By Cory Doctorow at 7:04 pm Friday, Dec 19
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This scanned-in Good Housekeeping/Smith's Potato Crisps "Cooking With Crisps" cookbook has many revolting comestibles made with potato chips, but perhaps none so grody as these potato-based desserts: a lemon pie and chocolate bananas -- made with crisps. Ew.
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via Electrolite)
By Cory Doctorow at 10:55 am Friday, Dec 19
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Short review of ColorwarePC's painted-iPod service, wherein your iPod is sent to ColorwarePC, painted, and returned to you.
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By Cory Doctorow at 10:52 am Friday, Dec 19
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This elaborate, obsessive rumination of phlegmnog almost makes it sound appetizing:
I love you all, and I am here to help. Here is the recipe by which I was shown
the true nature of eggnog:
- Separate the whites & yolks of six eggs.
- Beat whites stiff and add a quarter pound of powdered sugar.
- Beat yolks until thick and add another quarter pound of powdered sugar, 3 drops
oil of cinnamon, and 2 drops oil of clove. (Respect these amounts! Do not
underestimate the power of these oils!)
- Fold together whites & yolks. This is your batter.
- Right in the mug, combine about 1 part of batter with 2 parts hot milk.
- An appropriate quantity of booze (traditionally 1 part rum to 2 parts brandy) may
also be added.
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By Cory Doctorow at 10:14 am Friday, Dec 19
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A Chinese court has ordered a online role-playing game host to create new instances of artifacts looted from a player-character's account after it was hacked.
Li Hongchen, 24, had spent two years, and 10,000 yuan ($1,210) on
pay-as-you-go cards to play, amassing weapons and victories in the
popular online computer game Hongyue, or Red Moon, before his "weapons"
were stolen in February, the Xinhua news agency said on Friday...
In the end, Beijing's Chaoyang District People's Court ruled on Thursday
that the firm should restore the player's lost items, finding the
company liable because of loopholes in the server programs that made it
easy for hackers to break in.
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By Cory Doctorow at 10:10 am Friday, Dec 19
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O'Reilly has just released the Call for Proposals for the next Open Source conference (to be held in Portland, OR, July 26-30), whose theme is ""Opening the Future: Discover, Develop,
Deliver." The keynotes look pretty stunning:
The keynote speakers for the next OSCON exemplify the event's wide-ranging
mix: Freeman, George, and Esther Dyson, presenting a joint keynote
address; Robert Lefkowitz, who was one of OSCON 2003's most
thought-provoking speakers; Milton Ngan of Weta Digital, the company that
created the digital effects for "The Lord of the Rings" films; and Tim
O'Reilly. Other influential open source leaders will come to OSCON to
accept the first Open Source Awards, produced by the Open Source Institute
(OSI) and ZDNet (winners will be announced in stages during the winter and
spring of 2004).
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By Cory Doctorow at 10:02 am Friday, Dec 19
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A job-posting on Apple's site implies that the next generation iPods will do video, too.
Seeking a highly motivated engineer to develop next generation iPod product. Must have experience in overall system design of audio and video products.
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By Cory Doctorow at 6:06 am Friday, Dec 19
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Elderly cockroaches get arthritis and become confused and prone to wandering.
Case Western Reserve University researchers reported in the Journal of Experimental Biology that as the roach's life wanes between 60-65 weeks after the onset of adulthood, and the cockroach slows down, experiences stiff joints and has problems climbing and a decreased spontaneous fleeing response. Death comes shortly after the onset of these movement problems.
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via Ambiguous)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:04 am Friday, Dec 19
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In this project called "Taking Menorah Design into the 59th Century," an amateur hardware hacker uses the $8 commodity USB chipset to brew his own USB-powered menorah, then writes some code to get the shamas to blink arbitrary messages in Morse code.
Link
(
Thanks Buddha!)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:01 am Friday, Dec 19
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Joi Ito was hired to audit the security of the Japanese feds' big-brother national ID system as implemented in Nagano . His conclusion? The system sucks -- it places the personally identifying info of Japanese citizens at risk of being stolen, altered, and deleted, and it was implemented incompetently. He wrote a letter to governor to the governor of Nogano (and released it under a Creative Commons license) detailing the problems with the system. Joi is now in big trouble -- and I suspect he likes it that way.
In summary, I believe that the security level of the networks were below average and any average computer network engineer could break into and steal or damage a variety of personal information including Jyukinet information. The people working in the office and in particular, the vendors providing the system security are not sensitive to security and privacy issues. The servers have not been maintained properly and the selection of passwords (many had default passwords or easily guessable passwords) was irresponsible and showed a complete lack of attention to security. I strongly urge that the priority on security for privacy purposes be increased significantly, both in local government offices and vendors providing solutions to these local governments. I believe that the citizens and the people responsible for protecting their information are significantly at risk.
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