Today's phishing scam is brought to you by someone after your visa card who apparently doesn't like the apostrophe...

We are sending this message to all the VISA credit card holders.

Protect your Visa card online with a personal password

Due to increased risk of internet fraud, all the VISA credit cards have to be protected with an online password until the date of 04-30-2005. If you do not complete the registration process you will not be able to make online purchases after the date of May 1st 2005. We apologize for the inconvenience that this might cause, this is an attempt to secure the online shopping and reduce the internet credit card fraud.

Protect your card now

You may activate now by entering your card number over our secure server. If your card issuer is participating in Verified by Visa (most issuers are) you.ll complete a brief activation process. You.ll verify your identity, create your Verified by Visa password and you.re done.

Verified by Visa protects your existing Visa card with a password you create, giving you assurance that only you can use your Visa card online.

Simply activate your card and create your personal password. You.ll get the added confidence that your Visa card is safe when you shop at participating online stores.

© Copyright 2005, Visa U.S.A. All Rights Reserved

New Chemical Brothers video. Found via MeFi.

"If nothing is changed and these services continue to operate, it will have an impact on the creative process. For the movie industry, it will mean less risk will be taken in terms of the creation of new material," said Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Uh... how could Hollywood take less than zero risk...

Yahoo! News - Online Music Case Outcome Rests on VCR Technology

I thought the 59 Dreadmaw Crocilisks I had to gank to get an amulet were bad. But the new high score goes to the aptly named “Elixir of Suffering” which took a total of 70 Forest Moss Creepers to drop one dribble of creeper ichor.

Anyway, here's the video for Feel Good Inc. which is no Clint Eastwood, but not too shabby.

(found via Fimoculous)

Just got a phishing scam in that purports to be from Monster.com.

Dear Monster Customer,

We were unable to process the recent messages on
your account. To ensure that your account is not
suspended, please check your information by clicking
here.

Monster Network Customer Service

The page it directed me to contained the JS/Stealus trojan, which, from the description:

JavaScript, which exploit[s] an Internet Explorer vulnerability resulting in Internet Explorer displaying one location in the Address bar, but actually loading the content from a different site.

Doesn't sound like it does anything itself, so I assume they actually want to get into people's Monster.com accounts...

Now, if I could just find a way to email Monster.com - they don't seem to have an email address to send to, just web forms.

Playing one of the undead in WoW brings some oddities to the surface. You are, in essence, a re-animated long-dead corpse, motivated purely by the magical power of something or other. Yet, you'll find that eating apples and drinking milk still provide the same benefits they supply to the more conventionally sentient. The first aid bandages you can grok as, maybe, mummy-like re-wrapping of your exposed bones and there's a cool skill - cannibalize - which allows you to “chow down” on nearby corpses to boost your healing.

But the apples still amuse me. And I'm glad to see others have been piqued by the inconsistencies...

Would it have been any fun to have a different “diet” for the undead in WoW? There's a precedent in the food Hunters' pets will accept. I tamed a boar and found (as pigs do) he'd eat anything. But a hyena will only take fruit and meat. They could have the undead chowing down on embalming fluid or something of that ilk. But, maybe it was that, taken to it's logical end, it would really be just the undead who'd have a different diet; though you could make the Tauren or Night Elves veggies I guess.

I would like to see some difference between the races; as it stands, beyond starting point (and Trolls don't even get that) and a few quests, the only other difference appears to be the classes you can't be.

I didn't know they were re-making Spy vs. Spy. I remember when a friend got this for Commodore 64 and it wasn't out on the ZX Spectrum... I was green with jealousy. Until it finally came out on the Speccy.

Spy vs. Spy - Ferrago

Edit: found the developer's site.

I just want, after several posts “bashing” World of Warcraft, to give mad pr0ps for the Auction House system. I'm not addicted to it any eBay-style way, but I think it's an excellent addition to the game. Too often designers concentrate too much on immediate player interaction and forget about remote collaboration. I was heartened to find, for example, shiny fish scales in there so my Shaman can cast a breathing spell. Admittedly there were only three of them, but it beat spamming general for them or looking up what drops them on some external database site and going and hoping they'd drop.

I don't recall seeing a similar system in the other games I've played; AC2 has consignment vendors, but they're a bit clunky and it's up to the seller to choose the right price to sell at. Could be the first WoW system I've not encountered before.

They do need to make it more accessible though - at least have access in all the capital cities not just Ogrimar.

“You are... an atheist, though you probably already knew this. Also, you probably have several people praying daily for your soul. Instead of simply being 'nonreligious', atheists strongly believe in the lack of existence of a higher being, or God.”

(Actually, incorrect to a degree - I don't believe in the lack of a higher being. I know there's no proof for one.)

atheism 100% Satanism 67% Buddhism 33% Judaism 25% agnosticism 21% Islam 17% Hinduism 17% Paganism 8% Christianity 4% Which religion is the right one for you? (new version) created with QuizFarm.com

I decided to tidy up and make public my subscribed feeds on Bloglines.

If you don't mind watch subtitled films, and have a fairly strong stomach, “Oldboy” is a Korean movie about Oh Dae-su, who's after revenge for being imprisoned in a room for fifteen years and being framed for the murder of his wife. After his release, his erstwhile kidnapper offers him a deal: if he can work out why he was imprisoned, the kidnapper will commit suicide; if he can't the kidnapper will kill Mido, the young woman who's been helping him. And he only has five days to find the truth.

I'm going to warn you now, there's a scene with someone's teeth being levered out with a claw hammer and one character doesn't keep his tongue all the way through. Plus someone eats a live octopus... The actual plot is a teensy-weensy bit implausible, but otherwise it's a very good film. Just opened in the US I believe, though currently available on DVD here in the UK.

My pet in WoW has suicidal tendencies... Hot Dog

I've been ill today and off work. So I spent most of the day under a duvet on the sofa watching movies:

Read more »

Playing World of Warcraft, I've done “Lost But Not Forgotten” three times on different characters now. I think it can be safely said to be the most depressing quest in any RPG game ever. You're supposed to be looking for Kron at the request of his mother - but he's been eaten so you're supposed to hunt Dreadmaw Crocolisks until you find the one that drops his amulet. This is depressing enough but I've killed up to 59 of them before the amulet dropped, plus they drop very little else besides the amulet, slimy bones and bloody boots and there's nothing else spawning in the river. To top it all, when you do succeed you've then got to go and tell his mother he's karked it... and they make her sob as you deliver the news...

Apropos of a comment a while back that getting mad at WoW for including repetitive quests was

like getting mad that Gran Turismo only offers race tracks.

I feel it should be said that GT4 does in fact offer, in addition to race tracks, imaginary races tracks, city race tracks and rally-style tracks and it still blows goats. If I'd bought it, I would indeed be mad at it.

I finished watching the season one DVD collection of “24” this afternoon, or, as I like to call it, “18” since each episode is only 40 minutes long (see over at Terra Nova for some of their thoughts on what the 20 minutes of ads is doing to the viewing figures). I can see why the show did so well... each episode really kept me wanting to watch the next. I watched the first two eps a couple of nights after the DVD arrived, then fourteen episodes in one go last weekend. I finished up the rest today after the Malaysian Grand Prix was over today.

There's some flaws in the thing, such as people “disappearing” from the story as if they were booked for a couple of episodes only (such as Mandy the lesbian über-terrorist) and sometimes the plot felt slowed or speeded in order to fit it into 24 hours exactly. And I think the casting of Victor Drazen was a bit of a mistake (even if it was a nod to Flashback) since it kind of spoiled the reveal of the prisoner (“OMG... they caught Dennis Hopper!!!” but I liked it enough to spring for the two subsequent DVD collections on Amazon.

Penny Arcade

I was able to preview the whole of Stereophonics' new album for 11p over at MSN Music (1p per track). I can't believe iTunes is considered the premier online music store without this sort of thing.

Just browsing the Stereophonics site and I spotted they have the (small, flash) video for Mr. Writer which a) is a very cool vid and b) has the scariest looking clowns ever.

Still listening heavily to Bloc Party's Silent Alarm despite getting The Futureheads eponymous CD and Kaiser Chiefs' Employment last week. The Bravery's eponymous debut arrived today and on first listen isn't going to dislodge it either. I also got LCD Soundsystem's also eponymous CD (what happened to naming your albums people?) which I haven't yet listened to.

Stereophonics Language. Sex. Violence. Other? is also out, and I really like the first single Dakota, but they're one of those bands who you're never sure if the rest of the album is going to be up to snuff (cf U2, Manic Street Preachers, Doves) so I'll have to listen to the whole thing before I buy.

I figured the well ran dry for Star Trek some while back, but it seems Paramount thinks they can squeeze more money from the name by, essentially, getting any old SF story and slapping Star Trek on it...

Erik Jendresen: “When they first approached me, I wasn't really interested. But they said, 'What if we could approach this as a blank slate, and here's a notion.'”

Jendresen Talks "Star Trek XI" (March 10th, 2005) - Dark Horizons

Someone's take on the reimagining of Bugs Bunny mentioned before. May contain fucking swearing.

'A New Bunny'

My “review” of Half-Life 2 is the number one hit on Google for the phrase Alyx Vance fucked. Whoever was searching for that is a sick puppy.

Now running on Nucleus 3.2.

An interesting “admission” of sorts from Damion “Ubiq” Schubert...

“Of course, most of the presuppositions in the thread assumes, once again, that standard EQ/WoW combat is boring and easy. Which, if you're soloing stuff that you can solo, is true. However, it bears repeating that combat situations in these games is very fast and furious when in a group situation, and failure is relatively common while exploring dungeons and instances.”

Zen of Design >> Player Failure in MMOs

It seems to me that's a bit like Ford saying they made one model go slower in order to sell more of another.

They added a new “Cashflow” Gatso speed... sorry, safety camera on my route home. That makes twelve I have to pass on the way to work and ten (or nine on the alternate route) on the way back. I can't even see the reason for this new one... the budget must be suffering in Tottenham or something.

Well, at least it's an easy one to see and not situated to cause even worse traffic problems than normal. Though I suspect there's going to be a few incidents as people used to there not being a camera pull up sharply when they do spot it.

I picked up Doves' Some Cities and Bloc Party's Silent Alarm in Tesco t'other day. Some Cities is Doves third album proper and was XFM's record of the month for February; they've been playing the first single off it, Black and White Town quite a bit. It's a bit of a stomper and has a really depressing video. On first impressions, it's the standout song on the album by quite a bit and I recall feeling the same way about There Goes the Fear off their earlier The Last Broadcast. Undecided on this one - it might be a grower.

Bloc Party have meanwhile been described as though “someone had fed The Strokes some very good amphetamines and introduced them to The Cure”. Current single from Silent Alarm is So Here We Are which is, despite some gorgeous chiming guitar, not the best track on the album. I'm not sure which is; the opening Like Eating Glass is pretty damn good, as are Helicoper, Banquet, She's Hearing Voices and Luno.

Apple was unavailable for comment.

However, in September last year, the group defended the price differential saying that "the underlying economic model in each country has an impact on how we price our track downloads".

"That's not unusual - look at the price of CDs in the US versus the UK," an Apple spokesman said at the time.

That's essentially bollocks... CDs may or may not cost more in the UK, but I can buy them from the US (and have done) at the price they cost there and accept the extra cost for physically shipping them to me. Apple's iTunes has no such extra cost for downloading and the only thing stopping me from buying from the US iTunes is Apple's own additional coding to prevent me.

BBC NEWS | Business | Europe investigates iTunes prices