Misaddressed Emails: Volume II

Lots of people send emails to my Gmail account by accident. Presumably this is because I registered a premium Grade-A-For-Awesome account name back in 2004. Here are some more messages I have received over the past few years.

Full names have been blacked out to protect the privacy of those who don't double-check their email addresses before hitting "send".

TMI about someone's kidney stones:

A post-first date email from an infatuated ESL couple:

Nice photos of old people (I have received more than one from this sender):

A peek into the exciting world of Lutron Shading Solutions:

I like this one a lot - an invitation to a gathering of people who work for the United States Federal Election Commission:

 A depressing peek into someone's marriage separation:

YES!! Updates from the Masons. I like that when I pointed out he was using the wrong email address, he didn't believe me and said he'd have to double check.

Another person just refuses to believe that I am not the person they want to contact. When seeking a "therapist for riggers", Norm assumes us Neufelds must all know each other.

Review: LaCité Apartments in Montreal

I'm at the end of a 14-month lease at LaCité Apartments in Montreal, and wanted to jot down some notes my on my experience here - hopefully this can help a random Googler decide if they want to sign a lease here. 

Here's my pros and cons, anonymous internet friends! 

Pros

• Awesome location. Close to McGill and the downtown core. It's a 20 minute walk to the Centre Bell, 10 minutes to St Laurent Blvd, and 10 minutes to Place Des Arts Metro station. 
• Clean, well-kept, high quality units. I posted some pictures of my apartment here and here. As tenants move, I think they're replacing old ugly carpets with faux-hardwood like my unit - looks better, in my opinion. 
• Amazing in-building services. The four LaCite buildings share an underground shopping complex with a grocery store, pharmacy, post office, barber, bank, liquor store, gym, cinema, and restaurants. 
• Concrete walls & floors ensure decent sound insulation. You can't hear voices or footsteps, but you can hear your neighbours if they're pounding their bass, or dropping bags of glass marbles on their tile floors. 
• The process to sign a lease is pretty straightforward, and the woman who helped me was very nice. 
• Overall the building's administration was really great and helpful. Because the LaCite complex is so big (1,200+ units) they have to play by the rules - they're less sketchy than some smaller landlords might be. 
• Underground parking is available (but I don't have a car, so I can't vouch for if it's good or not). 

Cons

• Rent is more expensive than other buildings in the area, but you're paying for the convenience of the location, the underground services and the administrative overhead. 
• The building administration slips a "Happy Birthday" note into your door frame on your birthday. Presumably they have this information from copying some form of photo ID during the lease-signing process. While this is a well intentioned gesture, I found it creepy because I didn't authorize them to use my personal information in that way. 
• LaCite staff tell you they will never enter your apartment without your explicit permission. This is not true. Due to the size of the complex, they equate "slipping a notice under your door" with "receiving your explicit permission". Yearly smoke detector inspection notices are slipped into door frames that say (paraphrased) "someone will enter your unit some time next week, just FYI". The most stunning to me was when a LaCite agent let an interested future renter into my apartment without my permission while I was in Saskatoon for Christmas. Their justification was the two notices that they slipped under my door.... while I was out of town, unable to read them. When they saw the unopened notices, they didn't phone me to get my permission to enter - they showed my apartment to the stranger anyway. This is unacceptable to me - I don't think anyone would be comfortable with the idea of a stranger checking out their home without their knowledge. 

Would I rent here again? Yes, overall it's been a wonderful place to live. But I would have a second lock installed on my door (an option available to tenants) and not provide the administration office with a copy of the key. I'd be happy to leave it unlocked for smoke detector inspections, but I would absolutely leave it locked during long absences. 

LaCite website: http://montreal.lacite.ca/apartments.html

On Quebec

A few months ago - well into my stay in Montreal - I had an epiphany about Quebec: it exists, and a lot of people live here. In fact, 7.5 million people live here, which is 23% of the population of Canada, according to Wolfram|Alpha.

If you are/were like me (from Saskatchewan, and you've never lived out of province) your view of Canada is probably West-centric: you know a lot about BC and Alberta, a lot about the Centre of the Universe (Toronto), you hear rumblings about Ottawa, you know when the Red River in Manitoba floods, and you've heard of the Atlantic provinces. Of course I'm exaggerating, but in your daily thoughts about Canada-wide issues you probably forget Quebecers represent nearly 1 in 4 Canadians.

I don't pretend to understand all of the social, political, language and cultural issues that make Quebec unique. In fact, even by living in mostly-bilingual Montreal I am blind to a lot of issues that face Francophone Quebec. However, living here for the past year has made me recognize and appreciate what Quebec adds to Canada.

It's hard to explain this feeling. I suppose people who move to other countries experience the same thing, absorbing customs, language and culture. I think it's neat that we can have this experience within Canada, and I think there should be more opportunities for Canada to learn from Quebec and vice-versa, in areas like arts, culture, politics and social issues.

After this year I am not sure whether I'll ever live in Quebec again. But aside from the long-distance relationships, living here has been a great experience that's helped expand my definition of "Canadians".

Butterflies

I met up with some family in Montreal today and visited the greenhouses at Montreal's Botanical Gardens! I took a bunch of pictures, here are some of my favourite ones. Click on them to see bigger versions.

Close-up of the above plant:

75 year old bonsai tree! 

The one on the right had silver leaves! 

Monster pinecone? 

Real-Life, Feel-Good, Internet Karma

As a problem-solving tool, we often take our internet for granted. When we find a solution to our most obscure problems we breathe a sigh of relief - and close the browser window.

I want everyone to participate in real-life, feel-good internet karma (not the phony reddit kind!). The next time you discover something useful or incredible or solve a complex problem, publish your idea on the web. The next time you solve a problem thanks to some random web post, or enjoy some content that a small-time author has provided free of charge, send that person a thank-you! They won't be expecting feedback but they'll love receiving it.

Here's two obscure fixes I published, and some nice feedback that made the effort to publish worthwhile!

- - -

In January 2011 I encountered a problem with my smart car where the shifter gets stuck in park, preventing me from driving. The root cause of the problem is that temperature or dust/grime can prevent a tiny switch from moving inside the plastic box that encapsulates the shifter. Pry open the plastic, flick the switch, and problem solved! You can shift again.

I found the solution thanks to a helpful dude who posted a text-only explanation on an obscure automotive web forum {link}. I thought it would be easy enough to film the hack and put it online for other smartcar owners. Here's the 1-minute-42-second video.

Since it was uploaded about 14 months ago, about 9,000 people have viewed the video. Wow! Not quite a sensation, but 150 views/week makes me feel optimistic that a few people saved themselves a trip to the mechanic.

Here's a comment I received this week that made me smile:

This was a lifesaver dude! We had our sons smcar [sic] stored at our house outside for 2 years and this is exactly the situation we had. I could actually feel the little plastic switch with my finger. Flicked it and bingo! Thanks so much. My wife would give you a big kiss if she could! :)

- - -

In July 2008, in the middle of SCI-FI's summer camp programs, our old Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System 2.0 software stopped working thanks to a mandatory Windows update. The RIS 2.0 software was already ancient, but it seemed like Windows had finally killed it.

The SCI-FI team managed to figure out a solution to get the Lego software working again. I posted the solution to an obscure web mailing list where at least one other person was having the same issue, but didn't get a response.

Two and a half years later, in January 2011, I received this message:

Dear Brahm, we know we are not supposed to [send personal messages] on this forum, but we shall do it anyways because our gratitude towards you is more intense than just a 5 star rating. We have been trying to make our RIS 2.0 software and hardware work for many and many hours. Your tips , combined with other patches and apps, have finally led us to achieving our goal. We will now be able to power our insane robot project and be able to program it.
Many thanks from Montreal, Canada, and we wish you the best for 2011!
Felix and Laurent

I can just picture two exasperated students attempting to resurrect 12-year-old software when they shout, "FINALLY!!!"

Feels good, man!

Huevos Motuleños

Robyn came to visit me in Montreal this past weekend (yay!) and we made the most labour-intensive, filling, delicious breakfast ever: Huevos Motuleños!

Robyn found the recipe here, and we modified it a bit by making our own cornmeal tortillas and refried black beans.

Take a gander (click for larger picture!):

The layers are, from bottom to top:

• Homemade cornmeal tortilla
• Re-fried black beans with sauteed mushrooms and onions
• Two fried eggs (almost invisible in this picture) 
• A reduction of pureed tomato, garlic and Serrano pepper (spicy!) 
• A mixture of cottage cheese and feta cheese (a substitute for queso fresco, which we couldn't find)
• Crumbled Italian sausage
• Avacado

SO GOOD! We made the tortillas and the black bean mixture the night before, because we knew it would take a while to prepare and assemble everything. 

Here's a bonus picture of me rolling out cornmeal tortillas with a bottle of scotch (I don't have a rolling pin)

Accessible Encryption, Privacy & Security

Sometimes I talk to people about things like privacy, security, or data redundancy and they look at me like I'm a crazy person - why would anyone care about that? Do you have to be some sort of sick weirdo to care that much about those issues?

The reality is that my digital life is pretty boring, but it's important to me. I've had relatives have their emails "hacked" and I can only imagine how much it sucks to lose all of your correspondence and contacts. I've seen stories of people who bring their computers to a shop to have them repaired, and the creeps at Best Buy copy all sorts of personal files to snoop through later. I'm also extremely uncomfortable with the idea of people (internet service providers, governments) monitoring my web browsing habits, just like I'd be uncomfortable reading my physical mail and packages, or looking at my library history, or reading through my medical files.

Here's a few pieces of software that I use to keep myself safe and secure.

KeePass - free - www.keepass.info

One of the worst things you can do online is use the same password EVERYWHERE. If someone breaks into your email account, they can search your history to find all the services you subscribe to (Facebook, your bank, Skype, etc) then try your password on those sites. Odds are in their favour that it will work.

KeePass is a vault where you can store all of your passwords. You set a "master" password on the vault, then save all of your other passwords inside. KeePass also has a password suggester/generator which helps change all of your dumb passwords into awesome passwords. The file is highly encrypted (you generate entropy for the encryption by waving your mouse around the screen) and can't be accessed if you use a complex password. KeePass looks like this:

Generally I have a few unique passwords I remember, like my Gmail account. But everything else goes in the vault, and I randomly generate a 20+ character password for each account. If you asked me what my online banking password was, my honest answer would be "I don't know". I've been using KeePass for over four years and find it indispensable.


TrueCrypt - free - http://www.truecrypt.org/

TrueCrypt is free and open source hard drive encryption software. You can choose to encrypt your whole hard drive, create an encrypted "container" (like a folder) that you can encrypt and decrypt on the fly, or create a secret, undetectable hidden partition. Like KeePass, it uses extremely robust encryption to secure whatever you need away from prying eyes.

What would you store there? Ask yourself this question: If someone stole your computer, do you have any files that you'd never want to be shared with the world? Those are the files you'd encrypt with TrueCrypt. Maybe it's your tax return, maybe it's some bad Grade 8 creative writing that you can't bring yourself to delete, maybe it's your digital diary, who knows.

Or maybe someday you're going to have to cross a border into another country. Border security agents are getting more and more power to do things like copy your entire hard drive onto their systems for analysis. Imagine landing in London only to be immediately deported for having some pirated movies on your laptop. Forget asking whether they might find anything incriminating - do you think your personal data is safe with them?

Just how good is this encryption? Right now, there's a mortgage fraud case in the States where a judge is ordering a defendant to decrypt the contents of her laptop because the Feds can't break it.


Prey - free (for basic version) - http://preyproject.com/

Prey is free (for the basic version) and open source software that helps you recover your computer, phone, or tablet if its stolen. You install the software once, then write down your website username and password somewhere safe (how about your KeePass vault, backed up on your Dropbox account?).

If someone steals your computer and connects to the internet, Prey acts like a "good guy" Trojan horse - you can turn on the webcam, take a picture of the bad guy, and get information about where it's connecting to the internet from (without the thief knowing). You can take that info to your local police and they'll usually step in and get it back. Prey has a whole blog of success stories of people who recovered lost or stolen devices with Prey:
http://preyproject.com/blog/cat/recoveries


A VPN (I use WiTopia, which is $50-70 per year)

I just blog posted about this the other day - go read this post: http://blog.brahm.ca/2012/02/virtual-private-networks-and-why-you.html


Tor Browser - free - http://www.torproject.org

In my blog post about VPNs I give an over-simplified explanation of how VPNs work. Tor is a network of VPNs that obfuscates your location by encrypting your web traffic and routing it through multiple "Tor nodes" all over the globe. A super-detailed explanation can be found here.

I first heard about the Tor project a few years ago, when it was significantly less user friendly - it required a lot of end-user configuration. I just checked it out today, and wow, I'm impressed. It can be downloaded as a pre-configured instance of Firefox's portable edition that "just works". You start it up, wait a second as it builds an encrypted connection, and this is what you see:

If you're trying to access the internet from a country with a crazy dictator or want to take the simplest step possible to protect your privacy when you're travelling, install Tor Browser. Here's a list of who uses it, and why.

--

Make yourself and your data safe, and protect yourself from digital snoops!