Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Printers open to hack attacks, Great Gay Softball debate, and a ‘Hooters style’ eatery for women

             Good Morning Humboldt County!

Welcome to my little corner of the universe. Step right in and have a seat. There’s hot coffee and tea to go along with several stories that will entertain and educate. Enjoy:

Exclusive: Millions of printers open to devastating hack attack, researchers say

Could a hacker from half-way around the planet control your printer and give it instructions so frantic that it could eventually catch fire? Or use a hijacked printer as a copy machine for criminals, making it easy to commit identity theft or even take control of entire networks that would otherwise be secure? It’s not only possible, but likely, say researchers at Columbia University, who claim they've discovered a new class of computer security flaws that could impact millions of businesses, consumers, and even government agencies.

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The Great Gay Softball Debate has been settled … out of court

A federal lawsuit brought by three players who were disqualified from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series because of their perceived heterosexuality has been settled out of court. The sum was undisclosed, but part of Monday’s settlement includes getting their second-place team trophy back.

Our story began in 2008 when a team was kicked out of the 2008 North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance softball world series for using non-gay ringers. The men — Stephen Apilado, Laron Charles and John Russ — filed the federal lawsuit against the NAGAAA last year, claiming they had been discriminated against because they were bisexual, not gay. They also said that they were subjected to embarrassing questions by a tournament committee trying to determine if they were, in fact, gay.

      New restaurant aims to be the “Hooters for women”

Mies Contatiner, a new restaurant in Seoul, South Korea, is catering to female customers by flipping the Hooters model on its head, hiring an all-male staff and designing the eatery's interiors to look like a factory construction site.

Journalist Steven Kim says Koreans are famous for not waiting in line. So, when word spread that people were waiting 30 minutes or longer for a table at the new Mies Container, Kim looked for an explanation:

“Around nine out of ten of the customers queuing around the building were young women in their 20s.

When a good-looking young waiter with a hip-hop scarf tied around on his head appeared and called out in a booming voice that a table for five was available, I began to understand why so many women were waiting in line.

And indeed, most of the rumors about Mies Container are about the restaurant's young, hot, male waiters and the "macho" atmosphere, which has proven to be a hit with the impatient young Seoulites who would never wait the 30 minutes in line anywhere else.”

Customers are even given hardhats with their order numbers. And the walls are adorned with notes from appreciative notes to the male staff, such as, "Dear hot waiter, please marry me!" The owners of Mies Container have also embarked on what might be considered a hipster marketing campaign, forgoing social media outreach and even now-traditional forms of marketing like a company website in favor of a strict word-of-mouth approach.

Time to walk on down the road…

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