Perhaps Not The Greatest Movie Ever

But great fun to make… While in high-school some me and friends got the idea to make a splatter movie, with all the requisites: Blood, axes, blue shirts, no story what so ever, and a cheap production. Well, the last part was more out of necessity than ideals. It took a full day to shoot it (everything takes a lot of time!) and even longer to cut it. The results are. Strange, at best, but at least we had a lot of fun doing it. I serendipitously found the movie on my hard disk and thought that it could be fun to put out on YouTube, perhaps as a warning :-)

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Why Computer Forensics is a Bad Idea

In CIO there is a really good article on why Computer Foreniscs is, as we say in the security business, hard. And by that we mean really, really hard.

The general problem here is that people assume that foreniscs is a good science with results that can not be (easily) manipulated, because we see the “science” of it in shows like CSI. And, from what I understand, traditional forensics is quite hard to manipulate. It is not possible for an amateur to fake blood splatter, to change traces of DNA, or even to easily manipulate footprints etc. The trouble is that with computer forensics we are dealing in a digital world where changes can be made, easily and without that much prior knowledge.

In fact, there is a wast selection of ready made tools available for the user with even the most basic googling skills and an interrest in the subject. The makers of forensic tools are running a constant battle with the anti-forensic tools, and there will never be a winner. In fact, the race itself makes everyone a loser. Because it is so easy to manipulate computer forensic data, it is arguable that it can be used in a court of law at all. Would we use DNA samples as evidence, if anyone could easily manipulate DNA data? No, we would not. Yes, there is a lot of users who does not have the knowledge to run these tools on their computers; but the problem is that other users might. The most obvious defense would of course be to argue that someone else has used the computer to do nefarious acts. And as a defense it is quite a good one. A good attacker would not leave any traces at all, so how can you disprove that argument?

Basically, we are stuck. Computer forensics are probably useful in certain cases, but the tendency to base investigations on their results, or even to confuse the validity of it with traditional forensics, is dangerous. In fact, we must probably face the fact that computer evidence really only have a very narrow usage, and must be combined with a lot of traditional police work if we are going to have any kind of legal protection as individuals.

One Of The Funniest Star Wars Parodies Ever

I love this clip from Robot Chickens Star Wars Special.

Movie Review: Oceans 13

“So… We’ll put a bunch of really famous guys (yeah, this is a guy-movie, the female lead is nowhere NEAR as famous as the male leads) and another bunch of kind-of-famous actors. And we’ll let them wear a bunch of designer clothes, cool gizmos and set it all in Las Vegas. And the rest will solve itself.”

“Don’t you need a script, Mr Rich & Crazy Producer, sorry, Mr Weintraub?”

“Quiet, you! The rest will solve itself!!!”

“Still, Sir, won’t the public demand an understandable story, some action, some romance, some comedy or even some excitement?”

“They didn’t demand any of those things in the previous movies, did they? As the normal audience is to dumb to understand even the most basic movie, it’s no use even to try to write a logic and understandable story”.

“But… what about the reviewers? Won’t they spot this obvious lame attempt at just earning money from celebrities?”

“No, and even if they do, we’ll make it blatantly obvious that we would like to bribe them, in fact, let’s make the suffering and later rich rewards of the reviewer an entire story arc!”

“You are brilliant, Sir!”

“Let’s get high and drive while intoxicated to celebrate my brilliance, the Hollywood way!”

Now, to be honest, I MIGHT have made up the conversation above. At least the last quite about brilliance and driving. But I have a feeling that the something along those lines must have been uttered at some time during the process of making Oceans 13. It is a horrible movie. To long, to dumb, to far from being even slightly reasonable. And such a HUGE cock-fest (I am referring to roosters, stop having such a dirty mind) that it is simply amazing that this kind of crap gets made at all, let alone on a major release.

Verdict: Don’t see. Seriously.  

Quick Watch Review: CASIO FELITE LWA-110DE-1

I don’t normally wear watches. In fact, ever since I started to carry a cell phone with me at all times, the need for a dedicated watch around my wrist have all but vanished. I still have a couple of old ones, most notably an old Certina titanium watch and a Sigma Pulse Measuring watch. The Certina is really nice and slim, but sadly quite lacking when it comes to features. Analog time and date, that’s it. The Sigma Watch has a bunch of features, but looks like a East-German copy of Casios ugliest watch. And I am not all that fond of its functions either. Probably gonna have to buy another sports watch at some time. One with bunches of laps and more specifically a good set of timers.

Still, after trying on ordinary watches for a while I found myself liking the concept. Not loving it, mind you, but the fact is that it is easier to look at a watch than to pull up a cellphone, especially while traveling. Oh, and yes, I like gizmos. So I wasn’t hard to convince.

I have always been quite found of watches that sync themselves to atomic time. I have two alarm-clocks that does that at home, and it is a neat function, that works really well, mostly. So I started to look for that function i watches. Junghans makes some that looks really good, but costs a small fortune. Casio have started to manufacture a quite large selection, but thos watches are huge. Far to big for my small arms. Serendipity lead me to check out local on-line auction site Tradera, and I found the Casio Felite LWA-110DE-1 there.

The watch looks quite nice. For a supposed ladies watch it is HUGE, for a male watch (according to current trends) it is quite small, but for my arms and hands it is a perfect size. I would call it unisex-size. The analog dials are easy to see, but it is notable that there is no dials for seconds, seconds are shown digitally only. The digital screen is inverted, making it look more discrete, and in my opinion, better. The current feel among watch-heads is that inverted displays are harder to see, so perhaps my feelings will change over time. For now, I like the look of the watch. The band is in polished metal. I find it to be a bit heavy, but that is something I’ll get used to rather quickly, I suppose. It does look nice, though.

When it comes to features the most apparent is of course the atomic time sync. It works automatic at nights, but can also be done manually. It takes a couple of minutes for the  watch to sync time, and it is notable that the atomic sync syncs both the analog and the digital time, something I did not expect it to do, so that was a nice bonus. It also have world time pre-programmed for a bunch of cities, useful when traveling,  as well as a stop watch (with just basic features) as well as a basic timer. And an LED-display light, day, date etc.

The set up was rather easy, you just needed to set up what time-zone you were in, and adjusting the band was not hard, although it demanded specific tools. Wearing the watch is a good experience (once again, the weight).

All in all I am quite happy with the purchase. I paid 385 Swedish Kronor for the watch, including delivery, which I think is a great price. The delivery from the seller (pak65) was speedy, and the packaging good.

Ibland Blir Det Roligt På Lokaltidningarna

Det är en intressant kombination av nyhet, och icke-alls-relaterad bild i detta klipp från Skaraborgs Läns Allehanda (SLA), 8 juni 2007.

Tack till Julius för tipset.

Movie Review: Hot Fuzz

Hot Fuzz is a parodic movie, made by the same gang that made the wonderful Shaun of the Dead, and not to forget, “Spaced”, one of the better sit-coms in a long, long time. I was, however, more impressed with Shaun than this movie, even though it is a brilliant movie. While I do enjoy Simon Peggs performance, he isn’t really convincing as a top-cop, sadly. What is really brilliant is the sudden, and actually unexpected, turn into wonderful, violent mayhem that occurs a bit into the movie. There are some nice splatter-moments, to be sure, and a lot of parodic scenes, of course. All in all, a very good movie, but not quite up to what I expected.

Verdict: Must See

En Spelplansändrande Liten PC

Det här är nog en av de mest spännande produkterna för tillfället:

http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=7317

Nu, den är ju inte så revolutionerande förrän man får höra priset. $200 ska instegsmodellen med 4GB minne kosta. Det kan således mycket väl bli en produkt som ändrar hela användningsbilden av datorer. Kan exempelvis mycket väl se för mig hur skolor köper in sådana till sina elever i stor skala. Billigare att ge alla elever sådana, som är personliga, än att låda dem använda stationära datorer. Är de sedan smarta nog att se till att det släpps en bra programvara för att backa upp centrala filer på skolans hårddisk automagiskt vid anslutning, och det är ju bara ett trivialt *nix-script som behövs för det, så är det en färdig lösning för skolor, och för den delen, för företag.
Torde vara en klockren lösning för större företag, köpa typ 1.5 sådan per anställd, ordna automatiska backuper, och när/om någon går sönder är det bara att byta mot en annan, stoppa in rätt sd-kort, och köra direkt. Den gamla skickas in på service/felsöks sedan. Suspekt smidigt. Plötsligt kan ju vilket företag som helst ge sina anställda laptops.

Sanslöst spännande. Och ska släppas redan i augusti.

Uppdatering: Fler bilder på Engadget Chinese (20070612)

Uppdatering: En preview med hands-on från Hothardware.com (20070613)

En Missad Uppkörning – Men Det Är Helt Ok.

Så var det dags för uppkörning idag. Det har varit en massa nötande innan, men jag var rätt nervig ändå. Man vet ju inte vad som ska hända, och skräckhistorier har man ju hört gott om. Det finns ett antal läxor att dra av det hela:

• Uppkörningen var faktiskt en positiv upplevelse. Inspektören var väldigt trevlig, saklig och informativ och framför allt inte dömande.
• Jag fick göra en del av en säkerhetskontroll. Det var lurigare än man kan tro. Jag är van att göra hela i en serie, men i mitt fall nu var det bromsar och däck som gällde, då var det lite trixigt att komma ihåg vilka moment som var kopplade till just den biten, och inte missa något.
• Det är värt att träna på att leda cykeln. Det var inte så enkelt som jag först trott, utan tog några försök innan jag fick till det (på träning). Det gick dock bra att göra det utan hjälm och handskar på uppkörningen, vilket förenklar lite tycker jag.
• Lågfarten är lurig, men i mitt fall var det framförallt högfarten jag föll på. Jag har övat den alldeles för lite. Och fått felaktig information. Jag har blivit lärd att man ska sakta in rejält och krypköra runt i sista svängen. Det är fel, man ska behålla mer fart i den. Dessutom ska man vara mer som en del i motorcykeln och hänga med mer. Mer fart och fläkt. Och inte slarva med inbromsningen från 50.
• Ryktet säger att det nästan alltid är fyrakons-lågfarten, och högfarten med tidiga undanmanövern. Dessa är svårast, och därför de som väljs.
• Inbromsningarn i 70 och 90 gick helt ok, som tur var. Trixet var att ha en avsevärt längre sträcka att få upp hastigheten på, min Honda är ju inte så snabb på accelerationen, varför det är en fördel att börja längre bort så att man hinner få upp hastigheten och är klar med all växling etc.
• På det hela är det bara att träna mycket mer. Som tur är behöver jag huvudsakligen träna på högfartsdelen, och den är ju lite roligare än lågfartsdito.
• Nya tag bara! Mer övning. Och lyssna mindre på körskolan som verkar vara helt ute och segla… Jag var helt enkelt inte färdiglärd, och jag blir hellre underkänd på prov, än att jag kör ihjäl mig i trafiken…

Movie Review: Breach

Breach is a very good spy-movie. That’s about it, actually, but you’ll probably want me to elaborate a bit? Well, ok… First of, it is well acted. Ryan Phillippe is starting to become a really good actor, but the real master here is the awesome Chris Cooper who really steals the show. This is Oscar material performance, if there ever was one. If it is possible to get an Oscar for playing one of the worst traitors to America, ever, and making him kind of likable. What makes this movie so good, however, is that it is slow, but still tight. It doesn’t concern itself (mostly) with actions and guns, but rather on the development relationships, and the depth of personalities. And it does this really good, in contrast to, for instance, the rather poor The Good Shepherd, that aimed for pretty much the same feeling, but failed so miserably by being boring. This movie, however, is far from boring, especially since one knows it is based on actual events.

Verdict: Must See