The Marion Barry: A Shot In Honor Of The Former Mayor-For-Life

It’s been a big news day for the former mayor-for-life.  The investigations into his use of earmarks have finally boiled over with the release of the Bennett Report.  The upshot?  His goose is cooked.

This seems an opportune time to introduce to a broader audience the shot we invented on this year’s Marion Barry Day.  I give to you: The Marion Barry.

1. One part Stoli Blackberry
2. One part Southern Comfort
3. One part Blue Curacao
4. One part grenadine
5. Drink up, slam the glass, and holler in your best just-got-caught-with-crack-in-a-hotel-room voice, “Bitch set me up!”

The concoction is sweet and quite drinkable, and is rife with symbolism.  The Stoli Blackberry is because the marionberry is a subspecies of blackberry.  The Southern Comfort makes it in because the former mayor-for-life was born in Mississippi.  And the Blue Curacao and grenadine are there for flavor, and because together the purple hue they create reminds us of the purple velour jogging suit the elder councilmember has been known to sport from time-to-time.

Originally called “The Bitch Set Me Up”, we re-named it to be a bit more obviously associated with the man.

Update Flash Without Adobe’s Crappy Download Manager

Recently, Adobe has pulled a hall-of-shame move and began trying to sneak in the installation of a craptacular background program called the “Adobe Download Manager” when updating Flash.  That’s just great, you know, since there are security updates for Flash almost every month.  So how do you get your required security update without Adobe’s bullshit download manager?

It’s a fairly simple process, and actually takes advantage of the generally-hated-by-most-people User Account Control (UAC) in Vista and 7 to block an unwanted action by a program.  And people say it’s nothing but annoying.

(Note: These instructions are for Firefox on Windows 7 or Vista; anything else and you’re on your own.)

1. Download the Flash updater directly from here.
2. Close all browser windows (including any opened by Prism).
3. Run the updater.
4. Start your browser back up.  Adobe will now sneakily try to install their awful download manager on your system.  This will generate a UAC prompt asking for administrative permissions to install.
5. Click “No” on the UAC prompt to stop the installation in its tracks.

Screw you, Adobe.  You’re in the Hall of Shame for trying to install backdoor software with critical security updates to a ubiquitous web technology.  And win one for UAC!

I Am Not A Search Engine; Google Didn’t Buy Me; Please Don’t Sue Me

The big news from the Google front yesterday was their purchase of Aardvark, a search engine that leverages social connections to find folks who might know the answer to your question.  It’s pretty cool looking technology, which you can try for yourself at vark.com, but all the hype is prompting me to make a few points here.

1. I am a person, not a search engine.
2. Google didn’t buy me.
3. Ardvaark is spelled differently from Aardvark, which is way different than vark.
4. The name Ardvaark (or the variation Jr. Ardvaark) has been my handle since I first started coding a quarter century ago.
5. The domain ardvaark.net has been my personal home page on the web since 2001.
6. My site ends in dot-net, not dot-com.
7. So you see, Google, there’s no cyber-squatting here.  Please don’t sue  me.

That is all.

Web Hall Of Shame: Wired News Hijacks Your Clipboard

It’s a given that you can’t trust the Internet.  I mean, you’re connecting to random strangers’ computers, downloading code and data, running some of that code (usually in a sandbox of some sort), and then hoping nothing bad happens.  For that reason, I use the NoScript add-on to Firefox, which aggressively blocks scripts (especially third-party scripts) from running – unless I whitelist them.

Despite my general distrust, though, I still harbor a hope that most of the sites I regularly visit aren’t bad actors.  When it turns out they are, it’s a bit of a shock.  When it turns out to be one of the oldest names in net publishing, it’s really disheartening.

Wired News has a really cool article on lasers blasting mosquitoes out of the sky.  When you copy-and-paste from that article, it hijacks your clipboard and changes what you copied.  Try it yourself!  (Of course, if you’re running NoScript, you’ll need to temporarily allow all scripts on the page.)

From the article, copy:

The laser lights quickly located the mosquitoes in flight.

And then paste:

The laser lights quickly located the mosquitoes in flight.

Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/death-star-laser-zaps-mosqitoes-dead/#ixzz0fKgTWFBU

Yup, they hijacked your clipboard, and added a tracking link.  Who the hell does that?

Wired, you’re officially in the Hall of Shame.