To say this blog has suffered from neglect is to make a rather large understatement. It turns out that converting a passing thought into a coherent post takes too many words and too much time. Or maybe finishing a post just doesn’t generate enough endorphin. Whatever the reason, It’s Fixed in the Next Release underwhelmed my expectations, and then Twitter really made a mess of it. (more…)
Another case where the use of unique, hard to guess mail addresses reveals a problem with data security. This time the co-victim and/or offender is the Yellow Pages Group. (more…)
It seems I had a recurring dream about a man who played beautiful music in the morning. I say “it seems” because the music is quite familiar; I think I have heard it many times in dreamland. He played from some place nearby, a small house or maybe a shack.
A few days ago I dreamed that I recorded his music as I heard it from my window. The music was interrupted by argument, then by shots.
I ran out to see my friend dying on the street — the dream was quite graphic. His race was different from mine but the same as the murderer.
This morning, I dreamt that I was in his house. A crowd – mostly members of his race – gathered outside, angry, seeking revenge.
I had the recording. I played it. We all cried.
I wonder if I will ever dream about this man and his music again.
What’s worse than a security issue? Ignoring it and hoping it will go away.
First a bit of background. For years, I’ve been tracking spam by generating unique forwarding addresses every time I register on a site. The intent was to be able to track the sources of spam and easily disable a compromised address. In practice, it’s proven to be a tool for detecting all sorts of misbehaviour. (more…)
“Great news Bell Fib TV is now available in your building.” [spelling error intentional]
You know what, Bell? That’s just freakin’ amazing! You now have the ability to target your marketing right down to the building! Let’s ignore the fact that the least competent direct marketers in the country have been able to do that for a few decades and just stick to celebrating your new-found skills, shall we? (more…)
Instead of maintaining an increasingly diffuse presence on this site, where not knowing what the hell I’m going to do next gets mixed visitor reactions, I’ve been branching out to multiple web locations, each with a clearly defined focus.
This blog will remain diverse in topics and erratic in frequency, but instead of following the “about everything” tag line so literally, I’ve started moving new things to their own topic-specific places. I figure this will make this blog slightly easier to label and the new locations will benefit from a tighter focus. (more…)
For years – for decades – climate scientists have been telling us that global warming was going to have some seriously bad, seriously expensive effects on the environment. Slowly, the population at large has gone from considering this a “unproved theory” to a “concern”, but it’s never been a real “problem”, at least not in the sense that a ten cent increase in the cost of gas is a problem bordering on a crisis. (more…)
In his article If You Can’t Understand The Difference Between Money And Content, You Have No Business Commenting On Business Models, Mike Masnick takes a shot at some “logic” advanced by Canadian IP lawyer James Gannon, who wrote “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Copy”.
Masnick is justifiably unforgiving in his analysis: “It’s brilliant only if you don’t understand all of the following: money, economics, copyright, business and value. If you understand any of those things, you might recognize that the analogy makes no sense. Misunderstand all of them… well, then I can see how this argument might make sense.”
Then Gannon stopped by to claim that it was rude or discourteous for Masnick to link to his content.
Newsflash: It’s neither. It’s what HTML was designed for! Seriously, welcome to 1990. Personally I think it’s rude to advance obviously illogical arguments in defence of legacy content providers, but that’s just me.
This week I launched Venture Media Canada with the first episode of The Entrepreneurial Life!
This only took about a year longer than expected (there’s a reason why “perseverance” is usually listed as a top trait for entrepreneurs). Next on the list is “execution”. I’m reconnecting with the people who expressed an interest in being on the show, scheduling interviews, and having fun.
Please give the site a visit and tell your friends, associates, and enemies about it!
Microsoft must have finally gotten the upper hand in Windows security.
I just talked with a non-technical friend who got a call from a call centre purporting to be Microsoft. The agent explained, in broken English, that Microsoft had “detected a virus on her computer”. He then attempted to direct her to TeamViewer, a remote desktop access application.
It was at this point that she wisely terminated the call and got in touch with me. (more…)
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