Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

Even startup pranks are harder in Windows

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There used to be a stupid little prank you could play on unsuspecting Mac users (running System 8 or 9 — if I remember correctly, the required utility wasn’t included in previous systems). Normally, when you were done using the computer, you would choose Special > Shutdown… to turn the computer off. However, apparently too many people had difficulties with that, so Apple started including a small utility that lived in the Apple Menu called Shutdown that would…shut down the computer.

So, if you wanted to annoy someone and had a moment at their Mac when their back was turned, you could copy that Shutdown application from the Apple Menu Items folder into the Startup Items folder. Once that was done, every time they started up their computer, as the system went through the Startup Items, it’d find that program, and shut right down again. Simple, and wonderfully annoying.

Tonight, I found a similar prank for Windows XP in Tech TV’s ‘Best Computer Pranks Ever’, and was fairly amused to see how convoluted the process was to get the same result!

To recap — on the Mac:

  1. Open two windows, [System Drive]:System Folder:Apple Menu Items and [System Drive]:System Folder:Startup Items.
  2. Option-drag Shutdown from Apple Menu Items to Startup Items.

On Windows XP…

  1. Right-click the Start menu.
  2. Select Explore Users.
  3. Navigate to Programs > Startup.
  4. Right-click the file windows and select New > Shortcut.
  5. When the window pops up asking for the location, enter “%windir%system32shutdown.exe -r -t 00“.

On the one hand, it’s “only” five steps versus two, and I could have broken the Mac list into three steps (by splitting the first step into two). But even beyond that, there’s that cute little text string that has to be typed in to get the program to execute correctly.

Okay, yeah. So maybe it’s a good thing that — at least in this one instance — it’s harder to annoy someone under Windows XP than under the Classic Mac OS. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t amuse me, though.

iTunes: “Moon Over Greene County” by Zanes, Dan from the album Natural Born Killers (1993, 2:19).

Romeo! Hey, doll! Where you at?

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This makes me cringe just thinking about it…Shakespeare re-written in modern prose, as today’s kids can’t seem to comprehend it as it was originally written.

“Et tu, Brute?”

Not anymore.

“And you too, Brutus?” is what students read in a new genre of study guides that modernize the Elizabethan English found in “Julius Caesar” and other plays by William Shakespeare.

These guides move beyond the plot summaries found in other study aides by providing line-by-line translations in modern-day English.

Once barred from school, the new translations now are being used in classes across metro Atlanta.

Ugh.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Or, more appropriately, in the words of Isabella in Measure for Measure — “Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.”

Or even better, Falstaff, in Henry the Fourth, Part II — “You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!”

Admittedly, I may be an odd case — after reading the abridged version of Les Misérables in high school, I fell so in love with the story that I went out and bought the full, unabridged version, and it’s remained one of my favorites ever since. So for me, hacking something up is bad enough…but re-writing it like this?

Truly a travesty.

The one possible good point I can see is if the kids are captivated enough by the stories that they may someday go out and find the original versions — but I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath on that count.

(via Ben Hammersley, with help from the Shakespearean Insult Generator)

iTunes: “I Hold a Prince” by Poems for Laila from the album La Fillette Triste (1991, 3:07).

Tori Amos: Tales of a Librarian

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Tori Amos has a new “greatest hits” collection available at the iTunes Music Store called ‘A Tori Amos Collection — Tales of a Librarian‘. Normally, this wouldn’t be terribly interesting to me, as I already have a very large Tori collection, and therefore wouldn’t have much need for a compilation album. However, this one caught my eye for two reasons.

Firstly, there are two exclusive tracks included only if you purchase the full album through the iTMS: Putting the Damage On (Reconditioned) and Pretty Good Year (Live from Sound Check). Secondly, all of the songs have been ‘reworked’ or ‘reconditioned’, which made me curious.

So far, I’m fairly impressed with what I’ve heard. None of the new versions are entirely new — in fact, on some of them, the changes are so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable, and I was initially starting to wonder if they had simply used ‘reworked’ rather than ‘remastered’ as a term and had just re-issued the original tracks. However, there are some definite changes to the tracks, usually in the form of a few extra instruments here and there, an extra vocal track or harmony line…slight edits and additions that flesh out the tracks a bit more.

One noticeable exception to the rule is the ‘reworked’ version of Professional Widow, which actually appears to be an edit of Armand van Helden’s dance remix of the track!

Overall, it’s not a must-buy for most people, but for a collector or for someone (like me) who gets a kick out of listening to a track’s production, trying to identify how it was all assembled, the collection is definitely worth the download.

iTunes: “Professional Widow (Reworked)” by Amos, Tori from the album A Tori Amos Collection – Tales of a Librarian (2003, 3:47).

Siouxsie in Seattle!

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Siouxsie‘s coming to Seattle — with the Creatures and the Banshees!

Coming to a US City near you in May & June, and you’re all invited..

We’re presenting these shows as “an evening with Siouxsie” as they’ll be neither solely Creatures nor Banshees but an all encompassing two hour show which will comprise classics & rarities picked from the whole of the Siouxsie & the Banshees & the Creatures catalogues.

We’re also thrilled to announce that ex-Kodo drummer Leonard Eto will be joining us as our special guest for the debut performance of songs from Hái!

The venues are mostly of an intimate size, (more sensorial), there’ll be no support so get there early as this will be one of those rare chances to see & hear la Sioux – up close!

see you soon,
xxBudgiexx

AN EVENING WITH….SIOUXSIE
2004 U.S. TOUR DATES

Wed 19 May, Seattle, WA – The Showbox
Tel: 206-628-0221 or 800-325-SEAT ticketswest.com
Tix. \$27.50 Adv. \$30.00 DOS Doors: 8:00PM OnStage: 9:30PM (21+)

I so need to get off work early that day…

(via Sirriamnis)

iTunes: “Mars (The Bringer of Techno)” by Technoclassix from the album Technoclassix Vol. 1 (1993, 5:20).

Devil Duckie USB Flashdrive!

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Devil Duckie USB Flashdrive

I tell you, if I didn’t already have my iPod (and therefore no need for a flash drive), this would be so tempting!

He may be a representative of the dark side, but it’s hard to resist those tiny horns and cute chubby red body. At 4 1/2 inches long, our stylish and strange Devil Duckie Drive is a High-Speed USB 2.0 (1.1 compatible) personal data storage device for people who are going places.

Once you reach your destination, plug your Devil Duckie Drive in and put him to work. His expressive (and often hypnotic) eyes will blink as he reads and writes your data.

(via MacMinute)

FedEx making The Switch?

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Interesting rumor via MacRumors:

According to one unconfirmed source, Federal Express may be looking to make a significant purchase of Macs to replace their current PCs.

Reportedly, the move is under consideration due to the recent wave of viruses that have swept the PC world.

While Macs are not inherently immune to virus attacks, most viruses have been written on the Windows/PC platform.

Now, this is “one unnamed source”, so it could easily be entirely fictitious, but it’s interesting to think about, at the very least.

As an added bonus, the MacRumors discussion thread for this item has a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than what I’m used to seeing in their forums, and I found this wonderful little point buried within, from MisterMe:

…there is more evidence for ghosts, UFOs, and Big Foot than there is for MacOS X viruses. People have actually reported seeing ghosts, UFOs, and Big Foot.

iTunes: “Thunder Kiss ’65 (Swinging Lovers)” by White Zombie from the album Nightcrawlers: The K.M.F.D.M. Remixes (1992, 4:46).

Coolio ‘Smokin’ Stix’ (DJ Wüdi Remix)

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So, aside from a little silly noodling around a couple weeks ago, I hadn’t really done much with GarageBand since I picked it up. Since I don’t have a keyboard to use with it, I’m somewhat limited by not being able to use anything but the included loops. However, it occurred to me on the way home from work the other night that that should be more than enough to let me play around with remixing already existing work…

…and for some reason, Coolio’s “Smokin’ Stix” caught my ear as a likely candidate. While the subject matter isn’t really up my alley (dipping cigarettes in embalming fluid and smoking them to get high), the beats and rhythms are fun, and I thought I might be able to make something work with that as a base.

Disclaimer: The original recording of Coolio’s “Smokin’ Stix” is ©1994 Tommy Boy Music, published by Tommy Boy Music/Boo Daddy Publishing/All Nations Publishing (ASCAP)/Frankly Music (BMI); was written by A. Ivey, T. Conway, and A. Feldman; and contains samples from “You Want It You Got It” performed by B.T. Express, courtesy of Roadshow Music Corp. I am not charging for or attempting to make money off of this remix. Please don’t sue me. :)

So, for the past couple days, I’ve been fiddling around with GarageBand and Amadeus II, first using Amadeus II to snip the song into lots of little pieces and attempting to isolate the vocals from the background music (which was only partially successful), then re-assembling everything in GarageBand with my own choices of drum beats, instruments, and electronic bleeps and bloops.

And now, finally, it’s finished (or at least, “finished enough” — I could probably keep tweaking it nearly indefinitely).

Download it here: Coolio’s “Smokin’ Stix” (DJ Wüdi Remix) (4:03, 4.6Mb, 160kbps MP3).

I don’t think it’s perfect, but I don’t think it’s too terribly bad for a first project, either. Hopefully some of you get a kick out of it too — but feel free to let me know what you think, good or bad!

Avi Rubin vs. Diebold

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Avi Rubin, one of the primary authors of a highly critical look at Diebold’s electronic voting machines, decided to answer some of his critics, put his money where his mouth is, and spend a day as an election judge, working with the very machines about which he had expressed strong security concerns. In his very interesting recap of his day, he admits that some of his concerns may not be as much of a worry as he thought — but others may be far worse.

In our paper, we described how the smartcards used by these machines had no cryptography on them, and we made the widely criticized claim that a teenager in a garage could manufacture smartcards and use them to vote 20 times. I now believe that this particular attack is not a real threat — at least not in the primary I worked today. […] In general, multiple voting attacks during the election are not likely to work in a precinct such as the one where I worked.

[…]

There were also some security issues that I found to be much worse than I expected. […] The security risk I saw was that Diebold had designated which machine would be the zero machine, and at one point, all of the vote tallies were loaded onto that one machine in memory. That would be the perfect point to completely change the tallies. There is no need to attack all of the machines at a precinct if someone could tamper with the zero machine.

[…]

I continue to believe that the Diebold voting machines represent a huge threat to our democracy. I fundamentally believe that we have thrown our trust in the outcome of our elections in the hands of a handful of companies (Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S) who are in a position to control the final outcomes of our elections. I also believe that the outcomes can be changed without any knowledge by election judges or anyone else. Furthermore, meaningful recounts are impossible with these machines.

I also believe that we have great people working in the trenches and on the front lines. These are ordinary people, mostly elderly, who believe in our country and our democracy, and who work their butts off for 16 hours, starting at 6 a.m. to try to keep the mechanics of our elections running smoothly. It is a shame that the e-voting tidal wave has a near hypnotic effect on these judges and almost all voters. I believe that after today’s experience, I am much better equipped to make the arguments against e-voting machines with no voter verifiability, but I also have a great appreciation for how hard it is going to be to fight them, given how much voters and election officials love them.

(via Jason Kottke)

The movie alphabet quiz

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This is really, really evil — identify the movies whose logos were used to create this alphabet.

So far, I’ve got A, B, D, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, V, W, Y, and Z (mouse over each letter to see the answer).

I’m missing C, E, F, J, O, S, T, U, and X, and it’s driving me up the wall…some of them look so familiar.

(via D, who deserves a special circle of hell for subjecting me to this) ;)