Instant Entertainment:

RFID and Wireless Identity Theft

2012-01-31T12:50:00.001+11:00

Heads up, minions: we’ve got a real-world issue, today. We’ll be revisiting an old post I did back in 2010, but with new points to make. Those of you who are the proud holders of RFID-enabled credit/debit cards will definitely want to read on.

So today, we’ll focus on the wireless credit card. Ever since the introduction of RFID-enabled finance cards, there’s always been the suspicion that such cards could easily enable wireless identity theft, etc. The finance companies (Credit Card companies, Banks, etc.) downplay this to near-conspiracy levels, of course.

They’ll make statements saying that beyond the card itself, there are other data-protection and anti-fraud measures in place to protect the customer, and that even if the customer is a victim of identity theft, they would not be financially liable for such credit card fraud (note: this is just a marketing strategy that ignores the other serious consequences to card holders after they’ve been associated with fraudulent transactions or have had their identity stolen).

It has even been said that while it is possible to perform wireless identity theft, the equipment required for such an act would be bulky and highly noticeable.

Think again. At the recent Shmoocom event, it was shown that all that is required is a RFID-reading device (which can be as small as a matchbox), a card writer (similar size to an office stapler), and an iPhone. Not exactly what I’d refer to as “bulky” and “noticeable”…

Here’s how the demonstration went down, as reported on Forbes.com:

"[Security researcher Kristin] Paget aimed to indisputably prove what hackers have long known and the payment card industry has repeatedly downplayed and denied: That RFID-enabled credit card data can be easily, cheaply, and undetectably stolen and used for fraudulent transactions. With a Vivotech RFID credit card reader she bought on eBay for $50, Paget wirelessly read a volunteer's credit card onstage and obtained the card's number and expiration date, along with the one-time CVV number used by contactless cards to authenticate payments. A second later, she used a $300 card-magnetizing tool to encode that data onto a blank card. And then, with a Square attachment for the iPhone that allows anyone to swipe a card and receive payments, she paid herself $15 of the volunteer's money with the counterfeit card she'd just created. (She also handed the volunteer a twenty dollar bill, essentially selling the bill on stage for $15 to avoid any charges of illegal fraud.) ... A stealthy attacker in a crowded public place could easily scan hundreds of cards through wallets or purses."

Ok, so let me take this a step further, and provide you with a scenario: We have an electronics buff. He pulls apart an RFID card reader, and pulls out the guts, discarding non-essential circuitry. He couples the remaining components up with a Bluetooth transceiver, and hides it all in a nondescript black box about the size of a matchbox. He then manufactures about a dozen of these, and heads off to the food-court of the local mall.

Each box is surreptitiously placed in close vicinity to nearby retailers own POS systems, and then takes a seat in the centre, fires up his laptop, and creates the Bluetooth connections to the devices. Over the next hour, any RFID-equipped credit card that goes anywhere near those retailers has its data stolen.On a busy day, this would be thousand of cards.

He then collects his boxes, and meanders off home, and shunts the stolen card data through an automated process that skims the accounts. He could even just set it up so that it simply steals $10 and declares the transaction as some sort of vague bank fee (i.e: “International Process Fee”), which would be missed by 99% of cardholders.

SO, until security of RFID is beefed up somewhat, if you are given the option, opt out of RFID-enabled cards. If not, spend USD$19.99 and get one of these.

It’s All A Bit Hinkey

2012-01-19T13:28:00.001+11:00

Minions of the world rejoice! I have finally found something worthy of my commentary (read: diatribe). It’s been a while coming – the only thing of note in the last month or so has been SOPA, which every journo and their dog has covered at least twice each. Boring. But it gets that way sometimes: all the good themes get overdone, and turned into theme parks, and we sit around waiting for something noteworthy to happen. Patience may very well be a virtue, but does it have to be such a bore?

So, let us then proceed onwards to the subject at hand.

I’ve been noticing a couple of trends over the last few years. It’s all about that cryptologists wet-dream that the rest of us refer to as cyber-security. Or in recent times, the apparent lack-of the aforementioned concept. It seems every couple of months, someone new is getting hacked. Apparently nobody is safe, with everyone from Sony to banks and governments, military, intelligence, all claiming to have been victimised by these cyber intrusions.

The news and rumours of these hacks hit the online community quickly, and the rumours and finger-pointing starts shortly thereafter. Then comes the next piece of the pattern: a spokesperson for the affected entity verifies the event, and divulges information about what exactly has occurred, and how it happened. This is usually within days (or in some cases mere hours) of the actual event.

I guess that they’re trying to show the public that they’re working hard to crack down on the evil hackers and bring them to justice, and that all the credit card details that have been stolen will be all safe and secure again, and rainbows will shine forth forever and ever, until the end of time.

Then, it is announced – usually by whichever high-profile group wants to take credit for the hack – that the targets security was woefully inadequate - usually the bare minimum security in-place. And again, those of us who possess minds that are graced by original thought must ask the burning question: If the security was in such bad shape, then what was actually being done during all those hours of scheduled downtime due to ‘maintenance’?

Before you all jump up and down and start ranting at me about how difficult it would be to monitor servers, etc., let me respond now: With the right toolsets, it isn’t hard to monitor servers. And these are high-profile entities and organisations we’re talking about: they hire security specialists for exactly that reason - to monitor and prevent security breeches. Granted, it’s not like in the movie Hackers, where ‘monitoring’ consists of a single employee watching live CPU and network utilisation stats – it’s a bit more involved.

“We’ve got one person online, and the workload is enough for like, ten users. I think we got a hacker.” – Hal, Hackers

But it happens nearly every time: The break-in is announced in the morning, and by the close of business that day, they have a detailed account of who did it, what they did, when they did it, why they did it, and how they did it - all only a scant few hours later. I can’t help but to think that if they can get all that information in a mere few hours, then surely they were always only a mere few hours away from catching on to the game.

I’m not going to go as far as to yell ‘conspiracy’, but you have to agree: It’s all a bit hinkey.

The Silly Season Strikes Again

2011-12-26T00:15:00.001+11:00

Ahh, yes, my minions – it is Christmas. That time of year many of us refer to as ‘the silly season’. Silly, because sometimes people have a tendency to lose their minds. This post is about some of this years prime examples. Read on.

For those who believe in Christmas Spirit, this time of year is all about giving, loving,and spending time with family.

For others, it’s about maxing out all the credit cards trying to outdo the rest of the family in who can get the newest addition to the extended family the biggest gift. Something along the lines of “my credit card debts are bigger than yours, so clearly I have the bigger shlong.”

And then we get the malcontents: those who can’t sleep well on Christmas Eve until they’ve released a decent dose of Christmas Rage upon all the unsuspecting citizens of their neighbourhood.

It all starts off in the car park for the local shopping centre/complex/mall or whatever you happen to call it wherever you are. The arguments erupting over stolen parking spaces, sometimes degrading into actual fistfights. Or those who get all proactive, and ram people trying to steal spots in front of them.

It is also the time of year where we get a lot of stupid claims from people. This years winner is a priest in Manila, Philippines, who’s current sermons against all that is evil is that the ‘Angry Birds’ plush toys are weapons that promote anger and violence. I couldn’t help but notice the fact that he’s against the plush toys, but not against the video game itself.

Just seems sort of strange to me…

He goes on to suggest books as a replacement. I wonder if he’s aware that a book thrown at your brother will hurt a whole lot more than a plush toy thrown at your brother…

Finally, we get the high-end crazy folk. Such as Hector Bruscello of Genzano di Lucania, Italy. Apparently he wasn’t too fond of smoke coming out from the chimney of his neighbours laundry business, so he strolled over and killed them all.

First off, raging out at the woman who keeps your whites white, and your colours bright on Christmas Eve is bad form. Secondly, smoke from a Laundromat? Last I checked, laundry didn’t involve fire. It hasn’t done so since the invention of the electric washing machine in the early 1900’s. So what could that smoke have been.

So, let us apply some of that logic stuff: Italy; northern hemisphere, thus currently winter. Currently, the average temperature throughout the day is about 10c. A fairly well-known trait of fire is that it is warm. You see where I’m going with this, right? No? I’ll give you a clue…

Of course, I could be wrong: maybe time stands still in regional areas of Italy, I don’t know. All I know is the rest of civilisation has progressed somewhat in the last century - got to love that electricity.

Now, just so we are clear on the matter, just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean you have a right to rage out and beat someone up or damage their car for making you drive an extra 20 meters, or brainwash your kids into believing everything fun is the work of Satan, or bust a cap or three at your neighbours.

Capisce?

Ok.

Survival Of The Fittest: Bring It On

2011-12-18T00:23:00.001+11:00

Gather ‘round, minions. I have a treat for you all. A bit of the chuckle shall come to all of you once you peruse the following rant. It’s an oldie, but a classic. With some modern twists.

Tonight, it’s all about warning labels. First introduced in the animal kingdom, with assorted species displaying vibrant colouring as a warning that they are often toxic or poisonous. A somewhat selective warning, as logic would have it, as a fair few species are colour-blind.

Us human types caught on and thought it was a rather neat idea. So we began the labelling of chemicals as hazardous, flammable, corrosive, explosive, toxic, etc. Which is fair enough – you would want to know that sort of thing. But then, obviously some committee somewhere got wind of it, and labels started cropping up everywhere.

Somewhat alarmingly, these labels are becoming more and more obvious – almost like a condescending notice to all us simpletons and our blatant display of any form of common sense.

I’ll start off with a few of the more well-known ones, just to give you a taste of the sort of level of obvious I’m talking about:

1. Nasty road coffee cups have the warning “Caution: Contents hot.” Does the rising steam and radiant heat not give it away?

2. Inspection of packaging of peanuts usually yields the label “May contain traces of nuts”. I have a bit of an issue with the term “may”: if the packaging does not in fact contain nuts, what exactly is in there?

3. Pet food labelling kindly informs you that “This product is not intended for human consumption”. Someone should probably mention that to Rimmer…

4. Electric hair dryers are often supplied complete with tag and warning “Do not operate in the bath or shower”. Welcome to Physics 101.

5. Some models of Husqvarna chainsaws ship with a label stating “Do not attempt to stop chain with hands or genitals”. Combined class: Physics and Anatomy.

6. Firearms are usually sold with such warnings as “Do not point at face”. Why not.. what could possibly go wrong?

7. The long-standing joke amongst owners of non-Intel-based computers that the “Intel Inside” slogan is the worlds most widely distributed warning label.

All relatively basic stuff, right? Apparently they’re necessary…

Lately, things are taking a bit of a turn for the worse. The latest one I’ve seen – literally tonight, courtesy of a friend on Facebook – was from L'Oréal, advertising one of their men's products. The celebrity used for the advertisement was Hugh Laurie, with the superimposed slogan of “Treat yourself to a new man this Christmas.*”

I trust you noticed the asterisk?

Yes, there’s more to it. In pictorial marketing, the asterisk implies some sort of terms and/or conditions to the advert. In this specific case, the condition is that “You will not receive Hugh Laurie with this product.”

Are you telling me that at some point, someone complained because they didn't get whichever celebrity was used as a model on the advertisement for the product? Just who are these labels for? Do people that stupid actually exist?

Well, I guess if people can walk into moving aircraft propellers, then others can stop chainsaws with their testicles.

In situations like these, people favour a quote from Billy Connolly: “I think it’s time to trim the herd”, and unsurprisingly, I agree. Long past time to let natural selection do what it does best: impose a state of survival of the fittest, and get our global IQ percentile back up to a level where such labels are no longer required.

Iranian-US Drone Debacle

2011-12-16T19:39:00.001+11:00

Well minions, I have a story for you tonight. One that will get you to wondering. One that I have a few questions about. One that could potentially end with a mysterious black van skidding to a halt outside my house.

It’ll all depend on how badly my questions screw with not one but two governments.

Back in 2009, the US Air Force confirmed the existence of a new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (read: drone), the RQ-170 Sentinel.

Those of you who have been following international news, specifically that coming out of Iran will know that earlier this month, Iranian military announced they had downed one of these drones.

Mere hours after this announcement, we hear that Russia and China have asked to see the drone, and unsurprisingly, Iran now has plans to clone and mass-produce the drone. So heads-up Lockheed-Martin: you’ll have some patent infringements to deal with shortly.

Recently, we hear talk about talks between the US and Iranian governments, which apparently went something like this:

US: “Hey, uhh… could we have our drone back?”
Iran: “No.”
US: “Awww…

Apparently, the “Finders-Keepers” rule is running strong in the mid-east.

Anyway, today, we read the details of how the drone was downed. Apparently jamming the frequency of it’s communications link, then spoofing GPS signals made it land all by itself. This is the point where I started getting some of those questions popping into my head.

First off, I was of the opinion that if the US drone violated airspace, and was downed, then that’s fair game. But with this recent news, and conflicting information, there is a serious question to be asked.

First off, lets get to that aforementioned conflicting information: The Iranians say that the drone is programmed in such a way that if it loses it’s communications signal from its operator(s), it will rely on GPS to navigate back to it’s ‘home’. But the US claimed that they lost communications with it before it entered Iranian airspace. If both comments are correct, the drone should never have entered Iranian airspace. As soon as the drone lost it’s command signal, it should have turned around and gone back to where it was launched.

It is even being said that the US is claiming that since the drones are mid-altitude (~50,000ft flyzone), they were expected to be intercepted, therefore did not carry ‘sensitive technology’. If that’s the case, why are China and Russia so interested in getting a piece of the action, too?

So, one or both governments are not being entirely accurate with their statements. But you know how the old saying goes: do something you’re good at…

On to that serious question: Did the drone enter Iranian airspace before the communications jamming, or as a result of? Furthermore, could the deliberate act of taking control of the drone constitute an act of war? And likewise, could the deliberate act of violating foreign airspace constitute an act of war?

If the answer to either of those questions is ‘Yes’, then the US troops leaving Iraq possibly won’t be flying west. Instead, they’ll be driving east. Into Iran.

A direction that could prove to be messy, considering Iran’s recent inquest into uranium refinement of a level (20%) over and above that required for fuelling nuclear power plants (3.5%).

As a quick side-note, you long-term readers will recall that back in 2007, I predicted that when the US got bored in Iraq, they’d pick a fight with either Iran, or Syria…

The Blame Game: A Continuation

2011-12-13T17:32:00.001+11:00

Strap in, minions: We’ll be covering a topic that we posted on back in July this year. It’s all about one of those ongoing arguments that will never be settled. But you know me: I always have to add my 2c worth…

So, you long-term followers will remember The Blame Game article I posted a while back. You newbies should run off now and go read that one before continuing reading this one.

Ok, so the previous post covers the young ones – young enough to still read children’s stories. But what about older children? What could be setting them astray?

This afternoon, on Facebook, a highly plausible answer to that very question appeared on my screen. A friend of mine shared a post from none other than George Takei. He had posted an image of two famous characters from two Hollywood blockbusters - Emma Watson’s character of Hermione from the Harry Potter movies, and Kristen Stewart’s character Bella Swan from the Twilight saga.

Overlayed on the image was the following text:

“When the love of Hermione’s life left her, she continued to search for the keys to destroying the world’s most powerful dark wizard.

When the love of Bella’s life left her, she curled up in the foetal position, went numb for months then jumped off a cliff.”

I’m not sure where the original of this image came from, but it speaks for itself, and George’s own comment pretty much says it all:”Parents, there are two opposing messages your daughters are receiving from Hollywood sci-fi. Which would you rather them hear?”

Original post: The Blame Game

It’s My Fault, But It’s Yours

2011-12-11T00:08:00.001+11:00

Relax, minions, for instant entertainment is upon you again. It seems that stupid is on the rise in the world, and as is normal, I’m here to provide you with the details, and give you a chuckle or three. Grab that chair, and get cosy.

I didn’t have to look far for this article. in fact, upon opening the local section of Google News, it was the 2nd story on the list. Yes, the comedy gods are smiling upon me yet again.

Those of you who have been following this blog for some time will have noticed a pattern, or a common theme to most of the posts. People doing stupid stuff, and/or people suing other people for doing stupid stuff. Tonight, we are happy to announce a slight deviation to this theme: people doing stupid stuff then suing other people.

What we have here is a textbook case of “I know that I did this, but it’s all your fault”.

It seems that here in the State of Victoria, Australia, the assorted councils are getting swamped with questionable compensation claims, for – yep, you guessed it: stupid stuff.

Such as people tripping over things and claiming for torn clothing. And in some cases, we’re not talking about a crack in the sidewalk,we’re talking objects that are somewhat larger. Park benches. Garden walls, and traffic lights. Traffics lights? Seriously?

Sorry, but if you’re too busy to take time out of your apparently busy schedule of texting to pay attention to where you’re walking, and you trip your clumsy person over something as large as a park bench or traffic light pole, then you don’t have a right to sue anyone. Well, technically you could sue yourself, but that would be a course in pure redundancy.

Hmm, I wonder if someone will eventually try and take out a restraining order on an inanimate object…

If you haven't wet yourself yet,this one should do it for you. My favourite claim so far: A woman in the State of Western Australia lodged a claim to have her Gucci sunglasses replaced after a magpie apparently swooped down and flew off with them. Now,I looked in vain on the assorted W.A council sites for a Department of Avian Authority, but alas, I couldn’t find one. So it would seem that the council isn’t responsible for commanding magpies to go around and steal shiny curiosities: apparently, this is a well-known behaviour of the magpie.

It’s all about taking responsibility for your actions: if you trip over something because you couldn’t be bothered paying attention, you’ve only yourself to blame.

Social Netweaponry

2011-12-10T03:50:00.001+11:00

Ahh, social networking. A relatively enjoyable pass-time for most of us. Or is it… draw up a chair, and in the words of Deckard Cain, that famous Horadrim of the Diablo Universe: Stay a while and listen.

I’m fairly sure you’ll agree with me when I say I’m getting a bit tired of my social networking being interrupted by some foreign politics.

There isn’t a day that goes by now where you open whichever social networking application you favour, be it Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google+, etc., and you have to sift through all the political trash to find something that actually means something to you.

And it’s getting worse.

So bad, in fact, that governments are trying to force these networks to allow them to censor, which I’m not hugely fanatical about. Censorship of that kind doesn’t have a place on the internet. Think I’m just flapping my mouth? Go ask someone in China how their day on Facebook or Twitter was. The answer will be “I don’t know, we can’t access those sites…”, at least not without performing some IP routing witchcraft to bypass that world-famous Golden Shield Project, aka the Great Firewall.

Even now, as I sit hunched over in my chair at this ridiculous hour of the early morning, I’m reading about how Twitter is being used against protestors in Russia, with thousands of robot accounts flooding the hashtags being used by the protestors. Behaviour I’m sure violates various Twitter Terms of Service…

There is, of course, a fairly easy way to get that sorted out: all the protestors have to do is start using the same hashtags that the official Twitter and Twitter Support accounts use. They’ll get sick of having their feeds shut out by robots, and will do something about it.

The issue is two-fold. Governments don’t like to listen; they believe that they are infallible. Protestors don’t talk; they prefer to immediately ‘go to war’. Not a good idea, and it’s not exactly a new idea, either. It’s been done many times before, somewhat famously by the numerous groups who adopted the ‘IRA” namesake over the years…

Clip from Eddie Izzard’s “Circle” show

I can understand wanting to get your voice out there, let the world know what's going on in your country, but there are limits. When your private little war starts interrupting things on a global scale, it’s guaranteed to irritate a lot of people. Just do us all a favour, and try not to drag entire social networking sites into it.

And if any of you suggest a ‘Occupy <insert social network here>’ movement, I’m afraid that you must have your keyboard confiscated.

A Special Type Of Stupid

2011-11-10T22:16:00.001+11:00

Just when things were looking to be bland, something comes along to liven it all up again. Yes, Minions, it’s that time again. Stupid has reared its head again. Grab a seat, and read on.

When you visit a fast food “restaurant”, even if the employment procedure appears to favour underachievers who yawned their way through their education, you expect at least some semblance of effort put into delivering your order. But sometimes, things just don't work out as expected.

We’ve all had it, at some point. Waiting for eons while your meal is delivering via continental drift. Or sometimes the task of matching prepared food to a list (commonly referred to as an order) is often beyond the capabilities of the staff, and you’re handed something that bears little resemblance to what you ordered. In fact, sometimes the only common item between the two is the logo on the wrapping.

But at the very least, you expect the food you’re given to be cooked. It seems a certain branch of Burger King in Auckland, New Zealand have some different ideas about that, and have come under fire for serving up raw chicken to a customer.

Considering in todays fast-food joints, the cookers are all run via temperature control systems and timers, I just don’t see how that was possible. You really have to be a special type of stupid to screw up the cooking procedures in a place like that.

Now, let us take a quick look into what the outcome of eating raw chicken could be:

All very nasty things that wreak havoc in the digestive system, and some can even be fatal.

So, what was Burger King’s response for almost killing a couple of their customers? An email to say sorry, and the offer of some vouchers.

They’re also apparently looking into their chicken cooking procedures. Hey, BK: I’ll save you some time, on that. Heat. Cavemen did it with fire, everyone else nowadays does it with gas or electricity. I know it’s a hi-tech newfangled idea, but you never know; it might just work.

And as a final note, the worker responsible for (not) cooking the meal has been “retrained”. When you hear about someone requiring retraining for one of the most basic tasks in any form of McJob, that phrase “special type of stupid” comes to mind again.

Burger King: “Have it your way.” … as long as you don’t mind it raw.

Shipping To Revert To Sail-Power?

2011-11-04T21:34:00.001+11:00

Controversial topics: one of our favourites. And tonight, we’ll be revisiting a post I did some time ago. Under its current nickname of course – “climate change”, and more to the point, what the political hats are suggesting we do about the evil that is carbon. Get comfortable, this rant promises to be epic.

Just when I thought the most ridiculous idea for combatting global warming err climate change, the Brits come along and trump it with their latest idea. Namely, reverting shipping to sail-power.

Of course, this suggestion actually has nothing to do with reducing carbon emissions (at least not with any significance), but more to do with reducing how their carbon emission figures will look on paper, since the Government is aiming to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 80% before 2050.

For the sake of argument, let us imagine what the ramifications would be of this course of action. With Britain, it wouldn't be much. Sure, some rich folk might express some general displeasure at having to wait another month for that new model Jaguar, but other than that, the world probably wouldn’t notice.

But take a moment, if you will, and imagine if it were Japan or China taking this action. The sudden doubling or tripling of shipping times for just about every electronic device on the market would cause something akin to physical pain to those of us who trust in our technolust.

And those of you who dwell in the land of beancounters will probably have a few things to day regarding supply and demand, as well. A fact that the Chamber of Shipping warned about, bandying about such phrases as “distorted trade” et cetera.

I was interested in the figures regarding the estimated speed reduction of a container ship. It was claimed that a ship that normally ran at 25 knots would only slow to 19 knots under sail. I wonder if the huge difference in acceleration was taken into account. And did they arrive at this figure based on the assumption that the vessel would be able to carry full sail on all masts, with a wind generating enough energy to actually move the ship?

And what if they had to re-rig the sails to compensate for a quartering wind?That obviously doesn’t give you full speed, either. I’m not a sailor, so I don’t know anything about how weather behaves in the open sea, but I’d assume that there would be periods where the just isn’t any wind. Do we then break out the oars? And if so, how many hundreds (or maybe thousands) of rowers do you think it would take to get a loaded container ship moving?

And let us now look at the extra weight of the sails, masts and rigging. We’re looking at 3 masts, about 2 acres of sailcloth, and the rigging as well. An extra 10 tons on top of the 500,000 tons of cargo, and the 115,000 tons of the ship itself.

Ought to blunt acceleration and reduce top speed a bit, don't you think?

How Is That News?

2011-10-29T21:58:00.001+11:00

So I’ve been trolling news sites lately, trying to find the good stuff for you, my minions. But lately, there hasn’t been much worthy of our attention. Which in itself led me to tonight's little morsel. Grab that chair, and strap in. Here we go.

Have you actually looked at the state of the media lately? At what they consider to be newsworthy? I know I can drivel on sometimes, but I can’t even come close to those who are supposedly well-versed in mass media.

Like tonight, for instance. I jump onto a site that reports on local Victorian news, and almost 90% of the articles were about the same thing: the upcoming Melbourne Cup. Come on, surely all those journalists could have at least pretended to have an original thought, rather than play a huge game of follow-the-leader.

And if we go further abroad, we find a headline about the Hudson Volcano in Chile that is currently spewing “vapour and ash'”. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but isn’t that what active volcanoes do?

Then we have one regarding the Royals. Apparently the firstborn of Prince William and Kate could eventually become a monarch. Imagine that, those centuries-old rules of succession still apply.

It seems that old-school journalism is a dying skill. Either that, or just outright laziness is to blame. I can’t come up with any other reasons as to why the media feels the necessity to pad their sites with these assorted filler stories.

Normally it wouldn't bother me, but since the major players in the media industry started pushing towards making ALL news subscription-only, it starts to get that sense of rankness.

Past time to lift the game, methinks.

Apple Vs. The Universe

2011-10-27T16:50:00.001+11:00

Ok minions,. I fully expect this post to draw a bit of anger, but I’m quite sure I am not alone in wondering just exactly what on earth is going on in the minds of those in power at Apple’s HQ.

Yes, that’s right: I’m hitting out at Apple. Well, not Apple itself, but what seems to be the current pastime of the legal department: suing anything and everything that moves for whatever reason they can come up with in those late-night strokey-beard meetings.

It is becoming quite blasé: fire up the ol’ web browser, point it to a news site and oh look, what a surprise, Apple is suing someone else. Never saw that coming…

Their latest target is a family-owned cafe in Bonn, Germany called Apfelkind (Translation: “apple baby”). Apparently, using an apple as a logo is going to damage the Apple trademark. Or picturing an apple with a stem. Or using the colour red. Which confused me a bit, because first off, Apple doesn’t list the colour red in their own trademarks catalogue, and their very own logo (as seen at apple’s own website) is silver, not red.

It’s also interesting to note that Wikipedia has a list of companies/brands who use the colour red prominently. Unsurprisingly, Apple, Inc. is missing from that list…

Also unsurprisingly is the following line, as seen over and over in assorted news stories covering Apple’s world domination via courtroom drama: “Apple would not comment on the story.” So it would appear that Apple cannot (or more likely will not) justify the actions.

Personally, I’m of the belief that the Apple, Inc. legal department has taken advantage of the recent ailments (and eventual demise) of the late Steve Jobs, and has gone rogue.

And it’s all coming to a head, now. The worst time possible, with everyone focusing on the Apple company, waiting expectantly to see whether they sink or swim without the guiding hand of Steve (may you rest in peace).

Getting back to our lesson in comparative farm produce, looking at the logo’s side by side, even a blind person couldn’t mix them up. Sure, they’re both apples, but that’s where the similarities end. Apfelkind’s logo doesn’t have the bite mark that Apple’s does. They’re a totally different colour, and the stemlike representation is clearly different between the two: Apple has a singular leaf, whereas Apfelkind is a stem and a leaf.

I think it’s a good thing that Apfelkind has refused to withdraw their trademark application and is leaving the final say up to the Munich Patent Office. It’s an easy win for them. Hand the presiding judge an actual apple, with an evidence tag attached to the stem - “Exhibit A: prior art.”

Human Stupidity 101

2011-10-23T21:06:00.001+11:00

Well minions, aren’t you a lucky bunch tonight? Another post for the day. But I couldn’t resist sharing this story with you. Park your posterior, and get to reading.

Every now and then, a story crops up describing a stupid criminal. We’re talking unheard of levels of stupid. A special type of stupid. The type of stupid that requires a mandatory facepalm. And this article I found is one of those types.

So up north in Queensland, Australia, in the district of Mt. Isa, a store on Marian Street faced an attempted robbery by a 33 year-old man. The whole event was fairly straight-forward. HE entered with a knife and demanded money.

Now, here’s where it gets a bit weird: Instead of taking the cash, for some obscure reason, he handed the employee the knife.

… okaaayyyyy…

Ah, but I promised you facepalm-worthy action. So here we go. A short time later, the would-be thief returned and asked for his knife back. For some odd reason, the employee refused.

But wait! Don’t hang up now; there’s more!

Our thief, in an awesome display of continuing stupidity, returned a third time and tried to rob the store all over again.

That’s right, you heard me: he returned three times. Shortly after the third time he was apprehended, unsurprisingly arrested and charged with armed robbery.

See, I told you: facepalm-worthy action. Unprecedented levels of stupid always make for a good laugh. And it also plays in nicely with that famous quote:

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
- Albert Einstein

The Problem? Poor Protest Organisation

2011-10-23T11:56:00.001+11:00

Morning, minions. Pull up a seat and let me tell you about how things are going down around here. You can smell it; you can almost taste it: that rankness in the air.

So it’s pretty much guaranteed you would have heard about all the “occupy <insert commercial zone here>” demonstrations going on around the world, all part of a protest against commercialism and what is termed ‘economic inequality’.

These protests were originally designed in a way that would have large groups of people ‘occupying’ commercial space in an attempt to get noticed by all the commercial bigwigs, and make a statement about their general discontent at the differences in wealth and income. These protests go on for days, sometimes weeks.

Ahh, it must be nice to have a job with so much downtime. Oh, you’re unemployed? Somehow, that fails to surprise me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, here. Protest can be a powerful tool, IF it is executed correctly, and control is maintained by the organisers. But if the event organisers just let things run their own course, we end up with protests such as the recent Occupy Melbourne demonstration.

They said they would move on when ordered to by police. Well, after a week, they were told to move on. And of course they didn’t.

They said their protest was to be peaceful. Check out the news footage. Didn’t look all that peaceful to me. Especially when you add in the fact that when police finally cleared City Square and began clearing the illegal tent village, they found weapons, bricks and hammers, and bottles of flammable liquids. Not to mention the health hazard created by the buckets of human waste everywhere.

Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle made a few points against the chants used by the protestors:

“Our streets!” was met with “Our streets belong to more people than the 300-400 protestors who bought the city to a halt”.

“This is what democracy looks like!” was dismissed with a simple “Yes it is. A small, noisy, confused minority can’t tyrannise the majority and disrupt the city for their own self-aggrandisement.”

“Give us our Square!” was shot down as it was pointed out that it wasn’t their Square, but the City Square of 4 million people, nearly a million of which use the City Square every day.

And “We are the 99 per cent!” doesn’t make any sense, since you were merely the tiny number who held the city to ransom.

All this happened because the organisers lost control. Two major things happened. First off, people who didn’t really know what was going were pulled into it. The term most commonly used for this behaviour is “herd mentality”. Penn & Teller showed us how easy it is for this to happen in one of their “Bullshit!” episodes when they employed the famous DiHydrogen Monoxide hoax as shown below:

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Season 1, Episode 13: Environmental Hysteria

Secondly, the movement was infiltrated with ‘professional protestors’: hell-bent on causing trouble and effectively holding the city to ransom. This would be the most likely source of the weapons and incendiary ingredients found amongst the tents, the vandalism of public property, vehicles and business frontends around the site of the protest.

A mass-protest that no longer followed the lines of the law, and that willingly causes damage, or carries weapons is no longer a protest. It is a riot.

I feel the whole debacle has been summed up quite nicely by a reader of the Herald Sun online newspaper, who left this comment in reply the article by the Lord Mayor:

“If protesters won't disperse after being ordered to by the police, then what are they supposed to do? The moment these 'rent a crowd' protesters defied the authorities, their so called 'peaceful protest' was no longer peaceful. A big THUMBS UP to our police force for taking back OUR CITY. Congrats to them, the silent majority (the REAL 99%), are proud of you.”
-MTK of Port Melbourne

The Illicit Timezone Trade

2011-10-07T21:25:00.001+11:00

It brings a bit of the glad-eye to me when I stumble across articles like the one I’ve just finished reading. Articles that restore my faith in just how universally stupid trolling lawyers can be. You know the drill, minions: grab a seat and read on.

Those of you who have run any form for Unix or Linux will know about the Timezone Database that is used by it. Were you aware that creating and maintaining a database of timezones is apparently the most blatantly heinous case of copyright infringement ever ever in the history of forever?

It is, according to Astrolabe, Inc., current copyright owner of the ACS Atlas (and assorted variants of). You see, they’re suing the creator of that aforementioned list, Arthur David Olson, claiming that he did nothing but steal the data from their Atlas.

After all, they went through all that rouble of creating and applying timezones to the world. Oh wait… no, that happened a few hundred years ago. British mariners would keep a chronometer set to GMT (at the time, this was the term to describe solar time at the Royal Observatory), and GMT was officially adopted across the island by the Railway Clearing House in 1847.

Maybe it’s the database information itself they mean… so that would be ‘fact’… and as such is not subject to copyright… you mean that ‘fact’? I haven’t heard of anyone being sued for stating water is wet. Not yet, at least…

So it would seem we have yet another overzealous lawyer, trying to build a name. Especially when you consider that Astrolabe, Inc. only recently acquired the copyright to the Atlas, and played no part in its original creation. Improper Representation much?

The common guess here is they’re wanting to clear the way to be able to extort payment from anyone and everyone who uses a flavour of Unix/Linux that features the Tz Database. This means just about any modern flavour, therefore the potential list of ‘copyright infringements’ will include millions of users around the world, several governments and several massive corporations. IBM (who maintains partnerships with Red Hat and SUSE), Apple (OS-X using portions of FreeBSD and NetBSD Linux), etc.

I wonder if the name Custer means anything…

Red Handed Facebook

2011-10-04T11:29:00.001+11:00

Morning, minions. Or afternoon. Or whatever time it is wherever you are. It doesn’t really matter what time it is, because you know that the good stuff is right here, outlined below. So get comfortable, and read on.

Right, let us take a look at the recent antics of the social-networking goliath, Facebook. Those of us who use the site are familiar with its malleable state – every time you login, something has moved or changed. Almost like a war between two opposed interior designers. But this isn’t really all that worthy of me talking about, so let us instead pursue the real motivation behind this post.

You’ve probably heard mention about a new upcoming feature, the Facebook Timeline. A feature that has aroused assorted privacy concerns, i.e. the ability to view an entire chat if even just one participant has not exclusively set their content to private, or being able to see who has defriended you, etc.

So, this of course has the privacy community up in arms. A sizeable handful of public-interest groups have come together and requested that the Federal Trade Commission investigates Facebook’s business practises, and Billy Hawkes, Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, has announced that he will conduct a privacy audit of Facebook’s activities.

Not to mention that Facebook is up against legal action from an online social-scrapbooking company – timelines.com, operating since 2008. They filed a trademark infringement suit against Facebook last week.

Ahh, but things are getting worse. Nik Cubrilovic recently reported that the tracking cookies Facebook uses continue to track you even after you’ve logged out and/or left the Facebook domain. Most people would unthinkingly ask ‘who cares'?’ Probably because you’re not taking the thought process far enough.

You’re most likely sitting there, thinking that it doesn’t matter if Facebook tracks you, because you gave them all your information anyways. “Anyone who looks at my profile knows what I’ve been up to anyways”, or some such. Oh, to be young and naive again…

Facebook’s estimated revenue for 2011 is currently at US$4.27billion. They do this by taking your information, and selling it. Targeted adverts, referral marketing, etc. You understand what I’m saying? Facebook doesn’t care what you’re doing, they only care how much your data is worth. The companies that buy your data from them may have different ideas, though. So at the end of the day, you just don’t know who has access to your data, who is watching your every move, every page visit.

However, it should be noted that Facebook has changed the behaviour of their cookies after logout. So they’re doing good, right? Well, not really… you see, Facebook has also recently filed for a patent to track users on other sites. As irony would have it, this follows explicit statements from Facebook employees stating that the social networking giant has “no interest in tracking people”…

… sure you aren’t. You’d stop tomorrow… if it wasn’t going to cost you US$4.27billion, right? I think that age-old phrase of ‘being caught red-handed’ definitely applies here.

Strangest Excuse Ever

2011-09-23T19:26:00.001+10:00

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: we are surrounded by stupid. Some of us have bearable levels of stupid, others are totally ensconced on a throne of stupid. But I found a story today that out-stupids almost everything else I’ve read to date.

Some of you drive. Those of you who do will at some point have exceeded the posted speed limit. Sometimes it happens by accident, other times it is a conscious decision. And before any of you claim to have never ever ever broken the speed limit, let me remind you that there is something worse than stupid: stupid and oblivious.

Now, those of us who have been caught whilst speeding have given many excuses. Late for work/appointment/meeting, was just trying to pass that other guy, didn’t realise how fast I was going. The list goes on.

Our King of Stupid tonight has come up with the most ridiculous excuse yet. But first, let us take a moment, and allow me to enlighten you as to the character we’re dealing with here.

We have here a man from Tasmania, Australia. Currently disqualified from driving for previous offenses. He was clocked at 125kph in an 80kph section of the Brooker Highway, near Hobart. The excuse given to the officer is quite likely the most priceless ever.

He had just washed his car, and he wanted to dry it.

… you got to be kidding me.

Wait a moment… it might just be time for some of that logic stuff.

As far as I can tell, the Brooker Highway does not pass through any sort of floodplains or rainforests, so I can’t quite figure out why you couldn’t ‘dry your car’ at 80kph. Seems plenty fast enough to me.

Oops! They Did It Again

2011-09-11T10:49:00.001+10:00

Ahh yes, minions, I have another little morsel for you, today. And I haven’t even had any coffee yet. Aren’t i doing well? So, while I go caffeinate myself, you can all read on.

So it seems Apple is following a pattern when it comes to coming up with excuses. You’d expect the PR department of an international multi-billion dollar company to utilise better tactics than those used by pre-schoolers. But apparently not…

You’ll all recall the iPhone 4 and its antenna issues. Thousands of complaints flooded into Apple’s customer support area. And you’ll all remember their official response: “You’re holding it wrong.”. Oh, of course. Heaven forbid we hold a phone like a phone. Who could have thought of doing such a thing?

As irony would have it, not only did they put the call out for expert antenna engineers shortly after this fault went so public, but Apple’s own marketing material for the iPhone shows the phone being held in a way that would cause the reception issue.

Today, while browsing the news sites, I came across another example of Apple trying to shift the entirety of the blame onto their very own customers. Hundreds of people are experiencing theft of credit on Apple’s iTunes service. To date, Apple’s response is along the lines of “easily guessable passwords”.

Yep, that's right: its your fault again.

It’s a good thing that Apple is holding its own in the numerous patent wars going on in courts around the globe… or at least so far. After all, it will be extremely difficult to palm patent infringement off onto the users.

So, minions, moral of this story is quite simple: Always remember that official announcements from large international companies go through the Public Relations gauntlet, and are always designed to minimise damage to the company and its reputation. Don’t believe a word of it.

Crazy Smartphone App Antics

2011-09-10T01:06:00.001+10:00

Well, minions, I guess it was bound to happen. Stupidity on levels exceeding that of outright ludicrousness and lunacy have come to the smartphone world. Grab your coffee, take a seat, and let me enlighten you.

In todays world, our lives are all but dominated with the need to be able to access any form of communication at any time we might desire. Thus, the basic cellphone has evolved into powerful smartphones. Singular devices that are a phone, a TXT/PXT messaging platform, an email client, a web browser, an application platform, a camera, a multimedia streaming platform, an FM radio receiver, and a GPS unit all in one.

For the purpose of this story, most of that is irrelevant. The bit we’ll focus on is that ‘application platform’ feature. With our smartphones being given more powerful processors, and more functional system software, the ability to add third-party applications is pretty much a given. App stores/markets exist all over the place. You know it’s a big deal when even Apple and Google dive in headfirst.

But herein lies a problem. These apps are mostly provided by third-party developers, and in some cases, there is no form of quality control taking place. As such, there is an enormous quantity of worthless apps, and until recently, certain markets were swarming with malware-riddled apps.

But none of that can even come close to what I stumbled across tonight. For a while, you could purchase 2 apps on the Google Android marketplace that claimed they could cure acne.

Yes, you heard me. An app for a smartphone that claimed it could get rid of your craterface.

… what?

I’m not sure what is more surprising: the fact that it took intervention from the US Fair Trade Commission to get these apps off the market, or that around 15,000 people were gullible enough to purchase them.

"This app was developed by a dermatologist," the marketers of AcneApp said. "A study published by the British Journal of Dermatology showed blue and red light treatments eliminated p-acne bacteria (a major cause of acne) and reduces skin blemishes by 76%."

… So you’re saying a licenced dermatologist developed one of the apps? Someone who would know that the light-levels emitted by the display of a mobile device are in no way comparable to the levels required to substantiate the concepts of light treatment for skin. Interesting.

So, about that ‘licenced’ bit…

Burn. Fight. Kill.

2011-09-08T23:07:00.001+10:00

Welcome, minions. This post is going deep, and not in a pornstar kind of way. So grab a coffee, get comfortable, and get your reading face on.

Right from the beginnings of our lifetime, we’re encouraged in the belief that we are the pinnacle of existence, the dominant species on the planet, the very top of the food chain. We parade about, lulled into a false sense of grandeur, while conveniently forgetting that simple infectious agents can wipe us out.

When something threatens that disproportionate ideal of ourselves, we tend to respond in some fairly predictable methods. If something we have little or no control over kills one of us (i.e. natural disasters), we mourn the loss, and carry on. If we kill another, we’re thrown in prison, and told how bad we are, and then we’re let out on ‘good behaviour’ after a mere few years or less.

However, if an animal kills or injures on of us, let there be war. Mob mentality becomes the vogue thing, and off we go on the hunt. We hear stories about kids bitten by dogs, and the dog is destroyed. Sure, in some cases this may be necessary. There are those out there who breed and raise dogs for their aggression, for the sole purpose of illegal dog fighting. In others… well, mummy was too busy chatting to her very important friend to bother noticing the warning growls from the dog that eventually snapped.

Here in Australia, frequently the media will run stories on people being bitten (and often seriously injured or killed) by crocodiles and sharks. Usually in areas which are known habitats of the aforementioned predators. Do you follow what I’m saying here? The natural living area of the predatory animal. You’re entering it, and you expect them to play nice?

But it really got to me today, when I came across an article about a magpie. The short version is that a schoolgirl was struck by a magpie after she got too close to it’s nesting site. The National Parks and Wildlife Service promptly issued a permit allowing the bird to be shot.

Are you seeing the pattern yet?

Thankfully, while those who work under the guise of ‘conservation’ were ready to kill the bird, the locals weren’t so put out with it, and managed to get a stay of execution for the magpie. The Australian Seabird Rescue even suggested alternative methods for dealing with the bird. None of which involved the antiquated reactionary behaviour of killing.

If we’re supposedly the Grand Poobah of the universe,then we should at the very least act like it. It is long past time for us to put down our pointed sticks, or throwing rocks at the moon, or setting fire to everything that we find offensive. Neanderthal-like tendencies aren’t exactly in fashion anymore.

And finally, I’ll leave you with some words for the late George Carlin. Not quite the same issue, put still fairly relevant:

“But let me ask you this: what are we gonna tell the intergalactic council of ministers the first time one of our teenage mothers throws their newborn baby into a dumpster? How are we gonna explain that to the space people? How are we gonna let them know that our ambassador was only late for the meeting because his breakfast was cold and he had to spend half an hour punching his wife around the kitchen? And what are they gonna think when they find out, its just a local custom, that over 80 million women in the Third world have had their clitorises forcibly removed in order to reduce their sexual pleasure so they won't cheat on their husbands? Can't you just sense how eager the rest of the universe is for us to show up?"
- George Carlin, Complaints and Grievances

RealNetworks: Flexing Ones Muscles

2011-08-27T12:15:00.001+10:00

We’re back! After an extended break thrust upon me due to moving house, I’ve finally crawled back into existence. This morning, I went trolling for some news worthy of your attention, and it would seem the Stupidity Gods are smiling on me yet again, for the very first story I opened is definitely right up there on the stupid scale.

Depending on how old you are, some of you will remember RealNetworks (Formerly Progressive Networks), pioneers in streaming media. In the early 2000’s, it is said by some that more than 85% of streaming content on the internet was in the Real format, only to be pushed aside by MPEG 1/2/4, MP3, WMA and H.264 in more recent years.

Despite this, RealNetworks still reports near USD$50m per annum net income. Which is no small figure, especially for a company pushing a technology that the industry has pushed aside in favour for other formats.

So why, I must ask, do they feel the need to sue a Dutch webmaster for posting a link on his site to competing freeware? RealNetworks hasn’t quite been stomped into a mud puddle, but it won’t be long now. Maybe they do actually need the €210,000 they’re claiming for ‘damages’. Let us be honest here. RealNetworks damaged itself far before anyone else with that bloatware-infested farcical software we all came to loathe: RealPlayer.

Not content with trying to sue people serving links to their competitor’s software, RealNetworks also somehow convinced a judge to allow them to seize the webmasters systems, claiming copyright infringement.

So, at some point, RealNetworks legal guru’s must have sent a takedown notice to Mr Edskes, demanding removal of the link. And he did. He claims it, the hosting network confirmed it, the company that performed the computer seizure confirmed it, and yet RealNetworks isn’t getting the point.

When you ask for something to be removed, and the webmaster complies, the host confirms, and your own glorified repo-men confirms, you no longer have any reason to continue to sue. RealNetworks must have hired some patent trolls. Or they’re feeling all brave after taking on Microsoft.

Either way, suing people is not going to make the .rm format suddenly godlike in popularity.

Stupid Acts, Stupid Words

2011-08-06T11:23:00.001+10:00

Yes, minions, it’s time for me to take on the big guns again. Stupid acts have been made, and stupid words have been spoken. Privacy concerns and hypocrisy: two things that don’t play nice together.

You’ll all be familiar with Google’s Street View service, and the controversy surrounding it after it was revealed in May 2010 that between 2006 and 2010, the Street View vehicles collected around 600 Gigabytes of data from Wi-Fi locations they passed on their routes, and then this data was made available through Google’s web mapping systems.

Stupid act.

After news of this began hitting the streets, major rival Microsoft jumped up and down about it, and Kim Cameron, previously Chief Identity Architect until earlier this year, had suspected that the Street View cars had been collecting Wi-Fi data for some time.

Stupid words.

You see, in July it was revealed that Microsoft also had collected Wi-Fi data, and also published it on the web via their Live.com location database. Starting to sound familiar, isn’t it?

Hypocrisy.

This of course also ties in with physical location data recording by several types of phones. Apple’s iPhone, Microsoft’s Windows Phone, Google’s Android devices.

I did a post a while back regarding Google going all Big Brother on us, but now it looks like we need to add Microsoft and Apple to the ever growing list of entities that want to know who you are, what you’re doing, where you’re doing it, why you’re doing it, when you’re doing it and how you’re doing it, 24/7.

It seems competition for a controlling interest in the industry is getting to a point where these large entities are willing to break all sorts of laws, and invade all privacy in an attempt to give them an edge. And after being caught out, the reactions of each company has been quite different.

Apple updated their device firmware to frequently clear the location data cache. Google has been fined, and also the Street View vehicles have been banned in several countries, and further investigations are currently underway in other countries. Microsoft hasn’t done all that much, other than make accessing the mapping data more difficult. But that seems to be situation normal for Microsoft – after all, it can sometimes take them 17 years to patch something.

Single Party-led States: Not So Good?

2011-08-05T21:25:00.001+10:00

Eyes open, minions: there’s a whole heap of rankness going down all over the place. Enough to notice the pattern forming. A fairly disturbing pattern, for those who bother to pay attention to the goings-on beyond their own borders, at least.

The purpose of a government is to provide order and direction to the populace. Many governments are chosen by the people, for the people. Others are effectively self-elected. It really doesn’t matter how the government was formed, but the way they use their power is definitely an issue.

You are probably all aware of the dodgy happenings going down around the world, primarily in the form of mass protests. The stock standard reaction of the governments involved has been to firstly bury their head in the sand and ignore the messages of the population, and then finally unleash their rabid militaries on the protestors when they start getting a bit more annoying.

You might recall the December 2010 revolution in Tunisia, which in turn led to a revolution in Egypt, beginning 25th January 2011. You should definitely recall the protests of 1989 in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China – sometimes referred to as the June 4th Incident, of which gave the world that famous ‘Tank Man’ image – you’ll recall I mentioned this particular event in a previous post.

You are probably also aware of the current extended uprising in Syria. And now, it seems Belarus is jumping on the bandwagon, experiencing their own political protests.

Now, on to the ‘pattern’ bit I mentioned earlier. All of these protests came about when the populace got tired of being ignored by the government. In one way or another, the government messed up, and the people weren’t happy about it and called for some sort of change, be it a policy change, or a representative change, or a total overhaul.

That sort of thing is something a government does not want to hear. But they really should. A government needs to listen to the people it governs in order to be able to function more effectively and also maintain a level of being fair and just. To do otherwise, to dismiss the very people who allowed you to come into power, is rude, selfish, and a very worthy cause for a revolution.

Not all governments suffer from this '’selective hearing’, though. Most are willing to at least listen to the population, even if they don’t make any changes. But some, including those listed above, deal with it by trying to brush the problems under the blanket, either through censorship, or use of arms. And in the case of Belarusian censorship, I find it quite ironic that they’re needing to censor silent protestors…

In furtherance of the whole ‘pattern’ concept I have going here, let us take a look at the type of government involved:

Tunisia: Presidential Republic - Unitary (Effectively Single Party)
Egypt: Military Junta (Seeing as there’s only one military in Egypt, this is also effectively Single Party)
China: Single Party
Syria: Single Party
Belarus: Presidential Republic

So, 4 out of 5… do you smell what The Rock is cooking, yet?

Pakistan’s War On Encryption

2011-08-01T18:00:00.001+10:00

Welcome, minions, to the latest post in my endless task of exposing stupid, no matter where it may be. It took a few days of waiting, but as is the norm when I ask for something stupid, there’s always an idiot who is willing to oblige.

This time it’s the government of Pakistan. It would seem that last year, a new Telecommunications Law was passed. Part of that law was along similar lines as to what's going down all over the work lately – more controls being put in place, introduced innocuously as methods to fight child pornography, but have no limits, so end up being weapons in Big Brothers’ arsenal.

So, it seems the Pakistani government wants to do away with the use of encryption. The recent law passed specifically instructs ISP’s to spy on their users, and encryption was making that difficult. Just as cavemen used to throw rocks and sticks at things they didn't like, this government wants to ban encryption.

Of course, it goes without saying that certain entities within Pakistan are not going to be happy. And I don’t just mean those who prefer torrents to actually buying music/movies/software.

The financial sector is probably already going into a generalised state of apoplexy. All those personal records and transaction details your banks keeps are now required to be clear text. And all those TLS/SSL connections decent online ecommerce sites seem to favour: yep, now technically illegal.

Then there’s the military. Their operations systems and storage servers are about to become a whole lot less secure. And this carries a little bit more worry than normal, when you remember that the Pakistani military has a unit called the National Command Authority, and it is their exclusive job to maintain the security of the assorted nuclear weapons and facilities in Pakistan.

Now, one would assume such entities would be exempt from the ban. But who can tell with a government that clearly hasn’t though through not only the implications of such a decision, but also the consequences that will arise.

I strongly suspect that an amendment to the new law will be rushed through the Parliament of Pakistan very shortly.

Marriage Equality: Let The Circus Begin

2011-07-26T21:44:00.001+10:00

Ahhh, minions. It’s time to get in, sit down, strap in, and read on. You guessed it: something rank is going down.

You’re probably all aware that on July 24 2011, the Marriage Equality Act came into play in New York. And moments later, the circus began. The circus is, of course, the Senate and assorted political hats, most of which reacted with a calm acquiescence. Others, not so calm…

For instance, a couple of town clerks resigned, citing religious objections to signing off on marriage certificates for same-sex couples. Which is kind of odd, since the central texts for the mainstream religions don’t specifically forbid same-sex marriage.

Another clerk said she wouldn’t sign certificates unless forced to do so. Such stubborn and childlike behaviour was quickly put down in Nassau County, after district attorney Kathleen Rice threatened town clerks within her jurisdiction could face criminal charges for failure to perform their duties.

But of course, religious-types always have put up a fight. Especially when it’s something they either have no use for, or cannot exercise some sort of control over. Today, the first lawsuit against New York state was filed by a group of clergymen, flying under the name of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom. Again, kind of odd, since the US Constitution also doesn’t mention anything regarding same-sex marriage, or even homosexuality.

You might be expecting some of the normal arguments that have been spewing forth from the frothing mouths of assorted church officials and representatives, but this one took even me by surprise. Surprise which quickly became laughter. I even had a bit of the glad-eye happening.

Was their argument that it was against the Word of God? Forbidden in the Bible? Unconstitutional? Nay, it was something far more sinister: some senators had their cell phones turned off during the vote.

Perhaps they just didn’t want to suffer through the same drivel they’ve been hearing for years, now…

So, it would seem that the plaintiffs need to get over it. This bill has been in the making for some time – similar bills have been appearing in the State Assembly since 2007. No doubt members of the New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom have been bleating into the ears since day one. Logic states that if you haven’t managed to sway your senators vote in that amount of time, that last minute phone call you may have been hoping to make wouldn’t have done you any good anyway.

Even a spokesman for Governor Andrew Cuomo is trying really really hard to stifle the laughter, stating “The plaintiffs lack a basic understanding of the laws of the state of New York. The suit is without merit.”

When it comes to the church, it would appear that marriages between dissimilar entities isn’t as evil as it’s portrayed to be in certain religious circles, because it seems we can marry someone of the opposite sex, a pillow, a dog, or even a video game, but not someone of the same sex.

If you’re after my opinion on same-sex marriage, I’m all for it. After all, we often say love is boundless, so why are people trying to set limits on it?

Homophobia much?

Shallow, Shallow Lives

2011-07-24T12:53:00.001+10:00

Well, minions, as you well know, often the world can be a bitter place. Sometimes you are constantly surrounded by shallow people, and in most cases it is worsened because they’re oblivious to the fact.

Most of us woke up to the news that Amy Winehouse died. And if we’re completely honest with ourselves, we’ll all agree we saw it coming - after all, she led a troubled life. Nevertheless, I’d like to add my sentiments and share the words of my half-sister that I found rather fitting: “May you find peace in the next life that you couldn’t find in this one”.

By now, you’re all wondering where the ‘shallowness’ comes in. Alright, then. Here it comes.

On Friday 22nd July, Utøya island, Norway: Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb and then, while disguised as a police officer, began shooting youths as they ran for their lives. The death toll currently stands at 91.

A little bit over a week ago, Rebecca Leighton, a nurse at Stepping Hill Hospital in Manchester, United Kingdom contaminated the saline bags of patients, killing 5 with one more in very poor condition in the critical care unit. She is charged with 3 counts of Criminal damage with intent to endanger life, 3 counts of Criminal damage being reckless as to whether life was being endangered, and 1 count of Theft of medicine. Apparently the Hippocratic Oath didn’t quite sink in for her…

Saturday night, in the Zhejiang province, China: High-speed train D301 collided with Bullet-train D3115, causing derailment, killing 33 and injuring a further 190 passengers. 21 other trains were suspended.

Over the last week or so, there have been protests in Syria. Syrian armed forces have been involved in several clashes with protestors, and the death toll in Homs is already in the 30’s. This includes the 16 people killed when armed forces opened fire on a funeral procession.

All of this going on around the world in just the last week. So many pointless deaths. Because one of those deaths was a celebrity, guess which one scores the front page, and is all anyone is talking about today…

Why people automatically value the life of a celebrity over that of ordinary people, I don’t know. My personal view is all lives are equal. Amy’s celebrity status doesn’t add value to her live, and likewise her struggles with mental illness and drug abuse did not reduce the value of her life. I think we can put it down to media sensationalism, and the apparent fact that most people are sheep and will do and believe everything they’re told to.

Shallowness ought to be a crime against Morality.

The Perversion of Political Correctness

2011-07-19T15:09:00.001+10:00

Lock and load, minions: I’m about to rant on one of my all-time favourite topic to nurse a near-psychotic hatred for. Which means that this post ought to give you a well above-average level of entertainment.

You might have noticed that my posts here quite often don’t follow those unspoken rules when it comes to maintaining a certain level of that relatively recent concoction that has become a fairly standard media buzz-word since the 1990’s known as Political Correctness (Or P.C for those of you who feel the need to abbreviate everything).

Put away your torches and pitchforks, people. I’m not about to totally renounce my common sense, and publicly label Political Correctness as a complete farce. Mainly because I can actually understand what the original concept was designed to do. Namely, an attempt to moderate our language enough to stem to spread of racism and other concepts that have been the driving force of the many Culture Wars that societies worldwide have spread throughout their histories.

But recently, assorted groups gold hold of the idea, and have squeezed it for all it’s worth. The entire concept has been perverted far beyond what it was originally, and we are now at the point where you can be sued for using certain phrasings. The result of these perversions is a concept that more often than not hinders the smooth-running societal behaviour that the original concept was designed to promote.

What seems to happen quite often is a group or organisation will take a tiny part of the whole idea, and exaggerate it to ridiculous proportions. One of the most obvious examples to come to mind was the big push from Feminists groups worldwide to abolish the term ‘man’, when used in a context encompassing the global populace. i.e: “mankind”.

It started off with the change of “mankind” to “humankind”. Fair enough, I can live with that. But the call to rename that cover in the street to a person-hole cover was taking it too far.

Then there was the big push to rename things in more ‘socially acceptable’ terms. Back in the day when gas stations actually had attendants that would pump your gas for you, that attendant may have been commonly referred to as a ‘petrol pumper’. Less than 10 years ago, that became “Petroleum Transfer Technician”. The same idea behind that push is responsible for fast-food places to be called “Restaurants”.

About the same time, some group of psychologists somewhere got the idea to tell us that the terms we had been using for decades to describe various ailments that affect people were suddenly offensive, and we had to start using other terms. And as such, ‘retarded’ became ‘mentally challenged’, ‘stupid’ children suddenly had a ‘learning disorder’ or was ‘minimally exceptional’, ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ became ‘visually challenged’ and ‘hearing impaired’. I’ve also heard somewhere that ‘ugly’ was to be termed as ‘having a severe appearance deficit’.

I mentioned earlier about the concept often hindering, and as an example, I’ll bring to your attention a condition experienced by military units worldwide. It occurs when a soldier’s nervous system becomes to overstressed and cannot take any more input. The name of this condition seems to change with almost every major war. Here’s the outline:

World War I: Shellshock
World War II: Battle Fatigue
Korean War: Operational Exhaustion
Vietnam War: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

When George Carlin covered this subject in his Parental Advisory show, he pointed out that the humanity of the term describing this condition had been totally squeezed out. He went on to say “I bet you, if we’d still have been calling it shellshock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time.”

I’ll say it again: hindering. And the fact that some people wear their Political Correctness like a Medal of Honor, and believe that it gives them some form of superior status was one of the major precursors to the events that eventually lead to the creation of Political Correctness in the first place. ‘You’re different to me, therefore you must be inferior.

I say that it is well past time to begin steering the concept of Political Correctness back onto the path it was originally designed for. Time to stop fiddling with the language in order to exercise further control, because face it: you’ll never be able to obfuscate better than a lawyer.

Aircraft Engine Failure: Not A Safety Issue?

2011-07-16T22:46:00.001+10:00

Well minions, you may have noticed a change in name for this blog. Tonight’s post brings us a story that is the perfect example of what that new name implies. Instant Entertainment: Just Add Stupid – someone does something universally stupid, we get entertained by it. So pull up that chair, and read on.

Qantas: Australia’s largest airline. Mentioned in the 1988 movie Rain Man as never having an aircraft crash. Technically correct, but not entirely accurate.

The last 18 months have seen several failures in engines and other equipment. But this isn’t really my target for this post. I’m sure if you dig into any airline in the world, you’ll be able to find similar occurrences. The Qantas PR department, however…

Today, Qantas flight QF64 en-route from Johannesburg, South Africa to Sydney, Australia was forced to return to Jo’burg due to an overheating engine.

Steve Purvinas, Federal Secretary for the Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association raised a few points regarding mechanical issues of Qantas aircraft, saying that these issues continue to recur. The majority of failures appear to have been due to blades from the high pressure compressor breaking.

While a spokesman from Qantas agreed that the failure that caused issues with flight QF64 was most likely due to the same blade breakage, he said that it was a mechanical, and not a safety issue.

… pardon?

Having not obtained any sort of degree in aircraft engineering, or fluid dynamics, you’ll have to forgive my ignorance; but I’m fairly certain that an engine is an integral part to keeping an aircraft aloft.

Let us bring to bear the awesome power that is analytical logic:

If this was not a safety issue then why did the pilot, upon noticing increased vibration and temperature of the engine, immediately return to the original airport instead of continuing along the scheduled flight plan?

Why are members of the ALAEA – who represent the very engineers that maintain the Qantas aircraft and engines – are calling for an urgent enquiry into the health of the Qantas fleet?

Why is the spokesman trying to play down the incidents by blaming the comments being made by the engineers on an ongoing pay dispute?

Ahhh, of course. Deflection: the primary tool of damage control.

On one hand, we have the engineers: overalls, tool chests, experience. On the other hand, we have the PR guy: white collar, expensive tie, hasn’t held a screwdriver since his childhood.

I know who I’d trust…

TSA Tyranny

2011-07-14T22:17:00.001+10:00

I had a bit of trouble deciding what to write about tonight, but a post popped up on one of my feeds that immediately caught my eye. So strap in, minions: this one’s going to really rock the boat.

Topic of the night is one of our old favourites: A government agency doing ridiculously stupid things. Of course, I’m talking about none other than the US Transportation Security Administration. The last half-year have seen some crazy things done by employees of this agency.

We’ll start with the least dodgy, mainly because I want to get it out of the way before the primary rant. If you plan on flying in the US, and are taking electronics with you (computers, GPS units, cameras, tablets, etc), might I suggest you not only log the serial numbers of such devices before you leave home, but check your baggage after the TSA employee has finished scanning your bags. You might just find that it has mysteriously disappeared from your luggage, and just as mysteriously appeared online for sale, all thanks to TSA employees with sticky fingers.

Now, on to the main event.

The TSA is becoming well-known for some highly dodgy antics during security checks at airports all over the US. Most occur during the physical check known as the ‘pat-down’. This is the process of physically touching a persons body to check for concealed items, and thanks to that old force we know as temptation, there are cases where things have gone too far.

Actress and model Donna D’Errico said she was forced to go through extra searches, and when she asked why, the TSA agent replied with “Because you caught my eye”. Former Miss USA Susie Castillo also reported that during an enhanced pat-down, she was groped and touched inappropriately 4 times during the search.

Of course, the weirdness doesn’t stop there. There have been incidents where TSA agents have ordered the removal of medical devices, such as prosthetic breasts on breast-cancer survivors, leg braces on a 4-year old, or even the adult diaper of a 95-year old woman.

Perhaps a bit more worrying (as if you needed more to worry about) are the recent occurrences of TSA agents targeting young children. There are stories on an 8-year old boy being patted down in the area of his genitalia, a 3-year old girl having to not only surrender her teddy bear for scrutiny but also endure the pat-down, and even an 8-month old baby. And on the 13th of this month, a woman in Tennessee was charged after refusing to allow TSA agents to pat-down her child.

The TSA stands by all such decisions, of course. In fact, during a Senate committee hearing, TSA Administrator John Pistole was quoted in responding “I’m not going to change the policy”.

Most people don’t have an issue with a standard pat-down, but these invasive pat-downs that include the area of the genitals are highly questionable. When the Texas House of Representatives attempted to make it illegal for TSA agents to touch the genitalia during a pat-down, the response was the Department of Justice threatening to make Texas a no-fly zone.

Apparently touching someone's naughty bits is important to the TSA.

Let The Games Begin

2011-07-13T12:51:00.001+10:00

Last call for bets, minions: the fight is about to start. In the Red Corner, we have the challenger: Google+. In the Blue Corner, the defending champion: Facebook.

Oh yes, things are warming up quickly between these two. Sort of… at least Facebook is making some serious changes – very quietly, one notes. It would seem that although Google+ is still in private beta, Facebook is not only preparing for battle, but has already started tightening its Terms of Service. A few updates to the TOS have already been made, without notifying it’s users I might add (At least to date, I have received no official notifications of any changes whatsoever). Might be something for some bored lawyers to look into…

Prior to the Google+ announcement, there were several tools available to the user that would allow data migration to other services. Tools such as the Facebook Friend Exporter for Chrome, or the ox.io tool from Open-Xchange.

So it seems Facebook is already running scared. And also displaying tiny bit of the old hypocrisy, just to add to it all. You see, the reasons given for blocking the ox.io tool was citing violations:

“You cannot use a user’s friend list outside of your application, even if a user consents to such use, but you can use connections between users who have both connected to your application. (FPP II.11)

Our expectation is that developers do not provide users with poor experiences, such as those resulting from inappropriate or misleading content, privacy and security vulnerabilities, and general spam in the Stream, Requests, and elsewhere. We appreciate your commitment to improving the application ecosystem on Platform.”

Now, are you ready for it? Here comes the hypocrisy: First off, this tool uses Facebook’s own official API tools, and was originally approved by Facebook. Secondly, the very same feature is available via Facebook’s Account Settings, resulting in your contacts being exported to a friends.html file. Apparently Facebook’s motto should read ‘Anything we can do, you can’t do at all’.

They’re certainly working hard to make sure that they control your data. Although it’s your data, they don’t want you having access to it. In fact, it has been reported that just accessing a profile a certain number of times within a certain amount of time will trigger the automatic hiding of email addresses, regardless of whether you are using a 3rd party tool, or doing it manually.

So is all this tightening of the hatches an attempt to slow or stop a potentially massive outflow of people to the upcoming Google+ network? I think actions like such as we’ve seen so far will prompt that rush all by itself. People don’t mind giving out personal data, as long as they maintain control over it. Trying to snatch such control away from its owner is pretty much the easiest method to shank yourself.

Jealousy is for children, Facebook. Get over it. And while you’re doing that, have your lawyers explain the following concept to you:

Antitrust: a law that promotes or maintains market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct.

“Patent”: A Synonym For “Lawsuit”?

2011-07-11T01:00:00.001+10:00

Yes, minions, it’s that time again. Get your milk, get your cookies, and get your View-Master; the topic for tonight is a long-standing one, that with the increased evolution of business models is only going to continue to get worse. At least until billions of dollars are poured on the problem.

I’ve brushed against the issue before, when covering some of the stupid things people are getting sued for. But now I’m going to dive in and get right to the root of this evil that is consuming our lives.

What we’re looking at tonight is the realm of the Patent/Trademark, and therefore we’ll also come up against the whole concept of Intellectual Property, which seems to be the favourite reason to sue, nowadays.

I’ve long had problems with the idea of patents. The original concept was sound: protection of inventions and ideas. But thanks to a broken and.or corrupt system, you can patent just about anything these days. Most patents are perfectly fine, and cover plausible ideas, but some are pure idiocy.

Prime example: US Patent #5,443,036: Method of exercising a cat. For those of you who have ever played with your cat using a laser pointer or other form of luminous toy, you have infringed on this patent, and owe someone some money. Or how about US Patent #7,415,666: Method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments, owned by Microsoft. Yep, they patented the page-up/page-down functionality. Ever used those keys on your keyboard? Pay up…

Trademarks are important for businesses. That catchy motto, or appealing logo and associated imagery can become a household name over time, and thus become an integral part to the business when advertising. Take Cadbury, for example. The name ‘Cadbury’ is a registered trademark. Their ‘Glass and a half device’ image is also a registered trademark. Fairly obvious, right? What you might not know is they OWN the colour Royal Purple.

Now, I’m ok with the name and logo being trademarked, but claiming, and been granted ownership over an entire colour is more than a bit questionable, in my view. See, there’s this neat concept within the patent registration process, commonly referred to as ‘prior art’. One of the functions of this concept is that if someone else comes forward and proves that the invention existed before the claimant ever used it, the patent cannot be granted.

I’ll guarantee that if we scour the worlds art museums, we’ll be able to find some very old paintings which utilise the shade Royal Purple. Not to mention the Visible Spectrum, which has been in existence since there has been light…

And now we come to Intellectual Property. The bane of business operation as we know it. This concept is the sole reason for all the suing and counter-suing going on in the business world. It’s the legal equivalent of “Gimme that, it’s mine!”. Small start-ups get sued off the face of the planet, large corporations or international conglomerates try to bankrupt each other, and as far as anyone can tell, the only winners out of it all are the lawyers, who go home smiling with their fists clutched around cheques with enormous figures on them.

Let’s take a look at what has been going on lately:

Apple sues Amazon for use of the term “App store”
Paul Ceglia claims Mark Zuckerberg agreed to split Facebook with him
Oracle claims Google owes them US$6.1billion in damages
Hewlett-Packard sues Oracle for dumping Itanium support
Lodsys sues approx. 17 companies over supposed patent infringement
Apple sues Samsung over Galaxy phones/tablets

And this is just a small piece of the pie. Nokia’s in there as well, Microsoft, Google/Android, the list goes on.

It seems that thanks to an antiquated system in operation at the USPTO, anyone can apply for just about anything. It’s all getting just a bit blasé, business owners are spending more and more time fighting pointless lawsuits than actually getting on with their work.

I say pointless, because in most cases of late, such lawsuits are bought about by what are typically known as ‘patent trolls’: companies that only exist as patent holders, none of which were even applied for, but instead were bought. They have either no capabilities to, or no want to produce a product/service based around the patents they own.

These companies will quietly amass a fair amount of patents, then go headhunting and sue anyone and everyone they can, hoping to scare a big payout from some larger business/es (Yes, some are gutsy enough to try taking on multiple companies).

A total redesign of the Patent system is required. It’ll be hellishly costly, and extremely time-consuming, but business will benefit, and therefore the consumer will benefit.

Ahh, Optus: You’re A Total Numpty.

2011-07-07T21:57:00.002+10:00

Welcome again, my minions. So many posts, so few days – aren’t you all spoilt. I’m sure that by now, you know the drill: drag up a chair and prepare your mind, there’s more stupid happening.

Let me introduce you to Optus (AKA SingTel Optus Pty Ltd) – one of Australia’s largest ISP’s. They appear to be falling into some sort of pattern of engaging in dodgy advertising antics.

Back in September 2009, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission held meetings with telecommunications heads, warning them about a ‘race to the bottom’ occurring in advertising practises. Roll on forward to May this year, and we find that Optus was required to pay out over $178,000 in fines over misrepresentations regarding a specific mobile phone plan they were offering.

And today, we get news of further antics from April 2010. Apparently misleading advertising is some sort of not very well thought out signature move. Naturally, the ACCC sued, and today, Optus got stung with a $5.26M fine. For some strange reason, their response was to say they were ‘disappointed’, and that the adverts (described as ‘carefully crafted’ by the ACCC) were not intended to mislead their customers.

You know, the default response one would expect from a large telecommunications company…

But what I really want to know is after the initial warning, and then the first fine, all the lawyers and directors and shareholders sat down and had a big strokey-beard meeting, who decided it would be a good idea to push it further and flout the law all over again?

Top Tip: Prudence suggests that it is not wise to thumb your nose at the people who can issue assorted punishments. Fines, cease operations orders, things like that. Just sayin’…

Childlike Governments

2011-07-06T23:36:00.001+10:00

So, there I was, trolling assorted news sources for something decent to write about. There really isn’t all that much of interest going down at the moment, so I was starting to get a bit frustrated.

But my diligence paid off, and todays topic ought to kickstart the mind a bit.

Ahhh, China: Home to 1.3billion industrious people, a very long wall, and one childlike government. A country that apparently loves to be in the headlines. Sort of like the US, but with a difference in style. While the US has its obsession with playing with their toy soldiers in the big sandpit known as the Middle East, China prefers to unleash a series of highly questionable political events, usually upon its own populace.

The Chinese Government is well-known for trying to deny access to any material regarding any form of protest or views and opinions that do not favour their own, most commonly via use and abuse of technology – censorship, search-criteria blocking/rerouting, DNS hijacking, and more, all the while refusing to budge to citizen demand and political pressure from both internal and external sources, in a display of epic stubbornness.

One would be fairly accurate in describing such actions as a child blocking their ears while shouting “LALALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING”

Although, I guess it is a change from previous actions against protestors. I’m sure we all remember the protests at Tiananmen Square, June 4th 1989, and that famous ‘tank man’ image.

The bit of news I saw that got me writing this was found in the business news section, of all places. It came in the from of an article outlining the possibility that Cisco may be supplying China with hardware to build a huge network of surveillance cameras.

“So what?” I hear you ask.

We’re talking a camera network that will have the capabilities to track known people, or if coupled up with assorted law enforcement and military/intelligence networks, identify people on the fly. An extremely useful tool for tracking oh, lets say political targets, for example… in a country that has a fairly extensive record for stamping out political unrest with a very large pair of boots.

I also had a bit of a chuckle over the fact that Cisco might be stepping up for this. When you take into consideration that China is responsible for the majority percentage of counterfeit Cisco/Linksys products, the irony can’t but help to bring a bit of the glad-eye to your face.

The Blame Game

2011-07-03T21:29:00.001+10:00

Good evening, minions. As you might have guessed, it’s happened again: that rare event where certain portions of my brain come together, wave a lighter in the air while singing hippie songs, resulting in some semblance of clarity of thought.

As you well know, such events are almost always precursory to a blog post…

… and here we are.

So tonight, we’ll discuss that ancient topic most refer to as the blame game. Every person in the world will have been subject to this concept, so we all know exactly what I’m on about.

One that crops up fairly often centres around the youth of today, how screwed up they are, and who’s fault it is that they are the way they are. Every major and minor group have their own theories about it, and massive global arguments erupt on forums worldwide. Voices are raised, fists are shaken, and often there is rending of garments.

We’ve all heard the reasons given. It’s the movies they watch. Or the music they listen to. Or the games they play. Or the parents. Or the social environment they spend time in. Or they’re just plain possessed, and we must make haste in summoning Father Damien Karras and get that exorcism underway.

But I read something today, posted by a friend on Facebook. It was meant to be an article of humour, but it actually makes sense, as well.

How can we expect the kids of today to listen to their parents when we find the following:

Tarzan lives half-naked
Cinderella stays out until midnight
Pinocchio is always lying
Aladdin is the King of Thieves
Batman is frequently seen driving in excess of the speed limit
Sleeping Beauty is lazy
Snow White lives with 7 men.

Not such a good track record for those stories we forcefeed to our children, huh. And something tells me that if we scoured the Disney classics as well, we’d easily increase that list threefold.

I told you: makes you think, doesn’t it?

Cellphone Calamity

2011-06-30T23:19:00.001+10:00

Welcome minions. Take a seat and get comfortable, for a rant of epic proportions shall ensue.

Tonight's topic revolves around the decades-old tired and worn out arguments regarding safety of cellphones.

Cellphones have long been under the microscope, for a variety of reasons. The most common one is, of course, that they cause cancer. They may very well do so. Or they may not. The many studies performed by scientists all around the world haven't been able to produce a definitive link, so far. But you get companies that will produce magical cellphone accessories claiming to limit radiation levels in the device, and make it safe. This practise is commonly referred to as “jumping on the bandwagon”.

For example, the Cellsafe silicone cover for Apple’s iPhone 4. Now, this accessory, as far as I can tell, does exactly what it is designed to do: reduce radiation to the user’s head. But I have a few issues with their claims, and also the testing procedures involved.

First off, on the page for the product, they explain how the device works. Apparently it’s some sort of witchcraft between not only the embedded RF module (Is this just a fancy way of saying ‘lead plate’?), but the silicone itself. Pardon? Did you just claim that silicone blocks radiation? Seriously? Righto… welcome to Earth. Please observe all local laws. Including those of physics.

Next, on a page all about radiation facts, we must take note that certain claims regarding cancer and initial exposure are being pulled from a paper written in 1984. Going back to that whole physics thing… can I introduce you to ‘time’? It’s a one-way street, and it always marches forward, regardless of what you do. The result in this case is technological advancement. The cellphones of 1984 usually required briefcases (Such as the Nokia Mobira Talkman). Apparently the shift to these fit-in-your-hand devices of today went by somewhat unnoticed…

Then there’s the statement that the unit lessens “harmful exposure”… well, that’s yet to be determined, isn’t it? The resounding sound of “inconclusive” that still hangs in the air in the various testing laboratories around the world pretty much says it all.

Now, on to the testing. This one does in one day. Well, ok… maybe 2. The report only states the testing date was between 20th and 21st April 2011. It also was only performed on a single sample of a single model of phone. Any statistician or science-type will tell you the results of a sample set of 1 isn’t even worth the paper it’s printed on.

Furthermore, the testing environment was done in a semi-anechoic chamber. This is sort of like a Faraday Cage – it stops external noise from getting in. Also, their signal transmitter was near floor-level and was about a meter away from the phone. So if we read between the lines, we figure out that they produced the most idealistic operational environment for the phone – no interference, therefore the phone’s broadcast module didn’t have to do any sort of filtering for noise, or compensation.. (read: transmit power at lowest)

It bugs me when people try and make money off unsubstantiated claims. Especially when you delve deep and realise that the company doesn’t even give a damn. If they did, they’d be mass-producing units for every type of phone, not just one single handset. They’d have supplied a significantly larger sample set for testing. They’d also be looking into methods for reducing other forms of microwave/electromagnetic radiation. i,e: microwave ovens, cordless phones, wireless networking equipment, TV and radio broadcast and receiving equipment, GPS, assorted telemetry equipment, satellite uplink, and so on.

Oh, and beware of anyone waving a Geiger Counter at your cellphone and claiming you’re going to get cancer and die a horrible death before the week is out. Geiger Counters measure the wrong type of radiation.

Talk Hard

2011-06-05T21:10:00.001+10:00

Ahhh, minions, I have a great story for you tonight. One that will incite and provoke all sorts of thoughts. For such is the way of life: just when everything seems to be boring, someone somewhere does something totally stupid and winds up in the headlines. And then I get involved.

Tonight's morsel comes all the way from Whitby, in Ontario, Canada. It would seem that one Donald A Wilson Secondary School, under guide of the school board, has decided to commit some weird masochistic form of political suicide. To borrow a quote from one of my favourite movies, Pump Up the Volume: “I can almost taste it; the rankness in the air.”

Jack Christie, a 12th Grade student of the school, made the heinous mistake of posting an animated video to YouTube. As a result, the school has suspended him indefinitely, and also contacted police.

… say what?!

First off, uploading videos to YouTube isn’t a crime. Of any type. And although a minor percentage might find the content of the animated shorts to be somewhat questionable (one comment on the original article describes them as “DIY imitation of South Park”), it certainly does not warrant indefinite suspension.

Secondly, there’s the big question of jurisdiction. Since I don’t reside in Canada, I can’t say for sure (and presently, I’m far too lazy to go trolling through Canadian law), but most educational entities adopt a fairly straight-forward rule: They are responsible for you from the time you leave your house in the morning, up until the time you arrive home after school. Some will take it further and tack on a bit about while you are recognisable as belonging to the school (read: while you are in uniform). So what exactly is this school doing bringing down their weight on someone who did something on their own time outside of the school?

Initially, an incident like this would have passed without comment. But with the school elevating this to ludicrous proportions, they are now receiving attention from all over the globe. The sort of attention one does not want to draw to ones self. Not content with stomping all over one students’ right to freedom of speech, when they found out that the Prime Minister of the Student Government was collecting signatures on a petition supporting Jack, they ordered him to stop, with a threat of punishment if he did not.

All in order to try protect the “positive moral tone”. Well, I’d say they’ve already done more to damage that than any student ever could.

Finally, a note to you, Jack Christie: Myself, and all those who support freedom of speech are right here with you. As your story spreads around the world, know that we are all standing with you. No-one can take your right to free speech away unless you let them. Stand up, and fight for your rights.

“Talk hard. I like that. It’s like a dirty thought in a nice clean mind.”
- Hard Harry/Mark Hunter, Pump Up the Volume

Something To Think About

2011-05-29T22:40:00.001+10:00

So I came across an article tonight regarding moon rocks. Initially, it didn't do much to interest me until I discovered it was all about NASA secret agents and someone being sued. As we all know, that sort of thing grabs my attention.

So it came to pass that samples of moon rock were stolen a long time ago, and every now and then, adverts and auctions show up with people claiming to be selling moon rocks. Apparently NASA checks all of them out, obviously continue to try recover the stolen rocks for further research.

Which is fine with me. After all, they went through all the trouble and millions of dollars going up there to get them. The bit that got to me was when it was revealed that apart from samples gathered by Soviet space missions, moon rocks are legally property of the United States...

Great, soon we're going to have to pay royalties If we want to look at the moon, or face being sued under IP laws. Ok, so maybe it hasn't gone that far... yet.

I then wondered about pieces of space debris and meteorites that fall to Earth. Obviously this is a natural occurrence, therefore NASA couldn't object. And sure enough, that sort of thing is fine to keep... Just don't try to sell it.

The next line of thought was one of my normal left-field controversy-causing ones that I know you all love so much.

If the US can own the moon just by saying they do, and the Church says it owns God (and associated images/icons/etc.), then that would mean they own all the ridiculous things that show up from time to time. The toasted cheese sandwich with the likeness of the Virgin Mary, for instance. And that scored $28000.

It just strikes me as odd, how something that has existed for so long, something that is a natural feature, something that isn't even based on this planet is apparently "owned". Just because some politicians say so. Most likely the same politicians who, when wrangling over natural resources will firmly state that "the world belongs to us all".

Something to think about.

D.I.Y Airline?

2011-05-24T20:51:00.001+10:00

Why, hello minions. Pull up a chair and get comfortable, ‘cause it’s time for a good ol’ fashioned rant.

In todays world,long-range travel is no longer the tedious chore it once was. The introduction and furthering development of air travel has more than superseded driving hundreds of miles cross-country, or losing one’s last meal over the aft rail of a ship. Now we can hand over a few hundred and be thousands of miles away in a matter of hours.

As is typical, the vulture’s circle overhead. Alongside the mainstream carriers, there exists a range of smaller carriers who offer mediocre services for mediocre pricing.

One such carrier, which is quickly becoming world famous for its continuous effort to apparently claim the title of world’s worst airline, is of course Jetstar. I could waste a fair bit of time detailing the alarmingly vast list of common complaints (So many in fact, there is a website dedicated to complaints), but for once, I’ll try stick to the most recent.

Today, Jetstar announced a major change to its customer service policies, and starting from November 1st, will begin charging customers up to $10 if they wish to speak to a human.

Yep, you heard me right. If you want to do anything, and for any reason cannot do so online, you’re going to have to pay up. Forking out cash for a service that’s already in place seems somewhat redundant. Not to mention those who are vision-impaired. Discrimination much? Especially since the self-serve kiosks available to date use touch-screens and have no text-to-speech technology.

These new charges are not mentioned on their website anywhere, not even on the News section of the website, or in their own Customer Guarantee diatribe. Interesting… might need to recheck that closer to November 1st.

Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan, in an interview with the Herald Sun newspaper claimed the new process would cut down delays at the terminal, stating that "What it means is that you can arrive at an airport and avoid the queue,"… I’m sure those of you who have flown internationally before will be with me when I say I’ll have to see that before I believe it.

Oh yes, I almost forget about this bit. If you are bringing baggage, you’ll need to attach your own tags to it, too. So when will we be required to fly the aircraft ourselves as well?

Now, if we eliminate ‘process streamlining’ as the reason behind this change, we can fall back onto the obvious: cost-cutting. Getting rid of a decent chunk of those helpful people who deal with all the tedium of checking in would save quite a bit in staff wages. Of course, if the whole streamlining thing proves to be legitimate, we should expect Jetstar ticket prices to fall around about November 1st…

Yeah right.

In Defence of the 7pm Project

2011-04-15T19:50:00.001+10:00

I was on Twitter, and one of the accounts I follow bought to my attention something that I find rather amusing.

The entity in question is the twitter account of one 7pm Project (on Twitter). The 7pm Project is a show that airs on Channel Ten in Australia. Its content consists of news and topical subjects reported and presented in a panellist style, with special guests, etc. It’s a fairly laid-back show, and they like to take the mick a lot. Which most people find amusing… with some apparent exceptions. But we’ll get to that shortly.

As earlier mentioned, they have a twitter account, and during the show, there is live tweeting. Depending on how ‘hot’ a topic is, there can be a significant volume of tweeting done.

Now, back to those aforementioned exceptions… apparently, some of the followers of the 7pm Project account are unhappy with the volume of tweets, some even going so far as to call it ‘spamming’.

So, let me get this straight…. you join twitter, follow the account of a topical news entity, and expect them NOT to tweet? Seriously? Do you follow sports groups and expect them not to score/win? I think not. Talk about a special type of stupid.

I also said that they like to take the mick quite often, and one of their tweets from tonight shortly before the show started does quite well in proving that:

And soon followed by:

See? A great group doing what they do well: entertaining. And for those who stood up with a martyred expression and decreed that the 7pm Project were spamming them, one must ask what you are doing on Twitter in the first place. People you follow WILL tweet. That’s the whole concept behind twitter. Either get over it, or get off it.

Societal Degeneration

2011-04-02T18:51:00.001+11:00

So I’ve come across another article today that, like so many others before it have made me sit back and wonder just what the hell is going on in todays world.

Up until recently, I’d heard about some of the stupid things people do to other people, and the stupid reasons for it as well. But I haven’t really paid much attention. Usually because although certain assorted actions/reactions are far from condonable, there has been an underlying thread of … epically weak justification, I guess. In the loosest terms, of course.

For example, newspapers and news-bearing websites are littered with reports of some guy smacking his wife around because he caught her cheating on him. Or even vice versa. Although, women usually trash houses/cars/etc., rather than try to physically harm the man… with the exception of Lorena Bobbitt.

I started to take more notice when I heard about Alexandra Tobias, the young mother who was recently sentenced to 50 years in prison for shaking her baby to death for interrupting her Farmville game.

The latest ridiculous act I’ve heard about offers up yet more evidence that our societies are degenerating into an endless wave of Neanderthal–like behavioural episodes is a story that hit the news sites today, concerning some mindless idiot stabbing his ex girlfriend for not answering his text messages. Seriously?

After reading the article a few times, another key point jumped out at me, which gives things a bit of a dodgy twist. He’s 18, and she’s 14… pedobear much?

Clearly, this particular purveyor of severe insecurity issues is one that would benefit from a few decades behind bars

Time Marches On

2011-03-29T21:41:00.001+11:00

So I was watching some Tom Gleeson stand-up on DVD, and something he said got me to thinking. It happens from time to time...

The comment came as he was taking the piss out of one of his audience - a 16 year old, during his skit on 'the olden days'. And it struck me then: so much has changed since then, and in so little time. And it is kind of weird to realize that I know of antiquated technologies that even my sister hasn't heard of.

Just to throw out a few examples, take the computer. Today, you have computers evrywhere. Desktop machines, laptops, netbooks, smartphones, even your car. Hell, your microwave most likely has some form of processor in it. But when I was a kid, a computer was something that took up most of your deskspace. It had a monochrome screen - 13", and twin 5.25" floppy disk drives. Only a dozen or so years before that, a computer was the size of a caravan, and consisted of pipes and valves, and processed punch cards.

Gaming consoles today are amazing gadgets, allowing a multitude of games to be played, either solo, or over the Internet with friends anywhere in the world. When I was a kid, the Commodore 64 was the top of the line gaming platform, and games were loaded from cassette tape. Or the slightly more finance-friendly console was the Atari, with its awesome twin single-action joysticks and 8bit graphics.

The telephone has certainly progressed. It seems that now everyone has a cellphone. Landline phones are digital touchtone phones with noise cancellation, and the wireless bases can usually pair up several handsets at once. 30 years ago, pulse dialing was new technology. You had to manually wind the dial around to dial a number. And only a few years prior to that, there was no dialing. You picked up the handset, and asked the operator to manually connect your call.

It's awesome and strangely humbling to know that in my lifetime, we have made such massive technological advancements. Even this blog is evidence of that. 20 years ago, this would have been a global message on a bulletin board system, or for the lucky ones to be able to afford to dial internationally, a public post on fidonet, all accessed either via a dial-up terminal interface, or a telnet connection - all text-based, of course. Now it's being presented to you for a fraction of the cost, nicely wrapped up in an easy-to-read HTML format, available to almost everyone in the world.

Irresponsible

2011-03-05T17:42:00.001+11:00

Back in times past, if someone’s home was on fire, a ‘bucket brigade’ would be formed between the nearest source of water, and the blaze. Neighbours and passers-by would join in and help fight against the flames.

As time marched on, the concept was formalised into localised dedicated teams, with specialist vehicles and equipment specifically designed to fight fire.

Today, such teams are still in place, in almost every city in the world. And in the scenario of huge devastating fires that threaten a vast amount of the population and/or their cities, international teams swing into action and come from all over the globe to help out.

It’s something we take for granted in todays civilised age: if our house is on fire, we pick up a phone and dial emergency services, and soon thereafter, there’s a big red fire truck parked outside dealing with the conflagration.

However, in some areas this just isn’t true. And such areas may be closer than you think. Take, for example, residents near South Fulton, in the Obion County area of Tennessee. Apparently, if you haven’t paid a $75 fee, you aren't entitled to emergency services, as Gene Cranick as his family found out in September last year (MSNBC Article) (Wikipedia Article).

Initially, the emergency operator refused to dispatch emergency services, but eventually, fire fighters did turn up… but only to prevent the fire from affecting neighbouring properties, all the while watching the Cranick home burn to the ground.

With South Fulton’s “No pay, no spray” policy, one must ask the burning question: Why isn’t this service covered by local taxes, like almost everywhere else in the world? Sounds a bit strange to me. Perhaps locals should enquire with their Mayor…

Also, as a bit of a tangent, 3 dogs and a cat died in the fire. I wonder if the ASPCA had anything to say about that, since it’s quite fair to say this loss of life could easily have been avoided. All it would have taken is for the local emergency services to do what they are paid to do.

Back on track, although this story is old news now, it’s still something to be concerned about – especially those of you who are in rural areas and may not even be aware that your taxes don't cover emergency services. Logic, it seems, is not a prerequisite to stepping into Office.

I also found it interesting that those in positions of authority of the city were defending the actions of the fire fighters (for example, City Manager Jeff Vowell’s response of "I have no problem with the way any of my people handled the situation.”), while those in positions of authority within the fire fighting industry were appalled, with the President of the International Association of Fire Fighters called it “incredibly irresponsible”.

Anyways, to the Cranick family: I hope you all are recovering well from this pointless misfortune, and are getting back into living out your lives as once you were before this fiasco.

Play Nice

2011-03-04T16:13:00.001+11:00

So, today on slashdot, I came across an article outlining a new plan of the Department of Homeland Security in the United States. This plan is to develop mobile and permanently-placed systems for scanning pedestrian traffic for metallic and high-density plastic items, potentially without the public even knowing they are being scanned.

Now, being the supreme analyst that I am *cough*, I can see both sides of this, and the potential for this particular scenario to explode in huge political debate.

On one hand, I can see the good such technology could do. If the world had this sort of thing in place a decade ago, such events as the London Bombings and perhaps even September 11 could have been prevented, or at the very least hindered.

On the other hand, there is the whole invasion of privacy thing, and in the US, the violation of Forth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable search, although it could arguably fall under the Border Search Exemption.

So there we have it. In my opinion, if deployed correctly (and lawfully), this could be a very handy tool for enforcing various assorted laws. But the deploying government would definitely have to play nice.

Strap in, minions.

2011-02-01T14:26:00.001+11:00

So it seems that areas of the world are currently falling apart. Egypt, for example. I got to thinking about the situation, and thanks to my ninja-mad pattern-recognition skills, I noticed a few similarities occurring. Read on, minions:

For those who aren’t fully in the know, Egypt government ordered the entire country’s internet access to be closed, and as of 10:46pm EET, the last standing ISP in Egypt pulled it’s plug. So that’s it for them. No broadband, no local dial-up, no 3g/4g service.

Then I noticed this article on slashdot, which reports US lawmakers have revived the idea of a government-controlled internet kill-switch. Whoa, was that just déjà vu, or did they change something in The Matrix?

“A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it.”
– Neo, The Matrix.

So, if the Egyptian government has all but lost control of the 79million strong populace, resulting in the massive rioting we’ve seen on the News recently, can you imagine if the same thing happened in the US and it’s 308milion people? Of course, it wouldn’t happen – the government wouldn’t abuse their power, right?

Hrmm, what’s this? A recent article outlining widespread FBI investigative violations? Unlucky. It also seems that me and the EFF have a very similar train of thought in regards to the idea of a kill-switch on the internet. This is their article on the matter.

Strap in, minions. It’s gonna be a rough ride. And at the moment, there is no telling which way things will go: will the majority override and maintain their freedom of speech on the internet, or will Big Brother quash all rebellion and silence the masses once and for all?

Extra-White Christmas

2010-12-30T20:16:00.001+11:00

As you may have noticed, I love a good rant. Not just giving a good rant, but reading them as well. But every now and then, I come across one that just doesn’t cut it. Usually because of that definitively human trait of stupidity.

So I was reading up on a few posts regarding the crazy-ass weather over in New York City at the moment, then came across an article written by a journalist who quite obviously didn’t vote for Mayor Bloomberg. They played up comments from the public about how the Mayor handled the clean-up efforts after the massive snowfall.

Put simply, people in the outer areas (most of the comments listed were from those in Queens) were claiming that the Mayor didn’t care about the little people, and that he was ignoring them in favour of the richer Manhattan areas. Because apparently over 1700 ploughs working to clear every road in the 468.9sq miles that is New York City wasn’t good enough for some of its inhabitants. That takes time. It isn’t going to happen instantaneously. Clue factor: zero.

So, let us examine further.

Firstly, let me do off with that claim about supposedly ignoring the outer areas. That is pure logic. If this had happened in any other city in the world, the result would have been the same. Purely and simply because in the heart of the city is where all the primary business is done. They don’t call it an “outlying area” for no reason, idiot. Even back in medieval times, the Lord would deal with the siege of his castle before seeking to rebuild the villages around his lands.

Secondly, there’s a bit more involved in ploughing. Firstly, it’s a good idea to wait for the majority of the snowfalls to cease. Especially one that dumped 20 inches in the area. No point clearing all that only to have to start again as soon as you’re finished. Also, all those vehicles that were abandoned by complete numpty’s who mistook their passenger vehicles for hulking arctic offroaders. I would have thought that the knee-deep snow as you walked to your car would have been a clue… or the myriad of cancelled flights at the airport.. or the news reports that told you exactly how bad it was outside… or the fact that even the damn ploughs were getting stuck.

And finally, to all those whining you had to wait a while before being able to drive out somewhere and load up some more purchases on your credit card, think about those whose jobs rely on roads being clear. Such as the drivers of the taxi and bus fleets who were totally grounded. You think they’ll get paid for all that sitting around? Unlikely.

A Pattern Doth Emerge

2010-11-18T23:12:00.001+11:00

After a lengthy absence, I guess I owe you minions a treat. And what better a treat than a dig at one of our favourites.

It seems the zealots at the MPAA are following in the hoof steps of their near-cousins at the RIAA. At least as far as being answerable only to themselves, that is. Their latest and greatest is nonchalant dismissal of the First Amendment.

It all starts with a proposed Act heading towards a Senate near you soon. The so-called COICA Bill (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act) would give the Department of Justice the power to shut down any domestic website, or block any foreign website it so chooses. This not only paves the way for internet censorship in the US, but even rolls out the red carpet for such.

So where does the MPAA fit in to all this, you ask? Never fear, here comes enlightenment.

Robert Pisano, Interim CEO of the MPAA dismissed claims that the new Bill may infringe upon the First Amendment (specifically, freedom of speech) by declaring that “...the First Amendment was not intended as a shield for those who steal, irrespective of the means.”

Boil that down, and what he’s really said is if you’ve committed a crime, rights no longer apply, as such rights were ‘not intended as a shield’. Going by that logic, I guess all those laws, regulations and sensitivity training given to law enforcement officers to stop suspects getting this shit kicked out of them by arresting officers are all for nothing.

Maybe he was meaning a more selective exclusion, and only meant the First Amendment. In which case, I’d like to know who gave the MPAA such powers of exclusion, because I really thought that was up to the US Congress, being the current holder of legislative authority, and not a supposed not-for-profit Association whose original purpose was film ratings.

Although, now that I think about it, firstly film censorship, and now pointed interest in internet censorship… methinks a pattern doth emerge.

Evil Wi-Fi banned in Ontario

2010-10-27T00:07:00.001+11:00

So I found a little story that made me snort. And not in a good way. Yes, we’re definitely leaning towards a ‘what-a-complete-numpty’ snort.

Our topic tonight is all about a school in Ontario, Canada that apparently wishes to remain in the dark ages, all the while claiming that they are merely looking out for the wellbeing of the enrolled students. The latest move is banning Wi-Fi, joining various other educational entities in Ontario on the great Wi-Fi embargo.

It was at this point when I was overcome with the urge to snort.

You see, obviously some really bored committee members got together, got drunk, had a bit of a sing-song, then figured that since they didn’t have anything important to discuss, they’d find something to pick on. And it would seem that some of these members are of the opinion that Wi-Fi is a product of the devil, and will microwave your brain. Or organs. Or unborn children. Or open portals to hell and unleash the armies of Satan upon the Earth.

Which of course is total crap. You see, Wi-Fi is pure radio signal falling on the 2.4Ghz frequency. Radio waves have been filling the entire world for decades now. Need a few every-day examples? Ok, then:

Radio Communications, used widely by government, emergency and military entities, ship-to-shore comms, etc. Wireless.
The GPS unit in your car. Wireless.
Your cordless phone and/or cellphone. Wireless.
The radio you listened to Engelbert Humperdink on, or the TV you watched I Love Lucy on... Yep, wireless.
Weather Telemetry

And I could go on. Kind of scary to think about the sheer volume of information being broadcast wirelessly all around us. And then to realise that a little over 100 years ago, there was none…

It’s about this time where I give my advice to those involved. And this post will be no different:

If there are hundreds of studies around the world by leading government and scientific entities, other schools and universities in your country, and even your own Health Canada organisation all conclude that wireless radio signals are not associated with any health problems, and you ignore this and deprive a generation (and possibly generations to come) of a technology on which the rest of the civilised world takes for granted because you cannot set aside your own baseless insecurities, then you might as well revert back to inkwells and chalkboards: technological progression is obviously too evil a concept for you to accept.

A $3million Addiction

2010-09-02T19:43:00.002+10:00

Here we go again. Yep, I’m about to rant off on one of the ever-repeating topics this blog covers. The good ol’ ridiculous reasons to sue thing again.

You know you love it, so shut up and stop complaining. I promise this one will make you laugh.

So a while ago, this guy decided to sue a South Korean games publisher (NCSoft; publisher of the MMO Lineage II). The reason is, as you’d expect – especially since I’m commenting on it – absurd. Apparently, it was “Too addictive”.

Now, I let it slide at first, because I didn't really expect it to go anywhere, but not only has a Federal Judge allowed it to progress, but someone figured out the portions of the EULA covering the software have been over-ruled by local laws that prohibit contractual provisions that waive in advance the ability to make gross-negligence claims.

… wait a minute: this guy is claiming gross negligence?!

Ok, let us first define ‘gross negligence’:
”gross negligence n. carelessness in reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others, which is so great it appears to be a conscious violation of other people's rights to safety”

Yeah I can see how that is appropriate… now, back to reality…

So the short of it is simple: this guy spent 20,000 hours playing a game. A game he chose to purchase, chose to subscribe and pay a monthly fee to, and chose to continuously play, sometimes for over 11 hours at a time, ignoring friends and family and any other obligations such as work and/or studies – pure conjecture, of course… but it does have a logical base. And it’s the publishers fault…

… and obviously it’s Burger King’s fault for making their food too delicious.

Apparently, Craig Smallwood (Let us not make any jokes about that suggestive surname…oops, my bad) can no longer function independently in daily activity, such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communication. Perhaps I should point out that the game won’t help in ANY of those activities, so claiming that in order to perform any of those activities you need to be playing the game is absolute rubbish. And apparently, these activities are worth $3million. But it’s not about the money, right? Maybe if we note that Craig has had his accounts suspended (before all this lawsuit business) for suspected RMT activity (Real-money trading, which is expressly forbidden by the Lineage II EULA).

Ahhh, now I get it: it’s a tantrum. A fairly simplistic one, at that. Unfortunate that your lawyer has dressed it up as elaborate, but hey - anything that’s dressed up can be dressed down just as easily.

When your friends and family get noisy and you have to turn the volume up to hear the game, it’s a good sign that you’re being a dick.

And Craig, you’re lucky the Judge isn’t someone who’s as big an asshole as I am. I’d take into account your now-global admission of high-level addiction, ban you from any form of computer, console or other electronic gaming platform, and stick your ass into an addiction clinic for the rest of your natural life, just for wasting my time on what is clearly your own problem that you have refused to deal with in an ordinary manner; instead waiting until you had reason to get all pissy (most likely the aforementioned account suspension) and completely flipping it like a prepubescent. Well done.

So much finger-pointing…

2010-08-26T08:49:00.001+10:00

Ok, so I’m expecting a bit of flack for this post, as it’s about nurses. Yeah, I said it. Having posted about nurses before, I’m fully aware of how they’ll defend themselves to the death, in an almost over-compensating manner. One wonders why…

But first off, don’t assume I'm a nurse-hating ungrateful prick. Having been hospitalised several times, with all sorts of ailments ranging from every day stuff, to near-death situations, I can fully appreciate the necessity of nurses.

But sometimes they do things that just boggle the mind. I stumbled across this post on slashdot about how tubing mix-ups are causing deaths. This one story posted on the New York Times website tells us how a mother lost her daughter and unborn granddaughter due to a nurse mixing up a liquid food tube with a tube that was meant to be inserted into a vein.

While this is all rather bothering, the worst is yet to come.

The reason for the mix-up is fairly simple: all the tubes look alike. It most likely has something to do with funding – cheaper to buy many of one type of tube than a few of many types of tubes, I guess. A simple mistake anyone could make, especially in some circumstances where there is a high-pressure situation – i.e: the ER.

So the tubes look the same… so do the intravenous syringes, and you’re all mighty careful about this. Well, in most cases…

One doctor is even quoted as blaming the FDA, saying that they “could fix this tubing problem tomorrow”.. or you could fix it yourself, with a few little bits of coloured tape.

And the excuses pile on. No-one seems to be willing to say it, so I will: you nurses MUST be observant. The decisions you make, and the actions you take are important, and will have consequences. In some situations, those selfsame decisions and actions will be the singular difference between the life and death of a patient. You cannot afford to do these things with such lack of observation or concentration. When hooking up your own intravenous line, you can be as complacent as you like. When someone else's wellbeing relies on you getting it right; it’s as simple as keeping an eye on what you’re doing.

And the PR unit needs to stop blaming everyone else. The FDA didn’t kill those people. Unobservant nurses did. Sure, the FDA could initiate a change to the standards that govern the medical tubing so that future deaths can be avoided, but come on, this has been happening for years. You’ve known about it for years. And all you’ve done is finger-point. How about taking some sort of interim action yourself? A bit of coloured tape on each of the tubes to designate what it is to be used for. It’s a quite simple trick that mechanics, engineers and electricians have been using for decades. Time for you to get clued up.

And you can modify procedure to ensure nurses only work with one intravenous line at a time – hard to mix up lines when you only have one line and one bag to connect. Sure, it might take a few seconds more, but if those few seconds are worth more to you than a patients life, then you are shallow, and in all probability unfit for your chosen career, and I suggest immediate resignation.

Ahh, the old RFID argument surfaces again

2010-08-22T21:30:00.001+10:00

From time to time, a topic crops up that spreads like wildfire throughout the world, and continues to wax and wane for years afterwards. Tonight, one sch ‘tidal topic’ grabbed my attention.

I’m sure we’ve all at some point heard/read/seen something regarding ID Cards containing RFID chips. Seems like every month, there is some new argument going on somewhere in the world. There’ll be the obligatory groups – the for and against, then there’ll be the masses perched quite comfortably on the fence.

The arguments on this subject have been heard over and over, but once you boil away all the techie mumbo jumbo, it all comes down to efficiency versus security. Those for the idea claim the RFIDs will greatly speed up processing efficiency where large numbers of people need to be checked and moved, such as the Customs checkpoint at the airport. Those against will pretty much ignore that, and focus their points around the concepts that because the chips are capable of negotiating transfers via radio frequency, that they all but welcome identity theft. In fact, earlier generation RFID chips based upon the BAC (Basic Access Control) protocol were successfully hacked by university researchers and security experts.

Recently, Germany has announced that they will be introducing mandatory RFID-equipped ID cards. Of course, the arguments have re-emerged; the same old rhetoric, just with changed names and places.

I was reading the comments made about this selfsame topic on slashdot, and a couple of them jumped out at me. The first was a comment that gave me a reason to have a little giggle, and was along the ironic lines of Germany leading the citizen identification wave… again. Not sure what tat is all about? Find yourself a Holocaust survivor, and ask them.

The other was a very simple question. The short version is “Why?”, and I kind of agree with it. On a passport, I can understand. Having flown international a few times, anything to speed up the queue at Customs is more than welcome. But on ID cards… what's the point? What will be stored on it? Personal details.. a photo… maybe a fingerprint… pretty much the same data that’s physically printed on the face of the card. So why go through all the effort of stuffing it into an RFID chip as well? Unless there are further plans for the chips and ID cards. Then we must put forward the question: will it be something far more sinister, or a new awakening in this technological era?

How long is a piece of string?

2010-08-18T22:26:00.001+10:00

So I got wind of a story in Toronto, Canada (eh!) that is oozing that rank effluvium – the type that gets me going. Yet more stupid decisions made without thought. Our scenario centres around Milliken Park, a city-based recreational area within Toronto. A park where evil kite-fliers dwell, waiting to pounce on their next victim…

Yes, you heard me: kites.

So these kite-fliers have gone all hardcore extreme, and started something called ‘kite fighting’, where the fliers do aerial battle and try to sever the string of their opponents kite. Sounds kind of neat, actually. Don’t other going to watch, though. The council has banned the use of all kites in the park, and have threatened to widen the ban to other areas. Because apparently having fun in an area set aside for having fun is now to be frowned upon.

They have a list of reasons why. Here’s a few of them, and of course my response to them:

Animals becoming snared in the strings.
Now this one, I can understand, and fully appreciate. Perhaps cleaning up the strings after the battles would avoid this. I’ll even hazard a guess that the city’s existing littering laws would cover this, as well.

CIty-contracted maintenance workers getting their gear snared in the strings.
How about removing the string before starting work. Then your stuff wont get snared. Seems like a relatively straight-forward concept to me…

Other park-users becoming entangled in the strings.
What the hell? Is everyone in this park blind? Hone those observation skills; they’ll come in handy at some point…

Chin Lee, Ward 41 Councillor has stated that it isn’t practical to enforce a ban on just kite fighting. It was at this point where I felt the need to ask “Why?” If you’re going to have law enforcement wandering around the park hitting up kite fliers, that means they’re already going to be there. I don’t think it would be that much more difficult to filter out the fliers. Makes perfect sense to me. A hell of a lot more sense than fining everyone who has string in their hands $100 a shot. Yeah, you heard me: $100. Proof that a committee was involved, somewhere.

Another thought occurs to me now: here we have two kites fighting. Your traditional kite is lightweight fabric and wooden dowel. In order for these devices to cut through the strings (which in some cases is about as strong as high-tension fishing line), they surely must be modified in such a manner as to provide some form of cutting or shearing surface/edge. I don’t know for sure, as I’ve never even heard of kite fighting until I read the story. But I do note the lack of any worry in regards to these ninja kites, freshly severed from their string, plummeting to the ground and possibly providing a decapitation hazard.

It’s all a classic example of over-reaction. Not quite as bad as the examples we’ve had in the US, but still…

So here’s what you do: Those maintenance contractors. They’re already paid to tidy up the park. If they’re not picking up the strings, they’re not doing their job properly. With that said, the fliers should be cleaning up after themselves, as well. Take the doughnuts out of the park police officer’s hands, and set them to enforcing littering laws. Ditch the stupid kite ban, and let the grandparents enjoy teaching their grandchildren how they used to have fun back in their day. Oh, and fire the committee who thought that fining people $100 for having fun was a good idea before they have any more bright ideas.

You’ve been pre-sued. Wait, what?

2010-08-12T08:51:00.001+10:00

So it seems that a common theme is cropping up in that desolate dog-eat-dog world out there. It all comes back to that good old concept of ‘being sued’. Today's post takes a bit of a different twist to the usual stories of people being sued for ridiculous things, however.

Ever since the RIAA/MPAA/SPAA/<insert other acronym for self-appointed agency answerable only to itself> got a whiff of power, given to them via numerous holes within the law, the world has gone a wee bit mad. You can be sued for ‘having in your possession copyrighted material obtained unlawfully’, ‘distributing copyrighted material unlawfully’, ‘broadcasting copyrighted material without express consent from the copyright holder’, … you get the idea. Pretty much if it involves music or movies, you can most likely be sued for breathing too loud in the vicinity of the packaging.

Then, some time ago, the RIAA won a breakthrough case that involved them being able to sue John/Jane Doe’s – unknown, nameless defendants. This of course led to them being able to request personal data from just about any ISP in the world. This struck me as being a bit odd… I’ll explain why, shortly.

But for now, this morning I see that the producer of the Mile High Music Festival in Denver, Colorado has pre-sued bootleggers. Pre-sued? How the hell does that work?

You see, I’m apparently under the delusion that courts of law deal with facts, not fiction. So how is it that courts are now allowing these digital big brother companies to sue people that A) they don’t even know the names of, and more importantly B) haven’t committed a crime? Something really needs to be done about this – it just cannot be allowed. It makes a total farce out of every single justice system in the world. And if nothing is done, here’s how it will eventually end up:

You, and your entire neighbourhood will get sued and jailed, because someone in your neighbourhood played some unlicensed copyrighted material. And because you MIGHT have had superhuman hearing, you MIGHT have overheard it, therefore you MIGHT have unlawfully obtained copyrighted material. Oh, and if you just happened to have been a friend of the John Doe in question, then you MIGHT have heard the copyrighted material before, and since you didn’t report the unlawful obtaining of the material, then you MIGHT be involved in a copyrighted material distribution ring, and MIGHT Have made millions by making unlawful duplicates of copyrighted material and selling these copies. And of course, you MIGHT have either cleverly hidden your fortune, or you just MIGHT be part of a terrorist organisation.

No, seriously – read that copyright warning next time you watch a movie – especially the one from FACT/INFACT (The UK/Ireland equivalent of the MPAA) – they’ll tell you that copyright infringement funds terrorism. So tell me: did you get your last movie from Al Qaeda, too?

Google becoming Big Brother?

2010-08-09T14:36:00.001+10:00

Now, before I begin the main article here, I’d just like to point out that I really like Google, and their pro-active search for web tools and enhancements.

However, as with any entity that focuses on leading the way, there have been some mistakes made. Most notable of late is the Google Street View “accidental” WiFi packet capturing. What WiFi has to do with views from the street, I don’t know.

Today, slashdot reported that Google has purchased an airborne camera drone from German manufacturer Microdrone GmbH. These drones are able to be fitted with various types of cameras, including night-vision and Far IR (see-through-walls).

Now, as with any story, there are two sides. One one hand, Google could use this technology in a professional and ethical manner, such as removing the reliance on external aerial photographic sources, and implementing their own for Google Earth. Microdrone also points out the possibility for mapping out wind farms. On the other hand, all it will take is for one person on the Google food chain to start getting a tiny bit overzealous, and before we know it, the singular drone becomes a small army of drones, all able to record and report all sorts of privacy-endangering data. Your backyard after dark, for instance.

Of course, so far we have no way of telling how the forthcoming events will unfold. Time will tell the tale, as the saying goes. We can but only hope those involved in the decision-making process at Google have a firm grip on ethics.

WWW: World-Wide Webvert

2010-08-08T21:26:00.001+10:00

Almost everywhere you turn, adverts confront you. The newspaper you read in the morning, or the news coverage on TV. At the bus-stop, and on the side of the bus itself. Even the gas/electric/phone/internet bills have adverts on them nowadays. And now so do most websites. Normally, I wouldn’t even care, but lately, new trends are forming, and some aren’t so good.

First off, the new adverts filtering through from those seemingly bottomless pits of the advertising world, such as doubleclick.net, are these flash/silverlight-based adverts, that if your mouse happens to go within half a screen of, suddenly pop up, covering whatever you actually want to look at, and then proceed to start downloading videos. Sure, they have a little ‘x’ in the corner to close it… but of course you need to have superhero-like precision, because if you’re even a single pixel off clicking that little ‘x’, you’ll end up opening a popup window, or sometimes many. Not to mention adding your IP to various lists.

Of course, the video streams are growing in quality, therefore the bitstream is also growing in size. For those of us who live under an eDictatorship forced upon us by service providers who fancy the good old medieval days when micromanagement was ‘in’, and impose ridiculous data caps on their connections, losing chunks of that cap to such blatantly unsolicited spam is a total pain in the general vicinity of the sphincter.

The next issue I have is now is that adverts are loading faster than the genuine content of the website. As far as I can tell, this is mainly due to strict rules imposed by the advertising host when supplying the rotational adverts. Certain code snippets must be used to ensure correct execution, and in most cases, accurate logging of clicks/mouseovers to aid in calculating microtransactions. A secondary purpose of that code is to prioritise traffic – shock horror, in favour of the advertising host.

So here we have a small portion of code, taking away control from the primary host over what elements are displayed, and when. Looking for examples in nature, there exists an entity whose purpose is to enter a host, and begin to control it to receive benefits, usually a steady supply of food. We call this a parasite, and the generally accepted behaviour towards such is to kill it, or at the very least expunge it from the host.

Unfortunately, these are here to stay. A terminal infection, if you like. It all has to do with those pesky aforementioned microtransactions. I’m sure we all know by now that when money is involved, an agreement made without consulting those who come into direct contact with th result of that agreement will stay in place, regardless of the victims say.

Simon Cowell, We Salute You

2010-07-30T18:15:00.003+10:00

So it seems Simon Cowell is in the headlines again, only this time is not entirely his fault. I'm sure you all know who Simon Cowell is - one of the brutally outspoken judges on Britain's Got Talent. Oh, and Pop Idol... and American Idol... and The X Factor. Add to all that his invovlement in signing up some very successful artists to assorted recording labels.

So the guy obviously knows his shit.

Our little topic takes place on the show Britains Got Talent. The whole concept behind the show is contestants perform on-stage infront of 3 judges, doing your thang until the judges have voted, and depending on the majority vote, you either come back another day for a second showing, or you leave that day.

Emma Amelia Pearl Czikai was one of those contestants. Her talent? Singing... allbeit badly.

There she was, hurling out a few lines of Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" when all 3 judges voted 'No'. At this point, most contestants stop, thank the judges and audience, and leave. Some cry, some display mild outrage i.e: a muttered single comment. Occasionally someone argues, but Cowell sends them on their way, regardless.

Not Emma. First came the excuses. It was the mic. No wait, the backing music was too loud. No, it was due to pain from cervical spine nueritis. Wait wait, it's a beautiful song and needs to be given a chance... to which Cowell agreed it was a beautiful song... providing Emma was not the one singing it.

Now, recall that all 3 judges voted No. And the audience reaction can only be described as 100% behind the judges decision.

It has now come out that Emma is sueing Cowell. You see, apparently "This program makes a select number of rich people very, very rich on the backs of the ordinary man and woman in the street through exploitation, humiliation, degradation and a re-emergence of modern-day barbarism with all its inherent cruelty" , as stated in the pre-hearing review.

She's claiming 300,000 pounds for injured feelings, 1.5million compensation, and 1.25million in lost earnings... hrmm I wasn't aware nurses got paid that much. Or did she mean her thriving singing career? Wait, what?

So I've seen the footage of the incident, and honestly, it was... not so good. Maybe with several years of vocal coaching, it might amount to something, but certainly it will still be falling well short of superstardom. But even with that aside, if you want to do any sort of performing arts, it is imperative that you are to be able to handle criticism. Purely and simply because no matter how good you are, you just won't be able to please everyone.

Standing on stage after a mediocre performance and blaming everything but yourself is certainly not a way to endear ones self to ones judges or ones audience. And sueing your way into the tabloids walks a mighty fine line, as well. You'd better hope you win this one, because this single act has already damaged your reputation more than Cowell ever could.

Hrmm... 'single act' isn't entirely accurate, either. You see, Emma's already tried going through a British employment tribunal, but they slapped her down. So we know that at least she's got one of the lessons of performance down pat: If at first you don't succeed; try, try again.

Ahh, More Dodgy Cop Antics

2010-07-27T21:32:00.008+10:00

Ahhh, perk up your ears, minions - I have some more blatant abuse of law for you to get all angsty about.

So this guy in Maryland was pulled over by Maryland State Police, on an apparent routine traffic stop. He was riding a motorcycle, and had a GoPro camera attached to the side of his helmet. This camera recorded the interaction between the rider and the plain-clothes police officer (including the officer's unprofessional act of unholstering and aiming his weapon at the rider for a significant time before finally identifying himself as a police officer.. tsk tsk).

The video was uploaded to YouTube, and about a week later, the officer in question found out about it. Now this is where the fun starts.

A fairly typical response with the aim to have video removed would be a C&D order or takedown notice. Not the MSP, oh o. They'd rather raid the property, seize all computer equipment, arrest and jail the rider in question, who now faces a possible 16 years in prison.

Those of you who have been following my blog for some time might recall the Iowa police officer over-reacting and charging a student with assault... by M&M.

So, what law did he break? Apparently state wiretap laws. Laws that were written to protect PRIVATE conversation between two parties. Luckily, our heinous law-breaking rider has some backing from the ALCU.

Oh, and if you happen to know someone who's involved with the ALCU, or more specifically this particular case, I have a tip that should put things in perspective to the courts: if a conversation between an officer and a civilian during a traffic stop is so damn private, someone should let Fox know - after all, their camera crews have been tailing police for years shooting footage for the famous 'Cops' TV show.

Caution Feng Voodoo Inside!

2010-07-23T17:05:00.005+10:00

It would seem that somewhere, someone with awesome power has been watching over me. I promised you all a great post within 48hours, and here we are, 24hours later, and oh boy do I have some epic goodies for you today.

I was trolling NineMSN news for decent stuff, an this article jumped out at me within 2 seconds of the page loading. Talk about luck, I should buy a lottery ticket.

Now, we've all been subjected to (read: fallen victim to) those base concepts behind most of the worlds spiritualists. For example, the rediculous idea that is Feng Shui: move the chair, and you'll be happy.

Listening to people rave on about this stuff is damned annoying, but it comes with silver lining. Primarily in the form of youtube video's of the very same people losing their freakin' minds when their unworldly Feng Voodoo doesn't work.

But some take it a little too far...

A story was picked up from the Austrian Times of a Chinese couple who are demanding that their local council change the name of the road they live on - Dwarf Street. Their reason? Because the street name is responsible for their 4year old child not growing.

LOLwut?

Feng Voodoo'ing one's own abode might be acceptable, if somewhat indicative of personality disorder. But committing Feng Shui'icide on an entire neighbourhood just because your kid will never make it to heights predominantly reserved for championship basketball players is... yeah.

Way to make yourself the laughing stock of the town, though. Because we all know how this will unfold. Let me play this out for you:

The parents will make their claim official, and submit their demand to the council.
The council will hold numerous meetings, with most of the time spent laughing.
After the meetings, the committee members will go home, andthe first words out of their mouths when they get home will go like this: "Honey? You won't beleive what I just had to vote on tonight..."
If agreement is reached to entertain the notion of possibly renaming the street, they will have to hold a public meeting and/or petition the other residents on the street, at which point someone will ask "Why do we need to change it at all?"...

"Well see, it's just a ... small ... problem. There's this child... with some loopy parents... with strange ideas about how genetics work..."

It is interesting that the reporter who did the original story did ask around, and found that childen on the street who were born around the same time are not suffering from the evil signage at all.

And it is also interesting that the parents are stubborn enough to demand a change of name, rather than move to a street where there isnt any evidence of Feng Voodoo about.

I wonder if there's a Giant Street in that town...

What the...

2010-07-22T21:21:00.003+10:00

I'm about to do something I haven't done in quite some time, and that's present you with a post that isn't full of my incessant whining. A nice blog.

... I hope you were seated for that announcement.

So A good friend of mine today introduced me to a youtube show, called 'equals 3' (read: =3). It's a clever little vlog/show put together by Ray William Johnson. I watched a few of the episodes, and now I'm an addict. If you're keep on the sort of genre that my blog follows, you might want to take a peek at his stuff as well - I'm lovin' it.

So his youtube channel can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/RayWilliamJohnson

He's also on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook, if you like his work enough to want more from behnd the scenes.

Now, now, my darling minions, don't worry - I'll be back to my cynical realist self shortly. Expect a new post up here within the next 48 hours. It'll be worth the wait.

mmMMMmm, smells like irony

2010-07-04T21:37:00.004+10:00

As you all know, around here we love hearing about government department vs government department. It's like the Holy Grail of stupidity - proof that the entire concept of a modular government was never fully thought through.

Tonights story comes courtesy of our friends at slashdot, and involves one of my favourite points of interest - the whole war against piracy thing.

So, on to the main attraction we go.

It would seem that thanks to some tricksie smallprint in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, US colleges face having their federal funding yanked if they dont have some sort of plan to 'combat unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material'. Some of the suggested options include throttling peer-to-peer traffic, packet monitoring, using 3rd party management utilities to reduce or block file-sharing, or "vigorously responding to copyright infringement notices".

Hrmm.. can't recall the last time the government had to have everyone else do their job for them. Although, we are talking about the RIAA/MPAA/SPAA here.. self-elected entities, so technically not even government.

Anyways, this isn't really anything new. It's the same old rubbish they dredge up every year or so to make it look like they havent recently been enjoying an arse-reaming being dished out in various courtrooms thanks to innocent infringement defence.

The bit that struck me as somewhat ironic is the continuance of the US Broadband Project, with a new chunk of money headed their way. $795million infact. The irony? 2400 schools to receive broadband connections, courtesy of the selfsame government that's about to voluntarily inflate the severe underfunding issues in the education sector, whilst blaming it on piracy.

That's just like building long straight highways, and putting a 60mph speed limit on them, then permitting the sale of vehicles that can do upwards of 200mph to anyone with a licence, and expecting everyone to drive like grandma.

Wait a minute...

The art of government redundancy

2010-06-09T09:30:00.004+10:00

Today, a rampant flu bug has mauled me half to death, so I'm off work sick. And what better way to spend my man-cold-induced dying moments in my deathbed than to have a rant.

Later this month, all the so-called world leaders will be getting together in Toronto to get pissed and have a little sing-song, all under the guise of two summits known as the G8 and the G20. The world is used to this sort of rubbish - big important people getting together to discuss big important things... like sweaters.

Now, for any such event, it is also expected that the host government splash out on catering and entertainment. Champaigne all-round, lobster a-la creme, etc. Pricey, what. Not to be outdone, the Canadian government has splashed out a drop under $2mil... for a display. It's called the Canadian Corridor, and will display a fake Muskoka Lake. So now, the G8 has degenerated into a handful of big important people being distracted by shiney pricey things instead of discussing big important things... like BP's latest oil spill. Oh, here's a possible answer to the clean-up, by the way.

Total cost for the combined summits is expected to reach $1.1bil. Now that's two very expensive singalongs.

Of course, critics (and from what I understand, a fair portion of the canadian populace) have obviously gone feral over this. Many are wondering just how the government can afford this sort out spending when they're currently dealing with a decefit, as well as hosting talks on the international financial crisis. Irony, it seems, is ever-present.

So far, the only defence I've seen to this idea was a comment made by the Transport Minister John Baird, who said “Television networks from around the world will be focusing on Canada and we want to showcase the very best that this country has to offer, whether it's the great region of Muskoka or if it's a world-class city like Toronto".

Now, a quick search on Amazon will reveal hundreds of books, documentaries, and even furniture and clothing, all showing off the Muskoka region.

I beleive this entire concept was covered best in the movie 'Contact': First rule of government spending: why have one when you can have two for twice the price?

You can boil it down to a single word: redundancy. A government that feels the need to create a fake lake... in a country that is home to over 60% of the worlds lakes.

It's all about communication, baby.

2010-06-05T19:42:00.004+10:00

So, ideas for blogtopics are streaming forth from my twisted mind at a decent rate. No longer am I forced to measure my idea-rate with the same units as those used when calculating continental drift. I'm sure you are all stoked about this.

Today's little tidbit is something I'm sure you've all seen, if not participated in. It's all about communication, baby. More importantly, our stubborn reliance upon electronic communications.

Let us for a moment run off on a tangent. It's related, though, so it's ok -you don't have to yell at me to stay focused. Currently, most of us employ multiple forms ofelectronic communication. It all started with the telephone. This has somewhat recently been split off into landline and cellphones. Today's typical teenager will have (or possibly both) permanantly attached to the side of the head.

Cellphones also have texting abilities, so the most modern of those with the life motto of 'why bother' will have a landline phone stapled to their head, and the ability to type 90wpm with theirthumbs alone.

Add to this emails, forums, livejournals, instant messengers, etc, and we have a vast selection when it comes to communication. Now, all this can be very useful, especially when distance and timezones need to be taken into account...

... but when you're in the same room? What the fuck ever happened to opening your mouth and talking to someone? It seems that in todays technologically ... "advanced" lifestyle, we would much prefer to type at some meaningless name on a screen, rather than actually speak to someone face to face.

This whole concept (read: farce) struck me when I returned home from work today, and found out that my sister had invited one of her friends to stay over tonight. She's taken root in her room somewhere, and her friend is stuck out at the other end of the house bored out of her mind. Sure, my sister is talking to her... via facebook.

Must be time for the failsafe internet-addiction solution: the neato 'Block IP range' option in the router..

Let the tantrums commence.

A Dying Skill: Common Sense

2010-05-30T19:24:00.005+10:00

It seems that we all live in a perpetual state of psuedo-fear. Fear of having our asses stomped into a mud puddle by a legal system that allows people and entities to be sued for almost anything. Yeah yeah, I know I've covered this before, but this time I'm coming from a different tangent.

Our lives are signposted. Apparently for our own safety. You can't walk down any street without seeing any sort of signpost. Most of these are perfectly fine: they do exactly what they were intended to do. Inform us of danger, or help us find out way, etc. Others serve a single purpose: to stop someone getting sued into oblivion inthe event of some form of accident.

I'm talking about signs on the railing of a high-rise apartment complex warning of the potential to fall. Or those posted along electric rail lines warning of the chance of electrocution. Or the labels on packages of nuts warning that there are nuts inside. Or the label on a swedish brand of chainsaw warning not to stop the chain with tongue or genitals - who the hell was that warning for?

It's really quite simple, people: use your senses, and your common sense. The already overtaxed legal systems of the world were not designed to, nor should they be required to deal with your lack of smarts. So I'm going to save some time here, and give you some tips:

Nuts are nuts. If the packaging says the contents are nuts, they're fucking nuts, ok?

Multi-storey buildings, cliffs, bridges, overhangs, etc all share a common feature: they're tall. Of you step off these structures, it may just be a quick way down to ground-level, but I assure you the landing is somewhat bumpy.

THe only time you should have high levels of electricity running through your body is during some form of heart failure, and the 3rd rail is not ideally suited for this purpose.

Chainsaws, be they swedish or any other source of manufacture are designed with the sole purpose of severing: attempting to stop the chainof such mechanicals with either tongue or genitals will not only hurt, but really make you shine at your obviously newly-chosen profession of being a fucking clueless idiot.

Water on smooth surfaces reduces friction. If you step in a puddle and fall on your ass, perhaps next time you wont be too lazy to walk around it. Use your damn eyes.

I could continue, but I'd like to leave some for you to figure out yourself. It only takes a second to utilise that grey matter bouncing around inside your skull - I highly recommend doing so.

Time for a rant.

2010-05-16T21:24:00.004+10:00

It's been a while since I last opened an epic-sized can of worms, and since I'm feeling somewhat bored with the rigmarole that is life, I've decided to do just that.

Sometimes it seems that I'm the only one who has any sanity left when it comes to major sports, and those involved in it. Before you get the wrong idea about where I'm heading with this and start yelling at your screen, read on.

My problem isn't with sports themselves. My issue stems more from the behaviour of those involved. The participants, and the media frenz-beast that amasses around them. So here comes the List of Doom:

First off, we have those overacting retards, ususally found in soccer and baseball games, but more increasingly rugby/football/assorted-other-mutant-forms-of-rugby that have sprung up around the globe. You know what I'm talking about - the guy on the soccerfield who'll come within a few feet of someone, then suddenly magically lurch, roll 18 times and then lay there clutching at his imaginary disintegrated femur. Or the baseballer who just struck out, but in an attempt to cover up the incompetence, throws the bat away and tumbles to his knees, nursing an arm that was clearly broken clean in half by that last malevolent pitch...

Then comes the tantrum-throwers. Tennis springs to mind. I'm fairly sure most people only go to watch tennis in the hopes of witnessing first-hand an epic arguement with the ref. After all, that would be far more entertaining than watching the game. All that yelling, screaming, crying, begging and namecalling. Almost like a bad marriage.

And it doesn't stop there. After-match press conferences are gold for the sore-loser speech. On the news tonight, regarding the AFL, I heard the lamest excuse for a loss I've ever heard. Their reason revolved around the fact that one team wore yellow shirts, the other wore gold shirts. Of course, they didn't mention the fact that they wore different coloured shorts, or that one team had several thick black lines on their shirts... And besides, if you can't recognisedthe faces of the other members of your team - you know, the ones you've supposedly been training with for years now, then maybe you have deeper issues.

Finally, we come to the media coverage these people get. I just find it hard to put any sort of faith in a service that reports one week that so-and-so was caught driving under the influence, in posession and is currently undergoing investigation for rape allegations, and then the very next week they all sing praise to so-and-so for winning MVP, and calling them 'heroes', etc. Strikes me as odd.

I'm also tired of being told I should idolise these muppets. Why I should idolise someone who plays a game for a living, I haven't quite figured that out yet...

Live A Little More

2010-04-11T21:59:00.003+10:00

So the time has come; finally something to get all ranty about. Well, something that is actually interesting, at least - unlike all the rubbish going on in the mainstream media at the moment. Tiger this, Obama that. Boring.

Today's hot topic is a bit of an eye-opener as to some of the stupid things celebrities say and do sometimes. You know what I'm on about - they all do it at some point... just some more than others: Simpson, Hilton, ... Bush.

And now may I introduce you to former Playboy Bunny Kendra Wilkinson. She has recently become a mother, and in what started off as being a notable decision, she gave up her nude modelling role in order to get on withbeing a mum. So far so good, right? Au contraire.

You see, the blonde bombshell has become enlightened in how the real wolrd works: namely the fact that raising a child costs. Alot. So mumsy has started a new career in order to earn for the new family: teaching stripping.

Now, whether you get naked for a chemically castrated photographer in the employ on an international man-mag, or a pole surrounded by cigarette smoke, tacky music and drunken hormonals, you're still getting your gear off for money, and neither can truthfully be classed as 'taking the moral high-ground'. Besides, when the kid starts bragging at school about his/her MILF mother... well, let me ask you: which sounds more impressive? "My mum the Playboy model", or "my mum, the backstreet stripper"?

AHh well, I guess we all must do something we're good at.

About now, you're probably expecting me to wind this post up, having gotten to the point. But no, I do have more for you. A special treat for you: a post with a double-whammy. When reading the story about Kendra, the last line in the journalists story jumped out at me. My twisted mindthrew itself into some sort of freakish instant-analysis mode, and put together the aforementioned 'last line' and a line from an earlier paragraph, resulting in a complete 'WTF?! Are you capable of thought???' moment.

That last line quotes Ms Wilkinso: "I'm also writing a book or my memoirs".

Now, to aid you with enlightment on this part, here's the correct contextual defition of "memoirs": a biography or biographical sketch.

Apparently she's had a very busy life, in all her 24 years. Now, I don't mean to be blunt here... but it's gonna happen. Memoirs from a 60+ year-old: acceptable. Memoirs from a 24 year-old: publicity stunt. Not to mention there isn't all that much to write about. School.. Baseball.. Modelling. Playboy. "Oh damn, Hugh's paying more attention to Holly and Bridget.. I can't stand it anymore, I'll move out of the Mansion and start my own TV series".

Or something like that.

Well, Ms Wilkinson, might I offer you some advice: do the mum thing first. Live a little more. THEN you can write your memoirs. It'd be less likely to be taken as a complete farce, and think about it: you'll have so much more to write about once your child has grown up.

Google's Political Hat

2010-01-03T22:13:00.003+11:00

Well it seems we're getting closer to that time where the net becomes a police state. While all the worlds communications political hats, commentators, free-speech activists and those alike are all playing on the merry-go-round trying to come up with some form of acceptable net-neutrality, those who are already in the mighty Seat of Power are doing their bits now to ensure control all but automatically falls to them.

Want to know what sort of dodgy antics I'm on about? Next time you hit a stopover in Beijing, rumble into a netcafe and try hit youtube up for the 'Free Tibet' video.

And now, in India, Google's starting to get its fingers sticky while fingering the political pie by actively censoring websites.

Cencorship can be a useful tool, when used correctly, and when put in place by the correct authorities, but when a search engine dons the gloves and climbs in the ring, and starts controlling what you can and cant view in a manner which you have no control over at all, things are definately going downhill.

Imagine a search engine that has filtered, cencored or deleted every 'questionable' entry. What would be left? A handful of waterfall pictures sites and DARPA.

Although... less global net traffic would certainly improve my pings...

It must be time for a whine

2009-11-12T14:44:00.002+11:00

So I sit here at work, bored out of my skull. To the point where I've drawn all over the desk. But now I figure I'll get back to doing what I do well: whining.

Todays whine topic will be all these social sites. You know the ones: Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, etc. And my primary whine (read: psychotic hatred) is fairly simplistic, and something that millions of you out there will relate to.

Anyone else out there ever noticed that these sites seem to be a collection of feature-specific modules loosely tacked together will packing tape? It just seems to me that any time they add a new feature, update an existing one, or just feel like messing with stuff that aint broke, something else gets munched.

A few prime examples: I can no longer use Myspace, because apparently I need to be logged in to login... and last night, Facebook went balls-up on me and wouldn't let me post or comment.

And it's not limited to online, either.

So, finally sick of it all, I put it to you, my minions: surely someone in this day and age is capable of coding stuff that just works. Old-fashioned programming. Seems like a non-existant idea, nowadays.

Murdoch does it again

2009-10-11T20:55:00.002+11:00

After waiting for some worthy news to come along, it finally has. Sure, I had to blow the dust off the keyboard, and wave off a few lurking spiders, but hey.

ANd yeah, sure, I could have joined the masses of bloggers, critics, and political commentators who have taken to the whole Obama peace prize thing, but no. I've got my opinin on that, but for now, I'll keep it to myself. In favour of a neat story I picked up from slashdot today. One that shows that even the filthy rich can act like utter idiots at times.

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to who our filthy rich subject is?

None other than Rupert Murdoch of course. Who else?

So yeah, he's currently the one standing up and decreeing himself the leader in world news, as we all know. And as wel all know, he's also the one pushing to make all the eNews you can get online a pay service. Old news, that. But today, Slashdot gave me pure gold.

It seems Murdoh, after years of acceptance and service, has decided that search engines, particularly Google, are stealing his news. That whole concept of linking to news stories is somehow meant to constitute theft. I don't exactly know what type of goblin logic was used in that decision, but hey.

So, where do we go from here... first off, how about pointing out the simple method of instructing search engine robots to not index the site. The concept of robots.txt has been around for many years now. Almost 2 decades, infact. If not more. Then of course, there are all those browser hits directed to the sites at no charge.

Hrmm... I wonder if Google and the likes should start charging Murdoch for all the visitors directed to his websites... you know - just have the P.A fire off an email asking for a blank cheque.

Of course, this entire scenario has the potential to become very nasty, and causing havoc for everyone. Imagine having to pay for every scrap of news. Or for every visit a search engine directs to your site. Ebil, ebil, ebil.

Sued over Dolphins

2009-08-23T21:40:00.004+10:00

Ahh my loyal minions, welcome back. I do apologise for my lack of posting lately, but things have been rather boringly rhetorical. However, I have a great one for you all, just to make up for it.

I'm sure that since you're all so riveted to my posts, you'll all remember (with amazing clarity) an earlier post regarding legal systems around the world, and how anyone can sue for almost any reason, regardless of fact.

Well, I was doing my usual snooping around, sniffing up the skirts of the assorted international news sites, and oh boy I came across yet another prime example of such ludicrousness. One that certainly gave me the glad-eye of epic proportions, in some weird and wacky, self-satisfied manner.

The short version of it is that some woman rocks on over to some zoo, slips on some wet concrete, and is now suing the zoo for their "reckless dolphins". Yeah, you heard me. Reckless dolphins. Or rather, dolphins that had been recklessly and willfully trained to splash water on the crowd.

After I finally got over my giggling-fit, I kickstarted the old cynical midget that lives in my head and set it to work dissecting the article that sat infront of me. After a few moments, thoughts began flooding into my head. More of that logic stuff that seems so lacking in todays world.

For instance, making a choice to visit, then subsequently making the choice to head over to the marine life area, where you see water all over the place, and then you make the choice to walk on that water? I didn't read anything in the lawsuit involving being forced by zoo staff to visit to the marine area.

And hey, while you're at it, why aren't you sueing the manufacturer of your shoes and/or the retailer that sold them to you for failing to provide decent grip in wet conditions?

Ohhh right, you're just striking out in that typical knee-jerk reaction to making a dick of yourself in public by tripping over on a flat surface. Sure, it was wet. Imagine that, the pathway right next to a fucken dolphin enclosure being wet. Hey, next time it rains, better get your lawyer on to sueing the weather, too.

Good luck on that, by the way.

Too many Rings

2009-05-28T21:17:00.003+10:00

So I'm getting really tired of media hype. More specifically, the emotive language used to make the stories sound all that much better... worse... whichever is required. Here down under, it seems reporters get paid by the syllable.

I was in the highway listeing to some news on the radio. It was one of those generic ultra-opinionated female reporters with a surname that resembles vaguely pronouncable line-noise. The default rhetoric was tumbling out of her mouth at speeds which would even impress television evangelists.

As is typical with my tormented beast of a mind, it came up with a weird connection. The reporter was going on about 'drug rings'. There seems to be far too many rings these days. Drug rings, terror rings, cartheft rings, etc. And I began to think that with the media pushing this title so much, young teens just starting out their life of crime probably feel somewhat proud to be a member of a 'ring'.

The next thought produced by my head cracked me up entirely, while simultaneously providing a perfect answer to minimise that sense of pride our budding crime syndicate n00bs might feel. What if we were to quit it with the whole 'ring' thing, and gay it up a bit? Get the old New Orleans Mardi Gras feel to it.

So, how proud would you feel if you were part of a 'drug bracelet'?

Say No To Superheroes

2009-04-20T22:06:00.002+10:00

Ahhh yes, I'm back, and being such the generous digital malcontent I am, I come bearing gifts: A bit of a chuckle, with a dash of added what-the-fuck.

It comes to me via a breif mention on tonights episode of Good News Week - a great comedic show that airs here in Australia, of which I watch pretty much religiously. It ought to raise a few eyebrows.... and maybe some tempers too.

So it seems that superheroes are out of fashion. At least for many schools and preschools here down under. It seems to be becoming more and more common for books, comics, pictures, costumes, and other paraphernalia of superheroes and such likenesses to be banned from these fine educational faculties.

The reasoning behind it: it promotes rough behaviour and leads to firm beliefs in 'good guy bad guy' concepts.

One school here in Melbourne has taken this a step further and banned ALL commercial characters, including Walt Disney characters, and even The Wiggles - a TV and stage show aimed specifically at young children, teaching them about music, and utilising several child development theories. Yeah, I can see how that would be dangerous.

But all this got me thinking. And as you all know by now, this always spells trouble. I started wondering how those kids must feel. More specifically, how confused they must be. On one hand, we have the school banning any form of commercial character, telling them it's bad, and it'll make them go psycho. Then they go home and get those character-building lessons from the parents: the difference between good and bad actions/people/etc, believing in yourself and your ideals, and standing up for yourself.

Isn't it enough that some parents these days control every tiny aspect of their childrens lives - what they eat and drink, what they watch, what they read, who they play with, when they play, what they play at. And now, the schools are joining in with the all-time great national childhood mindfuck as well. Apparently, it's not enough that the schools teach them to think alike, act alike, and dress alike, but now begins the ultimate deterioration and eradication of anything fun.

And let us look a bit ahead, here. So we let some kids play as they will. They play a bit rough, they get the whole good guy bad guy superhero/nemesis jive going. And then what? We'd better watch out! They might learn some crazy notions that there are bad people out there in the world, and we can't have that. How ludicrous.

Because we all know this world, or rather this global society, this way of human nature as it has progressed thus far is such a wonderful concept of place and time to be in, to live in... with its rapes, murders, home invasions, thefts, and our unwavering obsessive focus on looking good, being thin and judging each other by the size of our bank accounts.

Just back off, already, and let the damn kids play. In this day and age, it'd be a good thing if kids would learn a few unseemly truths about the real world before their innocents vanishes and they have to endure it with the rest of us

Global Yawning

2009-03-30T23:26:00.002+11:00

So by now, we've all been subjected to the so-called Earth Hour. You know: that whole routine by which its said that if we all switch off our lights for an hour a year, all the climate problems will magically disappear.

Sure. Whatever you say, bucko.

Most of us are getting just a little tired of the same old hyperbole from every treehugger on the planet. It's all a tad rehearsed for my likings. Doubt me? Google shall enlighten you. Thousands of entries, every environmentalist and his dog all having their say on the internet, ironically using the same technology they claim ruins the world for everyone to spread their diatribes.

But the current favourite saying that crops up a few hundred times per conversation will be that we, as humankind, are shafting this planet for all it's worth, and we're going to utterly destroy this planet.

Now, if you listen long enough, and your senses dull enough, you might find yourself agreeing. In this scenario, the only cure is to get some Carlin down you. He was on to something when he unleashed his logic upon the naturephile-masses.

I'll quote the relevant section from one of his HBO shows:

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

It pretty much says it all, in my opinion. Now, if you've read this far without going into apoplexy, I'm impressed. And let me add that I'm not ignorant enough to beleive that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the planet. Things *are* pretty messed up. But I'm not closed-minded enough to beleive that once we're gone, life here will cease to exist, and all thanks to us. That won't happen until this star we live on dies, and implodes, creating yet another awesome cosmic display.

Put another way: The cynic in me beleives we are indeed fucked. The realist in me beleives it's too late to do anything about it. So you continue to bow down under the pressure, turn off your lights during Earth Hour, and brag about it to my coworkers the next day... on your radiation-emitting predominantly plastic cellphone, sitting on the freeway in your fossil-fuel-consuming vehicle in the morning traffic jams before finally making it into work where you'll sit at your energy-wasting computer under cheap cost-saving flourescent lights all day, and you'll not even notice that: you'll be too busy feeling good about yourself like a pretentious prick of epic proportions, for saving a couple of dozen watts worth of energy.

He's in the Hall of Fame now? Oh christ...

2009-03-23T22:32:00.003+11:00

Ok, so I was relaxing in an afternoon of slobberish television veiwing a few nights ago, and the inevitable shorts from the upcoming News came on. You know: where they blurt out seemingly random news titles in the short 10 second timeframe they are alotted by the broadcaster: "Turkeys talk! Ship Captain Eats Pitchfork! Barnacles With Large Penii!"

Normally, I'd immediately perform high-precision mental manoeuvers making me immune to such trash (AKA tumbling into a near-catatonic state where the only thing going through my mind is a dialtone). But this one was different. I'm not sure how on earth it happened, but a certain name jumped out at me, immediately grabbing my testicles, and thus my full undivided attention.

The name was Wayne Carey. You lot overseas probably have no clue who he is. Unless you live in Miami... but we'll get to that shortly. Summed up in two words: Primordial Dickhead.

To the shock of most of the nation, this twonk has been inducted into the AFL club's Hall of Fame. The Hall of bloody Fame...

What on earth for?

Ohhhh thats right! It probably had something to do with his extramarital affair with his then-best mate's wife, Kelli. Or perhaps the drug habits. Or maybe it was the accusations of him being tied to underword figure Jason Moran. Or just maybe the widely reported assault on Miami Police last year.

Yeah, the guy is obviously the perfect image of dicipline and self-control. Hey, since we're inducting aggressive, drug-ridden alcoholics into the Hall of Fame, why stop there. Let's get Ivan Milat up there, too. Or how about James Vlassakis. Both murderers certainly got enough airtime.

So I guess the ideal we hold up to kids here is: It's fine to get sloshed, bash figures of authority and skank onto your best mates wife, so long as you play a game for a living.

Ahh, the Bane of Common Sense

2009-03-16T15:22:00.003+11:00

As you all should know by now, I pride myself in my ability to make people look like idiots. Sometimes, this task can be difficult, and other times - such as this - it's made very easy for me.

Todays morsel comes all the way around the globe from deutschland. Yes, it's thsoe crazy German's again. So get comfortable, and read on, for many a laugh shall come. Just don't mention the war.

So we start off in Germany. In Germany, there's a city called Berlin. This city has a TV/Radio Broadcast Company called GEZ.

Now, it seems this company not only has a really bad invoiving practise, but common sense has all but left them, as well. You see, they sent out a final demand for payment to one Adam Ries: a deceased mathematician who died around 450 years ago.

To add to this, lets get logical. Mr Ries died in the year 1559. The TV was commercially available in the late 1930's. Sure, some could argue that the concept and early prototype of television were around earlier... but only by 40-50 years or so (1878 to be exact, via the telephonoscope) - still a few hundred short.

And finally, it may interest you to know that this particular company has messed up in much the same way before. Just last year, they sent a simmilar demand for payment to Friedrich Schiller (or rather a school named after him): a german poet who died in 1805.

Automated Billing practises: the bane of common sense.

Your Life Has Been Valued

2009-02-05T18:53:00.003+11:00

I've had my eye on tonights topic for some time, as it has been around for some time. Probably longer than I've been alive. But recently, it has been becoming more and more prevailant. More obvious. In fact, about as obvious as a 5inch nail in the foot. About as painful, as well.

It all revolves around the decadent and blatantly hedonistic nature of those in power, be it a large corporation, or law enforcement, religious leaders or government bodies. You know - the very people who are supposedly responsible for looking out for the best interests of the general public, when in fact the only interest is in how they can benefit from any decisions made.

It's quite tough living in a society lead by these types. In a ruleset that is so convoluted that it takes such drastic events to force any type of action.

For example, a stretch of road with a poorly designed corner. It's sharp, it's out of camber. It's dangerous. So the community tells the local goverment body responsible for the road that it's dangerous. This body won't even bother to go look at it or observe traffic flow at this area. They'll respond with the standard "There is no evidence to support the claim that the stretch in question is at all dangerous in any way."

So the road remains unchanged. Maybe a few days go by, or a few weeks, or maybe months. Then someone will loose their life. After that, you'd think something would be done. Not so. It might be discussed by those who power over the road, but nothing will get done.

After a couple of decades, and who knows how many fatalities, something will finally get done. From what I've seen, it's usually labelling the corner a "black spot".

Great. Two words on some map rotting in some cabinet somewhere. Way to go, that'll save lives.

It's just sickening to realise we live in societies where people have to loose lives before something is done, all because some fat cat at the top doesn't want to let go of the money. What these people are doing is putting a price on something that is priceless: life itself. And a low one at that.

MySpace... Well It Isn't My Space Anymore

2009-01-13T21:48:00.002+11:00

MySpace. We've all heard about it. What we've heard has been a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. As is situation normal for any social networking site. Especially one of MySpace's magnitude. From what I understand, only Facebook surpases MySpace in sheer size.

Now, some of you, especially those who know me well, will be wondering why I'm talking about it. It's quite elementary, my dear Watson: It's rant time.

WHen I first opened my very own MySpace account, things were fine. Sure, there were significantly less features, but there were significantly less things going wrong, as well. Like 0.

Last year or so, any time they fiddle with the codebehinds, something breaks. And I'm tired of it. It started off being small, nearly innocuous things. Showing I had new messages when I didn't. Incorrectly displaying how many friends I had, etc. Like SQL queries are so hard.

But the last few days, I've had a much larger issue. I don't know if it's just crap code yet again, or what, but now I can't even log in. Not a bad username or password. No, the error message I get is "ou must be logged in to use this feature"...

I have to be logged in to log in...

Does that sound incredibly fucken stupid to anyone else?

So it looks like MySpace isnt My Space any more. Anyone who has me added might as well go ahead and remove me. I aint pissing around anymore.

Of course, this rant won't have any effect. Not with Murdoch pulling the strings.

And before anyone tries to get all pedantic on an epic scale and whine about how MySpace is owned by FOx Interactive Media, please note that Fox Interactive Media is owned wholely by the News Corporation, of which Murdoch is the major shareholder, chairman and managing director of.

Will Boot-times Cost You?

2008-11-19T22:11:00.003+11:00

A little while ago, we looked into stupid reasons to sue. The focus of that rant was all about people sueing on the notion that they are somehow not responsible for their own actions.

Well, I've just come across an article with a similar sound to it.

The whole debacle has apparently been going on for a few years now, but this is the first I've heard of it. And it all revolves around a single question: Should employee's be paid while their computers/terminals boot?

According to some legal blog in the middle of cyber-nowhere, some employees for assorted firms are claiming they are not being paid for the time it takes to boot, login, and logout at the end of the day.

I find it amusing, yet justified. Let me dish it out straight for you. It amuses me that a company can be sued over boot times. The company didn't write the software, isn't responsible for the software, merely owns a right to utilise the software on their hardware, and have no control over the time it takes for the software to do its thing, yet some idiot court somewhere is going to hear out this lopsided arguement anyways.

Yet, the whole this is justified, if you lok at it logically. The company does in fact own the hardware, does in fact own the licences, and we can make a safe-as-a-medieval-fortress-like assumption that the utilisation of the computer and software is required in order for the employees to maintain a high standard of efficiency whilst going about their daily routines.

A management-side attourney is claiming that booting does not warrant being called 'work'. This is obviously one of those context-driven matters. You see, here's how I see it: An employee, whilst on company grounds, during company time, is required to use company hardware and company-licenced software to do company work. The boot-up is necessary for the employee to do their work, so it should be covered by the company.

Think of it this way: A telemarketer still gets paid for the time they are waiting for their victim to pick up the phone, yet no actual work is being done during that time.

Intellectual Property Blues

2008-11-14T21:30:00.004+11:00

Tonights tasty treat is something that may raise alarm bells, for those of you who own any form of Intellectual Property. If you don't know what IP is, and I'm not talking anything about networking here, then this probably wont bother you in the slightest.

When I first heard of patents, I thought about it - the entire concept of explicitly owning the rights to something. SInce then, I've had cause to think some more on the subject. Like when I found out Cadbury's owned the colour 'Royal Purple'. I didn't quite get it. They didn't invent it, so how could they claim they owned it? It's all beyond me at the moment. Even a friend of mine who works in a Canadian patent office can't explain it to me sufficiently. Though I'm not sure if that says more about me than her or not.

Tonights thought-bubble theatre comes courtesy of the EU court of First Instance. Whatever the fuck that is.

Lego.

We all know it. We all love it. If you don't love it, you are doomed to die a horrible death.

Well, some smarmy company in Canada decided they wanted to make Lego. Only to avoid a copyright infringement, they called them 'Mega Bloks'. THen they went to court and challenged the makers of Lego. The court overruled Lego's Trademark. SO now anyone can make Lego.

This got to me. I now have no idea why anyone would apply for a patent, or trademark, or the likes if anyone can come along, challenge it in court, win, and legally steal your stuff anyways. This stupid decision of a stupid EU court has just opened a huge can of worms. I wonder who's trademarks and patents will fall next.

Lego will of course appeal the decision in the European Court of Justice. I for one sincerely hope they win. Not just because I grew up playing with Lego, but in order to halt what could turn the entire concept of IP into a larger joke than it already is.

Climb Out Of Your Holes

2008-11-07T09:51:00.003+11:00

What do McDonalds, World of Warcraft, the Tobacco Industry and Casino's all have in common? They've all been sued for ruining lives.

Yep, World of Warcraft ruined someones life, and now they are suing. Of course, the reasons given, and the fact that the plaintiff is currently incarcerated has put somewhat of a ludicrous spin on things. So ludicrous infact, that they couldn't sue directly, but had to tag it on as a third-party motion onto a pre-existing case.

Jonothan Lee Riches is our superhero wearing the Sue-man costume this time around. Current residence: Federal Correctional Institute Williamsburg, SC. It appears that he is no stranger to the courtroom, and not only as a defendant. In a little over 2 and a half years, he has filed over 1000 lawsuits. To me, this shows me someone who has realised they've screwed their life up, and is desperately hunting for an easy way out.

His claim is that WoW "caused Riches mind to live in a virtual universe, where Riches explored the landscape committing identity theft and fighting cybermonster rival hacker gangs. Riches was addicted to video games and lost touch with reality because of defendants. This caused Riches to commit fraud to buy defendants video games. Riches chose World of Warcraft over working a legit job, Riches mind became a living video game."

Anyone else think thats all a load of rubbish?

Even though it's a barely veiled attempt at a psychological trauma suit, it's kind of self-nullifying. The statement clearly states he CHOSE. To win, he would have to be found clinically insane. But as has been proven in case after case, people who have the cognitive ability to commit identity theft, and other such complex crimes are quite obviously not insane. Out of control perhaps, but not insane.

Now, my major issue with all this is where the other aforementioned companies/industries come into play. It all revolves around one single question: Why the fuck can't people take responsibility for their own actions?

I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm sure most of you are, too. Things like "McDonalds made me fat", "The Tobacco Industry gave me cancer", "The Casino bankrupted me". Get over yourselves. You CHOSE to visit, purchase and eat McDonalds. Apparently alot of it, too. You CHOSE to smoke. You CHOSE to gamble.

Now, I will concede that smoking and gambling are addictive, however it takes time to build up an addiction so strong that people are willing to put their lives on the line.

And that concludes today's rant. People live in holes these days. Climb out of your holes.

Science and Gaming

2008-10-24T11:44:00.004+11:00

Ahhh yes, that familiar rankness lies in the air: the stench of something stupid going down.

Today, after a mere 43 seconds of perusing the titles on slashdot, I hit gold. It seems some bigwig scientists got hold of that new gaming title based on evolutionary biological simulation - Spore And they whined about it.

Normally, I'd say that there's nothing strange about that, but the driving force behind their collected diatribes cracked me up.

So here we have a group of top-rated scientists, ranging from Evolutionary Biologists to Astrophysicists. You know, your pocket-protector-toting types. And their whine? Spore got "most of biology badly, needlessly, and often bizarrely wrong".

Now, this is where I started having issues. As soon as I read that line, the ludicrous nerve in my brain kickstarted and popped a question into my head: Do these people actually KNOW they're playing a game?

Well, it is inded a game, whose biological ruleset is not *exactly* the same as reality, therefore differeces are to be expected. Here, life began hundreds of millions of years ago, and has been going about its business ever since. Hundreds of millions of years worth of genetic mutations and mytosis have turned all livings things into what they are today.

Oh yeah, now is probably a good time to point out that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is exactly that: A theory. You can't claim to know exactly how something works when the fundamentals of that something haven't even been fully proven.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a beleiver in evolution. But lets face it: blasting Spore for nt being 100% realistic would be like the sci-fi fanbase blasting Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc for not being realistic, 'because not everyone is human!'

LHC and the doomsday debacle

2008-09-11T15:47:00.004+10:00

Ok, so it's been less than 24hours, and I'm already sick of all the bullshit going on about the LHC. How about you?

As some of you may know, the worlds largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, went live yesterday at 9:00am local time in Zurich, Switzerland. At 10:28am, the first beam hurtled around the accelerator.

We've been hearing about this for weeks, those of us using BOINC may have been processing simulation packets for CERN using the lhc@home project. After all, this has been in the making for a couple of decades now.

But as with any major scientific project involving something of this scale, a certain bunch of idiots gets wind of it, and out come the doomsdayers.

Those of us with our feet firmly planted inm reality love these guys: they provide so much entertainment with their heartfelt cries, warnings, arguements, and death threats.

THe next step in this form of goblin logic is the media. The hype in its very nature follows almost exactly the same path as the doomsdayers, turning from a basic article about the LHC to assorted columnists and radio talkback jackoffs declaring the end of the world is nigh. Enough in fact that some silly muppet in india committed suicide after hearing of 'the end of the world' due to the LHC firing up. 16 years old, she was. I wonder who she didn't top herself at Y2K... that was bleeted about much more by the doomsdayers than the LHC...

And look who's at least partially responsible for this: the doomsdayers. People who can't resist using bit multisyllabic words in sentences to make their simplistic pessimistic outlook on life appear to have an ounce of reason behind it. Like the claim that the operation of the LHC would create a supermasive black hole and suck the Earth into oblivion.... yeah right, we've been splitting atoms for years now and still appear to be in existence. Not to mention the Earth itself has been bombarded with billions and billions (10^37 or so) energetic collisions equal to those the LHC will produce. Anyone who can use Google coulda figured that out.

But no, it's easier to herald the end of the world and then turn the other way and refuse to acknowledge any participation when people, misinformed, take their own lives as a direct result.

Should have all been left at birth to perish on a windswept crag somewhere.

Excuses

2008-08-24T16:40:00.002+10:00

Welcome, my massochistic minions.

It's been a while since I had a good rant about something pointless, but today... I'm in the mood for it. Ahh, yes - you can smell it: the aroma of something nasty going down in my mind.

And just as a warning to those who are brainwashed by the assorted governments: The following diatribe is in no way going to even slightly resemble anything politically correct. But you already knew that.

My current line of thought is about people who are overweight. Severely overweight. Not so much the people themselves, but the excuses they give. Most of these excuses are not so well thought out. Some are just plain ludicrous. I've noticed a pattern of behaviour when it comes to this blatant denial. In order to justify weighing more than the average person, they turn to attempting to come up with some kind of wacky medical-sounding term... and bear in mind this rant excludes those who have genuine medical conditions - when thyroids jump off the sanity bridge, there aint much to be done about it.

But here are a few of the most common:

Big Boned:
So, your arse-bone and belly-bone are a hell of a size, huh?

Water Retension:
No, you're retaining Mars Bars.

Slow Metabolism:
... and a fast appetite.

By now, I'm, sure someone has questioned my rights to be saying this kind of thing. It's fairly simple: I'm a bit overweight myself. And it comes from spending years sitting infront of a computer at tech working my brain to death while getting qualified and not making the time to keep up any physical activities. I'm not big boned, I dont have a slow metabolism, but I am retaining liquid.. in the form of assorted high sugar content energy drinks.

At the end of the day, I think that people would feel a bit better about themselves if they'd just simply admit even the most obvious things, rather than spending time brooding about it and coming up with a load of bs to try and justify it all.

Hitler Mk. II

2008-08-16T21:25:00.002+10:00

So the news tonight gave us all an insight into the continuance of the Great International Pissing Contest.

Just when I thought the media and it's impeccable tunnel-vision had absolutely focused upon the Olympics, I was greeted with news that Russa, Poland and the US are all involved in a circle-jerk.

How does that work? As far as I can figure, it goes something like this:

Poland and the US have some kind of dodgy agreement driven by goblin logic. Something to do with the US setting up missile-defence on Polish soil, to be used to defend the US against long-range missile strikes from the mid-east.... I didn't quite get that, as Poland is some 1800km north of the nuclear-powers of the middle east, such as Iran, Iraq, etc. I figure any any attempt from a missile-defence facility in Poland to knock down a missie fired from the mid-east would have to intercept closer towards the North Atlantic Ocean... most likely somewher eover France or Spain.

I wonder how they'll feel if such an event happened, and the agressor missile just happened to be nuclear...

But back on track, Russia has stomped into play, flaunting their official policy against nuclear powers. Due to a recent rewrite of assorted national security documents, Russia's policy now enables them to use nuclear power "...against governments that have nuclear weapons; against allies of countries with nuclear weapons...", as quoted by Anatoliy Nogovitsyn, deputy cheif of the general staff.

Now, we pretty much expect the US to shrug and continue on with their plans. It's what they do best. But perhaps they should get someone with a head for figures in on it, too.

It's fairly straight-forward:

10 Interceptor Missiles to be housed in Poland versus the 5000+ Ballistic Warheads idling around Russia... just a tiny bit of surplus there.

I think it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Will the agreements being forged with Poland fizzle, or will the US play the usual game and suddenly find masses of 'Russian Terrorists'.

WHich brings me to another thought... would the US be stupid enough to try invade Russia, if it came down to war, much in the same way they did Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Vietnam, etc etc etc. Hitler tried and failed. Can Bush really afford to be labelled Hitler Mk. II?

M&M Abuse

2008-06-03T22:10:00.003+10:00

Well well, my darling minions, I find I must apologise and appease myself upon you all. I do however, come laden with chocolate goodness.

It was by mere happenstance that I happened to be in earshot of the hilarity displayed by my mother after reading a certain article. Of course, this wouldn't have been so hard; I'm sure she was heard several kilometers away. But as always, my curiosity made me wonder. Oh, I was so not disappointed.

It would seem that a Des Moines (Iowa) student was arrested for assault last month. His weapon of choice: M&M's. That's right, you heard me: tiny chocolate candy. I don't know what is more rediculous: the fact he threw candy at an officer, or the fact the officer arrested him for it.

Of course, my twisted mind has come up with some interesting thoughts.

Firstly, if the assault charge is upheld by the court,this would technically mean all candy would officially become a weapon. Know I have some questions about that:

- 1: Would candy in a pocket, bag, etc, be considered a concealed weapon?
- 2: Would stores retailing candy be required to hold a valid permit for the sale of this weapon?
- 3: Would you require a licence or permit to own and operate this weapon?
- 4: Would having this candy in your posession fall under the 2nd Ammendment (US only)?
- 5: Would Bush start hunting for Weapons of Mass Deliciousness?

Now, moving on to the next logical step in this process of malevolence, how on earth could any court take this charge seriously? And more importantly, how could any officer feel confident eough to win a case based on such ludicrous events? The officer who couldn't handle the candy.

Lets look at the facts:

- 1: It's an M&M.
- 2: The average weight of an M&M is 0.878 grams.
- 3: No human being could hurl an M&M fast enough to cause any physical damage.
- 4: ITS A FUCKING M&M.

So, my advice to the Iowa PD: make sure your officers arent all of the "girls blouse" variety. The "Iowa State Sissy-boys" doesn't have such a great ring to it.. although it might go down well in the next Gay Pride parade. For gods sake, give them a clue.

And kid, next time you wanna lay the candy smack down on somones posterior, do it with style: a 2kg Toblerone or something.

Slumping into bed, finally

2008-03-30T01:52:00.003+11:00

Wooh, what a night!

So I just drove my ass into central melbourne, getting lost a few times along the way. Knowing me, there's only one reason why I'd do such a thing. Well, ok, I'd do it to have coffee with Cindy Crawford... or to watch Bush get beat to death by a mob of angry midgets weilding bowls of custard.

But tonight, one of my favourite comedians was showing live. And of course I just had to go. 3rd row seats near centre-stage, too.

I am of course talking about Ross Noble.

And I got to see him.

You didnt.

So there.

But the night was awesome. Many many kudos to Ross for making me laugh so hard, I almost lost my voice. It was everything I expected, and more. Seeing the lunatick perform on DVD is one thing, but to have it unfold live around you is another story entirely.

For those of you who have no idea who Ross Noble is, shame on you.

Go to http://www.rossnoble.co.uk and be enlightened.

Ahhhhh

2008-02-12T10:52:00.000+11:00

Not alot has been happening lately. At least not down under. Rather boring. Too boring. So boring, in fact, I've started to name the flyspots on my ceiling.

That one is Fred.

But to my delight, I decided to troll Reuters for goodies to share with you, my adoring minions. I was not dissapointed.

For right in my back yard (give or take a few hundred miles), a story unfolded.

We've all been drunk, we've all done stupid things. But how off your tits would you have to be to thjreaten an entire city with nothing but a TV remote?

Yes, thats right. A drunk and disorderly gentleman threated to detonate Brisbane with his TV remote, causing chaos in the form of hysteria for the local law enforcement agents.

Only in Australia...

D1 Special Delivery

2007-10-27T20:01:00.000+10:00

I was doing my usual, trudging along my usual ePath, scouring the assorted sites for somethign interesting, and I just happened to stumble over an image.

This image, as is normal for insane people like me, triggered one of thse ultra-fast responses within my twisted little mind. Kind of similar to those psychotherapeutic "card games" - "Say the first thing that comes to mind when I show you this..."

So, I thought I might share with you the image,and my accompanying thoughts, as I found it rather amusing.

My thought was on the subject of Drifting - a favourite sport amongst the street-racing syndicates. Such entertainment comes with a high cost: tyres. A pro drifter would require a ecent source of assorted rubber rings to squeeze around their rims. What would such a delivery of tyres look like? Maybe something like this:

Dialtones

2007-10-02T19:54:00.000+10:00

So again I've been sick, and had 5 days off work. But do not fear, my darling minions, for I am on the mend.

Indeed, tomorrow I attempt a day at work. Face to face with the punters - those clueless imbeciles who run around all day, living out their consumer-driven lives with nothing going through their heads but a dialtone.

But for now, I'm going to go stuff my face full of ice cream.

So there.

Everybody lies...

2007-09-14T21:14:00.000+10:00

It would seem that this is the Age of Games. Everyones playing fucking games. And I don't mean board games or computer games. Huge malignant mindfucks is what I'm talking about.

Try it sometime: open your eyes and look around you; you'll see an ocean of people all trying to mindfuck each other into the next millenium. And all for what?

This type of social/political/heirachical manoevering is abundant, and so utterly pointless, I beleive it should be officially declared humankinds worst invention.

Some of you who arent endowed with oracle-like eagle vision will be asking what the fuck I'm on about. So I'll give you an example. Right now, if I look aound me, I see it all: A sister who's trying so very hard to convince herself she hates me, her father trying to play the alpha card in an attempt to hold some form of dictatorship over a family that he doesn't even want to be involved with anymore. Couples surrounding me, all battling it out in their own versions of bedroom survivor. Marriages pushed to the very limits. Ex's who even after so many years think I am still vulnerable to their simplistic attempts to guilt-trip me into doing things their way.

Why? Why must everyone play the games? What does it acheive in the end? So you get to feel macho for a few seconds. Good for you. Meanwhile, you've just displayed to all who observe how insecure you are with youself, your emotions, and where you are in your life. As observers, we are, of course, glad you chose moments where we can observe to publicly humiliate yourself. Though we admit we are often intrigued and challenged by your unique point of view.

Hrmmm

2007-09-10T22:03:00.000+10:00

Well merry greet to all you minions. Tonights topic is one that has the potential to touch many. Well, more like reach out and strangle the living fuck out of many.

I've often heard people talk about it, or seen it in the various peices of visualistic excrement that periodically violates my TV screen. That whole concept of not missing something until you lose it.

And until now, I've always believed it was a complete load of masculine bovine fecal matter.

My situation is one that has no doubt been played out a hundred thousand times in a hundred thousand ways. Put simply, I met someone, decided I liked her, and after a couple months decided I might be ready to try my hand at another relationship. Today I was going to ask her out.

So I rock on up to work only to find out she quit over the weekend. For no reason.

That sinking feeling of something being over before it began has dwelled in my head ever since this morning. It's all good though. I got to take out my frustrations on the punters. Which reminds me, tomorrow I find out if a Western Digital 500g SATA-II HDD can infact withstand severe g-forces of being thrown down some stairs. If the punter comes back for a DOA, then I know the drive isnt so great. If it doesnt come back DOA, I might ponder investing in WD.

But that's about it from me for now. I'll try get some more frequent posts up here.

Adios amigos

Doom Trains

2007-07-26T21:10:00.000+10:00

Ok, so I've given you the quickie version of what goes on at my work, and a breif note or two about the buses. Now it's time for the next installment of my wild adventures. This time it's all about the trains.

Well, maybe not the trains themselves. They're pretty good, except when Connex forgets to service the brake systems and they start having problems with stopping.

But latley, I've been doing my usual idle perving at society and its worst features. And I've been noticing a few prominent attributes.

First off, one would most likely make the assumption that the drug addicts and alcoholics that seem to permanantly occupy the train stations would be the worst type of passenger to deal with. But this is wrong. In my experiences, it's the bikies that make the worst passengers.

"Bikies?" you ask.. sure, let me explain.

They're the idiots who go out and spend all tht money on a mean-looking pedal bike with all the neat little toys, but never actually ride it, just roll it onto the train, travel a bit, then roll it off.

What the fuck, man. Shoulda saved your money for a longer period train ticket.

By now, you're most likely asking what's so bad about that. Well, it's a bit of a pain when you have to scale a mountain of claped out bikes just to get onto the train. And heaven forbid you touch their precious bike. Smeagol looks like a fucking barbie compared to these lunaticks.

And they all stick together. It's like walking into a big ass-to-mouth orgy.

But the observation that makes me laugh every single day is all the self-important 'clackers'. Those high-heel-wearing snootish cows who think they're god's gift to the economy.

It's comical. Here I am, 20minutes early, sauntering up the ramp to go grab me a seat and wizzing by left and right are the clackers, rushing up the ramp on their holy crusade to get their seats on the train that isnt even there yet. I love it: no train, and they're reaching mach 3 before they even hit the platform, each one acting like the whole fucking world will explode if their land speed drops below 65, like some wacky foot-power version of the movie Speed.

Kind of like a massive hive of ants. Except I don't have a large enough magnifying glass.

Sneaky Sneaky MS

2007-07-14T17:10:00.000+10:00

Ahh, yes. I can sense it. I can smell it, I can taste it and I can feel it. Something rank is going down.

And yes, it involves Microsoft.

We're all pretty much aware of the current goings-on regarding MS and various challenges to patents, etc. But seems this may all just be a decoy.

For what?

Why, this of course. It's a patent application lodged by MS for something dubbed as "Advertising Services Architecture".

Wait a minute... ADVERTISING???

But didn't MS publicly slam and fight alongside law enforcement to protect consumers from unwanted advertising?

If so, why indicate that you're about to provide a rfamework to allow advertising from within the OS itself?

So lets take a look into the patent claims and descriptions and see how this sucker is going to work...

AHhh here we go.. claim #17:

"A method of selecting, displaying, and monetizing advertisements at an advertising framework on a computer comprising: registering an information component that provides context data for selection of an advertisement, the information component included in an application program or a utility; registering a display component providing a presentation capability; receiving the context data; sending a request for an advertisement, the request including request data generated as a function of the context data; receiving a targeted advertisement responsive to the request; forwarding the advertisement to the display component for presentation of the advertisement; apportioning an advertising revenue associated with presentation of the advertisement among owners of the advertising framework, the information component and the display component."

In short: a way to tell what you are looking at in order to provide targeted advertising. So, this nifty little sucker is going to be taking peeks at everything you do. Privacy Invasion suit, coming right up.

Some of the other claims MS is making regarding this framework are:

That the invention can 'take steps to verify ad consumption'
That it can be used to block ads from competitors
Take sneak peeks at 'user document files, user e-mail files, user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, [and] computer status messages' to deliver more tightly targeted ads'

So there you have it. Could this be an open door to every single advertising agency in the world to completely flood a system with their marketing feces without any way for us to stop it? We're going to have to wait and see.

Boom, baby!

2007-07-07T14:09:00.000+10:00

Well here we are. A mere 2 days before my birthday, and as promised, I have for you a golden collection of the more interesting times at work. I figured I'd better get all this out before birthday depression sets in and I disappear for a week. Why do I disappear around my birthday? Those of you who know me know why. Those of you who don't... well, get to know me first, then you'll find out. Small steps.

But enough of this self-loathing blabber. I didn't make this blog to whine about myself. If I wanted to do that, I'd blog on livejournal.

Ahhh work: a place of commerce, a place of meandering duty, a place of endless entertainment on the behalf of idiot customers.

First off, some background on what it is exactly I do: In short, I sling computers and parts to the masses, and sometimes fill in for the techs when they get bored and run off to the local strip joint. But the majority of time is spent standing at a counter listening to the drivel from the punters as they rock on up and act like they know everything - kinda like hardcore star trek fans. At least none of my customers have turned up in costume, yet.

Most of the time, they're fairly placid. Happy with our service, happy with our parts, happy with our dodgy hold music on our telephony systems. But occasionally, we get a few shiners through. Those select few who, by some weird twist of fate, have decided to choose my store in which to publicly humiliate themselves.

We'll start with the more tame - the dozens of idiots who get pissed off that they have to wait a couple of minutes for their purchases to be dragged out of the warehouse. Boo hoo. So sad.

And then there's those who have "driven a hundred km's just to come to this store" only to find we are out of stock. Do you honestly beleive you are the only one purchasing from us? Save yourself a trip and ring us, dickhead.

Oh but read on, my minions. For the story is not done yet. Here, we move on to the creme de la creme. Like the complete idiot who asked for a refund on a product he didn't buy from us. You have to be a special type of stupid to try pull that one off.

And our prize winner, one who really stands out for me. Probably because he rang the police on me...

It all started off as a somewhat boring situation: He'd purchased some RAM off us, and wanted to return it. The reason given was "It was the wrong type". Upon speaking to the person who'd served him originally, I found that he'd been sold exactly what he asked for. So we got into a bit of a debate about it. He'd wanted PC4200 DDR RAM. He'd gotten PC4200 DDR2 RAM. For the sole reason that PC4200 *IS* DDR2 RAM, not DDR. The highest speed DDR RAM is PC3200 (400mhz). PC4200 (533mhz) is the slowest DDR2 RAM.

This triggered some sort of deep-buried psychotic urge in him. He shouted, he yelled, he snorted, he argued, he launched into a huge hour-long tirade. I yawned alot.

I finally got bored of it all, and passed it on to my supervisor, who told him exactly what I told him. Then our so well-behaved patron is told that he can either get a credit note for the amount he paid for the RAM, or cash up to the value minus 10% restocking fee, as is outlined in our refund policies.

And off he went again. Everyone else in the store was watching avidly. Some had set up deck chairs, and other sales staff were now selling popcorn and charging entry at the door, as we now had about 50 people in the store.

Refusing to accept any form of refund, he went on yelling, demanding his full money back, and screaming that we were committing a crime. We told him to get bent. So off he went into a corner to cry, and to ring the police. They rocked up a short while later, one talking to my supervisor, the other to the village idiot. I'm not sure of the outcome, as I went off to lunch.

As soon as I got back from lunch, I look up from my counter and guess who is standing there. Thats right: Crybaby himself. Once again demanding his full refund. A quick whisper in my ear from my supervisor tells me that the product he is trying to refund has been found to be damaged.

Seems he'd tried to make DDR2 RAM fit in a DDR slot by shaving the edges.

Ohhh yes, this day was just getting better. I had that happy heart thing going on, as well as some of the glad eye.

Around this time is when crybaby decided to start insulting me. This is, of course, tantamount to suicide. As most of you know, by now. I dived into the depths of my mind for the most vile and gruesome insulkts I could summon forth at the time, and inleashed them in a technique I like to call "diplomatic rudeness" - you know, insulting the crap out of someone while being nice enough to not get in trouble for it.

It was so easy, and so fun. To steal a line from the B.O.F.H himself, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Twice. At point-blank range. With an elephant gun.

Totally outclassed. I have, afterall, had alot of practise.

After some more tears and even a bit of blubbering, crybaby started writing down notes and taking timestamps. Even took down my name. Which is fine by me - it's been a while since I've had a stalker. Then he went home.

As did the large mob that had turned up to watch. Cleaning up the popcorn was a pain.

I really have to ask.. what the hell does anyone expect when they whine about shit they obviously know nothing about.

Or those who after getting all angsty over something, incrediculously cry "You really don't want my custom, do you?!". I'd like to take this time now to anser this frequent question:

No, not really. We rack up over $100k a day in sales. Your meagre $20 purchase means nothing to us. Seeing as you appear to be unable to grasp the concepts that propel the commercial machine forwards, I reccomend you quit your job, cut up your cards, close your bank account, and retire to a cave somewhere. You aren't cut out for today's lifestyle.

Boom, baby.

On The Buses

2007-06-16T21:56:00.000+10:00

So I've been coalating a few of my expereinces whilst travelling on the Melbourne buses. I find the entire sequence of memories to be somewhat amusing, and thus like some sort of neanderthol, I find myself supressing urges. But unlike the assorted sex criminals out there, my urges are not to share the love, but to share my stories with you.

So let us start with the control-freaks that various bus companies here put in charge of their weapons of mass destruction.

We start off with the grumpy sod from middle europe, who every time a pssenger triggered the 'stop' signal, would swear in german. I had to laugh at a particularly scathing epithet that he vomited forth upon an unsuspecting student.

And then there's the driver I've had a few times now who drives like the bus is stolen. Lead footed. Both of them. Let me tell you that those buses have quite a bit of grunt under them. Massive turbo's running off those european engines that Volgren likes to squeeze into the steel carcass they call a bus.

But here we are, at hte portion of this post that you've all been waiting for: where I run my mouth off about the cretins that I must share the passenger area of the bus with.

We start off with a light touch - the assorted asians who demand to know why the bus is late. They've been standing at the bus stop for god only knows how long, watching the near-standstill traffic, and they need to as why the bus is late? That kind of cluelessness requires a special type of stupid.

Then there was the guy a few weeks ago. He clearly heard the voices. We'e all heard people holding a conversation with themselves. But this was the first time I've heard someone hold a dozen conversations with themselves simultaneously. I was almost impressed.

Then last week was yet another unbalanced miscreant who liked to make chopping motions with his hands, then shake his head.

Repeatedly.

And then 2 days ago, we have the typical aussie boozehag. 60yr old reeking of stale cigarettes and surrounded by an effluvium caused by severe overdosing of assorted alcohol. I could smell her right up the other end of the bus. And god was it rank. I'm still retching just from the memory alone.

So there you have it. A quick peek into my chaotic lifestyle. And keep your eyes open for my tales of the sordid happenings at work, coming soon to a blog near you.

On what do you mount a motherboard?

2007-06-04T21:51:00.000+10:00

Aight y'all, I think I have met the worlds' most idiotic computer user.

We've all heard about users being unable to locate the "any" key, and those who have broken their "coffee cup holder" (optical drive tray).

We've also heard about those who are unable to grasp the concept that electronic devices require power.

But tonight's episode, bought to you by my place of employment, is a complete first for me.

The scenario is that a user had purchased parts and built his own box.

Fairly straight forward, right? It wasn't his first build, so most would assume he knew what he was doing.

No.

Don't assume.

Don't.

You'll rue the day.

When he strolled in with his box and complained about smoke, a bunch of us gathered around to poke and prod at it until we figured it out. It didn't take very long, as the problm was so obvious, when we lifted the sidepanel clear, it attacked us with a 15lb lump hammer.

This person was quite obviously a special type of stupid. An more stupid and he'd have to be watered twice a week.

He had mounted the motherboard directly onto the plate. No brackets, or anything.

Needless to say we stood around staring at this contraption, trying desperately not to burst out laughin, before eventually setting him straight.

Drop Boxes...

2007-05-13T17:22:00.000+10:00

Here's a bit of a shocker:

A hospital in Japan recently opened the country's only 'drop box' for unwanted babies.

That's right, you wander along, toss your baby into an incubator accessible from outside, and walk off. Staff get alerted to a new baby, and coem and deal with it.

Crazy huh? It's all a drive to lower abortion rates, and all that crap.

So I did a bit of reading, and found out that Germany and South Africa also have the same scheme running, and that some US States protect the identity of women who give up their babies.

I figure taking a pill/injection, or wearing a condom is alot less work than having to give birth... alot less painful too, from what I understand...

Time For People to Step Up

2007-05-13T17:06:00.000+10:00

It has happened yet again. A quick browse of slashdot's RSS feed this morning gave me a purpose to haul out the infrequently used Snicker of Disdain.

It's been a while coming, but the progress has been steady. Here's the lay-up:

First off, along came cigarettes. People got lung cancer, heart disease and all those other nasties the assorted medical experts around the world claim is caused by smoking. Oh no, they're sick, they're dying, what shall they do? SUE!

Similar thing with alcohol. Drink heavily for yeras, suffer alcoholism, argh shit, I'm dying from liver failure. SUE!

After a while, along came McD's, BK, and all the other fastfood joints. People ate, people got fat, oh dear, clogged arteries are killing me, what shall I do? SUE!

Anod now, for installment #4 of this common theme I like to term "A Load Of Shit": GPS Navigation Units.

See, it seems that some clueless fucks out there are driving off cliffs, or through flooded roads, etc, as instructed to do so by their navigational devices.

I'm sorry, I thought the ability to drive was somewhat mandatory... I'm fairly sure it's required in order to obtain some form of drivers' licence.

The latest is some silly bints car was smacked by a train, and she's blaming her GPS Navigation Unit. Well here's how it is: Yes, your navigation unit says drive down this road. Road rules state you must stop for any warning devices at a level crossing. And while the road rules state you must obey the warning devices, they do not state you must obey your gps unit.

It's time for people to step up and admit they fucked up. You cant blame other people for your own decisions. You choose to smoke, drink, eat a bucket of deepfried chicken for each meal, or drive into a train. Live with it.

Good luck on your upcoming court case, lady. Please note, I say this with heavy blistering waves of sarcasm billowing out from me.

Welcome to the Land of Redundant Bills

2007-05-12T09:00:00.000+10:00

And good morning to YOU, minions. You'd better dust off your smiles and giggles, for I've got something for you that will give you a case of the grin mouth.

This one involves our nosey friends over in the states. The self-fulfilling prophets themselves, the NSA. You see, as is typical with these agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, etc etc, they all have a bad case of power-to-the-head. After all, it's what happens when you take police, give them a new name and more authority. Small people with small minds act big to compensate. Napolean Complex, I beleive it is called.

But yes, for quite some time now, the NSA has been illegally tapping residential phonelines, under the authorisation of Bushypoo himself. The man quite obviously beleives he is above the law. Especially now that he's starting to fling veto's around.

Today, the US House of Representatives passed a Bill outlawing illegal domestic wiretapping by the government.

...

If it's illegal, isn't it already outlawed?

I'm starting to ponder something: just how many worthless bills there are approved in the US.

Welcome to the United States: Land of Redundant Bills.

Not exactly what I'd term as being well thought through. You lot in the House of Representatives need to stop focusing on the problem, and work on the solution. These band-aids you keep coming up with won't hold the dam when it decides to pop. The law was already in place: hence why it was ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING. Enforce it, not just add more paper to the stack.

It's not exactly rocket science...

Attention all Gumballers & Fans (Updated)

2007-05-04T10:23:00.001+10:00

Update #2:
Margarita Cepuljoski, the wife of Vladimir, who was killed in an accident involving a Gumball team a few days ago, has died in hospital.

Investigative Authorities have issued a temporary detention to Nicholas Morley, the driver of the Porsche 911 Turbo involved in the accident, and Police hav efiled formal accusations against him for “heavy violation of traffic safety” and “failure to provide help to an injured person”.

Macedonian Police have decided not to press charges against Matthew McConville, the team's co-driver.

Update #1:
Maximillion Cooper, Founder and CEO of the Gumballl 3000 Group, has just announced that the 2007 Gumballl 3000 Rally is cancelled, and will finish in Bratislava tonight.

The cancellation is a token of respect to Vladimir Cepulyoski, who died as a result of an accident with a Gumballl 3000 team.

Original Post:
As some of you may know already, a recent accident in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, involving 2 british Gumballers has left 1 dead, and anotehr in hospital.

The TechArt Porsche 911 Turbo hit the VW Golf, killing Vladimir Cepuljoski, 67 and seriously injuring his wife, Margarita who remains hospitalized in critical condition.

While Organisers of the Rally expressed their deepest condolences, it is still shocking to hear that the two drivers of the Porsche attempted to flee by using another car. Both were arrested at the border.

My favourite team, Team Polizei, have formally withdrawn from the Rally. So far, it is assumed that this is due to the aforementioned incident, however we are waiting on further statement from the team.

I would now like to express my own condolences to the families of Vladimir and Magarita, and wish Margarita a full recovery.

Now Thats Perversion Of The Law If Ever I Saw It

2007-05-03T11:47:00.000+10:00

Ohhh yes, can you feel it? Smell it? Taste it? We all know it: somewhere, something rank is going down. And just for you my myriad minions, I have tracked it down for you.

The scene is two-faced: Clements High Schol in Houston, and right here in the digital world.

The cause for the current rankness is quite bland and simple: a student made a map for a PC Game that resembled the High School, and then uploaded that map for him and his friends to play.

Well, seems some of those anti-samaritan self-indulging fucktart parents clued onto this, and laid a complaint to the Fort Bend Independent School District.

In response to this complaint, police arrested the student, shipped him off to M.R. Wood Alternative Education Center, searched his home and found a hammer, which they deemed "a potential weapon", then declared the student a "terrost threat".

The goblinoid logic behind it all? They seem to think that due to the violent nature of the game taht the map was designed for (1st person shooter), it can be said that it would be used to practise a real-life killing.

Well if that's the case, let me give up a few more "terrorists". We'll start with the teams behind a fair few street racing games. Their work consists of existing cities in which the player must, at some point, evade police. Practise for highly-organised street racing. Get them under lock and key. Then the various maps created for war strategy games, like some of the Command & Conquer series. Some are based on existing towns, or portions of existing cities. Practise for high-scale warfare. Quick, arrest them. And every RPG and FPS game. They all involve killing things - practise for, well, killing things.

So now you overzealous 'LEO' retards working over there in Houston, you now have a couple of million suspected "terrorsits" to round up. Better get to hopping.

Special Post

2007-04-30T09:46:00.000+10:00

Aight, so Foxy's been yelling at me to put her site up here as well :P

But I'll do it, 'coz Foxy's story is a sad one.

Read for yourself:
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/m/mrcalmandwiggler/

Password: 2boys