Understanding the origins of Isreal and Palestine

I’ve read various sites of where people are having a hard time understanding where the tensions in and around Isreal has come from. Long story short, it’s been a constant struggle for a very, very long time, political and ideological differences being a factor that skims the surface. However, a post on BlogCritics the other day had a really good introduction to explaining the basics. It’s hardly a complete explanation, but it will enlighten those looking for some introductory answers.

A month or so ago somebody asked me a question that took me aback, not just because of the question, but because of the questioner. She is someone I’ve always thought was informed and knew about issues and their background, so I was quite shocked when out of the blue she asked me if I knew who the Palestinians were.

I must have look puzzled, and some of my shock must have shown on my face, because she clarified by saying that what she meant was where did they come from and how did the situation originally come about. I was still shocked, not the least because I wondered how many other people don’t know what had happened back in the late 1940s through to post-1967? [blogcritics]

The discussion that followed in the comments has been interesting to watch. History will always have flaws in the way that it is relayed. Bias and slants are a given. The best you can do is get information where ever you can. Just keep an open mind while you’re trying to sort out how much hard fact is in what you’re finding.

Hacking a MacBook via Wi-Fi

Attention MacBook owners: you might want to pay attention to this.

LAS VEGAS–Flaws in the software that runs wireless-networking hardware could let an attacker break into a PC over Wi-Fi, security researchers warned Wednesday.

An attacker could gain complete control over a laptop by sending malformed network traffic to a vulnerable computer, David Maynor, a senior researcher at security service provider SecureWorks, said in a presentation at the Black Hat security event here.

Maynor, along with researcher Johnny Cache, showed a video of a successful attack on a MacBook, made by Apple Computer. However, the attack is possible also on other computers, both laptops and desktops, and not just MacBooks, the researchers said. [cnet]

Of course, this isn’t just limited to MacBooks, but the idea of Apple products being safe from hackers is not as true as the commercials may lead on. The article continues to go on to say that this isn’t a wide-spread issue, but it is something to be concerned about. The important thing is for developers to take this into consideration and cut it off before these vulnerabilities become easy to exploit.

Still feel uneasy about your machine getting hacked wirelessly? Here’s good advice from the article.

Consumers should be streetwise when using their laptop by not connecting to networks they aren’t sure they can trust and by disabling the wireless radio when it is not needed, Maynor said. “There is no need to run out and rip your wireless card out of your laptop, but you should take precautions,” he said. [cnet]

The other thing to note is that this comes from flaws within drivers. These are easy to remedy through updates. It would be a good idea to be paying attention over the next few months to see if there are warnings and updates issued for the stuff you are using.

Plasmas beat out sports cars and diamonds

It appears that if guys want to really score with chicks these days, you’re better off going for technology than you are for the bling in order to woo(buy) her love.

Diamonds are no longer a girl’s best friend, according to a new study that found three of four women would prefer a new plasma TV to a diamond necklace.  […]

The Girls Gone Wired survey of 1,400 women and 700 men aged 15 to 49, which was conducted by market researcher TRU, found that given the choice, women would opt for tech items rather than luxury items like jewelry or vacations.

The study found 77 percent of women surveyed would prefer a new plasma television to a diamond solitaire necklace and 56 percent would opt for a new plasma TV over a weekend vacation in Florida.

Even shoes lost out. The study found 86 percent would prefer a new digital video camera to a pair of designer shoes.  [wired]

Interesting that TV’s win out here.  You can get something that would make her want to stay inside and be a couch potato versus going out and actually doing something fun out of the home.  On the other hand, it is Florida we’re talking about here.  I might want to stay home and watch Anderson Cooper report live as yet another hurricane slams into the sunshine state in high-def.  I also feel like I should be making a correlation here of this to obesity rates and laziness.

Still, and I think Rebecca would agree with me, we’ll take a trip before we toss down money on a flat panel TV.  Tech can be cool, but memories last a life time.  So does screen burn in on a plasma.

Burn all you spam monsters! Burn!

I’ve been getting slammed recently with spam on all things WordPress related.  For a while there, it was subtle.  Just a comment or trackback every so often, usually on the same post for a series of days, even weeks.  I monitor a lot of the activity, and it’s fairly easy to clean up and block.

That was until I woke up one morning to nearly three hundred of these things.  They’re getting better at these things, too.  Comments with full sentences that actually convey thoughts across numerous posts.  The URLs are getting harder to spot for this crap as well, even if you try to moderate for people posting them into the body of the comments.

I’ve put some lines of defense up while holding my breath.  I’ve only been in the WP world for a hand full of months now.  This was bound to become a problem at some point.  Akismet is my hope for now.  Anyone have any success with it?  Or might there be something better?

The spirit of MST3K lives on through RiffTrax

Via Slashdot, RiffTrax is the latest project to come from Michael J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000[wiki] fame. Imagine MST3K, but without Crow and Tom Servo, and then apply that to more recent films. Except this time, you download the audio file (for a small fee, of course) and listen to it while watching the movie on DVD, granted that you already own it or will go out and rent it.

Do you feel that some of the movies coming out of Hollywood are just, well, missing something? At RiffTrax, you can download Mike’s running commentaries and listen to them along with your favorite, and not so favorite DVDs. It’s like watching a movie with your funniest friend. And it’s easy to do. Just check out our FAQ; more than likely, you have the tools to do it already.

Don’t just sit back and take whatever Hollywood throws at you. Transform the DVD experience with RiffTrax. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have at the movies. [rifftrax]

We’ve actually been watching a lot of MST3K lately at home (read Rebecca’s post), so this was interesting news when it popped up today. It’s something me and my buddies in high school wanted to do back in the day but never got around to it. The sample of the first, and only at this time, movie, Road House[imdb], is funny, but I’m not so sure I’m sold on it yet. $1.99 to download the Rifftrax, and then I’d have to rent the movie. Makes me curious though.

And don’t get me wrong, Mike Nelson is a funny guy, but I still feel like Joel was the better of the two when it came to MST3K. And if it’s just Mike doing the commentary, that might be a little lame. Even just having more than one voice adds to the comedy, god bless Crow and Servo.

All your content belongs to YouTube

I know I’m a little late to the news here, but any thought I had in the back of my mind to upload anything to YouTube, especially any of my video podcasts, is gone now.

The video site YouTube constitutes an equal or larger threat to small content producers. Before you upload that video of your 19-person indie rocker reggae band, for instance, you may want to read the fine print.  YouTube’s “new” Terms & Conditions allow them to sell whatever you uploaded however they want:

“…by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube’s (and its successor’s) business… in any media formats and through any media channels.”

Among other things, this means they could strip the audio portion of any track and sell it on a CD.  Or, they could sell your video to an ad firm looking to get “edgy”; suddenly your indie reggae tune could be the soundtrack to a new ad for SUVs. The sky’s still the limit, when it comes to the rights you surrender to YouTube when you upload your video.  [wired]

It’s a shame that this had to happen as I am sure people will have the same thought as me.  I also caught this blog post saying that person will remove all the content they have on YouTube, citing the change in their policy as the reason.  Will that be another trend?

I’ll go as far to say that I hope it won’t infringe on the popularity of the site.  I could spend all day watching stuff that’s posted there.

Jose + 10

I’m still caught up in the midst of World Cup action.  Everytime the Adidas commercials come on, no matter how many times I have seen them already, I stop to watch.  The two little kids remind me of something I would do when I was their age, although it would have been with futbol players.  Probably something more like baseball or American football stars.  The tune in this commerical gets stuck in my head all the time.

Check out the first part of the series as well as the making of.

You can pick your friends and do it poorly

I am all for social networking. That is the buzz phrase right now. Using technology to reach out and make connections with new people. The only problem comes from the fact that we have millions out there doing this via a terminal of some sort, but everyone is connecting to each other while still stuck in front of a computer screen.

It’s great to see folks actually getting out to meet each other, but you still have to keep your wits about you.

A Jacksonville man says he was duped and robbed by two girls after attempting to meet with a woman he met on the internet.

The victim says he chatted online with a woman, known on her MySpace.com profile as “Natalia”, for two weeks before deciding to meet with her. He says her profile showed sexy photos, and a blurb which said “just lookin’ for something fun”. That brief, friendly description was all he knew about her before they planned to meet. [woai]

This is the internet, but real life rules still apply. Don’t take candy from strangers, and if it looks too good to be real, it probably is.

Craigslist covers more of the U.S. and world

Craigslist.orgCNet has a video interview with Craig Newmark from Craigslist that I found really interesting today. And yes, this is the Craig[wiki] from Craigslist.org[wiki]. I like to surf through the site to look at housing that we are far from being able to afford.

One might be curious to know how small of an operation Craigslist really is. With 21 people working out of a two-story house in San Francisco, it’s easy to picture the “workforce” with the simple look that the site has. The plan is to keep it this small for as long as possible. Such is the beauty of Craigslist.

Craig NewmarkThe site has also expanded to almost twice the size in June, adding over three hundred cities[craigslist] in the U.S. and across the globe. Upon checking, Des Moines[craigslist] and the Quad Cities[craigslist] are the only additions for the state of Iowa, doubling the the previous total for that state. Newmark also said that they’ll be watching to see if the recent growth will turnout on the positive end, but they’ve done their best to expand into areas based on user demand.

I’ve only been a Craigslist user/sucker for a little over a year now, but the history of the site is something I’m still learning more about. For instance, the early days of Craigslist stems all the way back to 1995. It wasn’t in the same form as it is today, but I remember going to high school in 1995 only to have people say to me, “what’s electronic mail?” Keeping it simple can be just as successful as flashy and splashy.