Man uses networked 'crazy' toaster to hack PC

Man uses networked crazy toaster to hack PC | The Register

Remember the annoying Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf? Well, this is not it but interesting all the same.

They key concept here is not the toaster exercise itself, but more the idea that we tend to trust electronics that we buy as being safe from an electrical point of view but have we considered them from a "spyware" point of view.

Just like you should be careful what software you install and where you get it from (especially if you are crazy enough to still be running a windows machine), you may have to worry at some point about hardware too.

The Sony rootkit debacle showed us that we cannot even trust major consumer companies, and something as innocuos as a music CD. There is a nice anew article on this at arstechnica.

Will make that Good Housekeeping seal of approval even more important ;-)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Movie Poster & Plot Details

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Movie Poster | /Film

I wanted to write something witty and grown-up about this but what the hell.....it's Indiana Jones for god's sake! Bloody Hell I am excited about this one and the accompanying Lego sets and Lego Indy game.

Looks like a worthy successor to the Indy line.

Stockhausen Remembered

German composer Stockhausen dies

Sad loss. His work with electronic music was highly influential for me personally experimenting with tape, synths and computers in my teens. Had not seen the Sir Thomas Beecham quote before. Harsh but funny. Sad that it takes news like this for me to dig out my old CDs and re-listen.

Don't Panic

Andy Ihnatko's Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA) � Kindle: It's About More Than Just Waffles.

I seriously respect Andy and he has done yet another thorough and in-depth review, this time the Kindle. I learnt more from this one post than the 15 others I had already read.

Key thing, this is an always connected, no service fee, rss reader and encyclopedia.

Douglas Adams would be impressed.

iGoogle

AppleInsider | Google launches new Web app for iPhone users

I recently switched to Google Reader. I had steered clear of it in the past simply because I didn't want to give them any more information about me than they already had. Petty, but at the time it also sucked, which helped my decision somewhat. What made me switch was their excellent implementation for the iPhone safari browser. Just one day of using it and I was converted.

On the heels of that decision I was glad to read they have gone even further and have started to pull together all of their key services in a nice iPhone optimized interface. Just point your browser at google.com and it detects safari.

Damn you Google. Now I have a few less reasons for not using all your services.

Popular does not equal better.....

In defense of audiophiles. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine

An interesting article which covers 2 other equally interesting articles. All of them are right in my opinion. The mass adoption of mp3 players and low end home stereos support the fact that many folks don't understand or even care about the quality of their listening experience. Convenience outweighs quality for them. In many cases they have never heard the higher quality and so don't know what they are missing. That does not mean that high end is not better and uncompressed cd's are not higher quality.

Lots of people watch Fox news but that does not mean it is good quality.......