Many years ago, my favorite arcade game was Elevator Action. It’s a pretty simple game. You land on the roof of a building and make your way down to the basement where your escape car is waiting. On each floor along the way, you have to defeat bad guys, and make occasional stops to pick up …
This week, WikiLeaks released a cluster of documents relating to the CIA and their methods of operation. The news media was especially enamored by the electronic eavesdropping portion of the documents. Not to get off track here, but this is how we know the Obama administration didn’t spy on Donald Trump – no one in …
One afternoon, a day before Thanksgiving in 1971, a guy calling himself Dan Cooper (the media mistakenly called him D.B. Cooper) boarded Northwest Airlines flight #305 in Portland bound for Seattle. He was wearing a dark suit and a black tie and was described as a business-executive type. While in the air, he opened his …
This weekend, I dusted off a few of my old computers and booted them up to see how they were doing. Old computers are nowhere near as sturdy or stable as their modern-day counterparts. The biggest problem is the capacitors dry out and you have to go around the motherboard and replace them. And old …
Anyone who thought the FBI couldn’t open that encrypted iPhone is pretty naïve. The FBI, NSA, and various other organizations that we’ve never heard of, can all open a locked iPhone. The iPhone designers and programmers are amazingly talented, even brilliant, but don’t think for a second there aren’t others out there who are even …
I saw an advertisement the other day asking me if I’d like to be frozen. Hey that sounds like fun, I thought. I got a few hours to kill. Why not? As it turns out, it had nothing to do with the movie Frozen, and even less to do with that Elsa threesome I had …
As a computer guy, I have worked with two companies who were victims of hacking. In both cases, I was a member of the rebuild team. We helped fix the damage and make sure it didn’t happen again. As soon as people hear the word hacking, the first question I’m always asked is “do you …
It all started when I received an email that I didn’t understand. It was addressed to the “team”, and I figured it was meant for me, as I get quite a few emails that are addressed to, and begin with, “team”. As it turns out, it was another team far across the country and they …
This weekend, I was lucky enough to find an IBM P70 for a real cheap price. It’s not a working model, but I am pretty sure I can get it running before the end of the year. The P70 was IBM’s first portable computer. Well actually, the first portable IBM computer was the 5155, but …
I saw a 1959 Philco Predicta Pedestal on eBay and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I had to have it. The only problem – it was selling for about $1500, and I didn’t really need it THAT badly. On the other hand, I figured if I could pick up a used or non-working …
