FakeChecks.org

I stumbled onto this site, FakeChecks.org. I'm sure many of us are familiar with the so called Nigerian scams. This site is a good educational tool exposing many of the tricks and tools of scammers. The setup videos are pretty corny - I can't imagine anyone falling for that guy but it does illustrate the concepts. I suspect the real scammers are much more convincing.

Gee, it'd be nice if people were just honest...or if we could declare it open season on scammers and pass out shotguns.

The physics of coke cans

Rich was dropping Diet Coke cans into the door slot of our fridge and one took a bit of a nose dive down the slot, and we discovered just how thin skinned a Coke can is.

Fortunately this was not the can that Grant shook up. That one is one of these...


Coke and a smile becomes Coke and a towel. Never a dull moment at Vistasc - er, Siemens...

Wrong. Just wrong

Ok, I'm warped. But I like this banned 7-up commercial (so they say).

What's your sign?

iPhone update - iBrick yet again

Ok - I'm never updating my iPhone again. This sux - I finally get around to updating it and I get an error "The iPhone ...could not be updated. An unknown error occurred (1602)". It's a known iBrick party. WTF? I don't remember if that was the same error I got for 1.1.1.

This is pretty stupid. Both times I've updated the software it has failed and this phone has not been hacked. I learned a lesson, though - sync the phone first (that is, say 'No friggin way' to the update message when the iPhone is connected) and do a normal sync. Then go back and update the software if that's what you want to do. I've lost all the data on my phone since the sync yesterday. That means the notes and numbers, etc that I got from visiting family yesterday for Thanksgiving are all lost. Probably all the pictures too - though iPhoto may have gotten them first. Nice.

Oh, and restoring a few gig's of data? Ya - settle in. It takes a good while... I figure the battery will be mostly charged up by the time it's done, though.

Charging an iPod with an Onion?

I've not gotten around to hacking my iPhone. But I regularly find myself out and about with an uncharged iPhone. Here's new twist on an old school science project with practical value - hey, could this also reduce out dependency on foreign oil? I can see it now - the price of onions have skyrocketed on the Chicago commodities exchange with the announcement that Onions have solved the worlds energy crisis. (Sounds like an Onion article).

Aww - they're buddies

This mouse has the right type of friends. A monsoon brought together two unlikely friends.