After going through the vast majority of this winter there are only a few additional thoughts I have on the lasik experience:

1. When my eyes get tired, they are tired. It’s time to shut them for a bit, otherwise I’m blinking for the rest of the evening and they feel slightly irritated.

2. I still get dry eye occasionally, which rarely (never?) happened before Lasik, but it’s a pretty minor experience. A bit of rest, or hanging out in a slightly humid environment fixes them up pretty quick. One other trick I can use in emergencies is to put a eye drop or two in each eye and close them for five minutes or so, that usually gets them back on track. The one time when the dryness of my eyes is more apparent than others is when driving with the A/C on - airflow on my face without enough humidity will suck the moisture right out of them. It’s quickly remedied by turning off the A/C for a few moments in most cases.

That’s about it. The vast majority of the time I don’t think about my vision or have any issues with it. Still have 20/20 or better and am very satisfied with the experience.

In interest of full disclosure I’ll state that my near-sight vision is a bit worse than it was a few years back, but I started to notice that a bit before the Lasik. That particular issue is a side effect of age, not eye surgery :^). I just need to stop opting for the highest resolution possible in the smallest screen size when buying computer monitors, for day to day reading and non-monitor activities my vision is still great.

Rating of Lasik so far: Absolutely worth it.

For those of you who want a second opinion, there was a article on Lasik in Consumer Reports at some point in the last several months. Here is a link to a tidbit about it: Consumer Reports

1. Everything said when you are functioning in a legal context must be accurate. Period. Exaggerations or any false statements, even made thinking they are correct at the time can bite you later. Research and understand what you are talking about before commenting.

2. The Legal team needs to have a solid relationship and good communication practices with the IT group. Courts are relying more and more on the lawyer being able to speak intelligently about the organization’s capabilities to do things like recover documentation and what specific information would be needed to find the right data.

3. Your policies (exampled via data retention policies) must be modeled with all applicable laws and industry rules in mind - not just a single one, or a group of laws/rules/guidelines your specific industry is required to follow. By strictly complying to or fixating on one set of rules you could be breaking others or ignoring common sense. Remember the big picture.

4. Identification and Signatures are two different things and should not be confused. Signatures are “a symbol adopted with intent”, meaning that even items you might not think of as a signature (such as a email from your account to another person - or your name typed at the bottom of a message) might be considered legally binding depending on circumstance and intent.

5. When talking about Terms and Conditions - make sure everyone knows yours, and repeat them as often as you must in order to keep them known.

Three+ things I learned at SANS 2010 (Legal Track) today:
1. Appropriately vague or tentative language is not a bad thing in security policies. What is the risk of writing a “must” into a policy, not delivering on the promise, then having to testify about your lack of enforcement in court or answer to it in a public forum?

2. Any effort to provide due care is better than no effort at all (e.g. having a security policy vs. not having one due to lack of enforcement concerns). Negligence when common sense states that there was a easy solution is bad - especially to a judge or jury.

3. Disclaimers, Terms of Service, and things like login banners should be used whenever possible. Words are cheap, and can save your ass. The key concept is to seek consent so that you can handle privacy concerns.

4. Handling a legal issue in the wrong way can turn into a PR nightmare. Decisions to take legal action should be ran through a PR filter to make sure it won’t stink when your opponents take their argument to the Internet.

Great class so far, loving the material and providing new perspectives.

Being the Thanksgiving/Black Friday I took a look for the currently discounted to free iTunes apps (apps that are discounted to zero, but didn't appear to be apps that just bounce up from paid to free all the time).

Here is the list I created tonight:

Current Free Apps:
Sip-N-Store
doubledrop
Lucha Libre Matchup
iSoroban
Creepytown
Perdiemcalc
TweetL
Squeezer
Super Shock Football
Burning Man 2008
Indian Snacks (veg)
Arcade Hockey
Flit
FAce It!
Vocaform
Wash Tub Bass
Galleryify!
Formalogy
Recipes with Conversions
Bug Eat Grass
UpNext 3D Cities
Ink
Christmas Fun Bells
Easy Sale Price Pro
Scare my Puppy - Dog Whistle
Dweebs
Flashlights
iCrossFingers
Blutalk - Bluetooth chat app
Snow Queen - comic book
Post - Twitter app
Pocket Paradise -- soundscape creator
Urinals: The Game
Hot Dog Down a Hallway
FlickTunes
AAA Watch
Baby Animals - A encyclopedia game
Pudge
Color Converter
iChing 2go
An Android's Odyssey
Tides of War
Rocket Bird
Coffee Order
Bubble Trouble
GoParking
DronEze
DodgeDot
Mood Mouse -- Remote control computer App
CA Sales Control
Escape I
Bugs Bubble
Besieged

Here are the settings I have found to work on the iPhone 3GS on the GCI (www.gci.com) Alaska cellular network. Note that my phone is running 3.1.2 installed using a Pwnagetool firmware bundle and 5.11 baseband w/ the Blacksn0w patch to carrier unlock it.

Note that after setting the settings for MMS, you should reboot the phone, then test.

Settings > General > Cellular Data Network > MMS
APN: mms.gci
MMSC: http://mmsc.gci.csky.us:6672/
MMS Proxy: 209.4.229.92:9201

Cellular Data Settings (Same tab in preferences):
APN: web.gci

All other fields should be left blank. At this time 3G data should be disabled.

If you need tethering or other profiles they can be downloaded at:
http://help.benm.at/help.php