Secret Laboratory
Music, News, & Global Affairs
Are you looking for SX in all the wrong places? Can’t afford Sex-Dot-Com…or Sex-Dot-Anything for that matter? Well there is new hope for those of us who wish to retire early on our earnings as Internet porn purveyors. No need now to pay ten million plus for a Dot Com that signals salaciousness like...
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On Sunday night I got to see one of my favorite comedians, Pete Holmes, perform live at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, MN. Pete may be best known for his voice-over work including that of the e*trade baby, but he is also the host of a popular podcast on the Nerdist network called...
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Little did I know that when I walked into the mall the other day I would be walking out the proud new owner of the Samsung Galaxy S III. This shit’s crazy! I have never owned a cutting-edge piece of technology. Even when I buy new stuff it’s outdated and on clearance. I don’t...
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Fall is in the air here in Minnesota—it has been for the last week or so. I know better than to assume that the raging heat of summer is over—we won’t see the last of that until September has come and gone—but at the moment, it’s 58 degrees outside and there’s a pleasant breeze....
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You ever hear of a browser called OPERA? It’s on the Wii, which I just had to use to log into my Facebook account because their McAfee checkpoint claims that I’m infected. …but Netscape also works… huh… that’s weird… I can understand Facebook wanting to protect users identities, but for something like this to...
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For many of us the public library lost its soul long before the coming of the Kindle. Libraries became multi-media, three-ring circuses: audio-visual tapes in one ring, computer centers in another, and books in the gradually-shrinking third. They had little choice, of course, as the disbursers of the public purse demanded entertainment for the...
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I’m not a sports fan, period. Considering that I live in one of the greatest (for the most part) countries in the world, that probably makes me abnormal, or at the very least Un-American. Really, who doesn’t like sports in the good ole USA? Probably just me and some random terrorist who wants to...
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I can’t take it anymore. This bullshit marketing scheme for soul-less, money-grubbing, corporate media sluts that for some reason thinks that it’s a brilliant, and dare I speculate, moral, idea to charge people admission prices to see performances by deceased celebrities via hologram is pushing me over the edge of no return. We’re...
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It isn’t my job here at the Secret Lab to tout products. But all the online nonsense about the Fragile Ipad got to me and I had to tell my story… This afternoon my five-year-old grandson ran past me with my first Ipad in hand. The Targus case was open and flopping in the...
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Ready to run for public office? If you haven’t registered your campaign domain name yet you might want to get that done first. Even more important, have you registered your full-name domain yet? That’s “yourfullname.com!” ”JohnJones.com” or “AlbertSmith.Com,” for example. A politician’s name is his brand name and if you don’t have that brand...
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If you ask a techie type the question posed by the title, you might get an more of an answer than you really need. You see, the question is a bit of a riddle, like the old “How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?” Of course...
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The main title of this piece is not a typo. According to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, as far back as April 10th of 2010, representatives from Apple Computers met with reps from Hatchett, Simon and Schuster, and HarperCollins, three of the largest traditional publishing houses in the industry. The purpose of this meeting? ...
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Friday, March 30, 2012 Cheap Mike Tours London, England! Pay-per-click hasn’t been working that well lately for Cheap Mike. Since Mike always tries to do his best by the economy and spend money, he turned to look for a new advertising source. His good friend AN-G, the Vietnamese entrepreneur, suggested using Fiverr.com For those...
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Writing A Book? Don’t Forget Your Website! Writing a book or thinking about writing one? Already have one published or online? Then think seriously about getting yourself a domain name and a website. There is no better way of bringing your name and your book some great cheap publicity. The big guys are doing...
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I had high expectations to write about the joys associated with my new iPhone this evening, but instead I hemmed and hawed about my endeavors in the online dating realm (if that’s what you want to call it) over at my blog http://intheveldhouse.blogspot.com/. Take a gander, if you’re curious about what kind of response...
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As you can probably guess by the title, this article isn’t for those of you that already know what you’re going to do with your new web address. Maybe you intend to put a web site on it; maybe you were only looking for a personalized email address; in any case, you bought it...
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The Kindle Improves On War and Peace! Makes it easier and more fun to read. I bought the book shown in the image above forty years ago. It weights almost three pounds. That’s a light-weight as paper copies of War and Peace go; five or six pounds would be more like it. I was...
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Centuries before Wellington and Churchill, Great Britain was saved from the barbarians by King Arthur. Legend has it that when England is once again in desperate trouble, King Arthur will return. His tombstone is said to read, “Here lies Arthur, formerly king, and king to be.” Twentieth Century author T.H. White modernized the quote...
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SEO, for those of you who might care but don’t know, is the acronym for “Search Engine Optimization.” SEO matters because it can mean the difference between a website appearing on page one of a search engine results page (like Google, Yahoo, etc.), or page 500. Since most searchers quit looking for sites after page...
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Authors, rejoice! You have nothing to lose but your unpublished manuscripts! Ebooks, Ereaders and Epublishing are the great levelers. You got the same 100% chance of getting published as Stephen King. You no longer have to send your book to half-a-hundred publishers hoping for an acceptance before you finally bite the bullet and spend...
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Hey Guys, Want To Meet New Chicks? Forget The Macho Stuff! Carry an Ereader! An attractive young woman actually initiated a conversation with me today at our local Dunn Bros. coffee shop! She was a college student, I think, studying for a test. If this happens to you all the time, then you’re probably...
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Fear not, gentle reader, you are not about to enter into the dark, criminal world of the “hacker!” Using the knowledge you accrue here will not bring Interpol or the FBI to your door. “Domain hacks” are neither illegal nor immoral; they are, in fact, creative, clever, and well-received by most netizens–excluding, of course,...
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“…The more they stay the same.” Or so says the French Proverb (“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”). Don’t laugh; it’s all true: “history would be more interesting if it were not so repetitious.” (I have no idea where that last quotation comes from, but I love it!) Watching the interaction—or lack...
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For those of us here in Minnesota, winter is not quite over. May is half gone and a few hours ago, it was 40 degrees outside. I had the fireplace on and the space heater going. Then the sun came out, the temperature jumped about 30 degrees, and I had to open the windows.
These days we hear a lot of talk about Global Warming. Whether or not there is any truth to it remains to be seen—and frankly, it doesn't make a damned bit of difference either way. Climate change is real—warmer, colder, whatever—but it has nothing to do with us and we're never going to prevent it. And since we got a foot of snow last week and it's going to be 90 on Tuesday ... well ... I'm not sold on Global Warming. The weatherman can't even predict rain, let alone tell us whether or not we're facing an inferno and/or an ice age.
This weekend is the fishing opener. This means very little to me, as I never bother with a license anyway. It's also Mother's Day. Recently I've been bombarded by emails from an online florist, suggesting that I send Ex-wife #2 a beautiful bouquet.
Never in hell. Maybe if they had an option to have the arrangement stuffed with angry bees; but barring that ... no.
To hell with holidays and bees and everything else. For the last 24 hours, Terencio and I have been plotting the future of this magazine. He even wrote his column and published a couple of articles. The next order of business is for me to write something.
And I might. I have plenty to say—none of it important, of course—but a meandering essay with no direction whatsoever is probably the best way to ease back into my routine. Politics? Not to start. Not today.
And ... meh.
—John T. Schmitz
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Founder, Maple Hills Press
editor@secretlaboratory.org
"I wanted my own column in the sidebar ... but now I don't know what to do with it."
"But sure you do! You write in it! That is what most people who claim the moniker of writer would likely do."
"But what do I write?"
"The resolution to that parable, my friend, lies upon the path that you must seek."
"Who are you?! And where did you come from?!"
"I am...the part of you that is, and will be, in all that we are..."
Hello Lab!
The voices are becoming louder and the cries ever more commanding. I hear them and I am working the best I can to whip myself into some kind of respectable shape and take back my claim to authorship.
So, I have been signaled to action from the Lab's headquarters. There has been much waking from many deep slumbers and now the drowsiness is fading and the challenges of the day are dutifully materializing before my conscience in their daily summons to contest.
No fear, Secret Laboratory! Power down the Bat Beacon, John.
John. John? Wherefore art thou? Come quickly and hear ye: The Lab is scheduled to receive a bright and refreshing burst of content! I have plans for at least one new category: Network Security
In the recent weeks I have become familiar with penetration testing software such as Backtrack and Kali Linux. These are Linux based Operating Systems that are used by network security professionals for white hat constructive hacking; and network exploiting operators for black hat destructive hacking. Writers of Secret Laboratory are free to show interest in this new category if you so choose. I will be producing content regarding how to crack WEP/WPA/WPA2 wireless encryption and how to protect yourself from such attacks, for starters. It only gets interesting from there.
For those of you interested in preparing yourself for this new world of fun and adventure, I recommend you go ahead and get the tools: Kali Linux
It can be downloaded at - http://www.kali.org/downloads/
The Secret Laboratory is in the grueling process of churning old gears and installing new ones to bring life into our world of journalistic comedy and tragedy. Sink or swim, this boat is headed out to sea.
I'm headed off to write a column now that the voices in my head have stopped...
But I can't seem to find John.
John?
Oh shit. Really? He's in the bathroom? Again? Geez, I'm glad I didn't have whatever he did. Must have been the pills. I'm glad I only had the purple ones...
"Hey John! Can you reach the mini fridge from in there? I think I need another beer!"
—Terencio Safford
Editor, Secret Laboratory
terencio@secretlaboratory.org
