Author: Ashley Bischoff

Nine Free 2002 Hugo Nominee eBooks

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Fictionwise has now released six 2002 Hugo nominated works as free eBooks (for your Palm or other PDA). And, each link link below includes a book-excerpt, so you can get a feel for the book before downloading it. The free eBooks include:

“The Hugo Awards are among the most prestigious literary awards available and are presented annually by the World Science Fiction Society”. Thanks to PalmStation for the heads-up on this one.

And, if Josh reads this, hopefully he can enlighten me as to the proper means of citing books. For instance, I used double-quotes around the titles, but that was mostly an educated guess ;).

Pasta Sauce Jars

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

I always intend on “finishing one jar before opening the next” (such as with juice or, in this case, pasta sauce). But, wouldn’t you know it, I accidentally opened a second jar of pasta sauce. D’oh!

So, we now have two jars of pasta sauce taking up valuable space in the fridge. And, not just the “regular size” jars (26oz), but these are both 48oz monsters that I actually got at a good price ($1.26 each at Target). Sorry about that, Jason.

Defeating the Passenger Screening System

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss have written a paper “Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System”. As with any paper, it can be a bit wordy at times, but the majority of it is quite readable. And, with any luck, Declan McCullagh will write-up a summary article in the next few days.

This transparency is the Achilles’ Heel of CAPS; the fact that individuals know their CAPS status enables the system to be reverse engineered. You, like Simonyi, know if you’re carryons have been manually inspected. You know if you’ve been questioned. You know if you’re asked to stand in a special line. You know if you’ve been frisked. All of this open scrutiny makes it possible to learn an anti-profile to defeat CAPS, even if the profile itself is always kept secret. We call this the “Carnival Booth Effect” since, like a carnie, it entices terrorists to “Step Right Up! See if you’re a winner!” In this case, the terrorist can step right up and see if he�s been flagged. […]

Rock.

“Jobs from Hell”

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

There’s an interesting article from the Boston Globe “Some jobs leave us battered, scarred — but enlightened”, about Jobs from Hell:

Sometimes the money seduces us, or the location. Sometimes we ignore warning signs during the interview. Maybe we neglect to ask the right questions, or we’re tired of being unemployed, or too young to know better […].

Of course, you’d need to have a job for it to be one-from-Hell (ahem). And, oddly enough, I found the article somewhat comforting :-/.

(Link from MetaFilter)

“Fear Factor Sundae”?

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

As a marketing tie-in that must have“sounded like a good idea at the time”, NBC is joining forces with Baskin-Robbins:

In an unusual deal to help its fall-season premiere, NBC has struck a multimillion-dollar integrated-marketing deal with ice cream restaurant chain Baskin-Robbins, which will develop ice cream flavors for NBC shows — such as Fear Factor Sundae, Will & Grace’s Rocky Road of Romance, Good Morning Miami Mint, Stuckey Bowled-Over Brownie (for Ed), and Pralines ’n American Dreams. […]

Ehh, I think I’ll just stick with Braum’s for my ice cream needs :).

(Link from MediaBistro)