Saturday, April 09, 2005

Solar Death Ray!!

Ah, the things you can do if you've got enough time on your hands... Check out the Solar Death Ray site, the Target Gallery is full of pictures of objects put in the destructive path of the mighty Solar Death Ray - including a AOL CD! I personally cannot think of a single better use for AOL software than this, the inventor of the Solar Death Ray deserves a medal!

A dubious distinction : Spammer sentenced to 9 years in jail

A Virginia judge sentenced "e-mail marketing businessman" Jeremy Jaynes to 9 years in prison on Friday. That make him the nation's first felony prosecution for sending junk e-mail. The case is under appeal (of course), so the sentence is currently postponed pending the result of the appeal. He was prosecuted under Virginia's anti-spam law (which had taken effect two weeks before the trial), states sending unsolicited bulk e-mail itself is not a crime unless the sender masks his identity. Jaynes sent out at least 10 million e-mails a day with the help of 16 high-speed internet connections, and used the alias "Gaven Stubberfield" to send out most of his mail. At the sentencing, Jaynes told the judge regardless of how the appeal turns out, "I can guarantee the court I will not be involved in the e-mail marketing business again." Oh good - I totally believe him, don't you? Regardless, that's one spammer down and 97 million left to send us offers for Viagra and penis enlargement and all that other junk.

Friday, April 08, 2005

Let the PSP hacking begin!!

The first PSP hacks have begun to be widely circulated around the web, including one dreamed up and realized within 24 hours. Robert Balousek needed just a day to get IRC (Internet Relay Chat) working on his PSP, more info and how-to at his site PSPIRC. Other hacks include a hack to transfer TV shows recorded on TiVO to your PSP, an eBook reader, and a viewer you can use on your PSP to read comics downloaded from the internet. The hacks use the browser feature of the game Wipeout Pure, so you'll need a copy of that to try these out.
In other PSP news, Sony has announced that it sold 500,000 units in the first two days of the North American release. Not bad!