Month: August 2007

Justinsomnia's WordPress install hacked

Justin has an amazing post called Search Engine Marketeers are the new script kiddies. I recommend that ALL WordPress bloggers read it. Especially if you use Dreamhost. (even you non geeks) Basically someone hacked a WordPress theme file on justinsomnia.org and inserted key words to influence Google Ad words. This caused justinsomnia.org to be removed from Google’s index. Thus making it impossible to search Google and find justinsomnia.org.

Cool thing is Justin investigated, found out what happened, and discovered who did it!

…the last two days felt uncannily like the Borne Ultimatum. Without the punching.

AT&T Spies on you AND Censors Speech

Last week AT&T got caught cutting part of a live Perl Jam concert when singer Eddy Vedder criticized President Bush.

During the performance of “Daughter” the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” but were cut from the webcast:

– “George Bush, leave this world alone.” (the second time it was sung); and

– “George Bush find yourself another home.”

This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.

AT&T’s actions strike at the heart of the public’s concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.

via Perl Jam website

AT&T spokes people have denied, spun, and apologized. Turns out this wasn’t the first time they’ve done this.

One fan who contacted The Times Friday said AT&T’s Blue Room webcast bleeped the sound during performances by the Flaming Lips and the John Butler Trio at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee in June.

via LA Times

Nor was it an accident. A “crew member” who worked on this live video feed has spoken to Wired magazine saying,

“I can definitively say that at a previous event where AT&T was covering the show, the instructions were to shut it down if there was any swearing or if anybody starts getting political. Granted, they didn’t say to shut down any Anti-Bush comments or anything specific to any point of view or party, but ‘getting political’ was mentioned.”

As if helping the American government spy on its own people wasn’t enough these Net Neutrality deniers are guilty just of what we thought. They have no intention of keeping the Internet free for all to use equally. Its is now very clear that AT&T intends to let us plebes use THEIR network how THEY see fit. Does that sound very American to you?

So iPhone owners… is this enough for you to reconsider using AT&T?

More Info:
AT&T Gets Caught in its Own Spin Cycle

Crew Member: Previous AT&T Show Had “No Politics” Policy

AT&T apologizes for censoring performer webcasts (LA Times)

Pearl Jam protests censoring of Lollapalooza webcast (LA Times)

Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

Missing College Basketball

I became a Tar Heel fan rather fast. I’ve only lived in Chapel Hill for a few years and I’m already jonesn’ for college basketball season to start. I love summer weather much more than winter. But the lack of basketball is KILLING ME.

This is not a unique gripe in North Carolina. But its rather odd for me.

One, I am NOT athletic.
Two, I am NOT very competitive by nature.
Three, I think most organized sports are violent and too commercial.

Despite all my differences with the IDEA of organized sports I am still a fan. Each year I become more interested. Each year I yearn for watching a basketball game live and on TV. In a decade or so I could be a complete bball looney! 🙂

Why is this?

So far I believe its Ruby’s fault. 🙂 By that I mean she is such a cool Tar Heel fan. She isn’t the only one either. For some reason Tar Heel fans in Chapel Hill and Carrboro also happen to be the coolest people. They have interesting lives, are very creative, love peace, love each other, etc., etc. Also working at UNC didn’t hurt my love of this great sports tradition.

So I’m seriously thinking about doing a college bball vlog. Would you watch?

BarCamp 2007 was Great!

Getting to Red Hat by 8am on a Saturday (Aug. 4) for BarCamp RDU was hard but totally worth it. It was amazing how many geeks where there self organizing and learning stuff. Lunch was late but Fred moved the schedule around and made work. The WiFi was weird but it worked most of the time. These obstacles that would grind a traditional conference to a halt didn’t phase us. I attribute it to the fact that we were all organizers at this unconference. We came to this event willing and ready to work together.

Normal conferences put you in herd mentality mode (Mooooo!) with a strict schedule where you aren’t allowed to make your own event. Much less help fix it. So when something breaks, as it always seems to, people don’t step up. That’s the leaders job. (?) Plus I would suggest that free events attract people willing to participate. They come for the best reasons. Its no wonder this works.

On the flip side I heard a critique yesterday evening that BarCamp was too social and geeky. This person really didn’t want to spend their weekend working with computers even more. If doing that is your day job then why do it some more. I guess I do because I’m obsessed. (hehe) But I think more sessions that are not computer related would be good. Relaxing even. There was juggling and chess sessions tho. How about a how to surf the ocean session or how to prepare for a spelunking trip.

My favorite part was the Geeks 4 Good session. I proposed it and Ruby took off with it. I did eventually chime in a bit. I was AMAZED at how many geeks are interested in helping their neighbors. I knew geeks have big hearts but for some reason I expected less to attend. I am VERY happy that I was proven wrong.

We talked about tools to use for causes and organizations, strategies for helping others, etc. Ruby talked about how she has used Orange Politics for good and the importance of getting involved in local politics. We collected links that were shared and plan on putting them up on a page linked to from the BarCampRDU 2007 wiki. I learned about New Raleigh a local blog influenced by Orange Politics, too.

All in all a great weekend. The t-shirts rocked!

Muni WiFi helps bridge disaster recovery

MuniWreless.com points me to a good article at Computer World called New Wi-Fi network proves critical in Minneapolis bridge disaster.

“Thank goodness we had it in and that this piece of the network was already up and operational,” said Minneapolis City CIO Lynn Willenbring. “We could not have been as effective if it were not for that.”

The article explains how the Wi-Fi network near the disaster site helped rescuers download maps, connect webcams, and obtain other data. Another benefit was relieving cell networks from the massive increase in connections.

The use of municipal Wi-Fi networks in emergencies has been talked about for years in scenario white-board planning, he said, [Joe Caldwell, the co-founder of Minneapolis-based US Internet and CEO of USI Wireless] but “it has never really been put into play. … What we found out is that it is definitely viable and definitely makes a huge difference.”

HB1587 is dead

The NC House failed to act on HB1587 before they ended this session. So not only don’t we have the bad bill we don’t have the new study version either. The Local Government Fair Competition Act is dead! Goodbye! See ya!

I’m really happy we all got together and killed this thing. But I realize the old skool corporate lobbyist movement to restrict actual fair and OPEN competition in local broadband is alive. Undead if you will.

So keep your zombie battle gear handy. A good way to stay on top of this is by joining the NC Public Broadband list. We’ll have to get back to sending bad bills back to hell real soon.

Soaps, Drugs and Rock & Roll

ESCONDIDO, CA – The Bronner family, makers of the popular organic Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps have released a new video of NarcoPouch® 928 field drug tests of its soaps and other brands. The results prove that the test kit which was used to jail Don Bolles, drummer for the legendary punk band The Germs http://germsreturn.com/ on April 4, will always give a false-positive for the drug GHB (Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate) if used on any true natural soap. However, in an interesting twist, the test will test negative for fake mislabeled “liquid soap” products that are actually detergent-based, not soap.

Warning: this video is TOO long. Its about why soap isn’t GBH… for gawd sakes…. But I really love my hippy soap. Really I do. Ask Ruby. Thanks smalljones for pointing me to drbronner.com. I never would of thought that this crunchy product would be so 21st century. I mean they got a video on YouTube! Yesh Yesh!