Genesis

Book 1: Genesis

01:001:001 In the beginning God created the heavens. God said, Let there be a
           firmament.  And God called the firmament Heaven.

01:001:002 God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the
           light, that it was good.

01:001:003 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the
           heaven.

01:001:004 And let the lights in the firmament of heaven give light upon
           the earth: and it was so.

01:001:005 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the
           day, and the lesser light to rule the night.

01:001:006 God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light
           upon the earth,

01:001:007 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the
           light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

01:001:008 And the earth was without form, and void.

01:001:009 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered
           together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it
           was so.

01:001:010 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together
           of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

01:001:011 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving
           creature that hath life.

01:001:012 And God created fish, great whales, and every living creature that
           swims, which the waters brought forth abundantly: and God saw 
           that it was good.

01:001:013 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
           fill the waters in the seas.

01:001:014 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
           yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit: and it was so.

01:001:015 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed, and 
           the tree yielding fruit: and God saw that it was good.

01:001:016 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the moving creature that
           hath life, cattle and fowl that may fly above the earth: and it was so.

01:001:017 And God made the beast of the earth, cattle and every thing that 
           walks upon the earth and every winged fowl: and God saw that it was
           good.

01:001:018 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
           likeness.

Rewrite the Bible

I figure the Bible is long over due for a re-write.  Take out a bit of the raping and murdering and stoning, trim up some bits to better align with what we know today, and just over-all make it into a better book to be used as a life guide.

Most religious people do what they want, and then use the Bible as justification.  So thinking the Bible will guide them to behaving better is thinking backwards.  But at least a re-write could be less justifying?

What should it be called?

The Modern Bible?
The Ethical Bible?
The Good Bible?

Weak Comcast XFinity Security

I am not a hacker, or even a coder.  I am just a somewhat experienced computer user and a reasonably intelligent person.  I have never done this before.

My friend didn't think e-mail security was anything to be concerned about, so I decided to put it to the test.  I tried to hack into his e-mail.

Within 20 minutes, I had complete access to his XFinity home e-mail (and other things like DVRs and home security).  Within 30 minutes, I had aquired new passwords to online vendors that he used.  If he had credit card numbers on file with them, I could place orders.  Here's how it went:

My friend has a comcast.net email address.  I went to comcast and clicked "forgot password".  The password reset function asks for answers to security questions.  Each answer is like a tumbler in a lock.  You have to answer all the questions correctly - at the same time - to open the lock. 

In this case, comcast only asks for one answer.  This is a lock with a single tumbler.  That's the first security hole. 

The process also asked for his zip code.  Since I knew roughly where he lived, I knew his zip code from google maps.

The second security hole involved how many times you could guess.  The answer: unlimited.  Good systems will lock out the user after enough incorrect responses, or at least prevent any further guesses for a time period.  Or change which security question is being asked.

In this case, the question was asking for a surname - the same surname - over and over an unlimited number of times.  I took the 100 most common surnames and went down the list one-by-one.  Number 47 opened the lock.

The enthusiasts can do their own thing, but average people who use the internet as part of their daily lives for banking and commerce come to rely on big brand names like comcast and assume that they will be taken care of.  This level of lax security on such a large system is just unacceptable.

T-Mobile

They used to be the only good national carrier left.  Then they screwed me and stole $28 from me.  Now they suck as much as the rest.

What we already knew

There are varying degrees of evil.  For example, Taco Bell was evil for not including enough meat in their meat for it to be legally classified as meat.  But at least they are providing you cheap food when you are hungry.  Then there is the level of vile sliminess that only politicians and cable TV providers ascend to.

I used to think that SOME cellular providers had not quite gotten to that point yet.  But they have arrived there, moved in, and redecorated.

I'm so tired of writing about cellphones and cellular providers.  They all suck.  They all suck the same amount.  There's really nothing to talk about.

For the first time ever, I purchased a handset directly from a carrier (T-Mobile, the way most people do.)   Guess what?!  It sucked!  I returned it.  The re-stocking fee taught me a valuable lesson to never ever ever ever do that again.

But then,,, why even have a cellphone in the first place?  I would much rather not.  It's been quite a long time since I've had anything other than a hotspot.  It's other people that want me to have one. 

I hate this crap. 

JavaScript Sucks. Here's Why.

I hate JavaScript.  It is ruining the internet.  So I keep it off.  Beware if you just updated to the latest version of Mozilla... they removed the option to disable JavaScript.

JavaScript can be used to improve the user experience on a website.  But it virtually never is.  Instead, JavaScript is used to load advertisements, track your activity, and add useless social media integration.

Something happened in the news today so I googled it.  I clicked on the first link, an article from Forbes.com.  The page took FOREVER to load on a fast broadband connection.  Finally I realized the reason: I had left JavaScript on.

This particular website from Forbes used JavaScript to exchange data between my computer and the following additional list of domains:

facebook.com
optimizely.com
rfihub.com
doubleclick.net
insightexpressai.com
viewablemedia.net
visiblemeasures.com
adadvisor.net
ajax.googleapis.com
questionmarket.com
content.ad
krxd.net
scorecardresearch.com
rfihub.net
simplereach.com
gigya.com
truste.com
facebook.net
media.net
servedbyopenx.com
cloudfront.net
adsafeprotected.com
forbesimg.com
mookie1.com
bizographics.com
moatads.com
exelator.com
googlesyndication.com
crowdscience.com
2mdn.net
chartbeat.com
mmismm.com
bluekai.com
atdmt.com
bkrtx.com
google-analytics.com

Thats THIRTY SIX different web domains that my web browser contacted and downloaded and/or uploaded data to, in addition to the original Forbes domain. 

All of that... Just so I could read a lousy article that was barely 6 kilobytes of uncompressed text.

Sad...

The silver lining of this story:  When I completely disabled javascript and re-visited that same website, the 6-kilobyte article still loaded.  It loaded fast.  And without JS.

Why the hell would anyboby surf with JS enabled?!?!

Too many people don't know better.

Random stuff

Wow... 10 weeks into typing on a Dvorak and now I have serious trouble typing on a querty!

My tech predictions for the year were way off.  Microsoft seems to be taking the "if we build it, they will use it" approach, and they aren't wrong.  The market share for their mobile OS has gone up from 1.9% to 2.9%.  Hot damn!

I have a feeling windows 7 is going to be the new windows xp.  Now that I disabled the system tray and got a stable virtual machine running, I'm happy with 7.  Tried 8.  I don't see myself using 8 any time in the forseeable future.