Sad State of News on the Internet

It really is a shame how most news organizations are adopting the “catchy or dramatic title” on their articles to pull in web traffic. Case in point:

Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations. Source: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

Last time I checked, intercepting video would not have been considered hacking, the definition from Wikipedia: re-configuring or re-programming of a system to function in ways not facilitated by the owner, administrator, or designer. I probably would’ve read the article had it been titled “Insurgents intercepting video from US Drones” or something more accurate, all this did was piss me off. It’s no wonder I use news aggregators instead of going straight to news sites themselves.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Annoying Websites, Current Events, Linking Strategies, Soapbox No Comments » December 2009

Super Bowl Commercials

Check out all of the Super Bowl Commercials we have just finished uploading to Funniest Videos Online, I think we have got all of the funny 2007 commercials, we have lots from previous years as well.

One of my favorites is the Taco Bell commercial about the carne asada taquitos, say it with me, carne asada..

The Rock, Paper Scissors Bud Light commercial, is really funny, as is the Bud Light Reception, as is the one with the apes planning an escape.

Technorati tags:
super bowl, super bowl ads, super bowl commercials, superbowl commercials, broadband phone, superbowl, bud light commercials, budweiser commercials, best super bowl commercials

del.icio.us tags:
super bowl, super bowl ads, super bowl commercials, superbowl commercials, broadband phone, superbowl, bud light commercials, budweiser commercials, best super bowl commercials

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Current Events, Funny No Comments » February 2007

iPod iTunes iMac iTox iWaste

Greenpeace has launched a parody site of Apple.com, I guess to shame them into changing some of their production methods, and become greener and more environmental. The only mention of any other computer manufacturer I saw was Dell and HP supporting the bring it back plan, called Individual Producer Responsibility.

We love Apple. Apple knows more about “clean” design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have abandoned? A cutting edge company shouldn’t be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That’s why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple.

We’re Greenpeace, and we want a fresh green Apple.

Right now, poison Apples full of chemicals (like toxic flame retardants, and polyvinyl chloride) are being sold worldwide. When they’re tossed, they usually end up at the fingertips of children in China, India and other developing-world countries. They dismantle them for parts, and are exposed to a dangerous toxic cocktail that threatens their health and the environment. Source: http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/

They mention different ways to help get the word out, one was to use the tag [tag]greenmyapple[/tag].

You’d think that a company with headquarters at ‘1 Infinite Loop,’ would understand the concept of recycling. If Apple is really so proud of its well-made products there shouldn’t be any problem promoting a global take-back program for all of its products.

They say on the site they are focusing on improvements that will help stem the tide of toxic e-waste.

Apple has good taste, and we want that flavor to last.

And, of course, taste. Via tuaw.com.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Apple, Current Events No Comments » September 2006

Should We Stick with Manual Voting Machines?

The longer you are around technology, the easier it becomes to use, the more it becomes ingrained in your lives, that it’s often impossible to imagine there being a better way. But with the recent report on Diebold Election Systems AccuVote-TS voting machines, I have to wonder, isn’t the best way still the old fashioned way? I know e-voting machines will make the pollsters work easier, but will it make them feel better about the outcome? If it is that easy to hack a voting machine, infect it with a virus that spreads by their memory cards and change the outcome, then what are we really saving? And, to take a conspiracy theory to the edge, how hard would it be for an employee to infect each voting machine as it is created, to make sure their party wins.

Recently, Diebold responded to the report in a PDF, and said, basically that the machines they tested were old and had outdated software, that the machines would not be tied to a network to spread the virus and called the report unrealistic and inaccurate, essentially attacking the reviewers trying to deflect the criticism. Well, Ed Felten posted their response to Diebold.

We studied the most recent software version available to us. The version we studied has been used in national elections, and Diebold claimed at the time that it was perfectly secure and could not possibly be subject to the kinds of malicious code injection attacks that our paper and video demonstrate. In short, Diebold made the same kinds of claims about this version — claims that turned out to be wrong — that they are now making about their more recent versions.

We demonstrated these problems on our video, and again in live demos on Fox News and CNN. Common sense says to believe your eyes, not unsubstantiated claims that a technology is secure.

Our paper discusses physical security, election procedures, security tape, and numbered security seals. See, for example, Sections 3.3 and 5.2 of our paper. These sections and others explain why these measures do not prevent the attacks we describe. And once again, Diebold does not assert that they would.

Secure voting equipment and adequate testing would assure accurate voting — if we had them. To our knowledge, every independent third party analysis of the AccuVote-TS has found serious problems, including the Hopkins/Rice report, the SAIC report, the RABA report, the Compuware report, and now our report. Diebold ignores all of these results, and still tries to prevent third-party studies of its system.

If Diebold really believes its latest systems are secure, it should allow third parties like us to evaluate them.

Sounds like a challenge Diebold, are you going to step up to the plate and let them review your secure machine, or are voters like myself just supposed to believe the hype and ignore reports such as this? If you really want to discount what they did, let them test it and have your people watch, it’s win-win for everybody, unless you are afraid of what they will find.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Current Events, Election Fraud, Politics, Technology No Comments » September 2006

Wound from 911 Still Open

A nice commentary from Keith Olbermann on 911, how the government has forgotton about 911 and how without a memorial, the wound will always be open. A prime time ripping if I ever saw one. He talks about how after five years we still don’t have a memorial, and how he has not forgotten, after losing friends and colleagues and having relatives who were fire fighters, and how images are burned in his head after discovering two friends on the wall that had everyone still missing. And he said, we need the memorial so we can show the terrorists they did not change our lives and we will not be changed by the likes of them.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: 911, Current Events, Politics No Comments » September 2006

91101 Birth of the Blogosphere

Interesting read on Wired news about the events on 911 helping to create blogging. People posting stories and links, pictures and more, all in hopes of getting the word out about what happened.

While phone networks and big news sites struggled to cope with heavy traffic, many survivors and spectators turned to online journals to share feelings, get information or detail their whereabouts. It was raw, emotional and new — and many commentators now remember it as a key moment in the birth of the blog.

When four planes were hijacked on a sunny fall morning, easy-to-use blogging services were still few and far between. Yet many who witnessed the horror of the attacks firsthand took to the keyboard to talk with the world.

Horrified Americans used e-mail, instant messages, any available communication tool. But weblogs meant large audiences, not just friends and family, could read those stories from the scene.

A site definitely worth checking out, September 11 Digital Archive, which maintains a historical catalog of noteworthy blog posts among 130,000 e-mails, audio recordings, video clips and photographs documenting the event.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: 911, Blogging, Current Events No Comments » September 2006

My 911 Post

I wish I had something really profound to say on the subject, but all I have are the memories, watching the replays of the first airliner hitting one of the towers, and then watching live as the second hit the other tower. Sitting there on the couch, slackjawed and not believing what my eyes were showing me. The shock of the buildings collapsing and knowing many, many people were dying, and people were dying trying to help. Not knowing what to do next, and wondering how we could help. Lots of memories.

I feel for everyone who lost someone on that day and will remember it forever. My only hope, is that once we get into heaven, that God has a big video complex with recordings of everything that ever happened, his own Godtube, and we can get the answers to all of our questions. God Bless.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: 911, Current Events No Comments » September 2006

AOL Releases CTO and Two Others for Data Leak

The fallout is starting at AOL for the release of search data of 650,000 users, with AOL releasing it’s CTO and two others. They’ve apologized and gotten the attention of capitol hill, now it’s all over but the firing.

Maureen Govern, who joined AOL as CTO last September, will leave the company immediately along with two other employees who thought publishing the details of 19 million Web searches performed by 600,000 users to the Web was a grand idea. Source: SiliconValley.com

From Techcrunch,

From my discussion with Andrew Weinstein, the AOL spokesperson who apologized on behalf of AOL after the data dump, my understanding this entire event was caused by a single clueless researcher and a complete lack of oversight by his managers. Hopefully these firings are tied to the actual people responsible and not just for the sake of holding someone, anyone, responsible.

So, this makes it sound like it was part of some plan, and not just one clueless guys mistake. So, I wonder which it really is?

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: AOL, Blogging, Current Events, Search Engines No Comments » August 2006

Dell Knew About Battery Problems for Years

As everyone is aware, Dell has recalled over 4.1 million batteries in it’s laptops because some of these batteries have caught on fire. But an article on Consumeraffairs.com says that Dell knew about the problem for over two years. A former technician from Dell says the company recieved hundreds of laptops that were melted or burnt because of the defective battery. The technicain, Robert Day, says he downloaded hundreds of photos and shared them with Consumeraffiars.com, though I did not see any posted on the site. Mr Day said he left Dell and went to work for Apple after reporting a Dell executive in a sex scandal.

These batteries were made by Sony and were placed in some models of Dell’s Latitude, Inspiron, XTS and precision mobile workstation notebooks that were shipped between April 1, 2004, and July 18 of this year.

He said after Dell started using the Sony batteries in 2003, the PSI started receiving so many charred laptops that Day’s lab, located next to the PSI, had to store many of the laptops.

Day said he didn’t know how many charred laptops Dell received as a result of the batteries, but said it was, “in the hundreds.”

Day sent ConsumerAffairs.Com over 300 photographs of about 100 different laptops. It appears that about 12 of those melted laptops were the result of the battery while the rest were from various other electrical shorts and CPU fan failures. He said there were many more battery-burned laptops than that, but he only had access to one technician’s archives.

Day now works as a technician for Apple and said he left Dell after he turned in a Dell executive involved in a sex scandal. Dell did not return two phone calls. Source: ConsumerAffairs.com

Some of the possible side affects of this recall is that airline regulators may ban laptops from planes.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Current Events, Dell No Comments » August 2006

JonBenet’s Killer, John Mark Karr, in Custody

Looks like they may have the person who killed JonBenet Ramsey in custody, although this certainly is not for sure yet, he, John Mark Karr, has admited to killing her, but says it was an accident.

“He said he was in love with the girl, and on the day the incident happened, he went to see the girl at her house. The two of them went into the basement, which is where he said he accidentally killed her,” Suwat told reporters.

In a brief appearance before reporters, the 41-year-old Karr was asked if he killed the child and said: “No, I did not. It was an accident.” Source: Yahoo.

Ya, an accident, after he went downstairs to the basement with a six year old. I tell you what the accident was, the accident was you being born. He said he was in love with a six year old, now, this is certainly okay if you are a parent or relative, but a grown man in love with a six year old? He needs shot right now. I guess everone who said it was the dad who did it can feel bad now, even if they made it look fishy themselves, the way they released info, etc.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Current Events No Comments » August 2006