FAIL Maker

Understand the hilarity of a real ‘FAIL’ moment when no one around you does? Then this is the app for you. Use your phone’s camera to capture all the FAILs you happen to spot, then upload them and become part of a great geek community of people doing the same!

Scrabble

Yes, the classic board game has got its very own app, and it’s one that no geek will want to be seen without. While the cool kids are all off playing blackjack or partypoker, geeks can stand by their word games. This app lets you play against your Facebook friends – chances are you’ll have at least a few who are as geeky as you.

Comixology

A must-have app for all comic book geeks which acts as a platform for Marvel, DC and The Walking Dead comics. You can then purchase new comics to read directly via the app – amazing!

Dice Bag

If you’re already a big fan of games such as Magic: The Gathering, or Dungeons and Dragons, then the chances are this isn’t the first time that you will have encountered a twenty-sided dice. It might, however, be the first time you’ve encountered one in the form of an apps. Gaming geeks will be lost without it.

Boxee Remote

The ultimate app choice for gadget geeks. If you love the idea of a futuristic world where your phone is also your TV remote, then the wait is over. This super geeky app allows Boxee users to use their phone as a remote to watch TV via the web. What more could you want?

But that’s not what today’s post is about. Today’s post is about the active, vibrant, sparkling, buzzing community of Minecraft players, modders, bloggers, and fans. It’s unprecedented since, well, ever. You’ve never seen an indie game get this much natural grassroots buzz. So it’s inevitable that some of the louder voices in the community are people you just want to strangle to death until they are SILENT.

1. The spoiled, demanding brats.

Apparently, Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory escaped from the screen, cloned herself 10,000 times, and now spends her time posting screeching demands on Notch to code her everything on her wish list and add it to Minecraft. “Natch, make me a unicorn! And a spaceship! I want craftable golden eggs! I wanna ‘nother pony! A pink one!”

Are you tired of it yet? “Nooooootch! Make me a castle and an island and the map from Time Bandits and bubblegum and monkeys and trained seals and a circus and an army and a magic whale! I WANNA PIZZA! IWANTIWANTIWANTIWAAAAAAAAAANT!!!!!!!” This is what happens when you’re a really good programmer. People think you’re the Wizard of Oz and all they have to do is scream loud enough and you’ll make them a miracle.

2. The insufferable, relentless whiners.

Hey, Minecraft, like any game, has some bugs. We can’t think of any computer video game in history that didn’t have a glitch somewhere in the code. Minecraft, furthermore, is Beta (and it was Alpha for a long time), and Indie (for a longer time, it was just one guy making it all by himself). So beyond that, it has a lot of little glitches and quirks. Some of them even add to the game, such as the famous “booster cart” bug.

A reasonable person would expect that once a bug is known, the coding team will deal with it in due time. But insufferable, relentless whiners are not reasonable. You know what’s more fun than standing next to somebody and listening to them whine nonstop at the top of their lungs all day every day knowing there’s nothing you can do about it? Running that same person through a woodchipper, that’s what!

3. Here’s a screenshot of a creeper!

Creepers, creepers, everywhere! Out the door, on the stair! In the mine and in the air! Lots of creepers, so beware! You know, a screenshot of a creeper outside your door was funny the first 570,341,257,601 times you posted it. Nah, wait, we’ll be generous, even up to the 570,562,137,911th screenshot post. Now it’s older than Churchill’s underwear, so can we please stop now?

4. The world’s stupidest YouTube videos.

And you thought American elections could really bring the retards in raving droves on YouTube! Hooo-boy, you haven’t seen anything like the depths of sub-sentient, prehistoric, knuckle-dragging, slobbering Derp-dom until you’ve seen 99% of the Minecraft videos out there.

The Method, as far as we can suss it:

(1) Start filming about one minute before sunset.

(2) Announce your name, your business, your website, your Twitter feed, who you voted for, which church you tithe at, your Facebook page, your MySpace page, your AOL Home page (the list goes on and on like an Academy Award acceptance speech)… repeat your name, website, business, etc. Repeat it.

(3) Now go “Duhhh, duh-hurrr, today we’re going to, ummmmm, uhhhhhh, we’re, uuuuuuhhhh,,,,,weeeeeee’rrrreeeee.” If you’re even done reading that, you’re thinking too fast. Slow down. Pop a Valium, snort some ether, and inhale five bowls of your toughest dank bud and try again. Let me hear that “uuuhhh, uhhhh, uuuuuuuuuuuummmm”. It’s very soothing, like a Buddhist chant. Oh, yeah, fumble around explaining what you’re going to show for the next hour. Be sure not to let people see anything onscreen except you dorking around digging out dirt blocks and putting them back, digging them out and putting them back, digging them out…

(4) Now for the alleged purpose of the video, you go towards the invention or creation or whatever you’re supposed to show us. But it’s pitch-dark now, and you’re too cheap to spare us a single torch, so now we have the big black rectangle of doom to stare at. You’re still going “uuuuuummmm” because your ragged pre-puberty voice is so beautiful!

(5) “Demonstrate” your invention, except when you hit the switch, turn on the lights, move the piston, or whatever, it falls apart / blows up / jams / burns out / kills you / otherwise fails. Whoops, apologize fumblingly, while you dink around and try to replace things, then just give up (total elapsed time by now: a million lifetimes), and tell us how it was supposed to work.

(6) Repeat your name, rank, serial number, goat sex preference, mother’s favorite street corner to pick up johns, and so on. You’re a star!

No, we’re not exaggerating. Every single YouTube video about Minecraft is exactly like this. It’s not even as good as what was just described, actually.

So, aren’t we all sick and tired of seeing these quirks?

“It is strongly recommended that you close all programs before continuing the installation.” Really? In 2011? First off, it is simply impossible to close AAALLLLL programs, because the operating system itself is composed of programs too. There’s an IM icon on my taskbar, does that count? Do I have to close the clock too? What about my weather applet? What about my antivirus protection – surely you don’t mean that too? But I’m sitting here with a Dual Quad Core i7 whatever-it-is and roughly enough RAM to find the last digit of pi, and your installer can’t handle sharing that with my web browser?

“Would you like to install the Bing search bar?” Well darn, I thought I was running a DirectX installer, but I guess you sure fooled me, didn’t you?

“The system must be rebooted to continue.” I’ve had installers that demanded that I reboot THREE TIMES during install! Really, I’m sick of this. I don’t care whose fault it is. Either Microsoft can build a system that can run for more than five minutes uninterrupted or install programs can work around the ten-thousand stupid quirks that require a reboot.

“Options: Easy install… Advanced install…” You know, most of the time the “advanced” option just lets you change the name of a directory or pick whether you want an icon in your system tray. Whoa, back up jack! I don’t exactly have a degree in quantum physics here. And have you noticed that “advanced” options don’t exist when you’re installing an app on your smart phone?

“Would you like to subscribe to our weekly newsletter?” No. I’m also not interested in being added to your email mailing list, or following you on Twitter, or friending you on Facebook, or upvoting you on Digg, or watching you on DeviantArt, or creating a profile on your website, or in getting phone calls from you, or in getting text messages from you. In fact, after I install this program, your company could be wiped off the face of the Earth by a meteor strike and I’d only care for about thirty seconds.

As has been pointed out in many places, “social news will always suck”. We see Digg, Reddit, Slashdot, and other train wrecks, where the quality always drops to rock bottom and the Lowest Common Denominator rules. But if we create a social news site with a fresh template, what would we do to avoid heading down the same path? Here’s some ways I think I could make it suck less if I started a social news site…

1. Charge a membership fee. Something modest, like a dollar per month.

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) Spammers.

(b) Astroturfers.

(c) Sock puppets.

(d) Poor service due to lack of funds for servers/admins. A dollar per month per user ensures that the resources will always scale with the community.

2. NO “Self” posts!

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) Ego-stroking circle-jerks.

(b) Attention whores.

(c) People who use the submission box for their personal blog.

(d) “Does anybody else blink?”

3. NO duplicate submissions – period! AKA The Robot9000 approach (see link at the end). (Note: Better make sure you have an awesome site search/ archive interface for this one!)

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) Reposts of stale old garbage coming back every six months.

(b) Flooding the front page with one story.

(c) User amnesia.

(d) Having the same flamewar over the same old troll post over and over again.

4. “Smart” submission filter screens stories to limit multiple submissions of different sites pointing to the same story. For instance, once five links with the keywords “Gulf”, “oil”, and “spill” have been posted, allow no more submissions with those keywords for another 48 hours or so.

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) Flooding the front page with one story.

(b) Mob hysteria.

5. Idiot filter – rejects titles with various annoying patterns and memes.

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) OMG! WTF! BAC0NZ!!!!!!!! U HAZ 2 C THIZ! MOST AMAZING EVAR!!! MIND = BLOOOOOOOWWWWNN!!!!!!!!!1111one one eleventy one!

(b) Titles that do nothing to describe the content they’re linking to. “Here’s a video!”

(c) Flat-out trolling headlines.

6. Meme filter that applies to both submissions and comments. Once it’s been posted 99 times, that’s it, it’s not funny anymore. Forever.

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) Stupid in-jokes that never go away for ten years.

7. A block feature. Users, just for their own view, can block any one of comments from a user, submissions from a user, comments containing certain words, or even submissions containing certain keywords.

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) Flamewars that go on forever.

(b) Trolls.

(c) Seeing the same story over and over when you’re sick of hearing about it.

(d) Mob hysteria.

8. Repeat site submission filter. You can only submit, say, five consecutive links to the same base domain in a row, and then you have to submit something from somewhere else before submitting that URL again.

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) Spam.

(b) Astroturf.

(c) Shills.

9. Offer REAL REWARDS for “good karma”! Not just a point score, but tangible benefits in exchange for being a good site citizen. These could include being promoted to moderator, being awarded one’s own personal page onsite, being awarded extra moderation votes, getting one’s own subfolder, a waiver of some submission filters, and (at a certain score) a waiving of membership fee for as long as you continue to score high. This last would be well-worth the trade-off, since top-tier citizens add more value to the site than the measly dollar-a-month.

This fixes (or helps to limit):

(a) Trolls.

(b) Burn-out.

(c) The feeling that the site just uses you without giving back.

For a related one-blog brainstorm, see Randal Munroe’s ROBOT9000 manifesto. Note, 4chan just cut the /r9k/ folder.

I’d have to say that from my point of view from within the industry, some of the world’s biggest, most over-inflated egos belong to web designers. If you get one even half the time that has their head fastened firmly on their shoulders, you’re lucky. And I’m not just talking about penny-ante freelancers you hire on a bid site; I mean big, professional companies with clients on every continent still send out designers who blow half the rules on this list. We all go on about the many kinds of rotten clients and clueless users there are out there, but how about the people who claim to be professionals – notice nobody dares to criticize them?

1. Doesn’t know the difference between ‘web design’ and ‘graphic design’.

Yes, web pages are partly visual in nature. To run it past that point any farther is to risk having your site drawn – literally – by a third-tier Photoshop-slopper who will then cut the image of the page into chunks to display on your site. Went out of vogue in 1998.

2. Spends more than five minutes discussing fonts.

Helvetica. There, we’re done. There’s about ten fonts out there that are safe for all platforms and browsers, only three of which should even be considered for the web page’s main body content. For some bizarre reason, “web typography” has become the domain of the most stuck-up, overbearing divas to ever walk on water, all of whom demand that a chorus of cherubs scatter rose petals in their path wherever they go. And they have no shame in making the most pompous ass of themselves possible, for basically making what should be a one-minute decision accessible to any two-year-old who can chew with his mouth shut.

3. Hangs the moon and stars on Adobe software.

Anybody who raves about Adobe’s “high-quality” software is to be regarded with suspicion. Adobe is a ruthless monopoly who drove everyone else out of business; they are the standard today for this reason alone. True designers use Adobe if there’s nothing else around.

4. Designs for Internet Explorer ONLY.

Yes, these people still exist. They’re dying out, but not quite fast enough.

5. He insists on using nothing but minimalist elements on pure white background, or he walks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, black text on white space is popular. But it’s not the case every single time. Some sites do better with a black background, some do better with more visual input, some do better with more style and pizazz to them. Some sites are better off looking like a space ship or an old movie theater or a hacker terminal. Anybody who insists on making every site be a clone of the first one they teach you to do in design school is an insecure coward who can’t do anything else.

6. The first sentence out of his mouth contains the phrase ‘intuitive interface’.

Like web typography, ‘interface design’ becomes a deadly sin if you over-think it too much, and more than five minutes is ‘too much’. There are books and blogs and magazines and videos devoted to nothing but yapping on and on about interface design, and we know precisely zero more than we did know before they all started talking about it.

7. He’s critical of Google, steers you to Bing.

Shill. Stay far away. Even people who work for Microsoft use Google over Bing.

8. He does not have a concept of ‘character encoding’.

So he puts Unicode elements on a page declared to be Western ISO 8859-1. He pastes your Norwegian text into a page using Western Windows-1252. When you ask him about character encoding, he goes “What?” No, really, when you go to a web page and see those black diamonds with a question mark in them or those square blocks with a four-digit number in them, and the rest of the web looks normal and you’re looking at a page that should be in your language? That’s the web designer’s fault.

By the way, in case you’re wondering where the group might be rooted, here’s a possible clue. Take the LulzSec logo:

…and here’s the Reddit Gold Member Lounge from reddit.com, a special section which you can’t access without being a paying gold account member:

…hmmmm, a common theme? LulzSec incidents certainly got a lot of ink on Reddit while they were active. Oh, and both LulzSec and Reddit have a huge crush on Wikileaks. Just sayin’.

Anywho, LulzSec is just one more in a long string of Internet “hacktivists”, really teenage boys with too much time on their hands (like what teenage boy doesn’t?) running very obvious exploits on very clumsily-managed websites. In the end, nothing was changed, nobody paid any attention to the causes they were trying to raise awareness for, and the damages they did are easily repaired.

What a waste of time. While “hacktivist” groups do do some good in keeping the world’s security on its toes, for the large part, they do more harm to the causes they claim to support. So once again, the concept of a “hacker” is sullied and the serious efforts to forward political causes are set back by association with a bunch of jack-offs mooning the news camera for the attention.

In the end, not a damn bit funny.

Monkey Boy has drawn criticism lately, because his steering of the good ship Microsoft since taking the helm from Bill Gates has met more than a few icebergs. The stockholders, hallowed by their name, are tired of the smell of burning money. And Ballmer has fired back at them.

That link is especially telling in his response. “You tell me if I lack energy, conviction or we’re not driving all the change we need to drive.”, he says. No, Primate One, nobody denies that you have energy. You’re a Tazmanian Devil of energy, whirling through rocks and trees and leaving a path of carnage everywhere you go. And nobody doubts your conviction, nobody that opinionated could be anything but convicted. You’re even brassy as a doorknob with the ‘change’ part.

The point that Steve Ballmer is missing is that energy, conviction, and change are not Microsoft’s problems. Microsoft was a fluke, an accident. It came along at the right time in history. The computer revolution would have happened anyway; Microsoft just happened to be there with Windows ready to surf that wave to the top. But, like all waves, there’s now nowhere to go but down. You can’t keep getting bigger and bigger after you’ve eaten the whole world.

Moreover, like something that’s too big to steer any more, Microsoft is being eaten alive on the mobile market. Apple is shining with custom-built little gadgets. Open source competitors are moving into embedded systems left and right, while Microsoft is doing good if anything it makes can fit onto a terabyte these days. Bloat. That’s the company’s problem: bloat, bloat, bloat, bloat, bloat.

Ballmer has also opened a website for anyone to comment on what he should talk about at meetings, nervously proffering himself before his hostile audience. That, at least, is a step forward. Anything that makes Monkey Boy shut his mouth and open his ears is a good thing.

Like this little story over at InfoWorld, telling of the user, “Jane”, “who thinks she can do no wrong. A problem is never her fault.” Yeah, and show me a user who doesn’t believe that???

If you fix computers for a living, or work in any kind of tech support, or answer the phones on a help desk, you know that your whole user base is made of “Jane”s. Great classic user excuses include “I didn’t touch anything!”, “There must have been a power glitch!”, and “It just crashes for no reason!”

Heck, play an online game in any community and you’ll hear a stack of canonical excuses people use for losing a video game: “They were camping!”, “I was distracted by an IM!”, “This map sucks!”, “Frickin’ lag!” Never is it – “Oh, well, I lost. I guess I was not the best player.” This is the blameless society culture picking up technology: Nothing is ever anybody’s fault. You see this happening when education debates pop up during election season in Western countries: “If I failed to pass the test, it’s the test’s fault.” Echo that to the computer desktop, and now it’s “The user clicked the wrong button; it’s the interface’s fault for not being intuitive enough.”

Sound familiar? Right, except nobody puts up with this abuse as gladly as the IT field does.

You’re picturing a basement cave filled with gadgets and neckbeards tweaking away with soldering irons and breadboards, aren’t you? Well, you’re not far off.

Tokyo Hackerspace is a great example, with members playing with everything from robotics to geiger counters (in light of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that triggered nuclear plant emergencies). The projects page lists “Solar cell phone chargers”, a “Smart White Cane Project” (to provide better assistance to the blind), and “Michael Jackson Tribute Concert LED Clothing”. Yeah, that’s our kind of party!

In Denmark, there’s Labitat in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a Twitter feed, Vimeo account, and Flickr pool to show off their projects, and also a Wiki’ed TODO list. Then there’s Hal9k in Aalborg, Denmark. Going by their projects list, they’re looking to bring about a “Hovercraft”, a “Thermal Camera”, and a “Solar Death Ray”. So apparently James Bond moved to Denmark and this is where Q gets all his ideas.

Dublin, Ireland, hosts “TOG”, which isn’t the most appetizing name. But it’s the only hackerspace we’ve seen so far with its own constitution, which includes “To foster the idea of knowledge sharing and continued education within the community, and the general public.” and “To promote and support the use and development of open technologies, standards, and ideas by the community, the general public, and other bodies.”

Sao Paulo, Brazil, hosts the Garoa Hacker Clube, an “open and collaborative infrastructure provider for technology enthusiasts that create projects related to many areas such as security, harware, electronics, robotics, modelism, software, biology, music, arts and whatever can be imagined.”

Berlin, Germany, has C-Base, and they win the award for spookiest and most futuristic website yet. Amongst their claims to fame are the founding of the German Pirate Party, filming episodes of the German TV series Tatort, and a persistent myth about a buried space station. Keep in mind that Germany in the modern time is one country with a healthy pro-science culture – we have to give them that much.

That’s just a small sampling of what’s out there. There’s also the Hackerspace Wiki, which lists organizations like these everywhere. Check to see if there’s one near you, and if there isn’t – why not start one?

The first – and last – time I brought up programming languages on a date.

Writing my first BASIC program that printed my name to the screen over and over again and showing EVERYBODY.

My first time in mIRC asking everybody how to be a 1337 Haxor.

When I asked how to do something and somebody replied ‘Alt-F4′ and I fell for it.

The time I bought a “RAM upgrade” kit.

Buying Windows 95 like a week before Windows 98 came out.

Trying to listen to the noise my telephone dial-up connection made to determine what kind of connection I’d be in for.

My first time discovering that Control-Shift-u and a four digit code makes Unicode symbols, and then going around annoying the crap out of everybody with my ĿĘĘŦŠPĘĘĶ.

My first redirected visit to goatse.cx.

My first time investigating photography of feminine subjects online, and then panicking because I couldn’t shut all the LiveJasmin pop-up windows before anybody saw.

When I responded to the first Nigerian prince with a complicated money transfer problem.

The twelfth time I fell for a Rick-roll.

Writing a Python program where all the variables were named Graham, John, Eric, Terry, and Michael, and thinking I was really clever for doing so.

When I realized my first home page had had “under construction” animated gifs running for two solid months while I forgot about it.

My last month using Hotmail.

My first attempt to quit vi.

My series of Windows Paintbrush drawings, the fine artwork of the renowned-but-little-known artist, preserved forever on this 1.4 MB floppy.

Buying a USB thumbdrive that was 10 Gigabytes and thinking at last I’ll be ahead for once, and then walking past a place selling 20 Gigabyte thumbdrives on the way home.

When I wandered around for four hours before finding my very first secret area in the very first level of Doom.

The day I realized that I’d bookmarked ten times as many sites as I would ever be able to read in one lifetime, and half of them were now 404-ing because I never got back to them to see why they were so interesting that I had to bookmark them in the first place.

My first time seeing a Wikipedia page and going “This is never going to take off!”

When I put the CD-ROM in the drive upside down.

When I saw my first year’s Google ad earnings, not even enough to buy a pack of gum.

Struggling to word a question just right so AskJeeves couldn’t possibly misinterpret it.

When I downloaded a compressed archive file and nit-picked at it for twenty minutes before finally figuring out how to unzip it.

When my boss and my Flickr account met for the first time.

What are some of yours?

We can’t blog about anything else today but Google+. It’s the first thing we think of when we wake up in the morning. It’s the last thing we think of when we go to bed at night. Google+ slices, dices, and does your taxes. Google+ is the Stain Specialist – it’s Mother-Nature-Approved, and safe on your color fabrics! It even takes wine stains and grape juice out of white carpeting! Google+ is double-plus-good. Google+ finds homes for homeless dogs and cats.

Search Engine Watch babbles incoherently about Google+! And Google+ is already too cool for China!

ZDNetters are forced to admit that they’re still stuck with Facebook, which keeps then manacled in rusty chains in the basement, and they wish they could be Google+’s old lady instead! They couldn’t wait to get their hands on it!

TechDirt rolled in mud over Google+ – and they pound down the nay-sayers and FUD-slingers and poo-pooed the critics. TechMeme waves their pom-poms for Google+ – raving four-stars!

Scobalizer thinks Google+ is the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, and the fruit of the loom! Oh yeah, and there’s already a Google+ app for Android – after all, they are built by the same company.

Well, all those other blogs think they can hype Google+ more than us, but we’re really hyping Google+! Just look at all these exclamation points we’re using! We are hyping very, very hard here! Are you paying attention, girls?

You can choose from pre-set messages such as “SKYNET ONLINE.” and “NEEDS MORE
COWBELL” or you can write your own.

Eddie’s El-Cheapo CIS
A continuous ink system or CIS allows you to constantly feed ink to the cartridges in your printer,
they are a really cheap way to run a printer. This website walks you through the process of
modding/hacking a printer so you can use it as a CIS. It’s definitely worth a look even if you don’t
have time to take apart your ink cartridges and mod them to death.

How To Make Your Printer Wireless
Printerhacks.com has a very extensive guide on making you printer accessible wirelessly by sharing
a printer connected to a computer on your wifi, by connecting it to a router with a usb port, by
setting up a wireless print server and by purchasing a printer with wireless conectivity built in.

3D Chocolate Lego Printer
This instructable guides you through the process of creating probably one of the most amazing
combination of awesomeness ever: A 3D chocolate printer made from Lego!

The creator states that the guide is incomplete but still shows a lot of the steps on how he created
this lump of pure awesome.

Modify a Canon Pixma Printer to Print on CDs and DVDs
This one is for anyone in the US with a Canon Pixma. In Europe the Pixma already comes with a
CD printing ability, but it was disabled in the US for some reason (probably due to licences). The
instructables user guides you on how to enable the feature again and how to create a CD tray.

About the writer:
CartridgeExpress is the web developer for an online printer cartridges retailer.
They sell original and re-manufactured cartridges and include free delivery in all their prices, so check ‘em out! Follow them on twitter.

“10 ways to keep your users from confusing you with a normal person:

4. When booting a user’s workstation, shout out all console output

1/2 second before it appears. Do this with your eyes closed and

fists clenched.”

That’s a great idea, but you never find the rest of the list for some reason. It’s a fortune-file orphan. Fortunately, in today’s computer illiterate society, it’s easier than ever to scare the cookies out of anybody who happens to be watching you in public while you seance with the digital demons. And bonus points for freaking out your teacher or boss.

1. Pop open a terminal. The mere sight of a command line brings most people to fits of atavistic terror. Even possible on DOS! All you have to do is list the directory and move around from one sub-folder to another. It’s text scrolling on a screen! Eeeeeeee!

2. Use commands like ‘ipconfig’, ‘telnet’, or ‘lsof’. Heck, even running ‘top’ on a Linux terminal will get you turned into the Department of Homeland Security these days.

3. Got a Mac? Boot it into single-user mode! Just as scary, because people never see it anymore.

4. Got a PC? Enter BIOS configure mode as soon as it starts! You usually do this by hitting F10, Esc, or whatever it flashes onscreen. Just bop around in the menus. Check the hardware profile. Make sure the CPU temperature is normal. If not, prescribe two aspirin, delivered through the vents on the side.

5. Change the wallpaper to something hacky. I strongly recommend the raining-green-text from The Matrix. Bonus points for password-protecting the wallpaper directory afterwards so no-one else can change it back.

6. Watch ASCII Star Wars over telnet or just browse ASCII art in a text editor.

7. On your work or school computer, store files in the recycle bin. No one ever dumps it or checks it, so you can basically keep a porn website server in there.

Let’s make something perfectly clear: It seems to be an inalienable right throughout the world that once you’ve bought something and own it, it’s yours to do with as you damned well please. At least especially in capitalist systems, that’s presumed to be the case. Bought it? Paid for it in full? Got it outside the store? Have a receipt? Then you are now free to use their electronic gizmo however you want. If you want to stuff it with bread crumbs and bake it for supper, that’s all you.

But that doesn’t fly at Sony, where they used to let you run an operating system on their PS series and now they try to lock the system down to stop this and when somebody (like George Hotz) figures out how to circumvent that, they get Sony using the law to come after them.

This is just the latest stunt in Sony’s PR Holocaust record. You remember Sony, the company who:

• Embarrassed themselves with this racist ad in 2006.
• Infected user’s computers with a rootkit embedded in their music CDs in 2008.
• Waged a media war against environmentalist groups which included spying on them in 2000.
• Short-changed the US Armed Forces which paid Sony to develop a combat simulator and got a cheap video game in 2005.
• Hired graffiti artists to deface buildings not belonging to them just to advertise their products in 2005.
• Sells netbook batteries that catch fire in 2006.
• Hired fake movie critics to astroturf-market their films in 2004.
• Steals work from its own music artists, resulting in said artist having to use a police raid to get his own work back in Mexico in 2009.

And, boy howdy, that’s just a little research off the top! There’s piles more dirt on Sony where that came from; you can go for weeks and not find the end of it.

The only question we’re left with is: How the heck is this company still in business, when literally every move they make is something nasty to do to somebody else – usually the people who give them business?