Category: Gripes

  • A Curmudgeonly Reply to an Anti-Curmudgeon Rant (in two parts)

    [This was originally published on attrition.org and then republished on Bill Brenner’s blog with permission.] Fri May 27 04:29:16 CDT 2011 Bill Brenner wrote an article titled “Take the word curmudgeon and shove it” in which he makes relatively sweeping statements about the “people in security [that] call themselves curmudgeon”. As one of the long-time security curmudgeons, I…

  • Six Presets and an Itchy Trigger Finger

    Hey radio broadcasters, here is a concise list of things that will make me immediately and instinctively change to another preset radio station: A commercial with an 800 number. Because i know they will repeat it at least three times, and that fast repetition is annoying. Dead air for more than 3 or 4 seconds.…

  • Hello MPAA, I’m a Pirate

    Hello MPAA, I’m a Pirate

    Dear Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), That’s right, I am one of those dastardly pirates that engages in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) theft, downloading movies when so inclined. I do not do it because I have a fascination with breaking the law, nor am I struggling for money. I do it because it is convenient, and the movie industry…

  • So far, yet so short…

    two days into my smart phone experience, i am simultaneously amazed and disgusted by the state of technology surrounding these devices and ‘cloud’ applications. back in the day, i had a ‘hacker’ mindset. i found flaws in systems that let me circumvent security or gain privileges not intended for users (or remote people not intended…

  • windows is beyond a joke (or, why we’ll all be using macs soon)

    Mom has been limping along on a 7 year old computer that tries to run XP. Unfortunately, Dad loaded MS One LiveCare on it and didn’t realize that they could do the internetz w/o the MSN software from the ISP. This comp is a dog, so miserably slow I would literally throw it in the…

  • Microsoft LifeCam – sucks the life out of me

    It wasn’t my choice, but I was handed a Microsoft “LifeCam” today, as the original recipient didn’t want it. Figured I’d try to use it to make a Guinea Pig cam after seeing a nice setup and live streaming a few nights ago. The software it comes with makes me want to vomit. Insert the…

  • Do you know why?

    I frequently want to ask people that question. “Do you know why..” and then ask why they do something. Ultimately the cause will be one of two reasons; 1) they were brought up doing something or taught that way, and never challenged the legacy or 2) marketing and advertising that snowballs into an unspoken force…

  • Opera upgrade woes

    I use the Opera web browser for doing work on OSVDB. It started when I used 6.02 and it was a screaming fast browser and lasted for years. At some point the site became more feature rich and the ancient version didn’t cut it. I bit the bullet and upgraded to Opera 9 which had…

  • Hey asshole business (Chase)

    Ranting on behalf of a friend. We were out grabbing vegetables for the guinea pigs, a quick dinner and some wine for her. Trying to purchase wine, her debit card was declined. Figuring it was a fluke and the bad mojo of our local Wine Nazi rubbing off, she tried again at Wahoo’s and it…

  • Hypersensitive Computer Displays

    I’ve noticed this many times over the last decade. computerized display systems are often hypersensitive to the point of being silly and absurd. Years ago I noticed downloading files via some clients would show me the speed of the transfer to the Nth place, where N is totally ridiculous. I was getting 83.92384293842903k download and…