Comment Dance Track (Score 1) 205
A couple years ago, Gizmodo had a contest to make music out of Hitachi dead hard drive sounds. :D
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/announcements/hard-drive-dying-dance-track-winner-151666.php
Comment Re:Foot in the door (Score 1) 616
The point and the reality of it are two different things, unfortunately.
At my last job, I was hired on as a desk monkey (not a help desk monkey, just a monkey with a copy of Excel) after I left the Marine Corps, since it was the only job I could get without any certifications or official education. I saw three guys get hired on as IT staff that didn't know jack shit, but they had piles of certs.
Then again, at my current job, I totally gamed the system through a friend. He had a linux machine he had been using as a testbed/fileserver, and after a while, he was afraid to touch it because he didn't know enough about linux. I patched it up, showed him some nifty tricks, etc. Any time we hung out, I'd have some new idea or powertoy to play with. Eventually his company was looking to hire a linux consultant that could work well with the team. My friend vouched for my linux skills and how well I fit in, and I got the job on the first interview. :D
DNS Inventor Tackles Flaw 101
nk497 writes "Dr Paul Mockapetris is looking to fix the flaws in the Domain Name System he helped invent. 'It was never meant to be the only security mechanism for naming data on the internet, but was intended for additional security measures to be added to it later.' The flaws, first uncovered by security researcher Dan Kaminsky over the summer, lets attackers redirect genuine URLs to malicious ones — a problem Mockapetris believes could be solved using digital signatures."
Hawking to Take Zero Gravity Ride 127
An anonymous reader writes "Well-known cosmologist Stephen Hawking is preparing for a once-in a lifetime trip. His goals are for even higher ground, but right now he's readying for an April zero gravity ride aboard NASA's 'vomit comet'. His ultimate goal is to take a ride on one of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic flights, and this is a 'test run' for that more rigorous experience. Though complex math ain't no thing for Dr. Hawking, his interests here are purely inspirational. 'Hawking says he wants to encourage public interest in spaceflight, which he believes is critical to the future of humanity. "I also want to show," he said in an e-mail interview, "that people need not be limited by physical handicaps as long as they are not disabled in spirit."'"
Submission + - New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio
FlatCatInASlatVat writes: Kurt Hanson's Radio Internet Newsletter has an analysis of the new royalty rates for Internet Radio announced by the US Copyright Office. The decision is likely to put most internet radio stations out of business by making the cost of broadcasting much higher than revenues. From the article: "The Copyright Royalty Board is rejecting all of the arguments made by Webcasters and instead adopting the "per play" rate proposal put forth by SoundExchange (a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA)...[The] math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties! — is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues." Clear Channel, in the meantime, pays nothing. So long Radio Paradise, and all the other wonderful internet stations.
Submission + - Flash 9 Plugin Vulnerability
Aristotle's Fearless writes: "The current Flash Player 9 plugin for IE and Firefox on Windows (9.0.28.0) has a serious bug. Certain bitmap draws using the BitmapData class in ActionScript 3 cause immediate page faults and close both IE and Firefox on all flavors of Windows.
This writer has isolated a proof of concept code fragment in AS3 and submitted a bug report to Adobe. Details are being withheld pending a reply from Adobe because of concerns this may be exploitable by buffer overrun code injection.
See this page for the proof of concept SWF. Be warned: your windows browser will exit with a page fault upon clicking the link on this page."
This writer has isolated a proof of concept code fragment in AS3 and submitted a bug report to Adobe. Details are being withheld pending a reply from Adobe because of concerns this may be exploitable by buffer overrun code injection.
See this page for the proof of concept SWF. Be warned: your windows browser will exit with a page fault upon clicking the link on this page."
Submission + - RIAA's Student Extortion Letter Online
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA's new "Student Extortion Letters" are now available online. This is part of the big 4 record labels to get colleges and universities to act as their enforcers and collection agents."
Journal Journal: Feedback
Morning everyone. How are we all doing today? Good. Just wondering if any of you have read my script, and if so, what you thought of it. I am greatly enjoying work on the next couple of episodes, but I would like some comments to better focus my efforts. I'll link it again, just in case. It's here or perhaps here. Enjoy.
Journal Journal: The Agency
Just finished a script for my Creative Writing class. Enjoy.
Edit: Fixed url.
Journal Journal: Freenet!
Man is freenet cool! I've been playing with it a bit from the beginning, but it's just now starting to speed up to a useable speed, and there's content! Good stuff. www.freenetproject.org
Journal Journal: Bob the Nameless / Joeseph Stalin (Vampire - The Masquerade)
Here's the curent backstory for my latest character.
The Exciting life and times of Bob the Nameless/Joeseph Stalin as presented in
Dolby Digital Limerick form.
There once was a guy called Bob or Joe
Who couldn't decide wether to stay or to go
He fought off a mace
But then was embraced
And he ain't mortal no mo'
While on a trip to Tanzinia
He acquired a feverish mania
His mind was hosed
No longer composed
And now they've both got Schitzophrenia.
Journal Journal: I feel verbose! hahaha
Pointless rant mode on! (U.S. Citizen, to clear up any confusion)
