MST3K

The guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (AKA MST3K) have a new project called The Film Crew Online. It's sort of a continuation of the work they did with MST3K. I'm giving it a recommendation based on how funny MST3K was.

Michael J. Nelson, the former head writer of MST3K, also has a series of MP3 files you can buy and play at the same time you're watching DVDs. They're available at a site called RiffTrax. It's a funny concept.

Mike Nelson has also written a few really funny books. My favorite is Mind Over Matters though Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese was pretty entertaining.

Cory Doctorow

Lately I've been listening to Cory Doctorow's podcast available from both his website CrapHound.com as well as from iTunes. On his podcast he frequently reads from his works in progress as well as some of his older stories. I've been finding them immensely entertaining. If you like Cory's work as much as I do, please buy his books to help support his efforts. He's a real stand-up guy. He used to work for the EFF, he gives lectures on the absurdity of DRM around the world, and he licenses many of his works under Creative Commons. All that and he edits one of my favorite blogs, BoingBoing. I don't know where he finds the time to do all of that but I'm glad he does.

Creating strong passwords

Gina Trapani has posted a great article on LifeHacker showing how to choose strong passwords that are also easy to remember. I've been using a variation of this method for a long time and have made slight modifications based on advice I've heard from security experts.

I use 2 classes of passwords. The weakest is used for the multitude of web sites which ask you to create an account but which store no financial or personal data about you. I reserve the strong passwords for web sites which store data which could cause me financial harm if it were to be discovered.

Choose something which works for you but which offers reasonable strength. Use the Password Strength Meter at SecurityStats to test the strength of your chosen method to make sure your passwords can't be broken too easily.

Steve Wozniak interview

10 Zen Monkeys has a great interview with Steve Wozniak (aka Woz), a personal hero of mine.

Woz is a true geek success story. He made his money from sheer technical prowess. The elegance of his designs are the stuff of legend. Through it all he's remained a genuinely nice guy, seemingly unaffected by his success. Just last week he was handing out t-shirts while waiting in line for an iPhone.

If you get the chance check out his book, iWoz. It's a great read about a fascinating guy. Another great book about the early days of Apple is Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made. The stories will give non-engineers a taste of what it's like to create something from scratch.