Thursday, January 04, 2007

Stand Back... I Think I'm Gonna Blag.

Ok, so I know I just did this with the multiple items in a single post, but I'm still all blocked up from that week of not crapping, er... I mean posting. So hold on. Its gonna be a rough one.

Hackers went pretty hard on RFID the entire year, breaking what meager encryption companies may have tried. Showing us why is may not be such a great idea to sport our credit card, passport, or biometric data in an easily gankable format. Well here's a little switch for you, the Chaos Conference attendees will be tracked via RFID, and their locations will be displayed in a publicly accessible form. Kind of a "no one has secrets" approach. Sure you can see my info, but I can see your too. The beacons broadcast at five power levels and are triangulated by 35 readers throughout the conference.

LEDs are great. I'm trying to get into them as much as possible, mostly cause I don't really like the compact fluorescent kick everyone (especially walmart) is on these days. Of course the reason I like em (not very mainstream) is the very reason I can't use them for everything. But there's a nice guide for LED beginners. I know what I'm doing the next rainy weekend.
I've been thinking of wiping my hard-drive lately. Mostly case there are so many things installed that I don't use. What do I really need? FireFox and Itunes. That's all that comes to mind. But its still a scary step. This disc might make the emotional hurdle a bit easier to get over. Its called software for starving students and contains all those essential open programs all in one place. Sounds pretty nice, but keep in mind that its a disc image, so don't go downloading it unless you plan on burning it.
Nothing like a batch of holiday porn. Be careful what you give Jimmy for his birthday cause you never know what's gonna come preloaded on those storage devices. iPods, video games, cameras, they're all susceptible. The more I hear about this stuff the more I think its Fight Club.
Gambling, we all do it. Even if you live in a state where gambling is illegal. Yes, I'm talking about insurance. When you buy car insurance, you're saying 'I bet I'm gonna screw up my car.' Of course its not quite that clear cut, but take a look at Weatherbill. Its a site where you can buy insurance against the weather. Maybe you've rented a site for an outdoor cookout or you're organizing a parade. I dunno, there must be all kinds of reasons for hedging your bets. And I mean that literally, the site also invites people to place wagers on the weather in places that will have no effect on them. So insurance, or gambling, it all good.
Oh good another wire format to keep track of. I haven't even found anything to plug into my HDMI port yet and already I'm feeling like I need a new system. Whatever, can't we all just agree on a standard plug for high quality audio and video? I mean how am I sposed to feel future proof if you keep changing things on me?
In other news, the best pirate pickup line of the week is:
Avast, me pretty! Strike your panties and prepare to be boarded.

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