The SoapVox

If you remember the post about Places to get free ebooks, you’ll probably remember Chris’ comment about Scribd having lots of copyrighted content that was illegal to distribute.
Well, I guess the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organization read that comment by Chris too, because they nailed Scribd with a DMCA takedown notice. Perfectly [...]

Almost two years after the Sony-BMG rootkit scandal, Sony is back on its stupid side. This time, instead of including a rootkit with a music CD, they are including a rootkit with…a security device. Yup, they sell you a fingerprint reader and part of the software that comes with it is…another Sony rootkit!
So…now, if you [...]

The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, England, was the site chosen by a group of Daleks to initiate their invasion of Earth this past Sunday.
As the chants of “Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!” echoed through, 67 Daleks gathered, with their human beings inside, to set the record for the most people in a Dalek costume [...]

I don’t actually remember if I wrote about it or not, but about a month ago, I got a back problem that was symptomatic in only one way…it hurt like all hell.
The fun part about it was that the doctor discovered, while checking out the current problem, that I have a degenerative problem in [...]

Here goes another of my out-of-subject posts…but…I can’t resist…again :)
Back in March, 43 years old Randy Couture returned from a year in retirement and took on a fighter who was 13 years younger, 6 inches taller, 42 pounds heavier, and almost 12 inches longer in reach, for the UFC Heavyweight Title…and destroyed Tim Sylvia [...]

Well, it seems like Windows Genuine Advantage (aka, WGA) has become a disadvantage for every single XP and Vista user out there. Every computer that runs a “modern” version of Windows runs a little program that calls home and asks the WGA server(s) if the currently installed OS is “genuine” or not. If it is, [...]

Well, being as a) today is my bday and b) this is the 200th post on the blog, it had to be about something I care about…and, of course, Bruce Schneier decided to find an article about the press and how it influences our Perceptions of Risk, making us believe that the really risky stuff [...]

Several of the CNET reporters that were victims of HP’s fraudulent pretexting methods of investigation last year (I talk about this here, here, here and here, among other posts) have sued the computer company, trying for an injunction (ie. legally mandated don’t-ever-do-it-again order) and punitive damages, that is, lots of money.
According to Pamela Jones, of [...]

For all my readers who have been baffled by my (sporadic) SCO reports over the last 18 months (since I started blogging), maybe this short history lesson by Mark Wagner on ZDNet’s blogs will help you understand a bit of why I was so happy a couple of days ago when I was yelling over [...]

Ok, I’ve finally been convinced that Ultimate Tag Warrior is worth installing, particularly after I realized that I had done something wrong when I installed Simple Tagging that was making the tags superfluous…instead of troubleshooting that, I decided to try UTW and see how it works, and…it’s not bad at all.
I’m still getting the hang [...]