The Zombie Apocalypse Will Be Microblogged

Electronics and me

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:55:59 GMT

Going to classes at NYCResistor and working with electronics has really opened up my mind and broadened my horizons. I've always wanted to solder and do more with kits and bits and pieces of things, and now that I've started playing around I feel more empowered than I ever have before, maybe even surpassing the feelings of empowerment that came from learning how to program.

This is stuff that actually AFFECTS THE REAL WORLD. I mean, it amazes me that I now have the basic abilities required to make devices that DO STUFF. Now that I've built some kits, made some basic circuits, and loaded code onto chips, I've started thinking about the world around me and what parts make up the devices I use every day. I now routinely take things apart and stick the pieces I want into static bags. Just today I grabbed an old night light with a light sensor on it, tore the plastic off it and found a tiny little circuit with the sensor, a resistor, and a transistor hooked up to the prongs for the outlet. My plan is to unsolder the bits off the board and rebuild the circuit and figure out how to hook it into my Freeduino.

Because now I'm thinking things like: I can make automatic blinds that open and close according to the amount of light I want in the room. I can make a pseudo-random cat treat feeder which dispenses occasionally when my cat steps on a pedal, and use that to break my cat's bad habit of constantly wanting food and waking me up at all hours (he'll mess with the feeder instead). I can hack that new Jedi mind trick/EEG reader toy that's coming out this holiday season and create a thought controlled puppet/robot.

I'm in a whole new world. I only wish I'd started down this path sooner!

Thanksgiving in Massachusetts?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:52:45 GMT

I'm considering coming up to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving weekend - who is around, and wants to hang out that weekend?

More Singularity Summit 2009 Notes

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:08:31 GMT

http://www.minduploading.org/
http://www.neuralprostheses.org/
http://www.syntheticneurobiology.org/

When digital consciousness is achieved, and people can make copies of themselves, they'll be able to synthesize myriad individual experiences into a single meta-self. This meta-mind will exist like a carrier wave that can either house in a central repository and work on the job of filtering and synthesis, or float among its multiple consciousnesses to experience life in real time. The individual mind at that time can be said to have meta-consciousness, or to be m-conscious.

Additionally, life recording and lifelogging will allow people to directly share experiences. When full HD video, audio, and portable fMRI and other sensory apparati make it possible to fully document experiences and feelings and thoughts about experiences, and those experiences are copied and shared, m-minds will incorporate the lives of others into their own. People will be able to know the intent of artists when experiencing their works, they'll have empathy on a level never before known; and through the filters of multiple consciousnesses, they will be able to comprehend various experiences in multiple ways. This is the future of culture - directly experienced meta-culture, and selves incorporating chosen pieces of others directly into their consciousnesses and m-consciousness.

Multiple m-consciousnesses of various configurations may also exist, but unless one goes through the effort of balancing the load between all of them equally, one m-self will be larger than all others. And it would probably also be desirable to have a single m-mind that contains all experiences from all conscinesses and m consciousnesses, simply to have that type of total synthesis available.

The most likely path to this scenario involves a combination of neurobiological engineering and synthetic biology integrated with electronic devices. Biological experience as encoded on neurons will be translated into digital electromagnetic signals for rapid translation and telecommunication. Storage media will be synthetic biological drives, external clusters of neurons with electronic interfaces to devices and biomechanical selves, and electromagnetic and photon echo interfaces for biological selves.

Periodically the m-self, or overself, will send filtered updates back down the line to its underselves; judiciously edited experiences that are appropriate for each underself. Relations between selves and m-selves will seem familial on the surface, and conflicts will surely arise, and may seem like a case of schizophrenia or disassociative identity disorder.

Hastily Scrawled Notes From Singularity Summit 2009

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:02:34 GMT

Technology: from stone to steel to silicon

Hippocampus replacements happening now

Upper limits on intelligence? Computability (NP-completeness), time, size and number of molecules in universe

Technology and culture are intertwined (Stephenson's "feed" versus "seed")

What if the Singularity has already happened multiple times over the life of the universe, and the current amount of non-dark matter is what's left over? (older ultimate intelligences have used all their available resources in the universe)

If cognitive biases occur due to structural evolutionary accidents in the brain, what kinds of biases will occur in designed intelligences?

Biological neural drives will happen before designed intelligences.
- Photon echoes on retina for human-computer interfaces (Ed Boyden, MIT Media Lab)
- External memory storage devices
- An optimally engineered bio-drive of microtubules that can be connected to for the transfer of memory back and forth with human brain
- Learn skills, knowledge transfer at will, absorption of artificial memories

Neural Remixing
- Life recording, full HD audio and video, with multiple perspectives
- Translate digital recordings into bio-storage, mapping to microtubules
- Directly upload other people's life recorded experiences into your memories
- Loss of individuality? Suffusion of identity?

Dan Barber's Keynote at the 2009 Brooklyn Food Conference (long, worthwhile reading)

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 11:26:55 GMT

So here's a love story about two fish. The first fish I fell in love with for all the wrong reasons. It was a beautiful fish, the texture was really flavorful, it was very meaty, and even better - as if a fish needed to be better - it was raised in the supposed highest standards of sustainability. This company claimed it was the first sustainable agriculture company in North America. I was in a relationship with this fish for many years. And one day I got a phone call from the head of PR for the company; he asked me to cook a lunch for a group of top food editors and writers and prepare a meal based on this fish and speak about the company's sustainability. Great, I thought, what better way to speak about the plight of the oceans, the state of fisheries around the world than through this prism of responsible, sustainable agriculture?

So the day before lunch I called the PR guy, let's call him "Don". Don, I said, to get the facts straight: you guys are famous for fishing, farm fishing in the deep sea. He said: That's right. We're basically a world unto ourselves. We're so far out to sea, the waste gets distributed, not concentrated. Then I asked about the feed to harvest ratio. 2.5 to 1, he said, the best in the business! I think 4 to 1 was the average at the time. Okay, so, I said, 2.5 what - what are you feeding? Sustainable proteins, he said. Great, I said, and hung up the phone. And then that night I had a thought: what the hell is a sustainable protein?

So the next morning, just before this lunch, I called Don I said "Don, what's an example of a sustainable protein?" He said he wasn't sure, he'd get back to me and he got me on the line with several people in the company and no one could give me a straight answer. Until finally, very late in the morning, I got on the phone with the head biologist for the company. Let's call him "Don" too. Don, I said, what are examples of your sustainable protein? He mentioned algae, with some wild fish, and then he added "chicken pellets". Chicken pellets, I said? Yes, chicken scraps. Dried, processed into feed for the fish. I said chicken scraps? And he said, yes, chicken skin, feathers, bone meal, leftover chicken thighs. And I said Don, what percentage of your feed is chicken? I guessed 2 percent, 3 percent? About 30 percent, he said. Don, I asked... what is sustainable about feeding chicken to fish? Well, it's the overproduction of chicken in the country, he said, there's way too much chicken, so we've developed a way to utilize the scrap. And he paused and he said, you know, so it doesn't get thrown away. So that was Don's definition of sustainability.

Needless to say, it didn't take me long to fall out of love with this fish - not because of the Dons' ineptitude or the questionable sustainability of this farm. I took the fish off the menu right after that conversation because, swear to god, the fish tasted like chicken.

The second story is a different kind of love story. This love story is the romantic kind. The kind where the more I got to know about a fish, the more I loved the fish. I ate it first at a restaurant in Spain it was bright, almost shimmering white filet, amazing texture, amazing flavor, and even more amazingly, the chef had overcooked it. He had butchered it by about twenty minutes. But it had so much fat, so much structure, so much integrity, that even when a chef was messing it up they couldn't mess it up.

The fish came from a farm in the southwest corner of Spain, at the tip of the Guadalquivir River. Until 1980, the land was in the hands of the Argentinians. They raised their cattle on what was essentially wetlands, and they did it by draining the land. They built this series of canals, and they siphoned water out into the river. But they couldn't make it work, not economically, and definitely not ecologically; in drying the grass to raise the cattle they'd killed off 95% of the bird population. Which was a lot of birds.

So in 1982, a Spanish conglomerate with an environmental conscience purchased the land. What did they do? They reversed the direction of water flow in the canal. They literally flipped the switch. So instead of using the channels to pump water out, they pulled water in. And in the process they reversed the ecological destruction, turning the place into an 8000 acre fish farm for sea bass, eels, shrimp and so on and so forth. The farm is incredible, the water flows in to these canals and when it comes out the other side it dumps into the Mediterranean. It dumps out cleaner water. The system is so healthy it literally purifies the water. So it is a fish farm, but it's also this kind of water treatment plant. And there is no feed, zero feed. The fish eat what they would be eating in the ocean. The system keeps itself healthy, the plant biomass, the plankton, the zooplankton, it's totally self renewing. There's no feed.

Have you ever heard of a farm that doesn't feed its animals? I haven't. And come to think of it, I started to think, is this really a fish farm? That thought became more prevalent in the afternoon as I was driving on the property with the farm's biologist. Let's call him Miguel. His name is actually Miguel. Miguel, I said, for a place that's so incredibly natural, so in concert with nature, what criteria do you use to measure the success of your farm? At which point, as if a film director motioned for a hidden set change, we rounded this corner and pulled up to the most amazing sight, one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen. And that was thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of pink flamingos. A literal pink carpet out on the water. That, he said, that's success. Look at their bellies, pink! They're feast pink!

Feast pink? I was confused. Aren't they feasting on your fish? YES, he said, proudly. We lose 20% of our fish eggs and baby fish to the birds that are here. But Miguel, isn't a thriving bird population the LAST thing you want on a fish farm? And here's what he said, he said: we farm extensively, not intensively. It's an ecological network, the flamingoes eat shrimp, the shrimp eat the phytoplankton and so forth, so the pinker the belly, the better the feeding.

Okay, so let's review. You and me, let's review. You're going to farm land that doesn't feed its animals, and measures its success by the health of its predators. It is as much a bird sanctuary as it is a farm. 600,000 birds, 250 different species, and it's become the most important private haven for bird life in all of Europe. Oh, and those flamingoes, they shouldn't have been there in the first place. They brood in a town 150 miles away. 150 miles away, they have the right soil to build their nests. The flamingoes fly to this farm every morning, and at night they fly back. They follow the yellow line of highway six.

And when I asked Miguel why they commuted, I was imagining like a March of the Penguins kind of thing, the Flight of the Flamingoes? I said Miguel, do they make the flight for the children? And he looked at me like I had just quoted a Whitney Houston song. He said no, they fly here because the food's better!

So here's something I do know and I bet all of us in this room know. We are on the verge of an ecological credit crisis, and it's going to make this economic credit crisis a walk in the park. Swine flu, pistachios, tainted pistachios, and toxic zones, these are just sort of sprinklings on the way to becoming much larger and more profound. Our ability to feed ourselves and do it deliciously and sustainably is becoming limited, not by tractors and combines, but by fertile land. Not by pumps, but by fresh water. Not by chainsaws, but by forests. And not by boats and nets, but by fish in the sea. And the reason, to simplify this just a bit, is the breaking apart of farming and communities.

We have our farms, and we have our communities. And that's the most significant and the most detrimental agricultural development of the last fifty years. Megafarms, feed lots, monocultures, chemical methods, food pathologically settled, all of it, or none of it, would have been developed without the of farms and communities, at least not with the strength that they've developed, without the dislocation of farms and communities.

What Miguel does in farming with the birds is analogous I think to farming in the community. You don't just farm intensively pretending that you're this world unto yourself. You let the surroundings, the ecological community, define the way you farm. Miguel's community is based on this kind of network, a network which - the farm's owners by the way make actually money not despite the conservation efforts but because of it. And the network capitalizes on the healthy relationship between land and water and fish and birds and people and includes each of them in the process, it's why what they do is so important. And it's why what's happening here, today, is so important.

This conference is a network, it's a group of people who see that we aren't healthy because our farms aren't healthy, and that the end of the food chain is connected to the beginning of the food chain, and without sustained community, there is no such thing as sustainability. THAT is the culture of agriculture. And the more we remember it and the more we advocate for it the more delicious our food will be, and that's an idea we can all fall in love with.

Thank you.

The Miyazaki-Is-Disturbing Scale

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 15:18:41 GMT

Hayao Miyazaki has made a wide range of wonderful fantasy anime, and they each seem to be tailored to a particular age group. His major feature films seem to fall on a scale of Totally Germane For Toddlers to I'm An Adult And I'm Cringing Slightly. This is how I would rank his films on this scale:

My Neighbor Totoro, 1988 (Any age can watch this and enjoy it)
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, 2008 (This actually has a "bad guy" in it and thus is one step higher)
Kiki's Delivery Service, 1989 (Kiki has a lot of challenges within herself to overcome, and some conflict)
Laputa: Castle in the Sky, 1986 (Lots of conflict, actual bad guys and high stakes adventure)
Spirited Away, 2001 (Many nightmarish monsters, but nobody actually gets hurt)
Howl's Moving Castle, 2004 (Depicts war, people get hurt)
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, 1984 (Psychadelic monsters and situations, blood and conflict)
Princess Mononoke, 1997 film (Lots of blood and death and suffering and weird shit)

Somehow I have missed seeing Porco Russo, and thus cannot place it accurately on the scale. I should rectify this. I suspect it's in the middle somewhere, since it's about a flying ace pig.

An iTunes Thing That Would Be Cool

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:57:22 GMT

If, after rating songs, I could "trade in" the stuff I rate at 2 stars or 1 star for other songs... like get "store credit" for stuff I don't like.

This would be great feedback for publishers and artists, because they'd know what I don't like. And it's a win for me because it means I can try out more music and "keep" the songs I like in my library. I don't need any money back, I'd just like to license different content and find music I enjoy!

The Juice Is Good

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:43:30 GMT

Recently I liberated a Jack Lalanne power juicer from my mother's clutches - she owned it for many years, and in that time it gathered a lustrous coating of dust, nearly changing its color from white to gray (shortly thereafter, she purchased a second juicer, this time in stainless steel... perhaps so the dust would be less noticeable?).

In any case, I too let the juicer languish in my kitchen. I tried one time to make a juice from a couple different ingredients, and the result was less than stellar. The last time I was visiting the parents in Connecticut though I found a copy of Elaine Lalanne's Power Juicer recipe book; I liberated this item as well and perused it for ideas about different combinations of fruits and vegetables, and proper ratios for good tasting results.

Having read through it a couple of times, I feel like I have a grasp of the fundamentals. Today I made a carrot, beet, celery, and onion juice (little spring onions) and it came out totally delish. I generated a huge amount of pulp, and I proceeded to take that, saute it in a pan with olive oil and garlic, then added a bunch of water, pepper, curry, cumin, and bay leaves and simmered it for a bit; so in additional to six cups of tasty juice, I created another ten or so cups of a spicy gazpacho for this awful heat wave. Not bad!!

A Light in Darkness

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:05:44 GMT

Remember how I lost all my photos in a horrible hard drive crash some months ago?

As it turns out, I have a ton of photos in my email that I never once considered. Practically every image I've ever sent as an attachment, or has been sent to me, is in my mailbox. I've been poking around with Spotlight on my Mac, and just generally searching for JPEGs, and I've already come up with a number of gem photos that I forgot existed.

It's going to take me a long time to scour all of my hard drive, but now I know there are a whole bunch of photos floating around in there that I can salvage and organize in my iPhoto; I may very well not have lost as much as I thought I did.

Writer's Block: I May Be Crazy

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:29:45 GMT

What does this Rorschach blot look like to you?

View 548 Answers

A pelvis.

Time Management and Priorities

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 02:22:03 GMT

After a little thought and analysis, I've decided I'm going to start allocating time to my "extracurricular activities". I made some estimations of where all my time needs to go with "life maintenance" and work and then prioritized the activities I want to spend time on.

Chinese - 1 hour every day of the week
Greek - 1 hour Monday through Friday
Art - 2 hours on Saturday
Writing - 2 hours on Sunday

It comes out to spending a little more than two hours a day on my non-work pursuits. I left myself two hours a day of "free time" to fill with whatever I want, but more than anything I just wanted to come up with a rough estimate of how much time I can afford to dedicate to other things each day.

AT&T - Stick it to me ONE MORE TIME

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:23:59 GMT

I'm begging for it!!!

On top of having to pay the whole cost of my iPhone upgrade, AT&T socked me for another $25 for a hidden "upgrade fee". IT'S NOT ENOUGH THAT YOU'RE NOT SUBSIDIZING IT, YOU HAVE TO TWIST MY SACK ONE MORE TIME.

Blood from a stone. Please Mr. Obama, please break up the telecom monopolies and make it stick this time? For the children? For the future of the country?

Semi-irregular Comics Mike Is Reading Review

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:25:46 GMT

B.P.R.D. - Still good.

Hellboy - Also still good.

Astro City - Actually got an issue of this, finally! I'm really hoping they just wrap up this arc... it would be nice if there were some kind of reboot of Astro City at this point, but that may be so pomo that it eats its own head.

Planetary - LAST ISSUE IN OCTOBER FINALLY I CAN'T BELIEVE IT HAS BEEN TEN YEARS FOR 27 ISSUES

Batman and Robin - New take on old characters by Grant Morrison. Grant and Frank Quitely did amazing work with All-Star Superman, and this new Batman stuff (with Dick Grayson as bats and Batman's son as Robin) is really really awesome. The feel is exactly what Batman should feel like, but it's a new story with new character development; I love it.

Top 10 Season Two - Haven't seen this lately, must be running late again... maybe it's time to put Top Ten to bed.

Red Mass For Mars - Watchmen-like uberfuture where humanity is doomed. I think this book is about done, it never really grabbed me so now I'm just getting it to be complete with it.

Walking Dead - Still reading this zombie soap opera, it keeps pulling me back in.

Anna Mercury - Alternate worlds and a boob-laden secret agentess. New story arc, looks promising.

Viking - This is a very moody, art-centric, historical fiction piece about Vikings. I like it, but we'll see how long it lasts.

Buck Rogers - Indy take on the classic character. Could be good; we'll see what happens.

Doktor Sleepless - Bio/Hacker superhero wants to end the world. Still wearing thin.

Gravel - Warren Ellis, John Constantine with a badass military twist. This series not only excels for Warren, it's setting up its next whole story arc with this great weirdo all magician super-team. A very very cool idea, Magic X-Men. I hope it takes off - I also think it would be great if Avatar did an omnibus collection of all the Gravel stories they've ever put out (as the character starred in a number of mini-series before getting his own regular series).

Ignition City - Where pulp space heroes go to die. Still good, thanks be to Warren.

Irredeemable - Superman-level hero runs amok. This is some good stuff - deconstructing the idea of an alien super-being living in human society, much further than anyone's ever dared to go with the idea before.

No Hero - Take a drug, become a superhero via a horrific biological transformation; just read the penultimate issue, and it should all resolve nicely in the last book. I'm reminded of Black Summer, which I did like, but it also felt a little shallow like No Hero does. Both story ideas could have been expanded more, but Warren is the million armed writer of the Apocalypse, he doesn't really have enough time to write every damn thing in the universe.

Incognito - Supervillain in witness protection regains powers and becomes a "hero". From Ed Brubaker, still loving this book, hope it goes for a while or continues exploring the continuity in other series.

Writer's Block: Childish Pleasures

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:50:15 GMT

Name something you love but feel like you should have grown out of by now.

View 505 Answers

I don't believe in outgrowing anything I love. If I enjoy something, I don't give a shit if someone else calls it "childish". If someone insists on "giving up all childish things" they love, that person will live the rest of his or her life quite miserably.

Harry Potter and the Half-What What???

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:00:33 GMT

I saw an advance screening of this film tonight and have to say that I was overall disappointed, though very glad that I was invited to see it for free by my friend. I elaborate under the cut.

How do you make a 2.5 hour film called "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and NOT tell the story of the Half-Blood Prince? And how do you make this movie and only give Alan Rickman about five minutes of screen time? And HOW DO YOU MAKE THE DEATH OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE SHODDY AND WORTHLESS?

I'm completely serious here. This is the sum total of the Half-Blood Prince plot throughout the film:

- Harry finds a potions book
- Harry makes a cool potion and casts a nasty spell
- Snape says to Harry: "How dare you use my own spells against me, I'm the Half-Blood Prince!"

That's it. That's the ENTIRE story, that's all you get to see. I mean, I was fucking floored... Alan Rickman literally comes on stage at the end of the film and utters that line and that's it, that's all the explanation you get. They don't even say why Snape is "Half-blood".

You can almost tell that Alan Rickman phoned this movie in; he melodramatically played Snape, like a caricature of his character. I mean, wouldn't you be ripshit pissed? The entire book is all about your character, there's all this development and flashbacks and what not, but all you get is one lousy throwaway line and a couple of comedic riffs in the film?

Oh, and were you expecting to see a dramatic battle when Dumbledore died? Nope, not happening, sorry. Oh wait, did you expect to see Dumbledore die at all? NO, SORRY. All you get to see is a flash of blurry green light through a hole in a wall, because you see Snape kill Dumbledore from "Harry's perspective" where he is beneath the floor. WHAT THE EFF.

WORST CINEMATOGRAPHIC CHOICE IN THE HISTORY OF FILM.

Only die hard foam at the mouth fans will like this film. Everyone else will be confused and disappointed.

Person

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:01:53 GMT

Given that a person lives for a finite period of time, that said person collects a finite number of memories as stored experience (due to limitations in time, resources, or capacity - let's call this amount X), that said person for any discrete period of time is defined by those memories and reacts to certain stimuli in certain ways according to what is contained in the collection of memories.

As an example: a person who has seen a particular movie will recall it and express opinions about it when prompted.

Now, a new assumption - let us remove the constraints of resources and capacity, and perhaps even relax the time constraint somewhat. Let's say that instead of X, a person can now have access to 2X worth of memories; the equivalent of two lifetimes worth of human experience. And of course we are also assuming that memories can be manufactured and installed by some means, or that forgotten memories can always be backed up and stored so that a more "complete" life's worth of memory is available.

We can say that a person gains the ability to preserve additional memories via some kind of external store, and has the ability to move memories back and forth between that external connection and the "working memory" of their brain and consciousness. The constraint that remains is that the working memory can only process a certain amount of information at any given time, because it is not made to handle the additional capacity, so memories must be moved back and forth; only the maximum amount of X can be in working memory at any given time, even though access to 2X worth of information is possible.

What amount of memories does a person need to retain in order to keep his or her person being? Is that even a valid question? With 2X available, one could conceivably replace all of the original X worth of memories with another completely different set of memories of X size. That is a completely different person. But if a person keeps 50 percent of their "original" memories, and replaces the rest of working memory with other memories, he or she will probably still be a different person; he or she will react differently when asked "Did you see this movie?" depending on whether or not the memory of the movie is in the person's working memory at that given point in time.

Is there a critical mass of particular memories that defines a person, like a personality DNA? What memories are actually important to always retain, and which could a person afford to lose?

How I Got Hacked For $450, or, Online Security Is An Illusion

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:25:27 GMT

I've always considered myself a savvy online consumer. I'm an IT professional, a software engineer and independent consultant. I make all my passwords strong, I don't click on popups or install suspicious software, I don't ever purchase anything from shady online dealers or web sites that don't use secure connections. I thought I was fairly vigilant and smart about how I conducted business online.

Apparently not!

Someone, somewhere managed to get the number of the debit card for my business. They went to PayPal and opened up a "one time use" account with my name and the debit card number. They then used this PayPal account to purchase about $450 worth of virtual goods (gold/items) from various sites that sell World of Warcraft junk, in eight separate transactions at eight different web sites. I imagine that the person responsible is quickly turning these unreal items around for real cash, likely at a discount which encourages gamers to buy fast and not ask too many questions. Highly effective money laundering! (Thanks, World of Warcraft!)

I blame PayPal one hundred percent for this. People should not be able to open up new PayPal accounts without some kind of in-person verification, even if it's just a phone call - there need to be more stringent requirements at sign up, especially for so-called "one time use" accounts. I wish PayPal lots of luck in tracking down the malefactor(s) behind this neat little theft... everyone thinks PayPal is "crazy secure" and it's the gold standard for online commerce, yet it is VERY easily compromised. The hackers didn't need any of my bank account numbers or info, they didn't have to decrypt anything, they didn't need any of my passwords or "key questions" regarding personal information, or special images that only I can verify by sight - none of the measures that supposedly make online transactions more "secure". They didn't have to "phish" me. They just obtained the number and my name, and maybe got my SSN and address from one of the big lists floating around the Internet that hackers trade with each other. Calling the person(s) responsible for this "hacker" may even be an insult to real hackers, considering how little effort they needed to expend. (Thanks, PayPal!)

Luckily for me, I check my bank account online on a daily basis. And also lucky that they decided to make a bunch of transactions all on the same day, making it blatantly obvious what was happening. The bank cancelled my debit card (now I have to get a new one and figure out how to readjust all my billing) and PayPal is aware of the situation, so all I have to do is sit back and wait for my money to be given back to me. Maybe it's even possible that I reacted fast enough to stop some of those transactions from going through and screw the "hacker" a little bit and also make the "vendors" selling WoW junk aware that they just got screwed too.

Moral of the story - I will no longer use my business debit card online, will not use it to pay bills, and will not attach it to PayPal. I'll just use my bank's bill paying utilities to pay off my vendors and send them checks for the bills; that should even help my cash flow a little bit because money won't be instantly deducted by them any more. Be very, very wary of PayPal folks! They're the weak link in the chain at this point.

Anyone Still Reading Here?

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:28:42 GMT

View Poll: Livejournal and Facebook

Trying To Explain Computers Simply

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:27:50 GMT

Computers do math with electricity.

If you're familiar with the concept of an electrical circuit, you know that it involves electricity traveling in a circle on a wire between a power input and some output (like between a battery and a lightbulb). That is essentially all a computer is; it's millions and millions of circuits and they're all extremely tiny. Each microchip in your computer is a collection of "integrated circuits" and those are the business ends of your computer, where all the math happens.

Remember way back in kindergarten or first grade, when you were learning numbers? There were flash cards that showed a picture of two apples, then a plus sign, then two more apples, then an equals sign and question mark. That was math in its most basic form, 2 + 2 = 4. Your computer is doing the same thing inside its microchips (especially the Central Processor a.k.a. CPU), except it's doing math with electricity; different circuits and different amounts of electricity represent numbers and operations - a computer in kindergarten might see two lit up lightbulbs plus two lit up lightbulbs equals four lit up lightbulbs! At any given time, the electricity inside your computer's circuits is either "on" or "off" and that's why computers use binary representations of numbers for their math (1 for on and 0 for off). In short - when the electrical currents are combined, the logic built into the circuits changes it into different configurations, and new numbers are the result.

People use decimal numbers, the digits zero through ten; but because computers only use on and off it's easier to use just two numbers to represent all numbers - this is called binary notation. A binary digit is also called a "bit" and when you hear about a 64-bit processor that means it's a collection of circuits that can read 64 binary digits at the same time, a string of digits that could look something like this:

0010101010111001010100010011101101111110101010101101010101101001

It may not look like it means anything, but those numbers represent one or more instructions the computer has to execute - something along the lines of "Add 2 and 2" or some other step in a series of instructions that tells the computer to do things with other instructions. When someone says that a CPU is "Two Gigahertz" they're saying that the computer is doing two billion instructions every second (hertz just means "per second"). Your computer is doing something like "Add 2 and 2" TWO BILLION times every second! You can do a lot of really cool things when you can do that much math that quickly.

iPhone 3Gs impressions

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:25:22 GMT

You can really tell that it's faster. The response time on tapping things like mail and photos has sped up quite a bit. The new camera makes images look great, though it doesn't seem like you can autofocus while you're recording a video - and the ambient sound recording during the video isn't half bad, I was worried I would need to get some kind of external mike in order to really catch sound.

The setup process was completely painless for me (I upgraded); I just synced all my info (all my photos and a bunch more of my audio) and went to AT&T's web site to confirm activation. It's all working very well so far... really the only differences I've noticed so far are response time and photos. The compass is a trinket by itself, but it also works well.

Not having MMS PISSES ME OFF. This is a huge feature, I want to be able to send locations and pictures and clips of things to other iPhones!! Not having tethering also pisses me off, but nowhere near as much as the lack of rich messaging. Screw you, AT&T.

The Map App I Want

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:51:56 GMT

I don't know if people really care about this sort of thing as much as I do... but as a New Yorker (and still a relatively new one, that may factor in) I find that I need to plan my trips around the city. Travel time on public transportation is an important variable to consider, as are schedules for said transportation options.

The thing is, even though applications like Google Maps allow you to make multiple "stops" on a trip, you still can't figure in the time you plan to spend at any particular stop. So for examples, let's say I'm going to run errands in Manhattan for a bit, then meet a friend for dinner, then need to hit the pet store in my neighborhood to get litter for my cat.

I want to be able to start my journey at a particular time and hit location A to make my first errand. I figure running that errand will take me 30 minutes - so I should be able to enter in that first stop, then add +30 to the arrival time to figure out when my start time is for the next leg of the journey, and that should then figure out the next best transportation option to location B based on the schedules. This feature of "added time" alone would make my life a bit easier. But let's also say that I'm scheduled to meet my friend at 5:00p.m. for dinner; wouldn't it be impressive for the application to figure out my current trajectory, and determine whether or not I'm going to be late, and then suggest sending a text message to my friend notifying them about my current position and revised ETA?

This too would be awesome.

Lastly, this application would also be alerting me when I'm spending too much time in one place - if I lose track of time while running an errand, it would be great to be reminded of when I need to catch the next transportation option. Or even whether or not it's still possible for me to make it home in time to get to the pet store before it closes; if I couldn't do that within the current calculations of time, maybe I'll go to a pet store in my current area that's still open instead.

All of this is within easy reach technologically. I want it.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:07:23 GMT

It's good to be home.

Damn you Sony!!

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:09:42 GMT

I love my camera, I really do - it's convenient, good to use, and takes great pictures. But I HATE HATE HATE that you make me use a proprietary memory stick that I can't use in ANY OTHER DEVICE I own. It's just stupid and horribly inconvenient. It doesn't make me want to buy all Sony products, it makes me want to NEVER BUY SONY AGAIN. Why can't you morons learn?? UMD didn't work. Even Nintendo AND Apple have finally realized that having an SD slot is a huge boon to their hardware platform. I hate that I have to be bottlenecked by the USB cable that comes with the camera (or a card reader) and that I can't just move the memory stick around, ever.

What's wrong with you Sony bozos? Are you really that isolated from the consumer world? Do you truly believe that people will only buy Sony consumer electronics?

I Left My Bums In San Francisco

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:26:49 GMT

I have the feeling there is a quota at work - there has been at least one Really Crazy Motherfucker (tm) on board every time I've ridden the bus. It's like the city mandates that at least one nutjob must be on the public transportation at all times, and they have to either argue with the bus driver about why they don't need to pay, or stare at everyone with their creepy wide eyes, or must continue to write frenetic little stories in the margins of their chosen holy scriptures.

Also, bums here beg for change like it's their JOB. While I admire their tenacity on one level (just think what they could accomplish if they set their mind to it!), I also think they breach the rules of the mendicant/payee social contract. They're so aggro they practically mug people. And there's a really for real skid row here too, I walked all along it the other day. It's really sad; what the hell are they actually doing to people here? Does anybody here even care about these folks? I thought California was supposed to be all progressive and junk.

iPhone 3Gs and smudges

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:44:55 GMT

Looks like fingerprint smudging on iPhones was enough of a problem that Apple actually created a fingerprint resistant coating on the iPhone 3Gs. I wonder if they got requests from government and security people for that as well?