I Wander

the world as I see it…

Archive for January, 2009

Domains..part deux

Jan 30

Posted by kosh in usual

I had a surprising transaction with a domain squatter this past week. I made a post earlier about a domain squatter in Korea who had registered sparkoflight.org . Well I’ve been talking to him this past week to negotiate a possible transfer of the domain registration to us (my friend and I). The squatter initially demanded US$2000 and later ended up giving it to us for free, once he realized that the domain was going to be used for a non-profit cause. I’m really surprised that I managed to get it for free, along with the domain being registered for 3 more years!

On a side note, looks like my earlier rant about Triversal is now the number 2 result on Google when you search for the keyword. Yikes! They now claim that we haven’t paid them in 2 years… :(

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Security

Jan 28

Posted by kosh in usual

I’m taking a class in computer security(CSE 484) this quarter at the UW. I’ve spent the first 3 weeks learning how to overrun buffers and take control of the system as well as exploiting format strings, memory allocation implementations, etc.

My professor taught it would be cool if we thought about all aspects of security and had a class dedicated to teaching us how to pick locks. I think I might have a natural gift for this ‘profession’. I don’t I can ever be locked out of anywhere again :)

Here’s a video of me, breaking out of handcuffs and these things are surprising easy to pick…

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Occupiers?

Jan 26

Posted by kosh in usual

This is precisely why I hate religion. The net benefits are always negative and it gives people more excuses to act the way they do. Take religion out of the equation and these people have nothing to quarrel over.

I don’t have much respect for the settlers after this video. I wish that people could and would just co-exist but I guess that’s just too much to ask..or is it?

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Are we human?

Jan 25

Posted by kosh in usual

This is the song that has been stuck in my head for more than a month now. I cannot get it out of my head.

I would link the video of the song here as well but youtube seems to be disabling embedding for a lot of their videos ‘on request’. I wonder who these ‘request-making people’ are.

On a different note, I think the most important skill that I’ve picked up in the past few years is to ‘respectfully disagree’ with people. Now, I’ve always disagreed with people but that was almost always followed by me distancing myself from them. 4 years of college, 2 years on student committees, 2 years of working in groups(projects) have forced me to become a ‘respectful disagreer’. It still drives me nuts when people forget the need to be respectful but I care much less than I used to and I don’t have the urge to beat them down after.

Maybe I’ve learnt to control my anger, maybe I’m becoming an adult and maybe a better person. Anyways, I have no regrets in acquiring this new skill..

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Mac vs. PC

Jan 23

Posted by kosh in usual

A funny depiction of the Mac vs. PC wars :)

macpc

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Domains

Jan 22

Posted by kosh in usual

I’ve had to deal with a couple of issues related to domain names over the past few days.

First, I was trying to purchase a domain name for a friend who’s non-profit org is building schools for the blind in India. I found out that this guy from Korea had already purchased the domain and was domain squatting while waiting for someone like me to come along and offer him a sack of money for the domain name. This guy wants $2000USD to give up the domain name to us. I wish domain squatters like these could just be …well…I’m not gonna say it.

Second, as you may already know, I manage the website for one of the premier bhangra competetions in the Pacific Northwest. (http://www.bhangrabash.com). Sometime last morning, the domain forwarding stopped working without notice and I spent most of the days calling and mailing the company. I also found out that, Triversal, the company that registered our domain is probably run by some geek, in a shady basement in U-Village. Anyways, the forwarding started working again this morning but I’m terribly unhappy with their service and looking to move away. If only I could reach them and get that damn EPP number…

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Permalinks

Jan 20

Posted by kosh in usual

I’ve changed the format for the permalinks to my blog posts. The new links should have the date and subject of the post and these are much easier on the eye than /?p=641..etc. This way, the new generation of browsers (read IE8, Firefox 3.x) should do a better job of looking up keywords.

It’s about 5:30AM and I have been awake since 3. I’ve been dreaming a lot lately and these ruin my sleep schedules often. I hate dreams, they are almost always unreal(but good), you wake feeling like you never slept and they never come true. Hmmph..

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Windows Mobile

Jan 19

Posted by kosh in usual

Ars Technica is running an article about some new Windows Mobile services called Skymarket, SkyBox and Skyline. Looks very promising :)

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Jobs

Jan 18

Posted by kosh in usual

I came across this interesting article on why people quit Google. The job market is pretty depressing now. Expect some big announcements from Microsoft later this week :(

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Bowling

Jan 14

Posted by kosh in usual

UW has bowling specials on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9AM to 1PM. For $3, you get to bowl for 2 hours with unlimited games and it also includes the shoe rental.

I’m hooked now. I played 14 games in 1 hour and 45 minutes with a high score of 150 and a low score of 37. I think I got my spins down pretty well now.

Not looking forward to using my arms tomorrow.. :)

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