Censorship

Due to a recent news story, the wikileaks site is being blocked in the US and a few other countries. If you are in those countries you cannot view the site through the wikileaks.org DNS entry. However, using the straight IP address 88.80.13.160 works. You can also use alternate DNS entries such as wikileaks.cerundolo.com. I encourage anyone who has access to a top level domain to add a subdomain of wikileaks to their site so people can continue this vital source of information.

Edit: The Wikileaks.org DNS entry seems to be working agin. However, in the event of future censorship wikileaks.cerundolo.com should also work.

Chocolate Brownies

I just realized that I have not yet posted my recipe for chocolate brownies. I apologize for the delay, but here it is.

1 cup butter, melted
2 cups granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate bits

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Mix the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla extract.
• Add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Beat in cocoa until blended well.
• Beat in the baking powder and salt until blended.
• Beat in the flour until blended.
• Make sure to get all the stuff from the sides of the bowl.
• Stir in chocolate bits.
• Pour into a greased pan (9 x 13 inches).
• Bake at 350F for 30 min (check at 25 first time, ovens can vary).
• Let the brownies cool before cutting into bars.

Notes:

• Use Ghirardelli cocoa and Ghirardelli 60% chocolate chips for above average quality brownies.
• Adjust the baking time for how you like your brownies. Start by checking after 25 minutes, and every minute after. When a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean, they are done.
• I usually cut the pan into 24 brownies (6 x 4). Cut off the edges for fancy presentation. Your friends will like eating the edges when you cut them, and for fancy events, no-edge brownies are a nice touch.

Censorship disguised as War on Terror

It’s time for another installment of “this shit’s getting ridiculous“.

Granted this is not the US, but I won’t put it past them. In a meta-ironic twist of fate, UK police are now banning the board game “War on Terror” in an effort to fight terrorism. Specifically they point to the balaclavas that comes with the games. As Bruce Schneier points out: “Don’t they realize that balaclavas are for sale everywhere in the UK? Or that scarves, hoods, handkerchiefs, and dark glasses could also be used to conceal someone’s identity?”

In this post 9/11 age, why are t-shirts, hat, sunglasses, hoods, sweatshirts, bandanas, dew rags, pants, underwear, and ski masks not banned everywhere? We are fighting a global “war” on terror here, and we can’t go halfway because then the terrorists would win. It is vital to have projects like these. How else are we supposed to fight terrorism? Obviously we need a complete and total ban of all clothing and fabric from the UK. Not only will it make life more interesting, but we will be able to see who the terrorists are. And if you’re not in the UK, you can still do your part in the war on terror by refusing to buy clothing of any kind and refrain from wearing any in public. Your country will appreciate your efforts.

Thanks Lenscrafters

It’s so rare that someone blogs about a company being helpful and going out of their way to help someone, so I am doing my part. I needed a very small screw to fix my headphones. A 0-80 was working, but it didn’t seem quite right. I tried OSH and Radioshack, but no one seemed to have really small screws. Finally, I tried the Lenscrafters store thinking that since they use small screws for eyeglasses, they might give some. I asked a saleswoman for some really small screws, and she happily took me over the lab and had the technician check. At first he brought out a size too small: M1.0s, but then he brought out some M2.0s and it fit perfectly. He gave me an extra screw so I would have a backup and I was on my way in minutes. My headphones now work good as new, and it seems I couldn’t have done it as easily without Lenscrafters.

Listening to Aircraft Control Freqs

I saw this podcast the other weekend, and decided that I, too, would build my own aircraft band receiver. I haven’t completely finished, but the results look promising, as I have heard some chatter on the aircraft control bands. I just need to tune it a bit better and make it portable. This isn’t bad for a $7 radio found at Target.

My only hope is that I can go to the airport and listen to the radio while watching the planes and not get arrested as a terrorist, because as we all know, only terrorists are interested in aviation, not future aerospace engineers.

Unusual Resources

I had to go buy fingerpaint today for work. I can’t provide the details here, but I thought it was amusing for a Silicon Valley tech company to be buying fingerpaint. And in case you were wondering, it will actually be used for fingerpainting.

Google Reader

I had been looking for a solution to my news reading habit. I have a lot of blogs that I read. Historically, I’d go to each blog and check out the new stories. What I really wanted was a way to use the RSS feeds to check all my blogs at once. I tried a few sites, but settled on google reader. Unlike most other solutions, Google Reader does not require an software to be installed on my desktop, allowing to me to check my feeds anywhere. Google Reader can sense when I’ve read a story and only show me ones I haven’t seen before. In addition, with the click of a single button, I can check a few dozen blogs and know where the news is. The search function is disappointing, but I think my expectations were too high. It would be awesome to do a search of only the blogs I read because now I’ll read a story, and forget exactly where it came from.

Let me know your thoughts on Google Reader. You can find it here. It is extremely easy to set and start using, so give it a try.

An exciting week at work

I’ve had a very exciting week at work. Unfortunately, I am legally bound not to go into detail about it here, as this is a public space. I really hate posting cryptic messages on blogs (which are supposed to be for sharing), but I want to post something, and I signed an NDA so I could get a summer job. Totally worth it (at least for me), but annoying nonetheless.

It’s no secret that I am on the Concept Prototyping Team (CPT) at Synaptics as a college intern this summer. This Tuesday, I finally got a prototype of a device I’ve been working on for a few weeks finished and totally working. As soon as I did, my supervisors/mentors informed me that they have been meaning to make one of them for two years now, but never had the time. Now the device could potentially be a give away item that Synaptics hands out to clients or distributes at trade shows. I can’t tell you what it is, but it’s really useful. In fact, I’ve been using my prototype to help plan and create the next iterations.

I’m also spearheading a movement to dramatically change the way Synaptics does business. It will be my presentation for Spring Chicken, a competition among interns, who present ideas for new products or business practices. After that, I will have a meeting with some very high level executives and pitch an idea to them. If things go well, I could land myself a part time job at Synaptics during the school year. If all goes well, I will be able to post much more detail on this last development.

Next week, my three supervisors and mentors will be on vacation. While it is somewhat inconvenient to have them gone, us interns have much work to do. I especially have a lot of work to do with two major projects now under my control.

I am also trying to get the American Red Cross (ARC) to do a blood drive at Synaptics. It’s a bit of paperwork, and a lot of relaying information back and forth between those who have it and those who need to know it. I’m worried that the drive will happen after I am gone for the school year and that nothing will happen, though I hope to set things up well enough that HR can take over after I leave.

On Vacation

I found a much more stable Internet connection, so communications should not be a problem any more. We went to Freeport yesterday, and had a great time. I picked up a sharpening stone at LL Bean, so now I can easily sharpen my knives. With this new Internet connection, I managed to break another blog I was working on. Ideally cusp.caltech.edu/blog would have the blog for the Caltech Undergraduate Sustainabily Project. Unfortunately, I managed to set it to an incorrect site, so whenever I try to get to the set up page to fix it, I can’t because the set up page is also set incorrectly. After I fix that, I hope to do some research for my new business.

Maine

I’m up in Maine now. I managed to find a spotty wifi access point to the Internet, but I can reliably check email about once per day. The weather has been great so far, and I am having a great time relaxing. Now I have time to catch up on some stuff I had been meaning to get to, including putting together my business, renewing domain names and setting up websites, getting the CUSP website set up well, and making some software for my dad’s business. It should be a fun vacation. I’ll time to relax if I want, but also time to catch on things if I want.