Friday, August 24th, 2007

Time	Event
8:07a	Recommended links; cyberattack on Estonia.... We're supposed to be worrying about being attacked by Iran? Being attacked by Venezuela? About running out of oil? This month's issue of Wired [excellent issue, in my opinion] has a very long and through and detailed article about something I find many times scarier than the standard set of scare-stories we're getting: "Hackers take down the most-wired country in Europe," by Joshua Davis, at http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia . [If you don't have time for the long article at the moment, there's a short piece titled "Estonia recovers from massive denial-of-service attack," at http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/05/17/estonia-denial-of-service-attack_1.html . But I recommend reading the long one, first chance you get, if you haven't already read it.] The Wired piece is where I learned about "... Kurtis Lindqvist, the man in charge of running Stockholm-based Netnod, one of the world's 13 root DNS servers, which direct global Internet traffic. That makes Lindqvist a sort of Olympian in the IT crowd. ... By day, he wears a trench coat and shades, but the geek in him is just below the surface. He loves to play badminton and often programs late into the night. And, befitting the trench-coat-and-shades look, he belongs to a clandestine alliance of Internet elite with the power to cut off global Internet flows. He's one of the so-called Vetted: the select few who are trusted by the world's largest ISPs and can ask them to kick rogue computers off the network. The Vetted constantly crisscross the globe to expand their network of trusted members..." I suppose almost every one of you already knew about "the Vetted"; I sure didn't. (21 Comments | Comment on this)
8:55a	Personal note; phobias and whining and swearing... Many thanks to all of you who've sent good wishes in response to my whining and swearing yesterday about Things Dental. And I agree -- intellectually -- with those of you who've told me that the worst part of getting crowns is what they cost. You're quite right, and I'm ashamed of myself for complaining.... Here I am, a person with decent dental insurance, blessed with the world's best and kindest dentist, and I'm whining and swearing. Tsk. I have exactly three phobias. Cattle, as you know. Being physically restrained -- which comes up so rarely in my life that I'd forgotten about it until I read that essay by Elyn R. Saks titled "Freedom of Motion," at http://tinyurl.com/2ravgw . And dentists. I know the reason for the cattle and dentist phobias: being pitched over a fence by a longhorn steer when I was not quite four years old; and having a dentist who used no pain-relief mechanisms of any kind while filling cavities and who slapped me when I screamed, way back in the 1940s. I have no idea what may have set off the phobia about being restrained; whatever it was, I don't remember it. Maybe I also owe that to the 1940s dentist, come to think of it, since I know I had to be literally dragged to his office by force. I have always hoped I'd outgrow the cattle and dentist phobias. Because when I was a child I was scared of a much longer list of things, and I did outgrow almost all of those fears. And I'm certainly better about The Dental Experience, as long as it's an experience with my own dentist, who is infinitely patient with my nonsense. I used to start shaking when I had to talk on the phone with a dentist's receptionist; I don't do that any more. I still lose at least two pounds every time I go to have my teeth cleaned, however, so I'm not ready to do any bragging yet. I am aware that I could just refuse to have the crowns on my teeth done. I told my dentist yesterday that at 71 I couldn't help wondering how much longer I was going to need those three teeth that are on the verge of breaking any second now; and he reminded me that my grandmother lived to be 96, but said that the decision was of course up to me. And because I do understand that all the alternative things that will happen if I don't get the crowns done are far worse and would be far more expensive, I will call his office today and make an appointment. I can't conveniently have the crowns done until after the two promotional dates for Twenty-One Novel Poems on September 8th and 22nd, and will be hoping that none of the three teeth give way until I've gotten past the 22nd. And then I'll try to refrain from whining and swearing. (30 Comments | Comment on this)

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