The Integrated

I recently saw Tron for the first time, and I’m struck by the ways in which it reminds me of Speed Racer. Both are technological marvels of their day, consisting almost entirely of colorful computer graphics. For both films, that is their only asset. “Ham-fisted” is a terribly inadequate term to describe either of them. Both feature superficial commentary about the hijacking and spoiling of the little guy’s noble endeavors by corporate overlords. At least Tron has a cult following; I imagine it’s mostly people who saw it as children when it came out, and are blinded by nostalgia. I’m not sure Speed Racer will ever enjoy the same kind of niche reverence. Perhaps there’s a group of kids today who will revere it as adult geeks 20 years from now. I shudder at the thought of it. Tron Legacy will most likely have the same result. Very, very pretty to look at. Not much in the way of substance. I am open to other possibilities. Having Flynn become the new MCP, as suggested in the trailer, is a logical next step for the story, but maybe they have somewhere interesting to take it.

So, I’m out of the Air Force now. I drove over 4,000 miles from Anchorage, AK to Jackson, MI, then drove back to Minneapolis a few weeks later to move in to my new apartment. Now that I’m settled here and school is underway at the University, I’m looking to start blogging again.

I’m still gathering topic ideas and links, but I do want to make a note right now on the password management system I wrote about. One issue that I’ve encountered is that TrueCrypt requires local administrator privileges to run. That may or may not be an issue for you. If you need to get into KeePass on public computers in computer labs or internet cafes, TrueCrypt’s not going to be usable, unfortunately. In this case, I would lock KeePass with a password rather than the keyfile, and use the password guidelines I described for the TrueCrypt container. Obviously this has the downside of not having that nice safe storage space for sensitive data in case you lose your thumb drive, but you will still have safe, secure passwords.

I also want to continue Project Euler but I may not for a while, perhaps not until I get into my comp sci coursework.