Life Pattern

30 April 2010 | Misc | zimage

Alastair Clarke explains:

The theory is an evolutionary and cognitive explanation of how and why any individual finds anything funny. Effectively, it explains that humour occurs when the brain recognizes a pattern that surprises it, and that recognition of this sort is rewarded with the experience of the humorous response, an element of which is broadcast as laughter.

The theory further identifies the importance of pattern recognition in human evolution:

An ability to recognize patterns instantly and unconsciously has proved a fundamental weapon in the cognitive arsenal of human beings. The humorous reward has encouraged the development of such faculties, leading to the unique perceptual and intellectual abilities of our species.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/ph-maf062708.php

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14 August 2009 | Misc | zimage

As e-commerce is gaining momentum all over the world, so is the need of e-commerce platforms and infrastructure. For 2008 US eCommerce and Online Retail sales alone projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17 percent over 2007. And that’s not only the big players – more and more smaller brick and mortar shops open their on-line versions and many individuals are also selling their products or services on-line.

One very important aspect is the need for secure connection between sellers and prospective buyers. That’s were SSL/TLS come into play. The TLS protocol allows applications to communicate across Internet in a way designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. TLS provides endpoint authentication and communications confidentiality by using cryptography. If we talk about web that’s the https protocol.

With virtual web hosting, which is the most common type of shared hosting, one web server provides many domains through the same IP address and port. The server examines each request to determine which domain is being served by looking at HTTP request headers. Unfortunately, when the appropriate headers are received the server has already established the secure connection and cannot change to another SSL certificate.

So, SSL enabled virtual hosting isn’t exactly possible. Every SSL site need it’s own dedicated IP address. And there are quite a lot SSL sites out there lately, so quite a lot IP addresses are wasted.

An extension to TLS called Server Name Indication (SNI) addresses this issue. By sending the name of the virtual domain as part of the TLS negotiation it enables the server to “switch” to the correct virtual domain early and present the browser with correct SSL certificate.

The most popular web server software on the Internet, the apache web server, has had support for TLS SNI as external patch for some time (in combination with OpenSSL). It’s integrated since version 2.12 and recently even entered the Debian testing repository.

All major browsers have TLS SNI support as well, so we are almost there. Current versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari do support TLS SNI. Or… wait… Internet Explorer for Windows XP doesn’t support it? Yeah, that’s right. Seems we are out of luck, because despite Microsoft releasing Vista and Windows 7, the now eight years old Windows XP is still the most popular desktop operating system on the planet.

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12 July 2009 | Misc | zimage

Sit mens sana in corpore sano./

One often overlooked asset that you badly need in order to be productive (or sometimes just to be) is your body. If you get ill or die, your performance may drop dramatically.

Maybe one of the reasons so many people neglect their health is because it takes quite a long time to collect enough damage and notice that something is wrong. One can lead a sedentary life, eat too much bad food or overeat, smoke cigarettes, and nothing bad happens overnight. Now, imagine that you are 20 years old and in rather good shape. Add 15 more years and the very next day your teeth and skin are bad, you can’t breath after climbing the stairs up to the 3rd floor, and you find it difficult to bend and tie your shoe laces. I’m sure anyone would panic in this situation. Usually, this happens very gradually. It would take, let say, ten or twenty years and every day you lose just a tiny bit from your health.

The care for your health is definitely a Q2 activity. It is important, but it doesn’t seem urgent.

With reference to evolution, humans need to move a lot. It’s not natural to be sedentary for long periods of time. Frequent and regular physical exercise boosts the immune system, and helps prevent diseases such as heart disease, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. It also improves mental health and helps prevent depression and insomnia. Exercise has been shown to improve cognitive functioning.

At the same time, excessive body weight is associated with various cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. As a result, it reduces life expectancy.

It is not only the matter of life expectancy that is at stake here but also the quality of life. It feels great to have your full range of motion, to be able to climb a flight of stairs, or to run to catch the bus with ease. These are some of the things that most of us were able to do at some time in our lives. Personally, I’ve found that it’s so much easier to learn to ski, to ice skate, or to discover a new skill once you are in good shape. Being physically fit also allows me to enjoy some outdoor sports like mountain biking for example. Some people may think that the flexibility and the joy of movement and sports is a childhood hallmark, but that’s not true. Sports are not only for professionals either.

If nutrition and physical activity have profound effects on human health, then, why are they so often overlooked? I mean, what is more important that you and your health?

Now, go and put some physical activity on your calendar. Thirty minutes of brisk walking, 5 days a week is a good start. You can also go to work on foot or by riding a bicycle. There are lots of physical activities that you can do aside from what I have already mentioned. I’ll cover some of my workouts and results in a future post so stay tuned.

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