Geek Stuff category archive
Twits on Twitter 0
Twitter promises to deal with trolls. A snippet:
Twitter reportedly plans to introduce measures that spell out to trolls that their undesirable communications have an effect in the offline world, as well as on the internet. By making it clear that trolls’ actions exist “in the real world” and encouraging victims to expose their abusers by publishing their names, it hopes to eradicate trolling and improve its brand.
Little boy. Thumb. Dike.
Great Moments in Tech Support 0
You don’t have to make this stuff up.
3D Printing Goes to Sea 0
3D printing has been mainstreamed.
The miniature fabrication labs have been placed on two ships: the aircraft carrier Truman and the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge. Both Norfolk-based ships are deployed to the Middle East in the fight against the Islamic State.
Much more at the link.
The Cycle of “Sharing” 0
Yes, there is such a thing, and it doesn’t have to be–er–improper photographs.
Mark Leigh, 54, of Failsworth, said his two bicycles – worth £500 ($750) and £1,000 ($1,500) – were nicked shortly after he made his address and details of his bikes public on the popular biking app Strava, the Manchester Evening News reports.
The app includes an optional privacy setting that conceals the exact location of your home, but Leigh was not aware of this switch when he shared details of his bike rides via the software.
There’s a reason I keep the GPS in my cell phone turned off. Putting aside outlying possibilities such as the above, it’s nobody’s business which grocery stores I use.
There’s an App for That 2
If you use Firefox or Chrome, you might be interested in this.
“It’s All about Me” 0
Scientific Blogging looks at how narcissism is driving marketing is driving narcissism is driving marketing . . . .
How Stuff Works, Splet Chek Dept. 0
Makes sense to me.
The Snaring Economy 0
A lock-out is a time honored tactic of employers who mistreat employees. Now comes the digital lock-out.
Uber, natch, says it was all a big mistake.
Gadget Overload 0
Mark W. Anderson is fed up.
Calmer reflection later made me remember what E.B. White wrote in the New Yorker magazine in 1948. “Like radio, television hangs on the questionable theory that whatever happens anywhere should be sensed everywhere. If everyone is going to be able to see everything, in the long run all things may lose whatever rarity values they once possessed, and it may well turn out that people, being able to see and hear everything, will be especially interested in almost nothing.”
Stupid Is a Powerful Thing 0
Trading in secrets:
Unlike most such cases, however, officials with Atlantic Marine Construction Company aren’t arguing the employee stole their proposal sheets and other records before he was fired. Rather, the company claims Christopher McGrath, formerly of Virginia Beach, stole them after he was terminated via a widely available computer program he secretly installed on a work computer.
The nefarious software that McGrath used to steal these “trade secrets” was a fairly straightforward VNC program called Google Chrome Remote Desktop.
My friend uses VNC software to work from home almost every day. I use X11vnc myself to connect to my server remotely, because Klaatu recommends X11vnc.
As someone quoted later in the story points out, McGrath’s employer was too stupid to wipe his computer or, at the least, disconnect it from the company’s network or maybe even just turn it off. (The person in the story was a bit more tactful.)
Having worked in corporate America, I can attest that stupid is a powerful force in organizational dynamics.
Afterthought:
How secret are these “trade secrets”? How many secrets can a “construction company” have? Do they give away the con? Inquiring minds want to know.
Afterthought X2:
Computers are a tool. They are not magickal mystickal boxes of binary voodoo. As with any other tool, from a hammer to a circular saw to a CNC machine, if you want to use them, learn how to use them safely. If you don’t care to learn how to use them safely, don’t blame others when things go wrong.
Decorated 0
For persons who care, that’s Fluxbox running on Slackware –Current. Santa and the snowflakes are courtesy of Xsnow.
I tricked out my laptop, which is currently running Mint 17.1 LTS, in a similar fashion. The persons at Thurday’s TWUUG meeting got a nice chuckle from my interface when I made my little presentation about Qmmp (that’s Qmmp playing Cleek of Scotland Yard in the upper left). “Okay,” I said, “so I decorated for Christmas.”
And, no, you can’t do this in Windows, at least, not anywhere nearly so easily.
The Farce Awakens 0
Afterthought:
There are and will always be only three Star Wars movies.
No Place To Hide 0
The EFF explains its complaint about how Google spies on students using Google’s chromebook laptops. Here’s a bit (emphasis in the original):
In other words, when a student logs into their educational account, and then uses Google News to create a report on current events, or researches history using Google Books, or has a geography lesson using Google Maps, or watches a science video on YouTube, Google tracks that activity and feeds it into an ad profile attached to the student’s educational account—even though Google knows that the person using that account is a student, and the account was created for educational purposes.
The whole thing is worth a read, especially if you care about companies stripping you nekkid on the interwebs.
Smitten and Bitten 0
Anyone who has looked into it has figured out that bitcoins are a mug’s game. Meet some mugs.
More at the link.
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source. Learn how to use computers to do what you want, not what someone else wants you to do.
It’s not hard; it’s just different.
What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, December 3.
Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)
Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)
Join the forums.
Dialectic 0
The EFF points out the inherent contradictions in governments’ efforts to weaken encryption (in this case, the United States FBI, but the same thing has been happening in the UK and other countries which call themselves “democratic”).
A snippet (emphasis in the original):
In related news, Italy decides to eavesdrop on gamers.
You may worry about the gamers’ privacy. I used to hear Second Son chat with other gamers while playing on his XBox Three. I worry about the eavesdroppers’ sanity.