Minnesota Nice??

Here is a tip for people who fall into the same small category as myself. If you use a Medtronic insulin pump, use the CareLink site to store your pump history, use a Mac, and are running OS X Mavericks for a time - short , I hope - after I write this post, you will run into the problem that I ran into when I first attempted to upload my pump data after upgrading to Mavericks. You will get an error page stating, Unfortunately, the configuration of your PC or web browser is not compatible with our standard system requirements. This is because the only OS X versions supported are "MacOSX 10.5 (Intel), MacOSX 10.6/10.7/10.8". Unfortunately, Mavericks is version 10.9. Unlike the logic for the browser, which recognized that my Firefox 24.0 met the Firefox 5 requirement, the OS check does not appear to allow for future versions. The workaround that I am using, for now, is to use the Firefox User Agent Switcher plugin. After installing the plugin and restarting Firefo

I received a fun email this morning, in which the sender asked if they might use my Java implementation of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) . It is rather fun for a 6-year-old program, written for a class, to be of use to someone else. That ranks up there with previous requests to use my even older Mandelbrot and Julia Set applet from both an undergraduate student and a teacher.

As I have been creating new accounts for myself on multiple websites in recent months, I have been taking lessons from the widely-reported story from August 2012 of how Gizmodo contributor Mat Honan's multiple accounts with shared passwords had been hacked . I have used different, lengthy passwords with multiple randomly-generated characters for each site. However, such lengthy passwords are impossible for me to remember, and I would not want to use the even less secure method of writing all of them down. I had heard multiple computer security experts recommend using such different, randomly-generated passwords and storing them in a password store which would require remembering only one master password. Ideally, for greater security, a key file would be used for the encrypted password store. In seeking out such a password store that was free, open source, and available across multiple platforms, I came across KeePass . The site's download page has the Windows download, as w

A few days ago, while starting my after lunch walk, I came across this cute scene of a mama mallard waiting as her ducklings each jumped up the curb after her: With the family reassembled, it was time to enjoy a swim in the building's artificial pond:

This past Saturday, I did a warm-up ride for the American Diabetes Association 's Twin Cities Tour de Cure , biking 30.2 miles in 3 hours and 42 minutes, including breaks for snacks, etc. Given that my average pace, including break times, has been under 9 mph in 2 of the last 3 long bike rides I've taken this spring (pretty bad - not much time to train, given how long winter stretched into spring), I have decided to return to riding the 42 mile, rather than 62 mile, route. My commuter bike, loaded down with a luggage rack and bag to contain snacks, medical supplies, and other stuff , is just a bit too heavy to keep up the pace for the 62 (or 100) mile rides. One thing I have found out, compared with riding my bike last year, is that Continuous Glucose Monitoring is truly a blessing on multi-hour bike rides for someone with Type 1 diabetes! The audible warnings of impending lows, and just being able to check the screen when taking a break, allows for such better, quicker moni

Though recovering from trigger finger surgery and the bad weather (winter storm warning on April 11!) are delaying my start in warming up for them, I am once again participating in two charitable bike rides this Spring. I am participating in: Bike MS: SAM'S CLUB Twin Cities Ride 2013 , and American DIabetes Association Twin Cities Tour de Cure If either or both of these causes interests you, I would be very grateful for your sponsoring me by following the donation instructions on the pages linked to above. Thank you for your consideration!

A couple days ago, I came across a facebook group called "Christian Republicans", one of those dreadful groups whose contents are all images of the "like or comment to [some meaningless gesture in support of God, country, troops, etc.]" variety. The first objectionable part of the group, to me, is its name: "Christian" and "Republicans" are neither synonyms nor antonyms. Nor, of course, are "Christian" and "Democrats", or any third party. I am sure God would find something to like, and much to dislike, about every political party. The disliked qualities may be taking stands not praising Him at every opportunity, or about shooting first, second, third, ..., and fiftieth and asking questions later, rather than turning the other cheek . I came across this group via an image stating, "LIKE if... AMERICA SHOULD RETURN TO ITS CHRISTIAN VALUES!" What really infuriated me was seeing this comment among the thousands underne