tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53534733259870038162024-03-05T10:47:38.014-05:00SnappletronicsLinks, green politics, puzzles, and Snapple-y goodnessDavid McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-61960651308521657912011-06-02T01:42:00.001-04:002011-06-02T01:55:05.990-04:00The Onion...calls it?Sometimes life imitates art, sometimes art imitates life:<br />
<br />
<b>Exhibit A:</b> <a href="http://store.theonion.com/product/drugs-win-drug-war-1998,189/">"Drugs Win Drug War"</a> [The Onion]<br />
<b>Exhibit B:</b> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13624303">"Global war on drugs has 'failed' say former leaders"</a> [BBC]David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-35016988609603173622011-04-26T16:48:00.000-04:002011-04-26T16:48:05.808-04:00Head in the Clouds... (or not)This was intentional, right? This doesn't happen by accident, and yet...<br />
<br />
<b>Exhibit A:</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCDX_yS5DO8Vk0S7XEsw2S6KUFQdeuCM3uANIqA5lRKogqGUHeEP0WQNbun5PwAMHK5CkrQfS-wN5dfJ2txYislj67i83VL79dnjMThUk4ZrrUzQcgMBhDauPiYbOIJ1JNSTPhgl_7cA/s1600/msazure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCDX_yS5DO8Vk0S7XEsw2S6KUFQdeuCM3uANIqA5lRKogqGUHeEP0WQNbun5PwAMHK5CkrQfS-wN5dfJ2txYislj67i83VL79dnjMThUk4ZrrUzQcgMBhDauPiYbOIJ1JNSTPhgl_7cA/s1600/msazure.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Exhibit B:</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/azure"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQC3PtGmNdDCVyD1a9h8UfJRdh6q9bb1cJtb3_Wi8ronJIjWWSIt_ZezHwUvkEWSvFNZKUObiEO4zqXAe5W5QABsLOu5P93HXEdusgGqnZfFq3fqzncJUJYU-yGSK_EjgnDPC1v2Td9f0/s320/azuredefn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(note definition 3 from <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/azure">Merriam-Webster</a>)</div>
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<br /></div>
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It doesn't really give the impression that their Cloud Computing has much substance (whether it does or not is an entirely different question, this is just another post about <a href="http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1355.html">strange branding</a>).</div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-2052675557308466612011-04-15T00:21:00.001-04:002011-04-15T02:56:20.987-04:00Favorite Chrome extensionsFor Chrome/Chromium users, here are my favorite extensions. What are yours?<br />
<br />
<div>
<b>Privacy/security related</b></div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom">AdBlock</a> -- probably the most important one here. I can't stand browsing without it.</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jeoacafpbcihiomhlakheieifhpjdfeo">Disconnect</a> -- blocks tracking web page elements from major providers (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.)</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hniojmjkfmakikcfighiifjflnecmnjn">Explode</a> -- expands most URLs created by URL rewriters (e.g. TinyURL)</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flcpelgcagfhfoegekianiofphddckof">KB SSL Enforcer</a> -- This one actually causes a bit of trouble, so you may not actually want to use it. It tries to ensure that you're talking to websites over encrypted channels by detecting whether there's an SSL version of each site. Even though it has systems to override its decisions, it still ends up screwing up a fair amount of the time (especially with online banking) since many sites don't actually mirror their SSL sites correctly.</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hhnjdplhmcnkiecampfdgfjilccfpfoe">Keep My Opt-Outs</a> -- opts out of personalized Google ads</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Web site integration</b></div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lackfehpdclhclidcbbfcemcpolgdgnb">BugMeNot Lite</a> -- makes a little widget pop up in the Omnibox when <a href="http://bugmenot.com/">BugMeNot</a> is available</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lnapbapmncaacbfijemonkinanfaebhm">Delicious Bookmarks</a> -- bookmarks pages quickly in Delicious. There are many Delicious extension, but I like this one since it shows you tag suggestions.</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kkjmcfdcdbbkdacicmpokoddagejpknh">Google Docs Viewer (by Google)</a> -- fast access to all your documents, easy to open them in new windows</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kcnhkahnjcbndmmehfkdnkjomaanaooo">Google Voice (by Google)</a> -- shows number of items in your Google Voice inbox, makes all phone numbers click-to-call</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/okanipcmceoeemlbjnmnbdibhgpbllgc"></a><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mgljgiacemcbnibkkmbolnljeffaadna">Minimalist for Google Calendar</a> and <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oddhbkghjoccbljmagcgoklbfdjeiinb">Minimalist for Gmail</a> -- these two let you disable many individual elements on Google Calendar and Gmail. On my laptop where there's limited screen real estate, this helps quite a bit.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Browser functionality</b></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/okanipcmceoeemlbjnmnbdibhgpbllgc">Google Quick Scroll</a> -- when you search for something and follow a link on the search results, this presents the option of jumping to the location of the snippet on the page</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cahejgbbfgmlmjgdjlibphdjeldhagkp">History of these2</a> -- lets you search history more easily by time and site</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd">RSS Subscription Extension (by Google)</a> -- adds RSS widgets to the Omnibox</li>
</ul>
</div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-48146786361269421782011-02-28T23:17:00.000-05:002011-02-28T23:17:40.553-05:00Public service announcement: Space is big.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #454545; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 19px;"></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.</span>
<br />
<br />
<dt><span class="Apple-style-span"><b> -- Douglas Adams</b>, <i>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</i></span></dt>
<dt><span class="Apple-style-span"><i><br /></i></span></dt>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Just peanuts, visualized:</span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fKTu6B4Rgek" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe>
<dt style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></dt>
<dt><span class="Apple-style-span">via <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110222.html">APOD</a></span></dt>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-78249473744923060832011-01-11T02:22:00.005-05:002011-01-11T02:25:49.234-05:00Reduce, reuse, research...then recyleJust a quick plug for an awesome recycling search engine: <a href="http://earth911.com/">Earth911</a><div><br /></div><div>You say what you want to recycle and a zipcode and it tells you places that will recycle it. Very well-done website. At least where I am, there are many local places that will recycle all sorts of non-trival objects (rechargeable batteries, Plastic #5, CFLs, etc.).</div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-29896196568137470432010-12-06T11:03:00.013-05:002010-12-06T11:25:28.374-05:00Unsubscribing from Your Essential Shopper<i>Take it back, take it back, take that thing right outta here.<br />Right away, far away, take that thing right outta here.<br />-- Take It Back (Cream)</i><br /><div><br />I've been trying to permanently remove all junk mail coming to my apartment (as well as previous residences). <a href="http://catalogchoice.org/">CatalogChoice</a>, as I've <a href="http://snappletronics.blogspot.com/2007/12/pottery-barn-is-in-for-world-of-hurt.html">previously</a> <a href="http://snappletronics.blogspot.com/2008/02/cutting-down-on-snail-mail-spam.html">posted</a>, has been great for this. However, I still get weekly junk mail from "yes! Your Essential Shopper," part of the <a href="http://www.bayareanewsgroup.com/">Bay Area News Group</a>. I couldn't find anything in my web searches for 'unsubscribe "your essential shopper"' so I'm writing this post.</div><div><br /><div>Inside the all-ad newspaper, I managed to find a phone number (<b>1-800-598-4637</b>) and called it asking to unsubscribe [1]. They were helpful and took me off the list. Now (presumably) they will stop sending me this direct-to-recycling-bin publication every Sunday.</div><div><br />[1] It's possible that the number might be different for you if you're in a different area. In this case, the best I can say is that the newspaper should include a phone number at the bottom of the second page.</div></div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-41706136455639292902010-11-12T13:32:00.003-05:002010-11-12T13:41:43.439-05:00Three things for improving Facebook privacy<i>We're not gonna take it<br />Never did and never will<br />We're not gonna take it<br />Gonna break it, gonna shake it,<br />Let's forget it better still</i><div><i>-- We're Not Gonna Take It (The Who)</i></div><div><ol><li><a href="http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/">ReclaimPrivacy</a>: everyone should be using this and scan periodically. This is an extremely easy way of detecting which privacy leaks you haven't plugged.</li><li><a href="http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/76037">Remove Facebook Like buttons</a>: a <a href="http://userscripts.org/about/installing">Greasemonkey</a> script to rid you of these from non-Facebook pages. These buttons are nasty and let Facebook track you as you surf around the web.</li><li><a href="http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87718">Facebook Link Rewriter</a>: another Greasemonkey script to stop Facebook from tracking which links you click on.</li></ol><div>Sure would be great if I could stop doing these types of posts, eh?</div></div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-71922637873510460902010-11-07T19:40:00.004-05:002010-11-12T21:19:15.154-05:00Steal this idea: Off-hold notification<div><div><i>Woke up this morning I was all alone</i></div><div><i>Saw your picture by the telephone</i></div><div><i>I was missing you oh so bad</i></div><div><i>Wish I had you here to hold</i></div><div><i>All I've got is this touch-tone phone</i></div><div><i>So I guess I'll give you a call</i></div></div><div><i> -- Telephone Song (Stevie Ray Vaughan)</i></div><div><br /></div>Here's another app idea for smart phone software developers. When I'm put on hold and I don't have a headset, I'd like to put the phone down until I am taken off of hold. I'd like it so that when the phone "hears" a loud signal over the line (it may need to do some noise cancellation in case there is noise on my end) the phone will vibrate or (optionally) switch to speakerphone.<div><br /></div><div>This would mostly be for talking to people but a harder problem is handling customer service centers. (Ideally, customer service telephone systems would take your phone number and have an agent give <i>you</i> a call when they're free rather than wasting time on phone calls, but few companies do this currently) In these cases, it might be able to use a voice/music detector and check for repeated messages. Many of things you hear while you're on hold alternate between music and voice, so this might end up notifying you too much. With luck, it could be trained that some pieces were recordings (by memorizing sound "fingerprints" or something like that like) for use in later phone calls.</div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-71112642565738057042010-04-21T02:41:00.004-04:002010-04-21T02:58:37.613-04:00Quick hacks: webnumbr for fast scraping (of a single number)Like the <a href="http://snappletronics.blogspot.com/2010/04/quick-hacks-yahoo-pipes-for-rss-feed.html">previous quick hack</a>, I had little to do with this -- just demonstrating a tool. In this case, the goal was to graph the national average for certificate of deposit interest rates over time (you can find this information at <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/cd.aspx">Bankrate.com</a>). At <a href="http://superhappydevhouse.org/SuperHappyDevHouse37">SHDH37</a>, <a href="http://bigasterisk.com/">Drew</a> told me about <a href="http://webnumbr.com/">webnumbr</a> which does exactly this (and was possibly developed at a previous SHDH) -- you pick a webpage and then select a single element from that page. webnumbr will scrape the webpage at an interval of your choosing and graph the data. I'm not wild about their graphing (prefer something interactive like <a href="http://www.humblesoftware.com/finance/index">this</a> or Google Charts) but it looks like you can get the raw data in various formats (CSV, etc.) which would let you use other graphing methods, overlay charts, etc.<div><br /></div><div>If you're interested, here are graphs for the average <a href="http://webnumbr.com/national-cd-average--1-year---really-">1-year</a> and <a href="http://webnumbr.com/national-cd-average--2-years---really-">2-year</a> CD rates.</div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-30771087772382231232010-04-19T18:58:00.003-04:002010-04-19T22:00:05.814-04:00Quick hacks: Yahoo Pipes for RSS feed filteringIn my Copious Free Time(tm), I've been working on some very quick projects. I'm writing them up since, while many of them are quite simple, they highlight some interesting tools.<div><br /></div><div>I used to read the "Marmaduke Explained" blog at <a href="http://marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com/">this</a> website. It has since moved <a href="http://www.29-95.com/time-suck/comic-strip/marmaduke-explained">here</a> but the RSS feed includes other entries as well. Using <a href="http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/">Yahoo Pipes</a>, I was quickly able to create a new RSS feed which only includes entries that include Marmaduke in the title. See the pipe I made <a href="http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/">here</a> (output available as RSS, JSON, email, etc.). Yahoo Pipes is, like the name implies, a <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-19-2006/net-neutrality-act">series of tubes</a> -- nodes in the graph feed perform operations and feed into other nodes. So, my point is that Yahoo Pipes is a cool piece of software and probably underutilized -- the basic filtering that I do is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg for what it can do (for example, there are "translate" and "location extractor" nodes). If they added basic scraping abilities, I'd likely use it even more (but see upcoming posts for different ways to do scraping...).</div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-43458720693619287582009-12-10T03:31:00.011-05:002009-12-11T23:04:05.005-05:00Facebook's War on Privacy<blockquote><div><b>Naegle</b>: I guarantee I can find some new revenue streams. Step one: Let's sell some ad space. Reverend, how would you feel about wearing this robe? [<i>holds up a robe with "Fatso's Hash House" embroidered on it</i>]</div><div><b>Lovejoy</b>:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mmm...conflicted?</div><div><b>Burns</b>: Too bad! You've already signed the deal.</div><div><b>Naegle</b>: Actually, he hasn't.</div><div><b>Burns</b>: Oh. Well, we highly value your input. [<i>menacing</i>] Until you sign the deal...</div><div>-- Simpsons, <i><a href="http://www.snpp.com/episodes/DABF02">She of Little Faith</a></i></div></blockquote>I am <b>deeply</b> <b>concerned</b> with <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/facebook-privacy-transition-where-it-heading">Facebook's new privacy policy</a>. As I understand it, the most damaging change is that a good portion of every Facebook profiles will now be public -- name, photo, location, groups, friends, etc. I can't fathom how this ever seemed like it would be a good idea. The <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106535773">possibilities</a> for <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/20/project_gaydar_an_mit_experiment_raises_new_questions_about_online_privacy/?page=full">exploitation</a> are astronomical. Anyway, I'll stop ranting now and point you to other people who have written much more eloquent pieces on this and suggest some actions you can take.<div><br /></div><div><b>More information</b><br /><div><ul><li><a href="http://dotrights.org/what-does-facebooks-privacy-transition-mean-you">Detailed description of what the new privacy policy means</a><br />ACLU's dotRights.org campaign</li><li><a href="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly">EFF's analysis of the changes</a><br />I hope that they will have an action page soon, but I don't see anything yet.</li><li><a href="http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to.html">The case for online privacy</a><br />Bruce Schneier's response to Google's CEO (who unfortunately has a similar attitude towards privacy)</li></ul><div><b>What you can do</b></div><div><ul><li><a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eff.org%2Fdeeplinks%2F2009%2F12%2Ffacebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly&t=Facebook%27s+New+Privacy+Changes%3A+The+Good%2C+The+Bad%2C+and+The+Ugly">Share</a> these links on Facebook, Twitter, and email! That's the easiest way to spread this information to people who need it.</li><li>Sign ACLU's <a href="https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=Nat_Petition_Facebook_Policy">petition</a> to Facebook.</li><li>Visit the dotRight's <a href="http://www.dotrights.org/take-action">Take Action</a> page.</li><li>A properly organized (inter)national protest might bring this the media coverage it deserves... (need help from EFF and ACLU for this)</li></ul></div><div>(P.S. Yes, there are some positive aspects of the changes. However, these come at too great a cost and they're completely independent of the negative portions.)</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Update</b> (12.11.2009): Some more links as this unfolds:</div><div><ul><li><a href="http://gmarceau.qc.ca/blog/2009/12/why-privacy-matters.html">Why Privacy Matters</a> (Guillaume Marceau)</li><li><a href="http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2009/12/11/facebook-tosses-graph-privacy-into-the-bin/">Facebook tosses graph privacy into the bin</a> (Joseph Bonneau)</li><li><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/11/zuckerberg_pix_expose/">An ironic, unanticipated outcome</a></li></ul></div></div></div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-22941348660431133422009-08-22T01:54:00.004-04:002009-08-22T02:10:20.273-04:00Why I dislike text messagesThis <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358552882901262.html">article</a> succinctly explains the main reason I dislike text messages: (emphasis not in original)<div><blockquote>"...Wireless data service is AT&T's only bright spot, up a whopping 26% per customer. How so? As any parent of teenagers knows, text messages are 20 cents each, or <b>$5,000 per megabyte</b>. After the first month and a $320 bill, we all pony up $10 a month for unlimited texting plans. ..."</blockquote>I have been waiting for someone to shake things up and get cell phones using instant messaging and/or email rather than text messaging which, in my mind, consists entirely of disadvantages (expensive coupled with payment on receipt, limited message length, impossible to know if messages are even received, ...). With luck, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/28digi.html?_r=1">this</a> will help as well.</div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-81954071058457974072009-08-21T01:18:00.008-04:002009-08-21T01:47:10.599-04:00Weird Craiglist scam<i><blockquote></blockquote>Pleased to meet you<br />Hope you guess my name<br />But what's puzzling you<br />Is the nature of my game<blockquote>-- Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://dearinter.net/">Dear Internet</a>,</span></i><div><br /></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">I am attempting to sell a desk on <a href="http://providence.craigslist.org/">craigslist</a> and received an unusual response, quoted here in its entirety:</span></i><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;"><pre>Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:53:48 -0500<br />Subject: Re: L-shaped desk, almost new - $150 (East Side)<br />From: trendy carley <trendycarley0@gmail.com><br /><br />Hello ,<br />I appreciate your response to my inquiry. I'm interested in buying it<br />from you. I would've come and inspect it myself but I am on a business<br />trip overseas and wont be back for a while.<br />Please do withdraw ,with immediate effect the advert from Web as I dont<br />mind adding $50 for you to do that so I can be rest assured that it is<br />held for me. I should believe it is in good condition as stated. I will<br />be making the payment via a Certified Check which my secretary will<br />mail across to you. I'll be picking it from you with the aid of my<br />mover. My Mover will be coming to pick it from you once the Certified<br />Check has been cashed.<br />If condition of sales works for you I then ask that you get back to me<br />with the following details so that payment can be posted ASAP:<br />Required Information<br /><br />1.Name to be issued to...<br />2.Contact Address(City,State,Zip code,Country):<br />3.Contact telephone number:(home,cell or work)<br />4.Clear pictures showing details<br /><br />Do get back to me as soon as possible with this details for payment to<br />be made out to you immediately you get it on time. Also I will want you<br />to remove the advert as soon as possible and I dont mind paying $50 for<br />you to have that done ASAP as I said earlier, so no one else is lined up<br />for it. Thanks Hoping to hear from you soon.<br /><br />Best Regards<br /></pre></span></div></blockquote>Just what <i>is</i> the nature of this guy's game (not to mention his (her?) rather unlikely name)? Completely bizarre that one would pay someone to remove an ad and weirder still that one would expect them to do it before receipt of payment. Additionally, the desk is only being sold for $150 so $50 is a considerable markup (plus he'll certainly be paying a bundle for the mover). Then there's the spot where he seemingly leaves out my name from the template ("Hello, ") and the redundancy of asking for a ZIP code and country (at least, I've always heard other countries refer to them as postal codes).</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm really curious where he's going with this. Some ideas: (please post ideas in the comments)<div><ol><li>He's just gathering names, addresses, and/or telephone numbers.</li><li>No check will ever come but maybe a mover might.</li><li>Check will come and bounce. Mover will come and bounce with the desk.</li><li>There's some second part of this scheme that is too tough to predict at this point.</li></ol>One other tidbit is that the original email from him (which came from <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';">trendycarley02@gmail.com</span> instead and asked me rather simply "Is it in good condition..?i am interested.") was immediately tossed into the spam folder by Gmail.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been thinking about comedic responses. So far, the best one I've come up with is posting his response on the Internet.</div></div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-49345480090394312272009-08-12T00:45:00.005-04:002009-08-12T14:16:08.435-04:00Steal this idea: Google, optimize those links!You know, those links at the top of Gmail and related services. Mine say:<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: nowrap;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13;" ><b class="gb1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top;"> Gmail</b> <a href="https://www.google.com/calendar/render?tab=mc" class="gb1 qq" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important; height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top;">Calendar</a> <a href="https://docs.google.com/?tab=mo" class="gb1 qq" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important; height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top;">Documents</a> <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/home?tab=mq" class="gb1 qq" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important; height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top;">Photos</a> <a href="https://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my" class="gb1 qq" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important; height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top;">Reader</a> <a href="https://sites.google.com/?tab=m3" class="gb1 qq" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important; height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top;">Sites</a> <a href="http://www.google.com/webhp?tab=mw" class="gb1 qq" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important; height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top;">Web</a> <u><a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/" onclick="this.blur();gbar.tg(event);return !1" haspopup="true" class="gb3 qq" style="height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important;">more</a></u><a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/" onclick="this.blur();gbar.tg(event);return !1" haspopup="true" class="gb3 qq" style="height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important;"> </a><small><a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/" onclick="this.blur();gbar.tg(event);return !1" haspopup="true" class="gb3 qq" style="height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important;">▼</a></small></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: nowrap;font-size:11;" ><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: nowrap;font-size:11;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:16;" >Yours do too? How strange. I would think these links should be personalized if not customizable. Google knows which ones I click on since I'm logged in all the time. Why not get rid of the ones I never click on (Sites, Photos, and Web -- if I need to do a web search, I'll use the address bar in my web browser) and show the ones that I always have to find in the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/" onclick="this.blur();gbar.tg(event);return !1" haspopup="true" class="gb3 qq" style="height: 22px; margin-right: 0.5em; vertical-align: top; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 204) ! important;">▼</a> like Scholar. Some people would probably object to a fluid UI (i.e. if Google adjusted these automatically) and I think the preferred methods these days are to have computers suggest changes but not perform them without user intervention. Maybe there's some plugin/extension/religion that lets you change these? (not that this is really a high priority...)<br /></span></span></span></div>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-34388326402826461882009-05-27T23:54:00.008-04:002009-05-28T00:13:01.355-04:00Steal this idea: Phone scammer/spammer warnings<span class="txt_1"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><blockquote><span class="txt_1"><span style="font-style: italic;">Hear my phone ringin', </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><span class="txt_1"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><span class="txt_1"><span style="font-style: italic;"> sound like a long distance call</span><br /></span> <span class="txt_1"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><span class="txt_1"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><span class="txt_1">-- Muddy Waters, "Long Distance Call"<br /></span></blockquote>Why telemarketing is an opt-out rather than opt-in process is beyond me. Nevertheless, if you do get a call from a number you don't recognize, you may want to run it by <a href="http://whocalled.us">whocalled.us</a>. I recently got a call from a telemarketer (see my report <a href="http://whocalled.us/lookup/8006924482">here</a>*) and had an idea for a program to run on the phones of the future. When I say phones of the future, I mean roughly tomorrow since this idea is so simple it should be very easily doable on an iPhone, Android phone, or something else easily programmable. At least, I would hope this is easy to write (I haven't ever used these phones' APIs).<br /><br />The idea is this: When I get a call from an unknown number, my phone should look it up on <a href="http://whocalled.us">whocalled.us</a>. Possibly there would be a reputation system and it could automatically report good calls to the site (though there are some potential privacy issues here which would need to be addressed) and give you the option to mark a previous call as a scam. Integration with <a href="https://donotcall.gov/">donotcall.gov</a> would be nice too.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* Incidentally, this phone number appears to be running multiple scams. The number is used to connect people with various scams so that the companies actually doing the scams are harder to trace. That's why the representative on the other line said that I had called her.</span>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-26024537871890248652009-05-10T13:13:00.005-04:002009-05-12T15:57:52.170-04:00Technical: Getting Skype working with Bluetooth on Ubuntu with AMD64If you want to use Skype with Bluetooth headsets on recent versions of Ubuntu Jaunty with an AMD64 architecture, this article might be of interest. If those words didn't make any sense, this article is definitely skippable.<br /><br />When using Skype with a Bluetooth headset, I was getting error messages of the following form:<br /><br /><tt>ALSA lib ../../../src/pcm/pcm.c:2165:(snd_pcm_open_conf) Cannot open shared library /usr/lib32/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_bluetooth.so</tt><br /><br />Since Skype only exists in 32-bit mode currently, you can only run it in AMD64 using the <span style="font-family:courier new;">linux32</span> command. However, this requires 32-bit versions of all the libraries that Skype would need, including <a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/bluez-alsa">bluez-alsa</a> if you want to use a Bluetooth headset. Ubuntu currently attempts to handle this with their <a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/ia32-libs">ia32-libs</a> package but the current version of this package is missing its <span style="font-family:courier new;">bluez-alsa</span> libraries (as indicated in the error message). This is the bug that has been reported <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ia32-libs/+bug/240666">here</a>.<br /><br />I have a horrible hack to fix this problem, mostly because I can't find where <span style="font-family:courier new;">ia32-libs</span> development takes place nor the Ubuntu development process. I downloaded the <a href="http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/i386/bluez-alsa/download">32-bit version of bluez-alsa</a> and used <a href="http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/alien"><span style="font-family:courier new;">alien -t</span></a> to convert it into a <span style="font-family:courier new;">tar.gz</span> file. I then extracted its contents and made an extremely simple Makefile with this content:<br /><br /><tt>install:<br /> cp ./usr/lib/alsa-lib/libasound_module_ctl_bluetooth.so /usr/lib32/alsa-lib/<br /> cp ./usr/lib/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_bluetooth.so /usr/lib32/alsa-lib/<br /></tt><br />Next, I created a Debian package with <a href="http://checkinstall.izto.org/"><span style="font-family:courier new;">checkinstall</span></a> which you can find <a href="http://bang.bigasterisk.com/%7Edmcc/bluez32-alsa_4.32_amd64.deb">here</a>. To my knowledge, these files are missing in Ubuntu Karmic too, so this might help those users as well.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Takeaway message:</span> If you want to try my hack, download my new package (which I admitedly haven't been able to test on any other machines, so any feedback is welcome) and use your favorite package installer (the graphical one is probably the easiest) to install it.David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-42805178925512276402009-04-11T14:22:00.003-04:002009-04-11T14:34:59.374-04:00Steal this idea: Mobile public transportation plannerIf I had an iPhone or <a href="http://code.google.com/android/">Android</a>-based phone instead my <a href="http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/user_reviews.php?phone=783">current piece of cellphone-shaped garbage</a>, I would want this application: While walking someone, the user tells the application their intended destination ("I'm walking home now") and the application uses GPS information and a data connection to lookup public transportation alternatives to walking. It then suggests small detours or pauses in your journey (e.g. "Wait here, you're at a bus stop. When the #42 comes in ~2 minutes, get on.") which get you closer to your destination. As far as I know, this shouldn't be that hard to write and I'm surprised I haven't heard of it so far (of course, not owning a shiny phone, I don't follow all the apps written for them). It could also get more sophisticated by learning your pace or common routes and locations. In any event, this would be a useful tool and I think I'd take the bus more often if I had it.David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-86321935787498756882009-03-31T09:59:00.004-04:002009-03-31T10:26:59.010-04:00Thesis proposal nightmare #1Invoking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_%28comics%29">Dream</a> either by reading or talking about him (as I was doing recently) tends to cause screwy dreams. This pattern continues...<br /><br />It is April 4th -- 10 days before my <a href="http://cs.brown.edu/events/talks/dmcc.html">real thesis proposal</a>. I've done one practice talk which indicated that more practice talks were in order, yet somehow I'm giving the proposal anyway. Weirder still, I'm giving the proposal in my parent's family room on an old television instead of with a projector. Only four people have shown up -- two faculty and two students. Nobody in my area. It is only when my advisor Eugene shows up that I realize that not only is the rest of my committee not present at the proposal (one of the attending faculty members assures me is not a problem). I then realize that I've somehow scheduled my thesis proposal during a major conference which my thesis committee members (including Eugene) are attending.<br /><br />Wake up.David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-76587511613777758352009-03-18T10:15:00.004-04:002010-02-10T03:59:47.867-05:00Error: Too many errors<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8K385qfa4EwwkL3f-esA8IcLZycYw_CazJHNleIoDscV55j6P6F3AOQZ5FoRa3nTYrl5ENS6AYLEzmwGjNh7fdjx4YI_xBUlQMtiCc6LqNyWvJsYBRLUcp84tYH_I4sed6v2dbOmLqHw/s1600-h/rip_error.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 348px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8K385qfa4EwwkL3f-esA8IcLZycYw_CazJHNleIoDscV55j6P6F3AOQZ5FoRa3nTYrl5ENS6AYLEzmwGjNh7fdjx4YI_xBUlQMtiCc6LqNyWvJsYBRLUcp84tYH_I4sed6v2dbOmLqHw/s400/rip_error.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314531495835801138" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />Count the errors. There are at least three:<br />Error 1: Saying there was an error, then saying there wasn't.<br />Error 2: Saying there was an error, then saying there wasn't when there really was -- it really didn't rip the DVD.<br />Error 3: Title says "Error while burning" but it was ripping, not burning.<br /><br />Is this a bad joke? While trying to rip a DVD, I got this message from <a href="http://projects.gnome.org/brasero/">Brasero</a>. This is <a href="http://thedailywtf.com/">dailywtf</a> material but I haven't been able to find any previous postings on it. While ripping the DVD, the output file grew, but apparently, Brasero deleted it at the end. Also, there are no messages from the kernel about a DVD read error, so we appear to be hallucinating problems.David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-14393706123150407822009-02-05T17:22:00.006-05:002009-02-05T17:48:09.687-05:00Steal this idea: Musical intersections<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Listening to you,<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">I get the music.<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">Gazing at you,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I get the heat.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Following you,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I climb the mountains.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I get excitement at your feet.</span><br />-- The Who, "</span><span style="font-size:100%;">We're Not Gonna Take It"</span></blockquote>There are a couple times when two or more people want to listen to some form of streaming music (road/train trip, shared office space, etc.). Streaming radio sites like <a href="http://pandora.com/">Pandora</a> should have the option of combining multiple peoples' musical taste and come up with music that both people would like. Being able to generate a road trip playlist for portable music players would be nice too, though there are the obvious copyright issues.<br /><br />I imagine coming up with good shared playlists is trickier than just taking the intersection of the songs/musical features. Ultimately, it would depend on the model of listeners tastes. Of course, in many cases, these intersections can be small (my freshman year college roommate and I both liked Stevie Wonder but had little else in common musically).David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-72983771828285859232008-12-19T11:11:00.005-05:002008-12-19T11:28:11.915-05:00Year of the Jetpack<table><tbody><tr><br /><td>Dear</td><br /><td align="left" valign="middle"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.threadless.com/product/63/Damn_Scientists#zoom"> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 259px;" src="http://www.threadless.com//product/63/zoom.gif" title="This was supposed to be the future. Where's my jetpack?" border="0" /></a><br /></td><br /></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html#photo20"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 259px;" src="http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/2008_pt1/20_17118999.jpg" title="Right here." border="0" /></a><br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Future (2008)</span><br /><br /><table><tbody><tr><br /><td>P.S.</td><br /><td align="left" valign="middle"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/2008_in_photographs_part_2_of.html#photo29"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 259px;" src="http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/2008_pt2/29_17251943.jpg" title="Got any more questions?" border="0" /></a><br /></td><br /></tr></tbody></table>David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-90448125853760959492008-12-03T12:49:00.005-05:002008-12-03T13:04:53.587-05:00Open Access (almost)The journal <span style="font-style: italic;">Computational Linguistics</span> has opted to join the movement of journals switching to the <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">open access model</span></span>, where academic articles are viewable in full for free without any membership fees. The idea is that publicly funded research should be available to the public. Anyway, now the punchline. Try to download the full <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/coli.2008.34.4.621">article</a> about this (<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>outside of an academic setting) and you'll find that you can't without a membership account for MIT Press (of course, this is exactly the model we're moving away from, hence why this is only slightly ironic, I think).David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-35918808625593520692008-11-09T22:38:00.002-05:002008-11-09T22:44:41.444-05:00Going somewhere?<span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial;font-size:-1;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Marge</span>: But Main Street's still all cracked and broken...<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Bart</span>: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> All</span>: Monorail!<br /> -- The Simpsons, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marge_vs._the_Monorail">Marge vs. The Monorail</a><br /></span><br />I think this <a href="http://www.gcpvd.org/2008/11/08/transit-gaps/">post</a> pinpoints some of the problems with our transportation infrastructure very nicely. Short of the unnecessary Simpsons quote, I don't really have much to add except that I hope this article reaches a wide audience.David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-12401441479514636642008-11-09T22:18:00.003-05:002008-11-09T22:38:30.921-05:00Dancing Deer writes back (again)Those of you following this blog may remember my letter to Dancing Deer (see <a href="http://snappletronics.blogspot.com/2007/11/oh-deer.html">here</a> and <a href="http://snappletronics.blogspot.com/2007/11/dancing-deer-writes-back.html">here</a>). The story now has a new ending which is both surprising and happy. The president of Dancing Deer, Trish Karter, has added her two cents on the matter (read her <a href="http://snappletronics.blogspot.com/2007/11/dancing-deer-writes-back.html?showComment=1226111820000#c3404692100459915571">comment</a> here). I think she makes reasonable points in her comments and I very much appreciate hearing from her. Additionally, I'm glad that I was wrong about this whole issue -- it turns out that they ran a study with the intent of determining ways of minimizing petrol in their packaging -- and I would like to apologize to Dancing Deer for any negative press (though I assure them that readers of this blog are few and far between). In any event, I think more than enough digital ink has been spilled over what started as a minor discussion at a weekly tea and we can hopefully lay the issue to rest now.David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5353473325987003816.post-6789795183545339842008-09-17T23:44:00.004-04:002008-09-19T13:11:04.094-04:00Food talkEverything you are doing is wrong.<br />-- Janosh, Ghostbusters II<br /><br />Over the summer, I tried to watch a lot of <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php">TED</a> talks. I've been meaning to post a list of my favorites (real soon now...). I've also been reading Michael Pollan's <a href="http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php"><span style="font-style: italic;">In Defense of Food</span></a> recently and while I'm only half finished, it has a lot in common with Mark Bittman's TED talk <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html">What's wrong with what we eat</a>. Given the similarities, I'll cover both items here (though the book is fresh in my mind so my emphasis will be on it).<br /><br />Neither author puts much faith in the nutritional authorities in this country. Pollan's book discusses how hard it is to run a nutritional study measuring the Right Things and blames scientific reductionism for giving us misinformation. To accurately study the dietary effects in complex systems like people is likely impossible (or at least extremely challenging with current technology) given the difficulty in actually measuring both the inputs and outputs. Worse, Pollan believes that nutrition science has not succeeded in making us healtheir but in fact has pushed us in the opposite direction -- ever since nutritionists have replaced parents as the authorities, this country has gotten less healthy along many dimensions. To be fair, some amount of this can likely be attributed to corporations like McDonalds and Kraft, but that's another post.<br /><br />I've always been skeptical of nutrition science given its various flip-flopping studies on foods like chocolate and wine. In any event, my goal here is not to provide a review of these items, but to encourage you to read Pollan's book, or, if you only have 20 minutes and 8 seconds, watch Bittman's talk.David McCloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00109319608841997723noreply@blogger.com2