Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Stand up, dammit!

Usually wrong but never in doubt

“But what about the lurkers?”

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Wait, what?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The Internet Is for Cats

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The Internet Is for Cats

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I’m probably late to this party, but as a fan of Men in Black, I find it amusing nonetheless. From the Guardian:

There is a hacker terrorising Japan with a computer virus, bomb threats and riddles. Meanwhile, a stray cat wandering a small island near Tokyo holds important clues on its collar. This is no movie. This happened this week. An unnamed hacker in Japan really did leave a memory card on a stray cat’s collar, and journalists and authorities really did have to crack a few riddles to locate said ownerless feline.

If befuddled agents of the NPA (National Police Agency) didn’t already get the point, they should now: they are being toyed with, and the lack of headway they’ve made after months of taunting is more than a little embarrassing. This is after the NPA “extracted” what appears to be false confessions from four suspects, who have been recently released. The hacker is clearly trying to paint authorities as inept, and succeeding.

So far, according to Wired, Japanese authorities have only been able to identify two things about the hacker: one, he or she programs in the popular programming language C#, and two, he or she knows how to use proxies so they can post on the largest text-based forum on the internet, 2channel. While western audiences might not be familiar with 2channel, its US equivalent 4chan should ring a bell…

No motive for this hacker has surfaced yet, but the possibility that this is a big protest against the country’s new anti-piracy law – a measure that went into effect in October 2012 that means offenders can be imprisoned for up to two years – can’t be ruled out. Of course, this could just be a teen flexing his or her cyber muscles and trying to make a name for themselves, an always important cause to a young internet citizen….

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Apart from herding cats, what’s going on in your neighborhoods?

Reader Interactions

65Comments

  4. 4.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @redshirt: no batman per se, but there are lots of teenaged magical martial arts teams, and an executive koala/trained killer. L could find him, too, if Light hadnt killed him off. There’s hope! I still don’t think L is dead.

  5. 5.

    Gravenstone

    Given the number of anime that use net savvy teens as protagonists, I find this particularly amusing.

    And if its not a movie script, even money says there will be no less than a dozen treatments of it hitting Hollywood within the week. Those boys aren’t known for their originality, but damn if they won’t jump on ready made concepts like piranha on raw meat.

  6. 6.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    I got my picture taken with Sam Downey today and got her to autograph my #3 jersey. I’m in as good a mood as someone who is dropping $2,000 on a new clutch for the car tomorrow can be.

  8. 8.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    And Christ, apparently invoking the name of the 50-foot-tall Japanese monster-fighting guy from the 70s trips the spam filter. I guess it sounds like some kind of hard-on drug.

  9. 9.

    RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    I’m in Hartford, CT, right where I started this morning before passing through Philly/Detroit/Philly. a 14 hour round trip on 4 planes.

    I’ll bet my day was weirder than yours.

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    I found out that I passed my Structural Systems exam! WOOT WOOT!!! Three down, four to go (but I got the hardest ones out of the way first). I WILL be an architect, I WILL.

  16. 16.

    RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    This hacker story sounds like a plot that Neal Stephenson threw away. An early cut of Reamde before it actually got interesting. I hope the real world version doesn’t end with a small-scale war that takes 100 pages.

  20. 20.

    ruemara

    I found a nice job in Rhode Island! Just realized Rhode Island is a frozen New England hell. Oh well, applying anyway.

  21. 21.

    RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @Comrade Bob:

    Wait… With volumetric efficiency as a variable? I assume we’re talking about internal combustion and not hydraulics.

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @Comrade Bob:
    Sure. Everyone knows that pressure times volume has units of energy, so pressure times flowrate should give power. After that, it’s just math. It’s much easier in metric, where it’s obvious that 1 cubic meter per second Pascal is one Watt.

  28. 28.

    Citizen_X

    @redshirt: Exactly. NOW IT BEGINS.

    I expect Tunch to take over the blog and start issuing the communiques from our new feline overlords any moment.

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I have my objections to Lawrence O’Donnell, but he is smacking the crap out of anyone who wants to appoint anyone but Barney Frank to replace Kerry in the interim.

    Patrick’s former staffer, for those not watching, who said there are “better choices” suggested among others a board member of GE and an executive from Bank of America.

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    I wanted some comfort food so I’m making Chili Mac. But I’m still a Weight Watchers geek, so I’m making it with low-fat ground beef and high-fiber macaroni and topping it with 2% cheese.

    @Suzanne:

    Congratulations!

    @ruemara:

    Meh, I grew up in Chicago. Rhode Island winters are nothin’ compared to a good old 40 below winter in Chicago. You’ll be fine, and grow to appreciate LL Bean.

  32. 32.

    Suzanne

    @Steeplejack: Thanks! Well, it isn’t PAYING. But I suppose there are other rewards in life besides financial ones. No one becomes an architect for the money.

  34. 34.

    Chet Manly

    This is after the NPA “extracted” what appears to be false confessions from four suspects, who have been recently released.

    When I was stationed in Japan the legal office guy told us during our in-brief to do everything short of actually resisting arrest to get back on base if we got into any trouble with the Japanese police.

    He said Japanese police have something like a 98% conviction rate and no police force on earth arrests the right dude anywhere near 98% of the time.

  39. 39.

    RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @WaterGirl:

    Are you sure you haven’t pissed off the person who makes your travel arrangements at your new job? Because it sounds like they’re just fucking with you now. :-)

    I volunteered to come back because there might be a problem that I was involved in. Didn’t expect them to take me up on it. and not the same day. But we live on the road during the work week and fly by the seat of our pants.

  40. 40.

    Suffern ACE

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: you really have to wonder where Northeast Liberals got the reputation of being anything like hippies. Ooh. A wealthy senator from a large corporation. Let your freak fly! Woo hoo!

  42. 42.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    Not s big basketball fan, but the Gophers are now 15-1 and 3-0 in the Big Ten. Road wins over a top 15 team haven’t happened very often for this team over the years.

    Football team aside, it’s turning into a good year for Gopher sports.

  47. 47.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @joes527: As languages go, it’s not bad. The guy who created it was involved in Delphi. It drives me far less nuts than Java.

  53. 53.

    PurpleGirl

    @Poopyman: That’s the same guy who fostered the kittens in that live stream about two months ago… awwwwwww, they are cute, even sleeping.

    ETA: I gave the live stream its own tab so I can go back and forth watching the kittehs.

  59. 59.

    Bubba Dave

    @Chet Manly:
    Yeah, as a dependent on Okinawa in the late ’80s we were told that the Japanese police didn’t really have a concept of police brutality as a bad thing, and it was pretty much expected that if they knew you were guilty but couldn’t prove it they’d just beat you like the Tide beat the Irish and then leave without even bothering to arrest you.

  60. 60.

    Bago

    Pfft I work on powershell. CLR objects bay-beee!!!
    Pipe that shit and work them iterators, iterators. Pipe that shit and work them iterators, iterators.

    I still need to check out foundation db though, it’s making some wacky promises, like a distributed db that has a single transaction log where everything is ACID. I think they’re being a little loose with language.

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    I see where this thread is headed…

    Oh yeah? Well I do my programming without any software, without a computer, even. From a hole in the ground.

  64. 64.

    negative 1

    @ruemara: Yeah, I still like it. Join us up here in the swamp – it’s only cold 4 mos. of the year, it rains about 4 more, and it’s miserably hot and humid the other 4. But with nature falling for the global warming hoax it’s really been pretty mild most winters for the last couple years. This year is no exception – all this week will be in the 40s and next week around 50. We really only had one week where it stayed below freezing all week.
    Plus it’s like living in the largest small town in America. My wife was in the hospital long term and her father and I both knew members of her roommate’s social circle, and not from the same way (she’s a member of my union who is friends with a coworker of mine and he grew up with her brother). That happens all the time around here.

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