pandora.com's facebook link-up is awesome!

I don't know how many of you use Pandora Radio but if you don't you should. pandora.com use to be a decent site that I used sometimes and then that dwindled down to rarely and then not at all. Tonight I decided why not go there and listen to some music and see if I hear anything I had never heard before, maybe find a new band.
I was greeted with an awesome new feature I will most certainly enjoy! If you are signed into your facebook account when you go to pandora.com it will pull the bands from your music interest on your profile. I think this is a great feature because it used to be that you would enter a single band name or genre and you would listen to music based solely on the band or genre you entered, which after not too long can get boring. With this new feature, however, it pulls several different bands to compare music to. The result is much more vast, and varying musical possibilities. And that just makes for a greater and more enjoyable listening experience.

This is based on just going to pandora.com while signed into facebook on a separate tab. Not signing in or making an account. This will vary based on the amount of bands you have listed on your facebook.

Does Best Buy own the rights to the word "geek"?

Does Best Buy own the rights to the word "geek"? Surely not, but it's starting to look as if they think they do. I'm not one for big corporations myself. It's my long held belief that the bigger you are the less you actually care about the customer, or employees for that matter, and the more it becomes about huge money.

But Best Buy seems to be having it's way with all that big money- "Best Buy sent a legal notice - a C&D letter - to Newegg back on the 9th of June saying that the company had "infringed on its "valuable trademark rights" 
newegg's slogan is "Millions of geeks must be right!" & "Take it from a geek"


Really? All this over a century's old word that originally meant fool, crazy, (One who geeks out [that's mine]) 
You have to wonder, how long will it be before Anonymous and/or Lulzsec step in?
Maybe Best Buy is just trying to re-install the true meaning of the word buy geeking out with power.
Just because they're the biggest doesn't mean they're the best. And you can take a little power from them buy shopping other places such as:
Tiger direct / CompUSA
Newegg
Geeks.com
Rent a geek
Speak with a geek

Also there is this very funny video at the expense of Geek Squad:

A statue for the nerdy masses!

The time has come my friends! Nerds world wide rise and give thanks to the awesome Dice Gods! There will be a Gygax Memorial statue. For those who are not familiar with the name Gygax, he is credited with pioneering Dungeon and Dragons, and generally speaking role playing all together. Imagine a castle turret with a dragon wrapped around it and a bust of Gary Gygax a midst it's grandeur along the White River in down town Lake Geneva.
"Although we still need to get the exact location and design approved, the motion to erect of the memorial in Donian Park was  unanimously passed."
How many people do you think will l.a.r.p. around his statue? Beware the fifth level pigeon poop of Thyrose!


More info can be found at Gygax Memorial

A tribute to my parents Danny & Angela and all parents out there!

So, yet another week of 45+ hours. Even after being sent home an hour and a half early to kill over time. This has been going on for around about two and a half months now. At least I haven't had too many of those 50+ hour weeks, lol. I still really hate working every Sunday, Saturday, and closing 80% of the time.

Anyway more onto the point of this particular post.
During all this working the thing that keeps popping into my head the most is how my parents did this. I remember my mom getting up before the sun had ever dreamed of. Dressing me and my sister while we slept, carried us to the car and drove us to our grandmother's house where we later got on the bus for school. All the funky shifts my parents worked and never complained, at least not in detail and never very long, actually they just commented on how tired they were. And they were divorced so they did it on their own. No running around enjoying the single life, just working to feed, house, and clothe the kids.

I have a baby on the way, a six year old stepdaughter, rent, and bills to pay. This is what it's all about, family. Taking care of your family.
Having this experience has made me appreciate what they did for me. I know they worked their bodies into the ground in hopes I would never have to. Unfortunately I do. But their work was not in vein, I am a grown healthy man with my own family to do the same for and this makes me extremely proud. I may not be a doctor, a lawyer, a physicist, or an astronaut, but I am a man who will do what it takes to make sure his family is taken care of thanks to my parents hard work.

Thank you mom, thank you dad, for all you did for me to insure I had a roof over my head, food in my stomach, clothes on my back, and teaching me what's most important in this world.

Call your parents and let them know how much you appreciate what they did/are doing for you. And tell your dad Happy Fathers Day!!!

Feds Okay Monitoring Employees’ Internet and Social Media Actions

We all knew it was coming. For one, we already knew that some employers look up possible employees and current employees online like on facebook. But now it has reached an all new level of epic, and paranoid, proportions. Hide your half naked pictures, the photos of your bong or guns. Delete those hateful statuses. Because now employers no longer need to take this arduous task on themselves. They can hire someone to do it for them. That's right, it is now a career to facebook stalk.
OK, so not really stalk, but still this is a huge ball of retard-o b.s. Although I can see the idea of it. I wouldn't want to hire some half witted moron who appears good on paper and knows how to b.s. his way through an interview just to find he puts kittens in his microwave and posts pictures of it as art (extreme example, yes, but you get my point).
Still, I can't see how this is possible since when an employers calls a previous employer they have to stick to particular subjects such as attendance, time employed, etc. Not "is he a fan of 'Yelling at inanimate objects?'" Or "What is his religious/political standings?"
There is a good point. You have to sign a consent form just like with any other background check and  if it tends to be on the immoral side, such as sexual orientation, they may refuse to do it.



To be completely honest with you, I am biased, slighted, and even jilted towards this. If you would like to read the story and form your own opinion read it here

Politians, ceo's, and professors all fall for cheap cyber bimbos

This is one of the reasons why we the people know things about influential people that we may not otherwise learn of, I theorise.
"bimbots" I suspect that is a play on bimbo given the subject.
We have all seen them, random people we have never met, or even heard anything about for that matter. But still they exist (cybernetically[pat. pending] speaking) and they insist on trying to friend us - repeatedly.
It seems the cyber hookers are in a way spies. Making "friends" with well noted tech, media, and political folk. Even professors at Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Ceo's and senior journalist for places like The New York Times.
Read more about it here: Dozens of Tech Bigwigs Friend Facebook Spambot

Death to phone numbers!

I find this very interesting and a smart idea. I can't count how many times I have felt scrutinised by carriers when I call them to get the unlock code for my phone. And I would love to check and reply to text messages online. This article is right! Where everything else in technology is moving on and advancing to where everything can be interconnected the phone number stays stagnant. I recommend reading this article.

Nilay Patel writes:

"I hate phone numbers. They’re a relic of an outmoded system that both wireless and wireline carriers use to keep people trapped on their services — a false technological prison built of nothing but laziness and hostility to consumers. In fact, I can’t think of a single telecom service that is as restrictive as the phone number: email can be accessed from any device, Skype makes apps for nearly every platform, IM works across any number of clients, there are web-based messaging solutions that transcend platforms entirely — the list goes on. We expect modern telecom services to be universal, cheap, and easily-accessible, and those that aren’t tend to be immediate failures. Ask Cisco how Umi went for them sometime.
Yet the phone number remains stubbornly fixed with a single carrier and single device, even as consumers begin to move every other aspect of their lives to the cloud. And the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems: Why can’t I open a desktop app and use my wireless minutes to make VoIP calls? Why can’t I check and respond to my text messages online? Why can’t I pick up any phone from any carrier, enter my phone service information, and be on my way, just as with email or IM or Skype? Why are we still pretending that phone service is at all different from any other type of data? The answer to almost all of these questions is carrier lock-in — your phone number is a set of handcuffs that prevents you from easily jumping ship, and they know it.
Happily, it seems like the industry is beginning to fight back. No platform provider wants to be limited by something as archaic and stupid as the phone number, and Apple, Google, and Microsoft have each taken serious steps towards eliminating phone number as we know it. What’s interesting is that each company has taken a dramatically different approach, with different tradeoffs along the way — let’s take a look."

Read more at iMessage, Skype, Google Voice, and the death of the phone number

Slider Cakes.

Is it wrong that I want to try this. They are called slider cakes and are easy enough to make. The only downside for me is that this particular recipe is vegan but if you look at the ingredient list it would not be hard to do it what ever way you want. Such as substituting the soy milk with 2% milk or what ever type you like.
You can find the recipe here Slider cakes

Duke Nukem Forever. June 14, 2011.

If there ever was an iconic, cult classic game it is Duke Nukem! And now he's back!
I can't wait to play this.
Here are some screen shots:

Sony compromised again

So, Sony has been hacked AGAIN. This is why I'm happy I don't own a PS3, even though it wasn't the PSN this time. Rather, it was sonypictures.com. The group known as Lulzsec (lulzsecurity.com) compromised more than 1 million user accounts. An additional 75,000 music codes and 3.5 million coupons were also uncovered.

LulzSec says that all of the information it took was unencrypted.

"Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plaintext, says the hackers' press release, "which means it's just a matter of taking it. "

What is truly sad about this is access to the main Sony site was granted via a simple SQL injection. A very, very basic tactic.

 Is anyone monitoring online security at Sony? Most say this is only the second attack but it is actually the third.
1)PSN hacked
2)PSN password reset page hacked
3) sonypictures.com hacked. 
In any account this really shouldn't have happened in such a short time.
More info on this occurrence, other occurrences, &  Lulzsec
Info on SQL injection - SecuriTeam - SQL Injection Walkthrough

Tactical Bacon

Tac Bac- Tactical Canned Bacon

Available for $17.99 at http://www.thinkgeek.com/

Sneaky, sneaky China is after all your Googles.

Google has posted on their blog that They have uncovered a campaign to obtain user passwords that seems to be based in Jinan, China. This campaign "affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists."

Google also goes on to say:
"The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users’ emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples’ forwarding and delegation settings. (Gmail enables you to forward your emails automatically, as well as grant others access to your account.)

Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails. We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities. "


For more information and ways to improve your security when using Google products visit:

Ensuring your information is safe online

Why I love Ubuntu/Linux/GNU/Open Soucre Movement/Free Software Movement

1)My D/E environment

 I can make it look like anything I want

 2)Compiz fusion

With Compiz you have so many visual graphics at your disposal. 

like Translucence  you can set to individual windows by name, type, function, etc.(seen here)

3) Multiple desktops (workspaces) you can go back and forth on via a rotating cube.

It also allows to make the windows 3D when the cube rotates.
Here I have changed the Skydome to an awesome picture that adds to the graphical awe. I have also changed the cube caps.

4) My screensaver which I have made translucent with Compiz. Looks just like the Matrix.

5) The ease of programming.

Very simple example written in Perl with Gedit shown here.

6) And mostly the Synaptic Package Manager that makes downloading and installing all the free software easy. If you can't find what you need in Synaptic you can write it yourself or you can very easily find it on many of the various forums, enthusiast sites/blogs. The help available for Linux/GNU is abundant.





 If anyone would like to know how to do these things or the many other options in the Compiz settings manager. Or even how to install the Compiz settings manager comment or message me.
Options shown:
Cario Dock
Desktop cube
Rotate cube
Cube reflection and deformation
3D windows
Opacity, brightness and saturation
I also have an Alienware theme installed that I have customised a little.

Google discontinues support for older browsers.

From Googles blog:
"As of August 1st, we will discontinue support for the following browsers and their predecessors: Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3. In these older browsers you may have trouble using certain features in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites, and eventually these apps may stop working entirely."

You can usually find what version you're using in the Help->About [browser name]

Sharktopus is a teen with angst

I just read that great white sharks are attracted to AC/DC music. It's thought that it is the low frequencies in AC/DC's music. Particularly "Shook me all night long" and "Back in black". So Sharkzilla, Dinoshark, and Sharktopus aren't rampaging, they're rocking out.
Read the article here: Great white sharks attracted by AC/DC hits-Australian Geographic

The Most Useless Machine Ever!

I want one of these. It is one of the coolest gadgets I have ever seen and I think it's simplicity speaks for it's awesomenicity. So simple but looks like a blast to play/dual with.
The original


The new and improved Most Useless Machine! Watch this all the way through, after a while it goes crazy and end hilariously.

Gas up $0.30 in under 24hrs

I know a lot of things can happen in a 24hr period. But seriously gas has went back up to $3.9x/gal when just yesterday it was $3.6x/gal, that's a $0.3x increase in under 24 hours.
I have noticed a significant increase in traffic as well, which would account for raising gas prices (If we want to go places we'll pay, right?) Now I can say with full confidence that this is not the reason for this $0.3x raise in price in under 24hrs. So, what's up?

Ramble shambles

It's kinda sad that I can get bored enough on my day off that I kinda want to go to work. But I don't completely want to go to work because then I would have to actually work which would completely defeat the purpose of the day off.
I just don't have much to do here and I've been working so much lately that my days off seem almost surreal like a wrench thrown into the gears of my everyday norm.

Usually on these days I play L4D2 and mass murder some disease ridden corpses with a shotgun or axe (if it was still called murder). That or play around with some Perl script programming.
But, now I have the Internet again and I can resume being a global nuisance.

H3110 \/\/0r1|)
(just kidding. I will never ever*10x299792458^2 use 133t speak)