2007 Nov 26, 12:32Guerrilla clockmakers fix famous Paris clock. Andrew says: "It seems a team of clockmakers broke into the Pantheon in Paris in September 2005 and spent a year fixing the historic and neglected clock,
which had been abandoned by the authorities. They were
clock culture history humor paris france via:boingboing cultural-disobediance 2007 Oct 17, 10:49Chumby is a hackable little wifi computer. Its like an expensive alarm clock that also shows you stuff off the Internet. I kind of want one.
purchase shopping wifi wireless opensource flash design hardware chumby 2007 Sep 11, 2:55There's been
some news recently on some guy hating on FireFox for its ad-blocking.
On a similar note here's a fun tip for IE7 users I got from Eric. You can get decent ad-blocking in IE7 by putting ad servers in the restricted zone. By default script inclusion is blocked between
different zones so you can put domains that serve up ads in your restricted zone after which, normal internet zone sites won't be able to include script from them. This covers most of the ads I run
into these days.
I use
Fiddler to figure out the domains that are serving up ads which incidentally also has an ad-blocking^H^H^H^H general purpose content blocking plugin. Here's
a screenshot of Slashdot and ArsTechnica from my browser. Notice the large blank areas in the screenshots:
ad-blocking personal ad ie7 technical browser tip ie 2007 Jul 15, 5:08This previous weekend Sarah and I went to Canada for my friends Palak and Meghal's wedding. Our five day stay took us on
the route from Toronto, to Burlington (for the wedding), and then Niagra.
In Toronto we visited the
CN Tower, the
ROM, and the
Bata Shoe Museum. We generally acted like tourists walking around taking photos of things, putting on sun block, and not saying 'eh'. But we could have been worse
like the drunk American college students in front of us in line for the CN Tower asking the guide if the CN Tower is taller than the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. We stumbled upon the
Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibit which was really interesting. Sarah in particular recalls the cute stuffed animal
monsters.
After Toronto we drove to Burlington where Palak and Meghal's wedding would take place. We got up early and made it on time to the wedding which was
lovely. I hadn't attended an Indian wedding previously so it was a new experience for me. During the ceremony the child in front of me kept peeking over her parent's shoulder and staring at me. It
lasted all day with a break after lunch during which we drove around and experienced small town Ontario. After the break cousins performed dances for Palak and Meghal and then we all danced the night
away until the wee hours.
In Niagra we stayed in a hotel room with a falls view which was lovely. We went on the
Maid of the Mist tour that takes tourists
right up to the falls in a boat and drenches them. We also went on the
Behind the Falls tour which was not as fun. In both we are
given rain coats which are essentially glorified plstic trash bags. For dinner we ate in the hotel restaurant which had a lovely view of the falls. At night the falls are lit up in various colors
with gigantic lights.
niagra wedding personal toronto nontechnical 2007 Jul 2, 9:04Build a device to remotely lock shopping carts.
article humor electronics shopping-cart wireless diy via:swannman 2007 May 15, 11:19Video of clocky the robot alarm clock. When it alarms it runs and hides forcing you to get up and go after it.
alarm purchase shopping nerd robot video 2007 Apr 17, 11:03A robotic alarmclock that runs and hides if you don't get up in time.
design furniture robot toys time alarm clock shopping humor 2007 Apr 11, 12:58An old ars technica article about getting the most out of your nano-compiler (April Fools article). I remember reading this in high school.
humor nano nanocompiler fabrication article 2007 Feb 14, 3:10Richard Ishida's tool to display blocks of Unicode characters.
unicode tools i18n tool utf8 uniview encoding richard-ishida 2006 Nov 27, 2:15Public bodies are by far the largest producers of information in Europe. This information is recognised as a major, but so far under-exploited asset, which could and should be a fundamental building
block of the ‘new economy’ in the Information Soci
study economics europe public-domain information government read 2006 Aug 31, 7:44More Torrent research. This is a paper describing performance of BitTorrent's block and peer selection algorithms.
p2p torrent report reference internet algorithm performance 2004 Aug 19, 2:52I received an email from verification@citibank.com the other day with the subject "Fraud Check Verification". Or at least that's what someone at the jumphk2.net domain would have me believe. The
whole official looking email was very convincing at first glance. There's the Citibank logo image up in the left corner, the reassuring TrustE image in the opposite corner, and just the right amount
of legal-ese on the bottom. The text requested me to follow a link in the email to update and verify my information. At closer examination however it becomes apparent that this is a scam. Little
things start to catch your eye. The TrustE image is hosted on ebay and the Citibank logo is hosted at 65.108.92.50. Both images one might expect to be hosted on Citibank's site. The link in the email
looks like its taking you to https://www.citibank.com/saw-cgi/citibankISAPI.dll?PlaceCCInfo but in fact its taking you to a page hosted at 65.108.92.50 again. The following sentence appears in the
email:
If your account information is not updated within 48 hours then your ability to sell or bid on Citibank will become restricted.
Oh shit! My bid on Citibank might not go through! Seriously, they might have gone to a little more effort than just copying and pasting a scam letter meant for EBay. And the number one fact
revealing the email for what it is -- I don't have a Citibank account. I had received an email exactly like this several months ago and just deleted it, but for some reason, perhaps I was in a foul
mood, I decided to do something this time around. I emailed abuse at my domain, the ISP controlling their IP address, and Citibank. My domain told me there was nothing they could do. Citibank has yet
to respond. As for their ISP, the following day I received an email from Leon at Alabanza's Abuse department informing me:
This account has been locked down and is now on schedule for deletion. If we can further assist you please let us know.
Fuck yeah! This was a lot better than anything I had expected. I anticipated no response from any of the letters I sent. The page is gone now. Leon rocks!
2004 Apr 22, 6:44My interview was scheduled for Monday starting at 8am, so when I signed up for the trip and MS suggested a departure time of 4:30pm on Monday I thought that'd be good. Unfortunately the entire
process ended at 4:15pm and it takes a little more than 15 minutes to get from Redmond to Seattle and then through the whole airport deal. So after the taxi ride to the airport and waiting in line
for like 20 minutes its 5:30pm and I'm at the front of the line asking this woman for a new ticket.
Woman: *typing* Well I can get you to LA... Me: Yeah well that's the right state. Woman: *still typing* Oh... Hmm... Uhoh... *other non-words* Me: *waiting patiently* ... Woman: Are you ready
to run? Here's your ticket. Gate C11.
I look at the ticket and the plane's boarding at, what do you know?, 5:30pm. So yeah I start running. I hit the security check point line and I know all about this. I take off my belt and shoes
and empty my pockets into my backpack, my only luggage. I am Mr. Prepared, or maybe Prepared-ness is my middle name, whatever. I get through the line with no problem, put on my backpack and holding
my shoes and belt in one hand I notice a big old clock just to my left. While I'm staring at it, it changes from 5:42 to 5:43. "Oh shit!" I think, so I start running again. I finally get to the
appropriate gate and get on the plane all out of breath. I'm walking down the aisle with shoes and belt in hand, and I guess I look a bit out of sorts. I sit in my seat and I'm telling the guy next
to me about my whole deal: "Ha. Yeah. I was late and with the running and the security checkpoint..." into incoherent mumbling and gesturing. So it turns out the pilot and copilot's incoming flight
was way late and I ended up sitting in my seat for another 15 minutes before we could take off. All that wasted running. What a shame. Coming into LA we've been "landing" for like 20 minutes. We
finally get on the ground and its 30 minutes passed the boarding time of my connecting flight. I start thinking about anyone I know who lives in LA. All the other passengers stand up and block the
aisle. Then, an announcement "Will Daniel Riesney please come to the front of the plane." OK I can tell that's supposed to be my name, but how the hell am I supposed to get to the front of the plane?
The people near me who have heard me talking to the guy next to me about this let me past easily enough. But now I have to explain this to each person out of ear shot to further my progress. "Hi.
Excuse me. They called me to the front of the plane. Pardon me. Can I get by." And so on. Its getting more hostile the closer I get to first class. Up to this one guy. He's trying to talk on his cell
phone but its not working because everybody is trying to talk on their cell phone now that we've landed. His phone connection has failed. I can't guess at what else has happened to him today but he's
decided to make his Custerian last stand here between me and the rest of the plane.
Me: *continuing from previous passengers* Excuse me. Pardon me. Guy: *spinning around* WHAT!? Me: Can I please get by? Guy: What? Why? Were not going anywhere! This whole time I've been
forcing my way past him. Guy: There OK your past me now! Your several feet ahead of me! Congratulations! Me: Dude, I'm sorry they called me to the front of the plane. Guy: I find that highly
unlikely!
Whatever. I keep walking and like 7 people past the asshole I guess the flight attendants give up on me and start letting people off the plane. Now who feels like an asshole? Its me. I get off
the plane and some airport guy has a new schedule for me. Oh good I'm thinking, I've got an hour until the next flight's boarding time at 10:30pm. So I get on a tram to travel to the other side of
LAX. I wait for oncoming traffic to stop so I can climb up a stopped escalator (Incidentally right next to it is another escalator which has been closed off. Why would they do that? Escalators cannot
break they just become stairs.) I get up there and wait in line for an extreeeeme amount of time and finally get up to claim my ticket. Its 10:20. I get my ticket and, yeah, the departure time is
10:30, the boarding time is 10:10. So I start running again. More security check fun. I finally find my boarding gate. I rush up...
Me: *breathing heavy* Here's my ticket Lady: Oh good your finally here. Just go right out that door, *points* down the stairs, *more pointing* and wait for the tram.
WHAT? Isn't there supposed to be a PLANE somewhere? This is what I'm thinking not what I'm saying. So I walk outside and down these steps. And I'm waiting. The lady from inside joins me.
*awkward silence* Lady: The bus should be here pretty soon. Me: So... I'm going to miss my plane huh? Lady: Oh no, see here? *points at my ticket* Your ticket is confirmed so they can't leave
without you. Me: Oh good... I hope they didn't tell the other passengers that.
Lets see how many passengers I can piss off in one night. Eventually this bus shows up. I get in and the guy starts driving. "Do you know where I'm going?" I ask. "Yeah" the guy says. Great.
Fine. Whatever. I don't care anymore. So we drive back around to the OTHER SIDE of the airport. You know, the side I started on. Yeah that side. So I get off the bus and walk into the small building
set aside for smaller airlines. I see the frantic looking ladies manning another of these gates. They see me, check my ID and ticket, and one of them ushers me out the door next to the gate. Out the
door and into a small gated area outside. So me and this new lady are just standing here. Even had I the energy to ask her what was going on its very loud what with all the planes. So we just stand
here at this gate facing the planes for a while. I look at her trying to make eye contact and get some sort of acknowledgment that we are in fact waiting for SOMETHING. Eventually one of the day-glow
guys appears from between some planes and saunters up. The lady hands him a paper and walks away. At the time I was kind of offended but looking back on it, maybe the lady was a deaf mute and I'm the
one being insensitive. So now I follow this guy through a bunch of planes. I'm yelling "San Luis Obispo?" trying to be heard over all the ambient noise and this guy is somehow responding to me with
an even tone no yelling required. I don't know how he did that. We finally get to the plane and its 10:40. So I delayed the flight ten minutes. I'm thinking its going to be really awkward when I sit
down and we immediately leave. Its going to be suspicious even. But, not to worry, we wait while the flight attendant argues with the guy who brought me to the plane for another ten minutes about how
many people are supposed to be on the plane. Whatever.
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