Spyaxe SpySheriff Spywarestorm Spyware Stormer Myspywarecleaner Spyware Cleaner - Mark's Sysinternals Blog: The Antispyware Conspiracy

Mark's Sysinternals Blog: The Antispyware Conspiracy - Spyaxe SpySheriff Spywarestorm Spyware Stormer Myspywarecleaner Spyware Cleaner

Now, that's quality

"This CD can't be burnt onto a CD or hard disc, nor can it be converted to an MP3" and "This CD may not play in DVD players, car stereos, portable players, game players, all PCs and Macintosh PCs." Best of all, the insert explains that this is all "in order for you to enjoy a high quality music experience." Now, that's quality.

Boing Boing: Coldplay's new CD has rules: No MP3s, no DVD players, no car stereos

Being the Averagest

There are plenty of bad, insecure, incompetent, neurotic managers in every organization, including ours, and you don't need to keep them in business by working hard to make them look good.

Being the Averagest

Ten Challenges

So far, the research indicates that all people who like J2EE should be strapped to a rocketship and blasted out into space. But it's just our preliminary findings, and we're not quite ready to publish yet.

I just love his writing.

Ten Challenges

Ten Predictions

A prediction of flickr.

Prediction #6: A new internet community-hangout will appear. One that you and I will frequent.

Reason for prediction: People like to socialize.

Where's the internet community? I don't see it. People don't hang out on Amazon's website, or Google's, or eBay's, or Microsoft's. Not anywhere, really. There are little chat rooms here and there, and some static link-in sites where you can answer a bunch of questions about your hair color and favorite taco sauce. Yawn.

Someone told me recently that the consensus among online gamers is that the success of Sony's EverQuest is largely due to its strong in-game community. In order to support so many simultaneous players, Sony had to make the monsters really tough, and you have to spend a long time (like half an hour) healing after every fight. So people have nothing to do but sit around campfires and taverns, and socialize.

Hey, remember AOL? There's a blast from the past, eh? Oh wait, I guess they're still around. Admittedly no self-respecting geek would ever use AOL, but you have to admit: AOL's big draw, for those who use it, is the community features. And that's a big draw. Big enough to let AOL buy giant entertainment/media conglomerates like Time Warner.

Socialization has to be real-time; i.e., things like chat rooms, IRQ, instant messaging. But those are so boring, so passé. People also need a reason to hang out, some sort of shared goal or shared frustration that gives them something to talk about during those awkward silences.

Like, games. Or sports. Or gambling. Or discussion groups about books with names like "He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys."

It's an uncomfortable truth that most Americans spend the majority of their free time watching television. They like their mindless entertainment. But going to the movies is more fun, because there are people there, all ooh-ing and aaah-ing and boo-ing along with you. Too bad you can't go to the movies and stay at home on your couch simultaneously, eh?

Games, movies, and chat rooms are all converging, because people want to hang out, be entertained, and be slightly challenged, all while sitting on their couch. Or possibly sitting in an internet cafe, as 5 percent of the population of Korea does at any given time, playing the online game "Lineage". They've got it figured out better than most other countries.

Wikis, newsgroups, mailing lists, bulletin boards, forums, commentable blogs -- they're all bullshit. Home pages are bullshit. People want to socialize, and create content, and compete lightly with each other at different things, and learn things, and be entertained: all in the same place, all from their couch.

Whoever solves this -- i.e. whoever creates AOL for real people, or whatever the heck this thing turns out to be -- is going to be really, really rich.

Practical Magic

What a wonderful author:

These folks have been burned by the appearance of slick new magical forces, claiming to give you seven years of high availability if you'll just sign on the dotted line. They advise you to hold on to your low-level knowledge, acquiring it by force if necessary.

Practical Magic

Lisp Wins (I think)

Folks who know me well enough to have seen me sloshed and mumbling incoherently about languages just before passing out, know that I've been on approximately a year-long quest to find a replacement for Java.
...
Every language has some amount of it: code that doesn't affect the computation, and only exists (presumably) to help the compilers who were at the bottom of their class in Compiler School.
...
Common Lisp is practical and industrial-strength, just like owning your own elephant.

Funny.

Lisp Wins (I think)

Singleton Considered Stupid

having a Tripleton is about as desirable as having three Balrogs show up at your tea party. And even if you're a synchronization expert and get the double-check idiom right, you've still got one Balrog to deal with, and they're no picnic

Singleton Considered Stupid

10 Web Trends That Should Die in 2006

Here’s a new years resolution for the web at large: stop doing silly things to users. Following are top trends that I just hope will not see 2007.

10 Web Trends That Should Die in 2006

Artist of the Year: Banksy

By pushing the legal limits of what is allowable, Banksy's art builds that much more relevancy. His work in many ways becomes an artistic statement and protest against the tiny little insignificant power figures that pop up everywhere, cops, security guards -- all the little people who want to exert their personal authority and tell you what you can and can't do with art.

Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: Artist of the Year: Banksy

Firmware bugs in Lenses...

Sigma confirm issue with Nikon D200: Digital Photography Review

Microsoft Ends IE for Mac

Microsoft Ends IE for Mac:

"Epilogue: All of this made it a lot more easy for me to quit and go work at Google
Reminder: I may or may not be leaving some parts out for NDA reasons."

Interesting read.

The Spoof - Winnie the Pooh & Christopher Robin Out of The Closet and Planning to Wed in 2006

The Spoof - Winnie the Pooh & Christopher Robin Out of The Closet and Planning to Wed in 2006: "Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh announced on Wednesday that they are in fact in love and have been a couple for the last seventeen years."

2005 CD Sales Down … Way Down - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com

2005 CD Sales Down … Way Down - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com: "Who wouldn’t want to buy products from major media companies that openly despise their best customers? What college student wouldn’t spend his money at the record store when his friends are getting sued? Why wouldn’t we flock to the store for discs that deposit malicious spyware in our computers? Why wouldn’t we think of music first at gift-giving time, when major labels are getting busted for corrupt and criminal activity?"

Schneier on Security: Computer Crime Hype

Schneier on Security: Computer Crime Hype: "Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers."

Boing Boing: PSP 2.01 firmware unlocked

"anti-customer measures"

Nice.

Boing Boing: PSP 2.01 firmware unlocked:

Boing Boing: Warner/Chappell Music apologizes to PearLyrics

And I still say, fuck the majors.

Boing Boing: Warner/Chappell Music apologizes to PearLyrics

Boing Boing: Congress: "Merry Chrismas! We're Turning Off Your Analog Outs"

Boing Boing: Congress: "Merry Chrismas! We're Turning Off Your Analog Outs"

cease & desist to the music mafia

I should send a cease & desist letter to the music industry: "Stop what you are doing and I might buy from you again."

EFF: Lyrics Browsers, iTunes and Copyright Law

C+?

"Browser pioneer Marc Andreessen, chairman of Zend, a PHP company, says the shift is like the one in the 1990s from traditional programming languages C and C+ to Java."

Java? It's So Nineties

Geiseltasee, Geiseltalsee?

BP can't spell.

BP Solar - Geiseltalsee - Germany

Overpeer is Just Over Now - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com

Overpeer is Just Over Now - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com: "eventually the major labels that contracted Overpeer were over it, and moved on to other strategies like suing mothers for thousands of dollars."

Court Rules Against Mom in Download Suit - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com

"Yeah, that makes total sense."

Court Rules Against Mom in Download Suit - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com