Flickr user airosche5's EDC

Many people (especially us geeks and outdoors/survival enthusiasts) hate to go anywhere unprepared. Most of us, whether we use the term or not, have what is called an Everyday carry (EDC). To paraphrase Wikipedia, an Everyday carry is a collection of small items carried on one’s person on a daily basis for use in everyday tasks from the mundane to the unexpected. These range from a minimalist but indispensable key-chain, to pouches/packs brimming with gear. Most items in an EDC get used daily/weekly, and others are more for survival situations with occasional mundane uses, e.g. a compact lighter, which a non-smoker might only use in a survival situation, but could also use to seal off the end of his fraying nylon shoelace one day. As one astute author said, “If you’ve ever asked  Can I borrow a pen?, Do you have the time?, Do you have a flashlight?, Can I borrow your pocketknife?, May I have a light?, then you need an everyday carry.”

Note: To get an idea of what an EDC looks like, and the incredible variety there is, you should scroll down the fantastic everyday-carry.com real quick and then jump back. There you can see user-submitted EDC photos.

People have carried daily use gadgets/items for waaay longer than the phrase has been around–my uncle Nyrath, for example, has the most excellent hip pouches that used to fascinate me for hours–but I like the widespread adoption of this common term because it facilitates discussions and searches on the internet.

I’d like to share my own everyday carry in this post, then share some resources where you can drool over other people’s EDC (if you’re a gadget geek) or just pick up a handy item or two for your regular-old key-chain.

The Evolution of my own EDC

I should note that most of my everyday carry centers around my key-chain, so a lot of this is specific to it.

The problem with first getting into EDC, or even just buying some tools for your key-chain (led light, bottle opener, pocket multi-tool), is that it’s very easy to load your pockets or key-chain up with all sorts of awesome items to the point that it becomes unmanageable, a pain to carry, or make you look like you’re smuggling doorknobs in your trouser pocket. Indeed this first step is almost a given unless you are very careful from the start about what you want the end-result of your EDC to look like. Sacrifices for bulk and weight vs. usefulness must almost always be made.

I hate having a bulky key-chain and yet I too went through this overdoing-it phase. I used to have the normal wad of keys on a standard split-ring and a carabiner, but disliked the feel of all that weight in my pocket, and hated sounding like a reindeer with them hanging off my belt-loop. Having decided to fix that once an for all, I relentlessly paired my key-chain down to just 4 keys and a remote-starter, and I loved it. Alas, it didn’t last long. Not long after the great key-purge I ran across some photos of really lust-worthy tools and gadgets on other EDC enthusiasts’ key-chains. I caught the bug, and started delving into the everyday carry community. Shortly thereafter, despite having just minimized my keys, my key-chain was loaded with all kinds of useful but heavy and redundant stuff, and it was once again an unwieldy behemoth.

Luckily, my second revision proved much more light and elegant. I found some tools that did the same job of two or three of the previous ones, and experimented with many carrying methods (split rings, carabiners, specialty key-chains/fobs). After a few tweaks here and there I now have my ideal EDC*. I should note that while many people spend hundreds on their EDC items, mine probably cost about $50 over the course of a few years (not counting my phone and designer knife) and almost half of that was in the form of christmas gifts. So fear not–you could easily spend only $15 and still have an indispensable ECD.

So, wanna see what my everyday carry looks like? Here’s an annotated picture, descriptions follow:

My Everyday carry

Tom’s Everyday Carry

Update: New photo and consolidated keyring!

1. SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4 GB - PortableApps.com package and a slew of other portable tools/utilities.
2. Inova Microlight – Very bright, inexpensive, and has 3 settings (high, low, strobe). Dang cover fell of the back of it after one week (and i didn’t notice till later) so I wrapped the sucker in electrical tape. Close enough.
3. Zebra F301-Compact – Writes very nicely. It’s the same length as my Fisher Space Pen and has a lanyard hole.
4. Gerber Artifact – I love this deceptively versatile little tool. I was originally going to get a County Comm Micro Widgy pry bar and some sort of bulky multi-tool for a knife, drivers, and bottle opener, until I saw the Artifact. Not only is it really unique looking, it does a lot in a tiny package. It’s a pry bar, two flat-head drivers, a philips (cross) head driver, bottle opener, and has a locking, replaceable X-Acto blade. I use it daily, making it an ideal EDC item. Also, it’s only $9!
5. Car & House Keys – I’m going to try my hand at making a DIY compact key holder for these (from copies of course) this weekend. It’ll make my keys that much less bulky, and may let me condense my EDC/Work keychains into one.
6. County Comm A&P Mechanic Cable Key Ring – These are secure and easy to get your tools off of in a hurry. I use them for all sorts of things. 1,2, and 3 are connected to the ring using Nite Ize tiny S-Biners, size 0.
7. Home-made spring steel suspension clip – I used carabiners for the longest time to carry my keys, but even the tiny ones got in the way when not using them, or held my keys too high to pocket them while clipped to my belt loop. This solves both problems by being small and clipping to my pocket (just like a pen-clip). It also prevents having everything sagging down to the bottom of your pocket and making a big bulge by keeping everything hanging. I made this one myself from a spring steel led light clip, and #16 from the inside of an old windshield wiper blade (an excellent source of spring steel). You can buy these pre-made (much prettier) from the EDC Forum Store.
8. Zippo – The original windproof lighter, of course. From my collection.
9. Timex Expedition T42351 Chronograph Tachymeter – Durable, sexy, highly functional.
10. Rite in the Rain all-weather outdoor journal – Fits in my back pocket and is extremely durable. Only pencil, ball-point, and sharpie extra/ultra-fine write in it without smudging though (due to its waterproofing).
11. Uni Kuru Toga 0.5 – I always hated using pencils before I had this. The lines were always uneven and I hate rotating the pencil every few words to keep the tip sharp. This pencil rotates the lead for you (scroll down to Product Details). It’s pure genius.
12. Lamy Safari Left-handed nib – A wonderful, low-priced workhorse of a fountain pen. The left-handed nib alleviates problems with ink flow and the possibility of the nib digging into the paper. It’s a joy to write with.
13. Boker Gamma Ceramic Lock Blade Knife – Stays very sharp as long as you don’t nick the blade on metal/stone. Plus it’s ceramic so it’s just plain cool!
14. iPhone 4 – Yep, I’m one of them.
15. County Comm Nylon LA Wallet – Very thin and you can flip it open to show your ID like a LEO.

I still need a compact lighter. My Zippo is a little big since I don’t smoke, and so don’t need it very often. I’ll probably get something akin to the County Comm Peanut lighter.

Everyday Carry Resources

• Everyday-carry.com – My favorite EDC photo/gadget pron/ooh-whats-that! site. It has lots of user-submitted photos and cool finds by the author.
• EDC Forum – A great resource for all things Everyday Carry. They also have a store that’s worth checking out.
• County Comm – I swear they aren’t paying me! They just have awesome gadgets. You’d need a backpack to hold all the stuff you’ll want to order from these guys.
• Unique Titanium – A little “designer” but has some good items.
• EDC Reviews – Over 300 reviews of EDC tools.

I should note some EDC communities have a disproportionate percentage of members with firearms. This could be part of an action-hero complex, but then again perhaps they’re a LEO, guard, etc. At any rate, if you’re licensed to carry a firearm, I’m not going to challenge your constitutional right. More power to you, as long as you’re safe and responsible.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve piqued you’re interest in peparedness and every day carry. You don’t have to use theterm if you’re self concious, but you should still carry some basic items with you. This is very doable for women who carry purses, and many already have most of the basic EDC items. I think everyone should have an everyday carry. It’s not about having the coolest or most expensive gadgets, it’s about being prepared, and not having to ask someone “hey, do you have a…”

* Your everyday carry wont stay the same indefinitely. New better and/or cooler gadgets are always being created, or just coming down in price. For example: how long have you had the same cell phone?

This morning, while browsing Amazon.com, I was annoyed (not for the first time) that Amazon didn’t have a link to add a book to your Shelfari.com shelf. Amazon has owned Shelfari.com for almost 3 years now, and every shelfari book page has links to but the book on Amazon.com, so this isn’t an unreasonable request.

My first thought was to search userscripts.org to see if there was already a script to do this and sure enough, there was. This is the way these things go. Luckily for me, it was broken and had been abandoned 4 years ago, so I got to do some coding!

If you don’t want to read all the blah-blah, you can get the script at userscripts.org or right here (direct install link).

Before I go any further, if you don’t know what greasemonkey is, crawl out from under that rock and scroll to the bottom of this page (and before you Chrome users start a Firefox flame-war, Chrome installs greasemonkey scripts natively!). And if you don’t know what Shelfari.com is, check out my short post about it.

The broken script, by “mathias”, puts the shelfari.com logo above the product image, and clicking on it links you to a shelfari search page for that book. I actually only had one small fix needed to make it work again. He was pulling the ISBN off the image url, which Amazon stopped doing a while ago. I updated it to use the ASIN embedded in every product page (as a hidden field).

After making the script work again, I noticed it was adding the link to every product detail page, whether it be a book, kindle, or cutlery set! That isn’t very useful within the scope of this script, so I added checks to make sure it only displayed the logo/link on book, ebook, and audiobook pages.

Clicking the Shelfari link will bring you to the book's shelfari.com page

This page comes up after clicking the link on amazon.com

Now, for those of you who don’t know what greasemonkey is you should definitely get familiar with it, as it is one of the coolest ways to customize websites to your liking. Greasemonkey scripts are small pieces of code that let you tweak websites exactly to your liking, sometimes adding tons of functionality. Its a Firefox add-on, and once installed you can install any greasemonkey script just by clicking on it, without reloading your browser. If you prefer Google’s Chrome browser, it installs greasemonkey scripts natively with no add-ons necessary!

I only did a small bit of work on this script, improving on another author’s work (as all good programmers should), but I think it’s immensely useful to shelfari users so I wanted to make it’s presence known. The next time some blog/article links you to an amazon page for a book and you want to add it to your “want to read” shelf, it’s only a click away!

There’s a good article at LibraryThing about ebooks, ownership rights, and priracy.  The article tries to cover a bit too much at once, but it did make me think about the effect of ebook piracy and how to combat it. While the author makes a good point with the figures from the music industry, you must keep in mind that music is very different from books in that whether you get music from a CD or digital, it is always consumed the same–listened to with headphones or speakers. Books on the other hand, until the last 20 or so years, were always read from paper. E-paper has reduced the differences between printed and electronic words, but reading, holding, and displaying paper books is still vastly different from doing so on an e-reader. I think these differences are important to increasing printed and electronic book sales.

Perhaps I’m oversimplifying, but I think one way to combat this downward spiral is to put much more emphasis on the value and worth that physical books have over ebooks. Sure one can build a digital library of thousands of books, and have them all accessible on one’s kindle, but where is thematerial beauty of that? The individuality of trade paperbacks and hardcovers? The beautiful rows of shelves lined with dusty tomes? That is what needs to be emphasized when battling ebook piracy.

The other aspect to battling piracy is to keep ebook prices low enough that someone who does prefer ebooks will buy rather than steal. This encourages would-be piraters to buy, and still makes money by encouraging ebook sales. Dropping the price also sends the message that ebooks have less value than their print counterparts, so ebooks are less likely to overtake printed books.

What is your take on all this? I’d love feedback!

Matt, Jesse, and I have been planning our trip to PAX East this year. I’m really excited for it, but it’s going to be hard leaving Amme and Gabriel at home. I wish they could come.

Amme is making sushi tonight. I made some yummy ramen but I may have to steal a piece!

Jesse and I have been playing a lot of minecraft again. We started a new map to try out the latest biome features. We haven’t made any mega-structures yet but I think we will after we save up enough resources and think of something really good.

I’m in an “ease of use”/”minimalism with a splash of color” sort of mood, especially with a flood of baby updates, photos, and videos on the way, which leads me to our current theme: P2. This is a wordpress theme I’ve admired, and had installed but not enabled, for quite a while.

I’m hoping it pushes the content to the forefront, and that it’s ease of posting will mean I update it more frequently (a constant battle for me).

The absolute best way to start newyears day: DBZ and breakfast in bed.

Coolest dog EVER.

My favorite trait, and the one I’m quite thankful to have, is what’s know as the photic sneeze reflex. Sometimes called the Peroutka Sneeze Gene or even ACHOO syndrome (how droll), this reflex causes one to sneeze when exposed to bright light. I had always assumed everyone had this ability, but scientists estimate it affects 18 to 35 percent of the population. Try it out: the next time you need to sneeze but are not quite there, look out the window at the sun or at a light-bulb and if it pushes you over the edge then you have the phenotype! The photic sneeze reflex has intrigued great thinkers as far back as Aristotle. We still don’t know which gene is responsible for it, but we do know only one copy is needed, and it isn’t on either the X nor Y chromosome. How it works is still unexplained by science, but many experts now agree that crossed wires in the brain are the cause.

Here’s one you may have tested back in high school biology: The gene that detects the odor of cyanide. Do you remember your teacher passing around a vial and asking if you could detect a sweet almond smell? That’s what cyanide smells like to around 20 to 40 percent of the population. Studies have also found that men are less likely to smell cyanide than woman. About 18%-20% of men are not able to smell cyanide at all, whereas only 5%-10% of woman cannot. The rest of the population is able to detect the smell in significant quantities, but only 40% can smell it in trace amounts.

Quick, clasp your hands together! Now look down at your thumbs. Most people place their left thumb on top of their right one. Try clasping your hands so that the opposite thumb is on top and you’ll notice it doesn’t feel quite right. As random as it may seem, hand clasping with the left thumb on top is a dominant phenotype.

Do you have caveman fingers? Some people have hair on the second (middle) joint of one or more of their fingers. If you have hair on any of these middle joints then you posses the dominant phenotype. I was just kidding about the caveman thing–it doesn’t mean you’re less evolved, the absence of this hair is just based on a recessive allele.

Speaking of digits, next time you’re barefoot or in sandals, look at your second toe. If it’s longer than your big toe you have what is called morton’s toe (or sometimes “Greek foot”). Although this is a dominant genetic trait, it’s part of the genotype of only 10% of the world’s population (and can be a real hassle when sizing Five Fingers)!

There are many other common and observable phenotypes, but these are some of my favorites. To learn more about genetics check out Wikipedia’s series on the subject (be sure to scroll down to Related information at the very bottom).

Sources:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-bright-light-cau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex

http://www.helium.com/items/1532959-human-genetic-traits-with-complete-dominance?page=2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton%27s_toe

“Sneeze” by wise.adam
“Green Poison” by ohsoabnormal
“sparkle Toes” by Robert S. Donovan
“Gravestone Sculpture 2″ by fallingribbons
“tiiiiiiiiiny camera, maaaassif lens” by Abulic Monkey

UPDATE: Our latest creation (Jesse, B, and I).

Jesse and I have been dedicating all of our spare time to it, and recently got Matty B. doing the same. We both started playing single player but after a while wanted some company, so we took the logical step–multiplayer. There’s a major problem with multiplayer in Minecraft however, besides alpha software bugs, and that problem is griefers. Griefers are A-hole sociopaths that derive pleasure from harassing other players, or in the case of Minecraft, demolishing other players’ painstakingly build creations on public servers. We tried creating a cool cave underground and hiding the entrance, but that eventually got discovered, and really who wants to live in fear of someone ruining their hours of work? We decided to just start our own server and prevent anyone else from editing on it except people we know and trust. If you’re someone I know well and want to use our server you’re very welcome, the map is infinitely big (okay, not mathematically so, but it’s as good as) so as long as you don’t harm our creations and agree with our rules, we love the company. I’ll just have to give you build permissions, and you’ll need the full Alpha (paid) version of the game since we run an alpha server.

Something funny happened on Reddit 3 days ago. In this posttalks about how, since Gabe from Penny Arcade has recently started playing Minecraft, we’ll soon see a comic about it. Also, the comments mention that this isn’t good because the influx of new users will surely take down the Minecraft web server.

Lo and behold, the next day we indeed get a Minecraft comic (he’s going to make a huge wang, isn’t he?), and shortly thereafter, the server died:

This is a temporary page.
Minecraft got way too popular for this humble server. I’ve had to disable everything fancy to even get it to run. It went down on Saturday, September 18.
It will probably go back to normal on Monday, September 20.

I’m glad Minecraft is getting so popular, and I don’t mind the downtime, since it means the game will only get much better due to having more players/revenue. It really is a fantastic game, and the retro graphics give it a great nostalgic vibe. If you want better graphics, check out the painterly pack.

If you want to know more about game-play in Minecraft, go here and scroll down to the bottom to “Day 1″. It’s hilarious and gives you a great insight into what the game is like. Also, Minecraft is currently free to play while the server is being updated (it’s up now so you can download, but he’s working on improving it), so go give it a try!

I just started a new job for the State of Maine Office of Information Technology (OIT). I’m working out of Augusta, which is a decent commute for me, but even after gas I’m making much better money, and the experience so far has been great. I’m just finishing my second week here. The people are really great and there’s no shortage of things to do. I’m working out of a huge office building (1.3 miles circumference), and the state has numerous departments located here. Every day I’m learning how to find my way to a new office and meeting new people there.

As the title suggests, we also have just moved–I told you we were busy! When it rains, it pours, and our lease was up so even though we had lots of other things going on we had to decide whether to stay another year or find a better place. Our old apartment was great but there were lots of little things that were wearing on us, things that can’t really be fixed by maintenance, so we decided to look for greener pastures. We checked out many places but finally found a place, and a landlord, that seem to be a perfect fit. We’re about 15 minutes from our old place, and have most amenities within walking/bicycling distance. There is slightly more square footage and it’s much better distributed. Also, the windows are huge! There is light flooding every part of the house (I love that). If you want our new address just drop me an email.

The cats adjusted quite well, except theres one closet that causes Riley to start whining pitifully whenever he goes in to explore it. I’m not sure if the things in there smell like the old place and confuse him, or if he’s sensing a poltergeist-like portal to another dimension just behind the shoe rack. Bruski, as always, took the move in stride and didn’t seem to mind in the least.

That’s about all the news we have for now, so digest, digest!

from http://www.ussoccer.com

Today USA had a match with Algeria that would determine whether they stayed in the FIFA World Cup or not. I’m not usually a big sports person, but I played soccer for a good part of my childhood and it’s probably my favorite team sport, shortly followed by curling (don’t judge… either know curling is awesome, or else you’ve never watched a full match). The reason I’m blogging about this match is that it was one of the most immensely frustrating yet ultimately rewarding matches I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll spare you the play by play, and cut to the meat of it.

Twenty minutes into the first half, USA player Clint Dempsey scored a goal that was nullified because the refs called him for being offside, however instant replay shows it was valid. Over the next 70 minutes, neither side scored a goal, although there were some close calls and the tension was incredible. After the 90 minutes of the match were up, play was extended for stoppage time (time lost during substitutions, injuries, etc). One minute into stoppage time, Landon Donovan took a shot, was blocked, and on the rebound slammed it into the net. The stadium went apeshit, and the game was over. After being robbed a goal, and for the rest of the match feeling like all hope was lost, that one point felt like breathing for the first time.

Go Team USA.

I know it’s not as fancy as the old one, but I think it’s a much nicer reading/viewing experience (less clutter and fluff, more information density). Lemme know what you think.

FYI: I still need to reimplement mouse gestures. I’ll let you know when they’re back.

Since I can barely remember the whole blur of a weekend, I’ll rely on photographs to tell most of the story, with some highlights thrown in along the way. If you’re on a mobile device, take heed; this will be bandwidth intensive.

When we were looking for the Hynes convention center we knew when we were close. There was a long line of people coming from the MTA stop all going in the same direction, and the cosplayers were a pretty good giveaway. We decided to park in the garage next-door, and by the time we got there the line was moving swiftly.

Blur is definitely due to my jogging and not my poor photography... definitely.

Aww yeah, the boys in the house! (Jeremy, Trevor, and Jesse)

By the time we got in the keynote was full, but I’ve watched the video and Wil knocked it out of the park. Watch it below:

We decided to go to the NVIDIA event which required waiting in line, but not for too long. While we waited we busted out the DSs and loaded pictochat. We got our chatroom to fill up with the people around us who also had DSs and, of course, it quickly evolved into an epic wang drawing contest; Lulz were definitely had. The staff passed 3D glasses out a little before we went into the theater, and jesse’s had a patch of green on the inside of the bridge. I didn’t think much of it at the time.

Jesse blowing up a thumper while waiting in line.

At the event they debuted the new GeForce GTX 480 for the first time ever! I have to say I was impressed. Besides the somewhat novelty 3D capabilities (which do look pretty awesome with the flicker glasses we got to use at the expo hall booth) it does realtime ray-tracing! If that doesn’t impress you, suffice it to say that that’s amazing. The real treat came when they announced two people in the audience (out of about 3000 there) would be getting a free GTX 480. They told everyone to look on the bridge of their glasses for a green mark, and wouldn’t you know it, Jesse was one of the winners! We were really happy for him, because he of any of us will get the most use out of it.

Waiting for the NVIDIA event to start

There were plenty of places to play games around the convention center. The expo hall was full of videogame companies demoing their latest offerings, there was a classic console (NES, Super NES, ATARI 2600, Sega Genesis, etc) room, a current console room, an arcade, a PC gaming room, a handheld lounge for playing DS and PSP, and tabletop rooms everywhere. It was basically gamer heaven.

Trevor dominated Tetris all weekend

The Classic Console room

Console Room

Console room

We HAD to play the latest Katamari Damacy

Heck yes! Buck Rogers!

I have to say, Sumo rocks for plastering the hand-held lounge with giant beanbag chairs. They offered a much needed respite between gaming, concerts, talks, and the constant onslaught of awesomeness. We played The Downfall of Pompeii, magic, and of course Mario Kart DS on them throughout the weekend.

Trevor and I playing Pompeii

Jesse and Jeremy on a Sumo

Much Magic the Gathering was played:

The first night we decided to go to a screening of a D&D GM documentary. After sitting around a while we were told they were trying to locate the DVD. Shortly thereafter Mike (aka Gabe), the artist of Penny Arcade, came in and went to the front of the room. He told us the documentary people did show up, but wanted to know if we’d like to have an imprompteau GM Q&A with him! Mike (as well as Jerry) is an amazing GM, so what had promised to be an interesting evening turned into an enthralling one. The Q&A was very educational and funny as well. The best part about it is that until recently, Mike wasn’t into D&D at all.

The next day we got to the convention extra early so we could go to the Penny Arcade Create-a-strip panel, where we get to watch Jerry and Mike script out and draw a strip. To our surprise they made the comic about the events of the previous night!

Scripting

Scripting

Initial sketch

Initial sketch

There were, of course, some hijinks…

centaur

The finished product:

The finished product

Someone asked Jerry to sing the song he wrote, My Belruel, and it was both lilting and haunting. The dude has a great voice. You can hear him singing it from back in 2007 (it’s kind of a tradition now) here.

There were some really cool booths in the expo hall:

NVIDIA and their "Crank that shit up!" slogan

APB

Trevor playing Left4Dead 2 for the first time!

While Jesse and Jeremy played PC games, Trevor and I decided to take a short break to exchange some geocoins in a local geocache.

Found!

We went to “An Evening with Scott Kurtz” on a whim, and it turned out to be one of my favorite moments at PAX East. Scott told the most hilarious and touching stories, and the whole atmosphere was very close and intimate. He certainly gained a reader for life in me.

Sunday morning, the final day, we went to the Blamimation panel by Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub. We had a hell of a good time and played a small part in scripting/recording the next Blamimation.

Blamimation panel

Dueling collaborators

We didn’t make it into the first PA Q&A, but we did make it into the second one. Someone asked Jerry and Mike to arm wrestle. I forget who won.

The autograph line was pretty epic, so we played magic while we waited.

Playing magic on a food tray

Epic waiting line (we started out pretty close to the head)

I got my Nintendo DS signed by Jerry and Mike, and my badge signed by Jerry, Mike, Robert Khoo, Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub, and musicians Paul & Storm. The autograph line filled up before we could get a place on both of the days that Wil Wheaton was there, so that sucked, but that was the only bad part of the whole weekend.

My PAX East 2010 Badge

That’s all I can remember! I have quite a few videos I’ve yet to convert and upload, but I’ll link em’ when they’re done. For all the PAX East photos you could ever want, including some sweet cosplay outfits, check out flickr and this forum thread. When the unofficial community DVD comes out, there will be information at this site. Finally, search youtube for some great performances by Jonathan Coulton, Paul & Storm, VGO, and many more.

I started using Baking Soda shampoo late last year and it’s been going fantastic, so I thought I’d share my experiences.

I’m not exactly sure why I first decided to look up baking soda shampoo, but I think it had to do with the fact that my head gets so oily. I shave my head down to about a half centimeter and I hate exposing my scalp to soaps/shampoos filled with chemicals. I know there are great natural hand-made soaps (Amme uses local handmade soap) but I remembered reading somewhere that you could make your own baking soda shampoo and liked the idea. A quick search online revealed two things: 1. My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, lots of people make and use it. And 2. It’s dead simple to make!

The best reason to stop using shampoo is the long list of chemicals most contain. If you’re scared by the long unpronounceable names on shampoo labels then baking soda is a great alternative. Baking soda shampoo is also a great once-a-week (or whenever) clarifier or “de-gunk-ifier”. Another bonus is savings. While some shampoos are quite cheap, baking soda is even cheaper. I like it because it keeps my scalp clean without stripping so many natural oils that my head goes into overdrive replacing them (the most common cause of excessively oily hair).

I learned most of what I know about baking soda shampoo from naturemoms.com, and I highly recommend you go there and read the excellent article. I use their technique for massaging it into my scalp, pay close attention to that section, and use about the same amount that I would for shampoo. WikiHow also has a great article on shampoo alternatives.

My own favorite recipe for baking soda shampoo is this:

Fill your container (a water-tight one you can get your hand into) 3/4 full with baking soda. I add the tiniest pinch of xanthan gum (you can pick it up at most health-food stores and a little goes a long way) but it’s strictly optional. You can also add a drop or two of your favorite essential/scented oil. Then just add enough water to make it a paste, about the consistency of toothpaste. Put the lid on and shake it well and you’re done!

If you find the mixture too thick to massage into your hair, or if your hair feels wiry, then add more water. If the baking soda settles out overnight (which can happen if you mix yours more watery and don’t use xanthan gum) just give it a quick shake before you use it.

Make sure to rinse your hair thoroughly and, just like regular shampoo, remember not to get it in your eyes!

Blotner L-85 IFC

I’ve added a bunch of UrbEx photos to flickr for the Blotner IFC, FJETC, Runway POL Garage, and the Dow WSA.

As always you can also view my photos by following the Photography link at the top of my blog. Thanks for viewing!

At any rate, this is the playlist my brain has created in the past two days:

• Bonnie Raitt – Something to Talk About
• Bob Marley – I Shot the Sheriff
• Fleetwood Mac – Landslide
• Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer
• Metro Station – Disco

So, what random songs have you had in your head lately?  Don’t be embarrassed… hell, Landslide is up there.

The exposure time on these photos range anywhere from a few seconds to over a minute, I basically put it on manual (“bulb”), held down the shutter release button, and waited for a strike. When I saw one I let go and repeated. These aren’t as close up as some of the others I’ve taken, but I’m really happy about how many I managed to capture! You can also check them out in my photo section or as a slideshow. If you’re interested, you can see my previous lightning photos here.

photo by Jurvetson (flickr)

Tell your average hipster that they can use VZ Navigator on their phone to get directions to the coolest new club through a GPS chip in their phone, and they’ll probably think its pretty neat. Tell the same thing to your average healthily paranoid geek, and they’ll hopefully question how else it might be used. Sure its cool, but if Verizon can do it, so can the government. On top of that, they may also turn on on your mic even when you’re not on a call. In a follow up to my article on FBI cell phone tapping, we’ll be discussing how you can be tracked on your cellphone, and under what circumstances.

UPDATE: See this article on cellular phone company tracking

Flip a switch and your cell is a bug

There is at least one documented instance where a case against the Genovese crime family relied on evidence collected by activating one of the defendants’ cell phone microphones (not during a call, but while it was not in use!) to use it as a “roving bug”, recording all conversations in its vicinity. This was done through the cell provider, and could be used against any civilian if a court order is given. The ability to do this is latent in most any modern cellular phone, and requires no physical contact with the device.  Some sources say all GSM phones are vulnerable, while others say it depends on the manufacturer:

from nets.zdnet.com

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. “They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time,” he said. “You can do that without having physical access to the phone.”

If the civilians can find you…

Arguably worse than turning your phone into a bug, it seems any civilian could potentially track you with the help of paid services like Accutracking, uLocate, World Tracker, and Flexispy (just to name a few).

To use these services, the spying person often needs to install the software on the victim’s phone, however the spying person need only have the phone in their hands long enough to navigate to a web page with the phone, and enter their user code. This causes the spying software to be downloaded to the phone and enabled.  In some instances, the user will be sent a seemingly innocent text message that requests they download some software.

Once installed, the offender has a web page where they can view all manner of information.  If the phone has GPS, you will get their exact latitude and longitude. If not, you get the CELL ID of the tower they are closest to, or their general location through triangulation.  Most of these programs also give you the phone’s in/outbound calls and text messages, all without giving any indication to the victim that this information is being transmitted.

…So can the Feds

It almost goes without saying that government agencies have a much finer grain of control over tracking your location.  Due to September 11th and e911 compliance, by 2006 all cell phone carriers were required to provide the ability to trace cell phone calls to a location within 100 meters or less.  Since many rural areas lack the necessary density of towers to triangulate to that accuracy, cell phone carriers instead integrated GPS technology into cell phones.  Often times this chip isn’t accessible to the user, so don’t think that just because you can’t see it, it isn’t there.  Some networks do have that density, however, and your cell carrier may be able to triangulate your position based on your signal strength to each tower your phone connects to.  In these cases, then the more populated the area you’re in (and hence the more cell towers around you), the greater the accuracy you can be tracked down to.  And for any of you would-be 911 pranksters:

from ezinearticles.com

when the person who has the phone has made an emergency call, this GPS transmission will always be sent. This is designed to ensure that the police can always track a cell phone location, in order to get help to people who need it.

Another way the government can pinpoint your location is through the use of a technology called a Triggerfish.  Triggerfish are pieces of hardware that emulate a cell tower.  Once your rough location is determined based on your connection to a cell cite, a triggerfish can be deployed (perhaps in an unmarked black van?) to home in on your signal.  Triggerfish can also get your phone’s unique IMEI and serial numbers, phone numbers, and other data.

Update 2-11-2010: Apparently it’s completely legal for the feds to track you without a warrant.

What you can do about it

In the case of the Genovese family case, the court denied motions by 10 defendants to suppress the conversations obtained by “roving bugs”.  That being the case, I would personally not count on arguing the legality of being bugged or tracked after the fact.

The first precaution I would suggest is to never let your phone out of your site, and not download files from untrusted sources.  Beyond that, the only sure-fire way to make sure you aren’t bugged or tracked through your cellphone is to take the battery out when you don’t wan’t to be… not very practical for the average joe.

If you watch or read a lot of techno-thrillers you probably know the trick of buying a disposable pay-as-you-go phone (with cash).  This is possibly the only way to make sure you aren’t tracked, and even then you’ll need to change phones quite often to avoid patterns.  All that, however, is beyond the scope of this article.

In reality, while using a celular phone you are at the mercy of the government, the FCC, and the phone company.  The best defense is to stay off everyone’s radar by not doing anything that arouses suspicion.  For as they say, being a “law abiding” citizen isn’t the issue, whom defines “law abiding” is the real issue.