Mark Pilgrim on the loss of someone close:
I’ve been active online for 9 years now. With one exception, nothing I’ve done online has brought me closer to making 25-year friends. Life online rewards breadth, not depth. As gratifying as it may be to have 1 million “visitors” read at least one word of my latest online book, chances are none of those visitors will turn into people who turn into friends who turn into 25-year friends.
My condolences.
Hilarious Mac vs. PC article by Marion Cox on Escapist Mag.
I suggested that she go buy a $15 wireless router rather than spending $100 on an expensive Apple gimmick. She told me that collage-boy refused to use anything but Mac products because of Feng Shui, apparently it went better with the cheap Ikea furniture.
...
She would ask me if $2500 was too much to spend on a computer; I died a little inside when I realized that Apple computer would cost more than my last car.
...
As my homebuilt PC came down, the Mac snapped; the extremely expensive machine cracked open, guts spilling from its disemboweled chassis. Clearly, PC was the winner in this particular fight. Screw you, Justin Long.
P.S. - I am writing this from a VIA Rail train, with free wifi in every car. Welcome to the future [sic].
According to Trend Micro, an internet security firm, more than 40% of teens are "social hackers".
Sigh. I remember a day when being a hacker meant that you had to actually know how to do something.
The "social hackers" are still split by gender though. Boys are twice as likely to go for the profile assassination, while girls are three times more likely to go straight for the PayPal.
What can I say - boys want power, girls love the bling. It's the nature of things.
The "new" idea of "social hacking" is that many social details are on view via social networking sites such as Facebook. A competent social hacker can find information which tends to give away security question answers.
And an incompetent target will use public information in their own security questions and password. And deserve everything they've got coming.
Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro said, "It's the online version of kids breaking into school to change their reports, it's just so much easier now."
Breaking into school to change your report card took planning, skill and cojones.
Anything that can be done from behind the safety of a computer screen requires nothing more than an Internet connection, a decent mix of self-loathing and lack of self confidence, and maybe some Red Bull. Sure, maybe a "social hacker" (*cough* *hack* *cough*) can find out where you live and hang out by hacking into your Facebook profile, but then what? Years of sitting on a couch with his laptop drinking latte mochaccinos will have left his body too weak and atrophied to pose any real threat.
I, on the under hand, can find out where you live, chase you down because I can run faster than you, and then dead-lift you off a bridge.
See kids? It's about branching out.
Oh, and it's called social engineering, and it's not new at all.
Find the least contacted community in the most underdeveloped corner of the world, and you will probably find kids with sticks playing with ants (assuming the area isn't dominated by siafu). The insect's charm is understandable. In ants, we find tiny but industrious creatures that work together to build cities and surmount obstacles far too great for the individual. We enjoy observing and meddling with these miniature societies, because in them we see our own.
via The Escapist:
The Obama campaign has taken out ads in nine EA games for the Xbox 360 that will feature on virtual billboards and other in-game signage. "It reaches an audience that is typically very hard to reach - young males, roughly 18 to 34," said EA rep Holly Rockwood, who declined to say how much was paid for the advertisements. "That's very appealing to our advertisers."
Facebook access at Concordia available on wireless network only
Starting September 2008, access to the social networking service Facebook will be available only on Concordia’s wireless network.
The service will no longer be accessible from desktop computers with only a wired connection to the Concordia University network.
[...]
Concordia’s network administrators are not trying to block access to Facebook, but to manage the manner in which the Concordia community accesses the service.
The university has decided to implement the restriction because of concerns that the continuing reliability of the Concordia wired network could be compromised because of spam, viruses and leaks of confidential information related to use of the social networking site.
I'll admit that the given reasons behind the restrictions are obviously bullshit / filler text (spam and viruses aren't any more likely to come from Facebook than from other web service that users are allowed to access). The real reasons behind this change are somewhat more political and pragmatic: control the amount of time that students, staff and faculty spend wasting their working hours on Facebook. If they've made this change there probably was already a problem with users using Facebook in excessive or inappropriate ways (which, of course, Facebook is designed to encourage).
Indeed, pretty much everyone I know who uses Facebook in any useful way has become less productive than they were before joining Facebook. Either way, Concordia is to be commended for stepping in and making what may well be a very unpopular decision for reasons that those without all the facts may not fully understand yet - this is, in essence, one of the principle roles of any government.
I try to steer clear of statements like "the ends justify the means", but I think it might very well apply here.
(via Christine)
As the last living person to not have played GTA IV yet (I'm holding out until I have, errr, time to play), I found this Apple Parody in GTA's "internet" hilarious:
THINK Simple.
THINK Minimalism.
THINK Overpriced.THINK Fruit. THINK.
You are not thinking hard enough. Maybe you are a To$$er.
WITH FRUIT
You are finally living.
Design has evolved to make your life worth living.
You are in a cocoon.
A fruit cocoon.
THE NEW IFRUIT PHONE
No buttons
No reception
No storage capacity
All ego
...
I think it's time I start playing GTA IV. Apple fruits are fun to pick on. 
via digg.
Here, though, we riot when our local sports team beats a rival team, not in the finals, or the semifinals, but in the quarterfinals.
Whether it's actual hockey fans or anarchists using the crowd as a cover is anyone's guess, although the image gallery over at Fagstein's blog has an image of a hockey-flag waving fan next to a marijuana-tshirt-wearing delinquent, so maybe they're in cahoots! 
Sigh...
