical wing featuring our orchid collection, and two wings with changing themed displays full of seasonal color and interest.

Tobacco Company Christmas Tree...

Tobacco Company Christmas Tree..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

www.thetobaccocompany.com
This tree was inside the Tobacco company where we ate last night. The food was VERY GOOD!! The place was decorated with Victorian Christmas ornaments all over the restaurant. It was a very festive evening with a good jazz blues band playing in the bar area. The tree is about 3 stories tall and can bee viewed from all levels of the bar.

Downtown At Night...

Downtown At Night..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

Richmond had their lighting of downtown last weekend. This is a part of it. It was taken at Riverfront Plaza II.

The End of The Line...

The End of The Line..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

This was near the end of the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens Christmas walk that we did last night. I thought that it was a good shot and it turned out well.

HIV-positive Navy chaplain gets 2 years on sodomy charges

QUANTICO, Va. (AP) — An HIV-positive Navy chaplain has been sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to forcible sodomy and other charges.

Lieutenant Commander John Lee admitted having sex with an Air Force officer without disclosing that he had HIV. He also admitted to forcing himself on a midshipman in the U.S. Naval Academy.

Lee was sentenced after entering a plea agreement at his court-martial in Quantico, Virginia.

A Marine spokesman says nobody is known to have contracted HIV from Lee.

Lee, a Catholic priest, had been assigned as a chaplain at the Naval Academy from 2003 to 2006, and later as chaplain at the Marine Corps base in Quantico. He was relieved of his duties and had his ability to function as a priest revoked in June.

--
RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++

Virginia: Legislative Report Outlines Abuser Fee Problems

A Virginia legislative committee releases an interim study of the effects of the controversial abusive driver fees.

The Joint Commission on Transportation Accountability yesterday released an interim analysis of the effect of Virginia's so-called abusive driving fees that add taxes of up to $3000 to various motoring offenses ( fee details). Courts began collecting the fees in July, driving 177,000 voters to call for their immediate repeal in an online petition. The report's figures show that the majority of revenue actually collected will come from speeding offenses that are subject to the new fees ($22 million). Both driving under the influence of alcohol ($20 million) and serious driving felonies ($38,000) will generate less revenue, contrary to the assertion of fee proponents.

While the study finds it too early to conclude the program has had any positive effect on safety, the ticket tax appears to have changed the way some police handle traffic stops.

"The magnitude of the deterrent effect, if any, is not readily discernible," the report found. "One possible effect of the abusive driver fee program is that... more speeding summons are being issued for conduct that fits the statutory definition of reckless driving."

Between July and October 2007 the number of arrests for reckless driving had fallen 10.6 percent (892 tickets per month) while the number of arrests for speeding increased 7.6 percent (1320 tickets per month) to compensate. The police officers reluctant to impose the $1050 tax that comes with a reckless driving charge are cutting some motorists a break and writing simple speeding citations instead.

Another side effect of the fees noted in the report is an expected explosion in the number of unlicensed drivers on the road. The new law mandates that anyone who fails to pay an abuser fee loses his license, resulting in an estimated 137,000 additional motorists losing their license in the next fiscal year and another 181,000 by 2009. This means nearly a quarter million people will be driving without a license and without insurance within the next two years, according to compliance data from the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

Another 138,126 Virginia motorists (2.5 percent of registered drivers) will be affected by the "point tax" as this number already have a sufficient number of points on their drivers' licenses to trigger mandatory annual payments of between $100 and $700. In addition, 30,934 annually will face the $1050 tax for speeding. Although the fee supporters emphasize that only "reckless" drivers are eligible for the tax, the report shows that 43 percent of all reckless driving convictions went to individuals whose only crime was driving in excess of 80 MPH. On Interstate 85, for example, driving just 10 MPH over the newly established 70 MPH maximum triggers the tax.

Handing out abuser fees to speeders by classifying their actions as "reckless" is essential to the success of the fee program because ordinary speeders are most likely to pay their fines in full. In 2005, the collection rate for habitual offenders operating on a suspended license was just five percent. Drivers accused of going 20 MPH over a limit near a school crossing paid up ninety percent of the time.

The report also showed that certain miscellaneous offenses generate substantially less revenue than speeding. For example, only 91 motorists per year were convicted of reckless driving for failure to use a turn signal. An average of three motorists per year were convicted of "operating a vehicle with a smokescreen or flamethrower" in violation of Virginia Code Section 46.2-1086. All together, these will generate about $100,000 in abuser fee revenue.

A number of factors will reduce the grand total of revenue collected by the fees ( view table of violation revenue). Out-of-state drivers make up seven percent of Virginia driving convictions, and they do not pay the new fees. The overhead cost required to collect the fees is estimated to reduce total profit by eighteen percent. Each type of violation also has a historic collection rate of as little as five percent, further reducing the total revenue expected to around $65 million a year by 2010. The report casts some doubt upon even this figure citing the experience of New Jersey and Texas which showed that collection rates decreased as the fees skyrocketed over $1000.

View the full fee report in a 264k PDF file at the source link below.

Article Excerpt:

Annual number of violations for each fee category, with the total potential amount in fees issued over a three-year period and the average collection rate for each type of offense :

Offense/Fee	Annual Tickets	Total Fees (3 years)	Collection Rate
Speeding/reckless $1050	85,506	$89,781,300	59%
Suspended $750	51,912	$38,934,000	13%
DUI $2250	27,966	$62,923,500	44%
Felony $3000	3,457	$1,037,100	5%
Other $900	75,764	$68,187,600	30%

Source: Interim Review of the Results of Abusive Driver Fees in Virginia and Other States (Joint Commission on Transportation Accountability, 12/5/2007)


--
RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++

Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age

This is very interesting and eye opening! It is about 6 minutes but worth the watch.





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Christmas Kitty...

She was not happy with the paper on her tail! Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

The Weather...

Well folks, we had our first snow showers today. We did not get any accumulation, but we did get some snow. I tried to get a few pics, but it did not work, so not snow pics. I hope that we get some more this year. ZIT is going to be cold tonight with the low around 25 degrees!!

 

All, have a good night…

 

RMStringer

#################

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,

anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." - Author Unknown

 

My Map Stats...

A new map will be displayed after December 14, 2007. The above map depicts: 8,736 visits from 14 Dec 2006 to 25 Nov 2007.

It was not a bad year for the blog. My ranking got up to 10 on one counter and fell back to 7 where it has leveled off with a steady amount of viewers and patrons to my site. I appreciate all of your patronage and hope to make it a better year in 2008.



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And if you did not feel like showing up...

Here is the clip of her taking a dive onstage...


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Tired of The Osmunds...

We of the late 60’s and early 70s had to deal with all sorts of injustices and trends. Take Disco as a major one, Sonny & Cher, Shields and Yarnell, and The Osmonds! The all had variety shows that were on prime time TV and all had a lack of taste. Yes the 70’s were a hard time to deal with on TV. Now in the 2000s we have to deal with basically the same crap! Reality TV has inundated us in our homes with people dancing and trying to lose weight, get sober, and survive long days on desert islands on far off seas. With the Hollywood Writers on strike, this is all that we have to see. If it was not for pre-recorded shows we would have nothing to watch. Is this the year that the fossils come back to life? Marie Osmond has been in relative obscurity for the last 20 years and now she can dance? WOW!!! WHAT A REVLATION! THEY did that crap on their TV show way back in the 1970s! That is what they did! The danced, they sang, they did “funny” sketches bla, bla, bla…

Ok, she fainted on the show during that week. Ok. Let’s move on people. Her brother Donnie made commentary on ET Tonight and all sorts of other shows as well as having to suffer with her talking about it and all of the other reporters. It was MAJOR NEWS for a week!! It’s not like we have a war going on or the housing market is going to shit; No Marie Osmond FAINTED on TV putting a blemish on her silver TV personality. Cant they just go AWAY? I remember fondly as the dramatic TV announcers voice would say “Now the Clip of Marie fainting on “Dancing With The Stars” What was Wayne Newton’s reaction? IS she Ok? What will the judges think? Will this hurt her chances of winning the show? De De Do, Wubba Wubba Wubba… As if nothing else was news worthy. And now, with the resurgence of the Osmonds, much like a phoenix coming out of the ashes of TV obscurity; they are back on tour for Christmas. Marie and her brood of kids from adoption and divorce are touring and doing songs and another dammed variety show as we saw clips of their concert tonight on ET once again. I wonder if ET gets a kick-back for putting their asses on every episode of their show?

Now as if we were back in the 1970s, we hear all the sorted details that have not surfaced for the past 30 years about the Osmonduh’s life; Her divorce, Donnie was going to fake a drug conviction to change his image; Marie’s child in Rehab, ect, ect.

Cant it all just go away? For god’s sake, Wayne Newton was a star with Marie on Dancing With The Stars. Where did he crawl out from? What will next year be, “Dancing With The Dead, Arrested or Insane”? Sounds like a winner to me and as about as exciting as most of the rest of the crap that we are force fed every evening…

Now, back to my regularly scheduled coma…

RMStringer

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You have no conscience and it seems you never will - Cyberaktif

Thought For Today...

Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes-Henry J. Kaiser:1882-1976
Sent from my LGVX8600 Phone.

Strange Clouds...

Strange Clouds..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

I took this standing on my front porch last week. I thought that the clouds were very interesting looking. You see that the sun is almost down.

A Few Random Pictures...

Me before the ride on Saturday Morning. December 1, 2007 at 9.15am EST


Very neat clouds! Taken on November 24, 2007 at 5.25pm EST


Same Evening, different magnification.Taken on November 24, 2007 at 5.26pm EST


Moon in the west from my house in the morning at 8.39am EST


Driving down 76 South(Powhite Parkway Toll)



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happy video weekend from jesse james

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Biking Today...

We ended up doing 11.40 miles this morning. We rode the Red, Blue and Green trails.


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