7610

I mean.....WHY?

A woman in San Diego was walking her dog, she curbed her dog, and then a man in his 20s stole it. Ladies and gentlemen, a real life turd burglar.

MySQL 5.0.3-beta released

Alrighty! MySQL, the world's most popular Open Source Database Server, has released MySQL Database Server 5.0.3b*. Not excited about that? Well, I am. It's time for stored procedures.

Download it here.

*to be used for preview and testing. Don't use in production. I assume absolutely NO responsibility for anything you do.

Save Bernd (Too Late)

Before I blogged about the Save Toby site, there was Save Bernd.

Sadly, Bernd's day has passed. Bernd has also passed.

You know what? Don't save Toby either.

Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature

A White Russian always makes me think of one of two things. Either, a friend of mine, Ivan, or the Big Lebowski.

I love the Big Lebowski (Ivan, nothing but love for you man). However, pretty much anything can have some kind of a "core" following, where people organize and come together for a conference or some sort of gathering. Some examples of these are the Xena (Warrior Princess) Con and the (multiple) Trek fests.

I did happen to stumble upon a few of the Lebowski sites. There are links for The Dude's House, a Big Lebowski Random Quote Generator, even the Lebowski Fest. A Lebowski Fest!

The movie script is here, and here is Jeff Bridges website.

Two-Thirds Down, One-Third to go

According to the Royal Society, the Millenium Ecosystem Assement project has come up with a preliminary report that states that two thirds of the world's resources are used up.

Let's see how the Bush administration addresses ignores this issue.

Born with skis on their feet

Apparently Norwegians claim that they are born with skis on their feet. I wasn't, but they grew onto my feet when I turned 4. However, this Easter weekend, roughly 1,230 Norwegian skiers were injured during Easter weekend.

I need to try to do more skiing every year, I've been trying to get a trip together for some of my DC friends for probably the past 3 years. I'm not lying. I kind of tried this year, but most people already had plans for inauguration day when I went. Plus the city was all "securified" to protect the moron that got re-elected. Monkeys.

Don't Like a Website?

NetDisaster is a novelty website that allows you to "destroy" a website.

I like this one. Perhaps more than this one.

Enjoy!

Too bad I didn't see this until today

Happy Monday after Easter. I hope you smile after seeing this. Especially since it's been raining all day here.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

Laptop Accessories

There are businesses that can survive just by fulfilling a small niche market. Proporta is one of those companies. They sell adapters, cables, etc. They even sell cable "sub-bags" (my new term for bag in a bag). I just bought the Eagle Creek Sidekick for that purpose.

Proporta even stocks these, which I can't stress enough, but EVERY mobile user needs.

Real Life American Margarine (Pie)

Tommy Mason, an Nebraskan, is currently in jail after getting caught masturbating with margarine. Once he gets out of jail, he'll be the new spokesperson for Imperial Margarine.

Apparently, he saw a hottie working the cash register and had to go "spank a stick of maragarine". Ahem.

flickr bought by Yahoo

Apparently, Yahoo! bought flickr.

6 Blueberry Lane

I just went to Best Buy, and being an esteemed "Rewards Member," I had to verify my address. It was not correct. In fact, it was WAY off. Here's the letter that I wrote to Best Buy via their web form. Set around 10:40 PM tonight:

I was in the Potomac Yard (Store 493) this evening. When I told the cashier my telephone number, she had me verify my address. The address there was not mine. The name and telephone number are correct though. The address that your system had on file was 6 Blueberry Lane, somewhere in Massachusetts. I've never lived in Massachusetts in my life. Therefore, I want to know a few things.

How is this possible?

How long has this change been in effect?

How many of my rewards have gone to the Massachuesetts address?

How are you going to rememdy this?

I am the Director of Internet Infrastructure and Security for a major political organization. So, I know a thing or two about security.

I really would like to involve the police with this. If ANY of my reward coupons have been used, then that is fraud, and I believe the FBI will think so as well. I hope that you are willing to work with me on this. I really want to get to the bottom of what happened and if this is a case of identity theft, I want to see just how far it goes.

This is a very serious issue as I'm sure you are aware. I will be following up on this issue, you can be assured of that.

I'll post any replies here.

Is this an issue of identity theft? I sure hope not. But, I'm sure that it's fairly easy to do. Look someone up in the phone book, put your address in there when you go to Best Buy. They don't ask for any ID or proof that you say who you are. Pretty easy if you ask me. Granted, I haven't spent a lot of money at Best Buy recently, but them's my rewards. Let's see where this goes.

New USB device

So everyone knows about these USB Drives. I've got one. Some of these even have biometrics built in or self-destruct. Some people have seen the Sushi USB Drives, or the Tiki USB Drive.

Now we've got Retro USB Drives. I say, Kudos.

The Fleecing of a House

You know, stealing a piece of candy isn't too bad. Stealing a book or something is a little worse. I've stolen a cordless phone from a house-party back in college because I was pissed off at something. Anyway, these guys stole the whole freaking house. And sold it for drugs.

Senate Server hacked

According to Zone-H.org, there was a Senate SunONE/iPlanet server hacked today. I guess someone will (or is already) looking for a new job.

Here's a mirror of the Salazar defacement

Tired of your own music?

Make more. Pianographique turns your keyboard into a piano of sorts. It's pretty fun, and there are a lot of alternate keyboard configurations on the site, you just have to look.

How Secure is your browser?

Test your browser. I ran it on Firefox 1.0.1 on Windows XP, and I have no browser vulnerabilities. w00t! I really need to switch back to Fedora though.

NTT comes out with human networking

NTT has come out with technology called RedTacton that uses the surface of the human body into a data transmission path at speeds up to 10 Mbps between any two points on the body. So now, you'll be able to do things like exchange business cards simply with the shake of a hand.

I think this is some James Bond-ish kinda stuff that Q would have come up with. Crazy stuff.

I now I really don't want anyone to scan my network.

What's in my bag

There's a photo-sharing website called Flickr that allows users to "tag" their photos and (optionally make them public). One of the viral tags that has caught on is "whatsinyourbag." This is interesting because you can also label areas in your photographs with explanations.

Here's what's in my bag. Although it begs the question, how long does it take for my tagged picture to be included in this list?

Apparently, I'm one of the few Flickr users without an iPod.

via: White's of Henry Lane.

Google style drink recipes

Droogle

Tips for Life

I just stumbled on a site (new to me), and it's become one of my favorite websites, bookmarked along with Gizmodo, Slashdot and Metafilter.

The name of the site is lifehacker.com. It's got tips on how to do things such as Getting a preschooler to bed, and How to Run your first 5k. Interestingly enough, it's sponsored by Sony.

Sit Key

This is the ultimate geek stool. Brought to you by greatbigstuff.com.

"holds your backspace just like your finger rests in a key"

It looks like they used the font from an Apple keyboard.

Sucks to be these guys

Thinking of moving? Everyone's worst nightmare.

I GOT A GOOGLEWHACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Caramelized Staidness. Aww yeah. Well, I guess this will be the other hit.

Googlewhack

I'm officially obsessed. I'll find one before I sleep tonight. (I hope).

Indulgence

Today I decided that I'd make a soup. For today's soup, I made Crab and Asparagus soup from my Williams Sonoma Soup Cookbook. I also had a lobster from Maine Avenue. It was just a chicken, but Blur was curious.

Here's what my dinner looked like. So good.

More family than team

I've worked in a few places in my life. Working with great people and believing in a cause is the ultimate in team-building. However, when a team is so tight that it becomes a family, it's always tough to see people go.

One of the family members is Eric Folley. He was at the DNC when I joined, and one of the first people that I met at the DNC. He was also the one that showed me the ropes at the DNC. He gave me a piece of paper that had his contact information and codes to the office alarm. He's moving away, but I'm sure that we'll be in touch.

Very cool use of light

There are these guys that used a nuclear power plant, helicopter and very powerful projectors, (oh yeah, and cameras) to create this collection of images.

click on weiter for the next image.

Dark Day

Today is a dark day for me. I think I'm getting sick. My throat is closing up and I keep coughing. Monkeys. My stress level was supposed to go down today. We'll see.

Cube is gone

I meant to blog this on Tuesday. I swear. the Astor place cube in Greenwich Village is gone. The Parks department took it away for repair. Apparently the "Alamo" as it's been called, had a bolt missing and was unstable.

Google Code

Google has recently (looks like today) started up code.google.com for their open source initiatives. If you want to know what it's all about, RTFM.

They're featuring open source projects that take advantage of their web APIs. For instance PyGoogle.

Google OSX Style

Pretty cool idea for non-mac users.

6 Degrees of Bands

A lot of you will remember the 6 Degrees of Separation site from back during the dot com boom. Kind of your old school Friendster. Then there was the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Now, there is the same idea, but for bands, called BandtoBand.com. I looked for the link between Jane's Addiction and Nirvana. But, why don't they just use Dave Grohl?

I seen them play with my own here eyeses!

The Old Siam, Washington, DC

Tonight I went to the Old Siam Thai Restaurant on 8th and Pennsylvania Avenue SE, near the Marine Barracks here in Washington. Now, this neighborhood is very familiar to me since I've been hanging around that 'hood for a few years and going to many of the bars. One of those bars used to be Mickey's Patio. Mickey's closed on November 30, 2004. It is now the Old Siam.

First, when you walk in, the bar is in the same place although it has a new granite patterned bartop. We sat way back the North East Corner where one of the dart boards would have been. The interior is essentially the same, but painted. There is a new floor, and the bathrooms have been upgraded quite a bit (although the men's urinal was out of order; at least something is the same). The back room, where the two full size pool tables were, was not open yet.

Food

I ordered a glass of Merlot, that came quickly, and we placed our orders at the same time we ordered food. We arrived at 7:40 PM. I ordered the Steamed Mussels appetizer, and Roasted Duck Curry for my entreé. Maura had the Crispy Duck Salad appetizer and I can't remember what entreé. Our appetizers came at 8:25 or so. We're talking about 45 minutes for the appetizers to come out. My mussels were cold, so I sent them back. The waitress said, "Oh the mussels are cold? I'll go reheat them for you." She turns to Maura and says, "The salad is supposed to be cold." Well, no shit Sherlock.

The mussels come back, their mediocre, the Crispy Duck Salad was slightly heavy on ginger. I finished the mussels and we waited (rather impatiently) for our dinners. They finally came, and the food was mediocre at best.

There was a table directly behind me that had a complaint about something and got up and left. Imagine that. Either those people have a lower tolerance for poor service than I do, or I was just too hungry to leave.

I much prefer eating at Talay Thai or pretty much any other thai restaurant than return here.

Hurra Torpedo's Total Eclipse of the Heart

There is a music video that just resurfaced by a Norwegian group called Hurra Torpedo. They are doing a cover of Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart in this video (7.7 MB). It's hilarious, and well worth watching.

Cool Collection of Cigarette tins and cases

Here is a cool collection of cigarette cases and tins from years gone by. It's not organized very well (for me), but still cool. I like the Natural American Spirit tin.

HOWTO Mod a Webcam into an Infrared Webcam

Geoff Johnson has a tute on how to turn a Sweex USB webcam into a USB Infrared Camera. It's pretty interesting and seems pretty easy. He's even got some links to a Flickr user's infrared pictures of money. Who knew that paper currency (even in the US) had infrared signatures.
Perhaps I'll mod my webcam. It's not like I use it much. Especially after I heard about this guy's virus.

We're All Paying for News

Truthout.org reports that President Bush and his administration have sanctioned and "created" news clips for media.

In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years

And here we thought it was just Fox News.

Which Search Engine Should You Use?

The default search engine for most people is Google. Personally, it actually took me a while to switch over to Google from Yahoo!. However, if you want to find say driving directions, you don't go to Google, you'd go to Mapquest or Map24, or even Yahoo!.

Here is a little cheatsheet on what search engine to use for what.

Welcome to Miami

I'm back from Curaçao, had a peaceful trip back, with no delays. My friend snowdog though... We both flew in from CUR to Miami airport, and were chilling out there. I caught my flight, but apparently, the computer on his flight back to NYC crashed, so they never boarded. Read on for details.

So American Airlines flew a plane down from Boston to replace this plane, and then had to clean it up. After cleaning it, they had passed the FAA window for how many hours a flight attendant could work. So they had to find new people to staff the flight. Once they found those people, they boarded the plane, and a passenger the proceeded to vomit on the plane. Everyone then had to evacuate the plane. So, he got put up in a hotel for the night in Miami, and was supposed to catch a flight back to NYC this morning. I'm so glad I wasn't on the flight.

Curacao Day 3

Today, Snowdog and I went to the data center down here in Curacao. It rained like crazy, so I'm glad we weren't on the beach. Although, I think I would still rather be on the beach.

So far, I've lost about $400 in blackjack, eaten some crap food (except breakfast this morning and lunch at Pizza Hut today.

I've taken a lot of pictures, but haven't had the time (or bandwidth) to upload them yet. I'll put them up either when I get home or when we get the network up here.

The resort, Breezes is alright. The food can be terrible, but whatever, it's free. So is the alcohol. Amstel Brite is my beer of choice down here, although it tastes like Corona.

I got a little sunburnt, while snorkelling yesterday. We saw all kindsa fish though. And even like an 8-10 inch puffer fish. I wanted to grab it and make sushi! The sushi here is edible.

Looks like we're leaving the office now. It's right near the UTS headquarters.

Cheers.

Friday Cat Blogging

My daddy's going to Curacao tomorrow.

Dining Out for Life

Dining Out For Life is an national annual fundraising event where restaurants donate a percentage of meal costs (anywhere from 25%-100%) to a licensed agency that helps battle HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

This year, Dining Out For Life is Thursday, March 10. Washington DC is one of the 33 cities with over 2,500 restaurants participating.

Great gift idea for the driver

I've always wanted something like this. But these guys have come up with a whole booklet! Truly, a great gift for any driver you know. I hope that I never get one used on me.

I really hate some people on the road.

Montage a google

This is another big waste of time:

http://grant.robinson.name/projects/montage%2Da%2Dgoogle/

Try: super hero

Free WiFi Illegal?

Technology for All, in conjunction with Rice University has created a free wi-fi hotspot in Houston's East End.

However, the Houston Chronicle reports that Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, has proposed legislation that would ban municipalities offering free wireless access to it's citizens.

Ok, let's stifle the development and rollout of wireless access to thousands of people. Great idea. Or even better, let's set a precendence where telecoms and other ISPs can start charging for what was once free Wi-fi. "Well, Houston doesn't allow it."

Wi-fi is still a relatively new technology, with new developments coming out in rapid succession. We first had 802.11b, then 802.11a, then 802.11g. Coming soon, 802.11n. Explanations of all these 802.11x here.

My understanding is that the only reason that I can see where this would make sense for Rep. King to even propose this legislation is that he wants companies to compete for wireless business. However, if free wireless access is provided by the city, then, well, why use anything else?

Unless you are engaging in activities that you don't want the city to be able to monitor. In that case, you have your own problems.

Banning Wifi and the legal precedence that it might set sounds a little bit like Costa Rica making VoIP illegal. What's up with that?

Bad Day At the Office Ad

Most of you remember the bad day at the office video from a couple of years back (yeah, ok, maybe 5 years) when the guy bashes in his computer. Well, NetOp Firewalls has a new spin on that to promote their desktop firewall. Pretty funny.

I'm not promoting their product, just their video.

More Asinine Time Wasting

This is like Slot Mad-Libs. I'm a BUFF pimp who loves to whap animals. What are you?

JK is a nut-lickin punk who worship circus tents
JB is a monstrous felcher who loves to swallow toilets
he's also a strong hunk who loves to worship hooters

Bored? Notepad Invaders

So I was just surfing around the web, and found Notepad Invaders. Pretty fun, but the music started to make me twitch. My high score (first game) 21,030. Good luck.

Happy Birthday Yahoo!

Today, Yahoo! is 10 years old. To celebrate that, they've put together a netrospective. 10 years, 100 moments on the web. It's fun to reflect back.

Brought to you by 10x10, who also produce Word Count.

Negativland vs. U2 iPod

Francis Hwang created what he calls a "Special Edition Negativland vs. U2 IPod" and put it up for sale on eBay back in December. Unfortunately, Apple complained to eBay, and eBay pulled the plug on the auction.

Claiming that Apple had not given him an explanation for what copyright violations had occured, and also claiming that this is "intellectual property history", Hwang is now selling the unit on his own website. This iPod is special, in that it has 7 albums from Negativland, which has a history of dealings with U2 and the RIAA. The U2 single, "I still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" cannot legally be produced within the United States, but U2 has been sampling clips from it for their Zoo TV tour.

All proceeds (so far up to $451) from the sale are going to Downhill Battle, an organization seeking to build a fairer music industry.

While the battle between Negativland and Island Records (U2's record company) may not have hit the mainstream, the Negativland vs. U2 iPod issue is sure to bring it back at least partially into the public's eye. For the record, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken sides with Hwang.

Playing Pool Robotically

I've been playing pool in a league for about 7 seasons now. The folks over at Predator Cues have come up with a gadget that controls what's called "cue deflection". Which is when the cue hits the cue ball so hard that it imparts unwanted spin. Now, this is something that is one of the finer points of playing pool. It is difficult to master, but once you do, your game improves dramatically.

While you won't find the Z in the house cue rack, keep practicing. Then call me and we'll play. Personally, I have the Viking VX01 in a 20.5 oz.

Bubba is served

I love eating lobster, but this story about a 22 pound lobster is incredible. Some estimate that Bubba is over 100 years old. This would make him older than Warner Bros. (1907), the Boy Scouts (1910) and the states of Arizona and New Mexico (1912), not to mention the first commercial radio station (1920), television (1927) and computers (1943). I'm glad that he didn't get eaten, and he's going to be in an aquarium in Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.

If you look carefully at the picture on the left, you can see two lobsters in the picture. The one on the right, is a standard "chicken" (a 1.5 pound lobster) that is the most common size for eating.

24 Controversy

I love watching the fox television show 24 even though they moved it to Monday nights for this season, and that conflicts with my pool nights. Anyway, there is controversy regarding this season's portrayal of a Muslim family as a terrorist sleeper cell.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations consulted with Fox on a disclaimer, which I actually saw. I thought that was tactful on Fox, and I'm not sure if they've aired it more than once, but I think it should be aired during every show. Here's the text of the disclaimer:

"Hi. My name is Kiefer Sutherland. And I play counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer on Fox's 24. I would like to take a moment to talk to you about something that I think is very important. Now while terrorism is obviously one of the most critical challenges facing our nation and the world, it is important to recognize that the American Muslim community stands firmly beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting all forms of terrorism. So in watching 24, please, bear that in mind."