Friday, October 23, 2009

It's Scary How Easy It Is To Surpass Security

So I read this article a few days ago, and it honestly terrified me.  Like no, I don't have trouble sleeping at night, and I honestly feel like I'm much safer than they am (and not as big of a target).  Plus I sort of luck out since I inherently meet the one suggestion the article provides: USE A MAC!

So anyways, if you wanna read the article and see how easily people were cheated, and how freaking smart the the frauders (is that even a word) are, I strongly recommend it.

I definitely enjoyed this read, and I hope you do too.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The GREATEST Facebook Quiz EVER!!!!


So I was killing time with Sylvia yesterday.  And by killing time I obviously mean procrastinating and ignoring homework.  We turned to one of our favorite activities: taking really stupid Facebook quizzes (I had no idea this the plural form of quiz had a double z in it).  Anyways, one of them in particular stood out.


Not only was the topic amazing (What crime would you commit?), but the questions and possible answers are heavenly.  My particular favorite were definitely the "Pretend you are in a grocery store, the lights go out, what do you do?" question and the "What woukld you do if you found a smashed man made of rice crispies?"  Yes, would was actually spelled woukld on the actual quiz, I am capable of using cut-and-paste tools.


Anyways, the questions and answers are simply BRILLIANT, and I wanted to share it with you.  Btw, I got Murder as my answer.  Guess I'm a real killer ...

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Why Did Wall Street Fall?



SMART PEOPLE!  

That's what some guy in a bar in the middle of the midwest said.  Sadly enough, his reasoning is really really good.  You should probably read the actual NY Times article here before you continue (I was smart and set up a custom link that will work after the NY Times shuts down the online free reading).  Any-who's, on to business...

So just like the guy who wrote the article and Daring Fireball, I really can't find any obvious flaws in this guy's reasoning.  Hopefully you will be able to help me out and find an error in his argument.

Enjoy the read.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Microsoft (Didn't) REALLY Fuck Up: Turns Out The Data Isn't Lost!

Update: Microsoft didn't lose the data.
I recently posted about Microsoft losing all the user data for Danger's Sidekicks.  It turns out the data was recovered.  This is an update, and you can read the original here.


Microsoft just announced that the data in fact is not lost (they were able to recover most to all of the information).  After testing the accuracy of the data and creating a restoration timeline, Microsoft will restore the data to the Sidekicks starting with users' contacts.


Apparently there was a system failure that caused data loss of the core data and the backup (which honestly totally blows).


Either way, it's good they were able to recover.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

LADY GAGA GOES ON TOUR !!!!



So for those of you who are like totally behind on times (aka don't already know about the announcement made today [Oct. 15, 2009]), Lady Gaga is going on tour (without Kanye).

A little while back (I think last week), Lady Gaga announced that she was releasing a new CD titled "The Fame Monster" which is a repackaging of her current CD "The Fame" plus 8 new awesome tracks (I haven't heard them, but I'm assuming their awesome).

Today she announced a brand new tour: "The Monster Ball".  She did however hint on her twitter about the tour in November the day the "Fame Kills" concert was cancelled.  I'm really excited for this tour, and hopefully I'll get to see her in SF and in Chicago.  I've cut and pasted the dates below for your convenience (I've bolded and highlighted the ones I want to be at), and I'll post more info when I get it!!!

November 27 – Montreal, Quebec, Canada – The Bell Center
November 28 – Toronto, Ontario, Canada – Air Canada Center
November 29 – Ottawa, Ontario, Canada – Scotiabank Place
December 01 – Boston, MA – Wang Center
December 02 – Boston, MA – Wang Center
December 03 – Camden, NJ – Susquehanna
December 09 – Vancouver, BC, Canada – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
December 10 – Vancouver, BC, Canada – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
December 13 – San Francisco, CA – Bill Graham Civic
December 18 – Las Vegas, NV – TBD
December 19 – San Diego, CA – San Diego Sports Arena
December 21 – Los Angeles, CA – Nokia Theatre
December 29 – Atlanta, GA – Fox Theater
December 31 – Miami, FL – Knight Center
January 03 – Orlando, FL – The Hard Rock
January 07 – St. Louis, MO – The Fox
January 08 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre
January 09 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre

January 12 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theater
January 16 – Atlantic City, NJ – Borgata
January 20 – New York, NY – Radio City Music Hall
January 21 – New York, NY – Radio City Music Hall

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Radio App for iPhone?


So there's quite a few rumors that Apple is creating an in-house Radio Application for the iPhone.  I'm really hoping this is true.  However, I am more excited about a little side-note mentioned in 9-to-5's article: the ability to broadcast radio from the iPhone in the 3GS.

Currently, whenever I want to listen to music in my car, I always need to connect my iPod to a radio adapter plugged into my lighter jack and tune in through my car's FM radio (sadly I do not have an iPod adapter).  The big problem with this is if I need to use GPS.  My two options are:
      A) Use GPS and listen to the radio.
      B) Listen to my iPod and use the build-in GPS and endanger myself.

Obviously neither of these are ideal solutions, and the ability to broadcast an FM signal from the iPhone would definitely solve this problem.

Sadly, I do not have any belief that this will ever become a reality for the iPhone.  It's not that I think it's impossible, or too difficult, I just think it's beyond the scope of the iPhone.  I believe until Apple finds a more specific and more important use case for broadcasting an FM signal from your iPhone than to simply play your iPhone's music or talking on the car radio/stereo, they will not fully develop this feature.

Maybe Steve Jobs does have a trick up his sleeve that I can't think of ... but honestly, I sadly don't think radio broadcasting will be a feature on the iPhone.

A Radio Tuner on the other hand ... that will definitely become a reality.  Most of you probably don't remember, but back around the time of the iPod Color (I believe) Apple improved their wired remote and built a Radio Tuner and Screen into the remote.  Even back then Apple understood that the iPod did not replace the Radio (though now that Energy 92.7 has been shut down, I see no need for radio in the Bay Area).

Apple will surprise us soon with some tricks up its sleeve.

Also, if you want to read the original article, click here.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Microsoft REALLY Fucks Up: Looks Like SideKick May Be Gone For Good




So there are some things out there that are simply unacceptable.  This is one of them.


In today's day and age, data lossage is catastrophic.  All corporations duplicate or triplicate their backups to avoid possible data lossage because it is both important, and it's loss could be the end of the corporation's existence.


Microsoft clearly believed they could beat Murphy's law.  Clearly they couldn't.


If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Microsoft recently lost a large amount of data: the personal information stored on people's Sidekicks: aka their contacts, photos, calendars, etc.


Stuff like this cannot happen.  This is as though one day Google appologized that they lost 20% of users' emails and contacts.  THIS CANNOT HAPPEN.  Companies triplicate their backups of all data for this very reason, often keeping a copy or two off site (or out of state/country even) to avoid major catastrophe's.


Word on the street is that something went wrong during an upgrade, and now all the data is gone.


Sidekick is already falling apart as users are now switching to other devices/companies.  I doubt sidekick will ever succeed again after this failure.


If you have a sidekick and just lost your data from this, my sincerest apologies.




Update: Microsoft didn't lose the data.  For more information, click here.



Monday, October 12, 2009

Skins: My biggest distraction ...


Hey.  I just realized I never hit post on this.  It's from back around September 19th-ish time.  Hope you like it.

So I took a weekish break from constant posting, and I figured I should explain why.  So on Netflix I was recommended to watch Skins, a British TV show that looked pretty interesting, so I figured I would try it out.  I rented the first disk of season 1 and really liked it.  As soon as I finished the first disk, I checked around if the local Video rental stores had the second DVD.  Sadly none of the close ones did.

I turned to my alternate source: SideReel.  I quickly found out that shows were significantly better online because most of the awesome music was cut from the DVD due to high licensing costs.  If you wanna check out the awesome music from the show and trailers and such click here.  It was interesting because the show starred a bunch of relatively unknown actors.

Nicholas Hoult plays Tony, a cute guy who's a bit cocky but lovable, sort of the glue in the group.  He's dating Michelle, played by April Pearson.  She's kind of a crazy partier who has the looks and self esteem to do anything she wishes.  Tony's best friend, Sid (played by Mike Bailey) is the odd-ball.  He hasn't really done anything with girls, doesn't have anything near Tony's looks, and is hopelessly in love with Michelle.  Effy (Kaya Scodelario) is Tony's younger sister.  She's less a part of the group, but leads her own crazy life and bridges the first and second generations of the show (more on that later).

Maxxie (yes spelled with two X's in his name is played by Mitch Hewer.  He's cute, blonde, and gay :D (what more could you want in a TV show).  He's a fun guy, and best friends with Anwar, the only actor on the show I recognized.  Most of you probably know Anwar; played by Dev Patel, a star in Slumdog Millionaire.  He's a British Muslim, from a religious family, without a pick-and-choose attitude towards his religion.

The group rounds itself out with three more characters: Chris, Cassie, and Jal.  Chris (Joseph Dempsie) is a sex maniac who has a thing for flirting with his teacher Angie (Siwan Morris).  Cassie (Hannah Murray) is an anorexic girl whom plays with drugs and is fairly unstable.  Jal (Larissa Wilson) is a brilliant clarinet player who is under-valued by her family.

The cast was hilarious during the first and second season.  I really enjoyed how each episode focused on developing one character further.  In the first season, we got to know them.  In the second season we watched them deal with all their problems.  It is amazing how such an unknown cast (only one big hit) could do so well and create such an amazing series.  It's also sad that none of them were able to continue to great careers afterwords.  It's also interesting to note that most of them were similar ages to the characters on the show.  Some where two years older (Chris), but most were in fact the correct ages.

You might notice that I've brought up terms like first and second generation, or people being good in the first two seasons.  This is because the producers, or creators, or writers, or network or someone (I don't know who specifically) did the unthinkable: killed the entire (practically) cast after two seasons.  They cut all the actors from the main group except for Effie who would bridge the gap between season 2 and 3 (she was the younger sister so she would be one of the main actors in season 3).  Effie's parents who were occasional guests would remain her parents throughout season 3 and 4.

This change does seem better than doing what they did with The O.C., where they continued an entire season after all the characters had graduated from high school.  In that season, half the characters were supposed to be in college, and the writers kept instigating crazy problems in order to bring the characters back together.  Unfortunately though, they risk the chance of not succeeding as well with the second generation.  I can't attest that the second cast is inferior to the original, but I definitely didn't click as well with the second generation as I did with the first.  This may however have been because I was comparing them to the first generation who I had really grown attached to, and not because they were actually a bad cast (I'm sure the fact that the first generation had a cute gay boy and the second didn't have one was a large factor in my decision).  Also, the second generation just seemed younger then the first generation.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Best Flag in the World

So I saw this yesterday through Daring Fireball.  I definitely agree with him.






It's from the Benin empire which lasted from 1440 through 1897 in pre-colonial Africa (where Nigeria is now).

What do you think?

Update: So apparently some people can't see the image.  You can see it here.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Verizon Sucker-Punches AT&T


Sorry for the large lack of posts ... school kicked in so free time is much more limited.

Anywhose, this video is hilarious.  Verizon is essentially showing off how much better their 3G service is to iPhone users.  They even make fun of the "there's an app for that" by going "there's a map for that."

While I personally cannot test the differences in 3G coverage, I definitely can attest that the service at my house (3G or regular) has gone down uber-significantly ... in fact, I get the circle (which predicates Edge coverage if you're lucky enough to not know what this is, be really happy ... and I'm not being sarcastic at all :D)  At school I don't have much service ... like one bar or less in my room.  That's why I use Google Voice to receive all calls in my room.

So for your pleasure, here is the video:








Oh, and it will supposedly be aired tonight during Monday Night Football.  Also, for those of you who didn't realize it, the video is all shaky cuz it's being videotaped by a handheld camera of some sort from a TV or projector or whatever.  Also, if you wanna see the article I saw this from, click here
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