Don Turnblade MBA, MSc Physics

Active Industry Certifications:

  • Process Quality Assurance: ASU
  • Information Security: (ISC)2
  • Risk Management: ISACA
  • Compliance: PCI SSC

Alumnus: ASU, CSUN, Azusa Pacific University and Pierce College


Information Security:

  • Why
  • The Business Case
  • The Privacy Case
  • The Regulatory Compliance Case
  • The Human Life Protection Case
  • The National Secrecy Case
  • Who
  • Trust
  • Privilege
  • Governance
  • Researchers
  • Testers
  • What
  • People
  • Process
  • Technology
  • Organization
  • When
  • Time
  • Transaction
  • Life Cycle Transitions
  • Operational Prevention, Detection and Response
  • Where
  • Data
  • Software
  • Devices
  • Systems
  • Networks

Items of interest to me:

Quotes:

  • "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein
  • "Confidence is a sweet spot between arrogance and despair." -- RM Kanter

Un-stodgy silliness:

  • Who or what is burried in the MIT time caplet: Article Internet Barbie a replica of the Barbie doll buried in the MIT time caplet appeared in Byte Magazine -- in a Superb-Conductive Wrap -- in 1995, two years before Mattel devised an Internet Barbie concept that lacks commentary or symbolism about the nature of the Internet itself. To my knowledge, the original Internet Barbie remains both Mac and PC compatible and fiber optical cable remains as timeless, stylish and intelligent as ever. Though, Mattel's internet Barbie has taken a step toward more conservative clothing which is also a classy move in my book. The internet, however, is no longer only half naked, and unfortunately leading the young toward over-exposure; I am glad that my daughter presently shows the good sense to win the attention she wishes through cool and gracious style -- knowing when not to follow the crowd.

The Incredibles movie provided me with lots of fun opportunities to teach science in a fun way to my kids.

Multi-factor authentican:

  • Edna Mode's password can be shoulder surfed, it is 629752. While Edna has definitely not changed her password in a while, other biometrics -- hand, eye, voice -- recognition and a self-guided machine gun still provide supporting factors of protection, just as multi-factor protection strategies are intended to do. My children have become very good at making strong pass phrases and are quick to spot real world uses of multi-factor authentication. They also consider the value of encryption as it relates to privacy; they want to ensure that It would be impractical for me to use a password cracker to access their confidential journal or diary entries. A simpler lesson about what a 22nd century child really needs to know, I could not ask for.

Fun with the Physics of the Incredibles:

  • The fastest speed estimate of Dashiel Robert Par is 350 MPH. It occurred during the rescue of his sister. Dash runs about 150 MPH away from bad guys and about 85 MPH to catch a football. Dash's height relative to Mr Incredible can be measured as well as his moves between palm trees, past rocks and other objects were animation time steps can be computed and object sizes matched relative to men, ships, footballs or other approximately known sized objects. In some cases, visual perspective measurements are useful, in others, such as the rescue of his sister, two palm trees and his back and forth running move were exceedingly helpful. Confirming estimates using ballistic launch by Dash, his flight time and vine friction estimates did provide a method of cross checking speeds estimates. Dash likely has either natural heat resistance or a rapid healing process to recover from friction burns. Example, the friction burns from a vine he uses to stop his free fall.
  • Bob Par's maximum show of energy output is about 840 KiloJoules. To achieve this, he used about 6.7 MegaWatts of power to toss a stone statue and then 6.7 MegaWatts of power to catch it. Bob, makes a change of plan with the statue, tossing it up about a foot into the air during a sudden change of plan. (Bob Par is somewhere between 5' and 6' tall; Using the statue's shape and guessing a specific gravity of rock to be 2.5, the weight Bob Par tosses can be estimated: stone 309.8 tons, tossed up at 2.445 m/s, to about 0.3048 meters, stopping in the air in 0.25 seconds, and being caught in a total of .5 seconds; g0 = 9.80665 m/s2; Error estimates seem only to support a 2 significant digit answer.)

Incredible Geography lessons:

  • The longitute and Lattitude of Edna Mode's office and Syndro's Island can be worked out.
  • From InsuraCare letter head the zip code of Emeryville, California 94608 can be found.
  • There is also a real South-West Pacific Island close the the location of Syndro's base.

Rough estimates of movie time:

  • Strato Girl attended Bob and Helen Par's wedding. This dates the wedding. It happened before Strato Girl's cape got sucked into a jet engine on April 23rd 1957.
  • 15 years later it should be about 1972. When Bob Par reads a newspaper about a missing friend, the year is blurry, but we made out the following date, May 16th 19?2.
  • The keyboard layout of all computers is definitely pre-Machintosh, Closer to the Texas Instrument Mini-Computer layout of the mid 1970s.
  • The phones are by majority land lines. The car cell phone in the movie -- in the post robot combat limo ride -- was similar to "expensive" models seen in the mid 1970s.