I am a hacker and you are afraid and that makes you more dangerous than I ever could be.
Rods From God
Topic: Technology
8:07 am EDT, May 15, 2008
They are a kinetic energy device like the railgun, but instead of using electricity to achieve destructive velocities, they use gravity. The still-hypothetical system would be comprised of two satellites in orbit around the Earth. One would house the communications and targeting hardware, while the other would house the rods themselves, each up to a foot in diameter and twenty feet long. To fire, they would simply be released and allowed to fall back to Earth (with a bit of remote guidance). By the time they reached the surface, they'd be traveling at a speed of 36,000 feet per second and carry the destructive force of a nuclear warhead, only with none of the radioactive fallout.
!!! ... !!! Dropping telephone poles on people. From Space! Damn.
Rattle wrote: Remember Billy, when driving through the Internet Ghetto, put the windows up, radio off, and seats down.
When I drive through the Internet Ghetto my ports are open, my radio is pumping, and my all inputs be '/**/OR/**/5=5/*|id;cat</etc/p%61sswd%00<img src=x onerror=eval(location.hash.substring(1))>
Me: Why is Visual Studio taking 45 seconds to load? Computer: You appear to be running a disk intensive task... so I think I will run an anti-virus scan, and the file indexer for Desktop search!
I swear my laptop "knows" when I'm trying to do something important and runs schedule tasks at exactly those moments.
I was working on a project and noticed some odd DNS behavior. Behold:
C:\Documents and Settings\hoffmabi>nslookup google.com
Server: 24-197-160-17.static.gwnt.ga.charter.com
Address: 24.197.160.17
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Addresses: 64.233.187.99, 64.233.167.99, 72.14.207.99
C:\Documents and Settings\hoffmabi>nslookup www.memestreams.net
Server: 24-197-160-17.static.gwnt.ga.charter.com
Address: 24.197.160.17
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: memestreams.net
Address: 72.9.237.202
Aliases: www.memestreams.net
C:\Documents and Settings\hoffmabi>nslookup shouldnotresolvefoooooo.com
Server: 24-197-160-17.static.gwnt.ga.charter.com
Address: 24.197.160.17
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: shouldnotresolvefoooooo.com
Addresses: 64.158.56.56, 63.251.179.56
C:\Documents and Settings\hoffmabi>nslookup fuckyoucharterthisshouldntresolve.com
Server: 24-197-160-17.static.gwnt.ga.charter.com
Address: 24.197.160.17
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: fuckyoucharterthisshouldntresolve.com
Addresses: 64.158.56.56, 63.251.179.56
Fuck! Charter is trying to be helpful and resolving all hostnames, even those that don't really exist. Instead of doing what they are supposed to do and returning an error that thissitedoesnotexistatall.com doesn't resolve, they are lying to me and my project and telling me it does. Hello again SiteFinder didn't we stop all this bullshit 5 years ago?
So, I try this with craziness in a web browser and I get this helpful page:
The search results on the prior page were provided because the domain name you entered into the address bar is either improperly formatted, currently unavailable, nonexistent, or part of a keyword search. This service is designed to enhance your web surfing experience
Only its not, it messing up my program because things that should not exist are being reported as existing!... ... [Grrrrrrrrrrrr]
Note: In order for opt-out to work properly, you need to accept a "cookie" indicating that you have opted out of this service. If you use a program that removes cookies, you will have to repeat this opt-out process when the cookie is deleted. The cookie placed on your computer will contain the site name: ".charter.net".
Great, just freaking great. There is no way to turn it off. They are always going to resolve the non-existent hostname, and then do an HTTP 302 redirect to their bullshit captive portal, only to then see a cookie that tells them to give me an error page, which is an HTML page made to look like Internet Explorers default DNS error page.
Way to consider programs that do DNS resolution that don't use HTTP.
I hate Charter so much right now.
Update They are doing very odd things. At first it seemed they are only doing this with domains directly off a TLD. So the non-existent dfklsdfaklsdafkldafkl.com resolves but the non-existent foobar.verisign.com does not. However the non-existent Fdsafdsfdsafdsa.google.com resolves.
God damn idiots.
In an odd bit of humor, their mocked up IE DNS error page is all messed up. First, it doesn't display images in in anything other than IE because they are using the res:// protocol. I hope Microsoft fucking sues them for using the IE DNS error page word for word.
Had the need to create some orby icons this weekend and instead of using a resource editor or Google images to "borrow" someone else's I used this tutorial.
Looptopia '08 Chicago's All-Night Cultural Celebration, May 2, 2008
Topic: Miscellaneous
8:51 pm EDT, May 3, 2008
With the sounds of Looptopia still ringing in our ears and the sights and sensations having been intricately etched into our minds, Chicago Loop Alliance would like to express it’s sincere thanks to the artists, venues, sponsors, partners, and participants that made this event such and incredible and unique experience. Please continue to visit the website for an event photo gallery and post event updates.
It's a good time to be in Chicago. Last night, deep dish pizza, belly dancers, some crazy stuff with fire, and a late night show at Second City. Today, museums and culture and tonight a Dueling piano bar!
What should I do in Chicago? I've got til Tuesday, and then we play, "what do in Vegas when hundred billion multiple national corporations aren't footing the bill."
One big difference is a new aria he wrote for Princess Turandot. It attempts to tackle the opera's main difficulty: how can the cold-hearted ice princess Turandot fall suddenly and deeply in love with her suitor, Calaf? The new aria aims to give psychological depth to Turandot's transformation while staying faithful to Puccini's original music.
"We wanted to respect Puccini's style and finish the work in the same way. We didn't want my contribution to be completely Chinese or completely modern or completely different from Puccini," Hao says.
I would like to see Turandot. Unfortunately, the most recent performance in Atlanta I found reference to was in fall of 2007. :-(
