Another Word for Nerd

After going round and round with the freight company about the delivery, a gift from a good friend arrived today, a Bowflex XTREME XTLU.

I’ve wanted one of these for quite a while, and miss being able to work out in the gym that we had in the Austin office. I’ll be putting this together this weekend in my “lab”/computer room, and will post pictures of the process.

I hereby submit my entry for the “Redneck Server Enclosure of the Year” contest, complete with audio, video, and pictures.

If you’ve got an OpenPGP-compatible email program, you can submit a Freedom of Information/Privacy Act request to the National Security Agency via PGP-signed email or normal postal mail.

This weekend I’ve moved the Internet connection back over to SBC (er, excuse me, AT&T) DSL (can’t beat $18/month for 3/512!) and am putting up new shelves in the lab along with cleaning out and consolidating some of the storage in the lab that’s going on said shelves. Pictures to follow.

I’ve also made some massive updates to the links section on FiftiesHouse.

I’ve been listening to way too much Led Zeppelin lately. I keep having this itch to go buy another Les Paul…

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/10/domestic.spying.ap/index.html

“WASHINGTON (AP) — The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers security clearance.”

Some useful links:

Zfone - Secure Encrypted Voice over IP
The GNU Privacy Guard - Public-key encryption
OpenSSH - Secure shell / machine-to-machine data transfer
Tor - An anonymous Internet communication system
TorPark - easy Tor setup for Windows

I was informed today that some of my Stevie Ray Vaughan statue photos have been picked for inclusion in the Schmap Austin Guide. Neat!

I got quite a bunch of stuff in the mail today.

First was the copy of “Engineering and Operations in the Bell System” that I’d purchased off eBay a couple of weeks ago. I’ve owned the 1977 first edition for a few years now, and finally acquired the second (and last, as it was just before divesture) edition. I was a “phone geek” long before I got into computers, and this book is as close to a “bible” of telecom knowledge as you’ll get (although almost 20 years out of date now on some things).

Second was the pair of Grado SR60 headphones that a consulting client bought as a “Thank You” gift. They’re very comfortable, and I already like them more than my previous Sennheiser HD457s.

Last was MAKE Magazine issue 06 - ROBOTS!

I’m down another shirt size and can comfortably fit in a BMW 325i, which I couldn’t do a few years ago.