X-Geek

Extreme geekiness

There are 699 posts filed in X-Geek (this is page 37 of 70).

New chip debit cards

I was perplexed to get a new debit card in the mail from State Employees Credit Union (co-ops rock) the other day. My first thought was that my account must have somehow been compromised but then I saw that the numbers on the new card were the same as the old card.

Hmm. Then I looked at the paper insert that came with the card, which explained the whole deal. There’s nothing wrong with my old card, necessarily, but SECU is rolling out debit cards embedded with chips (or EMV) proactively. The plan is an expensive one to SECU but the savings from fraud prevention will help offset it. SECU becomes the second largest financial institution in the country to move their cards to the chip technology.

I’ve been a happy SECU member since 1992 and I’m happy to see that my credit union continues to lead the way.

Google Maps car

Google Maps car


I just spotted the Google Maps camera car driving through our neighborhood. Fortunately I had my camera ready and snapped a dozen photos of it as I stood in my driveway.

I can’t wait to see the new Google Maps imagery with this crazy old bald guy standing behind a bush with a camera!

Update 7 July 2012: Got it!

Roku magic

Roku

A week ago, I decided to dust off our Roku player. It had been spending most of its time umplugged because it competed for the only S-Video jack on our bedroom’s old TV. The Roku can kick out a 720p HD picture, though, and our HDTV has a ton of unused inputs so I ordered a new HDMI cable and hooked it up once it arrived. The Roku looks beautiful on the HDTV.

Yesterday, Netflix announced the company is hiking its prices by up to 60%. While I’m disappointed by Netflix’s move (and think BitTorrent traffic will undoubtedly rise as a result), having the Roku available means I have plenty other choices for Internet TV. Not only does the Roku play Netflix’s streaming, it carries dozens and dozens of other channels, both video and music.

Tonight I used a handy Javascript page to load up the Internet radio station I’ve been building so that it plays on my Roku’s Shoutcast channel. The Roku streams online radio stations very, very well. I like being able to fire up a station on the Roku, turn off the TV, and listen to the station on the stereo. Beats having a full-size computer doing it.

I’ll continue to tinker with the Roku. I’ve been pretty impressed with what it can do.

Space shuttle

This morning at 11:26 AM, space shuttle Atlantis may or may not make its final flight into space. This will be the last mission of NASA’s shuttle program.

I remember watching on TV as space shuttle Columbia made the very first shuttle launch back in 1981. Of course, I also saw a few rocket launches for things like Skylab and space probes like Voyager, but the shuttle program was different. It was touted as essentially a space bus: making spaceflight routine with a reusable vehicle.

It didn’t turn out that way, as the reusable aspect of the shuttle made it incredibly expensive. Shuttles turned out not to be as reliable as they were initially touted. I remember being in my high school’s library, watching video of Challenger exploding as my math teacher sat nearby, weeping. It was a cruel reminder that nothing about riding rockets would ever be routine. The flagship shuttle, Columbia, proved that when it disintegrated above Texas during landing in 2003.

If all goes well, Atlantis will make a safe trip to the International Space Station (ISS) and then roll its way into a museum. With it, a space program stretching into the early 1970s will come to an end. I’m not sure what comes next for American space exploration but I hope it continues in one shape or another.

Area 51

I’m reading a good book about Area 51 from Annie Jacobsen. Called Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base, the book peeks into the secret and bizarre activities that have taken place there.

One thing I find fascinating is the accounts of how the base dealt with the multiple nuclear detonations that took place near the base over the years. One of the key environmental elements which helped maintain Area 51’s secrecy also put the base and it’s staff in jeopardy on a regular basis. There were many blown-out windows, warped steel hangar doors, and other frightening damage. I’m not sure exactly what goes on at Area 51 but being that close to ground zero would be my least favorite part of the job.

I’ll write a fuller review once I’ve plowed through it, but needless to say the book is eye-opening.

Update 11 Jul: Review posted!

International TV

I’ve been enjoying my free-to-air satellite dish and the varied programming it brings in. I’ve got hundreds of channels of TV and radio, many from around the world.

Last week, I bought another dish that was posted on Craigslist. While my motorized dish can reach most satellites aimed at the United States, it’s not positioned to get the birds at the extreme end of the satellite arc. I needed another one.
Continue reading →

Are you a nerd or a geek?

CNN takes a look at the geek vs. nerd debate:

Musical satirist and pop culture icon ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic said he thinks of himself as a nerd in general, but is a geek about a few things.

“To me, a nerd is somebody that would be intelligent perhaps to the point of being a bit socially awkward and a geek is somebody that is not necessarily intelligent, usually they are, but they are usually savant-like experts in a particular subject. I know the standard definition of a geek is a person that bites the heads off birds, but I don’t think that’s been in use for quite some time. But there are certainly nerds that are geeks and geeks that are nerds. There are also pure geeks and pure nerds,” Yankovic said.

via Are you a nerd or a geek? – CNN.com.

Keep people from linking to your images

The IRS scam email below links to the IRS logo, on the IRS website itself! The government could avoid having its own bandwidth used for scams by adding some rewrite rules in Apache.

When I saw some of my photos being linked from other websites (usually forum-type sites that don’t provide their users the ability to upload their own files), I decided I didn’t want to foot the bill to host images shown on other websites. I followed this great tutorial and implemented my own RewriteRules, which have worked like a charm:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} \.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !no-direct-links\.png [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?markturner\.net/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?planettrilug\.org/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !google\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !search\?q=cache [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.markturner.net/wp-content/no-direct-links.png [R,NC,L]

These rules allow images to appear on my website, the PlanetTrilug website, and Google’s image searches, but any other sites linking directly to my images get a “No Direct Links” image instead.

I am pretty easygoing with the use of my images (many of them donated to the public domain), but hosting them for other sites costs me money. If you would like to post one of my images on your website, if it’s a public domain (or Creative Commons) one feel free! If it is not, shoot me an email and let me know your plans. Whatever you do, though, please use your own server. Don’t link directly to my images. Thanks!

N.C. Nearspace balloon launch

N.C. Nearspace launches helium balloon

If the Stormfest 2011 event wasn’t enough fun for one day, Travis and I had another fun event. We drove across town to the state fairgrounds to watch N.C. Nearspace launch another weather balloon (the club’s sixth).

Travis and I got there just as the team was inflating the helium balloon. An impressive crowd had gathered around, making it a challenge to actually see what was happening! We soon found a spot and watched as the team did its work.

With the crowd providing a lively countdown, the team released the balloon. Cheers rose with the balloon as it glided slowly through the hot, late-spring sky. The balloon eventually landed in a horse pasture in Ayden, North Carolina, just south of Greenville. It reached just over 60,000 feet on its meandering journey.
Continue reading →

Cheap Thoughts: “Roaming” for cable modems

On the road this week, I was thinking it would be nice if I could temporarily bump up the speed of my home cable modem. I don’t need blazing-fast service all the time, but when I travel it’s nice to have speedy access to my home network and also to have a video chat with the family without buffering …. buffering …. buffering.

This is how I see this working. The subscriber goes to a special page on their Internet provider’s website. They fill out a form specifying a time frame during which their cable modem becomes “unlocked.” The subscriber pays a small premium (similar to a mobile phone’s roaming charges) during the time their Internet speed is boosted. At the end of the window, the speed reverts back to its original speed and the rate returns to its original. With DOCSIS 3.0 modems now in the field, I would think that this could be implemented fairly easily.

I would jump to the first provider who could offer this. If only we had real competition amongst Internet providers.