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Music
Archive for April, 2009
Take this ROM and…
Indie developer Farbs -- creator of 8-bit videogame mashup Rom Check Fail and the later, similarly stylish Polychromatic Funk Monkey -- quit his mainstream job as gameplay programmer at 2K Australia in fitting fashion: he created a playable take on Super Mario Bros that delivers the message far better than any scathing letter could. Play the [...]
Warner Music claims Larry Lessig is a pirate
Last night, Larry Lessig tweeted that Warner Music had sent a takedown notice to YouTube over one of his presentations, claiming that it infringed their copyright. Lessig, of course, is one of the nation's leading legal scholars, particularly when it comes to fair use and electronic media. His presentations are filled with examples of companies [...]
The Pirate Bay Introduces Facebook App
Here’s a development from The Pirate Bay crew that is bound to send shock waves through the entertainment industry. Over the weekend, The Pirate Bay quietly released a new feature that enables direct torrent linking to a user's Facebook profile. There’s never been anything preventing a torrent link on Facebook, so the concept itself isn’t [...]
RSA Security Pros Don’t Practice What They Preach
Of all the events you might attend, you'd think a security convention would be the least likely place to have attendees hopping onto "free public WiFi" and other insecure connections. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. In fact, a network monitoring study conducted at last week's RSA Conference by wireless security vendor AirPatrol turned up [...]
IBM Supercomputer to Compete on “Jeopardy!”
Pretty soon, "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek may face his toughest contestant yet: an IBM supercomputer. On Monday, the tech giant plans to announce that it'll be moving one of its Blue Gene machines to Los Angeles to appear on the popular game show, according to a report by the New York Times. Computers have played, and sometimes beaten, [...]
The Pirate Google: Google is as guilty of linking to torrents as The Pirate Bay
When The Pirate Bay was ordered shut down by the Swedish courts because it linked to infringing torrents on the Internet, many people pointed out that Google links to whole mountains' -- whole planets' -- worth of infringing stuff. Now, to make the point, comes The Pirate Google, a Google mashup that finds torrent files: "The intention of this [...]
Ever drop a magnet through a copper tube?
This video is not slowed down. The movement of a magnet falling down a copper tube creates an electrical current around the tube, which exerts a slowing force on the magnet.
Oracle says they are committed to keeping Java open and to not killing MySQL
President Charles Phillips and chief corporate architect Edward Screven have committed to keeping Java open and to not killing MySQL. They also mocked the idea Oracle would simply shut down or close off certain technologies and talked tough on Oracle's smarts as a hardware vendor. Oracle will not kill Java. If there is one company on this Earth [...]
HOWTO: Move /home to its own partition after a linux install
Having the "/home" directory tree on it’s own partition has several advantages, the biggest perhaps being that you can reinstall the OS (or even a different distro of Linux) without losing all your data. You can do this by keeping the /home partition unchanged and reinstalling the OS which goes in the "/" (root) directory, which can be on a [...]
Iptables country blocklist API
This tool will automatically create iptables rules on Linux system to block all connection from one country or more. The blocklist is created with an API that fetch data in our SQL database based on IP address country location. How often is data updated? During the first week of each month. How accurate is the data? This is a somehow [...]
“Four Corners” is off by 2.5 miles
Hard to believe it took them this long to figure it out? I wonder if they're going to move the site or keep it where it is and simply hope no one reads the article. SALT LAKE CITY - Tourists who think they're putting a hand or foot in each of four U.S. states at the Four Corners area are apparently missing the mark — by about 2.5 [...]
The Rocky Road To Secure Code
Homeland Security's Build Security In, Microsoft's Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), BSIMM, and now OpenSAMM: Secure application development programs are spreading amid calls for more secure code. The practice of writing applications from the ground up with security in mind remains in its infancy, even with software giant Microsoft leading [...]
Security Expert Calls For New Model For “Demonetizing” Cybercrime
SAN FRANCISCO -- RSA CONFERENCE 2009 -- A top U.S. botnet expert has proposed a new approach to fighting cybercrime: Hit the bad guys where it hurts -- in their wallets -- by making online crime less lucrative and more risky to carry out. Joe Stewart, director of malware research for SecureWorks, says the current approach, which includes [...]
Pirate Bay judge had conflict of interest: Mistrial?
According to Swedish National Radio, the judge in the Pirate Bay trial is a board member for a copyright industry lobbying group, and this conflict of interest may result in a mistrial. The Swedish article has been translated into English on Freeform 101 by a Dane, and is a little rough: There are different types of ____ ('jäv', translation help [...]
You’re Participating In The Facebook Terms Of Service Vote, Right?
You've got about a day and a half left to cast your vote for which Terms of Service you'd prefer Facebook go with—the one written in September 2008 without user input, or the new one they've drafted over the last month based on suggestions from the Facebook community. Here's the interesting thing, though: Facebook is calling the Internet's [...]
Manga about running Ubuntu
Ubunchu, a manga-style comic for kids about the joys of running the Ubuntu Linux operating system. It's a free, CC-licensed .PDF, and it's been translated into a very large number of languages, and there are more editions to come. (more...)
Court turns down challenge to jury’s use of Bible
A Texas man killed his victim by shooting him and beating him with the barrel of a gun. During deliberations, the jury consulted the Bible and found this passage: 35:16 And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. The murderer said his Constitutional rights were [...]
