Apple's Leopard Hacked in 30 Seconds

Hot on the heels of Apple trying to con millions of users into installing Safari on their computers under the disguise of an 'iTunes Software Update', the CanSecWest PWN to Own competition used a security flaw in that very same browser to hack Apples vaunted Leopard in 30 seconds.

The contest gave competitors a choice of hacking three different systems, each representing the major operating system options available. Windows Vista SP1, Ubuntu 7.10, and OS X 10.5.2. "We could have chosen any of those three but had to make a judgement call on which would be the easiest and decided it would be Leopard," said Charlie Miller, an analyst with the winning team.

You can check out the full story here.

I could probably write a lengthy piece about why I believe in Net Neutrality. But I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to give you a pair of links that allow perusal of articles written by other folk, as well as a handy little petition you can sign if you agree.


Support Net Neutrality HERE! (If you live in Canada)

...and HERE! (If you live in the US)

So I was watching the preview for this new movie Jumper. It looks like it could be interesting, if for no other reason than teleportation is very cool. But I must admit to being somewhat irritated by something in the preview. Mr. Sam Jackson, looking angry and obviously addressing the protagonist, insists that "Only God should have the ability to be all places".

Now, I'm not exactly a religious fellow. In fact, I don't actually subscribe to the whole "There is a God" belief. I consider myself to be a kind of Absurdist. Nevertheless, I've done my fair share of study on the subject, and I like to imagine that I have a fair grasp of the logic within the belief system.

Here we go. God is the creator. All life springs from his touch, or whatever you want to call it. From his mind. God is pretty powerful, and altogether badass, so he doesn't make mistakes. Kind of like how people like to insist all those poor folks who suffer from various handicaps are still God's Children. Unless they believe in something else, then they're damn heathens that deserve to rot in eternal damnation. Oops, I went off topic. Sorry.

(And I digress - not all religious folk believe with such zeal that everyone outside their belief system should rot in hell. Sadly, quite a few do. I find it profoundly ironic.)

Anyway...so our protagonist was born with a genetic anomaly. A pretty kick ass genetic anomaly. It allows him to teleport. Cool! Must be a gift from God. Why? Because everything comes from God. There can be no doubt: He created this gift. So, the response is self evident. Logic dictates that it most definitely is not something that 'Only God' can do, because God gave this ability to our protagonist, as only He has the power to do. End of discussion, right?

Since Hollywood writers never make logic mistakes - they're way too smart for that. We should assume that the character was meant to sound like a fool. He's a bad guy, after all! Just another religious zealot that doesn't understand his own belief system. Maybe they'll address that in the movie, maybe not. Either way, why do we always have to put up with the same annoyingly stupid villains all the time? It's been done, and done, and done.

Apple specializes in pain!

The Macbook Air has been released, and the Apple faithful rejoiced! There was much celebrating in the streets as the fruity faithful expressed the unending joy brought about by the arrival of yet another incredible product destined to be hailed as the greatest of its generation!

Or something like that. Maybe.

So, lets see what makes it so great. For starters, its slim as hell. So slim, that it would slide right through your asscrack. That's no joke. And light too, (3lbs) light enough that you wouldn't feel uncomfortable reaching around to engage in said maneuver. Not that it belongs in your asscrack. Not at that price, anyway. 1800 bucks makes it far too valuable for toilet paper duty.

The trackpad is large, and the controls useful and intuitive. The backlit keyboard is surprisingly spacious, and the 13.3inch display is nice and clean. It comes with a camera that can record in 640x480 resolution, as well as a microphone. Even power seems adequate for something so small, with a 1.6ghz Intel Core 2 Duo on tap (redesigned to be 60% smaller), 2 GB of RAM and 80GB of hard drive space. (Lame on board intel graphics, but i don't think anyone expects much in the way of graphical prowess out of something so small. For that price, yes, but not that size. We'll call it a trade-off.)

The Air sports a light and cool all aluminium chassis, but unfortunately its not enough to keep the Intel chip happy. So, when the heat ramps up, as it inevitably does, the processor will disable one of the running cores to reduce heat production. So, it shouldn't catch on fire, but it just won't run at full power.

Still, sounds pretty decent. So what are we missing? An optical drive, for one. No cd's or dvd's for this baby. That would make it too fat. Instead, it has software that, if you install said software on another computer...you can use the optical drive on THAT computer. Sweet. Or you can buy an expansion drive for a few hundred bucks. But carrying that around kind of messes with the whole point of havin a small laptop, doesn't it? So what else. There's no ethernet port either. Only wireless for the Macbook Air. 802.11 a/b/g and draft n. Having draft n sucks on something that can only run wireless. But how many people use it anyway. Everyone has a nice g router with a strong signal, or if they don't, they'd better get one. If this is a problem, don't worry, there's an expension you can buy. What about USB ports? We have one! But only one: anymore would make the system far too obese. So only one expansion at a time, people. Display? There's a micro dvi port. Something that would be utterly useless without the fancy connector you get. Yay! And a 3.5mm headphone jack as well. Making the Air compatible with smaller headphones, but not larger types that require a larger port. That makes sense: Small laptop, small headphones. Large headphones aren't cool enough for the Air, they belong with the fat laptops made by other companies.

To be honest, it seems to me that all Apple has really done with the Macbook Air is externalize the girth. Its all small and dandy, until you tack on all of the extra gadgets you need just to make the thing functional. Something that adds even more to an already overblown price. It just doesn't make any sense. Especially when Asus offers a 3.8lb laptop that has all those externalized features built in.

So, in conclusion, the Macbook Air is pretty good. If you have a lot of money to burn, and don't really want to do anything with your laptop. Just buy it and be happy knowing that getting kicked in the head by everyone's favorite Silicon Valley snob is just part of being involved in electronics. Sort of an initiation, really.

_____________________________________________

While I'm on the topic of Apple hating its consumers. I just had to point and laugh at the iPod Touch and iPhone. That poor iPhone is still barely 7 months old, yet has already suffered one major price drop, and now a significant upgrade, and the Touch is only 5 months old.

When it was released, the much hyped iPhone cost a bloody fortune. After cashing in for a couple months, Apple dropped the price. Significantly. It hurt their stock, (and consumer perception - for a week or two) but not their bottom line, which was already bloated with early sales profits. 8GB seemed like not a bad deal for a phone, but now it must seem pretty weak, with the release of the 16GB version for $100 more. And while an extra 8GB of memory almost certainly costs Apple nowhere near $100, in terms of consumer perception, its a steal. When someone is paying a premium price for their phone, an extra $100 to have double the memory really isn't a tough sell. Just remind us that we are inferior beings if we have less memory, and our wallets will open.

Now: iPod Touch. Still not impressed. As far as i'm concerned, looking at it strictly in terms of being an mp3 player (along with photos, videos, etc), its gaudy and absolutely pointless. Especially with only 16GB of memory. Now, with 32GB...my opinion hasn't changed, though I dislike it less than I did before.

_________________________________________________

Anyone wondering about the general tone of irritation prevalent in todays rant need look no further. Yes, I may be just a *tad* crusty at Apple because my much beloved Nano has suffered from a technical failing. Aka: The battery has lost 90% of its capacity after 2 years of use. My theory: Planned obsolescence. No doubt about it, iPod (and consumer electronics sales in general) would absolutely tank if everything worked indefinitely, especially items that don't necessarily suffer from severe product cycle depreciation. Of course, going through Apple to replace the battery costs a fortune. So, in protest, I refuse to buy a new iPod, and I refuse to utilize Apples overpriced warranty service. I intend to buy a replacement battery and change it myself. So there! Take that Steve!

Off to the North American International Auto Show tomorrow. Looking forward to it :). There should be a lot of really cool stuff there, including the brilliant looking CTS Coupe Concept. I'm also excited to see the Chevy Volt (I really hope its there), because I'm so enamored with the idea that I've told everyone its going to be my next car!

I'll post pictures when I get back...but they're probably not going to show up in this space. If there's one thing I like about Facebook, its the fact that making photo albums is absolutely painless. So check there for pictures.

I went for a nice long walk tonight. The temperature was about about -15'C. I took a circular route around my neighbourhood that took a little over an hour to complete. I set the iPod to Killswitch Engage and let it run.

I have to say it was far more enjoyable (and productive) than I expected. I've had a story idea floating around in my head for a week or two now, and tonight it really coalesced into a coherent plot. I think it could be something worth telling, and I'm pretty excited to get started! I spent the majority of the hour focused on story. So much so, that I actually walked right past my place and continued on for another half kilometre before I even realized it.

My knees are a bit sore, testament to how lazy I've been these last months. When I was in Australia I did walks like this, and longer, almost every day. I really need to get back in shape!

It is with no small amount of trepidation that I've returned home. 'Home', being a relative term. This is where I sleep, where I keep my belongings, and this is indeed the address for which I am paying money to reside. Yet, Home? I'm not so sure.

Strictly speaking, the word fits, within the realm of its usual definition. Home: (hōm) - A place where one lives, a residence. But what about the other definitions? What about 'A valued place regarded as a refuge', what about that indeed. That, to me, implies some sort of positive emotional attachment. In other words, something I completely lack.

Its not even a bad place really. Nothing special, not bad, just average. That's not the problem. I have roommates, and we're completely different types of people. I wouldn't say the partnership has worked out at all as hoped. Its unfortunate, but I'm not even sure that's the whole problem.

What is it then? Why do I feel so uncomfortable here? Why does it feel like the walls are moving in and why the hell is my breathing so constricted?

I'm not happy here. No doubt in part due to the fact that I'm not happy with myself. It probably doesn't take a lot of detective work to figure that one out.

Scattered, unfocused. That about sums it up. Its been like that for longer than I care to admit, but its becoming harder to pretend otherwise. Everyone keeps reminding me that my life should have some sort of focus by now. I can't go on being a nothing forever. I need to find some sort of business entity to attach myself to so I can become a nothing within their corporate structure.

Ok, I digress. That was over the top. That's wasn't even a 'glass is half full' attitude, it was a 'that glass is fucking empty' attitude. I have a tendency to envision a negative spin on things, with the excuse that that way I'm never disappointed. Sometimes it goes too far. My bad.

Anyway. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that for whatever reason I'm struggling. But the problem is ironic in that I want to do so much that I end up doing nothing. It's absolutely absurd! I don't want to be the nothing that everyone seems to think I'm becoming. I want to write, I want to do photography, I want to work my ass off in the gym 5 hours a day, I want to fiddle around with computers and electronics, I want to do all these things and much more. And let me tell you its a pain in the ass trying to figure out where I stand with any one of these various pursuits. The biggest roadblock: the nagging self-doubt. I don't think a domineering wife could possibly be as oppressive.

Its time to move forward. However long it takes. Swallow the pride. Take what I can get, do what I need to do. Believe, just for a second, that I can be more than a pale shade of the perfect self.

I'm writing again. I think that is worth noting. I have to admit I feel a lot better now. I doubt the 'quality' of writing was all that high. I sort of spewed the words out, so to speak. But it is something.

And something is better than nothing.