Hack This! Linux Last OS Left Standing in Contest

Vista, MacBook Out--Only Linux Left in Hacking Contest

With Vista hacked Friday, a Linux laptop remained uncompromised at the CanSecWest PWN 2 OWN hacking contest.

The MacBook Air went first; a tiny Fujitsu laptop running Vista was hacked on the last day of the contest; but it was Linux, running on a Sony Vaio, that remained undefeated as conference organizers ended a three-way computer hacking challenge Friday at the CanSecWest conference.

Earlier this week, contest sponsors had put three laptops up for grabs to anyone who could hack into one of the systems and run their own software. A US$20,000 cash prize sweetened the deal, but the payout was halved each day as contest rules were relaxed and it became easier to penetrate the computers.

On day two, Independent Security Evaluators' Charlie Miller took the Mac after hitting it with a still-undisclosed exploit that targeted the Safari Web browser. After about two minutes work, Thursday, Miller took home $10,000, courtesy of 3Com's TippingPoint division, in addition to his new laptop.

It took two days of work, but Shane Macaulay, finally cracked the Vista box on Friday, with a little help from his friends... (full article, here.)


I'm only mildly geeky, but I found this story interesting. Besides, it gives me the chance to use this pic!:

"Things that Offend Muslims"

The list started over a year ago over at the blog "Amboy Times" keeps growing.
The documentary short "Fitna" (translated "Strife" from the Arabic) has just been added.

If you have anything to add, go over there and give 'em a shout.



On second thought, does anyone know of anything that DOESN'T offend them? Well, other than beheadings and really, really foxy she-camels, that is.
That could be a really short list!



Just an example of the pretzel logic they employ:


"If you call my religion a death cult, I will kill you.

If you say my religion is intolerant, I will kill you.

If you say Islam teaches hate, I will kill you.

If you say muslims wont assimilate and adopt western notions, we will kill you.

If you are gay, we will kill you.

If you are a Jew, we will kill you.

If you are a Christian who supports the Israelis, we will kill you now.

If you are a Christian, we may kill you now or later.

If you do not remove the movie "Fitna" from your website, we will kill you.

If you try and stop us from taking over by having as many children as we can and teaching them to kill, we will kill you.

If you say we are abusive to our women and hold them in slavery, we will beat our wives...and then kill you.

We are THE Religion of Peace, we are Islam.

We will convert you or kill you.


Have a nice day! "



UPDATE: Well, ain't this interesting! Here's an 'open letter' to Wilders about his lil' documentary that almost mirrors the tongue in cheek statement above!

Stunned and Shocked

Ever knew anyone who murdered someone?

I do...now.

Our old friend Roger has screwed the pooch big time.
I've known him for quite a long time. He was a friend of my husband's and my brother-in-law. I've hung out with this guy. Been camping with him and whatever girl he was with at the time. Me and Bill have had many a beer with him-good times or bad, he was a regular at the bike rallies we used to go to-his nickname was 'Skitz'. My younguns liked Roger. He was a good guy. His only fault, that I knew of was his uncanny ability to get hammered, then lippy and consequently, get the crap beat out of him by whomever he had pissed off with his trash talk. He finally quit drinking a few years back. I thought he was on his way to getting his shit together...guess not.

I'm just in a state of disbelief.
My girls cried at the news.

WTF?!
Dammit!

And you thought you had it tough "gettin' some"

File under "Crap you really didn't need to know, but by Jove, somebody's researched it!"
Deeply strange squid sex.

Damn.

HT: Boing-Boing

OK, I admit, that was just TMI. So how about some Dog Haikus to soften the shock and disgust?

I lie belly-up
In the sunshine, happier than
You ever will be.


I sound the alarm!
Mailman fiend - come to kill us all -
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!


My human is home!
I am so ecstatic I have
Made a puddle.

(and my personal favorite)

Today I sniffed
Many dog behinds—I celebrate
By kissing your face.

New Photos of Old Stores

(This is cross-posted at the "other" blog, which documents my latest boondoggle, uh, I mean- project! This is in part why posting over here has been infrequent.)


Part of the decor in the refurbished store will be nicely framed photos of some of the old general stores still standing in the area. I've been taking our digital camera along when ever we have to go anywhere, since a lot of these places are on the usual routes to and from town. I use the sepia/black & white setting on the camera. Here's what I have so far:

The Sycamore store, Hwy 181, Sycamore Mo. (near Dora)


The Brixey store, Hwy N, Brixey Mo.


Probably the most lovely and yet most ramshackled store in the area, The Birdtown store. Hard to find, since it is on a gravel county road and not a highway. Birdtown, like Souder is now just a few houses scattered about and this beautiful old 2 storey building laying forgotten. Birdtown is in the area of Dora, Mo.

Missouri Floods

We're all fine, thank you.
Soggy and a little freaked out, but fine.
The worst is over.

I knew when I bought this shack o' happiness many years ago that living right on a "seasonal creek" would be a risk sometimes. I've had plenty of time to work out bug-out plans and strategies IF it should ever really hit the fan. And I had have quite a few times to observe the flood behavior of my little area, from flash flood to just a slow rise and everything in between.
It came damn close late last night to buggin' out...or was it early morning? Kinda hard to recall when you've been going for nearly 24 hours straight. OK, I'll cop to a few 30 minute power naps in the wee hours last night, but I had been up since 5 am Tuesday, monitoring the creek level.

The older I get, the harder this crap is for me to take and my anxiety sky rockets.
I asked God to lighten up on the rain for just an hour-to let the creek drain off a bit so it could handle the next wave of deluge. At 1 am He gave us 2 hours!
First time it had ceased raining since 6 am that previous morning.
That made the difference between staying and fleeing. I firmly believe that.

Anyway...here's some pics.

This was at dusk last nite. The side creek raging into the main creek. Shot from my front yard.The big creek is just starting to spill over it's banks.

A view from my little bridge, this morning.The side creek has calmed, the big creeks levels have dropped into the banks (barely).

A shot of the 'seasonal creek' at almost full blast flood stage. It always reminds me of a river of chocolate milk when it gets like this, same color and waves of white froth. This is just less than 50 feet from my front door! You can see the debris line on the trees along the bank-that shows how much it got up last night. Road is still under water, probably trashed beyond belief. We ain't going nowhere's for awhile! No school for the younguns.

"Skittlegate" Matter Resolved

By now you may have read about the 8th grade honor student who was busted for the heinous crime of buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate. (We all know that Skittles are the gateway to harder stuff like Milky Ways and Big Hunks and eventually, tragically, Cherry Mashes. Seeing some poor misguided, toothless soul in the throes of a Cherry Mash withdrawal isn't pretty.)

After national exposure (and perhaps dad sliding his attorney's biz card across the desk of the school superintendent) the school has backed down and reversed their insanely harsh punishment.

Some argue that the school was within its' rights and that backing down now under pressure just shows the kid that rules can be bent for "special people".

Bullsh*t.

That's not what's it about. It's about stupid people making up stupid rules wanting to control every aspect of our lives...for our own good. This is the most insidious form of tyranny. The smiley happy face of Fascism, to use the popular vernacular. And what better place to do it than in the schools? It won't work with us adults so much because we are of legal age and have some clue as to our rights, so let's mess with the younguns heads, shall we? They are much more malleable.
It's no surprize that this happened in some snot-nose east coast "magnet school". But crap like this happens in even in smaller more conservative school districts, too...or at least they try to. Most times they get shot down by the parents who take an active role in the schools...and actually go to the Board meetings.

A quote from Ms. Turner, the school principal, in the recent article caught my eye and I do think it's important: "Turner said she should have reinforced in writing the verbal warnings against candy transactions."

Verbal warnings.

So, just how was these verbal warnings transmitted? Over the P.A. every morning just before the Pledge?- that is if they even still do that there. Was it mentioned in an assembly to the entire student body? Or was it spoken to individual students in passing...maybe to those who looked like they might be burgeoning candy pushers or potential "at risks" for straying down the sugar-laced path to "un-Wellness"?
Sorry, Ms. Eleanor Turner, but that's a LAME excuse and I ain't going for it.
Maybe y'all just made it verbal because if any of the parents read that in the student handbook, they'd have a ragin' cow about it and y'all didn't want to fool with the hassle. It's much easier to make crap up on the fly as it suits your agenda.
Yeah...that tactic really worked out well for you. As a principal, you oughta know by now that most kids blow off any verbal warnings-whether it be by a parent or school authority. I'm sure they heard it- it just didn't sink in or they just didn't believe y'all were friggin' serious. So, by just saying it to the students, rather than sending home a sheet outlining the new policy -FOR THE PARENTS TO READ- you set this whole thing in motion knowing full well you would bust some kid. You set them up, you evil wanks!

I'm not saying that our kids should have the right to be jacked up out of their gourds on candy in the classroom. But honestly- a bag of Skittles? He didn't steal it, it was a friendly transaction between classmates, and the classmate realized some financial gain from it. The unknown classmate got maybe 50 cents for an unwanted bag of candy in his lunchpail. Was he aware of this verbal rule about candy in the school? Is he really the bad guy here, bringing contraband into the classroom and enticing others to break the law for his own selfish needs?
Holy Christ, I bet y'all really have your hands full the first week after October 31st. How many kids have to do time for a few pieces of Halloween candy in their lunch? Do you insist that the kids turn their pockets out upon entering? Which brings me to another of their retarded rationales here- there's also a ban on students having money on their persons. "For their personal safety".
So...having a few quarters in your pocket makes you a safety risk?! Typical backasswards 'everyone's a potential criminal and/or victim' lefty goodthink.
Get friggin' bent. How the hell do they handle cases where the kids have to bring coin from home to cover certain field trip expenses or pay for yearbook orders? Do the parents have to mail them a check? Unreal.

This whole silly matter evolved from the district wide "Wellness policy". Leftyspeak for "we want to have full control of your kids lives for their own good because as a parent, you're obviously incompetent- we're professional educators, we know what your child needs more than you." They don't allow bake sales, fundraisers that involve the selling of unhealthy products-like candy or cookie dough and I'm sure there's some sort of bullsh*tty rule about "peanut free zones" in the cafeteria in there as well.

Ahhhh, but here's where we've caught them in their own blithering hypocrisy-
If one were to go to the school's website, you'd see this photo, taken just before one of their Parent/Teacher meetings...so much for no sugary sweets in the school!
And iffin you ax me, those dames aren't exactly the picture of "Wellness". (ok, maybe that last remark was a bit catty-but seriously- doesn't the gal on the suitably far left of the photo look like she can't wait to dive into that box of doughnut holes?) Proving once again that it's Do as I say, not Do as I Do with these folks.
Yummmmmmmmm! Doughnuts and cookies and pie!! Oh My!!! (no Skittles, though, go figure)

Local Sheriff's Report: Careful with that Ax, Eugene

As I have noted before, one of the forms of entertainment 'round here is reading the local Sheriff's report in the paper. Now most times it's kinda dull and blaise': 'woman reports neighbors cattle are in yard', 'caller reports harrassing phone calls to residence'- that sorta thing. But once in a while you get some stuff in there that really makes you wonder and it becomes a game to figure out what's really going on...and sometimes you wish you didn't, 'cause it starts to read like a story idea board for Stephen King.

Our latest melodrama takes place in the tiny near-by community of Bakersfield. I think I saw a movie like this once.---

March 3, 12:45 pm
Man reports woman running over someone with a car and says he's going to hit her with an ax. Bakersfield

March 5, 6:46 pm
Man threatening to shoot woman. Bakersfield (guess he couldn't find an ax.)

March 6, 2:50 pm
Man standing in road with ax. Bakersfield (Found it!!)

There have been no reports of any dismembered bodies being found in Bakersfield(...yet.) So maybe this call is related to all of the above:
March 7, 3:59 pm
Mentally ill person. Deputy Nick Jones responded.

Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal

Not the first time this ridiculous, unenforcible, nannystater idea has been floated.
Ohhh, but it's for the 'chill'ren', dontcha know.

"Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted."

Ha! I think I've just found my new login name. From hence forth, every time I want to comment somewhere, I'll sign in as "Tim Couch"!!

I urge you all to do the same when you can.
What a friggin' boob!

I got tagged for a recipe...

Cookie, over at the Cook Shack has tagged me for a recipe that quote: "...that no modern health conscious person in their right mind would eat today..."

Well, I got to thinking and the only thing that popped into my head, regionally, was the humble and ubiquitous Fried Pie. Once a winter time staple around here, it still occasionally pops up by the plateful at VFD potlucks and fund raising pie auctions, lovingly made by lil' granny women, who learnt it from their moms and so on. It was about the only way to make the tough leathery and discolored apple slices, strung up on string or baling twine and dried by the woodstove, palatable. Time has updated it and the preference to filling has changed, making it appear more like a home made version of the McDonalds apple pie and some have even gone so far as to use canned biscuit dough (!) for the crust. Sorry, homey don't play that game. Iffin you're gonna make fried pie, do it like it's 'sposedta. Here's one version:



2 cups dried apples (chopped or broken into smaller pieces)
A dab of raisins, if you got them- about a 1/4 cup or so. (raisins were a bit of a luxury item back then, so they're optional.)
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon salt or thereabouts
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons lard
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup milk (set aside a tablespoon of that for sealing the crust, later)
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (if you have it)
1 teaspoon cinnamon- or less, to taste
1 tablespoon sugar or brown sugar, you can mix the 2 or just use one or the other. I use both and a bit more than a tablespoon!
More lard for deep frying
********
Cover dried apples with water; simmer, covered, for about a half hour. Drain, mix in your raisins with the apple chunks if you want and let the whole thing cool for a bit.

Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Cut in the lard. Add eggs and milk, mix it up to form a soft dough. You ain't making a pie crust...it's more like a biscuit dough. Roll dough out thin and cut into 4 or 5 circles about 5 inches in diameter, about corn tortilla size. A large coffee can is perfect for this! You can just cut it into large squares too, if you're real inept, but circles are the traditional shape.

Mix the nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar.

Place about 1/2 cup dried apples in the center of each circle, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon (or more!) of the sugar mixture, then fold over. Some folk add just a teensy bit of butter on top of the filling before sealing, but that's optional and a matter of taste.
Wet edges with a little milk and seal with a fork. Poke a few holes in the topside of crust with the fork before frying up.
Fry in a dutch oven with about 2 inches of melted lard in it until golden brown. Like doughnuts, you'll need to flip them.
Carefully fish them out of the hot fat and drain well on a bunch of paper towels, or if you're real hi-tone and fancy-a cake rack.

If all you've known is McDonald's apple "turnovers", then your first bite of these will be a surprize. It's an acquired taste. A lot of folks can't stand 'em, but quite a few think there ain't nuthin' better. Try it with fresh apples or other fillings and it might go down better!
Now if you're health conscious, you can sub vegetable shortening in the crust and canola oil for the frying, but that really wasn't the point of this recipe, right?
We were going for gooey, artery cloggin' goodness!!

For Sale: Slightly used blimp, LIKE NEW!

Word is that our favorite crazy uncle has quietly bowed out of the race.
I bet the Ronulans will be in full blown denial well past November. They'll just see this as proof of a vast cryto-zionist conspiracy to silence the only man in the universe who knows the REAL truth and alone can save the planet.

OK, one last time for this one:

Christ in Hi-Def

"The Turin shroud, the 14- by 4-foot linen long believed to have been wrapped around Jesus' body after the crucifixion, has entered the digital age.

A huge 12.8 billion-pixel image was made of the linen, on which the smudged outline of the body of a man is indelibly impressed. The image was made following a Vatican request to obtain the most detailed reproduction of the yellowing ancient cloth. The technology allows a level of scrutiny of the linen as never achieved before..."


It will be interesting to learn what, if anything, new will be discovered.
I tend to be in the 'yeah, it's real' camp. The fact that none of the experts and scientists can agree or confirm anything about it beyond a doubt just shows that faith is stronger than "fact" sometimes. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm a little disappointed that the accompanying photo in the article looks like crap.
But, then again, my monitor ain't HD. Just looks like a blurry close-up to me.