Gecko Bloggle

Just me fooling around with the theme here on Gecko Bloggle.

Nothing to see here.  Move along.

This was going to start as a little piece talking about how much more time I spend at Facebook, but I don’t spend much time AT Facebook, I’ve been spending time chatting with friends VIA Facebook.  See, there’s this chat system, and it’s meant to allow users who are on FB to chat with others on FB, “live.”  It’s their way of keeping you at the site, and hopefully looking at the odd advertisment for whatever it is (I seem to have a well-developed set of side-banner blinders, to the point that I’ve been at “dark underbelly of the web” sites looking for information about a server exploit or something, and had my then-very-young son point at a picture on the sidebar and ask “Where’d that lady’s clothes go?”)

So yeah, so I don’t see the ads, sorry Facebook, sorry Google.  I don’t see ’em.

Even worse though, is that I no-longer even VISIT Facebook any more, since my Blackberry has a Facebook app that handles messages, pokes, photos (including uploading, how “this just in” of me), status updates, and wall posts.  See?  Almost everything you need to do on FB is on my BB.  But no chat.  If I wanted to chat with my FB friends, I had to visit the site.

A few weeks ago, Digsby changed all that.  Digsby handles email notifications, instant messaging, AND Social notifications (including Facebook, including the chat feature).  Don’t need to go there any more.

OH, and it does this weird little chat widget thingie.  I think it’s over on the right there somewhere, right?

Yeah, pretty hip.

So, I’m going to try to write a little more about all the nerdy stuff that’s going on.  I’m learning things again, and that’s good.  I wasn’t learning much at EA any more.  There were things I didn’t know (believe me), but I wasn’t learning any more, ’cause I was too busy writing up documentation for people who wouldn’t read it, so when they freaked out that the latest version of something was (omigod) DIFFERENT, we could try to defend ourselves by showing glossy versions of what was freely and widely available in the way of documentation online.  Sad.

Whew, was that a bitter moment?

Yeah, so if you hit my Delicious list, you’ll see what sorts of things I’ve been linking/saving, including Timbap, which is this crazy “plug a turntable into your computer and then put a timecoded record on the platter, and BOOM, you’ve got the ability to play MP3s…” thing, and I was like “I can spin MP3s on my computer and my turntable for $12 instead of $250?” until I realized that it was just a way to SELECT MP3s and then hit play.  Not a way to control how fast they play (at least, I don’t think so).

What else?  Oh yeah, I went to NewType Computer Workshop and playing with an ASUS EEEPC, which was a sorta-failed attempt at making a laptop for kids.  They crazy cheap (most models under $400), very small, reasonably fast, and look sorta like the big brother to a Nintendo DS (not the Lite, but the big plastic & MarioKart style).  I tried it out for a minute or two, and thought this is really cool, if I was about 30% smaller, all over.  It’s a neat machine, but I am too big for it.  My fingers wouldn’t really ever get “fast” on one of these things, and I didn’t see a mouse for it, so control of the mouse would be non-existant.  All in all, a cute device, but not something an old Road Worrier like me would use to keep in touch with the office.  I have a Blackberry for that, I guess, and I can type pretty quickly on that, so I’m good.

I’ll have to check out Dell’s new “E” series laptops when they hit the shelves.

What kinda nerdery are YOU folks up to?

I got this apron from work.
…yeah… I know it’s a game company
…I don’t know what aprons have to do with video games either. Maybe we’re making an online cooking game, who knows? Nobody ever tells me anything. I mean, it’s kind of random, but it could be worse. They could have given us… like…. socks or something. What? You know, socks! With like, the company logo on them? Stop looking at me like that, it’s not THAT weird. At least socks are practical… This one time, at E.A? they gave us these metal chunks that kind of looked like the company logo… nobody had any clue what it was. I would have loved to have been at the meeting where that got approved… “Okay, we’re partnered with a junkyard to provide us with chunks of old Buicks that sort of resemble our logo… we can hand them out as presents to the employees!” …So weird. What was I talking about? Oh yeah…
How do you like your burger?

Thanks to Ripley for the modeling assist.

Oh, and just in case you’re thinking they don’t do “real” clothes, I can attest to the fact that at some point recently they made some of the nicest hoodies I’ve ever seen.  Like, better than my GapHoodie.

Okay, need to get the kids outside before all three of us lose it.

So Arwen and I were Googling “don’t irritate your new boss” looking for the source of this creepy baby picture on the back of a parenting mag, and found this utterly weird translation page… about gardening… or something… I think.

It’s like I was warned about a certain psychedelic experience many many years ago:

It’s big in there.

Here’s the “text” on the site, and thanks/apologies to Pinkkuma03.

不過不是要講這個
是說我昨天貼那篇
“不要惹怒你的新老闆” 的平面廣告 “Don’t irritate your new boss.”
其實下面還有一行字
溫和及完全的清潔敏感的肌膚
“Gentle and thorough cleaning for sensitive skin.”
這才是真正的笑點
襯托出上面那個 “irritate”
成為雙關語(pun)

irritate 惹怒 使不愉快的 不舒服的

這樣一講其實也不好笑了….

So Microsoft quietly released a USB drive to a bunch of law-enforcement officers to allow them to collect data (passwords, Internet history, cookies, etc) from “live” Windows machines. While this is “breaking news” today (probably more now, but this search only showed two pages on Google as of this morning), it seems that people have been talking about it since (at least) last year, and it’s almost May now.

Many people are freaking out that Windows’ security can be so easily defeated, which shouldn’t really be news to anyone when you’re standing in front of the machine. This is not some magic key that the police have that will allow them to breach every firewall on the planet and steal your secrets. So relax a little. If the police are standing in front of your computer, you’ve probably got bigger problems than them stealing your surfing history.

The biggest theft of data I personally know about was a server that was stolen from a Vancouver Law Firm of Note because someone with a hand-cart told the receptionist they were “here to work on the computers,” walked through the accounting department, opened the sliding glass doors to the server room, unplugged the primary document server, and rolled it back out the front door. Nobody knew anything untoward was happening untilthe System Administrator started getting “I can’t save” phone calls. Their firewall and security didn’t help them against a simple “walk up and take it” approach.

Physical breach of a workstation pretty-much guarantees loss of security/privacy.

Here’s some questions I have about this Cofee thing:

1. Remember when some people started bashing crypto groups with a “What do you have to hide, are you doing something illegal?” argument? Maybe those same folks are running to the nearest BestBuy and trying to buy “strong” security software. I’ve got news for you folks: if you can BUY it, and it’s not OpenSource, chances are extremely freakin’ high the People In Charge already have keys for that, too.
2. Do you really think Joe Consumer will switch to Ubuntu because maybe the cops can get at their surfing history?
3. Don’t you think similar toolkits exist for Linux/Mac?
4. What constitutes a “search” and whether or not they’ll need to convince a judge that it’s justified to pop one of these thumb drives into your machine for 30 seconds. They’re not *doing* anything to your computer, just popping a drive in there for a second.
5. What happens if you’ve got a visitor kiosk in the lobby of your office, attached to the network, and someone pops one of these drives into an exposed USB port (not that there would *be* any, of course).
6. How is the data that’s been collected protected against tampering/theft?
7. What’s to stop people from writing a “De-COFEE” utility that’ll look for signs that the USB drive inserted is a COFEE device, and simply wipe it, or inject something that’ll do horrible things to the law enforcement systems they’re later plugged into?
8. What’s to stop a “Wipe local drive upon COFEE detection” utility?
9. Expressed in minutes, how long do you think it’ll be before this kit’s utility set accidentally finds its way onto the Net?
10. …in hours, how long before I start getting comments on this blog about Linux-based USB drives that’ll perform EXACTLY the same function?
11. …in days, how long before there’s a new MSN-messenger-based Trojan that’ll do the same thing?

Maybe this’ll mean that they’ll have a standard method of collecting information about what is being done with a particular computer, instead of the current rather haphazard methodology that’s being used, which essentially means conviction (deserved or not) is based on how computer-savvy the local police detachment happens to be, and whether or not they can tell a usb drive from a book.

All in all, I think it’s a good thing, and I think the backlash against it, and the overall strengthening of everyone’s tools will be a positive thing.

People here will say things like
“Go on with your bad self.”
and aren’t being funny, or quoting anything, and they’ll be saying it in response to things like (it seems)…

“I think that application you reinstalled for me remotely is working properly again.”
“Go on with your bad self.”

…and I imagine that the person on the other end is either an ex James Brown Allstars Member, OR some very tense person, who is vibrating with pent-up rage on the other end of the phone, while tied to a 2L SODA bottle full of coins.

Oh, and I was told “Aw dawg you d’man,” for figuring out which chocolate bar I “wanted” (some sorta monsterized “Two Stick Kit Kat” thing) in order to “accidentally” knock this guy’s chips from their jammed position in the vending machine.

Shhhhh….   I should be sleeping.

Dinner tonight at Chillis.  Not bad.  Like Red Robin, with more… spicy.

Oh, and this morning when I woke up to the local hiphop radio station, it was the Fugees’ “Ready Or Not.”  I think everyone should wake up to the sound of Lauryn Hill droppin’ science.

I play my enemies like a game of chess, where I rest,
No stress
If you don’t smoke sess, lest.
I must confess, my destiny’s manifest
In some Goretex and sweats I make treks like I’m homeless
Rap orgies with Porgy and Bess,
Capture your bounty like Elliot Ness, YES
Bless you if you represent the Fu
But I’ll hex you with some witch’s brew if you’re Doo Doo
Voo Doo,
I can do what you do, easy, BELIEVE ME
Frontin’ niggas give me hee-bee-gee-bees
So while you’re imitating Al Capone
I’ll be Nina Simone
And defacating on your microphone.

Go on with your bad selves.

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Eep Omnibus Pablum.
(Translation: I got nothin’.)

Yeah, no, I got nothing. This past weekend was good, partly ’cause I deliberately didn’t get into anything from work ’cause I knew this was going to be “hell week,” due to some stuff that’s coming up fast for a Friday deadline. Today, I felt like I was battling all day to stay on target, which was made worse when I suddenly ground my gears to switch tracks entirely for something that’s due tomorrow, instead of something that was due last Friday.

Heh. Ooopsh.

On the upside, I spoke to someone on the phone today who talks even faster than I do. It was awesome. I didn’t necessarily feel confident that he could do what he said he was going to do, but omigod did he ever BELIEVE he could do it. It was one of those rare moments when I found myself thinking “You might be full of it, but I hope you manage to pull it off.”

I wonder how often people think the same about me at work?

So what have I been doing lately? Just for fun, ’cause I’m crazy like that, I installed VMWare, and created a virtual Ubuntu Server. I just wanted to see what it could do out of the box, and found that there was a step with a “do you want fries with that?” checkbox screen, and two of the items were web server and mail server. The very same two things that don’t really work very well on my current server rig right now. So I fired ’em up just to see how scary they were, and they just. Plain. WORKED.

I didn’t install an FTP server (oops), so I couldn’t just start hauling stuff from my currently IIS server into the virtual Apache, but I was pleasantly surprised once again by Ubuntu.

The server version isn’t as exciting as some of the vertigo-inducing effects you can find with the Compiz stuff under Ubuntu workstation, but hey, who needs all those windows doing the hokeypokey like that?

(/me waves hands back and forth, going “Oooh! Ooh!”)

I’m becoming a zealot, aren’t I? Shoot.

If I keep this up, I’m going to end up being the guy running around in shorts, suspenders, and a backpack, telling people “He got Linnixth running on his watch! On his watch he runs it!” I don’t think I’ll ever be as uber as Mister Aardvark, but I’m happy to claim to have been there when he was still a guy working in a bagel place and thinking maybe he should learn about this Linux stuff after he finishes his first album.

Arwen and I went to Deb’s birthday on Saturday night, just like when we didn’t have kids. Rip and I went out yesterday to the park, and there’s some fun pictures up on Flickr (of both events).

On the way home, we hit the bargain bin at London Drugs and bought Super Monkey Ball Adventure, which is a little over Ripley’s head, but sorta slap-happy fun anyway. Two hours of fun for $9.00, not too bad.

OH! I might be going on a business trip soon. Probably. Most likely. We’ll see. Second time in my career I’ve been paid to go somewhere. Last time was when Service Pack 2 for Windows XP came out, and I spent more time going through customs than I did in the air.

This time, I’m gonna have to travel on a Sunday, and come back on the following Saturday (I think, we’ll see). S’gonna be fun (I think, we’ll see). Arwen keeps saying I said I was going to Daytona, but I *know* I didn’t (I think, we’ll see).

For the record (hah!) I bought CDs last weekend, and forgot to tell the world. Despite what groups like the RIAA might have us believe, FREE streaming of music pointed me to music I’d never heard of before, but I like, and then that led me to BUY some for SOMEONE ELSE, ’cause I thought they would like it too…

She just turned 19 (happy birthday last week!), and I’m happy to say she’s my cousin, from that freaky-music-over-talented wing of the family. Somewhere on Youtube I’ve got my uncle John playing a badly tuned piano. I seem to have got the funny gene, but not the musician gene.

Okay, enough nothing from me. ‘nite yall.

Oh, and this song makes me want to do a new style of dancing Mr. Mills and I spoke about in one of our podcasts, and I’m a call it “grumping.” A little moody, and little blue, but funky. Think DeeeLite, but bummed. But diggin’ it. Y’know?
(probably only shows up at http://www.geckotemple.com/blog).

Just in case this field is blank, it’s a player for the new (FREE!) Saul Williams album.

Radiohead might be on to something… I’m a check out the album, and THEN pay for it. What a concept.

My Dearest Friends and Fans,

It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!,
my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder. The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways. The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer…

NiggyTardust!

love,

Saul

Go here to check it out.

I want one of these little robots really badly, BUT, I can also see how they’d be used for their intended purpose, so it also cool in a more geeky kinda way.

Happenin’ little tune by Spoons, too.

From the site: We are currently developing and studying dance-oriented nonverbal play with between children and the robot Keepon, designed and built by Hideki Kozima. Keepon is a small creature-like robot developed to perform emotional and attentional interaction with children. It has four degrees of freedom, a soft rubber skin, two cameras in its eyes, and a microphone in its nose.