hmm, so i haven’t done much today. woke up and ended up having to deal w/ a minor ant infestation (really really disgusting). and then browsed the net some for some cheap computers in the recycler.
one bbc article that caught my attention was that puppy dog kyle, 18 inches long and 18 inches tall, had swallowed a 15 inch serrated knife. the pictures of the xrays are great.
also, i finally got to a day or two old /. article on the directv ecm last week. apparently, over a period of months, directv had been slowly uploading code to hacked cards, which dynamically assembled into a trojan that permanently disabled the boot sectors of the cards. pretty clever, and seems to gotten a lot of news coverage, although apparently dtv got some help (also, articles reporting hexed “GAME OVER” messages seem to be bunk).
none of the major news sources seem to be mentioning collateral damage, to dealers and customers (oops). also, it seems the current crop of hacked cards were supposedly unhackable. here’s a short summary. also, looks like there are workarounds developed already, resucetating dead cards. emulator users were also apparently unaffected.
while reading the comments, i also came across this fascinating post on the old c-band dishes