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Researchers find insecure BIOS ‘rootkit’ pre-loaded in laptops | Zero Day | ZDNet.com
LoJack is the sort of software that should be absolutely above reproach, because it’s used in a hostile attacker scenario and lives at a very very low level of the operating system. That it is easily hackable is, um, troubling.
(tags: security rootkit)

No, that’s not a typo, and no, I didn’t post the wrong picture–at least, not if the attributions in the Holsinger Digital Collection at UVA are correct. Today’s stroll down history lane with the Virginia Glee Club covers an era in their history which is, perhaps justifiably, forgotten–their days as a musical theatre troupe.
To understand [...]

inessential.com: Anatomy of a feature
Brent, as usual, does a thorough job of documenting why even small features take time and effort to do properly.
(tags: design development productmanagement)

Veracode achieves record growth in first half of 2009
Our momentum release, or what I was working on when I wasn’t blogging this year.
(tags: veracode security)

Here Come They Might Be Giants | GeekDad | Wired.com
A new children’s album about SCIENCE!!!!11!
(tags: tmbg music)

Associated Press claims to have discovered magic anti-news-copying beans – Boing Boing
Cory Doctorow points to an Ed Felten article that uncovers the reality of the AP “anti-copying” magic beans–it’s just the hNews microformat, which includes explicit rights definition (using [...]

Sharp Four: George Russell, 1923-2009 | Classical Music
RIP George Russell. I still like to go back and dust off his Ezz-thetics album.
(tags: obit jazz)

Free Spirit: NASA Recreates Mars Surface to Liberate Rover | Wired Science | Wired.com
This is what we mean by “can do.” Hope JPL finds a way to get the Rover moving again.
(tags: [...]

Kindle and the future of reading : The New Yorker
Nicholson Baker writes a marvelous essay on the hatchet job the Kindle does for the reading experience–but in the end, with a novel, he’s hooked. Illustrated and technical books don’t fare as well in the user experience department. Moving from reading eBooks on the iPod Touch [...]

Byte Code Analysis is not the Same as Binary Analysis
Gartner’s Neil MacDonald lays out the difference between bytecode analysis and binary analysis. Veracode does binary, and is the only vendor to offer binary analysis of C/C++ apps.
(tags: Security gartner)

Daring Fireball Linked List: The AP, Stuck in a Hole, Continues to Dig
Quoth Gruber: “Someone just sold the Associated Press a bag of ‘magic beans.’” One wonders what this “digital wrapper” was supposed to be anyway.
(tags: ap clueless)

Scott Rosenberg’s Wordyard » Blog Archive » A.P. goes nuclear on fair use
Those fools.
(tags: clueless)

iPhone security “broken” – [...]

I’ve had the pleasure this week of collaborating with an anonymous Wikipedia editor on a history of  the Yellow Journal–that scurrilous student humor magazine at the University of Virginia. In the process we found more than a few interesting points, like:

The Yellow Journal was originally founded in 1912 by the journalistic fraternity Sigma Delta Chi, [...]

It was a dramatic day at Tanglewood yesterday. I took the day off from work to attend two rehearsals for this weekend’s performance of the Brahms Requiem. The sky was obligingly threatening for most of the afternoon, but the sun was out and the juxtaposition of green lawn (greener for all the rain we’ve had [...]

How to use XSLT to style an RSS feed – nFriedly Web Dev Tech Blog
Easy way to force a browser to display RSS as plain XML.
(tags: rss xslt)

Senate Votes to Stop Building Fighter Jet – NYTimes.com
Finally, some common sense surfaces in Congress. If we can say no to the F-22, the sky is the limit! [...]

Adam Yauch has cancer, Beastie Boys cancel all dates – BrooklynVegan
Fingers crossed that MCA makes it through without complications.
(tags: beastieboys cancer)

What Apollo means to me (Bad Astronomy)
Personal history of the Apollo program from Phil Plait. I feel the same way about Columbia.
(tags: nasa apollo)

New black spot on Jupiter | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Amateur astronomer [...]

Walter Cronkite, Voice of TV News, Dies – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com
It seems somehow appropriate and sad at the same time that Walter Cronkite should pass away just before the Apollo landing anniversary. One thinks he would have liked to see it again.
(tags: obit space cronkite)

Could moon landings have been faked? Some still think so [...]

The anniversary of the first moon landing, on July 20, 1969, is always a special occasion for me. It’s my dad’s birthday too, and he was a NASA employee for over 30 years, so the story of the space program is the story of my childhood. I was too young to watch any of the [...]

Certified ASS Hat (Khaki) > ASS Hats > The Institute for ASSCert Online Store
You too can be a Certified ASS (Application Security Specialist)!
(tags: humor security)

Who Needs Facts? | TPM
Talking Points Memo points up the difference between right wing advocacy and left wing news gathering in the Sanford case.
(tags: southcarolina marksanford)

BlackBerry Spyware Dissected (Zero in a [...]