It's Ah Ah Ah, Ah
Sep. 9th, 2006 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2I love the Japanese girl-rock band Shonen Knife, which plays bouncy pop-punk in the spirit of the Ramones with silly lyrics about everyday things -- food, animals, etc. I've seen them live twice -- on their Brand New Knife tour and on their Happy Hour tour. That was at the height of their popularity, or a little past the height. They started out as a weird Japanese indie band that few people outside of Japan knew about, then became an underground sensation, and with the help of Kurt Cobain (who was a big fan) they found a certain level of mainstream appeal in the west and went on to release four cds in a row in English on western labels.
The first, Let's Knife, was mostly a collecting of songs from their earlier Japanese releases, but redone in English. After this came Rock Animals, Brand New Knife, and Happy Hour. Brand New Knife is probably their best cd, but while some fans don't seem to like Happy Hour as much, I love many of the songs on that release. In any case, that cd and the subsequent tour (which I saw with Sky and -- I forget who else, Tom? Jeff?) was the end of their flirtation with Western mainstream acceptance/popularity.
After that, bassist Michie Nakatana left the band, and while sisters Naoko and Atsuko Yamano soldiered on, their subsequent releases were Japanese-only releases with no Western distribution. I got used to picking up their new cds as imports with mostly Japanese vocals -- Strawberry Sound came first, followed by Candy Rock, and then Heavy Songs and most recently Genki Shock.
The first two of these were somewhat lackluster in sound -- the fact that they'd lost a member of their trio and were well past their glory days seemed to be reflected in the music. But Heavy Songs was a much better cd, getting back to their punk pop roots, and Genki Shock was an equal return to form. I just wished that they were available in English.
...which they are! I haven't been paying enough attention, because both of these cds were released in English on Western indie labels (apparently months after I'd picked them up as Japanese language imports).
So I had to order them. Luckily they were both avaiable very cheaply used -- one for less than $5. Now I'll finally know what some of these songs are actually about! ^_^
It seems likely that Strawberry Sound and Candy Rock will never be released in English, but that may not be a huge loss. They weren't the best Shonen Knife cds out there. Heavy Songs and Genki Shock, however, compare favorably with Rock Animals, Brand New Knife, and Happy Hour, so getting them in English is a great thing indeed.
I was getting ready for work yesterday morning when I got a strange message in my e-mail from Second Life. It was a warning from one of the admins of the island community where I live (where my virtual character lives, anyway). It said that Second Life's customer data base had been hacked, and that they had reset all passwords, and that you needed to go to the main forums to change your password.
Well it sounded like the begining of a scam, although it came from a fairly reliable source. But it turned out to be completely true: someone had managed to gain access through their web pages to much of the customer data base. They claimed that their credit card information was kept on a seperate server and was safe, but other details of all their customer accounts was exposed to some unknown hacker. Their response was to invalidate all passwords, and require people to create new passwords before they could log in.
Now, the problem with this was twofold. One, you had to go to their web page and go through the "lost password" process, which involved them sending an e-mail to you with a link you clicked on. Only thing was, some people didn't have current e-mails in their profile. Either they forgot to update them, or they were taking advantage of a relatively recent decision to allow people to sign up for new free accounts without verifying the e-mail account, which meant that a lot of people had made new accounts with fake or non-existant e-mail addresses.
Then of course, the second problem was that once you clicked on the link, you had to be able to answer the "password hint" question. Apparently a lot of people didn't remember what their answer to this was, or had just typed something random in, never thinking they'd need to use it. A few people have been told at this point that their account has no hint question-answer on file -- so they're stuck. Also, a lot of people with poor English skills, such as players from Japan or other countries, never really understood this part of the sign up process in the first place, and so of course can't remember what their answer was.
The Second Life servers were very slow -- clearly being hammered very hard -- and I was only able to fix two of my four accounts before heading off for work. The other two apparently had old e-mail addresses on them, as I hadn't gotten replies to my "lost my password" requests. It looked like I'd have to wait all weekend and then call Linden Labs by phone in an attempt to regain access to my other accounts (including my main account, the only one that I pay for and which had some 50,000 lindens on it, which is currently worth, at a rough estimate, $100 - $175).
But when I got home and read the forums and then tried to reset my passwords again, I saw that there was a link to click on if you didn't have a current e-mail, and that took me directly to the "hint question" stage. I was able to reset the passwords on my other two accounts, and then update the e-mails associated with those accounts.
This doesn't help those who've forgotten their password hint answers of course, and Linden Labs took the very noble and heroic stance of going home for the weekend and telling people that they'd have to call customer support on Monday at regular business hours. Not so cool. Given that this is a "game" where you buy and sell virtual land and items and can convert your virtual money to real-life dollars, some people have a great deal more invested in their accounts than the measly $100 or so I had on my main account. Some people make a living off this game by selling their virtual creations or trading in virtual land, others spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for the ability to control whole islands and fashion their own private virtual worlds. Obviously Linden Labs needs to find a way to allow everyone access to their accounts in some verifiable fashion. Either way, they've got a massive problem on their hands.
The first, Let's Knife, was mostly a collecting of songs from their earlier Japanese releases, but redone in English. After this came Rock Animals, Brand New Knife, and Happy Hour. Brand New Knife is probably their best cd, but while some fans don't seem to like Happy Hour as much, I love many of the songs on that release. In any case, that cd and the subsequent tour (which I saw with Sky and -- I forget who else, Tom? Jeff?) was the end of their flirtation with Western mainstream acceptance/popularity.
After that, bassist Michie Nakatana left the band, and while sisters Naoko and Atsuko Yamano soldiered on, their subsequent releases were Japanese-only releases with no Western distribution. I got used to picking up their new cds as imports with mostly Japanese vocals -- Strawberry Sound came first, followed by Candy Rock, and then Heavy Songs and most recently Genki Shock.
The first two of these were somewhat lackluster in sound -- the fact that they'd lost a member of their trio and were well past their glory days seemed to be reflected in the music. But Heavy Songs was a much better cd, getting back to their punk pop roots, and Genki Shock was an equal return to form. I just wished that they were available in English.
...which they are! I haven't been paying enough attention, because both of these cds were released in English on Western indie labels (apparently months after I'd picked them up as Japanese language imports).
So I had to order them. Luckily they were both avaiable very cheaply used -- one for less than $5. Now I'll finally know what some of these songs are actually about! ^_^
It seems likely that Strawberry Sound and Candy Rock will never be released in English, but that may not be a huge loss. They weren't the best Shonen Knife cds out there. Heavy Songs and Genki Shock, however, compare favorably with Rock Animals, Brand New Knife, and Happy Hour, so getting them in English is a great thing indeed.
I was getting ready for work yesterday morning when I got a strange message in my e-mail from Second Life. It was a warning from one of the admins of the island community where I live (where my virtual character lives, anyway). It said that Second Life's customer data base had been hacked, and that they had reset all passwords, and that you needed to go to the main forums to change your password.
Well it sounded like the begining of a scam, although it came from a fairly reliable source. But it turned out to be completely true: someone had managed to gain access through their web pages to much of the customer data base. They claimed that their credit card information was kept on a seperate server and was safe, but other details of all their customer accounts was exposed to some unknown hacker. Their response was to invalidate all passwords, and require people to create new passwords before they could log in.
Now, the problem with this was twofold. One, you had to go to their web page and go through the "lost password" process, which involved them sending an e-mail to you with a link you clicked on. Only thing was, some people didn't have current e-mails in their profile. Either they forgot to update them, or they were taking advantage of a relatively recent decision to allow people to sign up for new free accounts without verifying the e-mail account, which meant that a lot of people had made new accounts with fake or non-existant e-mail addresses.
Then of course, the second problem was that once you clicked on the link, you had to be able to answer the "password hint" question. Apparently a lot of people didn't remember what their answer to this was, or had just typed something random in, never thinking they'd need to use it. A few people have been told at this point that their account has no hint question-answer on file -- so they're stuck. Also, a lot of people with poor English skills, such as players from Japan or other countries, never really understood this part of the sign up process in the first place, and so of course can't remember what their answer was.
The Second Life servers were very slow -- clearly being hammered very hard -- and I was only able to fix two of my four accounts before heading off for work. The other two apparently had old e-mail addresses on them, as I hadn't gotten replies to my "lost my password" requests. It looked like I'd have to wait all weekend and then call Linden Labs by phone in an attempt to regain access to my other accounts (including my main account, the only one that I pay for and which had some 50,000 lindens on it, which is currently worth, at a rough estimate, $100 - $175).
But when I got home and read the forums and then tried to reset my passwords again, I saw that there was a link to click on if you didn't have a current e-mail, and that took me directly to the "hint question" stage. I was able to reset the passwords on my other two accounts, and then update the e-mails associated with those accounts.
This doesn't help those who've forgotten their password hint answers of course, and Linden Labs took the very noble and heroic stance of going home for the weekend and telling people that they'd have to call customer support on Monday at regular business hours. Not so cool. Given that this is a "game" where you buy and sell virtual land and items and can convert your virtual money to real-life dollars, some people have a great deal more invested in their accounts than the measly $100 or so I had on my main account. Some people make a living off this game by selling their virtual creations or trading in virtual land, others spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for the ability to control whole islands and fashion their own private virtual worlds. Obviously Linden Labs needs to find a way to allow everyone access to their accounts in some verifiable fashion. Either way, they've got a massive problem on their hands.
