unionhawk's posterous

 

Gawker Classic Layout Fix for Greasemonkey

Doesn't work very well with google reader gizmodo feed(if you use google reader, you must click the [more] button instead of clicking over the headline), if someone knows better how to use regexp feel free to modify.

Update: small corrections, please update.
Update2:Notifications working.

In case you missed it: here's a script to change the layout of Gawker sites (like Lifehacker) back by redirecting you to the Canadian version of the site. Works excellently.

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Add Context to Business Cards to Help Remember the Person - Business Cards - Lifehacker

Add Context to Business Cards to Help Remember the Person

Add Context to Business Cards to Help Remember the PersonIf you're great at taking business cards when they're handed to you but not so great at remembering who gave them to you, where, and what you were talking about, reader meep offers a simple but smart trick:

A friend told me about this excellent networking tip: when you get a business card, write where and when you met the person, along with important facts you may need later on the back. This way you can say, "Oh, remember when we were [there] and you asked about [this]" as a conversation starter later on.

Despite what we may have expected, it turns out business card use is alive and well among Lifehacker readers, so this tip might come in particularly handy next time you're at an event where the business cards are flowing like wine. Got another method that helps you remember more about the person who handed you the card? Let's hear it in the comments.


Send an email to Adam Pash, the author of this post, at tips+adam@lifehacker.com.

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The Internet Is Up for the Nobel Peace Prize - Culture - Lifehacker

The Internet Is Up for the Nobel Peace Prize

The internet is one of 237 nominees for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. From the BBC: "The nomination for the internet is supported by 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and the founder of the $100 laptop project Nicholas Negroponte. It is unclear who would accept the prize if the internet were to win." [BBC via Wired]


Send an email to Adam Pash, the author of this post, at tips+adam@lifehacker.com.

*facepalm*

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The Price of Utopia - Ch1 by ~Unionhawk on deviantART

I. Introduction
----
I was running for my life.

I don't think I've ever run that fast; I don't think I've ever needed to. They were on to me, and all I could do was run.

I turned down an alleyway. Big mistake. At the end was a tall chain-link fence. There was no way I could get over it. I was trapped. There was no escaping this time.

"We have a warrant for the arrest of a Mr. Patrick Freeman. The charges against you are conspiracy against the New Order and various other high crimes. Punishable by death." I have been waiting to hear those words for a long time now. I turned around, and, at the end of the alley, stood three or four Enforcers. They were equipped with full riot gear: shields, body armor, tear gas, stun grenades… all just to arrest me. My reputation precedes me, I suppose.

I didn't even try to resist. It was useless. There was no way I could take them all alone. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, and then, everything went dark.

I woke up in a cold, damp, dark, prison cell. The walls were solid concrete with various tally marks all over. None of the tallies went above five, and most of them didn't go above three. It smelled like somebody had died in here, and, well, somebody probably has died in here. The bed, if you could call it that, was a foot-thick slab of concrete with no pillows, blankets, or any hint of comfort. The door was, you guessed it, solid concrete. All in all, five-star accommodations. I would highly recommend it. I got some sleep while I still had the chance.

I didn't even close my eyes for three seconds before the door burst open and three guards entered. Two of them looked like your average Joe, you know, normal sized, but the third guy was huge. I don't think that amount of muscle is healthy. I mentally gave them all nicknames: Joe, Steve, and The Hulk. "Time to go," The Hulk said, grabbing me by the arm and pushing me out into the hallway. I thought about how many of my friends had also walked through this hallway. Too many, I decided, yet not enough.

"Dead man walking!" a guard shouted, opening the door to the arena.

That familiar feeling of bloodlust filled the arena. The arena was a baseball stadium at one point in time, but since the New Order took power, they converted it into a venue for execution. There was a wooden platform in the center, complete with a podium so New Order officials could give their little speech. And, of course, there were the gallows, the ghastly apparatus that the New Order used to execute many innocent people; my friends. Almost everyone was around to watch them die. To watch them squirm just before going limp. I, too, watched them die. Every single one of them. It served as a cold reminder of what, and why, I was fighting. It was all too familiar, yet so foreign.

On this special occasion, however, a few things were different. For one, the audience had filled the arena to capacity. Television cameras covered every angle, despite the fact that execution was a routine thing these days. Everybody wanted to watch the death of a revolutionary, or, as they saw, a traitor and a saboteur. The audience screamed for death, and the New Order will give it to them. I fell to my knees in awe. These were good people once. How can one man drive such good people to become complete savages? I broke down and cried. It was all more than I could bear.

"Get up!" The Hulk roared, kicking me in the stomach. The other two guards dragged me to my feet. I made my way up the stairs.

Then, Mr. All-powerful himself, Fidel Neman, stepped up to the podium, and the crowd went nuts. He wore his standard burgundy suit, and his haircut was as unattractive as ever.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he announced, dramatically, "Today, we cut off the head of the snake that is the resistance! Today, we silence those who wish to sabotage all that is good in the world! Today, we have our vengeance!" If there was a level of applause above "thunderous applause," this was it. I could not believe it. He said all of about forty words, and they just ate it up. I tried my best not to break down again.

Then, he read the charge, "Patrick Freeman. You are hereby charged with destruction of public property, assault of law enforcement officers, evasion of New Order surveillance, corruption of youth, and conspiracy against the New Order, and are thus sentenced to death by hanging. Do you have any last words?"

"I do. Long live the spirit of Liberty upon which this great nation was founded. Even my death cannot snuff out that spirit that still lives today in every human being in this arena. Long live the true Spirit of America! It will never die!" I said.

"We'll see about that. Let the execution begin!"

This was it. The hangman bound my hands and feet and led me up to the gallows. The constant chanting of "Kill!" echoed through the arena. Nobody dared to be silent. Nobody dared to speak out. I didn't blame them. They had all witnessed the price of rebellion. The risks of revolution. The hangman put the rope around my neck. I never thought I would become a martyr. The hangman put his hand on the lever.

Wait, I'm supposed to be providing an introduction here, not providing the details of my public execution…

Let's go back a little bit…

Creative Commons License
Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.

Author's Comments:

Introducing, The Price of Utopia, the first novel written by ~Unionhawk.
-----------------
When a democratic government turns into a socialistic police state, all hell breaks loose. A charismatic leader, attempting to create a utopia, fails to take the price of utopia into account. Fails to realize the high cost of a perfect world. So join me and see perfection from a slightly different angle. Witness firsthand the cost that others failed to realize.
-----------------

Next chapter: to be written.

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MoveOut Automates File Renaming and Relocation - Maintenance - Lifehacker

MoveOut Automates File Renaming and Relocation

Windows: If you'd like a simple and portable tool for sorting files via renaming and relocating them, MoveOut is a lightweight solution.

If you need a heavyweight computer janitor, you'll want to check out Lifehacker's own Belvedere. For lightweight tasks, especially when you're not on your own computer and need a portable solution, MoveOut renames and moves files based on simple rules.

Select a source directory and a destination directory—in the case of file renaming, you can pick the same for both—and then tell MoveOut if you want files that fit the variable you've set for that directory renamed, moved, or both. MoveOut is freeware, portable, and Windows only.


Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.

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Are you Sure your Email isn’t being Hacked?

Are you Sure your Email isn’t being Hacked?

By Mark O'Neill on Feb. 17th, 2008

email-trap.jpg In the interests of full disclosure, I didn’t come up with this idea. I read about it in a computer magazine a year or two back but of course when I wanted to refer to it for this article, I couldn’t find it! But someone on Digg eventually managed to find it so here is the original article if you want to see it.

As email providers give away more and more storage space, more and more personal information is being stored in those accounts. People are increasingly using their email accounts for more than just email – it has become their online document storage area with backup documents such as passwords, bank account numbers, account usernames, scans of correspondence and much more. Even if you don’t use your email for this purpose, you may still be inadvertantly revealing personal information in general conversation emails to family and close friends. A 6GB Gmail account or an unlimited space Yahoo account is potentially an information bonanza source for identity thieves who manage to figure out your email password and then go snooping.

But if someone HAS cracked your email password, it may not be apparent to you. A snooper can easily read an email then mark it as unread again. So the best thing to do would be to set up an “electronic tripwire” so if someone breaks into your account, you’ll know about it.

Here’s how to do it :

    1. Sign up for a website hit counter at www.onestatfree.com. You can leave a fake name and whatever URL you want (I used Google.com for mine).

    2. You will then receive a welcome email from OneStat with a text attachment called OneStatScript.txt. Download this attachment to your computer and then delete the email (you don’t want any email snoopers finding it later). But before deleting the email, write down your OneStat account number as you will need it later.

    3. Change the name of the text document to something that will make the email snooper salivate such as passwordlist. Also change the file format from a text document to a website page. So make it something like passwordlist.htm .

    4. Email this newly-renamed file as an attachment to the email account you want to monitor. Make sure the email subject title also lures the snooper in (maybe something like List of Passwords. You get the idea :) .

    5. The trap is now set. Basically if someone opens the email and opens the attachment, OneStat will record a hit. If you then log into your OneStat account say once a day, you will see how many hits you have had to your attachment.

    onestat.png

    The OneStat account page then gives you details on each “visitor” including the date and time they accessed the web document and more importantly their location and IP address!

    onestatipaddress.png

    So how does having this information help you? Well first of all, it will alert you to change your password to something stronger. Secondly, if you see the snooper’s location and you only know one or two people there then it narrows down your list of potential suspects.

    By the way, I recommended signing up for One Stat because the author of the original idea mentioned them. But if you know of any other hit counter services that send text documents to your email address, then please mention them in the comments. I don’t have any financial advantage recommending One Stat so I am perfectly happy to consider alternative companies.

    (By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, writer and English tutor. Check out his blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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Panic Blog » The Panic Status Board

Media_httpwwwpaniccom_ccabf

=o... I want one.

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School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home Boing Boing

School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

By Cory Doctorow at 11:49 PM February 17, 2010

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.

If true, these allegations are about as creepy as they come. I don't know about you, but I often have the laptop in the room while I'm getting dressed, having private discussions with my family, and so on. The idea that a school district would not only spy on its students' clickstreams and emails (bad enough), but also use these machines as AV bugs is purely horrifying.

Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious.

your privacy is worthless and you shouldn't try to protect it.

Update: The school district admits that student laptops were shipped with software for covertly activating their webcams, but denies wrongdoing.

Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (PDF) (Thanks, Roland!)

(Image: IMG_6395, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike image from bionicteaching's photostream)

ho-ly crap. I'm glad I don't have a webcam on my school computer...

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Making a Tough Call - Decision-making - Lifehacker

Making a Tough Call

"When faced with two choices, simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you, but because, in that brief moment with the coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you are hoping for." [Minimal]


Send an email to Kevin Purdy, the author of this post, at kevin@lifehacker.com.

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Make the Slimmer Facebook Lite Your Default Facebook View - Facebook Lite - Lifehacker

Make the Slimmer Facebook Lite Your Default Facebook View

Facebook Lite is a streamlined, usually faster-loading version of the social network all your old friends from school are using. If you like how it rolls, you can make it your default view for whenever you visit Facebook.com from any browser or link. Head to Facebook Lite, hit the Settings icon to the left of the search bar, and select the "Default" category, where you'll get options similar to those shown above to customize how things look when you log in. If you need to access something in the full-fledged Facebook, don't worry—there's always a link in the upper-right corner.


Send an email to Kevin Purdy, the author of this post, at kevin@lifehacker.com.

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Creative  Commons  License
unionhawk's posterous by Unionhawk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.