In this Day of the Dead roundup: World Series Game 7, Rule 41, AT&T and net neutrality, Google spanks Microsoft, Slack smacks.

Happy All Saints’ Day Two — the second day of observation through Latin America as el Dia de los Muertos.

Was thinking of death and dying when I saw a post about one of my favorite movie soundtracks by one of my favorite contemporary composers. The Fountain, composed by Clint Mansell, was released today on vinyl. The 2006 film directed by Darren Aronofsky may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but the score surely must have wider appeal. The score features collaborative work of the contemporary classical chamber group Kronos Quartet and post-rock quartet Mogwai. The former provides most of the string work and the latter most of the rhythm, melding into some truly haunting music.

I think The Fountain is some of Mansell’s finest work; it was nominated for multiple awards including a Golden Globe. But do check out some of Mansell’s other film work, including that for Requiem for a Dream (especially the cut Lux Aeterna) and Black Swan. Stoker did not receive the recognition it should have; its presence is another character in the film. Granted, Mansell’s score for Stoker was only part of a soundtrack featuring other artists’ compositions.

World Series – Great Lakes Edition
So Game 7 is underway. I’d rather see Chicago Cubs up against Detroit Tigers, but the summer kitties let me down. I’m hoping for a Cubs win just because. What about you?

Cyber-y stuff

• Less than a month before Rule 41 deadline (ZDNet) — Congress has diddled around after the Supreme Court created a potentially awful opportunity for law enforcement overreach. I can’t even imagine the foreign policy snafus this could create, let alone the fuckups which could happen from searching machines with spoofed identities and locations. I can think of a case where a political entity plopped on an IP address belonging to a major corporation — now imagine some huckleberry charging into that situation. FIX THIS, CONGRESS.
• That’s not the airport, that’s the Kremlin! (MoscowTimes) — Speaking of spoofed identities, apparently the Kremlin’s location has been masked by a beacon emitting the GPS and GLONASS geolocation coordinates for the Vnokovo airport to prevent drones from snooping. An interesting bit, this…I wonder where/when else geolocation coordinates have been spoofed?
• AT&T ‘zero-rating’ on DirecTV content should be reviewed (WSJ) — Favoring DirecTV — owned by AT&T — by lifting data caps on its content isn’t net neutrality when content streamed from other providers like Netflix does count against data limits.
• AT&T already in the hot seat with USDOJ on Dodgers’ games (Bloomberg) — USDOJ sued AT&T and DirecTV for colluding with competitors to influence negotiations for Los Angeles Dodgers’ ball games. Imagine what this network will do if it owns content? Definitely not net neutrality — a perfect example of the conflict of interest between ISPs/network carriers and content creators.
• Google takes Microsoft to the woodshed in full view of public (Threatpost) — I think Google is fed up with Microsoft’s buggy software and slow response which causes Google a mess of heartburn to plug on their end. Google told Microsoft of a new major zero-day vulnerability being actively exploited and then told the public 10 days after they told Microsoft. Apparently, MSFT hadn’t gotten a grip on a fix yet nor issued an advisory to warn users. By the way, guess when the next Patch Tuesday is? Election Day in the U.S. Uh-huh.
• Slack takes out a full-page ad to welcome/razz Microsoft (WinBeta) — Microsoft is currently working on a competing group communication tool called Team, aimed at Slack’s market share. Slack welcomed the competition and gave MSFT some free pointers. Based on my experience, these pointers will go right over the head of MSFT’s management as they don’t mesh with their corporate culture.

That all for now, off to finish watching the Cubs who are giving it to Cleveland in a really fast-paced game that won’t last much longer at this rate. Must be all that Great Lakes water.