Block Trend Micro’s Bots

Trend Micro is a company famous for its anti-virus software, yet not very famous for its invasive website crawling. It isn’t exactly something that the company would want to make public, considering how hypocritical the actions are. Websites have files named robots.txt, which tells search engines and other bots areas that are off limits, but […]

Hosting Japanese Exchange Students

Education things The Japanese folks that study in America all end up improving their English drastically, even in short amounts of time. Here in Japan, even though the people are clever, the education system is so incredibly broken and ineffective that they never reach their full potential until they go overseas. Japanese education involves a […]

North Korea’s Constitutional Reboot

With North Korea’s constitutional reboot, all mentions of communism have disappeared. The country has doubled down on it’s concept of juche, or “self-sufficiency”, which is a terribly ironic term for their “constantly beg other nations for help” strategy. While conceived in 1979, the concept of juche only really took off once the USSR fell and […]

Austerity for North Korea?

Whenever North Korea hits the news, people are able to have a laugh at its expense. Its behavior is akin to a screaming toddler at a supermarket who has been told that it cannot have candy; one of steadfast defiance in a situation that can only be won if the other side cedes. On the […]

Raspberry Pi Ordered and Shipped

The impossible has happened. The Raspberry Pi that I wished to buy back in February finally became available. The order has been made, and it is now due to arrive in mid-September, 7 months after the initial hysteria. Since my first blog posts, I have seen a lot of search queries bringing people to this […]

Netbooks and Tablets

Exactly 2 years ago I ordered an Acer Aspire One from Walmart.com, doubling down on trashhiness yet being blown away by the quality offered by both. For 220 dollars and free shipping, I ended up getting a tasty 1.6GHz processor, 1 gig of RAM, a scrumptious 160 Gb HD, and a deliciously useful Atheros network […]