Hacker Ethic
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5 days ago, a box was shipped from Hong Kong. Today, it’s hanging off my Aspire One (well, it might be more accurate to say the Aspire is hanging off the battery) It’s still on it’s first charge, so there’s no real telling what the ultimate battery life is, but it should be a significant improvement from the original 3-cell. It added roughly 1/2 – 3/4 lb. to the weight (from 2 lbs 3 oz to 2 lbs, 12 oz)
Update: Just an FYI. The battery by itself is just shade over 1 lb. (by 1/4 oz) and it’s first full charge lasted roughly 7 hours….3 playing a video, 2.5 playing streaming music and 90 minutes running Cinebench (at which the Aspire blows.
but I didn’t think it’d be a contender for Pixars Renderfarm)
With the WiFi off and the screen dim, it’s estimated that it’d last over 10.5 hours…that’d be a LONG stint of Great American Novel writing.
I have an electrical intermittent circuit that I’ve traced down to one of the turn signals. I mis-rememberd it being a sealed item, but a little additional review shows the bits and pieces are easily (and fully) disassemblable. (yes, I’m verbing a verb)
I posted that I was going to Blackhat with nothing more than my iPhone. Since someone found that interesting (and linked to my article) I figured I’d throw out my fidings:
The Good:
There was Nothing I couldn’t do that I needed to. The iPhone provided me with entertainment (music, movies, books), kept me in the loop at work (email, appointments, IM) and kept me in touch with my other friends at the con (blew waaay through my 200 SMS cap). I flat LOVE this phone.
The Bad:
Blackhat/DEFCON is all about hacking. Being a security professional, It kinda sucked not being able to slurp evil packets with the rest of my comrades.When I return (and I WILL return), I’ll have a sacrificial lamb in tow for doing nasty networky things.
The Ugly:
Both conventions announced that schedule updates would occur via twitter. No problem, in fact, there’s a coulple of cool twitter iPhone apps. I downloaded twitteriffic and created an account.
My email is secure, I’m making sure I’m using https where I can, I’m making sure I have WiFi off when I use twitteriffic (it doesn’t appear to use a secure connection.) Guess what makes it to the sheepwall? Me! :O
Now, Racecar drivers know if you never ever wreck, you’re not racing fast enough. I’m not sure if that happens in the Security realm, but hey, I’ve seen and participated in enough ‘events’ that it doesn’t bug me much anymore. The account was a throwaway account, and the simple, easily cracked password was a gimmie. The Sheep Wall operators offer to take your name off the wall, but really, if THEY know your name and password, a dozen OTHER folks in the same room do too.
So, can a guy spend a week with an iPhone, the sync cable, and the USB charger? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Without reservations. Would I return to Defcon so equipped? Naw man, I wanna roll around in the mud with everybody else.
Picture Gallery Here
I bought a 1 Tb external drive about 6 months ago. It’s two 500 gb drives in a single box, with a controller, and a $0.60 fan.
The fan failed at some point in time. I went down to the file server one day to find that the unit was almost too hot to handle.
I replaced the fan with a $7 fan from microcenter, but in doing so, noticed a couple of things:
- It would have cost the manufacturer $2 to install a better fan
- the fan would be a heckuva lot more efficient if there wasn’t a GREAT BIG CIRCUITBOARD blocking the airflow.
- If I set the drives upright and left an airgap, the drives stay almost as cool as if I used a fan.
- If the fan works AND there’s an airgap, the drives are cold to the touch.
Not having access to the same tools the drive manufacturer has, I needed a geometrically simple solution I could make in the shop. I carved off three pieces of 7075 aluminum from the mother chunk, and got to work with the flycutter and ended up with this:
It’s stable, abstracts the distances between the mounting holes (so absolute dimensions were less important) uses a minimum of materials, and did everything I needed it to. Now the drive array is COLD, and I know that when (not if) the fan fails, the drives will happily hum along until such time as a power surge or failed bearing ends their service. In the meantime, I have a second set of backups. 
The wife likes all things Halloween. She’s good with a wrench. I like cars and am also good with a wrench. In a ‘you got your chocolate in my peanut-butter’ accident, we decided to combine the two: Haunt’s Belfry
I occasionally check into the practical machinist forum (www.practicalmachinist.com) to see what’s up. The South Bend forum has a ‘what have you made lately’ thread. I figured if I put these in the thread, it’d be equally easy to post them here…so, here they are.The YoYo o’ death:
The base for a rotary table:
The Worm Gear and feed for the table base:
The tool for making the worm gear: 
My previous hobby was hotrodding a C4 Corvette. It’s a pretty big success needing, at this point, cosmetic stuff (paint, interior, top) Part of the development was creating a custom setup for cooling the oil and transmission. It required a little finagling to make work in the Corvette’s crowded engine compartment. This is that story.
In 2006, I purchased, disassembled and refurbished a 1962 South Bend 10L lathe. I documented the process in the hopes someone might be interested. This is that story.