No user-servicable parts inside.

Went in to Kaiser yesterday afternoon to see whether the brief pain I felt in the vicinity of my left shoulder on Tuesday was heart-related. Probably not, was the conclusion; since it lasted only a couple of seconds rather than half an hour or more it was unlikely to have been an actual heart attack, and nothing showed up on the EKG. I'm scheduled for a treadmill (stress EKG) test next Tuesday morning. That's to go with the sleep apnea test on Wednesday.

It was a lot different from the tendinitis pain I've been having in that shoulder: different location, different feeling. Could conceivably have been a muscle spasm, and there was a very tender spot on the shoulder blade afterwards.

In any case, with a duration of only a couple of seconds, not even high explosives (nitroglycerine tablet under the tongue) would have made any difference -- it takes about 5 minutes to take effect. So I'm unlikely to be arrested as a terrorist on my way to OVFF.

I did not get a walk in at lunchtime. Grump. Won't get one today, either -- there's a lunchtime pizza-and-brainstorming session scheduled, right after a 10am meeting.

Did I mention that I hate getting old? I could really use some nice young body parts about now. I think my warranty has expired.

After a brief pause for dinner, went over to the Younger Daughter's back-to-school night. A couple of her teachers recognized me from the album cover. They all seemed to think she was doing well so far, especially her English teacher, who she had last year and likes a lot.

Atom Authentication (for reference)

XML.com: Atom Authentication

I wish I didn't need to write this article. My life would be much simpler if Atom could just use existing HTTP authentication, as-is. But it can't; I'm going to tell you why and then I'm going to tell you what we're doing instead.

It's a simple, secure authentication technique that works when talking to CGI scripts hanging off of servers you don't control, which is convenient sometimes.

It does have a number of drawbacks. It requires the server to know the password rather than a hash of it; that's a problem (though easily fixed). WSSE authentication, which this is based on, may or may not be supported by browsers, though it's certainly easy enough to implement in clients. It's also not at all clear how closely related this is to any current version of Atom; it's dated 2003.

Really aged lemming

According to this Real Age Calculator,

• biological age: 60
• "real" age: 54.8
• average life expectancy: 78
• my life expectancy: 83.2
• ... which comes to 8500 more days