90% Crud

PS2 Broken Beaten Down?

Is your Playstation 2 having problems reading discs? Well apparently there was a class action lawsuit about PS2s sucking and now Sony will fix them for free. You just need to know the magic words, which are at http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/playstation2_sony_repair.txt (via Dave)

GameFAQs doesn't like people linking to their content (which is why they put it on the web?) so you'll need to copy and paste the above URL. Also, if you're into social engineering your way to cheap goods and services check out Sprint PCS. While I hated their service, I have to admit that their customer retention department is top notch. Both Jenny and Erik have gotten free phones from them.

MT Security Hole

If you're running Moveable Type please read up on how spammers are abusing mt-send-entry.cgi. The easiest way to fix this is to change the permissions to 000, which will disable the script. Or you can just delete it. It's only used if you set up "mail this entry". You can test whether your change worked by going to http://www.example.com/MTDIR/mt-send-entry.cgi: if you get a 403 or 404 error you've fixed it.

Zero Tolerance

It's not often that I agree with an opinion piece on Fox News, but when they're right they're right. In Zero Patience for Zero Tolerance the author describes some of the problems with zero tolerance in schools, which was brought to national attention with the Stratford Creek High drug raid. Do we really have so few problems in this country that we need to wage war on our own people? (via Fark)

Annarbour Terminals

Looking for the latest in high tech? Look no further than Ann Arbor Terminals. Now with ANSI! (via the new Ann Arbor is Overrated)

LogiCampus

The guys at Tap Internet have just released their free, open source courseware LogiCampus. It runs on their LogiCreate PHP application platform and from the demo it looks pretty impressive. Definitely worth checking out if you're involved with education.

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

While Bill Shatner is the Star Trek cast member with the most recognized singing career, Leonard Nimoy has done his share. Submitted for your approval, The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins as sung by Spock. If you look closely, you'll see buttons saying "Hobbits Unite!" and "Admit Leonard Nimoy to the U.N." After seeing this you won't need to (or even want to) see any more Lord of the Rings movies. (via June)

iPod Car Head Unit

If you've got an iPod, you're probably using it while you drive. Stephen is a big fan of his ProClip, but that only holds the iPod. Enter the Ice-Link.

It acts as an translator between a car's head unit and the iPod using the CD changer controls. This means that you can use the buttons on your head unit and you don't have to mess with tape adapters or FM transmitters. Seems like a very smart way to handle things. (via David)

Book Piracy

The Japanese have all the smart stuff before us, like tiny cellphones, pachinko, combination washer/dryers. Now they're taking bold steps to prevent libraries from lending books. Libraries and used bookstores, the Napsters of the book world, have long cut into book publishers precious margins. For what? An informed public? Balderdash. They did so out of pure communist evil. It's about time someone had the cajones to take on these card cataloging satanists. Remember P2P evil. (via Fark)

Update 2003-11-17: We should probably start a fund now to provide the ailing book industry with money to send bogus DMCA takedowns to the Distributed Library Project (via Murph). The gall of some people, thinking that they can loan out or sell things they bought.

Driver License Numbers

It turns out that driver license numbers aren't random, but hashes of your personal information. Alan De Smet has figured out the algorithms 7 states use to generate driver license numbers, and provides a web form for calculating them. He was able to get mine, which was kind of scary, although Jenny reported that hers was wrong. Scary stuff, what with identity theft being so easy these days. (via Crypto-Gram)

DNSreport.com

DNSReport.com is a handy site for checking your DNS information. While it can't tell me if my DNS changes have propagated to the Internet at large, it's still nice for preventing future problems with my zone file. (Via Joe)

Unlocking Nokia Phones

The O'Reilly Network has an article on unlocking Nokia phones. This reminds me that I need to get my Sony Ericsson phone unlocked before November 24th so that I can switch to another GSM provider. It also reminds me how much it sucks when things you buy are controlled by other people.

Spam vs. Hackers

According to the Washington Post spam caused more economic damage than hackers and viruses last month. I can easily believe it, spam is a constant problem and it could easily be the death of email. People who think that it's just a matter of using the delete key need to be shown what spam does to mail servers. Tragedy of the commons... (via IP)

An interesting aside: I was at a going away dinner for a friend and two guys I didn't know an I got to talking. They told me that they sent out bulk email and I said "so you're spammers?" and they said they were. My first inclination was to violently beat them but I didn't know what that would accomplish aside from showing an insignificant portion of spammers how the world feels about them.

I asked "so you get paid to send my younger brother and sister porn pictures?" One of them said that they didn't send porn anymore, and suggested that organized crime was responsible for a lot of that. So what could I have done in that situation? I don't see how I could show someone the damage that spam does in a way they haven't already rationalized as ignorable.

Number Portability

With 18 days to go before number portability kicks in, Gizmodo has published a list of who's charging customers for number portability. Charging for number portability is pretty dumb. One article I read said that if I'm paying for the ability to easily switch carriers, I might as well use it.

Bluejacking (dirty!)

I don't think that Bluetooth™ is popular enough in America for a lot of bluejacking.