Skin challenged cats and such

Livejournal has a public feed where voyeurs and the merely bored can watch all the data posted to the site. One page I know of that uses this feed is here. It shows you the last 40 images posted to LJ. This is not for the faint of heart, people post some truly unpleasant stuff. But, by and large, they post things they simply want to share with others, and much of that is amusing even without the context of the poster.

While I don't think I'm particularly voyeuristic, I do enjoy opening a closed box for the simple joy of discovery as much as anyone. I found myself visiting the page enough that I needed to know; how'd they do that?

( Follows geek stuff and code )

Well, that's my lazy Saturday of scripting. Funny how the simple problems can spawn so many answers. Or, how, with such problems we're often driven to ferret out those answers.

Security Failure

Some people don't trust computer security. The sad fact is, computers can be extremely secure; most failures in security systems are the fault of the carbon based units running the show. This is not news. It is the goal of many professions to essentially idiot proof systems. The problem is that homo sap has notoriously creative idiots.

There has been a perceptible shift in how some computer systems handle security, with Microsoft's new offering being a shining example of the technique. Vista asks the user every time some action that could possibly be questionable is performed. The are only two possible outcomes of this behavior, the user either turns off the questions or becomes so numb to answering that they just through by rote.

Net effect, the "security" system is functionally useless, with no possible hope of doing it's stated job. So, why implement such a system? Short answer, accountability. When something in the system fails, the blame can now be effectively shifted; "You said yes, not our fault."

One of my online banking site just sent me through hoops with extra questions. Questions that will make my life more annoying and lessen their responsibility. It's for my own good, of course. Why the hell do warning bells ring so loud when something is done "for my own good?" Is such a statement ever really true?