Category: just-plain-life

The internet made me do it…social engineering at its finest

The Security Van Scam is well known but people still fall for it and simlar scams. Its got all the hallmarks of social engineering, including social complience, convincing and timing. From Schneier's great blog

on Thursday, about 9:30 a.m., a man dressed as an employee of the security company Brink's walked into a Wachovia branch in downtown Washington and walked out with more than $350,000.

The man had a badge and a gun holster on his belt, said Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office. He told officials at the bank, at 801 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, that he was filling in for the regular courier.

About 4 p.m., when the real guard showed up, a bank official told him that someone had picked up the cash, D.C. police said. The guard returned to his office and told a supervisor that he did not make the pickup at the bank. The supervisor called a Wachovia manager, who in turn notified authorities. Police were called nearly 11 hours after the heist.

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8 Random Facts About Me (tagging meme)

Somethinkodd Diabolo

James Cridland tagged me in the blogging meme by the same name. Yes its been a while but I've been pretty busy with lots of other stuff. Unlike James I know what a meme is and I like the idea of memetics, which I first heard via Susan Blackmore. Anyway I'm sure James actually does know what a meme is and its on with the rules.

Here are the rules:

  1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
  2. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
  3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
  4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
  1. My first computer was a Commodore 16
    Not a Commodore 64 or 128, 16 as in 16k of total memory. My father bought the C16 for me when I was about 7 and I loved it. I use to play games then started to get into basic programming. I still remember the weird rounded tape cassette recorder thing and the blocky as hell graphics.
  2. I have worked in some odd places including… Equinox Discotheque in Leicester Square
    I was between jobs and I only lasted 3 weeks before quiting. I learned how to pour drinks correctly and how to make a lot of cocktails. I was only paid 3.70 a hour because you were expected to make a ton of money in tips. This only worked well if you were a attractive woman. The best tips I got in one night was 20 pounds while my female equivilents were getting upwards of 100 pounds a night!
  3. I use to have hypersomnolence and now sleep Apnea
    This is a sleep disorder where I pause snoring and breathing during the night. This makes sleeping difficult and a couple of the side-effects are loud sleeping, morning headaches (like being hangover), trouble concentrating, decreased sex drive forgetfulness, nocturia, etc, etc. Now you can see why working later in the day works better for me. I have also had surgery to try and correct it but its had little to no effect. Most people think its down to weight but actually I've had this since I was really young and thin. I even know people who are very fit who have this same problem, you can imagine its a problem for the partner who thinks your dying while you sleep.
  4. I'm a Diabolist
    Whats a diabolo? Well it actually means the devil with two sticks but really its a Chinese Yo-Yo. It looks like a egg cup with a string and sticks. Anyway, I learned how to do the Yo-Yo during the coke-cola yo-yo days and got fed up because everyone had them and everyone knew how to do most of the limited tricks. So I picked up on this thing called a wow ball. It turns out the wow ball was a cheap version of a diabolo and before long I was doing most of the same tricks with a full size diabolo. When I was younger, I use to enter competitions at holiday camps and have won a couple of times including a few holidays. I'm going to start putting up videos of me doing the diabolo on to videojug or more likely sclipo, so look out for it. Although thediabolo.com might have beaten me to it (I love that light path idea).
  5. I can skateboard and rollerblade
    Yes believe it or not. I can skateboard and I use to skateboard to work and college everyday. Roughly 5+ miles a day. Could I do any tricks? Well basic jumps and thats about it. By the way I can also rollerblade ok.
  6. I think I can ski but have never tried it on snow
    Yes its odd eh? I can actually ski but I've only ski'ed on dry slopes and grass. Grass skiing is pretty cool but those boots are damm heavy.
  7. I don't know popular music
    I don't know my led zepplin from my rolling stones. Seriously I don't know much about rock or pop music. When I was young I use to listen to dance music and hiphop. I was deep in to my dance music too, I stopped listening to radio when GWR changed there policy to no rap, less chat (thanks Miles for the correction). This meant the end of Sandy Martin's disco tracking and no more dance music on local radio. Radio 1 was interesting to me but I only listen to pete tong when I was older. I was never into the MTV actually I turned my back on it and The Box because it had no rave music. I did for a while check out that show after the Fresh Prince on BBC 2, the one with Normski (good on the BBC for taking a risk with such a show, maybe this lead the way towards 1xtra?) and I was a avid watcher of the Hitman and Her (check out the episode where pete and michaela go to Eclipse in Covertry!) and after it BPM (which I can't find anywhere). I went to clubs and raves alot, the magazines I read were eternity and knowledge, the music I listened to was rave. I just didn't have the time for other music because rave culture was so involving.
  8. I have never taken any drugs stronger that caffeine and I don't like Beer
    As you can see above, I was well into the rave and dance culture, but never ever took any class A, B or C drugs. Hell I didn't even drink beer. So although I was surrounded by drug taking I never got involved. It was strange because I educated myself about drugs at a early age and while the press was having a field day about evil ravers and dealers following the Leah Betts death I was seeing strange through the bull. Although I could see ecstasy wasn't this evil drug, I just wasn't interested in taking it because for me life was wild and weird enough, plus I just loved the music. About Beer. I bought them for friends when I was younger simply because I looked old enough to pass for 18 when I was 13 (yes I was bad). So I always got a taste of their beers. I never liked it and trust me I've tried loads of beers. I even last week tried white or wheat beer, which I thought was nasty. Once when I was at a holiday camp, I bought a tray full of drinks for a group of new friends and the security guard tapped me on the back and asked if I was buying drinks for underage teenagers? I being a little shocked that he had not guessed I was also underage answered no its all for me. So he stood there for about 10mins while I slowly drank most of the drink! That was the first time I had tasted Bitter and boy oh boy was I almost sick. Beer tastes like crap to me, I don't get why people like it? The only beer I like is Ginger Beer.

I'm nominating…. (without checking to see if they have done this already)

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How going to work late can be more productive

The longest 5 minutes

I admit it, I go to work very late. Most people think its because I go to bed very late or I just don't sleep enough. Not so. I for ages tried sleeping 9 hours a night starting at 10pm and 11pm. But I always felt tired or not with it between the hours of 9am-1pm. So since I shifted my schedule to sleep at about 2am and go to work about 11am I've felt a lot better. This is why I can clearly understand the New York Times story about Teenagers getting better grades when they go to school/college later rather that earlier.

Research shows that teenagers’ body clocks are set to a schedule that is different from that of younger children or adults. This prevents adolescents from dropping off until around 11 p.m., when they produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, and waking up much before 8 a.m. when their bodies stop producing melatonin. The result is that the first class of the morning is often a waste, with as many as 28 percent of students falling asleep, according to a National Sleep Foundation poll. Some are so sleepy they don’t even show up, contributing to failure and dropout rates.

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Is having a Routine good, bad or indifferent?

My mum said the other day, she felt she was a little out of touch with what me and my sister like and do. It was sad to hear this and I've promised to be more proactive about feeding back some of my work and personal stuff. But what was really interesting was when my mum asked if I was stressed at work. This came after I tried to explain what I do at work. I think what suprised my mum more that anything was the lack of a routine.

This got me thinking, is a routine a good or bad thing? Some would say, not having a routine means everyday brings new challenges and opputinities but at the same token, it also means you don't get to research, master, reflect, etc for long because who knows what will happen tomorrow? Having a routine can be as interesting and challenging but also means you can plan a little better and give things the time they need.

Don't get me wrong, I do have a slight routine to my life but its certainly not as tuned as others. My typical day includes getting up about 9am, going to work soon afterwards having lunch some time between 1-3pm, leaving work about 7pm-ish and going to bed about 1am. Recently I've been going out a lot after work, so typically in December I was eating out which meant eating at different times everyday. Work has very little routine, one moment I can be replying to emails next minute running around the city looking for a venue for our christmas party. I tend to have quite a few meetings off-site over coffee or even lunch-dinner. Events including Geekdinners and BarCamps are usually dependant on other peoples time, so there never regular. I do try and go to other regular events but due to the lack of routine in my calendar – I do miss some regular events like Minibar, Pubstandards, etc. I also tend to do things like food shopping, clothes shopping, computer bits when I can be bothered rather that on a schedule. I don't know if this is good or bad yet.

I have a lot of tools which help me manage the lack of routine in my life but they could be improved now I sit and think about it. However maybe its time to have a little more routine in my life, even if its just so my parents know which city I'm in that week… (*smile*)

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How to have more sex?

How to have more sex?

Some of you may have thought you’d seen me on TV recently. The show was not exactly what I had signed up for but it was clear ITV were going to film the event for a show which may or may not get commisioned. Anyway the event was a speed dating event…. Before I go on, I feel the need to explain the reasons why I was there. So since my marriage broke-down I’ve been single and I was getting use to be single again. One of the off sets of this was that I had always wondered what it was like to speed date? I had never tried it and wondered if I would be any good at it. Some of you may say, oh Ian – this is very sad or maybe Ian this is too soon after a break up, but you know what I’ve moved on and i’m not going to sit at home all sad thinking about how things use to be. There may also be an aspect of sadness to speed dating but what better way to meet a load of people who you would never usually meet in one evening?

So being newly single, I decided to give it a try when I saw a advert for a cheap speed dating event in Clerkenwell on a Thursday night in September. The event was 5 pounds instead of the usual 20 plus pounds and all drinks would be free on the evening. The only deal is that we would be filmed, which didn’t bother me so much.

However the footage got used in a programme called How to get more Sex part 2, which was on last Thursday (hell you can even watch it on itv’s iplayer style service or bittorrent.

The lady at Table 13, Janice

Now assuming you watched the programme, you will remember at the first speed dating event the woman (Janice 30 or table 13 – geez should have known by the number) who was talking about plane tickets to america. Well I did give her a yes tick as she was good to talk to, plus she was my very first table. She also gave me a tick, which means that we should have hooked up later sometime but it never did happen. And now I know why. I did at the time think there was something strange about Janice because she was quite talkative before we hit the tables. This also applied to the 2nd guy plant. He was strange, I was following him in the table order and he would carry on pass the bell and a lot of the women I would talk to afterwards would mention the cheesy as hell chat up lines he would use. Now it all makes sense. What was weird was that some of the women thought me and the guy plant were friends because we entered the venue at the same time and we chatted for a while before. Even then he seemed to be very very up for the whole thing.

2nd plant guy or mr strange does his hair

Moving beyond the programme, I did end up going for food with 2 Australian women (who were friends – melissa 32 and
rachel 28) after the speed dating. They were the most normal people in the room and we kind of gravitated towards each other. Everyone else was super dressed up or as I now know, a plant. Us 3 looked like we worked in normal jobs and just came from there. Anyway we got talking about different people who we ticked and didn’t tick. Australian woman 1 (who is wearing a light green top in the filming) talked about the teacher guy (guy plant 2) and how he bored the life out of her. I mentioned Janice 30 but my big story was table 5 (shes on film, shes mixed race, black dress, long curly hair, stylish black glasses and little red bow around her neck). She asked me where I work and I was honest and said the BBC. She then she said quote Oh I heard the BBC don’t pay a lot of money. Taken a back by this comment, I quickly replied well it depends if you let money decide what you do in life?! As you can imagine the next 2mins 40secs were pretty thorny. There was another woman, who I think was there simply to shag someone that night. I can’t remember what table she was and shes not directly in the focus of the camera during the documentary, but she was very much up for going out that same night and something she said made it clear, going out and sex was all she was thinking about.

So would I do the whole thing again? Actually I would, it was pretty fun and enjoyable. I could imagine it being hell if your not talkative or enjoy meeting strangers but I’m pretty relaxed about this stuff. Anyway, hope the pop science experiment was good fun for people watching. I think I pop up 4 times during the segment. Here’s a review which I found amusing about the whole programme (sorry no permalink).

Mr strange using his chatup lines

It was just a jumbled piece of amateurish TV full of primary school experiments that proved nothing to nobody. Even Bravo would have been embarrassed to schedule this anywhere other than the very small hours, but this was 10pm on ITV1! 10pm! A prime time slot on a network station! How did this happen? Unbelievable. Shocking. Why aren’t people fired for commissioning crap like this? What are you doing, Michael Grade?

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Jury Service again

Jury Summons

Opened my mail to find this on Friday night. This is my 2nd time so I think I'm right in saying they can't ask me again. I actually don't mind being on Jury Service but this time instead of the criminals of Croydon and the surrounds areas, I've been summons to the old baily in London. Let's hope I don't get on one of those huge fraud cases or worst still a multiple murder case.

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Erasing my digital memories

As part of the deal with my new phone, I can trade in any old phone for a load of money. So rather that trade in my lovely SPV M700 which I want to keep as a spare phone or sell for a lot more, I'm going to sell my Ericsson R520m. I was planning to sell my old Ericsson T68 but it doesn't seem to be working any more. The R520m was bought off contract for 200 pounds the day it came out (never to be repeated again). I loved the phone, it had everything including GPRS, Bluetooth, Infrared, SyncML and Speakerphone. It also had that unique sensor pads which meant you could answer the phone with a swipe of the hand.

Whats special about the phone is that I had some great times playing with the phone and it lasted a very long time (9 years now). It also had some great voice memos on it from things I couldn't remember at the time. One of the most memorable was the very first voice call from Sarah, dating back to 18th March 2002. At the time I kept it because I found it funny to hear how Sarah miss said the road name but now its somewhat sad because we didn't stay together and its strange to go back to almost the point where everything started. How much stuff like this do we delete everyday? Stuff we should be archiving or saving somewhere? Our digital memories are just as important, specially for someone like myself whos grown up using such technologies all the time.

I had a scare when I got back from Berlin, my home server had crashed and burned. Grub was screwed and I couldn't work out why. So anyway, I've stuck xubuntu on the box and everything safe but I don't know what I would do if I lost all my photos etc. I know I have copies on CDs and DVDs but not the latest stuff. I really need to get Amazon S3 into my rich media syncing soon.

The video above was shot on my new phone at lowest quality and everything is done in one shot. Enjoy.

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Taking a real holiday

I've not blogged for a while due to taking some time out to try and relax while in Berlin. This has caused a serious amount of back log in my email, calendar and general view of whats going on out there.

On top of being on holiday, my work phone (Nokia N80) is pretty much screwed now. It only works when using speaker phone. At least a while ago it still worked with my bluetooth headset but now even that doesn't work. This means if you've been trying to call me and not getting through or getting through, I've not been able to reply to you.

I finally got my bike taxed and recieved a stupid amount of real mail (mainly informational stuff) but also some stuff which is critical. All I can say is I will do them but I'm currently on a train heading up to Newcastle for BBC Innovation Labs and it only starts there. Edinburgh and Glasgow are Wednesday and Thursday. Thankfully I can enjoy the weekend – fixing my home servers.

Yeah came back to also find my home server with a Linux error about a read only file system. Almost the exact problem I had with my laptop while I was in Boston, so hopefully I can fix that myself. Unfortually this might mean dragging the thing down from the loft (trust me if you had 4 LBA hard drives in a dell beige case too it, you would moan). I've also decided that its time to upgrade to Smoothwall Express 3.0 for the firewall/router setup i have. Hopefully having a Wireless Zone will also help with the problem my flatmate has been having

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Bad bad day and its only 3mins to 8am

Ok what the hell am I doing up at 3mins to 8am? Yes this is so wrong on so many levels. Someone set a meeting for 10:30am then changed it to 9:00am. Ok I can live with that but setting the meeting all the way down almost near the M25 in a place only accessable by car or only one train is insane. Basiclly it meant I had to get up 6:30am, be out of the house by 7am (yes no time for breakfast, oh I long for those days when it use to take me 10mins to shower and get changed). Anyway the train from Woolwich Arsenal was due to leave at 7:10am and did. Luckly thanks to shouting at the guy who was screwing around with his travelcard ticket I was on it. If I wasn't I would be screwed. Now let me take a moment out to say to those who would say to me, why didn't you get the one before so you can be certain you would be there on or before time. Well let me fill you in, if I was to do that. I would have had to be on the 6:55am train (which to the sounds of it my flatmate used). That would have required me to get up at 6:15am and the train is the slow one which means I would have got there all of 5mins earlier that the other one. So screw that, i'm sorry I'm not getting up 15mins earlier so I can get there 5mins earlier. Sorry I'm being harsh and grumpy but I got other issues.

In the mornings the trains are bloody packed to the max, not even standing room, only squeeze room. But what really put me in a bad mood today was my windows mobile phone. Yesterday I restart my phone and for some reason during booting up it crashed when loading up egress my rss reader. Why it was loading it up so early I don't know but it got upset with some update and bang off it went. After a series of restarts and charges I decided to leave it over night. Wake up to find its still screwed, so I had no option but to do a cold restart and wipe everything off it. Yes this is what Steve f'ing jobs was talking about but screw him, my phone is my phone and its pretty useless without the additional 3rd party applications – even if there is the risk they might kill the phone. And lets be honest phones go wrong anyway. Because today my work phone a Nokia N80 didn't work when making a call. It makes call but I then have to switch it to speaker phone to hear the other person. I haven't put anything on the phone and I've done nothing with it. Its even still got a standard 128meg memory card in it, which is insane because I have 1gig cards hanging around in my bedroom. About 4 months ago it wouldn't full sync with my computer and 2months after that it certain applications such as mail kept freezing up, ultimately requiring a reboot. How does Apple and Steve 'my way or the highway' Jobs think his device is going to survive the test of time? Anyhow I've digressed too much.

Some of you smarter folks are maybe asking what happened to your scooter Ian? Well its in the bike shop being MOT'ed and I was meant to pick it up yesterday. But I called to check at 4pm and they said call back at 5pm when I found out yes its ready but I need to pick it up before 6pm. Now White City to Liverpool Street and a short bus ride or walk should be do able in 30mins. But oh no, it took all of 45mins and by the time I got to Liverpool Street when i could call them, it was after 6pm already and they were not answering there phones at all. So yes I had no bike. This wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't going to Berlin early tomorrow and had not a ton of other things to do today including picking up my bike, repairing my phone, arranging a geekdinner and packing.

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In need of a Holiday…

Midnight Sun

So I'm having a bad day, so rather that rant on about life I thought I'd catch up on some news and blogs. Obviously some of this has caused me to write a few blog entries. I've been in need of a holiday for a while now, I was planning to go to Portugal last week (Hence my Dopplr feed was kind of correct but not). (People have been saying I've been looking a little sleepy for the last few months, and I can certainly say I've not been sleeping all that well but thats the way it goes). But that was before buying a new Fridge Freezer, the old one has not been working for along time now and it was long overdue.

So where best to get a very cheap Holiday? The Web and I'm hoping blogs. Stowe Boyd was the one who clued me into Portugal and the joys of Lisbon out of season. It sounded amazing but I'm not finding many options for Lisbon on most of the travel sites. So if you could go anywhere warm in the next few weeks, where would you go? Oh It needs to be cheap too.

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Rules for cleaning after a party

1st Rule after a party, don't sleep before everything is cleaned up. 2nd Rule after a party, check behind the sofa for left-overs. 3rd Rule after a party, check your fridge for weird ingredients. 4th Rule after a party, check your freezer for Beer cans because they tend to explode.

Forgot rule number 4 and a week later found yellow ice over most of the freezer. Worst thing is, I cleaned out the Freezer before the party.

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Redbull + Tabasco + Vodka = A Hotbull?

Red Bull grants wings

I have a drink which I love a little too much when going out and drinking. Redbull is simply wrong but ever so right. We all know its bad for the human body but its so refreshing and enjoyable on a hot day. How most people enjoy a good beer is how I enjoy a redbull. Not too much, but I have been known to drink too much in one night.

Anyway as I started going to better clubs, I came across a drink called a TVR, yep Tequila, Vodka and Redbull. Drinking this will cause terriable headaches because it goes down pretty smoothly and contains the evil evil Tequila (yes I bet you all had flashbacks of that crazy night when you were dancing on a table holding a Tequila bottle or glass! We've all done it except of course moi).

Anyway, somewhere along my past, I decided to put Tabasco sauce in drinks with redbull to bring down the sweetness and slow down my drinking (when I was raving it wasn't unhear of for me to drink 8+ cans of redbull a night). This developed and I found removing the Vodka too also was good. So what I'm saying is – yes I made this lovely cocktail. Its a drink you either love or really hate. Out of a group of 6 guys in Edinburgh (yes I'm writing that Edinburgh post very soon) only one turned around and said he quite liked it. My BBC friends hated my drink too. I've had a few Barpeople look at me very strange when asking for the Tabasco and those willing to try have admitted its not that bad.

I put claim to creating this cocktail described, vodka and lime is optional but ask for it at the bar next time your out and see what you think. Oh my god, imagine redbull and Tabasco as shots instead of a drink. What do you say to that then Any

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Sainsbury’s without the alcohol range

I was doing some late night shopping in Sainsbury's as you do and walked pass a new range of fruit juices. These fruit juices are sold as popular alcoholic drinks without the alcoholic ingredient. So for example I'm currently drinking a Cosmopolitan without the Vodka, and its honestly great. But you know whats better, the Mojito version! Spearmint leaves, Lime and Sugar together is amazing and there's been many a time I've wanted to order one without the Rum. Well now my wishes have been granted.

The Sugar content on these drinks are actually not that bad but yeah you don't want too many of these on a night. I did try the mojito juice with some rum yesterday but to be honest it needed soda as the rum was over powering.

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