STORY: Geeks gone wild!

[Duane Attaway]

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003, Brian Kelsay wrote:

> > Real geeks wardrive on a motorcycle.  Or is that war-riding?
> 
> How do you hold the laptop?

I have a magnetic tank bag, which easily holds a laptop.  I put towels or
a jacket underneath to help absorb mechanical shock.  The antenna is a
small yagi in the upper compartment, which may easily be taken out and
aimed.  If you can hold a drink while riding, playing with an antenna is a
walk in the park.  I could be one of those ham radio geeks if anyone asks.

So, how do I see the screen?  I don't.  I use headphones!  No one is the
wiser knowing I'm sporting a laptop.  Kismet will alert me with all
significant information through my headphones.  If the speech program
Festival is installed, kismet will talk to me.  It appeared the authors
had great fun picking the sound alert cues.  The whole experience is in
stereo and sounds like an action packed pinball game in busy areas.  
Sniffing with other applications optional.  Playing xmms in the background
is a bonus.

The magnets that hold the bag securely are shielded and do not appear to
present a field inside the bag.  An iron filing test assured me the hard
drives wouldn't be saturated with a major degaussing force.  My 15 volt
Toshiba laptop doesn't mind the bike's 12 volts if its in the range of
14-16 volts.  If I'm at idle, the laptop batteries kick in.  Fortunately,
the bike's regulator will not reach the 17 volts that will trigger the
laptop's overvoltage shutdown.  Other laptops may vary and self destruct.

My bike was stolen last month, so I'm saving up my pennies to continue 
this addicting sport.

http://dattaway.org/cbr600f4  <--gone forever  :(...