Holy cow, you’d think that ten years after the rise of IP networking it wouldn’t take TWO FREAKING DAYS to troubleshoot a router configuration anymore.
Argh. And I’m still not done, it seems.
I shust wann-ed ta, erm, uh
drunken shoutouts: now available in convenient audioblog format. [via MeFi]
Attn: Jim!
KAPAO visits Apple
Events: “Today, KAPAO sent the ‘KAPAO Car’ to Apple Computer, Inc. in Cupertino California. The small compact car had a sign on the hood identifying it with KAPAO. The car was driven by a well dressed fellow, and there were two teenage kids and a dog in the car. The KAPAO Car had been fitted with a sound system. The car drove around Cupertino with this message heard on it’s loudspeakers: ‘WE ARE KIDS AND PETS AGAINST OVERTIME AND WE ARE HERE TO SHOUT OUT TO ALL OF YOU APPLE EMPLOYEES WHO ARE HERE WORKING LONG HOURS AWAY FROM YOUR FAMILIES ON A WEEKEND DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON.’ They also promised to have an interview with Santa Claus later on.”
It quite escapes me where I came upon this, but it was certainly among the usual suspects.
iSight tomfoolery
King5 just promo-ed a scare story about someone hijacking an iSight. First I’ve heard of this, might take a look when the news comes on.
UPDATE: This is absurd TV news bullshit. Here’s the (incredibly annoying registration forwarded) link to the King5 website’s version of the story. The footage for the show featured an Apple G4 with iSight active, and there is a screencap from that footage on the site.
Allow me to excerpt it:
Cyberstalker watched teen through Web cam
…
The hacker gained access to the victim’s computer through an email attachment virus. He started spying on private online conversations, and began sending vulgar, sexual messages to the victim’s friends and family.The teen had the virus and the hacker’s spy ware removed from her computer, but the stalker kept coming back. He managed to hack in and turn on the Web cam in her bedroom, and took nude pictures of her without her knowledge.
…
Internet security experts say once someone hacks your computer they can control every aspect of it, including Web cams. Wireless and digital networks are especially vulnerable.The bottom line: unless you disconnect them, Web cams are always watching.
…
Local police are investigating the crime. They believe they know the hacker’s name and are working to track him down.
To summarize: a nameless person watched an unnameable underage person via webcam. Police are investigating. There’s literally no useful information whatsover. There’s no information about what kind of camera, what sort of virus, or (and this is key) even what kind of platform the victim was using.
So, uh, be scared of the internet. The hackers will get you.
Man, King5 used to be good. But this is pathetic.
Meet the Candidate
I’d like to introduce you to a new friend of mine. I won’t mention him by name in order to minimize the goog factor. Shh! No pointing. Be nice.
Flash fest
Non-MeFi readers who work with Flash may have missed last Friday’s Organic Flash post.
Superpolymesh
Viv and I just got back from seeing The Incredibles (finally), and I won’t bore you with predictable rantings about its’ excellence. I will say, however, that word on a certain Randian subtext is clearly correct. Part of the film’s triumph is the remarkable fact that this did not provoke sneering on my part.
I certainly cannot wait for the DVD to begin savoring both the delicious production detail and the depth of interesting referents (such as Syndrome’s clear precursor, Heat Miser). The Parrs’ living room made me miss relatives and older friends who lived their lives in such mid-century modern homes.
I have only heard one brief comment that compared the film to Watchmen, but it seems clear that the relationship of the two stories should be closely examined. At a minimum, I would speculate that The Incredibles has made it that much harder to get a good version of Watchmen made as a film, if anyone is even trying anymore.
Oh, and apparently, I have a thing for lady superhero pilots. Hearing her issuing callsign update after callsign update somehow involved me in the jeopardy of that scene like no other aviation scene I’ve ever watched. And brother, I have watched some aviaton movies, let me tell you. The hell with Top Gun’s testosterone-addled nincompoops, I’ll take The Incredibles any day.
Dizzy with sleeplessness
Please accept my sincerest apologies for my shift to linkmongery here of late. Non-blog writing responsibilities are all coming due at oncet and I’m having to put all my words over there.
That said, sometime yesterday, this site passed the 150k lifetime visitors mark. Hopkin continues to ripple out into the world; yesterday a large number of visitors began arriving from European addresses. Watching the traffic is quite fascinating and makes me wish I had the time to do proper traffic analysis. As it is, when I do write about it, my evidence will be largely anecdotal. If I claim a number of vistiors from off-planet addresses or with six-part IP addresses, rest assured, I’m playing the literary game of the unreliable narrator.
Mo words
Double-Tongued Word Wrester Dictionary is MeFite Mo Nickels’ wondrous playground of the word.
It's clobberin' time
Yushchenko remix, courtesy Danelope.
I still say the last image is insufficiently orange!