headache on my mind
I administer coffee
amplification
I administer coffee
amplification
For as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with not having anything in my pockets. Of course, that isn’t usually possible because generally I always had to have my wallet and keys in my pocket. In the early 2000s when everyone started getting a cellphone I was resistant. One of my primary barriers to entry was the distaste of having ANOTHER thing to store in my pocket.
Now I have three things: wallet, keys, iPhone. I cannot live without these three things, so I have to cope with heavy pockets. I can’t do much to adjust the weight and heft of my phone and my keys (I assure you I keep them very slim). My wallet, however, I do have full control over. I’m adamant about keeping a streamlined wallet. Why doesn’t everyone? When I see people pull out a giant brown brick (from their BACK pocket no less) I am shocked, and often angry. Why are you keeping all your crap in there? Why do you have such a huge wallet!? It is time for a wallet audit. Look at what I have in mine.
My wallet from BellRoy has exactly 5 items in it.
- Drivers License
- Debit Card
- Credit Card
- Key Card for my building of employment
- Swiss Utility Card
Sometimes I put cash in it also, but I almost never carry cash anymore. It has no folds, three slots and that is all I need. Every time I put it into my pocket I get excited about how thin and light it is. It is easy.
First thing is first. You probably need a new wallet. Listen to the good people at Bellroy; you need to dump the trifold piece of garbage. All that extra leather is the problem. You should only need a card sleeve and nothing more. Then it’s time to look what is inside.
Credit/Debit Cards
If you have more than 2 credit/debit cards in your wallet you are living your life incorrectly. You could probably stand to cut some of those cards up and throw them away. You need a single debit card and a single credit card with you at all times. Leave the rest at home for your online shopping or whatever the hell you keep them around for.
Gift Cards
Do you have a Target gift card with $2.51 left on it? You have that $25 gift card for the Crave you have had since your birthday three birthdays ago diligently waiting for it’s big day to shine? Those useless cards take up a ton of space in your wallet and hardly ever get used. Here is my pro tip, keep the various gift cards in your car glovebox. Generally you will always be taking your car to the gift card’s rightful home anyway. Same with punch cards.
Change
Change is for kids. You have no business keeping change in your wallet. Weight to value change is totally horrible. Dump it in the tip jar, or put it in your car. Once a year you can cash it in and get a smooth $20 out of the deal.
Receipts
I hope in 2013 you have found a better way to store receipts than to keep them in your wallet. I have seen people with just STACKS of white receipt paper in their wallet. They are eventually going to file them all or something. First off, you need to learn about the internet. All of your credit card swipes are recorded and you can easily view them all, along with the date and location. If that is TOO easy for you, then you can take a photo of them on your phone and store them with DocuScan or Evernote or one of the hundreds of other apps.
Business Cards
This is a special case because it really depends on your business. I personally have no need or desire to have any business cards in my wallet. However some of the people I work with need to carry about 20 of their own, and collect a ton from other people. For the people that NEED to deal in business cards, I suggest finding another storage solutions such as: a card holder, laptop bag, or briefcase.
For those of you who don’t have a need for business cards, but still have a bunch in your wallet, I wish I could slap you in the face. Take them out and throw them away right now. If you get a business card you want, take a photo (assuming you have a smartphone of course) and add it to Evernote or whatever service you use.
Membership Cards
Things like gym memberships and AAA memberships cards you can most likely just leave in your car. Or you can keep a photo of them in your smartphone!
Trash
This next category needs little explanation, things like: buttons, paperclips, ticket stubs, bandaids, photographs, notes, and whatever else you have, throw it away.
Let’s go into some real-life examples of me auditing the wallets of my friends.
This is my friend Brian’s wallet. Look at all of that junk he could easily either throw away or keep in his car. There is no reason to junk your wallet up like that! Also notice his wallet is a bi-folder, all those extra layers of leather are almost doubling it’s girth. SLIM UP BRIAN!
Another of my friends Stephen. He has a TRIPLE FOLD wallet. That is so many unneeded folds giving it tremendous girth. In addition he is carrying 6 credit cards. I can’t imagine he needs all of them with him at all times. I bet some of them haven’t been used in months. As usual the regular amalgamation of gift cards, punch cards and business cards need to be removed.
Are you motivated yet? Perform a wallet audit today and send me the before and after pictures. I want to see them.
Ever since Evernote was hacked and the password database compromised, I started getting concerned about my passwords being broken and my accounts hijacked. I took a serious inventory of my passwords and I didn’t like what I saw. Although my “master password” was long and secure, it was the password I used for way too many accounts… Access to one of those accounts meant I was vulnerable to having my bank account accessed. But how can anyone remember more than one truly “secure” password?
I committed to finding a solution that was memorable, secure and different for every site I visit. I stumbled upon a popular xkcd comic about password strength. It made me think.
The good news is, I can use phrases to make secure passwords, which can in fact be easy to remember but hard to break. But unique for every page? That is still a challenge… Then I remembered hashing technology. You can feed anything through a hashing algorithm to get disgusting-looking secure passwords like these:
- b0905560869cbcaad7870eed80bf0a8a78c6e631
- 137519e625ff10d62383e3452f5d03792cb8e452
- 05023df71bbae6fbd874300fe43da5de254c4772
If you didn’t already guess these are SHA1 hashes. Try it for yourself. How does this help? Well now I can use a systematic approach to coming up with password phrases, like these (add capitalization and punctuation for added security):
- alexkrasny password ebay
- alexkrasny password amazon
- alexkrasny password wellsfargo
Then I run these phrases through a SHA1 (or whatever) hashing algorithm to get long, disgusting, impossible to remember passwords. This solves all of my problems! Easy for me to remember. Hard for people to guess. Different for each site.
People will say SHA1 hashes aren’t even secure blah blah. Well let’s break it down. There are two ways your password can be found and broken.
- Someone guesses it.
- A major website gets hacked and the hashed password database is compromised.
In the case of a human guessing those absurd hashes? That would be nearly impossible. It would take a quattuordecillion years (that isn’t made up)! Even if someone KNOWS you are using a SHA1 hashing system, they still need to guess the pass-phrase. The beauty of this is you only need to remember a single pass phrase “my password at X” and it creates a unique password for every site. Even if someone somehow sees the hash, there is no way they could get your pass phrase out of it.
In the case of a major password database being compromised? Well if that is the case, the hackers can still crack your password. Hacking a hashed password database is actually almost identical to simply guessing your password except they are guessing thousands at a time. The hackers aren’t actually inputting passwords and either getting it right or wrong. They are hashing a guess, and comparing the hash to the database and seeing if it matches. If it does, it replaces the hash with the pre-hashed password. The whole process is well explained in this comprehensive article on Ars Technica about password hacking.
Although the article does make it seem like passwords are hopeless, the key takeaway is, if the source password is complex, it will be hard to crack. Hackers will likely stop cracking the database before getting to the most complex of the passwords.
Because you are already inputting a hash as your password, and then the website in question is RE-HASHING it, your source password is actually very long and complex. Of course if a website you have an account on get’s hacked, it’s a good idea to change your password. In the LEAST you can be comfortable knowing that only a unique and specific password is in danger, not your entire life.
As for password management, I am a huge fan of the LastPass extension. You just add it to your browser and it stores and organizes all your passwords. Whenever you add a new one, or change one it asks if you want it recorded. Just make sure you have a secure password for your LastPass account! Also make sure to read the great password management tips on Penguininitiatives using a KeePass and Dropbox system.
Do you have a better system? I would love to hear about it! Please let me know in the comments below.
Headphones blast techno
the crunchy granola bar
a cacophony
the crunchy granola bar
a cacophony
the clouds are angry
my wipers on maximum
do not help with hail
my wipers on maximum
do not help with hail
sunset comes early
darkness chokes the interstate
my music pumping
darkness chokes the interstate
my music pumping
while mowing the lawn
two bees watch me carefully
they decide to strike
two bees watch me carefully
they decide to strike
A co-worker informed me, when I revealed my new vegetarian lifestyle, that Burger King has an often-forgotten veggie patty on the menu. I was always more of a McDonalds, but i had to check it out.
It is clear that the Burger King staff is not used to selling these things, at least in the Minnesota BK I patronized. My request was met with some confusion, and the employee needed help locating the correct button. I guess it figures… How many vegetarians are going to Burger King?
The confusion continues…
I was initially under the impression that I can simply substitute a veggie patty in ANY burger. Although that is possible, that is not the workflow Burger King seems to have intended. It turns out they have an official “Veggie Burger” and an associated value meal in the system, but not on the menu. I attempted to order a veggie Whopper and they clumsily tried to corral me into ordering the Veggie Burger instead.
For research I did order the veggie burger, and also a Whopper with a veggie patty. I am actually not sure what the difference is aside from the bun. The veggie burger came on some kind of strange bun without any sesame seeds on it. Otherwise the burgers seemed identical, although I might be forgetting something.
When it comes to burgers, I am far from a minimalist. You won’t see me having a burger with nothing but a slice of cheese. I am obsessed with garnishes, condiments, vegetables, and whatever else goes on it. Pile it high! I want my burger to be an experience. Because of this mentality the actual “meat” of the burger ends up being only a small portion of the flavor. The most important element is the texture. Meat has that heavy, hearty texture that gives the burger body. The Morning Star patty delivers.
Yes I said Morning Star patty. Most vegetarians will already be familiar with this popular brand, and the flavor of the patties. The patty is bean-based and has other diced vegetables in the mix. Unfortunately there are dairy products in the mix as well so they are not vegan friendly. At least the BK patty, I am not sure if the Morning Star brand offers a vegan patty.
I have always been a big fan, and advocate, of veggie burgers even when I was a meat eater. When I worked at Green Mill I ate them often to avoid all the fat of real beef and I didn’t mind at all. The same thing is happening at Burger King! The this patty is flavorful and filling. The other ingredients of the burger shine in their own usual way, and the fries, of course, are unchanged. It turns out that I can still get the fast-food burger experience even as a vegetarians thanks to Burger King.
Who last made a move?
we often don’t remember
I make another
we often don’t remember
I make another
Not a knot at all
the Onassis mystery
very few notice
the Onassis mystery
very few notice
The bowl of trail mix
refilled mysteriously
my visits frequent
refilled mysteriously
my visits frequent
Battle of the minds
one game stretches many days
sheer incompetence
one game stretches many days
sheer incompetence
Push My Buttons
