Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Why do we let them do this ?

Everyone has seen the horror storeis of what happens to unsecured computers (or at least I hope they have). Botnets, spambots, identity theft, spoofing and more. So why, in the name of good fuck, are governments getting into this business ? The FBI has started installing spyware on computers. Oh, all in a good cause of course, the same justification that has often been used for genocide. While I dont want to debate the ethics or legality of this move, I do want to touch on the praciticalities of it.

To do this the spyware has to be able to subvert any security software installed on the target machine. Your anti-virus, your firewall, your ad spam scanner etc. This is only possible in one of two ways. Either they are exploiting security holes that they know about but have not informed the IT security community about or they require the vendors of said software to compromise their own products ! Either of these options is deeply shady and a direct attack on your private property (your computer). Neal Stephenson dealt with this subject matter in his fantastic masterpiece Cryptonomicon and I cant say it any better than he does (so go read the bloody book if you haven’t already).

If only games ran on Linux then I would be there like a shot. In the open source community any governmental attempt to subvert security software like this would be given short shrift.

Monday, April 16, 2007

This is some freaky shit ..

From here.

Symmetry is not a natural phenomenon. Nature abhors symmetry. Symmetry is a man-made perception of order over the fundamental chaos. That’s why when we see something so symmetrical as this, the scientist and rational thinkers first response is to ask ‘How ?’.

Of course certain other ... ahem .. people will call it evidence of god’s will. However, that is a whole ‘nother rant.

I just had to plunk this on here because I love this stuff. 

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Umm .. ok then …

Adultery > go to jail for life ?

Well, tickle my ass and call me Nancy. It’s not the absurdity of the how the application of this statute could possibly be applied. It’s the fact that adultery is still a crime. Sometimes I am forcibly reminded we haven’t really evolved much as a species ...

Friday, December 01, 2006

Tool - SECC - 25/11/2006

Pfft. Myself and blogging. A sort of on-off relationship.

Anyways. I went to see Tool last weekend. Burns in goes to see ‘prog’ band shock. Tool are one of those bands that have been going for ages (16 years) that just blow you away because of how good they are as well as your utter incredulity that you weren’t aware of them before. They have an entry on Wikipedia that gives all the info you would ever need.

I was first turned on to Tool by an on-line gaming colleague of mine (thanks Sami, he is the beardy Swede in this picture) who basically said “You must listen to this band or I will beat you repeatedly until you see sense”. With an endorsement like that, how could I refuse. Due to the miracles of the internets (all music since bought and paid for so no moralising please), all 4 Tool albums were quickly obtained and listened to.

While some aspects are indeed ones that have to ‘grow’ on you. There is an immediacy in the scope of their music that hooks you instantly. A few listens and I was an addict. Therefore the 27 quid for a ticket was a no brainer.

And what a gig it was. Tool involve visual elements (backdrop was 4 giant vid screens) as well as the music to make the performance a seamless whole. Certainly the patterns shifted your reality a bit given the amount of weed being smoked around me. Taking my own would have seemed pointless, coals to Newcastle etc. The support were the usual crap (Mastodon, bleghh, they really need to learn how to perform live) so the main event was eagerly awaited.

Some random impressions.

* The extremely attractive blonde lass behind me who caught my attention by complaining out loud that while living in Scotland she didn’t expect to find people taller than her (she was my height .. wtf ?) when a few 6’5 biker types parked themselves in front of her.
* The cultural mix, pierced metal heads, hippies, casuals, glasgow neds, clean cut guys who looked like their mammy had dressed them. Everyone just having a great time.
* Maynard. One of the few singers I can think of who could make a purple mohican, sunglasses, no shirt and jeans work as a stage outfit.

They finished with Aenima. A track with the line “Some say we will see Armageddon soon” (lyrics here ) shouted triumphally into the night by a largely Scottish accented audience. Class.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Must be the bloke with the beard right enough

I was going to throw something up about the Labour Party conference in Manchester as my first entry into the category of ‘Blogging’ on the new site. However, debating the relative merits of same-as-it-ever-was Brown versus fascist-in-drag Reid just fills me with a deep and abiding weariness that I would not wish to visit on anyone else.

I was taken however by Stephen Unwin’s reply piece to Richard Dawkin’s book The God Delusion published in today’s Guardian (see here). Unwin argues that Dawkins should show a little uncertainty (for this actually read humility, god botherers always expect us to be humble) in the face of the unknown. God (in whatever denomination you care to kowtow to) exists in the unknown. God is an anthromorphisation used to deal with the psychological dissonance some people experience when faced with the simple fact that there doesn’t have to be a reason for everything. Any time that there is an attempt to ‘prove’ the existence of god it is couched in terms of ‘Well we don’t know everything, therefore god must exist’ (this is basically the root argument of so-called Intelligent Design).

It is also a fallacy to require the unknown to be faced with uncertainty, which is the basic premise of Mr Unwin’s refutation here. You can face the unknown with a deep certainty of your starting position and the method for which you plan to explore it (or indeed ignore it). You can also face the unknown with uncertainty but be certain it does not include things you are certain it doesn’t include (ie some all-knowing, all-powerful bloke with a beard). Humans do not know everything, that is clear. That does not however mean we have to fill the unknown with ridiculous myth structures that suit the popular prejudice of your culture.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Fun in the Sun

A week in Tenerife was certainly what the doctor ordered. However, if I don’t take a break from alcohol for the next week or so then I will be seeing far more of doctors than I would wish. That does seem to be the tenor of holidays though, drink, sweat it out, drink some more.

We had some nice apartments a way back from the main strip of Playa des Las Americas. About a 5-10 minute walk (or 15 minute stagger depending on the amount of weaving). This allowed us to go party hardy until the wee hours (7am one morning .. I thought my days of doing that were long over) but still have some uninterrupted kip to sleep it off. Its a pretty friendly place we found the only fly in the ointment being the ‘greeters’ for bars and restaurants who don’t allow you to go more than 2 steps without getting in your face (which isn’t so much of a problem if they are cute, admittedly).

As usual, I took a camera with me but completely forgot to do anything with it (like even take it out of the bag). I view holidays as things to be experienced not recorded but then I am crap with remembering to take photos at any other time as well.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Jetting off ..

For a week in the sun. Expect thrills, chills, spills and oh so interesting holiday tales when I get back.

Assuming this cold ever shifts ..

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Snake Agent - Liz Williams

Available from Amazon here.

An interesting read this. A short little detective tale which is more notable for its setting and characters than its plot. Inspector Chen is Singapore Three’s ‘Snake Agent’, policeman of the paranormal. His occasional partner is Zhu Irzh, Sensechal of Hell’s Vice Division. Together they raise err .. hell.

This is a well realised near future setting based on far eastern mythology. The characters are well drawn, multidimensional and engaging. The plot of the novel on the other hand is a little thin. Its basically an Agatha Christie whodunnit rescued by a deus ex machina. Pretty standard fare to be honest.

For all that, I would still recommend checking it out as it is her first novel in this setting and I am looking forward to seeing the characters develop and hopefully a bit more depth in her plots. Ms Williams could also do with being a bit more ambitious and widening the scope of her storytelling a little. A pleasant read if not totally gripping. 

Cough .. splutter .. sniffle

Welp, due to Saturday night’s lethal combination of booze, boogie and standing in the rain for 20 minutes I appear to have caught a joyous head cold. Finally, had to wave the white flag today and not go to work. This is not a good thing, it being my 23rd sick day this year.

I hate being unwell. In addition to the physical effects it amplifies my normal misanthropy and makes me horny as hell (yes, I know I am very odd) when the flesh can do nothing about it. Talk about frustration.

Still, a day off work gives me time to start from scratch in Oblivion and get stuck into the Dark Brotherhood quest line.

Now please excuse me while I go blow my nose ...

Monday, September 04, 2006

FINALLY !

Finally got the CAPTCHA’s working. Comments should now be available. Just goes to show that 15 years (damn, thats a scary number) in the IT business does not a competent person with computers make.

However, as usual, when I finally get my finger out enough to go post a question on the tech help forum I figure it out myself about 5 minutes later. Its embarassing I tell you.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Vellum by Hal Duncan

With my recent jaunt to Sweden (thanks again Peter) I had occasion to get some reading done and I finally worked my way through Vellum by Hal Duncan. It is certainly one of the most name checked books in Science/Alternate fiction at the moment and given it was written by a guy who grew up literally less than 2 miles from where I did I figured I owed it a read.

You will note I use the term worked. Sadly, that is all too accurate a description. The guy certainly has ideas, the book is bursting with them. Hence, I suppose why the critics loved it. However, I am always wary of works that are described as ‘genre busting’ because usually that means that some of the basics of a good story have fallen by the wayside. The book is delibarately written in the Burroughs ‘cut up’ methodology which is to say it is a sequence of intercut short vignettes following no distinct timeline or plotline. This makes it a very hard read. Burroughs used this method to foreshadow subliminal hints of the upcoming ‘future’ in his stories but for me it just grates. I likes me a narrative.

It is a first novel so I may be a little harsh here, maybe he will find his feet in book 2 of the (inevitable) trilogy. I am filing this one under ‘interesting but .. ‘.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Raising the Dead

Welp, this would be the third incarnation of my blog. Odd to think that I have been doing this off and on for nearly 7 years. The first incarnation was on handcrafted HTML (believe it or not), as primitive and ugly as they come. That was lost a long time ago (which is probably a good thing). Then came the ‘Greymatter’ era. Good old Greymatter, my first experience with a php based content management system. It certainly did the job for a while but eventually its lack of features caught up with it and hence the move now to Expression Engine. Mostly because of the anti-spam facilities available to it which will prevent the spamming of the comments that can be seen on the old Greymatter blog.

It’s only taken me six months of faffing about with EE to get this going but hopefully I can start to fill it up with content and maybe one or two people might even read it.