Hackers behind the rootkit responsible for crippling Windows machines after users installed a Microsoft security patch have updated their malware so that it no longer crashes systems, researchers confirmed today.

See also: "FIRE, Detroit, GOP, Microsoft."

(irr)

(kw)

This seems ill-conceived all around: a private protest likely to transform impersonal corruption into personal persecution (where shouting, say, at least can attract attention); an expensive surrogate for one of the few things the poor have (speech); a general approach to a problem that is everywhere specific; and so on. And, of course, who are these people too poor to pay a bribe but not too poor to print a jpeg from the web? Third parties might intervene by printing and distributing them to the poor — central banks for anticorruption. But who knows?

Also available in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayam.

( World Bank | Felix Salmon )p

(irr)

(gl)

One Goldman Sachs derivatives trader, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak about company strategy, said that the firm is planning to create a market for derivatives that airlines can use to hedge against the risk of having to return planes to the terminal or having to pay fines to the FAA. Goldman is thinking of creating “collateralized delay obligations,” or CDOs, which will diversify wait-time risk by including flights from across the entire country.

(felix salmon)

Now, with the same map in overlay (lower right):

LAX flight paths ca. 2004 (source):

]

A former South Dakota lawmaker convicted of [a bunch of awful stuff] has sent news organizations what he claims is a copyright notice that seeks to prevent the use of his name without his consent. A letter and an accompanying document labeled "Common Law Copyright Notice" said former state Rep. Ted Alvin Klaudt is reserving a common-law copyright of a trade name or trademark for his name. It said no one can use his name without his consent, and anyone who does would owe him $500,000.

Plan B: the national-security argument.

“This isn’t a default or foreclosure situation,” [Morgan Stanley spokesmodel Melody] Barnes said. “We are going to give them the properties to get out of the loan obligation.”

Next up: Dubai sends Dubai World to debtor's prison.

(felix salmon)

Priceless.

(tpm)

The founder is no doubt spinning sliding in his grave.

This one, from Ladda's site:

Rotating through 28 Feb 2010.

(jg)

(JLo)

LAT:

With the birth of his son 15 years ago, dedicated linguist d’Armond Speers embarked on the ultimate experiment: He spoke to him only in Klingon — the language of the alien race of “Star Trek” fame — for the first three years of his life.

“I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language,” Speers said. “He was definitely starting to learn it.”

So when Ultralingua, a dictionary, translation and grammar software company in Dinkytown, honored requests from customers to create applications for a Klingon dictionary, they turned to Speers, a self-employed software consultant.

“It was right square in my sweet spot,” said Speers, who graduated from Georgetown University in 2002 with a doctorate in computational linguistics.

If he'd used Europanto, his son would still speak it fluently.

[Marshal Greenberg] is suing the contractors who employed him, Bovis Lend Lease and the John Galt Corporation, accusing them of retaliating against him for telling the truth. Bovis, in court papers, has denied his claims.

The kicker:

Galt has yet to file its court papers, and declined comment.

Maybe it's gone?

I do not think that there will be a “multidimensional realm of hyperspace triggered by mass activation of the pineal gland.” That quote was taken out of context, I can only presume intentionally.

Onnaccounta this.

( lloyd wood )