Dirkus Maximus

I took the kids and Wes up to Fun Junktion today. It’s E-city’s version of Mt Trashmore. While the girls were playing on the playground, Wes and Andy and I went looking for geocaches.

Geocaches are hidden containers that are listed online by nothing more than the latitude and longitude of the cache. Think of it as a global-scale game of hide-n-seek. Most caches are just a waterproof container with a log book inside, but others have stickers and stuff. We only found one of the two geocaches we looked for, but it was still fun. I left my name in the log, and left a pen behind since there wasn’t one in there. The title of this geocache was “ChiaCache Lives!” I’d log onto geocaching.com and log my find, but they seem to have some issues with account creation at the moment.

I think the full version of the geocaching.com app may end up being the first paid app on my iPhone!

A quick observation; I thought using a touch of motor oil on my woodstove’s hinges was a good idea, as opposed to lighter oils like WD-40 or my normal stanby Singer sewing machine oil, because it’s thicker and formulated for higher temperatures, so it won’t vaporize and the hinges will work without squeeking and sticking longer.

This is false. It still vaporizes, only now my livingroom stinks of burnt motor oil. Honest to God, my first thought when I walked in there was “It smells like a Plymouth K car in here.”

They jokingly “announced” this product on April Fool’s Day this year. The popular demand for it was so great they had to at least try to make it. Amazingly, they managed to get George Lucas to sign off on it, and they’re going to start shipping officially licensed Tauntaun sleeping bags now! The best part is that they’re running a contest right now for Halloween where the top prize is the first officially manufactured Tauntaun sleeping bag in the world. Now I’m no artist, so I’m not holding out much hope, but here’s my entry into the Jack-O-Lantern design contest. A simple, retro game inspired template…

Click to see full size

[Cut out black areas, surface carve light orange, leave the skin on dark orange areas. Floating bits inside letters may require toothpicks or careful carving for support.]

Perhaps next time Mr. Munkey will remember to slow down the pace and increase the rations on his next wagon ride.

HURRRRRRR...

I’ve generally just accepted video games at face value, and haven’t worried about things like how the physics really work out, or how the characters take care of basic biological needs. Apparently, these guys from Kotuaku have too much free time to consider things like this. Allow me to give you a brief excerpt of a conversation posted on Kotaku’s video game blog…

10:01:53 AM Owen: hey, pac-man question: how big were the dots and the energizers, in pixels
10:02:08 AM Fletch: You mean on the original video game screen?
10:02:16 AM Owen: yeah, 2×2 for dots, and roughly 8×8 for the energizers?
10:02:20 AM Fletch: i guess. I don’t have bionic graphic measurement powers
10:02:37 AM Owen: I’m trying to figure how big a shit Pac-Man would take after one board.

Suffice to say, the conversation goes downhill rapidly from there, though you do have to admire their thoroughness in their efforts to produce an accurate estimate. I’m with Owen, the ghosts should totally count. You can see the whole conversation here, along with graphics to illustrate the final outcome of the calculations.

Now come to think of it, how DOES the Master Cheif from HALO handle his biological needs? Is he wearing a NASA-grade diaper under that space-suit? The world may never know (and may never want to either).

First it was Ed McMahon. Then it was Farrah Fawcett. Then Michael “Jesus Juice” Jackson. The trifecta was complete, and celebrities could breathe easy again, right?

WRONG.

Billy “WHY THE FUCK AM I ALWAYS YELLING?!?!” Mays was found dead in his home on Saturday. Who’s next? Make your bets in the comments!

Store full of west-coast hipsters buying super tight hotpants for triple-digit prices because that’s what’s “cool” this week? STOP. HAMMER TIME!

Today is, of course, Memorial day. We are asked to take a moment to remember those who have given their lives for our country. By coincidence though, Memorial Day this year also lines up with Towel Day, a day to remember where your towel is. If you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, you need to go read a book; namely “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” by Douglas Adams.

The stupid, it burns.

… because it obviously is trying to commit suicide by closing itself to protect me from itself. Or something.

I have precisely four words for you.

GIANT
HELICOPTER
MOUNTED
BUZZSAW

Hell yeah.

I witnessed this marvel of aviation technology and brute force along highway 17, while I was headed North to work on Friday. I did some Googling to see if I could get a better idea of just what the hell it was that I had seen. It seems that about once a year or so, most power companies in rural areas hire a local helo pilot to swing an eight hundred pound, eleven-bladed rumbling rail of death around their power lines to keep tree branches from getting too close and causing problems in storms. I’m going to guess that one of the prerequisites to this job is that the aforementioned pilot has testicles of SOLID TUNGSTEN CARBIDE STEEL.

Chuck Norris drives one of these to the local 7-11 to get milk. True story.

Besides being the approved mode of transportation for Chuck Norris, these ‘copters are also a model of efficiency. They can do in a few weeks the work that would normally take a whole year for a crew of 40 men on the ground, and do it for around 1/3rd the cost.

I think a guy by the name of John P. pretty much nailed the description of this activity on his blog;

Let’s see, if we wanted to start combining things to come up with the most dangerous job we could find where would we begin?

• Let’s start out by putting our employee in a tiny little open cockpit helicopter.
• Then, let’s make him fly 100% of the time within 10 yards of massive powerlines.
• And… what the heck! Let’s dangle a gigantic chainsaw from the tiny little helicopter and make our pilot hover just above and trim massive trees!

All I know is that when the zombie apocalypse hits, F*CK shotguns, I WANT ONE OF THESE.

Here’s a link to a news story about these things, and I’ve embedded a video after the link… (more…)

Front of one fake faceplate with a magstripe reader in it

I really, really, REALLY hate those stupid “RE: RE: re: FWD: re: FWD: OMG VIRIS ALERT READ THIS IMPORTANT!!!!1111” emails and blog posts and crap, so you know if I post one, it’s something serious, right? Well, it is, and you should.

There has been a rash of identity theft occurring recently that involves the vandalization and addition of extra hardware to ATM’s and gas pump credit card readers. This scam is not exactly “new”. According to this article on Snopes.com, it’s been around at least since 2004: http://www.snopes.com/fraud/atm/atmcamera.asp

The scam usually involves some kind of fake face with a magnetic stripe reader built in, stuck over the card slot with double-sided tape. In the case of ATM machines, this also involves a camera positioned directly over the PIN pad. This hardware is added by identity thieves looking to grab the account numbers from your card (using the magnetic stripe reader) and your 4-digit PIN code (from the camera). Some of these devices are very well disguised, painted in the same colors as the rest of the machine and often bearing logos or labels that match the rest of the machine. There have even been a few exceptionally well hidden ones that are made up to look like a badge around the existing card slot, the thickness of a single layer of printed circuit board material.

There are a few VERY VERY simple things you can do to avoid getting stung by this scam.

1. Use ATMs you’re familiar with. If you walk up to an ATM machine you’ve been using for years, and the card reader looks “different” today, DON’T USE IT.
2. Tug on the card reader, or the area surrounding it. If it starts to wiggle or feels like it’s coming off (or if it DOES come off), DON’T USE IT.
3. Look for any unusual boxes, particularly above or near the PIN pad on any ATM you plan on using. Tug on them, just like the card slot. Look for something that looks “newer” than the rest of the machine, or has a small pinhole pointing in the direction of the number pad. Also look for extra stick-on mirrors around the area of the PIN pad. Cameras have been hidden in these as well. If you see anything that looks like this, DON’T USE IT.

If you see anything that looks suspicious, look for a sticker on the ATM that gives an emergency contact 1-800 number. Call it and tell them you see what might be a skimmer on the machine. If the ATM is outside a bank, go inside and inform them. If you pull on the card slot or any other part of the machine, and it pops off, you’re almost definitely looking at a skimmer. DO NOT SIMPLY TOSS IT IN THE TRASH. It may contain dozens or hundreds of ATM and credit card numbers. If you’re in front of a bank, take it inside and give it to the manager. If you’re at an ATM that is not near a bank, call the police and tell them that you may have found an ATM skimmer, and where you are.

For photographs of what these devices may look like, and for current coverage on where they are being found and how banks are handling this threat, please go to http://consumerist.com/tag/skimmers/ and read through a few of the articles.

If nothing else, read this one in particular: http://consumerist.com/5218680/heres-what-a-card-skimmer-looks-like-on-an-atm

I’ve also posted some pictures (shamelessly ripped from The Consumerist) after the jump… (more…)

"Sounds like someone's got a case of the MONDAYS!"

First, I threw my Newbies to the wolves this morning and had them take their first calls, then we had a loud, messy catfight right outside our classroom when a couple young “ladies” from the high-pressure timeshare call center next door had an argument, and just now we just had a bout of super-heavy 3/4″ hail. What’s next, tornadoes, earthquakes,  and the fire raining from the sky? Talk about a case of the Mondays!

But wait, there’s more! Then there was a power outage, then another huge thunderstorm dumped a microburst right on us with tropical-storm force winds and torrential rain, then someone was Doing It Wrong[TM] on Interstate 64 and managed to bungle themselves and their vehicle up so badly the police had to close all four travel lanes less than 50 feet from the exit I normally take to get home.

WTF. Seriously?

I used to work as an “Interpretive Ranger” (AKA tour guide) at a state park in Surry, Va. As part of my job, I used to lead canoe tours of the creek that ran along one edge of the park. I discovered something interesting about canoeing on these tours; couple would either have a better understanding of how to communicate and work together by the end of the tour, OR they’d be calling a divorce lawyer on the way back to the parking lot.

I think I’ve found something that could achieve the same effect in much less time. Meet the “Bi-Cycle”

 

This can't possibly end well.

Designed by Elad Barouch, both riders have completely independent control of the steering and pedaling of their end of  the bike. The designer describes the concept thusly:

…the idea for final shape of the Bi-Cycle really came since it was the ultimate way to explain my observation about the way to resolve disputes which is in short, at first we need to establish trust and learn to communicate, then we can start moving forward, once we are moving we can master our communication skills and than that is left is pure fun.

Sounds about right to me. Only I’m sure that most dispute resolution methods do not require helmets and possible stitches. Honestly though, I’d still like to give this a shot. Wes and I always worked well together in a canoe, that can’t be THAT much harder… right?

Found via Hackszine

Wes and I were talking on the way back from taking my parents out to the Texas Roadhouse tonight. Once again, the long trip sparked an unusual conversation.

The US is working very hard to switch to greener energy sources. Just last year, there was record growth in the area of wind power generation. There is, however, a large and powerful group who doesn’t want this kind of reform of our energy infrastructure. Who are these evil, earth-hating, individuals? The railways.

Think about it; the thousands of coal-fired power plants around the US depend on massive amounts of coal being delivered daily by rail. Currently, this is the rail road companies’ primary source of revenue. If America “goes green”, the railways go belly-up. I have a co-worker who’s husband has a fairly high-ranking position at Norfolk Southern, and every time someone in the office starts talking about cleaner energy sources, she chimes in (semi-sarcastically) about how much she loves coal power. There’s a lot of folks who’s jobs are on the line when you start talking about alternative energy sources.

What can the rail companies do about this? (more…)

So, my kids were playing at the park, and they found a ceramic angel figurine that someone left behind. That’s odd enough on its own, right? It gets better. Tell me, when you think of little angel figurines, what musical instrument are they normally holding? A harp, right? Yeah, not this one.

Click for cross-eye 3D version of this image

That’s right, my kids found an angel statue with an accordion. Seriously, WTF? Is this Weird Al’s patron saint or something? “Our Lady of the Insufferable Squeezebox?” It appears to have been mass produced in a mold, so apparently there’s some kind of demand for these things somewhere. Maybe every artist ever has been wrong, and when we get to heaven instead of and angelic chorus accompanied by harps, we’ll be greeted by the sound of a choir of angels with accordions, making a racket like the sound of one thousand cats simultaneously giving birth to pine cones.

If this is your figurine, feel free to drop a line in the comments so that I can A) give your your angel back and B) get you mental help.

So that's where all the goombas came from...

There’s a huge difference between US and Japanese companies. One example is Canon Japan’s new policy, from this CNN article…

In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.

“Canon has a very strong birth planning program,” says the company’s spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. “Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it.”

Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country’s low birthrate.

Japanese comanies are AWESOME.

UPDATE: Video clip of the CNN story after the jump… (more…)

Jump Back, Jack.

This post on Gizmodo shows what is quite possibly the most awesome presidential action figure ever. It’s Obama. Only he’s equipped with various implements of destruction, including an assault shotgun, submachinegun, a 9mm, dual katanas with tanto, and even a lightsaber. Maybe this picture was closer to the truth than we realized…

Trogdor the Burninator is six years old today! Happy birthday, Troggie!

Snapped while out on an errand in Deep Creek. Even Wes was SHOCKED at how corny this joke was. I asked her for her camera phone, and she put up no RESISTANCE.

“It makes my head explode… especially when you say numbers.”

–Wes, after I tried “test-firing” my Mac Network Tier Two training lecture on her.

You can take a look at my notes for the course right here (.DOC format). Makes great reading material if you’re trying to sleep.

Why is it that you can buy a pack of plastic flatware with 20 knives, 20 forks and 20 spoons, but a week later you have no forks, no spoons, and like… 30 knives? Do they consume their boxmates? Do they reproduce?