Month: April 2017

What was the victory condition for the Netflix Orange is the New Black extortion hack?

Brief summary: somebody apparently hacked Netflix, got episodes of Orange is the New Black, and threatened to release them online prior to their first viewing in June unless Netflix paid up.  Netflix said no. The episodes were duly released. And, as Forbes pointed out: what, exactly, was the goal here?

Netflix is a streaming service. Nobody pays for individual episodes of Orange is the New Black. In fact, is anyone even watching Orange is the New Black anymore? Perhaps The Dark Overlord imagined hoards of fans canceling their memberships, finally liberated from Netflix’s tyrannical monthly fee, heading in droves to The Pirate Bay to watch ten out of thirteen episodes in low-definition. Finally, the evil overlord Netflix felled by the might of the dark one.

Continue reading What was the victory condition for the Netflix Orange is the New Black extortion hack?

Group seed: Aglet Solutions.

Pardon the joke.

Aglet Solutions – Google Docs

 

Aglet Solutions

 

A variant of this group can exist at any point of a particular society’s technological or social development.  Provided, of course, that the society has access to resurrection or general necromantic magic.  Aglet Solutions exists to counter such magic, for the noblest of reasons: people will pay them extremely well to do so.

 

The pay is good because this is actually a surprisingly popular service, particularly in worlds where the resurrection process can or does have extremely nasty side effects.  There is a lot that necromancy can do with a person’s corpse, and some of it can be only be prevented or reversed by people who are effectively necromancers themselves, if only theoretical ones. Magicians who discover that they simultaneously have a talent for death-related magic and a basic ethical sense are Aglet Solution’s preferred candidates for employment, as the group gives them an opportunity to practice their art in a non-corrupting manner.

Continue reading Group seed: Aglet Solutions.

So I’m putting together a movie list for the next few months.

So far, these are the definite ones:

  • Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (5/5)
  • King Arthur (5/12)
  • Wonder Woman (6/2)
  • The Mummy (6/9)
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming (7/7)
  • Dunkirk (7/21)
  • Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (7/21)

Continue reading So I’m putting together a movie list for the next few months.

Patreon Microfiction: “Sentimental Value.”

“Sentimental Value” is my paean to the notion that, even in our glorious transhumanist future, we’re probably going to have to deal with the little things in day to day life.  Also, that people who are in glorious transhumanist futures are probably not going to wander around all day breathlessly going “Hey! How about that Singularity, huh?” …OK, wait, some of them probably will.  Somebody always does.

Book of the Week: Jurassic Park.

I know that this is a little bit of a weird choice, but I spent the day looking through my library to see if I still had a copy of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park lying around.  If I spent that much time looking, it’s worth an entry, right?  That seems reasonable.  Even if I wanted to read it as an antidote to the Power Rangers dinosaur series that my children persist in watching. Over and over and over again.

And so, adieu to Brain Wave.

Tweet of the Day, The Raven Looks Kind Of Embarrassed To Be There edition.

He’s got that Hey, man, I have no fingers or thumbs, OK?  If I want to get downtown, this is how I get downtown look to him. Also: I’m not one to judge, but if I was hanging out with a raven I would like to think that I’d have a somewhat more exuberant view of life because, hey, I’m hanging out with a raven and that’s pretty cool, right? Ravens have personality, is what I’m saying.

https://twitter.com/maxsparber/status/858330495788220416