And if THAT isn't enough...

Courtesy of The Register ("Biting the hand that feeds IT"), here's some more good news:

Infections as a result of the infamous Conficker (Downadup) worm have peaked at around the 10m PC mark.

Variants of Conficker use a variety of methods to spread, including exploiting the MS08-067 vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows server service patched by Redmond in October. Once it gets a foothold within corporate networks, Conficker is programmed to spread across local area networks. The worm also spreads between infected USB sticks and Windows PCs.

Compromised Windows PCs are turned into drones in a botnet, programmed to phone home through a changing series of servers. It's this latter behaviour that has allowed F-secure to track the progress of the worm over the last two weeks or so. Its latest educated guess of the size of the botnet is 10m strong as of Friday, 23 January, 1m up on the 9 million of the week before.

Thank you, Microsoft.

The End is Nigh...

I fear that we are about to witness the end of Civilization as we know it -- thanks to Microsoft.

Watch this, and see if you don't agree...

Methinks we are SO f*cked...

Again, courtesy of the Constitution Club:

With a hat tip to the Constitution Club, I present you the Children of Hamas:



freakin' dooshbags...

Mmmmm.... I think not.

With the prospect of some more sub-zero temperatures and snow on the way, and plenty of chow and other necessities for me and the Furry Turd, I reckon I'll just hunker down -- at least for the weekend.

How 'bout giving PEOPLE a tax break?

If you happen to think that you're smarter about what to do with your money than the dipsticks in Congress, I'd encourage you to click on the little goodie below and follow the instructions to post a copy of it to your blog, web page, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever the hell Internet presence you might have.

Are newspapers dying?

Yeah, they are -- at least, that was the general consensus on the News Hour on PBS this evening, in response to the news that the Chicago Trib was in bankruptcy.

There was a bit of discussion on what the problem was, and I think all of the guests they had kind of missed the point -- particularly after one of them said "news is free".

Well, no, news isn't free; at least, not while it's still news. There are some silly expenses associated with collecting news: for starters, the salary of the person doing the collecting. Then there's the cost of maintaining the infrastructure (hardware, staff, communications, and that kind of silly shit).

From my perspective, "news" is a service, not a product, and I think that's where the newspapers are going off into the weeds. Sure, Back In The Day, they HAD to print newspapers -- the Interwebs simply didn't exist. But the newspapers simply haven't adapted (physically or mentally) to the technology. They've still got those same big-ass presses (that can crank out a couple hundred thousand copies of the same newspaper overnight) and think that they still have to use them.

They don't.

Instead, what I think the newspapers should be doing is getting leaner and more flexible: instead of offering everyone the same copy of the same big-ass newspaper (which most folks don't read half of), they should try customizing their news-delivery service. For example, I don't subscribe to the local rag (the Billings Gazette) simply because they want more than I'm willing to pay for what I'd get (but with a twist): as mentioned, for my half-dollar a day, I'd get the whole damn paper, which I don't want to deal with; I NEVER read the 'fashion' section, and rarely read the classifieds, for example. I'd almost certainly go for subscribing for a hardcopy of the sections that DID interest me, though: news, comics, and editorials. Hell, go fully customizable, and let me select what regular columnists to include (i.e. Dear Abby/Ann Landers, but no horoscope), and they could likely charge a little more for the 'trouble' (remember, they're doing damn near all this with computers).

Most of the online editions of the papers that I've seen have gone one of two ways: making ALL of their content online for free, or trying to charge for the "premium" features. Again, I think both of these examples have missed the point, and that the way to go would be to offer the (common) basics for free, but charging (much smaller prices, of course, since online costs should be so much lower) for the things that people want, when they want them: access to some classified ad sections, for example, with online payment (such as PayPal). Shucks, even for online classifieds, they could charge a little extra for more features: seller-provided digital photos of that house/car/boat for sale, for example).

The last part of the problem, as I see it, is that newspapers are lumped in with Main Stream Media and perceived (usually correctly) as being biased one way or another. They need to knock that crap off, and go back to reporting the NEWS without any bias or slanting: if an apple falls to the ground, don't report it as the big bad ol' Earth picking on a small defenseless apple, or as a renegade apple being brought to justice by the forces of Good Ol' Mother Earth -- just tell me the damn thing fell off a hundred-year-old tree in Farmer Jones field, okay? I got at least two brain cells to rub together, and I'm quite capable of deciding what I think about it without your "help".

Basically, I think that the newspapers would be doing fine IF they could make the transition to providing us the information we want, when we want it, in the way we want. As long as they're going to insist on thinking like dinosaurs and using dinosaur sales methods, they're going to continue losing out to those dinky little upstart mammals.

On the road

This test, of course, presupposes that the person answering is actually honest about their driving -- and aware of their own actions. I only scored 93%; I think because I (honestly) answered that I sometimes drive faster than the speed limit -- the test didn't ask if I drove faster than the folks around me (I don't), and most places I've been, it's pretty common for the Thundering Herd to do 5-10 miles over the posted limit as a matter of routine. Oh, well...

Created by The Car Connection

Deart Santa:

My wish list for Christmas this year is very short and simple:

Any 2 of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show models and

a case of Body Butter.

Thank you.

Catching up

Kind of had my hands full the last week, which is why I haven't posted anything. Not much of an excuse, I suppose, but there you go...

* Got more information on doing my own CNC system. My laser idea won't work for doing printed circuit boards -- not only is copper difficult to cut with a laser, anyway, but the way a laser cuts metal precludes using on a PCB. My emergency fallback position is to go ahead and build a 'regular' CNC that uses a rotating cutting bit to create my boards. An additional benefit is that I can also use it to drill the holes in the board, as well as engrave any panels and such that I might need.

* Watching McNeil/Lehrer last night, I saw a bunch of Congressweasels giving one of the big Financial weenies in Gummit a hard time -- seems the Congressweasels didn't understand that the $750B funding they voted for was not for bailing out people with bad mortgages, but simply to stabilize the financial system. The guy they were dishing shit to tried to explain to them (repeatedly) that there had been no mention of mortgage bailouts or anything else; that he (and others) had EXPLICITLY said that the money was for the financial system. Congressweasels simply couldn't get that concept to stick in their tiny little minds, and were all upset and offended that people were still losing their homes -- and wanted Something To Be Done about it, and right now. Morons. Pretty much all of the folks that have lost their homes did so because there was a "mismatch" between what they claimed their income was, and what they were really earning -- essentially, they lied to get themselves into a house they couldn't afford, and calmly proceeded to spend 101% of their income via MasterCard, Visa, Discover, and all the rest. My thought is: fuck 'em. Yeah, it's gonna hurt the economy for a while -- but when it's over, the financial system (and no, I don't mean just the banks and such) will be a hell of a lot more stable, and stronger.

* The U.S. automakers are now begging and grovelling for a handout, too, and there's no small controversy over whether or not they should get anything. On one side, if the automakers go tits-up, that throws a metric buttload (which is roughly 10% larger than a regular buttload) of people out of jobs, which seriously fucks economies all over the country. Opposing that is the fact that it's the automakers (and all the demands from the unions) dumbassery that got them to this point: there's no reason not to think that they'll just end up pissing the money away and cratering, anyway. Me, I don't think they should get anything until and unless the Autoworkers union is obliged to give up a goodly chunk of the assorted crap that they've demanded over the years, and the automakers trim a bunch out of their bloated administration and management (so they can respond to the market in a timely manner). Then give the bastards a ONE-TIME loan of about half what they're asking for before letting them sink or swim on their own.

* The news media has caught wind of the fact that people that already own guns are buying more of them -- but can't seem to figure out why. Dumbshits.

* The Obamessiah is promising to dismantle a lot of the "protection" bullshit (i.e. warrantless wiretaps, anti-terrorism measures, etc) that the Bush administration hosed us with. That only makes me worry that he's going to try to do even worse shit.