The Raven

Sunday, January 26, 2003

Zero-Sum Game

You hear that term quite a bit from analysts, and it means a game with winners and losers, like Chess or Poker. Or war. Let's see who's playing out there and what they're fighting for.

Risk

The best way to win a fight is to secure victory before it even starts. That's the psychological game, and we're in a big one in the Middle East. Colin Powell made a few moves on the board at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today, expressing his lack of faith in the arms inspectors:

"To those who say, 'Why not give the inspections process more time?', I ask: 'How much more time does Iraq need?'...It is not a matter of time, it is a matter of telling the truth, and Saddam still responds with evasion and lies."

"Saddam should tell the truth—now!"

The diplomatic game is in full tilt. Saber-rattling, brinksmanship, the whole package. The UK Independent has a strong editorial this morning worth reading titled, "Stop. Think. Listen."

Stop the rush to war. Think of the consequences. Listen to reason.

They note that preparations are gaining a life of their own, that "the momentum towards war is almost unstoppable," and you can't argue with that, not while the machine ratchets another notch forward. We're rooting for reason, though, and hope that the juggernaut can be stopped in time.

Cootie

In the classic version, you roll the Cootie Cube and try to finish your bug before the other players do. In the modern variant, you build an "incredibly loud" Internet worm named Sapphire and use it to attack service providers running SQL Server. You don't technically win this game, but everyone loses. We noticed a dramatic slowdown in Net traffic yesterday morning, and had all kinds of hassles getting the Raven uploaded. But it could have been worse: In South Korea, one of the most wired countries on earth, the Net almost completely shut down. So far, security experts suspect a Chinese hacking team known as the Honker group as being responsible, although you have to wonder if this was Kevin Mitnick's way of saying, "I'm baaaack."

A more technical analysis with directions for recovery is available at CERT/CC. They discovered that "compromise by the worm indicates that a remote attacker can execute arbitrary code as the local SYSTEM user on the victim system," meaning that the attacker could gain Admin access to an infected machine.

The Sims

Here's a popular time-waster. In The Sims you manipulate semi-autonomous characters and hope they form meaningful relationships with each other. Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is getting into the game by producing a male-driven version of "Sex and the City" for HBO. Titled "Sinchronicity," the show "will focus on the colourful social lives of a group of free-spirited singletons," at least one of whom is expected to be gay. Everyone will lose as the vapid bachelors give new meaning to the stock-broker's strategy known as "pump-and-dump."

Twister

In the popular Hasbro game of Twister, the "spinner" calls out "left foot blue!" and "right hand red!" leading to adolescent explorations best unbeknownst to parents. In the modern version, Martha Stewart contorts into amazing positions in a futile attempt to avoid a massive civil fine and a jail sentence.

In a heartbreaking story this morning, Martha is reported to be "begging for mercy" and sent her lawyers to meet with Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jim Comey last Thursday to request that she not be prosecuted for insider trading. Funny, but I didn't think you could just ask the Feds to lay off—you normally have to cut some kind of a deal with 'em. This gal must have some serious juice.

Two sources tell the News Stewart's attorneys, including high-profile lawyer Robert Morvillo, made the last-ditch move after federal securities regulators warned Stewart they were ready to file civil charges against her.

The civil fine amounts to "about $120,000," but in her world, you spend that on a tablecloth. The loss of social capital, on the other hand, is probably killing her.

The Big Game

That would be SuperBowl XXXVII, a clash of titans to determine the intergalactic champions of football for now and for all time. We were thinking about putting together a Woman's Guide to the SuperBowl, offering some helpful survival tips. But upon reflection, we figure that if you have the bad luck to be stuck in a home today filled with hooting, howling monkeys, you probably know the drill: Keep the beer and nachos coming a-plenty, and try to avert your eyes to all the butt-slapping male bonding going on. It isn't homoeroticism, exactly, but it can sure look that way.

Still, consider the "winners and losers" angle. Lots of money is gambled on the event, and we don't mean the office pool. The city that hosts the Big Game expects to make a fortune, and usually does unless the economy's down the tubes and the expection of imminent war has everyone skittish. Then it's a huge loss, which is how San Diego is feeling the hurt. According to reports, you can get a hotel room a block away from the stadium right now—unheard of in previous exhibitions. So it's a barometer of our country's well-being, and it's not looking good.

Scalpers, on the other hand, should make out like bandits, netting $2,500 to $6,000 for tickets that have a face value of $400-$500 per seat. Another group of winners are the networks and ad agencies, who catch all the eyeballs today. Usually, the ads that run during the game attract a lot of attention, and this year's sponsors are paying a record $2.2 million for each 30-second spot. Here's a sneak preview of some of the commercials you'll be seeing.

Willie Nelson Gets a Shave: In this yuck-fest for H&R Block, Willie declines an offer to be de-whiskered in a shaving-cream commercial until he finds out that he owes the IRS $30 million. "Lather me up!"

Jordan and Chan Go Tagless: Did you know that men hate T-shirts with those itchy little tags at the back of the neck? Haynes figured that out, so Michael Jordan and Jackie Chan are gonna be teasing each other in their tagless T's.

Trident Squirrel: We'll be watching for this one, in which the apocryphal "four-out-of-five dentists" have a squirrel scampering over their laps. The little guy goes for the crotch of the fifth dentist. Hey, someone got paid to think that up.

Bud Light Freak: An Anheuser-Busch gag, this one has a guy with three arms putting the moves on a model-type, who spurns his advances, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm just a little freaked out right now." Geddit?

Lastly, some people are rejecting the hype and planning to do something else today. The Tampa Bay Tribune leader reads, "Enough Is Enough, Say Residents," like creative director Michael Petty:

"I don't get it, and I don't understand it," he says. "Everybody in the media's going crazy."

That's life, Petty. Suck it up. And be sure to catch Shania Twain singing Man, I Feel Like a Woman at half-time. If you don't know what she's talking about, you will when the burly fan next to you puts his massive paw on your hindcheek and gives it an affectionate sqeeze.

1:13:23 PM