Ryan Collins

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Author: ryan

  • Free streaming shows & movies and more – This Geek in Review for 10 Apr 2020

    Free streaming shows & movies and more – This Geek in Review for 10 Apr 2020

    Everyone is stuck inside for the foreseeable future, and luckily, there is a ton of streaming content that is available for free. There is
    Voleflix with public domain movies. Next up is all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica streaming on SYFY. Adultswim is offering all five seasons of Samurai Jack. And, by the end of May, you’ll be able to watch the first 19 seasons (and part of Season 20) in the correct aspect ratio. The last one surprises me after reading about all the flack FXX received when they first put every episode of The Simpsons online.

    Just one of the many sight gags lost when The Simpsons is cropped.

    Zoom‘s greatest feature is the ability to have virtual backgrounds. If you are a DC fan, then here is a collection of DC Comics backgrounds straight from the publisher.

    Are you missing the sounds of Nina from corporate accounts, the soothing tones of the copier, or the gurgle of the water cooler? Then Reichenbergerstr 121 will bring the sounds of the office to you.

    Sure, we can’t go out or congregate, but the worst part of COVID-19 is that it might mean no new emoji in 2021!

    A metaphor for social distance to flatten the curve.

  • Some Good News with John Krasinski

    Some Good News with John Krasinski

    You may know him as Jake Ryan, but more likely you know him as Jim Halpert.

    I’ve already subscribed!

    And it is so good I will not rant about vertical video.

  • Is your boss spying on you? and more – This Geek in Review for 3 Apr 2020

    Is your boss spying on you? and more – This Geek in Review for 3 Apr 2020

    I know what you are doing.

    I’m sorry, but if you can’t trust your employees when they work at home then your business has some major issues. Middle managers everywhere are scrambling to buy spyware to monitor their employees working at home.

    Hopefully you’ll forgive me for posting a link to TikTok, but this hack was too good to share. Here’s how to make it look like your paying attention in your Zoom conferences.

    The repercussions from COVID-19 are more than just economical. With the closing of the Las Vegas casinos the food source of 4,000 pigs is now gone. The farmer is scrambling to find food for his hogs.

    One of the most influential companies in modern history was founded 44 years ago, Apple. It’s been one heck of a ride. This week I set up my //c+ as a terminal to use for work.

    Working like it’s 1989!

    Here’s a look at weird internet careers. My current job didn’t exist when I graduated college, so for those out there that don’t know what you want to do, find something to do while you wait.

    Luckily, I made sure my library card was active before the stay-at-home orders were released. This allows me to check out books through Overdrive. If you don’t have an active library card, Archive.org has lifted their limits on checking out books. An Adobe account is required to check out books, and the one I tested downloaded as a scanned book. That means I can’t load it on the Kindle, but I can load it on a laptop. I’m not going anywhere, so it’s not that big of deal.

    The spread of the spring breakers

    I don’t know what’s scarier, how fast the infected spread across the US, or the ability to track so many people solely by their smartphone.

    RetroFair2020

    Since the vintage computer fests have been canceled throughout the US, some intrepid souls have brought it online under the RetroFair2020 banner. Scroll through and watch delights of computer past. I’m always fascinated by old Unix boxes:

  • I think I was robbed of a Ho Ho!

    I think I was robbed of a Ho Ho!

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  • Blocking ads on your home network

    Blocking ads on your home network

    You’re home, and you’re thinking of projects to do. What about setting up your home network to block ads?

    What is ad blocking?

    You may have used an extension in your browser to block ads, but when you block them on your network, you don’t have to configure each device. It’s not without it’s faults, some things will stop working. For example, if you try to click on any search results marked with Ad, the link won’t work. But, your browsing will be faster and I’ve noticed that ads in iPhone games are blocked.

    One other con against blocking is that you are depriving the website of revenue, revenue that they may need. It is nice to be able to enable the ads on certain sites, but that’s a real hassle when you’re blocking for the entire network. I don’t have a solution for this.

    How it works

    When you block ads on an entire network, what you’re actually doing is blocking access to the ad server in the Domain Name Service (DNS). DNS is used as a phone book for the internet, translating names such as ryancollins.org to its IP address so your browser can find the site. People smarter than I collect lists of ad servers, and with that information, the servers can be blocked with DNS. This means the ad blocking will work on any device, without configuration.

    Two options

    These aren’t the only options, but they are two very good options. The first one is the easiest and the second one is for the geeks among us.

    nextdns.io

    NextDNS is the easiest to get going. By following their directions for setting up your router, you can be ready to go in a few minutes. The site is currently free, and will remain free for up to 300K queries a month once it gets out of beta. Will 300K queries be enough normal usage? I don’t really know. My home network had over 3M queries last month, so probably not.

    They do have the option of apps for your devices, so the blocking can follow you outside of your home network. But, if you’re holed up at home like us, that might not be a big concern right now.

    Pi-Hole

    Besides having a really cool name, Pi-hole is pretty powerful. It is designed be set up and ran on a separate machine, and Raspberry Pis are pretty inexpensive. Setting up Pi-hole and running Pi-hole does require some work. If that scares you, it may be worth the $1.99/month to stick with NextDNS.

    The Pi My Life tutorial is pretty nice how how to set up a Raspberry Pi and your home network.

    Other advantages

    Regular DNS travels over the internet in plain text, allowing anyone to see the sites you are visiting. Your ISP or wireless carrier could be (probably is) collecting this information to sell to the highest bidder. If you set up pi-hole to use DNS-Over-HTTPS then your DNS queries are encrypted, and snooping eyes can’t see what you’re doing. Well, that’s not entirely true. They can’t know the names of the sites you are visiting, but they can know the IP addresses of those sites. You’d have to use a VPN to hide this information.

    Downsides

    Every once in awhile I have to turn Pi-hole off because a website won’t work correctly or a link wouldn’t work. It’s not too often though. And the lack of ads during normal browsing is well worth the little pain.

  • I guess I haven’t fired up Wii Fit in awhile

    I guess I haven’t fired up Wii Fit in awhile

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  • The Future of Conferences and more – This Geek in Review for 27 Mar 2020

    The Future of Conferences and more – This Geek in Review for 27 Mar 2020

    How will society change in the future? Some of the dominoes have started to fall. The value of conferences has been debated far and wide, but this year the question is moot since every conference is canceled, and a lot are soldiering on virtual. O’Reilly Media is going all in on virtual conferences and canceling their physical conferences. I wonder how many conferences will be virtual in the future?

    There are tons of reasons why being physically at a conference is beneficial, but I always wonder what virtual conferences would be like if employers gave employees time off to attend one. Let the employees stay home and attend a virtual conference. They can share what they learn when the conference is over.

    I’ve heard of elections being decided with a coin flip, but FIFA pros settle match with Rock, Paper, Scissors after a server error.

    Here are 2 hours of Seinfeld bloopers

    The bloopers were apparently created for the cast and crew, and this particular copy made its way to a flea market.

    Radiooooo lets you pick a decade and country, and will then stream the popular songs from your selection.

    A 4k, 60 fps Trip Through New York City in 1911

    After watching this video, I realized how lucky the people of 2120 will be. There will be millions of hours of HD footage of the early 21st century available, letting them essentially time travel to 2020.

    Mastermind turns 50! We played the crap out of this game growing up.

    SXSW, a major conference in Austin Texas shows off all sorts of pop culture, movies, and more. One big feature of the conference is the showing of up and coming filmakers. It was canceled this year, but Mailchimp stepped in to release the SXSW 2020 Shorts online for free.

    How good is the Space Shuttle Insulation?

  • Tara wouldn’t let me lick what looked like chocolate off of my watch so I cleaned it with a wipe. Now I’ll never know.

    Tara wouldn’t let me lick what looked like chocolate off of my watch so I cleaned it with a wipe. Now I’ll never know.

  • Hot dogs float when done, right?

    Hot dogs float when done, right?

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  • The Coronavirus Edition – This Geek in Review for March 20, 2020

    The Coronavirus Edition – This Geek in Review for March 20, 2020

    What an absolutely bonkers week. We sent students home at the end of the day last Friday for 3 weeks. I put together an online learning program in 4 days. Going out is grinding to a halt while the stock market tanks. One bright spot was the sign language interpreter with Governor Dewine’s press conferences.

    Unfortunately, she hasn’t been at the last few press conferences.

    Another crazy aspect of this pandemic is the scarcity of toilet paper. But where humanity taken, the internet giveths. Howmuchtoiletpaper.com will help you calculate how many days your TP supply will last.

    One of the greatest fears of the novel coronavirus is the exponential growth of the afflicted. These coronavirus simulations show how to flatten the growth curve. The simulations help explain why quarantines aren’t the best solution.

    A lot of celebrities are doing their shows where they can, and Conan is no exception.

    Handshakes are out, so why not put the Vulcan salute in.

    A ton of movies are now delayed including the next Bond movie. Almost all of the theaters in the nation are closed, which is causing most movies to be delayed. You know it’s gotten bad when a few Hollywood studies are actually putting their new releases online early for $20 rentals.