Saturday, July 30, 2005

DEFCON 13, day 1

Level of organization, number of attendees greatly exceeded expectations. "Spot the Fed" and CTF are fun. I've bought a sticker that says "hacker" in Russian.

I obviously should have brought the laptop. I had to resort to using a 25c/min Internet terminal at the hotel. By the end of the day, there was a free Internet Explorer window open, circumventing the kiosk security. The browser was pointing to defcon.org

Blogger is...

Wonderful: rescued my post completely intact when the browser was brutally killed by the evil daemon that wanted my money.
...but it is still slow on login.

From the Strip

Treasure Island's efforts to rebrand itself as "ti" are hilarious. Well, it's fairly obvious that they would be better off keeping the name and changing other identity elements -- that's not the funny part. A casino with the same name as calculators and microchips -- most people wouldn't get it. The amateurish new logo -- it's just bad taste. But: paying tons of money for the new identity, and neglecting to change the logo on the top of the hotel, 10-foot letters, lights and all -- that's a wonderful way to throw away tons of money.

But the best part is the "The Sirens of TI": the update of the free pirate show. It's great, especially if you are a father who brought his seven-year-old son to see the pirates, and instead got a gang of half-naked "singing" showgirls.

Friday, July 29, 2005

DEF CON 13

Packing paper, leaving the laptop behind. Paper is less crack-prone.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Colorado

Synchronized grasshopper jumping is the sport of the day.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

TLAs

After encountering "HBP" for the third time, I realized that that it stands for HP6.

... but do they get stock options?

The salary for the chief justice is $202,900 per year; associate justices make $194,200. (washington post)