Random Ramblings About This or That
Cooper Lighting has a new motion sensing floodlight that uses both traditional PIR and Radar to detect motion. Since it does not rely solely on heat to detect motion it claims to be much more effective at detecting movement. We can’t help but wonder if these will set off radar detectors – which might also be seen as a win if it causes drivers in your neighborhood who use radar detectors to slow down as they near your house.
Retrevo’s index of user manuals is over 100,000 entries strong and covers everything from dishwashers to scanners, calculators to routers, and everything in between.
A while back we had a post showing how to add a strong passcode to your iPhone. Thanks to the recent release of iPhone OS 4 this feature is now built in!
To enable this feature go to Settings -> General -> Passcode Lock, toggle Simple Passcode to off, and enter your preferred alphanumeric passcode.
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, and all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon the monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.
And that, my friends, is how a company policy begins.
Uneasy silence published a great write-up on how to put a stronger unlock passcode on your iPhone than the standard four-digit code that is used by default:
First Download the iPhone Configuration Utility from Apple (for Mac or PC, and connect your phone.
Then launch the utility, go to “Configuration Profiles”, “New”. Give it a name and identifier, then go down to Passcode, enable it and set your own options.
Once you’re done, go to your phone in the left pane, “Configuration Profiles” tab, and click install next your profile. It’ll pop up on your phone and you can install it!
Simple and secure way to lock down your iPhone a little more.
Update: iClarified has a more detailed write-up on the procedure.
Nate Silver uses statistics to breakdown the threat of an airborne terrorist attack. For example:
“There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.”
Gizmodo has posted a leaked copy of the TSA’s new rules for airplane travel dated December 25, 2009. It reads, in part:
During flight, the aircraft operator must ensure that the following procedures are followed:
1. Passengers must remain in seats beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
2. Passenger access to carry-on baggage is prohibited beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
3. Disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services (phone, internet access services, live television programming, global positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight.
4. While over U.S. airspace, flight crew may not make any announcement to passengers concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks.
5. Passengers may not have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?
That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.
Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with customer location data more than 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009, according to a company manager who disclosed the statistic at a non-public interception and wiretapping conference in October.
The manager also revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed web portal that Sprint provides law enforcement to conduct automated “pings” to track users. Through the website, authorized agents can type in a mobile phone number and obtain global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the phone.
Wikihow has an article describing a method for reducing the total number of combinations for a Master Lock® combination lock from 64,000 to 80.
“…there are 64,000 possible combinations on a standard 40 digit Master Lock. With this method, however, you can quickly narrow that down to 80 combinations, a workable number to try if you’ve got the time and the inclination to give it a shot…”
Designer Mark Campos has turned the instructions into an easier-to-follow visual guide.
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