This time some jackass(es) uploaded changes to several popular WP plug-ins that provided back door access to servers on which they were installed. Yet another reason to assume control of (and responsibility for) your own systems. I also try not to jump immediately on new updates of plugins and new software versions. The way I figure it, your chances of updating to a hacked version of something is reduced dramatically if you wait a few days or weeks after an update is released. It’s one reason I like to be informed of available updates, but not automatically have them installed — and I don’t want to be nagged (Avast, Adobe, Nikon…).
CNC to the rescue!
I’ve got a big box of very expensive parts that all need to be modified due to a screw-up in a circuit board I had made. Tossing either the boxes or the boards is out of the question. I can fix the cabinets with a file, but doing so takes a lot of time and does some nerve damage to my fingers.
Enter the CNC machine. I bought a 1/32″ end mill and wrote a short program to shave exactly the right amount of metal from each hole that needs fixing. Now I can do one cabinet every 4 minutes, every one of them is perfect, and it’s far less stressful on the operator (me). The only trade-off it that it’s pretty noisy, between the CMC machine and the shop vac to suck up all the metal shavings.
I love this machine… 🙂
Class actions
I got a post card in the mail today about yet another class action lawsuit. This time it’s Sirius XM. Apparently some people (probably former XM customers) were upset that Sirius bought XM, then raised their prices. Well, yeah. It’s a time honored tradition. You buy up your competition, become king of the hill, and charge what you want. Or sometimes you buy up your competition because they were close to going under anyway, and raise your prices so you don’t follow them down the hole. So of course they got sued for anti-trust violations, and agreed to a settlement.
Naturally the customers who were affected got… nothing, squat, dick. Not that I care; it didn’t affect me in the slightest. The settlement terms basically say that groups of customers can renew their subscriptions at the current rate, people who dropped their subscription can renew without a reactivation fee, and no one gets any cash. Except, of course, the lawyers who will without a shadow of doubt get their hefty portion of the estimated $180 million in settlement valuation. And of course Sirius XM might possibly get a bunch of subscribers back. It’s like the Blockbuster class action settlements… millions of people got coupons for a buck or two, to be used the next time they rented from Blockbuster. I bet they (Blockbuster) really felt the sting from that!
What an incredible victory for the consumer. Or maybe everyone but the consumer. Class action lawsuits seem to be a are pretty good business to be in if you’re a lawyer, and if you’re a cagey defendant you can twist it around to your advantage. In the end the only people who get screwed are the customers, who have to bear the cost of the whole sideshow.
Too much workie, not enough play, and Spring harvest?
Been spending WAY too much time indoors, especially in the basement. Working on stuff, creating more work, and most of all, definitely NOT getting the bike (either one!) out for its much needed exercise. That’s OK, though… this is temporary, I keep telling myself. Got a few more weeks of hard work, then I can relax at least a little and enjoy the summer. All of this work will allow us to enjoy some much needed and long awaited leisure time, especially next winter when we need it most!
I’ve been watching the progress of our apricot tree this Spring. For the first time in a couple of years now, the weather has not been too cold, too wet or too generally crappy — and we have apricots! Lots and lots of them. Right now they’re green and about the size of nickels and quarters. Need to get some bug spray on them, as I can already see some have little nibbles taken out of the skins. I’d hate to lose them all to bugs!
Last year we had a good number of apples, but nearly every single one was eaten by insects. The worst was late in the year when they ripened, they were besieged by wasps. Seriously, who knew wasps like apples? I was knocking down the empty shells of apples, and watching a dozen or so big fat wasps come out through holes in the skin. That won’t be a problem this year. I’m going to remove the buds from the tree and let it spend this year growing instead of producing fruit, then in the fall I’ll lop off the lower branches. It’s getting to be a pain in the ass to mow around. I may prune up the apricot tree as well after this year. I don’t know how long it will last, though; it’s a little too close to a big sugar maple and I’m afraid the maple is about to kill it off.
Hmmm… maple trees… maple syrup, maybe… ?
Osama goes to his reward
We got the news last night that the asshole Osama bin Laden was finally put down by a team of Navy SEALs. One can only hope he’s enjoying the rewards of his long and colorful life. Personally I’d love to think our Sikh friends are right, and that he can be reincarnated as a pig — to be eaten by a bunch of Russian army veterans at a summer BBQ.
I guess now there are Muslim “scholars” bitching and whining about how and where he was buried — namely at sea, off the deck of the USS Carl Vinson. I’m sure the Navy made certain that proper Islamic burial procedures were observed; after all, we’re not a bunch of murdering bastards with no regard for humanity, and the Navy does love tradition. But in short, we killed the piece of shit, we get to decide where his ass gets dumped. It’s that simple. You wanted to see the fucker buried on land, you should have shot him yourself.
Enjoy the ride, Osama… burn in hell, you murdering piece of shit. With any luck your friends will join you in short order.
A new toy – err, I mean, tool!!
For the past couple of days I have been working on assembling and figuring out the wiring and setup for the newest tool in the tool box. OK, it would be a BIG tool box. I’m just waiting for the rotary tool heads to arrive so I can do some real work with this sucker…
WordPress.com hacked
Well, it looks like one or more of the WordPress.com blog hosting site’s server(s) was/were hacked. Among the things the attackers got were, apparently, the keys used to interface WordPress.com blogs with Twitter and Facebook.
If you know me, you probably know I have a fairly low opinion of Facebook and a much, much lower opinion of Twitter (which could simply shorten its name by three letters to improve accuracy). There has been a disturbing, headlong rush over the past few years to concentrate far too many people’s personal lives onto the servers run by Facebook, Google, and a few others. I see this as problematic for a number of reasons.
First of all, I see a very great threat to personal privacy. It may be tempting to use these “services” for their intended purpose, but people tend to either ignore or forget basic common sense. OK, so Google lets you search the entire internet for “stuff”. Great, I love that. But shall we take a Google search as the Gospel truth? Google is a multi-billion-dollar corporation. They make lots of that money by selling advertising space. Where are those ads? In your search results. At the top of your search results. They also provide “free” email through Gmail. Free? Well, not really. Your email is examined, indexed, and used by Google to (can you guess it?) sell more advertising. “OK”, you say, “It’s not hurting me, I get free email out of the deal”. Great. Then you won’t mind if I stand by your mailbox, open all of your email, read it and sell a general synopsis of the contents to marketing companies who will use it to stand outside your house and wave advertising banners as you pull out of your garage – right? I mean, I’ll do it for free, and hand your mail to you after I’m done with it.
For some people Facebook is replacing email – not to mention phone calls, text messages, and in-person meetings. I lost count long ago of how many arguments have spiraled completely out of control due to simple misunderstandings and miscommunication. Some people’s newfound refusal to just pick up the phone and call someone, or drive ten minutes to visit in person and discuss things face to face, has been the cause of at least two family feuds that I know are going on at this moment. Brothers and sisters not speaking to each other, sons and daughters, friends falling apart — largely because we seem to be losing our willingness to communicate in ways that involve more than a few seconds of typing. Hurtful, horrible things that we would never dream of saying to someone in person just seem to slide right out of the keyboard and onto a website, to be seen by people who have absolutely no business knowing your business.
But I’ve strayed away from the WordPress thing. Yes, I run WordPress (the open source blog software) for my blog as well as another. But no, I don’t use the WordPress.com site. Why not? Well, this is one huge reason. By keeping my own data on my own systems, I am responsible for what’s there and how secure it is. I have control over how the site is run, the advertising supporting that site (or complete lack thereof), and whether my blog has to co-exist with those with whom I don’t want to be associated.
Cool beanies!
I’m sitting at a little table at a Chili’s in the Charlotte airport, writing a new blog entry using my cell phone. While it’s true that the keyboard is a little small for my massive mitts, if I want I can pull out the laptop and use it instead… connected to the Internet through the cell phone, of course.
I made it through the TSA checkpoint with no printed boarding pass, and will board the plane the same way. A new electronic boarding pass displays a 2-D barcode, which I can scan both places. This time I printed a copy just to be safe.
This morning I was able to remotely log into my server at home, and from there make a complete backup of the four web sites I am currently running on a GoDaddy server.
This is some cool stuff.
QR codes… cool stuff!
I finally took a few minutes (or maybe a couple of hours) to play around with QR codes. Those are the odd-looking square bar codes you see in a lot of places now, including on product boxes, in ads and on signs. Naturally there’s a free Linux program to generate them, so I did…
A sample contact card |
HamGadgets news blog |
This blog (home page) |
Link to MasterKeyer product page |
You get the idea. If you scan these with your Android, iPhone or Crackberry you’ll see that you can encode a lot of different stuff into one. I’ll be using these for sure… easy way to point people with smart phones to a web site, or to exchange contact information.
A new look for the old blog
It occurred to me that the weblog was looking somewhat dated. The Blueberry theme was OK when I started it, but I liked the one I picked for the HamGadgets news blog a lot better.
One of the things I like is that it’s totally customizable… I can move, add and delete things at will, change the colors, the background, everything. I like it. Oh, and I’ll be posting pictures of the new truck in a couple of days. It’s awesome. 😀