Out of the frying pan and into the punch in the face.

(seen outside work this afternoon)

Hollywood studios have confused a glorified fan-fiction/decent Threadless t-shirt idea for a great movie script, and they’re now in a bidding war for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a not-yet-released parody of the Jane Austen classic that adds some extra content that implies a zombie invasion was simultaneously occurring…

via iwatchstuff

Will Clark is set to direct “Pride and Predator,” which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about.

via varierty

WTF? Did the copyright expire or something…

Thanks to Philip for the linkage

Is, in a nutshell, that it isn’t funny.

The element that makes Buffy, Angel and Firefly so good is their ability to weave comedy and drama in a way that doesn’t suck. The lines are genuinely funny, the drama is genuinely intense. You care about the characters, they care about each other.

That last one, about caring for each other, is key. It also has to go both ways. There has to be trust between characters, and shit, actual relationships. I’m not talking about sex, I’m just talking about actual relationships, where people actually communicate with each other because they enjoy doing so, not because the situation they are in or the job they perform requires it. They enjoy themselves.

Let’s take a short moment to dissect the first few minutes of the Buffy pilot to show you what I mean.

Ignoring the cold start / title sequence etc, you know the show is actually starting when they do the classic punk-rock-plus-cherry-picker-camera-show-outside-high school shot (you’ve seen it in nearly every teen movie you’ve seen I’m sure). So, after requisite setup:

• Buffy’s Mom communicates to her daughter showing affection. Holy crap it’s a relationship!.
• Then a joke between them. Holy crap there’s some comedy!
• Introduce Xander skating past, gets distracted by hot chick (Buffy) and then crashes headlong into a rail and falls over on Willow. Holy crap there’s sexuality and physical comedy!
• Xander and Willow communicate with each other, as (for the moment) platonic friends, while also being witty.

That’s, like, two whole relationships, wit and comedy plus hints at character development and we’re what: 30 seconds in? Even counting the cold start etc that really only makes it 5 min or so.

I could do the same with Angel and Firefly (and will do so for a shiny nickel!) but I won’t waste your time. If you do this with Dollhouse (I started writing it then found it too spoiler-laden) you find either one-sided or angry/negative relationships, bitter humour if any at all and no actual ‘comedy’.

Dollhouse is based around a place of employment and it’s 100% that. Everyone there obviously has their own demons and not one casual or social word is said between them. Everyone is an individual character that I’m sure is very interesting in their own right, but there is no interaction. One character might not like what another character is doing, but he certainly doesn’t share that with anyone else.

It reminds me of how people write characters when they have cabin fever. Nervous smiles, stressed looks, keeping to themselves, on edge, never giving what they really mean away, never letting down their defences.

You could argue it’s actually pretty good writing and directing, and that’s fine, I would agree. You could argue that it’s a perfectly valid format as well, and I’d agree their too. Angel went very much this way post season 1 and I think it worked great. It worked for me because it was, as mentioned, post season 1. It was also with an established set of characters from Buffy which already have histories and relationships.

Joss has always been good at setting people up and knocking them down. People are always happy in some amounts before his drama hits and shits all over them, but not here. In Dollhouse, there is no joy, only bitterness at a job you hate well done. Everyone hates someone and no one likes anyone. Plonked in the middle of this is Echo, pure innocence (of course with a hidden past) who will obviously evolve to be something more. But she hasn’t yet and so good television it does not make.

It certainly could turn out to be good. Battlestar Galactica pulled a similar stunt in the form of always being depressing and some people enjoy that show, I certainly did in parts. Angel did to, as I mentioned earlier. It’s hard to judge after only one episode, but I’m hopeful that it will develop past what it is now to the sort of fare I’m so used to Joss providing.

Worst comes to the worst, I can just kick off another Buffy marathon

from Schneier

This is truely, deeply stupid. Sadly though, possibly rather effective. I mean, it’s the woman from Law & Order, she must know about crime!

It just goes to show that you can use fear to sell anything, even shitty ballpoint pens.

see more

The scary shit comes as rocks or powders. Again, being the khakis-and-necktie crowd, nobody really expects you to be shooting black-horse heroin in the shower.

Effective Vices for the IT Professional

You know how an eleven-year-old kid will get really excited over a single Christmas present? How he’s practically in tears when he gets it? Them, two weeks later, that same toy is lost somewhere under the bed, and the kid is excited about something else. Yeah, Jaiku was cool to Google for about fifteen minutes. Now, it’s on its way to the tag-sale pile.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, twelve million dollars is enough to buy forty eight million doses of a drug to treat malaria.

Google faces post-Fleetwood Mac comedown

I’m surprised. Two high-quality posts from the irreverent Ted Dziuba and not one mention of someone swinging their dick around…

On February 28th here in balmy NZ the amendments to section 92 of the Copyright act will come into effect.

This has some interesting implications, but the general gist of it is this: ISPs are now required to deal with people who infringe copyright, with multiple infringements resulting in that users account being terminated.

That sentence is of course rather vague (summarising has that effect). What isn’t talked about is:

• What’s an ISP?
• How does one ‘deal’ with these people?
• What is copyright infringement, who says it is?
• Multiple infringements?, how many, what if they are disputed?

Some of this is covered in the amendment, some of it is covered elsewhere and some of it is left up to the discretion of the ISPs.

This vagary has raised the concern of many, as they worry that ISPs will– inundated with copyright violation claims– do the simplest thing possible. Assume guilt and cancel accounts.

Some choicer quotes from the previous link:

It is easier for ISPs, Internet Service Providers, to cut off anyone who might be breaking the law

Already, TelstraClear’s head of corporate services, Matthew Bolland, has stated that from 1 November 2008, TelstraClear are taking down websites upon a single accusation of copyright breach: “We don’t check or verify,” he says “We take it down.” ISPs like TelstraClear do not and cannot identify copyright infringement which is why this law forces them to take actions such as these.

So, like, fuck. That sucks dude.

But, all is not completely lost. There is a code of conduct(externally hosted link) that has been put forward by the TCF and sanctioned by Orcon which lays out some ground rules that ISPs can follow.

This is an invaluable resource, both because it allows ISPs to have similar policies surrounding the changes and because it allows consumers to know where we stand.

It’s also a fucking pain to read, because it’s that wonderful legal-speak which is nearly impossible to comprehend, especially late at night in a humid room after a day of battling IE issues.

Some interesting facts:

• Notices sent to users are called ‘Education Notices’.
• If you dispute any of these edu-notes they become ‘Disputed Education Notices’.
• At the end of each month users who have one or more edu-notes get sent a letter outlining their situation.
• These edu-notes last for 18 months before being discarded.
• Copyright holders must get these out no later than one month after the alleged transgression.
• Users can decide to dispute these for 3 months after they have been declared.
• Once you have three edu-notes in three different months you get a Final Warning, and any more violations will have your account terminated within 48 hrs of the violation. This is interesting for a couple of reasons:
  • They need to be in three separate months, which means you can’t get swamped at the very start and have no time to react.
  • There needs to be three edu-notes, not disputed ones. Which means if you dispute any of your notes they become invalid in the context of termination.

The definition of ISP is also an intereting one. An ‘ISP’ is not necessarily the likes of Slingshot or Orcon. Legally, an ISP is an entity that provides the inter-tubes to other people. Your workplace is an ISP, as are schools, libraries and Internet cafes.

These are called ‘downstream ISPs’ and it’s a useful distinction to have from users. While repeat-infringing users have their accounts terminated, downstream ISPs do not:

Downstream ISPs should not have their Internet Accounts terminated, since by doing so, a Party will inevitably terminate the Internet Accounts of Users who are not involved whatsoever in the Infringement, which would be inappropriate and unacceptable.

However:

Where a Party is unsure whether the person that is the subject of a Copyright Holder Notice is a User or a Downstream ISP, it shall treat them as a User.

There are also a few hoops for copyright holders to jump through before they make their claim. They have to provide information as to:

1. Method used for detection of alleged Infringement i.e. software used
2. Full details of how the evidence was collected.
3. Individual responsible for detection and their contact details.

As well as:

1. Type of infringed copyright work(s) e.g. sound recording, software
2. Title of copyright work(s) e.g. name / artist / version
3. File Name of infringed copyright work(s)

… and so on.

Presumably at this stage the ISP can then take that information and confirm whether this actually took place. This is the tricky bit, since ISPs don’t generally keep the best logs (too much data) and, as Telstra said above, it’s easier to just assume it’s true.

I say presumably because it’s not that clear. The guidelines do say:

Users are to be considered innocent until an ISP has reason to believe, based on evidence that would be acceptable to a Court, that a User is a Repeat Infringer. To avoid doubt, the fact that a User is considered to be a Repeat Infringer under this Code and is subject to any consequent sanction does not prevent that User applying to a Court for an order otherwise and the Party in question agrees that it will abide by any order of a Court in those circumstances.

So what does all this mean? It still looks like a bit of cluster-fuck, but at the very least you can’t get gangbanged (what is up with me in this paragraph?) in the first month and lose the tubes completely, but the whole thing still worries me.

There appears to be no indication of what happens after your account gets terminated for example. Can you create a new account? Are you forever banned from that ISP? Are you forever banned from every ISP? The prospect of that last one is enough to worry the crap out of me.

While there is the option of taking a more proactive approach I’m doubtful it will help. The bill has gone through and comes into effect in a few short weeks.

We can only hope it’s such a fuck-up that it will be repealed.

Somehow though, that doesn’t seem likely. It has been pushed through with the might of the entertainment industry behind it and tremendious support from the left and the right of Parliament. Everyone seems to be for it.

Except you know, any real person you talk to. Or any ISP. Or any downstream ISP.

But those people don’t make the rules, now do they

How does Nabble store passwords?

Nabble is a public forum where all users’ messages are public records. With Nabble, your user account is for public posting and identification, and contains no valuable private information. Because of this public nature, we do not see a need to encrypt password. Your password is stored in our secure database but is not encrypted. If you forget your password, you can retrieve it through our website and the password will be emailed to you in clear text.

This decision, presumably brought to you by some high-on-architecture zealot trying to prove a point…

Those are some insanely awesome melons you’ve got there!