When you can look into the lobby of a hotel at SDCC at 4am, and see nothing but costumes from 40 floors up, or have an hour long parade, then they can be the "CosplayCon".
SDCC doesn't take place at a Hotel. SDCC takes place at the San Diego Convention Center (and has since 1979,) and almost all of the hotels in San Diego are full of Comic-Con attendees during Comic-Con weekend (it is so difficult to find hotel beds during that weekend that there has been concern over the years of SDCC moving to Los Angeles, which likely has more beds available than San Diego.)
Won't argue with cosplay...though SDCC has had a masquerade since 1974, though in recent years (since the turn of the century,) SDCC has moved more and more away from comics to Hollywood entertainment. Before that, most cosplay was comic-book based and there were far fewer of them. I do remember seeing some cosplay back in the early 90's when I started going, but most of it was comic-book and video game cosplay. Haven't gone since 2008, tickets got too hard to procure.
CelebrityCon would be a better name, however, since SDCC has pretty much become the place where Hollywood goes to show off their latest stuff (probably because of the proximity to Hollywood.)
Joke or not...it is absolutely amazing to me the trouble I would have gotten into in school had I been going there now.
My teachers and other students were well aware of our pranks, and we never got into trouble then because folks in charge had a sense of humor and we didn't do anything to hurt anyone (at least, not our intention to hurt anyone, though sometimes we hurt ourselves when we got a little overzealous in our pranks.)
My friends and I collaborated on a comic-book where characters in the comic book occasionally died (usually in insane, unrealistic, comic-book fashion.) I wrote numerous stories which were mildly, and in one case, pretty blatantly weird and scary (and actually got a very good grade when I turned that one in for a writing assignment...the teacher said it was very Steven King-esqe.) I even drew pictures of swords, guns, etc., as we were building our own role-playing game similar to Cyberpunk/Car Wars and while I did get in trouble for bringing in a "Devil Worshiping Book" (Dungeons & Dragons) my friend let me borrow, for the most part we had fun and survived high-school and went on to college without incident.
If I went through school now, I'd probably be suspended and in jail by now, or worse, since nerds don't do well in jail.
Re: Re: Reminds me of an author I had a run-in with
Yeah, now I want to know which author you're talking about as well, so I can make sure I never send any money their way. It's not publicity to name a scum-bag author so people can avoid them, it's a public service.
Simple, just send an email to every author who DRMs their books. After a while, you'll have a complete list of whom to purchase books from and whom not to. If everyone does it, then there can be no defamation lawsuits. ;-)
I weep for the thousand or so email servers that will die to bring us this information.
What was really funny was that AAA and several other organizations at the time were running commercials about butt-dialing 911 and they all said that you should make sure your phone was locked before placing it in your pants. I sent an email to these organizations telling them that their advice should have been to not put your phone in your pants, because regardless to whether you locked your phone or not, many phones would allow you to dial 911 whether or not the phone was locked. According to Nokia, they were worried about liability issues, since in an emergency you might not think about having to unlock the phone to dial 911, and thus they allowed the numbers to be dialed in locked mode (but didn't think to put a watchdog in there to see if other numbers were pressed indicating a butt-dial.) The ads disappeared shortly afterward (though I doubt my email had anything to do with them disappearing,) which was sad, because they were really funny. The best one was the guy in the donut shop with the hot cup of coffee.
The new touchscreen phones have the same problem though. The screen usually has "Emergency Call" button, which when pressed when the phone is locked, opens the dialer. This is certainly true for Android phones, but I believe iPhones also have the feature.
Once you've signed in through the captive portal, you don't every have to do it again from that device, even if you use a different Comcast hotspot.
So, in other words, don't fix the problem by logging users off after a predefined period of time, but instead open the user up to security issues and difficulties instead.
Of course, they probably have no encryption being used on their points either, so it seems that there really could be a case where an attacker might not know what network they are on, so Comcast is just being really helpful for the attackers out there that might not know what network their victims are connected to.
Isn't this whole courtesy thing exactly what a CaptivePortal is supposed to provide? CaptivePortals are well understood by consumers in the free-wifi field, and most users understand that when they connect to a wifi access point, they may initially see a captive portal. Once they clear it, they know who they are connected to and there isn't any further need for courtesy (at least until they connect again.)
So, like usual, the big-cable ISPs have no understanding of social conventions and the technology.
Or are we prisoners of our own overblown fears of everything?
Yes.
In a day-in-age of helicopter parents, people being thrown in jail for felonies for leaving their post-toddler kids playing video games in a car on a cool, cloudy day for a few seconds to run into the store to buy milk, and people who believe that we must hire PR firms to carefully monitor and scrutinize what we put up on Facebook, we have become prisoners of our own stupidity.
I still routinely get comments from people about what I chose to share here or on Facebook (and I really don't share much.) I think we, as a society, have become too voyeuristic/stalkerish/creepy towards everything everyone else is doing wrong while ignoring our own faults and failings. Technology has certainly made this easier, but technology won't solve this problem. Unless you are being hurt physically by someone 'elses actions, or you have good reason to believe grave results will come from their failures, maybe it is best to worry about yourself and not what everyone else is doing. (It was good advice my mother gave me in elementary school too.)
Heck, I'll do it for them. Dear IRS, I volunteer. I'll do it pro bono.
As far as I am aware, unless things have changed, it is very unlikely for the government to accept your volunteer/pro-bono work. There are some places that might take your Volunteer work, but they aren't many. The government assumes a liability when dealing with volunteers, and being risk adverse, they tend not to like it.
Of course, you could go to work for a contractor, which means someone else gets paid for your volunteer work. But that would require the standard government contracting process, which would likely make it not worth your time or effort.
Re: Oh, the stories I could tell you about backups
The overall state of backups across the world is best classified as "miserable".
As an administrator of a network professionally, and as a volunteer tech support person on the side (who in this business doesn't hold that title,) I wholly agree.
However, that being said, it is amazing the power of TAR/DAR (or even 7z, for those Windoze aficionados,) and external USB hard drives. They've saved me from some really serious stuff, just as long as you write to multiple hard drives, and periodically test your backups on a non-production system.
Still miserable ghetto-tech, but it would have helped here, if it wasn't in the best interest of those involved (allegedly) that it not work.
Orwell wasn't wrong, he just missed the mark by 30 years...
Orwell didn't miss the mark by 30 years... This stuff has been going on for a long time, slowly ramping up to what it is today with the drop in the cost of the technology. Hell, people were saying the same thing in the 80's and early 90's. Orwell just missed the pervasiveness and subtle implementation of the technology to the point that most people didn't realize it until it was already there.
The cost of surveillance cameras and the technology to run them is so low that many residents can purchase the equipment to monitor their own property for significantly less than $500. Used to be the only people with cameras were big businesses, the government, and crime syndicates. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't have a webcam pointed at their mailbox now...which is surprising that people still do mail-theft any more.
As prices continue to drop, there is more you can do with the technology, and corporations will continue to explore.
[How this could have ended, before he went full Streisand]
Agree, that is exactly how this should have ended. But I am afraid he is already well on his way to a Carreon. Streisand just got upset when someone posted pictures of her house online. She didn't threaten to sue for defamation when they wrote about her threat.
In this case, I'd disagree. Sure, it might get you noticed, but if your goal is fraud, it isn't gonna work. Even if your goal isn't fraud, this publicity isn't going to help you make any money except from someone who is donating money to you just because they feel bad for you. And being a dick isn't going to win any supporters.
I wonder if Level 3 could just sneak in and connect the lines without Verizon knowing...
I'd prefer Level 3 just cut the existing wiring and tell Verizon that if they want network connectivity into Level 3's ISP, they are going to have to pay for it.
If they want to peer, they have to deal with the free-transit, not treat Level 3 as a customer. They can't have their cake and eat it too.
There's a reason that geek sites like ThinkGeek sell t-shirts that say "I read your e-mail."
I have that shirt, and wear it an awful lot. I do not, however, read the emails on my mail server that weren't sent directly to me or end up in abuse. Just because people wear the shirt doesn't mean that they really do it.
I had a coworker in a previous job who would periodically wear a shirt that said "I miss crime." and he never was arrested or even accused of any crimes.
Often times when I see people wearing shirts like that, it is usually an inside joke.
your 70 meg connection would be your in network connection speed, and not the speed that the whole internet runs.
I'm not, nor is anyone else here that I'm aware of, saying that the whole internet runs at 70Mbps. I'd love to get a 70 meg connection from my house to the edge of my cable internet provider's network. And maybe something close to that going from their network to their peers and transits.
After all, the internet is wireless and runs in a little black box with a red light on it...I saw it on TV once when Roy and Moss showed it to Jen and she proceeded to break it. Do me a favor...don't ever break the internet.
what speed does techdirt come down at? do they need a better connection or better peering to deliver ?
My co-loc provider provides a minimum of 100 Mbps, I get at least 1 Gbps on my servers, and I know he is connected to Level 3 at 10 Gbps or more. My work has several connections that run in the 600 Mbps to 10 Gbps range, and I know that they have bound 10 Gbps connections. My mirroring sessions at work routinely sustain 20 - 60 Mbps thoroughput across the country. And I suspect Floor64, being so close to Silicon Valley probably has the same connectivity at their co-loc as well.
On the real internet, not the AOL bubble version Comcast/Verizon/AT&T tend to believe they live on, bandwidth is cheap and getting far cheaper. My cloud networks measure bandwidth at MB at about 2.4 hundreths of a penny each, and my co-loc doesn't even charge me for bandwidth because the cost is so lo that he can recover it through my monthly connection fees.
This is little more than tin-pot sheriffs setting up their tollbooths, attempting to rival the government on collecting taxes for nothing, just like they did with the billions we spent on upgrading the broadband infrastructure for "the information superhighway" and E911 and K-12 and FIOS and every other boondoggle they've asked for money, changed the goal posts midstream, and then asked the government to forget the requirements and then pocket the money for the services they didn't provide.
But here's the problem: they actually deliver 5mbps. So the stats that say it shouldn't be enough are wrong. I've had all sorts of internet connections in the past few years, and its never been better.
God I wish I could consistently get 5mbps from my provider. Then again, I'd pay $70/mo for the gbps, since I already pay $70 for up to 70mbps (which is consistently around 3mpbs on a good day.)
On the post: San Diego Comic-Con Fighting With Salt Lake City Comic Con Over Trademark
Re: Re: What Con?
SDCC doesn't take place at a Hotel. SDCC takes place at the San Diego Convention Center (and has since 1979,) and almost all of the hotels in San Diego are full of Comic-Con attendees during Comic-Con weekend (it is so difficult to find hotel beds during that weekend that there has been concern over the years of SDCC moving to Los Angeles, which likely has more beds available than San Diego.)
Won't argue with cosplay...though SDCC has had a masquerade since 1974, though in recent years (since the turn of the century,) SDCC has moved more and more away from comics to Hollywood entertainment. Before that, most cosplay was comic-book based and there were far fewer of them. I do remember seeing some cosplay back in the early 90's when I started going, but most of it was comic-book and video game cosplay. Haven't gone since 2008, tickets got too hard to procure.
CelebrityCon would be a better name, however, since SDCC has pretty much become the place where Hollywood goes to show off their latest stuff (probably because of the proximity to Hollywood.)
On the post: School Claims Teen's Writing About Marijuana Use Is 'Drug Possession'
Re:
Joke or not...it is absolutely amazing to me the trouble I would have gotten into in school had I been going there now.
My teachers and other students were well aware of our pranks, and we never got into trouble then because folks in charge had a sense of humor and we didn't do anything to hurt anyone (at least, not our intention to hurt anyone, though sometimes we hurt ourselves when we got a little overzealous in our pranks.)
My friends and I collaborated on a comic-book where characters in the comic book occasionally died (usually in insane, unrealistic, comic-book fashion.) I wrote numerous stories which were mildly, and in one case, pretty blatantly weird and scary (and actually got a very good grade when I turned that one in for a writing assignment...the teacher said it was very Steven King-esqe.) I even drew pictures of swords, guns, etc., as we were building our own role-playing game similar to Cyberpunk/Car Wars and while I did get in trouble for bringing in a "Devil Worshiping Book" (Dungeons & Dragons) my friend let me borrow, for the most part we had fun and survived high-school and went on to college without incident.
If I went through school now, I'd probably be suspended and in jail by now, or worse, since nerds don't do well in jail.
On the post: David Letterman Mocks The Eagles Over Refusal To License Their Music
Re: Re: Reminds me of an author I had a run-in with
Simple, just send an email to every author who DRMs their books. After a while, you'll have a complete list of whom to purchase books from and whom not to. If everyone does it, then there can be no defamation lawsuits. ;-)
I weep for the thousand or so email servers that will die to bring us this information.
On the post: Slick Dude Butt-Dials 911 On His Way To A Drug Deal, Is Promptly Arrested
Re: Re:
What was really funny was that AAA and several other organizations at the time were running commercials about butt-dialing 911 and they all said that you should make sure your phone was locked before placing it in your pants. I sent an email to these organizations telling them that their advice should have been to not put your phone in your pants, because regardless to whether you locked your phone or not, many phones would allow you to dial 911 whether or not the phone was locked. According to Nokia, they were worried about liability issues, since in an emergency you might not think about having to unlock the phone to dial 911, and thus they allowed the numbers to be dialed in locked mode (but didn't think to put a watchdog in there to see if other numbers were pressed indicating a butt-dial.) The ads disappeared shortly afterward (though I doubt my email had anything to do with them disappearing,) which was sad, because they were really funny. The best one was the guy in the donut shop with the hot cup of coffee.
The new touchscreen phones have the same problem though. The screen usually has "Emergency Call" button, which when pressed when the phone is locked, opens the dialer. This is certainly true for Android phones, but I believe iPhones also have the feature.
On the post: Comcast Using Packet Injection To Push Its Own Ads Via WiFi, Apparently Oblivious To Security Concerns
Re: Re: CaptivePortal?
So, in other words, don't fix the problem by logging users off after a predefined period of time, but instead open the user up to security issues and difficulties instead.
Of course, they probably have no encryption being used on their points either, so it seems that there really could be a case where an attacker might not know what network they are on, so Comcast is just being really helpful for the attackers out there that might not know what network their victims are connected to.
On the post: Comcast Using Packet Injection To Push Its Own Ads Via WiFi, Apparently Oblivious To Security Concerns
CaptivePortal?
So, like usual, the big-cable ISPs have no understanding of social conventions and the technology.
On the post: Heavy Metal Lyrics Posted To Facebook Result In Arrest For Terrorist Threats
Re:
Yes.
In a day-in-age of helicopter parents, people being thrown in jail for felonies for leaving their post-toddler kids playing video games in a car on a cool, cloudy day for a few seconds to run into the store to buy milk, and people who believe that we must hire PR firms to carefully monitor and scrutinize what we put up on Facebook, we have become prisoners of our own stupidity.
I still routinely get comments from people about what I chose to share here or on Facebook (and I really don't share much.) I think we, as a society, have become too voyeuristic/stalkerish/creepy towards everything everyone else is doing wrong while ignoring our own faults and failings. Technology has certainly made this easier, but technology won't solve this problem. Unless you are being hurt physically by someone 'elses actions, or you have good reason to believe grave results will come from their failures, maybe it is best to worry about yourself and not what everyone else is doing. (It was good advice my mother gave me in elementary school too.)
On the post: GOG Looking To Extend It's DRM-Free Message To Movies/TV
Re: Re:
On the post: GOG Looking To Extend It's DRM-Free Message To Movies/TV
Re:
Uhm..."it's" is a contraction of "it is", not a possessive. "It" is one of the few words out there where an apostrophe doesn't mean a possessive.
On the post: Justice Dept. Official: We Could Get Lois Lerner's Emails From Backups, But It's Too Hard So Naaaaaah
Re:
As far as I am aware, unless things have changed, it is very unlikely for the government to accept your volunteer/pro-bono work. There are some places that might take your Volunteer work, but they aren't many. The government assumes a liability when dealing with volunteers, and being risk adverse, they tend not to like it.
Of course, you could go to work for a contractor, which means someone else gets paid for your volunteer work. But that would require the standard government contracting process, which would likely make it not worth your time or effort.
On the post: Justice Dept. Official: We Could Get Lois Lerner's Emails From Backups, But It's Too Hard So Naaaaaah
Re: Oh, the stories I could tell you about backups
As an administrator of a network professionally, and as a volunteer tech support person on the side (who in this business doesn't hold that title,) I wholly agree.
However, that being said, it is amazing the power of TAR/DAR (or even 7z, for those Windoze aficionados,) and external USB hard drives. They've saved me from some really serious stuff, just as long as you write to multiple hard drives, and periodically test your backups on a non-production system.
Still miserable ghetto-tech, but it would have helped here, if it wasn't in the best interest of those involved (allegedly) that it not work.
On the post: Boston Police Used Facial Recognition Software To Grab Photos Of Every Person Attending Local Music Festivals
Re:
Orwell didn't miss the mark by 30 years... This stuff has been going on for a long time, slowly ramping up to what it is today with the drop in the cost of the technology. Hell, people were saying the same thing in the 80's and early 90's. Orwell just missed the pervasiveness and subtle implementation of the technology to the point that most people didn't realize it until it was already there.
The cost of surveillance cameras and the technology to run them is so low that many residents can purchase the equipment to monitor their own property for significantly less than $500. Used to be the only people with cameras were big businesses, the government, and crime syndicates. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't have a webcam pointed at their mailbox now...which is surprising that people still do mail-theft any more.
As prices continue to drop, there is more you can do with the technology, and corporations will continue to explore.
On the post: Prenda Loses Again: Minnesota Appeals Court Upholds Sanctions
Re: You don't have to be wealthy...
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/kentucky/kyedce/5:2010cv00322/64932/6
On the post: Comic Artist Randy Queen Now Claims Post About His Abuse Of Copyright To Stifle Criticism Is Defamatory
Re: Alternate Reality Version
Agree, that is exactly how this should have ended. But I am afraid he is already well on his way to a Carreon. Streisand just got upset when someone posted pictures of her house online. She didn't threaten to sue for defamation when they wrote about her threat.
On the post: Recording Industry Willfully Misreads The Law In Order To Sue Ford & GM For Having Built-in CD Rippers
Re: Re:
I occasionally buy them from independents like CDBABY. I call them backups.
On the post: Musician Threatens To Sue Journalists For Defamation For Pointing To His Past Troubles Fulfilling Crowdfunding Campaigns
Re: Re: Maybe....
In this case, I'd disagree. Sure, it might get you noticed, but if your goal is fraud, it isn't gonna work. Even if your goal isn't fraud, this publicity isn't going to help you make any money except from someone who is donating money to you just because they feel bad for you. And being a dick isn't going to win any supporters.
On the post: Verizon Gets Snarky, But Basically Admits That It's The One Clogging Its Networks On Purpose
Re:
I'd prefer Level 3 just cut the existing wiring and tell Verizon that if they want network connectivity into Level 3's ISP, they are going to have to pay for it.
If they want to peer, they have to deal with the free-transit, not treat Level 3 as a customer. They can't have their cake and eat it too.
On the post: NSA On Snowden's Claims Of Passing Around Nudie Pics: We Totally Wouldn't Allow That... If We Knew About It
Re:
I have that shirt, and wear it an awful lot. I do not, however, read the emails on my mail server that weren't sent directly to me or end up in abuse. Just because people wear the shirt doesn't mean that they really do it.
I had a coworker in a previous job who would periodically wear a shirt that said "I miss crime." and he never was arrested or even accused of any crimes.
Often times when I see people wearing shirts like that, it is usually an inside joke.
On the post: Level3 Proves That Verizon Is Absolutely To Blame For Netflix Congestion... Using Verizon's Own Blog Post
Re: Re: Re: Hope?
I'm not, nor is anyone else here that I'm aware of, saying that the whole internet runs at 70Mbps. I'd love to get a 70 meg connection from my house to the edge of my cable internet provider's network. And maybe something close to that going from their network to their peers and transits.
After all, the internet is wireless and runs in a little black box with a red light on it...I saw it on TV once when Roy and Moss showed it to Jen and she proceeded to break it. Do me a favor...don't ever break the internet.
what speed does techdirt come down at? do they need a better connection or better peering to deliver ?
My co-loc provider provides a minimum of 100 Mbps, I get at least 1 Gbps on my servers, and I know he is connected to Level 3 at 10 Gbps or more. My work has several connections that run in the 600 Mbps to 10 Gbps range, and I know that they have bound 10 Gbps connections. My mirroring sessions at work routinely sustain 20 - 60 Mbps thoroughput across the country. And I suspect Floor64, being so close to Silicon Valley probably has the same connectivity at their co-loc as well.
On the real internet, not the AOL bubble version Comcast/Verizon/AT&T tend to believe they live on, bandwidth is cheap and getting far cheaper. My cloud networks measure bandwidth at MB at about 2.4 hundreths of a penny each, and my co-loc doesn't even charge me for bandwidth because the cost is so lo that he can recover it through my monthly connection fees.
This is little more than tin-pot sheriffs setting up their tollbooths, attempting to rival the government on collecting taxes for nothing, just like they did with the billions we spent on upgrading the broadband infrastructure for "the information superhighway" and E911 and K-12 and FIOS and every other boondoggle they've asked for money, changed the goal posts midstream, and then asked the government to forget the requirements and then pocket the money for the services they didn't provide.
On the post: Level3 Proves That Verizon Is Absolutely To Blame For Netflix Congestion... Using Verizon's Own Blog Post
Re: Hope?
God I wish I could consistently get 5mbps from my provider. Then again, I'd pay $70/mo for the gbps, since I already pay $70 for up to 70mbps (which is consistently around 3mpbs on a good day.)
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