Work has, once again, interrupted my project. So I have a little time to post something.

Massey university stopped their blood/alcohol experiments* long enough to do some research, and the results are sobering. My sites are hosted internationally and this being a blog, there’s little I have to hide. Plus I don’t upload sensitive information as a rule, so I’m at low risk. Those of you who do have reason to worry, probably should worry, and you should probably double check your security. Pick up a copy of this book and test your own site, it’s about the most comprehensive collection of Google Hacking tips I’ve seen.

* Hey, their campus has a road called Rehab Drive, and their students live by the mantra “drink on every day except Monday”

While awaiting my triumphant return, consider watching this:

http://threeleggedlegs.com/humans/

To my readers, yes, both of you, I’m currently working on a project which is taking up a lot of my time between work and sleep, so I havent been blogging as much as I usually do, so I’m sorry that you’re not getting your fix of my nonsense.  But trust me, when the project is complete, it’ll rock your socks off

To the idiot who took my phone,
Please enjoy a crappy cellphone with virtually no battery life, tiny anti-txt buttons and a slow clumsy interface. Please enjoy the lack of the charger, not that it matters because of the finnicky connector which would charge only during low tides or when the Thetans arent looking, which of course will help you to quickly discover the previously mentioned joy of the battery life or lack therof.

For your information, the Panasonic X200 is not selling for much on Trademe, you might be able to afford a couple of packets of cigarettes, which is probably the reason you took it – to hock it off for money to afford smokes. Personally I wouldnt bother, you’ll wind up with bad feedback.

Now, to describe where my anger is directed – obviously directly at you, but I’m thankful as well, you have finally given me the incentive to buy another Nokia and never stray from the N-camp again, actually now that I work for the big T, I get a free mobile phone. So I am not upset at losing the phone, far from it. I am, however, upset at losing four years work building up a contact list, and saved txts and pxts from the only people I give a crap about.

Fortunately for me, Vodafone are not useless, like you. So you should now find that the phone will become increasingly useless, like you.

So go on, sell my crappy phone so that you can afford another installation of anti-health, but if you arent completely a sputum-filled waste of flesh, riding on the back of a floating turd in the genepool, have some decency and drop my SIM card off where you acquired my phone.

If not, may you live a crappy life where puppies whizz on your ankles

Update: Something related, How to not steal a SidekickII Looking at myspace for more than 10 seconds makes you stupid. I reckon a goonrush is what’s in store…

Apple have sent SomethingAwful a threatening legal letter demanding they remove an excerpt of the Apple Service Manual from their forums. This excerpt, in image form, can be seen here. What set this off was a forum member opened up his Macbook (check out page 5) and found that Apple had shoddily plastered masses of thermal goop on the heatsinks. Surprise surprise, cleaning it up for a more modest amount dropped his temperatures significantly.

Apple had this to say in their little note of love:

â??The Service Source manual for the MacBook Pro is Appleâ??s intellectual property and is protected by U.S. copyright law.â?

Erm, Apple, that may well be the case, but citing one page out of the entire manual to use as an example to provide criticism or evidence to back up an argument – how is that not Fair Use/Fair Dealing? IANAL, but I do know my way around Copyright Law…

Then there is Apple’s second issue – the linking to their service manual on the internet. URL’s are illegal, how? This is Lowtax’s problem, how? Apple sure are thinking different.

Apple appears to be hiding the real issue here – the fact that they are not assembling their MacBooks properly and selling them for excessively high figures.

http://26-04-1986.com/

What an idiot – show some respect and leave the area well alone. No-one’s interested in you making a statement by painting pictures of children in derelict radioactive playgrounds.

In saying that though, there are some damn good photos there. It’s unfortunate that they’re presented in grayscale to provide a bleak feel to them.

Looks like Telecom is keeping AAPT mid-term – perhaps a move to stabilise shares after the LLU announcement. Even after all the loss that AAPT has made. Telecom will still be open to the option of flicking off AAPT long term though…

http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3657849a13,00.html

The Hon David Cunliffe has announced that Telecom has to unbundle its Local Loop. I had all the faith that out of all the Comms minister’s we’ve had, he’d be the one to do it. I just did not expect it this soon.

Links here and here and here

I think that Telecom is going to fight this tooth and nail, and they have every right to do so, but it won’t be a knee jerk reaction – it’ll be a calculated move to buy time for FTTC/NGN to get firmly entrenched. Either way, we’re not going to see the benefits of this until next year at the earliest, and really – what kind of competitive telco market can NZ foster? Will it be lively, or will it be stagnant like our electricity market? It’ll be very interesting to see how this pans out.

Edit: The mothership has already come up with its retort: http://www.telecom-media.co.nz/releases_detail.asp?id=3304&page=1&pagesize=10

Update: It seems I was wrong for a change. LLU does indeed cover FTTC, so Telecom is instead claiming it will embrace the change and restructure itself appropriately. Now let’s see if NZ can foster the competitive market that the industry would have us believe it can, or will it just balance out into something ho-hum like the mobile and electricity industries have?

Introducing Wii.

As in â??we.â?
While the code-name â??Revolutionâ? expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer.
Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.
Wii will put people more in touch with their games â?Š and each other. But youâ??re probably asking: What does the name mean?
Wii sounds like â??we,â? which emphasizes this console is for everyone.
Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.
Wii has a distinctive â??iiâ? spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play.
And Wii, as a name and a console, brings something revolutionary to the world of video games that sets it apart from the crowd.

So thatâ??s Wii. But now Nintendo needs you.

Because, itâ??s really not about you or me.

Itâ??s about Wii.

And together, Wii will change everything.

Now, I don’t mind the name Wii so much, what I do mind is the marketing-vomit above. We…errr… Wii have the same kind of nonsensical dribble on apparently inspiring posters at work, I have purged most of the better stuff mentioned, but the last 5 words are burnt into my skull for all eternity:

enabling our clients to dream.

Whenever I see those words I get the urge to swallow some cyanide to make the hurting stop. Or at least arm myself with a crossbow and hunt down the marketing pleb who ordered 5 innocent words into such an atrocious order.

Anyway, back to Wii. When Nintendo announced the name, the internets imploded. Fanboys on the Sony side guffawed (because you have to be totally inbred to be a Sony fanboy), Microsoft fanboys giggled like the girly idiots they are, and Nintendo fanboys screamed like their parents had found and destroyed their very first porno stash. Meanwhile, morons everywhere proved the mental age of most internet users is still in single digits by making toilet humour jokes “durrr hang on guys, I just gotta go Wii” etc

There were some interesting but misguided arguments too, like “what do I tell my parents? Mom I’m playing Revolution, she can handle that. Mom I’m playing Wii, she’s going to think WTF and come and bug me” – Ummm where I come from, you either say the brand name or video games. “Mum I’m playing Nintendo” is enough, and it won’t be entirely wrong to say that when playing on the Wii.

“Consoles should have meaningful names! Playstation, Xbox are meaningful names! Look at the Dreamcast – it failed lol kekeke ^_^” is another one. I’m going to just throw a couple of words out there – megadrive/genesis, master system, DS, neo-geo/snk, 2600, c-32, famicom. Hey, it could be worse

Could it be entirely possible that Nintendo is simply going for the “no publicity like bad publicity” approach? It’s certainly got a lot of people talking, a lot more than the XBox 360 or the PS-3. If this is the case, it’s a tremendous marketing ploy, and a bit of a gamble too.

At the very least, give it time to get to grow on you. I remember way back when Microsoft renamed Whistler to XP. The internet exploded with people going “WTF? I don’t want an eXPerience!” Whistler was a great codename, so was Longhorn, and so was Revolution. I think Wii will grow on the public after the rabid fanboy response dies down, just as XP did. Provided, like Microsoft, Nintendo market it right. They can start by cutting out the corporate sounding bullshit quoted above. Together, Wii can make Wii better.