Slashdot Mirror
Nmap Developers Release a Picture of the Web
iago-vL writes "The Nmap Project recently posted an awesome visualization of the top million site icons (favicons) on the Web, sized by relative popularity of sites. This project used the Nmap Scripting Engine, which is capable of performing discovery, vulnerability detection, and anything else you can imagine with lightning speed. We saw last month how an Nmap developer downloaded 170 million Facebook names, and this month it's a million favicons; I wonder what they'll do next?"
"We're going to Disney Land!" - NMAP Team
Sorry, my bad. I clicked the link to the 450MB source image they conveniently provided. Hmm maybe I should go with the scaled down version... only 123MB!
It's not like any other slashdotters are going to want those files. What could possibly go wrong?
"We're going to Disney Land!" - NMAP Team
One thing developers like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take Fyodor to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. “Oh, no,” I said, “Disneyland burned down.” He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I do, it's called "consulting".
Incidentally, just to the right of the Slashdot icon lives Virgin
/. crowd, methinks...
A little too close to home for the
I think the nmap.org icon just grew exponentially.
"The company website is *down*", laments a snivelling luser on my way in through the door.
"Ah, is it, then? Excellent! I'll take care of it in my office." The luser unfortunately shadows me through the hallway, running through my RFID-secured doorway after I open it. My office is dimly lit, with one focus bulb shining on a poster behind my monitor. I sit at my terminal, browsing my e-mail while drinking my coffee.
"But the website..."
I sigh. Why do they seem most hopeful when I try to ignore them so thoroughly? I gesture to the illuminated poster hanging on my wall. It's a massive framed artwork from Nmap's team of the favicons of the web's most visited websites. Customized slightly, of course. Where our site sits at the farthest edge of the bottom left of the page, I have mounted a microscopic flag with the tiny words "You Are Here" written on it in gold.
There is silence as the luser peers at the poster. Then, I hear a small, soul-crushed whimper as he finds his grand company's place on the web, and hear him shuffle from the room, and my door softly close behind him. I grin. Sometimes, it's all too easy to crush souls on Monday mornings...
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
Reminds me of the time Fyodor was over at the farm and he asked me what sex was. I said that instead of telling him what sex was, why don't I take him over to the horse pasture and show him? As we returned from the pasture, it was apparent that he had gained a valuable introduction to sex even though it did take him a few days to walk normally again.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
What Will They Do Next? Anti-Aliasing