What with the appletistas taking over and all, I thought some of them might like to learn how to hide their files from casual snooping. Obfuscation isn’t security, but it might, say, keep your friend who is borrowing your laptop to check their webmail from opening your private full-frontal photoshoots featuring yourself, three goats, and a couple jars of peanut butter.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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My multimillion dollar patent idea… has already been worked out.

US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires.

The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.

Figures that would happen 2 weeks after I think of it. Boo.

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Newegg is currently carrying a smoking hot deal for a Samsung 941BW, a 19″ widescreen LCD (4ms refresh rate) for $190.

If I was using anything besides my laptop, I’d jump all over that deal - great size, good brand, great response time and specs. You could even get two and dual screen them. That would be awesome.

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No, really. And there’s this place that is the leading music shop on the whole of the truck-filled tubular net doohickey, called eye-music. Now, I don’t know why they call it that, since you listen with your ears, but that’s what they call it so that’s what I’m calling it.

Sure, Mondegreen is available for free download … but it’s also on the eye-music even without any videos! Isn’t that cool?

I gave it a look and it’s $1/song and $10/album (roughly). The best part is - you won’t get sued by the RIAA! Sweet!

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Is a supermegafantastique coffee maker.

Namely, the Braun KF600!!!

It’s got all the features of the Capresso MT500 (vacuum carafe, stainless steel, timer, gold filter, water filter), without the ridiculous $170 price tag and complaints about constant overflowing onto your floor. Braun it is. Woo!!

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I’ve turned on bandwidth leech protection here at the new server. Now that I have to pay for bandwidth over X amount, and from current run rates it looks like X amount is within reach, I figured it was the prudent move.

Being the communitarian that I am, this decision leaves me a little torn. Then again, all those teenagers on myspace hoovering my bandwidth for the FU baby can suck it.

BH’s implementation isn’t the greatest (you have to refer to the server it’s hosted on rather than your own domain name, and the redirect link does not appear to work and the blocking seems intermittent, though it could be a cache issue on my side)… but it seems good enough in general. The BH implementation also overwrites my Wordpress .htaccess file, so I have to rebuild the .htaccess file every time I add a new domain.

Webmasters with special needs can contact me if they want some hot lovin’ linkin’ action

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Because the whole internet is being tapped.

In 2003 AT&T built “secret rooms” hidden deep in the bowels of its central offices in various cities, housing computer gear for a government spy operation which taps into the company’s popular WorldNet service and the entire internet. These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the internet and analyze exactly what people are doing. Documents showing the hardwire installation in San Francisco suggest that there are similar locations being installed in numerous other cities.

Seriously, people. Encryption + obfuscation == you maintain your privacy

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Zimmerman brings Zfone. Zimmerman was behind PGP, and for which he was also investigated and sued. This must feel like groundhog’s day to him.

Philip R. Zimmermann created a program to encrypt e-mail. His Zfone will do the same for Internet calls.

He has found out once already. Trained as a computer scientist, he developed a program in 1991 called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, for scrambling and unscrambling e-mail messages. It won a following among privacy rights advocates and human rights groups working overseas — and a three-year federal criminal investigation into whether he had violated export restrictions on cryptographic software. The case was dropped in 1996, and Mr. Zimmermann, who lives in Menlo Park, Calif., started PGP Inc. to sell his software commercially.

Now he is again inviting government scrutiny. On Sunday, he released a free Windows software program, Zfone, that encrypts a computer-to-computer voice conversation so both parties can be confident that no one is listening in. It became available earlier this year to Macintosh and Linux users of the system known as voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP.

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Shy as in Shylock, that is.

I’m not sure what I think of Prosper.com.

On the one hand, I would love to send those execrable payday loans out of business and make the personal lending and credit rating markets transparent. I also like that it leverages group and personal identity power, a la eBay, for trustworthiness. It takes a village, and on the internet your village reputation can go a long way.

On the other hand, this is about as risky of an investment vehicle as I can imagine, with the added benefit of religious prohibition (for the orthodox) and an extra feeling of sleeze.

From a lender perspective, these are unsecured loans to people you don’t know (but are at least somewhat vetted by Prosper), many with a history of bad judgements. You do have a 3-year contract, but enforcing judgements for delinquent payees is going to spawn a whole ‘nother industry (or reinforce the existing ones. See sleeze, above). Actually, after reading the FAQ, if you don’t get paid, you’re SOL as you don’t know who the lendee is personally. My guess is that Prosper has an enforcement arm where they’re getting more income (other than the .5% loan interest they take off the top. Damn, I need to think of these online database-charge-me-to-use-them things. Best business model ever, outside of religion.). Actually, on further review, it looks like you get to choose from among a few different collection agencies. In any event, Prosper’s still taking a cut from the referral.

So I’m torn. On the one hand, it could be a great way to help people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get help. On the other, it looks like an ideal fraud and criminal (organized or not) environment. I debate linking to things that I’m unsure of, such as this, on the grounds that though I treasure information and sharing, I’d like to avoid advocating for shady or false things as much as possible.

Anyway, I thought I’d throw it out there. I think their FAQ page may have a little matharoni problem, though, but let’s talk about that below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Tired of the same old boxy looking PC?
Look no further, Jeffery Peterson has a PC just for you.
For the musician in your life there’s the Microphone PC. Cigar smoker?
There’s a PC in a humidor.

Got an old 1930s art Deco radio you don’t know what to do with?
Turn it into an art Deco PC

You’ve got some imagination there Jeffery!

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Apparently, the signal strength to my home is abysmal (read: much noise, packet loss on the line). This is the reason for the slowdowns and absence of the server. Probably also the voice quality for those of you complaining about my phone quality. Maybe there’s something that can be done, maybe not. We’ll find out more tonight after some tests.

Sounds like some sort of medical procedure, no?

In any event, as soon as my contract is up, I’ll be moving this site to a dedicated hoster and switching ISPs. I may even go for cable + broadband, since that will get me the fast download speeds that I want and I won’t have to worry about running a server. Then again, fuck the cable companies. I’ll see what kind of deal I can get on a Working Assets land line + DSL package from a local ISP v. the cost of monopoly cable + broadband. It’s got to be cheaper than the $150/mo I’m paying now for this crapfest.

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and why you should support it, presented in a in a two minute clip.

My position on open standards, neutrality, and fairness have been discussed here quite a bit, and this is no different. The internet has been one of the greatest forces for change and democracy in a long time; at the very least, it has been a catalyst for the explosive growth of knowledge and information sharing (not to mention giving The People a voice that they haven’t had - ever. A necessary voice that is the only thing currently safeguarding our democracy on the popular front). There is a slight argument toward a capitalist solution (i.e. neutral providers will attract more customers), but in a monopolistic situation (at best, most people in America effectively only have a duopoly of ISPs from which to choose), I do not think this applies. See also, Wal-Mart).

Without net neutrality, the inernet as you know it will likely die. Many scenarios have already unfolded, such as Comcast Cable blocking Vonage packets… and then rolling out their own VOIP solution a few months later. As things stand, even with the many to many access model, ISPs are our gateways, and are still subject to control from the anticompetitive, antipeople corporations. If the internet had not been developed the way it had and been nurtured via universities, we would currently have a “net” of walled communities, to which we would have to pay to access. Think this wasn’t what the Suits wanted? Imagine a world where the “internet” are competing AOLs.

That’s the future we are heading toward, and the Suit lobbyists from AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, in coordination with the corrupt GOP Congress are trying to turn back the clock and destroy the internet as we know it. For the businesses, it makes sense to try and control content. For the government, it makes sense to try and control information, and there has not been a governmental body in history that has not tried to coopt and control any and all technologies that increase the amount of information available to the people.

We must not allow the internet to become a series of walled gardens, run by warlords, robber barons, and tinpot dictators. Let your Congresscritter know how you feel.

If nothing else convinces you, imagine how much the temperature in hell dropped when they realized that Instacracker and MoveOn were on the same side of this issue. And if that inbred, mouthbreathing, genocidal racist twit can come around to the correct viewpoint… hell, everyone should.

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You can now dual-boot your Intel Mac with Windoze

More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.

Again, I still don’t see why you would want to pay a boatload extra cash for the hardware design, then use an inferior OS, but hey, that’s just me. Apple had to do this after gorn and that other guy did it independently.

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Windows can run on intel Macs. Why anyone would want to pay the premium for Apple hardware and industrial design while also putting an inferior OS on said hardware is beyond me.

Up next: how to mod your Jaguar into a Toyota Camry

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If I ever get cable, I’m totally going to build my own PVR with Ubuntu linux, a TV tuner card, and a small form factor case. You know, like this guy. (his step by step is nice, with plenty of pictures)

Why pay $16/mo? The daunting part is the setup, but tinkering is in a monkey’s nature, no?

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