AfterHalloween

by Oilcorner from DeviantArt

A New Beginning

This blog will continue to exist as "Yet Another Random Blog", while I'm preparing to open my second, topic-based, project. As for today... In memory of Steve Jobs, who made half a world (including our current president) crazy about shiny things with no buttons.

Case of Twixt: revisited

Have you heard about Twixt case in City of Heroes MMORPG? Those who haven't, I strongly recommend reading the document under link. Long story short, David Myers, Loyola professor, sociologist, conducted a unique experiment, testing just how much the rules and laws can be affected and twisted by social interactions.

Du Hast

That's Ukrainian miners for you. Instruments used are bayans and balalaikas.

Password security: dos and don'ts

Stumbled upon this video randomly and thought that it's quite useful. BTW, have you seen Google password instruction? It actually have quite good method for password generation.

"Operation Pumpkin"

Have you seen "Runaway bride"? It seems that English Royal Family have, and took some measures to prevent or at least to soften the impact of such possible tragedy at Prince William wedding.

"Frankly, it's a nightmare scenario," one highly-placed MI5 source confessed to the Reg yesterday. "But you have to plan for every possible contingency, and let's face it, this one's hardly that unlikely, is it? Obviously we had to get together with Clarence House and work something out.

Watching you from above

Obama Osama

Okay, this seems to be the main piece of news, who I am to disprove that?

Money cloning technology

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

-Albert Einstein

Saw a brilliant piece of news today. Novosibirsk policemen arrested two African citizens, who offered Russian businessmen unusual service. They claimed to bring in Russia some "money intermediate product", which can be turned into real euro, dollars and roubles with some real money.

The process looked as following: euro banknote was folded between two "special" pieces of white paper, then covered in special money-dust and soaked in secret reagent. After a while, you may take your 3 fresh banknotes of the same face. One of the victims gave them 100 000 euros for cloning!



I'm not making this up, you may look at 0:40, although video may be kinda slow for non-Russian users. Other pair of Libyan citizens in Moscow invented other scheme. They claimed to save a part of Libyan treasury from rebels, but they had to paint banknotes with black paint to get them through the border. But fear not, they need only a small sum from you for special dissolvent!

I just can't understand, exactly how stupid should a person be to believe in this...

PS: previous post proved that I should sleep more and proofread my texts. The post should have started with
"The majority of Internet surfers seems to know one and only Soviet piece of music - Trololo Guy. And I hope everyone watched more that first 10 sec of music-only =)

1000 views passed!

Congratulation to everyone on passing this mark!
The majority of Internet surfers seems to know one and only Soviet piece of music. Well, I want to try and create another meme, or at least just share a piece of good music. This are the closing titles to "Dust" movie. The song is "Changement!" by Viktor Tsoi, and... performance is by Alexey Znamenskiy.



You may not understand Russian, but that is pure energy in the form of a man. Rough translation is after the cut

IT-crime strikes back

Translated from infowatch LiveJournal.

A man fell victim to web theft. Scheme was simple and common - bad antivirus, trojan program, credit card limit exhausted. But our hero happened to be IT guru of some kind, or probably had a wise friend. Together they somehow managed to extract the e-mail of trojan author, then found out his ICQ, then phone number and even name, and only then they went to the police.

Happy end? Not quite. Our hero proudly told policemen how he "hacked the hacker" and demonstrated final results. How does the situation seem from the police point of view? Original hacker is apparently in another RF region, so any awards for case solution will pass these particular policemen. Computer is long cleared from virus, all information is obtained with violations of Penal Code...

On the other hand, there's our hero, here and now. He's just confessed in privacy violations, has all the proofs with him... And next day he was in need of good defense attorney.

Tag line? Dunno, think, before you go to police in Russia.

A note for followers

I read every blog that I follow, and I try to follow every blog that follows mine. This doesn't guarantee that I will comment all and every post you write, as I don't like completely meaningless comments. Just so you know.


Cover demonstrates the user in the process of reading.

Strange ads

Saw this post by Dootzkie and remembered MTS advert campaign.
MTS is one of "The Big Three" mobile communication companies in Russia, and in 2006 they undergone total redesign. Their old logo was simple, just letters:


Their new logo was ... egg.


The company explained that it was allegory for "everything genial looks simple" or smth, but people en mass thought that it's just stupid...
Several months later some MTS employee made public that the company achieved not great but steady increase in income. Why? Because for a month every conversation ended in several extra seconds:
-Have you seen new MTS logo?
-Yeah, stupid it is?
-Sure, it is stupid.

Genial things are simple. What interesting ad campaigns do you remember?

About vanishing water

Saw this post about "vanishing water" and remembered a true story from neighbor lab.

A student new to the lab threw down the pipe some gel after electrophoresis. Little she knew that it was one of these water superabsorbents... The pipe apparently became clogged, as no water could pass, but plumber couldn't understand how he still could lower his cleaning chain almost without resistance, hehe.

Dreaming of your love

Be sure to turn the music on. Models were made by Sipho Mabona, check his site for other works

In memory of War

Golf rules for playing during air raid.



I think you can guess the country.

Life is threatening

A story from Russian Rescue Service.


One man was continuously annoying local police and rescue service with calls that his neighbors are irradiating him with death rays through the ceiling. When policeman visited him at last, he saw that the apartment walls were shielded with foil and equipped with some amulets, which the inhabitant claimed were protecting his life.


The situation was clear, but the policeman still visited the neighbors upstairs. And there he saw six microwave ovens positioned on the floor with their lids down and open. The neighbors explained that the occupant below is a hostile alien, who plans to conquer Earth, and only their efforts can save the planet. They were actually quite happy to see the visitor, as somehow nobody believed them...

Welcome

Hi there, you reader. This is my first English blog, started mainly to train my language skills, so please be forgiving to possible mistakes. Any and all corrections are more than welcome, especially since I'm taking my English Ph.D exam (or rather Russian analogue) quite soon.