| Friday, November 25, 2005 |
 | One of the many characteristics attributed to vampires, in this case those of Eastern European origin, is obsessive compulsion. When pursued by one of the children of the night, we are told, it is possible to delay them by dropping rice or sand, which the vampire will then be unable to pass without stopping to count them. Given that the kind of vampire credited with this weakness also appears to have a susceptibility to crossing running water, the strategy is generally to drop the rice and bolt for the nearest bridge.
Whereas those of a more darque nature might get in touch with their tenebrous side through the old ways - big shirts, red wine, experimental haemomania - I seem to be stuck in the rice museum. Option paralysis. The fear of choice.
Last month, under the influence of work stress and sleeplessness, I began to fixate on the possibilities of what is known in corporate circles as technology refresh. This is unfortunate, as the number of options when buying a computer are almost limitless, and every single one has some sort of measurable consequence. After a fortnight of more and more time spent obsessively paring, I realised that this was getting ridiculous.
In effect, I just bought my second computer of the year just to stop having to think about buying my second computer of the year. I may need help.
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| Friday, November 18, 2005 |
| Too, too perfect. Sony start by putting on their CDs a piece of rights management software that installs itself on a PC without telling the user, is invisible to the casual viewer and, when removed, might destroy one's ability to use your PC CD drive. This is pretty shoddy in itself, but then hackers start to see the opportunities inherent in having a hidden repository for programs installed on PCs. Growing furore about the covert installation of what is in effect an invisible vuln leads, among other things, to Microsoft identifying Sony's little helper as spyware.
Eventually, Sony relents and releases a tool to uninstall the rootkit, despite refusing to admit that it had done anything wrong (personally, I suspect that "kills CD drives" is not in the Red Book, and as such it might be possible to say that they were fraudulently misrepresenting their product as CDs, but never mind). Shortly thereafter, this tool is identified as a greater threat to security than the rootkit itself. Wunderbar. And now it seems that the company which produced the XCP copyright protection software may have infringed not only somebody else's copyright but the copyright of one of the greatest opponents of DRM, Jon Johansen. Sometimes a story just writes itself.
More information on identifying CDs which have the potential to break your PC can be found here.
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| Monday, November 14, 2005 |
| Linky:
Very ugly and potentially disastrous, these headphones do have the interesting idea of fitting an iPod Nano into the body of the headphones themselves. Given its size and weight, it or a Shuffle could be adapted or built in to any number of products.
Spoiler: New and rather Bauhaus Dr. Who villains.
Teen Beat returns: Bill Gates in Doom. Even then, it must have been strange to be Bill Gates' speechwriter.
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| Wednesday, November 09, 2005 |
| After nearly two weeks of chaos, finally we have conclusive proof that the riots in France are, much like the proliferation of antibiotics, creating a deadly new strain. As a nation burns, the Internet tough guys rise from the ashes.
Of course, it's easy to be a tough guy on the Internet. Mind you, it's also easy to see ladies with no clothes on on the Internet, so perhaps it provides a balance. Truth to tell, the more I think about this, the more I start to see the Internet as not dissimilar to Kelly le Brock in Weird Science. The more you think about this, the more sense it makes. Although Kelly le Brock couldn't tell you about what sort of a honeymoon package former West Bromwich Albion legend Andy Hunt (is good up front, oh Andy Hunt is good up front) can offer you.
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