A Man and his Penguin

I got a Hotmail message from someone claiming to be a girl, asking me to add them on MSN. I was suspicious, but naturally I didn’t want to exclude any possibility

So I did, and I found them immediately online. More suspicious. This girl has a risque photo - more suspicious. And I started a chat session.

(16:26:07) Chris: Who are you?
(16:26:20) emily85grand@hotmail.com (spammer?): hey, A/S/L?:)
(16:26:37) Chris: I was just wondering how you got my MSN address
(16:27:00) emily85grand@hotmail.com (spammer?): hey whats up babe, U got a webcam? finally someone adds me, I am soo fuckin horny today for some reason lol
(16:27:25) Chris: Is this an actual person?
(16:27:56) emily85grand@hotmail.com (spammer?): listen
hun, I’m just about to start my webcam show with jen, come chat me
there in my chat room? We can cyber, I’ll get naked if u do..lol!
(16:28:11) Chris: You’re a spammer
(16:28:35) emily85grand@hotmail.com (spammer?): I can show u how to watch for free if u promise not to tell anyone else how to do it???PLEASE:-$
(16:28:47) Chris: lol this is a good one
(16:30:00) emily85grand@hotmail.com (spammer?): well
since its the law that u gotta be 18 (nudity involved), u have to sign
up with a credit card for age verification! BUT.. Once you are inside,
just clikc on "Webcams" and that section is 100% free… let me know
what name you use to sign in with so I know it’s you babe! http://hotgal.localgirlcams.com/ fill out the bottom of the page then fill out the next page as well and u can see me live!
(16:30:12) Chris: Let’s see what else this bot will say
(16:30:21) Chris: It’s "typing" again…
(16:30:27) emily85grand@hotmail.com (spammer?): Please dont mention anything about that in the chatroom once u get in ok?:-$
(16:30:51) Chris: Okay… and I won’t mention anything about this to MSN!
(16:31:37) emily85grand@hotmail.com (spammer?): OH
SHIT.. k I’m late to start my show, I gotta get off msn…I’ll see ya
inside my chatroom babe.. remember not to mention that I am upgrading u
for FREE… You can use your msn name to sign in so i know it’s you..
(16:31:56) Chris: Oooo, for free! I’d better let you get onto your "show"
(16:32:32) Chris: It’s not responding to that last message

Yeah, so it’s pretty dumb spamming, but the spammers are getting smarter. Before, they’d just send a single message on Myspace or Faceparty; now they send multiple messages. This particular bot was even setting its MSN status to "typing" for a few seconds before actually sending the message.

When I tried initiating a new chat session, I got this:

(16:33:01) Chris: Hi
(16:33:07) emily85grand@hotmail.com (spammer?): AUTO-RESPONSE:hey just in the middle of my webcam show if you want to watch click the link http://hotgal.localgirlcams.com/
(16:33:31) Chris: Very realistic! Except that the whole "conversation" has been an "AUTO-RESPONSE"

On Wednesday night, we had a blackout. Later on in the evening, we realised that it was just our street.

When I woke up on Thursday, the lights were back on, but there was a sound in the distance like a car’s engine being run. It turns out that the transformer box next door died, and Western Power has parked a generator there.

It’s Friday night and the transformer still hasn’t been fixed. The generator is still humming away; I can hear it right now. And the lights flicker every now and then. I’m just thankful that I decided to buy a surge protector for my computer, because I don’t trust the generator to give clean power and it doesn’t look like Western Power will get on to fixing the transformer any time soon.

In other news, I bought a couple of DVDs on Wednesday - Mr Methane’s "Let’s Rip", The Bridge Over The River Kwai (can you believe I’ve never seen that film?) and Hancock’s Half Hour Series 4. Hancock’s Half Hour is pretty funny; my favourite episode is The Missing Page.

Just a warning for you good folks: I bought an Avril Lavigne single the other day (yes, I’m ashamed, but I like the song) and it has that half-arsed copy protection; which means that I can’t play the CD in my CD-RW drive, but I can play and rip it in my DVD burner. What’s really ironic is that it’s got the music video on it too; so why use the copy protection that prevents you from being able to put it into your computer? You need to use the computer to access the video!

More on that single. The song is written by "Avril Lavigne / Butch Walker", which means that Butch Walker actually wrote it. But if you look closer into the credits, he also produces it, does backing vocals, plays Bass, Guitar, Keyboards, Percussion and the Synths. Butch Walker is a one-man band!

It’s funny because the opening of the song sounds a little like Mylene Farmer. But as much as I dislike Avril’s posing and her non-credible attempts to court the rock music community, she does have a distinctive voice and her ballads are pretty good.

But yeah, not much else to say. Oh, I should post my theories of why children’s groups are so popular these days; but that’s another day and another blog post.

I’m not sure if I just came across a Compiz bug or whether it’s that damn generator, but my screen just faded almost completely to white before coming back with a reddish tinge. Strange.

Reason: Devubuntu is still being a bastard.

Sometimes I can get into www.ubuntuos.com; sometimes I can’t. I can never get far into the administration interface; never far enough to actually write the blog posting to release the new episode. The server will simply stop responding while I’m trying to get in.

Things suck with this server downage.

Here’s the link to the MP3 podcast: http://ubuntuos.com/podcast/files/ep42-080407-ubuntuos.mp3

Though as at this writing, of course, I myself can’t download the podcast, so what chance have you got? Hopefully someone will hear this podcast, it was quite good. EDIT: You may have some luck, it has started to load for me.

In other news, we’ve got one of our VIP days mixed in with the Cost + 5% fliers - yikes! It’s promising to be a very big 5 hours. If you’re reading this in time and you live in Perth, come down to the shop between 10am and 3pm Sunday 26 for some bargains. Be patient, we’re going to be busy! Mention A Man And His Penguin - I can’t give you any extra money off, but seeing a blog reader would make my day!

Also check out our listings for Nobel dishwashers on eBay.com.au - we’ve sold quite a few! (sold two yesterday alone).  Oh, and we unpacked one of Nobel’s 45cm stainless steel dishwashers today and put it on display - it looks wicked, much nicer than the flat look stainless 60cm dishwasher. It’s not as cheap - it’s $569 - but it is quite eye-catching.

Reason: Devubuntu is still being a bastard.

Sometimes I can get into www.ubuntuos.com; sometimes I can’t. I can never get far into the administration interface; never far enough to actually write the blog posting to release the new episode. The server will simply stop responding while I’m trying to get in.

Things suck with this server downage.

Here’s the link to the MP3 podcast: http://ubuntuos.com/podcast/files/ep42-080407-ubuntuos.mp3

Though as at this writing, of course, I myself can’t download the podcast, so what chance have you got? Hopefully someone will hear this podcast, it was quite good. EDIT: You may have some luck, it has started to load for me.

In other news, we’ve got one of our VIP days mixed in with the Cost + 5% fliers - yikes! It’s promising to be a very big 5 hours. If you’re reading this in time and you live in Perth, come down to the shop between 10am and 3pm Sunday 26 for some bargains. Be patient, we’re going to be busy! Mention A Man And His Penguin - I can’t give you any extra money off, but seeing a blog reader would make my day!

Also check out our listings for Nobel dishwashers on eBay.com.au - we’ve sold quite a few! (sold two yesterday alone).  Oh, and we unpacked one of Nobel’s 45cm stainless steel dishwashers today and put it on display - it looks wicked, much nicer than the flat look stainless 60cm dishwasher. It’s not as cheap - it’s $569 - but it is quite eye-catching.

Reason: Devubuntu is still being a bastard.

Sometimes I can get into www.ubuntuos.com; sometimes I can’t. I can never get far into the administration interface; never far enough to actually write the blog posting to release the new episode. The server will simply stop responding while I’m trying to get in.

Things suck with this server downage.

Here’s the link to the MP3 podcast: http://ubuntuos.com/podcast/files/ep42-080407-ubuntuos.mp3

Though as at this writing, of course, I myself can’t download the podcast, so what chance have you got? Hopefully someone will hear this podcast, it was quite good. EDIT: You may have some luck, it has started to load for me.

In other news, we’ve got one of our VIP days mixed in with the Cost + 5% fliers - yikes! It’s promising to be a very big 5 hours. If you’re reading this in time and you live in Perth, come down to the shop between 10am and 3pm Sunday 26 for some bargains. Be patient, we’re going to be busy! Mention A Man And His Penguin - I can’t give you any extra money off, but seeing a blog reader would make my day!

Also check out our listings for Nobel dishwashers on eBay.com.au - we’ve sold quite a few! (sold two yesterday alone).  Oh, and we unpacked one of Nobel’s 45cm stainless steel dishwashers today and put it on display - it looks wicked, much nicer than the flat look stainless 60cm dishwasher. It’s not as cheap - it’s $569 - but it is quite eye-catching.

It suddenly strikes me how many new/potential Ubuntu users ask if the latest version of Photoshop runs on Ubuntu. It seems like there are millions of people who use their home computer for OS experimentation, gaming, and graphics production work all at the same time! And these people who can afford all the latest games can not only afford a $1000 state-of-the-art image editing program, but also have a pressing need to use this rather than the free Gimp.

The answer: Few of these people have bought a legitimate copy of Photoshop. It’s all pirated, through and through. Free software contending with illegal software.

It puts me in a difficult situation. I detest people who try to consider their piracy under any other terms. Some of my customers ask "Will it play DVDs bought from Bali?", to which my answer is "Yes, pirated DVDs will play in all DVD players" :-)  So I detest people who look the other way and *think* the other way, but on the same token I copy CDs and DVDs for people all the time and barely think anything of it. I accept pirated DVDs and bootlegs all the time. I used to download music illegally back when it was easy. I’ve downloaded cracked software. Am I a hypocrite? I’m probably getting close to being one!

I also hate the way the content creators use Digital Restrictions (including serial numbers and phone-home in software), because it’s a PITA and it hampers legitimate use of the material. But then, these factors also prompt people to look into alternatives such as FLOSS. That, of course, is why Microsoft don’t really pursue Windows pirates very often.

For an article which starts off on this sort of topic and then goes on a tangent, check out this article from IT Wire.

It suddenly strikes me how many new/potential Ubuntu users ask if the latest version of Photoshop runs on Ubuntu. It seems like there are millions of people who use their home computer for OS experimentation, gaming, and graphics production work all at the same time! And these people who can afford all the latest games can not only afford a $1000 state-of-the-art image editing program, but also have a pressing need to use this rather than the free Gimp.

The answer: Few of these people have bought a legitimate copy of Photoshop. It’s all pirated, through and through. Free software contending with illegal software.

It puts me in a difficult situation. I detest people who try to consider their piracy under any other terms. Some of my customers ask "Will it play DVDs bought from Bali?", to which my answer is "Yes, pirated DVDs will play in all DVD players" :-)  So I detest people who look the other way and *think* the other way, but on the same token I copy CDs and DVDs for people all the time and barely think anything of it. I accept pirated DVDs and bootlegs all the time. I used to download music illegally back when it was easy. I’ve downloaded cracked software. Am I a hypocrite? I’m probably getting close to being one!

I also hate the way the content creators use Digital Restrictions (including serial numbers and phone-home in software), because it’s a PITA and it hampers legitimate use of the material. But then, these factors also prompt people to look into alternatives such as FLOSS. That, of course, is why Microsoft don’t really pursue Windows pirates very often.

For an article which starts off on this sort of topic and then goes on a tangent, check out this article from IT Wire.

It suddenly strikes me how many new/potential Ubuntu users ask if the latest version of Photoshop runs on Ubuntu. It seems like there are millions of people who use their home computer for OS experimentation, gaming, and graphics production work all at the same time! And these people who can afford all the latest games can not only afford a $1000 state-of-the-art image editing program, but also have a pressing need to use this rather than the free Gimp.

The answer: Few of these people have bought a legitimate copy of Photoshop. It’s all pirated, through and through. Free software contending with illegal software.

It puts me in a difficult situation. I detest people who try to consider their piracy under any other terms. Some of my customers ask "Will it play DVDs bought from Bali?", to which my answer is "Yes, pirated DVDs will play in all DVD players" :-)  So I detest people who look the other way and *think* the other way, but on the same token I copy CDs and DVDs for people all the time and barely think anything of it. I accept pirated DVDs and bootlegs all the time. I used to download music illegally back when it was easy. I’ve downloaded cracked software. Am I a hypocrite? I’m probably getting close to being one!

I also hate the way the content creators use Digital Restrictions (including serial numbers and phone-home in software), because it’s a PITA and it hampers legitimate use of the material. But then, these factors also prompt people to look into alternatives such as FLOSS. That, of course, is why Microsoft don’t really pursue Windows pirates very often.

For an article which starts off on this sort of topic and then goes on a tangent, check out this article from IT Wire.

I’d just like to apologise to my listeners and my co-host for the delay in releasing the podcast this time around.

The Devubuntu server which holds ubuntuos.com has been having some trouble lately - security trouble, apparantly (well, I SAID that it didn’t look very secure!). So FTP access has been locked out, and I couldn’t get a hold of the podcast audio.

It would have been up on Sunday as usual, except that I was waiting for contact from George regarding his addition to the ‘cast; and now I’ve realised that he’s recorded an actual podcast himself!

It is now fully edited and due for release today.

Mencoder has been a bit of a bastard lately. It refuses to use the dimensions that I’ve specified; which is a problem because my DVDs are 16:9, not 4:3! I found that Mencoder had encoded my files with 576 lines rather than 480 lines, which is why my DVD player didn’t want to play them. Transcode doesn’t have a problem with the aspect ratio or getting the correct size, but it chops some video off the beginning. As in, the first 10 minutes of the movie. That sucks arse.

Unfortunately, in order to get those movies into MPEG-4 in a way that my DVD player can understand, I’ll have to boot into Windows.

I’m still thinking more about OpenDisc. We should have never let it be a battle of Bluray vs HD DVD - it should have been Bluray versus OpenDisc. Maybe some day it will be? But only after we get better support for encoding video on Linux.

Are my troubles possibly related to me using an AMD64 chip with a 32-bit Linux and 32-bit Mencoder/FFMPEG/Transcode? I have heard that sometimes there are troubles, but I dunno.

Maybe I should do port scans of other computers online, find out if any have SSH running without a firewall and with root logins permitted, crack into them and use them to encode video?

Quick note before I forget: My ISP seems to be shaping down to 128kbps, rather than 64kbps. Whoo hoo!

I tried transcoding some Amanda Bynes DVDs to MPEG-4 to play on my little DVD player. Although the transcoding was successful, I couldn’t get the files to play on my DVD player, nor on the family DVD recorder.

When I try on my DVD player, it says "Cannot play HD video". I encoded these files at 853 x 480 resolution! Since when has that been high definition?

Looks like I’ll have to transcode them again

But the whole incident got me thinking again about an open-source High Definition disc.