Posts by brian:
Burj Al Arab
This is the Burj Al Arab hotel, arguably one of the finest in the world. Located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the Burj is notable for its height, opulence, and architecture. Oh, and its mayor on Foursquare: me.
The issue is, I’ve never been to the Burj Al Arab. The closest I’ve ever been is probably Venice, Italy, which is still a ways off. So how is this possible?
The Foursquare API doesn’t do any validation of check-ins. If you pass along a venue code (409315), approximate latitude and longitude (25.14134,55.18546), your user ID and password, and pretend you’re doing it from an iPhone, Foursquare will check you in there. It’s not hard to do… it just takes a few lines of scripting. This isn’t a new issue (see here, for example), but what’s not clear is what’s being done about it. Since Foursquare and their partners provide certain perks to venue mayors, the potential for mischief is obvious. Dollar beers for the mayor of Moe’s? Give me the venue details, a cron job, and a few days or weeks, and unless someone else is also subverting the system, I will be mayor.
What’s the fix? Not sure, honestly. The API could require the lat & long are validated as true somehow, perhaps using some sort of digital signature, but that opens up a host of other problems when you’re dealing with devices from different vendors. Since location validation wasn’t designed in from the beginning, either, it means there’d be a period of time where you’d need to accept signed and unsigned updates until everyone updates their client. A big job, to be sure.
For now, I won’t be checking into the Burj Al Arab anymore… we’ll let nature take its course again. I wonder what Easter Island is like this time of year. Hmmm…
Randomness, misc.
Between Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and my other sites, I forget I have this old blog sometimes. I’m the owner of a one-year old person! Son’s first (well, second, I guess?) birthday was 10 days ago. We had a family party on the actual day with me, Sherri, the birthday boy, and Sherri’s mom, who was [...]
Fun with Google Voice transcription part 3
I don’t know anyone named Salazar, Brock, or Ronnie. And I certainly don’t want to know what “soak up together with Brock” means. Hey Brian, Salazar. You can give me a buzz back. I’m trying to soak up together with Brock at with Brian. So make sure that I think that he straight before we [...]
What iPad v2 needs to have
I managed to talk myself out of buying an iPad when it first came out. The Responsible Brian narrowly edged out the OMG Gimme Gimme Brian, but it fell just short of what I wanted for that price. If version 2 has the following, then, unless the world implodes, I will happily fork over my [...]
Are you using an ISP email address?
Are you using an @comcast.net email address? What about @(city).rr.com? @verizon.net? @cablevision.net? Or some other email address tied to your ISP? Have you thought about the long-term considerations of doing so? When you use an ISP email account, you are now bonded to that service provider. Now, if something else comes along that’s newer/cheaper/faster comes [...]
iPhone 4 goes swimming
I placed the magazines on the chair, the phone on the magazines, and then got into the pool. I grabbed the magazines to give them a read and PLOOP goes the month-old iPhone 4 into the pool, making a beeline towards the bottom. I frantically swipe at it to get it out as soon as [...]
Alaska
How can something like this (http://anchorpoint.blogs.com/amythoughts/2010/07/summer-break.html) not make you want to drop everything and escape to Alaska? I’ve tried to be a die-hard new urbanist by walking the 1.2 miles downtown (AND the 1.2 miles back) with the baby instead of driving… but honestly, who wants to take a shower, sweat their ass off walking [...]
iPhone 4 first impressions
In the true fashion of under-promise/over-deliver, my iPhone 4 arrived via FedEx a day before the official delivery date. Activation, via the AT&T site, was a snap. I’ve been using the phone now for less than 24 hours but here are my first impressions: FAST! I knew my iPhone 3G was slow, but I didn’t [...]
Apple iPhone 4 ordered
I managed to place my order for the new iPhone 4 this morning around 7:30am. The ordering experience was… mostly what I expected. I tried the AT&T site first, since I felt that would take me along the cleanest path for making sure everything with my accounts was linked up correctly. No problems logging in, [...]
My “adult film” name
I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Take the name of your first pet, and add it to the name of the first street you lived on. The result is your “adult film actor” name. (I’m being careful with my keywords for obvious reasons). If I played it strictly by-the-book, I think my name would be [...]