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Dirty IT job No. 5: Fearless malware hunter
Wanted: Go-getter with inquisitive nature and a high tolerance for gore, sleaze, and the baser instincts of humanity.

Hunting malware means crawling the deepest, darkest, nastiest corners of the Web, because that's where the bad stuff usually congregates -- such as drive-by installs on porn and warez sites, says Patrick Morganelli, senior vice president of technology for anti-malware vendor Enigma Software.

"Due to the nature of the sites we need to monitor, one of our first questions in any job interview here is, 'Would you mind viewing the most offensive pornography you've ever seen in your life?' Because that's what a lot of malware research entails."

Even employees not actively involved in malware research can encounter deep nastiness, he says. One time an employee merely passed by a support technician's display while the tech was remotely logged in to a customer's PC. What the employee saw on the tech's screen was so disturbing that he quit shortly thereafter.

Sounds a lot like something like this.

Sure, smart idea. Piss off a legion of anime geeks with computer skills who live all around the world.

By the time Obama finishes saying "tragedy" North Korea will be surrending.

I'm sure the North Koreans are terrified

I want to find out what the Penny-Arcade guys think of this thing.

Actually, the PA comic this made me think of was this.

Ad Infinitum.

That's easy.

Heh...that just means they'll lube ya before the they have the robots anal probe ya...

I'll meet your Obligatory xkcd and raise you one Penny Arcade, good sir.

Seriously... you're an idiot if you are going to twitter about taking a shit or a piss. If you're going to twitter something meaningful, like hey I'm on the subway and its being delayed b/c some jackass jumped off the platform and I'm going to be late to (wherever). Then supposing you're friends are following you they will know... where you are and why you're late. Twittering is no more idiotic than instant messaging. Its like an email list for instant messaging. It has qualities a chat room lacks like a degree of permanence. But hey lets make another joke about twittering your bathroom habits and maybe you'll get modded +5 funny and not just redundant.

Oblig: Le Twittre.

"I just took a dump" and other messages are basically the essence of Twitter

"I'm a twitter shitter!"

I prefer the racketeering claim

It's gratifying, and somewhat surprising, to see state officials put a stake through the bloated, foetid, rotting corpse of that ridiculous little man.

The guy's always been a noxious little puke, but when he started having a crack at Penny Arcade, it became clear just how deranged a nut-job he was.

Sorry, I don't really have anything to add to the discussion. I just really wanted to smile and breathe a sigh: Yessssss...

"everyone" being "Slashdot, Digg, and basement denizens everywhere".

Meanwhile, the real world 'heard Vista sucked'. They have also 'heard 7 is great'. And yet, despite all the 'Vista sucks!' being thrown around, it didn't slow down adoption at all. And most people liked it. And Vista already has three times the users as OS X does.

Disclaimer: I use Ubuntu at home, and at work we're still using XP and will be for the foreseeable future.

Last House on the Left is a remake of Wes Cravens "Last House on the Left" from the 70s, there also has been many many "torture porn" style movies from the 60's to the 70s, I spit on your grave, Cannibal Ferox there is tons of examples of these films long before turds like SAW and HOSTEL hit the scene.

As for EW comments, http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/

On "Bully" , Have you played it? Or are you just bringing it up because of the controversy that was generated by other people who have never played it and villified it because of the name and because of its creator Rockstar Games?

lastly "Tales of the Black Freighter" never existed, it was created for the Watchmen, while there was comics back in the day that were gruesome ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority) you should probably reference material that existed during that time.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020722h.gif

I'm probably late, but

Just Tell The Story

How Could They Do Such A Thing

Oblig. Penny Arcade reference.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/09/26/

This should tell you a little bit about what it is like to work with or even near Mr. Ellison.

Awesome. And you're not the only one...

So Tycho and I are up in front of the audience with Harlen, and Hank (the con organizer) presents us with some jester hats (âoeFoolâ(TM)s capsâ). Tycho and I put ours on because we are polite, but Harlen - who is apparently too cool for school - refuses to wear his. I turn to him and say, âoeDonâ(TM)t you want your hat?â and he tells me to fuck off. This caught me off guard, I mean I have no clue who this fucking coot is. Then he points to a pad of paper he has and asks if Iâ(TM)m aware that his paper is also called foolscap. Now, Iâ(TM)ve never heard that term before, I pretty much just call it paper so I shake my head âoeno.â This really isnâ(TM)t a fair question. I mean, it would be like me asking him about Photoshop or if he can remember what he had for lunch. The guy was essentially setting me up to look stupid in front of all these people. So then he asks me if I even attended college and I say âoeNo, I did not.â Then, he says âoedid you at least finish high school?â
I said that I had, but you couldnâ(TM)t really hear me because the audience is laughing at me along with Harlen. So once they stop, I turn to him and I say, âoeWhile Iâ(TM)ve got you here I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Star Wars stuff you wrote.â

I didnâ(TM)t know him very well but I felt like mistaking him for someone who writes Star Wars books was the sort of insult that would cut right to his brittle old bones. The audience seemed to agree because I could hear a lot of oooooooohâ(TM)s and oh noâ(TM)s over the laughing. Some people in the front even suggested a fist fight was now in order. I look over at Harlen and heâ(TM)s staring at me like he wants to choke me. He then says âoeso thatâ(TM)s how itâ(TM)s going to be.â Now keep in mind that heâ(TM)s the one that started hostilities when he told me to fuck off. Iâ(TM)m just the one that finished it. The guy tells some pretty funny stories about how witty he is and how heâ(TM)s always saying clever things at exactly the right moment. When confronted with someone who was unwilling to take any crap from him he had no clever retort. The great writer just glared at me and then walked off stage. I donâ(TM)t doubt that given enough time he could craft a perfectly worded and extremely vicious response but up there on stage in front of all his fans the man didnâ(TM)t have shit.

I donâ(TM)t blame Harlen for not knowing who I am. I honestly donâ(TM)t expect him to. I donâ(TM)t expect anyone that old to know who I am. I did expect him to be polite and at least respect the fact that I was a fellow guest of honor. That was apparently too much to ask for from the great Harlen Elison.

-Gabe Out

I really enjoyed the Star Wars stuff he wrote...

Oh, indeed.

I think Pac-Man said it best http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/4/14/

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/9/

Or worse...

All the players are consolidated into 1 place, and I can trust Blizzard to keep all the data trustworthy and not tamper with it (like giving their buddies free epics or the like).

Are you sure? ;)

Reminds me of this, in a way:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/02/09/

I'm guessing you do know what RSS is, just not how it applies to torrents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

In any case, RSS reading functionality on a torrent client does make it so you start downloading things without user interaction, but it's very configurable. I've only had one item start that I didn't want, and that's because I didn't do enough specification on my regular expression. For the most part, it's a huge time-saver, because I can sit back on my couch and watch TV, without having to check my computer every few minutes to see if an item I want has been posted yet. That may sound crazy, but I want to watch something as soon as it's available. It helps avoid spoilers.

You say that now, but when your mom is standing behind you as you search for movie ticket show times, and the ads are all about "Big Heads In Deep Holes", you might think again...

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/18/

Obligatory PA reference: The Whedonite's Dilemma.

They rued this day, and rued it hard.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/09/26/ are the relevant posts. Draw your own conclusions.

He's probably angrily shaking his chelicerae in the air, and vowing to write a nasty letter to the Washington State legislators.

Their response, the related comic.

Their response, the related comic.

Obligatory penny arcade:
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/30/

Thank you, Mr. Further Proof.

Troll.

If they're protecting those poor underdog artists, then what's with the extortion tactics they use?

They'd have more success with racketeering than extortion.

A portal to a slippery slope?

Sounds fun!

Don't forget using Twit data mining to determine facility usage!

Exactly! Otherwise, Steve turns into The Fleshreaper and starts collecting torsos.

Penny Arcade covered this back in 2005.

This condition is commonly know as the soul callous.

It sounds like a review of Ultima Online. Apparently you can do *anything*, and on the internet that generally reduces to "be a prick".

Quick, before someone makes another reference to an unfunny XKCD strip, Shitcock!

Nope.

"User experience may change..." notices always have that little ESRB tag attached to them, even on Nintendo Wii games. The reason is that there is "user-generated" content on there. If you're playing Halo 3 with someone online, you can't guarantee that they won't start spewing obscene language everywhere. You can't guarantee that they're not going to use words that would make a sailor blush. You can't guarantee that someone won't insert a crude drawing on in-game art, or do something else with a webcam... you just can't.

That little tag is the ESRB throwing up their hands and saying "screw it, we can't actually rate this", but if a game got a bad reputation for user behavior with enough substantiated reports, they COULD theoretically use that to "adjust" the game's rating retroactively.

Am I the only one who likes the brown color scheme?

Nope - I like it too, although I never would have thought I would before. As another poster said, it is surprisingly comfortable. Also, it goes well with this Penny Arcade wallpaper.

Hmm... there's a mistake in the radar.oreilly article. It was pretty jarring to read it, it concerns Divx. The author has confused Divx Discs with Self-Destruct DVDs that rot when exposed to air. I mean they are both bad technologies, and arguably are intended to acheive the same goal, but they are still different.

Divx was a complicated technology that was designed to lock out Divx discs from playing in certain circumstances. For instance, you "buy" a Divx DVD for the cheapest price available, and then you are locked out of watching it again until you "buy" it again. Or you get the "Gold Divx" subscription (not available for all Divx Discs), and you can theoretically watch the disk an unlimited number of times... on the particular Divx player you had the Gold subscription for that particular Divx disk on.

As Penny Arcade thoughtfully pointed out, Divx disks were hewn cold from the bones of the stillborn. They were thought up by Satan, Disney, some entertainment industry lawyers, and Circuit City where service is state of the art. (Rot in Hell, Circuit City!)

The concept behind Divx hasn't gone away, but nowadays it's more likely to be applied to video games. This is because just as Divx was supposed to eliminate the very concept of first sale and used DVDs, you now hear video game companies whining about the used video game market. (They'll get a wakeup call soon though, their industry isn't as recession proof as they thought and the used video game market will soon be the least of their worries.)

Twitter Shitter

I don't see anything worth the effort or expense of putting together a BeOS/Haiku box.

Agreed. Here's a topical webcomic: (substitute 'tribes n' for 'beos')

Dead horse

Ignorant mod doesn't read Penny Arcade? It's only eight days old, too!

Spoilers below:
As Regards Spoilification

Yea I agree.

Microsoft's actions and strategy is based on their philosophy which is fairly Machiavellian. The problem is they have to compete, and work like crazy to try and convince/control people, that will believe what they want anyway.

It's the difference between blue ocean strategy or red ocean strategy. Nintendo recently took on the blue ocean strategy (red ocean because it runs red with blood from competition). And you can see that it's not really working for them.