Hackers released a seventh cache of files leaked from Sony Pictures Entertainment on Saturday, along with a promise of more to come.
It would appear things are going to get a lot worse for SONY..
Here is some cool conspiracy for your Saturday..
Sony Pictures, which made the James Bond and Spider-Man films has abandoned shoots after hackers crippled its computers and leaked four films
This is huge..
The news is being submitted to the masses by THE TIMES in the UK.. The reason, so the story goes, is because all of the hacking implications have now led SONY unable to process payments..
There are some other bits of news that join this headline about Sony today, including the news that Angelina Jolie cannot attend an UNBROKEN premiere because she has developed Chicken Pox!..
The brutal hack attack is doing a lot more hurt to credibility of not only SONY but other power players too.. Like Maureen Dowd, who according to leaked documents now being seen promised to show her column to Amy Pascal’s husband before publication.. Perhaps no ethical boundary was crossed, though? Dowd denies she did this. Sure the documents show she was going to, but now Maureen is in damage control..
With all of this information now becoming public—and more and more every day—SONY employees just got a message on their computers. From the hackers! According to an article appearing in THE WRAP, a new warning message was sent to computers.. the article dubbed it ‘ominous’. Several staffers who got the message, the WRAP says, felt disturbed after reading it..
Just to think back for a bit. This entire news cycle of hacking mania began when the Guardians of Peace delivered movies not released yet to the public after their hack job.. It wasn’t until days later that more of the drips and drabs of info was spilled. Racist emails between execs.. Dowd’s denials.. most of SONY pictures computers now offline to the point where payments cannot be processed. Social security numbers released. Families of employees getting threatening messages.. All because of THE INTERVIEW?
North Korea?
Still so many unanswered questions..
And investors have just got to be watching this.
I have asked many times over since this story developed that, if North Korea is linked and proof is evident that the nation state was behind the hack job and subsequent further hackings and warnings, then what? Is this an act of war? Cyber war is how the future’s games are going to be played.. does America respond? Did we already?
Clandestine efforts may be made in the aftermath of the PR and criminal disaster now hitting SONY.
But follow up responses may not matter when payments aren’t made, the talent cast trust the employers, and the public sees the true secrets of Tinseltown’s most ugly players.
This SONY hack attack has more implications than anyone could have imagined last month. Then it made a blip on the evening news.. A few movies released by hackers.
Today… so much more is happening. So much more of cyber war..
I have a feeling we are only seeing the opening credits in this long movie.
The argument uses Biblical history as evidence that Paganism didn’t lead to Christmas.
But explains Christmas trees..?
And why the Church chose a Pagan holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ.
I love Christmas.. I think religious people and secular can agree, Christmas is fun and festive, cool and cold.
I was born and raised Catholic, so I understand both sides of the argument. But I was never offended by the notion that Paganism was the original Christianity. I love it..
I even love Krampus.
I was always afraid he’s give me a stick.
That’s over 250,000 tons.
If we would have tried a bit harder, we could have got this to 300,000 tons.
There’s always next year.
The Weather Channel waits a bit to issue their winter forecast.. the NOAA does it in the fall. I think Accuweather does it the winter before (I kid, I kid. But they do at around the end of the summer and sometimes get it right on the money in some freakishly psychic way.)
But the Weather Channel waits.
They waited so long I actually missed it when they issued it—November 23!
But since I was searching for weather related news—while looking outside at about 13 inches of snow that fell yesterday—I found it. Read it. Digested it. Became somewhat dyspeptic.
The point at which I cringed:
WSI forecasters looked at several other technical indices and long-range computer models that also point to an above-average chance of blocking patterns in the northern latitudes — the kind of patterns that can force bitterly cold air from the polar and Arctic regions southward into the U.S.
WSI says that, based on conditions over the Pacific Ocean, the West Coast is more likely to be protected from those intrusions by a northward bulge in the jet stream — known as a high-pressure ridge — and that those cold air intrusions are more likely to be pointing toward the East Coast and the Deep South instead.
So. Get ready for that.
The story behind this photo.
It is a statue of Neptune. According to a number of websites, like this one, it is guarding an underground ballroom. The site linked—and many others—are showcasing a number of other photographs of the secret room under a lake in Witley Park in England.. The site has gone viral, as they say.. It is being shared across the internet and people are making their typical sarcastic and somewhat but not really humorous short lived comments about the images featured.
But that’s the internet. A place where news cycles get spun and news stories constantly get recycled.
On this most recent burst of news articles, it all started on REDDIT—things mostly do, either REDDIT or 4CHAN. In this case, a user posted the images of the under water ballroom and …viola.. sent around the globe.
But now this message appears on REDDIT where the image was once hosted:
Hi, folks, I’m the guy who first posted this to /r/interestingasfuck , and it kind of spread from there.
Since then, I received a very polite email from the son of the couple who lives on this estate asking that I please take the post down. They suffer several break-ins on their property whenever information about this room hits the internet, and he’s worried both for their safety and the curious people coming to find the room. Not only is the lake an obviously dangerous place to poke around, the couple also has several firearms close at hand because break-ins are such a problem, and he is worried that someone is going to end up shot because his parents are so scared.
You’re free to do as you please, of course, but I have removed my
post. It’s probably too late to do much good, but it’s something we can
do to help
Perhaps even more interesting, if you follow through to the FLICKR account where the images were first (first?) posted in the year 2008, this message appears:
Since my visit, I have been informed by a number of sources that the ballroom is now also locked and alarmed. I don’t need to point out that breaking into a locked premises is breaking and entering and is illegal; it’s also against the generally accepted urban exploration rules (somewhere here: www.forbidden-places.net/why.php).
Due to the above, please don’t contact me for access details as I won’t provide them.
I also suggest against visiting Witley as you will have a long walk around the lake only to be confronted by a padlock. If you get spotted wandering about private properly with bolt croppers, expect to be arrested.
I get this feeling, regardless of what the owner of the property hopes for, this newfound internet exposure is only going to lead to further attempts at break ins..
I grew up in Centralia, and still live close by at this point in my life adventure. For decades now, tourists and sight seers have been coming by the town to look for any bit of history or smoke filled mountains from the underground fire that they can. Often they walk away confused and disjointed—you can hardly see evidence of a burning fire, they don’t know that until they get there. I also think that it’s probably best all of the houses besides the few with residents are gone. If not, they’d be broken into by people, things stolen.. valuables trashed. Memories bashed.
Even Chernobyl has looters and people who don’t care too much about radiation, and instead just want to get a piece of nuclear history.
In the matter of the house under the lake: The property owners will not have to face even more news coverage as these images are one again passed around. They must cringe when they turn browse the Net..
The mass face sitting begins.
These protests will feature women sitting no men’s faces. Also included: Whipping, female ejaculation, spanking and fisting—all banned by the new regulations for online porn in the UK.
Should be quite an interesting day of voicing concerns about civil liberties and the freedom of expressing. And female ejaculations.
For those who think the Senate torture roper was going to make an impact..
CBS announced that May 20, 2015, will be David Letterman’s final show on the network..
This will be a milestone for the country. I really mean that.
Letterman may not be really all that funny anymore, but he was once so cutting edge that he was sharper than new knives. He was inventive and ironic..
I was at a taping of the LATE SHOW in the early 2000s.. Not impressed completely by that but still amazing to be in the Ed Sullivan theater.
I grew up watching Letterman. Ever since, as a kid, I read the Frank Miller DARK KNIGHT I was inspired to figure out who the pop culture icon was featured in the comic:
I fondly recall Friday nights, staying up late, watching LATE NIGHT and then LATE SHOW when he switched networks..
I also had a secret in school. Not many other kids really knew who Letterman was, so I would set my VCR each night to record his show. The next morning, before school, I watched his skits and copied some of the humor off of it, doing the same types of things at school that day. No one ever knew.
Until now.
Regardless, the whole thing changes on May 20 next year. Letterman will ride off into the sunset, and become the next biggest talk show host since Carson to leave television. Will Bette Midler kiss him, too?
I am not so sure about Stephen Colbert.. the jury is out.
But on Letterman, my decision was that he redefined late night comedy.
Now someone has to redefine it again. I don’t think it’s Colbert.
I personally have always believed whichever network chose a woman to host a late night comedy show was going to be the one that redefined it. And that has yet to happen..
I wrote what one of my friends called the weirdest of all posts yet the other day here concerning how, well.. I think the sun’s angle in the sky is changing compared to this month other times in the past. I understand this sounds loony.. I get that is also is illogical. But at the same time, photographs prove to me that something is different..
I note this previous post from days ago only because I received what I felt to be an interesting comment on the story.. The screen cap here:
I ask you only to add this to your already steady diet of lunacy. Watch the videos.. discern for yourselves. I am humble enough to know I should not comment much on things that I can be proven very wrong about. And this issue is one of them.. You can watch the videos yourselves and check out the links included.
I just know this: The sunset last year at this time is not where it is this year.
That much I know.
The other day, while I explaining to my mother some of the best parts the future has to hold due to technology, she espoused the common belief among her age group: “I hope I’m dead by then.” Mixed in that sentiment: The fear of the future, and the regretfullness at the same time of not learning everything about the internet that she wants to.
But she is not the only one who fears upcoming upheaval. I do, too. Technology’s advancements and human beings’ changes are occurring mighty quickly lately. No more slow drips of progress.. these days we are printing in 3D everything from houses to lungs and the future, oh that future, appears to be muddled in some kind of puddle transhumanism/eternal health and happiness.
Regardless of the niceties to come, there are reasons to fear.. When certain governments use progress to hurt society that is awful. When corporations hate their customer and worker, that is equally unfair..
In a sense, robotic advancements on their own are neither moral or immoral. A robot lacks a soul, it lacks the consciousnesses of life.. We think at least. But let’s go with the idea that they do.. When human beings, rife with more good and evil thoughts, get a hold of the robot, bad things can happen.
A robot can be used to build a house.
Or destroy an entire village of women and children in a war.
Take you pick.
On the fear concept, we are hearing from Google’s Eric Schmidt. He says to embrace the brave new world of the artificial future..don’t fear the reaper.
WIRED reports in more detail. Issie Lapowsky writes,
According to Schmidt, people have been concerned about machines taking over the world for centuries. “Go back to the history of the loom. There was absolute dislocation,” he said, “but I think all of us are better off with more mechanized ways of getting clothes made.” Plus, he argued, in the past economies have prospered the more they adopt these new technologies. “There’s lots of evidence that when computers show up, wages go up,” he said. “There’s lots of evidence that people who work with computers are paid more than people without.”
The real threat, he believes, is that education systems around the world aren’t teaching their students the skills they need to work together with these increasingly intelligent machines. “The correct concern,” Schmidt explained, “is what we’re going to do to improve the education systems and incentive systems globally, in order to get people prepared for this new world, so they can maximize their income.”
Lapwosky goes on to write of how Schmidt thinks that technology is much more primitive than people think. I agree with him on that. I do not think we are quite ‘there’ yet as far as the real rapid fire changes that society is going to have to adapt to. I do disagree with him, too. I think humanity is not ready for robots to replace their jobs. Government is not ready, either.. businesses may not be either!
Robots are doing everything from picking apples in farms to making cars to serving food at restaurants. All things have a mechanical element. Even the idea of bureaucrats pushing paper for hours a day in theory could be replaced by a robot doing the same—and perhaps more efficiently without office gossip or smoke breaks to boot.
People used to be freaked by Google. Remember about ten years ago when Gmail was introduced? Millions of people are shocked to learn that Google would be able to scan personal email to use it as product placement and ad generation. (and much much more, we just don’t talk about that) .. Then millions of people signed up and all was forgotten.
Same will occur here. Everything is eventual. And technological advancements are as well..
But for the betterment of society? Only society’s response in years will tell us the real tale of what good or bad effect it had..
I can say this, though: We need to start preparing now for a majority of people not working, not having the ability to compete with robots, and signing up for government benefits.
Maybe the idea of the wage floor will make sense to a society in the future.
Maybe that future is coming very, very soon..
But even more important from the DEADLINE read on this SONY hack job: Why are people who had projects with SONY suddenly tweeting their horror at the SONY hack? One even saying the information dump is ‘terrorism.’
My take: They are reading the trove of emails between Pascal and Rudin.. they are seeing the racist comments about the President.. they are amazed at the free flowing hatred of Jolie.. and they are looking themselves in the mirror attempting to recall what type of sordid things they wrote while under contract or employ at SONY..
Philip Lord called the SONY hack terrorism—noteworthy that this battle cry waited for almost ten days to be made..
Rian Johnson said “This Sony hack is some vile shit.”
In the spirit of full disclosure, I also asked the question: If the Sony hack was inspired by a nation state or conducted by one, is that an act of war? That was written on November 30—when the SONY leak actually occurred and the “GOP” group claimed responsibility..
Since then major news outlets, both of the Hollywood kind and the mainstream, have latched onto the controversial emails and could care less about why they were hacked or what ramifications it has on geo political affairs.
At first I thought SONY was trying to make a positive out of a negative, turn this into a story about North Korea attacking them over a movie, and using that to advertise the movie. Since that point, this has fallen apart for SONY, with investors and big money getting wary of what they will read next.
And read lots we are. Those big media outlets are in a feeding frenzy going through the bits and bytes of email for the next salacious thing.
Meanwhile, the INTERVIEW is readying for its debut and North Korea is silently smiling at the entire event..
Strange times we live in, indeed.
Oh bloody hell mate!
Check out this scene.. 100+ mph gusts and a massive storm sweeping the UK..
I am sure the photos and news videos I am seeing on this just aren’t doing any justice to how raw and massive this storm is..
My hope is that British and other readers from the UK message me or SUBMIT news or photos to me of just how bad it is..
An exchange between Sony Pictures chair Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin turned into a riff on films they thought the president liked.
A few things can certainly be taken from this.. Regardless of how many people in Hollywood voted for President Obama, there are still filled with racist and bigoted intent.. The emails may prove that—unless of course they were just slickly joking in some form of an ironic sense of humor knowing the emails would never become public.
Until the Guardians of Peace stole them on behalf of North Korea. Or whatever happened.
Now we know.. Hollywood elites think that Angelina Jolie is a brat, and that black presidents will only watch movies about black people. The BUZZFEED report on the email chain now making some news,
In what has become the latest embarrassing email uncovered in a trove of messages leaked by hackers who attacked Sony, Pascal wrote Rudin: “What should I ask the president at this stupid Jeffrey breakfast?” She was referring to a breakfast hosted by DreamWorks Animation head and major Democratic donor Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Rudin, a top film producer responsible for films like No Country for Old Men andMoneyball, responded, “Would he like to finance some movies.” Pascal replied, “I doubt it. Should I ask him if he liked DJANGO?” Rudin responded: “12 YEARS.” Pascal quickly continued down the path of guessing Obama preferred movies by or starring African Americans. “Or the butler. Or think like a man? [sic]”
Rudin’s response: “Ride-along. I bet he likes Kevin Hart.”
So what else did these two crazy cats have to say? Oh.. give it a bit, it looks like we’ll find out.
The Coal Speaker Christmas 2014 family portrait has been taken. Mutley is edging in closer.. The leg lamp is on. The Christmas lights, though, are still balled up in a disgraceful mess on the desk. My wife Tara is a graduate and, as you can see, Ayden is fully engaged with snow and throwing it accordingly at me..
A little not: Ayden requested Frankenstein in a Christmas hat. Really.
He sees the little logo on top of CoalSpeaker.com when either update the site or view it.. he always stops and tells me to include Frankenstein, because he says Frankie is a ‘good guy.’
So he joins the family in the Christmas spirit.
