Remember that time it took me months to recover from my retinal detachment and my eye became red and itchy and painful because I had a corneal defect that would heal up during the night and then rip right off when I opened my lids in the morning? It turns out that this is "dry eye." It's what happens when the body stops producing the oily element ( Read more... )

Remember that time that my eye exploded? I had to fly home from Toronto and have surgery and I spent a week lying on my stomach, unable to move my head. I couldn't fly for three months, which was exceptionally inconvenient because I travel internationally for a living. My pupil wouldn't close for six months. My eye was red and gross and I developed ( Read more... )

At the height of the season, by the Bay, Dungeness crab is ludicrously cheap--around five bucks a pound if you buy it directly from the crabbers on the wharf. Fisherman's Wharf is one of those places where real San Franciscans do not go. It is a tourist sacrifice zone, all dazed-looking out-of-towners wearing I Love San Francisco fleeces and trying ( Read more... )

I never get over being picked up at the airport by a driver with a sign. My Moscow driver is young and his name is Alexei and I am about to get to know him very well because it will take us nearly two hours to get to my hotel in the center of the city. Traffic is murderously slow on a Sunday evening, when everyone is coming back from their dachas, ( Read more... )

Folsom St. Fair is how I know my life is getting back to normal. I missed last year's fair. I don't even remember where I was--I thought that it might have been Cambodia, but when I looked at my calendar it turned out to be Tbilisi. I saw the Stalin Museum and drank strange alcohols and joked around with a journalist from Foreign Policy who had ( Read more... )

"Child, don't go to Russia ( Read more... )

Every year I make my pilgrimage to DEFCON. I do some outreach for the Mysterious Workplace and maybe do a panel or give a talk or speak at BSides. I did both a panel and a talk this year, which was relatively low-key, since the panel required almost no preparation and the talk was in a small side room. For the first time in many years, I attended ( Read more... )

Everything that is left of my cat is in a little pine box decorated with a plaque labeled "Ada." It came with a couple of pieces of paper with Ada's paw print on them--I remember rolling my eyes and asking them not to do that--and some poetry. I haven't read the poetry. I glanced at it and whatever primitive part of my brain recognizes bad poetry ( Read more... )

I am squidless ( Read more... )

We've all encountered the Slacker Genius. Slacker Genius gets straight A's but never seems to study or do homework. When you grow up, Slacker Genius parties all night, drinks all the time, insufflates strange powders, and still gets the promotion or the keynote address. The Slacker Genius wins awards, gets quoted in the papers, gives talks, and ( Read more... )