Rant 1013 / Security Upgrades

Someone tried to log into my Facebook account on a few weeks ago. Good thing I enabled this security option that required access to my phone when logging in from unrecognized devices.

Changed my password upon being prompted by FB to do so and made sure this password is even more secure than the one on my tablet.

Of course I won't say how but whoever does hack into my account from now on by brute-force hacking my password must either have spent a lot of time on it or knows me in a way that no one else does.

This guy was from Saitama, Japan, according to FB, so he's definitely not anyone I know.

Slightly disturbing since the most logical path he took must have been through my blog or Google account.

Except you can't access this Google account without access to my phone - I've set it to require a one-time password sent to my number via SMS on every log in.

I say that he knew the FB account through this blog because this is the only thing that has had any contact with Japanese people. One of my past posts had received a lot of Japanese spam comments that I've never published. Probably an entire page's worth of them.

Or he might have found my Hotmail address, but that account's password is pretty strong too, my third strongest after my tablet's and FB's.

Or... he's the same guy who tried to access one of my Yahoo emails some time ago.



Regardless, I'm changing all my outdated passwords for the accounts I deem important.

...

Done. Now they're all kind of strong. I just wish Paypal would implement this one-time password feature.

Still, I heard Paypal is rather cool with stopping payments if something bad happens.
























Seriously, how do I yarn?

One manufacturer told me he didn't have the stocks he had on display on his webpage and asked me for the designs and yarns I have in mind for sweaters so that he could make them for me.

How do I specify what yarns I want and what specifications can I talk about?

I'm an ex-engineering student, a translation student, a gamer, a bad cook, a blogger and a terrible businessman, and this job isn't getting any easier.

Shops don't usually talk about these so I can't just look at the labels.

I guess I'll just have to do some trial-and-error experimenting.



















Whenever I visit the post office I always notice the stuff they try to sell there, like the terrible mobile phones and... potato chips.

It's a very small selection of goods and honestly I have no idea what they are trying to do.

Does anyone ever buy those?

Seriously, I have this sneaking suspicion that the chips are probably soft by now.

I get that the postal service probably isn't a very profitable business and this is an attempt at trying to stay afloat, but at best I can only describe it as "half-hearted".

When I look at what they are offering, I get this feeling that they aren't really trying to sell anything and the guy in charge is probably just humouring someone higher up.

Moreover, the post office in my neighbourhood is surrounded by convenience stores, an entire open-air market and a 24-hr supermarket. What's the point of selling anything edible?





















How nice! Just when I was about to run out of rice, one of the crappier brands offers a promotional offer of S$18.95 for 10kg. That's almost $10 less than what I paid for the premium brand Songhe I used to go for.

I wonder how bad it is.

If it isn't too bad, I might just stick with these relatively unknown brands of rice from now on.




















Filled the holes the knife made the other day with some putty. My mum had bought 2 tubs long ago for the floor and they've both dried up. The dark brown putty is now rock hard and the greyish one is slightly malleable but mostly hard.

On the tub there was a line instructing the user to add a little water when it's hard, so I added a little for both.

The solid putty remained solid, but the slightly soft one dissolved slowly in the water.

Used a tiny bit with my thumb nail to fill up the holes. I can still feel the gaps because I didn't file them, and I can see the grey spots that replaced the holes, so the whole thing wasn't perfect.

However I don't have to worry about finding anything trapped in those gaps. Who knows what might get in? I eat on this desk everyday after all. Soup? Water? That would be really bad for the actual wood under this top layer.