I'm off to Las Vegas for Blackhat 2008 and Defcon 16. I can't wait to see what Kingpin and Lost have in store for us this year.

I built my desktop PC in August of 2006, nearly two years ago. I purchased two Seagate 7200.10 320GB Barracuda's for my main drive. I had done some research and found that these would give me a good deal of speed (when in RAID) for a decant amount of money (way less than a WD Raptor).

Since the drives were SATA I didn't think twice about the jumpers on the back because they are traditionally used for ATA master/slave settings. I figured they were for factory settings that needn't be changed. It turns out I was wrong! Those jumpers have been cutting my drive performance in half. Seagate uses them to ensure that SATA/150 is the default drive configuration for backwards compatibility. My system has supported SATA/300 since its build date. So i popped the little buggers out and did some testing. Turns out that they made a big difference in performance. Test results below...

I'm finishing up a PCB project that's nearly a year old and I thought I'd share a tasty time-lapse video of the assembly process.

Since I'll be roaming around Blackhat and Defcon once again this year it isn't a bad idea to carry around some sort of correspondence card. I've avoided creating a business card because of the challenging nature of their design. In order to stand out from other cards a business card has to offer something unique. It has to dazzle its recipient, either in its unique size, material, or design.

Lately I've seen a few skinny or mini cards being handed out, small 1"x3" cards. I've only been able to find two printers that produce them at the moment, Zazzle.com and MOO.com. Both companies offer 100 cards for about $20.00. Zazzle is a tiny bit cheaper than the later and offers a few different paper types, both front and back can be printed with graphics, however you are limited to a single design for the entire set of 100. While MOO only allows a single side to be a graphic, you are allowed up to 100 different graphics per set of 100.

I have a few designs in mind that would fit perfectly on these mini cards, I suppose I'll test the waters by printing my own before I drop $20.

Update @ 1:33pm: Matthew Inmen did exactly this. However, he's a much better artist than myself.

Lord of The Ring's Marathon: 683 minutes (extended)

Every Episode of The Simpsons: 9780 minutes (w/ film)



Star Trek Anthology: 38,804 minutes (646.8 hours/26.95 Days)

Star Trek Movies I-X: 1144 minutes
Enterprise: 4900 minutes
The Origional Series: 4000 minutes
The Animated Series: 660 minutes
The Next Generation: 8900 minutes
Deep Space 9: 8800 minutes
Voyager: 8600 minutes
The Hidden Frontier (fan): 1800 minutes

"If Spock were here, he'd say that I was an irrational, illlogical human being for going on a mission like this....... Sounds like fun!" -- Kirk

Before diving right into a project I like to come up with a general vision of the end product and an idea of what I'm going to need to do in order to reach that vision. It's easier to recognize problems before they even creep up if you know how each stage of a project is supposed to turn out. For most projects it's possible to keep that vision in my head while I work, for some I have to draw it out on paper. Some projects however, require a bit more work before I can visualize the end result.

For example, I'm working on a lamp that could take on a variety of shapes and configurations. I know that it will use glass insulators and antique light bulbs, perhaps suspended by wire, perhaps supported by brass stems. Since I'm limited to the materials at hand I need to decide on a final configuration for the lamp before I start working.

Luckily computers provide the perfect virtual workshop free from the fear of making mistakes and wasting materials. Using tools like Google's SketchUp and Autodesk's Maya, I can quickly create virtual models of my projects. I can examine size, material choices, lighting, and even how a user will interact with the project before a single hole is drilled.

I've always thought that FriedPope.com is a bit of an akward name to present to an employer, thus I'm forced to start thinking of a new site structure and URL. FriedPope.com has been renewed for at least another year, so I'll have some time to determine my course of action.

I belive I'll start with determining what exactly I want to present to visitors. I may want to split up the sites into more managable sections. A few good sites that I'll be looking to for help are:

A List Apart

Wikiversity Web Design

Smiley Cat

KillerSites

Pixel Acres