Self-Destruct Switches, Part Deux

Following up on an earlier story, Gizmodo is showing off another self-destruct switch - this time, a homebrew project. The modder mounted a keyswitch, two heavy steel toggles, and a Big Red Switch^TM. Each switch must be turned on in sequence to boot the PC.

Additional details on the project at Dottocomu.

Dammit, I've got the itch now - I guess I need to make a trip to the local electronics surplus store and find some cool looking switches.

Own your very own self-destruct button!

This one has been bouncing about the blogosphere the past few days, and rightly so... talk about your must-have geek toy! Gizmodo (among others) is talking about a gadget being sold by the Japanese website LiveDoor (warning - page is in Japanese. You may need to use the Fish unless you can read katakana.)

Ideal for your home, office, ballistic missle silo or secret-evil-genius-lair, this 4-way self-destruct switch will light up a big red lamp with a keyswitch turn, the throw of two toggle switches and a press of the big red button. May not sound like much, but put this puppy on your desk and your cow-orkers will think twice about pestering you.

Retailing for ¥3,990 (about $40US), this gem doesn't seem to be available internationally just yet, although from the reactions I've seen it may not be long - I may be getting one myself...

DIY backyard bunkers

Gizmodo reports on a company out of Miami, FL that is selling prefab bunkers for your backyard. The company, US Bunkers, will ship to you, upon payment of $48,000, your very own 18-ton seamless 12-inch-thick concrete bunker. Shaped like a 20-sided D&D die, no less.

The idea is to provide family protection from all kinds of catastrophies, including tornadoes, flooding, hurricanes and terrorist attacks. Biofiltered heating and air conditioning comes standard, as do lighting, surveilance equipment, an electric door, and your very own porta-potty. They can be installed above ground, buried, or even underwater.

There are practical purposes for these bunkers -- they'd come in handy for emergency shelters in areas recently struck by natural disasters, as well as modular workspaces for polar or ocean research.

Reminds me of the stories I heard growing up where some families, during the Cold War, would dig underground bunkers in their backyards for use as shelter during an anticipated nuclear attack. This is the same concept, modified for the 21st century.

Admittedly, these things look pretty damn cool. It would make a great ham shack for me, or one hell of a treehouse for the kids. Don't think the wife would approve, though... it'd likely be not just "no", but "hell, no". ;-)

Battlestar Galactica returns!



It's hard to believe that it's been 26 years since Galactica premiered on ABC. While it wasn't exactly groundbreaking TV back then, it was unique in that it was a scifi-based show in an era when scifi wasn't all that common in the medium. In fact, many felt it was a "me-too" response by the network to the Star Wars phenomenon of the time. It does hold a soft spot in my heart, though - I remember watching it back then, thinking it was pretty cool. By today's standards Galactica is a bit campy, but back then, to a twelve year old scifi fanatic it just plain rocked.

Fast forward to December 2003 - the Sci Fi Channel airs a "re-imagined" Galactica as a miniseries. The show was (very) loosely based on the original series, with many plot differences (including the recasting of Starbuck as a woman!) although the core story of a "ragtag fugitive fleet" remained the same. It was a much darker, grittier vision than the original series was.

An extremely capable ensemble cast led by the accomplished Edward James Olmos, the new Galactica is now prepared to launch as Sci Fi Channel's newest original series. The show is scheduled as the third component of a Friday triple-bill, preceeded by Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.

Wow. Talk about a scifi smorgasbord... Friday night TV is starting to look pretty good. I have to admit that the radical changes from the original series turned me off at first, but after seeing the miniseries, I'm really looking forward to the new show.

Cool sites for gadget freaks

If you are into gadgets, gear and tech, two of the sites I frequent will give you your daily fix (and then some).

Engadget and Gizmodo are a couple of tech blogs that cover the technology industry. Providing reviews, previews and commentary on products like PCs and laptops, hi-def video equipment, MP3 players, cellphones and more, these two sites are 'must-see' for the tech enthusiast.

The only down side is that after reading about all the cool toys, you'll want to actually buy them...

Making progress...

Wow... I can't believe how much progress I've made at work in the past few weeks. Usually, the day-to-day support routine prevents me from working on any special projects, things that need to be done but I can't focus enough time on them to get anywhere.

The first problem was to address the increasing problem of spam on the e-mail server. It finally got to the point where the mail server couldn't handle the load anymore -- the disk was constantly getting filled up. I found some time across a couple of weeks and managed to set up a mail relay that filters the mail using SpamAssassin and MIMEDefang. These two open source products are absolutely awesome! I am managing to reject over 2000 spams and sideline another 500 questionable messages daily! And this is with only 100+ users.

My next project is an intranet site for the organization. I'm in the process of setting up Slashcode on a Fedora Core 3 server to do it blog-style. For those familiar with Slashdot (one of my regular haunts), Slashcode is the software that runs the site. It'll save me a good bit of manual coding everytime someone wants something posted - in fact, they can post it themselves and then I can simply edit.

Hopefully this is a good omen - it's already shaping up to be a busy year, so with luck, these tools will help lighten the load a bit.