Enter your password securely

I came across a nifty little utility that just might keep you from having your passwords stolen from you by a keylogger or similar devices and programs. Neo Aplin wrote this tiny little app called Neo's SafeKeys which will let you enter your passwords via a little onscreen keyboard. The really nifty part is that not only are you defeating keyboard loggers, but it places the buttons differently and the program window is a different size each time it's run, thereby defeating any program that attempts to log which button was clicked by mouse placement. All-in-all if you use public computers or even are just paranoid about your own and run Windows, this app's for you! If you missed the above link, here it is again.

Gabe Perez

I came across this picture on the net today and I want to know more about it. check it our for starters:



So, where did this come from? Who is this Gabe Perez guy and what possessed him to do this? I think it's hilarious and want to know more. I apologize about the crappy image quality but for some reason Blogger does that to it when I upload it, to see a better version click here. Anyways, I searched and couldn't find anything, could any of my fellow stumblers help?

Baltimore police- HOW THEY REALLY TREAT PEOPLE

Heres an awesome video of how the Baltimore Police really treat kids who are doing nothing more than skateboarding. As far as I can tell, these kids didn't even provoke this cop to act like a pompous ass, and this one in particular needs to be FIRED! He even says his name on the video so have at him!

Best rubberband gun EVER

You've gotta check out this video, this gun was created by Anthony Smith over 4 months by hand, and is capable of shooting 40 rubberbands per second, with a capacity of 288. Awesome.. just awesome. Found at techeblog.

Penny Arcade Game

I just found out that there is a new game by the creators of Penny Arcade in development, and it looks like it's going to be hilarious, and fun to boot. I heard about it on linuxgames.com, so even better than it just existing, it will have a native Linux version! Check out more on the game and view screenshots at the official site here.

False LOLs

I came across a website today, NoMoreLOL.com, which advocates replacing the way too damn often misused LOL acronym with LOI (Laughing on the Inside,) which, honestly, is probably more accurate like 98% of the time. I know there's probably been like 2 times ever I've actually laughed out loud while reading something or chatting at work, but dozens of times I typed LOL (even though I don't use it often) and you know, Sai is right. Screw that, LOL doesn't describe what is going on at all most of the time. Anyways, the site made me LOI, so check it out.

Oh, and sorry about the lack of updates if anybody cares, I haven't really been much into it lately, I've got some serious financial issues I'm trying to deal with, and in the middle of all that my rent money got stolen at knifepoint, so.. I dunno, if anyone cares, click some freakin' ads or send me a buck or something :P

Constant parallellism

So I read that there is a theory about how we all have our individual perception of the way reality is and what we perceive as being real. The article is here about this "Big Brain Theory" which states that in our perception, each of us has our own universe we exist in, along with all other entities, however given the likelihood of all things possible actually happening in a universe, we may mostly all be at simplest, a brain free-floating in space with what we see as reality existing only perceptually. Maybe it's true, maybe not, maybe we're actually all brains in vats hooked up to a vast created reality run by the network of brains themselves. I'm not sure about that, but I have held a theory about reality and the universe for a long time now and I figure I should publish it somewhere.

Now, there might not be any evidence for this, but there isn't any against it either, so make up your own mind after reading. There is no such thing as time. That sounds weird, but let me explain. An event that occurs in time has a series of stages, each occurring one after another in a fluid movement. You pick up a glass, you put it to your mouth, you drink. I think that all of these steps (and all the infinitely small steps in between) occur at once, and we perceive them in the order of time. I don't mean that they are all occurring at once in one place, I mean that there are an infinite number of parallel universes in which are contained every possible configuration of matter in the universe. So, as we move through the human concept of time, we are really moving between alternate realities in such a way that events seem to occur one after another the way we are used to. In this way, we can explain any event that would take place and every configuration of matter possible. Maybe it's far-reaching, but that would mean that technically, it would be possible to travel through 'time' or even teleport yourself or an object if we could somehow master choosing our path through universes. What this also means is that there exists a reality where every possibility has happened and so with control, we could alter the outcome of every event to prevent tragedies. Now I'm not going to argue whether that is a good idea or not, but I can't see how at least in some instances that could possibly not be. This is just something that I thought up when I was younger, and I still think I believe it, so why not publish. That's not all I've got, but it's all I can post this second, so stay tuned for more of my psycho theories later, and let me know what you think in the comments!

ps- Thanks to Christopher Fahey for the image.

PassiveAggressiveNotes

I just joined the community over at PassiveAggressiveNotes, and I probably should have made up a quick post earlier, but welcome to any members checking out my spot here, check back for more cool stuff at random intervals!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO (DO NOT WANT)

Any bluetooth headset can be eavesdropped even while not on!

I just found some disturbing information about bluetooth headsets for all you cellphone happy consumers. Any bluetooth headset can be listened in on, EVEN WHEN YOU'RE NOT ON IT! Watch the video for more.

How to get any girl's phone number

I stumbled across a post this morning that hit me like a brick to the face. David DeAngelo of X34 and author of "Double Your Dating" gives the secret to getting any girl's phone number and e-mail address after only 3 or 4 minutes of introducing yourself. As I read, I realized that this is the perfect plan and I can see how it would have to work, and I'm going to try it out. The juicy part is this:

After I've talked to a woman for about 3 or 4 minutes, I'll often say something like "Well, it was nice meeting you. I'm going to get back to my friends."

They usually don't know what to do, as they're used to guys clinging to them. Most of the time, they say "It was nice meeting you too..." Then, just as I'm turning to walk away, and we kind of disconnect, I turn back and say "HEY! Do you have email?"

The "HEY!" is a bit surprising, and "Do you have email" is non-threatening. In fact, I'm technically asking her if she HAS email, not if she'll GIVE IT TO ME.

If she says "yes," I take out a pen and paper and say "Great, write it down for me" and I have her write it down. (This is great, as I just treat the 'yes' that they give me as a yes to get it from them as well. And they've almost ALL gone along with it so far) Then AS SHE'S IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING, I say "Write your number down there too."

When you ask for email, it's very low risk for a woman, so she'll think "Fine, I'll do that." Most women will give out an email address without thinking about it, because they know that they can choose later to just not answer.

I'll post later on how it works, but for now, click here to read the original post. Thanks David!

Happy New Year!

OK, so I know I'm a day late, but whatever, its not like I had more than 17 hits yesterday, and half of them were probably me. Here's a toon courtesy of LeftHandedToons to ring in the new year.

Dumbest Cops Ever

This video is great! I can't embed it, but click here to check this out. I can't believe these guys got away!

Loyalty

Awww, poor little guy. This is one of the most touching pictures I've ever seen, and the best example of true loyalty imaginable.

My Mini City: Naknek

I started my own little city on MyMiniCity.com, and I want all of you to come visit! This site lets you create your own little city, kinda similar to SimCity, except instead of getting bigger by your actions, your city grows by people visiting it. So why don't you pop by and check out Naknek, and if you want, you can create your own too!

Animated Bacon

That's it. Animated bacon. All I know, all you need to know. Click the image to see the animation (it's somewhat of a large file at 1.47MB.)

The Land of the Free (My Ass!)

I came upon this absolutely horrific account of an Icelandic woman's account of how she was treated upon arrival at JFK airport in New York due to staying a week longer than her visa had allowed in 1995. It makes me ashamed to even be a US citizen when I read things like this, and the worst part is this is becoming the NORM lately. Everybody please pass this link around, something really needs to be done.

Lost (English translation) - blog post by Erla Ósk Arnardóttir Lillendahl (original post)

Desktop Environments vs. Window Managers

Many of you who are new to Linux have probably encountered the terms desktop environment and window manager, and might be thinking "what the hell are either and why do I care?" Well, if you're not running a brand new computer, you might have a lot of reason to care. I came across an article today on Download Squad that explains the difference in a newbie-friendly manner. Most Linux installations default to either KDE or GNOME. These are both what's known as desktop environments. This is something akin to what Windows is to a PC or what OSX is to a Mac, a full-featured environment that provides everything you need to access everything on your computer. This might seem like 'well, ok duh,' but there are other options. Back in the early days of Linux, you had to put together all the components of a complete system yourself. This involved a window manager.

A window manager does one main thing, and that is to handle windows. That includes the borders and controls that let you control what is visible and how you interact with it. It also includes the menus and desktop icons (if that is how the particular manager does it.) In addition to it, you also needed to have software running to handle your sound, any panels you wanted, screensaver, and anything else you wanted to run. This seems like it might be tedious and complicated, and sometimes it is, but it allows for a COMPLETELY customized Linux experience. You can control every aspect of your system and have it look, act, and work just how you want. And as a side effect of only running the components you need, window managers are much slimmer, quicker, more efficient, and if they crash, they don't take down anything else with them (like that novel you are working on and haven't saved for 25 pages.) A couple of my favorite window managers are Enlightenment and Window Maker. If you have an older PC that seems real sluggish currently, (or you think you can't even use) give one of these a try, you might find out your 233MHz PII can run as well as your 2GHz P4, and can look good doing it.

Tip: if you really are putting it on a 233 (or something slow) go with Window Maker, it is much slimmer than Enlightenment.

Special thanks to Kristin Shoemaker for her (sorry Kristin!) excellent blog post on the topic, check his article for more information on desktop environments and window managers.

Anti-Gravity Cat

I know you've seen the thing with the cat with a piece of toast with jam strapped to its back, and I know you've seen the LOLcat labeled "Anti-Gravity Cat," but this brings whole new meaning to the phrase!

USB Flash Drive Virus Proof of Concept

I came across something very disturbing a few minutes ago, and I think the world really needs to know about it. I know you all know that Windows is horribly vulnerable to every PC malady that has ever existed, but here's one that is basically built-in on purpose by Microsoft.

This particular exploit utilizes the built in autorun.inf 'feature' in all recent versions of Windows to run its payload, whose source code can be seen at QuantumG's site where I Stumbled Upon it. What the code does, is basically as soon as you insert the flash drive containing this program, opener.exe, and the 4 lines in autorun.inf, it will find any other removable drives, copy itself onto them, and hide itself. The actual process goes like this:

1. Open an explorer window for the drive we're running from.
2. Make sure there is only one copy of opener.exe running.
3. Scan the available drives for any that are removable.
4. Check that there is some free space on the drive.
5. Check that the drive doesn't already have an autorun.inf.
6. Dump the following into autorun.inf:

   [autorun]
   shell\eject=Eject
   shell\eject\command=opener.exe
   shell=eject
   

   This creates a new shell command which I've just randomly named "Eject" and, importantly, makes it the default action.
7. Write a copy of opener.exe to the drive.
8. Mark both autorun.inf and opener.exe as hidden.
9. Do any other removable drives we can find.
10. Wait about a minute.
11. Go back to step 3.

This is very basic virus behavior, but if the author was malicious, absolutely anything they wanted to do could be done. This has very serious implications for users, and needs to be addressed post-haste by Microsoft. Let's get the word out, you can help by Stumbling, Digging, or doing whatever you can to share this post and get it fixed.

Original site at http://rtfm.insomnia.org/~qg/opener.php
Image courtesy of Francois Thé