Amazon’s A9

by

Interesting: Amazon just launched A9, a Google-based search engine, choosing to break the news via John Batelle’s blog.

A9, Amazon’s much discussed skunk works search project goes live today, so I can finally write about it. I saw it last month (caveat: unbeknownst to me until recently, Amazon targeted me as their conduit to break this news – I think they wanted it to move from the blogosphere out, as opposed the WSJ in) and had to keep the damn thing to myself, it was hard, and here’s why: On first blush it’s a very, very good service, and an intriguing move by Amazon. It raises a clear question: How will Google – and more broadly, the entire search-driven world – react?

(via Boing Boing and Jason Kottke)

iTunes: “Ill Flower” by Future Sound of London, The from the album Lifeforms (1994, 3:24).

Proof!

by

Ryan found this using the LiveJournal Images script I linked to the other day…I think it’s brilliant. ;)

Proof that girls are evil

iTunes: “Brilliant Beat (Funky Lowlives)” by Cahachian, Maw Ft Liliana from the album Essential Chillout (2001, 6:27).

Ecto for Windows

by

A few months ago Alex Hung, one of the regulars in the TypePad User Group, announced that he was working on a Windows-based application for posting to TypePad and MovableType-based weblogs that he was calling TypeWriter. Not being a Windows user I didn’t have a lot of use for this, but I watched his progress as he posted updates on his project in the forums.

Earlier this week, Alex, Adriaan Tijsseling, and Joi Ito jointly announced that they have joined forces, and TypeWriter has now become Ecto for Windows.

Congrats to all involved!

(via Boing Boing)

Camera!

by

I’ve got a camera!

Okay…it’s a loaner, not my own, but what a loaner! Rick got ahold of me yesterday morning via IM and mentioned that since he wasn’t using his camera often at all, he wouldn’t have a problem loaning it to me so that I’d have something to use while I saved for one of my own. I certainly wasn’t going to turn down that offer, and he brought it over tonight after I got home from work.

It’s a few years old, but not bad in the least (it sold for \$1300 when it came out) — an Olympus C-2500L 2.5 megapixel DSLR, and from the reviews (Steve’s Digicams, Digital Camera Resource Page, DPReview, Imaging Resource), appears to be a very well-regarded camera.

Rick said I can use it for as long as I need to while I’m saving up for one of my own, so while I dig myself out of my financial woes and decide which way to go on replacing the camera I lost, I can at least keep indulging my shutterbug tendencies. Rock on!

iTunes: “Guilty” by Klute from the album Cyber Core Compilation (1994, 4:08).

Online crack

by

Hey Alan — you thought this game was bad?

Wait ’til you start this one…;)

My first game I made it to level six, with 3650 points and 141 coins.

I’m going to waste so much time on this thing!

(via D)

Not again

by

I really, really really hate the fact that electronic banking transactions can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days to post to a bank account.

A few days ago, I withdrew a little money from my bank account, and saw that I had just a bit over \$130 left. A little low, but nothing I couldn’t get by on, and I get paid on Friday.

I just checked my account — and I’m quite thoroughly fuckered. A few transactions from early last week that I thought had gone through already just got posted, along with the direct withdrawl I’d set up to pay my taxes. Unfortunately, the bigger charges went through first (of course), so in addition to dipping under my balance, I also just got hit with a ton of overdraft fees — and my account now has a balance of negative \$363.83.

On the bright side, I get paid Friday. It should be a good paycheck, too — I’ll have my full 40 hours for both weeks, plus eleven hours of overtime, plus I just got a 21 cent raise that will kick in on this check. So, come Friday morning when the direct deposit kicks in, I should be back in the black (though it may only be by a few hundred dollars by that point).

On the down side…well, most obviously, I hate that I goofed up my finances (especially this badly) again. I also have to make it through ’til Friday morning with no cash (tight, but doable, as I’ve got a credit card that isn’t quite maxed out). The biggest bummer, though, is that I’ve been planning on getting my new camera with this paycheck — and that’s obviously not going to happen now.

Important note to Dad, Kirsten, and Phil: My ‘net bill is due this week. Obviously, I’m not going to be able to pay it before Friday morning, so at this point, there is a strong possibility that my ‘net connection may go down temporarily sometime in the next couple days. Should that happen, djwudi.com, [geek*muffin], Among Other Things and The Hanscom Family Weblog will go down. The service interruption shouldn’t be for more than a day, two at the very most, depending on how soon Speakeasy decides to give me the smackdown for running late on their bill. You have my sincere apologies — every time I think I’m getting back on top of things, something else comes along and proves me wrong.

Overall, things are getting better, and I’m not nearly as stressed about money matters as I have been in the past. Even with this, I know it’s just for a couple days, and the upcoming paycheck will resolve the situation. I’ll just have another couple weeks of tightening my belt to get through. Damn if it isn’t frustrating, though.

iTunes: “Feels Like Heaven” by Fiction Factory from the album Pop and Wave Vol. 2 (1983, 3:29).

National ID not a good idea

by

One of the many ideas being bandied about in the post-9/11 era has been that of a single national ID card, to replace the various forms of ID we carry around now (state IDs or driver’s licenses, military IDs, company ID badges, etc.). Bruce Schneier points out that this might not be a good idea…

…my primary objection isn’t the totalitarian potential of national IDs, nor the likelihood that they’ll create a whole immense new class of social and economic dislocations. Nor is it the opportunities they will create for colossal boondoggles by government contractors. My objection to the national ID card, at least for the purposes of this essay, is much simpler:

It won’t work. It won’t make us more secure.

In fact, everything I’ve learned about security over the last 20 years tells me that once it is put in place, a national ID card program will actually make us less secure.

Definitely worth reading, especially if the national ID program was sounding like a good idea.

(via Boing Boing)

iTunes: “District Sleeps Alone Tonight, The” by Postal Service, The from the album Give Up (2002, 4:44).

LiveJournal voyeurism

by

Entirely random and surprisingly addicting: LiveJournal Images, a page which displays the last 40 images posted to LiveJournal weblogs. So many pictures get posted so quickly that you can get an entirely new set every few seconds. Lots of kittens, anonymous people, celebrities, random wierdness, and the occasional NSFW image (be warned, just in case).

I just found this, for instance…

Der Mensch als Industriepalast

(via MeFi)

iTunes: “Personal Reality” by Guidance from the album Essential Chillout (2000, 6:53).

Solutions for MP3Concept

by

Another thing I like about the Mac community — there are a lot of very intelligent and creative people in it. Scant days after the proof-of-concept MP3Concept ‘trojan’ caused such a brouhaha in the Mac community, various approaches to dealing with the potential vulnerability are appearing. MacFixIt highlighted two very interesting techniques today.

First, Rick Bargerhuff has created a small AppleScript Folder Action that will scan for potential exploits using the MP3Concept technique:

The Folder Action will check any files or folders to see if a file’s name- extension corresponds to the file’s Type and kind. If it does not meet this criteria, the script asks the user if they want to quarantine the file. If the file does not have an extension and the file’s type and kind indicates it is an application, the script acts as if the file did not meet the criteria. If the user chooses to quarantine a file, the script creates a folder named ‘Quarantined’ which is created inside the directory the Folder Action is attached to. More info is available in the read me.

Secondly, Jack Pate suggested the simple approach of restricting application launch privileges to the system’s Applications folder, so that any application (and hence, any trojan) outside of the Applications folder simply won’t be able to launch and potentially wreak havoc with the system.

To nip this while thing in the bud, simply change the “limitations” of all your users to only applications in the Applications folder (and OS9 Apps, if applicable. . . ). It’s is an easy ‘check-box’ setting, and should TOTALLY eliminate the threat, because it would prevent any executable code from being run outside these apps, while still allowing .sit files to open normally and EVEN ‘real’ MP3 files, because it would be launching a qualified app in the approved folder to play it.

Good solutions, both of them, especially when used in tandem.

iTunes: “Keep Yourself Alive” by Queen from the album Queen (1973, 3:46).

Bunnyrabbits, satan, cheese and milk

by

I’ve just stumbled across a wonderful little combination of technology, found audio, and music — Stark Effect’s ‘mic in track’.

A “mic in track” is a recording made on a PC using MusicMatch Jukebox, a music utility packaged with many new PC’s that allows the user to record from the microphone input of the PC’s sound card and save the recording in mp3 format. The default filename is “mic in track” followed by a number.

If that user also happens to be running a file-sharing program (WinMX, Audiognome, Kazaa, etc.), and shares the directory in which the mic in track is stored, then these personal recordings can be easily downloaded from the user’s computer. The vast majority of them are either silent or uninteresting, but many are like Christmas presents giftwrapped in nondescript serial numbers. They represent unique examples of audio vérité.

There are number of amusing ‘mic in track’ samples posted on the page, but the best ones have been turned into musical compositions, with five being offered as a DIY EP from Comfort Stand. I’ve been enjoying all the tracks, but the two standouts are definitely Eeples and Beeneenees and Bunnyrabbits, Satan, Cheese and Milk, both of which have been running through my head all day.

iTunes: “Bunnyrabbits, Satan, Cheese and Milk” by Stark Effect from the album Mic in Track (2003, 2:19).