I’m not writing any more on Conficker prevention or safety but remember that April 1 is tomorrow and no one knows what will happen with this worm.
If you need more info, check Lifehackers post:
How To Protect Your Windows PC from the Conficker Worm
Practice Safe Computing.
Yesterday’s post Did You Know reminded me of this:
This gum has no flavor. It is as pointless as life itself. As unsatisfying as your empty shell of an existence. Like everything else on this wretched planet, it is a dead end. A black hole. A bottomless pit of missed opportunity and shattered dreams.
If you agree with any of the above statements, then Nihilist gum is for you. (If you agree with ALL of the statements, then stop reading this page and seek professional help immediately.)
Nihilist Chewing Gum does not taste like cherries or grapes. It does not taste like peppermint or wintergreen or spearmint. It does not taste like anything because it’s devoid of flavor. It contains no artificial flavoring and no natural flavoring because it has no flavor. None. Zilch. Nada. It is somewhat sweet, but that’s about it. The gum comes in a minimalist black box, which contains 14 pieces.
Yes, Nihilist gum really has no reason to exist. But if you’re a Nihilist, you don’t think anything exists anyway so what difference does it make. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Nihilist Chewing Gum is that it manages to be funny and depressing at the same time.
(Reposted and purchasable from: http://www.stupid.com/fun/NLST.html)
If this post makes no sense to you, please consult the definition of nihilism – not that it matters.
This past week the new Microsoft ad, “Lauren Get’s an HP Pavilion” has consistently come up in conversation.
Is the ad telling the truth?
Yes! It absolutely is true. PCs are much cheaper than comparable Macs under almost all circumstances.
The question of truth unfortunately isn’t the important part of the ad. Sadly for Microsoft it is an excruciatingly shortsighted and ill-conceived TV spot. Let’s parse out this ad’s message:
By kicking off the ad with Lauren trying to buy an Apple it states very clearly that a Mac was her first choice. She went to get a PC when she couldn’t afford her first choice.
Flash forward to the Best Buy-ish store.
Lauren shouts out some easily digestible specs that she wants, and the PCs can meet he expectations for well under her budget of $1000… in fact, she bought if for $699.99 – This section of the ad has two BIG problems.
First, Microsoft sells software and a user-experience, not necessarily a good one, but a user-experience nonetheless. They don’t sell hardware. In spite whatever Microsoft believes, the biggest draw of an Apple is the user-experience, not the pretty hardware (there are some very pretty PCs out there). As Lauren points out, they have comparable hardware. The ad never deals with Windows Vista’s inferior user-experience. At least the Mojave Experiment ads did that!
The second problem with this section of the ad is the price-point. Microsoft doesn’t sell PCs but their partners do. The profit margin on a $700 laptop isn’t usually amazing. They set Lauren’s budget at $1000, why not have her spend $950? or $990? The ad lowers the expectation for what consumers will expect to pay. If Lauren could get a “great” computer for $699.99 then that’s what a PC should cost.
This ad also degrades the value of a PC. Apple is now officially the gold-standard… Microsoft said so in its own ad. Microsoft has made Apple the BMW of computer makers (if they weren’t considered that already there is no debate now). PCs are the computer you buy when times are rough… like now. But in the future, the economy won’t be in the dumps (hopefully sooner than later). Then people will have money again. When they replace the cheap POS of a PC they bought during the recession, they are going to want to replace it with something better. Something top of the line… and now we all know that PCs are the cheap computer.
Bad move Microsoft.
A cool video sent to me by Jackie from Yeah Like the Cheese.
The variety of responses that this video has inspired is remarkable. Just browsing over the comments I can see hope, fear, nihilism, anger, nationalism, globalism, and I’m sure there are more if I took more time to read them.
This is the world we live in, like it or not we have to adjust.
Personally, this video excites me.
I just spent a few hours giving the brand new Guitar Hero: Metallica (GHM) a test drive and I can confidently make two conclusions:
Let’s be clear, if you don’t like Guitar Hero or Metallica, this game is not for you.
Learning from the deficiencies of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (which was still a good game), GHM starts off on career mode with two killer Metallica classics, For Whom the Bell Tolls & The Unforgivien.
I honestly can’t think of a better opening track for this game than For Whom the Bell Tolls. I’m not ashamed to admit that I got really into playing that song.
At the end of each song, the standard “You Rock” screen features the fist from the cover of St. Anger (2003) in a fun animation. I think that the cover of St. Anger is the only cool part of the whole album, so thumbs up on using it well.
The graphics and character models are far superior to anything we have seen in previous music games. The band’s movements and facial expressions are spot on thanks to some great motion capture and rendering work.
The sound quality is also out of this world on most of the tracks. I love the mixes in this game.
It also has some amazing songs.
From the Metallica library:
For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Unforgivien, Fade to Black, Battery, Creeping Death, Disposable Heroes, Enter Sandman, Fuel, Hit the Lights, Master of Puppets, Nothing Else Matters, No Leaf Clover, One, Orion, Sad But True, Seek & Destroy, Welcome Home (Sanatarium), Wherever I May Roam, and Whiplash are all incredible songs.
GHM also includes a number of other songs from bands that either inspired or were inspired by Metallica. Some of the ones that really stand out to me are:
Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back in Town, Mastodon’s Blood and Thunder, Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy, and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tuesday’s Gone (which always reminds me of the movie Happy Gilmore).
As I mentioned from the beginning, this game is tough. Far harder than any other Guitar Hero or Rock Band game that has preceded it – It is the nature of the source material. Metal is fast and intricate. The difficulty is refreshing as there must be countless Guitar Hero fans who can breeze through 90% of the songs on expert without putting in much effort (That’s how I felt playing Guitar Hero World Tour). The guitar parts in GHM are rediculous, especially the Kirk Hammett shred solos – I love playing shred solos in Guitar Hero!
If the guitar is difficult, the drums are %&^*ing insane! I feel like playing with the second kick pedal that is required for Expert +mode would be fun if I was coordinated enough to do it.
Almost no downloadable content. The only downloadable content that works or will work for GHM is the Death Magnetic (2008) album. It’s nice, but that album is not their best work.
I also feel like there were some classic songs that really should be in the game:
Looking at the tracks that were selected from Metallica’s first album Kill ‘em All, they only included songs that are credited to living and current members of the band. This leaves out classics like The Four Horsemen and Cliff Burton’s elongated bass solo (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth.
Other songs that are conspicuously missing are: Ride the Lightning, The Call of Ktulu (like The Four Horsemen, writing credit goes to Dave Mustaine of Megadeth), …And Justice for All, Bleeding Me, and Hero of the Day (I love the version from S&M). The absence of these songs isn’t a deal-breaker by any stretch of the imagination, but they are sorely missed (Especially The Call of Ktulu & (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth).
I have one final gripe about gameplay.
In Guitar Hero World Tour, the feature of holding lower notes while playing higher notes was introduced. I’m not crazy about all of the applications of this feature. For instance, on the song Nothing Else Matters, the opening riff is a series of open notes. Playing it on a real guitar is a no brainer. Playing it in Guitar Hero, while not difficult, isn’t very easy. A similar problem arrises in the opening riff of Fade to Black. The riff is a heck of a lot harder to play in Guitar Hero than it is on guitar because of this awkward game feature that doesn’t feel necessary or make much sense. I recognize that Guitar Hero and playing guitar have very little to do with one another, but the feature itself just doesn’t make sense to me.
This is a good game. Not perfect… but how many games are?
If you like Guitar Hero and Metallica – Buy it.
If you like Guitar Hero but find the previous installments too easy – Buy it.
… and when you play, play it loud.
"The Unforgiven"
Gmail has always had a contacts section, but at some-point fairly recently (I think) they created a standalone page for contacts.
http://www.google.com/contacts
It works well, allowing the opportunity to organize it however you please and offering plenty of fields to fill in information about your contacts (although I pretty much just use an email address or two and the person’s name).
I am exhausted far beyond my capacity for rational thought (which is rare even with the limited sleep I allow myself). With that in mind I am going to relay a public service announcement from regular TGW reader and fellow blogger pochp:
Keep a hardcopy of the serial number for your big ticket electronic devices (laptop, cellphone, iPod, etc). If they are stolen you are going to want to report the theft with a serial number.
The odds of retrieval aren’t great, but having the serial number can help. It would also help with an insurance claim.
pochp’s blog is called Plato on-line.
I loved this book as a child!
Over the last 24 hours there have been a number of articles posted on tech news sites that are downplaying the impending Conficker evolution on April 1.
Most of the articles point out that Conficker isn’t the worst virus ever created because it has been defeated by Windows patches and virus scans.
They also acknowledge that the new infection has diminished greatly over the last few weeks.
Both of these are true. However, if you are still infected the virus can still do damage.
It’s a threat. How much of a threat is undefinable because no one knows what will happen after April 1. I am advocating for people to clean up their computers because it isn’t in anyone’s best interests to operate on a computer infected with malware of any kind. I’m also fairly certain that the people reading and writing tech news sites are the ones who are at risk. The people at risk frequently don’t know it and won’t get their computers fixed unless someone knowledgeable identifies the problem and fixes it for them.
If you aren’t infected and your computer is up-to-date Conficker isn’t a threat just as Hepatitis B isn’t a threat to a person who has been vaccinated against it.
The bottom-line as I have said in my last three posts on the subject:
If you keep Windows up-to-date and make sure that you have a current virus scan, you should be safe from both Conficker and most other viruses that are circulating the Internet.
If Conficker doesn’t do anything terrible on April Fool’s Day – That’s wonderful! But why put yourself at unnecessary risk?
Practices safe computing.
TechCrunch is reporting that OnStar could soon offer voice-tweeting. It would allow you to hit a button and record a tweet. Then the software would (poorly) translate your voice into a Tweet and post it under your account on the micro-blogging site.
… maybe this is a way to make American cars (or just Chevrolets) sell better.
How freaking unnecessary is this? I don’t have a problem with Twitter, but give it a rest.
Unplug for a bit.
Try going wireless signalless for a change. It is remarkably freeing.
I hope this is an early April Fools joke.
A friend of mine just lost all of her data during a freak hardware malfunction.
Just because your computer is working today doesn’t mean that it will tomorrow (that goes for Mac users too). If it breaks you will be so relieved to have backups of your data.
Computers are replaceable. Your work and photos are not.
Please practice safe computing.
A few years ago Facebook began as a networking tool for college students. Since its inception it has been firmly viewed as the turf of teens and twenty-somethings, however that is no longer the case.
According to statistics from Facebook, they have experienced a profound shift in their demographics:
The biggest growth in terms of absolute new users over the last six month came amongst users 35-44. Over 4 million more US women 35-44 and nearly 3 million more US men 35-44 used Facebook in March 2009 compared to September 2008.
Another fun fact is that women over 55 is the fastest growing demographic on the social networking site, expanding at a rate of 1.5 million people per month.
As the demographics of Facebook change, the manner in which people use it will too.
How will businesses and marketers use Facebook to spread the message? Or maybe the better question is how long will it take them to realize that Facebook isn’t just for kids anymore?
How will older users interact with each other on Facebook? There is no doubt that their reasons for joining and real world uses are and will be different than their younger counterparts.
Will teens want to join a social network that their parents are on? Will Facebook become viewed as old and untrendy in the process?
In my mind, these numbers raise many more questions than they answer. The only thing that I will say with confidence about them is that these changes will have a lasting effect.
iGoogle is Google’s customizable homepage. You can easily create your own and add all manner of tools and toys.
One of the customizable aspects of the page is the theme. Today Google has added a number of geeky themes to their arsenal.
The new collection includes Mario, Guitar Hero, Tomb Raider, Magic the Gathering (I should really write post about Magic at some point), World of Warcraft, Street Fighter IV, Zelda, Mega Man, and Galaga (for those geeks who are looking to kick it old-school) among others.
An ape named Donkey
This is no joke. I’m not exaggerating. If you are not 100% certain that your computer is absolutely Conficker free you are making a very big mistake.
This is the third time I am writing about this worm because it remarkably scary.
For more background, you can read my initial posts:
PC Virus: Downadup/ Conficker/ Kido
Don’t Mess with Conficker! Make Sure Your Computer is Clean
Conficker is a worm that impacts Windows computers. It is a rather impressive program that is constantly evolving at the will of its creator(s). It can be contracted through a download or it can spread over networks. Some versions are capable of breaking simple passwords.
On April 1, 2009 Conficker will evolve once again. If you are infected be prepared to wake up to an April Fools Day gag that won’t be very funny.
No one but it’s creator(s) know what it will do, but I’m a “prepare for the worst and hope for the best” kind of guy. I recommend that you imagine Conficker is under this guy’s control:
"Why so serious?"
It is possible that it will end up being a big April Fools joke from a guy like this:
… But it is foolish and dangerous to assume that Conficker is innocuous. The creator(s) of Conficker have built something very elaborate and will be in a heap of trouble if they are caught. The risks and effort involved do not suggest that they are playing a practical joke.
This virus is stoppable. You can update your computers using Windows Updates and install a proper virus scan. Backup your data, and do whatever you can to make sure that your computer is virus free.
If you can’t do it yourself, call a friend.
No tech-savvy friends? Pay someone to do it.
Just make sure your computer is clean.
If you are infected, you can clean your machine with this tool.
If your computer refuses to run or install Windows Updates, you probably have a virus. If you think your computer is a cesspool of viruses and malware, just bite the bullet and reformat it before April 1.
Even if Conficker doesn’t do anything terrible, you are still doing yourself a favor by cleaning up your machine.
Spread the word to everyone you can. Email this post, don’t email this post, I don’t care. Just please warn everyone you can.
If you have the skills to remove this worm or secure a system from it I firmly believe that you have an obligation to help family and friends who do not have the skills to protect themselves. No one knows what will happen to infected machines as of April 1.
Always practice safe computing and in this instance, please help others do the same.
It appears that Cobra Commander from the upcoming live action GI Joe movie is going to looks something like this:
Is it just me or does that look exceptionally lame?
I not particularly interested in this movie even though I grew up on GI Joe.
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