AtomicBaboon!?!

Via Threat Level I ran across a blog by a guy named Dancho Danchev called Mind Streams of Information Security Knowledge. He is an information security expert and managing director of Astalavista Group's Astalavista.com. You can read more about him here: Dancho Danchev's Section.

I mention it because he describes his research into the methods used by criminals and terrorist organizations to gather and distribute information, malware, etc. Threat Level mentioned him in a recent entry describing how Islamic Extremists are using Tor to anonymously distribute their material to and communicate with each other.

He also has information describing how malware and phishing attacks are performed exploiting unpatched client-side vulnerabilities. It's very valuable information. Know your enemy.

I like this new blog: The Voice Of Truth. It's truthy.

I figured I would be able to escape the clutches of the Vicious Meme. However, having had his brain infected by its viral control, Secret Drinker led the meme to my secret bunker 40 stories below sea level. I battled with the meme for days, trying to escape its evil clutches but in the end it won. So, here I am, divulging eight of my deepest, darkest secrets to you... my many two's (maybe three's) of readers so that the meme may live to claim more victims.

1. I too have seen one of the unmarked, black, silent helicopters oft spoke of by conspiracy theorists. I saw it fly low over the (S)MSU campus toward downtown. No one believes me either. You are not alone Secret Drinker!
2. I was captured by the police and "taken downtown" when I was in 8th grade. My crime: curfew violation! *gasp*
3. I made it to the rank of Life Scout, just one below Eagle, before quitting Boy Scouts.
4. I had some art work sold at auction when I was in 6th grade.
5. I used to play trumpet in the high school jazz band.
6. Movies about honor and patriotism bring a tear to my eye.
7. The sight of The Rockies gives me chills.
8. I've never been outside the lower 48 of the United States.

There you have it. Eight things about me. Let's see, who will battle the meme next... Zach is Here, Ed, and Jipsta.

I just added something called Snap Shots to my site. When you move your mouse over a link to an external site it will pop-up a small preview of that destination site. It gives you a quick glance of what is there before you go there. If you don't like it there is a disable button in the upper right hand corner of the pop-up. Let me know what you think.

I have been using Songbird to play and manage my music collection. It is a nifty alternative to iTunes that has add-ons for iPod support, Last.fm, Qloud, importing your iTunes library, among many other things. It is supposed to not only manage your music collection but your collection of bookmarks to music stores, music blogs, network media devices and services, and any other bookmarks you choose.

On top of all that, like Firefox, it is built using Mozilla so it supports many of the same features and it is Open source so you can hack on it if you want. Keep in mind that it is still a work in progress though. I haven't had any problems with it but it is not a completed product so if you run into some odd behavior don't be completely surprised. It is however very functional and nice to look at.

It comes with a nice set of default bookmarks and among them is a site called Scissorkick.com which is a blog about interesting and oft unheard of music and artists. So far just about everything I have heard there has been extremely cool by my standards. If you like music that is "Organic, electronic & everything in between" I'll bet my right shoe you'll like what they have on scissorkick.

P.S. I am willing to bet my right shoe because it has a small pebble in it right now that is driving me a little crazy. Of course I could just take the shoe off and remove the pebble but that would make sense.

For you Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) fans out there, the band has their newest album entitled "Era Vulgaris" on their website for your listening pleasure. The official album release is June 12th (next Tuesday). I like it so far, but I like pretty much anything they do to some degree.

Chatter pointed out that there is a new blogger that calls himself "The Secret Drinker" that started The "Dive Bar" Review. That could be an entertaining blog I think.

Have a good Friday.

My friend Ed and I went to the Springfield Blogger's meeting last night at Patton Alley Pub. Zach was there and it was his last meeting before he makes the big move to K.C. So we got to sit and shoot the breeze for a couple hours which was fun. I am certain Zach will do really well in K.C. Good luck Zach!

A couple new people were there and... ummmmm... I am having a hard time remembering their names. We had a great discussion about music with one of them. He is going to be starting a blog about music and based on our conversation I'm pretty sure it will be a great site.

Andy, Jack, Tony, Larry, and Steve were all there as well. As always it was a good time. If you blog and live in Springfield or the surrounding area I encourage you to stop by some time. It is cool to meet the people behind the blogs.

I have recently been focusing my great mental powers on this game: Onslaught. I am trying to score over 200 million points on one of the maps without using a huge chain of lasers so they will put my name (Atomic Baboon) at the top of the page. If I can accomplish this all of my dreams will have come true and my life will have meaning.

I ran across this cool project via my Hack a Day rss feed: Real life xeyes. That would be a fun project to put together. The creator plans on putting up more details and some source code for the project this weekend.

Wikipedia: xeyes

I'm working down at The GZ (Geekerz) tonight, which I don't care for much any more. However, every once in a while we get some genuinely interesting people in here.

Tonight I met a guy named Willy. He used to be called Wanderin' Willy. He was a Marine at one time. From what I put together he was in Viet Nam and when he came home he started hitch hiking and didn't stop for the next 30 years or so. Hence the moniker "Wanderin' Willy"

He said that at one time he was homeless living in San Francisco and at that time his address was 101 **Bayshore Blvd Number 3. He lived in a cardboard dwelling near the third column under the overpass where the 101 and Bayshore Blvd intersect. He couldn't afford a place to live on his income there at the time because the city was too expensive. However, he was able to pick up an HTML for Dummies book and he taught himself how to make web pages.

At some point he got into working with computers and from the sounds of it either had a business or worked for a business that involved computer maintenance. He had been working on computers since the DOS 3.0 days. He learned Windows 3.1 when it came out because a customer of his decided they wanted it. He had installed a network of Windows 95 machines in a school at one point, and currently uses XP where he works now. He also mentioned working with Macs for several releases of the OS ( versions 6 though 9 I think it was). He stopped into Geekerz to find out if we taught any classes because he is wanting to learn about Vista. Unfortunately that's not something we do.

His wanderin' days were brought to an abrupt end a while back when he was hit by a car out on the road. So now he has a big steel pin in his leg and has to walk with a cane. He now lives here in Springfield. He works at the Myrl Billings Memorial Veterans Center helping veterans and their families. He told me that they are finding out that agent orange has been linked to Diabetes in Viet Nam vets. I hadn't heard that before so I will have to warn my Dad.

He also brought up his interest in uses of alternative energy sources and asked if I or anyone I knew was interested in that sort of thing. I mentioned my involvement in a solar car project when I was younger and he said that he works with solar energy for cooking. He has a website he put together about some of his projects and sources of information concerning alternative energy: Alternative Energy Engineers. Some of those solar cookers look like they would be cool to put together... yet another project to add to my list.

He was a genuinely friendly and seemed honest, at ease with himself, and very intelligent. I get really sick of being in the store down here all the time but every once in a while someone like Wanderin' Willy shows up, tells a good story and starts up a great conversation and it makes my day.

**Note: I think I have the Bayshore Blvd. part right. I didn't get to write this down right away so I had to look up the 101 on Google Maps and see what intersected with it. Bayshore sounds right.

I think I need to adjust the layout of my site. I mentioned before that the way I have things setup doesn't lend itself well to adding more links. Having everything at the bottom like I do is a little cumbersome.

I may give in and do what everyone else is doing and put my links on the side(s). I ran across a GPL'd Word Press plugin for StumbleUpon that lists what you have recently stumbled... upon. I downloaded the source and plan on writing a Python version that I can use on my blog. If I do that I am not sure where I would put the list it produces in my current layout. I would also like to add more links to blogs and websites that I like.

I also need a cartoon baboon. I have an idea in my head and I have tried to get it down on paper but it never turns out the way I want. If any of you know good artists let me know. Maybe if I can explain what I am looking for to someone with a little more talent they could pull it off. A funny looking baboon with a green glowing behind would be funny.

I completed all the songs in Guitar Hero II with 5 stars on Medium difficulty last night. Now I am attempting to play them on Hard. That is an addicting game.

Tonight The Moxie is hosting a free show at The Gillioz. They have details on their site. I am going to try to make it over there. The Gillioz has 1100 seats in it, making it the largest theater in Springfield. I have only seen the lobby so far and it is a pretty amazing building. Then I might grab a tasty beer at Patton Alley.

Anyway... I could keep rambling... but I need to get some work done so I will stop here. Have a good day.

I have discovered Stumble Upon. I am a little late to the game I think, but I have come across some pretty entertaining things stumbling along through the interblargs recently.

Here is one I just found: HOW TO TICK PEOPLE OFF. What's interesting (maybe disturbing or sad) is that there are some things on that list that I have done and/or do because I think they are funny. It's an entertaining list!

This is one of the coolest keyboards I have ever seen. Steampunk Keyboard Mod. You might need to hit refresh a couple times because the site appears to be getting hammered right now. It probably got dugg. It is an awesome looking keyboard though.

Finally, attempting to adhere to web standards appears to have somewhat paid off... sort of. My friend Matt has a Nintendo Wii and he downloaded the beta version of the web browser for it, which happens to be a special version of Opera. When I was over there the other night I took a look at my site here and everything looked like it should! So, Atomic Baboon is currently "Wii Friendly" and I didn't even try. How cool is that?

Okay... I added a bunch of links to more Springfield bloggers. Mostly the ones I remember meeting... crap... I just remembered some more. Springfield has waaaay too many bloggers now. Anyway, if you don't see your blog down at the bottom in the "Local Links" list, leave a comment and let me know. Those aren't in any kind of order. If you don't see your blog there it probably doesn't mean I hate you. Anyway, if you care whether or not I have a link to you here let me know and what your blog is and all that and I will add it.

Zach over at ZachIsHere mentioned the blog Waiter Rant today. I have been reading it off and on since this morning. It is one of the best blogs I have ever read. He is a great writer. Word of warning for the linguistically sensitive: he uses colorful language.

I just fixed my feeds. So, now instead of having the title of an entry as the title and description in the feed, you get the title as the title and the body of the entry as the description of the feed. Hooray for permissions.

I am still reading this, and thinking it all through, but it is making me a little nervous. I am not sure how it applies to my blog just yet. What sort of information am I going to have to ask for when people want to post comments? What information do I need to start logging about posters? If someone starts spamming my blog comments with links to child porn this could become a serious problem for me. What are the civil liberties concerns with this bill? If I don't pay attention to what is posted to my comments for a couple days and someone posts something potentially dangerous, am I guilty of negligence and subject to a $50,000 fine?

I understand what they want us to think they are trying to accomplish, but I have a feeling they are creating another system and another excuse to monitor what we do and say. Read it and tell me what you think. Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act of 2006 (pdf).

I broke the RSS and Atom feeds some how while trying to fix them... cause they were broken already. But now they are REALLY broken. For anyone who cares. I will get around to completely unbreaking them **"when the spirit moves me."

**Translation: later.

I wasn't thinking clearly. I understand now what Ron is getting at. Thanks to jj who posted a response to my comment on Ron's blog for kindly pointing out my stupidity. It is blindingly clear (???) what Ron is getting at. I just get touchy about the subject of Vietnam Veterans and automatically got defensive in this case, when it obviously isn't necessary. Sorry Mr. Ron Davis.

I just read an entry on Mr. Ron Davis' blog entitled Vietnam Veterans. He quotes an article which discusses how the national commander of the American Legion, Paul Morin, says he is a Vietnam Veteran because he served in the Army during the Vietnam War. He was not stationed overseas however. He was stationed at Fort Dix, NJ. Ron ends his entry with the statement "New Jersey's a long way from Saigon."

Although possibly not considered as heroic a duty, we do need people to run things here while we fight wars there, where ever "there" may be. New soldiers need to be trained and fed, supply chains maintained, etc. Paul may not have been in anywhere near as much danger, but his job was important. Without guys like Paul here doing their job the guys that do get sent overseas can't do their job. Paul did the job the Army needed and ordered him to do at the time. I may be taking Ron's last comment wrong, but to belittle Mr. Morin because his duties did not carry him into battle is in my opinion extraordinarily rude. I would have posted a comment along these lines on Ron's blog, but the CAPTCHA image wasn't displaying so I couldn't at the time. I may try again later.

I threw together another style/look. You'll notice it says AtomicBaboon.net... that's because that is a new domain name I bought because I thought it was funny... and stuff... anyway. I can't exactly see if everything for my style is here... there should be an atom looking logo in the upper left, and some gray boxes with rounded corners around my entries here. If you happen to read this and everything look like it is there based on what I have just described, please leave a comment and let me know. I will check it when I get home, but it would be nice to know before then. Also, tell me if it totally sucks. Thanks.