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weird history The fish tank that robbed a casino Attackers got into a casino's network through a smart thermometer in the lobby aquarium. Yes, really. 2 min → weird history The cereal box whistle that hacked the phone company A toy whistle from Cap'n Crunch boxes played the exact tone AT&T used to run its long-distance network. Free calls followed. 2 min → off the clock Why boats don't just say left and right Starboard comes from a steering oar, larboard got fired for sounding too much like it, and port won the job. 2 min → weird history The first computer worm just wanted to say hi In 1971, Creeper hopped between computers on the early internet printing a taunt. Then someone wrote the first antivirus to hunt it. 2 min → weird history The moth in the machine In 1947, engineers found a real moth stuck in a Harvard computer and taped it into the logbook. Here's what the famous story gets wrong. 2 min → off the clock Learning to boat: buy the cheap boat first I didn't know if my family would like boating, so I bought an old boat to find out. It taught me more than a new one could have. 2 min → off the clock Getting back on the bike Three years on a Trek Fuel EX 8, and now getting back into trail riding. Notes on starting again. 2 min → hands-on What my home lab is actually for My home lab isn't impressive hardware. It's a place to break things before I'd ever have to fix them at work. 2 min → hands-on Why this site makes zero third-party requests No analytics, no font services, no trackers: why alexleloup.com loads nothing from anyone else, and what it took. 2 min →