Blast from the Past

Yesterday, Dino and I went out for a bit of shopping. At one point, I just really had the urge to go to Bed Bath & Beyond. Not really surprising or anything, I do get obsessive about certain stores...

Anyways, so we were looking at these air-bake pans, I look up, and out of my mouth comes "hey Becca". Some of you may remember Becca as an original member of Cyberbia and one of the co-founders of the Valentines' Vampyr Masquerade Ball.

Well, see, the wierd thing is that instead of saying "hey, haven't seen you in 8 years" or "wait, I think I recognize you", or some such long-term reminder... I just said "hey" as she was walking by. Kinda odd....

She moved up here about a month after I did. She is married now. Has a little boy (2 I think?). I know that she would love to see some of you (Zach, Janneke, etc) so I'll make sure to pass on your contact info next time I talk with her (sorry didn't have my phone on me at the time).

News from the Net

In an effort to ensure that everyone keeps buying new versions of Windows, Micro$oft already plans on making Vienna a completely different OS. Haven't heard about Vienna? Oh, well, it is the version of Windows that comes after Fiji... which comes after Vista... which almost no one has even tried yet... So yes, that new expensive OS you were considering -- they are already working on making it obsolete.

If you thought your last Ford was a piece of crap, wait until your new Ford has Windows installed.

As conspiracy theories abound, Judge Gary appears to have joined the conspirators camp by disallowing proof that the electronic voting machines are not working correctly to be gathered.

Oh, this is too good to be true. So this common parasite can make women more attractive and men more stupid.

Cracking Tor anonymity with heat?

Cloned meat and milk coming to a grocery store near you.

Ever wonder what is under all that ice in Greenland? Well, researchers plan to know within the next year. In somewhat related news, one of Canada's remaining 6 ice shelves broke off... It was the size of about 11000 football fields and over 3000 years old.

Found the perfect job for you... Make fake moondust for NASA.

A new flu vaccine is supposedly going to provide complete immunity.

In a recent study, they found that today's youth are no longer excited about space travel. I guess that's what we get when we let schools and politicians rattle on about "impossible" things (that always end up happening later).

OneDOJ: The new massive Justice Department database, being offered to law enforcement. "You know why I pulled you over Jimmy? Well, it says here that the FBI has been watching you for suspicion of not liking the president. Ok, get out of the car and put your hands behind your head. We'll show you what patriotism really means." Ok, well, the article didn't see that, but I could see it happening.

Earthquake disrupts the VIRTUAL currency market...?

Ok, this is awesome... There is a proposed extension to HTML to allow you to tag content at any level (paragraph, link, whatever) to be Not Safe for Work... and then, the idea goes, you could configure your browser to block NSFW content while not blocking the rest... Of course, for this to work, the IT department would have to quit blocking the entire site... but if this became common place, I could definitely see stateful packet inspection on the routers auto-blocking the NSFW content instead of blacklisting sites.

AT&T appears to be desperate about their merger with BellSouth.

You might remember me telling you recently about M$ bribing people... Well, it appears that someone who got one of these bribe laptops is auctioning it off and giving the proceeds to the EFF ;) Others are starting to follow suit, and now M$ is begging for them back. That's awesome.

Although I usually avoid Yahoo!, I think I am still subscribed to some of their message boards... Well, that was, until Yahoo! took down their message boards.

Robots will beginning crawling around under New Orleans.

This is interesting... 100 facts we didn't know last year. Here, I'll wet your appetite: The lion costume in the film 'Wizard of Oz' was made from real lions.

A team at Intel made a game that runs entirely in Google Earth.

Major Changes to my Blog

So a year ago, our server was hacked and we lost everything.

Then the other day, I noticed that Blogger had maintained their own copy of my blogs... So, by telling them to go ahead and host it (instead of us) I was able to recover all 965 posts! That was awesome!

But, then I also had the Myspace Blog. Due to Myspace being so slow, crashing all the time, and consistently forcing me to log in again and again, I went ahead and said screw it, and decided to no longer update the myspace blog.

Today, I spent all day, but managed to integrate all 466 MySpace blog entries into this blog. There are some artifacts from this...

First, since I didn't want to use the Myspace-defined categories here, I went ahead and killed those categories. Instead, every ex-Myspace blog entry has a "MyspaceBlog" category, so that it is easy to select the entire group. I also went through and marked the News from the Net ;)

Another artifact was that Blogger + GData had serious problems posting comments. First, it wouldn't allow me to specify anyone else as the author. Ok, I can find a work around by simply posting who originally did it.. But, then it crashed with 1/2 the HTML I tried to use. So, to get around this issue, I said screw it and put the comments inline... While not required, I also modified my template to allow me to specify the colors, and now my comments look just like they did on myspace.

The other artifact is with the RSS feed. Even though it allowed me to publish them in the past, the RSS feed shows that they were updated most recently, so they will most likely show up in any RSS feed readers. Sorry - but I thought it was more important to get all my personal blogs integrated.

While there may be some temporary issues with the switch, I now have my original blog, my myspace blog, and my current blog all integrated. If you are looking for something specific, try the search box at the top left of the screen (or one of the labels if they are appropriate).

Thanks for your patience.

Avascular Necrosis

WTF?

So, the doctor from my appointment yesterday just called. He said the radiologists was looking at my x-rays and noticed what looked like Avascular Necrosis in both hips... specifically, he said lack of blood supply to the femur which could lead to hip fracture. He said I need to see an Orthopedic Surgeon soon... not necessarily in the next week or two, but definitely not 6 months down the road.

I tried to find some info on it, and I found this and this.

Mini News from the Net

The US Government is legally required to declassify millions of documents this New Years Eve, at midnight. Although it isn't like we would know if something is missing, many people are looking forward to the documents that are supposed to be revealed. I wonder if Bush will come out at the last minute and say that he has revoked the requirement.

In somewhat related news, the government is to start using Full Disk Encryption on all computers.

Those skywatchers out there will like this.

Hassium-270 produced.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DRM cracked.

News from the Net

Astrox claims that it will soon be able to provide 2-hour flights around the world. While Slashdotters were quick to mark it as vaporware, a quick look at the companies website shows that they might have some promise:

Dr. Ajay P. Kothari, President and CEO, founded Astrox in 1987. Dr. Kothari has been the project leader on a number of projects for the NASA, Air Force, Navy, Army, as well as McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now Boeing).

Scientists are looking at using algae for biofuel for much the same reason as hemp for fiber - it grows so darned fast.

It looks like Apple is in trouble now for faking stock option documents.

No VR Characters were harmed in the making of this story.

Looks like PayPal at least made a headline that will make me consider trusting them again.

A new telescope looks for Earth-sized planets.

Micro$ofts' latest bribes...

If you ever get the chance to buy a demo PS3 system, DON'T

If you are in Asia, you are most likely already aware of the major tsunami-caused internet outage.

I actually saw this on the news this morning too, but... Gerald Ford died today. You may remember him as the vice president and president who never was elected and who pardoned Nixon after Nixon put him in office.

Control your Roomba from the Wii controller.

Why we Procrastinate

And then hybrids become less desirable.

New AmigoOS? Man, now I need to find a Dactyl Nightmare machine ;)

Some people are taking drastic steps against the new passports.

Deer capture Poachers?

Nobel Laureate speaks out... Specifically, I love this quote: Knowledge is like a candle, when one candle lights another it does not diminish its light.

Best buy has a new plan... ConnectedLife.

Surgery Postponed

So, I got to the Portland Clinic today about 1-1/2 hours early. They had me do some xrays and such... Waited for a long time. The doctor said that the kidney stone hasn't moved at all and that we needed to schedule surgery. Well, Dino was there so we could do the surgery, but now it appears that he can't actually do it there - so it looks like my surgery will be on Jan 2nd. I have to be there at 6:30am for it... Should be out that afternoon/night if there are no complications.

Blogging Mayhem

As some of you have no doubt realized, I have been blogging a lot, on many different blogs... Well, ok, many of those are still listed as private blogs, so you may not have noticed....

As someone that might be diagnosed with the buzz-acronymns OCD and ADD... I have to say... this new approach might actually work.

One of the problems I have had over the last few years is that most of my notes take the form of emails that I send myself reminding myself to do something, which then sit in my inbox for a year or so before I notice it is there... Which gets really bad if the title is something like "check this out".

So, what I am trying to do is to keep multiple blogs with the topics completely seperate... So while this blog may be my normal everyday blog, I also have one for doing home improvement, one for real estate research, one for electric vehicle research, etc.

Then, I have a 2-part interaction with the blogs. On one hand, if I have some burning idea I have to write down, I can load that specific blog (usually from the dashboard) and write the entry, then ignore that topic... The second thing I can do is, if I wish to research a specific topic, I can open that specific blog and not get distracted by lots of other ideas within view (which was very common with the email organization).

It still has to be seen whether this will work long term for me... we'll see.

DIY Projects

Who wouldn't like their own CO2 laser?

Personally, I would love to do 3D scanning... in this case, with a webcam :)

Now this is kewl. Self-parking Legos :)

Create your Dream Kitchen

Build your own Robotic Hand

A whole bunch of laser stuff, including building a $10 N2 laser. Or maybe you would rather draw with them.

Build your own HD projector (part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7)

This magazine can help you generate power at home.

How about some touchpanels? If you are going to completely automate your house (or turn all your walls into touchpanels) might be economical to figure out how to do it yourself.

A 3-level chessboard.

High-speed photography... some example pics included.

Now this is really kinda kewl... How about a Custom Lego Set?

Or maybe your own cell phone? (more here)

Or maybe you would like to build your own cat tree/perch?

Or you can be creative and come up with a design of your very own using eMachineShop, Pad2Pad, SparkFun Electronics or other similar sites.

Mini News from the Net

Now this looks like fun... Photonic Processors :)

Or perhaps you'd prefer a winged jetpack?

Well, an inhabited island has sunk below the ocean surface due to rising waters. Oh that's right, what global warming.

Europe's largest dinosaur found in Spain.

Kitten Selection cont...

So I found this site which lists various breeders in Oregon. They have links for breeders that specialize in 6-toe kittens to ones that raise munchkins to recommendations for kitty food for the bengals to ones with available 2nd generation females.

Mini News from the Net

The Department of Defense is now blocking both HTML email and Outlook web access.

You want your (or your friends') name to be sent to Mars?

More blunders of the Secure Flight program.

Mommy? What's a Penguin?

Kitten Selection

Dino and I have been discussing what type of kitten we would like to get... I thought I would go ahead and start posting notes and research to help us decide....

First of all, I am not usually into splotches, etc... But I think the Bengal spots (shown here) are kinda kewl.

One other thing we haven't really decided yet... On one hand, we would like our kitty to be an indoor/outdoor cat.. but do to Punky having Feline Leukemia, and that it can be transmitted cat-2-cat... We think that the neighborhood cats (you remember those scroungy ones that always got into fights with him?) probably have it. If so, letting our kitties outside would make them at high risk for leukemia.... The other option is indoor only. If they are going to be indoor only, we are debating getting two from different litters and not having them fixed. Partially because Dino felt bad that Shady seemed to want kitties and couldn't have them. But, realistically, if we are going to purchase Exotic cats, we might as well let them breed and get ourselves a litter down the road :)

Wikipedia has an article about List of Cat Breeds.

Starting with the Bengal above, they are bred to be friendly yet look wild (specifically like an Asian Leopard). The Savannah cat is characterized as a dog in a cat's body. The Serengeti is an attempt to make a cat that looks like the Savannah without using recently wild cat breeds. The Toyger is meant to look like a Tiger. The Cheetoh (to the right) is to look like a Cheetah and is known to be "extremely large size".



Chausie are combinations of domestic cat (usually Abyssinian) with Jungle Cat (or Swamp Lynx).

Surprisingly, with almost no fur and no whiskers, the Sphynx cat is worse for allergy sufferers than normal longer-haired cats, because it does not deposit its fur onto furniture and clothing.

Munchkin Cats are short-legged... Looking around, it appears to be a spontaneous mutation, but there also seems to be a breed based on it.

The Habari cats also look like leopards...


If I had more land, I would prefer something like the one to the left here... but I don't think that is going to happen for awhile.






Here's a snippet from the Austin Zoo:

Wild Cats -- A variety of wild cats have been turned over to the zoo for a number of Tigers are the most purchased cat followed by Cougars, Bobcats and Lions. The Austin zoo is contacted 6 to 10 times each year by an unhappy wild cat keeper.

Many varieties of house cats are large and beautiful. A Maine Coon cat is a very large, durable house cat. This breed of cat has a reputation of being good with children.

Although some breeds of cats have distinguishing colors, many different kinds of cats can have a tabby coloring. In fact, different tabbies are actually similar to the wild cats in their coloring. The classic tabby has dark markings in the form of swirls, sometimes making a bulls eye on the cat's sides. Mackerel tabbies resemble little tigers. There is also a spotted tabby, which resemble a tiny Ocelot. A Lynx Point cat will
have tabby markings on the face, ears, legs and tail. If your favorite is the black panther, there are a large variety of black cats from which to choose.

Many of these cats are homeless and truly need the care and love of a guardian. An adopted cat quickly becomes attached to its new owner. House cats are much easier to care for and much less expensive. Best of all, a grown domestic cat will never look at your friends as a potential meal.

To be continued....

MY BLOG HAS MOVED

Most of my readers are used to my "News from the Net" being on my MySpace blog. Well, to be completely honest, that blog only existed because of our server getting hacked. I really don't like dealing with their editor, and have decided I will now be blogging here instead. I apologize if this inconveniences anyone... On the flip side, there is an RSS link at the bottom so that you can setup notifications of new posts with your favorite software :)

News from the Net has Migrated

Most of my readers are used to my "News from the Net" being on my MySpace blog. Well, to be completely honest, that blog only existed because of our server getting hacked. I really don't like dealing with their editor, and have decided I will now be blogging here instead. I apologize if this inconveniences anyone... On the flip side, there is an RSS link at the bottom so that you can setup notifications of new posts with your favorite software :)

And onto the News from the Net....

Google is now the 2nd most visited site

Librarians have decided to go Open Source... Take a look at their public demo or their experimental one. Personally, I think they should get Kudos for surviving Slashdotting

Well, once again, M$ seems to not care whether technology is already common place... They are trying to Patent RSS. Knowing the Patent Office, they'll probably allow it.

The White House has now resorted to publicly censoring the New York Times

$50k print and bind on-demand machine may well stop some of my plans before they start

Rolex is sponsoring a new school to train horologists

If you have an Intel-based Mac, you may want to try VMWare Fusion to run Linux and Windows on it

A hacker gets convicted based on his google search

I'm not going to issue and personal opinions of this matter, but well worth thinking about

A Republican Communications Director tried to hire hackers to change his educational records

Well, it's the beginning of the end... You can now download the GPL version of Java

If you don't think this holiday gift guide is interesting, look for the word "serial" on page two :)

In the wake of another lawsuit starting, the RIAA suffers another partial loss

Emirate Airlines now allow cell phone use in the air

A new USB hub enables sharing of peripherals between computers

It appears that Google has finally heard the suggestion I have been spreading, and are going to make their own phone

If you use Palm OS, this will interest you

More efficient 65nm Athlon 64 X2 has come

We've Moved!

A year ago, a Polish cable-isp customer hacked our server on Christmas Eve, and completely wiped everything out. Our blogs were on that server, and they were wiped out too.

With the switch to blogspot, it appears that they have been recovered. I am sure some images and links are broken now, but at least it has been recovered.

I have not yet decided if I will continue to update this blog or not... but for now, it is here.

Flesh Gordon?

So I found out from my dad today that this is the FIRST movie I EVER saw... They took me to the movies to see Flash Gordon, but lo and behold, that isn't quite what it was... Needless to say, my dad thinks this could be part of why I turned out the way I did ;)

WILL POWER!	Awesome! Posted by WILL POWER! on Sun Dec 24 12:42:00 PST 2006
Mr Oax	Well THAT certainly explains things! :D Posted by Mr Oax on Tue Dec 26 01:29:00 PST 2006

Court House

So I am actually going to be blogging this elsewhere, but, I thought you would all enjoy this little tidbit...

So Brett and I went out to the Hillsboro Court House today, to attend an auction. 

When I went in, drop my keys and wallet and such in the basket. One of them picks up my keys, looks at them, hands them to another one. They mumble to each other a bit, then...

The older guard says "Do you have an SGC card for this?" holding up one of my better handcuff keys  (have 5 sizes on my keyring).

I look at him, a bit confused, and say "Wha?".

"Are you a security guard? Why do you have this?"

"Uh, no. I'm into Bondage."

"You can't bring this in here. Where did you get this?"

"You can get them at any adult store", sounding confused.

Needless to say, once I dropped my handcuff keys off back in the car, they let me go in... but... hehe... Still glad I told the old guy it was for Bondage :)

 

Layne	Only you Malachi.  Love you and see you soon. Posted by Layne on Fri Dec 22 03:37:00 PST 2006
Sarah	ROFL, That sounds about right.  Do you have a permit for that cat of 9, Mal????? HUH????   Posted by Sarah on Fri Dec 22 04:14:00 PST 2006
WILL POWER!	I have a permit for my anal lube.  You should probably get one for the cuffs. Posted by WILL POWER! on Fri Dec 22 07:40:00 PST 2006
Sylkwyrm	OMG! I love you sweety! Posted by Sylkwyrm on Fri Dec 22 22:22:00 PST 2006

News from the Net

Looks like your local telecom companies can now choose to only service rich neighborhoods....

150 million year old 2-headed reptile fossil found.

107Gbps sent 100 miles in USA

Ok, I won't tell you what this is - but make sure to look at pic #7 for a good laugh :)

If you bought any of these CDs you should grab your claim form since Sony BMG is settling the lawsuit

Top 10 Geekiest Animals

Want to live longer? Drink a couple drinks of alcohol a day - but don't go over

Doctor Who and Red Dwarf legally available on Peer-2-Peer!!!

Autodesk sues to keep AutoCAD format closed

South Korea and China have mandated no proprietary chargers and data cables are allowed for cell phones anymore - the companies must use USB

Google drops the SOAP API

NASA once again thinks they have discovered something...

WarGames 2: The Dead Code began filming one month ago

Good moods prevent colds

Don't have a police bloodhound? Try a college student instead :)

Well, shortly after Nintendo started recalling the Wiimotes, a class action lawsuit has been filed

Linking to copyrighted material illegal in Australia..... Since every page on the internet usually has a copyright, wouldn't that make ALL linking illegal?  Idiots.

How about a solar skyscraper that rotates?

An interesting look at power usage in an apartment

For the geek in your dying to do some research, try to figure out what the implications are that a material with negative refractive index has been created

What do you get when you cross a propeller, an umbrella design and hot air? Give up? A new type of blimp

Oooh... High-performance flexible organic transistors mass produced.

Co-pilots are to gain most of their flight experience from simulators instead of actual flight on smaller planes

UK gets world's largest wind farm

Dante's Inferno Test

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Eigth Level of Hell - the Malebolge!

Eigth Level of Hell - the Malebolge

---

Many and varied sinners suffer eternally in the multi-leveled Malebolge, an ampitheatre-shapped pit of despair Wholly of stone and of an iron colour: Those guilty of fraudulence and malice; the seducers and pimps, who are whipped by horned demons; the hypocrites, who struggle to walk in lead-lined cloaks; the barraters, who are ducked in boiling pitch by demons known as the Malebranche. The simonists, wedged into stone holes, and whose feet are licked by flames, kick and writhe desperately. The magicians, diviners, fortune tellers, and panderers are all here, as are the thieves. Some wallow in human excrement. Serpents writhe and wrap around men, sometimes fusing into each other. Bodies are torn apart. When you arrive, you will want to put your hands over your ears because of the lamentations of the sinners here, who are afflicted with scabs like leprosy, and lay sick on the ground, furiously scratching their skin off with their nails. Indeed, justice divine doth smite them with its hammer.

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Extreme
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

Sylkwyrm	DAMN! "Very High, Very High, Very High, Moderate, Very High,Very High, Extreme!" You are one HELL of a guy! Posted by Sylkwyrm on Wed Dec 20 12:16:00 PST 2006
Malachi	Hey, I had two Very Low! Posted by Malachi on Wed Dec 20 12:21:00 PST 2006
Sarah	I was reading the explanation of your hell and I thought it was a description of your sex life...oh well.... Posted by Sarah on Fri Dec 22 04:13:00 PST 2006

Transformers

Brett provided me with a nicely updated Transformers preview.

Sylkwyrm	Much better then the preview in the theater. Posted by Sylkwyrm on Wed Dec 20 11:04:00 PST 2006

Bengal Kittens

So, a few days ago Dino and I saw a post about kittens for sale. They were cute, but we just aren't ready...

Then today, came across another post about the same kittens. Accoding to their website, they already sold off half of the kittens, but...  I thought I would provide the links so you can all see some pics of some cute kitties...

Silver	OH THEY ARE SO ADORABLE... *snif so cute. so very very cute... Posted by Silver on Tue Dec 19 00:35:00 PST 2006
Sarah	They certainly are lookers! Posted by Sarah on Tue Dec 19 06:59:00 PST 2006
Sylkwyrm	I Love da Kitties! Posted by Sylkwyrm on Tue Dec 19 11:07:00 PST 2006

Google Map update

GoogleMap has finally added multiple destinations to its service.  Why would this be important? Well, one obvious example is if you need to compute mileage for business reimbursement... Or, as is probably more likely with most of you, when the default map does not give the directions you want and you are trying to explain it to someone.

Let's look at an example... This map shows the default path GoogleMap suggests for me to go to the County Recorder's office.... But, what if I didn't want to take one of those roads? Well, in this map, I simply specified 2 intersections I wanted to go through.


Looks like it is finally time for me to update my TripPlanner software to use GoogleMaps...

Sylkwyrm	Well since mapquest removed that functionality it is good to see google adding it Posted by Sylkwyrm on Mon Dec 18 22:58:00 PST 2006
Malachi	Well, actually, still can't do the TripPlanner functionality... it did the shortest route (ie: solved the travelling salesman problem)... I'm sure if Google saw this post, they could add that functionality in a few hours... otherwise, it is up to me to do it. Maybe I should just suggest it to them. Posted by Malachi on Mon Dec 18 23:03:00 PST 2006
Malachi	Ok, I suggested it to them Posted by Malachi on Mon Dec 18 23:10:00 PST 2006

News from the Net

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) gets Sun's ZFS

Are you looking forward to the "security" of the new E-Passport? Well, that's good news for identity thieves, since they can clone it in under 5 minutes

$650k in six days in Mac Shareware?

Taxi Drivers grow more brain cells than you?

Would you elect a chess grandmaster for President?

I guess the military got tired of using Dolphins, cuz now DARPA is funding sharks as spies

Ummm. maybe I should explain history to PhysicsWeb... I'll speak slowly.... It's...called...hyperspace... (you know, hypercube, hypersphere, whatever).. I'm not saying that is what the universe it, just that they are trying so desperately to explain a theory we have read about in fiction books for almost a century.

Want to embed a softphone widget in your page?

Near complete-cure found for Diabetes

Zero-day Windows Vista exploit for sale for $50k

Would you like an inside look at the special efx of Pirates of the Caribbean

First launch from the mid-Atlantics' commercial spaceport

The US Geological Survey is being censored by Bush

WILL POWER!	Maybe Bush thinks that if they let the world get fucked up enough Jesus will come back and start the final battle between good and evil.  USE GEOLOGICAL CENSORSHIP TO BRING ON ARMAGEDDON! Posted by WILL POWER! on Mon Dec 18 11:02:00 PST 2006
Sarah	Direct quote from Bush, "There ain't no damn dirt.  The whole thing is a high pile of lies!" Posted by Sarah on Tue Dec 19 06:58:00 PST 2006

Black Light Miniature Golf

I could be misunderstanding, but doesn't this sound like black light miniature golf? Sounds like fun :)

Sylkwyrm	can you imagine this on acid? ;-) Posted by Sylkwyrm on Sat Dec 16 08:36:00 PST 2006
WILL POWER!	Ever seen indoor ultra violet miniature golf? Ever seen indoor ultra violet miniature golf ON WEED? Posted by WILL POWER! on Sat Dec 16 08:38:00 PST 2006
Sylkwyrm	LOL! Posted by Sylkwyrm on Sat Dec 16 13:17:00 PST 2006

Toys from the Net

Lookee what I found.

News from the Net

The FCC dropped Morse Code as a requirement for amateur radio certifications

Now M$ and the Patent Office conspire to patent emoticons on email messages

Google releases Custom IE7... Too bad I already had Google set as my homepage and the Google Toolbar installed or I would download it.

Since companies are planning on having tourists in space in the next year-ish, the FAA has released requirements for Space Tourism

HP is being sued for sellings PCs preinstalled with Windows - which evidentally violates French law

So the FCC gathers data on which cell phone carriers are more reliable, but won't tell you due to "national security risk"... Or maybe this is there way of saying "Nyah nyah Na Nya nya - I know something you don't know"

This is why you don't want to be a German computer game developer

Ever wonder how Skype works behind your firewall?

Sylkwyrm	Anyone else think that game develpment in the US will mirror Germany if Bush stays in power? :-S Posted by Sylkwyrm on Sat Dec 16 08:50:00 PST 2006

Modoc County

You too can live near my parents ;)

veluxx	oh the desolation Posted by veluxx on Fri Dec 15 08:36:00 PST 2006
jessie	they don't even sell it very well! i like how they show a "typical California pines lot" as having 1 or 2 pines and a LOT of scrub brush. "ooohh honey! let's move onto prime forest fire land!" or let's not. Posted by jessie on Fri Dec 15 09:36:00 PST 2006
Malachi	It's mostly sage brush and juniper... And well, since it is 4500' AND the valley, it also gets snow 2/3rd of the year; and extreme heat the other 1/3. Posted by Malachi on Fri Dec 15 09:38:00 PST 2006

10 Tech Concepts You Need to Know for 2007

Popular Mechanics article covering:
Bendable Concrete
PRAM (Phase-Change Random Access Memory)
Printed Solar Panels
Passport Hacking
Vehicle Infrastructure Integration
Body Area Network
Plasma Arc Gasification
VoN (Video on the Net)
Smart Pills
Data Cloud

jessie	blinkblink. blinkblinkblink. oh i get it! no, i don't. blinkblinkblink. Posted by jessie on Fri Dec 15 09:38:00 PST 2006
Sylkwyrm	Take notes there will be a quiz at the end of the year ;-) Posted by Sylkwyrm on Sat Dec 16 13:19:00 PST 2006
Malachi	Me or Jessie? ;) Posted by Malachi on Sat Dec 16 13:34:00 PST 2006

News from the Net

Hehe. This mentions Wierd Al AND the Daily Show

In case you missed the news this morning, warning for Wii users

OMG! OMG! OMFG! New Stargate Series in the works!

What a surprise... Microsoft Word once again exploited

Homeland Security Director getting desperate after the public realize his plans are completely useless

Scientists speak out against our government for interference

Futurama continues

Sylkwyrm	Nerd Rappers? Thats Fucking 4w50m3! Posted by Sylkwyrm on Fri Dec 15 09:35:00 PST 2006

Toys from the Net

I figured I had enough readers that would love to see this, so...

SparrowHawk	You know that's kind of cool, in a creepy kind of way. :) Posted by SparrowHawk on Thu Dec 14 02:00:00 PST 2006
Silver	What no hemlock? no Wolf's bane? come on... they could have put so much more in there, ALOE? What self-respecting cemetary lurker likes aloe... "mm, good for the skin" NO. BAD. Down boy... Posted by Silver on Thu Dec 14 02:30:00 PST 2006
WILL POWER!	Kind of neat, but I want those flytraps! Posted by WILL POWER! on Thu Dec 14 02:48:00 PST 2006

News from the Net

Put some movies online, make no money and go to Prison

Web-based Animated Star Trek series?

Microsoft officially enters the robotic forum

I thought this has been true all along, but I guess it is now illegal to melt coins

Want your own Wii controller? Er, I mean, "handheld pointing device that works in mid-air"

How about a MythTV in-a-box?

More info on the new hybrid hard drives

UK wants to ban RPGs and Hentai?

Wtf? Are they saying that soon I can go on disability for my Internet addiction? I mean, come on, I was addicted to the BBS scene before that.

Bad Google. No cookie. They have patented ornamental design for a GUI

Wow! Mozart's works are now free

More Mars Discoveries???

Looks like Sony is about to be busted. Federal Trade Commission investigates Viral Marketing

So you remember the whole liquid-on-airplane restriction scandal? Well, evidentally, the guy they arrested that was supposedly ground zero for this problem is facing forgery charges, not terrorist charges

Mini News from the Net

This was too good to wait until tomorrow to post...

You can now access the Google Patent Search or the Advanced Search... Then you too can get these 851 patents I found by searching for 'Tesla'. Of course, searching for the Inventor 'Tesla' only found 89 results.

Sylkwyrm	NEAT! Posted by Sylkwyrm on Wed Dec 13 11:57:00 PST 2006

News from the Net

Evidentally, the place most similar to Earth in our Solar System is Titan... Too bad it is -178*C on the surface.

After 20 million years, the white dolphin has gone extinct. That's the first mammal in 50 years to be known to go extinct

New Zealand finds their first land mammal fossil

Looks like an alternative to Comcast cable is a block away

Quantum Cryptography available next year???

Chinese don't allow online games to have religious or political material or for the players to cross-dress.

Google's new scheme for stock options

Interplay is spending $75 million on their new Fallout MMOG

Meteor shower tonight

So now that Illinois lost its ban on violent video games, the judge has ordered them to pay $510250 in legal fees by 12/18 or else

RIM crippled the Bluetooth speeds on the BlackBerry

Want to start your own Laser Etching Business? They'll show you how.

OpenOffice 2.1 released

When you think of Texas, do you think about people randomly shooting guns at things? Well, now the blind can randomly shoot things too... Well, they might hit something unintended, but at least it would be legal.

Designer company makes HMD

The National Center for Atmospheric Research says Santa may sink by 2040

One year until you too can have sea snail toxin take your pain away

Once again, the USA is beat technologically by another country, this time the Netherlands... They have ended transmission of analog TV

Google Web Toolkit now available under Apache license, if you would like to hack their Java to Javascript compiler ;)

Wikipedia Founder plans to give away web hosting

WILL POWER!	Sad that mankind is resposible for yet another animal extinction. Posted by WILL POWER! on Wed Dec 13 08:57:00 PST 2006

News from the Net

Sony behind fake viral campaign again... I wonder if Google has the balls to drop them for breaking the agreement

Ok, it's official... John McCain is an evil immoral Republican... He is trying to extend federal obscenity laws that would fine you $300k for not reporting a post to a blog or mailing list... Specifically, targets: These types of individuals or businesses would be required to file reports: any Web site with a message board; any chat room; any social-networking site; any e-mail service; any instant-messaging service; any Internet content hosting service; any domain name registration service; any Internet search service; any electronic communication service; and any image or video-sharing service.

Identity theft at UCLA

Virginia is going to require sex offenders to register their email and IM names so that their communications can be monitored

I'm sure some of you know how kewl it is to print OLED's with standard inkjet printing tech... How about printing biological tissue in the same way

If any of you are into Microsoft (not me) and/or C# (not me) you might be interested in the new free XNA Game Studio Express for writing games for Windows and XBox

Those of you who have see An Inconvenient Truth might find it interesting that many new species were found under Antarctica

New version of VLC released

Wonder what the Sense of Smell and Quantum Physics have in common

Ultrawideband to be legal in Europe in 6 months

Consumer Reports reports on cell phone companies

So would you call the person who predicts space weather a meteorologist?

There has been significant progress in storing data in semiconductors

Hehe

MySpace won't let me link to the image itself, so...here's the product...

I won't say who I thought of when I saw it ;)

Layne	I want one!!!  Posted by Layne on Mon Dec 11 02:30:00 PST 2006

Smoking?

This really makes me want to start smoking again! :(

WILL POWER!	I would sue the shit out of a company that didn't hire me because I smoked. Posted by WILL POWER! on Mon Dec 11 05:46:00 PST 2006
Mr Oax	I understand that people want to run an efficient, financially stable business...but these people need to be slapped in their heads with some boards. Posted by Mr Oax on Mon Dec 11 23:53:00 PST 2006

News from the Net

Scientists have evidence that humans showed evolutionary changes 2700 years ago

Solar tsunamis?

How about a Synthetic Gecko foot?

DARPA restores challenge prize money

Spyware installed thanks to Microsoft, Ford Motor and New York Times

The friggin RIAA asked the government for permissions to pay songwriters less

Cocktail robot awards???

Merriam-Webster calls 'Truthiness' their 2006 Word of the Year

Wow.... if you want to know why arsonists are being released from jail....

Info on 2007 Independent Games Festival finalists

Attorneys in Washington DC try to do away with the 2nd Amendment

Even though I am now against internal combustion engines, this article does mention Dr. Emmet Brown's Delorean, so I will list it

Verizon doesn't know the difference between $0.002 dollars and $0.002 cents

Hahaha! The newly "secure" Windows Vista Enterprise fan be activated via a spoofed server

How about the 'Open Source Car' project?

A terabyte of data on a regular dvd?

WILL POWER!	I hope they don't take away the right to bare arms.  I like my t-shirts. Posted by WILL POWER! on Mon Dec 11 05:42:00 PST 2006

MySpace Blogs

So it was pointed out to me the other day that some of our friends have blogged recently. It appears MySpace is fricked up again and not sending me the emails (which is how I usually access everyone's blogs)... I am going to go through their annoying Blog Home page (that is never accurate since I use two browsers) and try to catch up.  I apologize ahead of time if I miss an important blog by anyone.

DIY Projects

How-To: Build your own HD projector

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Your own HMD

Make your own Cintiq (think Dino's monitor)

$5 EEPROM Programmer

News from the Net

Sony to switch battery types

There were evidentally 134 KNOWN journalists in jail on Dec 1. 49 of those were Internet journalists.

HP buys off California's Attorney General's office.

6Gbps over wireless achieved

So I knew that the old Netscape people were planning on making an MMO... And now I know which one... Firefly MMOG

Anyone who hates the RIAA will LOVE to see how well they can read

21 year study says cell phones are safe

German Minister of the Interior seeks jail time for thos who develop, publish OR PLAY violent video games

Surprisingly, Best Buy instituted flex time, done away with schedules, done away with mandatory meetings and impression-management...

It appears Sex Offenders will start having a hard time being social online.

Simple reason to vote against Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton

RIAA Victims file class action lawsuit against Kazaa

NIST rejects paper trail for evoting because you would have to reinstall the system hardware

$1 million proof that anti-spyware companies were behind anti-spyware

oooh! A new toy!!!! A table-top particle accelerator!!!

WILL POWER!	Firefly MMO?  w00t! Posted by WILL POWER! on Fri Dec 08 08:43:00 PST 2006
Sylkwyrm	Firefly MMORPG! W00t! Posted by Sylkwyrm on Fri Dec 08 19:03:00 PST 2006