Netcraft: Netcraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar Available for Download

I'm downloading mine now...sounds interesting, even if I don't feel I have much trouble with phishing scams. Cheers.

SnapStream - Community: Medusa PVR

Are you a geek? Do you watch TV? Do you have about $1200 burning a hole in your pocket? Check out this link and find out what it takes to make your own DVR that can record 6 channels at the same time...

Child's Play Part II from 1UP.COM

If you want your nostalgic memories of old videogames thrashed pretty soundly, you'll need to read this.

SPOILER WARNING: Kids in 2003 aren't especially fond of games from the 80's...

LightScribe...your next CD-RW drive could be a laser printer, too

Interesting technology, and a good idea. I hate pasting labels onto CDs, personally...I'd buy one.

Yahoo! News - AFP Top Photos

Neat... 'nuff said.

Lego Logic Gates

Keith, I don't know if you're looking at my 'blog these days, but if you are, I'm absolutely certain you'll want to check this site out. Heck, I might build a few of these myself...they're just cool...in a geeky, lego-centric kind of way...

Microsoft decides that Firefox is good enough to use in its PR material

They can try> to say that they didn't distribute any shots of MSN Search using Firefox, but I'm not buying it.

Malware authors mixing a lethal cocktail - ZDNet UK News

Buckle your seatbelt, update your virus definitions, and download those patches. Things are about to get rough for your PC.

The Blue Lemur - Progressive Politics and Media News � In sworn affidavit, programmer says he developed vote-rigging prototype for Florida congressman; Congressman�s office silent

From the "holy frigging crap, I hope they didn't actually put this to use" department...

A digital sundial

More interesting than I guessed...no dial, real numbers, and no electricity or electronics involved.

Blog Torrent - Simplified bittorrent by Downhill Battle

Coolest project I've heard of...I can imagine bittorrent-based internet TV stations...

Microsoft tries to patent the "IS NOT" operator

You have GOT to be kidding me. Isn't there something in the patent guidelines about "nonobviousness"? I guess there's only one thing for me to do. I must patent the "IS" operator and claim that their technological innovation is derivative...

Techworld.com - Why does a disk spin?

Shake that hard drive, baby...nanosecond access-times? Tell me more.

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | 130-year-old Chinese fire put out

Interesting...wonder if this had any effect on global warming...

Humor from Steve Ballmer and Microsoft (or: Microsoft good, Linux BAD)

Found this in my inbox this morning, and after realizing that it couldn't possibly be completely serious, I calmed down and noted how amusing it was. Let me pick some choice bits out for you on this e-mail about how Windows is cheaper than Linux (eyes rolling yet?):

...But as the Yankee Group commented in an independent, non-sponsored global study of 1,000 IT administrators and executives, Linux, UNIX and Windows TCO Comparison, things aren't always as they seem: "All of the major Linux vendors and distributors (including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell [SUSE and Ximian] and Red Hat) have begun charging hefty premiums for must-have items such as technical service and support, product warranties and licensing indemnification."...

Umm...they've been charging "hefty" premiums for tech support since they started selling Linux period. That's their revenue model. As for product warranties, show me my product warranty for Windows. What does *that* say? Licenses are granted via the GPL, so you not only don't have to buy them, they can't be sold (Ballmer can't be that stupid, can he? has to be a joke). Licensing indemnification? *What* licenses?

- Preparation and planning activities took 5% to 25% longer for Linux than Windows.

okay...wonder why...

- Training for IT employees was significantly higher for Linux than for Windows - on average, 15% more expensive. The reasons: training materials were less readily available, and customers spent more on training to compensate for the lack of internal knowledge about Linux.

Okay...customers knew less about Linux. Wondering why they didn't hire someone who *did* know about Linux...

- All 14 companies said it was difficult finding qualified Linux personnel in the marketplace to support their Linux projects. When they did find third-party help, they had less leverage negotiating hourly rates than with Windows consulting resources.

You have *got* to be kidding me. If all 14 companies couldn't find Linux admins..."qualified" ones...they must not know how to shake a stick at them. I suppose part of the problem is related to certifications, since they are uncommon in Linux admins (except for redhat). "Qualified" != "certified"...I guess that's why they can't find them. I am unsurprised that the ones they *did* find cos a bundle: You could wallpaper the georgia dome twice with all the MCSE certs out there, so they don't have the same bargaining power.

A number of third-party reports have questioned how safe the Linux platform really is. For example, a recent independent study by Forrester, Is Linux More Secure than Windows?, highlighted that the four major Linux distributions have a higher incidence and severity of vulnerabilities, and are slower than Microsoft to provide security updates.

That's just plain full-on wrong, but whatever...in the spirit of the running gag, I'll ignore it.

According to Forrester, Microsoft had the lowest elapsed time between disclosure of a vulnerability and the release of a fix. They found that Microsoft addressed all of the 128 publicly disclosed [emphasis added] security flaws in Windows over the 12-month period studied, and that its security updates predated major outbreaks by an average of 305 days.

Ahh...that must be why there is such a big problem with virii and spyware on Linux PC's. Obviously, the research tells the whole story...not.

Blah, blah, blah "Windows is better, we have patents on everything, Linux lusers are t3h sux0rz, etc."

Hope you had a laugh, too.

October Surprise, anyone?

Mars and back in 90 days

Interesting news in space propulsion...

Two women found with HIV-immune mutant gene

Apparently, this is pretty common among caucasian people...hadn't heard that before...Patented genes, HIV-immune people, retroviruses...I smell a new business model.

Yahoo! News - House OKs Bill Imposing 'Spyware' Fines

About damn time...pay up!

Scaled Composites - Virgin Group to licence technology to develop world's first commercial space tourism operator

This is the news I've been waiting to hear for most of my life. Starting out at 190,000, I'd imagine that a small bit of competition will push the price for a trip to orbit down to around the price of a luxury car in short order. Someday I'm going to outer space!

Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004

Nifty...meta-polling results on the web (with pretty map)

NASA's Newest Foe: Hurricane Frances

Now THAT would be a very bad thing...

The world's tiniest windmill...sort of

Blow on a carbon nanotube set at an angle, and you'll create electricity. Glad somebody thought to try it.

Mighty mice to rescue couch potatoes - Science - www.smh.com.au

"Excercise pills! Get your excercise pills, here!"

Concerns Mount over Major Web Strike

We shall see...

1TB of storage on a 12cm disc

Same size as a CD with more than 1000x the storage capacity...sweeeet. Someday, I'll be able to back up the PC to a single removable disk!

RPOW Theory

*WARNING* If you are not a geek (specifically one who likes the subject of cryptography), don't bother with this link. If you *are* someone who fits that description, you might be interested in this. Sounds like a very interesting concept to me.

Deep Lake Water Cooling System

"Oh yeah, well MY air conditioner is bigger than YOUR air conditioner..."

Cool idea, no pun intended.

ROBO-ONE

Tiny Battle-Mechs duke it out (unfortunately no LRM's or autocannons)

Don't miss the video!

Interesting little link I found on slashdot. Apparently there's a market based on the presidential race (and it's been more accurate than polls in the past).

Here's a graph (updated daily) that shows the "closing" price of republican and democratic shares...

Time Warp Computer Prices

All I can say is, thank god that PC equipment keeps getting cheaper. $799.00 for a 28.8 modem sounds a bit steep to me today...

FairTax Volunteer - FAQ 1

Hmm...

BOFH gets an RFID he can't refuse

You don't mess with the BOFH...

Boston.com / Your Life / Health & Fitness / Women's Health / Fetuses give mothers a gift of cells, study says

Cool...babies try to fix their mommies before they're born!

The customer is always right? Not anymore:

"Some retailers are deciding that the customer can be very, very wrong -- as in unprofitable. And some, including Best Buy Co. Inc., are discriminating between profitable customers and shoppers they lose money on.
Like a customer who ties up a salesworker but never buys anything, or who buys only during big sales. Or one who files for a rebate, then returns the item.
'That would be directly equivalent to somebody going to an ATM and getting money out without putting any in,' Brad Anderson, Best Buy's chief executive, said in a recent interview. 'Those customers, they're smart, and they're costing us money.' "

Uhh...so, maybe you should alter your business model a little bit? Frustrated with "extreme price shoppers"? Best Buy is frustrated with extreme price shoppers??? WTF is that all about? I mean, honestly, I'd assume that the store's name means something, wouldn't you? For some reason they are bitching that they don't make money off of people who only shop during sales...

Pardon my language, but so fucking what? That's the sale-shopper's fault? I don't think so, Tim.

SawStop Videos

Are you a woodworker or carpenter? Hate those pesky missing fingers caused by your table saw? Just try the amazing "Saw Stop"!!! Make sure you watch the video.

SBC - Press Room

Sweet! I'll take the DSL with the 25Mb/s down, 1Mb/s up speed, thanks. Hosting from the house may actually become practical!

tvnz.co.nz | NEWS | WORLD | Private rocket makes space history

Woohoo! Maybe it won't take until my kids' lifetime before space travel is routine...

Go spaceships, go!

MyUID

They may be short on bandwidth, but they're long on ambition. A single-sign-on project that's open source! Let's hear it for secure, open, robust, platform-neutral programming, people. I might have to make use of this myself.

Censorship's Trial Balloons - What happens when wartime news gets censored? By Liam Callanan

Okay...Slate's title for this story is a bit poor, but this is a very interesting piece of missing history. "Japan attacks America!"

No, not Pearl Harbor...before that. And on the mainland. Intrigued yet?

Abolish the Digital Millenium Copyright Act Petition

...And in the same vein as ridiculous software patents is the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act). Read up, do your own research (if you want), and sign to get some of our rights back. The DMCA is *not* a good thing.

Petition Against Software Patents Petition

If you don't know why software patents are bad, consider this: Microsoft just applied for a patent on a "task list". You know...like a to-do list stored on a computer. Let me mention that one of the prerequisites for getting a software patent is "nonobviousness"...want to geuss whether anybody else has ever had an idea for a computerized to-do list?

Motion

Ahh...I feel an event-driven motion-capturing security camera system in my future...cool stuff.

Junk DNA ain't so junky

Remember how all of that DNA that has no obvious purpose is a big mystery? Well, maybe you don't...I'm a geek, after all, but now it's a little less mysterious.

I N K S C A P E :: Vector Graphics for the Masses

Okay...this is just cool.

security.itworld.com - Buffalo spammer gets 3.5 to 7 years

One down...how many spammers are there again?

Help save the environment, build a nuclear reactor...

More news from respected Green party members to come soon...believe it.

Technology Review: DNA Computer Kills Cancer Cells

Now THAT is what I call good science...need more details.

Cisco Source Code Reportedly Stolen

File this one away under "oh...this can't be good"...

Tanning Lotion with THC: Sunbathe and get a buzz, all in one easy step...

The safest safe...

BOFH: Stuck on the 6.01999th floor | The Register

Never try to outwith the BOFH...

D Programming Language

C sucks...evolve, already.

Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division - dihydrogen monoxide info

I meant to post this earlier, but here it is, just the same. Everything you ever wanted to know about DihydrogenMonoxide (DHMO)

Classic BOFH

The right way to handle an inventory...

Scientists confirm phenomenon of falling beer bubbles

Guiness Lovers read up...or down...

Election Projection - 2004 Edition

A color-coded map and everything! Vote prediction is F-U-N...

CBC News:Toss toothbrushes every few weeks: researcher

Saw something on MythBusters (Discovery Channel) on this too..."fecal coliform" bacteria from your toilet floating through the air and landing on the ol' toothbrush...ahh, minty.

Restless Leg Syndrome

I think I've experienced this before...interesting...

Digital Microfluidics by Electrowetting, Duke University

More interesting than it looks at first...Moses would be proud.

Hitachi's very first holoprojector

So, it looks like we'll be able to ask Obi-Wan for help soon, now...very soon...

Wired News: Pentagon Preps for War in Space

Eek! Please don't fire a hypervelocity rod at me.

CNEWS - Cdn. researcher: Cells can grow on silicon

The Bionic Man and Johnny Mnemonic...coming soon to a research institute near you. Cool stuff!

Cafe staff would go topless Madison code officer finds no prohibitions

Coffee anyone? Oh, and PLEASE try not to spill anything on the waitresses...

Eject! Eject! Eject!: VICTORY A long, but interesting read...from last year.

begging the question - Skeptic's Dictionary

The following begs the question:
I am not stupid. Stupid people don't know how to use the phrase "begs the question". Therefore, I *do* know how to use the phrase "begs the question"...

Don't even bother looking at this unless you really, really care about what "begs the question" actually means.

CNN.com - Scientists develop new hydrogen reactor - Feb. 13, 2004

Turn your Everclear into electricity...knew there was a reason they called it white lightning...

Coffee anyone?

Op-Ed Columnist: The Farewell Dossier

Very interesting piece on something that went right a long time ago...

Talk-Politics.com :: Home

My new favorite website...calling all slashdotters and farkers, now there's a place for discussion of political events...

Arguments To Make Americans Fear Prohibition

Required reading. Every word of it. Pay close attention and T-H-I-N-K

Near death accident when F-16 meets car

I guess F-16s are even deadly when towed by a truck...

Physics911.org - Articles

An even MORE interesting conspiracy theory page...be informed ahead of time when your friends tell you "Hey, no plane hit the pentagon..." (???)

The Movement

Conspiracy theory, anyone? If nothing else, an entertaining read...

Bravery Needs No Translation

I can't argue with the man...

False Historical Fact (January 2004)

The great Depression was, in fact, a time of great prosperity!

Many people think that the period early in the 20th century known as the "Great Depression" had something to do with a decrease in prosperity for citizens of the United States...not so.

While, admittedly, there were some people who were slightly worse off (eating worms, etc), many people noted substantial financial windfalls, primarily in the midwestern United States, where dust barons made sizable sums exporting finely-powdered dirt in varying hues...typically via highly available and free (but messy) naturally occurring wind.

People today, because of the use of this wind shipping technique, and the misunderstanding of the times around it, routinely use the terms "this sucks" or "that blows" in a negative sense. They never realize that dust barons of the day, (if they heard the terms used that way) would have had quite a chuckle.

Dancing Robots

The future is HERE!!! There are dancing robots...what more proof do you NEED???