The Great and Epic Sleep

Get Rid of the MPAA

2012-01-25T21:24:00.009-06:00

"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,"

Corporate Hooker Chris Dodd CEO MPAA

My tolerance for corporate fuckery can only go so far before it turns into disdain, which turns into a complete blind anger.

Not long after SOPA/PIPA got its ass handed to it. Chris Dodd of the MPAA stated that there would be no bribery check (aka campaign contribution) to those

that did not support the bill. This chap has some huge ass balls to say this and then we have some strange rhetoric:

"Still. My sense is that folks are always looking for someone to blame, and blaming this on Chris Dodd is probably factually inaccurate and wrongheaded.” Dean Garfield CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council

Politco

The MPAA shouldn't blame their loss in this battle on Chris Dodd just like we shouldn't blame him for SOPA/PIPA, that honor falls on to Lamar Smith who gets his checks from Dodd. My problem (and

I think the collective here feels this way as well) is that Chris Dodd essentially stated that the people that are voted in by us, their pockets are lined with corporate money. (Not a big surprise)

And on piracy, the MPAA is one to talk; when Hollywood got started because some cheap assholes didn't want to pay up to Edison.

Wiki

The MPAA is from an antiquated system and refuses, as content holders, to innovate and/or embrace innovation. They have a lot of money to throw around and that's the saddest part, with all that money they could at the very least start using it to create an efficient and innovative way of streaming the content to the consumer rather than sue the fuck out of someone or buy off some shitty politician.

If they continue to refuse with getting with the times? Maybe America and the rest of the world can show them the door.

Back from the dead with a quicky review.

2011-12-22T22:52:00.005-06:00

I stole this image without permission.

600 Second Review: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Should you see it? Yes.
I enjoyed the remake of the Swedish film adaptation...wait for it...of the book. David Fincher was able to spin this retelling with his unique approach of sound and visuals.
If you saw the original? Be prepared for Lisbeth to fall flat thanks to Screenplay writer Steven Zaillian's inability to capture the character. Fortunately Rooney Mara was able to channel Noomi Rapace when needed to make it tolerable.

Random Attack

2009-08-07T16:58:00.005-05:00

Waking up to gray skies and walking wet pavement, collectors for their payments.

Mike Relm - Mash up master

I seriously suggest checking out this mans work.

In Other News:
From Wired: Hacking, Lock-Picking, Booze and Bacon: DefCon 17 In Review

LAS VEGAS — Braving triple-digit heat, mean hangovers and an incredibly hostile network, roughly 10,000 hackers, security experts, feds, spies and various other “computer enthusiasts” took over the Riviera last weekend for the world’s largest hacking convention, DefCon.

Cyberwar Tehran

2009-06-16T08:43:00.004-05:00

People couldn't take it to the streets, the beatings were too much.
So they took the fight to a ubiquitous realm to protest, sites caving in.
Political freedom in a sea of information.
They took it to a ubiquitous realm and are winning.

Pulled from wired.

Pro-democracy activists on the web are asking supporters to use relatively simple hacking tools to flood the regime’s propaganda sites with junk traffic. “NOTE to HACKERS - attack www.farhang.gov.ir - pls try to hack all iran gov wesites [sic]. very difficult for us,” Tweets one activist. The impact of these distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks isn’t clear. But official online outlets like leader.ir, ahmadinejad.ir, and iribnews.ir are currently inaccessible. “There are calls to use an even more sophisticated tool called BWraep, which seems to exhaust the target website out of bandwidth by creating bogus requests for serving images,” notes Open Society Institute fellow Evgeny Morozov.

What will happen if Iran strikes a deal with America? Next thing you know, you have American people declared as political enemies of the "free country" and are demonized for their assistance of the Tehran Twitter Attack Team and DDOS of Iranian Govt sites. Much like what happened to the communist in America.

Happy Anniversary 1984!

2009-06-08T10:13:00.005-05:00

From the you know it's true dept:

As we move forward into a new decade, a book that was published 61 Years ago today is still one of great relevance and impact. No book has influenced me as much as this one, people, I'm talking about 1984.

"Nineteen Eighty-Four is told through the eyes of Winston Smith, a minor civil servant in the Ministry of Truth whose job it is to rewrite history for the totalitarian state of Oceania. His spirit hasn’t been entirely quashed, though, and he chafes under the yolk, eventually joining a rebellion against the state. He is soon betrayed, arrested and tortured. In the end, Smith wins his freedom by accepting the assertion that 2 + 2 = 5."
- Wired.com

A story where the government employs torture, disinformation and censorship. A book that shows us what will happen if we allow current systems in place to continue on course.
This book is a reminder that we are human and we shall remain free.

Cyl1024

Goodbye Consoles?

2009-03-24T16:42:00.002-05:00

A new company, called OnLive, has a revolutionary idea for gaming: Remotely hosted, streaming games. What exactly does that mean? It means all the rendering and action is hosted on OnLive's servers, then streamed to your TV with a new, highly optimized compression type.

This type of technology could be win/win for companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, as well as consumers. Consumers wouldn't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a console, and console manufacturers wouldn't have to sell millions of units at a loss. While it still requires a small "console" to work with a television, it is basically a cable box. Using it on a PC simply requires you to install a 1MB plugin.

While the technology even seems impressive now, as more companies take the idea and run with it, I can only imagine it getting better.

Official Site:

http://www.onlive.com/

A little info:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/161853/onlive_video_games_without_the_hardware.html?loomia_ow=t0:a41:g2:r5:c0.038051:b23265270

Preliminary Review:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/161852/onlive_will_it_beat_xbox_360_ps3_and_wii_at_their_own_game.html

This is News!? Seriously?

2009-02-13T11:55:00.002-06:00

While I appreciate the Wayne's World reference, this is one of the top news stories on Google today. sigh...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29179119/

Schwing!

Judgement Day, Here We Come!

2009-02-13T11:39:00.004-06:00

A Japanese company has developed a robotic exoskeleton that works by detecting nerve impulses through the skin. This could be a huge development for many industries, including labor and rehabilitation, as it augments a person's natural motor functions and is able to increase the wearer's effective strength by 2-10x. It is also self supporting, so it adds no weight to the wearer's movements. (disclaimer: the following statement is pure, unsupported conjecture. Also, could be the first step towards real life Gundams, which would be quite awesome.)

This revolutionary company's name: Cyberdyne. That's right, the same company who will develop Skynet and cause robots to take over the world.

Stripper pole = WTF?!

2009-02-12T16:26:00.002-06:00

While at the local mall here by work, I went into Spencer's Gifts to get my girlfriend some rings for her piercing. Walking in I see two mall security guards, a police office and a paramedic interviewing one of the clerks.
I move into position to eavesdrop in on the interview.
Apparently someone decided to rent a car, go to Brookfield Square mall and race into the store and lift a Carmen Electra edition strippers pole. I guess the clerk had given chase to the group of thieves and chase them to their rental car and she had been clipped in the leg (only mildly injuring her) by the fleeing vehicle.
While I'm standing there listening, the one security guard pipes up "All that for Carmen Electra? Shit, she's all washed up."
Yes sir, I think you are correct.
Why the fuck would someone go through all that for a pole? I would of given them bonus points for stealing a pole off of one of the metro buses.
But that's just me.

Take this, bandwidth throttling pricks everywhere!

2009-01-29T16:23:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, Google unveiled a new tool in the fight for net neutrality, called Measurement Lab, that will supposedly allow the average user to test their ISP's performance. While it probably won't have much effect for the "average" internet user, it's a pretty cool announcement for techies and pirates the world over.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/introducing-measurement-lab.html

Rumsfeld for War Crimes

2009-01-28T12:13:00.004-06:00

Security Threat

This was found while on digg.com:

Monday, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak told CNN's Rick Sanchez that the US has an "obligation" to investigate whether Bush administration officials ordered torture, adding that he believes that there is already enough evidence to prosecute former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
"We have clear evidence," he said.
"In our report that we sent to the United Nations, we made it clear that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld clearly authorized torture methods and he was told at that time by Alberto Mora, the legal council of the Navy, 'Mr. Secretary, what you are actual ordering here amounts to torture.'
So, there we have the clear evidence that Mr. Rumsfeld knew what he was doing but, nevertheless, he ordered torture."

The rest here: Scumball gets whats coming to him.
I found what had happened at Guantanamo a scary dark chapter in our nation's history, when and why would we pick up these practices and null/void human rights is beyond my level of comprehension. Granted, I'm capable of despicable acts. But as a country claiming to be free we can't even allow a level of decency? There have been cases documenting how xenophobic and closed bordered we've become. We've given up our personal freedoms and convinced a special doublethink that safety is giving up said liberties.
I once heard someone say "An eye for an eye, leaves us all blind." I think this holds true.
So let's raise a glass to Rumsfeld and say "Thanks, Douche!"

Ice Cream Causes Man to Fail Breathalyzer

2009-01-27T16:07:00.002-06:00

From UPI.com

FRANKSTON, Australia, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- An Australian man challenged to prove his claim that ice cream gave him a blood alcohol reading demonstrated his defense in court.

The man, whose name was not given, had asked Frankston Magistrates' Court to remove the breath testing alcohol interlock device from his car, the (Melbourne, Australia) Daily Sun reported Tuesday.

Prosecutors inquired why the machine had registered a "fail," which prevents the car from starting, despite the man's claims that he had not been drinking.

The man claimed the alcohol reading was the result of eating a Bubble O' Bill ice cream treat and Magistrate Rod Crisp ordered a test to be performed to back up the claim. Police recorded the man's blood alcohol content as 0.00 and performed the test a second time after he took a few bites of Bubble O' Bill, yielding a 0.018 reading.

Crisp granted the man's request to remove the breath testing device from his car.

Experts said consuming some foods or drinks before breath tests can cause a false positive reading. It is recommended that that test subjects wait at least 15 minutes in between eating and blowing into the machine.

I'll take a case of those!

Oh shit in the way back machine!

2009-01-27T15:35:00.004-06:00

Artifact found while surfing the tubes.

So, long ago before there was any internetz and everyone was using a phone line for pretty much all communication there were different large company networking services like GEnie and Compuserve.
For some reason I felt a bit of nostalgia from this. Sigh I'm getting old.
Link to the Original

DHS = Flight Attendant?!

2009-01-27T14:50:00.003-06:00

Security Threat

This was pulled from Boing Boing.

Traveling from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City in 2007. Freeman gave each of her children three whacks on the backside when they spilled her airplane Bloody Mary in her lap.

A flight attendant confronted Freeman, who responded by hurling a few profanities and throwing what remained of a can of tomato juice on the floor.

The incident aboard the Frontier flight ultimately led to Freeman's arrest and conviction for a federal felony defined as an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act, the controversial federal law enacted after the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

"I had no idea I was breaking the law," said Freeman, 40, who spent three months in jail before pleading guilty.

Since when did disagreeing with someone warrant a felony conviction?