An email from Rutskarn:
The computer with the video was laid low by a virus halfway through upload. Please inform the readers of this.
I don’t want to wear the swearing thing thin, so I should probably cut this e-mail short.
Another virus? Really Rutskarn?
Okay, so we may never see part 2 of this Sherlock Holmes thing. Or maybe we just need to wait until Rutskarn can get his computer to a therapist.
In the future, here are some handy safety tips:
- That guy isn’t really the former president of Cairobi, and he doesn’t want to give you a million dollars.
- The person who sent that email isn’t a young coed, she’s not anxious to have sexy chat with you, and in fact she’s not actually a woman at all.
- That guy with the van isn’t actually inviting you in to give you free candy.
In the interest of filling this space and pacifying this crowd of enraged fans, allow me to offer the following gems from YouTube. First is the classic earworm, the tune that was more of an infection than a musical number. When I was a kid, watching this Christmas special in mid-December would mean you’d have this sucker stuck in your head until late February.
Link (YouTube) |
Now, for our Jewish fans who have been bugging me for a Chaunaka rap song with rock and reggae roots that is shaped by Reconstructionist Jewish thinking and features some sort of ice-skating in the music video, I’m happy to say I’ve finally managed to track one down.
Link (YouTube) |
And my favorite Christmas music ever. This might not be the most faithful version of the song, but it does have a certain charm:
Link (YouTube) |
Happy holidays everyone.
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Merry Christmas, Shamus & Co.!
What exactly is Rutskarn doing to get so many viruses? I haven’t gotten one in literal years.
I hope he’s not doing things that are… untoward.
I bet it’s research into the Litterature and similar Visual Arts.
Yes… visual “arts”.
Titerature, possibly.
Isnt Mumbles the one looking at boobs all day long.
I recently got a very nasty one from the Half Life Wiki…ended up formating my C: Drive.
Someone I know gets them a lot from browsing Deviant Art.
If you’re getting viruses just from browsing the web you’re using the wrong freaking browser. Use Opera or Firefox or anything other than Internet Explorer and you’ll reduce your infection rate to zero (or at least something much closer to zero). I also highly recommend a good software firewall, like Agnitum Outpost Pro Firewall, and a good virus scanner, like Kaspersky Anti-Virus. I haven’t had a virus infect my computer in over a decade.
(No, I don’t work for any of those companies. I just did a lot of research, tried them, and have had excellent results.)
Recent IEs are just as good as Chrome, FF or Opera in the virusblocking department, and from IE8 onward nothing is downloaded without your permission, so even if you did research, you’re still working with biased, outdated and flawed information.
A firewall’s unneeded, anyways. Windows firewall’s enough for casual use. I don’t have any, hell, I technically could go fine without an AV, you just need to have proper browsing habits. (And stuff like NoScript and AdBlock)
Browser doesn’t matter for a good number of infections, although the ones you mention do a slightly better job at combating them. IE is a bit more vulnerable because it’s used by more people, so more infections tailored for it are written.
The best method of virus protection will always be careful browsing – no amount of virus/spyware protection will protect a computer completely, especially if you spend a lot of time looking at questionable sites. I don’t use anti-virus on my main computer at all and it has yet to be infected in 2 years. My older computer has been infected twice total in its 5-6 year lifespan, and both times I could pretty well tell where I got the infection from (and my antivirus at the time could only identify half of what got on the thing).
Not to say firewall/antivirus are useless – certainly they help prevent the more common threats.
That’s what I want to know. How much footage has Rutskarn lost in total anyway?
How do you really know that you haven’t got a virus? That you (and your antivirus) haven’t discovered any virus isn’t proof that you haven’t got any.
Well, for me, it’s highly unlikely. Addblock, Noscript and Linux.
*Rolls dice*
*10*
DM: You don’t SEE any viruses.
As long as the viruses on my computer don’t prevent me from doing anything (or send out bizarre, bogus emails to everyone in my address book (including the people I meant to delete 5 years before)), I don’t worry too much about them being there.
You know, Adblock and NoScript do miracles against viruses. I too haven’t caught one in years.
Not to imply that liberal arts majors can’t properly use their computers, of course. ‘mirite?
They certainly help, but Adblock makes legitimate advertisers sad (meaning less funds for the site using them) and I found NoScript annoying at times. It’s a matter of opinion though – if you think you’ll have infection trouble without them, by all means.
I also wonder. I have not had a virus on my disk for about a decade by now, despite visiting rather unsafe sites from time to time. Just use a current browser (chrome is self-updating), adblock/noscript, correct user privileges, and don’t download and execute every crap. And don’t use adobe’s pdf viewer. Because that one is riddled with holes.
Merry Christmas!
Yes! Matisyahu! Someone else knows who he is…
My family worships him. They actually spent the evening driving around town blasting Matisyahu at all the last-minute Christmas shoppers. Yes, they area family of Jewish trolls.
Now I’m imagining a DnD troll wearing the hat Mel Brooks was wearing in Men in Tights.
Really? I don’t believe it. Next you’ll tell me that the 9 hot girls that started following me on twitter a couple days ago aren’t hot girls at all.
Also, Merry Christmas fellows
They’re girls. The greatest problem in North America is sexy coeds who are unable to get real boyfriends to satisfy their carnal desires. These scores of lusty vixens are then forced to take to the internet in hopes of finding random strangers on your favorite social networking site who will at least watch while they take care of their randy needs. Yep. Also, I have this bridge I’d love to sell you in Brooklyn. It’s an amazing deal!
A bridge? You know that does sound like a good de-wait a minute!
how much for a bridge? I’ll take two!
When my family sings Carol of the Bells (we’re kinda musical theater people), we do the second verse with animals: sopranos are cats, altos are chickens, tenors are dogs, and basses are cows. We never quite get through the song without losing it entirely, especially since the chickens have taken to going nuts on the “oh how happy are their tones” crescendo. Good times.
I’ve got to show my kids that video. Happy Christmas, Shamus.
Carol Of The Bells is also my family’s favorite carol, but we prefer the TSO version. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuS_85v0Urg
Its a mix of Carol of the Bells and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, which was inspired by the story of this man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedran_Smailovi%C4%87
I used to upload videos like you…
Then you took a virus in the hard drive?
trojan in the kernal?
worm in the boot registry?
Arrow in the knee?
Where are we going with this one Neil?
(Oh, also merry watchamahoo to the spoiler warning crew, have a great one guys)
I went to shamusyoung.com for some X-mas cheer, and I saw an Evony ad in the sidebar.
CHRISTMAS IS RUINED
Yay for muppets,always funny.
I am strongly questioning Shamus’ musical tastes. I mean, no christmas metal? That is quite despicable.
I think the bell in the Muppets song qualifies as heavy metal.
And that most certainly is the winning retort.
So you are filling in for Rutskarn in the pun department now?
That explains the lack of hairs on left-most and centre muppets.
Mercury, cadmium or lead?
Or even the illusive unobtainium ?
I bow and accept defeat, good sir.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Call me pimp
’cause I bring all y’all ho-ho-hoes! :)
Merry [INSERT CELEBRATION HERE], everybody!
It’s somewhat cut up, but most, if not all of the video should be on the stream, albeit in low low quality.
http://www.livestream.com/chocolatehammer
Well,now I know what mod is always the first one that Mumbles downloads for any game:The nude mod.
I like the part where Ruts’ computer is beginning to agonize from the virus.
Happy Christmas everyone! Even Ruts, who’s ruined Christmas for everyone, forever. Good world, man.
Ruined? How ruined? The greatest gift one can ask for is an excuse to mock Rutskarn. Not that we actually NEED an excuse, but it’s so nice to have one.
That should read ‘good work’, by the way. Also, I’ve discovered that I can’t edit comments in the Dolphin browser on Android. The More You Know :-)
This one is pretty much for Danes and Danes only, but this one needs to be here, if only for the nostalgia it brings me of when I used to sing this once a year with my class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upkaODeh9rQ
Merry Christmas everybody.
If anybody needs a dose of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock by BBC is a good series. Enjoy!
Seconding this one. Wasn’t sure what to expect but it was on my Netflix, and I came away wishing they had gotten around to finishing/releasing season 2…. (Granted it’s because they’re both working on The Hobbit so I suppose I can’t complain).
Thirded. In fact, the first series on Netflix actually got my 14-year-old interested enough in Sherlock Holmes that we’ve been taking turns reading aloud from my complete S.H. collection as the family road-trips across the western half of the nation together for the Christmas holidays. Nothing eases the boredom of being crammed like sardines into a car together for 12 hours a day like a little Holmes.
BTW to Ruts and anyone who might need a hand — a little Christmas gift from the knowledge at our computer repair shop.
ComboFix is pretty much the best virus removal thing out there. It’s not a realtime scanner, but only useful if you already have an infection.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/combofix
Then run MalwareBytes after that, to catch anything that might be left. If it’s a simple virus and not, say, a hider program or such, those should take care of everything. Careful with ComboFix though, don’t interrupt it while it’s running, and that sort of thing. Doing that could easily end catastrophically.
Oh, and we recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, but must note that no anti-virus is perfect.
It’s been a while since my last virus package (most Russian sites should be avoided), but a friend of mine managed to corrupt his OS. If your Windows cannot be salvaged use a live linux cd or flash drive to salvage any important data before nuking the hd (as in formatting).
P.S. I don’t want to offend Russians by saying all Russian sites are full of viruses, I’m talking about sites for cracks, downloads and other “free” stuff.
Other nation’s cracks, downloads and “free” stuff sites aren’t any less shifty. So you keep your racism outta my holiday cheer good sir/lady :P
Kaspersky used to have a support site, karspersky 911, where they would help you remove a virus when you had one. They didn’t owe me anything, but nevertheless, they’ve helped me get rid of some nasties a while back. And it wasn’t an automated system, they actually had hackers looking over system report and figuring out how to kill the virus.
I think I know what caused it…..it was a virus hidden in a text file from Mumbles, her latest Batman/Robin fic….thats what its from….
Re: Shamus’ tweet. You think you’re the first person to try the fire thing? He has a contingency for that. I’ve seen him get into places with fire, I’ve seen him get into places with flues no wider than your wrist. I’ve seen him get into places with the flues closed or massive iron grates around the fire pit. I’ve seen him get into places with no fireplace at all. I’ve seen him get into places where everyone was awake, and somehow he was undetected. I’ve seen him track people down who weren’t even at home… There’s no escaping him – no wall thick enough, no trap clever enough. There’s no running, no hiding. He WILL find you.
Wait, this is supposed to be a cheery thing? I’ve just described like the worst kind of slasher movie villain and nightmare fuel for sure.
I knew some folks who performed in a comedy troop at my college, and went to their Christmas show one year. The said they wanted to end to show with one of their favorite Christmas carols, and then burst into a rousing rendition of Cold Miser/Heat Miser (with choreography).
Roman Ice Hockey-playing emperor FTW.
Aargh… the Snow Miser / Heat Miser song gets stuck in MY head for some months after I hear it too.
Re that Chanukah rap video “Miracle” – that’s my favorite of these three. Very cool hockey goal shot at 4:02.
Man, I just interrupted listening to Mumbles’ radio show to watch those videos, and …
… now I’ll have to recalibrate my ears.
I’m a little late for Christmas, and for new year also, and whatever it is Jewish rappers in Jamaica (or anyone anywhere else, really) are celebrating these days. Nonetheless, have a good one everyone. I know I did. And here’s to people being nice to each other this year, or a bit less un-nice at least.