So, in response to my last post, I can say with a strong bit of joy that it now seems as if both packages are probably on their way out for delivery. If both aren’t, the important one is, so I’m not worrying too much.

I have two separate packages coming my way, a MicroSD card and a N900. Both scheduled to arrive today. To update all of you from my last post, Both packages hit bad weather this morning (assumedly) in Kentucky. Both couldn’t have been delayed for too long because tracking listed both as being in Kansas City later this morning.

Here’s a timeline:

I know the title of this post is probably going to open this site to a whole new wave of spam, same as if I put “I need a bigger penis” in a post. Oh, shit.

Point is, I’m trying to learn a foreign language, but I can’t seem to find tapes or books to help me out.

Anybody know a good set of tapes or a correspondence course that can teach relative fluency in UPS Tracker-speak?

Evidence:

Light Sabers
Geology
Ceiling Cat
Disaster
Montana
Are you uncomfortable with this word?
Halloween
Recession
Literally? Porked it.
Racism

So that’s what I did with my morning.

Lark

You know, it really pisses me off when services make me jump through hoops when setting up a password. Hey site whose name I won’t disclose, I just gave you a 20-character password using a random combination of letters, symbols, and numbers, but you won’t accept it because I didn’t include an uppercase letter?

Maybe sites need a check box saying, “I am capable of assessing the risk of my own password.” Or, “I know I shouldn’t use my middle name as a password.” Or, “I do not need a babysitter at this particular time in my life.” I understand why Facebook might want to enforce a certain level of password security, because my grandma uses Facebook and she also trusts every pop-up and banner ad she reads. This site I’m registering at provides advanced services for web administrators, something that requires a certain level of knowledge about the technology being used and it’s security risks (yeah, that doesn’t guarantee a lack of stupidity, but shut up, I’m being angry).

I also understand that using uppercase letters along with lowercase letters increases the number of possible characters by 26, from 66 to 92 (roughly, just looking at my keyboard). Meaning that with a 20-character password, using lowercase letters only means there’s a frighteningly small number of possible passwords:

1,353,669,535,298,323,102,197,037,856,681,569,026,048

But using uppercase letters, too, you get a large, safe, un-guessable number of possible passwords:

1,886,933,291,627,965,536,395,870,951,737,944,702,976

Wow, that safeguard kept my ass out of the fire, for real. Look how exposed I would have been had they not forced me to use uppercase letters! Thanks, web service that will remain anonymous, now fuck off.

Lark

(BTW I got the numbers ‘66′ and ‘92′ by counting the number of characters available on my keyboard, it was a quick count, and it’s probably wrong)

Check this out:

This comic strip is from 1906, and they all fall like that. Panel 1, somebody does something inconsiderate, panel 2, Everett True beats them up. There’s a lot of them to read at Barnacle Press, a site I’ve just discovered and will be visiting a lot. Kind of reminds me of Milk and Cheese.

Enjoy,

Lark

I like to game, so it follows that I’m ridiculously good at it. Playing Uncharted for the first time, when I got my ‘100 Headshots’ trophy I thought, “Great, but what am I going to do for the next 19 chapters?” I will admit it was hard work getting 100 headshots in the first three chapters. I shot heads that weren’t even supposed to be in that level. I climbed towers and sprouted the heads of innocent people picnicking on adjourning islands.

If that weren’t awesome enough, my headshots have headshots–translation–my bullets, on the way to some dude’s head, pull out their own tiny guns and headshot some other dude with even tinier bullets before slamming into the original dude’s head that they’re aimed at. No shit. Just wait till I train my bullets to launch tiny grenades or better yet, wait for me to perfect the grenade headshot–it’s not a myth.

When I beat Uncharted the first time I didn’t even have a television. I plugged the audio from the PS3 into my headphones and beat the whole game blind. What’s your excuse, Horatio Nelson? Oh, right, you’re dead. Didn’t stop John Paul Jones, and he was a TERRORIST!!!

I got so good at Uncharted that on my second playing, in the fourth chapter, in Crushing mode mind you, a dialog box popped up and gave me the option of playing the rest of the game with Nathan facing backwards, lining up my shots with a hand-mirror he holds. What do they think I am, a n00b? It’d be nice to have a challenge for once. In the last level, when you’re supposed to beat Navarro in hand-to-hand combat, Navarro just laid down on his stomach and put his hands behind his head. I killed him anyway.

To be clear–my Uncharted is so strong it makes Kevin Pereira’s ping pong look like Helen Keller’s ping pong. Don’t even get me started on how I make Helen Keller’s Uncharted look. Shitty, that’s how.

Just making sure everyone out there knows exactly how good of a gamer I am. Very.

Lark

Thinking about my previous post, and Beloit, Kansas’s courthouse having a screen door (which isn’t a big deal by the way, just unexpected), I was reminded of my brother’s future plans for his nursery.

They have four cats, I think, and just had a baby. To keep the cats away, but so they can still hear the baby, they are planning on putting a screen door on their nursery. That’s actually a good idea, but that didn’t stop me from remarking that it would be the most trailer trash nursery ever.

Phase 2 of their plan? Leaving the screen door on the child’s room until he’s 18. That’s how Jesus would want it done.

Oh noes! I just realized that if my brother searches for “screen door” and “nursery,” he’ll come across my super-secret blog! I hope he doesn’t see the picture on my “About” page, that’d really cement his suspicions that this blog is in fact run by…his BROTHER. (cue organ music)

In defense of connecting most computers to the internet, even MRI machines and those with sensitive information, Cory Doctorow wrote this interesting article for the Guardian, comparing teen sex and computer networking. As always, abstinence isn’t much of a solution.

Operating systems are getting more promiscuous about net connections, not less: expect operating systems to start seeking out Bluetooth-enabled 3G phones and using them to reach out to the net when nothing else is available.

Later, he wrote:

In the era of cheap and easy virtualisation and sandboxing, there’s no reason users shouldn’t be able to partition their computers into “dirty” public-facing sides and “clean” private sides. Of course, a user might subvert this separation deliberately, but the only way to comprehensively prevent that from occurring is to make it possible for a user to get the job done without needing to do so.

It’s a very interesting article, definitely worth a read. One thing he barely touches on is how IT employees (in my experience) are the most abusive of security policy. They feel like since they know the reason for the rules, they can safely break them. Like they’re above it. Above it–wait, where have I heard that before?

I first got the aforementioned bank account years ago in Florida, though work. We were actually friendly with one of the managers, she knew one of my co-workers (I don’t think her title is really manager, but she could do things tellers couldn’t. She had her own desk, whatever that means.).

Once I asked her why banks cut off transactions at 2pm, so that all later transactions don’t show up until the next day’s business, taking 36 hours +/- to finally show up.

Her- “What do you mean? Everybody does that.”
Me-”I know, but why does everybody do that?”
Her-”Because that’s when the business day ends.”

That kind of response flabbergasts me. She actually thought she answered my question. I would say the business day ends at 5pm – 6pm. That’s when most places close, that’s when most of America goes home from work. For banks that are open till 6pm, why do you cut off transactions? Why can’t you just answer the question?!?

This reminds me of another incident, also in Florida, with UPS. I called them to confirm that a package I ordered would arrive before 3pm. Their website and automated phone system plainly stated that the shipping option I chose would bring the package in by 3pm. It rolls in at 7:30pm, after I had just left for work. The next day I call to complain. They tell me that they don’t consider the business day to be over in the area I live until 8pm, and that’s why my package came so late. What the hell? “Why doesn’t your UPS store stay open till 8 then?, was my response, but I might as well have been talking to a brick wall.

I didn’t end up receiving the package until the 3rd day (2 days after it was scheduled to). The first day they attempted to bring it at 7:30pm, right as I was leaving for work. I was driving out, watching them drive in. Couldn’t turn around. Day 2 they had to re-weigh it or something, it didn’t go out at all (and I hadn’t complained until later that evening). 3rd day, it arrived at 7pm. I was there. I was not happy.

Lark

Okay, all banks are weird. Here’s the deal. I was on the verge of an overdraft today. I had a pending charge that, once it went through, would have caused an overdraft. No big deal, I mis-calculated the amount of my coming charges. The overdraft would have been by $2.50 or something. I had a check and some cash, however my bank has held checks (for 5 days) in the past when I deposit them while in overdraft (which they kindly told me AFTER they deposited the check, so I couldn’t just go cash the check at it’s bank and deposit cash solving all problems).

I go to my bank and talk to the teller, hoping to get a good idea of how their system works so I know how best to deposit this money.

First of all, I asked if pending charges all go through at midnight. If so, I could have deposited cash immediately to avoid any chance of an overdraft, or so I thought. The cashier says they’re ‘not supposed’ to tell us when pending charges go through. So you know but you won’t say? Also, why wouldn’t all pending charges go through at midnight, same time my deposits go through?

But wait, there’s more.