Without a Traceroute

Why, by cleaning up your Windows registry, of course! [OBVIOUS WARNING: NOBODY DOWNLOAD THEIR WORTHLESS SOFTWARE]

Ok, so this is kind of a stupid little phishing scam that one of my friends pointed out to me, but I found it pretty amusing. Basically, you can put anything you want in the URL after the “?k=”, and it will generate a page pretending to have a magical solution to your problem (one which just happens to involve downloading and running their obviously malware-ridden software). Some of the more amusing suggestions I’ve seen or come up with include:
http://errornerds.com/errors/?k=My-Marriage
http://errornerds.com/errors/?k=Human-Nature
http://errornerds.com/errors/?k=Cancer
http://errornerds.com/errors/?k=The-Tragedy-of-the-Commons
http://errornerds.com/errors/?k=Time-travel-paradoxes
http://errornerds.com/errors/?k=The-Nameless-Horror
http://errornerds.com/errors/?k=The-yawning-void-within-my-soul
http://errornerds.com/errors/?k=Radioactive-Robot-Holocaust-of-2029

Phishing scams like this one are interesting because they remind me just how little effort goes into most malicious computer attacks. Social engineering can be a form of hacking in some cases, but this page doesn’t even come close to the level of actual hacking.
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Many people are probably aware that June 6 marked the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. However, until I saw the commemorative Google logo, I hadn’t realized until I that it represented another monumental anniversary: the 25th birthday of Tetris.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine, and he said something like, “Wow, only 25? It kind of feels like Tetris should have been around forever.” I can see where he’s coming from. There’s something about the platonic purity of Tetris that makes it seem timeless. Other computer games from the 1980s, may still be fun, but invariably feel dated, handicapped by the primitive graphics and sound hardware of the era. Not so with Tetris. Playing Tetris, one gets the feeling that it looks and sounds the way it does because that’s what Tetris is.

The history behind the creation, licensing and promotion of Tetris is incredibly convoluted. It is a tale rich with Cold War politics and transnational intrigue. It’s also too long to recount here, and covered in sufficient detail elsewhere.
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In the past, I have referred offhandedly to my distaste for the microblogging service, but I feel the time is ripe for me to make a full and public denunciation. This way, in 3-6 months, at least I’ll be able to link to this post and say, “Well, I was hating Twitter before it was cool.”

Sadly, the reason this post is necessary is that Twitter is fast approaching a tipping point in public consciousness. Oprah has a Twitter account now, as do dozens of members of Congress; the New York Times has published an article instructing their readers on the finer points of “tweeting”. Next, one of two things will happen. Either Twitter will be abandoned en masse by the members of the trendwhoring geek intelligentsia that made it popular in the first place (who will then tell you how they always hated it as much as Friendster and Pets.com), or, alternatively, it will become a permanent fixture of the culture. We’ve seen this pattern before: in 1985, having an email address meant you were either a scientist or a truly hardcore geek, in 1995, having an email address meant you were a cutting-edge first-adopter type; by 2005, having an email address just meant you were a person in a first-world nation. There should probably be some sort of official rule of pop-culture: once Oprah does something, it is no longer cool.
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A few days ago, I finally picked up some plug converters. They’re actually surprisingly tricky to find. No regular electronics/appliance stores carry them. I’m told that there are occasionally vendors who walk around tourist areas selling adapters, but I haven’t seen these. I found mine at a stand at one of the weekly street fairs. I’ve heard a couple explanations for the difficulty, but I don’t know how accurate they are.

Breaking standards-compliance

One guy told me that it’s against the law to sell adapters because they want to force people to buy Argentinian electrical products, rather than bringing in foreign ones. It’s true that high-end electronics are generally cheaper in North America than here, and I’ve talked to Argentinians who make a point of buying digital cameras and computers on their visits to the States. Still, I really doubt there are enough of these people to warrant a law banning the sale of power converters. Plus, wouldn’t those people just buy adapters abroad too?

Another explanation was similar, but with the justification that because Argentina is in the process of changing from an European Type C plug standard, to an Australian/Chinese Type I plug (oh, but they wire them the opposite way!), and they don’t want you using converters to cling to the old standard. Why Argentina feels the need to change their national plug standard, I’m not sure. Today, it’s common to see both types of sockets, as well as weird hybrid sockets that accept either plug. I’m not sure this explanation for scarcity of adapters makes much sense either. Newer buildings and appliances are all Type I, so people would gradually make the shift with or without adapters.

My own theory, for which I have no evidence, is that the adapters simply aren’t worth the trouble for a retail shop. They’re small, dirt-cheap pieces of plastic and metal. The ones I bought cost $5 ARS which is about $1.35 USD. Because they cost almost nothing, but come in a zillion subtly different varieties, the profit margins may be so thin that it’s not worth it to a regular retail shop to organize and stock them.

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I’ve arrived in Buenos Aires without incident. The flight was lengthy, but I was able to sleep. However, I did witness one of the most frightening sights I’ve ever seen at an airport:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a Microsoft logo on the side of a JET ENGINE. The jokes practically write themselves:
“Microsoft Flight: Giving new meaning to the term ‘Blue Screen of Death‘”
“The reliability of Microsoft software, now available in jet engines.”
“Well, you can take off fine, but without Genuine Advantage Validation, I’m afraid we can’t let you land.”

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