The Buzz Media » shenanigans

Why Does the Steam “Hardware Survey” Include a List of All Installed Software?

Riyad Kalla — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:50:55 +0000

You are going to be prompted soon to agree to fill out the yearly Steam “Hardware Survey” and I would urge you to ask Valve first, why the hardware survey (a great idea in its own right) needs to include a list of all the installed software on your PC? The purpose of the hardware [...]

CafePress Screwed Us, UberPrints to the Rescue in less than 12hrs

Riyad Kalla — Mon, 09 May 2011 14:00:25 +0000

DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with any of the companies talked about below nor have I been compensated in anyway from any of the companies. When I have a terrible customer experience or a wonderful one, I feel obligated to blog about it to help others. The Buzz Media is going to E3 again this year [...]

Microsoft Gets it, Sony Just F-ing Hates You

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 18:32:18 +0000

I can’t believe I’m typing this… maybe Hell is a snowy paradise, but: Microsoft gets it. Hackers, as insignificant and unimportant as most corporations make them out to be, do drive interest in things. That interest starts down low, with the individual hackers and it bubbles up in the form of words and actions. “Console [...]

TSA “Nude” Body Scanners Fails to Detect Firearms

Riyad Kalla — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:39:00 +0000

You know those hugely expensive/controversial XRay body scanners that the TSA is employing at airports around the US that have everyone up in arms? Well NBC News is reporting that they aren’t that effective, with “plant” FBI agents making it through the scanner multiple times with a firearm. Adding insult to injury, none of the [...]

Why Do Security Professionals Think Criminals are So Dumb?

Riyad Kalla — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 20:41:59 +0000

I read a story today on Slashdot about an officer working for the Maryland Department of Corrections that was told his Facebook username and password must be provided to his employer so they can read his private messages in order to vet him for his re-certification… for national security reasons. What bothers me the most [...]

UBS Exec Blows Whistle on Tax-Evading, American Plutocrats and Goes to Prison

Riyad Kalla — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:48:02 +0000

Long story short: UBS (Swiss Bank) executive, Bradley Birkenfeld, blew the whistle on 19,000 American million and billionaires to the US Justice Department that were hiding roughly $19 billion in assets from the IRS and was promptly thrown in federal prison. (Full story) Birkenfeld points out that the head of UBS regularly golfs with President [...]

QN: T-Mobile Massively Cuts Download Caps for UK Mobile Users

Riyad Kalla — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:54:43 +0000

Across the pond in the UK, T-Mobile is desperate to remind people that their garbage cell network doesn’t like people who use the full features on their smart phones that the company is championing so hard. Right after T-Mobile’s US announcement that they are upgrading the US network to speeds up to 45 Mbps, T-Mobile [...]

Mac App Store DRM Broken – Use Any App for Free

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:41:06 +0000

Wow, that was like 11 minutes. About a day after the Mac App Store was launched as part of the 10.6.6 OS X Update, hacking group “Hackulous” announced that they have already cracked the DRM used by the App Store – making all apps unprotected and freely available. The crack is called “kickback” and the [...]

Adorama Camera – Your Shipping is TERRIBLE (UPDATED)

Riyad Kalla — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:45:42 +0000

UPDATE: Story update at the bottom… The purpose of this post is just so shed some light on a terrible shipping experience from a popular online camera company: Adorama Camera. They weren’t late with the package and I haven’t received it yet, so I don’t know if it’s banged up or not, but I would [...]

Apparently it is Easy to Game Amazon’s Reviews

Riyad Kalla — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:40:22 +0000

It’s almost Christmas and I’ve been doing all my shopping for friends and family online this year at the only place I ever shop… even when it’s not the holidays: Amazon. I was trying to get ideas for a few folks so I was scrolling through the Amazon Window Shop app on my iPad. The [...]

IMDB, What’s Going on With Your Scores?

Riyad Kalla — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:07:21 +0000

This post has been brewing in me for 3 years; the first time I noticed a guaranteed-bad movie on release weekend with an above-8.0 score on IMDB and hundreds of votes. I thought to myself at first “No way… how is that possible?” then I thought “Shit… I guess that movie is better than I [...]

Opposition To The Proposition…

Katie Mullaly — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:44:43 +0000

You know, I would really like to know where in fresh hell all the GODDAMNED Proposition 100 money has gone. Something IS rotten in Denmark. You see, now there is another proposition being introduced in November that is asking voters to approve a half-cent tax increase for public safety. Isn’t that part of what Prop [...]

$135 Billion Worth of Oil “Found”, Again, in Afghanistan

Riyad Kalla — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:50:29 +0000

We reported about a month ago that $1.4 trillion worth of natural mineral deposits had been “found” in Afghanistan. We had our own definition of what “found” meant. Flash-forward exactly 1 month and you have NewsDaily reporting that Afghanistan has found 1.8 billion barrels worth of oil ($135 billion based on today’s price of oil) [...]

Why You Can’t Trust Social News Sites

Riyad Kalla — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 22:28:28 +0000

I’ve written many times before about why I hate Digg, it’s weak content that gets to the front page, and why social news sites in general frustrate me. Last week AlterNet broke a huge story on a fairly large group of ultra right-win conservatives that have formed a group with the exclusive goal of gaming [...]

Damn You, Paranormal Posers!!!

Katie Mullaly — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:18:51 +0000

Wait. What’s a paranormal poser? I mean, I am FULLY PREPARED to unleash a litany of strongly-worded STRONG WORDS towards anyone bringing tarnish and untoward monkey-business into the most holy of holies – paranormal investigation – but FIRST, I must get to the bottom of this “paranormal poser” situation. According to a new, timely, and [...]

iTunes App Store Hacked Again – User Credit Card Data Stolen?

Riyad Kalla — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:28:46 +0000

For anyone that doesn’t know, a few weeks back someone (or some group) hacked the iTunes App Store (the place you buy apps for your iPhone, iPad or iPod from) and bumped up all the apps by a specific seller in the “eBook” section to the front page as bestsellers; even though most weren’t even [...]

Why I Hate Social News Sites

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:48:02 +0000

NOTE: This is an anti-social-news site venting post. If that will upset you, please click away. I have posted before about why I hate Digg, but to be fair, I hate all social news sites that rely exclusively on users up-voting stories. I recently had my account at reddit banned out of thin air, so [...]

Apple Loves HTML5 – As Long as You Use Safari – FAIL

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:40:19 +0000

Grant Gochnauer sent in a great little tech tid-bit this morning; Apple has launched an HTML5 demo site to show off the flexibility and power of HTML5 in light of their total rejection of Flash as the medium to deliver next-gen rich web content. Unfortunately, as soon as you try and do anything on the [...]

AT&T Announces No More Unlimited Data Plan for iPad

Riyad Kalla — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:34:35 +0000

PRNewswire is reporting (more here) that today AT&T (the 3G carrier everyone loves) has announced that the $30/month, iPad unlimited data plan is no more for new customers. Instead the best you can get is a $25/month 2GB data plan. Customers with existing unlimited data plans will be grandfathered in, but new iPad customers coming [...]

Dealing with Facebook Privacy Issues

Riyad Kalla — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:56:27 +0000

If you are on Facebook (that was addressed to all 130 million of you) and you aren’t happy with the changes Facebook has been making to the privacy settings in order to best expose your information to advertisers, don’t worry, they are on your side… sort of. I got a kick out of this: (Click [...]

Lost… so Lost…

Riyad Kalla — Mon, 24 May 2010 07:05:33 +0000

Update #2: There is an excellent description of what the show was all about in Update #2 Cont below… NOTE: This post contains Lost spoilers. If you haven’t watched the last episode yet, please be aware of that and continue reading at your own risk. NOTE #2: I’m super-cereal guys, this post contains spoilers about [...]

You’re Ugly and Your Drama Dresses You Funny.

Katie Mullaly — Sun, 23 May 2010 05:55:42 +0000

Of course, I am talking about PARA drama. For the uninitiated, para drama is a stupid term invented to define an even stupider thing. That stupid thing being the ridiculously disproportionate amount of infighting, backstabbing, trickery, chicanery, and downright lying that members of a so-called “paranormal community” commit towards each other with more regularity than [...]

WARNING: EdgeStar, CompactAppliance.com and Living Direct are a Terrible Shopping Experience

Riyad Kalla — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:58:04 +0000

NOTE: This post is meant as a warning to online shoppers to avoid shopping with CompactAppliance or any of the “Living Direct Network” of sites — they are a bottom-of-the-barrel company with terrible customer support and you’d be better to spend your money at another reputable dealer. I was recently in the market for a [...]

Ubisoft's New Draconian DRM Kills Gaming all Weekend

Riyad Kalla — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:55:27 +0000

Previously we’ve written about the new DRM that Ubisoft has developed in-house that requires a 24/7, uninterrupted internet connection (not even for a modem reboot or lost sync) to the master Ubisoft DRM servers. At the time there was a lot of speculation about “What if your modem reboots?” or “What if Ubisoft’s DRM server [...]