Monthly Archive for April, 2008

I am Geek and Proud of It



ROFLCon 2008

video by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

Originally uploaded to Flickr by LaughingSquid found via Boing Boing

links for 2008-04-29

Disturbing Spam

I got this in my inbox yesterday:

Grandy’s Epack Corporation is announcing about a job opening in the company. The software developer now having their clients in different globe spots located needs Financial Representatives to help handle money flow and save both time and efforts of their clients. No upfront paying, you will never be asked for a dime out of your pocket. You get paid instantly in amount of 5% out every transaction operation.

Benefits listed:
-Steady income in amount of 3500 $ minimum on a monthly basis.
-5-6 hours a week! That’s all you have to spent on doing this job. You can easily combine this job with your another one.

Requirements:
-Basic idea in Accounting
-Regular internet Access
-Ability to accept payments using your BANK ACCOUNT
-Ability to resend money VIA WESTERN UNION

If feel qualified ,please, attach the following info to start up with:
– Fist Name:
– Last Name:
– Age:
– Sex:
– State, City, Zip:
– Phone number( home and cell):
– Valid email address:

Please, contact us for the first time via this email address: Epackwork@gmail.com , in the subject field put: “Interested”. Use only mentioned email address, otherwise we’ll fail to receive your response.

Now I know this this flavor of the check cashing scam is not new. A quick search finds a ton that already have documented, debunked and derided it [actually many of the dates are pretty recent]. But the timing can’t be worse. Economy tanking and jobs looking tight some poor schmuck is going to fall for this.

What amazes me is the level of people that even consider this. My job as the technologist chief geek at a large public school surrounded by many that have at least one advanced degree, many that have multiple degrees and/or higher degrees, I find myself as the goto answer guy for general tech goodness. And I’ll be damned if this crap [is this spam or is this legit questions] is the most inquired about. It must strike a desperate or greed chord in the human condition for these overly educate fools to even think that some ambassador dictator financial secretary of a massively crazy third world country asshole is really trying to solicit their help in passing large dough through the banking system.

In this case the email will find a bunch of teachers looking for summer work to pay bigger bills and a bit more frantic about their job futures. I wonder if Dante is rewriting the Divine Comedy to add another layer of hell for spammers and Nigerian email scammers.

links for 2008-04-28

links for 2008-04-26

links for 2008-04-25

9 Ghost I

If you don’t know yet, NIN [trent reznor] is having an informal contest with his latest work, Ghost I – IV. Simply put visuals to to the tracks. Most that I have seen have been typical YouTube dregs. But this one is badass. Check it out:


9 Ghosts I – Nine Inch Nails Film Festival Entry from Robert Blosser on Vimeo.

Speed Bump

So, thanks to Etan Horowitz at the OS found out the Roadrunner was gonna take a bit of hike northward speed wise. The Turbo was getting a boost from 10 Mbps to 15 and the upload was going to 2 from the previous 1. I was sucking air around 400 K. 15 Flickr uploads took all night. I was looking at Speakeasy, even got a quote:

Speakeasy OneLink ADSL Price Structure:

Bandwidth

1Link w/1 static IP

1Link w/4 static IP’s

Installation

Hardware (after rebate)

1.5Mbps/384Kbps

$55.95/month

$65.95/month

$99.00

$0.00

1.5Mbps/768Kbps

$85.95/month

$95.95/month

$99.00

$0.00

3.0Mbps/768Kbps

$95.95/month

$105.95/month

$99.00

$0.00

6.0Mbps/768Kbps

$105.95/month

$115.95/month

$99.00

$0.00

 

Damn that stuff is expensive. Plus to far away from the next node to get the good stuff ($$$). So I was going to wait, contemplating dumping cable and hitting the Netflix hard. ADSL would be dedicated service as about to the group effort that is cable.

But I called. Turns out my account was a hit crusty old and that for just a buck forty one I could go Turbo. Well sign me up. Gonna have to stick to the whole package as Turbo is not available on its own. Anyway… had to wait til I got home but once I reset the modem, bammo, faster pussycat.

Here are the before and after speedtest:

Before a $1.41 After a $1.41

links for 2008-04-23

Lake Side View

Channel

On Easter Christina’s Dad took Christina, her Mom, Greg, Kathleen and I out on their backyard the lake behind them. After we had to dodge the water moccasin guarding the boat, from inside the boat, we made our way between the lake chains, did some fishing and peaked up some of the channels people hang their boats out on to dry. Levels have been up slightly so they were filled with docks, boats and the normal junk rather than what has been weeds and mud lately. This picture struck me as bright and cheery view of some of the areas that you haven’t seen in a while. You can see the water was amazingly calm a it was between tides. Pretty quiet altogether. Gorgeous day. Plus Kathleen caught her first fish on her first fishing adventure which I will dutifully make fun of at a later date.