I don't have cable right now so I'm rewatching old shows and movies. A lot of them are animated. Such is my way. I'd like to have a nobler reason for rewatching them--something like when James 
Let's say you're the newly-sentient internet. How would you decipher
the meaning of all the bits and bytes whizzing past you? And what about
the real world outside your electronic realm?
Former Comics Editor, Guy Leshinski
has very kindly given us permission to reprint a prophetic interview
with Bryan Lee O'Malley in 2005. Will Bryan Lee O'Malley attain the
Holy Grail of cartoonists? As Bryan says, "We'll see..."
Results tagged “hacking” from The Cultural Gutter
Stick to the Man in his Regions!
The Man got you down? Too focused on his "Regions?" Won't let you watch US content outside the US? Saving your searches? Well, I'm not recommending anything. Just saying Hotspot Shield might've done some good and it might help you watch some fine programming here and here. And don't forget here.
Afrofuturism
Preserved from usenet, Mark Dery's 1994 essay on Afrofuturism:
"Hack this: Why do so few African-Americans write science fiction, a
genre whose close encounters with the Other---the stranger in a strange
land---would seem uniquely suited to the concerns of African-American
novelists? .... This is especially perplexing in light of the fact that African-Americans are, in a very real sense, the descendants of alien abductees."
Revealing the Consequences
John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider has a fantastic ending: an unstoppable computer virus reveals all secret information. If you've bribed the food inspectors to ignore mad cow disease in your factory farm, now the whole world knows about it. Gone to war under false pretences? Selling designer clothes made in hidden sweatshops? Passing along government money to friends? The truth is spilling out to whoever asks for it.
Actually, I think about Brunner's reveal-all virus quite often, because I damn well want one!
Continue reading...
Cracking a Moral Code
For those of you who paid for your copy of Tony Hawk 4 (Aspyr, 2003) on the PC, here's what you missed. Running INSTALLER.EXE in the pirated version brings up a window that shows a flat-monitor screen hanging painting-style on what looks to be a castle wall. A bouncy-yet-mournful synth tune plays in the background. Across the monitor, which has a circuit-board patterned background, there runs the text, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 © Aspyr. Enjoy another nice game from your friends at Class." And the friendly game crackers have outdone themselves with this installer: by using the arrow buttons you can move to another flat-screened monitor further along the castle wall, this one with the option to INSTALL. As you go between monitors, the perspective pulls out and then zooms back in dramatically. One of the options is to read the .NFO, a text file that is included with cracks to furnish more info.
Continue reading...
Geeky Secrets
Everyone loves getting in on a good secret. The same feeling of invulnerability and anonymity that makes email flaming such a big part of the internet encourages the trading in verboten information. It's been going on for a long time, as least as long as the BBS scene in the '80s.
I recently came across an old, battered green duotang with a collection of "Phun Philes" from that era. I had my dot-matrix working overtime, printing out dozens of my favourites into different sections: Smoke and Explosives, Fone Phun, and Tricks and Chuckles. There were instructions on how to make a shit bomb, LSD, or napalm; ASCII diagrams on how to build a Black Box for free long-distance calls; tips on lock-picking, credit card fraud and how to make bugs breakdance.
Continue reading...
Read Only Memories
I'm fairly suspicious of nostalgia, and I hate how advertisers leverage our emotions to sell us the same products twice. So while I'm happy that people are rediscovering videogames from their youth, and that the games and their blocky aesthetic are mushrooming up all over the culture, I wonder about the retro-gaming phenomenon.
Are these games really that good?
Continue reading...
Mission: Look at Neat Stuff
Ninjalicious is the founder of Infiltration, a zine documenting his urban exploration hobby in hilarious and diagram-enhanced travelogues. He's recently been playing Thief II (Eidos, 2000), a videogame with a focus on stealth, and I asked him about how the first-person sneaker measured up to his real-life experience.
Continue reading...
Stick to the Man in his Regions!
The Man got you down? Too focused on his "Regions?" Won't let you watch US content outside the US? Saving your searches? Well, I'm not recommending anything. Just saying Hotspot Shield might've done some good and it might help you watch some fine programming here and here. And don't forget here.Afrofuturism
Preserved from usenet, Mark Dery's 1994 essay on Afrofuturism:"Hack this: Why do so few African-Americans write science fiction, a genre whose close encounters with the Other---the stranger in a strange land---would seem uniquely suited to the concerns of African-American novelists? .... This is especially perplexing in light of the fact that African-Americans are, in a very real sense, the descendants of alien abductees."
Revealing the Consequences
John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider has a fantastic ending: an unstoppable computer virus reveals all secret information. If you've bribed the food inspectors to ignore mad cow disease in your factory farm, now the whole world knows about it. Gone to war under false pretences? Selling designer clothes made in hidden sweatshops? Passing along government money to friends? The truth is spilling out to whoever asks for it.
Actually, I think about Brunner's reveal-all virus quite often, because I damn well want one!
Continue reading...Cracking a Moral Code
For those of you who paid for your copy of Tony Hawk 4 (Aspyr, 2003) on the PC, here's what you missed. Running INSTALLER.EXE in the pirated version brings up a window that shows a flat-monitor screen hanging painting-style on what looks to be a castle wall. A bouncy-yet-mournful synth tune plays in the background. Across the monitor, which has a circuit-board patterned background, there runs the text, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 © Aspyr. Enjoy another nice game from your friends at Class." And the friendly game crackers have outdone themselves with this installer: by using the arrow buttons you can move to another flat-screened monitor further along the castle wall, this one with the option to INSTALL. As you go between monitors, the perspective pulls out and then zooms back in dramatically. One of the options is to read the .NFO, a text file that is included with cracks to furnish more info.
Continue reading...
Geeky Secrets
Everyone loves getting in on a good secret. The same feeling of invulnerability and anonymity that makes email flaming such a big part of the internet encourages the trading in verboten information. It's been going on for a long time, as least as long as the BBS scene in the '80s.
I recently came across an old, battered green duotang with a collection of "Phun Philes" from that era. I had my dot-matrix working overtime, printing out dozens of my favourites into different sections: Smoke and Explosives, Fone Phun, and Tricks and Chuckles. There were instructions on how to make a shit bomb, LSD, or napalm; ASCII diagrams on how to build a Black Box for free long-distance calls; tips on lock-picking, credit card fraud and how to make bugs breakdance.
Read Only Memories
I'm fairly suspicious of nostalgia, and I hate how advertisers leverage our emotions to sell us the same products twice. So while I'm happy that people are rediscovering videogames from their youth, and that the games and their blocky aesthetic are mushrooming up all over the culture, I wonder about the retro-gaming phenomenon.
Are these games really that good?
Mission: Look at Neat Stuff
Ninjalicious is the founder of Infiltration, a zine documenting his urban exploration hobby in hilarious and diagram-enhanced travelogues. He's recently been playing Thief II (Eidos, 2000), a videogame with a focus on stealth, and I asked him about how the first-person sneaker measured up to his real-life experience.Continue reading...
