My Archives: March 2002
Friday, March 29, 2002
Some bonehead Senator has issued a "report" claiming that 96% of all nuclear power plants cannot withstand the impact from even a small plane. This is simply not true. There's no way in the world any Piper or Cessna could break through 3 feet of reinforced concrete. Planes are very lightweight and made with very thin (weak) materials to keep their weight down. AOPA Story
Remember what happened when that kid crashed a 172 into the Bank of America building? Nothing! He killed himself and caused no appreciable damage to the building or anyone inside. That should be proof enough that us "little planes" are not a security threat. And don't talk about "loading it up with explosives", because we can't carry that much weight. A Ryder truck is much more effective and you don't see people trying to ban those.
Thursday, March 28, 2002
HELP!!! I'm getting my butt completely whooped in the foosball tournament at work.
Monday, March 25, 2002
Playboy's putting together a new "Women of Enron" issue. Why????? WRAL Story
Friday, March 22, 2002
Heh. In their latest bag of tricks, the Scientologists threatened to sue Google because their search engine returned a cached copy of an anti-Scientologist website. The scary part, Google actually complied. CNN story
This sets a scary precedent in which search engine sites are suddenly considered responsible for content they index. How in the world are they supposed to police that? Lawyers and stupid laws - what a combination. In the end, Google restored the page.
Hey, what's for dinner?
Lab-grown fish chunks. - Yuck!!!!!!
Sunday, March 17, 2002
Hey! Buy my mom's car.... the RealtorMobile™
Friday, March 15, 2002
OK, someone has finally introduced the single-PC backup device of my dreams, the Pockey. It's a 20GB hard drive that's unpluggable.
For many years, tape drives were huge compared to hard drives. However, in the last few years, hard drives have exploded in size and tape drives haven't been able to keep up. Plus, tapes have always been slow and a bit of a pain to use. But now, ordinary Joe PC user can get a convienent backup device that works just like his hard drive. It's fast.
Many people tell me, "why do you spend all that money on a tape drive when you can just buy another hard drive much cheaper?" Well, the answer is "thunderstorms". I've had several computers blown up by lightning strikes. If I were backing up to an ordinary (not hot-pluggable) IDE drive, the backup drive would get toasted as well. But, with an external USB device it can be unplugged and stored in a lightning-safe location. (Let's hope the drivers let you do this without a reboot. Would suck otherwise).
If anyone buys one of these, let me know how it works out.
Thursday, March 14, 2002
Heh. Here's a good all-around Cary bashing article.
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
Heather's favorite picture is the National Geographic cover of the Afghan refugee girl with the funny eyes. Here's an interesting news article about it.
Thursday, March 7, 2002
Hey, remember back in the old days when we all had external modems with flashing "RD" and "TD" lights on them? Well, one researcher has figured out how to capture your data from them. Who knew?
Warning. I just received an email from "Microsoft Corporation Security Center" claiming to be sending me an update to Internet Explorer to fix security vulnerabilities. I am 99% sure this is a "trojan horse" program. If I were to execute it, who knows what awful things would happen to my PC.
Remember, if someone mails you an executable, don't run it. I have never heard of Microsoft distributing updates this way. Microsoft distributes its updates using its own website or the "Windows Update" feature. Also, I examined the email headers and it appears to be originating from an AT&T Worldnet user. I have sent copies of this message to both Microsoft and AT&T.
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
This is kind of liking watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Sunday, March 3, 2002
Has Mike Tyson found a new job with the secret service?
Saturday, March 2, 2002
Here's a great Spectator article on three local radio stations' use of "cyberjocking", the radio industry's latest super-tacky way to maximize profits by "reusing" out of town DJs. As little as DJs get paid, I can't imagine this really saves the stations a lot of money. But, I guess it's part of the grand plan of making every square inch of America exactly the same.
I hope Don Curtis is right in saying this is a "fad". I don't believe in protectionism for people with obsolete jobs, but the DJs only useful purpose is for humor. How can a cyber-transplant from some megapolis possibly understand local culture enough to make jokes about it?
Friday, March 1, 2002
A truly amazing picture of earth at night. It's got to be a composite, since not all of the earth is dark at once, but still quite amazing.
