Thursday, July 29, 2004

NASA Ordered to Pull Kerry Photos Offline

NASA Ordered to Pull Kerry Photos Offline

This is dumb. Why is the Kerry campaign making an issue out of a non-issue? So he was wearing a 'bunny' suit. So what? I looked at the photos the first day they came out and thought nothing other than 'cool, he got to go in a Space Shuttle.' Then the DNC gets all riled up and wants NASA to take the pics down and says they weren't even authorized to be taken in the first place.


Memo to DNC: You've got better things to worry about than silly photos of your candidate.

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Don't ya just love revisionist history?

DRUDGE REPORT 2004�: "A new bombshell book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Kerry reenacted combat scenes for film while in Vietnam! 'Kerry carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing,' charges a naval officer in the upcoming book UNFIT FOR COMMAND. "

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Monday, July 26, 2004

Ancient DNA Reveals Skin Color

In the Cool Science category: Discovery Channel :: News :: Ancient DNA Reveals Skin Color
Researchers may be able to make more accurate reconstructions of what ancient humans looked like with the first ever use of ancient DNA to determine hair and skin color from skeletal remains.
The article goes on to say the the same method could be used to help identify the skin color of criminals.

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Saturday, July 24, 2004

Star Wars: Episode III

They've chosen Revenge of the Sith as the title for Star Wars Episode III. About Episode III:

After three long years of relentless fighting, the Clone Wars are nearly at an end. The Jedi Council dispatches Obi-Wan Kenobi to bring General Grievous, the deadly leader of the Separatist droid army, to justice. Meanwhile, back on Coruscant, Chancellor Palpatine has grown in power. His sweeping political changes transform the war-weary Republic into the mighty Galactic Empire. To his closest ally, Anakin Skywalker, he reveals the true nature of power and the promised secrets of the Force in an attempt to lure him to the dark side.

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Friday, July 23, 2004

Windows Security hole: .JOB files


Apparently there is a new source of concern with Windows. It has to do with .JOB files an the kicker is you don't have to open the file to get infected. Simply navigating to a folder that contains the file is enough to cause things to go wrong.

.JOB files work with the task scheduler but it is really the icon handler that breaks things.

Articles to look at:
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/368959
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/368949/2004-07-13/2004-07-19/0

MS has an update here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS04-022.mspx

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Thursday, July 22, 2004

Wired News: Chunk of Mars Found at South Pole

Wired reports that a piece of Mars was found on the South Pole. Earths South Pole that is.
The team of Antarctic explorers came across the 1.5-pound black rock last December while scouring for meteorites in the Transantarctic Mountains, about 466 miles from the South Pole. A subsequent analysis by the Smithsonian Institution revealed that the rock's mineralogy and texture are 'unmistakably Martian,' according to a statement released Wednesday by NASA.

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National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

If you want to read the 9/11 Commission's report you can go out and buy it or just download the PDF here.

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Starbucks Warns Of Price Hikes

Starbucks Warns Of Price Hikes

Maybe they should stop building so many stores. You can't swing a dead cat around here with out hitting a Starbucks.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004

UPI:Nuclear arms reportedly found in Iraq

Nuclear arms reportedly found in Iraq - (United Press International):
Baghdad, Iraq, Jul. 21 (UPI) -- Iraqi security reportedly discovered three missiles carrying nuclear heads concealed in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad, official sources said Wednesday.
Hasn't been confirmed yet.

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Firefox Tips and Tricks

I've been using Firefox almost full time now. Currently using 0.9.2. I decided to put together a web page containing the things I've learned in the hope that it will help other people get up and running with this great browser. You can reach my tips and tricks page here.

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Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Martha plans a court guide

The Australian: Martha plans a court guide [July 21, 2004]
'I think I'll write a book because I think it could be helpful to other people, just about what lawyer to choose, how to behave, how to attend an interview,' she told CNN's Larry King yesterday.
Can't you just picture the cover in soft earth tones? It's a good thing :)

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Thursday, July 15, 2004

How to recover XP when your fonts are messed up

This morning I suffered some strange corruption on my home PC where the fonts were replaced with wingdings. This is a real pain because you can's see what you are doing. I wanted to try a system restore but couldn't figure out where it was on the menu (wish I has a screenshot it was truly crazy!) Anyway, if this happens to you again you can go to a command prompt by following this procedure:

Start -> Run and type 'cmd'
Navigate to and run %SystemRoot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe (Notes: %SystemRoot% is usually c:\winnt but it could be c:\windows or some other drive, hopefully you know where Windows is installed on your machine :) )

You have 3 screens to navigate through. I've listed the button positions because you can't read the buttons when your fonts are messed up.

1. Select Restore my computer to an earlier time and click next (left button)
2. Choose a recent date that you have a restore point created. Go back as recent as you can before you think the corruption started and click next. (middle button)
3. Click Next again to start the restore. (middle button)

System restore is one of the things Microsoft did right. It's saved me several times. Hope this helps you!

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Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Current MLB standings at the All Star Break

Since the All Star Game is tonight I thought it might be interesting to capture where teams currently stand at roughly mid season. The formatting isn't great but here are the current standings:

American League
East W L Pct GB
NY Yankees 55 31 0.64 --
Boston 48 38 0.56 7
Tampa Bay 42 45 0.48 14
Toronto 39 49 0.44 17
Baltimore 37 48 0.44 18
Central W L Pct GB
Chi White Sox 46 38 0.55 --
Minnesota 47 40 0.54 0.5
Cleveland 42 45 0.48 5.5
Detroit 42 45 0.48 5.5
Kansas City 31 54 0.37 16
West W L Pct GB
Texas 49 37 0.57 --
Oakland 47 39 0.55 2
Anaheim 47 40 0.54 2.5
Seattle 32 54 0.37 17

National League
East W L Pct GB
Philadelphia 46 41 0.53 --
Atlanta 45 42 0.52 1
Florida 45 43 0.51 1.5
NY Mets 44 43 0.51 2
Montreal 31 56 0.36 15
Central W L Pct GB
St. Louis 54 33 0.62 --
Chi Cubs 47 40 0.54 7
Cincinnati 47 41 0.53 7.5
Milwaukee 45 41 0.52 8.5
Houston 44 44 0.5 11
Pittsburgh 39 47 0.45 15
West W L Pct GB
Los Angeles 48 38 0.56 --
San Francisco 49 40 0.55 0.5
San Diego 47 41 0.53 2
Colorado 36 51 0.41 13
Arizona 31 58 0.35 19

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Thursday, July 08, 2004

Blogosphere Ecosystem

This is kind of cool. I just read about this over on Jimmy Akin's blog. There is a system on a site called Truth Laid Bear called the Blogosphere Ecosystem. What you do is add you blog to the list and once a day the blogosphere is scanned and you are ranked by number of links to your blog.
The TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem is an application which scans weblogs once daily and generates a list of weblogs ranked by the number of incoming links they receive from other weblogs on the list.
This is pretty cool. We'll see where my blog ranks. I'm sure it is pretty low because I doubt there are many linking to me.
According to Jimmy's post, if someone in the TTLB ecosystem links to you then your blog is in the system already. I'll have to test that after my blog is scanned. I hope that is true because I link to some great bloggers. :)

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Wednesday, July 07, 2004

This is a test post to see if AvantBlog is still up and running.

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