Rapidpost - 30 March 2008

[silveradept]

Got to get to bed soon, so this is a definitely small and non-commented sort of news list.

International news: Flaming Poo attack! (proving that we’re still descended from monkeys), words from the front lines, with all of these being the writings of people comprising the 4,000 dead so far. Nixon tried to end the Vietnam conflict by threatening to drop nukes over the place, and then turning away from it in a seemingly similarly random manner.

Domestic News: The worst part about living in a society where you’re being watched by the government all the time? The actual extent of the watching is yet unknown. To further assist Big Brother in spying on you, the NSA has released its own flavor of Linux.

Living in the land of the free, however, permits a registered sex offender to run for mayor in a Texas town. Hope his candidacy is considered on equal grounds as everyone else.

It’s been a long way down, says Rick Falkvinge, explaining how the current crisis has been 37 years in the making, starting with debt spending and trying to cover that up with even more debt spending.

U.S. Presidential Candidates: Senator Obama says Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants to, which will make it all the more bitter in the end, but might get lots of people involved. Or it could backfire and have the Democratic turnout be split in half.

Other: Idiots hack epilepsy seizure forums, redirect to seizure-causing images. (Edit)Also of Interest(/Edit), Yahoo! is nixing all adult content from profiles. Groups, however, will apparently be unaffected.

Anne of Green Gables turns one hundred. And still has fans worldwide.

Last for tonight: Moopsball, Calvinball’s army-style predecessor, and some English words of good length and difficult pronunciation.

And now, more of the magic restful sleep that keeps me hale and hearty.

Comments

[tscheese.livejournal.com]

Re: The epilepsy thing - I actually saw a public denouncement of the activity posted by the admins of 7chan on their main page the other day. Which, I mean, doesn't fix anything for the folks who got hacked, but I was kinda surprised to see a *chan making a public "play nice" announcement. It doesn't happen often. Or ever.

Don't ask me why I was on 7chan or why I noticed this.

[silveradept]

I remember seeing that in one of the articles, too, that when someone said it looked like Anonymous, a lot of Anonyyous said "That's not cool, people."

[tscheese.livejournal.com]

The weird thing about the *chans is, although /b/ boards can be festering cesspools, there's a bizarre sense of humanity that emerges from it.

Like, take the worst things on the Internet--gore, outlandish porn, conspiracy theories--and throw it at a bunch of people who can and will remain anonymous, who write about the weirdest and meanest and most depraved things...and what comes forth from this gruesome crucible? What grim gift could come forth from this grim nadir to be bestowed on the Internet at large?

...Lolcats, dude.

Lolcats.

I don't think the Anon who conducted the CoS protests were the same Anon who raided these epilepsy patients.

[silveradept]

I doubt they were, either. But when you're Anonymous, everything that isn't named gets stuck to you. And I doubt somehow that our media could effectively handle complex matters like different Anonymouses.

[eisenhart.livejournal.com]

Idiots hack epilepsy seizure forums, redirect to seizure-causing images. More serious, Yahoo! is nixing all adult content from profiles.

Moral imperative of stopping censorship aside, I take issue with your priorities here. Seizures are no fun, for the victim or the EMT.

[silveradept]

Which obviously shows how much I needed sleep when I put this up.

[przxqgl.livejournal.com]

a registered sex offender to run for mayor in a Texas town

he has apparently given up... i'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not.

[silveradept]

The article is pretty ambiguous about whether it's a good thing he gave up. Sounds like there would be a massive smear going against him, or even worse, the current office inhabitants would send the police out to arrest him because of his conviction or something.

[przxqgl.livejournal.com]

i didn't know this. presumably you did...

[silveradept]

I was aware of this, yes. Unfortunately, as best I can remember, it's still true. Fortunately, the FBI seemed to have picked up on the fact that libraries and librarians are not people to be screwed around with when it comes to matters of privacy. No warrant, no records.

Instead, they went to the telecommunications companies and got them to wiretap us without warrants.