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Steve Jobs 1955-2011; too soon for jokes?

October 12, 2011 in About, BTW, Everything Else, Humor, Internet, Music, Rants, Technology by bladerunner | No comments

Logo created by a Hong Kong student. Click for more information.

It’s true, I never was a big Apple fan. I got my kids iPods because they relentlessly kept on asking. Oh, and the players were free when I signed up for a bank account (back in the day).

I inherited the old iPods and am using one today. They are not bad devices: easy to use and pretty to look at. But they are overpriced and I hate having to use iTunes to access my music. I hate being sold new material at every turn. I would love to have a simple drag-and-drop interface.

Sure there were MP3s before the iPod. I don’t blame Steve Jobs for making lossy music palatable. But I don’t share in the global outporing of grief that’s on every TV, computer and iPlatform in the world, either.

And Steve Jobs has a family that’s going thru the grieving process. So why start these tasteless Steve Jobs jokes? We may as well ask why we climb Mt. Everest. It’s because we can.

And you have to admit that it takes talent to make a clever joke about a sad, troubling situation. Sort-of like those improvisation shows where a performer is asked to make a joke about starving Somalians. A very poor-taste request, but also a challenge.

So here’s some jokes about the death of the iconic founder of Apple and the creator of the greatest devices in the world:

  • I hear President Obama has been implicated in the passing of the iconic Apple founder…
    his economic policies killed jobs.

 

  • Steve Jobs’ funeral will feature a private viewing for his many fans.
    As each person passes in front of the casket, they’ll pay 99 cents.

Continuing this series on privacy, here is a link to find out what Google thinks you like, which they use to created targeted ads for you. It also allows you to opt out. Of course, as an astute commenter noted, opting out won’t stop them from collecting this data, they just won’t use it for ads.

August 4, 2011 by archangel | No comments

Erasing Your Background

August 3, 2011 in Everything Else, Internet by archangel | No comments

Listen up! This is required reading for all Crack Team agents. A sharp agent in the field1 has documented how to remove yourself from all background check web sites. This is your first step in erasing your background and living off the grid!

Actually, this only goes so far. An employee from one of the companies in that list offered the following informative comment:

All of this data is public data. The data itself isn’t going away, opting out just makes people who want to find it have to look a little harder. As an example, I live in Washington State. The state provides a site to search through public records. From here I can directly see my marriage license and the land I own.

What these sites do is take all of this publicly available information (address history, phone numbers, marriage records, death records, criminal history, etc…) and consolidates it. Some sites with more success then others. Often this data is quite vague, and it can be very difficult to actually tie a record back to a specific person. The amount and accuracy of data on these sites is dependent on how “active” you are to the public eye. Get married a lot, have multiple crimes, there’s a pretty good chance the data on you will be quite full. But if you have a fairly low public footprint (young and single with few addresses and no criminal record) the data my be somewhat spotty, especially if you have a fairly common name.

The common name thing is a bit of a problem for me. Looks like when it’s time to go underground to escape the bad guys, I’m changing my name to James Smith.

  1. Note this comes from someone with the handle LawyerCT. [↩]

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Collusion shows you how the various ad networks track your movements across sites to deliver more targeted ads. The visualization is pretty cool. It suggests TrackerBlock, a Firefox plugin that maintains your privacy while you surf.

August 2, 2011 by archangel | No comments

Canceling Netflix – And They Don’t Care

July 24, 2011 in Film, Internet, Rants by archangel | 2 comments

After over a decade of patronage, I am canceling my Netflix account. Yes, price is a factor – they are raising my subscription fee by 40%. But I have a pretty high tolerance for this sort of thing, already paying $20/month for Tivo,1 and keeping Netflix despite having a “free” streaming video source in Amazon Prime.

What irks me is that what attracted me to Netflix at first, and held me all these years, was how they catered to film buffs. This has ended. Example: for years, I’d rent the Harry Potter movies to prepare for the sequel, and really enjoyed watching all the extras. I’ll admit, I’m a huge Potter fan, so I appreciated that Netflix made available the extras disc. With great disappointment I discovered that for Deathly Hallows Part 1, only the rental version of the disc is offered. This version has only the movie and a personal invitation from Netflix to go fuck yourself. I’m kidding about the invitation – they couldn’t be bothered. I’ve been seeing an increase in these rental versions, which have zero extras, but tons of trailers and commercials that you can’t skip.2 The Deathly Hallows rental includes a 6 minute commercial for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I can tell you that if you’re on the fence about visiting that wondrous place, being forced to watch a 6 minute commercial may resolve you to boycott it.

And I’m not being melodramatic when I say they don’t care. For one, their subscriber base has gone from 10M to 25M in the last few years, so they assume they’re doing the right thing. If you want concrete proof, go to their cancellation page. They threaten to charge you for discs you don’t return within 7 days, and let you know that even though you’re paid up through the month, you won’t get a partial month refund or even be allowed to continue streaming until it expires! But the most callous part is that they don’t even ask you why. No short answer box, not so much as a multiple choice question with lame answers. And there’s no other form on the site for critical feedback. They really don’t care why you’re leaving.

Well, good riddance. In place of Netflix, I’ll start renting from Amazon or PPV, and even though it will cost me more, I’ll make a greater effort to see films in the theater.3 With the money I save, I’ll invest in a nice collection of films on BD, which I frequently find on sale at SlickDeals. I think I’ll start with the Harry Potter Ultimate editions…

Update: I’m not the only one, as Netflix has revised their projections for this quarter downward, causing their stock to tumble. Sounds like they already factored in the massive subscriber exodus, which proves my point that they don’t care about it.

  1. Although now that I’m on Cox cable, that will also be canceled when my contract is up. [↩]
  2. Well, you can with some software, which you can read about here. [↩]
  3. Note that all major theater chains allow you to buy premium discount tickets in bulk (50+), typically for less than $9 each. I go in with friends and split it. [↩]

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Passive Aggressive Wi-Fi Network Names

October 5, 2010 in BTW, Humor, Internet, Technology by archangel | No comments

A creative and passive aggressive way to gripe to your neighbors: wi-fi network names.

We Wuz Hacked

August 23, 2010 in About, Internet by archangel | No comments

Sorry for the recent technical difficulties, the site fell prey to some sort of SQL injection attack that appended a malicious script that redirected users to a malware site. The tricky bastard used cookies, though, so you only saw it once. After that, visitors saw the regular site, unless they used “private browsing” in Firefox or IE 8; the lack of cookies causes redirects every time. Anyway, I scrubbed the database and upgraded WordPress to the latest and a few key plugins, so hopefully we’re safe until the next hack hits us. Just the cost of using WordPress, I guess. For full details, see this:

http://wiki.mediatemple.net/w/WordPress_Redirect_Exploit

We’re not hosted by Media Temple, but apparently a lot of the sites they host got hacked and their fix worked for us.

If you see any other problems, don’t hesitate to contact me. And thanks for ZBalance and my buddy Karl for pointing out the problem in the first place (I visit via the admin interface and Google Reader, which weren’t affected.).

Getting To Know China

July 13, 2010 in Internet, Politics by archangel | No comments

chinaSMACK1 is a very interesting website that gives English speakers insight into the minds of the Chinese. They do this by translating the hottest, most popular news and blog articles into English – along with their comments. Granted, they don’t translate all comments (which would be tiring and frustrating for the translators), so they try to choose those that are representative of the whole. Fascinating stuff.

One piece that caught my eye: “Jewish girls with guns.” Essentially, it’s a photo album of attractive female Israeli soldiers (with a few hot civilian pics thrown in for good measure). But the comments (which are similar to another story about guns for sale in American Walmarts) display a belief that Chinese society would suffer greatly through crime and civil unrest (including possible revolution) if their citizens could own guns. They also touch upon the differences in political systems between our countries. Seems like a must read for anyone trying to get into the Chinese market or has an anthropological bent.

In a related note, I am happy to report that The Crack Team is no longer banned in China.

  1. tip o’ the hat to Masterchief [↩]

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Java 4-ever

June 25, 2010 in Film, Internet, Technology by archangel | 3 comments

If you are a Java or .NET developer, or just lived through the Sun-Microsoft war, you should find this very amusing. Lots of little touches. There are a few seconds that will not be work appropriate, but overall it’s safe. It’s also in HD, although the embedded player may not show that.

Update: As pointed out in the comments, the original video went private, so here is another in HD. However, the few naughty seconds (no nudity) require you to sign in.

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Character Actor Composite

February 24, 2010 in BTW, Film, Internet, Television by archangel | 1 comment

Found an interesting page that’s simply a composite of character actor head shots and names, so when you’re trying to remember someone you can scan the photos and find out. There are some that are obvious to even part time film buffs, like Giovanni Ribisi, Charles Napier, and James Cromwell, but also a number I could only recognize by face. Sooner or later someone is going to turn this into a photo quiz.

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