Not Dead

Pretty

In the words of Joaquin Phoenix, "I'm Still Here".

No posts recently in the wake of some recent events that have disrupted my ability to post. Namely, The ongoing tragedy in Fukushima, the energy crisis, social disquiet in London, tension in the Yellow Sea, chaos in Libya, not to mention 9/11. Also, there was an earthquake out this way, but nobody really cares.

More recently, I've been uber-busy drinking beer on my patio, hoping to God a hurricane comes and decimates our neighbors just so something interesting would happen locally. Aside from the guy high speed chase that ended with a guy climbing onto the Dunkin Donuts across the street from my workplace (P.S. this actually happened).

If I can find something later that's worthwhile to post about, I will. Until then, just looking at the pretty lights.

This Is Not News. I'm Not Sure What This Is.

This isn't really news, so much as it's something semi-new.

You don't need to be a fan, or even like Owl City, to be intrigued by why their (we'll call Adam Young "They" for the interest of keeping this post short and to the point) new single is being released as its own website.

I'm a fan, but nothing makes me sadder than when I listen to a good album at home, and then when I emerge into the scathing sunlight and see what's happening in the world, there's a whole lot of people trying to turn my musical experience into a whole bunch of money-spending.

"Here's this website! It's got a tiny amount of content and a lot of things you can buy!"

Not criminal, just annoying, and worth a passing mention. Also, annoying because somebody really, really could have used that domain name for something cool. Whatever.

If you get a chance, check out some of their music, it's pretty cool. Out of spite, find it somewhere free.

Oh Snap, China!

The graphic above looks way too aesthetically pleasing for the data it's alleged to represent.

At McAfee's blog last night, and reported later by Reuters this morning, a number of government agencies and large, powerful companies have been duped in the largest cyberattack ever seen. So large, in fact, that it's been going on for years and nobody has had any idea.

McAfee's not trying to point any fingers, but the ATTACKS themselves came from China. "Experts" (as most of the media are now calling "people we managed to get on the phone in the last 45 minutes") are prone to agree ("WITHOUT POINTING ANY FINGERS! MAKE SURE YOU WRITE THAT DOWN!") that the attacks may be China-sponsored, but also may be Russians operating in China. Wait, how do you just randomly gather that?

Also, has anyone ever used McAfee? I don't trust them with my computer I built from my sister's spare parts (her computer, that is, although, in an unrelated tangent, my sister and I ARE both fully mechanical). I would never trust them with any sort of opinion on international diplomacy.

Anywho, the infographic above relates to how many of what were attacked according to McAfee. Targets are listed to include the U.N., governments of the U.S., Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, India, along with a fairly large number of other organizations (including the International Olympic Committee, BEFORE the Beijing Olympics! Saucy!).

Here's a link to the actual McAfee post (on a blog? These are news now?).

Here's a link to 2 sides of the coverage of this event, from Reuters and Sophos.

The common opinion, at this point, looks like whatever happened was pretty big, however, nobody really knows much about who's responsible, where all this data is going (except maybe China) or what it's being used for.

But if China really does own as much of the U.S. as everyone tells me they do (nobody really tells me that, I think it was a big news story last year and I've fused it into a fake social memory) and they also have all of our crazy digital secrets ("Oh wow! The U.S. is broke, I couldn't have learned that by watching the news"), then that's actually pretty impressive. But I'm not going to point any fingers.

Except at LulzSec. Just because I blame LulzSec for everything. But I'd trust them over McAfee any day.

May This Chair Be With You

My lapse in posting is, this time, not entirely my fault. We've moved to a new residence and we definitely dont have our Internet hooked up. Or cable. We do, however have an awesome teal blender/George Foreman set. No furniture though. I think it's better that way, because

1) Floor-sitting will, inevitably, be the new 'planking'

2) I can construct this awesome armchair out of boxes from the move with all the time I'm not watching repeats of True Blood or scouring Wikipedia for spoilers that Alan Ball is going to somehow circumvent anyway.

I'll be back in a few days when our Interweb access is back up and running unless something unusually awesome happens that I'll have to update about via flocks of digital carrier pigeons.

Peace!