Flack's Daily Smack

Spam Sandwich

x@robohara.com — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:33:16 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

I installed a new Wordpress spam filter today that worked so well it stopped all spammers, registered users, and even myself from leaving comments. The good news was, I got 0 comments over the past 12 hours. The bad news is, I got 0 comments all day.

Old plug-in removed, Akismet reinstalled … all is well with the world.

My Chair

x@robohara.com — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:14:35 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

It was recently suggested to me by the loved ones I cohabitate with that it is time to replace my recliner.

If the chair looks over sized, that’s because it is. The last time we bought living room furniture, Susan specifically bought me a “big and tall” recliner from Mathis Brothers. Not only was it bigger and a little fluffier than a regular recliner, but it was (supposedly) built stronger and designed to hold more weight as well. We’ve had the recliner for about five years now and as you can see the chair did not hold up very well. In fact, the recliner held up much worse than the “non-big and tall” recliners we previously owned, which we paid $20 each for from a garage sale. The footrest on this chair is so messed up that it does not retract on its own; you have to manually pull the left side of the footrest back with your heel to close it. There are multiple rips on the internal fabric, and last week the back right hand side of the chair became completely disconnected, which means I now lean back at a 45 degree angle whether I want to or not. It would be different if the chair were at least comfortable but at this point most of the padding in the seat is gone, which means if you sit toward the front of the chair it’s like sitting on wood and your legs will go to sleep within minutes.

At the same time we bought the recliner we also bought a couch and a love seat, also from Mathis Brothers. Susan also bought the extended warranty, “just in case”. Within about two years, all the cushion seams had separated and you could see the foam inside the cushions no matter which way you turned them. When Susan attempted to have them fixed, and I wish I were kidding, that the warranty “only covered accidental rips and tears.” OUR tears, we were told, were due to a manufacturing flaw and would not be fixed. We paid around a thousand dollars for those two pieces of furniture (the chair was extra), and when we gave them away (I was too embarrassed by how bad they looked to try and sell them) I vowed we would never, ever shop at Mathis Brothers again.

So Friday night Susan went to Mathis Brothers and bought me a new recliner. Why did she go there? I have no idea; you’ll have to ask her. Personally, I’d rather sit on a pile of dead fish than a chair from Mathis Brothers, but that’s where she went. Susan is not very good and sticking to business boycotts. I once abstained from visiting a specific McDonald’s for a year because they kept putting the cheese on my burgers in the wrong order.

Susan likes Mathis Brothers because they have a large selection of furniture, and in no time at all she found a replacement chair. After paying for it Friday night, she was told the warehouse was closed and she would have to come back Saturday morning to pick it up. And so, Saturday morning after breakfast, the four of us along with my dad stopped by Mathis Brothers to pick up my new chair.

With receipt in hand, Susan entered the store to pick up the chair. At first she was told it would take ten minutes for someone from the warehouse to meet her. Ten minutes quickly turned into an hour. The problem was, they sold us a chair they did not have in stock. They offered Susan the floor model (at no discount), and Susan agreed to it — not really out of the niceness of her heart, but because (A) she doesn’t want my crappy old chair in the living room during Christmas, (B) she knows the old chair is uncomfortable to sit in, and (C) she doesn’t want me to bring in a wheelbarrow full of dead fish into the living room. To speed up the waiting process I took Mason and Morgan into the store and turned them loose. It worked; ten minutes after that, Susan and the kids were ushered out and told to go to the warehouse and pick up my new (floor model) chair.

The two geniuses you see here were tasked with retrieving and loading my chair into my truck. After another ten minutes or so, the two of them showed up with a chair, had Susan look it over … and then realized that it was the wrong chair. “Oh, dur,” one of them said. At this point Susan noted that it actually took us less time to buy the house we’re in now than it had taken to buy this stupid chair. As one of the workers left with the wrong chair, Susan informed them that they had about five minutes left before she blew her top. I was already mad and just tried my best to shut up.

Eventually, the right chair (which looked just like the wrong chair, except apparently it was a slightly different shade of brown) arrived and was loaded into the back of the truck.

Here are the two chairs together. Moments after this picture was taken, old chair was flipped over and searched for missing remotes and spare change before it was relocated out to the garage where it sits, waiting for big trash day.

When the cat’s away, the mice will shop

x@robohara.com — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:02:31 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Last week while Susan was out of town, I broke the unofficial “Code of Christmas” and bought not one but two things for myself in December. Fortunately, I feel pretty confident that neither of these items were already wrapped up and waiting for me underneath our Christmas tree. Coincidently, for this blog entry I used each new device to take a picture of the other one.

The first item was the Pentax K-x DSLR camera. I’ve been wanting a DSLR camera for a while now, and the K-x seems like a pretty good place to start. It’s a beginner’s DSLR, which means it still has auto focus and plenty of pre-set configurations for dozens of shooting situations, but it also gives you the ability to tweak settings to your heart’s content. The performance is light years past my old digital camera. Picture taking is instant, and the burst rate of almost five pictures per second has come in handy when taking pictures of the kids. I still have a lot to learn about photography, but this camera is making it fun. Most Pentax cameras only come in black, but the company is currently releasing the limited numbers of of the K-x in red, white and blue. My hope is that the bright red will decrease my odds of losing it. Not only does the camera capture 12.4 megapixel photos (in widescreen format, no less), but it also shoots HD video as well.

The other item, I am ashamed to admit, was an iPhone. I’m sorry. I held out as long as I could, but they finally got me. I’ve spent a long time buying “anything but Apple” products. I’ve suffered with crappy mp3 players because I refused to own an iPod, and I tried not to look envious as the sea of iPhone users around me showed me their cool apps. I’ve been an AT&T customer for over ten years now and I got tired of waiting on Droid and HTC phones to arrive, so I caved. I don’t care what you think. In fact, I probably won’t even notice you anymore because I’m going to be Twittering, Facebooking, and whatever-elsing 24/7 now like everybody else. I’ve been assimilated. God help us all.

Morgan Sings

x@robohara.com — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:03:40 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

In order to boost attendance to Shedeck’s monthly PTO meetings, occasionally they do things like have the kids put on shows. It works. Last night, Morgan’s Pre-K class entertained the PTO meeting by singing three Christmas songs. The meeting was packed with parents.

As the tallest kid in her class, Morgan stood in the back row. In fact, Morgan was the back row. Every other kid in her class stood in a single row, and Morgan stood behind them. Unfortunately for her daddy trying to take pictures, she stood right behind a kid wearing reindeer antlers.

Mason’s Big 8

x@robohara.com — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:00:41 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Saturday was Mason’s eighth birthday. One of the downsides of having a December birthday is that his parties are always indoors. (Morgan on the other hand, who was born in June, has had three of her four birthday parties outdoors.) After tossing a few ideas back and forth we settled on Incredible Pizza.

Susan called Incredible Pizza two weeks in advance, but they lost our reservation and by the time they got a hold of us, they had rented out all their birthday rooms! Instead, we got placed in the corporate event room. Our party looked a little small in there; Mason invited eight kids and the room seats 300, so we just moved everything into a corner and holed up in there.

The first half of the party was kind of weird. Our Incredible Pizza Hostess tried playing some games with the kids, but they were so out of control that it was just kind of a madhouse. Not to mention, the gigantic room gave the kids plenty of room to roll and run around in and play tag and a bunch of other running games. After finally getting everyone fed, it was time to blow the candles out on Mason’s custom Pokemon cake. Susan had the cake made at a local bakery who initially refused to put a Pokemon on top because it was a copyrighted image — so, Susan had to hand draw and color the picture, which is what they finally agreed to put on the cake.

After cake and presents, it was time for a little go-kart racing.

Mason took fourth place during his round. Susan took first. I’m not sure what place Morgan and Mamaw ended up in. After the races ended, the kids spent the next couple of hours playing video games and collecting tickets.

The choices were many …

… but Mason finally settled on “Puplip” the Pokemon (I think).

Thanks to everybody who came out. Mason had a great time and a great weekend! If you want to see a lot more pictures from the party, Click Here.

Phreak Box (Because They Can)

x@robohara.com — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:00:33 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

The first time I heard about “boxing” was back in 1986, when I got my first copy of Phone Man for the Commodore 64. Up until that point, the only thing I knew about “phreaking” (a conglomeration of “phone” and “hacking”) was from the movie Wargames. In the movie, stranded and broke David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) disassembles a payphone receiver, grounds or shorts something out with a soda can pop top, and manages to get a free dial tone. That scene sent thousands of curious kids, including myself, off to jam bits of metal into every pay phone we could find in hopes of making free calls. Although I never got that particular trick to work, something about that scene inspired many of us to go out and explore the phone system.

Of course, boxing wasn’t new by any means when I discovered it. “Blue boxes,” one of the (if not the) earliest boxes, was developed back in the 60s. Blue boxes allowed phreakers to take control of phone lines and make free phone calls. (Wikipedia has an in depth article, if you’re interested.) There were dozens of different types of boxes, each identified by a unique color and performing a specific task. The one that interested me was the Red Box, a box that allowed people to make free calls from pay phones.

If you want to “hack teh planet” today you need to learn TCP/IP. TCP/IP is the language that the Internet runs on. If you want to hack the phone system, you do it with audio. Red Boxes emulate the sound a pay phone makes when you insert money into them. A nickel made one beep, dimes made two, and quarters made five. (Listen to a quarter tone here.) The term Red Box isn’t a brand name, like iPod — it’s more like a concept. Anything that could play those tones back could be considered a “Red Box”. People used Walkmans, Radio Shack tone dialers, and even modified greeting cards, which is what mine was made out of.

So, back to Phone Man. The Commodore 64 was known for its incredible sound capabilities, which allowed Phone Man to create exact copies of all those sounds one needed for phone phreaking. Unfortunately the biggest logistical problem was the Commodore 64 wasn’t very portable, so unless you had a pay phone in your house it wasn’t very practical. That’s why you had to get those sounds copied over on to some sort of portable device — so the tones could be played directly into the pay phone’s receiver.

Like many technological “tricks,” it took infinitely more brains to come up with the concept of Red Boxing than it did to pull it off. To Red Box, all you had to do was call someone from a pay phone and wait for the recording to say, “Please deposit $x.xx into the phone.” Then you simply held the Red Box up to the phone and played the sound enough times to cover the charges. I don’t know if the sounds were processed automatically or if an operator listened to them, but assuming all went well you would be credited with the additional time.

Fellow OKC scoundrel “Prong” gave me my first Red Box. It was a small plastic box with a red button with the guts from one of those “recordable” greeting cards inside. We simply overwrote the greeting with the Red Box tones, and off I went. I used that thing all over the place, mostly just for the fun of it. I only got challenged by an operator once; while in Minnesota it was so cold that the battery of my device started draining and the sounds began playing slower and slower. While making a call I heard the operator say, “I’m sorry honey, but those aren’t real tones.” I even think she offered to make a collect call for me and asked me who was calling. I hung up and drove off in a hurry. I was just messing around and never thought I could get into any trouble for playing around. (In 1995, Bernie S was busted for holding a Red Box and served 7 months in federal prison</a>. For what it’s worth, I met Bernie S once and he’s one of the nicest guys ever.)

In the mid-90s people who spoke of phone phreaking would refer to it in the past tense. “Oh, that stuff doesn’t work anymore.” The thing was though, it did. Sometimes it depended on the area of the country you were in and sometimes it depended on whether or not the phone was a COCOT (Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone). Regardless, when people would say “that stuff doesn’t work anymore,” they were wrong, I promise you. For that matter, phreaking is still alive today. Of course the same tricks don’t work any longer; digital switching and computer upgrades have taken away most of the old tricks, but new holes are being discovered all the time. A couple of years ago, a group of phreakers was busted for “SWATting” — a trick that involves spoofing someone’s Caller ID information, calling 911 and reporting something like a hostage crisis. I’m sure you can see how that could go bad real quick.

So what brings me to all of this is Phreak Box, a new app for the iPhone with built-in Blue Box, Green Box, Silver Box and (of course) Red Box tones. For practicality purposes they’re worthless, but for guys like me who grew up playing around with things, those tones bring back memories of being young and curious with the world at our fingertips. It is somewhat ironic that these tones are available in an application that runs on a magic device that, for $40/month, allows you to make free and unlimited long distance calls to anyone you could dream of.

Then again it never was about the calls, not really.

Mason’s Ghost Hunting Invention

x@robohara.com — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:01:13 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

http://www.robohara.com/pix/blog/ghosthunter.jpg

He kind of explained to me what each part did but I forgot. All I know is that the project stopped when he ran out of masking tape.

Shoplifting vs. File Sharing

x@robohara.com — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:04:56 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

In Oklahoma, the difference between misdemeanor and felony shoplifting is the value of the merchandise. Shoplifting anything worth more than $500 is a felony; anything less than that is a felony. If you were to get caught shoplifting three music CDs, it would be a misdemeanor. At the most, you’re looking at a fine or maybe some community service.

Earlier this week, Joel Tenenbaum was convicted of downloading and sharing 30 songs (about 3 CDs worth of music) with his friends. Joel was found guilty and has been fined $675,000. Prior to going to court, Joel apologized to the RIAA and offered to pay them $500, a little more than 10x the value of the music. They declined his offer.

For what it’s worth, Tenebaum’s defense was kind of stupid and his defense team tried to claim that all file sharing is legal, which it isn’t. The judge even said that with a more competent defense she might have been more lenient. But, that’s not the way things worked out.

Joel Tenenbaum plans to appeal the decision (hopefully using a different defense team next time ’round). If that doesn’t work? Joel has already stated he’ll just file bankruptcy, which is about all any of us could do at that point.

Below is a list of the 30 songs Joel was caught sharing. The first band on the list is Incubus. I don’t know much about Incubus but I’d be willing to bet that for $675,000 I could get them to play a concert in my backyard, provide cocaine and hookers for everyone I know, let me videotape the whole thing and put it on every file sharing site known to man. Limp Bizkit would probably do it for about $30 bucks.

01 – Incubus – New Skin
02 – Green Day – Minority
03 – Outkast – Wheelz of Steel
04 – Incubus – Pardon Me
05 – Nirvana – Come As You Are
06 – Green Day – When I Come Around
07 – Green Day – Nice Guys Finish Last
08 – Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box
09 – Nine Inch Nails – The Perfect Drug
10 – Blink 182 – Adam’s Song
11 – Limp Bizkit – Rearranged
12 – Limp Bizkit – Leech
13 – Linkin Park – Crawling Hybrid
14 – Deftones – Be Quiet And Drive
15 – The Fugees – Killing Me Softly
16 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication
17 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – By The Way
18 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – My Friends
19 – Beck – Loser
20 – Eminem – My Name Is
21 – Eminem – Drug Ballad
22 – Eminem – Cleaning Out My Closet
23 – Beastie Boys – (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)
24 – The Ramones – The KKK Took My Baby Away
25 – Monster Magnet – Look To Your Orb For The Warning
26 – Aerosmith – Pink
27 – OutKast – Rosa Parks
28 – Rage Against The Machine – Guerrilla Radio
29 – Goo Goo Dolls – Iris
30 – Aerosmith – Water Song/Janie’s Got A Gun

Six Security-Related Stories to Help You Sleep At Night

x@robohara.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:47:51 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

I’m really not a conspiracy theorist, but some of these headlines keep me awake at night.

The location of your cell phone is being tracked, logged, and freely given to law enforcement: Paul Taylor, the Electronic Surveillance Manager for Sprint/Nextel, dropped a bombshell this week when he admitted that between October 2008 and October 2009, Sprint handled 8 million requests from law enforcement officials requesting the GPS information for customers’ cell phones. According to Wikipedia, Sprint/Nextel has just over 48 million customers, which means if you’re one of them, there’s a one in six chance that a member of law enforcement contacted Sprint last year and asked where your cell phone was. This information is given without a warrant — in fact, Sprint said they were getting so many requests that they set up a website to facilitate the number of requests. It would be naive to think that Sprint’s the only one doing this. (Link)

The government monitors essentially all internet traffic and phone calls: According to retired AT&T communications technician Mark Klein, in 2003 the NSA visited his AT&T location and added their own server room and servers, through which all AT&T backbone traffic is routed. The server room contained a Narus STA 6400, which according to Klein, is “known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets.” According to a 2006 Wired article, Narus “sells software to help internet service providers and telecoms monitor and manage their networks, look for intrusions, and wiretap phone calls as mandated by federal law.” The traffic is not limited to international internet traffic; domestic traffic is sifted through as well. According to the EFF, “the government has acquired and continue to acquire the content of the phone calls, emails, instant messages, text messages and web communications, both international and domestic, of practically every American who uses the phone system or the internet in an unprecedented suspicionless general search through the nation’s communications networks.” (Link 1 | Link 2)

The NSA keeps a log of every phone call made: This one’s kind of a no-brainer. Shortly after 9/11 the NSA made a deal with every major phone company (except Qwest) where each phone company would send the NSA their records of every phone call made, period. The logs (which show things like the the originating number, the destination number, the GPS location of both phones, and the duration of the call) are stored by the NSA in a giant database, where they can be searched for patterns that “denote criminal activity”. If you’ve made a phone call (or sent a text message for that matter) in the past decade, it’s listed in there. Tiger Woods is screwed. (Link)

Your work computer is not your own: “A 2005 survey by the American Management Association found that three-fourths of employers monitor their employees’ web site visits in order to prevent inappropriate surfing [...] Just over half of employers review and retain electronic mail messages.” (PrivacyRights.org) That was five years ago — the numbers have gone up since then. Those that understand computer networking know how ridiculously simple it is to monitor and capture employees’ Internet traffic. It’s so simple, in fact, that you should simply assume at this point that all internet traffic at your workplace is being monitored and archived. Now, chances are your boss isn’t going through every record by hand; more likely, rules are in place to search for key phrases and destinations. If your employer uses software such as SMS or LANguard, your boss can literally see what’s on your computer screen at any given time without your knowledge. Monitoring doesn’t stop with your computer; the same goes with phone calls. At a minimum your employer can keep track of who you’ve called and how long you were on the phone. If you use Voice over IP (VoiP), I’d assume it’s being recorded as well. And e-mail? Again, no-brainer — every e-mail you send and receive at work is stored on a server and backed up somewhere else. Even when you delete them off your local machine, there’s still a copy somewhere.

The FBI can remotely turn on your cell phone’s microphone: In 2006, the FBI acquired a “roving bug” warrant for members of a New York crime family. A “roving bug” allows the FBI to turn on your cell phone’s microphone and listen to whatever’s going on in the room. This type of monitoring works whether or not the phone is turned on. The linked story notes that security-conscious businessmen have begun removing the battery from their cell phones when not in use. (Link)

Wireless security sucks: All you people with wireless routers in your house, listen up. If you do not have encryption enabled, I can sit down the street and “sniff” your traffic. That means I can see everything you are doing on the Internet — and, I can “see” your computer on the network, which means I may be able to hack into it and get to your files. Wireless routers support one or more types of encryption: WEP, WPA, and WPA2. WEP can be cracked in about two minutes. It’s better than nothing, but barely. A few months ago, Japanese scientists released a paper showing that they could crack WPA in about a minute. That leaves WPA2 as the last one standing, and who knows for how long. What’s the safest method of wireless networking? I don’t know. We’re all screwed. And by the way, this applies to anywhere you use public WiFi as well. I can sit outside Starbucks just as easily as I can sit down your street. Oh, and with a $10 antenna, I can extend my wireless distance to half a mile or more.

Kids’ Letters to Santa in the Paper

x@robohara.com — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:19:46 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Happy Second Chance Day!

x@robohara.com — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:30:23 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

December 3rd is my Second Chance Day. On December 3rd, 1998, I was almost killed when I was hit by a truck. Every year on December 3rd, I take a moment to think about how my life would be different if I had been killed that day (yuk yuk yuk). On December 3rd, 2007, I had Lapband Surgery, which hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped but things are getting better.

December 3rd is kind of like a second birthday for me … and speaking of which, today is also Ozzy Osbourne’s birthday. From one guy who doesn’t want to drop to another, happy birthday Oz!

Spam, Zingers, and Honeysuckle

x@robohara.com — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:02:15 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

There are three foods that remind me of my Grandma McKracken (”Granny Kracken”): Spam and Eggs, Vanilla Zingers, and honeysuckle.

I don’t remember Grandma cooking a lot of different things for me and my sister back when the two of us would spend the night with her as kids. About the only meals I remember her cooking for us are spaghetti, meatloaf, and grilled cheese sandwiches — then again, maybe my sister and I were just picky eaters. For breakfast we usually had a bowl of cereal, but if we were lucky (or perhaps unlucky) Granny would make us scrambled eggs with a slice of skillet-fried Spam on the side. I’m pretty sure that’s the only place I ever ate Spam, and I don’t think I’ve had it since the last time I spent the night at my Grandma’s house sometime in the mid 1980s.

In the back of my grandma’s < 1,000 square-foot house was a giant chest freezer consistently filled with bread, frozen pizzas, and snacks from the “day old bread store”. The Hostess Outlet will make you a good deal on desserts nearing their expiration date, and my grandma’s freezer was always overflowing with every kind of month-old snack you can imagine, from Twinkies and Ding Dongs to Cherry and Apple Pies, Chocolate CupCakes, and those disgusting Sno Balls (chocolate and marshmallow covered in coconut — yuck!) My favorite though was Vanilla Zingers. My sister and I were allowed to pull snacks right out of the freezer — as a result, we both learned the art of nibbling away at frozen desserts (frozen Zingers are actually pretty difficult to eat). As frozen Zingers thaw the cake tends to stick to your fingers, which is where I learned to eat Zingers upside-down (I still eat them that way today). Did you know if you eat a frozen Zinger quickly enough you’ll end up holding a frozen stick of filling? It’s true. Vanilla Zingers have a unique flavor. Nothing else in the world tastes like them, and every time I eat one I think of my grandma’s freezer.

My Grandma’s over sized yard (which probably seemed bigger than it actually was due to the small size of her house) was surrounded by a chain link fence, much of it covered in vines. Her backyard had dozens of trees and between them and the vines it was easy for my sister and I to pretend we were in a forest, miles away from anybody. There was an old cellar that was home to jars of jelly and spiders, an endless supply of trees that were perfect for climbing, and a ditch full of vines and leaves that made a perfect place to play. Next to the ditch interwoven through the fence was honeysuckle that ran the whole length of the property. Honeysuckle flowers contain nectar. You pop the flowers off, gently pull the stem out from the bottom of the flower, and you get … well, less than a single drop of nectar. It’s delicious, though. My sister and I would sit out there for what seems like hours, eating thousands of those little flowers, one drop at a time.

Last week Susan, the kids and I stopped by the day old bread store to pick up some snacks. I got a pack of vanilla Zingers. With each bite, I thought about Granny Kracken.

If that’s really a job requirement, I’m not interested.

x@robohara.com — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

(Spotted online. And no, I’m not job hunting.)

Rob’s Guide to Writing/Self-Publishing

x@robohara.com — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:01:41 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Over the past three years I’ve self-published two books, and based on that I get e-mail from three different groups of people. First there are the people who bought Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie, who typically ask (or simply want to trade stories) about Commodore computers or BBSes. The second group, people who bought Invading Spaces: A Beginner’s Guide to Collecting Arcade Games, want to talk about old arcades, where I buy my games, and how much I paid for them. But then there’s the third group: people who have questions about writing and self-publishing books.

I remember the first time I saw Steve Hartman on the CBS News. Steve figured everybody in America has a story to tell, so once a week on the CBS Evening News Steve would throw a dart at a map and travel to whatever city the dart landed on. Once there, Steve would pull out a phone book, open it to a random page, randomly point at a person’s name, and go interview them. More often than not, Steve ended up interviewing some pretty interesting Americans, completely at random.

Like Steve I think everybody has at least one good story in them, but most people either don’t know where to start, or don’t know where to go when they’re finished. I will never forget the man who approached me in Chicago at a book signing table. After purchasing a copy of Commodork, the man confessed that he had no interest in the book and just bought a copy because he wanted to pick my brain about self-publishing. After the crowd dispersed, the man and I ended up talking for more than half an hour. Although I am no expert in either writing or publishing, the man was looking for advice and encouragement; I gave him both.

Simply by going through the process of writing and self-publishing two books myself, I have information to share. About a year ago, I sat down to capture some of that information. The things I wrote didn’t turn out to be long enough to be a book, but were too long to be a single blog post. Ultimately I divided the long (long) essay into different topics, and turned it into a web page.

Here it is.

This new section, titled “On Writing” (as a tribute to Stephen King’s book by the same title) is a collection of bits of advice, most of which were originally written as answers to questions people have asked me over the past three years. Everything in that section of my website has my own blood, sweat and tears mixed in. The examples are my own. The advice comes from doing things the hard/wrong way. Trust me, I would love to travel back in time and read this before writing my first book.

Over the weekend my friend Charles politely reminded me that I’ve been promising to post “On Writing” for over a year now, so here it is, warts and all. It’s not 100% complete, but what’s there is there and what’s not there yet is slowly being filled in. If you have questions, please ask them — chances are, it’ll end up added to the collection.

Go read. Then, go write.

Tilt

x@robohara.com — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:45:25 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Yesterday, the family and I drove out to Quail Springs Mall to get Mason’s glasses adjusted. While I’m sure the mall wasn’t as crowded as it was on Black Friday, it was still pretty bad.

After getting Mason’s glasses adjusted the two of us headed downstairs to visit the mall’s arcade, Tilt. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there and, like most other arcades at this point in time, Tilt seems to barely be limping along. If you exclude the ticket redemption machines and count multiplayer machines as one “game”, then I own more working coin-op games than Tilt does.

One of the things Tilt (and many other) arcades do (or at least used to) is put price tags on their games around Christmas. I remember looking at those price tags as a kid and thinking, “Wow, games are expensive!” Now I know better; those prices are insane and the arcades have to desire to actually sell them. The only people buying games at those prices are (A) rich people, (B) crazy people, and (C) crazy rich people (or, if you prefer, rich crazy people).

The other day though, things were different. Based on the prices I saw, it looks like they may actually want to get rid of their games. I saw House of the Dead and House of the Dead II each in pretty good condition for $795 each — more than what you would pay at an auction, but not exorbitant. There was a Gauntlet Legends for $695 and a generic police-themed shooting game for $395. Again that’s more than I pay for my machines, but they’re borderline reasonable.

When arcades start putting their machines up for sale for reasonable prices, it’s not hard to read between the lines.

Programmer of the Year: Arthur Krewat

x@robohara.com — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:11:01 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

The Programmer of the Year Award (an award I just made up) goes to Arthur Krewat. To understand what Arthur’s doing, why he’s doing it, and why he deserves the Programmer of the Year Award, I need to first tell you about an old computer game called Impossible Mission.

Impossible Mission was a game released for the Commodore 64 by Epyx in 1984. In the game, players control a secret agent who has invaded Professor Elvin Atombender’s secret lair. The lair is guarded by robots that can zap you with electricity and, on some levels, a floating black ball that has the power to kill you instantly. The goal of the game is to find and find and assemble puzzle pieces hidden behind pieces of furniture. Many rooms also contain computer terminals that allow players to perform special functions within the game. Despite the game’s great gameplay, it is most often for its use of speech synthesis (”Another visitor! Stay awhile … stay FOREVER!”).

Like many successful games, Impossible Mission was soon ported to several other platforms including the Apple II, Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Atari 7800. Unfortunately, the North American (NTSC) version of Impossible Mission contains a bug that randomly places some of the puzzle pieces needed to win the game behind the unsearchable computer terminals. Since not all the pieces could be retrieved, the game literally becomes an “impossible mission” — the Atari 7800 version of the game is unwinnable. Oops.

The Atari 7800 version of Impossible Mission was ported by Arthur Krewat. Arthur maintains that the code he provided to Atari did not contian the bug (and, in his defense, the European (PAL) release of the game works perfectly). Regardless, over the years Arthur’s name has become an asterix attached to a trivia question within gaming circles. (”What game on the Atari 7800 was unbeatable, and who wrote it?”)

This feat is not what earned Arthur my Programmer of the Year Award. Arthur gets the award because, twenty-something years after the release of Impossible Mission for the Atari 7800, Arthur is fixing the problem.

Over the past year, Arthur has been trying to recover the source code from many of the old games he programmed, including Impossible Mission, from vintage floppy disks. Once the programs were recovered, Arthur began digging through his own two-decade old source code and looking for the bug that made him infamous (which, as El Guapo’s assistant Jefe will tell you, is “more than famous”). According to this thread on Atari Age started by Arthur himself, the bug has been found and fixed.

Ultimately this fixed version will probably be distributed online for free between retro videogame hobbiests and will be played on computers running Atari emulators, although it is possible that the final version could be made into real cartridges and sold at videogame shows. Regardless of what happens with the finished version, I seriously doubt Arthur will make a dime (or wants to) off the fixed version. It’s all about a guy going back and righting a wrong.

Two joysticks up to Arthur Krewat for making Impossible Mission for the Atari 7800 not quite so impossible.

Random Phone Photos

x@robohara.com — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:47:03 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Generic cereals always crack me up. “Why not start your day with a big bowl of Millville’s Marshmallows & Stars or Cocoa Peanut Butter Spheres!” (Aldi’s)

The International Symbol for “there used to be a phone here.” (Penn Square Mall)

A couple of weeks ago Susan offered to bring me breakfast. This is what I got. (Work)

Kindle 2 gets PDF Update; “Meh”

x@robohara.com — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:02:32 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Seemingly from left field, Amazon yesterday released a free Kindle 2 update that added a couple of (at first glance) really neat features, but ultimately left me scratching my head. I guess call me ungrateful, if you will (and the day before Thanksgiving, too).

The biggest addition the update provides is native PDF support, so let’s talk about everything else first.

The first thing the update does is extend the Kindle 2’s battery life by an additional 85%. According to the official press release, with WiFi turned on the device will now run 7 days instead of 4. Honestly I have never found the Kindle’s battery life to be an issue; with light-to-moderate reading (and the WiFi turned off) mine lasts roughly a month between charges. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but battery life wasn’t on my list of things that needed improving. Of course, for free, I’ll take it.

Amazon also tweaked the Kindle 2’s screensaver, changing the unit’s default timeout from 5 minutes to 20 minutes. I don’t get this change at all. For starters, why can’t Amazon simply let Kindle owners choose their own time out length? That seems like a really simple thing to do from a programming standpoint. Additionally, the screen saver can be enabled with a simple flip of the power switch on top of the Kindle. No matter which way you hold the unit, there’s really no way to get your fingers more than an inch or two away from the switch. What a seemingly random and pointless change. Additionally, the new update breaks the old unofficial Kindle Screensaver Hack that allowed Kindle owners the ability to replace the Kindle 2’s default screensaver (pictures of dead authors) with their own pictures. Why is this such a battle? It’s obviously not a difficult change to make (I believe the hack simply redirected the directory from which the screensaver pulled the pictures), so why doesn’t Amazon let us do it? It would be like if every Dell computer forced you to use that annoying Windows star field screen saver. GAH!

So anyway, yeah, on with the big one — the ability to natively read PDF files.

I can’t tell you how upset (and jealous) I was when Amazon announced the larger Kindle DX just months after I purchased a Kindle 2. Not only did the Kindle DX have a much larger screen, but it viewed PDF files natively (no conversion required). To view PDF files on the Kindle 1 and 2, owners have to first convert them through a fairly simple process that takes only a minute or two. It’s not a big deal if you’re only converting over one file, but a pain in the ass if you want to convert fifty. Additionally, the larger Kindle DX possessed the ability to view documents in landscape mode, making the viewing area even wider.

With yesterday’s update, the Kindle 2 finally acquires the same functionality of the DX. Kindle 2 owners can now view PDF files by simply copying them over to their Kindle 2 via the USB cable, and the Kindle screen can be rotated as well now (the new option is located under the font menu). Unfortunately, here’s the sucker punch. The Kindle 2’s screen is not as big as the DX’s screen. It’s not even close. Upon loading my first PDF I thought my Kindle’s screen had gone wonky and drawn squiggles all over the screen until I realized that those squiggles were actually words. Rotating the screen helped a little, but the text was still pretty small. Additionally, when rotated it’s almost impossible to hit the “Next Page” button with your thumb while holding the unit by its sides. Maybe something like a comic book or a magazine with large text might look okay on the 2’s screen, but normal book-sized text, even to a guy with 20/20 vision, looked teeny-tiny. And since you can’t adjust font sizes or zoom in on a PDF, what you see is what you get. To be fair I only tried about three books before disappointment set in. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try a few more.

Finally, yesterday’s Kindle update breaks both the hacks I had previously installed (the previously mentioned screensaver hack and the font hack). Post update, neither one can be reinstalled — it looks like Amazon made some additional security changes under the hood that are preventing previous hacks from working — so if that’s a deal breaker to you, you might want to hold off until hackers (in the true sense of the word) are able to undo the undoings, so to speak.

I desperately wanted the ability to read PDF files on my Kindle. Since I got that for Thanksgiving, perhaps I’ll ask Santa for a magnifying glass.

I forgot to mention; I’m home.

x@robohara.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:01:53 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

I guess I forgot to mention that I made it home from D.C. safely.

Thursday night I slept, off and on. For the last hour before the alarm was scheduled to go off I woke up every two to five minutes. Ugh. Finally, at 5:30am, the buzzer buzzed and I stumbled out of bed.

By 6am I was on the road, driving west toward Baltimore. I left earlier than I probably needed to, but with the traffic gnarls I had seen throughout the week I decided it was better to be safe than to end up sleeping in the airport.

After returning the rental car and riding the shuttle back to the airport I arrived a little over two hours early, which ended up being a good thing since the security lines at Baltimore were a bit longer than the ones in Oklahoma! I’m getting to be a pro at going through the security checkpoint. I wore slip on shoes, no belt, and knew exactly what needed to be pulled out of the laptop bag and placed into the gray plastic tubs. I made it to the gate about an hour before boarding, which was just enough time to settle in, do a little Kindle reading, and listen to some music.

The flight from Baltimore to Denver was uneventful. I had a four hour layover in Denver which sounds bad until you realize (A) I get paid by the hour and (B) I spent most of the time either eating or playing games on my laptop. I’ve had worse paying gigs, for sure. My old high school friend Sarah Hamner works in the Denver Airport, so she was able to swing over by my gate and visit for a half an hour. I was so glad she did as I could feel my nerves building prior to boarding another “express” (read “small”) jet.

Upon boarding, several of us caught the pilots looking at a folded paper map. That right there seemed like a bad sign. As we buckled up and began to taxi out to the runway, the pilot informed us that the weather in Oklahoma City was “borderline”, and that we may get redirected to Wichita. At that point everyone on the plane said, in unison, “Wichita?” I turned to the girl next to me and said, “the minute we land in Wichita I’m getting a rental car and driving to Oklahoma City.” She said that sounded like a plan to her, and airborne we went.

Fortunately for us, the weather in OKC held and we were able to touch down at Will Rogers World Airport as originally planned. Again, nothing of importance to report. I got my luggage, found my truck, drove home and was welcomed by a couple of kids and my darling wife who were as glad to see me as I was to see them. All’s well that ends well.

Merry November!

x@robohara.com — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:08:42 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

It’s the weekend before Thanksgiving, and you know what that means — a visit to Santa!

(I know. I think it’s stupid too.)

This weekend was the opening of Christmas at the Park at the Yukon Community Center. The Christmas lights were on, the band was playing, the horse-drawn carriage was toting around people, and of course Santa was on hand to take pictures and ask the kids what they wanted for Christmas … except he forgot to ask Mason while he was sitting up there. Fortunately Mason’s already mailed off the first of presumably many letters to the jolly one, so we reassured him that even though Santa didn’t ask while Mason was there, he knows.

Due to the fear of swine flu, each kid now gets a squirt of hand sanitizer before touching Santa. As the lady gave Mason a nice-sized squirt of sanitizer, Mason informed her that she must be the “Santatizer”. Everybody got a kick out of that.

After hanging around for a few minutes to get faces painted and to see if we won a bicycle (we didn’t) it was off to view the Christmas lights. I’m not even going to go into any detail because (A) this is only the first of I’m guessing a dozen visits to the lights, and (B) it’s a bunch of Christmas lights; use your imagination.

There are at least three different sections to drive through. The one part we chose had two different light shows syncopated to music that you tune your car’s radio to. I must be getting old. All I can think of to say is, there were a lot of lights. The kids enjoyed it, I guess that’s what matters. Sorry, it’s too early in November for me to have much Christmas spirit yet.

Morgan’s First Santa Note

x@robohara.com — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:28:50 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

(Click for larger version)

Dear Santa,

I am sorry for being a little naughty

I want Littlest Pet Shop and Makeup

I love you Santa (heart)

Morgan (backwards 4)

A Stretch of Hell: I-270

x@robohara.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:45:25 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

It’s an old story. In Oklahoma, minutes and miles are essentially interchangeable; 10 miles means 10 minutes, 30 minutes means 30 miles, and so on.

Twice this week I’ve ended up stuck on I-270. Although I’m approximately 55 miles away from Washington, D.C, the only way I could make it from here to D.C. in 55 minutes would be in a plane. Driving, it took more than 2 hours.

It always starts well. The ride from where I’m staying to Germantown isn’t bad, but that’s where the problems begin. The people of Germantown have a propensity to pull on to the Interstate and just park. Seriously, that’s what it looks like. (The part where it goes from four lanes to two doesn’t help, either.) There are only a few exits to Germantown, but I sat stationary for almost 20 minutes.

And while you’re not moving there are plenty of signs to look at, like the ones that say “Trucks: No Changing Lanes”. Trust me, trucks are not changing lanes. Just like the rest of us, they’re not moving side-to-side (or forward for that matter). Then there’s the speed limit sign that warns you about speeding. “Speed Limit: 65mph. Your Speed: 7mph.” What a joke. I would be surprised if anyone had ever hit 65mph on that stretch of road.

I know some of it is where you were raised and what you are used to, but I’ll take living in Oklahoma over this traffic any and every day of the week.

Settled In …

x@robohara.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:02:21 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Well, I lived.

Xanax is such a wonderful drug. Most people who suffer from panic attacks or anxiety disorders get prescribed anywhere from .25mg to .50mg and take one as needed. My doctor gives me 1mg per flight, and today I took two of them (one per flight). It’s amazing how quickly they calm you down and make situations seem not as urgent. For example, about ten minutes before it was time to board my flight, I had a sudden urge to use the restroom.

No Xanax: “Oh boy, better hurry, don’t want to miss the flight, hate losing my seat here.”
One Xanax: “I’ve got plenty of time. Might just leave my coat here. If someone takes it, I’ll buy another.”
Two Xanax: “Bathroom’s pretty far … maybe I’ll just pee in this potted plant here.”
Three Xanax: “Why is this chair so wet and warm? Feels good …”

(For the record I’ve never taken three Xanax.) But that’s how it works. With none, just the idea of getting on a plan gives me butterflies. With one, things are bearable. With two I’ll be smiling, drooling, sleeping, or some combination of the three.

So anyway, first flight took me from OKC to O’Hare. I landed on one side of the airport and had 2 1/2 hours to get to the other side, so I had plenty of time to check out the stores. I passed two or three McDonald’s just along my route. I saw a Johnny Rockets, which Dad and I visited in Vegas and loved. No Oklahoma locations yet, but a few in Texas and a few in Illinois, so maybe we’ll eventually get one. I also saw Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare’s airplane (I had no idea who the airport was named after) and a Brachiosaurus dinosaur (on loan from the Chicago Field Museum).

After a two hour layover it was on to Baltimore. Not much to say about that flight, mostly because I don’t remember much of it, hah. Landed in Baltimore and picked up my rental car, a Chevy Cobolt. Reminds me of my old Neon, but with less leg room. Plenty of pick up for in town driving.

Grabbed some Quizno’s, got to the hotel (50+ miles from the airport), plopped down on the bed around 5pm and woke up when Susan called around 9:30pm. Oy vey; Xanax strikes back. Went and grabbed some McDonald’s around 11pm; downed a couple of cheeseburgers, and getting ready for bed. Again.

Tomorrow morning I’m meeting the customer somewhere in Maryland; from there we’re driving to DC to do a couple of things before turning around and driving another hour. No idea what to expect tomorrow, which makes it even more exciting!

By the time you read this …

x@robohara.com — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:01:37 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

… I’ll either be soaring overhead, or will have already arrived at my destination. My flight left OKC at 6am, headed for Chicago; after a couple of hours there, I’m headed to Baltimore, MD. After landing in Maryland I’ll be picking up a rental car and driving to my final, undisclosed destination.

According to one report, as many as 1/3 of Americans have a fear of flying — so while I’m in the minority, at least I’m in good company. Fortunately I’m not travelling alone; I’ve got my iPod, my Kindle, my laptop, my GameBoy Advance … oh, and some Xanax. Everything should go just fine, or not — I won’t care by that point (drooling, it’s the only way to fly). I spent most of the weekend with a headache, a stomach ache, and feeling tired. I never look forward to getting on a plane; I’m just looking forward to getting it over with.

Tuesday through Thursday I’ll be at a customer’s data center performing a series of security-related scans and tests. On Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll be performing a few scans to look for security holes and test the strength of the network. On Thursday, I’ll actually be trying to “break in” so-to-speak while performing penetration testing (”pen testing” — it’s shorter, and sounds less kinky). It’s a lot more controlled than it sounds. The last thing I or any pen tester wants to do is bring down a production system. Crashed systems = more paperwork.

Most of my testing will be done after working hours, which means I’ll have the day to explore and go sight seeing. I’m close enough to DC that I may try to hit some of the museums this time. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to DC. In fact, the last time I was in DC I was helping a government office apply Novell patches in preparation for the then impending Y2K disaster. The only other time I went to DC was with a school trip in seventh grade. Oh, and last year on my trip to Exton, PA I drove around the beltway. I don’t count that one.

Not much else to say. This week I’ll post what I can when I can.

Nasty Pirate November!

x@robohara.com — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:21:59 GMT

Originally published at robohara.com. Please leave any comments there.

Last Friday another Nasty Pirates night went off without a hitch. Due to Halloween conflicts we pushed our monthly gathering back a couple of weeks, which worked better for everybody. All five pirates (Jeff, Scott, Andy, Josh and myself) were able to make it last Friday, which meant good times. Depending on schedules, this might end up being the last gathering of the year. Thanksgiving will definitely throw off our normal “last Friday of the month” for November, and December gets real full, real fast. The last Friday of the month works great the first nine months of the year, but not so much as we enter the holiday season.

My plan this month was to entertain the pirates with some old school Atari 2600 action. Unfortunately the power supply on my Atari 2600 seems to have died, so I pulled my Atari Flashback 2 out of the closet and hooked it up. The Atari Flashback 2 looks like a smaller version of the Atari 2600 and contains 20 games built-in. It even has updated versions of the original Atari controllers! Believe it or not, I bought my Flashback at the Dallas vgXpo in 2005 and had never even opened the box, so I decided this was as good a time as any to open it! After opening the box and hooking everything up, I discovered the system is dead. I’m guessing after four years it’s too late to take it back!

As a quick alternative, I drug out (and by “out” I mean “across the room”) my Commodore 64 and hooked it up to the flat panel television. After killing an hour or so watching goofy Youtube videos, we fired up the C64 and the gaming competition began! I don’t remember everything we played, but I know there was some intense River Raid, Mario Bros., Joust, Up N’ Down, B.C.’s Quest for Tires, Way of the Exploding Fist, and Yie-Ar Kung Fu action going on. At one point in the night we noticed that both of my joysticks were having issues, so I ran downstairs and pulled out two brand new ones, still in the box — hey, this packrat thing is starting to pay off!

Next month I may try and put together an actual tournament of sorts with different games and prizes. I’ve had the idea in the back of my head for a while, but just haven’t had the time to put it together yet.

Anyway, another good night was had by all!