What is it with idiots and electronics today? First, some bone-headed German bargain hunters got swindled shopping for discount iPods. And now, down in Mexico, thieves are stealing hollow replica display case cell phones.
Reports HuffPo:
Employees at a Telefonica Movistar cell-phone store in Morelia, Mexico say they arrived Tuesday morning to find that the store had been broken into. An examination of the shop revealed the only items missing were hollow replica phones for display that are completely useless for making calls.
Employees say the clueless thieves overlooked real cell phones and cash in another part of the shop.
Even though the hot goods are nearly worthless, detectives are still on the case, meaning these nimrods could eventually serve some jail time for their hollow plastic haul. [Huffington Post - Thanks, Scotland]
Thinking about plugging your laptop into one of those coveted airplane terminal power outlets while you wait for your flight to arrive? Be careful, because a hacker could be using those energy-giving wires against you.
The technique is a form of keylogging, which is nothing new, but in an interesting twist hackers have figured out a non-traditional way to replicate the process using nothing but the electric signals created with each keystroke. Oh, and even if you aren't plugged into a socket, they they can still log keystrokes remotely using a laser.
Called the "power-line exploit," the two-part technique is outlined in a Network World article ominously headlined "How to use electrical outlets and cheap lasers to steal data," and will be but one of several nefarious data-stealing methods on display at Black Hat USA 2009 in Las Vegas later this month.
Network World explains:
In the power-line exploit, the attacker grabs the keyboard signals that are generated by hitting keys. Because the data wire within the keyboard cable is unshielded, the signals leak into the ground wire in the cable, and from there into the ground wire of the electrical system feeding the computer. Bit streams generated by the keyboards that indicate what keys have been struck create voltage fluctuations in the grounds.
[If the laptop is unplugged], attackers point a cheap laser, slightly better than what is used in laser pointers, at a shiny part of a laptop or even an object on the table with the laptop. A receiver is aligned to capture the reflected light beam and the modulations that are caused by the vibrations resulting from striking the keys.
Which is precisely why I blog and work in a Faraday cage. In my underwear with stains on my shirt, naturally, as Best Buy revealed earlier. [Network World via CrunchGear]
The study, published today in the journal NeuroReport, measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word. When swearing, the 67 student volunteers reported less pain and on average endured about 40 seconds longer.Why the #$%! Do We Swear? For Pain Relief (via /.)Although cursing is notoriously decried in the public debate, researchers are now beginning to question the idea that the phenomenon is all bad. "Swearing is such a common response to pain that there has to be an underlying reason why we do it," says psychologist Richard Stephens of Keele University in England, who led the study. And indeed, the findings point to one possible benefit: "I would advise people, if they hurt themselves, to swear," he adds.
Here's a superior group of young Indian gamers recreating Super Mario onstage for an installment of the reality TV show "India's Got Talent."
India's got talent- Mario game
(Thanks, Kvaid!)
Thinking about plugging your laptop into one of those coveted airplane terminal power outlets while you wait for your flight to arrive? Be careful, because a hacker could be using those energy-giving wires against you.
The technique is a form of keylogging, which is nothing new, but in an interesting twist hackers have figured out a non-traditional way to replicate the process using nothing but the electric signals created with each keystroke. Oh, and even if you aren't plugged into a socket, they they can still log keystrokes remotely using a laser.
Called the "power-line exploit," the two-part technique is outlined in a Network World article ominously headlined "How to use electrical outlets and cheap lasers to steal data," and will be but one of several nefarious data-stealing methods on display at Black Hat USA 2009 in Las Vegas later this month.
Network World explains:
In the power-line exploit, the attacker grabs the keyboard signals that are generated by hitting keys. Because the data wire within the keyboard cable is unshielded, the signals leak into the ground wire in the cable, and from there into the ground wire of the electrical system feeding the computer. Bit streams generated by the keyboards that indicate what keys have been struck create voltage fluctuations in the grounds.
[If the laptop is unplugged], attackers point a cheap laser, slightly better than what is used in laser pointers, at a shiny part of a laptop or even an object on the table with the laptop. A receiver is aligned to capture the reflected light beam and the modulations that are caused by the vibrations resulting from striking the keys.
Which is precisely why I blog and work in a Faraday cage. In my underwear with stains on my shirt, naturally, as Best Buy revealed earlier. [Network World via CrunchGear]
The Pentagon is known for its ominous pet projects, but here's one we can honestly say doesn't have us losing any sleep: Cyborg crickets.
No, seriously, cyborg crickets. This is a good thing!
Why? Simple. When a building collapses, say from an earthquake or a terrorist bombing, survivors are often trapped in the rubble. Sometimes they're rescued, and sometimes, due to the nature of being buried alive under tons and even tonnes of rock (something we do lose sleep over), they aren't.
Enter the cyborg crickets. What the Pentagon hopes to do is make these six-legged pests into chemical sniffers and eventually even human sniffers when catastrophe strikes.
They'll do this by implanting electrodes into winged insects to control their wing muscles. The inaugural class of crickets, cicadas and katydids are already being worked on as I type this, so that their usual calls and communication will instead only occur in the presence of certain chemicals.
Additionally, scientists would "install" an acoustic sensor on our new six-legged saviors that's "designed to respond to the altered calls of other insects." Ultimately, this final modification would ensure a cascade effect amongst the insects, so that their signals are eventually picked up by ground-based human-controlled transceivers.
So the next time you're trapped in a collapsed building, don't crush that little guy who's chirping madly into your ear. He may very well be trying to save your life. [New Scientist]
A group of German bargain hunters, obviously thinking they had stumbled upon the iPod deal of the century, would do best to stop bargain hunting because they're about as dumb as the sack of potatoes they now possess.
The con was simple (and old): A group of British con men showed the German bargain hunters a few iPods, laptops and other gear as "proof" of their authenticity; offered to sell them hundreds of second hand iPods at basement prices; and then proceeded to hand over a 4-lb. sack filled with potatoes instead.
They made off with about $972 for their efforts, along with the knowledge that they probably took advantage of people who were about to take those "iPods" and resell them again for a high markup. Too bad, so sad!
Regardless, the Polizei are on the case, and there no doubt will be a very large, bitter serving of German potato salad on someone's dinner table very soon—provided the authorities return their hard-earned wares, now evidence, in a timely fashion (pictured). [Orange - Thanks, Sigurd]
Yes, it's the 30th Anniversary of that fateful day and we couldn't let it pass without saying anything (check out The Reader's cool feature on it). [via Deadspin]
The kiddies have been using ultrasonic ringtones to secretly take calls/texts in class since 2006, but if you're an adult who can still hear these frequencies then by all means head over to Lifehacker for some of your own [Lifehacker]
This morning was Dim Sum with Jill Thompson for breakfast (Here is Jill. People always want to know where she got that bag, and she made it herself. I told her she should take orders for them for a ridiculous amount of money.) Then with Elyse Marshall, ace HarperChildren's publicist, to a local studio where I was interviewed for Barnes and Noble, then recorded some paragraphs from Kipling's The Jungle Book, Ray Bradbury's story "Homecoming" and James Thurber's The 13 Clocks. I loved doing them -- B&N will pick one sequence and have it animated and put up online.
Was fascinated by how different the voice of the narrator was in each case -- the voice of the book, and that reminded me that I had not yet answered this, and had meant to:
Neil ~ Thank you for many hours of entertainment, whether I'm reading your works, or you are! My daughter is finding that chapter books are a good thing, and wants me to read them to her. I'm glad to do so, but I'm looking for some suggestions from a masterful book reader (you) to a very coarse book reader (me). How do you keep the character voices straight in your head? I suppose it helps that you know the words particularly well since you wrote them, but any tips or suggestions? Any other pointers for engaging the listener? I know my daughter doesn't mind (she still wants me to read, after all!), but I'd like to be better for her and for me. Thanks and keep up the superb work, both here on the blog and in the offline printed universe! BRIAN
Let's see. Character voices are more or less easy: I sort of cast them in my head as I go. What's the person like? Who do they remind me of?
I'm appalling at doing accents, but not bad at doing people. And mostly you're not even doing impressions, just general brush strokes. How does a person sound? Well, you hold them in your head and generally sound like that.
When dealing with a larger than life story I'll sometimes go for a larger than life cast in my head: In (for example) The 13 Clocks, in my head, when I read it aloud, I tend to cast Marty Feldman as the Golux, and Peter Sellers (doing his Laurence Olivier in Richard the Third impression) as the evil Duke.
It's hard though, in a big book with a lot of characters, some of whom may nip off-stage for seven or eight chapters at a time. Do your best, and have a picture in your head. Borrow from your life. Steal voices shamelessly.
Most important, just do the voices (including the voice of the Book, which may not be your voice exactly, but should be close enough to it that it won't be a strain), and do not be shy. Even at your worst, you're doing better than you would if you didn't do the voices, and kids are a mostly uncritical audience, especially if you do it with confidence.
Read it as if you're telling a story. Read it as if you're interested and you care. And, the biggest and most important one, vary the tune.
I heard a young writer reading some of his own work in public a few weeks ago, and every sentence had exactly the same tune, the sime rising and falling cadences. They all ended on the same note. The beat that ran through the whole passage did not change from first to last. It was hypnotically dull.
Listen to people read who are good at it. BBC Radio 7 and BBC Radio 4 (here's the Radio 4 Readings website)are a great source of an ever-changing series of books and stories, fiction and non-fiction, all read aloud and read aloud well. Listen to the tune, where voices go up or down. Listen to what makes a reader speed up or slow down -- listen to what keeps you interested and where you lose interest. And do it as they do -- change the tune, change the pace, keep interested and it will keep interesting.
But mostly my advice is this: just do it. Enthusiasm and willingness to do it counts for most of it, and you learn by doing it and get better from doing it.
I've been reading in front of audiences now for almost 20 years. I've got significantly better in that time, mostly because I've done it so much. You learn as you go. You get better as you go. Practice makes if not perfect then at least pretty decent.
And that's all.
Except to wish Roz Kaveney happy birthday.
Marcus Gilmer/Chicagoist
- Chicagoist visited The Ledge at the Sears Tower, the building's newest attraction that allows visitors to step out into glass boxes that jut out from the Tower's west side, allowing you to look straight down. All 1,353 feet.
-
Phillyist nominated the administrators of the suburban pool club that allegedly kicked out a number of urban youth on basis of their race as its assholes of the week.
-
Shanghaiist took a in-depth look at the machinations behind the Xinjiang riots, from its beginning to the second day of violence to when everything finally started to calm down.
-
Gothamist watched the uproar and agreement as Rep. Peter King complained about the media attention around "pedophile" Michael Jackson's death, prompting Rev. Al Sharpton to tell MJ's kids there was "nothing strange about your daddy." Naturally, Bill O'Reilly got the two men to discuss their POV's further.
-
Torontoist held their noses and tempers as a municipal workers' strike lurched through and past the twenty-day mark, and tracked strike-focussed street art, overflowing trash bins city-wide, whiners, historical precedent for said whiners, literal cover-ups of waste drop-off sites, mysterious new garbage bins, plane-pulled publicity stunts, and, of course, picket-line romance.
-
Seattlest was kitchen-proud over two Seattle chefs making it onto Bravo's Top Chef and a local cookie-maker showing up on Rachael Ray.
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Bostonist learned the difference between vampires and blood fetishists.
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LAist watched their city host a mega-memorial for Michael Jackson that cost a whole lot of lunch money.
-
Londonist welcomed the clarification of the right to take photographs of the police, but wished it could be a bit less vague and confusing.
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DCist took yet another ride on the Marion Barry-got-arrested-train, this time on charges of stalking his ex-girlfriend. The charges were promptly dropped, but not before revelations surfaced that the D.C. Council member may have improperly hired the same woman as a "political consultant."
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SFist erupted into a firestorm after posting about pushy park rangers "abusing their power."
Sanders, via Sun-Times
Shannon Sanders, the victim's mother, said she had misgivings about her son joining the Army but knew he wouldn't change his mind, she told the Sun-Times. The youngest of eight children, he followed his sister into the army while studying engineering at Tennessee State University, she said. He continued studying engineering while in the Army and had finished training in Washington state, the report said. Sanders was going to continue on to Fort Bragg, N.C. with the possibility of being transferred to Korea. Sadly the fate his mother had worried would find him in combat happened at home.
Sanders' mother and father were in Mississippi visiting family and were going to return to Harvey the next day. His mother said she had spoken to him on the phone earlier that day. "They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," she told the Sun-Times. [Sun-Times]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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gizmodo : They'd Have Been Better Off Stealing Two Cans and a String [Thievery] [+0] - gizmodo : 'Power-Line Exploit' Logs Your Keystrokes Using Outlets, Lasers [Security] [+0]
- boingboing_feed : Swearing mitigates pain [+0]
- boingboing_feed : Mario recreation on India's Got Talent [+0]
- gizmodo : "Power-Line Exploit" Logs Your Keystrokes Using Outlets, Lasers [Security] [+0]
- slashdot : Obama Photog Says "You're Both Wrong" To AP & Fairey [+0]
- gizmodo : Insect Cyborgs Could Replace Smoke Detectors, Rescue Earthquake Victims [Cyborgs] [+0]
- gizmodo : German Bargain Hunters Conned Into Buying Bag of "Potato iPods" [Thievery] [+0]
- slashdot : Swine Flu Kills Obese People Disproportionally [+0]
- chicagoist : Happy Disco Demolition Day! [+0]
- gizmodo : 12 Ultrasonic Ringtones For Your Nearly-Silent Listening Pleasure [Ringtones] [+0]
- officialgaiman : Day 2 of ALA, and reading things aloud. [+3]
- slickdeals : PS3 Games: The Orange Box $11, Fallout 3 $33, Metal Gear Solid IV $16, Street Fighter IV $32, Burnou [+0]
- chicagoist : Elsewhere in the Ist-A-Verse [+0]
- evil_avatar : Games Overtake Electrical Sector in Japan [+0]
- chicagoist : Soldier On Leave Dies In Crossfire [+0]
- chicagoist : [Sponsored] [+0]
- slashdot : Rosetta Stone Sues Google For Trademark Violation [+0]
- slashdot : How To Teach Programming To Kids, Via XBox [+0]
- games_slashdot : How To Teach Programming To Kids, Via XBox [+0]