nerd pr0n

Oh man, girls in trek outfits, taking them off. Oh, did I mention that the girls aren't very hot, and the outfits and pictures are of low quality? I can't imagine getting off on this garbage, and I'm a GEEK.

http://www.internaughty.com/sexy-trek/babes-space/menu.html

Here's looking at you, kid

Ever wish that you could cremate your loved one, have their carbon removed from their ashes, and press it into a diamond that you can wear at all times? Of course you have. Luckily these people will help you.

http://www.lifegem.com/

Worry not, pet lovers. Beloved Fluffy can also be torched and turned into a tennis bracelet. This process can be used on animals as well as humans.

Here's a thought. You know those fucking weirdos that like to cut off parts of their bodies for pleasure? How about cutting off one of your fingers and making a diamond necklace out of it?

Whole lotta coding going on

The code gate at work sends us emails from when we do putbacks, so I have them dated and timed. This is funny:

12:30pm
7:01pm
7:45pm
11:45pm
3:36am
5:43am
7:43am

Yeah, that's all in the last 24 hours. I'm just coming up on damn near a full day of nonstop coding, with a handful of breaks for things like eating, pissing, and watching a lightning storm.

This project is eating my brain.

Luckily I have several cans of Japanese coffee+milk left to consume, and some remaining uneroded stomach lining. I only have one more man page to write for my library, and then a final review of my design doc. I think I can make the 5pm deadline, especially now that time is slowing down as I blue-shift away from reality.

Lightning storm

adam: you watching this crazy ass lightning storm?
adam: it's so uncalifornia
Tobin00: whaaa??
Tobin00: hold on

So I went out to the hotel under construction across the street from me with my digital camera, and this is what I see... a huge lightning storm, with no thunder or wind or rain, raging over the mountains near my house. For those of you in other parts of the country, this might not seem unusual, but this NEVER happens in California:




Yeah, the pictures aren't great, but it's hard to get a steady shot from a scaffolding 9 stories above the ground.

The rest of the shots are here:

http://www.comicore.com/~tobin/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=lightning

Decryption theory

Paragraphs like this make me angry:

"Arjen Lenstra and Eric Verheul’s methodical estimates [LV01] give quite similar results for the security of 1024-bit RSA keys. In one model, they project that in the year 2009, a machine costing about $250 million could factor a 1024-bit RSA key in a day — so a $10 million machine would take just under a month. Working the numbers back to the year 2003 requires one to “undo” eight doublings, four due to Moore’s Law and four due to anticipated improvements in methods for integer factorization. The $10 million machine would take about 18 years today under this model. In the year 2006, a machine with this cost would take just over one year."

Breaking encryption has become so theoretical at this point that people just toss around numbers like "A $250 million computer" and apply Moore's "Law" as if it was a freaking law. It's not anything other than an observed trend. No one actually BUILDS these theoretical cracking machines, they just make estimates as to how much power you'd probably need to crack these keys. I think that the development and application of this "super cracking machine" would be a lot more costly and tedious than any of these people really imagine it.

I mean, it's well and good to look at things like the RC5-64 project and say, wow, look how insecure this key is, we broke it. But what they don't really talk about is that it took HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people almost FIVE YEARS to crack one key. And this is a 64 bit key, while most people use the equivalent of an 80 bit symmetric key (a 1096 bit RSA key is about the same strength as a 80 bit symmetric key), which is roughly sixty four thousand times harder to break.

So yes, you should be working with large keys. When you install PGP, pick that 4096 bit key. But proving the theoretical weakness of an existing system shouldn't exactly make people quake in their boots.

The above paragraph was from an RSA report here: http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/technotes/twirl.html

We will out-stubborn the megacrap out of you.

Bwaaaaaaaaahahahaa.

"Our continued use of the English system of measurement [is] making us an island in a metric world"
Gerald Ford, 1975

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaa.

On 23 December 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, which finally gave official federal sanction for the U.S. to convert to using the metric system.

Heh. It gets even better. IN 1866, we tried to accept the metric system in the US. Our history of failed attempts to "metricate" as it were is nearly 140 years old.

This chart is wonderful, from 1866:

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/laws/14stat340a.gif

It includes such metric terms as the Myriameter, the Hectometer, the Centare, the Tonneau, the Myriagram, the Quinal...

God help me, I know that we should all use metric, but at this point we're seriously the only civilized nation on this planet that refuses to convert in any serious way. That's just hilarious. At this point, not switching just becomes a point of pride.

vicarious blogging

freston0: I'm having a very Tobin experience. I'm sitting at a cafe in Seattle that overlooks the whole downtown. There's a large building burning down and I'm watching as firefighters try to put out the massive flames. Huge fumaroles are billowing between the skyscrapers. It's kind of beautiful, really: all this fire and smoke and concrete and glass.
freston0: Here we go: http://www.kirotv.com/news/2424177/detail.html
freston0: If I were you, I'd be blogging this.
freston0: But I've accepted the impermanence of such entertainment.

Heh. Now it's permanent, beyotch!

where is the threat?

Where the fuck is the bomb threat in this statement?

''[Expletive] you. Stay the [expletive] out of my bag you [expletive] sucker. Have you found a [expletive] bomb yet? No, just clothes. Am I right? Yea, so [expletive] you.''

They pulled some poor kid and his family off a flight to Hawaii, and they're charging him with making a bomb/hijacking threat.

COME THE FUCK ON PEOPLE. At MOST, you should have gone up and yelled at the 17 year old that you don't like to read the word bomb, even in passing, but the kid had left the note INSIDE his bag, which was randomly searched. Even that is a little excessive, it might make you a little angry that the kid was so foulmouthed and rude, but having a note saying that inside your OWN BAG should not be a goddamn crime. Yes, September 11th was bad, but we need to seriously calm the fuck down. We're overreacting just for the sake of reacting at this point, when it's obvious to any mouthbreathing jackass that the kid was no threat.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/214/metro/Teen_arrested_at_Logan_for_alleged_bomb_threat_in_his_bag+.shtml

(Link stolen from Gulkis)

I've got an idea

Let's start a nuclear war at the gay bar!

http://www.rathergood.com/gaybar/

That's what I like to hear

I'd vote for Arnold for governor JUST because of this quote I heard from him today:

"California has overspent, overtaxed, and overregulated its businesses".

Right on, Arnold. What a brilliant idea, cut taxes AND cut spending. Maybe we should try that at a federal level.

birthday idea

Someone buy this for me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2427821312

I promise only to use it for good.

pwned by google

Holy shit, this is fascinating.

I had no idea how much google was archiving of people's stupidity. This website has some amazing searches that you can enter into google and pull crazy stuff in the google cache of someone's site.

http://johnny.ihackstuff.com/index.php?module=prodreviews

Just as a teaser, I'll tell you that I found a bank online with a list of user passwords in google's cache. The passwords were in standard unix encryption style, which could probably be hacked pretty easily with John the Ripper. I also found some encrypted passwords in other formats that are easily crackable. You can also search for executables available on the web, and all kinds of known server vulnerabilities.

Quite simply put, this is a stunning use of google. Not only that, but most of this stuff isn't removable without a huge amount of effort in contacting google that these companies just won't do. Even if you fix the problem, it's all cached! Your site could be totally secure, and the password lists would still be available to hackers on the web.

Driving patterns

I just drove to work at 5:30am, and I was very impressed.

There were three lanes of solid, bumper to bumper traffic. What was exceptional about this was that it was moving at 75mph. The whole way to work. With no slowdowns. If you know bay area traffic, you'll know that if the roads are crowded, you'll expect to spend most of your drive violently going from 0mph to 50mph the entire time you're on the road. The carpool lane was in effect and it was completely empty, not a car in sight. No one was changing lanes, these people were all hardcore, no nonsense.

I loved it! I wish it was like that every day. I really like people who go to work this early, I wish I could get my schedule worked out so I could drive the roads when the smart people are driving. I'm not sure what kind of jobs require that you get there extremely early, I guess it's a lot of professionals, and probably a lot of blue collar jobs as well, but whatever the reason, these people are great.

This also proves that lots of cars don't cause traffic, IDIOTS do. If you drive the roads around 9 or 10am, it's packed with fools, and those fools cause traffic. These are the fools driving 50 mph, or the people out for leisurely drives in the fast lane, or the wanna-be type A drivers who zig and zag between lanes randomly... it is possible to have a road completely jammed with people who are out to get to their destination quickly, and not drive with their thumbs up their asses and their head in the clouds.

Of course, this is just going to make me even more bitter the next time I get in a traffic jam, because I know it could be avoided by killing all the bad drivers.

What the moon landing probably really sounded like

"I am talking to you from the surface of the FUCKING MOON. Jesus H Christ in a chicken basket."

http://www.blogjam.com/neil_armstrong/

That's what I'd sound like anyway.

two things

First off, does anyone know what a caffeine overdose would do to you? What would happen if I sat down and made myself 50 shots of espresso and drank them all, and then chewed up a box of penguin mints? I've had lots of caffeine before, and it made me jittery, but what would happen if you just had too much of it? Would your body just spit out the excess, or can you actually hurt yourself with it?

Also, Bubba Ho-Tep is going to be the finest movie ever created. My only complaint is that instead of JFK, they should have made the black guy think he was Richard Nixon. That would have made it perfect.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/bubba_ho-tep/

I can't wait to see it.

killer or coder?

Can you tell a murderer from a nerd who invented programming languages?

http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

I got a 9/10. It wasn't as hard as I thought, I can usually see in their eyes if they're intelligent or deranged. Only one of them got past me.

incompetence

I like that our recent power outage on the east coast is being investigated by the North American Electric Reliability Council, which was created 30 years ago after a blackout and charged with making sure that things like that didn't happen again. Now it looks like 50 million people were left without power because of three downed power lines in Ohio. So riddle me this, what have they been doing for 30 years, besides collecting a paycheck?

heh

Check out this link.

two pictures that amused me

This woman is 81 and skydiving. That's fucking awesome. Good for her. Look at the lust for life in her face.



A dog's eye view of a presidential press conference.

If you're not watching the news

You should be. The whole east coast is in chaos. New York, Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa, and lots of other cities are without power. No cell phones are working, the streets are clogged with people walking away from the city, the airports are shut down... it's totally nuts. They don't know why it's off, they're just telling people it's not terrorist related, but I don't see how they can decide that without knowing what caused it.

It's crazy to watch on TV, I highly recommend it. It's absolutely surreal.

cigarette 2.0

Crap.

After 5 weeks of no smoking, I bought a pack of these tonight:

http://www.eclipse.rjrt.com/

I had to try it, because it's an evolution in cigarette technology.

Let me tell you, it's weird. The damn things don't burn. You light the end, and it heats a carbon chamber that pulls hot air through the tobacco. There's no ash. The smoke doesn't smell like smoke. My hand and clothes don't smell. Look at this chart:

http://www.eclipsescience.com/results/environmental_tobacco_smoke.html

It looks like this new cigarette drastically reduces or eliminates damn near all the nasty shit in cigarettes. It even tastes different, it kind of tastes like when I used to smoke through a water filter back in the day.

So now what? I'm not sure. It sure is a lot easier to justify smoking these new cigarettes because they're not AS bad for me, even though I know they're still bad. The damn thing is like a NASA cigarette, it's high tech and evolved. I can't even tell if it's satisfying or not. It sure was fun to smoke again, though.

Sidekick

Oh man, that T-Mobile Sidekick is making my geekness hard. Not only does it have a creative and hip design and interface, but it does text messaging, pictures, phone, web browsing (with color!), instant messaging, emails... you name it. And a goddamn QWERTY keyboard. Oh, I want one. The only problem is a) I have a nextel contract, and b) the people that I know who have t-mobile have really shitty coverage and really shitty phones.

But still. Oh my lord. It's sexy.

http://www.t-mobile.com/products/overview.asp?phoneid=195184&jo.ch=true

condom thongs and PHOON

Two things that have been greatly amusing me today:

Did you know that making a running pose for a picture has a name? Neither did I. It's apparently called a PHOON, and there is a website with hundreds of pictures of people phooning. Some of them are pretty damn funny.

http://www.phoons.com/crosswalk.html
http://www.phoons.com/canfire.html
http://www.phoons.com/office.html

Anyway, I know that next time I'm doing something weird, I'm going to have an urge to PHOON and mail them a picture.

Secondly, have you ever been messing around with someone and not had a condom? Doesn't that suck? Well, worry no more. Now girls can buy thongs with condom pockets built in, so they're always ready. This is excellent because a) thongs are hot and b) protection is good and c) no more condom ring in the wallet.

http://www.playsafethong.com/

KUNG FU

I am in a Kung Fu mood.

Accordingly, I searched for Kung Fu at netflix. I was rewarded with a movie title that I couldn't resist:

KUNG FU ON SALE

Oh hell yeah.

I am also renting:

Shaolin vs. Manchu
The Kung Fu Master
Swordsman, Swordsman 2, Legend of the Swordsman, A better tomorrow 1 and 2, The Legend 1 and 2, Twin Warriors... and a bunch more. KUNG FU!

test development

The library I'm writing for my project at Sun is big enough that I need a testing person assigned to write tests for it, which is cool. There's a woman writing tests for my library, which is a first for me, and I enjoy it. I'm glad that she's tolerant of my ways, because today I kept her until after 7 at work, because I kept running back to my office and hacking on code, and then running back to her office and telling her to test it. By the end of the night, we had gone from my library core dumping any time it was touched at all, to half the test suite passing, which was good progress.

The only problem here is that she has a lazy eye. A REALLY lazy one. I don't know if any of you have to work with someone with a lazy eye, but I need to have lots of conversations with her, and for some reason it hurts my head to talk to her sometimes, because I'm trying to stare at her good eye, but my mind doesn't work well with the whole "eyes pointing different directions" thing. I refuse to look at something else, or my feet or something, because that's just stupid, and obvious. It's HARD though. Luckily in my line of work, there's really not much reason to actually speak to people face to face.

Parents are idiots

Saying that it's the fault of fast food restaurants that your porky little Billy is a lardass is like telling your wife that you only cheated on her because you were driving home and saw a hooker on the side of the street. It's not your fault! It's the hooker's fault for providing vagina!

I hate you people so much.

Grim reaper needs to chill the fuck out

I'm a little sick of cool people dying.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/10/hines.obit.ap/index.html

He was on Will and Grace so damn recently. Dammit, I liked Gregory Hines.

Pocket discovery

Sometime in the last few days, instead of giving me a quarter in change, someone apparently handed me a one shilling piece from East Africa, dated 1952. Not that this bothers me, it's pretty freakin cool. I wonder if it's worth anything.

A quick ebay search looks like it's worth maybe two or three bucks mint, which this thing is NOT. But hey, it's cool, and it made me google for the history of East Africa, which is always good. The coin has made me a little better educated.

I have fallen prey to stupid web quiz

God help me, I was going to avoid ever doing any of these... and then they made a damn Aqua Teen Hunger Force one, and that's the funniest show on TV. Maybe because I take this quiz, one more person will watch Adult Swim on Cartoon Network on Sunday nights... I can only dream.



I am Frylock from Aqua Teen Hunger Force!!

Which Aqua Teen Hunger Force character are you??

My mom

I got home tonight to find this on my AIM away window (in response to something I sent her earlier):

My mom: I believe it.... What's up for the weekend??
*** Auto-response sent to My Mom: How can you be so skinny and live so phat?
My mom: OOPSS!! Guess you're not on line??? Am I PHAT??

Sometimes she absolutely cracks me up. I love it, she chats like a japanese teenager.

And california becomes a bit more surreal

That's it, kiddies. The Terminator is running for CA governor.

The best part is that I'm actually going to vote for him. Muhahaha.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/08/06/candidates.announce/index.html

BRING IT ON. He and Davis should cage match for the position.

And the next thing you know, you're chugging cock...

Quote of the day:

On looking for jobs in the bay area:

"In San Francisco, I couldn't even make any money sucking dick. There's too much competition."

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhh

I've been saying forever that Lieberman will never get elected because he's an annoying, whiny little pussy.

This liberal writer sums up my point in a much more friendly, well argued manner:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2086592/

Why does no one understand this?

California is really liberal and corporate unfriendly. The taxes are too high.

Corporations flee in record numbers to Nevada and other bordering states.

California sees that its income isn't high enough to support its socialist agenda. Its deficit soars to the highest of any state in the history of the United States.

California raises taxes, raises worker's comp, becomes more corporate unfriendly, as a solution to its problem.

In response, more corporations flee the state...

Notice at a NATIONAL level, this sort of socialism is working, because companies want to stay in the US (mostly). But when you have a socialist state, companies are just going to bail. You can't leech off the productive people forever, if they're still allowed to leave the state.

The funny thing here is that the liberal response to a problem like this is to do something insane like propose legislation FORBIDDING companies to leave the state, so that they can safely suck their blood. It could happen.

God forbid you tax less, and spend less.