Category Archives: Geek

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Comics, Geek, Omphaloskepsis

Identity Crisis

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Sarah pointed me at the CNN/AP article titled The DC comics universe as tragedy. It talks about the current DC comics miniseries Identity Crisis and the controversy around it. It probably helps that its a best seller too.

Anyway, I’ve been reading Identity Crisis and I like it so far. It has however had a few things that shocked me that I’m still not sure exactly how I feel about them. However, I’m reserving some judgment until we see the end of the story.

Identity Crisis spoilers below….Also, I ramble a bit…
Continue reading Identity Crisis →

Geek, Politics

Alderaan had WMDs!

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On Slashdot today there was a news item about the upcoming DVD release of the first three Star Wars movies. Of course, everyone is still bitching about Greedo shooting first, as they should. And it seems the Lucas is going to tweak the movies AGAIN for DVD release.

Anyway, in the discussion thread there was a post mocking the Greedo people that said:

I hear that in this version Alderaan shoots first.

One of the responses to that post was classic.

No, but there’s good inteligence that clearly shows Alderaan had a stockpile of WMDs that it planned to give to the Rebel Alliance. The new DVD further points out that its government was an anti-democratic dictatorship by a royal family, and goes on to document its sentient-rights abuses which while largely decades in the past, still play a part in building a convincing case for a pre-emptive planetary destruction by the Emp – er – Coalition Forces.

Geek

lnk.to ideas

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Dannyman has run a service called lnk.to , which is similar to things like Make A Shorter Link. lnk.to obviously wins by having a shorter name to begin with.

He’s been doing some brainstorming for featues.

Here’s my quick idea: Make it easy to mirror.

One of the reason’s Danny is going for his reimplementation is that lnk.to’s current home is going away. Also, its current home has not always been the paragon of stability. Adding mirroring capability early on would help avoid that problem in the future.

Anyway, just an idea. (Also, my first use of TrackBack!)

Geek News

Nigerian spam mutates again

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This was on Slashdot earlier for the 5 minutes Slashdot was actually up today. (503s and 500s abounded. But that’s a different storry.) This is too awesome not to comment on.

The Register is carrying a story titled 419ers morph into Murder Incorporated.

we have received a fax message from our headquaters,new york,this morning to inform you to produce a mandatory sum of US$40,000.00 {FOURTHY THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS} only,into our account given below in nigeria within ninety six hours{96},alternatively you will be SNIPPED and GUNNED down during the period of our oncoming anniversary of fifty years.

I’ve really enjoyed watching this scam mutate the past few years. From various deposed ministers to desposed oil magnates to various countries other than Nigeria. What is not funny with this is how many people and how much money people are taken for in this scam.

According to Billions lost each year due to spam.

The US Secret Service has designated the so-called ‘Nigerian scam,’ in which the sender offers to pass on windfall sums of money if a percentage payment is made in advance, as an ‘epidemic,’ defrauding people of hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” said The Age.

I never would have predicted the mutation into including death threats. Not that it wasn’t illegal before, but I think the average person knows that a death threat is clearly illegal. The older versions I could see people not fully getting as illegal.

I can see many inexperianced computer users being scammed and/or getting scared off of the internet forever, which is the real problem.