Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 7587
Back online after a year without the internet
I recently lost my borrowed internet connection of about 8 months when my neighbors moved out. Which was almost 2 months ago. Which is why you haven't seen me online much at all lately.
I'm still going through withdrawals. Sure, I can still pop oiutside and grab an open wifi connection from half a dozen places on my block alone, but its not the same. This feels like the least I've been connected since the early 90s, even considering long stints of homelessness.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 2:37 PM on May 2, 2013
How to write about scientists who happen to be women
Richard P. Feynman, arguably the most casually dressed and iconoclastic of the postwar generation of theoretical physicists, died Monday night in Los Angeles of abdominal cancer wearing a rather tatty bathrobe. He was 69 years old and is survived by a string of failed relationships - mainly younger girlfriends - as well as a set of worn bongo drums and a rather dog-eared little black book full of phone numbers, each number labeled with one to five stars.
The confirmed... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 11:03 PM on March 31, 2013
Dueling saxophones underground
New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones!
Seriously though, the thought of being trapped in a subway car with not one but two saxophones rustles my jimmies. The saxophone is not a pleasant instrument to have blowing right in your face even if you actually like saxophones. And few people these days seem to actually like saxophones, at least as a solo instrument or for solo busking.
There's some guy I see around Seattle and he's honestly pretty... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 8:46 PM on March 31, 2013
Is RealTouch the future of male masturbation?
"You came here in that? You're braver than I thought."
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 11:55 AM on March 28, 2013
symbiod: So - wait - does this mean teledildonics is actually here finally? I mean - I've been waiting and waiting. It was my dream in the late 90s to have a fully functional teledildonics system.
issue #1: Back then, Screw magazine regularly ran ad for "AutoSuck." It plugged into the cigarette lighter in one's car and one plugged into it. Talk about a pleasant commute...
In the even earlier 90s... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 12:45 PM on March 28, 2013
"The largest DDoS attack that we have witnessed"
For those proposing to D/DoS Cyberbunker - they're already way ahead of you in that game, and unless you control several million or several hundred million PCs in a botnet or you happen to be a top tier peering carrier or superpower-status nation you're not going to put much of a dent in their services.
They've basically been in operation since 1998 or so and they've been designed from the start to be able to resist most common forms of attack including DDoS, DNS... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:06 PM on March 27, 2013
The www.cyberbunker.com link above has been down for me for the last 10 minutes. Perhaps someone beat you to it.
I wouldn't judge them by their own sales site. That might not even be hosted at their own facility, and if it was it would be the first site they'd let go down because it's just their vanity page.
That URL is under a great deal of load right now due to media interest including reddit, digg and many other forums.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:14 PM on March 27, 2013
Or is that just because I'm right in the middle of the USA? Serious question.
Probably, yeah. I've been reading reports yesterday and today that sites like Netflix and others that rely on streaming have been affected, mainly around Europe.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:16 PM on March 27, 2013
And if they're hosting wikileaks as is rumored, I would say follow the money. This might not just be about Spamhaus, and it's really fishy to me that they would claim responsibility for a DDoS of this size.
The amount of resources required to push 300 gigabits per second is either the work of a tier-1 peering provider or the largest botnet ever set to one task in the history of botnets.
There is big money behind this. It's not just a bunch of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:22 PM on March 27, 2013
Some global internet traffic reports:
http://www.internetweathermap.com/map
http://www.internettrafficreport.com/europe.htm
http://www.internettrafficreport.com/
Most of the exciting stuff may be over already. Most of the maps and connections are nominal and within range.
Those crowded/dying links on the eastern seaboard of the US are probably unrelated unless some three... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:32 PM on March 27, 2013
Holy crap, loquacious, you just blew my mind with your description of Cyberbunker's operations. Wow. This is one of those "I just realized we're living the future" moments.
We've been living in the future for a while now.
More fun facts about Cyberbunker: They apparently not only have a nice entertainment center, kitchen, and living apartments in there but they also supposedly have a heated indoor swimming pool.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:40 PM on March 27, 2013
Just cut the power. Once the fuel runs out, those electrons aren't going anywhere.
Sure, but how much fuel do they actually have? They most likely have way more fuel than your average host who generally just relies on generators for short term power interruptions.
That's one of the things they've always kept classified, but they could have up to a month or more of fuel in there, just like NORAD does.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:49 PM on March 27, 2013
then cut the wires that connect them to the net
They thought of this, too, and it was probably the first problem they solved. They have multiple links. I wouldn't put it past them to have installed and buried their own fiber from the site.
Sure, you can probably find and cut all their connections or just turn off their IXPs but this quickly becomes legally problematic and very expensive in a freedom-loving country like the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:55 PM on March 27, 2013
The simplest things for a real law enforcement agency to do would be to shut down their bank accounts.
Why use bank accounts if you have gold, bitcoin, litecoin or ripple?
They only accept payments in money orders, wire transfers or other (mostly) anonymous payment schemes. They do not accept checks, credit cards or paypal.
I would be surprised if their sysadmins kept themselves locked in an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:00 PM on March 27, 2013
And yes, I'm sure they're well-protected from casual harassment. But as anyone who has tried to evade taxes can attest, one the government brings out the big guns, it's game over.
Why do you assume they're not paying taxes?
Everything I've read about them indicates that they play by the legal rules of operating a business with care. When they first started operations they even asked the local and state government if they had... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:15 PM on March 27, 2013
Seriously though, could someone enlighten me a bit as to that Internet Weather Map? What does it mean?
Depending on the map or metric, it measures ping/transit times (latency, congestion) against theoretical maximums/averages, as well as packet loss (dropped/lost packets that don't arrive at their destination or aren't acknowledged as received.)
Higher ping times or more lost packets usually means that connection is saturated.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:24 PM on March 27, 2013
Sure. I'm not saying they're doing anything illegal at all. All I'm saying is that they are not immune from any interruption. If they did break the right law there is no hole deep enough form them to hide in, that's all. And sadly, those laws are tax laws for the most part, even in the Netherlands.
Right. I'm not saying they're invulnerable either. But they're a lot more invulnerable than Dreahost or Hostgator or something.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:25 PM on March 27, 2013
Gizmodo: That Internet War Apocalypse Is a Lie
As much as I dislike Gizmodo - I agree with this analysis. I'm not an expert or anything but I've been watching internet traffic reports off and on for the past few days since the story broke and there hasn't been any major red flags to indicate that things are as bad as Cloudflare has been claiming.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:34 PM on March 27, 2013
Yesterday and Today
In my ideal world, John Hodgman will be the new host of The Today Show.
Why? Why do you hate him? I know the guy can be annoying and smug, but a forced lobotomy seems rather harsh.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 11:18 PM on March 25, 2013
I don't hate him. I believe him to be the all-being, reincarnation of Osiris, and that he single-handedly has the power to convert this morning show to a thing of strangeness and wonder, and that I will start waking up early in order to watch, and that act will turn me into that wondrous creature I have had only the briefest contact with previously, A Morning Person. In this new life, I arise each day and am kissed by the sun's freshest rays, am stretched and fed and know all the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:56 AM on March 26, 2013
Please Pass the Snotwinkles
Dear, sweet minuscule new baby whelk, thank you for this fine absinthe that we are about to drink. Dear, tiny, sweet, sweet minuscule new baby whelk lying there in your natty tweed vest and tiny little vintage Eames chair please bless the absinthe so that it may warm our bellies and make us drunk, and that perhaps one of us will be inspired to entertaining public displays of foolishness and jocularity. Thank you minuscule new baby whelk. Amen.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:58 PM on March 19, 2013
You people are monsters.
It's not our fault that you're delicious.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:24 PM on March 20, 2013
I can’t see and I have a goiter with a goiter of its own.
Lame. Where's the Mountain Dew salsa? Looks like you could cram a slice of pizza there, too. The shell should also be caffeinated.
I was given a free sample of chicken and waffles flavored potato chips recently. I think I like them but they're... odd. They actually taste like chicken waffles. I like chicken and waffles. I'm not sure I like the chemistry of artificial flavorings that taste like chicken and waffles.
In the grim future of junk and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 2:26 AM on March 17, 2013
It's a one-atom thick layer of graphite with remarkable properties.
*loquacious beats all the headphone nerds up with a 20 year old pair of Technics DH-1200s and steals their better-sounding headphones*
Yeah, Beats are ass. For the price of a pair of Beats you can choose between dozens of much nicer sounding headphones, but they don't look like a collectible toy costume accessory from a Gorillaz cartoon.
Besides the Grados and ATH-50s and such there's also newer offerings like the weirdly... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 8:51 PM on March 13, 2013
Ideas for software that will change the world for better/worse.
I'd just like to point out that I own the full intellectual property rights to both these ideas, and that simply by reading them, you've just 'run' my software on the 'operating system' that is your mind, which puts you in breach of copyright. You're a thief – a common thief – and you disgust me. Now get out. Go.
You get out! You stole the idea for Blackmailr from Douglas Adams!
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 6:04 AM on March 12, 2013
The track to nowhere
I knew these things existed, but I haven't ever seen video of them in action.
The noise from these would probably be horrendous and stupefying. If you think a regular train is loud, imagine one with screeching 70s era "what noise pollution?" turbojets or turbofans ripping along at 400+ kph at ground level.
The hover train or flying train concept has a lot of merit, though. With either enough forward velocity or a high pressure air... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:29 PM on March 11, 2013
Thanks for posting that. I can't believe I went though my entire boyhood without thinking up the concept of a jet propelled hovercraft jet train - at least in lego. But I do worry that it might not have scaled too well.
I didn't make a rocket train with lego, but a friend and I made lego rocket cars once with the larger end of Estes off the shelf rocket engines in the C and D ranges.
We launched them at a local park that had... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 4:48 PM on March 11, 2013
This monorail would totally solve Seattle's traffic problems, at least along the stretch between the Space Needle and the shopping mall ten or so blocks away.
Oh man, like I need more noise in Belltown. That would be a hell of a ride, though.
It's already rather thrilling like a dodgy carnival ride since it's basically an old electric bus doing 60 MPH on a foot-wide beam of concrete 30-40 feet above the ground.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:01 PM on March 11, 2013
If you're going to fit a jet engine onto a train, is there anything gained by not going the whole hog, getting rid of the tracks and making it into an airliner?
Lots. It's more efficient because lift = drag, so it can move a lot more weight, passengers and cargo per mile/fuel.
Much less time embarking/debarking. No landing/takeoff patterns, taxiing and time, much better traffic control, lower skill required to pilot, less... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:09 PM on March 11, 2013
Monorails! Why do people like monorails so much? People should shut up about monorails until they invent a compact, economical way to make this with a monorail.
Right. As far as I know the Seattle monorail only has one switch in the Seattle Center station, and I think it might not even actually be a switch and may be just a service elevator, lift or crane.
In my case I'm only talking about monorails because one goes whizzing... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 2:45 AM on March 12, 2013
Also, do they even use level junctions or diamond crossings that much any more? I thought they've fallen out of favor and are avoided as much as possible due to the increased derailment hazards from the number of gaps/frogs.
I would be really surprised if they used them on TGV, Shinkansen and other high speed rail outside of low speed service yards. They use swingnose switches for smoother and safer higher speed switching/crossing.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 2:59 AM on March 12, 2013
No, not Pepsi Blue, I promise.
I grew up with Trader Joe's in SoCal. Yes, even long before Aldi bought it, if you fell in love with any given product it would eventually be taken away from you.
When it first started it was much less food and much more wine and booze, booze accessories, booze garnishes and weird shelf stable (and boozy) snacks like pickles, crackers, nuts and tinned or dried meats like sardines or jerky. No produce or dairy or real refrigerator cases.
I'm still... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 3:32 PM on March 11, 2013
And yeah, cookie butter is a thing. It's not the same as the Biscoff brand but it's really close. (And I'm starting to see Biscoff show up at major chain groceries right alongside nutella and the various nutella clones.)
If you're really hard core about your cookies you can get a bag of your favorite cookies (I recommend a soft cookie like an oatmeal-raisin like TJ's Druid Circles, or a cinnamon sugar cookie, or a molasses ginger cookie) and (yo, dawg) you put cookie... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 3:41 PM on March 11, 2013
"I would like to hold Meeno one last time, please"
I'm no stranger to sorrow. I'm not a stranger to depth and pain in art, or the loss of pets or loved ones or palliative care.
I opened the link thinking "Hey, you can handle this. You don't seem to have a lot of tears left these days, anyway."
And then I hit the last two or three frames and I just lost it and started bawling. Like everyone else I read the pull quote right here in the thread, but the whole photo essay is so guileless and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 10:06 AM on March 9, 2013
"Will take photos for $10, $25, or $100."
I'm interested to see what my mom thinks of this site.
No, seriously, because she's a pro photographer, and she's generally affordable. Too affordable, really. She's been shooting since before I was born, so 40+ years now. She actually teaches photography, or used to.
She's incredibly good at portraiture photography. Not the stuffy posed studio stuff, but incredibly good, natural candid photography that captures people at their best. It's not... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 8:22 PM on March 8, 2013
Click here to find local cats in your area now
Loquacious please combine this with light therapy and please hire me to be your professional cat lady at your cafe, please please please...
Hire you? 10 minutes after I posted that comment somehow half of the Seattle metro area showed up at my door and started pounding on it and demanding to be let inside so they could volunteer.
I think I might have to hire you just to tell people to go away!
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 1:45 AM on March 8, 2013
Okay loquacious and Mizu just transformed into Ron Swanson and April Ludgate for me. Cats and Recreation.
You laugh now but just wait until the cat shortage hits. It's going to be a catastrophe.
I have supplies of fresh cats hidden in 67 different places in my bedroom alone, and 32 of them are within reach of my bed.
I've also spent the last 15 years secretly developing a freeze dried instant... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:22 AM on March 8, 2013
The Japanese have already taken the lead in the cat cafe arms race.
Yeah, I know, but Tokyo is kind of prohibitively expensive to visit for an afternoon for most Seattlites. I am totally ripping off the idea of "cat cafe" but it's not really a far stretch from "book store or coffee house I prefer to go to because: cat"
I'm actually pondering if I could wrangle an art grant and an empty storefront to run a trial cat cafe.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 5:29 AM on March 8, 2013
I think I have found the flaw in your business model right here
Hah. You're obviously a dog person or something. Maybe snake person. It's not my fault cats have good taste.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 6:01 AM on March 8, 2013
Cats would just kind of look at you as you came in and then immediately lose interest unless you did something for them. Because they are cats.
You need to ask yourself if it's you and your dislike of cats or the cats. Because most cats don't treat me that way, or other people who like cats.
I also really like dogs and I was also considering a dog cafe, but the thing about dogs is is that you don't need a dog cafe to hang... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 7:41 AM on March 8, 2013
Taking a suitcase to South America is probably fine.
It's full of ortolans.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 8:39 AM on March 8, 2013
The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble
It's hard for me to extrapolate accurately from a needfully biased article, but all of the evidence presented is telling me that he intentionally and knowingly went to go pick up 2 kilos of Bolivian bam-bam under the sloppy guise and false-feint defense of being duped to do it by a model..
The motivation to do it was the fact he realized that his exceptionalism and intelligence wasn't nearly enough for him to land the sex, lust, beauty and procreation that he wanted to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 6:50 AM on March 8, 2013
Perhaps Mensa will break him out Mission Impossible style.
There is a very dry Woody Allen or Mel Brooks comedy in here full of pathos and ridiculousness with plot points like "the heated, protracted argument about the New York Times crossword puzzle just outside the jail walls were someone gets their feelings hurt" and "Why should I bring the guns? I'm the brains of this operation!" and "What do you mean we're under arrest?... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious
at 7:23 AM on March 8, 2013
