February 20th, 2008
Tonight I was invited out to Ignite Seattle! I expected a bunch of anti-social geeks with nothing too interesting. However, what I got to was an awesome event! Most of the presentations were indeed interesting. The fast paced slides (15 seconds per slide, max 5 minutes) kept things moving and everyone awake. In between presentations, I got to do some great networking! I met some amazing people, someone from Google, someone from Amazon, someone from Make Magazine and even someone from O’Reilly! There were other people from other well known companies, but I only got to talk to a few of the people at the event. After talking to all these people, it has really inspired me to maybe start doing my own presentations. I have a lot of things to talk about, but a chunk of my ideas I have normally kept to myself. I am not just talking computing, but even generic electronic hacks! I already have an idea of what my first presentation should be about: Firewalls and NAT protection. Inspired by a great guy named Dan Kaminsky and his really well done presentation (and papers) on DNS rebinding attacks, I know exactly how I will focus my presentation. It is a mix of how people trust their firewalls too much to over compensate for bad software and how people hide behind NAT routers thinking they are completely safe. After some discussion, I’ve decided to name my presentation “Pulling out a Rabbit from behind a NAT”. Effectively, the “coup de grâce” of my presentation will be ways of poking at people behind the NAT without solicitation.
Tags: ignite, presentations, random
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February 18th, 2008
Here is a triple post today!
I was pulling some pictures off my camera and found some really cool ones I took randomly off the window. I love art, especially natural forming art.
For example, the latest frame capture was off a window and it was -20′Celcius outside:
(two shots with different shutter speeds)
The ice is completely natural, there was no human involvement to make this happen. It is very humid in the Ottawa/Gatineau area and tempuratures can drop very suddenly in a matter of hours. When I looked at this window in the morning, it was wet and there was a lot of condensation. Usually an inch or two of ice will form near the bottom. When the tempurature drops suddenly, the humid window will freeze up and create really amazing patterns. In this case, “leaves”. It is just some crystallization, but I still think it is awesome no matter what randomly forms.
On the other end of the window, I got some neat vines growing:
(interesting vines growing…)
And finally, for that zoomed-out look for the non-believers:
I have taken so many random pictures related to nature, mostly in subzero tempuratures, all of them I think are pretty awesome…and all natural!
Tags: art, nature, random
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February 18th, 2008
I landed just before noon local time and was welcomed to a very BEAUTIFUL and SUNNY Seattle!
It was quite amazing, impressive and that just made my day. When I went down to claim my lost luggage, it was there! My bags were there!! Of course, not everything was perfect. I discovered a few new holes and missing parts to my suitcase and my locks were cleanly cut off (yes, TSA approved locks). Oh well, getting back to a sunny, blue sky, Seattle REALLY made my day.
Back to flight woes, found out why there was a whackload of cancellations: Plane “crash” at the airport I flew out of. I took off just before that plane. The freezing rain really took its toll and the plane just couldn’t stop on the runway. So, the plane was parked on a snowbank. No injuries, just one less of a plane to fly. My flight got re-routed after take off because our landing gear was frozen. That was fun. I did not find out till after the flight landed. Apparently, they were expecting a worse landing.
Tags: random, rants
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February 18th, 2008
I’m now in Detroit! It seems like a beautiful, clean and fun city. After getting to the airport, I was guided by NWA to take another flight to Charlotte, NC. I told them my flight was to Seattle and I need to be in Seattle. They assured me, my ticket was for Charlotte and that I really want to go there. If I wanted to make a 2 hour drive and see the Duke campus, maybe I’d consider flying to NC. I was pretty confident I wanted to be in Seattle. After some phone/CSR/customer ménage-a-trois, where I have to deal with a physical agent and an over-the-phone agent at the same time, they tell me they may be able to fit me on their next flight to Seattle. Maybe. I am on standby, as we speak, sitting at the terminal, holding a ticket that may get me on a plane.
I do know one thing that is for sure: If I actually make this flight, somebody else will be blogging about missing their flight and being screwed over, once again, by NWA.
Tags: random, rants, Travel
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February 17th, 2008
I am not happy with NWA. Customer service is crap and they are greedy.
Luckily, I’m getting a hotel tonight. I am writing this from the terminal, too lazy to check for the city. I am not 100% sure where I am right now, but it is either Pittsburg, Pennsylvania or St. Paul, Minneapolis. Was this on my itinerary? No. Final destination? Seattle. Some bad weather and many delays caused my connection in Detroit to be shifted to either Pittsburg or Minneapolis…I was just too damn tired and slept most of the flight and I did not hear what the captain said. With the slew of people (88 or so) complaining around me, I just found a power plug in and went online 
Hopefully there is something fun to do in (insert city here) and I do not get mugged doing the above. I will whine to NWA tomorrow night, after I arrive at my destination. Hopefully I will eventually see my luggage one day. I’m worried I may never see my bottles of Raki again 
Tags: random, rants
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February 16th, 2008
Woke up this morning with a sore neck and back, stormy weather and a cold bedroom. But that’s okay, I am going to be a grad student. Well, one day anyway…
Finding a school that fits me wasn’t exactly the easiest. I don’t want to attend full time and I especially do not want to physically be at the school. I do not mind taking exams at the university physically, but finding a university that allows the use of a proctor is always a plus.
Well, good news, I found a school! I am not 100% sure what I want to take, but I’m looking at the Engineering-Computer Science camp. We shall see how it goes and see how much I can get done
Start date: August 2008
Tags: geeky, random
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February 15th, 2008
I wont get into details in this post about a nasty car accident today (trying to get the pictures off my phone…), but I will make a post about it soon enough.
On a positive side, let’s talk about fun ways to mess around with metermaids! Back in Ottawa, there is a LOT of snow. Plows are fairly active, but it is not uncommon to find 5-6 feet of snow on the side of the road with a car under it. Generally, if there is room, they send a towtruck to drag the car from under the snow. Before they tow, they usually ticket the car. This is where the fun starts.
Required tools:
- snow shovels
- car door
- snow bank on the side of a street
Essentially, you will be building a snowman, just a lot bigger, and shaped like a car. Our first step is to place the door in the snowbank; you really want to get this at least 1 foot deep in the snow. After the door has been placed, you want to shape it properly to give a “natural” look.
Once you are done the door, you can easily start working on the rest of the car. What you are working on is a simulated car under this snow. Always assume a foot of “grace”, so it will be a bit bigger, and way more believable. If you are successful in pulling this off, add some random car parts to give it a more real “feel”. Also, spray as much water as you can to really harden up the snow. Getting a 2inch think layer of ice will ensure guarenteed laughter.
That’s about it! Sit by and keep and eye on the “car”. Make sure to have a camera ready to capture the fun! I will post pictures tomorrow, too late tonight to get anything clear.
Tags: geeky, pranks, random
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February 14th, 2008
As re-posted by elReg, Rogers Canada has an Unlimited plan, that is, not exactly so unlimited.
Assuming you are using their mobile browser, on their mobile devices, you should not be charged for your browsing. Use a third party phone? 5 cents a kilobyte. Yes folks, welcome to 90’s. Even using a third party browser will ding you heavily.
I am used to talking other European providers and their “unlimited plans” (capped at 200MB) and really ranting about them, but Rogers Canada? You would think Canada’s sole GSM based monopoly provider would be friendly and nice.
Well, this post is a rant and a way to get by their greedy ways.
Seeing that I may have a slight influence and this will get a LOT of attention, I will just say what you need to know. If you are crazy enough to pull it off, awesome, but I will *not* help ANYONE with any extra data (cheap pun intended)!
Rogers mobile phones use a builtin browser and that uses a specific APN. That APN has “free” internet. Take that APN, use it to connect with another program (or computer data card), and you now have “unlimited” and they’ll think you’re using their browser.
If you know what I am saying, you are already on your way. If you do not, sorry, wrong camp guys. I put “free” and “unlimited” in quotes, only Rogers knows best how to fix/screw their customers.
Disclosure: I work with mobile phones, I used to be a customer of Rogers (5 years with them and another 4 years when they bought their only competitor).
Tags: cellular, random, rants
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February 13th, 2008
Back in high school and college, I hosted these role playing-type evolutionary games. Essentially, the game is started by the leader (usually me) giving a topic, a few details about the surroundings and a few rules/limits. This game was played offline on paper and it lasted 7 days per round, usually with a quick meet-up mid way through.
Before I give an example of a round of this game, I must warn: It is a very geeky game and it can become very addictive.
Example of my last round played, that I can remember… You are brought from the year 2000 and placed in 50,000 BC. You have no tools with you and your task is to generate electricity. You do not have to power anything fancy; you just need to create electricity with some amperage (no static electricity). You have plenty of firewood, stone, unrefined steel, natural earth magnets, and copper ore.
There is not much else to it: find a creative way to get the task done. There are many ways of getting the job done and you do not always need to use all the items that were given to you. You cannot make up items, but natural resources should be assumed to be available (in this scenario). Discussions with other players are frowned upon, but confirmation with the leader is generally ‘okay’ to make sure you are on the right track.The above scenario was simple and involved creating a stove, forge, developing advanced foundries and finally refining the ore. From there, you would create some form of simple generator and you would have an output in AC. Normally, most rounds are not laid out this easy and the results can be much more “random” and unpredictable. I have never attempted to put this game online or attempt it in a digital format.
If I get enough requests (say, 10+?), I will create a separate page and post rounds there. So, people coming in to geek out, do not have to catch a random and useless article!
Tags: games, geeky, random
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February 12th, 2008
I’m proud to announce I brought up a new server. As always, this is a remote, geeky, for the hell of it type of server. It is self sufficient, requiring no external help “per se”. The server is powered by a bank of golf cart batteries, 6 of them to be exact, in series and parallel, giving me 12 volts. From there, we have a 480 Watt inverter. Quick tests/math guesses give me 25-32 hours of power without any external sources. To recharge the batteries, I have a 500 Watt turbine connected directly to the batteries. The turbine has a built-in overcharge unit to keep from killing the batteries. The server runs idly at around 58 Watts and 190 Watts at full load. I had to use an external video card because the onboard card added an extra 12 Watts (vs 2 Watts for an older ATI card). The CPU was declocked 12% and that saved another 2-14 Watts (depending on load). For internet access, I am currently using an RJ45 cable running over the side of an apartment building to a cable modem running with a 20 meg connection and no blocked ports! I am building 2 cantenna’s as we speak, so it will be upgraded to a 108MB wireless connection tomorrow or the day after. So, it will be an almost 100% self reliant server! The cost of the turbine was totally not worth the electricity savings; but the geek factor makes it all so special!
What do I plan to do with this server? I have no idea. I put in 1TB of storage on a RAID 10, 4×500GB drives, SATA2. There is about 2GB of ram and it is running Windows 2003 Server as its host and VMWare server running another Windows 2003 Server and Debian J I will most likely use it as a form of storage and offload my web traffic on it when my other servers are overloaded.
Nothing like hosting your own backup solution, just need to upgrade my encryption algorithm: 3DES (encrypt/decrypt/encrypt, 1 KEY).
Tags: geeky, random, tech
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