April 2006 Archives
[Moozik: Killing Joke - Kings And Queens]
They pay how much a month? Blimey.
Startup of the moment YouTube, which garnered 12.9 million unique visitors in March, doesn't care what viewers watch, as long as they keep tuning in. Making money is another matter: The site, which has raised $11.5 million in venture capital in the last year, didn't see a penny in revenue until March, when they cautiously began selling ads. Meanwhile the site's bandwidth costs, which increase every time a visitor clicks on a video, may be approaching $1 million a month.
[Moozik: Curve - Crystal]
The future implications of this are a little worrying.
REVELLERS in a British town are to have their fingerprints scanned when they enter pubs and clubs in a scheme launched today aimed at weeding out drunken troublemakers, police said.The project, dubbed In Touch, is the first of its kind in Britain.
Biometric finger-scanning machines have been installed at six venues in Yeovil, south-west England.
Clubbers will be asked to have their right index finger scanned and show picture identification to register on the system.
The data is then stored on a computer network which other pubs and clubs in the scheme can access so that information on louts can be passed on quickly.
[Moozik: Wumpscut - Down Where We Belong]
So it would appear that the Bush administration would like to bury the EFF class action lawsuit against AT&T.
The federal government intends to invoke the rarely used "State Secrets Privilege" -- the legal equivalent of a nuclear bomb -- in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class action lawsuit against AT&T that alleges the telecom collaborated with the government's secret spying on American citizens.The State Secrets Privilege is a vestige from English common law that lets the executive branch step into a civil lawsuit and have it dismissed if the case might reveal information that puts national security at risk.
Today's assertion severely darkens the prospects of the EFF's lawsuit, which the organization had hoped would shine light on the extent of the Bush Administration's admitted warrantless spying on Americans.
[Moozik: Rosetta Stone - Deeper]
I used to think Gmail's spam filter was the bees knees. I regularly have around 1500 ish emails in my spam folder and for the most part, my inbox was largely spam free. In the past couple of weeks though I've noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of spam making it into my inbox. Today was the worst day so far; I had 11 of the little buggers in my inbox.
[Moozik:Skinny Puppy - Deep Down Trauma Hounds]
Every once in a while I think I must have gone to sleep and woken up in the bizarro world. Today's evidence is the fact that you get more jail time for downloading music illegally than you do for downloading child porn or beating someone into a coma. I couldn't agree more with this statement: ...the new law does send a very strange message as to what the government considers 'bad' in the 21st century.
THE NEW look Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) seems to be giving the world an unusual moral code.Details of the upgraded act, which has the blessing of the music and film industry and the Bush administration, are now coming to light. It appears that the DMCA will have a maximum sentence of ten years inside for the crime of software and music piracy. It will also give the FBI the powers to wiretap suspected pirates.
Although sentencing varies in the US, the new law does send a very strange message as to what the government considers 'bad' in the 21st century.
For example assaulting a police officer will get you five years, downloading child porn will get you seven years, assaulting without a weapon will get you ten years and aggravated assault six years.
So in other words if you copy a Disney CD and sell it you will be in the same league as a paedophile who is distributing pictures of sexual attacks on children.
If you copy Craig David's CD you get ten years, but if you punch him in the face and pummel him into a seven day coma you will only get six. You are more likely to get the respect of the prison population with your six year sentence as well.
[Moozik: Simple Minds - Someone, Somewhere In Summertime]
Marty Kaplan made me smile today.
Maybe the reason was the Fox poll documenting Bush's approval rating's official arrival in the toilet, but whatever the cause, the canaries in the White House inner circle have certainly begun to sing....
The most toxic whisper concerns White House counsel Harriet Miers: Chief of Staff Josh "Bolten is said by a number of Republicans in Washington to feel that Ms. Miers is indecisive, a weak manager and slow in moving vital paperwork through the system."
You will recall, children, that President Bush not long ago pronounced Harriet Miers the very bestest person in the whole wide world to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Now I don't know how much of her time on the bench she might have had to spend managing her clerks, or how much personal attention she would've needed to devote to circulating those pesky draft opinions from one Justice's chambers to another's.
But indecisive? Isn't deciding things the, um, job of a Supreme Court justice?
[Moozik: The Cure - Sinking]
A man who didn't pay his homeowners association fee and, wait for it, restaurant employees who don't wash their hands.
Dear CBS 5 Local News,
I will not be watching tonight at ten. In the future it might be helpful if you report, you know, actual news.
Thanks.
Kevin Spencer
[Moozik: Curve - Unreadable Communication]
The problem with the world is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?I dunno, seems perfectly reasonable to me.
[Moozik: Apoptygma Bezerk - Kathy's Song]
So tonight while waiting for my pager to go off so I can perform some maintenance verification tasks at work (we're upgrading all production hosts to MySQL 5.0.18), I happened to take a peek at today's Daily WTF. It's a classic.
If you're a programmer and you work with databases you should already be quite familiar with the SQL Injection vulnerability. Well this clever programmer takes injection to a whole new level. Embedding PHP in client-side javascript code which is then passed to the server via XMLHttpRequest where it is eval()'d. I shit you not. Of course, once you are able to do that, hilarity certainly ensues.
The comments are particularly amusing. I liked this one.
... Are.. you.. kidding me? Whoever wrote that code should probably stop using computers.
[Moozik: The Birthday Massacre - The Dream]
LONDON - APRIL 10: A sandwich which costs GBP 85.50 ( (US$ 148.30) sits on display at the department store Selfridges on April 10, 2006 in London, England. Selfridges have put on sale what they claim is London's most expensive sandwich. The cost is down to the Wagyu beef that makes up most of the filling. The other ingredients include fresh lobe foie gras, black truffle mayonnaise, brie de meaux, rocket, red pepper and mustard confit, and English plum tomatoes.£85.50 you say? Well I'll have two then.
[Moozik: Nitzer Ebb - Getting Closer]
I can count many occasions where Bush has opened his mouth and I've either been extremely annoyed or I cringe with embarrassment at what I'm hearing. Today was a double whammy of sorts. I just watched him give the most annoying and embarrassingly craptacular answer to a question posed by a student regarding the accountability of private military contractors in Iraq. It's truly appalling. But don't just take my word for it, watch it and decide for yourself.
When you watch videos like that it's really no surprise that his approval ratings are tanking.
April 10, 2006 - President Bush's job approval rating is at a career low in this latest ABC News/Washington Post poll amid continued broad public skepticism about the Iraq war.Dear Bush-Supporters-Who-Make-Up-That-38-Percent,Just 38 percent of Americans now approve of Bush's overall performance in office; it's the lowest mark of his presidency, albeit by a single point. Sixty percent disapprove of how he's handling his job, matching the highest disapproval of his tenure.
Please watch the video of the President giving his "answer" to the student and explain to me why you still think he's doing a good job. I'd love to hear your reasoning.
Thanks.
Kevin Spencer
[Moozik: Curve - Coast Is Clear]
J K Rowling offers up one of the best quotes EVAR.
"And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do."
[Moozik: The Birthday Massacre - Happy Birthday]
You know, it's a good thing Banks don't try and give their customers the shaft. Ahem. (emphasis mine)
BANKS have hit a new low by charging fees for cancelled transactions and incorrectly entered PINs, the Australian Consumers Association says.And most consumers did not know the charges existed, said the association's senior finance policy officer, Nick Coates. "Although no actual transaction goes through, a fee is charged," he said.
"The fee simply turns up on their account statement at the end of the month, in addition to any regular transaction and administrative fees." Dr Coates said the fees, from 60 cents to $2, might be charged for entering a PIN incorrectly, choosing the wrong account type, not having sufficient funds or aborting the transaction before completion.
[Moozik: Fixmer & Mccarthy - By Any Other Means]
So the other day I mentioned that Robert Smith was suing Anton Corbijn over DM's 'Playing The Angel Album'. Oh, depechemode.com, you cunning pranksters, it was an April Fools joke.
So yeah, I was had. But annoying so.
Dear depechemode.com,
Next year, perhaps you could post an April Fools joke on, you know, April Fools day. While hilarity certainly ensued, engaging in April Fools japery 3 days early on March 29th is clearly bad form sirs.
Sincerely,
Kevin Spencer
[Moozik: The Birthday Massacre - Lovers End]
I was quite the fan of Robin of Sherwood back in the day. I was only 11 when the show first aired on ITV and my memories of it came from the re-runs some years afterwards. I even bought the Clannad soundtrack on cassette. Yes I'm that sad.
Anyhoo, I was quite interested to read that the BBC is bringing out a new version that will air this coming Autumn.
Filming starts today in Budapest on the highly anticipated new series of Robin Hood for BBC ONE.Now comes the hunt to see if BBC America will be airing it. And of course the hope that it lives up to Robin of Sherwood. It has big shoes to fill after all.Fun, modern and intelligent, Robin Hood 2006 sets out to entertain a whole new generation and stars newcomer Jonas Armstrong in the lead role.
Moozik: Fixmer & Mccarthy - I Run]
To be honest, I'm not the slightest bit surprised that Basic Instinct 2 completely tanked this weekend.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The last time "Basic Instinct" man-eater Catherine Tramell prowled the big screen, the studio erotic thriller was hitting box office heights. The first "Instinct" took the top spot when it debuted in 1992, with an opening weekend of $15.1 million, the equivalent of $20.45 million in today's dollars.The director of the original Basic Instinct, Paul Verhoeven, has an, er, interesting theory why.By comparison, "Basic Instinct 2" limped into 10th place upon its arrival this weekend, grossing just $3.2 million.
Paul Verhoeven, director of the first "Basic Instinct" (which scored $353 million worldwide) as well as the widely ridiculed "Showgirls" (now regarded as something of a camp classic), attributes the genre's demise to the current American political climate.Anything erotic has been banned in the US? Really Paul? And Nicholas Meyer has an equally interesting explanation for the tankage."Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States," said the Dutch native. "Look at the people at the top (of the government). We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends."
Scribe Nicholas Meyer, who was an uncredited writer on 1987's seminal sex-fueled cautionary tale "Fatal Attraction," agrees, noting that the genre's downfall coincides with the ascent of the conservative political movement.Come on guys; just admit that the reason the movie tanked is because it's a big steaming pile of dogshit that you can smell a mile away. But thanks for the entertaining conspiracy theories anyway."We're in a big puritanical mode," he said. "Now, it's like the McCarthy era, except it's not 'Are you a communist?' but 'Have you ever put sex in a movie?'"