Having Fun.

Conditions: Cold, Finally Clear.


Potential

With your computer, your phone, and your car all at risk from computer hackers, the next frontier is ...yourself? As medical implant technology gets more complicated, inevitably it also becomes more vulnerable.

Implantable devices, such as pacemakers, defibrillators and cochlear implants, are becoming vulnerable to "infection" with computer viruses, a researcher in England warns.

To prove his point, Mark Gasson, a scientist at the University of Reading's School of Systems Engineering, allowed himself to become "Exhibit A."

Gasson said he became the first person in the world to be infected with a computer virus after he "contaminated" a high-end radio frequency identification (RFID) computer chip -- the kind often used as a security tag in stores to prevent theft -- which he had implanted into his left hand.

The point, Gasson explained, was to draw attention to the risks involved with the use of increasingly sophisticated implantable medical device technology.
[...]

But once "infected," the chip disrupted the proper functioning of the mainframe system with which it had been communicating, and would have done the same to any other device that might have been similarly hooked up to the network, he said.

"By infecting my own implant with a computer virus, we have demonstrated how advanced these technologies are becoming and also had a glimpse at the problems of tomorrow," Gasson said.

- businessweek.com/

And what's sad is that in no way will this be seen as a deterrent to anyone. Advanced medical technology is "great". It gives doctors more scope for treatment, and it allows medical tech companies to build shiny things and charge an arm and a leg for them, if you'll pardon the expression. The inherent vulnerabilities will instead become another profit potential for anti-virus companies, keen to profit on the latest digital folly of mankind. Ahhh, capitalism.



Film Review: The Losers.

The most important ingredient a stylish action film must have is, unsurprisingly, style and action. I'm constantly surprised at how many films get that wrong. Happily, The Losers is a film that is concentrating hard on being stylish and exciting right out of the box, and damn me but I think they've pulled it off. This film is fun, well paced and enjoyable. Despite having a number of old movie cliches they have to deal with, they still manage to do something that's feels somewhat fun and fresh, due in no small part to allowing the actors time and scope to actually develop and show off their characters. Amazingly, you actually believe pretty quickly that these guys are a team.

The plot is fairly straight forward, bad guy frames a bunch of good guys, and now they're out to clear their names and get revenge. Throw in some shootouts, some double crosses, a wacky globetrotting villain, and some bonding, and you're done. Well, actually, the villain might be a little too wacky for my taste, shooting people because they dropped an umbrella went out with the eighties. But when the film does stumble, it's able to use it's old fashioned charm to get itself going again.

There is a distasteful amount of shaky cam used during some of the action scenes, which is unfortunate, but at least you can make out enough of what's happening. There's also something of a romantic subplot to take in as well. Zoe Saldana acquits herself well, when she gets half a chance. And while the ending is kind of a shameless attempt to set up a sequel, at least we had fun watching it. Four finger guns out five.


- Peace out

Setting Up The Long Game

Conditions: Cold.

Positioning

And what, historically, is the best way to get out of a recession? Jobs? Tax Cuts? No. Selling weapons, of course. And how better to sell weapons, than by talking up threats, and making people scared. Making people scared is big business.

A nuclear-powered Iran, so the argument goes, is a danger to all of these mostly affluent Arab countries, plus nuclear-armed Israel.

But either directly or indirectly, the Iranian threat also has a hidden agenda because it is being implicitly viewed as good for business: the lucrative arms business.

The Western world is unloading some of its most sophisticated weapons - including state-of-the-art fighter planes and anti-missile defence systems - in the Gulf region, clinching multi-billion-dollar arms deals.

According to an analysis by Forecast International Inc. (FI), a leading U.S. defence market research firm, the GCC countries will account for about 60 percent of all defence spending in the region in 2010.

The prediction is that all six Gulf countries will invest over 63 billion dollars toward their armed forces and security this year, with two-thirds of the total coming from Saudi Arabia.

"The GCC members continue to cast a wary eye across the Gulf at Iran," says Dan Darling, FI's military markets analyst for Europe and the Middle East.

Under the perception that Iranian hegemonic ambitions constitute their principal and most immediate strategic threat, these countries have been focusing on air, missile defence and naval equipment, he added.

"The result of these ambitions has been an annual level of defence spending by GCC members that is disproportionate to the relatively small size of their militaries," Darling told IPS.

But hark, what possible development on yonder horizon could render all the lucrative sabre-rattling unnecessary?

At a summit meeting of three heads of state last week, Ahmadinejad struck a deal with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to ship roughly half of Iran's nuclear fuel to Turkey, thereby declaring his country's intentions not to develop nuclear weapons.

Although the deal was expected to undermine U.S. plans to move a fourth Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, the administration of President Barack Obama said Tuesday it will go ahead with the resolution, apparently with the backing of Russia and China.

If the resolution is adopted by the Security Council later next month, it will further strengthen the Western argument that Iran is on the verge of going nuclear, reinforcing existing fears in the Middle East.

Well that's strange, or rather, not strange at all. The last thing we want, really, is for Ahmadinejad to "back down". And the second last thing we want is for people to start wondering how peace will result from more people waving more guns around. That kind of wondering can also lead to the logical progression that goes along the lines of "Well, if everyone else is bringing a knife to the fight, then..."

Wezeman of SIPRI told IPS that decision makers in countries in the region and in the arms supplying countries will have to consider carefully how a large flow of conventional arms will actually provide protection against any presumed aggressive intentions by Iran.

They will have to consider how their high levels of armament, combined with the major presence of U.S. military in the region, are needed to deter Iran, and to which extent further arms procurement may fuel Iranian fears about the intentions of its neighbours, he pointed out.

This in turn, Wezeman said, could fuel an Iranian assessment that its conventional arsenal is inadequate to defend against overwhelming conventional forces of potential opponents.

- truthout.org/

And we wouldn't want that, would we? Well wait, wouldn't we? Do we or do we not want that? Frankly, at this point I'm getting a little confused at exactly what we actually want.


Film Review: Robin Hood

There is an awful lot of familiarity with the latest Robin Hood movie, starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott. Not only is the Robin Hood story fairly familiar and well-known, but having these two guys in charge also brings a "Gladiator 2" feel to it. The problem with all that is the immense feeling of "seen it before" that pervades this film. The battle scenes, the village of Nottingham. The indolent King. The French revolutionaries. There's a significant portion of this film that really suffers from over-familiarity.

Which is a shame, as it's still a pretty good film. Russell Crowe effortlessly portrays Robin Hood as an ex-soldier who ends up pretending to be a nobleman, and will lead his people to defy stupid laws and taxes, resist the French, and stand up to the King. He is matched by a cool and feisty Cate Blanchett as Marion, and there is a certain chemistry between the two. We could have spent more time with them in the forest along with Will, Little John and Friar Tuck, but this is a film that wants to tell a bigger story about unfair taxation and French invasions, so we must spend time with the pouty king and his advisers, including another evil Mark Strong performance, and William Hurt.

I realize that it's important to have that part of the plot so that Robin Hood has something to be Robin Hood about, but ultimately this isn't really a movie about stealing from the rich to give to the poor, which is odd. It's really an origin story about Robin and his merry men, and how they helped to save an ungrateful king and country. Having an origin story in Robin Hood is perfectly normal, but I don't think anyone really expected the whole film to be origin story. And as origin stories go, this one feels a little plodding and drawn out, skipping over good scenes for more stuff with the King and his court, and finishing with a big battle that really feels like it comes out of nowhere. Three Arrows out of Five.


- Peace out

Future Looks Bright

Conditions: Cold, Rainy

Road To Nowhere.

With the advent of the cellular phone, and further toys like the Ipad and the Ipod, hackers and virus-makers have been branching out into new territories with a variety of new and interesting attacks. But with automobiles now starting to connect to the internet, suddenly the scope is there for hackery on a whole new scale. Two teams of scientists have been researching what new forms of chaos could be unleashed.

The researchers, financed by the National Science Foundation, tested two versions of a late-model car in both laboratory and field settings. They did not identify the maker or the brand of the car, but said they believed they were representative of the computer network control systems that have proliferated in most cars today.

The researchers asked what could happen if a hacker could gain access to the network of a car, said Tadayoshi Kohno, a University of Washington computer scientist. He said the research teams were able to demonstrate their ability to circumvent a wide variety of systems critical to the safety of drivers and passengers.

They also demonstrated what they described as “composite attacks” that showed their ability to insert malicious software and then erase any evidence of tampering after a crash.

The researchers were able to activate dozens of functions and almost all of them while the car was in motion.

- nytimes.com/

See, this is the downside of having more and more connection and integration, suddenly the potential holes that exist can lead to quite huge consequences. Simple systems meant to allow a car to check on traffic conditions can lead to someone setting a virus that disables everyone's airbags across the entire eastern seaboard, or worse. Don't get me wrong, I understand connection and integration is the way of the future, but I don't have to like it. Hopefully the engineers will always, always remember to include backup systems in anything they design. Meanwhile I'll be over here in my 40 year old sports car. Hack that.




Film Review: The Book Of Eli

Set in a post-apocalyptic America, the Book Of Eli features Denzel Washington who is basically on a mission from God. In possession of the last ever bible, he is taking it west, in the hope of finding a town who can use it to start rebuilding society. You know, as far as post-apocalyptic hooks go, that's a new one. The problem is that it doesn't quite work. It almost works, but eventually it just becomes a bit too incredulous. You see, on the road to utopia Denzel runs into a little town on the make, run by Gary Oldman. And the one thing Oldman wants is a bible, to help give him authority when he tells people what to do. You'd think his legion of goons would be enough.

But it's a legion that's quickly whittled away by Denzel, who's developed some brutally efficient fighting skills. Joining forces with Mila Kunis, who wants something better than being owned by Gary Oldman, the two set off for Utopia again, still being hunted by Oldman and his goons. I think the point of this film is about the bible and it's role in forming civilizations, but in practice the film really demonstrates how much violence seems to end up surrounding the bible, especially when it's mentioned that a lot of people thought the thing had caused the war in the first place.

The film is gritty, dusty, dirty and violent. It's unrelentingly grim, and ultimately it's making a point that I'm not sure I actually agree with. There really isn't anything about Eli that makes the audience want to cheer for him other than the fact that it's Denzel, and that trouble just seems to come after him. It's not enough. While I appreciate the trouble the filmmakers have gone to to make what's effectively an action film have some thoughtful underpinnings to it, I just don't think anyone in the movie is acting rationally. Add in a downer ending and it's not really a fun time at the movies. Two pairs of sunglasses out of five.


- Peace out

Out Of Control

Conditions: Cool, Calm

Who Really Is In Control?

Late last week the Dow Jones stock market plunged something like 1,000 points in a single day. The terrifying point is that no one really seems to know why.

The initial focus of the investigations appeared to center on the way a growing number of high-speed trading networks interact with one another and with venerable exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange. Most investors are unaware that these competing systems have fractured the traditional marketplace and have displaced exchanges like the Big Board as the dominant force in stock trading.

The silence from Washington cast a pall over Wall Street, where shaken traders returned to their desks Friday morning hoping for quick answers. The markets remained on edge, as the uncertainty over what caused Thursday’s wild swings added to the worries over the running debt crisis in Greece.
[...]

Over the last five years, the stock market has split into a plethora of new competing hubs and trading outlets, a legacy of deregulation earlier this decade and fast-paced technological change. On Friday, the rivalry between the two main exchanges erupted into view as each publicly pointed the finger at the other for being a main cause of the collapse on Thursday, which sent shockwaves around the globe.

- nytimes.com/

So here we are, in a society that hangs on a massively-compilicated financial system that's become so ridden with tricks and traps that we can start to see this kind of activity where no one knows what happened or why? Exactly how bad do things have to get before we start wising up and taking back control of critical systems?



Film Review: Iron Man 2

The first Iron Man was a surprise hit. A pretty great cast hooked into a pretty deep story about a son of a weapons industrialist who is humbled, and is forced to reinvent and redeem himself. And, also, robot fighting. The second film is also interested in exploring a bit more of Tony Stark's background, but this time the focus isn't on righting wrongs but on Tony having to fix his arc reactor design because it's poisoning his blood.

The story line is basically that America is uncomfortable with having it's defense maintained by this wealthy playboy who's more interested in having fun and showing off. And what's really odd is how much sense that actually makes. Sam Rockwell is supposed to be the bad guy who's trying to build his own weaponised Iron Man design for the military, but fundamentally I think the point he's making is logical. Tony Stark is just one alcoholic in a suit. In reality, one superman isn't enough to keep a nation safe or calm, especially a superman as imbalanced as Stark is.

Despite the imbalance of the underlying plot, and the lack of a focused story, the second Iron Man film is still pretty good. Mickey Rourke is playing essentially a Russian Stark, whose father was part of the original design work, and now wants revenge. He's in great form, but eventually you realize it's a role that just doesn't have enough meat on it. We needed more of a confrontation between these two men, instead of just Iron Men battling each other, which surprisingly gets old pretty fast. Robert Downey's Stark is a hard character to like, who's really fighting to fix problems that he's responsible for in the first place. I get the feeling this film is filling in for a bigger third film, that will have likely have more involvement from Samuel Jackson and Scarlet Johansson, who both are really just slumming it in this film. Two and a half punches out of Five.


- Peace out

Eating Toward Victory

Conditions: Cold, Sunny.


Military Declares War On Fatness.

One thing that is still vital to the military is kids. You can't have a war without kids. I mean, who else would do all the dying? But there's a problem in the recruitment offices of America: Kids are getting fat, what with all the playstation and cheap hamburgers. Fat kids means smaller wars. And we can't have that.

"Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military," generals John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, both former chairs of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a commentary.

Obesity disqualified more potential recruits for military service than any other medical factor, the two former commanders wrote in the Washington Post.

The two generals urged Congress to adopt legislation that would ensure better nutrition in schools, offering children more vegetables, fruits and whole grains while cutting back on foods with high sugar, sodium and fat content.

- google.com/

Does anyone else get the massive irony in this?

"We must feed our nation's children more healthy food!"

"Because healthy kids grow up to be healthy adults, taking the strain off our economy?"

"No. Because we need kids to bleed on our future battle fields, and at the moment they're too fat to fit in the uniforms."

I mean seriously, if you have to choose between a gun and a cheeseburger, I really think the smart decision is also the fun decision. It sure beats cutting your thumb off.



Film Review: Daybreakers

I do enjoy me a good vampire movie, and Daybreakers has quite a good feel to it. It's the vampire apocalypse, this time triggered by a bat-virus that swept the planet. Humans have now become rare, and most of those left are kept in matrix-style blood milking installations, the largest of these run by a big corporation headed by Sam Neill. But Sam has a problem. With humans becoming rare the blood is running out, causing the vampires of the world to start devolving into shrieking, clawed animals. Society is on the verge of collapse, and the only hope is Ethan Hawke, who works for Sam as a blood doctor and is on the trail of a blood substitute vaccine.

But Ethan is a reluctant vampire, and sympathizes with the humans, so when he bumps into a bunch of them on the run he's more inclined to help them than turn them in. And when he meets William Dafoe, a former vampire who has become human again, then things get really complicated. This is a pretty involving film, there's a lot going on. And it's well shot, too. Set in the future, but with a real old-style classic feel to it. Not only do we get the fun of vampire hunting, we also get a story about society rapidly falling apart as overly-consumed resources run dry. There's also Sam Neil's attempt to reunite with his long-lost (human) daughter. Needless to say, it's a reunion that does not go well.

All in all, it's a very ambitious tale. And while it doesn't really have an ending in the classical sense, which is frustrating, it is somehow fitting that a story about society devolving into chaos isn't neatly tied up before the end credits. I enjoyed the trouble they went to with this, and the actors all do a pretty good job. There's also a bit of a twist in the ending, and I must say some of the most goriest of kills I've seen outside of a horror film. It's certainly a hard R. So, a vampire film that is dark, gothic, bloody and makes you think. It'll never catch on. Four fangs out of five.


- Peace out