Melissa came upon an ATM running Windows and proceeded to run MS Paint on it.

I guess I’m a bit wacky, but I truly think there are some things that just shouldn’t run Windows. Like machines that dispense money that’s going to come out of my bank account.

Say what you like about OS/2, but this never happened on ATMs that ran OS/2, at least not that I’ve ever seen.

This is the new international symbol for radiation danger. It is the result of collaboration between the UN, ISO and IAEA.

Ok, hands up, who likes this symbol? Best translation I’ve heard thus far?

When the crap hits the fan, run away from big skulls.

What was wrong with the old symbol anyhow?

He was saying “Yeti yeti yeti!” when I took this picture.

The RIAA is at it again.

They’ve officially reached a new low. I expect infomercials soon.

So, they provide a model letter to ISPs, and then decide to tell the ISP they’re going to sue the person at some IP address. They inform the ISP their intent to subpoena your identity information, and your ISP notifies you of this. If you act now, you can save $1000 on your settlement with the RIAA!

Nevermind that precedent has been set on more than one occasion, showing that the RIAA sued the wrong person…

I swear, these guys must be the biggest dopes walking.

Hollywood told us that the days of piracy are over. HD-DVD and BluRay would usher in a new era of piracy control, bringing along with it unbreakable DRM that would “help keep honest people honest,” as if suddenly, if DRM vanished, we’d all turn into a bunch of pirates who never paid for anything again. Avast, me hearties! Indeed.

Fast forward to February 11, when some guys on the doom9 forums came upon a solution. A user that goes by the handle “arnezami” thought he had found the processing key, a value used by all (as far as anyone can tell) HD-DVD discs out there (and possibly some BluRay Discs as well). What does the key allow you to do? Decrypt the content on the disc. So? Now you can enjoy your HD content as you choose, not as the publisher chooses for you. You want to show it on your Mac? Go for it. Transcode for your iPod? Have fun. Play your content back on a non-HDMI HDTV? Great.

Nice job guys. It’s about time Hollywood was sent a message about fair use. Recognize that I’m not advocating piracy in any way here.

Currently playing in iTunes: Young Americans by David Bowie

The guy next to me on the train has a Zune. I politely asked him how he liked it. Boy, did he answer.

After first trying to install the thing, his PC just didn’t get along with the Zuneware. He had to reformat and reload his XP PC. Fortunately for him, he said he was using a volume lic key, so didn’t need to call the Microsofties to get permission to use software already paid for. Smart dude, he had a current data backup, and all software bits to reload at the ready.

Round 2 with the Zuneware was more successful. It works, though he thinks iTunes on his daughter’s PC is better designed.

His biggest axes to grind (other than the obvious software deficiencies)? Crippled wifi (ad-hoc, zune to zune only) and the ridiculous point economy of the Zune store. In the Zune world, you buy points, which you use to buy songs. Why not just set a price? To make Zune pricing look cheaper than the iTunes store. Instead of $0.99 a song, you pay 75 points. By the way, the math will tell you that 75 points = roughly $0.99, give or takes a couple of tenths of a cent.

So, does he regret his purchase? It seems. Is he going to chuck it in favor of an iPod? Only when it breaks, he says. With only 2 purchased songs invested, he doesn’t have much skin in the lock-in game.. All of the rest of tunes are ripped mp3s that he used to load on a Creative MuVo.

This morning’s Digg has a story bit about the latest of Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads. I’m a fan of these ads, mostly for the comic relief, but this one’s really got the gist of UAC down. You get asked constantly to do stuff with UAC on, and with it off, you get no protection at all.

Go directly to the HD version of the ad

Funny.

Currently playing in iTunes: rapture riders (full version) by blondie vs the doors

Ordinarily, I don’t go in for Opie & Anthony, but this is too funny. Completely SFW too.

Currently playing in iTunes: How to Save a Life by The Fray

I just found this post from Earl detailing a fix for the hang that ecto experiences trying to pull category info from Wordpress 2.1.

Nice job Earl. The fix isn’t hairy folks, you can do it, I promise.

Earl’s post doesn’t note it, but the fix needs to be applied at line 980 in xmlrpc.php.

Update: For those who want the official word, here it is, straight from the Wordpress Trac. Note that it references line 980.

Currently playing in iTunes: rapture riders (full version) by blondie vs the doors

Yesterday’s episode of The Daily WTF had a great code snippet. Prepare to laugh.

gcc really and truly needs a compiler warning flag for utter stupidity. How about what someone in the comments proposed?

or better still, just use whatever you were going to pass to GetMessage() in the first place… Yikes.