Acetio | Blogma

Wired has The Seven Best Capers of 2008:

"The Plumas Lake Penny Pinch - If you've ever linked up your checking account to an online brokerage house or digital payment service, you may have noticed that the company automatically initiates one or two small deposits -- typically less than a dollar each -- for verification purposes. If you're hard up for cash, or just really bored, you might have thought, “if only there was a way to make real money off this ...” Twenty-two-year-old Michael Largent of Plumas Lake, California allegedly figured out a way: Volume! Prosecutors say Largent wrote a script that rapidly opened about 60,000 new accounts under aliases like Johnny Blaze and Hank Hill, then linked them all to a handful of bank accounts under his control. Largent allegedly accumulated some $58,000 in nickels and dimes from Schwab.com, E-Trade, and Google Checkout, and transferred the free money to pre-paid debit cards before the companies could renege on their generosity. The venture was ultimately thwarted by bank reporting regulations, and Largent is now facing federal computer and wire fraud charges."

Animal crackers, but awesome animals such as hawks and dinosaurs and sharks and things like that.

For a while now I've been developing a story, an epic inspired by many of the classic stories (including Star Wars). Joseph Campbell and others have suggested that certain themes reoccur in the classic stories, spanning cultures and time, and I've been collecting these themes in order to incorporate them. A few are summarized below.

Chutes and Ladders ('Snakes and Ladders' in England, and 'Hoses and Pickets' in Canada) is fun to play for 5-year-olds, but it quickly loses its value once the players realize that the game is entirely deterministic.

Perhaps it is because we enjoy the illusion of choice and freedom of will that we prefer games that allow us to make mistakes in judgement, rather than simply following the directions from the omnipotent, yet random force of a die or spinning wheel.

So, to make the game more enjoyable, here are some variation that older players might enjoy.

Parcheesi Variation

This is the most crucial variation in that it adds the possibility of choice to each turn.

As in parcheesi (or Sorry!), on each turn, a player may choose to simply advance a piece toward the goal, or play defensively by knocking out the piece of an opponent.

If playing with a younger child, you may wish to start with only two tokens per player, to simplify the strategizing and make it easier for them to grasp the concept of a non-deterministic game (at say, 6 years old, most children still only play deterministic games such as Candy Land and War).

With older players you may wish to use up to 5 tokens per player.

This option is also quite fun with more than two players, as the social aspect increases, with alliances forming to collectively defend against whomever is in the lead.

When knocking out another piece with one of yours, one variation is to knock them completely off the board, so that the piece has to start again at '1', but another option is to knock the piece back to nearest chute.

Chess has some interesting abstractions: the pawns represent the relatively weak infantry who can only advance but are able to attack in a diagonal, quasi-phalanx style; the hooked move of the knight represents cavalry's ability to flank and get behind the enemy; and I imagine the rook's long-range motion represents the long attack of archers in the towers.

If the goal is sustainable energy, where might we find it?

We all know about the possibilities and realities of solar, wind, and to a lesser extent tidal and geothermal power, but I thought there might be another untapped and under-researched area: junk yards.

Chocolate and Orange is one of the less-appreciated yet more delicious flavor combinations.

Many agree on its gustatory appeal, but other than a few brands of orange-flavored chocolate candies, there is very little on the market to excite my tongue the way I wish it to be.

Ever eager to experiment, I wondered the following:
"What happens when you mix hot chocolate with Tang?"

I could have mixed Tang with chocolate milk, but from experience I know that mixing acidic beverages with milk often curdles it, leaving it unpalatable and gross.

Objectives:

1 - Create passive, solar-powered water electrolysis device

2 - Store generated hydrogen in volumes of at least 1 liter

3 - When volume reaches desired threshhold, release gas and ignite with a spark.

Some terrorist groups are getting increasingly sophisticated in the use of technology.

The CIA wants to get position sensors inside the terrorist camps, and since much of the computer technology used in the Middle East comes from the U.S. or its allies a plan is formulated to have an American agent pose as an exporter willing to sell computers, satellite phones, etc. to nations where there are currently sanctions.

Unknown to the terrorists the equipment actually has GPS beacons that relay their position back to the U.S.