For those of you that don’t follow me on Twitter, I periodically collect links on interesting things. I’ve decided that in addition to the Randomania posts, I’m going to do periodic collections of links and post those, too.
MSN has a list of the 11 Most Absurd Food Myths. The problem is that three of these myths the article tags as “true.” Then you have three more that are indirectly true (ex. drinking water or not eating late at night does help lose weight when it results in a reduction of calories, which if often does). After that, you have one that’s technically true but not in a helpful way (sort of the opposite of the water thing), one that’s “not exactly” true, and three that are bona fide wrong.
Charlie Brooker does the best write-up on the iPad that I have seen to date.
The New York Times had a good piece on the IP ownership of Sherlock Holmes. That Sherlock is not in the public domain is an embarrassment to our IP law.
The Boston Globe makes the case that Trial By Ordeal was effective… but how do you know so long after the fact who was guilty and who wasn’t to make that determination?
A Financial Times article about dogs in Russia has been making the rounds for a while. I intended to write a post on it, but never got around to it. So check it out if you’re interested in dogs and/or Russia.
A few years back, the Internet was saved.
Radley Balko’s writing on paternity law is a worthy read for those that have found our own writing on the subject interesting.
In Japan, there is apparently a cottage industry of people called wakaresaseya, whose job it is to quasi-seduce somebody into a compromising situation that you can then hold over them. Clients include people that want cause for divorce and negotiators (political and business) looking for leverage. I discovered this from a Times of London article about such an arrangement going terribly, terribly wrong. I’ve vaguely heard of this sort of thing occurring in the US and it makes a fair amount of sense (though of questionable legality). It was also shown on Melrose Place, so we know it happens.
Speaking of TV and reality, I swear this was the plot of a cop show I’ve seen. I can’t for the life of me remember which one. The people I’ve discussed it with think that the TV plot came from some sort of similar plan, but I’m really thinking it was the other way around. It’s an ingenious way to have somebody raped, but it requires a… peculiar… mind to come up with it. More of a Hollywood mind. Of course, they caught the bad guy on TV and they caught the bad guy in real life, so it can’t be too easy to get away with. If they caught them in the same manner then we know that the Wyoming dude didn’t get the idea from TV because he would have known how to avoid that particular trap.
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Ingenious? I think it’s just the modern-day equivalent of posting a woman’s number on a public restroom wall, saying she wants “a good time.” I don’t know about whatever TV show you saw, but I know this has been tried unsuccessfully a couple of times before. Not sure if it was via Craigslist or some other personal sites, but men have tried posting that certain women wanted to be raped.
Judging by what I read of the incident — it was very violent and the victim strongly resisted — I suspect the perp knew the victim wasn’t into it. He just figured he had a plausible excuse and could get away with it.
To me, I guess, there’s a difference between “call for a good time” shenanigans and actually plotting a rape by actually corresponding with someone and pretending to be the attacked. It takes something stupid and makes it evil.
I think I agree on the actual doer of the deed. I try to think of scenarios in which I would not, at some point stop and say “Wait… seriously?” and have a hard time coming up with any. Like you said, he likely realized at some point that all was not right and decide to go forward anyway since he might be able to get away with it.
Right, I mean, when the woman actually bit his hand and drew blood … wouldn’t a normal guy have gotten pissed and LEFT?! “Ow! Hey, you’re not being a very good host for someone who begged for this.”
Will wrote: “A few years back, the Internet was saved.”
OK, I finally made it through this story. I probably didn’t understand all the technical aspects but it was still very interesting. It’s an example of what an unusual field computer technology is, in that outsiders, even marginal people, can do things that massively affect the system. They can develop better knowledge and skill than the paid experts. *Kids* can make themseles important.
No other profession is like that. The question in my mind as a layperson is: So if this guy had such great abilities, why was he poor and obscure? Why weren’t his abilities marketable?
Also scary to think there’s this broad community of “hackers” out there waiting to pounce.
So if this guy had such great abilities, why was he poor and obscure? Why weren’t his abilities marketable?
He had, at some point, the head honchos of some of the largest organizations in the world asking for his help and consulting with him throughout all of this. But me in that spot and I will do whatever these companies tell me to do because I would be lining up a consulting career to set me up for life and I would need their good will. He was willing to throw away the good will of all of these people so that he could brag about what he did at a hacker convention. Turned out okay, obviously, but this tells me that he does not have the temperament to be particularly successful in the business world.
In other words, what he had in brains he lacked either in socialization or drive. You bring up a very good point about the repercussions of such things among hackers. The more sensible among them can be hired as white hats. But that assumes they want a job, can hold down a job, and aren’t captive to one of the many counterproductive ideologies that socially maladjusted geeks often do.
A lot of people wouldn’t do what this guy did. The good news about a lot of these people is that they are also less likely to use it to steal as much money as possible. The bad news is that they could just end up wreaking havoc for the sake of wreaking havoc.
It seems like there has been a movement to incorporate some of these people as security consultants… but what do you do about the ones that genuinely don’t want to be hired or the ones you can’t trust to be white hats?