Archive for February, 2011

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Hmmmm. Upgrades.

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 13, 2011 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

We’re performing some long-overdue software updates today, so if the site is down, you’ll know why. Oh. Wait. If the site is down, you aren’t reading this, are you.

I haven’t had the greatest luck with computers recently. I spent the day after Christmas last year re-installing Windows XP with a thumb drive after a major data loss thanks to a dead hard drive. And last week, our hosting company had a pretty catastrophic upgrade problem that made for some misery all around. To their credit, they managed to remain courteous and communicative through the whole process, and things are mostly back to normal. Which is something I can’t say for many other companies I’ve worked with, so I still highly recommend them. To anyone who has to go through an ordeal like this, I’d like to share something insightful a fellow customer said on one of the support threads, which was: “By the way, encouraging people to bitch on Twitter so they can jump the support line is a really, really bad idea“. Now there’s some common sense advice. In any case, we’re doing some upgrades today, so if the site is down, that’s why. Oh. Wait. If the site is down, you won’t be reading this. Oh well, we’re hoping it goes smoothly, and if it doesn’t, we saw The Matrix Reloaded, so we know ways to deal with problematic upgrades. You just beat the crap out of them in bullet time.
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Internet Doomsday? There’s An App For That.

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 12, 2011 by admin in Technology

Saturday, February 12th, 2011

Researchers think they know how the entire internet could be taken down. Fortunately the only people who have the resources to do it right now are happy with their existing criminal enterprises.

I’ve always joked that the only way we’ll ever see civil unrest in America is if someone figures out how to shut down all television programming for about twenty four hours. But given the explosive growth in the number of web users in the states – according to this source the number has nearly doubled in ten years – I think the same result could be achieved by depriving people of their ability to upload their kids’ photos as their profile picture on Facebook or struggling to get the barcode reader to work on their smartphone at the grocery store. The recent internet shutdown in Egypt was probably the first time that people became aware that the web could be shut down on a large scale. Since most users don’t understand the first thing about how it works, they tend to take it for granted, like running water. But would it be possible to shut down the ENTIRE internet? According to this NewScientist piece, yes. But it wouldn’t be easy, requiring at least 250,000 computers to do it. But wait. Wouldn’t a cybercrime group like the amusingly-named Russian Business Network have these kind of resources? Of course they would. But much like the Doomsday device in Dr. Strangelove, what would be the point? If all your income is derived from selling hacking tools, serving up child porn, and hiring yourself out as a political “DOS gun for hire”, why would you want to shut off the internet? At least ALL of it, anyway. Besides, if you REALLY want to shut off the internet, you can just cut some wires. Here’s a map. Now all you’ll need is some deep sea equipment and the ability to get it to dozens of locations around the globe simultaneously, and voila! No intranets. So I think we may be okay for a while. Read the rest of this entry »

Eye Of The Storm – Ben Lovett

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on February 11, 2011 by admin in Music

Friday, February 11th, 2011

The video for “Eye Of The Storm”, from Ben Lovett’s upcoming release “Highway Collection” is an eerily gorgeous mini-masterpiece of pop music video.

[CORRECTION: As a commenter pointed out, I mixed up some Ben Lovetts here. The Ben Lovett responsible for this video is NOT the  Ben Lovett that’s in the band Mumford & Sons]  I’ve shared my thoughts before on the tragic early demise of the things that MTV could have been. The possibilities for short film (which I also talk about a lot) and pop music are mind-boggingly under-explored. But at least a couple of times a year, a mini-masterpiece of the medium comes along. And I think it would be safe to describe the video for Ben Lovett’s song Eye of the Storm (from his upcoming release “Highway Collection”) as just that – a mini-masterpiece. I don’t care much about Steampunk, and I’d never even heard of Ben Lovett before, but this music video is eerily gorgeous, as is the song. So beyond letting you know that Lovett is a member of Mumford & Sons, who were spawned by the same West London folk scene that brought us Noah and the Whale (who also have a fantastic music video), and to tell you that the video was produced by SoapBox Films with key effects and animation created by OddBall Animation I think I’ll just shut up now and let you watch the darn thing. Video below.
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Media Whore Smackdown: WikiLeaks vs OpenLeaks vs HBGary vs Anonymous

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on February 10, 2011 by admin in Popular Media

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

vs Joe Lieberman vs Amazon vs PayPal vs The Banks vs… aw, never mind. In the end, the big star of this international cyberdrama is someone who doesn’t even have a HEAD.


Before attempting to bring someone to
their knees, you might take note of
whether or not they have a head.

I am a comment-trolling, link-baiting attention whore. Just thought I’d get that out of the way, lest you get the impression that the pot doesn’t know that it’s black. That being said, could someone please step into the kitchen and pop up some popcorn? I’m afraid that if I step away from the computer for a moment, I’ll miss something, and won’t be able to figure out who the villains and heroes are in the continually unfolding drama that began with WikiLeaks’ bold venture into international whistleblowing. By now we all know the smug, squinty-eyed face of the fellow named Julian Assange. He calls himself a journalist and author. Some people have other labels for him, like traitor, international security threat, or rapist. Or cat abuser. But regardless of whether you admire him, think he should die, or something in between, it’s hard to ignore the fact that he’s something of an egotistical attention whore. My personal opinion is that I can put up with that, provided it doesn’t destroy the positive aspect of his pursuits, which is the revelation of truths that the powerful think should remain secret. Because knowledge is indeed power, and when people who lust mostly for power try to sequester knowledge, you get things like a Nazi Party. Or a Kremlin. Or perhaps the Washington DC of the near future, if we’re not vigilant. Originally the only real star of the WikiLeaks Show, we questioned back in December whether Assange could handle the celebrity. This has become less of an issue, because if you’ve stayed tuned in, you know the show has come to rely on more of an ensemble cast. While big names like Lieberman, MasterCard, Amazon, and B-listers like Glenn Greenwald and Michael Moore had some interesting walk-ons, it was the relatively unknown Anonymous, from….well hell, we don’t know WHERE Anonymous is from, do we? In any case, in a surprise Oscar-worthy performance, it was Anonymous that became the hot new name in LeakyWood. First by taking down has-beens and also-rans like MasterCard/Visa, Joe Lieberman, the Swedish Prosecution Authority, PayPal and Amazon in defense of WikiLeaks, and more recently by taking down Aaron Barr and HBGary Federal (here’s a screen grab of HBGary’s site after Anonymous had hacked it), mostly because, well, Aaron Barr was a self-impressed dimwit who thought he could make a bunch of money with your tax dollars by partnering with banks and the US government in a secret plan to kill Wikileaks with FUD, and gain a lot of fame for bringing Anonymous to its knees. He really should have pondered whether Anonymous even has knees, I mean, the fact that they don’t have a head should be a bit of a warning sign. If you’ve been too busy following tweets about the block parties in the Middle East, or fretting over whether Lindsay Lohan’s dress was appropriate attire for pleading not-guilty on felony charges, you may have missed the latest episode of the WikiLeaks Show, which really was less about WikiLeaks, and more about the ignorant bravado of the CEO of a “security firm” (now there’s a double misnomer for you) who claimed that he was going to make Anonymous less anonymous. Well, that didn’t turn out very well, now did it, Mr Barr? Count me as one of the more enthusiastic new members of the Anonymous Fan Club. And I’m not just saying that because I know they could take down my site and the hosting company that hosts it with a few keystrokes and perhaps a little social engineering, but because they’re the only actors in this epic drama that can use the term “bitchslap” and still manage to keep it classy. After turning Aaron Barr out on the street like the bum that he seems to be, they called off the dogs when he started crying like a baby, and as his former employers tried to wave the white flag by patronizing them in chat rooms (“Penny” starts in around line 520), the only demand they made was “hey, why don’t you donate a month’s salary to Bradley Manning’s defense fund?” Nice touch, Anonymous. Oh. Did we forget to mention? Michael Moore may be connected with an Assange movie, and *yawns* where were we? Oh yeah. That former WikiLeaks guy whose name we can’t remem z-z-z-z-z-z….wha? OH! Sorry. Dozed off for a second. That other WikiLeaks guy whose name we can never remember is releasing a tell-all book called Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website, due for release February 15. He’s already spilling all the beans about what a loser and a liar Assange is on Wired. Who knows if he’ll get any screen time; there’s not a lot of room left in this show for another sub-plot. Book plug below, followed by the trailer for the movie Revolution Truth. Which Michael Moore and Julian Assange aren’t involved in the production of, even though their names are dropped in all the press about.
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Is It Hot In Here? Or Is It Just 97% Of Scientists?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 9, 2011 by admin in Clean & Green

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

I’ve finally given up on being even slightly tolerant of climate change denial. Bring it. I will shred you. And toss you from the shores of Tuvalu.

Recently, I made a big mistake in how I framed some thoughts on the politics and terminology of “global warming”. I suggested there was some wiggle room regarding what the exact cause of ALL climate change over the last century might be. It seemed reasonable to accept the idea that we can’t know with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY how important the impact of industry has been on climate change, and perhaps more importantly, that maybe we needed to stop calling it “global warming”, simply as a political strategy. There are, after all, a bunch of scientists who question man’s influence on climate change. But after a lot of dialogue (mostly with some otherwise intelligent friends who work in energy) and a little more light research, I now realize that there’s some truth to the old adage “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile”, and in this case, it’s more like “give them 3% and they’ll destroy all organic life on Earth”. There’s just no being reasonable with climate change deniers any more; virtually all of them need a good bitchslappin’ with the facts, and some duct tape applied to the mouths of those who won’t just shut up about it and face the unavoidable facts. And here’s where you can find them. The facts, I mean. Not the deniers. How about NASA? They don’t call them “rocket scientists” for nothing, you know. If you want to deny global warming, I’ll be glad to listen to you. As soon as you send a man to the Moon and back. Until then, please shut the fuck up. And how about the Union of Concerned Scientists? Their board is comprised of top scientists from academia, government, AND the private sector, many of them educated at schools like Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia University. So after you send that man to the moon and back, I wanna see at least three PhD’s too. Oh, and for those of you who are tired of listening to these weathertards, and need some simple retorts to their ignorant claims, try How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic or Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says, which between them list over 200 arguments, in language simple enough for even the most persistently ignorant to understand. And if that’s not enough, even Prince Charles is calling shenanigans, and he’s next in line for the bloody throne of England, for cryin’ out loud. Hardly what you’d call liberal treehugger material. We need to keep this idiotic tide at bay. I’d like to visit Tuvalu some day.

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