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That’s Why I Choose to Only Shop From Skymall on a Plane

Posted by Oscar on March 13th

Read More: Technology, Pop-Culture, Funny, Every Category, Poetry, Consumerism

Normal stores stuck on the ground, they strike me as mundane.
That’s why I choose to only shop from Skymall on a plane.

I’ve got a watch that sets itself with satellites in space
And glasses with a fifty inch TV for on my face.

My luggage is the kind preferred by golfers who are pro.
In my my pocket there’s a GPS to tell me where to go.

My grill at home’s accessorized with lights and other things,
Like a doodad on my belt that when my steak is done it dings.

A hanging upside down device keeps my back from getting sore
But when it is I’ve got a plastic stick to rub it more.

I have a toaster oven that’s designed by Wolfgang Puck
And an underwater vacuum–what an extraordinary suck!

My vest has weights. My pet-foods timed. My shoes have built in springs.
I’ve hundreds of alarm clocks, one shoots helicopter things.

There’s a device that’s made specifically to help me fall asleep,
A whooshing sound or waterfall, it sure beats counting sheep.

A stress reducing wrist band that needs a battery.
A pair of golfing glasses make my balls easy to see.

My bike fits in a back-pack1 that I wear when I can’t ride
Like when I walk to aerate my lawn with spikes on my shoes outside.

Speaking of lawns mine’s always well lit for my lights have solar powers.
The sun also charges a vibrating thingy that keeps the moles out of my flowers.

The walk to my house has a gazing ball that’s twenty-three inches and glows
And you can’t tell how I water my grass ’cause a flower pot hides my hose.

I’ve got a step to help my dog get up into my bed,
A gate to keep him from the kitchen, an urn for when he’s dead2.

My golf cart looks like an Escalade1, it cost me twenty grand.
There are hanging seats I hook on my truck, when I tailgate I don’t have to stand.

For my wife I’ve gotten a lot of things like roses dipped in gold,
and her make up mirror has a light so she won’t look so old.

The largest crossword in the world, the smallest helicopter too.
A Star Wars traveling battleship game and litter robot for poo.

A robot shark and floating black jack game–My pool is full of shit!
A little boat that brings the drinks to the chair in which I sit.

Theft is no concern of mine. I’ve cameras all around
And a folding ladder just in case my house is burning down.

There’s a spot on my mantle for Harry’s wand and other wizard things.
I’ve also a copy of Frodo’s sword ’cause he’s the Lord of the Rings!

There are handles for my toilet so I don’t fall down when I poop
And life is so much easier with a heated ice-cream scoop.

A robot Elvis talks to me and sings at my command.
Oxidation I fear not with my rustproof towel stand1.

Believe you me, I’ve got more things, this list is only some
But my plane is boarding. I’ve got to fly! SKYMALL HERE I COME!

1 This used to be in skymall I swear… they must have stopped selling it.
2 Not actually sold by skymall… slackers.

Your Data is (NOT) Secured!

Posted by bongo on February 26th
Read More: Technology, Encryption

The next time a paper or a web form or a company asks for your SSN and they assure you that their data practices are safe, think of this video and ask them if anyone in their company uses laptops computers. Of course, I am not suggesting that desktop PCs could NOT be compromised with the exact same attack, they can, but it would be slightly more difficult to stroll into corporate headquarters and walk off with a desktop PC or a mainframe server.

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Google Trent Lott and Benjamin Nicolas to Find Out Why Trent is Resigning

Posted by Oscar on November 28th
Read More: Technology, Pop-Culture, Contextual Theatre, Video Games, Halo 3, Breaking News, Wii, Title Unrelated to Content

My experience with the Xbox 360

About two weeks ago I received an Xbox 360 for my birthday from my wife. She did a lot of research and got a really good deal on a refurbished machine with an extra controller and a copy of Halo 3. Now, I know that 360s are notoriously unreliable and one might immediately assume getting a refurbished machine is a bad idea, but the reduced cost and the supposed elimination of the red-ring-of-death problem (that’s what they refurbish) made it seem like a good idea.

Once opened I immediately activated Xbox live and went to a store to pick up a game with the 25$ gift card that some friends had given me. I expected to get Gears of War or Crackdown because they’ve been out for a year–I was wrong. The used version of each was pushing 50$ which I found astonishing. It turns out that triple-A 360 titles are holding their value as much as triple-A Nintendo titles (go try to find a used copy of Smash Bros or Mario Kart). The only good game that I could afford was Dead Rising by Capcom. I think it was a launch title and it was still 30$ so I had to pay a little. I’d never played the game before but I know it reviewed well and I trust Capcom with zombies. The game turned out to be great (lawn mower + zombies = awesome), I had a fellow eightandfiver over and we played passing the controller. We also played a little halo but the game isn’t that good to watch and my wife was playing with us and wasn’t a big Halo fan. We actually ended the night playing Super Mario 3 that was just made available on the virtual console–score one for the Wii.

Within the next week I had gotten Bioshock and Orange Box through game fly. I also had Gears of War briefly but there were too many new games to play before I went through the catalog. I sent it back and got Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (another good Capcom game, this time for the wii, also with zombies). I also managed to throw down a reservation for Rock Band that involved trading in an assload of games to get to the $160 and the last 360 reservation available at the GameStop I shop at.

Bioshock was great, although with Orange Box I had trouble committing to it, I’m sure the significant other and I will get around to it at some point. I put a lot of time into portal and even started replaying Half-Life 2. Damn these are great games. I had trouble playing team fortress 2 because all my multi-player time was going to Halo 3 (also a great game). I really felt like I had in the heyday of the PS2 when we had just tons of great stuff all at the same time (GTA, SSX, Burnout, Katamari…). I was in heaven—and it was during a game of portal just after I got the weighted companion cube that my 360 froze for the first time.

I restarted and started to play Half-Life 2 and got pretty far when it froze again (thank god for tons of auto saves). This time when I restarted the 360 it was flashing red. It was the standard red-ring-of-death that a refurbished Xbox isn’t supposed to get. I know this because the towel trick worked. The problem lies in some solders that fail to connect. The towel trick involves wrapping the console in a towel to deliberately overheat it so the solder expands and connects again. A temporary fix at best.

The real downer was that the next day I got to pick up Rock Band and then leave the house and spend thanksgiving in North Carolina (where I had a marvelous time). I got back on Sunday ready to try the 360 again, with the towel trick if need be, to finally get to try out the killer rock band drums… I couldn’t get past the title screen.

I managed to get a hold of the company that refurbished it and get a return authorization. They were really responsive and allowed me to keep the hard drive and all other accessories. The system is currently in transit to them, they’ve assured me they have a quick turnaround time and that they’ll mail off another system within a day of receiving mine.

I hope I get it soon. I’m afraid my weighted companion cube is going to miss me.

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How Far Have We Come?

Posted by Czech Air on October 16th
Read More: Technology

Those who have worked with the Nextstep operating system know how advanced it was considering that at the time, Microsoft’s Windows 3.1 was the operating system of choice for computers around the world. A quick comparison of the two makes it clear that Steve Jobs was years ahead of the time. This video shows Jobs demonstrating the Nextstep OS 3.0 in 1992. It is interesting to watch, but it brings up an interesting question: How far have we come? In 1997 Apple bought NeXT and its Nextstep OS, the OS then became the basis for the new OS X. It’s been more than 15 years, and we really haven’t come that far when it comes to operating systems, eh? Just something to ponder is all…

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Antiques Roadshow the Video Game

Posted by Oscar on August 1st
Read More: Technology, Science, Arbitrary conclusions, Sci-Fi, Music, Title Unrelated to Content, Encryption

dna.jpgLet’s say you had a one gigabyte MP3 player full of music. Using encryption one could take all of the information contained on the MP3 player and turn it into a string of numbers based on the key and equation used for the encryption.

Consider that your DNA is a string of numbers in base 4.

If one had a device that could analyze the data contained in your DNA and determine the proper encryption method necessary to result in the exact same data contained on the MP3 player one could create a storage free MP3 player. It would be some thing that decrypted your DNA is such a way that resulted in your desired playlist.

Of course this would involve reverse encryption, or encryption cracking, which we can’t do effectively yet. It may even be slightly more complicated than that, but I still think it’s a cool idea.

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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night!

Posted by bongo on April 25th
Read More: Technology, Pop-Culture, Religion, Science, Arbitrary conclusions, Off Topic, Sci-Fi, Breaking News, No Shit, Rhetorical Questions, War, Poetry, Battlestar Galactica, Scary

Beam me up!Scientists have announced that a new rock floating through space, Gliese 581 c may be a habitable planet. If this is the case, we will need to start thinking about ways to get there. Hell, we’ve been thinking about it as a species for years but we need to put aside social and political differences and really work toward finding a way to migrate to a new habitable planet. We don’t even need to live there really. We just need to be able to grow food on the planet until we find more planets capable of sustaining life.

Once we discover a planet capable of supporting farming, we can send our robo-workers to do do all the heavy lifting and humans will make future livings as Teamsters. Only we’ll all be piloting space ships delivering foodstuffs and repair parts back and forth. Ice Pirates anyone? It may have been an entertaining farce in 1984, but if we as the human race want to go out with a bang, not a whimper, then we really need to start making real progress into deep-space exploration and migration.

We need inter-galactic spaceships capable of traversing millions of miles a la Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek.

Think of it as science fiction if you must…but things change. Sometimes, fantastic stories that were once considered fiction lead to discovery.

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Open Congress, Where Have You Been All My Life?

Posted by Oscar on March 13th
Read More: Technology, Politics, The Internets, Rhetorical Questions

While listening to On The Media last weekend (one of the top five show on public radio) I was introduced to OpenCongress.org. My life is different now. Instead of thinking of the legislative process as sort of an amorphous conglomeration of radio stories, blog entries and speeches on c-span I can now see it for what it is. Bills being voted on by legislators. Open Congress has the current congressional schedule and all the bills being proposed and voted on. Most importantly it allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds regarding the specific bills you’re interested in (I think there could be some marvelous things done with yahoo pipes and this, but I’m not going to do them–if anyone finds anything let me know).

open-congress.jpgIn addition to the bill feeds it lets you subscribe to the RSS feeds of specific legislators votes. Once I started subscribing I couldn’t stop. I’ve already made a separate tab on my google home page just for Open Congress feeds. I’ve subscribed to each senator and house member from Minnesota and Montana as well as a handful of the potential Presidential Candidates and others that I’m just interested in.

I haven’t even started adding the committee stuff yet but I’m hoping to get to it tonight. I encourage everybody to check it out and use it. It’s a power tool of democracy! Baby!

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Tunneling to Freedom

Posted by bongo on March 8th
Read More: Technology, The Internets

Often times at work, I am confronted with an intercepting screen advising me that I have been prevented from accessing a certain website due to “keyword, content, etc, etc.”

While I don’t generally surf for illegal things while at work, I also do not enjoy being prohibited from checking Gmail, ebay, craigslist or any other myriad of websites that are blocked by the goons in our corporate security department.

Initially, I experimented around with Httport and Htthost. Around that time, I became aware of an open port in our lab so my efforts implementing either method of tunneling we half-hearted and I did not fully pursue making it happen.

I had the access to the knowledge but not the need anymore. Around that time, a colleague requested information from me asking how I was able to check my home e-mail while I was at work and theoretically blocked from my webmail account. I gave him a brief overview and gave him some terms to lookup.

He came back to me a week later and asked if I wanted to check out what he had set up.

Apparently, he went Google-crazy and stumbled on this buzzsurf.com website commonly referred to as, “The Surf at Work Website”. I especially like their overview:

* Run an SSH server on your computer at home.
* Use an SSH client on your computer at work to create a secure tunnel between your home and work computers.
* Enable Dynamic Forwarding in the SSH client to simulate a SOCKS Proxy.
* Configure Internet Explorer to use a SOCKS Proxy for network traffic instead of connecting directly.

The above four elements are the key things you are trying to accomplish when you setup your tunnel. The BuzzSurf.com tutorial is simpler than the HTThost setup, but the concepts are the same. You can also lock-down IP segment scanning by allowing only specific IP addresses to connect to the SSH tunnel you setup up. Typically, you would allow only you work proxy server’s IP address to access your SSH host on your home computer.

One word of advice: Anytime you leave any kind of “Server” running unattended, there will be login attempts and exploit attempts. If possible, use a computer system that is not your main system. That way, if you somehow get compromised you can simply rebuild it without having to be stuck without a computer system.

Once you successfully implement the BuzzSurf.com directions you will finally be able to get to all those NSFW websites!

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Vista Rocks!

Posted by bongo on February 12th
Read More: Technology, Arbitrary conclusions

Several days ago I bitched about Windows Vista and how it hosed up my computer.

I would like to personally apologize to Microsoft and any readers I may have misled…you see, it turns out my SATA hard drive has been having controller issues with my embedded SATA controller on my motherboard.

I have since switched to an IDE drive as my SATA controller manufacturer did not have a firmware upgrade to resolve my controller error.

So…in plain Engrish, my problem as described in last week’s post was really a hardware issue and not a software or a Vista issue at all. In fact, if it were not for the robustness of XP SP2 and Vista it is likely my system would not have booted at all.

In any event…I now have a 300GB SATA drive that I will use for a motherboard that can actually support the SATA drive and my current Windows Vista system is super-fast, screaming right along on the 300GB IDE drive.

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The “Wow” Starts Now!

Posted by bongo on February 2nd
Read More: Technology, Video Games

I bought a retail upgrade of Windows Vista yesterday. Last night I installed it.

It took awhile, but it looks great! Well, it looked great. I should have known there might be some hiccups. After all, it IS a new product. But it didn’t warn me to NOT do the upgrade. The installer encouraged me to do it!

I bought the Home Premium Edition. It seemed shiny and new. I should have known better when I had problems opening the box. (You have to slide it open from a little red tab on top top to the side - if you try to open it like a book you will only flip open the back cover). I should have taken it back to the store immediately and sought a refund. But I pressed on. I like living dangerously.

Vista installed swell with minimal user input required. I plugged in the code. It copied files and rebooted a few times. It rebooted a few times. It rebooted a few times. It rebooted a few times. There was a weird error at one point advising me that Windows didn’t start normally and I wasn’t sure why that happened.

Then I got it all up and was into the new system. I installed my McAfee and rebooted. No worries. I went to Windows Update and rebooted after pulling all patches. No problem. “Hey, this looks good!” I was thinking. “I’ve got the newest OS (operating system) on the block!” So I quickly painted myself Windows Vista Green and put on my Microsoft Logo Hat and walked around the block naked yelling, “The WOW starts NOW!”

After I got back in the house I decided, “That’s a great slogan! Hey, I should PLAY some WoW!” So I logged into World of Warcraft. I checked my auctions. I killed some elves. It was great. I even hit on a troll. I dunno if it was male or female…with trolls it really doesn’t matter.

I had things to do in real life, so I logged off.

As the game exited, the system froze. Nothing responded. No key combos did a thing, no ctrl-alt-anything did a damn thing.

I was desperate. I cold-booted.

Now during boot-up the computer stops at a black screen with a message stating, “corrupt registry - please insert your CD and run REPAIR.” I am doomed. I know it. They’ll tell me it’s my drive, it’s my video card, it’s my anus. They’ll tell me it’s anything EXCEPT for the OS! I hate them.

They have validated Apple’s Vista commercial.

I was proud to own a legally licensed OS for about fifteen minutes. My next OS will be downloaded.

Dang. That was fast.

At least I’ll have a screenshot to upload to Show us Your WOW.com tonight.

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Phish reunites to tour in 2009. - #

Here's a helpful and depressing tutorial on the current financial crapstorm, in cartoon form. I'm having a hard time figuring out who did the video, but it was linked to on Cosmic Variance. - #

MoveOn.org is giving away free Obama buttons. Almost 2 million ordered so far. - #

If I had married Tea Leoni and starred in film and TV with Gillian Anderson, I would have the exact same problem. How many love children do you have David? - #