As the post title says, I was involved in the reverse engineering of one of the most important inventions of the 20th century: the Super Tag Ink.

For those that aren’t privy to what exactly the Super Tag Ink is, it’s one of those things that the department stores put on their clothes so nobody tries to run off with them.  Yeah, one of THOSE things.  If you’re a shoplifter, chances are you’re very familiar with these things and should be involved in this project–I’ll gladly give up my position.

Anyway, my wife bought one of the kids an outfit in TJ Max (hah, one outfit?  I don’t think so–let’s take it one step further.  Shopping spree on J’s card!).  Unfortunately, the checkout clerk neglected to remove the tag on this particular outfit.  A few weeks later, I’m trying to dress the kid to send to daycare and I stumble across this hunk of plastic.  Sorry, no photos.  I didn’t decide to take pictures until after the reverse-engineering.  I can’t exactly hold a camera and do complicated important stuff like that, can I?  NO!

My first thought was to just leave it attached–what’s the harm?  In fact, it might deter some would-be child thieves…or not.  Deciding it would probably be a bit uncomfortable to the lad, my wife suggested I take i over to TJ Max and have them remove it.  Calmly, I replied with something to the effect of furthering scientific studies of ink tags or some silly tripe like that.  Basically, I just wanted to break it.

Not thinking of the risks of bodily-harm involved, I promptly got out the needle-nose pliers, a big knife and some hedge clippers (no idea why I have hedge clippers living in NYC where there are no hedges, but hey, they got the job done).  At first, my goal was to simply get the thing off the outfit.  It’d be too hard to cover up the evidence, and my wife would say something like, “I told you…!” or “Why don’t you ever listen to me?!”

After a bit of plastic surgery, I had the thing in bits and safely separated from the clothing.  No more danger of getting ink on anything but myself and the floor.  Here’s how it looked after I finally had a free hand to pick up the camera:

Sure I could have been gentle, but then this thing quite possible reanimated into a Super Tag zombie or something.  Total decapitation and dismemberment is what I was aiming for.  The next step will be to separate the parts amongst several TJ Max’s to spread the word…but I digress.

Really, I suppose I’m a bit dissapointed that this thing is no marvel of modern engineering.  A simple clutch mechanism holds the pin in, and a completely separate container holds the ink and an RFID tag (just in case it escapes, I guess).  One thing I found a bit silly was the rubber ink condom holding the glass vial:

The Ink Condom – To protect the ink vial from some sort of ink vial STD?

Hmmmm…

Dangerous Business…

I suppose maybe it protects TJ Max from lawsuits would-be shoplifters impaling themselves with glass shards while trying to remove the tag. Ahh, what a country.

Anyway, there really isn’t too much more to talk about.  It’s a simple device with one or two neat little features, but nothing to write home about!

That being said–Caffeinated Content 3.38b, today or tomorrow.

That being said, this is not something I’m doing for a profit…this is a free product I’m recommending.  You may have heard of it through the buzz over the past couple of days.

It’s called PPC Web Spy by Brad Callen.  I had basically ignored the emails and chalked them up to the usual tripe that gets sent around, but then, while talking to a friend, he told me that I absolutely NEEDED to take a look at it right away.

So I did.

Woah!

Not only is this absolutely wonderful and amongst the best keyword tools I’ve used, but…

It’s genuinely FREE!

For any search results you run in Google, it’ll literally SPY on the Adwords results quickly providing a list of keywords and a bunch of other stuff.  If you’re into arbitrage, let nothing get in your way to get this now.  Heck, if you’re into any sort of internet marketing, this will pay for itself instantly–hah, because yes, it’s free!

Sure, it’s been done before–but never in a free bit of software!

Anyway, if you haven’t already, you can download it here now: http://kansieo.com/likes/ppcwebspy/

Not sure how long that link will stay up, so you might want to take a look at it right away!

Heavenly ski resort at Lake Tahoe (I can't tell if the lake is tilting or if it's just the way I'm holding the camera...)

Unfortunately, they hadn’t received fresh snow for almost a month, but conditions were good nonetheless.  I guess the grooming team is able to push snow where it needs it most.  Anyway…you definitely can’t beat the 45F temperature at nearly 10,000′.

So I went to Lake Tahoe with a pinched nerve in my neck that radiated across my shoulder and down my left arm.  I’ve been dealing with it since just after Christmas, trying to do what I can, but sitting seems to aggravate it most.  No over the counter pain relief helped at all.  About a week before my departure, I went to a local chiropractor in hopes of relieving some of the pain before my trip–after all, I can’t imagine a ski trip without skiing would be very much fun…    Anyway, he was able to take some of the pressure off of the nerve, providing some relief…unfortunately, apparently my shoulder muscles are all out of whack, seemingly pulling in the opposite direction they’re supposed to.  Well, it’s a good thing my Lake Tahoe hotel (Harrah’s) had a nice spa with some awesome massage therapists who were able to relax those uncooperative muscles to make them at least semi-usable.  So it was ski during the day, massage in the afternoon, eat a small dinner (tough at Harrah’s awesome Forest Buffet) and then crash before having a chance to spend any money at the casino…probably a good thing!

Now that I’m back, I went to the chiropractor this morning, and he did some adjusting and deep tissue stuff…overall I’m feeling better.  It’s not terrible pain for the most part, it’s just always there, and it makes doing stuff with my left arm difficult.  Not to mention it gets worse as I sit longer.

So that’s that.  I’m going to try and rip through the pile of support tickets I have before it becomes too aggravated, if it feels like I’m ignoring you, I’m not…just ask my family.

Oh yeah, I’ve got some cool stuff to show for my time away.  It wasn’t all playtime, honest!

Friday, I’ll be flying out of here (Shittown, USA.  AKA NYC) to Lake Tahoe for a few days of skiing and a few nights of work.  Since I’m going alone, leaving the family at home, you can expect a new release of Caffeinated Content to show up soon upon my return to this uncivilized city of corrupt stockbrokers and government officials.  For some reason, my wife isn’t nearly as excited about my trip as I am…oh well.

I’m excited to take my skiboards out on a real mountain–yes, that’s right, I said skiboards.  If you like to ski, these puppies will up your game phenomonally.  Heck, if you’ve never skied before, a pair of these will have you rockin’ the intermediate hills in a day.

If anyone happens to be in the area, hit me up.  I’ll buy your Heavenly lift ticket ($82, first couple of people to email me get in) and we can talk shop on the lift.  You’re responsible for your own equipment (as well as your own well-being), though, so this is not an offer for unseasoned skiers/boarders.

Heavenly Ski Resort

From thinkgeek.com:

“Cuddle-Up with the Un-Dead

What happens when you take old broken plush toys and bury them in the woods by the light of the full moon while whistling the theme song from “Halloween”? Unfortunately nothing… which is why the skillful design monkeys here at ThinkGeek were forced to come-up with our own scary (but cute) zombie plush.

The Dismember-Me Plush Zombie begs to be torn limb from limb. After all he is a decaying re-animated corpse turned into irresistible cuddly plush. Rip off an arm… he doesn’t mind. Tear him in half.. he’ll barely notice. Pull off his legs… ok now he’s getting a bit annoyed. Steal his brain… now you’ve really done it. Keep your teddy bears under close guard tonight because undead plush have come back from hell to walk the earth.”

I ordered one for my desk, but I’m willing to bet my son (or the dog) will steal him in short order… Hmm.  Maybe I’ll get two just in case…

What I’m going to show you today is a quick trick on how to up the ante in your favor and gain some virtual respect if you play it right.  Know, though, that it is only one part of the game.  You’ll need some good stories and know enough about what your trying to fake that you can talk about it without looking like an imbecile or n00b.

My point?  Take a look at this image:

Your basic Adsense management screen.  Other than the dollar amount appearing a bit on the large side, everything seems fairly standard, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not kosher.  I don’t make $4,000+ a month using Adsense as most of my sites have long ago been converted to affiliate sales (my real adsense earnings lie in the tens of dollars per month these days).  Photoshop, you say?  Nay.  With the exception of the scratched out publisher id, this was generated without leaving the comfort of Firefox.

By entering the following into your browser’s address bar and hitting enter:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

you can edit near any webpage with ease.  Fake it til you make it.  Now, go ahead.  Show off some awesome stats to prove to the world what sort of uber Guru you are…even if you’re not.

A few months ago, on a short weekend vacation to Washington DC, my wife spilled mango juice in her purse and managed to submerge the Canon camera I had bought for her for Christmas.  Let me tell you one thing about mango juice: it might taste good, but it turns into the most viscous sticky fluid after it starts to dry.  Horrible.  Needless to say, there was no salvaging the camera and most of the rest of her purse contents, but thankfully the SD card still works.  Yesterday, I got around to replacing that camera with a Kodak V1073 which is a pretty neat little gadget.  Keeping in-line with Kodak’s “You push the button, we’ll take care of the rest” philosophy, there aren’t many exposed controls, but almost everything else works via touchscreen which is pretty darn cool…the jury is still out on the image quality, but I should have plenty of photo-ops coming up in the next few days.

On a side note, I just got notification from Godaddy that I won a backorder for one of the domains that I lost through the whole Registerfly fiasco.  I’m still extremely bitter about that whole bit, but at least my domain portfolio is starting to come back together.  They (Registerfly) cost me waaaay too much money, and the frustrating thing is that I wasn’t even one of the hardest hit!  Oh well.

Looks like another huge bank for RockStar.

Anyway, I only played about an hour before I passed out and I can definitely say it doesn’t suck. That’s right all you haters, GTA4 doesn’t suck. HOWEVER, I walked down some stairs and had to cover my eyes because of the horrible animation…like Nico has two peg-legs. Arrrr…I’m Nico the Russian Pirate!

But I digress. Looks to be good fun. Though I’ll probably be alternating between this, Smash Brother’s Brawl and Mario Kart just to keep my good karma at an acceptable level.

Anyone looking for some multiplayer action in this, or Call of Duty 4, my Live gamertag is kansieo. Go figure.

So you want to be rich? Make your name amongst Internetters? Just remember, while it is important in this business to reach out, to strive for greater achievements, to go for that greener grass on the other side of the fence…you must still be careful because…

Sometimes you can reach too far!

Most importantly, you must ALWAYS remember that not everyone who shows up…

…is there to help you!

Special thanks to John Cow for his participation in this public service announcement!

I found another based on Swedish perceptions of Europe which I’ll post later.

Not only are they offering off-the-wall gadgets and toys, now they’re adding off-the-wall games to their repertoire.

Here is an action shot from their newly imported Super Pii Pii Brothers:

From their blurb: “According to the Japanese text on the box “Super Pii Pii Brothers promotes good bathroom skills and allows women to experience for the first time the pleasure of urinating while standing.” What we say is that virtual peeing is damn fun!”

Hysterical!

Visit ThinkGeek for more info!

Direct from the shelves of Pathmark:

Okay, so maybe it’s completely innocent, but the novelty value will never wear off. Seriously, what was the marketing department of Grace Foods thinking?

Oh yeah, it’s cheap (less than $1USD a pack, so totally worth it for a gag gift). If you’re interested in your own package of cock flavoured soup, I’m hereby becoming a distributor–email me and we’ll work out the details!

Anyway, the Asus Eee PC. It’s considered an ultra compact/sub-notebook…and that it is. It has a 7″ LCD (at 800×480 res) and by default runs a linux derivative as it’s OS. It does have instructions for installing Windows XP and there are people who have installed MacOS Leopard/Tiger. There is NO built-in optical drive. The model I bought came with a 4 gig solid state hard drive and has three usb ports, and a SD flash card reader. 512MB (but easily upgradable) RAM. Built-in wireless, stereo speakers, etc (if you want to know more, go to http://eeepc.asus.com/.

Now, obviously this isn’t meant to be a powerhouse gaming machine. It can, however, do almost anything you throw at it. Every single video I’ve tried playing has worked without a hitch. MP3s, OGG, and so on are supported out of the box. Networking was painless. And the machine startup time? About 10 seconds–even in Windows XP (specially tweaked to get the best performance with a small footprint). The solid state hard drive is a beautiful thing…no more worries about moving parts.

Here is an online demo of the default Linux UI. This is what is commonly called “basic mode” and includes most everything a non-power user would need…but let’s face it, the audience for this thing is probably not going to be your average non-power user. Advanced mode is painlessly activated through a quick bit of hackery, and then we’ve got a full-blown version of kde to work with…wonderful.

There are a few cons that are to be expected with a machine this compact and economically priced. The lack of an optical drive, the small screen/resolution, the small keyboard, the small HDD. With the exception of the HDD, each one of these is limited by space (as far as I know, there is no possible way to fit a 15″ LCD into a 7″ space). The HDD, on the other hand, is limited by price. Solid state hard drives are a relatively new technology and thus are still extremely expensive. I’m sure this one is upgradable, though, so when 128 GB SSD become affordable, I’ll be first in line (the new MacBook Air offers a 64 GB SSD at a $1000 price tag…ouch).

Already a huge modding community (much of which takes place at http://eeeuser.com) has sprung up around this machine because Asus has kindly left it wide open. I can’t wait to see what happens with it in the next year or so. I have a few things in mind myself, including using it as a controller for a robotic project (based on the iCreate platform, I think)–can’t wait to start this off.

Anyway, I can’t wait to really start using this thing. I’ll keep you all posted on my escapades.

My wife bought me an xbox 360 for Christmas–we’ve had a Wii since the release, as much as I love it, the novelty has somewhat worn off over the past year. Since Christmas, I’ve put far too many hours into games when I should be working on my latest creations, but hey, what can I say (Attention Deficit Dis…oh hey, look at the pretty flower…).

So since then, I’ve finished a handful of games including Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect and Portal (part of the Orange Box/Half Life 2 package). As I was playing through Call of Duty 4, it really struck me how much gaming has changed over the course of the three decades I’ve been playing games. For some reason, I never got really emotional when the aliens stole my little people and turned them into ugly red spaceship-eating Martians in Defender. For the thousands of times I saw the line “Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!” I didn’t once find myself close to tears (I did, however, get emotional with Mega Man, but only because he caused controller breakage!).

This all changed, however, with my recent playthrough of Call of Duty 4. I won’t give any spoilers, but the emotional twists this game puts the player through are rough…or maybe I’m just turning into a weenie in my old age. Mass Effect, to a lesser extent, pits the player against some rough moral decisions that effect the entire game (and whether or not you get that hot alien nookie FOX news was up in arms about not so long ago) .

I suppose, perhaps, developers are just now learning how to fully immerse players in the story through more than just the script. Visuals have become realistic enough that they help the story instead of detract from it.

If you created this, let me know and I’ll throw you a link.

The only major player that we noticed was missing from the list is FaceBook… Currently, the only supported network is Orkut, but MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, and so forth all have plans to support the API.

Either way, I’m interested in seeing how this will pan out. Will the naughty evil spammers take over, or will the pure good (spam) of social networking prevail?

Anyway, on our way out, I saw this in a shop window and had to snap a quick pic:

Think that’ll be my new tagline…