A Tale of Two Drives

On the right, a Lacie 20Gb drive I found while cleaning out my closet at work.
It's seven or eight years old, with USB 1 & Firewire 400 connections.
Hot sh1t at the time.

On the left, a new 16Gb flash drive... .
'Nuf said.

Don't be a Sheep

Via The Washington Post, Security Fix

LAS VEGAS, NEV. -- iPhones and other mobile devices with wireless access were among the top contributors to this year's "Wall of Sheep," a public shaming exercise debuting at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas this week that aims to educate people about the dangers of sending e-mail and other online communications over open wireless networks.

Conference organizers issued a clear warning to attendees: If you check your e-mail or communicate using the ubiquitous conference wireless network, be sure to do so over an encrypted connection (https:// versus http://). Otherwise, your credentials will be projected onto a wall where everyone will ridicule your seeming inability to grasp a fundamental tenet of online security.

Words to live by

"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history–with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."

(Mitch Radcliffe)

Abs of Steel

From The Joy of Tech:

Desktop Zen - Reducing Visual Clutter on your (PC) Desktop

I found this to be an inspiring piece, even if it is almost two years old.

The idea being to go from this:

to something more like this:

Study: Biofuels Can Be Bad

More evidence is piling up that biofuels may not be the boon to energy resources that they've been touted to be.

In recent years, studies have pointed out several potential problems with using biofuels, such as ethanol, as energy sources. Some research has indicated it may take more energy to make the ethanol than it would ultimately provide as a fuel. Some types of ethanol when burned may not cut down on the release of greenhouse gases as much as was hoped. And devoting more land to growing biofuel crops can strain water resources, other studies have found.

The gist of the studies seem to be that the creation of most biofuels takes more energy than it saves, that the clearing of land for plant resources releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere... .

And let's not forget how much food prices have gone up, at least in the USA, due to the higher demand for ethanol (primarily from corn), & it's higher cost (Thanks, GW).

Online office suites

Zoho
ThinkFree
Ajax13

All garnered from Time Magazine's © list of the top 50 sites of 2007.

Uber Geeky Watch

The Pilot Watch with slide rule!
This watch from Torgoen will allow you to step back in time a little bit. Featuring a circular slide rule that can solve time, distance and speed equations, it can also perform a wide variety of calculations. These include currency conversions, multiplication and division and any conversion of a linear nature such as ounces to grams, kilograms to pounds, miles to kilometers, etc.

Once before an undergrad surveying class, my calculator bit the dust, & I showed up to take the final exam with an actual slide rule (which I still have). After my prof got over his initial shock, he was at least a little impressed that someone actually knew how to use one.
If that watch wasn't so expensive, it'd be fun to have.

Who uses an odd number of batteries??

So, I've got a wireless keyboard & mouse (Microsoft) that I use with one of the machines in my office, & whenever I have to change the batteries in the keyboard I'm amazed that it takes three of them.
This is especially a nuisance since my battery charging unit works in pairs of batteries.

I feel sure that MS planned it this way, because they love to cause frustration... .

OMG

As I was leaving the grocery store last night, I actually heard a girl talking on her cell phone say, "ROFL".
I wanted to walk over & slap the shit out of her — STHOOH.

For all the cube dwellers

This will almost certainly spice up your day a little (SFW).