The Millennium Shrimp

Zack Venable, my old roommate from Mercyhurst, made the Times-News in Lehighton, PA this past week. He gave a presentation on Forensic entomology at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center this past weekend.
By far the best quote in the article:

“It’s not so much the sight, it’s the smell that can get to you very quickly.”

The smell also tends to stick with you the most, too. I remember my mom was canning beef a few years ago and the canner ran dry, scorching some of the meat. I just about couldn’t eat the beef after that. It smelled exactly like one of the cases that we had in the lab where a lady’s skull had been scorched. It wasn’t something that I had thought about in years, but the smell from the canner instantly brought that memory back. Anyways, read the rest of the article. Go Zack!

Bugs & Bodies

Zachary Venable, a forensic entomologist turned educator, presented a workshop for environmental educators on forensic entomology-using insects to help determine what has caused an animal’s death and how long since an animal died recently at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center.

Following up on the youtube video in my post “xtreme makeover” here’s a photo essay on historical “photoshoping” that literally goes back to the beginnings of photography.

I thought the lead sentence in the accompanying article was appropriate too:

What a marvel the first photographic images must have been to their early-19th-century viewers — the crisp, unassailable reality of scenes and events, unfiltered by an artist’s paintbrush or point of view. And what an opportunity for manipulation. It didn’t take long for schemers to discover that with a little skill and imagination, photographic realism could be used to create manufactured realities.

Obligatory XKCD…

Following up on saturday’s post about Facebook spam, Slashdot this morning posted a link to a new “quiz” that illustrates the amount of information that a Fakebook developer can get about you even if you NEVER install their application.
(more…)

Spent an hour waiting on the doctor this morning for the EMG test. By 8:50 the assistant came in and apologized. “I’m not sure how much he’ll be. I obviously misread how much time he was taking.” So, the EMG is rescheduled for 1:30 pm on Thursday. oh well, it must be Monday morning…

Here’s a story on the latest round of infections from CBS news.

Facebook security tips page:

Best advice for avoiding spam on facebook:

1. be wary of applications that take you to a page that requires you to enter your facebook login.
2. Don’t click on suspicious links! e.g., “If it hadnt of been for the internet I would of never got out of debt. Here is how I earned extra cash to be debt free http://urlite.com/15233/”
3. Don’t use the same password for facebook as you use elsewhere on the internet.
4. Don’t share your password!

Cleaning up after you’ve been infected:
As of right now, it looks like user accounts are being hijacked via applications that re-direct users to a page where they enter their facebook password. To clean up after being compromised:

1. run anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer to make sure your computer is not infected. If you don’t have an up to date antivirus program, download and install either clamwin or AVG. Links to safe places to download these applications from are below.
2. change your facebook password.
3. Double check that you don’t have suspicious applications installed.

Applications to be wary of:
(from MXLogic)

• sex sex sex and more sex (uh, yeah, hopefully that is fairly obvious.)
• Inbox (1)
• Inbox (2)
• Birthday Invitations
• Stream
• Your Photos

You can disable/uninstall these applications by going under Settings>Application Settings in Facebook.

Links:
AVG Free Edition (from Download.com)
Ad-aware anti-spyware (from Download.com)
Clamwin Anti-virus

My previous post on facebook spam.

Facebook, the hot internet bubble property in search of a business model has officially entered a new, and more dangerous, era: spam. The party is over folks! Over the past couple of days I’ve noticed several of my friends posting strange messages on people’s walls. For instance:

According to this article on SC Magazine (Facebook user profiles hacked):

Fortinet’s Global Security Research Team warned that Wall posts containing links must be handled with care and recommends they should not be followed.

At this point, it seems like people aren’t exactly sure what the attack vector is. Are these spam posts coming from applications that the user installed on their local machines? Were the accounts hacked? Possibly this is coming from a rogue application that was installed? Facebookadvice.com discusses several possibilities on his post on the “Secret Crush” application here.

Anyone else have any experiences with this?

Below is a calender with the times and dates of my medical tests for the next two weeks. If you click on the item it includes a brief description of what the test is. The one that makes me the most nervous is the spinal tap. It involves big needles and having to lie flat on my back for 24 hours afterwords. Not really the most pleasant prospect. Tomorrow (the 18th) I’m going in early (around 8:00 am) to have blood drawn as well.

Saw G.I. Joe, the rise of COBRA on Friday evening. I went to see it in Alliance at the cheaper theater ($4.25 versus >$8 at Tinseltown). The movie didn’t make much sense. The Joe team’s base is in Egypt, NATO is buying high tech weapons made in Kazakhstan, an elite international fighting force is named “G.I. Joe”? Duke, Cobra Commander, and the Baroness have a back story. Honestly, Duke is pretty much a smuck. He gets his fiancee’s brother killed and then doesn’t even bother to show up for the funeral. But who cares. The Eiffel Tower collapses, things blow up, and Sienna Miller wears tight clothing. If anything, the car chase through downtown Paris wasn’t as good as the one in the original Bourne movie. Probably because the Bourne movie was at least plausible, and this one involved two guys in some sort of “accelerator suits” chasing an SUV that fires missiles.

McSweeney’s has reposted a couple of Keith Pille’s Journal entries of COBRA footsoldiers:

After that we finally got to do weapons training. About time! They gave me a rifle and pointed at the target. I held the rifle up to my cheek and sighted down the barrel, just like I did when I went deer hunting with Grampa. Boy, did Sarge go apeshit over that! Got in my face and started yelling at me, asking how I expected to scare someone if I just stood there all quiet-like and shot so carefully. Sarge is a great teacher because he doesn’t just criticize. He showed the right way to shoot. What you do is you start shooting your gun wildly and run towards the target as fast as you can and, in your scariest voice, you yell “COBRA!”

Journal of a New COBRA Recruit

But then this huge guy in a Chicago Bears jersey runs in, swinging around a giant iron football. He’d knocked out a couple of the boys before I recognized him: William “the Refrigerator” Perry! I’m ashamed to say this, but I turned and ran. I remembered what the Fridge did to my Packers last September, and I’d be darned if that was going to happen to me.

Journal of a seasoned COBRA veteran

Heh -

10. Offended about the tetherball court being removed at AT&T’s request

Why Did Google’s CEO Really Quit The Apple Board Of Directors? from Woot.com

The other mike at the office has the new iPhone, it’s pretty sweet. I’m very tempted to get one. Or maybe just steal his… Just as soon as AT&T lets you tether it.