09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0

This has been an intresting day not only for technology, but also for the power of the masses on the internet.

The processing key for all HD-DVDs and Blue Ray disks was cracked, and leaked onto the internet today. This relativly short hexidecmial code allows all copy protected HD-DVDs and Blue Ray disks to be unscrambled to a hard drive, and fruther manipulated.

The MPAA, and the AACS (the company who created the copy protection on HD-DVD's) were completly shocked...and not very happy to hear the news.

AACS started a rather unique defense strategy....

Everyone was waiting for lawyers to put on their battle gear and go hunting with cease and decist orders, and a thirst for blood....but they didn't just direct their attention at the hacker who descrambled the code.

They tried to remove the code from the internet, sending decease and decist orders to blogging websites, and anyone else who mentioned the code online ordering them to immediatly take it down.

The biggest site, Digg.com, known for their freedom and system of promoting or "burrying" an article removed all blog entries with the code, and banned the user who submitted it.

Intrestingly enough, the code has spread like wild fire...currently the top five pages at dig are all posts including the code...sometimes hidden in jokes, or audio files.

The MPAA is currently in panic mode, and is trying to track down the original cracker...like they did when the CSS code was cracked on regular DVDs.

(Danish police in riot gear raiding a house of a 19 year old computer programmer at the request of the MPAA; and he was sentenced to five years in jail)

The intresting difference between the cracking of regular DVDs and HD-DVDs is that only a number has been released. Undoubtablly this will cause some issues in court when it eventually gets there. Usually software to exploit something must be created in order to issue a cease and decist order...but a number is something completly different.

The original leaker must be mighty nervous right now, and probably is erasing his hard drive as I write this.

But in the end it is a pointless argument, freedom of speech on the internet vs. copy protection.

Congrats AACS, you did exactly opposite of what you wanted to do.

MC Rove?

I'm sure this is a bit of an old story by now, but still worth mentioning...

After last year's White House Correspondence dinner featuring Stephen Colbert's halarious take on politics it has become a tradition for the Bush administration to be the center of jokes.

Although this year they beat the comedians to the punch.

Quickly becoming one of the top videos on Youtube, the video of Karl Rove breaking out in an incredibly akward rap... in a tuxedo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWRSgjDEQy0

He seems surprisingly happy for someone who, that same day, had a subpoena approved for him.

Perhaps this is an attempt to slow the already low approval rating of the Bush administration?

It seems like whenever there is a dark cloud cast over the White House, out comes some incredibly obvious distraction to draw media attention away.

Is this just another stunt? Ranking up there with Bush's famous "Where are those WMDs...I knew they were somewhere around here.." standup line a couple years ago...

Or perhaps connections that appear out of nowhere, Iran supplying weapons to Iraq for example, which apparently happened 24/7 for a couple weeks and then abruptly stopped once media heat over the troop surge died down.

Or mabey the news is like any other political game, except its beginning to like a tabloid than a newspaper.

One thing is certain, the Bush administration has successfully used the media outlits to draw attention to and away from real issues, but it is becoming harder and harder to do.

There is no longer a "9-11" shield from critical thinking, an open war on Al-Quida, a disarming of a "dangerous" dictator, or silenced committe hearings.

But, then again there is always the backup plan, looking like too much of an imbecil for anyone to hate you.

Bias in an encyclopedia?

There has been a recent backlash at the website wikipedia, but in an intresting way.

Wikipedia itself is an open encyclopedia that allows for people to edit entries, which go through an approval process. Although this is not the ideal candidate for academic research, it does hold a great amount of information, that is becoming increasingly accurate.

Encyclopedia Briticanica attacked the idea of having an editable encyclopedia, but it seems like there is a greater target. The religious right.

Apparently Wikipedia has a liberal bias....although anyone can edit it....are conservates not found on the net?

Well now there is a solution for everyone outraged....conservapedia.com (which from the name apparently is unbiased).

Lets see what we have here....

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Fox news

From Conservapedia

Fox News was started in 1996 in response to the other cable news channels which all had obvious liberal biases. Because of this, Rupert Murdoch decided to start a real new channel which would tell the truth. The success of Fox news over every other news channel is because it is fair and balanced. ^[1] It has many people on it who work to spread truth such as Sean Hannity who is a great American. ^[2]. Fox News is best because instead of just telling you what to think, they only report the news unbiased and then allow the viewer to decide. ^[3].

In 2005 the White House selected Tony Snow from Fox News to be the new White House press secretary which was a great honor for Fox because it showed how well it was presenting the real truth instead of the fake liberal version.

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I don't know where to begin on this one, nor do I have the time, but there is one thing to point out.

Conservapedia is no longer allowing new visitors to create accounts and contribute content.

Crime and Punishment...and Incompetence

Everyone has hear plenty of stupid criminal stories, but stupid police stories are a bit rarer...

A mentally-ill man was arrested for "stealing" a Pepsi from Wallmart, and not even a 2-liter...

So he went to jail, probably to spend the day, but decided to stay for a bit longer.

17 months later, the police realized that even though they listed him as released, he was still in jail...

Talk about oversight.

Original article: (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070224/ap_on_fe_st/lost_in_jail;_ylt=AuKl4Y9uXBMJzKIexyBX.UMsQE4F)

Talk about lucky...

I ran across this news article a couple days ago, and am still amazed by it...

A skydiver went to jump from 15,000 ft. and had his parachute(s) fail to deploy...
Thats a full minute and a half of hang time looking at the ground..

I wonder what was going through his head, and I'm sure you are wondering why I'm putting something so morbid up...

The man managed to survive, with somewhat minimal injuries, all because he landed in a thorn bush. (granted falling into a torn bush going god knows how fast must not have been pleasent)

On top of that if he had landed 5ft to the left or right he would have landed on a nice soft tree stump, or better yet a parking lot.

I wonder how long it will be before he decides to jump again.

Original article here: (http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_7791.aspx)

First Post

Well, here is the first post on my new blog.

Guess I'm going to have to give up my boycott of blogging.

Heres to being another self-made expert on whatever topic I choose to write about.