BigConna.com

So, just a week away, I still haven't gotten my ticket(s) to Bonnaroo yet, which means the hunt is intensifying for a cheap way to see one of the best fests of the summer. Not only do I still need a ticket, but I was able to convince my brother Clint and my two friends Joel and Brian to come this year so I really need four or so.

Why do I need a ticket? Glad you asked.

I had initially planned on working for the Manchester staffing company Hamilton-Ryker processing entrants to the fest, just like last year, but they had far more applicants this year and I got the big shove. (read more)

(subject to change due to chemical make-up at showtime)

Thursday

• 10:00 Mute Math
• 10:30 The National

Friday

• 2:15 Tortoise
• 3:45 Gillian Welch
• 6:00 Lily Allen / The Roots
• 9:00 Tool
• midn STS9 / Aesop Rock
• 2:00 *** DJ Shadow ***

Saturday

• 2:15 Regina Spektor
• 4:00 Xavier Rudd
• 6:00 Spoon
• 6:30 Franz Ferdinand
• 9:00 The Police
• midn The Flaming Lips / Girl Talk / Glactic
• 1:30 *** Sasha & John Digweed ***

Sunday

• 1:00 Pete Yorn
• 2:30 Wolfmother
• 4:30 The Decemberists
• 5:30 Wilco
• 6:00 *** Feist ***
• 7:15 The White Stripes

What's yours?

As a music lover and former Nashvillian, I try to keep up to date with the local music scene by way of Grimey's, the all-purpose music store / venue / party pad that features a weekly newsletter. In this week's edition, the master of ceremonies (Doyle) wrote an interesting blurb about the joys of physical music products in an increasingly digital market. I'm more concerned with what's hitting my ears than my eyes, but I can appreciate those who want a physical product, particularly when it's vinyl or if the artist is working through alternate mediums. What do you think? Read on...

An Iraqi-born artist living here in the states has recently developed a type of online political exhibit that enables people to aim and shoot at him with a paintball gun controlled via the web. The point is to contrast his own setup with the bombing of remote targets in Iraq using coordinates provided by ground troops. Bilal's argument is that it's more like playing a video game than being in combat, and creates a veritable disconnect between the attacker and the attacked.

Media Gallery:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/broadband/chi-paintball-flas...

Original Story:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0705091398may10,1,630...

(Computerworld) -- A whopping 2.5 million people have gone missing -- at least that's what major TV networks believe. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox report that the number of people watching their shows has dropped that much since spring last year. Network executives are scrambling to figure out where everybody went.

I have a suggestion: Blame technology.

No, really. I believe three factors have done more to cut viewers from the Nielsen ratings even than the super-low quality of the shows.

read more...
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&...

Haha -- to the excitement and clamor of hundreds of sleep-deprived students reluctantly studying in the library, exam week was interrupted by the gallant jaunt of a (naked) bro Tuesday evening. I arrived at Hodges shortly after this incident, which was undoubtedly edited and posted to YouTube moments later in the very same library. I think bro is a freshman so he obviously deserves mad props for his devious act.

Enjoy!

Bush: ‘I’m the Commander Guy’
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

And you thought he was still “the decider.”

President Bush coined a new nickname for himself — ‘’the commander guy” — on Wednesday, as he criticized Congressional Democrats in a speech to the annual gathering of the Associated General Contractors of America, a construction industry trade group.

The man who last year proclaimed “I’m the decider,’’ in response to a question about whether he would fire Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, came up with this latest moniker in explaining why he vetoed an Iraq war spending bill that dictated a timeline for troops to withdraw from Iraq.

“The question is, ‘Who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders?,’’ Mr. Bush said. “As you know, my position is clear – I’m the commander guy.”

This week, OIT received another fifty of those nasty pre-settlement notices from the RIAA demanding students pay thousands of dollars or be taken to court. Here is an excerpt of a letter from the Dean's office sent to all UT students today:

"As you may have heard, the University of Tennessee yesterday received 50 letters from the Recording Industry Association of America. Each of these letters asked the university to forward an attached letter to an unnamed student. The RIAA is offering a pre-trial settlement to these students before filing suit for potential copyright infringement. The information provided by the RIAA listed only the student's IP address, the time at which the student was allegedly sharing copyrighted files, and a listing of those files.

UT is now in the process of forwarding the RIAA letters to the students involved. It is critical to note that we have not released the students' names or any information about them to RIAA and are serving only as a conduit for the information. UT feels that it is important for these students to receive this information as quickly as possible so that they can make an informed decision, though UT has not made a recommendation to them about how to proceed."

(Computerworld) -- Security companies today warned Winamp users that the music player application has a bug that could give attackers the means to hijack PCs.

According to Danish vulnerability tracker Secunia and eEye Digital Security of California, the Winamp 5.34 plug-in that decodes MP4 files is flawed. If a specially crafted MP4 file is fed to the player, an attacker could compromise the machine and execute his own malicious code remotely.

Secunia rated the bug as "highly critical," its second-most-dire level in a five-step scoring system; eEye simply dubbed it as a "high" risk.

"A media player remote code execution vulnerability has a very high impact since the source of the malicious payload can be any site on the Internet," said eEye's alert. "An even more critical problem is generated when clients are administrators on their local hosts, which would run the malicious payload with administrator credentials."

Windows XP users, for example, typically run the operating system using an administrator account.

One bright spot, said eEye, was that because Winamp does not open MP4 files embedded in a Web site, attackers would have to dupe users into launching the malicious file. The most likely delivery vehicles: MP4 files attached to e-mail messages or a link to a site from which the file could be downloaded. "This could add a level of suspicion to the exploit delivery, but since music sharing is such a common activity, the suspicious activity might be dismissed by the user," said eEye.

With a patch yet to come from Nullsoft Inc., eEye recommended that users disassociate the .mp4 extension from Winamp by choosing Options/Preferences, then General Preferences/File Types and deselecting MP4.

more...
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&...