beer planet

From time to time my, still curious, mind accumulates a variety of questions and concerns which it has to spill onto the pages of this blog. How random are these? Pretty damn random, and I need to see some answers, quick. Oh, and I’m deliberately not searching Google, as I want to facilitate discussion. What fun would it be if I just looked up all these?

Password Protected Garage Door Remotes

As a paranoid person and a recent homeowner, I started to wonder how safe I actually am in my house. Consider this likely scenario that nobody seems to be concerned with:

I park my car outside for one night and don’t take out my portable garage door remote, the one with a single open/close button. Or, even worse, the remote code is programmed into one of those garage opener buttons built into the car. A car burglar comes along, breaks the window, and trashes my car. Wow, an added bonus – a free entrance into the house!

Needless to say, this is bad already. How many of you lock the door between the house and the garage? What if you forget to do that as well? Is there a spare house key laying around in the garage? You may say “but I’ll hear the garage door open” but does it actually make you feel better? You will be present with an intruder in your house, which will scare the living shit out of you non-governator types.

So here’s my question to you, Internet, is there a garage door remote I can buy that has a programmable keypad, so that a password is needed for the button to work? In fact, it would be almost the same as the one that mounts next to the garage door. And can it not cost $100?

Twitter Security

This part is not about computer security, as you may have thought at first, although I did recently discuss it in the Clickjacking article. I also know that I’m not the first one to bring this issue up but I think it’s worth discussing some more. Consider this scenario:

You’re a cheerful, outgoing snowboarding enthusiast with 3000 twitter (plurk, facebook, or another social network but twitter is the most relevant example) followers. Or maybe you have 3 followers. There’s a 99.9% chance that your profile and updates are public (if you have 3000 followers with a private profile, you must be some sort of a chump. And yes, I did just make the stats up, want fight about it?).

So, on Friday night, you send the following tweet: “Gone snowboarding for the whole weekend. But not before getting piss trashed Friday night at the casino. Wooooo”.

Since anybody can watch your tweets absolutely anonymously and it’s extremely easy to dig up an address knowing very little about a person, what you just said was “If you are a burglar looking for the next opportunity, just drop everything and come on by Friday night. I will be far-far away but my house (located at 123 Main St) will be available for your robbing pleasures. You only have 2 days before anyone is home, so feel free to crash on the couch and eat my food. Don’t forget to feed the cat. Kthx.”

Is this a likely scenario? Not really, unless twitter raises the tweet length to more than 140 characters, but otherwise you see where I’m going with this. Don’t be stupid – avoid advertising exact details of your whereabouts, vacation plans, etc. There are plenty of uses for Twitter without giving up most of your privacy. Ask yourself: would you post a note with your whereabouts on your door every time you leave the house for a while?

How Do Trains And Buses Know Where They Are?

If you live in a relatively large city, you have seen relatively accurate bus and train arrival predictions and, in some cases, almost exact locations of each vehicle. For example, here in San Francisco we have MUNI stations with live maps of trains’ whereabouts and bus stops with bus predictions on small electronic displays.

What is the technology behind it? It cannot be just GPS, because trains go underground where there is no reception. If it’s a combination of externally mounted sensors, are they also placed outside, once the train gets out into the street? Or is it some sort of a 2-way GPS (a conventional GPS device is just a receiver) underground that switches to sensors above ground? I don’t know but I want to.

Train/Bus Drivers And Bathrooms

While I’m on the public transportation subject, here’s what I want to know: if you are a train/bus/trolleybus driver, what do you do if you NEED to go somewhere when you are half way down your route? All of us had such moments at least once, and sometimes you just HAVE TO drop the bomb, sink some submarines, drop the kids off at the pool, release the chocolate hostage, plant some potatoes, give birth to a VB programmer, down the proctoscope, bake some brownies, you know what I mean (if you don’t, you’re a senile muppet, what are you doing on the Internet?).

They can’t just leave the train in the middle of the street, can they? Have you ever seen one run out in the middle of the street? I’m really curious here.

All Of Dilbert

Is there a Dilbert collection somewhere that has every Dilbert comic in an easily browseable manner, ideally with ratings I can sort by? 100 Dilberts per page would be ideal. Ah, looks like the new Dilbert.com finally made it a reality: all Dilbert comics sorted by votes, 49 per page.

Where Can I Buy A Circus Tent?

Who sells them? The ones where elephants and clowns could fit. It could also double as a portable office.

Who Gets To Eat The Most Delicious Burger In Burger Commercials?

And where do I sign up? I’m serious.

● ● ●

Yeah, so that’s pretty much what’s on my mind right now. What’s on yours?

Updated: February 18th, 2009

Crash is one of the new shows I’m into and Panic is one of the most likeable and original characters on the show. I really think he’s going to be back after this show – it’s his breakthrough performance.

So, in, I think, episode 4 Panic (Jocko’s character) goes to the studio and raps for the first time. What comes out is quite amazing, I recommend you watch that episode for a more complete experience. Otherwise, proceed to the MP3 that I got directly off Jocko’s myspace page.

You can play it right on this page (Edit: download link removed, per Jocko's request in the comments) or support Jocko by buying his album off Amazon for only $0.99 (see link below). I know it's really not my kind of music but I can appreciate good lyrics and execution. Enjoy.

Here's a streaming version:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Buy Jocko's song on Amazon:

The trip to Mexico (May 22-26) was a total success. I absolutely loved everything about it (except the flight with 2 connections): the resort (link), the people, the ocean, free booze (hello tequila) and unlimited food, climate, service, the Mayan ruins - everything!

The highlights of the trip include:

• visiting Chichen Itza
• Cancun and the Coco Bongo club, (man, that was fun, I've never seen a show like that in a club, even in Vegas). $50-60 buys a ticket in with open bar (it's a good deal judging by the amount of tequila poured into me)!
• walking around Playa Del Carmen, there are a lot of little stores, with a ton of tequila and other presents to buy. The atmosphere on the beach at night, next to a beach-side club was amazing
• did I mention unlimited free alcohol and buffet at our Grand Sunset Princess resort?
• cost effectiveness: $400 plane ticket, $400 resort for 4 nights
• company of my awesome girlfriend and 3 friends (Andy, Sergio, and Serena)

Please proceed here for more pictures.

Our room in Grand Sunset Princess resort in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico:

2005 Honda Accord EX V6 4D Graphite Sedan Leather FULLY LOADED 29K miles

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/car/715723311.html

Private seller, NOT a dealer:

$17,900
Original owner
Still under Manufacturer's Original 36,000/3 Year Warranty until end of July
29,000 freeway miles (I used to freeway commute to work, use MUNI now)
Clean record - no accidents, absolutely clean
Graphite Pearl exterior / Gray LEATHER interior
An aftermarket iPod adaptor/charger that hooks directly into the audio system, professionally installed (see pics)
Save $$$ - Honda suggests changing oil every 5000 miles (not 3000) and fill up with only Regular 87 gas (the cheapest grade, not Premium), as the engine has been configured to use Regular gas best

VIN: 1HGCM66595A071143, feel free to carfax it

Additional Information:

5% Black tint on rear windows
5 speed Automatic transmission
6 Cylinder 240HP 3.0L SOHC VTEC engine - a V6 that's not a gas guzzler
Drive-by-Wire Throttle SystemÖ
Cruise control
Dual-Stage Front Airbags (SRS)
Front Side Airbags with Passenger-Side Occupant Position Detection System (OPDS)
Side Curtain Airbags
Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)
Electronic Brake Distribution System (EBD)
Traction Control System (TCS)
Air Conditioning with Dual-Zone Automatic Climate Control System
Power windows
Power door locks
Power mirrors
Power Moonroof with Tilt Feature
Driver's Seat with 8-Way Power Adjustment
Driver's Seat Adjustable Lumbar Support
Driver's Seat with Power Height Adjustment
Passenger's Seat with 4-Way Power Adjustment
16" Alloy Wheels
Security System
Remote Entry System with Power Window Control
Tilt and Telescopic Steering Column
120-Watt AM/FM/6-Disc In-Dash CD Changer Audio System: with 6 Speakers, including a Subwoofer

Various points:

Very well maintained with all service records, performed mostly at the Honda Dealers.

There are no engine, body, etc mods - everything is factory installed except for the tint and the iPod adaptor.
You will definitely love this car, it drives really well and produces just the right amount of power for city driving. There is nothing wrong with the car, I'm selling it because I just bought a house right on a MUNI line and can't justify owning a car anymore.
Note that there's a small scrape on the left side of the front bumper, which can be see on one of the photos, but it's really quite minor.
Buyer (you) takes care of all financing separately - I need cash/cashier's check in my hand, again this is a private party sale, not dealer.

Take a look at the pics below! (click them to see larger size)

Contact me to arrange a test drive (serious buyers only):

Cell: (415) 366-0447 (any time) *preferred*
Email: use the contact form on the site

As half of the world population already knows, the MySQL conference is coming in less than 3 weeks. Since this event only happens once a year, lasts only 4 days, and costs more than a Russian mail-order bride, I'd really like to get the most out of it. Considering that the schedule is completely packed, with 8 (!!) events going on in parallel, I imagine things can get a little frantic. Additionally, I've never been to a conference of such size before and I'm not sure what to expect.

So… I'm contemplating:

• printing out the event schedule and drawing a zig-zagging "map" of exactly where I'll be jumping to next, once the previous presentation ends. I'm actually wondering if I'll need to figure out where all the events are located exactly in advance. How big is that place? Did Google invent in-building walking maps yet? Do people normally jump from one presentation to another parallel one or is that unheard of?

• bringing a laptop to take notes. I find it that my brain tends to retain mostly the general ideas for a good period of time. Code details and specifics tend to flush a lot sooner. Keeping notes (and publishing them online) is the best way to retain all this tasty information. Learn it and starting doing it, don't be lazy. For my note taking application, I actually prefer Microsoft (:gasp:) OneNote. It keeps things organized and has a coupe of neat tricks up its sleeve, like built-in OCR, Win-S shortcut for a quick area-defined screenshot, integration with Outlook, audio note-taking. Aha!..

• recording audio at every presentation, is that allowed?

• getting plenty of sleep the night before each conference day, as the amount of information is going to be simply crushing. I guess I'm going to have to postpone my 3am sessions until Friday or so.

• bribing an organ thief to steal Peter Zaitsev's brain and replace it with a statistical computer chip capable of running 17 billion MySQL benchmarks a second. Nobody is going to notice the difference anyway.

Do you have any tips? How do YOU handle conferences? Please share in the comments.