A new edition for us, only this time with kids and Cosplayed.
The kids were respectively left to right: Ayano Aishi from the Yandere Simulator game, Jessie from Pokemon team Rocket, then comes Ondine Kasumi (also known as Misty in the English speaking world) from the Pokemon universe.
In the back, was my humble person cosplayed as Aiden Pearce from the Watchdogs game. And, last but not least, my Wife who made her own Steam-Punk cosplay - not linked to any game, but rather to a type of game (like Bioshock, Borderlands etc.) - which looked amazing. And we were not the only ones to tell her (many asked her for a picture).

The plan for the next conventions is to have everybody cosplayed in the Steam-Punk fashion.
Due to popular demand, here some high-res pics Pic 1, Pic 2. 

 it was an amazing 2 days we spent at a charming little town in Switzerland, known as Schaffhausen.
After a early morning flight (7h30 from Paris CDG), we landed in Zürich, took the train to Schaffhausen and started visiting a bit before our Hotel-room became available. The one site to visit is the Munot Fortress.
In the evening, we realized that the event Stars in Town taking place every year since 2010, lasts several days and brings in various stars on stage. Our luck was that we had Toto and Roger Hodson (former Supertramp member. He actually also wrote most of the early songs of Supertramp) performing one after the other. And it was truly amazing.
Roger Hodgson was first, and performed as if he never aged. As last song, as it started to rain - guess which Song he performed? Yes It's raining again This man was also able to enchant his public without really playing the mad man.

Next came Toto. Here, the weight of time started showing up on some of the band members. Even though they had a solid performance, I have to personally mention that depending on the instruments that where played, the audio system distorted pretty strong.
Why does Music at concert always has to max out the amplifiers to a point where the audio quality drops drastically?

Anyway - it was an amazing experience to see our old Idols again, playing what we listen on a daily base at home.  

 as last year we definitely didn't have enough time to see all that was interesting, we (all family) had decided to go back to the same location, same hotel, same everything - except the sites we had missed. These - we had to see again. Of course, Indy was again part of the team.

Regarding the explored sites, we checked out the Temple of Artemis nesseld in a marvellous valley at Brauron, the impressive abandonned fortress of Ramnous overshadowing Euripe's straits, Corintia's site overlooked by an amazing fortress (we didn't have the courage to climb up to). We tried to meet Hercules at Nemea and looked for a less famous hero named Amphiaraos (somewhere around Oropos).

Of course, we went back to Athens to check out Hadrian's gate, which led us to the temple of Zeus. But most impressive was the natioanl archeological museum, which displayed gold Mycaenien treasures from the Peloponnese (Future destination?). As for the Cycladic museum which was a charming surprise, we strongly recommend it.
Check out our Web-album for some pictures.



Because our oldest had her first level in the FFESSM (French divers association), we also made some diving trips. My wife and the little one were not really happy about the weather influencing our diving excursions (it is not a problem to go visit a site during strong winds, however this could prevent a dive).
What you should not miss, are the various Videos we made from the underwater life around the Marathon bay. Notably, the dive at the Katrakilia/Dikastika, Kinasoura and last but not least, a Night dive in the Marathon Bay. 

 So - as my old Harmony Logitech 785 was dying showing signs of old age, I decided it was time to get a new device to control all our Living room Media devices. Note that my old device did provide good service for almost 10 years, so why not use a Harmony device again?
Checking on the Google Brain Extension, I decided to try out the Logitech Harmony Elite which also has a Hub to control other devices etc.

The main reason I wanted to use that setup is because I did read that you can setup you remote control using your tablet. And that - I have to admit, is a bliss. It took me 30Minutes to setup my systems (Could not migrate my old configuration, as the systems are different, and the software is too). The control of the devices works as expected (Better as with my old device, the contacts on the touch-controls weared out over time), and all systems are responsive as expected.
But then came the big BUT.

As I have decent monitoring systems in place, I realized that something was not right since I had the Harmony hub in place, my DNS Server started to answer way more DNS requests than usual...

I then took a packet capture to check what was happening, and realized that all the traffic was coming from the Harmony Hub - and that one goes to pubnub.com.
My first reaction was to block pubnub.com completely at the firewall level. What happens is that the Hub will issue DNS Queries (2 per second) to get a new IP and probe it to connect to the pubnub.com service. after communicating with Logitech Support, they provided me this explanation as to why this happens. After looking through this, and analyzing the traffic that is going out of the Hub direction pubnub.com, it is mainly a keep-alive data connection, to enable people from the outside of your network to control devices in your home. Imagine it to be a back-door into your home, to enable/disable lights or any other controllable devices of your smart-home.
Only I don't want that. I have no smart-home, and thus no devices to be controlled from out in the internet - and anyway - I would never let any device connect to the Internet that I do not control myself. My first reaction was to block any internet access. But as soon as you do that - you cannot configure the devices anymore.

• Block the Hub on the Firewall for any outgoing traffic using the REJECT option (actually, the firewall tells the device it has refused the communication request to pass). This was my first big mistake. My internal LAN being very fast, the HUB reacted almost immediately and tried to connect to the next of the 1000 (yes, it tries to connect to ps-10.pubnub.com up to ps-1000.pubnub.com, almost 1000 hosts) to send keepalive signals and sync with the servers
• Next attempt was to configure a silent DROP into my firewall. This works actually best, but causes the Hub or the Elite Remote to behave weird. Either of these devices becomes unresponsive to any commands. Connecting to the Hub through a tablet app also fails after a while.
• Last attempt was to Hijack the pubnub.com SOA in my own lan. This is a technique to respond to a requests sent for information from the pubnub.com using my own DNS/Caching Server, and return a 127.0.0.1 to the requestor. This too, was a mistake. As the 127.0.0.1 IP is the local IP of the device, so the Hub knows even faster that there is no response coming from the remote host, thos requests a new host IP for the next probe, resulting too in a higher load on servers etc.

In the end, I configure the Harmony device while opening the network, then after the configuration is Ok, disallow any access to the internet using a silent Drop and hope for a timeout to be high enough so it does not SPAM my network with non necessary requests.

My personal conclusion on the harmony Hub is: If you have a smart home and want to be able to control your lights or any other device in your home, while taking a vacation on the Moon, go for it. If however you are a security and privacy savy person, and want to control the device you let into your LAN, and want to know what is going on, you will have to deny internet access to the Hub which will lead to a weird behavior, sudden unresponsiveness and your family being unhappy because that happens. If you are the latter, get something else.

Hopefully Logitech will add the possibility to disable Pubnub alltogether, because that is a real pain. Also, stabilizing the Hub/remote function when Internet connectivity is cut off, should be revised. So my verdict: Harmony Hub is an unfinished product, not really ready for power users (those who do not accept the fact they don't have the control over it's functionality and what it does).  

 Well - many say that in case you have a Windows system running, you need a good antivirus program.
Question I ask myself, especially since in the past I have worked quite some time for a large player in the Enterprise Security Division, why do we need to protect the system? Isn't it a requirement that the OS and the applications are programmed decently to not let any malicious code get into the system?
That's how it should be. But in reality we actually have 2 FAIL conditions:

1 - The Operating system is not secured correctly (Poor code)
2 - Marketing of the AV manufacturers tells you that without AV, you are vulnerable

The worst part is that everyone believes it . It goes as far that the Ministry of security tells you to actually install one or better 2 AV software on your computer, and Insurances will insure your business only if you have AV software running on your devices.
This - actually - is a craptacular mess. It only shows we are dealing with the symptoms and are not dealing with the root-cause of the issue - and are believing Marketing crap by the vendors selling AV Software and Microsoft not being able to secure the OS they created - namely the poor crappy code that is at the source of this entire clusterf*ck called IT Security. Thank you so much Microsoft for your role as a leader and as an example of what not to do.

Many however are asking me what to do in terms of security. A part from the fact to dump Microsoft products alltogether, there is not much I can advise. Thing is - my wife and I have 2 Gaming rigs. These are running Windows 7 and Steam/Ubisoft and that's it. These rigs are running now for 5 years, and we had no Viruses on it. But we have applied the following rules to the letter on these rigs (For day to day work, note that we have both mac-mini's. Mine running under linux, my wife's running OS-X). For the kids, connecting to the Internet is allowed only through their Tablets or a dedicated linux network machine.
So - for Windows, strictly apply the following rules:

• Don't install third-party Anti-Virus Software (Symantec, Avast, Kaspersky etc. - with a lot of luck, they may be able to detect 50% of existing viruses - but for that the performance impact impact of your rig will be up to 20%). To be able to do their work, they need to implant themselves into the system and if that is not done right (as often seen), open up the system to attackers. Something they are supposed to prevent. What Windows 10 provides out of the box is largely enough, and is well integrated to the system already.
• Make sure your OS is always up to date. Activate automatic updates and let the system install these on a regular base.
  Don't you hate it when your systems boots up under your ass in the middle of a presentation or while writing a document, and there's nothing you can do about it?
  Also, during the Period Microsoft tried to force users to upgrade to Windows 10 - we had to actually disable the Auto-Update function and lock the network down! Shame on you M$.
• Don't ever read mails under Windows. E-Mails are one of the primary back doors to your Windows System. In case you have to, use Chrome and read mails using GMail Web-UI. Google is known to be very strict on tagging and sorting out suspicious content/mails.
• Don't ever click on links provided to you by mail or friends through social media. Identify the WebSite the link points to, and enter it manually into your browser. Then use the identifier to find the page.
  Remember - a router/firewall will prevent any connections from outside to the inside. When you click on a link however, you tell the firewall to expect a response from that link's destination. And once you have downloaded code (javascript/ajax), the latter is executed on your browser inside your LAN. This also means that any malicious software can now connect to any site on the outside - once you so gently downloaded it to your local computer by clicking on a link provided to you by friends
• Don't do social media through Windows OS. The temptation to open a friend's provided link (which can be due to a hacked account) is too high. Use your phone for that!
• In the Windows 10 Settings pane, disable anything that would provide Microsoft or any third-party your data. This also means disabling Microsoft cloud integration, not using Skype etc.
• Use a password safe (OpenSource) to store all you login/passwords. Don't allow any system integrated password saving program to do that for you. You don't know where they store your data!
• Make regular backups of your data. Best is to separate the OS and the user-dat a partition, and make a regular backup on an separated device that will be unplugged after the backup is done.

On the other hand - there are various other things I do to protect our LAN from malicious code attacks.

• Block various services to traverse your firewall from LAN -> World.
  - This includes essentially DNS requests. Only exception here is your DNS Server.
  - Block all Data collecting/telemetry sites microsoft sends its data to. I had provided a list in an entry to my site here
• Download regular threat-network lists and let your firewall block these. These lists provide the subnets and/or IP's that are currently known to be controlled by botnets. Locking these out immediatly prevents them to become active against your network. Lock-Direction should be bi-directional and make sure to also block already initiated connections!
• Use DNS Blacklists and integrate these into your local DNS Server. The principle is actually pretty efficient. It performs a SOA Hijack operation, and returns the local loopback IP of every device if that hostn...  Read more  

 it was this time of the year again - Holidays! However, this time we have decided to not only look for old Greek remains with my explorer team, but also have some other activities like Diving.

We visited in average temperatures of 34°C the remains of Delphi, an amazing panhellenic oracle center hanging in the mountains. Greeks thought it was the center of the world!!! We couldn't avoid Athens and its Acropolis and it's world famous Parthenon dedicated to Athena, the tutelary goddess of the city. But the most striking and moving visit in the capital was the ancient Agora, the city's political and economic center where an almost complete temple dedicated to Hephaistos is still standing and from which we could see the Acropolis. It was not difficult to understand why Athenians were so proud of their city.

We also went to Cap Sounio to see the remains of the Athena and Poseidon Temples. The latter is perched on a cliff watching over the boats coming in the bay and the view is breathtaking. But we also played adventurers and spent a day driving and discovering a small part of the island of Eubée (Evia in Greek) which is characterized with high steep mountains (the roads are so curvy !!!) and small, eventually private, beaches quite difficult to reach but absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, the day we drove there, the wind was so strong and the waves so dangerous, that I didn't let my girls take any risk. It took me 10 minutes to get out of the water without being smashed against the shore.

For our last great visiting day we left Attiqua and headed for the Peloponnesian peninsula, crossing Corinth's canal. From there we reached the site of Myceneas and its huge, cyclopean walls. Our lunch in Nauplia was a very pleasant surprise as the little coastal town is very cute. We ate in a little street under blooming trees, an assortment of typical Greek dishes for a very cheap price (restaurants are really affordable over there). We then continued towards Epidauros where the best preserved Greek theater is still used for plays and concerts during the festival season. The drive back, on the coastal road convinced us to come back in the near future.

The Diving Team did also had some time to play around in various places.

I did some refresh-dives, and then just enjoyed diving watching the fish and the sea world. As we had agreed to make one dive and one visiting day, I managed to make 6 dives (which is OK for me). The weather being very windy, we had to seek cover in some nice little creeks we dove from. The places where Golden Coast Marathon Bay, Dikastika, Stironisia and Dipsa where we went diving to a sunken fishing vessel from 1990 at 25m depth. The amazing thing about this dive was that the boat just halted on top of the wreck. It took us 3 Minutes to go down to the wreck and we could really look around for 25Minutes. Sadly the Gopro Hero 2 camera I had taken with me, had an issue with the lens (design error), hence all movies are blurry.

My oldest had her first Discovery dive, and liked it so much she did add 3 more dives to it. Needless to say that I had to get her the PADI OWD manuals back home because she definitely wants to make her OWD license (she even want to make the AOWD, but I'll let her first make some dives to appreciate what one can see before making the next level).
One thing that got me worried was the size of the fishes. I barely saw a fish longer than 30cm (1), most were only around 5cm in size, and it didn't matter at which depth I was. This actually shows the huge negative impact humans have in the marine life.

For the non-divers, some snorkeling and boat excursions have also been organized as you can see. And maybe in a year or two, she will be ready to also dive with us.

Check out some of our pictures  

 in a real small plane. I have to admit, that I know the Boeing or Airbus planes pretty well, as I did travel quite a lot for my job in the past (even now, I happen to take a plane from time to time). But this was the first official flight in a small Robin 400 airplane.
My little one wanted to come with me - so there she was.
The flight duration lasted around 30 minutes, but it felt nice to be in such a small plane again. Last time I flew with such a plane was in my youth (around 17Years old), and I still remember how it was back then. Small, agitated, but exiting and nice.
All in all a very day. 

 So - in search for knowledge on LiPo battery packs, I came across various sites and forums to try to understand how to really assess the state of a LiPo Pack for RC-Models.
In my search I found some folks who already had the same questions about how to determine if a pack is still usable, good, excellent or bad. And through the discussions I had by mail with them - I decided to add their defined FOM (Figure of Merit) value to my RC Batteries webapp, but also added a new one I call MP (Manufacturers promise). You can see a thourough erxplanation of these values on this site's FAQ

The main issue with LiPo packs and their yeld, is that there is no specific formula. (Ok - if a pack has an Internal Resistance [IR] of 100mΩ per cell, it is bad all right). It rather is a curve you need to assess for each and every pack over time by respecting some very specific border-rules.

Always at the same temperature, and if possible, at the same charge-level.

While writing RC Batteries database frontend, I had also ordered various IR Meters on top of the chargers that are capable of actually determining the internal resistance of my LiPo packs. However readings were all spread around some mΩ - and this is something I didn't like.
Fortunately one of the Forum guys I communicated with had built an ESR Meter specifically targeted at doing exactly measuring the Internal Cell resistance of LiPo packs and cells. In contrary to the other meters I had at disposal, this one didn't change its readings too much when repeated (The Turnigy IR Meter had mind-changes of sometimes 5mΩ on the second reading on an individual cell). So from now on - I decided to keep reading the LiPo pack IR twice a Season, once at the beginning, and once at the end - at 22C room Temperature.

What I have learned from all that ?
If a cell in a pack has a too high IR - it can actually destroy the pack. This cell would heat up the entire pack up to the point it would thermally destroy it. Imagine this happens at home while charching it ... Also - if the IR of the cells differs too much - it is a sign of an aging pack. This is the reason I have added the average IR of the Pack, as the variance of the cells into my RC Battery DB.
If the variance is too high - that pack should soon be retired!  

 so - it is this time of the year again, when some little things need fixing. My car - Toyota Avensis T25 2006 - had its first repair (Injectors). It took the official car repair shop practically 3 weeks to figure out why I had so many cases when the engine went in fail-safe mode. They changed the Electric-Valve, the Rail and because it still went into fail-safe mode, finally the Injectors.
Of course they wanted me to pay for all of the parts, even though it was only the Injectors that were broken. Hence - I refused to pay for the Rail and the Electric Valve. After quite some negotiation, they accepted my reasons:
I don't pay for anything that is not necessary. The Rail and the Electric Valve are not broken, put them back in.

In the end it seemed to complicated apparently to change the electric valve - and they left it in, but put back the old rail. My car now flies again.

On the other hand - my better half told me that when using my car, she barely sees at night. I had that checked by the official car repair-shop from Toyota, and they acknowledged that these needed to be replaced, for 1320,- Euro *lol*
I thanked them and told them that I won't pay that sum for something, that apparently is a known construction flaw of the Xenon headlights of that model. It is a very known problem in Germany, however Toyota seems to handle this differently in France - the country where people are tagged second class citizen and they don't have to be "service" friendly.
I had expected Toyota to at least participate for the headlight parts, or at least send me new reflectors and lenses. They didn't.

Looking for alternatives I noticed that some folks had replaced the entire head-light units of their same cars with H7/H1 models. That's what I did. Ordered a bunch of headlights (for my car), and I finally found the time to replace these. Took me 3 hours for both sides (and I did not even take the original parts from Toyota - they were almost as expensive as the Xenon parts). So - for 200 euro incl. H7 bulbs (I could use all the other old ones from the Xenon lights) + 3 hours hands-on, I can now see at night again.  

 Amazing what little bit of sunny weather can do.

Up to now, the weather (since last autumn) was not really cold, but really wet. And because I'm a Sunny Weather Only Biker, I didn't feel like taking the bike out for a ride. This time though, 15C outside, and sun where ever you looked. I had to take my beast out - and while on the road I noticed that I was not the only one having had that idea!
Hopefully the weather will stay that way for a while.