Into the Void

Neowin Giveaway >> 31 Days of the Dragon

If you haven’t heard about the HP 31 Days of the Dragon, hear about it. They’re giving away a kick-@55 computer every day for 31 days. Neowin wanted to get folks to participate so I generated an mp3 about what I’d do if I had a dragon. Which I don’t.

The first thing I thought of was Puff the Magic Dragon. Most of the folks who were around for that whiny little gem now pretend that they never puffed, or if they did, they didn’t inhale. Trust me, guys, your mom and dad - or grandma and grandpa - burned enough rope to reach Colombia and back. They already [b]had[/b] their dragon and they traded it in for an Escalade.

So then I thought of the Dragonriders of Pern. It had its moments, but all-in-all I want a dragon, not a horse with wings. If I wanted a horse with wings I’d get a Unicorn - or is that a Pegasus? Well, it would have to be the one that doesn’t need for me to be pure of heart.

How about the dragon in The Hobbit? Smog was it? No, Smaug! Jewel-encrusted underbelly and all. If I had that sucker and his treasure I could buy a laptop the size of New Jersey. Too late, that little bugger Frottage or Frodo or whatever his name was killed Smaug, took the loot, and wasted it all on half-pints. And beer. Not a bad deal, actually.

I briefly considered that Robo-dragon in Dr. No, but even as a kid it didn’t frighten me. I need something really scary.

And then I thought of it! Here’s my dragon and what I would do with it. Kneel before me!
the_lesliator.mp3

– The Lesliator

I found a related topic on the What the Tech forums.
http://forums.whatthetech.com/Someonething…ml&hl=srosa

It may be the same as my problem. The tool mentioned in the article, Blacklight, is no longer available, but the company has a dozen or so FREE special-purpose disinfecting tools. Time to make the donuts… errrr…. bagels.[/i]

Update 12/3/2007:
Got it! With a a couple of utilities and a brief foray into the frightening forest of “safe mode.” Why do they call it safe mode when you can do so much damage from there?

Please, folks, I’m just messing around here. DON’T DO WHAT I DID TO FIX YOUR PROBLEM!!! I’m an old lady who does regular backups and I often screw things up bad enough that I have to reformat. One thing about having two hard drives is that your data is (usually) safe from your tender ministrations.

So.

This thing seems to have been a Bagel variant. The gist of it is that it runs as a driver. An “intercept directory listings and delete anti-virus files” sort of a driver. Regular spyware cleaners don’t even look at drivers. So [i]that’s[/i] what a rookit is! Now things are starting to make sense. HJT didn’t list this bug.

Bagel hid its files well. Once I ran something to detect rootkits I had something to work with - filenames and registry entries. I couldn’t find anything to clean it automatically, but as I said, I’m not afraid to reformat. In a DOS command shell “dir sr*” listed the file srosa.sys. No other way of listing the directory could see it. Not “dir,” not “dir s*.” I couldn’t list hidr.wtfever it was called, but when I tried to delete it the error message indicated that the file was indeed there but couldn’t be deleted. Safe mode it is. I deleted the files, modified the registry, and sacrificed a small animal to the ‘Net God in hopes that my laptop would reboot after what I did. Hey, stuff happens.

So after all that garbage, my laptop is no longer going out to sites in Eastern Bloc countries looking for… trouble. My hope is that I didn’t delete some driver that, say, enables me to play movies or burn mp3 CDs for the car. That remains to be seen.

However, there is an entry left in the registry called LEGACY_SROSA. Since it doesn’t expressly list the path of “srosa” I’m not sure whether to delete it.

Any day that starts with an email from someone named “Bad Alice” simply has to be a great day!

Bad Alice is the acoustic duo formed by Suzy Johnston (author of The Naked Bird Watcher - the positive account of developing and learning to manage a serious psychiatric disorder that included depression, psychosis and self-harm)

Leslie interjects: The other half of the duo is Lindsay Robertson. So far as I can tell, she is horribly normal except when she gets a hold of a box of crayons.

The CD by Bad Alice is now available.

Titled ‘Walk in my Shoes’ it is a further positive and reflective message on mental illness, self-harm and the issues that face the young of today.

The CD is available on the Bad Alice website where individual tracks can also be downloaded. http://www.badalicemusic.com

The hope is that the music will help people to feel less isolated and offer reassurance that they can get through this. It is also meant to raise further awareness, understanding and - hey - people might even like the songs!

Cheers,

Bad Alice
http://www.badalicemusic.com/
http://www.thecairn.com/

Excellent CD. It’s only number two in my 6-disc changer, but Bad Alice would have to play tuned chain saws to get ahead of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters - classic Jazz Fusion c. 1972.

I hope to get to Scotland on my next trip to Liverpool. If luck is with me, Bad Alice will have a gig when I’m there.

Suzy’s mum Jean is a great mum, I’m told, and a very cool lady. She even wrote her own book, To Walk on Eggshells, about her experiences helping her daughter navigate the dire straits of the mental health system in the UK. Family involvement is a big positive in handling bipolar disorder effectively.

The CD costs £6.50 postpaid in the UK. Not sure about the rest of the world, but it’s also available as mp3s. Buy it with PayPal and download it on the spot.

Technorati: bad+alice suzy+johnston indie depression psychosis self+harm The+Naked+Bird+Watcher mp3

Music Download: Red Bird & the Meatheads

Got an mp3 in an email from a friend the other day. As you can see above, Windows Media Player made an excellent visualization for the song, which is called Red Bird & the Meatheads.

it is about my birds. he would like me to tell you that the goofy voices are his singing what the birds yak. he does a good job. i am serious when i tell you that any resemblance to a parody of bob dylan is unintentional. it is magic, this song. i really believe that. he did it in twenty minutes & i– & this is me, remember, hyper-critical & knowledgeable about every perfect thing– i have rarely heard anything this accomplished done in even twenty hours or twenty days. me, i am yakking myself too much, so i will just send the mp3.

he would like me to tell you it is called “red bird & the meatheads.”

Technorati: music, mp3

Woodwarbler’s JazzGrass stream. The music starts about a minute into the stream after the tail end of the previous show.

My friend Brian Aust has a new radio show called Woodwarbler’s JazzGrass at WGDR Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. I took a quick listen before writing this post and wound up listening for a half hour! What is JazzGrass? you might wonder. It is an eclectic mix of Old Timey Bluegrass that evolves into Jazz later in the show. Brian is a great guy and Bluegrass music is just plain fun. Kind of like speed metal for country boys.

In case the link above doesn’t work, go to the WGDR music archive page and select April 30,2007 at 1935 (7:35PM) Eastern Time. The show is 2 hours long. The show is available for download, too, for download to your mp3 player.

I’ll update this link when I hear that the show has become a permanent institution at WGDR. Drop a dollar or two in the hat while you’re there.

Public radio needs your help. But that is a topic for a huge rant about large corporations owning all the media outlets in town and taking wonderful but less popular music genres off the airwaves in the name of profit. Not to mention pooling all the news outlets into one incestual mass of mediocrity.

Molex 54819-0572
USB On-The-Go (OTG) Mini-B Receptacle, Right Angle, SMT Solder Tails and Shell Tabs, with Cover Tape, Lead-free

FYI, this is a drop-in replacement for the [tag]miniUSB[/tag] connector in the [tag]RCA Lyra RD2850[/tag] MP3 player.