After getting a pasta making machine (basically just a device with some rollers, some cutters and a hand crank that allows you to roll out the pasta dough to a perfectly thin profile, and cut the pasta into linguine or other strip uniformly), I needed a place to allow the home made pasta to dry out. A countertop works, but real estate is at a premium. So I came up with this:

The piece was made from Maple. The stem is joined to the base via a mortise and tenon joint. The stem is hand planed to an octagonal shape. There are eight dowels made from square stock and various hand planes. The holes were drilled with a brace and bit. Lastly, I finished it with 4 coats of water based Varathane.

If you look at the trend of reported data breaches, in 2004 there was one major reported breach by AOL. By 2008 this increased to 21, including companies such as Starbucks, AT&T, Stanford University and T-Mobile. Fast forward to 2020, and I can't be bothered to count them.

Clearly there is a big problem here. I am pretty sure most people will agree that this is disconcerting. These breaches usually meant that some of your confidential information has been stolen by malicious parties without your consent. This may be as benign as an email address, or it could be your social security (insurance) number. It can be as minimally disruptive as getting slightly more spam email than usual, or as bad as getting threatened to be exposed and then committing suicide.

So who is at risk? You might assume only large corporates are targets, and to some degree you are correct. Larger, or more public companies tend to be the focus of specific, targeted attacks more often than smaller, lesser known companies. This is no different from life in general - the more visible somebody is, the more attractive target they will be. The problem for smaller companies is the fact that they are often targeted by automated systems constantly scanning for vulnerable targets, also known as targets of opportunity.

Put lichens under a fluorescent light source and it glows bright orange. These organisms are fascinating - being a mutualistic composite of cyanobacteria and a fungus.

So if you are not Patrick, you are aware of COVID-19. You will also be aware that if you ask all 7.8 (- 11300) billion people on this planet whether wearing a face mask will help reduce the spread of the virus, you will get exactly 50% responses saying yes, it will help, and 50% of the responses will claim that it does not help.

So I turned to the world's most recognized authority on the matter - the WHO. Going to their official web site, their take on masks during this pandemic is highly contradictory.

They claim:

Let the ad speak for itself. Btw this is the year 2020. (And no, that is Mbps not MBPS as advertised)