4 Web Games That’ll Get You Laughing Out Loud
Sometimes, you just need a good laugh. There are plenty of ways to get your daily dose of humor – including YouTube comedy channels, 5 Second Films, and humorous Tumblr blogs – but what about web games? They’re useful for more than just killing time over coffee breaks. Some are downright hilarious. None of these games require anything more than a Flash-enabled browser and an open-minded sense of humor that isn’t afraid to laugh at the silly and the absurd. Take a deep breath and get your smiling muscles ready. Cat Mario This is one of the funniest games I’ve…
Read the full article: 4 Web Games That’ll Get You Laughing Out Loud
Sesame Street’s Star Wars Parody Is Predictably Adorable
Remember that classic scene in Star Wars where Only One Cannoli tells Flan Solo to "Use the Four"—a simple counting trick—as a surefire method to curb his craving for his sidekick Chewie? No? Oh wait, yeah—that’s from Star S’mores, this perfect parody brought to you by the lovable muppets of Sesame Street.
Of course, this isn’t just blockbuster entertainment. Today’s lesson is about self control, and the space explorers are going to teach you a handy thing or two about ways to keep your desires in check. Plus puns. There are so many delicious puns.
So kids, what did we learn today? Whatever challenging situation you find yourself in, always remember Groda’s wise words: "There is no try, only sing." [Digg Video]
via Gizmodo
Sesame Street’s Star Wars Parody Is Predictably Adorable
Are Your Internal Systems Damaging Your Business?
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The internal systems of many organizations have shocking user interfaces. This costs companies in productivity, training and even the customer experience. Fortunately, we can fix this.
"How come I can download an app on my phone and instantly know how to use it, yet need training to use our content management system? Shouldn’t our system be intuitive?" This was just one of the comments I heard in a recent stakeholder interview. People are fed up with inadequate internal systems. Many of those I interviewed had given up on the official software. Instead, they use tools like Dropbox, Google Docs and Evernote.
The post Are Your Internal Systems Damaging Your Business? appeared first on Smashing Magazine.
via Smashing Magazine
Are Your Internal Systems Damaging Your Business?
Where New York City’s Poop Goes
In Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant borders Newtown Creek and Long Island City to its North. The facility opened in 1967 and, since then, has undergone several renovations and expansions—including its massive silver digester eggs—to accommodate NYC’s constant growth and evolution.
Oh and in case I wasn’t completely clear: It’s entirely full of shit.
Newtown Creek is the largest wastewater treatment plant in New York City, handling some 250 million gallons per day. Most of that wastewater comes from Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and downtown Manhattan through a unique combined sewer system.
Keeping out the trash
A combined sewer system means that street water and waste water from apartments wind up in the same sewer main. If that doesn’t sound like a great idea, that’s because it’s not, but a system like this is easier to build than one that separates the two. Unfortunately it also makes the process of cleaning New York’s expelled waste water more complicated than most cities. Because street water will end up in the pooptubes, garbage and other debris can cause damage to the treatment plants’ equipment. That’s where the sorting machinery comes in.
To make sure larger chunks of non-poop trash don’t get into the plant, the system utilizes several gates and screens to make sure only wastewater is entering the facilities. Sewer Overflow Regulators block floating trash from getting in by routing unfiltered water through pipes that block floating items while letting water (and poop) flow through unabated at the bottom.
Whatever makes it past this first defense is fished out with Mechanical Bar Screens, pictured above. Just like the Overflow Regulators, these screens filter the water that’s flowing through the top part of a pipe. A huge mechanized scraper periodically wipes off the bits of trash that get stuck to the screens. Meanwhile, the poops and wastewater keep flowing onward below.
After any trash is taken care of, the wastewater treatment process proper can begin. To start, the Newtown Creek facility utilizes things called degrittors and detritors. These machines essentially take solids (which is to say "poops") and smooshes them all together to take up a smaller amount of space in the waste water.
From there, the Newtown Creek plant tries to replicate the process that waste would undergo when breaking down naturally, except in a massive and controlled environment. After solid wastes are consolidated, the water enters secondary treatment area, where aerobic bacteria eats away at the poop and turns it into sludge.
After sludgification, the water reaches settling tanks that remove the sludge and floating scum. Water travels across a slight slope while unwanted poop particles rest along the bottom and get suctioned out. The sludge then travels back to the aeration tanks for a second pass while the water heads to a disinfection stage. In disinfection, concentrated bleach is poured in, after which the no-longer-poopy-poop juice is released into Newtown Creek as clear and fresh smelling water.
Tough shit
The Newtown Creek facility’s aeration tanks do a pretty good job of breaking down poop into sludge, but when the sludge can’t be broken down any further, it’s spun into a thicker solid and sent to one of the facility’s eight massive digester eggs.
Each egg basically acts as a stomach where poopsludge can be "digested" for 15 days. Inside the eggs are more anaerobic bacteria that further the process in a balmy 98 degree poopvironment. Just like in the human body, the breakdown of waste produces a methane gas byproduct, but this methane is used to power the plants boilers instead of going into farts.
Above the massive digester eggs is a walkway that wraps around the whole complex, providing a great view of northern Brooklyn, Long Island City and the Manhattan skyline from atop the tanks of shit. It’s a view you can see for yourself: the Newtown Facility is open for tours, and they’ll take you up on the eggs if you go.
Even these massive digester eggs can’t process everything though. After digestion there is inevitably some sludge waste that just can’t be broken down. This tough shit is transported to a separate facility by poopboats. Once there, its dewatered and turned into a thick, spongy solid and ultimately is delivered to a landfill.
Touring the facility from start to finish, I was struck by one thing in particular: The place doesn’t smell bad. Because emissions are mostly captured inside a set of tanks, the grounds smell at least as good as the rest of Brooklyn. I’m not completely sure how the open-air poop-sludge pools manage not to smell, but they don’t! It’s really impressive how little odor there is.
Poop jokes aside, without facilities like Newtown Creek our waterways would be horrible. The Newton Creek plant and the people who man it manage to turn millions of peoples’ waste back into into clean, environmentally safe water. They don’t even mind it! What they do mind though is litter.
A small piece of trash that sneaks by the facility’s defenses can easily break the whole, complex system. When a machine breaks it can costs thousands, if not millions, of dollars. So think twice about what you throw down to toilet—and don’t litter in the street. Somebody has to deal with that shit.
F1 vs. Supercar vs. Motorbike
The Top Gear Festival in Australia didn’t just have a silly slow race, it also had the opposite. Red Bull drivers Mark Webber, Jamie Whincup and Casey Stoner pit their respective rides in an extremely unfair but also very fun “race.”
via The Awesomer
F1 vs. Supercar vs. Motorbike
Bullets Loaded Backwards
Saw this on Every Day No Days Off. Mike, of ENDO, posted a video by The Ammo Channel. The Ammo Channel looks at an internet myth of loading bullets backwards to increase damage. The results are interesting but it doesn’t seem like a good idea.
The post Bullets Loaded Backwards appeared first on The Firearm Blog.
Code.org Launches Code Studio, A Toolset And Curriculum For Teaching Kids Programming
Since its creation, Code.org’s mission has been to get coding into curriculums for students as schools nationwide. Today, the nonprofit group is launching Code Studio, a combined set of tools and curriculum to get students in kindergarten through high school interested in the underlying concepts behind coding through guided lesson plans. Read More
via TechCrunch
Code.org Launches Code Studio, A Toolset And Curriculum For Teaching Kids Programming
Build Industrial Furniture with Wood and Pipes
Building furniture or shelving generally requires some specialized tools, and joinery or welding skills. However if you like an industrial look to your furniture, you can construct simple pieces using pre-threaded pipes and fittings.
You can find threaded pipe in varying diameters and lengths at your local big-box store, along with many common fittings such as elbows, tees, couplings, and flanges. You don’t need any special tools or skills to put them together (just, you know, hands to thread the fittings on to the pipes) but you may need a bit of planning to create a sturdy piece.
You can add wood into the mix to make shelving, table tops, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
Things do get a little tricky when trying to create complex shapes. For threaded pipes you can use a union like this to get you out of most tough spots when trying to create a "closed" shape. You can also use non-threaded pipes and Kee Klamps for simpler assembly. Some big-box stores will cut pipes to a custom size and thread them for you as well.
While I haven’t found this method of building to be cheaper than using just wood, it is an easy way to build many different types of furniture (and the pipes can always be reassembled as something else in the future.) Here are a few examples of wood-and-pipe projects.
Shelving
I used gas pipes to create the shelving units in the master closet of my last house. While the industrial look definitely fits my aesthetic, I also liked that the shelves were much sturdier than the builder-grade wire shelving units you often see in a closet, but still provided openness between the shelves, instead of a built-in wood unit that would have made the room seem smaller. You can see more pictures and specifics on building shelving with threaded pipe here.
Modern Bench
This bench by HomeMade Modern uses pipe pieces in a more modern way than simply attaching pipes and flanges as straight legs. The video shows a bit more about the assembly of the piece, along with how pipe clamps can be used to secure the wood to the pipes.
Dining Table
This dining table required a little work to assemble the boards for the top of the table, but the base was relatively simple. You can learn more about how this table was made here.
There are an infinite number of ways you can configure furniture, storage, and decorative pieces using wood and pipe, and while the look might not be for everyone, it’s a fairly simple way to create quick, sturdy furniture.
Images from HomeMade Modern, DIYdiva, and Storefront Life.
Workshop is a new blog from Lifehacker all about DIY tips, techniques, and projects. Follow us on Twitter here.
via Lifehacker
Build Industrial Furniture with Wood and Pipes
The Start-to-Finish Guide to Securing Your Cloud Storage
Whether your files are stored on Dropbox, iCloud, or Mega, they could do with a little more security. It’s impossible to make them "hack proof," but there are a few things you can do to make your data as secure as possible—and still convenient to access. Let’s walk through those steps.
There’s no such thing as perfect security, but that’s no excuse to do nothing, especially when boosting your security is easy. Don’t fall for the trope that "if you want it secure you shouldn’t store it in the cloud." Cloud storage is a convenient, accessible technology that gives us access to our data anywhere, on multiple devices. It helps us work and makes our lives easier. There’s a line to be sure, but it’s silly to not use useful technologies simply because of the risk that something bad might happen. Let’s talk about how you can mitigate that risk.
Step One: Check Your Password and Enable Two Factor Authentication (If Available)
Let’s start with the basics. First, check the passwords you use for your cloud accounts. Are you using the same ones for multiple services? Are you relying on memory or some other clever tricks to help you keep track of them? Stop now, get a password manager (yes, they’re more secure even if they seem like a single point of failure), and set different passwords for each service.
Next, enable two factor authentication for all of them if you can. Two-factor authentication isn’t foolproof, but it’s the next most important step to securing your accounts—and by proxy, your data. While you’re in your password settings, take a look at your security questions, and how the service handles password resets. Make sure you’ll be notified if someone tries to reset your password, and if there are security questions involved, make sure you choose obscure questions. Lie or give creative answers to those questions that only you know. You don’t want someone getting into your storage the way intruders got into celebrity iCloud accounts earlier this month.
Step Two: Audit Your Connected Apps, Devices, and Services
Your next step is to take a look at any connected apps and devices with access to your cloud storage. In Dropbox, for example, you can see all of them in your account security settings. (Alternatively, log in to your Dropbox account, click your name and select "Settings." Then click the "Security" tab.) Similarly, at Box, you can click here to go to your settings, log in, then click the "security" tab to enable two-factor authentication and review your connected apps. If there are any applications listed that you no longer use or don’t recognize, remove them.
You don’t want some old app to get compromised and subsequently lead someone to get access to your account. This happens more frequently on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but keeping those lists clean is a good habit to get into. All it takes is for someone to use read/write access through some ancient-but-popular app to get easy backdoor access to tons of user accounts.
While you’re at it, make sure any old devices you use are cleaned out as well. Take special care with this step though—if there are files on those devices you want to keep, they’ll be immediately unlinked and stop syncing, and the next time the device calls home, your local copies of synced files may be deleted.
Step Three: Check Your Provider’s Stance on Privacy and Encryption
Next, do a little digging to see how your cloud storage service handles privacy, and how committed they are to protecting your data. We touched on this a while ago for some of the most popular services, but not all of them. Check what access your provider gives itself to your data. Review the security they claim to offer as well. Some companies encrypt your data at rest on their servers, and note that even they have no idea what you’re storing with them. Others reserve the right to access your data whenever they choose, and use vague, hand-wavy terms like "bank level security" when they talk about encryption. Those are all bad signs, and generally mean that they either don’t take security seriously, or don’t think you’re smart enough to.
Take some time and review the terms of service agreements, security, and privacy policies of the services you’re trusting with your data. In some cases, you’ll see that your trust is well placed, but if anything gives you pause, the least you can do is ask their customer support what a given clause in the agreement means, or Google it to see what other people are saying. If you’re worried about those policies and terms changing—and they often do—previously mentioned Paranoid Paul can keep track of them for you and notify you when they change.
Whether you opt to move on from a service with less-than-stellar security or an intrusive privacy policy is up to you. However, it’s worth noting if a service gives themselves access to your data freely and they don’t take security seriously enough to explain how they protect your data, they probably won’t respond well if someone attacks them—and they may not have anything in place internally to stop an intruder from getting to your information. You can do better.
Step Four: Audit Your Files and Remove or Encrypt Sensitive Data
Many of us use cloud storage for just about everything. Part of getting so much free storage is that you don’t really have to think about what you upload, you can just upload it. That’s great unless you’re thinking about what may be lost if someone gets access to your accounts. Take some time and go over what you store in each cloud storage account and identify it by risk. Think about how bad it would be to lose that information, and whether you have it backed up anywhere. If the service is one of those (like iCloud or OneDrive for example) where the company can access your data at any time, consider whether your data may violate their terms of use, even slightly.
It doesn’t take much for an overzealous company to shutter your account. Back in 2011, a German photographer had his account closed suddenly because Microsoft decided his professional work was "questionable." Another OneDrive user lost his entire Microsoft account over some files stored in a private folder, accessible only to him.
If there’s anything you’d hate to lose, or anything you’re worried an overzealous algorithm may close your account over, it’s time to either remove it from the cloud and store it locally, or encrypt it. We’ve given you a primer on encryption in the past, and this method of compressed encryption using 7-Zip in Windows (Mac users should try Keka for a free alternative) will get the job done quickly and easily. Encrypting those files and archives with a password may make it more of a hassle to access on other devices, especially on your smartphone or tablet, but it’s a huge security boost, especially if you use your cloud service for things like financial documents, contracts, or…anything else.
Step Five: Consider Diversifying with Privacy- and Security-Conscious Services
With so much free cloud storage floating around from services happy to give it away just for signing up, it makes sense to spread out your critical data to different services so if one of them gets hacked, loses your data, or something else happens, you’re not at a complete loss. Doing this accomplishes two major things: First, it makes sure that losing one cloud storage service isn’t the end of the world when it comes to you actually being able to function. Second, it protects you from losing everything if someone breaks into your account via social engineering, as opposed to password trickery or exploits. Of course, keeping sensitive data encrypted will make sure that person doesn’t get away with much, but keeping your data diversified means that the odds of an intruder finding something useful are slimmer than if you used one big bucket for everything.
Similarly, regardless of what service you prefer, consider relying on cloud services with serious encryption and security features for your most sensitive data. There are plenty of services that do it well, like Spideroak and Tresorit. Both are worth a look if you know you’ll need to store, share, and access sensitive information on multiple devices.
Reminder: Cloud Storage Isn’t Backup
Finally, a quick reminder: cloud storage is not backup. Or more precisely, sync is not backup. If your data is removed for any reason from the cloud end, sync means it’s removed from your local machine as well. To boot, most cloud services don’t offer fine revision histories for the files you sync, a feature that’s critical to a good backup service.
This is where we point out that cloud storage and sync is not the same as online backup. You should trust the latter to keep your data safe, but not the former. It’s important to keep more than one backup of your data, including one that’s offsite. Using an online backup service means that your data is kept regularly updated, complete with granular revisions, stored and encrypted in someone else’s datacenter, where it’s regularly updated as well. Of course, keep your data backed up locally as well. There’s nothing wrong with storing backups on an external hard drive or a NAS, especially for quick restores if your system dies. However, that NAS and hard drive is worthless if your house burns down or someone breaks in and cleans you out. When it comes to online backup, we prefer Crashplan because they’re easy to set up and offer strong encryption, but you have plenty of options.
Some of these steps are things we’ve mentioned before on their own, but if you hit them one at a time, going from the top down, you can make a huge impact in your data security in a short period of time. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to significantly improve your security. Does this make you "hack-proof?" Of course not: but it certainly makes you a more difficult target—one not be worth the effort required to get your data, and that’s all you can ask for.
Title photo made using Slavoljub Pantelic (Shutterstock) and kzww (Shutterstock). Additional photos by Lulu Hoeller, Jeremy Keith, tubedogg, Ryan Somma, and See-Ming Lee.
via Lifehacker
The Start-to-Finish Guide to Securing Your Cloud Storage