Geek Stuff category archive

Image via Sampler, an image site (some images NSFW).

At MarketWatch, Chuck Jaffe points out that bitcoins are worth whatever persons are willing to pay for them. He cites precedent:

The reason that tulip bulb prices are important is that they, too, are worth what someone will pay for them.

And during tulipomania in Holland in the 1630s, the price of a common tulip bulb more than doubled in value to three florins, or about a week’s earnings for a craftsman from that era. More rare bulbs—those priced at 40 florins prior to the run-up—increased nine-fold; one of my college textbooks describing the phenomenon recounted the tale of a single tulip being sold for a dozen sheep and four oxen, two tons of butter, 1,000 pounds of cheese and more.

Three computers in one: A VNC connection to Debian Sid running the Fluxbox window manager on a P4 Dell tower overlaying a Virtual Machine of OpenSuse running LXDE on a Mageia 4 computer running E17.

This is the first time I set up a VNC all by my lonesome. Once I found the right helpful website and punched the correct hole in the server firewall, it was much easier than I had expected.

Driftglass presents the best explanation I’ve seen yet.

I have received well over 100 spam comments in the last 24 hours, no doubt courtesy of folks like these. The volume of spam comments has increased significantly in the past two weeks.

Thanks to Akismet, only one or two slipped into public view. The ones that did were painfully obvious and quickly deleted, having been worded in this manner (not a quotation–an exemplar) . . .

I find this website marvelous. What you have contributed to my knowledge is unmatched in my experience. Can you recommend me to other sites where I can perceive such wisdom?

. . . and containing links pointing to sites selling knock-offs to the gullible.

Aside:

I feel sorry for folks who sell themselves to do this sort of stuff. They are clearly desperate. But the folks who pay them to do it are scum.

I guess it was only a matter of time . . . .

A Harvard University student is in hot water for using the Ivy League school’s 14,000-core supercomputer to mine Dogecoins.

According to The Harvard Crimson, an unnamed student has been stripped of access to all of the prestigious uni’s research-computing labs and systems after it was discovered earlier this month that s/he had scheduled its Odyssey cluster for use in a Dogecoin mining operation.

Dogecoins are yet another attempt to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon before the wheels fall off.

The first issue has been released.

I just downloaded my digital copy.

Betsy Biesenbach does not regret the disappearance of “cursive.” A nugget:

Cursive is good for only one thing — as a encryption code to foil nosy young people. When my son once told me my handwriting was awful, I knew he had been peeking at my private journal. Fortunately, he couldn’t read a word of it.

Unfortunately, neither can I.

Afterthought:

When I was in first and second grades, printing was called “printing” and what today is called “cursive” was called simply “writing” and was just what literate persons did.* I wonder what effect giving “writing” a special fancy-sounding name has had in turning it into something mysterious and foreign.

___________________

*The capital “D” gave me a fit for two years.

Sign the petition.

More frolicking here.

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, February 6.

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)

George Smith explains why you shouldn’t succumb to the cyberwar hype.

You know that nice new car you just got, the one with the built-in Facebook and all those neat monitoring systems?

MidAtlantic AAA’s Ronald Kosh reports that it may be phoning home without your having been informed of it in any way. A snippet:

A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on automobile telematics systems found that location-based data are being collected, stored, and shared. It also questioned whether consumers were aware of or in agreement with all the purposes for which their data were being used. This is similar to companies that sell their mailing lists or Internet companies that track the online activity of visitors. The GAO also noted that location data can be used to infer other sensitive information about individuals, such as their religious affiliation or political activities.

Folks clutch their pearls about the NSA (with some justification), while, unnoticed, corporations make the NSA look like pikers.

Read the rest.

I cannot understand why persons carry gadgets that cost several hundred bucks in their hip pockets like they were handkerchiefs, yet I see it every day. I would worry that the over-priced doohickey would break; I would not, however, expect this:

Thanks to the quick action of students and staff, an eighth-grader at the Middle School of the Kennebunks has been treated and released from a hospital after her iPhone caught fire in her pocket Friday.

(snip)

EMS Division Chief Andrew Palmeri said it appears that when the student sat down, with the phone in her back pocket, the phone’s battery “shorted out.” The state fire marshal is investigating, he said.

According to the story, students and teachers responded promptly and competently and the girl was not seriously injured.

Picture of the iJunk at the link.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

(That’s a rhetorical question.)

I was talking with my friend yesterday about how rapid-fire “reply-to-all” business emails can be dysfunctional, leading to confusion, crossed wires, and duplicated efforts.

Now comes Science 2 dot 0 with a list of the Seven Deadly Email Sins. Explanations at the link.

1. Ping pong – constant emails back and forth creating long chains
2. Emailing out of hours
3. Emailing while in company
4. Ignoring emails completely
5. Requesting read receipts
6. Responding immediately to an email alert
7. Automated replies

Very early in his career, before getting into movies, Woody Allen used to tell a joke about a man whose toaster mailfunctioned and burned his toast. He cussed the toaster up and down, then chucked it in the trash after it cooled.

Then he left for work. He stepped into his elevator, pushed the “G” button, and the elevator started down.

Halfway between two floors, the machine stopped, the music ceased, and a voice came out of the speakers: “Aren’t you the guy who was cruel to his toaster?”

Turns out it wasn’t just a joke, it was a prophecy (details at the link).

Computer security researchers said this week they discovered a large “botnet” which infected Internet-connected home appliances and then delivered more than 750,000 malicious emails.

A major cause of this sort of stuff is that, in the rush to market, those who make all these “connected” devices think about sales, not security. And buyers don’t ask themselves, “Why does my refrigerator need to browse YouTube?”

Connecting something to the internet just because you can is likely a bad idea.