If you're a developer with multiple computers and operating systems, it can be hard to keep track of all your SSH keys. What happens if a drive fails or a laptop goes missing? Creating a simple air gap with an old USB adds an impressive layer of security and if you take a little time to prioritize servers, you'll see a significant boost in your workflow efficiency as well. The first step to creating a secure SSH keychain is wiping your USB, so back-up everything you need, and let's get that drive scrubbed clean.

Erase Your USB with Disk Utility

There are two basic ways to do this - We'll start with the GUI method first, then we'll cover the command line version. If you're on Linux, the command line version should still work, with a few OS-specific tweaks. Open your Disk Utility app located in /Applications/Utilities/ and select the flash drive on your left sidebar. You'll want to click the Erase tab at the top, give your USB drive a temporary name and select MS-DOS (FAT) format.

If you got through those steps error-free, you now have a completely clean USB drive formatted for FAT32. Now jump down to the "Encrypt a Flash Drive on Your Mac" section to get this drive secured or you can skim over the "Erase Your USB Using CMD" section to see what is taking place behind the scenes.

Erase Your USB Using CMD

If you're looking to reformat your USB from the command line, start with your USB unplugged than enter diskutil list. This command will list connected drives, so take note of the list and see what appears after plugging your USB in (which we'll do next). In this case /dev/disk2 is my unique USB identifier.

# Heres the syntax for your command
$ diskutil eraseDisk FILESYSTEM DISKNAME DISKLOCATION

# My example looks like this
$ diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 TEMPNAME /dev/disk2

Using the above syntax, I'll plug in FILESYSTEM: FAT32, DISKNAME: TEMPNAME, & DISKLOCATION: /dev/disk2. If you need a different format for your USB, this guide is a good point of reference. Wiping the drive could take a minute, but once complete your command line output should look like this. Once you've got the USB clean, it's time to encrypt that flash drive.

Encrypt a Flash Drive on Your Mac

Whether you used Disk Utility or Command Line, you now have a clean USB drive needing encryption. This step (like the previous) can be completed with one of those two routes, we'll start with the Disk Utility option.

Disk Utility: With your drive selected, you'll want to click the partition button up top. Name your flash drive, select Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted) format, click "Apply", and enter your chosen password (complex & memorizable).

Command Line: If you'd like to encrypt the USB through command line, you'll need two simple commands. The syntax of the first will look like this diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ "Skeleton" GPT disk2 and here's my command line output for reference. This command preps the drive while the following will encrypt it. The syntax of the second command looks like this diskutil cs convert disk2s2 -passphrase, resulting in this output.

Check Your Work: The previous steps on how to encrypt a flash drive on your mac are pretty straightforward, but if you doubt the result at all you can click the flash drive's info button in Disk Utilities. Look for the line that says encrypted and as long as you see yes, we're all set to move onto the final step. Now that we have an encrypted USB, it's time to get your SSH keys in order and point your SSH config in that direction.

Managing Your SSH Keys

This post presumes you're familiar with "SSH Keys", but if you're not here's a simple definition. An SSH Key provides access like any other key, but they're generally created in pairs & used to connect to servers (as always, Wikipedia is a great place to start if you'd like to learn more). On a Mac your ".ssh folder" will be located at the user level & usually contains your SSH private keys, a config file, and "known_hosts" which automatically populates SSH connections your computer has made. My exact approach requires a few keys, but let's create one (named "key1") so we know how that looks.

$ ssh-keygen -t key1 -b 4096 -C "email@example.com"

This command will generate two files in your .ssh folder, your private & public key. Generally, you want to keep the private key on your laptop & the public on the server you're looking to connect to. Since these keys provide server access, they're fairly valuable (even though that reality is often overlooked). My approach uses multiple levels each with its own key, so it might be handy to outline and prioritize your own situation. We'll continue this tutorial with 3 levels and our final SSH/Config should clarify how that looks.

Customizing Your .ssh/config

Take a quick look in your own .ssh folder to see your current setup. If you don't have one, just create a blank file named config and we can quickly run over how this file functions. It's also worth noting that users running macOS Sierra 10.12.2 or newer need to preface their SSH Config as shown on Github in order to safely store SSH key passwords.

Host basicserver
    User devteam
    HostName example.com
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key

Let's show you the most basic host syntax looks like. Once you've saved this config file and reloaded SSH, this block of code tells your computer what info should be included anytime you type ssh basicserver from the command prompt. In this situation, your ssh user will attempt to contact example.com as the user devteam with the SSH key located at ~/.ssh/key. At its core, this is just a time-saver for devs, but when we adjust the "IdentityFile" to target your USB key we're creating a simple air-gap that sets up a handy requirement. If you don't have your USB plugged in, you can't access that server. The implication here is simple yet wide-ranging, for example, a stolen or broken computer is no longer a reason to panic.

Let's create a simple example so you can see your SSH config at work. For simplicity sake, let's say your keys have 3 levels of importance. We'll say "level1" is a litigious multi-million dollar client, "level2" connects to your personal blog & "level3" is your Gitlab account that you use frequently and don't want on your USB key.

Host level1
    User devteam
    HostName example.com
    IdentityFile /dev/disk2/ssh/key1
    
Host level2
    User bloguser
    HostName example.com
    IdentityFile /dev/disk2/ssh/key2
    
Host level3
    User git
    HostName gitlab.com
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key3

Assuming you've created a folder called "ssh" on your flash drive and stored the first two keys in it, now a simple command like ssh level1 will connect easily. You will need to enter your password once, but that will be kept in your user keychain and since the "IdentityFile" specification points to your encrypted USB you should feel confident this pathway cannot be easily compromised. If you'd like to get even fancier with your ~/.ssh/config, I'd highly suggest consulting the online documentation for ssh_config. The options are numerous and pretty handy - You can specify ports, connection attempts, local environment variables, and much more.

None of these concepts are revolutionary but combined they create a fairly handy approach. I'd highly suggest creating a backup key (explained below), but tossing your handy new encrypted USB ssh keychain on your house keys is ideal for my needs. If I'm ever working on a project remotely, my house keys usually aren't too far away. In that same vein, here are a couple of tips I've adopted to save you time and increase peace of mind.

• Make a Duplicate: When you have everything done, make a copy and keep it in a safe remote place (safe deposit boxes or decent hiding places are ideal)

• Gather Important Security Files: Now that you have a secure key, why not include other files that should be in a more secure spot. Tax records, backup codes, important login info, pgp keys, vpn configs, database backups, etc.

I realize this approach may seem like overkill to some and potentially exploitable to others, but I've found it to be an extremely efficient way to boost security and aid workflow. If you believe any points could use clarification or you have a few solid SSH config tricks of your own, feel free to drop me a message on Twitter. Thanks for stopping by, be sure to check out some additional posts & if you've found this at all helpful, please be sure to share on your favorite social site with the links below.

$ diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 TEMPNAME /dev/disk2
Started erase on disk2
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Waiting for partitions to activate
Formatting disk2s2 as MS-DOS (FAT32) with name TEMPNAME
512 bytes per physical sector
/dev/rdisk2s2: 29589248 sectors in 1849328 FAT32 clusters (8192 bytes/cluster)
bps=512 spc=16 res=32 nft=2 mid=0xf8 spt=32 hds=255 hid=411648 drv=0x80 bsec=29618176 bspf=14448 rdcl=2 infs=1 bkbs=6
Mounting disk
Finished erase on disk2

$ diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ “Skeleton” GPT disk2
Started erase on disk2
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Waiting for partitions to activate
Formatting disk2s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name TEMPNAME
Initialized /dev/rdisk2s2 as a 14 GB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
Finished erase on disk2

$ diskutil cs convert disk2s2 -passphrase
New passphrase for converted volume:
Confirm new passphrase:
Started CoreStorage operation on disk2s2 Skeleton
Resizing disk to fit Core Storage headers
Creating Core Storage Logical Volume Group
Reviewing boot support loaders
Attempting to unmount disk2s2
Switching disk2s2 to Core Storage
Waiting for Logical Volume to appear
Mounting Logical Volume
Core Storage LVG UUID: 94FED14E-2994-45AB-B0A2-1E06DC97BA32
Core Storage PV UUID: 9F5BD1F7-0ED9-4CD3-9698-DE1296333007
Core Storage LV UUID: 4CDBA2BE-0AB3-406A-AD28-3EC1D805FB9C
Core Storage disk: disk3
Finished CoreStorage operation on disk2s2 Skeleton
Encryption pending

Hotlinking is obnoxious. Hotlinking is theft. Hotlinking is getting harder and harder to prevent. Any web developer worth their salt has run into this problem - What do you do when shady people are willing to steal your work? Keep in mind, we're not talking about open source projects or contributing to a cause - we're basically talking about a jack move. While most developers have decent options with htaccess or server config files, when it comes to using a CDN options are pretty limited. Since Cloudfront hotlinking is a battle I've put some time into, I'll let you guys know the preventative options I've come up with so hopefully you can avoid this annoyance on your future projects.

Cloudfront Hotlinking is Seriously Obnoxious

Put briefly, hotlinking is when someone uses your image URL on their site. Some folks may think that since an image is on your server, someone else's server shouldn't be able to display it - But those people would be wrong. The truth is - if you can see the image and there aren't any preventative measures in place, anyone can use that URL for themselves. This is annoying for two main reasons - 1. Someone is using an image you created and 2. Someone is using your server to host it. This is basically like a car thief asking you to drop your own car off. If you think about the worst case-scenario - What if someone builds a website displaying 5,000 of your images!?! That's gonna put a serious hurt on your server and if you're serving those files from a CDN - you're going to be pretty angry when the monthly bill arrives.

While it shouldn't be too difficult for CDN providers to address this on a server level, it is a step most haven't taken yet. Whether the issue is an internal conflict of interest or lack of motivation, addressing Cloudfront hotlinking has become a bit of a drag for web developers. While working on a recent project using a Cloudfront CDN we stumbled across Amazon's answer to this problem. A little Googling will show you that the word hasn't quite spread yet, so I'll do a quick walkthrough on Amazon WAF and show you how to get it up and running in short time.

Customize Cloudfront for Optimum Performance and Security

The project that brought about this issue was pretty commonplace, but I'll use my own website to illustrate the steps below. I have a Joomla! core pushing images to Amazon S3. Those images are then pushed over to Cloudfront, which is one of the most popular CDN options on the market. Here's the list of the requirements I had while applying this fix...

For this example we're using my business website haeckdesign.com. We need the images to come from cdn.haeckdesign.com, since keeping everything under one apex domain is preferable. We need the images to be viewable to everyone, but those images shouldn't be able to be served or extracted from an external location. Just to throw another wrench in the works - We need to make sure javascript, css stylesheets, and images are crawl-able by popular search engines so we abide by all the rules and get some image results. If this were on a basic Apache server we could just run a simple match redirect, but since it's off server we've got to use Amazon's network to fix this for us - enter WAF, Amazon's Web Application Firewall.

Introducing the WAF Firewall

Science proves that one easy way to sound really smart is to drop a series of acronyms... so with that in mind, let's clarify our goal. We're aiming to define a WAF ruleset to restrict an existing AWS Cloudfront, which is mirroring S3 content, optimizing our CDN distribution while ensuring white-listed access for optimal SEO performance (...am I smart yet?). Back to reality - login to AWS and from the control panel, look for Amazon WAF on the main product menu. Once you're on the AWS WAF page it'll just take a couple of steps to get your firewall up. I'd personally suggest starting by creating your string match conditions & filters, but these are the basic steps then I'll cover what I did for this particular project.

Although generating a WAF firewall isn't technically difficult, it can be tricky since you need to think from a different perspective. This can take you anywhere from 5 minutes to a half-hour, but the majority of the time will be spent running through hypothetical "If I were a .png file..." kind of questions. After a little brainstorming, I came up with (what I currently believe to be) the most logical approach. Like most CDN users, I'm pushing heavily used media from Cloudfront... this means CSS, JS, and images. This should be similar to the way Cloudfront is commonly used as a CDN for websites, but make sure you are adjusting the rules to fit the needs of your exact situation.

I find analogies useful when brainstorming processes, so I've used the classic Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" episode to center my logic around. At the risk of sounding outlandish, here it is... "Any passerby should feel safe, but if you're going to enter the soup shop ("/images/") and have the nerve to order Turkey Chili... You better do it right". Running with this concept, I have two match criteria I'll be generating. The first match condition (named SoupShop) will look for URI requests that contain "/images/". The second match condition (named TurkeyChili) checks the Header Referrer and allows requests from my website's domain name and the websites I want to get through. In this case, I whitelisted "bing.com, google.com, facebook.com, pinterest.com, twitter.com, stumbleupon.com". Since I want Googlebot & Bingbot to get through, I also set header "useragent"'s containing "Googlebot & Bingbot" through. While I'm sure this isn't the most optimal approach (since using "query contains" rarely is), this should help most developers get off to a running start.

Now to tie it all together, I create a new rule (named SoupProtocol) that includes both match conditions. The first step says to be restrictive of any queries on my "/images/" folder and the second says to allow the whitelisted domains through. Then I create a new ACL that uses the "SoupProtocol" filter to block queries, then defaults everything else to pass right through. Again - this may not be the exact best approach (and if you know a better method, please included it in the comments), but it achieves the goals listed above and does so with minimal requirements from WAF itself.

Testing Your WAF Firewall

Now that we have everything setup, let's make sure it's performing as needed so we can put on the finishing touches. Running a quick CURL while the firewall is distributing to Cloudfront, I expect to see a 200 for a basic image request. In this example, I request my logo with a CURL request that looks like this...

curl -I https://cdn.haeckdesign.com/images/haeck-design-logo.svg

This curl response is exactly what you should expect from any query before putting a firewall up. In technical terms, a 200 response means that everything is "all clear" on the call and response.

After giving WAF a few minutes to distribute itself throughout Cloudfront, I'm going to run that command again. In this case, I'm expecting to see a 403 Forbidden. As you'll notice, that's just what we got. Don't celebrate yet though - All that test really means is that we got an error upon retrieval. We still need to ensure that the image is both publicly view-able and also completely accessible to the search engine bots and social networks we whitelisted earlier.

One way to ensure that it's publicly viewable is simply to visit the site yourself. After that checks out we're going to run one final curl that mimics the response the file will get when called from Googlebot. That can be achieved with the following terminal command...

curl --user-agent "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)" -v "https://cdn.haeckdesign.com/images/haeck-design-logo-raleigh-nc.svg"

As long as we see a 200 response, we should feel safe that we've successfully done the job. HIGH FIVE!! If you're the paranoid type, you could always submit the file to Google Webmaster's Fetch as Google tool or Facebook's Linter. Everything should get through with no hassles. Once you've completed testing your WAF firewall, you should certainly keep on an eye out for any errors being triggered in Google Webmaster or elsewhere if you use another third-party tracking tool. It may also be a good idea to check back into AWS in a couple of days to review the WAF log and make sure you're not incurring ridiculous fees by having an overactive firewall. If something does look off, don't forget that you can just log in to your Cloudfront distribution and temporarily pause your WAF filter fairly easily.

Not a Perfect Fix... But awfully close.

Patch fixes are rarely perfect and using WAF is no exception. While it does prevent hot-linking there is one notable drawback - the cost. After running WAF for a month I checked back to see the bill estimates, expecting to see a negligible cost... I was disappointed. While it was only a buck or two, the underlying structure is what bothered me. It appears as though AWS is charging per hit - which is not ideal. That's similar to a bouncer charging you per "troublemaker" kicked out. If you run with that concept over time you'll probably notice that the focus isn't really on providing security, it's more on reporting incidents. I may be expecting too much, but we're not trying to do anything overly complicated here. That said - These are the current WAF rates and Amazon has historically tended towards lowering pricing after unrolling infrastructure. I hope WAF won't be an exception to that rule. Ultimately a bucket policy setup similar to S3 might be the solution, but I do understand that the most important function of Cloudfront is providing media quickly - So worrying about restricting that should be a lower priority on the task-list.

One other point I'd suggest keeping in mind is that some distribution tools should have access. Google, Bing, and popular social networks are the obvious ones, but if you rely on RSS readers like Flipboard or Apple News - you may want to do some testing to ensure this filter doesn't get in the way. This is a "case-by-case" thing, but I do suggest you give it a look before marking the finished.

All things considered, using WAF to prevent Cloudfront hotlinking is the best option going and certainly suitable for production use. AWS is constantly changing though, so if you have some ways to optimize this approach please feel free to include them in comments or on your favorite social. If you've found this post useful share it with the buttons below and thanks for stopping by.

• Rate Based Blocking Tutorial | AWS
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Some people doubt the intertwined human connection to music, but those people are generally idiots. While music clearly means different things to different people, ignoring that a connection exists is naive. The proper music sets the mood, triggers memories, and can boost your brainpower if managed correctly. Connecting two highly variable concepts like music and learning may seem tricky to connect, but if we break it down it's fairly scientific. The best place to start in this case would be with the toughest aspect to prove, is their a definitive scientific link between music and productivity.

Establishing a Scientific Link Between Your Brain & Music

For me, several often overlooked tangential connections began to hint towards the connection between humans and their music. Drums appearing independently and early in civilizations across the world might start you down this line of thinking. Especially considering that notoriously left minded military leaders have embraced syncopated marching bands to keep soldiers on task for thousands of years. Slave hymns existed amongst the deep south, the Egyptian pyramids, and at the foot of the wall of China. In the modern era, it's worth citing the odd similarity between DJs commonly whispered Magic 128 BPM and the speed of an elevated human heart rate. Relaxing music also tends to fall just below a resting heart rate. While I find these coincidences telling, they certainly aren't scientific in nature. Thankfully this topic has been addressed by Georgi Lozanov's Accelerated Learning Studies, a 2013 study well summarized in this interesting Inquiries Journal article. There's also a slightly lesser-known study by Brewer in a Johns Hopkins summation. Personally, my favorite white-paper on the subject is Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition by Ravi Mehta, Rui Zhu, and Amar Cheema. Since these studies were somewhat varied you'd need to stretch to find a hard conclusion, but they (and others) correlate "non-distracting" music as a beneficial factor for improved cognitive performance. Additionally, some highly respected studies have found that music can drastically improve creativity (aka "Abstract Processing"). I believe this quality is so commonly known that a simple messaging to an artist friend will reinforce that belief. When you set all the fancy psychoanalytical words aside, these studies state that the proper music can help concentration, cognitive endurance, and allow you to think more creatively. If you're willing to accept this theory, you may already be familiar with the buzzword commonly used to convey it... "Flow". This concept has been highly advocated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and is well encapsulated by a simple diagram, the Csikszentmihalyi Flow Model. This is a concept that has been heavily known in the creative community for years, but like many creative theories, it took a TED Talk to achieve mass acceptance.

After digesting this info, you may notice the one caveat that underlies it all. There is a significant difference between music and "non-distracting" music. Many people like attention-grabbing music, but if we're looking for the best albums to listen to while working this clearly defeats the goal. Luckily a cursory understanding of music theory allows you to decouple the two. This brings us to our next step, what qualitative elements should we be looking for in music for working?

What Elements Should We Look For in Good Working Music?

The Bad: A few genres need to be crossed off immediately... reggae, hip-hop, pop, country, funk, jazz, and rock. While I have an appreciation for all and there are always exceptions, they each have qualities that directly conflict with the ability to concentrate. Lyrics distract. Beat variations distract. Hard beginning and ends distract. Power guitars distract. Many of the things that grab your attention simply refuse to give it back. While the totality of these elements has been a formula for creating pop music in the last 20 years, these are the exact elements we need to avoid to ensure deep, prolonged, and creative thinking. So now that we've crossed 90% of all music off the list, let's try to ID qualities and genres that are awesome for work.

The Good: It's classically understood that classical music is optimal for deep thought and while that may be impressive wordplay (self-high-five), it's meant to evoke emotion that's too distracting for prolonged work. Classical music slays both firework displays and long terms of deep introspection, but we want to level out that depth and just do work. From what I've found, the key qualities for prolonged work are a stable beat, smooth tonal transitions, and music that's towards the lower end of the wavelength. Now we're getting niche, so what's left? Light Jazz can be great for working and I think Muzack has capitalized on that reality, but let's assume you're not ready to shop retirement homes just yet. Lo-fi and Ambient are practically built for productivity. While there is a bit of variation in these genres, the general concept is - High repetition, a steady bass-driven beat, sparing use of vocals, and extended track length. The holy grail of working music is an album constructed to play as a whole - which generally means DJ mixes. We're not talking about heavy drops or Tiesto though, we want steady lounge mixes - niche genres like Mushroom Jazz or Downtempo embody these qualities to perfection.

So we're obviously getting into personal taste here, but I honestly believe many of these suggestions are universal. They're kid-friendly, have received a wide span of appreciation from my friends, and are still trendy enough that I'm fairly sure you won't know all of them. With quite a bit of thought, this is my Favorite Albums for Working List... and if you need some background music to thumb through them, I've included a few of their tracks on this SoundCloud playlist.

Favorite Albums for Working List...

There are now entire industries built on the previous theory. One example Brain.fm, offers a streaming service with a homepage quote stating "It feels like your headphones are giving you a mild dose of Ritalin". Spotify and Pandora have ever-growing playlists of "Productivity Music" and "Albums to Listen to While Working". Like everything else mainstream, these remove your individual preferences though. It's much better to just realize that you need to reinterpret and contextualize your music for any given situation. This might seem like common sense to some folks, but there's also a kid trying to study to a top-ten hip-hop album right now that just doesn't understand why he can't concentrate like the rest of his class seems to. It just takes a small tweak of perspective and anyone can turn a subtle distraction into a tool that allows you to think more efficiently. Collecting and curating your own deep thought sounds will help you concentrate, focus, and work more effectively - Which is a universally helpful addition to everyone's tool-belt.

I hope you've found my post on Deep Thought Sounds helpful, but if you have any constructive feedback or tips on your own favorite productivity albums feel free to comment below. If you've found this article helpful or know someone that would share it on your favorite social site and as always - Thanks for stopping by.

It’s not a Micro-Machine. It’s not a Golf Cart w/ a grill. It’s a Smart Car, with a Body Kit, and it's kinda amazing. Smart car body kits are a clever way to make those eco-friendly cars (that we all love) look just a bit cooler. The upside of smart cars has always been obvious, but the drawbacks lurk right beneath the surface. The largest drag on the potential growth of smart cars is their look. Not all of these are real, obviously - Forced perspective, a little photoshop cropping, a motion blur, etc. The point to me is that this is an idea with demand, that could be done, and should be done. A few killer body kits could really help push the eco-car cause.

Those are just a couple samples - Audi’s, Lambos, Ferraris, Jags, Corvettes, Porches... and I'll keep this updated, hopefully w/ some manufacturers soon. I did run across a couple smart car kits at SmartSadness.com, but they don't seem to be production ready yet.

If you happen to run across any other impressive smart car kit pictures online, let me know in the comments. I’ll keep a collection going because these are pretty slick looking and someone w/ fibreglass or carbon-fiber skills could make an absolute killing right now.

Since TED is supposed to be a home for intelligent conversation, it's a little disturbing sometimes when they recall their support of a speaker. If they approved both the speaker and the topic, it seems a little punitive to disown a hard thought out speech. That's why I decided banned TED talks should have a home here... and now they do.

Currently Banned TED Talks...

Know Of Any Other Banned TED Talks?

If you run across any new editing done by the team over at TED, please shoot a message this way. Personally, I'm a fan of thinking that no speech should be "too hot" for TED.

Excitement around the Triangle is palatable. This is one improvement that even our embarrassingly regressive politicians won't be able to exploit or undermine. Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel-Hill are on the vanguard of a nationwide change. Not quite as early as the lucky folks of Kansas City, but on the second wave nonetheless. As Google's infrastructure begins to take form, it's a great opportunity for residents to do a little spring cleaning and become familiar with all the benefits that Google Fiber allows and the competitive advantages it will bring to our region.

Advantages Of A Fiber Optic Life

For those rock dwellers, let's start by quickly familiarizing you with the concept. In the macro view, it may not seem as earth-shaking as my intonation may convey... but trust me - this is a game changer. Google's Fiber service is a simple concept and one that has tossed around by our community leaders for quite some time. It just took a little forethought for a market leader to actually make the investment. The first city blessed with this investment was Kansas City in 2009 and the tech industry improvements have been well documented (Kansas City Star: "AT&T to Match Google Fiber Speeds, Prices"). The second round will be reaching the Triangle region of North Carolina, Austin Texas, and Provo Utah. This expanded connectivity touches numerous macro concepts, but will also do quite a bit to improve the day-to-day lives of its residents.

No More Media Buffering

Let's start by identifying the most obvious perk we're receiving... Speed. A decade or so after the internet's genesis, users found themselves in an awkward predicament. We were all trying (and hoping) to squeeze data that was never intended to fit in phone lines, through phone lines. Imagine playing a song for a friend across the phone.. Not so clear. Now imagine trying to squeeze an HD movie through that same plumbing. That's when we were introduced to the concept of "buffering". One of the most evident perks of Google Fiber will be the loss of that.

There are a few other existing software technologies that have been dragged down by buffering and will flourish in its absence. Video-based communications will be one large benefactor. Skype and Facetime are the most universally adopted, but business people relying on GoToMeeting or Cisco Teleconferencing will also be rewarded. Streaming audio and video will also take advantage of the expansion almost instantly - Meaning your Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, Spotify, iCloud, and YouTube apps will be exponentially more user-friendly.

True Cloud Storage

Cloud is more than just a buzzword, but few people really know why that is. Tech folks can explain it easily in just one word - Redundancy. "Cloud Storage" is based on a simple premise - If one server goes down, there should be another ready to take its place. This concept relies on the different methods of mirroring & redirecting, but functionally - it just means when one server is down another takes its place. This allows a network drive to operate just like a hard drive, but it does require one thing - a fast connection. With the addition of fiber network, apps like Dropbox, iCloud, SugarSync, Box, and Google Drive are now viable options to avoid saving anything to disk.

Most people never think about it, but a server’s physical location can also have a sizable effect on network speeds. Since this improvement is primarily client side it doesn't actually mean a server is any closer, but it does make them all easier (and faster) to reach. This streamlining of network traffic has a compounding effect. No matter what speeds you're dealing with, connecting to servers will now require less network bouncing to pass through. As these "fast-lanes" start to grow around the country, those higher speeds cause less overall network fatigue, in turn giving every internet user a faster connection. This concept is very similar to homes that produce solar energy. Not only are they requiring less power, but they're indirectly causing less regional grid stress.

Custom VPN Network

Now were getting to the fun stuff - imagine being able to build your own custom VPN network. The technology is already there and it's fairly easy to learn in a day or two, but it has been relegated to the worlds of large businesses and universities because the speed hasn't been there. If you're not already familiar, think of a VPN as a tunnel from you to your network (or just read up on Wikipedia ;). The exclusivity of this connection provides the biggest perk - Security. Once the connection has been breached, the whole thing shuts down. Like an underwater tunnel - If a drop of water is detected, the whole operation is closed to the public.

The balance of security will always be a sliding scale, but our current state leans heavily in favor of the "dark side". People are frightened of internet security... and they should be. Usable VPNs are an arrow in the quill that the public desperately needs. When you research the topic you can easily see all the benefits here, but if you're not a tech nerd just imagine confidently checking your email or logging into a credit card website from a public WiFi. Since these personal VPN servers are really just a gateway, you don't need a high-performance machine to set this up either. Any dated Gateway that is currently occupying closet space can do the job... insert gateway pun here.

Which Tools Really Harness the Advantages Of Fiber Optic Life?

While we patiently await the infrastructure build and that great old Italian restaurant called "519 South" undergoes it's metamorphosis (see image), there is plenty of preliminary setups we can do. Clean off those old computers, get all your passwords updated, move your emails from POP to IMAP, take a little time to configure that SSL security… basically, make all of those changes you temporarily put off that you promised you'd come back to once you got everything working... then forgot about ;) Google also provides email updates to keep you in the loop about their timing estimates (signup here). If you're willing to upgrade your apps a bit, these are a few of our favorite services that you may want to consider (or reconsider) before the big move.

Philosophical Underpinnings

This is certainly just my opinion, but I believe antique monopolies like Time Warner and Comcast have been a drag on the overall economy for quite some time. They take a hundred dollars from us each month and offer very little in terms of progress. One additional competitor obviously doesn't fix the sector as a whole... but it is a great start. Saying that these dinosaurs are a little scared of the competition is an understatement, whether viewing the lobbying dollars they've put up for restricting entry, their attempted powergrab that is squelched for now, or the conveniently timed "higher speeds" they're already advertising for. They're spokespeople till say it is a natural progression, but reading the situation as a whole - it's easy to see that they're just beginning to see the writing on the wall. The market still needs some streamlining but the days of price gouging, laughable customer service, restraining competition, and resting on an infrastructure that they never really built but are willing to charge us for could be nearing an end. That might be reading into the situation quite a bit, but it's now a possibility and I couldn't really say that just a year ago.

• Google Fiber
• @GoogleFiber on Twitter

Thanks for stopping by.

After spending the week in a tiny beach town called Duck, Kaeli and I decided to adventure out on the fourth to find some incredible ruins I'd stumbled on a few months back. A friend of mine from college had posted an article on Facebook under the title "The 11 Strangest Abandoned Places in North Carolina" _[1]. After falling for the obvious clickbait, I found a gem that I'd never seen before - an Outer Banks building just drowning in sand. Sand so high you needed to dig like a dog on a fence to pass through the doorways. I had a little trouble chasing down the original link, but after a little feed stalking, we found our target. After saying goodbye to her grandparents, aunt, uncle, and their family, we pointed the car south on 12 with a couple of Americanos and an insatiable commitment to finding the buried ruins and checking a few lighthouses off our list along the way.

Our Google Earth searching from the previous night didn't amount to much, but we did find the island we were aiming for - Pea Island. The caffeine started to kick in around 11 am (thankfully just as the 4th of July traffic started loosening up) and we were booking our way south down the Outer Banks.

Although the previous week had been almost coma-level relaxing, there was a palatable (yet unspoken) fear of sharks anytime we were near the water. For some surely biological reason, this summer hosted an outrageous amount of shark attacks. This subconscious concern must have spooked my ADD, because something in the back of my head was reciting this appalling rap song from years ago with a chorus that cycled 4 times in a verse "my head is like a shark fin". After struggling through conveying this hilarity, Kaeli and I had a conversation that went something like this...

Remember a few years ago there was a crappy Shark attack movie?. Jaws? No. Jaws 2? No. It was really bad. Like Carlos Mencia bad. Nicki Minaj bad. ...was there a Jaws 3?. No. Well, maybe. But no. ...Samuel L Jackson was in it. ...(silence).

A bit of Googling garnered us a title. The 1999 "Not At All Classic" - Deep Blue Sea (IMDB). This lead to finding a music video. The song title you ask? LL Cool J's short-lived pop sensation "Deepest Bluest (My Head is Like a Shark Fin)". Here's a link Deepest Bluest (My Head is Like a Shark Fin). See how long you can watch it. We got to about 1:15 until are muted stares turned into angry X clicking. The next 20 minutes of the drive was filled with me obnoxiously pointing out a thing that looked like a "Shark Fin". The Ace Hardware logo. The top of the Outback Steakhouse. ...sung to the chorus. Obviously. After enduring my "Shark Fin" references for what I can only assume was "long enough", we put some B Fleishman on and cracked the windows so we could taste the salt air. That's when we crossed paths with our second lighthouse of the day - Bodie Lighthouse.

Entering North Carolina's Outer Banks

Bodie Island Lighthouse

Most "out of towners" have a loose grasp of what the outer banks are like. It's much more remote then the prevalence of bumper stickers would have you believe. It's also a little confusing, because the lighthouses are "sound side". So as you travel south, the ocean is on your left and the lighthouses your right. Although we bypassed our first lighthouse (Currituck Beach Lighthouse - wiki), after passing through Kitty Hawk and Nags Head we decided to stop at Bodie to get a closer look. After we got all the fun facts and argued about the pronunciation a bit. People there will tell you it's pronounced "body", but I swear to god I've only heard it pronounced "Bow-Dee". Ultimately I concluded that it's just a trick we play on northerners. We're the south. That's kinda our thing.

Pea Island Outer Banks Coast Guard Station

As we approached the Bonner Bridge I could see a structure to the left off in the distance. I attached a small map below that might help you can visualize it better. Upon crossing the bridge, there's a small pull off to your left.

Wait. The Pea Island Outer Banks Coast Guard Station is Gone?!?

There's a small bay on the north side of the island and being the 4th of July, it had its fair share of visitors. What few seemed to pay attention to though was the roof-line in the distance. If you follow the paths south, you'll come upon a beautiful beach house precariously perched on stilts and stacked lumber. After comparing the facade to our research pics, we realized that that's the house. ...but it wasn't buried. What the hell?

After doing a little research I found that the Coast Guard Station had been decommissioned some 30+ years earlier. A little further digging showed that the station had quite a bit of history attached to it. Like so many other things in the world, the "fringe" location made it the perfect home for a sociological change. In 1880 after former slave Richard Etheridge was appointed as the keeper, Pea Island became the first life-saving station in the country to have an all-black crew. This once-neglected property has gathered enough attention to inspire an independent documentary titled Rescuemen: The Story of Pea Island Lifesavers.

In 2008 funds were gathered to preserve the site. The picture I've included below illustrates pretty clearly that raising this battered frame was no small feat. To be perfectly honest I was a little disappointed that we weren't digging through sandy ruins, but that feeling was short-lived. I realized pretty quickly that that part of my brain was clearly a bit selfish. In the big picture, how amazing is it that we were standing next to a time tested antique - a remnant of a bygone era, on the most remote chunk of the east coast, with tons of dusty history under its belt. What stood before us had weathered more hurricanes then we could imagine, the constant pressure of such an exposed environment - And yet, here it stood. Ready and almost eager to withstand another century of mother nature's abuse.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

When there's road ahead of you, it's hard to stop. And so we continued south to another relic, the old Cape Hatteras Lighthouse (wiki). Since it was nearing triple digits, I pushed hard to avoid walking up what appeared to be a giant tin smokestack. Thankfully Kaeli obliged. We wandered through the Tourist Center, wondered why they had apparently set up a progressive plan to move the lighthouse a few yards several times instead of just doing it once, then captured some Ingress bases and hit the road.

Ocracoke Lighthouse

We forged ahead and quickly got to experience Kaeli's first "Outer Banks Barge Experience". I know it's just a small piece of the voyage, but how fun is driving your car onto a boat? Seriously. After laughing at the tourists and soaking in some amazing shorelines for ten or so minutes the foghorn sounded and we disembarked. We were soon approaching my favorite lighthouse - Okracoke. After stopping to watch some intense kite-boarding, we passed right by an awesome little horse stable right off the road. Minutes later we arrived at the mammoth obelisk - the Ocracoke Island Lighthouse. After sneaking around back, we accidentally stumbling across the "lightkeepers" home (our apologies :x) and decided to head out. The intense whitewash sparkling in the afternoon light urged us to continue, so we pointed the car south. Not long after we found ourselves dodging floats and drunk locals meandering along the twisted road. We came to the end of the island and since it was a holiday the barge was closed. No worries - let's see if the locals can spare a beer.

We parked the car and our noses led us to a great little restaurant named Dajio. The food was amazing (especially the "happy hour" shrimp), the deck offered us the perfect combination of shade and breeze, and Fat Tire was on tap. What more could I ask for? All in all, in 24hrs we had got to see an overwhelming amount of beauty, some obscure NC history, and capped it all off with drinks at sunset. If you're anywhere near Eastern North Carolina or Virginia beach - Head south. Make an adventure out of it. The Outer Banks are a tough and remote spot, but what nature has produced are a few scattered yet impeccable gems.

• Recommended: Pea Island Life Saving Station - Wikipedia
• Recommended: FWS - Pea Island

Like everyone else with a iPhone, I've started to collect a few pictures that may not be suited for a social media site... but that I love nonetheless. To avoid the potential buildup of random awesome pictures sent to me from friends and family, I've decided to drop a few of them off here. They may seem dumb, but I'd just point out that you did visit a page clearly titled "random awesome pictures", so I think some of the responsibility falls back on you. I’ll periodically post updates and certainly drop a citation link if it's something particularly fun.

• Boylan Bridge - Raleigh, NC
• La Strange - Hilarious Lead Guitarist
• GR Store - Kozyndan
• Kozyroom - Kozyndan
• USA Chan - Kozyndan
• Banksy - Paris Hilton Remix CD
• Wallace and Grommit Graffiti - Random Awesome Pictures
• Random Crazy Thoughts - Stumbled Upon
• Benito - Napolean - Adolph - Donald

Feel free to share, just give credit to the originator of the random awesomeness. I'll include a couple of links at the bottom to cite my sources.

When growing up I only really recall three people who seemed genuinely at peace. Not folks who had everything they wanted or enough money to support any cause they wanted, I mean people who seemed content with themselves. These people loomed especially large in mind because of the sharp contrast of all the wealth-worship of the 80's & 90's. To begin with, Bob Ross and Shel Silverstein we're absolute game changers in my childhood. Their sheer talent and the way they made it accessible was an artistic inspiration that I'm still effected by to this day. The other huge inspiration did stress the importance of imagination, but in the big picture he just seemed like a great person. That man was the star of the Mr Rogers Show on PBS, Fred Rogers.

Young Fred Rogers...

Fred Rogers - American Hero

This formerly trained minister approached Pittsburg's WQED in 1968, because he was upset with the mindless children's programming he saw saturating television. He developed and pitched Mr Rogers Neighborhood himself with little experience and even wrote all of the shows music for the life of the series. That show went on to run for over 30 years nationwide, which is an absolutely incredible lifespan for a tv show. If you grew up in the 80's or 90's, you probably loved the Mr Rogers Show, but you may not be aware of all the great things he did when the cameras were off. Before highlighting those behind the scenes moves, I've got to share some incredibly telling Fred Rogers quotes and one clip that perfectly captures his unique take on life. While picking my top 5 Fred Rogers quotes was not an easy task, here are one's that stand out most in my mind.

Five of My Favorite Fred Rogers Quotes...

Mr Rogers Knows the Streets

Now you may be saying to yourself, "All these quotes are great, but Mr. Rogers did not keep it street"... And that's where you're wrong. In the late 80's he welcomed a young B-Boy on to his program and allowed him the opportunity to show his craft to surely confused older man. In my opinion, this moment perfectly encapsulates the magic Fred Rogers brought to the world.

He's not dismissive or condescending, just curious. That intense curiosity balanced with a clear respect for all of gods children coincide to make a pure environment in which both parties can learn from one another. By any stretch of the imagination this kid should be nervous, he's on tv... but he's not. Not to over-generalize, but this is what's missing from the world. I try to imagine a kid in this situation today and I can't help but think of off camera parents stressing him out, some agent insisting he plug the website, and a look of sheer terror with the camera's red light. This is a large part of what I believe is missing from the world and something we could use more of.

More then Just the Mr Rogers Show

Besides being one of my childhood heros that spoke with absolute authenticity, the other great aspect of Fred Rogers was his passive stance towards violence. Like every other American child I read plenty of stories about pacifism (…mostly Gandhi and MLK stories), but you rarely see it in action. Ironically I do remember seeing plenty of real-life bombs exploding, but not a lot of pacifism or peaceful rhetoric. If you could use some positivity, Fred Rogers testifying to Congress on behalf of federal funding for childhood arts is a great place to start. He was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Peabody Award, four Emmys, and roughly forty honorary degrees. On off hours, he was a trained general aviation pilot, swam every morning, raised two (probably adorable) sons, created the Fred Rogers Center, never smoked or drank, and explained his vegetarianism by stating "I don't want to eat anything that has a mother". While I could ramble off facts about his life, I think the largest impact was that he exposed millions of people to what a truly peaceful person is like. Before the Gulf War he even insisted on shooting a PSA letting all the children of the country know that the families overseas would be protected as much as humanly possible. While that may not be technically accurate, you have to respect the intention and I'd bet my life he beat down doors to have the military promise not to make a liar of him. Seeing an adult that cared so much and was downright excited about creativity planted a seed in minds everywhere… His impact is truly immense and immeasurable.

While I'm glad he didn't just stick to preaching, I'll bet if he were my preacher I'd probably still be in church every Sunday. While the previous quotes and examples just scratch the surface, I hope you liked my favorite Fred Rogers quotes and understand why he was so damn inspirational while growing up. I think it goes without saying, but the world could use more Fred Rogers’ right now. Hopefully, there are kids right now watching Mr. Rogers Show re-runs and seeing just how powerful genuine honesty and sincerity can be. If nothing else, I'm sure glad he was around while I was growing up and I'm sure any kids I have will think the same.

With the nonstop growth of pharma in the US, the side effects have reached comical proportions... but which drug has the absolute funniest side effects? If you've have seen the latest commercial for Axiron, you already know the answer to that question. If you haven't, let me give you a quick recap.

Funniest Side Effects? Lets Give Axiron a Shot.

So, to start with Axiron cures "Low-T" (which is a clever way to say low testosterone). Apparently Hypoandrogenism actually is a disorder afflicting less then 3% of our population, but that's not the market Eli Lilly is shooting for. Their advertisements in fact suggest that 7 out of 10 men suffer from "Low-T". But I suppose the legitimacy of the disorder is besides the point (even though I'd suggest checking it out for yourself)... The real gift here though are the funniest side effects you could ever imagine.

Now Bring on the Side Effects...

Now that list by itself would be pretty hilarious when you're considering the problem that it's attempting to address. The real kick comes in when you add the funniest side effects your family could ever be exposed if they come in contact with you... or the "deodorant".

How much testosterone would you need to be lacking for this trade off to be useful? Additionally - if the primary goal here is to raise sex drive, isn't it ironic that you're passing along such cruel side effects to your wife/girlfriend? I could go on and on, but I'll bit my tongue on this one... I do think things this ridiculous just show how far we've lost our way though. No matter what it's future - Axiron truly has the funniest side effects ever.

Dealing with large scale data is one aspect of web development that has seen a meteoric rise lately. It leaves devs with a problem they rarely encounter - having too much content. Most designers and developers I know spend quite a bit of time prying information out of clients and utilizing a few layout tricks to make it look good. Dealing with "big data" leaves you in quite the opposite situation.

While doing some research on a recent project I ran into an interesting subset of data. Researcher Brad Lyon created a beta project titled Data Visualization Births / Deaths in Real-Time that displays a simulated, real-time graph of births and deaths in the US. While this information might come off as a little depressing to some, it certainly does a great job of utilizing a scientific approach to tap into a deep psychologic issue... that being our own mortality. Click the map below and take a look at some Google Drive hosted data that runs a simulation pulling US data along with associated religions.

If you'd like a less filtered view, this post also covers data visualization births / deaths on a worldwide scale. This data is obviously a simulation since pulling real world stats would require a unified data source (and good luck compiling that ;), but much credit should be given to one of the leaders in the data visualization field - Brad Lyon. It should also be noted that on this particular data set, he worked with Bill Snebold. Although it may generate a bit of anxiety, viewing this data visualization births / death simulation allows you a unique perspective and at the bare minimum is some interesting data.

Some characters both embody and spit in the face of the American ideal. They come in many forms, but always end up drawing attention. There's no professional or educational requirement either, it really just requires authenticity, some humor, and the ability to look beyond convention. Huge figures in America have embodied these traits, names like Frank Lloyd Wright and Mark Twain spring to mind quickly. It's line of thinking that brings me to Huang's World. While he hasn't yet reached "household name" status, he's quickly approaching and the wide swaths of people he's met will vouch for his unique spirit. You may have already seen him on Vice or Fresh of the Boat, but let's start at the top... Who is Eddie Huang?

Who is this Eddie Huang?

Eddie Huang is the son of Taiwanese immigrants that stopped in DC, then setup shop in Orlando, Florida. His father founded a couple restaurants in the area, including the once widely heralded Cattleman's Ranch Steakhouse. By all accounts he was a wild child, but after buckling down a bit he attended both University of Pittsburgh and Rollins College eventually accepting a BA in English and Film. He then proceeded to obtain his JD, work on the incredibly honorable Innocence Project, serve on school associations, then eventually accept a corporate law job in New York. When the financial crash began rolling in, he flipped all that knowledge into a stand up comedy career (I wonder if his mom ever mentioned "this is what you're doing with your law degree?"). After some side slinging and printing up his own clothes label under the name "Bergdorf Hoodman", he eventually found his calling back in the restaurant industry.

Fresh Off the Boat and into the Fryer

In 2009 Eddie scraped together all the childhood knowledge he'd obtained from his mom's kitchen and dad's restaurant (where he worked as expo growing up) and opened his own restaurant. This Taiwanese bun shop named BaoHaus quickly became a neighborhood staple in the lower east-side of NYC. He did eventually move to a slightly better location with an expanded menu, but the Taiwanese-braised pork belly buns (known as gua-bao, hence the pun) he served remained hugely popular and unique. The impending growth certainly wasn't perfect and he probably did't help himself by engaging in snarky social media beefs, insisting he keep Four-Loko on the drink menu, rushing to open a new restaurant, or grilling reviewers online... but hating a hustler for hustling is truly wasted energy. All drama aside, Eddie Huang developed a name for himself in an unquestionably cut-throat restaurant scene. While this in and of itself man not be huge when you throw in the stand up comedian experience and the law degree, you're being to construct an interesting character.

After a few appearances on Vice and the Food Network, Eddie saw a chance to share his perspective with the world. In 2013 he wrapped on his book "Fresh off the Boat", which was released by a Random House offshoot. Coming from a relatively green author, this is an astoundingly easy read that also touches on some heavy issues. You'd be hard pressed to find another book that delves into both Taiwanese cuisine and racial injustice in the prison industry. Popular chefs like Anthony Bourdain praised his unique takes, but my favorite review comes from Dwight Garner of the New York Times who called it "a surprisingly sophisticated memoir about race and assimilation in America" and a "rowdy...counterpoint" to other memoirs dealing with the immigrant experience". With the popularity, Hollywood came calling (as they do) and Eddie found himself developing an ABC sitcom of the same name. While he had to eventually hand over the reigns on the show, flipping a development deal into a show that cans two plus seasons is nothing short of remarkable. It's also worth mentioning that he has another book called "Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China" that I look forward to reading soon. This New York Times article does a solid job of introducing the books concept and flushing out some of the back story. Literary notes aside, I think where you get to see Eddie in his natural state is on his Vice series now titled Huang's World.

Huang's World Season 2

Watch one episode and you'll be hooked. Eddie weaves narratives throughout the world by discovering culture through cuisine. While he's not the only foodie to walk this line, I think he shares the title with Anthony Bourdain as the only chefs doing it well. My favorite element of the show is that he's not playing a part, he's just having his adventures funded and filmed. This is "reality tv" in the truest sense of the word. His production deal with ABC did force him to pull a ton of episode he'd done with Vice under the name "Fresh off the Boat", but Huang's World has picked up where he left off there pretty quickly. While any video is a matter of taste, give it a look and ask yourself “Who is Eddie Huang?”… He’s an American hero, that’s who.

Not a Saint. Never Claimed to Be.

Like anything in our culture with some juice, Eddie hasn't been immune to criticism. Some say he grew up too privileged for his "cultural appropriation", some have grilled him for word selection during an interview on Real Time With Bill Maher, and his 2013 TED Fellowship was rescinded for not showing up to all required meetings. These arguments need to be taken into perspective though, because even when you're looking to critique I believe this is just a person being authentic. Authenticity is in severe shortage in our current culture and while we enjoy being exposed to it, many folks also see it as an easy mark for criticism. Authenticity is rarely vanilla enough to be palatable to ALL people, but thats a feature not a drawback. At my core I believe authenticity deserves praise and that's one trait Eddie Huang sports in spades.

If you think my Mark Twain comparison was a stretch, I simply encourage you to keep an eye on this guy. He's proven to be someone with integrity that's not willing to trade that in for short term gains. Stay up on his videos, Twitter, & Instagram, I assure you - if you feel the way I do about encouraging unique, authentic voices... You won't be disappointed.

Any kid who grew up in the 80s-90s knows all the board game classics. Operation, Shoots and Ladders, Clue, Perfection, Yahtzee, Battleship... but above all - the Risk board game was always my favorite. The accessibility combined with the high stakes always makes for a good time. After researching the game's creation, I even found a fun ironic twist in it's creation.

Origins of the Risk Board Game

My presuppositions about who would create a game like Risk were way off the mark. It wasn't a politician or diplomat, it was a Parisian director named Albert Lamorisse. You may not know his name, but many are familiar with one of his earliest works - The Red Ballon. If you like trivia, you might also know the star of that Palme d'Or & Oscar winning short was actually his son Pascal. In 1957 the game saw it's launch, but it wasn't an immediate success. After two years of dragging sales, Albert decided to sell his game to Parker Brothers. With a couple rule changes and a marketing push, the game took off. I searched for any ideological foundations behind Risk, but there wasn't much to find. Is it meant as a colonialist critique? Is it a warning against globalism? There's no telling. It is funny to know that a young French artist once entered a US boardroom aiming to sell them on a game of world war.

Over decades the maps have changed, but the game remains unchanged. One of the best aspects has always the diplomatic options. I'm sure serious players avoid this, but you could always help your nephew if they wanted to play. That seems like diplomacy at its purist. If you haven't gotten a chance to play, go pick up a copy up. The Risk Board Game can be as hard or easy as you want it to be, but it's never boring.

Kyoto was the largest pollution mitigation program in the last 100 years... But what did it actually get done?

View this Kyoto Infographic

This Kyoto infographic shows you a few important details. Was the U.S.'s withdrawal (followed by Canada) really a good idea? Take a detailed look at this Kyoto infographic and I think you'll get a clearer picture almost immediately.

I detest the phrase "outside of the box"... Maybe not as much as the word "synergy", but close. Macro problems like world hunger need "left-field" ideas as far as I'm concerned, but the more I think about this approach the more advantages I seem to find.

If you look at government assistance programs and you have at least half a heart, you're confronted with a problem. Assistance programs are intended to be "safety-nets" - measures to protect the most vulnerable from hitting points of despair... Homelessness, hunger, shelter, medical, etc. But how do you prevent people from taking advantage of these programs? It's a tough issue, but a cause a HUGE majority of our population would support. The only people I can think of that wouldn't support properly targeting government assistance would be the people who are currently (or simply like the idea) of exploiting it.

As you can probably tell, the issue I'm currently considering is hunger. How do we keep people in our community that need food... fed? Our approach so far has been to provide financial benefits to those people through basic means testing (emphasis on "basic"), but why haven't we considered cutting out the middle man?

This may sound dumb or naive to some, but I think the worst you could fairly call this concept is simple. Sometimes simple ideas are nothing more, but occasionally those ideas are substantial... important... almost necessary. If we utilized the amount of money we spent on one person's unemployment insurance (which I believe averages $300/week), we could have a healthy budget for a local farm. If the idea works (like I think it would), we could expand funds and put some farm workers on staff. I believe you'd also find a large supply of volunteers. I can tell you that I personally find growing plants (even on my tiny porch) very fulfilling... Soothing even.

The only opposition I could imagine would be people who think this isn't a financially prudent idea. I understand that point, but the commitment would be so minimal. There is no negative impact on the environment if it doesn't work, just let the plants go. If it did work (and that's obviously my feeling), imagine the benefit.

We would be providing healthy food to those who need it with a minimal amount financial commitment both initially and over time. It would take no more supervision then a public park and require only a small amount of work (you could even tie other government programs to a few volunteer hours a week if you wanted to expand on the concept). We can feed our community while minimizing taxpayers exposure to exploitation. It may sound "over the top", but we can save lives and provide a better community for ourselves at the same time. All it requires is some ambition and I think there enough of us out there who would be happy to provide that for a chance to make our world even a bit better.

I'll try to push this idea forward, all I'd ask is that if you agree with this concept that you'd do the same.