moonbuggy

‘ haha, last night, me and pete went out to celebrate his engagement and got hugely drunk
we got this great idea to bury eachother in the sand close to the water and see who would chicken out first
took about a half hour, but the water got up to my face so i freaked and got out
i looked around for pete and he must’ve chickened out before me and stumbled home or something heh
What’d he say when he woke up this morning?
uhh.. he hasn’t come home yet.. i thought he was staying with you?
holy fuck.’

‘Chalk up another new-found power to the Motion Picture Association of America: the ability to force someone to change operating systems. Scott McCausland, who pleaded guilty last September in 2006 to the crime of uploading Star Wars: Episode III to the site Elitetorrents.com, was charged with “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement” and “criminal copyright infringement” by the FBI. This charge carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release. He wound up serving five months in prison and is now on probation. The probation, however, has now taken a strange turn into forced platform advocacy.

“I had a meeting with my probation officer today and he told me that he has to install monitoring software onto my PC. No big deal to me; that is part of my sentence,” he wrote on his Lost and Alone blog. “However, their software doesn’t support GNU/Linux (Which is what I use). So, he told me that if I want to use a computer, I would have to use an OS that the software can be installed on.” The monitoring software in question is only available for Microsoft Windows. Neither Linux nor a Macintosh running OS X would be an acceptable platform.’

‘The good news for this mystery blonde is that the digital camera she mislaid on holiday has been found.

The bad news is that the revealing pictures of herself stored on its memory card have been posted on the internet.

And since then she has attracted over 23,000 admirers, all professing their desperation to track her down so that she can get back her lost property. [..]

The Facebook group description reads: “We are trying to track down the lovely lass in these photos so she can be reunited with her lost digital camera. She certainly knows how to use it!’

Update: Also the NSW pictures and her MySpace page.

‘”Chutzpah” is a Yiddish word meaning “unbelievable gall or audacity”. An example of it would be the story of the kid who murders both of his parents, then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he’s an orphan.

That’s chutzpah. So is this: multimedia giant Viacom is claiming that I have violated their copyright by posting on YouTube a segment from it’s VH1 show Web Junk 2.0… which VH1 produced – without permission – from a video that I had originally created.

Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on THEIR copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright!

The clip in question was pulled by YouTube earlier this morning, at Viacom’s insistence.’

‘A Melbourne schoolboy has cracked the Federal Government’s new $84 million internet porn filter in minutes.

Tom Wood, 16, said it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the Government’s filter, released on Tuesday.

Tom, a year 10 student at a southeast Melbourne private school, showed the Herald Sun how to deactivate the filter in a handful of clicks.

His technique ensures the software’s toolbar icon is not deleted, leaving parents under the impression the filter is still working. [..]’

‘The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft is pressing ahead with its proposal to have internet service providers send warning notices to customers who have been identified as illegal downloaders, and disconnect the services of repeat offenders.

It has the support of the music industry, represented by the Australia Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI).

AFACT says the ISPs are not doing enough to combat the illegal downloading of movies and music, which it says increases ISPs’ costs by chewing up bandwidth and robs income from those who sell the content legally.

A report produced last year by web monitoring company Envisional found the per capita rate of television show piracy in Australia was the highest in the world. It said Australians accounted for 15.6 per cent of all online TV piracy.’

Things have been a little quiet here these past few days, primarily because I decided to spend some time making a web site full of nothing but random images that amuse, interest or disgust me.

It’s basically good to go, so go check it out if random images are your sort of thing. 🙂

There’s a very small amount of extra functionality on it’s way aswell [more navigation options and some ratings], and I’ll be adding more pictures as I come across them too.

If you (dis)like it or have any suggestions, leave me a comment here so I can do something about it. 🙂

What is says. NSFW without headphones, tho if you work in IT you might be able to get away with it. Claim it’s a standard diagnostic tool and you’ll be fine. 🙂

‘The minister of defense checked the Web page again — still nothing. He stared at the error message: For some reason, the site for Estonia’s leading newspaper, the Postimees, wasn’t responding. Jaak Aaviksoo attempted to pull up the sites of a couple of other papers. They were all down. The former director of the University of Tartu Institute of Experimental Physics and Technology d been the Estonian defense minister for only four weeks. He hadn’t even changed the art on the walls.

An aide rushed in with a report. It wasn’t just the newspapers. The leading bank was under siege. Government communications were going down. An enemy had invaded and was assaulting dozens of targets.

Outside, everything was quiet. The border guards had reported no incursions, and Estonian airspace had not been violated. The aide explained what was going on: They were under attack by a rogue computer network.’

Followup to Russia accused of unleashing cyberwar to disable Estonia.

‘One American student sent major corporations, governments and even the Vatican on the defensive after coming up with Wikipedia Scanner, a software program that reveals who changed Wikipedia entries. [..]

As soon as the software was launched on the internet, chaos erupted. [..]

– The Vatican edits Irish Catholic politician Gerry Adams page

– In the 9/11 Wikipedia article, the NRA added that “Iraq was involved in 9/11″

– Exxon Mobil edits spillages and eco-system destruction from oil spillages article [..]

– UN address calls journalist Oriana Fallaci a racist ‘prostitute”

The whole thing is here: List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations.

‘A North Las Vegas judge has been sacked after telling MySpace readers that his interests include physically beating prosecutors – or words to that effect.

In a post to his public MySpace page, The Associated Press reports, substitute judge Jonathan MacArthur laid out his attitude towards prosecutors using a certain graphic phrase that he claimed was common “among blacks, people who associate with blacks or in a sports context.”

The AP wouldn’t actually quote the phrase and the MySpace page has since been made private, but The Reg can confirm that MacArthur told internet users everywhere that his interests include “breaking my foot off in a prosecutor’s ass” and “improving my ability to break my foot off in a prosecutor’s ass.”

MacArthur is also a criminal defense attorney, but in describing his role as a pro tem judge with the North Las Vegas Justice Court, he said that he was a lot like a substitute teacher in a black choir robe with a disconcerting amount of authority.’

‘Every once in a while you’ll stumble upon a forum or an online community that is so specific, so insane, so completely ridiculous that you are forced to conclude that you have reached the end of the Internet. Sure, you may continue on your merry clicking way, but you do so with the deep-seated feeling that there is nowhere else to look; you have seen everything the Internet could possibly hope to provide. Here are the eight online communities that killed our adventurous spirit, made us sure that we’d seen everything the online world has to offer, and even more certain that we didn’t want to try to find anything more depressingly fascinating.’

I don’t think I’d seen the #1 strangest community before. It’s rare, these days, to come across a strange fetish I’ve never heard of before. But, that’s the internet for you. Strange. 🙂

‘We just received a tip that the source code for the Facebook main index page has been leaked and published on a blog called Facebook Secrets. There are at least two possible ways that the source code got out – the first is that a Facebook developer has sent it out, or the more likely option that a security hole or other method has been used on either one of the Facebook servers or in their source code repository to reveal the code. The blog that published the code only has a single post on it, so it was created exclusively to publish this code – meaning that whoever is behind this both isn’t taking credit for the hole and doesn’t want to be associated with it. While there is no certain way to verify if the code is actually from Facebook, by taking a quick look through the code and by double-checking some paths that have been referenced, we can say with some certainty that this seems to be both real and also a recent version of the main Facebook page.’

‘You’ve probably never heard of the E70 because Nokia’s marketing team is busy finding every last dick in the universe to suck, so I’m going to do their job for them and tell you about this product. And no, I’m not being paid to do this. I’m just tired of the iPhone fanboys shooting huge sticky wads and high-fiving each other (literally) over their stupid cellphones.

First of all, the E70 has a full keyboard, not some shitty stripped down, tap-and-pray smudgy piece of shit. Nokia uses a technology that’s even more advanced than the iPhone’s tap screen, allowing you to actually feel the keys you press as you’re pressing them! The technology is called “tactile response,” and it allows you to do things like dial a phone number without staring at your screen like a shit-chucking ape. In fact, every other cellphone ever made has this technology, sometimes called “buttons.”‘

‘Tom Rogers, a retired Indianapolis detective, toils away most days in his suburban home office reviewing sexual Web sites and other Internet traffic to see whether they qualify as obscene material whose purveyors should be prosecuted by the Justice Department. [..]

The grant, about $150,000 a year, has helped pay for Mr. Rogers and another retired law enforcement officer in Reno, Nev., to harvest and review complaints about obscene matter on the Internet that citizens register on the Justice Department Web site.

In the last few years, 67,000 citizens’ complaints have been deemed legitimate under the program and passed on to the Justice Department and federal prosecutors.

The number of prosecutions resulting from those referrals is zero.’

‘Building boss Howard Shelley carried out the ultimate DIY conversion — by castrating himself so he could become a woman.

The 42-year-old dad of two decided on the drastic move after being told he would have to wait at least two years for a sex change on the NHS.

He found a website which gave a step-by-step guide to the eye-watering home surgery, then waited till wife Janet went out before setting to work with a kitchen knife in the loo. [..]

“In the end, I turned to the Net — it’s amazing what you can find. [..]

“The worst bit was steeling myself for the first cut. The whole thing took six minutes. It was agony, but I knew I couldn’t stop.”‘

‘The biggest bank in the virtual world of Second Life has closed its doors after a run on its deposits, putting at risk hundred of thousands of real dollars of savings and investments.

On Thursday, Ginko Financial – which is owned by Brazilian from Sao Paulo whose real name is Andre Sanchez – stopped accepting deposits, froze all withdrawals and converted account holders’ balances into “tradeable debt securities” called Ginko Perpetual Bonds.

The bonds can be bought and sold on the World Stock Exchange (WSE), the largest of three sharemarkets in Second Life. The exchange is run by a Melbourne-based man whose real name is Luke Connell.

Ginko attracted deposits by offering to pay 0.10 per cent daily accrued interest, which equates to a 44 per cent annual return.’

‘According to Pearl Jam’s website, portions of the band’s Sunday night set at Lollapalooza were missing from the AT&T Blue Room live webcast. Fans alerted the band to the missing material after the show. Reportedly absent from the webcast were segments of the band’s performance of “Daughter,” including the sung lines “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush find yourself another home.”

After questioning AT&T about the incident, Lollapalooza was informed that material was indeed missing from the webcast, and that it was mistakenly cut by AT&T’s content monitor. Tiffany Nels of AT&T told CMJ that they are working the matter out with the band. “We regret the mistake,” she explains. “This was not intended and was an unfortunate mistake made by a webcast editor.” She went on to explain that AT&T has a policy for any excessive language, and that it was set up because of its all-ages audience.’

‘John Howard is going to spend $189 million “cleaning up the internet” for Australian families, blocking pornography, upgrading the search for chatroom sex predators and cutting off terror sites.

Every Australian family will be provided with a free internet filter and the federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service providers to filter pornography at the source.

Communications and Australian Federal Police resources will be boosted immediately to expand checks on internet chat rooms to detect child predators, and privacy laws masking sex offenders on the net will be altered.

The Prime Minister unveiled his new net commandments last night on a webcast to more than 700 churches and thousands of churchgoers around the country.’

‘A library patron suspected of selling hundreds of books, tapes and DVDs he had borrowed has cost Denver-area libraries tens of thousands of dollars, officials said.

Thomas Pilaar, 33, was suspected of using different names to obtain seven library cards from the Denver Public Library, then checking out 300 items per card and selling at least some of the items, KCNC-TV in Denver reported.

“It appears his intent was to sell 2,100 (items) from the Denver Library collection,” Denver Public Library spokeswoman M. Celeste Jackson told the station. She estimated the losses at about $35,000.’

‘Pop legend Sir Elton John wants the internet closed down.

Never one to keep his opinions to himself, the Rocket Man has waded into cyberspace with all guns blazing.

He claims it is destroying good music, saying: “The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff.

“Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision. [..]

“I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.

“There’s too much technology available.

“I’m sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today.”‘

‘Jesuit missionaries may soon venture into Second Life, intent on saving virtual people from virtual sins.

Writing in the Italian Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, whose contents are approved by the Vatican, Father Antonio Spadaro has told fellow Catholics that they shouldn’t be wary of venturing into Second Life’s virtual world, arguing that the online alternate universe might be the perfect place to land converts, Reuters reports.

“It’s not possible to close our eyes to this phenomenon or rush to judge it,” Spadaro said. “Instead, it needs to be understood … the best way to understand it is to enter it.” A regular contributor to the Jesuit journal, Spadaro has also lauded Tom Waits as a Christian role model.’

Hackers on steroids. 🙂

(10meg Flash video)

see it here »

‘A man from Ohio is accused of offering a Florida mother hundreds of dollars to “dunk” and torture her children under water in order to satisfy a bizarre sexual fetish.

Jeff Doland, of Uniontown, Ohio, was arrested by authorities after he flew to Miami, believing he was going to meet a mother of two girls, ages 9 and 12 years old, to pay her $550 to forcibly submerge the children under water until they became unconscious, officials said.

During multiple Internet conversations, Doland told the woman, an undercover agent with the U.S. Secret Service, that “dunking” was his particular form of sexual gratification. [..]

Doland claimed online that he “liked watching the bubbles” [..]’

‘After seeing the “plumpho” captcha on Digg last week I did some searching and came up with the Top 11 most insulting captchas. Most people hate captchas whether they are insulting or not, lets hope a better solution comes along soon.’

‘My brother is in his early twenties and while we don’t live at home anymore, our bedrooms are pretty much the same for if we return home in the holidays to visit. My brother does return home a fair bit whereas I work and therefore don’t have the same freedom to leave for a few weeks. My Mum likes to keep our rooms clean for us, and recently my mother was tidying up my brother’s room and lifted up the mattress to clean underneath and discovered a pile of DVD’s. These DVD’s were blank, with titles written on them, so they had obviously been burned, not bought.

Mum inspected them.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Bad Boys and Bad Boys II.

Her eyes grew wide.’

‘The social networking website MySpace has reported a four-fold increase in the number of convicted sex offenders using its service.

The company found more than 29,000 convicted sex offenders in the United States had profiles on MySpace – up from a figure of 7,000 given in May.

MySpace said it was pleased it had identified and removed the profiles of the offenders.

Critics of MySpace call for new laws to make such sites safer for children.’

‘The draw of fame – even of the slightly sketchy Internet variety – can be strong.

The promise of a payoff – in this case, hopes of a boatload of hits for a YouTube video – can lead rational people to make questionable decisions, such as, say, setting your backyard on fire.

That’s what happened when two 18-year-old Moon Township residents soaked the backyard of one of them – along with his shoes and socks – with gasoline and set it aflame early Saturday.

Moon police said Kory Brinza of 108 Bertley Ridge Drive and Joshua Morrow of 264 Moon-Clinton Road hatched a plan around 4 a.m. Saturday to set the fire around Brinza, while Morrow filmed the event on Brinza’s new cell phone. They then planned to upload the video to YouTube.com, an Internet site that hosts millions of homemade clips of every variety.

That’s what was supposed to happen; what actually occurred, Brinza said, was this: Once Brinza soaked much of his yard with gasoline, Morrow lit a match and a fire that engulfed much of the yard – not to mention Brinza’s lower legs – roared to life.’