Blackmoor Vituperative

Some new crime statistics are out, and there is good and bad
news about what is happening in local areas.

Virginia is the 14th safest state in the country, improving its
position for a fourth consecutive year. The ranking is the best the
state has had since 2001.

CQ Press, an independent publishing firm that tallies the statistics,
reported numbers based on counts of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated
assault, burglary, and vehicle theft.

Maryland has the second highest murder and robbery rate in the
country, with Baltimore being the 12th more (sic) dangerous city in
America. D.C. is the 21st most dangerous.

The safest states according to the survey are New Hampshire, Vermont,
and Maine.

Entire list:
http://tinyurl.com/cbqyd7

Shortly after the “terrorism” inspired nonsense at airports was implemented, I figured it couldn’t last long. As stupid and irrational as people are, lots of people fly. That level of stupidity and inconvenience simply would not not persist in the face of millions of people being harassed and humiliated for absolutely no reason.

I was wrong. Seven years and counting, and this idiocy shows no signs of going away.

Does anyone believe that a nail file or a Medal Of Honor is a danger to the safety of an airplane? I will say this: if the safety of an airplane is endangered by a nail file or a bottle of marinara sauce, then there is something seriously wrong on that plane, and it doesn’t have anything to do with nail files or marinara sauce.

Even the people who created this farce know it’s a farce. So why are we still tolerating it? Is “security” the opiate of the masses?

Or have we become such base cowards that we cringe at the thought of someone carrying a nail file?

What the hell happened to us?

I thought this was interesting:

“Sillygisms” by J. Neil Schulman

An example of real piracy:

Somali pirates hijack ship; 20 Americans aboard
Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard, hundreds of miles from the nearest American military vessel in some of the most dangerous waters in the world.

The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. It was the sixth ship seized within a week, a rise that analysts attribute to a new strategy by Somali pirates who are operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.

The company confirmed that the U.S.-flagged vessel has 20 U.S. nationals onboard.

I wonder how — or if — the news media will compare/contrast these real pirates with the so-called “pirates” who buy the latest Hannah Montana song and share it with their friends.

A reminder:

Sharing is not piracy
Copying is not piracy

On a side note, Somalia has not had a functioning government in a couple of decades. Piracy is their most lucrative industry.

I am watching American Idol right now (not my idea — my spouse likes the show), and one of the finalists has her hair in what I call a “trailer park hair hump”.

Why didn’t one of the show’s stylists talk her out of this? This horrible hair style is the mullet of the 21st century. Remember the mullet? “I want long hair, but I don’t want to look like a hippy from the front”.

The trailer park hair hump brings that design aesthetic into the 21st century: “I don’t want bangs, but I don’t want my hair in my face.”

It needs to end. Now.

I thought this was pretty amusing:

How to Make an Invisible Mask for Video Cameras

This is the neatest thing in tabletop RPG accessories I have seen in a while: inexpensive 3D dungeons, courtesy of DriveThruRPG and Fat Dragon Games.

Just thought I’d pass along a few security-related links which I thought were interesting…

• Advice for reading about security
• Code for ultimate rootkit to be released on 2009-03-19
• Recession: a chance to deploy open source security solutions

In particular, I think this comment strikes at the heart of what’s wrong with IT in many companies:

Open source software in general, and Linux in particular, also has an undeserved reputation for poor security in some circles. Part of the reason for this is the fact that many people simply don’t understand how software security, and open source development, works. They hear “open source”, and think “Hell, if anyone can get the source, then anyone can modify it. How do we know we aren’t getting software modified by some malicious ‘hacker’ who wants to steal our sensitive data?” Another part of the reason is that many people with limited technical skills — and a dismaying number of supposed technology “experts” — simply don’t understand that there’s more to security than counting vulnerabilities.

(from Recession: a chance to deploy open source security solutions, TechRepublic)

“There’s no way I would be involved in a sequel or prequel,” said director Zack Snyder, who turned the graphic novel “300” into a 2007 blockbuster.

“Will they make one? I have no idea how you would. The work is the work. This movie is about ideas. Anything else you would do, if you did a sequel to it, misses the point entirely of what ‘Watchmen’ is,” he said.

(from Watchmen sequel unlikelyYahoo.com)

That didn’t stop them from making sequels to Highlander and The Matrix.

Dave Howe, president of the Sci Fi Channel, does not understand or like science fiction and has contempt for the people who do.

In the most recent absurd move by the Science Fiction Channel, Howe has decided to change the name of the channel to “SyFy”. If you are rolling your eyes and saying, “What the …?”, you are not alone. In Mr. Howe’s words, “What we love about this is we hopefully get the best of both worlds. We’ll get the heritage and the track record of success, and we’ll build off of that to build a broader, more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.” In other words, “I don’t have a clue what science fiction is or why anyone would want to watch it. So rather than try and appeal to that market, we are changing the name of the channel to something nonsensical and hoping that will somehow improve our ratings.”

In making this idiotic change, Mr. Howe is following in the footsteps of Tim Brooks, who helped launch the Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network. “We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi,” Mr. Brooks said. “It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.” In other words, “I have no idea why I was given the job to start a science fiction channel. I don’t like it, and I like the people who watch it even less.”

What’s next? Will the Pope be put in charge of Planned Parenthood? Will Sarah Brady be put in charge of Gun Owners Of America? Will Iran be elected to participate in the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women?

I intend to mock anyone using “SyFy” with all of the sarcasm I can muster.