It looks like Mozilla and company are offering up some free beer at the Jupiter Hotel Bossanova tomorrow night at an event called Beerforge. Is anyone going to this?

So does everyone on LJ pretty much use that lj-toys thing to collect stats on who is reading their journal? I had some network issues today and when I hit my friends page I saw that just about every other entry had this little frame in the middle of it:

I assume that means people are tracking and logging and all that. I also assume it doesn’t work on me because I have a referrer-blocker (RefControl) plugin as well as my cookie-limiter (Cookie Monster) and ad-blocker (AdBlock Plus.)

Me? I don’t have secret little 1-pixel trackers. I have direct HTTP logs and that “(n comments)” image, plus Analog to turn those raw logs into charts and graphs.

So, I guess people throw cremated remains into Pirates of the Caribbean. “A suspicious powder that may or may not have been cremated remains was spotted in the water in the popular attraction, forcing the ride to close briefly Friday afternoon… Crew members get reports up to once a month when witnesses or security cameras catch riders tossing suspicious powders.”

Isn’t it odd that it is now light at 6:30am, but dark at 6:30pm? Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

“I understand how scissors can beat paper, and I get how a rock can beat scissors, but there’s no ****ing way paper can beat rock. Is paper suposed to magically wrap around rock and leave it immobile? Why the hell can’t paper do this to people? Why aren’t sheets of college ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they take notes in class? I’ll tell you why, because paper can’t beat anybody. A rock would tear that **** up in 2 seconds. When I play rock paper scissors, I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, oh **** I’m sorry, I thought paper would protect you, you ***hole!”

(via Digg via Found)

I have not posted in a while, so here are the recent updates in the ever popular (or should that be “boring?”) bullet-point format:

* On the plus side, last weekend was a 4-day weekend. On the minus side, it was 4 days because Friday and Monday were taken as sick days. While I can no longer say I’m sick, I cannot entirely say I’m well. It was just a cold, but it hit pretty hard, and I’m still coughing up chunks of lung-butter.

* Homeowner’s insurance for the new place just went through fine, meaning the last part of financing paperwork can now proceed. AAA seems to think the home was built in 1926. Portland Maps (and thus, public records on file with the city) seems to think it was 1908. 1926 is slightly better for insurance rates, so I’m not arguing, but I do believe the city records are correct. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking, as it’s only 7 years too late for, technically, being of the Victorian era.

* I got my Arduino development board (which I think I previously blogged about.) I have gotten the microprocessor to interface with a couple of servos and a set of red/green/blue LEDs (with programmable intensity to make a rainbow of colors.) I haven’t yet tried anything with the analog inputs (light sensor, dials, etc.) I’m still not sure what project I’ll make from it, though.

* I picked up The Prestige again. I started the book before I got sick and powered through the first half. When sick, I never have the patience/energy/stamina/clear-head to read and always just throw in DVDs of familiar old movies and TV shows that I can drift in and out of sleep with. Now, I think I’m well enough to start reading again. The book (as usual) is much better than the film. I was a bit worried at first, as the book started in the cliche way of prefacing the actual story with “I found this diary when going through old stuff, and its contents follow:” that simultaneously puts the author in the story, but detaches him from the actual story (”I’m just retelling what I heard”) and tries to make things a bit more believable. The cliche is actually somewhat ARG-ish, come to think of it. Anyway, I was relieved to see that, while the movie followed the pair of feuding magicians a hundred years ago, the book covers not only them, but their children and grandchildren in the modern day.

* Accordion Hero? What?

* Today was a massage day. Laying face-down on a table for the better part of an hour is a good way to clear out blocked sinuses, nevermind the actual massage part.

Rest in peace, Fup. I’ll miss your trundling prowls through Powells Tech.

Apple released some new iPhone firmware today. Fortunately, they left in all of the loopholes for hacking your own apps into it. The last time I hacked my phone, it took about half a day. This time, it took about 13 minutes (10 of which were waiting for something to download.) This is all it took:

That’s me typing one command, then me selecting #3. Later on, that was me holding down buttons to reset the phone. From that point, you’re given an application on the phone itself for installing additional packages:

Easy!

For future reference, when installing the OpenSSH package…
The root password is: dottie
Code to generate a new hash is: perl -e 'print crypt("MYPASSWORD", "XX");'

I wonder how many people install OpenSSH without knowing what it is, and without changing passwords and disabling accounts.