WillErwin.com

I wanted to take a second to call a time-out in your busy day. I know we’ve all heard and know that donating blood is a good thing to do. However, the majority of us don’t do it for a variety of reasons from it taking up time to being scared of needles. I donated blood a few months ago when my grandfather was in the hospital, shortly before he passed away. I recently got a phone call from the mother of a 10-year old child, thanking me for my donation of blood and that it helped save her child’s life. That really hits you at home when you hear that. Taking 30 minutes out of your day a couple times a year to donate blood and you’re helping save lives.

This is something physically you can do. One thing that you can do on you’re computer is to run Folding@Home.

Dear Will Erwin,

Your next eligible blood donation date is 04/01/2008,

Thank you for saving lives. Your last donation helped save the lives of
three people. You will be eligible to donate and save three more lives on
the date listed above. Please make the time to donate again. Patients need
you.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital Blood Center

So, please. Take an hour out of your day or weekend and help save a life. It’s easier than you think.

I’m happy to report that the ISP, Comcast, who has been throttling BitTorrent downloads have reached an agreement that they will upgrade their network capacity and also no longer throttle [BitTorrent] Internet traffic.

This is welcomed news as the US broadband infrastructure needs an upgrade along with BitTorrent becoming a more and more acceptable protocol and practice. The US used to lead the world in broadband capacity but in the past few years has been slipping further and further down the international list.

Below is a synopsis of the information that I received regarding the upcoming Cyber Storm II exercise.

The Cyber Storm II (CS II) will commence on Monday, March 10, and continue through Friday, March 14, 2008. This will prove to be the largest cyber security exercise of its kind and will reach across the globe. Four other countries are involved with “playing” in the exercise: Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. The Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division will be hosting CS II at it’s Headquarters in Washington, DC. We anticipate up to one hundred fifty
(150) players will be participating in cyber attack scenarios for a 24hr period over four days.

Boose/Allen/Hamilton, a private firm contracted by DHS, will be injecting cyber attack scenarios on private industries, federal and local government entities, and financial institutions throughout the week. It is possible that your office may receive one of these injects and contact you regarding a cyber attack, network intrusion, etc. All electronic injects will state *** EXERCISE ***. When you receive these cyber scenarios, follow your normal course of action as far as notifying your partners (private industry, law enforcement, academic, etc) and discussing the best way to solve the problem.”

SecurityFocus has an interesting article on a new $30 billion US government project, called Cyber Initiative. It is intended to secure the nations [United States] infrastructure, but some worry that it may be too little, too late. I think the skeptics may be right on this one.

Read it here

Just because two people argue, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. And just because they don’t argue, it doesn’t mean they do.

We don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

No matter how good a friend is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.

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