Achieve-IT!

Hacker or Loser?

The past four days I’ve been fighting off and recovering from a hack attack on Persistence Unlimited. 

I noticed a week ago that Windows Live Writer wasn’t connecting to the Blog and letting me post anymore.  WLW was throwing "parse errors" in the connection string as it tried to post.    So I had to use the web interface.

I figured it was because I had started increasing the size of the except fields for the Social search engines.  But when I looked under the hood, I found something far worse.

Someone used a Wordpress exploit to inject some nasty code into my site configuration. 

I commenced a clean up effort where I went through and picked out all of the references to the hack.  By downloading all of the site configurations, I could search them quickly on my desktop and re-upload them.

Once I was sure I cleaned everything up, I popped in a movie and took a break.  It wasn’t until Sunday morning that my friend Itzy, hit me with the news that we were down. 

I must have missed some of this jackass’s code.  Because it looks like he came in and wrecked the place.

The payload of the hack

Google referrals down - wayyy down - I noticed a dramatic drop in traffic a few weeks ago.  And I couldn’t figure out what happened.  Did I offend you?  Maybe a Google algorithm change?    Perhaps, but my traffic was cut by over 60%! 

Meanwhile, newsletter and RSS subscriptions were going up. 

Hmm…

In retrospect, I think Google had pegged the blog as a splog and was punishing me.

Stolen Adsense revenue - Here’s where script kiddies cross over into more serious crimes. Their script replaced my Adsense client id with a different one - purportedly their own. 

In my mind, this is the equivalent of breaking into someone’s place of business and stealing money from a cash register.  It’s no longer pranks, the individual has justified the act of stealing in their mind.  But not just stealing once, but stealing repeatedly - for long periods of time.

Numerous prescription drug links - Curiously, this pointed back to another blog where full pages were full of prescription information.  I like to use a "safe" browser when I clicked the link, so I whipped out my Pocket PC and clicked the link.  There was drug order links, etc.  But it froze my device.  So apparently, not only would this person want to sell prescriptions to someone who lands on their site, they have some dangerous scripts running that will damage computer.

What I’ve learned about this particular WP-Footer exploit

• Dumps usernames/passwords
• The code obfuscated - I followed the variables and methods into dead end after dead end.  Eventually, I just said I’d trace it back later and do a restore from backup.
• It shows itself to search engine spiders - not typical web browsers.  This is likely some blackhat SEO technique.  Get 1000 blogs to link back and your site search rating goes up.  Strangely enough, when I looked at the site’s search result in Google, they had 2, count them TWO incoming links.  None of which were from Persistence Unlimited. Gee seems like this hack is really taking them places…
• The code hides html - If you view the source code of a compromised site in IE7 you cannot see the <_wp-footer reference, but in Firefox it shows in the source.
• The actual hack links are viewable through Opera browser - If you are seeing some of the same symptoms as me, download Opera and take a look at your site.

Cleanup Progress

I am taking my time in cleaning up the mess.  I don’t want to be rash in restoring stuff and letting it back in.  Here are the steps I’ve taken so far.  Yes, there is more to clean up including comments and some images.

1.  Backed up the site

2.  Deleted all files from the Server

3.  Backed up the SQL database

4.  Reinstall Wordpress fresh

5.  Re-uploaded my theme

6.  Tested everything FAILED - The theme had some of the code in it. 

7.  Grabbed an older backup that tested to work!  Thankfully, I’ve been taking my own advice about backing up frequently.

8.  Report them to Google for Adsense fraud

Oh, and I changed all my passwords…

To conclude, I’ll say that this experience was a big disappointment.   Having someone hurt you and steal from you isn’t fun.  But it makes me more determined than ever.  As Sgt. Major might put it: you think your little spam attack script kiddie bullshit is gonna make me stop spreading the news!? my readers feel the need! the need. . . to succeed!   And while you’re jerking around with your 2 incoming links, I’ll go back to a real community….

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10 Tiny Things That Make My Life Easier

Beth Ziesenis a blogger at Avenue Z posted her 5 favorite things that make her life easier.

I happen to agree all the shortcuts she listed and have written my comments below her list:

As a sometimes stressed small business owner, I appreciate little things that save time and make my tasks less difficult. Here’s a little list:

1. Recent Documents Lists

2. Avery Write On Tabs

3. The Rules Wizard in MS Outlook

4. Two Screens

5. A Programmable Keyboard

Recent Documents - Although I’ve known about the recent documents list for ten years or more, I only recently started using it. I had written a Word doc and forgot what I named it. A friend said “Just look in recent documents.” aha.. yep, that was simple.

Avery Write On Tabs - I don’t know if brand names make any difference, but I like the post-it flags. They make great bookmarks for important data I want to remember. The colors are nice, sometimes I color code sections of my journal.

There’s a great mailbox overload fighting feature in Outlook in the Rules wizard. I use it to flag my most important emails for follow-up. And emails such as newsletter subscriptions get filed automatically. Really handy for keeping a squeaky clean inbox. (P.S. If you are drowning in email, you might want to give Speedfiler a try)

You’ve seen my enthusiastic recommendation for 2 monitors. Dual mons allow you to switch between views without having to minimize windows. It’s a great way to boost your computer productivity. You have to get used to turning your head though.

A programmable keyboard is a great time saver when you’ve got a start menu (schwartz) as big as mine. Rather than search through the muddied start menu, I can click my quick button and launch Visual Studio, Mind Manager or Live Writer.

Good list Beth, here are 5 back at ya:

Five little things that make MY life easier

Dash Command

Dash Command is a light and quick launcher application that is great for quick launching every application on your computer.

But it goes beyond launching. It auto-pastes text snippets (like email signatures). And it has some perks built in such as searching the dictionary from any program and getting to the command prompt instantly.

Jott

Jott is one of the best productivity apps out there. Like a personal secretary, it takes notes, sets appointments and transcribes your blog posts.

I find that while driving, I get hit with many brainstorms. I think of great blog posts or Achieve-IT! software enhancements. These would often go to waste because I didn’t want to key it in while driving or I’d record them into my Pocket PC - which would sit for weeks until I transcribed the notes.

But now, I call Jott and insert reminders into my Google Calendar. My GCalendar syncs with my Outlook, so it all ends up in one place. Also, I often outline blog posts in it by calling Jott and getting it to transcribe my notes to Evernote. Check out my Lifehacker post on the subject if you haven’t already.

MobiPocket Reader

MobiPocket is a free eBook reader for the Pocket PC. Sure, there are a lot of different readers and I’ve tried most of them. I like MobiPocket because it supports both a large collection of bestsellers and you can also load in different formats such as text and html.

But most importantly, you can load it up with the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It may not sound thrilling at first, but hear me out. When I’m reading a book and I come across a word I don’t know, I just highlight it and a menu pops up “look up in dictionary.”

This turns almost any book, article or novel into a learning experience.

As someone who resisted reading novels (as being a waste of time) I can now read a novel with the feeling that at least I’ll pick up a few new words to increase my vocabulary. That’s my story anyway…

Google Desktop

Where Beth points out the obvious benefit of the recent documents feature in Windows, what if the document you need isn’t so recent? That’s where Google Desktop comes to the rescue. I use it about every day to track down emails and find code components that are scattered about my hard drive.

The indexing system of GDS is remarkably fast and can pull up my results in less than a second.

free download: http://desktop.google.com/

NotePad

Yes, you read that right, I said Notepad. Notepad is the most basic word processor on your computer, yet it’s simplicity can be a great time saver.

With all the CSS, XHTML and sophisticated document formatting, you can’t just copy and paste text anymore. It picks up all that formatting and inserts it into the target document. That formatting can sometimes wreck havoc on the document you want to save.

Notepad will instantly strip out any and all of that formatting. Just paste in that text and away goes that hidden formatting.

Well, those are mine. What are 5 simple things that make your life easier?

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April Says: Don’t Win the Darwin Awards, Cure Your Headache & Make a profit…

Here are my favorite 3 posts from April.   Which are your top 3?

• 8 Crucial Ways To NOT Win The Darwin Awards
• Top 20 DIY Headache Cures That Bring Quick Relief!
• 7 Simple Ways To Develop A Profit Mindset

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12 Hacks for Becoming a D.I.Y. Master - Amaze Your Friends & Baffle Your Enemies!

Clive Thompson in an article in Wired indicates hacking or DIYing might be good for American Innovation. We aren’t talking about illegal hacking, but hacking in terms of modifying personal gadgets and other possessions so they work better.

Thompson says that where companies are persuading consumers to buy, use and throw away, the legions of DIYers out there aren’t buying into it. In fact, they are using, reusing, rebuilding and modifying devices so they work more efficiently, have better features and last longer.

As an example, he points to people hacking their hybrid cars to get up to 100 Miles per gallon. He questions why Detroit hasn’t been able to do this and says “One reason might be that the engineers there spend all their time tinkering with CAD software,”

I’ve posted some of my own DIYs, here and on other sites so I certainly believe that hacking is good for you. But I didn’t do it for the higher good of improving American Innovation. I do it to save money and to improve my experience with my various gadgets. If I can hack my Pocket PC so it will connect through a Bluetooth tethered cell phone connection so I can check e-mail while riding down the highway at 65 Miles per hour, then I’ve both improved my experience AND saved money on cables and added service charges.

So if we agree that DIYing is a good idea, how do we get started? It’s simple. Continue reading 12 ways to become a master DIYer:

1. Don’t fear trying something new -

When you are new to modding, you might be afraid to use a soldering iron, you might be unsure of where to start at first. That’s ok, start with general areas instead. What interests you most? Do you like electronics, computers, woodworking or knitting? (yes there are mods for woodworking and knitting.) But start in your preferred general area and get to reading.

Start with Google and search for “yourinterest hacks”. You’ll be surprised at what you find and how motivated you’ll be to get started right away.

2. Start with something small -

Rome wasn’t hacked in a day. So if you are just starting out don’t start with a build your own personal helicopter project. Start with something manageable like one of the many LED projects you can find at Instructables or Make.Then as you learn, try more challenging projects.

2. Find the area you love -

Some people like LEDs, others like robots, I’m a connection guy myself. I like connecting different gadgets and making them work together. As you begin your quest as a master modder, then you’ll start to discover what focus you like best. Stick with that area so you can increase your odds of inventing something new.As a master DIYer, you’ll increase your odds of inventing the next big thing.

3. Build before you buy -

Isn’t it sad the day you pick up your iPod or remote control and suddenly it isn’t working? Not necessarily if you are a DIYer. Broken stuff presents a great opportunity to get under the hood and see if you can fix it.Once my son’s iPod wouldn’t start. I tried charging it, soft and hard resetting it. Still, all I saw was the sad mac face.

So I did some surfing and found a trick that just might work. I pulled out my Leatherman, opened up the iPod and placed a business card folded up underneath the hard drive. Low and behold, once I put it back together, the iPod booted and played music! In fact, I tried it again just this morning and it works fine.

4. Conserve your cash -

I think most passionate DIYers don’t like buying new stuff if there is a chance they can fix or make better what they already have. If you can just go out and buy a new Tivo any time you want it, there’s no real benefit to building your own PVR.The master at DIY knows electronics and gadgets decrease in value faster than a new car in a blasting zone. So if we can save money by repairing what’s broken, we have more money to spend on new gadgets and hacks.

5. Teach as you go -

One of the best ways to embed knowledge in your brain is to teach others. This enhances your creativity and once you’ve got others who know what you know, then there is great problem solving power in bouncing ideas off of each other.

6. Write procedures -

Unlike an elephant, humans can forget. You might remember a time when a great family recipe was lost because your aunt passed away or developed Alzheimer’s . I know there are countless great recipes lost forever due to the lack of a written recipe. My Grandmother’s gooseberry pie? Lost for eternity. My grandfather’s fried chicken? Nevermore…How better would it have been if they handed down written recipes. I could have archived it in a family recipe booklet for this and future generations.

When you create a new hack, be sure to write up procedures. Procedures let you go back in case you forget a resistor, measurement or solder joint. Plus, procedures are an easy way for you to teach others. You can even post your procedures to your blog to teach thousands of people your hack.

7. Take photos -

Photos of the steps in your procedures are perhaps the most powerful descriptors. You save time, by not having to write every last nuance of detail. Also, pictures cross all language barriers. You don’t have to know French to understand the Eiffel tower. The picture says it all.

Photos will allow you to also communicate your craft effectively with people from different countries and backgrounds. Additionally, there are a few of us who can’t read our own handwriting, a picture can rescue that DIY from being lost forever.

8. Study the Art of DIYing -

When you’ve found the area of hacking you love, study it. Collect books, articles and You Tubes of projects that interest you. You never know when you might have a rainy day and a box of LEDs just begging to be put together into a new Infrared headset.

9. Collect Parts -

Let’s face it, gadgets break. They age, and they become outdated. That doesn’t mean you have to throw it all away. An old (out of warranty) MP3 player is a good excuse to do some hacking. Take it apart and collect some of the more valuable parts inside. LEDs can be reused. USB ports can be reused. Some memory cards are good too. But don’t go too crazy with saving every last part and broken gadget.

A desk drawer full of spare parts is good - a shoe box full of parts is better. A garage cluttered with parts is a sign you don’t know how to separate the wheat from the chaff, so you are collecting everything. If that’s the case, it’s time to go back to studying.

Professionally, I’ve cleaned up server rooms where the admin(s) saved every last piece of broken equipment. Stuff piled 5 foot high where you couldn’t even walk. This is a sign that they don’t understand the equipment, what’s valuable and what’s not. When I get done, all that’s left is a filing cabinet of hot spare storage, Software licensing and a drawer full of emergency parts and cables. If an entire network DIY setup can consume just 1 filing cabinet, your home parts should fit into a desk drawer.

Note: Use caution when taking apart something that plugs into a wall - especially monitors. I don’t recommend taking apart old tube monitors because the tubes carry a charge and you can electrocute yourself. Just use common sense and read up before delving into an area you aren’t experienced.

11. Finish your projects -

Don’t be like the guy who has a car up on blocks in his front yard for 2 years. Finish your project or throw it out. Master DIYers always complete their experiments - even if they fail. If you fail, no biggie, throw it out and start something new. But what’s important is finishing. You can’t reach anuber -level of hacking expertise if you don’t finish your projects - plus, having a bunch of half finished projects lying around is an eyesore.

12. Have fun -

Most of all, this should be a fun adventure. It’s exciting to create something new and make it work. Once you learn a new mod, you’ve got a new McGiver- like skill you can whip out in a moments notice to fix a gadget, hack a buggy program so it works or create something you can sell at a profit. DIYing presents endless opportunities for fun and entertainment on those rainy days when you’re bored with nothing better to do.

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7 Simple Ways To Develop A Profit Mindset

Profit is a bad word to many, but to others if they can’t make a profit, life isn’t worth living.

Regardless of your feelings about profiting, your ability to make a profit will decide many factors in your life. It will determine what you eat, your quality of health care, where you’ll live, and what you’ll be able to do with your free time.

“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try
again in a different way.” - Dale Carnegie

The power of profit makes it an important concept to understand and ultimately harness if we want to take control of our lives. If we don’t profit, we are leaving too much up to chance. We can’t get the knowledge we need. We can’t help others to the best of our abilities. And we can’t live our dreams.

You may be new to the idea of developing a profit mindset. So I’ve put together seven simple ways to develop the mindset so you can start profiting immediately:
1. Remember Interest is money earned - When you put money into the bank, it earns interest. Some argue that it’s not a lot, but the bank is the first place to start. You eventually want to move into Mutual funds and bigger investments. But when you are just starting out, the bank is the safest investment. Interest leads to more money. Each deposit becomes a little earner who brings back money to you as the interest accumulates.

2. Spend Interest, not principal - My father had a great saying for holding on to your money. ‘Spend interest, not principal’ What this means is your nest-egg should never be touched, instead, use interest. That way, your investments will continue to earn more interest.

3. Treat found money as savings - If you’ve ever gone through the attic or garage and found a 100 dollar bill. Woo Hoo! That’s found money. Inherit some money or get a paid bonus would be considered found money too.

The thing to do with found money is to immediately put the lions share into the bank or investments. Spend a little if you like, that’s fine. But be sure to get your investments handled first. Saving and then spending is the best of both worlds.

4. Buy a house - When you have a decent amount invested it is time to think about owning a house. A fixer-upper is a good place to start. A house will gain value over time. Don’t let the housing market scare you from never buying a house. The houses that are depressed right now will be worth a lot in the next 10 to 20 years.

5. Buy a modest dream house - Once, someone advised me to “buy as much house as the bank will loan you.” I think that is bad advice.

Sure you want to buy a house of quality, but be very conservative. When you stretch yourself out with high house payments, you aren’t compensating for when life comes along and whacks you on the head. People lose jobs, people get sick, sometimes a leaky roof needs a $10,000 repair. If you are stretched to the point of breaking on a house payment, you can’t afford much of anything else.

Therefore, it’s better to buy a house with a lot of wiggle room in the piggy bank.

6. Invest for long term, not short - Don’t buy into the latest trends. I’ve learned this one the hard way when I bought a bunch of Cisco stock in 2001. They don’t call it playing the stock market for nothing. If you are going to put your money on the line for an investment, think “how much will this be worth in 20 years?” If the answer is “not a lot” or “I don’t know”, then don’t invest. That means it’s not a good investment for you.

7. Find something to sell - Do you have a specialized skill at repairing something? You can purchase stuff that’s defective, fix it and sell it at a profit. I know a guy who collects old LCD monitors, repairs or tunes them up and resells them for $100 a piece. Often, he gets them for free, but then makes $100 a pop. Not bad money considering he makes less than $20 an hour when his day job is janitorial. This is pure profit that he socks away into the bank.

You too likely have specialized skills or knowledge you can sell at a profit. When you own your own product or service, your ability to profit skyrockets. It’s no longer dependent on the will or whim of employers.

For more info: If you are looking for some good books and resources on making personal profit, you might also want to check out JD’s Get Rich Slowly Post.

If you like this post, please vote for it on del.icious, StumbleUpon & Digg - I really appreciate it !

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-Brad Isaac

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Master Time & Money By Accounting for It

“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” ~ Edmund Burke

An article by Melissa Raffoni asks if you are spending your time the right way. Well are you?

It’s a good question.

Her concept here is mainly geared toward managers, but I think some of the points are good for anyone who wants to be more productive.

photo by sanja gjenero

The most important tip by far is the time audit. I’ve compared the time audit before as being like an income audit. If you don’t audit where your money is going, it’s likely you are LOSING money on crap. It’s the same with time, if you don’t know where your time is going, you are likely wasting it too.

And here’s the problem: Time is more valuable than money. You can waste money and still earn more, but you can never earn more time. Which makes the time audit all the more important.

“Take out last week’s calendar, and evaluate it using your newly established time allocations for each category. This will give you a sense of how much adjustment will be necessary going forward. Record how you spend your time in a time-management log—for many, this very discipline is half the battle.”

Let’s just suppose you are wasting your days now but don’t know it?   Isn’t that the same as not knowing your history?   And aren’t you more likely to repeat a history if you don’t know it?
You can do your time audit very simply by drawing a chart on a piece of paper or printing one from Excel. List your top goal, time with friends, time with family, time surfing the web, time doing real work each week. Then write down the amount of time spent in each area.

At the end of the week, take a look. And now ask yourself pointedly about how you’ve spent your time. Do you like the outcomes? If you aren’t putting major time into your major goals is there any question why you might not be doing as well as you would like?

If you are satisfied with what you did on the prior week, then great.   You’ve got a trophy of sorts you can use to model the coming week, weeks and months.  

1 comment

12 Memory Tricks for Better Recall

It’s funny how reliant I’ve become on technology to remember stuff. I have alerts to remind me of upcoming birthdays - at least 5 days in advance so I can arrange for gifts. I also have phone numbers, recipes, DIYs and other items that would be good to just remember stored in my Pocket PC. 20 years ago, my PIM or Personal Information Manager was my brain and a Franklin Planner. Today, I leave most of that up to my Pocket PC.

But there’s a twinge of regret that I can’t remember everything I used to. If I could remember more, I wouldn’t spend so much time searching. To commiserate with this feeling of memory loss and add some tricks that might improve the memory Tamim Ansary has a post that can help. 12 Memory Tricks is a collection of the strategies he is using to gain back some of that memory lost in the recent technology boom.

I haven’t has as much luck with his #4 Chunking or some of the more common association tricks. They seem to be too much work - I might as well just memorize stuff if I have to write a complete short story to remember a dozen items or so.

Personally, I find that relaxing is my best memory trick. If I am not rushed or feeling hurried, I can often relax and coax memories to come to the surface. Even dreams that I wanted to remember but forgot in the morning hours. If I sit still and relax, I can almost always bring them back.

What’s your most reliable memory trick?   Please share in the comments…

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Facing an Uncomfortable Past and Rolling Hard…

“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.” ~Golda Meir

I don’t like to revisit the past. If I move — I move. If I quit a job, I’m gone — that’s it. A prior home just doesn’t feel right — almost gloomy if I have to spend too much time there.

My friend says I “roll hard”. Meaning that when I roll, I roll on and do not return. If I quit a job, there’s no sense in me going back and hanging out. Back when I was in the dating scene, when I would stop dating someone, she would probably never see me again. I would fail miserably as stalker.

Part of me wonders if this is not true of all “forward thinkers”. I think about tomorrow, the next week, and the next year. Today is okay, but I’m always anticipating.

I like that quality about myself from the perspective of optimism. It tomorrow is going to be better than today, it is tough to get depressed. I am always optimistic about life working out well – even if it appears bleak at times.

But there is a weakness in forward thinking. Since today is better than all days in the past, my past feels bittersweet at best and miserable at worst. Not always… But sometimes.

I’ll sometimes look back to a time when I was having a great day and it feels, how should I say? Creepy. I think to myself “you call that happy? It’s not near as great as it is now.” It is sad to put it into writing because suddenly it feels like I’ll never have one of those “rocking chair moments” when I’m 85 years old. A rocking chair moment is where I am sitting on the porch with my wife as an old man reminiscing about the “good old days.” There is no way to reminisce about “the good old days” if there aren’t any.

I can see why some people run away and never go back. As if someone walks into your past life with an ax to chop up and defile the memories. You just don’t want to go back there.

Sometimes however, going back is required. A funeral of a loved one, a 100-year birthday, or a business trip… The first day of going back is hard, but he gets easier in the coming days.

Why? Because you aren’t really going back. Things are different. People have aged. The endless tick of the clock forges forward. Not even a bad memory can stop it. Today in Kansas is much different than it was 30 years ago. Progress has been made; they even have HDTV and computers! It’s just the filters through which I look are flawed.

The beauty of studying self-development is I have the tools where I can change those filters. Sometimes I do change them. But more often I just leave them be. I leave them alone because of the experience. After all, you can’t go around all day with a goofy grin on your face. There needs to be a balance — the yin and the yang. Awkwardness, sadness, and longing is part of the human experience. Accepting the feelings (as uncomfortable as they may be) is the strong thing to do.

Are you a forward thinker, past thinker or present thinker? How does that frame of mind affect your day to day life? Does it make it easier, more difficult or does it affect you in other ways?

3 comments

Finding Your Most Important Task of the Day

If you have ever struggled with what you should do here’s a simple tip that can help.

We know we are supposed to first focus on our top priority.  But sometimes determining which is the top priority, that’s the $1,000,000 question.  

I know when I’m stuck between two or more top priorities, I get stressed and often it takes much longer to start.  So here’s a trick I use to sometimes find out what I should be doing so I can get to work.

It’s pretty simple really.

1.  Take the tasks that are on your immediate mind, write them all down.   You don’t have to spend an hour doing this, spend five minutes if you’ve got it.

2.  Rank each task for DIFFICULTY:   You might say that taking out the garbage is a 2, while sitting and writing 3 pages of your book is a 9.

3.  Then, simply pick the most difficult task on your list and get to work.

Odds are, the task you feel is most difficult is also your most important. We have a tendency to put off tasks that we feel are most difficult. But tough work is also what brings the highest value. We get more rewards for completing the tasks other We get a lot of benefits from doing the most important tasks on on our list. We might be paid higher, we might receive more love or more commitment or more energy.

Do you have any unique ways of divining your most important action of the day?  If so, feel free to let us know about it in the comments below.

For more tips on getting the most from the day, subscribe to my RSS feed .

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Build Your Very Own Meditator — Or Not…

Ha ha ha… An funny retro piece over at Modern Mechanix shows a 1970 excerpt from the magazine Popular Mechanics. In it, they show how to build a meditator ‘tank’ for relaxation and reflection.

‘Bye for now, says the man of the house as he retreats into think tank….’

Aside from the contraption being huge, I just can’t imagine it being helpful for meditation. Seems like it would get stuffy and confining. The whole time I’d be thinking “Man this thing is huge. I’m going to have to take it apart after this and put it away.”

“The fun, then, in making your personal Meditator, is double: First you create 11 pholages (only the access panel is left bare), then discover the unexpected cross-referencing when you wrap yourself in the assembled panels. Beyond that, you’ll be able to compare responses with your friends. And when you feel you’ve exhausted the potential of a given assembly, it’s easy to paste new pictures over the old.”

I recommend for meditation some 25 cent earplugs and a quiet room…

via Boing Boing

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