Tag Archives: zombie apocalypse

You Can’t Stop the Signal. Well, Unless You Can.

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Yesterday, the “hactivist” group Anonymous threatened to break up President Obama’s State of the Union Address. It didn’t happen.

This could have happened for a number of reasons. They could have tried and failed. I mean, the white house had notification that it was going to happen. Anonymous released a statement saying they were going to like 9 or 10 hours before hand. That gives other people plenty of time to figure out how and to make it not happen. They also could have NOT been planning to hack, or only a small subset was going to and the rest decided they shouldn’t and cut them off. Or, they could have been really intent in their Borderlands 2 campaign.

For whatever reason, SOTU did not get “hacked” last night.

Obamanous.

Obamanous.

Anonymous is a group of hackers. This means they circumvent certain technology  or programming to be used in ways different than the original intended use. As a programmer, I “hacked” systems regularly, meaning I developed programming as a “work around” to the original programming. I do it all the time with WordPress structures. Usually, you want to go in and change the structure itself, but sometimes you have a one off. Sometimes you’re working with third party and can’t change the structure. And sometimes site growth just demands you get it up quickly, and structure change is a lengthy process.

It’s not necessarily best practice, but it is how programming changes happen about 99.9% of the time.

Hacking has gotten a bad rep. I think it’s rather inventive by nature, using the resources and code around you in a creative way to work around a problem. But when most people think of “hackers,” they think of renegade nerds out to disrupt the system, causing havock for havock’s sake. They think of this guy:

WarGames

or these kids

Hackers

or even this guy

Serenity

Ah, the glorification of hacking. They never think of the poor computer programmer, trying to get something changed or updated because a client last minute wanted the product to do THIS instead of THAT.

Anyway, SOTU did not get hacked. Do you know who did get hacked? The state of Montana:

These guys hacked a television show to broadcast an emergency zombie apocalypse. Now THAT’s some quality hacking.

Computerized Comedy

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Some of you know that I have a fascination with computer animation. There’s something about that plastic, shiny world that just captivates me. Up to, and including computer animated Barbie.

She’s a Barbie girl, in her Barbie world.

It’s true. I love computer animated Barbie. I own several computer animated Barbie movies on VHS. It’s pretty much the only reason we still have a VCR.

Don’t judge me.

I admit, Barbie is pretty girly. I think most people agree I’m not much of a girly girl. I rarely wear dresses, and I could care less about my cuticles. I do own several pairs of heels, but usually only wear the flats. Heels are painful, and I can’t run in them. If the zombie apocalypse comes, I want to be able to out-run those fuckers.

However, I do applaude these guys:

They’re wearing the heels for height.

This is apparently (I haven’t verified it, but seems legit) a picture taken from Walk a Mile in her Shoes, an event to raise awareness of sexual assault. Seriously, major kudos. It takes a big man with tiny feet to do something like that.

Anyway, I bring up my fascination with computer animation because I found something I’m just not quite sure how I feel about it. It’s a computer animated show from Japan, and though my first reaction to it is “oooh… shiny….” after watching a couple episodes, I’m left blinking and confused.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you The Mole Brothers!
[youtube=http://youtu.be/pL13yhRjMqA]

Like, okay. I love vaudeville and slapstick, and I can definitely see how this has borrowed from those traditions. But usually, to do vaudeville, you need jokes that are, well, JOKES. They have a great set up and punchline delivery, but what they’re delivering is… well, it’s like ordering a unique dress and getting a fish. It’s unique, but not really something you can wear.

And I’m going to take a stance here. Slapstick is only really funny if it’s real people doing it. I know, I’m judging these performers based on their non-existence outside of conceptual, but if it can’t actually hurt them, what’s the point? Look, I hate to be a realist about this, but without the physical, there’s nothing to actually hurt. If there’s no pain, there’s no funny.

I guess my whole problem with the show is that it lacks substance. Nothing solid there. Just a lot of tossed around ideas.

The Zombie Apocalypse Approaches.

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Earlier this week there was a news story about a naked man attacking somebody and eating 80% of their face. Immediately half the people I know shared the story on facebook with the comment “The zombie apocalypse begins!”. Jena showed me the story and said I should blog about it but I decided against it, feeling the story was overdone and the punchline was way too easy.


Later a story broke about some low rent Canadian porn star killing a man, eating parts of him and mailing other parts to places around Canada.



George Romero never warned us that zombies would be dressed as douchebags.




Now there’s a story about a college student in Maryland ate his roommate’s brain and heart.



The girlfriend of the guy from the first story actually said in an interview that she now believes in voodoo because her boyfriend would never do such a thing.



While the CDC has had a zombie prepardness page for some time as a jokey/educational disaster prepardness campaign, they felt that with recent stories they actually had to come out and tell people that zombies aren’t real. Sorry, CDC but all evidence points to the contrary.



With the government obviously unprepared, dealing with the zombie problem will obviously be left to the general populace which means two groups of people are going to come out on top. Nerds and rednecks.



Rednecks have the guns, hunting experience, trucks and general survival skills. Nerds have run the scenario of a zombie apocalypse in their heads countless times. Honestly. If you’re not a nerd, you probably know one. Ask them what they’d do in the event of a zombie apocalypse and they’ll tell you in exhausting detail plans A, B and C. What they’d do with the slow Romero zombies, the fast Dawn of the Dead remake zombies, the 28 Days Later virus zombies. Nerds will tell you where they’d go, who they’d bring, what weapons they’d carry and their long term plan.



With nerds and rednecks being the two main subcultures that would survive the oncoming zombie onslaught a new civilization will form when the dust settles and the outbreak is under control. Expect to see fuel-efficient NASCAR and some of the most nuanced and intelligent writing professional wrestling has ever seen. As much as I’m not looking forward to a war with the undead I have to admit I can’t wait to hear MC Frontalot’s country album.



Frankly, though, I could do without Trucknutz and a confederate flag on the TARDIS.