Free Chicken

by Taylor Brooks on Jan 30th, 2011

Everyone throws away those annoying mail coupons. Near our mail station at our apartment complex, there is a trash can. It’s full of unopened credit-card offers, spam mail, and local coupon pages. I usually give the coupons a brief skim before tossing it.

In the latest edition, Chick-fil-A is giving away a free biscuit AND sandwich… on page 3. Normally people don’t look that far, so I dumpster dived and got tons of free sandwiches and biscuits.

Yes, I did and no I’m not ashamed.

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Kevin DeYoung on the Tucson Massacre

by Taylor Brooks on Jan 11th, 2011

An excerpt from his article:

To be sure, mental illness is real but it does not honor those who endure it to rush a diagnosis and start naming disorders every time an anti-social, nihilistic, solipsistic young man with guns and grudges sins in the worst possible ways. Where have all the active verbs gone?

Unfortunately, pundits shy away from explicitly personal and moral categories in the precisely the moments we need them most (9-11 may be the one exception). Whenever a public tragedy like this occurs everyone on the right and the left struggles to find some cause, and that cause is almost always outside the self—video games, strange novels, mistreatment by friends, a culture of hate, the second amendment, heated political rhetoric. And when an internal cause is suggested it almost always points away from personal responsibility to some element of us that doesn’t really belonging to us—like a mental disorder or our own personal demons.

We instinctively resort to passive speech, unable to bear the thought (let alone utter the words) that a wicked person has perpetrated a wicked crime. The human heart is desperately sinful and capable of despicable sins. Of course, no one commends the crime, but few are willing to condemn the criminal either. In such a world we are no longer moral beings with the propensity for great acts of righteousness and great acts of evil. We are instead, at least when we are bad, the mere product of our circumstances, our society, our upbringing, our biochemistry, or our hurts. The triumph of the therapeutic is nearly complete.

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Kindle for Christmas

by Taylor Brooks on Jan 1st, 2011

My parents bought me a Kindle for Christmas.

I’ve been wanting one for some time, but the price was never right and the first two versions had UI flaws.  I suppose I’ve learned to restrain my inner geek from spending spontaneously on gadgets.

There are benefits to waiting though – prices fall, the product improves, and ancillary services are created.  For example, 2 years ago a Kindle app wasn’t available for iPhone or Android devices (actually there wasn’t even an Android market two years ago).  Now almost every computing platform, including mobile devices, has a Kindle app available for it.

And this is what people don’t understand, you don’t need a Kindle to buy Kindle books.  It’s also why the Kindle vs. ? debates are silly – the Kindle is not about the device, it’s about the distribution network.

Anyway, I love the thing.  The progress bar is genius.  I feel like my ‘score’ is going up every time I turn a page.  Hrm… that makes me think of another idea.

P.S. You can even download some Kindle books for free!  Download the app and start reading!

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See these error messages?

You’ll probably only get this error when running Rails 2.3.8 and older, on the same server as a new Rails 3.0.3 install.  i18n 0.5.0 is the culprit.

Here’s what you need to do:

  1. create this file: config/preinitializer.rb
  2. copy/paste this:
  3. restart your local server and/or restart apache/nginx

Read more about the issue over at Stack Overflow.

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Disneyland

by Taylor Brooks on Dec 6th, 2010

One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. “Oh no,” I said, “Disneyland burned down.”

He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke.

I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.

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Poll: What’s Your Favorite Christmas Album?

by Taylor Brooks on Dec 5th, 2010

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How to Make Your Wife Happy (for under $30)

by Taylor Brooks on Nov 26th, 2010

champagne on ice

  1. Domaine Ste. Michelle Champagne – $8.00
  2. White Truffle Oil – $11.50
  3. Pecorino Cheese – $3.50
  4. Water crackers – $2.00
  5. Firewood – $5.50

Forgotten honey-dos and a multitude of sins can be overcome with these 5 things combined.  It’s not so much the champagne or firewood that makes this special – it’s the spontaneity and the surprise.  Mix up your weekend routine and keep things interesting.

For more on champagne (which should be enjoyed more than just the new year) watch this episode of Three Sheets on Hulu.

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The Cookie Crowd

by Taylor Brooks on Nov 17th, 2010

As Chief Taster Officer of Cookie Crowd, I (and my weight) can attest to how unbelievably delicious these cookies are.

Buy them here.

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Gianna Jessen – Abortion Survivor

by Taylor Brooks on Nov 2nd, 2010

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Don’t Use Public WiFi

by Taylor Brooks on Oct 28th, 2010

Don’t use public wifi like the ones you find in libraries or coffee shops.  Or if you do use them, don’t login to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Dropbox, or WordPress – which is nearly impossible.

Last week, someone released a Firefox extension called “Firesheep” that exposes the vulnerabilities of popular websites that don’t use https or ssl protocols.

Basically it works like this:

When logging into a website you usually start by submitting your username and password. The server then checks to see if an account matching this information exists and if so, replies back to you with a “cookie” which is used by your browser for all subsequent requests.

It’s extremely common for websites to protect your password by encrypting the initial login, but surprisingly uncommon for websites to encrypt everything else. This leaves the cookie (and the user) vulnerable. HTTP session hijacking (sometimes called “sidejacking”) is when an attacker gets a hold of a user’s cookie, allowing them to do anything the user can do on a particular website – without having to login. On an open wireless network, cookies are basically shouted through the air, making these attacks extremely easy.

You’d be amazed, but every single one of the sites I mentioned earlier don’t offer default protection against this hack.

Experienced hackers have always been able to hijack http sessions.  Firesheep brings this hacking to the masses.  It is infinitely easier for the average joe to snoop around people’s email boxes at the local Panera.

Download here and try it yourself if you’d like. Google “firesheep” if you want to learn more.  Don’t use public wifi.

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