Monkeys Who Floss

Monday, March 16, 2009

I have mixed feelings about monkeys. Sometimes baby monkeys are kind of cute and it makes me want one as a pet. Most of the time monkeys just creep me out with their human-like poise and gestures. This is no exception, but at least they’re teaching us a lesson. My Dad (like most dentists) recommend flossing once a day to remove plaque that otherwise would stay behind even after brushing. I’m sure he’d tell you to use floss rather than human hair (weird…) like these monkeys, but still, quite interesting that they’re picking up the habit. However, if they keep learning this kind of stuff we should all be really scared because it’s only a matter of time before they take over the world.

 

Leave a Comment

By Lauren in Interesting

A Dose of Cute

Thursday, November 20, 2008

In honor of Eric’s love of animals - particularly monkeys. How is it that even baby monkeys look really old?

 

Leave a Comment

By Lauren in Interesting

Is it just me…

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Or is this email campaign in bad taste? I’m no expert on the subject, but I do design emails for a living, and this campaign seems pretty out of touch. It’s not political in a partisan way (considering the bill was passed by the majority of liberals and conservatives), but there were a TON of people against it (including myself). Am I thinking too much into this? For some reason it really bothers me.

Restoration Hardware Email Blast

Leave a Comment

By Lauren in Design, Interesting, Politics

Hooray for Free Stuff!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

In an odd turn of events today, I received an unexpected package in my mailbox at work. Unbeknownst to me, I apparently won a free super high tech solar powered flashlight that I entered to win months and months ago on Gizmodo (see kids, it pays to waste hours of time on a poorly written blog ;-) ).

The device itself is deceptively simple and is actually pretty cool. Apparently a guy made lots of money conducting business in Africa, and wanted to give something back to the developing nations he saw every year. Along with some self-funded research and technology shared with NASA, this guy created a powerful flashlight that uses solar cells to charge some super-bright LEDs.

The package says the light is designed to run all night after being left in the sun most of the day. From playing around with it a little today, I’d say that this thing definitely works as advertised. Fresh out of the box and after laying in the sun for just a little while, it produced one heck of a glow and would definitely be usable as a flashlight at night, although probably better suited for the indoors than outside.

I think it’s really cool that folks are developing significant energy these days to creating stuff where the main purpose is to genuinely help people. Check out the LifeStraw for another good example of technology used in an extremely valuable way.

For those of you involved in mission work… wouldn’t it be cool to visit a heavily impoverished area and be able to distribute life necessities like the SunLight and the LifeStraw? What a great way to really meet people where they’re at.

1 comment 

By Eric in Interesting, Reviews

Friends don’t let friends surf unprotected.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Upon the realization that we’re about to install our ninth WiFi-enabled device in our home, I decided now would be as good of a time as ever to patch up the holes in our wireless network and get a little more secure.

I’ve lived in several places over the last few years, and it seems like every neighborhood/apartment complex in which I open my laptop, there are literally dozens of wireless networks available for my choosing, most of which are left open and unsecured. Since wireless routers can be kind of daunting if you don’t have certified geek blood in your veins, I think most families do well enough to just hook up their modem to the router and don’t think twice about securing their high-priced internet connection from neighbors and folks up to no good.

Since I do have the aforementioned geek blood pulsing through my veins, all of our wireless connections have been pretty secure since I set my first one up in college; at least I thought that was the case. Do to it’s wealth of documentation at the time, I’ve (apparently unwisely) stuck with 128 bit WEP encryption over the past few years. This level of encryption was popular years ago, mostly because it was the highest protection that most devices supported at the time.

After a little research this afternoon, I decided it was time to make a switch. Apparently, even this level of protection can be completely bypassed by a middle school hacker with too much free time these days, in some cases in less than a minute! Yikes! What does this mean to you? If you’re using an unprotected or weakly protected WiFi connection, all of your online shopping, online bank accounts, etc are wide open for prying eyes to peak at. Given that some of my close relatives have had their identities stolen twice over the last two years, that has me a little paranoid.

So what to use? It looks like WPA 2 (with AES) is the bees knees right now. It’s compatible with most modern internet devices and actually seems to run a little faster than my old WEP encryption. If your router doesn’t seem to present that as an option, be sure to check for a firmware update that may enable it for free.

Lolcat voiding your warranty.

Does everything I discussed above seem like complete gibberish to you? It really is worth your time to grab your friendly neighborhood computer geek and have them secure your router (hint: we like comic books and gift certificates to Best Buy). Make sure to set it up with a solid alphanumeric password while you’re at it (and for Pete’s sake, don’t use your kids names, anniversaries or birthdays!). It also wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and turn your SSID broadcast off too so no one even knows you have a wireless network unless they know to look for it.

Identity theft sucks, and you can never be too careful these days. Need help/further explanation on this? Post it in the comments below.

2 comments

By Eric in Geek Stuff, Interesting

For your amusement…

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Everybody has their favorite eBay story… selling a rare action figure for a couple thousand bucks, people selling ghosts trapped in jars, etc. I’ve decided to embark on a fun little eBay experiment of my own that I figured I would share with you guys on here.

My Super Soaker on eBay

On a whim earlier this summer, I searched the going price on a 12-year old super soaker gun I purchased for 25 bucks in 1996. It’s a huge beheamoth of a water toy, and I knew it had been discontinued because it was a little too powerful for your typical 10-year-old. To my astonishment, the gun was going for about 50 bucks in a few auctions!

I forgot about it until this weekend, when I search again, and found auctions ending between $75-$150! Ridiculous! Needless to say, I decided to list mine last night, and have already had 2 bids. If you want to follow along and monitor the ridiculous bids with me, check out the link here.

Leave a Comment

By Eric in Interesting

« Previous Entries