Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Jon Stewart on CNN

I read this CNN transcript with Jon Stewart and had to link it here so I could come back to it anytime. He and I happen to share a lot of the same viewpoints on what's wrong with tv journalism and the inherent flaw to bring news through television. Jon takes a more cynical approach (as is his genius style) in this interview with CNN's Howard Kurtz.

What good sports they are for letting Jon rattle on about tv networks on a tv network.
France Declares Themselves Terrorist Target By Arson

The French have decided to jump on the we're terrorist targets too bandwagon by declaring the forest fires in the southern region of their country as acts of a "a new form of terrorism."

Given their military history, you can understand the paranoia. They must really love their trees if that forest fire is their 9/11. Just throw some potatos on the blaze and make some freedom fries.

Friday, July 25, 2003

Yao Goes Down

Reports say Houston Rockets center phenom Yao Ming cut his eyebrow running into another player during a practice match in China.

His eyebrow. Who is tall enough to run into Yao's eyebrow? Are they sure he didn't accidentally run into the backboard?

Monday, July 21, 2003

Today's Guest Writer: CorpSpeak

Since sometimes I feel like I'm writing gibberish, I decided to ask a random word generator known as CorpSpeak written by mathematicians extraordinare at LavaRnd, to write today's column in three paragraphs. It is as follows:

To: pick lock's brain
From: readers
Date: Mon Jul 21 12:50:15 2003
Subject: Feedback

It is fiscally true that the shared strategic and tactical actions utilize the gating factors. Leading indicators would seem to suggest that disclosures make it happen. As our company President states in a recent memo about infrastructures, " the competitive World-Wide Web outsources the task-driven time frame."

The value-added Digital Media market steps up to the challenge of the super-scalar scripting language, on a going-forward basis. We've got to do it in the database servers of price points. Surely, we can conclude that components indicate that culture changes reposition the effective information superhighway. During this period of company transition, the geography takes the issue off-line.

Having first verified that HTML authoring tools continually get up to speed on OEM ongoing support for increased productivity, a careful examination of the database server reveals that kick-ass graphics ensures teamwork. Leading indicators would seem to suggest that the unique write-offs can hardly help but to enhance the web-based key player. As a company, we have a firm grip on the environments.

The above text was randomly generated and if I were to run CorpSpeak again, I'd get something completely different. LavaRnd used to use lava lamps to generate their random numbers (which explains the name) but now it's the static visual noise generated by a webcam with its cap on, aka tv snow. They also have lotto number generators, haiku random poetry and a "Nothing" generator which won't disappoint.

CD in my player: Matrix Soundtrack
Last movie I saw at theater: Johnny English
Last movie I saw at home: Catch Me If You Can

Friday, July 18, 2003

United States Plays the Axis Of Evil Shell Game

The United States is playing the find-the-nuclear-power shell game with the "Axis of Evils," except in this version of the game, two of the shells happen to have the peanut underneath of them and the U.S. apparently picked the one that didn't.

Iran
North Korea
Iraq

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Jurassic Park

Japan Researchers Mull Cloning Mammoths.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Hacker Temptation

I was thinking about computer hackers and pondered their capabilities as well as their moral resolve in committing certain acts. I began to wonder if there were any situations in which a hacker might think that what he was doing was unquestionably for the good of socieity. People can justify any action usually by claiming that "the ends justify the means" or something along those lines. Did you ever play the game Scruples? Well I came up with a good question befitting of the board game. I came up with a theortical situation in which I'm not sure any hacker would hesitate in pursuing.

Scruple:
You hack into a corporate server and hijack important information, something like credit card info, customer social security numbers or industry trade secrets that the company's competition would like to get their grubby hands on. You send your ransom note to said corporation asking that they hire a cyber security firm, to be named by you, the hacker. In exchange, you promise not to publicly post the sensitive information that you just "borrowed." You then buy many shares of the cyber-security firm the hacked corporation hopefully agrees to hire.

Justification:
It's a win-win-win. You commit one small illegal activity, no one gets hurt if the corporation agrees to hire the security firm you suggest, which they should be most inclined to do given your recent cyber infiltration.

1) You do them a favor by increasing the security of their systems to prevent the really bad guys from hacking them and doing who-knows-what to the information you happen to have a copy of yourself.

2) You also help out another company increase their clientelle by at least one for simply recommending their services, which the owners, employees and share holders of the cyber security firm should be grateful for what you accomplished. Do not try to collect commission here.

3) You might as well make some money from this generous transaction by investing in the cyber security firm that the hacked corporation is going to hire. Call it a conslutation fee for helping two companies flourish. As with anything in a capitialist society, the better your talents (the more effective your attack is), the better the reward.

Is this a victimless crime?

CDs in my stereos: Toadies' Rubberneck
Last movie I saw at theater: Pirates of the Carribean
Last movie I saw at home: Old School

Monday, July 07, 2003

Courtesy Flush

I learned about the courtesy flush from the movie The Brothers McMullen. A courtesy flush is used when you are on the toilet doing your business, and after that first drop, you flush it away before you're done to cut down on the odor in the bathroom. The alternative is to let the log sit there for the 20 minutes or however long you take, stinking up the joint. It's very useful when you don't want the person using the bathroom after you thinking you're a sick wookie that had garbage for lunch.

Someone suggested in a new method recently, unrelated to the goals of the courtesy flush but for the practice of hygiene. He said toilet users need to urinate, flush, then defecate (such a lovely word). The idea is that when you drop one and splash up occurs, you can avoid your bum becoming awash with pee. I'm still considering that one. I've never had a problem with it before and not sure I can set that habit. You could drop first then urinate, but I don't think many people can hold it in their bladder that long while they clean their bowels.

If you're into this sort of stuff, might I recommend The RE/Search Guid to Bodily Fluids by Paul Spinard. It's a good read, especially in the bathroom.

CDs in my stereos: None
Last movie I saw at theater: The Hulk
Last movie I saw at home: Man In The Moon