This is one of the neatest art hacks I've seen in a while. Let me explain:
Books are ultimately tools for storing information in a non-volatile manner for ease of transportation and reference. They're a relatively low bandwidth medium, limited by how fast the reader can turn the pages and the rate at which the visual cortex processes the characters, but are remarkably stable. Diskettes, on the other hand, are a more informationally dense storage medium, weigh less, and take up less space. They are more vulnerable to mistreatment, however: A fingerprint in the wrong place can wipe out large …
Billy Hoffman of the security outfit SPI Dynamics unveiled the fruits of his research at Shmoocon last weekend (which I'm still miffed about not being able to attend), botnet software written in Javascript that runs on any modern web browser. His prototype botnet agent is called Jikto, and it searches for cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in websites after beginning execution when the user looks at a malicious website or e-mail message. Periodically, it will phone home with vulnerable URLs and details of same. This means that even Net-capable cellphones can unwittingly be turned into botnet members.
Windows XP, let me be clear. And they won't let you download it unless you're using IE on a known valid (by WGA) copy of Windows, but there are ways around that (thanks, cow-orker!).
Long-time readers of my website know that I've been a fan of the band Information Society for years on end - ever since their first big single (What's On Your Mind? (Pure Energy) hit the airwaves. The band has been through this, that, and the other thing over the years, and now they're back together and have a new album coming out. Last week the first single from their upcoming album (entitled Oscillator) was released on the Net only to downloadable online music stores like iTunes.
Now, I've got a pretty big chip on my shoulder about downloadable music stores because …
While browsing one of my e-mail accounts today I came across a rather worrisome notice: Home electronics superchain Best Buy bought out Speakeasy.net. Speakeasy is known for being a geek-friendly DSL provider - their tier-one tech support is extremely knowledgable, and if you know your stuff they'll listen to you and help you figure things out. Best Buy purchased them because Speakeasy has one of the better developed VoIP networks of any ISP in the US today, and they're always angling for another chunk of the market. The announced purchase price was $97mus. They claim that they're not going to …
Because Bladeless Axe was in town for Shmoocon this weekend just past, we gave it our best shot to hang out while she was around here, which wound up in a couple of near misses culminating in Lyssa and I spending the evening hanging out with her last night until rather later than any of us had hoped. To the tune of finally going to bed at 0200 EST5EDT today because we went out for rather a late dinner...
I'm getting old. I can't get by on four hours of sleep anymore. My ass, and most of the rest of …
Geneticists at the University of Nevada have spent the past seven calendar years working on producing viable chimaerae, hybrid organisms of human and nonhuman natures. The project's most remarkable success to date was announced yesterday: A sheep that is 15% human by cell count. That's right - one tenth of its cellular makeup is from an unknown specimen of homo sapiens sapiens. During gestation, cells from an adult human were injected into the peritoneum of a sheep fetus, which allowed the cells to be integrated through the course of foetal development.
The purpose behind these experiments are the eventual development of …
