Today was the last Microsoft Academic event of the year, and Anthony Vranic was on hand from Microsoft to give students an overview of Whidbey and ASP.NET 2.0. The event went very well, and although it is very late, more students were introduced to the Imagine Cup.
Speaking of the Imagine Cup, we’re trying to pull something together. We should have decided to enter a lot earlier than we did, but I think we’ll pull it off! Only 22 hours to go as of the time of this post…
If you’ve got a few minutes, you should definitely read The PowerBook Prank. Basically a buyer on eBay tried to scam some guy into sending a PowerBook laptop using a fake escrow service, but the guy figured it out. So what did he do? Sent the guy a cardboard laptop and duped him into paying import taxes! The whole thing played out with help from the Something Awful message board – there were even people doing field work! When the scammer found out he’d been screwed over, he sent viruses and launched a DoS attack. Priceless.
This is just intense. Nate Kushner, a comedy writer, was approached by a college girl on IM to write a paper for her. Apparently the topic of the paper appeared in his IM profile, so she decided to take the easy way out. Or so she thought. Nate strung her along, wrote a fake paper, and posted the entire debacle on his blog in the hopes that the girl would get caught. Mean yes, but absolutely hilarious. All would be plagiarists – read this and think twice.
I reached one more branch out to her, in the form of misspelling the name of the god of destruction as a liquor brand. But it wasn’t enough to get her to tell me to fuck myself, so I started making up my plan. Which was real simple: Take her money and cut and paste a paper together from the internet that was so obviously plagiarised that she’d be guaranteed to get caught.
Is this harsh? Eh, I don’t think so. She got the syllabus saying she’d be kicked out of school for plagiarism, so she shouldn’t be surprised. Plus, I have a nice little English degree that I did all the work for myself, so I find it a little offensive that this girl for whom money is no object is buying papers like that.
Read: Laura K. Krishna is a Plagiarist
Read: Boing Boing
You know a story is big and important when someone takes the time to create a fake blog. In a somewhat related story, the Pope may be getting a feeding tube too.
Read: Waxy
Just got back from the big Velvet Revolver concert here in Edmonton. Megan and I decided a while back that this would be one show we’d regret not going to if we didn’t get tickets and boy were we right. It was awesome! The Bear (local rock station) had people calling in after, and one guy said “that’s the way a rock show is supposed to be done.” I couldn’t agree more.
First things first – I absolutely love Scott Weiland. That guy was born to perform. And I don’t know why people get so excited about Usher and his moves, Scott is pretty damn unique himself. You can’t help but watch him and because he has so much energy on stage it just drains you! He swings and twirls and sings his heart out, the way it should be done.
What can you say about Slash? The guy is a crowd pleaser. And he saved the hat until the very end, which was kinda cool actually. He brings the catchy sounds to the music, and well, you gotta love Slash! The other “main” guy, as I would call them, is Duff McKagen, also formerly of GNR and he too looks, walks and talks like a rock star. Slash, Duff and Scott all bounce all over the stage, but at one point they played side by side. At that moment it was like “wow, this is the real deal!” Not to take anything away from Matt Sorum and Dave Kushner, but when I think Velvet Revolver, I think Slash, Scott and Duff, and they delivered.
The stage was quite impressive, and the lights must have cost a fortune. I am quite young, and I haven’t been to many concerts, but I’d say that me seeing VR must have been like the first time people saw KISS on stage. Just totally different than anything you’ve seen before. I’ve never seen such lights and energy! They had two big screens on either side of the stage that alternated between cameras taping the stage and some stock footage, most of it either the VR girl, or DNA, which was kinda odd – haven’t figured out why they’d show the double helix at a hardcore rock and roll concert.
And of course, there were all the other crazy antics you’d expect from a rock concert. Lots of noise, drunk people, hot girls, girls flashing the entire crowd, security guards chasing people, you name it. They were even searching people at the door, pat downs and everything. The one thing I was surprised to see was so many young people. Three Days Grace opened, so that might have something to do with it, but I expected to see a mostly older crowd out to see Slash and the boys.
Regardless, it was an awesome show! I’ve had their album Contraband for a while now, but I am very glad we went to see them live tonight, it was intense!
Are you a Skypecaster? Apparently there are quite a few of you out there, sharing recordings over the Internet using the freely available Skype:
Some evidence suggests that Skypecasters may be becoming more widespread, even though it requires a high level of technical know-how. The “implications are very disruptive,” according to the SkypeJournal, a well-known Web community that provides Skypecast instructions. “Many Skypers want to record their Skype conversations and turn them into podcasts.”
And right now, it really does require a lot of know-how. Skype doesn’t offer a “record this conversation” feature, which they really should. “We’re aware of [skypecasting] and encourage developers to help facilitate it,” said spokeswoman Kelly Larrabee. Really?! Then add the damn feature already, it’s not that hard!
Read: CNET News.com
This news is a few days old, but organizers for the Infosecurity Europe trade show have completed their “annual pulse-taking of people’s susceptibility to social engineering.” This year, they asked individuals for private information in return for theatre tickets:
Claire Sellick approached a woman in London’s tony theater district with a clipboard and a chance to win tickets to an upcoming show. All the woman had to do was answer a three-minute survey on locals’ theater-going habits. Or so she thought.
The woman answered questions about her name, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, name of the first school she attended and more. All of that information could easily be used to gain access to “secure” data, like a bank account. The woman wasn’t the only one though. Here’s the results of the experiment that surveyed 200 people:
Just goes to show that for all the technology in the world, humans are always the weakest link. No number of firewalls, passwords, or other security features will prevent a person from giving up valuable and sensitive information. So, be mindful about what you divulge! Your mother’s maiden name might be just as important as your bank account number!
Read: Search Security
One of my favorite tools for looking at blog conversations is BlogPulse. They announced today that they just finished an upgrade, and the new version has “faster, cooler features and more than 9.3 million blogs identified.” That’s a lot of information to track! BlogPulse is faster too – “in the last 24 hours, it analyzed data from 301,320 blog posts. In that same time frame, BlogPulse discovered 38,817 new blogs.”
Some of the new features include 6 months of data instead of 60 days (shown in the above graph), easier access to data visualization, and improved link searching. Their Conversation Tracker is a nifty little tool too. Check it out!
Happy Easter to you! Hope you’re enjoying the long weekend. Wondering why Easter is a holiday? Nope, it’s not because there is a bunny and chocolate. Find out at Wikipedia.
I just listened to Tod Maffin’s latest episode, and oh my god, that guy is hardcore. Listen to the very funny How to Wax Your Ass Hair (MP3) episode!
He’s got a whole bunch of other “how to” episodes as well, so check it out.
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