How the intarwebs works

Sarah Palin says something stupid and mangles the English language/intelligent thought in the process. Internet pounces. Sarah defends herself by comparing her creation of words/poor spelling and grammar/general status as a ill informed door stop to that of Shakespeare, nearly killing Roger Ebert in the process. Internet pounces.

T-shirts are made, memes are born. Shakespalin: the Bard of Wasilla. All of this happened in like three seconds.

The TB Internet Science Department is willing to surmise that it is official: Moore's Law applies to internet-based political t-shirts, internet memes, and the mocking of dim witted politicians.

What does this hold for the future? Quantum snark. We're thinking by 2015 at the latest.

It's a bold new world.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.14

Modern Toss' Periodic Table of British Swearing. Click to embiggen you 71 with 76 and a 79.

Maybe you were clued into this fact when you went outside last week and your brain melted, your shirt soaked through, and you begged unsuccessfully for God to kill you immediately, but it was fucking hot. The hottest January to June in recorded history. If you were one of those douches who complain the global warming is a myth or hoax or were one of those shitbags who was yelling how there couldn't be global warming because there was so much snow over the winter, know this: next time it hits 90 and I have to listen to one of you jerkoffs spout off about Al Gore, I'm lighting you on fire. Spread the word.

In The World Is Full of Deadbeat Scum News, remember all that money every country pledged to Haiti and then patted themselves on the back for, it's citizens clapping and cheering for the gesture and then never bothering to ever check back on to see how Haiti was doing? Turns out only 1.9% of that money has made it to Haiti. Not that it matters. That money was about making us feel better, not Haiti. And we do feel better. What's Haiti? Haven't even thought about it in months. Mission accomplished.

Are you one of those people who thinks that a gas station sandwich is too luxurious a gastronomic delicacy to partake in? Good news, that's why science has created Candwich: the Sandwich in a can. Maybe the idea of eating a BBQ chicken sandwich in a Mountain Dew can doesn't seem appealing, but did I mention there was a candy surprise? On the bright side, this product is the result of SEC fraud and a real estate swindle, and how many awful foodstuffs can say that?

If you had to guess where the nexus of dumb parents, dumb school districts, fear of technology, misunderstanding of technology, misunderstanding of drugs, and fear of youth gone wild was, Oklahoma would have to come up early in the discussion right? That's where a school district is under the grip of kids downloading and listening to "digital drugs" and "i-dosers", sounds/songs that are supposed to create a drug like euphoria. *sighs* This sounds like a town ripe for the taking from a shady monorail salesman. Whatever happened to huffing gas and listing to Dark Side of the Moon? I think everyone should just abide by my one rule: technology is a witch, burn it. It is responsible for the Candwich after all.

As some of you are aware, the threat of robot attack is constant. But today I bring you news of an even greater threat: psychic warrior octopi. Of course we are referring to Paul, a German octopus who correctly predicted the last eight World Cup matches. Some might say that this is just random luck and that the octopus was probably just picking flags based on which one has more yellow in it. To them I say: octopi are probably color blind. I think it's much more likely it can see around the curvature of spacetime and into the future.

We all love Mel Gibson and his humorous awful misogyny and equal opportunity racism. Even if it did likely cost us a movie where he walked around with a beaver hand puppet and then committed suicide. But for those who didn't like Mel's various affronts to all human decency, would perhaps cute kittens saying his most heinous 20 quotes change your mind? C'mon, forgive him. Look at the beaver movie picture. That goddamn thing has to be allowed come out.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.01

Gregg Peltz's Victorian Star Wars portraits

Health care overlord Comrade Obama has unleashed his health care scheme on us. Now he has informed us of the exact schedule of and options we will have under the oppressive bootheel of his socialist scheme. Healthcare.gov gives people the rundown on the new health care policy, from the exact time the spirit of Lenin will possess your youngest child, to the brainwashing camp schedule, to when you can schedule the shock troops to kick in your door and stick grandma with a Bowie knife.

Talking Points Memo recounts the saga and details of the Russian spy ring and finds them lacking. Almost comically inept. From not actually getting any useful information, handing over their equipment to undercover FBI agents, to stating their address as 99 Fake Street, they weren't struggling to make the Russian espionage hall of fame. Not that any of this matters, this is all a viral marketing scheme for Salt... OPENING JULY 23RD!

All throughout this massive global financial crisis, we have been able to say one thing: we may have a government rife with banking shills and financial conglomerate insiders, but at least they're working for us. Like, putting us on the hook for billions of dollars worth of worthless Bear-Stearns assets... and then lied to Congress about it. So lets see, that makes it Bernanke, Geithner, most of the White House, every elected Republican, significant chunks of House Democrats, and every key Democrat in the Senate working to largely look out for the interests of the financial industry over citizens. Goddamn, Boehner was right... that's not nearly enough protection for the financial industry.

Soccer is taking hold, America. Sure, the US National Team, as is typical, shit itself about a round before it should have to realistically maximize this World Cup, but it's making inroads. How do we know? Landycakes' winner against Algeria broke the intarwebs and all associated internetting tubes. It was officially the biggest driver of internet traffic ever. Socialized medicine, liberals in charge, and gay no hands/no hitting sports taking over our consciousness? We're almost Europe, people. Or, alternately, a third world country if you follow John Oliver's math. If we don't eat sufficient amounts of red meat and blow up large chunks of this country over the weekend, we're essentially indistinguishable from Portugal.

We would like to join the world in wishing legendary effects maestro Ray Harryhausen a happy 90th birthday. Your Clash of the Titans still looked more real than this summer's Clash of the Titans. In honor of the man, here are fighting skeletons.

Immediate failure

Once must applaud the speed at which much heralded House GOP initiatives proceed to immediately fall on their face. The previous record was something in the vicinity of 30 seconds after unveiling. They might have just beat that.

House Republican leadership unveiled a new interactive website on Tuesday which they hailed as "revolutionary" in its democratization of the political process.
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On Tuesday morning, GOP leaders unveiled americaspeakingout.com, a website that they pitched as a "giant step forward" towards popularizing the Republican platform. The idea is simple -- allow viewers to suggest legislative remedies that they and others could then debate and vote upon. The top suggestions would, naturally, rise to the top.

Do you see where this is going?

But opening up the process of debate means inviting in uncomfortable voices. Within minutes, a poster on the site suggested repealing Section II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it was "UNCONSTITUTIONAL, PROGRESSIVE and HITLER."

That entry has since been shut down by the GOP.

That and numerous other suggestions have had to be shut down by the GOP for reasons ranging from too racist, to too teabaggy, to too racist and already under consideration by GOP leadership, to too hateful, to too obviously illegal. It's almost as if they didn't foresee their own fringe voters pushing politically embarrassing ideas to the forefront of their new "vote on it" website. Senate Republicans have already distanced themselves from the site and are moving to create their own version that isn't so much tainted by the stench of low-grade partisan racism. It's slated to immediately fail a few months from now.

At the very least we did have someone use the name Hitler as a adjective for the very first time in human history. That is an achievement the GOP can look at and nod their heads in pride over.

What next for House Republicans? Eventually they're going to create a quantum state where ideas of their simultaneously fail at the very moment of their inception. What this will mean for the world of theoretical physics is unclear, but it will prove Heisenberg's LOLFail Principle correct. Well done.

Theoretically rich

We know what Facebook is worth to it's owners: a vast shit-ton of filthy lucre (warning: advanced economic term). It's why their founder openly mocked those who gave him their trust, talks openly about how he doesn't believe in privacy, and Facebook itself is catching heat for its privacy issues: that information is worth money. Fat stacks of cash.

But what is Facebook worth to you, someone with a fan page who is trying to leverage shady privacy holes to your own benefit? I mean other than as an effective method to know too much about your friends, allow your family to know too much about you, bitterly stalk ex-girlfriends, or creepily stalk attractive people you've never met but you'd like to consider killing? Two fitty? Naw, tree sixxy.

According to a new study released by social media management company Vitrue, Facebook Fans are valued at $3.60 a piece in earned media for big brands. When scaled to Fan Pages with one million Fans, that equates to $3.6 million annually — and Vitrue says that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

That's right, each fan you have is potentially worth $3.60 to you. How do you actually monetize that?

/throws things on floor, runs out of room, jumps into car, and screeches off in cloud of dust

OK, no one knows that or will ever know that. It's the paradox of the internet. But hey, if you have fans, that's a theoretical $3.60 in your pocket, and theoretical money is what fuels our countries biggest financial institutions. See how that worked out?

OK, you're probably just a regular Facebook user and you don't have fans, seeing as all you do is post up too much information about what you did last night and "funny" pictures of your cat in a sombrero. What are your friends worth? They're priceless... which is another way of saying worthless. You don't have theoretical money in this scenario, Facebook does. Yours.

So if you want to be a real Intarwebs trillionaire like me and Sean here at TB Industries, get some fans. I bet the Can This Pickle Get More Fans Than Twilight guy is rolling in it.

The Universe is as it should be

Have you ever randomly stumbled across something that instantly made you feel as though you'd been waiting your entire life for its arrival? That happened to me earlier today when I discovered the Benny Hillifier.

This little chunk of genius will dub the Benny Hill theme over a video of your choosing. I'm thinking a little of Elias' death from Platoon mixed with some Omaha Beach from Saving Private Ryan and topped off with a Braveheart clip or two might just be the ticket. Enjoy.

And, as always, we encourage you to include as much pornography as possible in your abuse of this device.

Google v. China: Shit just got real

It's a new day today. How can I tell? We've finally moved away from socialism to communism being the story of the day. Google has effectively pulled up stakes in China, moving its offices and redirecting its Google.cn domain to... another part of China. Hong Kong more specifically. Yes, Google finally got tired of China stealing their proprietary software spying, hacking, and censoring... beyond the parameters of the spying, hacking, and censoring they allowed the Chinese government to do through Google as part of their original deal. It's about the principle of the thing. If China can't hold to the agreed upon principles of dishonesty, then Google just can't trust them.

But now, with the move to Hong Kong and the domain forwarding, Google is effectively uncensored in China.... for about 15 more minutes until they revoke the domain name. They're kind of pissed. In that "trying to pretend we aren't pissed, saying nice things through a grimace and gritted teeth while holding a gun" communist way.

A bulletin from China's state-run news outlet Xinhua blasted Google in a post titled "China says Google breaks promise, totally wrong to stop censoring."
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"This is totally wrong. We're uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts," an official with the Internet bureau of the State Council Information Office, China's Cabinet, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

An op-ed by Xinhua published on the CCTV website accused Google of "groundlessly accusing the Chinese government of supporting hacker attack [sic]" and warned Google that it "should not continue to politicalize itself." The article continues,

"Regrettably, Google's recent behaviors show that the company not just aims at expanding business in China, but is playing an active role in exporting culture, value and ideas. It is unfair for Google to impose its own value and yardsticks on Internet regulation to China, which has its own time-honored tradition, culture and value."

Yes, Google is violating that time honored Chinese cultural principle of total government censorship. But judging by the tone of the Chinese statements, they have hired a 14 year-old American girl to write their press releases. We're one more 'totally' and an 'OMG' away from audibly being able to hear the sound of someone loudly chewing gum while they banged this release out on their Sidekick.

Google in China is not actually totally uncensored now, it's just that they've abdicated their self-censorship duties to the Chinese government, who, because of the move to Hong Kong, can only censor Google by completely shutting the search engine down. Which is exactly what Google wants so they can claim the moral high ground. They also technically get a PR victory in China because by forwarding the domain to Google.hk they technically haven't violated the deal to stop censoring Google.cn, which I'm sure will be explained in great detail to the people of China from the Chinese news services.

As of today, through Google.hk, Chinese people can search about Tienanmen Square. And porn. And internet gambling. One of those speaks to the true freedom of the internet, but I'm not sure which one.

So as the Chinese government and Google do battle on the largest stage in the most passive aggressive fight in human history, the Chinese people are caught in the middle of mommy and daddy fighting. And in the end, they probably won't end up better off because of it. But Google does get to make a stand over not allowing China to further their intellectual property theft and save face at a failing operation... I mean make a stand over censorship. I don't even know why I wrote the first half of that sentence. This is about free speech. Totally.

Oh, Hugo...

(Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who is criticized by media freedom groups, called on Saturday for regulation of the Internet and singled out a website that he said falsely reported the murder of one of his ministers.

"The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms," Chavez said.

Actually, Hugo, I'm fairly certain that this is exactly what the internet is supposed to be.

Apropos...

This Blog Does Not Exist

Let's hop in the WABAC Machine and turn the dial to February 1995. Austria, Finland and Sweden have just joined the European Union. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are about to take The Turner Diaries way, way too seriously. And in roughly eight months, OJ Simpson will give us all a refresher on how the American justice system really works.

Also, a certain global system of interconnected computer networks is about to revolutionize virtually every facet of modern life. Or is it? Some, especially Newsweek prognosticator Clifford Stoll, are not convinced.

Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

This companion piece to Stoll's Silicon Snake Oil is a must-read, if only because so rarely do we see someone get it so completely wrong. The most recent example probably occurred sometime in late 2002/early 2003.

Olympics... for the kids

The Winter Olympics are almost upon us, with all the requisite pomp, circumstance, and the surprised cries of "Oh right, that is a sport... in some cultures." But with the Vancouver Games about to kick off, we are left with one more surprise: apparently one of the mascots for the Vancouver Olympics is none other than the internet's famous child loving ursine, Pedobear. At least he is according to Polish newspapers.

A Dutch magazine even thought Pedobear was an official mascot as well. Serves them right for not understanding bizarre American internet memes. Well in their defense, there are a lot of underage kids in figure skating, so I guess it makes a kind of sense.

In disappointing reality, Pedobear is not an Olympic mascot. It's just the work of Michael Barrick, an artist who noticed a similarity between the mascots and Pedobear and logically combined them in a nefarious effort to confuse foreigners and make the intarwebs giggle. Mission accomplished, well done. He's just lucky he pulled this with the Canadian games. If he did this to the Chinese he'd be buried under the south end of the Bird's Nest. Way to pick your targets.

Goliath vs. an even bigger Goliath

I think we all remember the biblical story of Goliath and Goliath. Where two massive entities come to work together in order to increase their quarterly earnings reports and stranglehold on the information its subjects can view? I think Jesus was in it and there was something about a scorpion riding on the back of a frog in a river or something.

Anyway, such was the pairing of China and Google. But now that partnership is cracking under the weight of obvious conclusions that should have been eminently foreseeable for all. I don't want to alarm any of you, but it seems that China is an intensely oppressive communist regime that likes to control every shred of news or information its citizens try to access. I know that's shocking to you, but it seems that Google didn't know this information either. That's why it was shocked, shocked, to see that China was using all of the information controls and censoring blocks that Google put into its Google China search engine were used to spy on dissidents and businesses. That seems so unlike China. So Google offered an ultimatum: stop censoring information or we'll shut down Google China. Yeah, China's cool with that.

China made clear today that it will ignore an ultimatum from Google to relax internet censorship and reminded all companies that they must abide by state controls of the country’s cyberspace.

The authorities published a half-page statement in the People’s Daily, official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, signalling that Beijing has already decided that its 360 million internet users will have to manage without the world’s most popular search engine.
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Google plans to stand by its pledge to close its Chinese Google.cn service if the censorship is not lifted.

Who could have foreseen? How was Google supposed to know that all the information it was censoring, websites it was blocking, and monitoring and tracking information it was providing to China was going to be used for nefarious purposes? Censoring the internet for money usually carries with it such humanitarian goals. Who knew that China would try to overstep its already ridiculous internet censorship into trying to find out who was trying to access contraband information and suing that to persecute them? How could the brilliant plan of joint corporate and government censorship all have gone wrong?

C'est la vie. It looks like Chinese citizens won't have a nice user interface to go along with their government approved searches. Plus Google is really going to get some good PR. Because what's better than pulling out of China for ethical and free speech reasons? Not thinking about the ethical and free speech reasons Google went into China and set up a high tech censorship network for, that's what. It's a shame, I had high hopes for a Google China Nexus One phone that not only had a lot of cool apps, but also recorded all your phone calls. Oh well.

That's a lot of e-mails

America's long national quest to find out what chain e-mails, cat videos, and strategies to leak the names of undercover CIA agents were the most popular in the Bush White House, has finally been solved. The problem that the Bush Administration had initially described as "that idiot Jenkins misplacing all those e-mails", was pieced together by several public watchdog groups and a team of elite computer nerds. It was a lot of misplaced e-mails.

Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.

The two private groups – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive – said Monday they were settling the lawsuits they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.
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The tally of missing e-mails, the additional searches and the settlement are the latest development in a political controversy that stemmed from the Bush White House's failure to install a properly working electronic record keeping system. Two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.
Story continues below

The two private organizations say there is not yet a final count on the extent of missing White House e-mail and there may never be a complete tally.

How does one accidentally misplace 22 million e-mails? I think the procedure goes something like this: select one e-mail, scroll down 22 million e-mails later, hold shift, click on the last e-mail, press delete. Luckily the computer squad knew how to work the "undelete" function and were following an ancient map that purported to tell the secret of Dick Cheney's Secret Treasure. You see, Cheney's treasure was knowledge!

But what a surprise, huh? The Bush Administration couldn't even work e-mail properly. It is hoped, because these e-mails are from the same period of time, that this discovery will shed some light on the Plame/CIA outing scandal and the Attorney firing scandal, as well as an other scandals we may have forgotten about. I doubt it. I can't see Karl Rove or Cheney using anything other than a system of mute albino couriers who traffic blood scrawled, wax sealed parchment through underground passages. In any event, we won't know what they say until 2014 at the earliest, as they have to go through the National Archives release process. Frankly it's a lot of LOLcats, family photos, "Chocolate Rain" forwards, and terrifying revelations about the governing of our country for one department to go through.

Chart of the day

click to embiggen

From Zach Klein comes this graphical representation of how the US ranks in regards to price and speed of the intarwubs/intertubes. #15 with a bullet! It isn't just health care where most of the world bangs us in the behind. Take that, United Kingdom! You may have cheaper health care resulting in better lives for your citizens, but how fast can you find and watch a new keyboard cat video...and at what cost?

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.22

Held By The Taliban
If you're interested in reading a great story, the New York Times has a a massive 5 part account of journalist David Rohde's 7 month long imprisonment by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Beyond the simple interest in the personal story of Rohde it also gives great insight into the way Afghans view our war on terror and what fuels the anti-Americanism and extremism.

AT&T hits Internet vote
In case you were wondering where the next frontier of the government's never ending battle to stand with corporations over the interests of the American people, look to the intarwubs. AT&T is engaging a full court press on net neutrality and gaining a lot of support for its attempts to be allowed to place restrictions on access to content an services. On the side of freedom: the President, the Google, Skype, and Facebook. But I can see why they're having trouble opposing AT&T. I mean who isn't for restricting information on the internet?

Rage Against Torture: Top Musicians Demand Records On How Bush Admin Used Their Songs Against Detainees
Trent Reznor, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, Rage Against the Machine, Rosanne Cash, Billy Bragg and the Roots have all joined together in a group called Zero db to protest the use of music during torture in the future and the use of music in torture during the Bush Administration. That's all well and good, but I think that Rage and Trent, maybe Pearl Jam, are the only ones who have to worry about their music being used in torture. I doubt Dick Cheney authorized the use of "Running on Empty" and "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before telling them to put on Mermaid Avenue Volumes I and II and "just let it play all the way through."

Pay Czar to Slash Compensation at Seven Firms
Hey, turns out that after months and months and months of doing nothing of pay for firms that got bailed out (read: all of them), it seems that the pay czar, whose only job is doing things related to CEO salaries of bailed out companies, decided that he might as well put in a half day of work and push forward with a proposal that is popular with the American people. Of course the business community is outraged. I guess the people that set fire to the world's money will have to make due with half a million in salary with bonus compensation not to exceed $10 million. I hope they'll still be able to afford food with cuts that drastic.

Google's Android Allows Soldiers to Put Drones on Buddy List
Who here wanted a cell phone that could not only compete with the iPhone in terms of price, innovation, and technology, but could also sync up with a Predator drone on a bombing run in the mountains of Afghanistan and get streaming video of the attack. I know I have and those fuckers in the Apple apps store have not heeded my demands. Thankfully Raytheon is on the case and using Google's Android operating system to do so. So is this going to be in the Droid phone or am I going to have to join the military to get the app?

Broken News: Loud mouthed blowhard wins argument, the internet

NEW YORK—Today Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau, widely credited with the invention of the World Wide Web, gathered together with members of CERN, MIT, and DARPA to formally announce that not only were they ruling that blogger Ted King had thoroughly won an inter-blog argument, but that he had won it so definitively that they were awarding him the entirety of the internet as a prize.

“Today we are proud to announce that Mr. King, more widely known as HardK0R3 on his blog the L33T Pit, has so thoroughly impressed us with his forensic word pugilism that we have decided to award him the World Wide Web as a token of gratitude for all that he has done with our creation,” Mr. Berners-Lee said, his words practically drowning in sarcasm. “I think it was the point at which you called everyone who disagreed with you ‘fags’ who were ‘totally gay’ that we all welled up with pride over the implementation of our creation. Therefore, take the internet. Take the whole bloody, goddamned thing. It’s useless now.”

While Mr. King wasn’t immediately available to accept the prize, he must have undoubtedly been ecstatic over having won the internet courtesy of his much Dugg Summer movie treatise, “The new Star Trek totally owns it hardcore over that old gay shit and also anyone who liked Funny People is a total homo.”

While no one stepped up to officially speak for Mr. King, site commenters were there to point out that those gay British boy touchers were all lucky that HardK0R3 didn’t fly over to foggy Londontown and shit to take their precious internet from them by force. Also noting that science was gay, they were having sex with the mothers of all the people who disagreed with them, and that it was about fucking time that someone recognized how badass and shit the L33T Pit was.

As to why the scientific elite was turning over possession of the World Wide Web to a group of people most would charitably describe as clinically retarded, those making the final decision were incredulous that anyone would question their wisdom.

“Uh, hello,” said Mr. Cailliau, disdain covering his face. “I think you saw why in the little response the *shudder* L33t Pit gave. This kind of shit is not what we intended the internet to be used for. It’s full of self absorbed idiots, mongoloid teenagers, cat pictures, and pornography that disgusts even the Germans and Japanese. Germans, for Christ’s sake! That’s it; we’re washing our hands of it. You all have broken it. Fuck off!”

As for future plans, those close to the scientific elite are tight-lipped, fearing that the great unwashed masses will find a way to taint their new project.

Preliminary reports suggest that after CERN hands over the keys to the internet to Mr. King, they will wait until it is rammed completely into the ground and rendered a smoldering pile of fucked-to-death orangutan shit. Then, while humanity gawks at the wreckage they have created, Mr. Berners-Lee and CERN plan to unveil an all new internet that improves upon the failures of the old one.

“Well for one thing, there’s going to be a goddamned IQ test before you’re allowed to communicate with others on it,” said Dr. Francois Repard, who is working on the design team for the new internet.

“Secondly, those wishing to launch new web pages will have to submit a proposal outlining its aims and its benefit to the public at large. Thirdly, if you post up one picture of a cat with a misspelled phrase superimposed on it, we’ll throw you in The Hague and fuck you with knives. We have no intention whatsoever of making the same mistakes over again.”

But those plans are a ways off, as statisticians surmise that the first internet will not collapse under the ‘inmates running the asylum’ weight of its own bullshit for a few months. Until then scientists are content to sit back, laugh, and revel in the destruction that the world has brought upon itself.

“Serves them right,” Mr. Berners-Lee scoffed. “Mucking up my beautiful creation. I used to feel pride when I thought about the internet. Now....only shame. LOLcats, BAH! The new Star Trek was better than the old one? That’s the gayest shit I’ve ever heard.”

Readers, meet the Internet. Internet, readers.

Courtesy of ikoen.org, a visual representation of global Internet traffic. (Copyright Al Gore).

Obama calls snarky assholes to arms

Yesterday the President actually spent time talking to bloggers. Apparently there was some mix-up and instead of calling over to the State Department to discuss the situation in Iran, Obama accidentally dialed into a conference call where progressive bloggers were trying to organize a group session on World of Warcraft. After realizing the horrible mistake he had made by accidentally acknowledging the concerns of people to the left of him, he cracked a joke about dwarven mages and then lied to the group, telling them they were the key to keeping pressure on lawmakers to pass health care reforms. He implored them to stop bitching about what he was doing and for God's sake put on some pants and clean up a little, so they could turn their rage, snarky cat pictures, ill-written satire, grandiose notions of inflated self-importance, and rage onto those who were standing in the way of reform.

"It is important just to keep the pressure on members of Congress because what happens is there is a default position of inertia here in Washington," the president said during an invitation-only conference call. "And pushing against that, making sure that people feel that the desperation that ordinary families are feeling all across the country, every single day, when they are worrying about whether they can pay their premiums or not... People have to feel that in a visceral way. And you guys can help deliver that better than just about anybody."

In a roughly 25-minute session with a handful of prominent progressive bloggers, the president also asked for help combating disinformation about his health care plan.

"I know the blogs are best at debunking myths that can slip through a lot of the traditional media outlets," he said. "And that is why you are going to play such an important role in our success in the weeks to come."

After he assured the bloggers that the noises they heard in the background certainly wasn't Rahm Emanuel stifling laughter at the preceding statement the President had made, he implored them to get out there and start debunking. Really, I do think logic is really going to get through to Bill Kristol. Same with Glen Beck and his latest deranged rant. Bloggers are also going to convince Max Baucus that the $1.5 million he gets from health-related companies isn't as important as listening to a bunch of left-wing bloggers who don't live in his conservative state. Yeah. It was nice of Barry to pretend though.

Still, if he wants there to be pressure on lawmakers...shouldn't the White House be the one pushing the message and the importance of a public plan instead of sitting back and letting Congress *shudder* hash it out? Flip the switch from 'passive' to 'active'. Maybe that would be a better strategy than patting bloggers on the back for pointing out that the Senate is comprised of idiots, health care needs to be passed, and that Glen Beck might just be retarded.

I can has baseball

In an bid to open up the American non-football pastime to the fans of bizarre internet memes, the Seattle Mariners recently unveiled Cheezburger Night in conjunction with the LOLcat website icanhascheezburger. Attendees got discounted tickets, a free t-shirt, and bizarre glances from anyone over the age of 30 who didn't understand what was so funny about cats and sandwiches. It sounds awesome.

Meanwhile we here in Pittsburgh don't even get any good promotions for the Pirates anymore. Just variations on "You guys still like fireworks...right?" Night and various bobbleheads of guys who won't be on the team next season. Not even a $17 ticket night to honor the impending record setting 17 years of losing futility, a "wave goodbye to the players we just traded away" night, or a night where the concession stand items cost $.30 cents on the dollar in commemoration of the return the Pirates have gotten in every trade they've made since 1992.

I demand at the very least a Fuck Yeah Sharks night or some promotion where we are allowed to bring rotten fruit to throw at anyone identified as being in the upper management or ownership of the Buccos. If they won't spend money to win, I at least want an official team recognition of inexplicable internet memes. And Zach Duke pitching a game in a shark costume. I want that too.

North Korea escalates prank war

Well they finally figured it out. Remember how pissed we all were over the weekend when we tried to access the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission, and Transportation Department web sites and found our ability to load them up difficult and scattershot? How all you heard during fireworks was stuff like "Where the hell else am I going to get to read Tim Geithner's blog", "It just isn't the same without hot dogs, fireworks, and up to date press releases from the Transportation Department", and "This holiday is barely worth celebrating without the ability to check out the FAQ on the Secret Service's website"? Well, now we know who ruined our nation's birthday: North Korea.

South Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces committed cyber attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. government Web sites, aides to two lawmakers said Wednesday.
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Others familiar with the U.S. outage, which is called a denial of service attack, said that the fact that the government Web sites were still being affected three days after it began signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

The Korea Information Security Agency also attributed the attacks to denial of service.

DoS attacks are when a number of people go to a website at the same time, causing an overload to the servers. Sometimes it can happen when a popular blogger links to you (something we've never had to experience), or when it's a coordinated attack. This vicious NK attack swelled some sites traffic to 9 times their usual load. 9 times! This had lead to experts in multiple articles on this to call the attack "sophisticated", which leads me to believe they aren't actually experts. Atrios or Daily Kos are probably going to do it once or twice today with a link and a sentence telling you to click said link. Making a website hard to load doesn't equal heinously sophisticated cyber-terror.

But nevertheless this is war! We're coming for you Kimbo! You think your DoS attacks are funny, just wait until we start up the LOLJong-Il site, start sending out embarrassing e-mails from your Gmail account, and hack your Twitter feed (TallBoyNK). My the CIA will escalate into putting itching powered in your onesies, ordering multiple pizzas to your house, killing you in a missile attack, or dyeing the water in your pool blue. You don't want to get into it with us.

Cyber Wars...the Punishment Due

If you had to guess one high tech thing you were almost certain the Pentagon was already doing, it would be working to protect government, stock exchange, and air traffic computer systems with a elite squad of hackers and nerds, right? I mean Michael Bay thought to have it in the first Transformers movie. Surely our government is smarter than Michael Bay. Nope. But they are finally getting to it. The Pentagon is finally making steps towards weaponizing and militarizing Geek Squad.

The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.
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Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.

White House officials say Mr. Obama has not yet been formally presented with the Pentagon plan. They said he would not discuss it Friday when he announced the creation of a White House office responsible for coordinating private-sector and government defenses against the thousands of cyberattacks mounted against the United States — largely by hackers but sometimes by foreign governments — every day.

This is a tricky issue. Will this enable Skynet or can it be used to fight Skynet? I guess we'll never find out until the bombs start dropping.

But you will also be grateful to know that our government's deranged perversion about putting someone in control of something and then calling them "_______czar" is still intact. The man who'll run the militarized Dell Support Center will be given the title Cyberczar. If that title gave you an idea for a movie about a Putin-esque despot who, through some electrical accident that happens while he's touching his computer, is transported into the intarwubs, and an elite squad of Ukranian hackers has to do battle with him for control of cyberspace, well then you can just fuck right off, because I already thought of it and patented the idea.

Still, better late then never. I mean it's not like China has been launching cyberattacks on us for years, is it?