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Elsewhere on the web

Doctorow FUDs the PSP.
“… if you buy authorized games to play alongside of it, expect some of them to sneakily re-break your device and lock it out … buying your games new from Sony is a one-way ticket to tech-support hell.” As far as I know, you have to initiate the firmware upgrade yourself and you only have to do that if a game requires it.

WMF vulnerability scope widening.
A more comprehensive third-party hotfix is available. Use it at your own risk. The Microsoft patch is expected January 10. In the meantime, take precautions and back-up your critical data.

Rooney, Rooney.
“… schoolchildren in Britain rate Rooney more famous than Jesus, the Queen and – surely not – David Beckham. Apparently only God beats the 20-year-old from Croxteth for fame.” Apart from Rooney’s abundant talent, the two things about him that stand out to me are his obvious love for the game and his will.

Pivotlog: web publishing system.
“The first release appeared in June 2001, and subsequent releases are named after Transformers characters … the current beta version is 1.30 ‘Rippersnapper’ …”

The epidemic that never was.
The Wired article mentions there was one death from the swine flu and 32 deaths were attributed to the vaccine for it. However, CDC reports 29 deaths were not influenza-related and it wasn’t proved the vaccine caused the deaths of three elderly people. Be sure to read how media sensationalism was a part of the problem.

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By Gobi – Tuesday, January 3, 2006

Elsewhere on the web

Lego King Kong.

Adult toy fans in Japan.
“… the number of adults — mostly men — spending time and money collecting and often playing with toys is rising.” No numbers for the size of the market, unfortunately.

Linux and Windows on the PSP.
You need the 1.0 or 1.5 firmware.

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By Gobi – Sunday, January 1, 2006

The F in FTP

Congratulations to my ISP, TM Net, for being the one of the first ISPs in the world to offer phone sex to customers of its ADSL service. They don’t market this service as such but it’s effectively the same thing.

This is how it works: you have a problem with the company’s ADSL service, Streamyx, and call the customer care hotline at which point the company’s customer representatives will proceed to jerk you off over the telephone.

Okay, perhaps not literally.

I’ve been experiencing severely reduced upload rates for the past few weeks. I usually have a maximum upload rate of about 40KB/s but right now I’m restricted to between 3 to 6KB/s. Curiously, my download speeds have not been affected at all. However, downloading via Bittorrent is much slower than usual since download speeds generally commensurate with upload speeds.

My biggest problem, though, is I’m having tremendous trouble uploading to my sites. To update the Tripod mirror of my blog, I have to upload three simple HTML files. Thanks to the sluggish upload rate, this is taking me up to 18 minutes on average because I keep timing out during the FTP process.

I’ve been in contact with four other Streamyx users from Banting and they’ve confirmed they’re experiencing the same thing. I would complain to the TM Net customer hotline but apparently the standard line being fed to customers is that the problem is on the customers’ end. If you insist it isn’t, they’ll send over a technician who’ll admit after a while that the problem is on TM Net’s end — they might even mumble it might have something to do with ports — and then claim it will be resolved.

In two weeks.

Memo to myself: search eBay for needles and voodoo doll likenesses of TM Net personnel.

This might be the last update to the Tripod site until the problem resolves itself. In the meantime, feel free to check out the fuyoh.net mirror since updating it is much less frustrating at the moment.

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By Gobi – Friday, December 30, 2005

Elsewhere on the web

FoundryDX.
Lego mecha made from a collection of 30-35,000 Lego pieces. The First Gundam and Zaku are especially impressive.

About Iraq in 2005. [via]
A sobering if not dispiriting roundup.

Another Windows security problem.
There’s a pretty bad Windows exploit being spread around quickly. There’s currently no fix from Microsoft but there’s a workaround.

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By Gobi – Friday, December 30, 2005

Elsewhere on the web

Takara’s Ryukendo.
The main line features simplified gimmicky designs suitable for a younger audience. The Microman versions of the designs will presumably be aimed at older collectors.

Mugenworld.
Mugenbine’s new official site features annoying Flash and pop-ups but there are some nice additions to compensate. I especially like the fact the product catalog now features some suggested custom combinations.

The physics of superheroes. [via]
The MP3 version of the 23-minute show is 9.1MB in size. I’ve put Kakalios’ book on my reading list.

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By Gobi – Thursday, December 29, 2005