Ok, I mentioned some time ago that I was going to change the look of this place.
I settled on a pre-made theme called iNove. I’m still tweaking it. For instance, my Twitter feed does not seem to be working correctly. I don’t know if it’s the Twitter widget I’m using or if it’s Twitter itself (the Twitter servers are notoriously flakey).
I’ll probably move to a custom theme eventually, but I just simply won’t have the time to poke around making templates or stylesheets right now. Probably after the New Year.
An ongoing series chronicling my commitment to run-away consumerism. Part 1 and Part 2.
It’s so tiny
Ok, so maybe this isn’t technically run-away consumerism in this particular case. I got this mostly as a professional tool for wireless hacking. At USD$299 at Target, I just couldn’t pass it up. If I were to use this as a casual check-the-email-browse-the-web device like most people who buy notebooks, I would have bought a more recent revision (like the 901 or 1000). The processor is a little anemic, and the keyboard and trackpad are cramped and annoying. This seems to be an issue with ultra-portables in general, but I hear the Eee PC 1000 keyboard is much more comfortable to use.
The back of my Eee PC 900. I hate bumper stickers on cars, but for some reason I’m a sucker for stickering out laptops.
The main reason I went with the Eee PC 900 instead of one of the newer revisions was for the Atheros wireless card built into it (the newer ones have Realtek I think). I can throw the adapter into monitor mode or make an AP out of it. Backtrack works like a dream on it. Just as a test, I managed to crack 7 of 9 WiFi networks in my apartment complex (why the hell are they using WEP?)
Now, the thing is slow (900MHz Intel Mobile), but I got it mainly for wireless hacking. If I need to do anything like grinding, brute-forcing, or sniffing on a fast network, I’ll just use the MacBook.
I find it hard to believe anyone can be this stupid.
When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush’s letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course.
She wiped out her husband’s retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for.
For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.
Where the hell was her husband during all this? Could he have not stopped her rapacious draining of the retirement account, the taking out a new mortgage, and the lien on the car?
Posting is going to be really light for November. I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year and most of my writing output is going to aimed there.
What is NaNoWriMo, you ask? Well it stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a novel in 30 days. Well, actually the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, which is actually short of a novel. But I guess National Novella Writing Month wouldn’t roll of the tongue as well.
So, how’s my pace? Well, since I do have a day job, I can only write for a couple of hours a night during the week. So that really boils down to 900-1400 words a day. Which means I have to crank out 7000 words over each weekend for the rest of the month. Can I do it? We’ll see. Right now I’m at just over 3000 words (I slacked over the weekend), so I have a ways to go.
What am I writing? Well, lets just say it’s Lovecraft meets Judeo-Christian mythology. I know! The market is huge for that kind of novel.
Well, it looks like it has finally sunk in to Michael Jackson’s BoTox-and-skin-bleach-pickled brain that he is B-R-O-K-E. As in no money. And he’s run out of foreign nobility who will allow him to mooch indefinitely. So he’s agreed to tour with his brothers. Oh, and couldn’t-find-a-hit-record-if-it-landed-on-her-head Janet is probably going to open for them. Of course they have to find a venue willing to take them.
…because Jackson is still “radioactive,” according to those familiar with the casino business. For example: The owner of one big casino hotel in the Caribbean recently told his chief executive to make sure Jackson was not invited to a big music event being arranged there this summer.
I am really, really torn. On the one hand, I don’t want to give any money to this family. On the other hand, the sheer level of misanthropic schadenfreude I would get from seeing this disaster* first hand might prove to be irresistible.
* - I’m thinking a train wreck on the proportions of the Britney Spears debacle at the 2007 MTV Music Awards. But perhaps my expectations are too high. The awesomeness of a disaster like that can only come once a decade.
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven corruption charges Monday in a trial that tainted the 40-year Senate career of Alaska’s political patriarch.
The verdict, coming just days before Election Day, adds further uncertainty to a closely watched Senate race. Democrats hope to seize the once reliably Republican seat as part of their bid for a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Stevens, 84, was convicted of all seven charges he faced of lying about free home renovations and other gifts he received from a wealthy oil contractor. Jurors began deliberating Wednesday at noon.
UPDATE: It appears my “wow” is a little ambiguous for some people. For the record, in this context, Wow=Fantastic
On an emergency conference call regarding a recent and serious Microsoft vulnerability, we set a very stringent patching deadline. Someone piped up “well, what if it gets exploited in the next 24 hours?”. A colleague responded, “Well the data center could get swallowed by an earthquake in the next 24 hours.” A very succinct and effective illustration of the likelihood of certain risks.
