Today, Emily and I made our way safely back to Ottawa. We also played what may have been the first ever game of Scrabble Hold-Em, with generally positive reviews.

Tomorrow, it is back to work - to face a ‘pending’ pile of unknown size and content.

P.S. As native Vancouverites, it is unusual for Emily and I to come home and find significant growth of fungal and insect life inside of our dwelling after twelve days away. Evicting the fruit flies seems likely to be a time consuming process. Ottawa’s heat and humidity takes getting used to, on several quite different fronts.

Lovers of the Pilot G2 series of pens, take note: the so-called G2 ‘Pro’ version of the writing implement is only very marginally superior to the disposable model. Both are made of similar plastic, and the clicking system for retraction actually feels a bit cheaper on the $5 ‘Pro’ pen than on the $1 disposable pen. Since the ordinary version takes refills just as well as the more expensive one, there is no real reason to make the switch. In fact, the cheaper pen actually comes apart more elegantly to be resupplied with ink.

If you want a genuine step up, using the same ink cartridge system, hunt around for the metal bodied, $12 G2 Limited.

On a side note, it strikes me as odd that, while I have dramatically more expensive pens than the G2, I rarely feel comfortable carrying them around. As such, they languish in boxes in my apartment while everything from letters to to-do items on 3.5″ cards emerge from the tip of Pilot’s low-cost devices.

This Slate article on honey and veganism makes some good points: most notably about the inconsistency between refusing honey on ethical grounds and accepting fruit that is pollinated by domesticated bees. Not eating anything that requires bee labour for production rules out “almonds, avocados, broccoli, canola, cherries, cucumbers, lettuce, peaches, pears, plums, sunflowers, and tomatoes.” In theory, one might be able to find some of these things grown only with the assistance of naturally occurring pollinators, but I doubt it is something most honey-shunning vegans have even considered.

My personal position, as described before, is that there is no fundamental problem with using animals for food. The problems arise when it is done in an environmentally unsustainable, unhygienic, or morally unacceptable way. The latter condition means that, when animals above a certain threshold of sentience are involved, they cannot be treated in a way fundamentally contrary to their nature. In the case of bees, I would argue that they fall below the sentience threshold. While it is impossible to determine, at this time, whether they are capable of experiencing suffering, forming complex thoughts, and so forth, it seems plausible to conclude that they generally cannot, and are thus more on par with protozoans, plants, and fungi than with complex animals. I don’t claim that this moral code is entirely comprehensive or internally consistent, but it presently strikes an acceptable balance between my level of concern and the amount of time I am willing to spend pondering such questions and taking actions required in order to not contravene them.

In addition to honey, I generally disagree with the vegan objection to wool. There doesn’t seem to be any fundamental cruelty or desecration involved in the shearing of sheep, though I should probably investigate the conditions in which sheep used for wool production are raised and live.

More on food, ethics, and the environment:

• Manifestos on the Future of Food & Seed
• In Defense of Food
• Meat, methane, and global warming
• Meat eating and ignorance
• E. Coli and the acid rumen
• Meat and antibiotics
• Diseases and factory farming

There are many more, but that list should get the curious reader started.

Probably inspired by the recent and unfortunate demise of the ‘Scrabulous’ word game on Facebook, I came up with another variant version of the original board game, based on a fusion with a popular version of poker.

For the most part, it is the same as normal; rules on scoring of letters, how words can be placed, and so forth remain. The big difference is that there are three face-up tiles beside the board. People can use any combination of their seven tiles and the three tiles to make a word on the board. Once the three letters are down and everybody has seven of their own, a three minute timer is started. Whoever can come up with the highest scoring word then gets to place it on the board. Players can use pads of paper to write down possible words and their corresponding scores, if desired. The same person can theoretically go time after time, replacing their own letters and the three upward facing letters every time a word is placed.

Normally, each player subtracts the value of their remaining letters from their score, when the first player runs out of tiles and can draw no more from the bag. (Also, if a player manages to use all seven of their letters in their final turn, they get to add the value of everyone else’s tiles to their score.) A fairer system, for this variant, might be to require that a player use all remaining upright tiles, as well as their own, to earn the bonus from the remaining tiles of others.

[Update: 6 August 2008] Tonight, Gabe, Emily, and I played the first ever game of Scrabble Hold-Em. The experience made it clear that a few rules needed to be refined.

Here are some updates:

1. There are two variants to the game. In one, the three upright letters in the ‘hold’ change every time a word is put down, getting randomly exchanged for others in the bag. In the other version, only letters used to form words are replaced from the bag. Players choose which version they want to play before the game begins.
2. In the event that two people have words of equal value, the word with the highest value letter will win (like a high card in poker). If the highest letters are tied, the second highest are used, and so forth. If all letters are tied, a coin will be flipped.
3. The game ends when one player clears their rack, regardless of whether face-up tiles remain in the ‘hold.’
4. A one minute time limit makes for a very hectic sort of game.
5. Because it is harder to make ten letter words than seven letter words, a ‘Bingo’ is worth 75 points. This is awarded to a player who uses all seven of their own tiles, as well as the three in the ‘hold.’

Overall, this game made me feel more as though this could be a good variant upon the original game. It would be excellent if other people could try it and leave comments here.

Health Canada has followed up the climate change impact assessment carried out by Natural Resources Canada with a report of their own: Human Health in a Changing Climate: A Canadian Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity. For some bizarre reason, they have decided not to post it on their website. Rather, it is available through email upon request. To simplify matters, here it is:

• Cover
• Synthesis
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Assessment Methods
• Chapter 3: Vulnerabilities to Natural Hazards and Extreme Weather
• Chapter 4: Air Quality, Climate Change and Health
• Chapter 5: The Impacts of Climate Change on Water-, Food-, Vector and Rodent-Borne Diseases
• Chapter 6: Health Impacts of Climate Change in Quebec
• Chapter 7: Health Impacts of Climate Change in Canada’s North
• Chapter 8: Vulnerabilities, Adaptation and Adaptive Capacity in Canada
• Chapter 9: Conclusion
• Glossary

When I have the chance, I will merge them all into one file and post it.

One of the most annoying things about maintaining good password procedures is the fact that various places have different requirements. Some sites I use require one capital letter and one special character (100%Beef!), whereas others forbid special characters but require numbers. Many places have minimum password lengths, while a few especially annoying ones have relatively short maximum password lengths. Relatively few permit you to use a passphrase.

The best option would be to permit an unlimited string, including whatever punctuation and special characters are desired. Using a string basically foils brute force attacks, as the result of the sheer number of combinations. A hardcore password like “Sz5XULBKwPtI” is probably no more secure (and certainly much less memorable) than a custom phrase like: “The thing I most enjoyed about Paris, France was having picnics in the evenings.” Even if you only permit letters and numbers, each additional character increases the maximum possible length of a brute force search by a factor of 36: 62 if the passphrase is case sensitive.

Attacks not based on brute force (such as those where keystrokes are logged or passwords are otherwise intercepted) can naturally be carried out regardless of the strength of the password itself. What a passphrase system would allow is a high degree of security along with lessened requirements for obscure memorization. All it would take is a few minor code changes here and there, after all.