Month: August 2002

RIAA Cracked

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

As mentioned on Politech, the RIAA website was cracked yesterday morning (screenshot). The text reads, in part:

As you are probably aware, the RIAA has been pursuing a policy of preventing this activity in recent months.

We have recently become aware that this approach is yielding only limited results and in some cases may in fact be harming sales and the artists' revenue stream.

The RIAA wishes to apologise for the heavy-handed manner in which the popular chinese site Listen4Ever was closed down, and would like to present the following items for free download as a token of its goodwill. […]

The crack is amusing in itself, especially since it uses the victim’s own site to parody its views. However, I’m most fascinated by the screenshot itself. I’m not sure which OS is running there (OSX, maybe?), but that anti-aliased text sure is beautiful.

Plextor Drives

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

The other day, I was trying to figure out which Plextor CDR drive to get. One drive could do 40x writes, while the other could do 20x writes but also read DVDs as well.

I’ve ordered the latter, for reasons of longevity. Sure, 40x is nice, but it only works out to a 3-minute burn instead of a 4-minute burn. And, I expect that more and more software may be available in DVD versions.

I’ve also ordered a new hard drive. 120 GB should be enough room for Linux, eh? ;).

I’m glad I have a job that affords me the ability to buy new hardware from time to time.

Semicolons

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I enjoyed this quote from Lewis Thomas on semicolons, from today’s WordSpy mailing:

“I have grown fond of semicolons in recent years. The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added; it reminds you sometimes of the Greek usage. It is almost always a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period. The period tells you that that is that; if you didn’t get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer.”

—Lewis Thomas, American doctor and essayist, The Medusa and the Snail, 1979

Air Guitar Championships

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

As mentioned on MetaFilter, Zac ‘Mr. Magnet’ Monro has won the 7th Annual Air Guitar World Championships (in Oulu, Finland) for the second year in a row. Video of his winning performance is also available.

I watched the video and, while good, I thought it could have been better. I must concur with one of the MetaFilter comments:

Uh-Huh…

If you’re gonna play air guitar, you should at least try to simulate chord changes by switching fingers and moving your hand up and down the “neck” of the guitar, as it were.

Then there’s the whole issue of whether on not to use an air pic or whammy bar…

Hasta La Vista, SatireWire

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I was disappointed to learn that SatireWire is calling it quits. Some people looked down upon SatireWire as an “Onion Clone”, but I enjoyed its humor in its own right.

Over the years, SatireWire has had so many stories that have acutely poked at the humor in today’s current events. One of my favorites that comes to mind is Remaining U.S. CEOs Make a Break For It:

Unwilling to wait for their eventual indictments, the 10,000 remaining CEOs of public U.S. companies made a break for it yesterday, heading for the Mexican border, plundering towns and villages along the way, and writing the entire rampage off as a marketing expense.

“They came into my home, made me pay for my own TV, then double-booked the revenues,” said Rachel Sanchez of Las Cruces, just north of El Paso. “Right in front of my daughters.” […]