Ian King blows Telus’s port-blocking racket wide open in the Feb. 24th Terminal City:

To protect themselves from attacks, high-speed users often put their machines behind a firewall that only allows certain types of Internet traffic through to their computer, blocking the rest. If they want to allow certain connections, they open the ports to incoming connection.

But Telus took that choice out of residential users’ hands when it began blocking selected ports–regardless of their customers’ security preferences–in May 2004.

Read on…

I… this is so unexpected. I’m just… I’m overwhelmed.

First, let me say to the other nominees, each of you deserved this award more than I did. It’s mine now, and you’ll never get to touch it, but for what it’s worth, it should have been yours.

To the academy, thank you, thank you, thank you for not nominating me in one of those loser categories where we all have to stand on stage together.

You have opened a door tonight. For the first time, you have given an award to someone who has never made a film, never even been on a film set except that one time I stumbled into “Scooby Doo 2″ while they were shooting downtown, and who did nothing remotely film-related this year or frankly ever.

I cannot tell you what kind of hope that gives the billions of people around the world who also aren’t making films.

To everyone who believed in me — that lovely girl at the Gap who said I looked 30 just so she could land the commission from that pair of khakis, the guy from Ipsos-Reid who called me last night and spent 20 minutes just asking me my opinion — you rock.

I want to dedicate this award to the guys down at Magnum Repossession and Collections, Incorporated. Don’t worry, dudes — I’ll have this mother pawned and the money in your hands by dawn.

Okay. So, today’s lesson is, don’t wait until the day before your domain expires before trying to renew it.

In theory, that shouldn’t be a problem. The process is completely automated; you just log on at any time of the day or night, feed your credit card to your registrar and your record is updated with a shiny new expiry date.

But there’s many a slip twixt cup and IP. Say, for instance, your registrar doesn’t answer its phone or e-mail on the weekends, as was the case with me. Read on…

You know the future? The one where anyone with an idea would be able to publish it online without any intermediaries — no publishers, no editors, no bookstores?

Apparently we’re here. Please disembark in an orderly manner. (And feel free to tip your guide. Ahem.)

From Lawrence Lessig, quoting a friend on Harvard’s faculty:
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There’s a special sadness to news of the Pope’s illness — that after such a remarkable life, his last significant communication to the world may well be something as ungenerous of spirit as his condemnation of same-sex marriage as “part of a new ideology of evil”:
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I just found out that Moderne Burger has closed following a fire.

“Good” doesn’t begin to describe the hamburgers at Moderne Burger. Or the fries. Or the shakes. Or the cherry cola. Or the astonishing, painstakingly-selected vintage fixtures — I hope they survived the blaze.

If you haven’t been, well, you’ve missed something. Roland Tanglao’s review will have to tide you over until Peter reopens the restaurant’s doors.

The big issue right now in U.S. federal politics is the future of social security. (Everything you want to know about how this is shaking down is covered diligently at Talking Points Memo.)

The Republican mantra as they plan to privatize large swaths of the program has been that it’s the only way to save Social Security.

So listen to the chant by Young Republicans serenading Senator Rick Santorum… and ask yourself if Karl Rove isn’t banging his head on his wall today. (Or an assistant’s head — Rove’s an extrovert.) (Get the details on the incident here if you don’t have time to download the video. All this by way of TPM.)

The lesson for Americans: Young Republicans sure don’t think the Bush plan is about saving Social Security.

And the lesson for spin doctors: your allies can blow you off-message just as surely as your opponents.

So with the fallout from Frank McKenna’s off-script adlibbing still settling over Ottawa like radioactive snow, it looks like the PM is about to bail on missile defence.

From an intellectual defensibility standpoint, this represents a real improvement for the PMO. Previously, their position had been a) that it was irresponsible, insane and reprehensible to suggest Canada shouldn’t participate in the scheme, but b) that despite (a), they hadn’t actually decided that we should.

(Essay topic: Was the contempt and derision that Martin’s cabinet heaped on Star Wars’ opponents an example of pre-decisional dissonance?)

Meanwhile, Paul Wells, as so often happens, has spun all of this into not one, but two skeins of comic gold:

If one bum McKenna scrum can actually get the trucks moving on time again in the capital, I say he will be wasted in Washington. Keep him in Ottawa, chain him to a post and force the poor sap to scrum six times a day. The resulting orgy of damage control will turn this into the most productive government in the nation’s history.

Government by gaffe. We always knew Martin would find a way to innovate.