Opium
Afghanistan has a flourishing opium trade. They apparently produce most of the world’s opium. Ironically, it’s kind of our fault–the Taliban had pretty much eradicated all poppy cultivation, but with them gone, it’s come back. A recent news story suggests that the Afghani leaders...
Public Safety
Posted by Matt in Computers, Ideas, Performance, Programming, Rants & Raves, Security on 02 29th, 2008 | No Comments
For those of you who don’t monitor police scanners regularly, I’d like to introduce what can be considered a fairly scary fact: their computer systems go down all the time.
Where it usually comes up is when they try to run a license plate or a person, or to query NCIC or similar. The officer...
Confirmation Bias
Posted by Matt in Funny, Ideas, Insanity, Living, Rants & Raves, School on 02 26th, 2008 | No Comments
Have you ever noticed that someone mentions something, and all of a sudden you notice that thing multiple times? One professor mentioned that very phenomenon one week. Early the next week, I was touring Waltham’s 911 dispatch center, and noted the software they used for (Computer Aided Dispatch)...
Starting Writing
I’ve been asked to write an article for the school paper on what will probably be a front-page issue. Combined with the police logs and a burning desire to write a letter to the editor, I’ve realized something.
I hate writing introductions. Here, I can just start in with terrible openers...
Saying It
I think I mentioned that I signed up for a $7 VPS account, more as a trial than anything. It was a relatively new company, but I figured I had, at most, $7 to lose.
They sent out a fairly terse e-mail that they were transferring companies to some organization in New Zealand. Understandably, I wasn’t...
This Is My Hobby
Posted by Matt in Business, Computers, Ideas, Insanity, OCD, Performance, Rants & Raves on 02 25th, 2008 | No Comments
I want to start a “meta ISP.”
When you sign up with your ISP, you’re paying for transit. They carry your data from one network to the other.
But now let’s say that I’m a mediocre residential ISP. I buy connectivity from a couple different upstream providers, and use BGP...
Digital Photo Recovery
Posted by Matt in Computers, Cool Links, Hero of the Day, Ideas, Interesting, Linux Tips, Living, Photography, Programming, Rants & Raves, Security on 02 25th, 2008 | No Comments
I just discovered PhotoRec, a tool for recovering digital camera images.
For the non-geeks, a quick basic background…. When you save a file, it writes it to various blocks on the disk. Then it makes an entry in the File Allocation Table, pointing to where on the disk the file is. When you delete...
Understand?
I had to read this headline about eight times before I understood it: Boyfriend on roof punches weaving driver.
And even after the eighth time, my mental image still didn’t match what I found when I read the story.
Actually, even having read it, I’m not sure I understand it. I mean, I understand...
Thick & Thin
Kyle has an awesome 22″ LCD. His is probably 6″ thick in the back.
I have a 14.1″ laptop. My LCD is probably less than 1/2″ thin in the back.
Why is this? My first guess was the power supply. But I’ve seen a few LCDs where they’ve taken out the power supplies and put...
Lottery
Posted by Matt in Business, Computers, Insanity, Materialism, Rants & Raves on 02 23rd, 2008 | No Comments
I lost the lottery last night. Actually, I never even entered. The drawing was for $270 million (30-year annuity), or $164.3 million cash. The stakes were high, but I still didn’t dare risk life and limb to go buy lottery tickets. Further, I’d have to clear my car off and I was feeling pretty...