2 Bit Hacker

Recently someone pointed out that the contents of my e-mail signature are getting somewhat outdated, which stuck an idea into my head to update it. For a while now I’ve been using the following:

Chip Marshall <chip@2bithacker.net>     http://weblog.2bithacker.net/
GCM/IT d+(-) s+:++ a26>? C++ UB++++$ P+++$ L- E--- W++ N@ o K- w O M+
V-- PS+ PE Y+ PGP++ t+@ R@ tv@ b++@ DI++++ D+(-) G++ e>++ h>++ r-- y?

That jumbled mess is a Geek Code, a somewhat out of date, condensed representation of me. Given that the guidelines of the Code haven’t been updated since 1996, I’ve started looking into alternatives.

The first one I came across was OmniCode, which offers a similar syntax and a greater flexibility. However, the actual guidelines don’t seem to be well thought-out and the resulting code takes up too much space.

My second finding was the Hacker Key, which is again inspired by the Geek Code, and provides a further condensced format with updated parameters. I created a key pretty quickly, and tried the following on for size:

Chip Marshall <chip@2bithacker.net>        http://weblog.2bithacker.net/
v4sw5PUhw4/5ln5pr5FOPck4ma4u6FLOw5Xm5l5Ui2e4t4/5ARWb7HKOen6a2Xs5IMr2g6CM

It’s a little wider, but only two lines overall, and conveys approx the same amount of information to someone who knows what they’re looking at. I thought it looked kindof odd though, so I shuffled the components around and added in my PGP key ID, resulting in:

Chip Marshall <chip@2bithacker.net>
v4sw5PUhw4/5ln5pr5FOPck4ma4u6FLOw5Xm5l5Ui2e4t4/5ARWb7HKOen6a2Xs5IMr2g6CM
http://weblog.2bithacker.net/                        PGP key ID 43C4819E

It’s still a little wider than I’d like, but I could trim out a parameter or two to bring it back down. Haven’t decided if I really like it overall though yet.

Maybe I just spend too much time on these sorts of things…

PS: Oooh, what if I put the Hacker Key under the URL/PGP key line?

Chip Marshall <chip@2bithacker.net>
http://weblog.2bithacker.net/                        PGP key ID 43C4819E
v4sw5PUhw4/5ln5pr5FOPck4ma4u6FLOw5Xm5l5Ui2e4t4/5ARWb7HKOen6a2Xs5IMr2g6CM

Hmm…

It’s getting to be that time of the month again, when I start whining about how no one donates to the Hindenburg fund. Unfortunately, it’s gotten to the point where it looks like Jason and I are the only ones really using it, and it’s hard to justify the $90/mo to keep it operational.

So, I’m starting to think I need to start selling some services on the box in order to get a regular flow of money coming in. Cheap virtual web hosting seems to be the easiest to do, if I can find buyers who would rather go for my little locally hosted box over one of the larger services. $10/mo seems fair to me, and at that rate I only need to get 9 customers to cover the hosting costs. If I could even get 3 or 4 it would be a big help.

If anyone has ideas for other services, or would be interesting in hosting, let me know. I suppose I should do this in some sort of official fashion via 2 Bit Hacker Consulting.

Happy holidays to everyone and all that. Delia and I just got back from her aunt’s house after eating far too much tasty food. I’m now the proud owner of a number of shirts courtesy of Delia’s family, a few more t-shirts, a neat mug, and PixelBlocks from Delia (in addition to the EV mode kit and floor mats for the Prius she already gave me on the solstice,) and a Garmin nüvi 250W from my dad.

Over the weekend Delia and I got the new TV hooked up, and it’s looking good. I also decided to go ahead and get the Xbox 360, and I’m rather glad I did, as the TiVo HD turned out to be dead on arrival. For some reason it was stuck in a reboot cycle and couldn’t get past it’s initial welcome screen. TiVo support was pretty cool about it and are doing an advanced ship RMA on it, so hopefully I’ll have that soon. The Xbox has been filling the time we would have normally spent watching TV, so it works out, I suppose. For games, we picked up Assassin’s Creed for me, DDR and Katamari for Delia.

Unfortunately my bad luck with new devices has extended to the Garmin my dad sent me. It powers up then complains that it has no maps and is therefore useless. Garmin’s online support is equally useless it seems, as they try to load pages from RFC1918 private address space, or try to redirect you to hosts that don’t exist in the DNS. Their phone support is, of course, closed for the holiday. Hopefully tomorrow will be more fruitful.

All in all though, I’m happy. I still think Delia spent too much on me, and I feel bad that I didn’t get her more, which seems to happen every year.