Real-world Transformer

Here's a real world transformer in action. Crazy!

Ring Ring, Flush

You know, I've carried my cell phone into the bathroom before. Heck, it has even rung while I was in the bathroom before. But never, in my five-year history of owning a cell phone, while staring at that pearly white urinal with the pink urinal cake and blue rubber splash mat, have I felt the need to *answer* my cell phone. Here is the rough transcript of the conversation I overheard yesterday:

*obnoxious ring tone*
"Hello?"
*flush*
"I'm still at work."
*water splashing*
"Yeah, I'm leaving soon."
*zipper*
"Okay, love you, bye."

In other news, we're shopping for a new cell phone plan. Any suggestions?

Wiretapping, FISA, and the NSA

Here's a *very* interesting in-depth article about the legal issues surrounding the whole NSA wiretapping deal that is being reported to death by the media right now. The article is written by a former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit.

New Toy

This has been keeping me busy (and out of trouble) lately.

Zero-day Exploit in Microsoft Imaging Software

There’s a new zero-day exploit (meaning it was found out in the "wild" first, not by a researcher) for the graphics engine behind IE, Windows Explorer, and the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. There’s no patch yet, so think twice about web sites you don’t trust or pictures you get via email. All you have to do to get exploited is go to a web site with a special image file or open a *folder* with a special image file in it. You don’t even have to open the image itself.

This is a worst-case scenario for Microsoft.

If you haven't given Firefox a try yet, today might be a good day to do so.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Let's play a game called "spot the typo":

http://www.smarthome.com/13091.html

Did you find it? Need a hint?

Those mints would give you the biggest caffeine buzz EVER. Coffee is just the gateway drug.

New TSA Guidelines

As only The Onion could present them.

The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power

This is a very interesting post by Bruce Schneier about domestic spying/wiretapping and the legal voodoo the Bush administration used to authorize it.

Its Electric... Coffee Coffee Coffee...

This one has to be straight out of a movie or something.

I went out this morning to pick up a couple of packages being held at the post office, and decided to stop on the way home and get some coffee. Got the coffee, drove home, pulled into our parking space and got ready to get out of the car. I opened the car door, picked up the coffee, slid out the side, reached for the car door to shut it, and...

ZAAAPPP!!!!

The biggest static shock EVAR. My hand automatically clenched shut, squishing the coffee cup it was holding, and...

AAAAHHGHGHHGH!!!!!

In summary, coffee is hot.

I plan to sue Coffee People for making the coffee too hot, and Nissan for making the vehicle too... um... staticish. And probably New Balance as well, for insulating me too well when I stepped out of the vehicle.

UIUC VIPs

This afternoon I attended a one-hour meeting at Intel of UIUC alumni with several UIUC VIPs, including the new chancellor Richard Hermann, the Interim Dean of Engineering Ilesanmi Adesida, and the ECE Department Chair Dick Blahut. In case you didn't think UIUC cared about Intel, or vise versa, there's apparently just under 300 UIUC alumni at the Intel Oregon campuses alone. Of course, only about 30 of them showed up today.

The meeting had some standard "UIUC is a great engineering school" talk and such, including a discussion about midwest modesty and how UIUC isn't known quite as much as MIT, Berkley, Stanford, etc. because UIUC doesn't brag as much. This led to the most interesting thing I think I learned, which is that UIUC is apparently a *very* highly respected university name in China, of all places.

A Philosophical Question

If a tree falls in the woods, and a VW Bus is there to break its fall, did it lose any value?

Thanks Sam for donating your beloved vehicle to this eternal debate.

Password Safe

Got a lot of passwords? Accessing a lot of web sites, e-commerce sites, encrypted .zip files, password-protected financial software, etc? Then you might want to check out Password Safe. Written by the author of the (in)famous Applied Cryptography book (as well as several other cryptography books), Bruce Schneier, this open-source project is intended to give you a pseudo-safe place to keep all the passwords you need, protected under a master password. This way the master password is the only one you really need to remember. It even gives you the ability to generate (pseudo-)random passwords to save, eliminating the possibility of you choosing a poor (cryptographically) password that is easy to remember. The database file it generates is encrypted but fully transferable, so you can copy it to another system and use Password Safe or another program that is compatible to use it there as well (i.e. to synchronize between a home PC and a work computer).

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 released

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 (final) was released a couple days ago. If you haven't tried Firefox yet, this might be a good time to do so. Improvements can be found here, and a rediculously detailed list of new features and fixed bugs can be found here.

Email: The Anti-Productivity

Ever see those anti-drug commercials where they'd show some teenager working really hard and becoming an amazing basketball player, or ballerina, or whatever? Well if you're wondering why I haven't posted here for a while, its because I've been exploring my anti-productivity: Email.

What is our obsession with email? Why do we do so much of it? How much of it do we actually READ? For example, I've gotten about 70 emails within the last 24 hours that I kept (meaning they are not spam). That's not counting my work email, which is what I spend most of my time actually caring about. Out of those 70 emails, I think I fully read about 5 of them, skimmed about 50 of them, and totally ignored the rest.

Anyway, for anyone looking for some tips on how to keep productivity up without ignoring email altogether, here's a few tips. I particularily like the suggestion to change your email client to only check for new mail every hour or so. You can always force it to check now if you need to (like before running off to a meeting).

My name is Jason, and my anti-productivity is Email.

Start Your Engines!

I feel like it's finally race day, after a long time of preparing, tuning up, fixing little dents, getting my act together, etc. Today was my first day out at Intel, and while I didn't really do anything useful (and probably won't for a little while), it was exciting to finally get started. After spending all morning in an introductory class talking about the history of the company, legal issues, harassment, etc, I finally got to go meet with my boss and got my own little cubicle space. After that it was off to a class to pick up my laptop (yes, a CLASS). This laptop is enough to make most people drool by the way... it's a spiffy little IBM Thinkpad with all the bells and whistles... oof. Plus I got a nice backpack to carry it in, a docking station, keyboard, mouse, and the biggest frickin LCD monitor to go with it. I guess I can't complain about equipment this way.

Now I guess it's time to learn a whole bunch and try to find my way through the maze of "what the..."'s into a new job.

Budget Cuts Pulled from House

It seems that the uproar over funding cuts to programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and student loans has paid off, since House leaders pulled the budget-cutting bill from consideration yesterday. This is good news, and means that we'll be reevaluating the budget and hopefully fill it with moral considerations. Perhaps we won't damn the poor and help the rich after all.

Sony-BMG CDs install software without your knowledge or permission

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has confirmed that Sony-BMG includes software called XCP2 on at least 19 CDs currently shipping. The software is installed immediately when you insert the disc into your computer and cannot be (easily) removed or even FOUND afterwards. The software has been classified by much of the tech community as a "rootkit," meaning a set of tools installed by an unwanted hacker after access has been granted in order to help control the system. Sony has supposedly released an "uninstaller" for the rootkit, but it apparently is difficult to use and might not even work fully. It should also be noted that the software is ineffective, since it indiscriminately hides anything that starts with $sys$, including from itself. Therefore, if you are trying to rip the CD to mp3, which is what the rootkit is designed to prevent, you simply have to rename your software. This technique has also been used already for other nefarious purposes, including cheating in video games.

This EFF article lists the 19 known CDs that include the rootkit, as well as instructions on how to identify CDs that have the XCP2 software on it. I would suggest avoiding these CDs.

A VERY technical discussion of the rootkit can be found here.

Why you should use something other than Internet Explorer

Here's an interesting site that describes some of the reasons for alternative web browsing software (such as Firefox, Opera, and Apple Safari). Even if you are a die-hard MS Internet Explorer fan, you should encourage these alternate browsers to continue their work, and perhaps try them out from time to time. Why? Competition! Between 2001 and 2004 there was virtually ZERO development done on web browsers, and Internet Explorer is just NOW finally working on a new version with new security and enhanced usability features. Have you ever used tabbed browsing? If not, you REALLY don't know what you're missing! Read more about it here. Does your browser support live bookmarks? Do you know what RSS and ATOM feeds are? You should learn! See what live bookmarks can do for you here.

The problem with a lack of competition is that nobody knows what they are MISSING! Try something different today, you'll be surprised.

My Friend Ruggy

In case anyone is interested in what I've been doing with my nice vacation prior to starting my new job, there it is. Fun, huh?

Frivolous Lawsuit

This blows my mind.

There's a guy in Minnesota suing David Copperfield and David Blaine (well known magicians) because they are allegedly stealing his godly powers in order to perform their magic acts. His lawsuit requires that they either demonstrate to him (privately and discretely) how they perform all their tricks, or pay him 10% royalties on their past and future earnings (MILLIONS of dollars). All the good details are over at The True Stella Awards (named in honor of Stella Liebeck, the woman famous for spilling burning hot coffee on herself and then suing McDonald's). Note that this is the current sample issue, so the link will refer to something else in a few weeks when the author releases another Stella Award.

Just to promote Randy Cassingham, the author of The True Stella Awards, you should also check out his weekly This Is True newsletter, with short stories of bizarre/stupid people. I've been a subscriber since 1997 or so, and it never fails to amuse me every Friday when it comes out.