dabunny's Journal

9:46PM - um, click stuff, n;'at

http://kevan.org/johari?name=DaBunny

4:37PM - Sony's evil rootkit update

Well, I had assumed this would be a random geek topic, but aparantly it's going mainstream... Check out Foxtrot referencing the evil DRM...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/uclickcomics/20051121/cx_ft_uc/ft20051121

1:08PM

Hehe, this Sony DRM issue just keeps getting better and better. Here's a nice little timeline of articles for anyone who hasn't heard about the silliness:

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony_anticustomer_te.html

In short, Sony decided to hide some nasty software on 20 or so of their music CDs that included a rootkit capable of hiding in the Windows OS so you'd have a bugger of a time removing it. Nominally this was done to keep you from ripping these 20 CDs. (Note: at least 3 of the most popular ripping tools have been tested against this software and were able to rip the CDs in question without problems.)

Since then:

1. It's come out that this rootkit exists despite there being no warning about it on the CDs
2. This rootkit has been found to be highly exploitable by others to do Mean Things to your computer
3. This rootkit can be used to circumvent anti-cheating software in several popular games (WoW most prominent among them)
4. This rootkit is practically uninstallable. Sony has since developed and released an uninstaller for it. The general software community has deemed the uninstaller to be absolute crap.
5. (and this is where the giggling really gets going) The rootkit has been found to contain undocumented LAME source code, violating the GPL and possibly opening Sony up to a seriously huge piracy lawsuit. Using rough back-of-the-napkin calculations and some of the standards for piracy penalties set by the RIAA's lawsuits (which Sony was a heavy sponsor of) the hidden software on these CDs could theoretically cost Sony 3 trillion dollars in settlements/verdicts.

The cost of using partially pirated software in your crappy-assed anti-piracy software: about 3 trillion dollars US...

*giggle*

11:31AM

And in today's latest round of Google bombings:

Failure.

(Go to google. type in failure. hit "I feel lucky")

Also, the I've-never-been-a-judge-but-I-know-Dubbya-and-think-it-would-be-fun-to-sit-on-the-Supreme-Court Candidate have finally been razzed by enough folks from both sides of the aisle and has withdrawn from consideration for the Supreme Court seat. So, who's the next monkey on Bush's list?

11:48AM - I knew this thing was worthless...

4:28PM

SIDNEY CROSBY WEARS BLACK AND GOLD!

Unfortunately it's for the Pittsburgh Penguins and not the Boston Bruins, but having lived there for years all I can say is...

LET'S GO PENS!

Current mood: excited

4:03AM

Really bad Haiku
Don't post it on your website
It drives us crazy

4:21PM

And in response to my last post about Microsoft caving in on support for employee benefits for domestic partners and workplace protection clauses based on sexual orientation, Apple is actively fighting for their gay workers.

Bugger... does this mean I have to buy a Mac?

10:35AM - Microsoft... verrrrrrry disapointing.

Well, despite their overall evil persona, the folk at Microsoft had 2 things going for them in my book.

1. They took care of their workers (at least the ones that managed to get real positions, they treat the dash-trash as badly as any other company)

2. They tried to make sure other folks took care of their workers.

Well, a big part of #2 seems to have flown out the window this week as Microsoft has backed down from supporting a protection of worker's rights bill focusing on sexual orientation.

Are the red states in control enough to buy off the big scary computer monopoly?

1:51PM - Scary Cooperation

So Sony and Pizza Hut have joined forces in one of the most insidious (and I'm sure scarily effective) cross marketing campaigns ever. It is now not even necessary to leave your everquest game to order a pizza. I'm frightened to see just how large the average American waistline can get...

10:34AM - I wanna Clocky!

http://web.media.mit.edu/~nanda/projects/clocky.html

And in case I haven't mentioned it recently, thge MIT Media Lab is pretty darned spiffy.

11:35AM - randome gene stuff

I always knew women were a different species. Now there's proof!

"Huntington Willard, director of the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy at Duke University in North Carolina, said that this meant that effectively there are two different human genomes, one male and one female."

OK, so it's not really proof of much of anything, but if you think genetics are nifty-cool here's an interesting article on the full sequencing of the X chromosome which was released this week.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66919,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5

12:58PM - conflict resolved

So, I have been a bit conflicted about this time every year and the reason is simple: I love girl scout cookies. I had assumed that the girl scouts were just the boy scouts with a different gender restriction and would be limiting their membership based on sexual orientation, religious grounds, and all those other things that really piss me off about the boy scouts. Turns out I was dead wrong.

Hooray fer being wrong. Hooray for resolved anual conflict! I'm going to go eat a box or 2 of Thin Mints now... no calls.

1:17PM - Gay Penguins get the last laugh... misc. activist groups pissed...

http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=05/02/14/16473465;cmt=72

Sometimes nature makes me smile...

10:43AM

Play with this: http://www.deviantart.com/view/8666529/

It's lots of fun (especially if you've spent way too much time studying order-disorder reactions in school).

high score so far: 2889

1:26PM

Alas, this is not a funny commic, just a true one in my experiance...

http://www.reallifecomics.com/daily.php?strip_id=1369

11:06AM - new Puzzle Pirates accessory

I found the new keyboard I need!

6:44PM

I am worth $2,269,246.00 on HumanForSale.com

Now if only I could liquidate some of that equity...

2:14PM - Evangelical Online Gamers...

And I thought bored griefers were bad enough...

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0105/wow.html

12:33PM

Yesterday, while I was driving home from work, I heard the news that David Brudnoy had died.

It hit me pretty hard. I'd never actually met him face-to-face, but I'd been listening to his radio show off and on all of my life. Hell, he's probably part of the reason I'm the argumentative bastard I am today.

*sigh* Why is it always the good ones?

RIP David.