RIAA lays off staff

One of the most useless and idiotic industry companies in human existence, the RIAA, who's stupid, misguided and baseless terroristic attack on people by indiscriminately suing people based on no evidence that they infringed the copyright of any artist, is laying off 25 staffers according to news.com.

So, if you're like me, I see it as this:
-25 people lost their jobs because the RIAA wasted artist and label money suing people at no profit margin.
-No attorneys were surely laid off.
-No executives were surely laid off.
-Not one dime was ever paid to any of the artists whom the RIAA was "protecting the rights and income" thereto. If so, there's no evidence that I can find to prove that.
-Attorneys hired by RIAA and staffers therein made a ton of coin at the expense and on the backs of the 25 who were probably told "don't let the door hit you..."
-Will someone please whistleblow some RIAA members on how many mp3s they have on their machine?

When the music industry ends their pompous ways, hopefully so shall the useless RIAA.

F the RIAA.

Sign of the coming apocalypse

A Sony Rolly (a robot) leading a choir of Aibos (robots).

They're beginning to commune and train.

Skynet is almost here.

Why it doesn't matter if you use SSL or not

Look, the average person doesn't know shit about internet security.

I don't know a lot of shit about internet security.

But SSL is THE secure way to use banking websites and other websites online for your online transaction.

And you naively thought it was fool proof... oh what little you know.

If you don't want to get your ass handed to you in identity theft land, you have to follow certain key tennants, like, for instance, never ever ever answer an email from your bank when it says "login here" to fix some bullshit issue. It's almost always a redirector website or a fake site designed like the real site.

The recent Black Hat DC 09 conference outlined exactly how SSL is hacked. See, it was hacked before, but then folks just took the attitude of "oh well use this instead". Now, in this article, you can see that the "this instead" method is now compromised. Here's another article about how the SSL domain jacking went from theory to practice.

So look, just be careful, learn how hackers fuck with your shit so when you see it, you know what it is and run. The article outlines pretty well how to tell when the slight of hand happens and how your username/password gets picked. In many ways, it all starts out by faking the favicon, as above.

Plus, just stop using IE already. It sucks, it doesn't work. Neither, to a degree, does Safari. Use Firefox, Chrome or Opera and you'll be fine.

For more detailed dish on how fiends flip your shit, check out this PDF.

The Arrogant Disregard for Art

It's no secret: I despise Annie Leibowitz.

Here's a woman who takes a legendary pompous and arrogant attitude with everyone she shoots. If you've ever been on a Leibowitz shoot, or know someone who has, you know that she basically forces here assistants to do all of the work, then comes out, presses the button, and charges you six figures. She only gets access because she's been shooting since skateboards had clay wheels and was with Rolling Stone from the start and that she overcharges for photos on Vogue. Her photos are cliched, soul-less and without compelling angles. Yet, she's regarded as cultural Americana. Remember, only the most edgy or safe are remembered in this country.

Stern remarks how his photo shoot with her was very uncomfortable because she had such a fucking attitude.

This is also a woman who, when her girlfriend was dying and being carted off in an ambulance, instead of holding her hand, she photographed it. This is also a woman who shot gothic child porn with Miley Cyrus and hid behind the shield of "well her parents were there". Yeah, the cops should have been there - I've been on sets where parents sat near their kids while their kids did speed in the dressing room. Hollywood parents, generally, allow their kids to do anything. Leibowitz should have had more sense to not shoot a naked child in a blanket, with a come hither stare and an anorexic look.

That's the type of person she is to me. With magazines laying off hundreds of workers, one picture/one photo shoot from her for one issue could pay the salaries of 4 assitants for a year. Your subscription to Vogue or Rolling Stone supplies her greed and gluttony.

So it's no surprise to me that, instead of maybe dialing back her gluttonous spending spree to own homes and debt too large for her to handle, she mortgages and essentially pawns her entire library of photos. That's just gluttenous, greedy arrogance gone wild. I wish nothing but bankruptcy for her. If she was a nice person, or less arrogant, I would hope she could pull out of it - but you reap what you sow. She's sowed a career of being a pompous, disrespectful ass to the people she'd shoot, like Queen of England, for instance, (not like I would do any different) telling her "do you know who I am". People like this in this business deserve to lose anything and everything they have as a payback for how they've treated everyone. Like Martha Stewart and her arrogant ass going to jail - she deserved it, mostly for being a legendary bitch.

Maybe it will bring her back down to normal.

If anything, you hope she was once normal.

For your curiosity, here's an article. You'll probably be able to buy her photos on ebay very soon!

Cya Defamer

You'll probably be reading a lot about these kinds of things in the near future - the blog merge-and-survive stage should be starting up now as most of these blogs make next to no money, pay way too much for photos and end up going belly up.

DHD is reporting that the famous Defamer.com (a licensor of my photos of Steven Seagal in concert - thanks guys!) is being merged into the more corporate gawker.com.

Gawker.com is polishing up, like many other information providers like breitbart.com, AP, and CNN to be a premiere entertainment gossip site, taking on directly the likes of TMZ and the socially useless (my opinion, I'm sure society feels there's a use for his alleged smarts) Perez Hilton, as the market for entertainment news is heating up and is "seemingly" more profitable than news which matters.

Yes, entertainment news doesn't matter. But people seem to think it does so, go where the money is, right?

In all likelyhood, this will only homogenize the content, allowing for the more caustic, independent (and often factually incorrect) sites like TMZ and the educationally inept (my opinion only - I'm sure he's a smart human being) Perez Hilton, and for more intelligent fare (with actual, albeit extremely biased, but actual, bona-fide journalism) to flourish because their networks are fare more intricate, deep and more responsive than the established, say legacy networks...if you can call a department which has been around for 4 years legacy.

Recessions do cause the most interesting things to happen!

TV On The Radio on SNL

Here's a pretty coherent explanation as to why indie/pop powerhouse TV On The Radio sucked hard core on SNL...

...my explanation is easier: everything and everyone who is on or goes on the current iteration of SNL sucks or gets bitten by the suck-ass bug. Why this fossil of a show which is only funny when Timberlake does Dick In A Box is beyond me.

Matt Rosoff explains deftly about it being the sound guy. If you've worked in music as long as I have, you know it's always the sound guy's fault. They might have a point here: bring a laptop and you can replicate your finely crafted CD sound on the road, so know one ever has to learn that you really suck in real life.

Maybe they suffered another Ashlee problem?

I didn't see this performance. I'm not a fan of TV On The Radio - I think they're a talented jam band, but not really anything to blow up my skirt. They're amazing - just like everyone else.

XBox Attacks - Are you a booter?

Been kickin' too much ass on that thar XBox that some more nefarious character-types are getting a little hot under that thar collar?

Been kickin' so much ass that suddenly your XBox can't find the interwebs with both controllers?

Maybe you've been getting a little DDoS action and you ain't been checkin' your asshole enough to know when someone's been fuckin' it.

According to Cnet News, lot's o' folks been bootin' peoples off the interwebs cuz they're gettin' a little too beaten to a pulp on that thar Gears of War, CNC3 or wherever they take their tarnishin' from.

...see this works better if you read it with a southern accent and drawl a little... then it makes more sense...

According to the article, M$'s response is pretty much, "Wow, that's bad. That probably really sucks for you." Then again, if you were in chat rooms in the mid-to-late 90's, you too were scripting opening someone's CD tray, heavy-pinging their IP address or other such shenanigans (maybe you even hacked their system or to, eh??? You know who you are you heathen!)

Bottom line - maybe try not to clean so many clocks online. That's why I don't use my XBox Live account for gaming - I'm too pussy chicken to get my ass kicked by a 9 year old.

Mac Mini 2 Porn

For you Mac enthusiasts (snobs) who cum all over yourselves at even the conversation about a Mac.


Mac Mini 2009 Edition - Amazing videos are here

Windows 7 RC to be released in April (Rumor)

Now I wouldn't be doing my blogging duties if I did not relay what another blog was talking about. According to Ars Technica, your Vista woes may be a little closer to ending as they are saying the public will get a Release Candidate version of Windows 7 to play with on April 10th.

This would be in keeping in line with Microsoft's intended release of Windows 7 to manufacturers in the fall for an intended OEM release by Christmas, with a retail, boxed release the next month.

Windows 7, as you might not already know is the successor to the clunkass Windows Vista, its debut was more like Windows ME than Windows XP and has wildly been regarded by the purchasing public as a bone-ass failure and a complete waste of consumer money.

Techs all over the interweb have been creaming themselves as Windows 7 seems to be faster, better, stronger, harder and sexier than its pasture predecessor, and harkens back to those good ole days called Windows XP when your computer only crashed 40% of the time, rather than 90% of the time.

Windows Vista is not dead however, as a Service Pack 2 is going to be released later this quarter or early 2nd quarter, for those of you still punching yourselves that you paid that much money for that large a piece of shit. (It's funny how the linked article still tries to upsell Vista by calling a Service Pack "extra incentive" in connection with upgrading rather than waiting for 7 - lame.)

Personally, I've downgraded all upgraded systems back to XP, except for anything newer that I bought which was OEM Vista. I have one system which is still Vista, and I try not to use it for things other than watching movies or websurfing because the Vista system is still wildly inconsistent (even after an SP1 upgrade).

One day our Windows 7 (6.1) prince will come.

Two Local Bands Break on Network TV

Two local Los Angeles bands had their network television debuts of sorts on an episode of Knight Rider (NBC) last night.

Of sorts because, these network debuts were pretty fleeting.

Grungy indie rock band The Vacation and sexy latina indie punk band The Sirens both were in two separate scenes during last night's episode of Knight Rider, each showcasing one of their hottest songs to date.

Unfortunately, you might not have noticed it - The Vacation's scene ran with pretty much no identifiable markers, while The Sirens had great camera coverage and were smart enough to have a banner on the wall! (We found out that the production braintrusts producing the show subsequently lost the banner). At least the curious viewer could figure out the name of at least one of the bands.

It appears each band was discovered at a previous gig by scouts of the show.

This isn't the first time that a local band has made big-time TV: Kelly Ogden of The Dollyrots was recently seen in a guest starring role on CSI:NY. We won't mention the less-than-talented participants who've graced fantastic shows like American Idol or Next Great American Band.

Both The Vacation and The Sirens will be gigging soon in Los Angeles - go check them out!

The Vacation is a one-time client of AyesseMedia in 2004; The Sirens are a current client of AyesseMedia since 2006.

You can check the show out in re-run format on hulu.com.

Civic Speed

From the AP:
GREENVILLE, N.Y. (AP) - State police have ticketed an upstate New York man for driving more than twice the 65-mph speed limit on an interstate highway. Troopers said a 21-year-old man was clocked doing 137 mph on Interstate 84 in Orange County on Tuesday. He was pulled over in the westbound lanes near Exit 2 in the town of Greenville, on the New Jersey border 60 miles northwest of New York City.

Troopers said the man was driving a 1993 Honda Civic.

The man was ticketed for speeding, reckless driving and having vehicle windows with illegal tint.

He's due to appear in Greenville Town Court on Feb. 25.

There was no telephone listing for the man."

Yeah, so, I did 120 in a 1992 Honda Civic, fully loaded with furniture. Was pulled over by 3 CHP and let go with an 85MPH over 55MPH speeding ticket. You can do it with those old Civics - they're pretty badass!

...and that's why I also don't drive red cars anymore!

It's The Alcohol Talking

The last, last thing I want is for my alcohol bottles to have speakers in them so that they can be my portable PA. Lest I'm drunk at home and start hearing Mariah Carey singing "Hero" from my vodka.

...and who's bright idea was it to name alcohol after an underwear brand?

I can only imagine how it must taste, let alone how they made that taste happen.

NO Oscar Coverage

Sorry, you'll find no Oscar or any award show coverage here.

We seriously don't believe in psychophantic reporting unless it's truly warranted and no Hollywood star warrants it.

Go watch Sam Rubin on Channel 5 or pretty much anyone on Extra, Access Hollywood, or the Insider for a clinic on how to completely throw softball questions and kiss major ass, rather than engage in serious, legitimate journalism.

When's A Netbook Not A Netbook

Here's an interesting one: when is a netbook not a netbook. Well if you were a nerdy tool like me, you may have used a Sharp Zaurus in the past - we're talkin' like 1993 past, you know before the internets existed, when you had to go and actually buy (or rent) your porn from that creepy back room at the Video Hut, and when you were rockin' Windows 3.1 (or the exotic 3.11). The Sharp Zaurus was a rudamentary PDA which had a lot of RAM and was a pretty good organizer. It was purchased by PSION, which had a line of some pretty awesome small organizers, which really became really robust tiny computers.

Plus they own a trademark to the name 'Netbook," which is suddenly all the rage now.

Well, far be it for Dell to adhere to a trademark, instead of paying a royalty, they'll just invalidate or attempt to invalidate the trademark, as this posting from engadget finely points out. Ah, how nice corporations are - so quick to give you the awesome heads up on your intellectual property rights.

Brilliance

Hollywood ASST from Back of the Class on Vimeo.

Oh my can some of us relate to this one! Brilliance by backoftheclass.net