moonbuggy

‘Who really know what I’m lookin’ at, you know what I’m sayin’?’

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‘I cannot let the irony pass with out commenting. A religious state, Pakistan, identifies a content provider, YouTube, as the source of blasphemous, seditious content and orders, King Canute style, that the Internet tides be stopped. A zealous ISP ignorantly decides the best way to comply with the decree is to re-route all of YouTube’s IP addresses to whatever site they thought was more appropriate. The first repercussion was that YouTube disappeared from the Internet for almost an hour. I suspect the second repercussion was that Pakistan’s Internet access crawled to a halt as all of a sudden they were handling IP requests for one of the busiest sites in the world. As of this writing YouTube has announced more granular routes so that at least in the US they supercede the routes announced by PieNet. The rest of the world is still struggling. So, while working on a fix that will filter out the spurious route announcements, PCCW has found it necessary to shut down Pakistan’s Internet access. The leadership of Pakistan just created a massive Denial of Service on their own country.’

‘Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.

The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.

When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved – but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.’

This cunning police man saves a woman from a burning house.

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‘Australian scientists have developed a computer chip that promises to remove the wires from your home entertainment system.

The chip was developed by National Information Computer Technology Australia (NICTA) at the University of Melbourne, and could appear in a range of electronic devices including laptops, televisions and home entertainment systems.

NICTA chief executive officer Dr David Skellern said the team had to overcome significant challenges in developing the chip. [..]

The chip uses the unlicensed 57-64 gigahertz frequency band to transmit and receive data.

It can transfer data at speeds of up to five gigabits per second within a range of 10 metres. This would allow the wireless transfer of the entire contents of a DVD in less than five seconds, 20 times faster than the current Wi-Fi standard.’

‘No person in their right mind aspires to be taken hostage, but now there’s even more reason to avoid the experience. According to a court ruling reached on Thursday in Berlin, Germans who are taken hostage abroad can now be required to cover the costs incurred by their release.

The ruling of the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court is based on the case of Reinhilt Weigel. On Sept. 12, 2003, the Bremen physiotherapist, together with six other tourists, was kidnapped by leftist rebels while visiting the ruined ancient city of Ciudad Perdida in northern Colombia.

After 10 weeks in captivity, she and Spanish fellow hostage Huegun Etxeberria were rescued by helicopter from a jungle hide-out. But there was an unexpected postscript to the story two months after Weigel’s return home, when the German Foreign Ministry asked her to pay €12,640 ($18,735) for the helicopter flight.’

‘It has always been impossible to clearly photograph electrons since their extremely high velocities have produced blurry pictures. In order to capture these rapid events, extremely short flashes of light are necessary, but such flashes were not previously available.

With the use of a newly developed technology for generating short pulses from intense laser light, so-called attosecond pulses, scientists at the Lund University Faculty of Engineering in Sweden have managed to capture the electron motion for the first time.

The movie shows how an electron rides on a light wave after just having been pulled away from an atom. This is the first time an electron has ever been filmed, and the results are presented in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters.’

‘For most of us, making a cup of tea is one of life’s simpler tasks.

For Mavis Price, however, it is fraught with danger – because she can blow up kettles just by touching them.

The 60- year- old grandmother seems to have a freakishly high level of static electricity coursing through her body.

She estimates she has destroyed 15 kettles in the last few years. Housework has also become a problem, with 20 irons and ten vacuum cleaners biting the dust after falling foul of her apparently supercharged touch.

And her friends and family are often left with their hair standing on end after touching her.’

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‘Employers can fire workers who use medical marijuana even if it was legally recommended by a doctor, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday, dealing the state another setback in its standoff with federal law enforcement.

The high court upheld a small Sacramento telecommunications company’s firing of a man who flunked a company-ordered drug test. Gary Ross held a medical marijuana card authorizing him to use the drug to treat a back injury sustained while serving in the Air Force.

The company, Ragingwire Inc., argued that it rightfully fired Ross because all marijuana use is illegal under federal law, which does not recognize the medical marijuana laws in California and 11 other states.

The justices upheld that argument in a 5-2 decision.’

‘bloodninja: You gotta do better than that!
bloodninja: Your picture was really bad.
sweet17: HARRRRRRRRRRRR’

‘First, I’m a beautiful woman. I get told that a lot. A LOT! Men are intimidated by my looks.

I’m a BBW but I prefer slim, educated, professional men. You must have your own place as I share an apartment with someone and I don’t like hosting.

Only white men please. I’m editing this to add that I love the finer things in live. Be prepared to treat me like the Queen I am.’

This man runs in a treadmill whilst simultaneously painting, blending fruit in a blender, and taking phone calls from people.

The painting isn’t very good, the fruit drink probably isn’t going to be very tasty, and the calls are all abusive.

Funny. 🙂

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‘Refined Vices is a website that reviews rum, whiskey and cigars. Refined Vices also has forums where you can join and leave your comments about the reviews or just discuss about rum, whiskey or cigars in general.’

Count Silvio has made this website to review rum and cigars. Not bad things to review at all.

Also, he lives in a country with the purest water on the planet! 🙂

At the moment there’s a newish post called The Boston Molasses Tragedy of 1919. It’s a relatively well known disaster, but never ceases to be interesting. Drowning in molasses? Unlucky!

Looks like fun. 🙂

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‘The Australian Government is contemplating introducing ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ laws for online copyright offenders.

Broadband minister Senator Steven Conroy told the Sydney Morning Herald that such an approach, with ISPs being required to first warn offending users, then suspend their access temporarily, then cut off access altogether, was being seriously considered by the government.

The proposal is said to mirror similar suggested policies in Britain, though the details leaked of that plan suggest that the exact model for prosecution hasn’t been finalised. Using a system that mimics baseball also seems a tad un-Australian, though presumably being bowled out on the first offence would be even less popular.’

‘A newborn baby has survived delivery despite its heart being outside the chest cavity.

The infant’s heart was born with its most vital organ exposed and is being treated in the intensive care unit of Shenzhen Children’s Hospital in China’s Guangdong Province.

The parents knew about the condition before the baby was born, but chose not to abort it.

The unusual and dangerous development was caused by a rare disease – less than five babies in one million are struck by it. The illness affects the child’s chest and abdomen.

Less than 200 cases have been recorded and it is the first modern case in China.

Most babies die from the disease before birth.

Doctors are expected to operate to repair the malformation when the infant is strong enough.’

‘The “Cult of the Dead Cow” hacker group – cDc for short – has published a tool that searches for vulnerabilities and private information across the web. Using well-chosen Google search queries, Goolag Scan discovers links to vulnerable web applications, back doors, or documents inadvertently put on the internet that contain sensitive information.

This kind of “Google hacking” is already well known: a hacker using the pseudonym Johnny has already published quite a collection of these “Google Hacks” or “Google Dorks” on his web site ihackstuff. What cDc has done is create an automated tool that allows an unskilled hacker to use these same techniques. [..]

Goolag Scan is cDc’s latest attempt to rub salt into the wound. “Private individuals, firms, and even governments are putting more and more stuff on the web, and nobody cares what it means for security”, explained cDc member Oxblood Ruffin to heise Security. cDc says it is publishing this tool now to let everyone check their own web site for vulnerabilities, and do something about them.’

‘Reminiscent of the “good” Nachi worm unleashed in 2003, Microsoft researchers have touted the idea of “friendly worms” to issue software patches, which has been labelled “stupid” by security experts.

In a research paper entitled Microsoft’s Sampling Strategies for Epidemic-Style Information Dissemination, the software giant looks at optimising the dissemination of data over a large-scale network by sampling computers in a subnet or IP address block — a similar technique to that used by worms — to identify computers that contain a known vulnerability.

“My focus is fundamental research on improving the efficiency of data distribution of all types across networks, and isn’t limited to certain scenarios or types of data but investigating underlying networking techniques,” Milan Vojnovic, researcher at Microsoft UK, told ZDNet.com.au sister site ZDNet.co.uk. [..]

However security expert Bruce Schneier said the concept of using worm-like techniques to distribute software patches is “stupid”.

“Patching other people’s machines without annoying them is good; patching other people’s machines without their consent is not,” wrote Schneier in a blog post.’

If my stuff ain’t tight enough you can stick it up my ..

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‘Australia has once again been criticised by groups at an international conference on cluster bombs, after proposing some of the weapons be allowed to be used for training and testing purposes.

The Australian delegation told the conference in New Zealand’s capital Wellington on Thursday that a treaty to ban cluster munitions should include some exceptions.

“Training is essential for Australia to make a contribution to humanitarian operations,” a representative of the Australian delegation told the meeting.

The proposal was supported by seven other countries, who are among a group of nations accused of frustrating the process at Wellington. [..]

John Rodsted from the key pressure group the Cluster Munition Coalition, which represents numerous non-governmental groups, told AAP that Australia’s position was illogical.

“Australia doesn’t have a stockpile, but they are arguing that they need to retain a stockpile, which means they would have to acquire a stockpile,” he said.’

‘Three cute chicks prank a bunch of people in an elevator using a fart machine.’

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‘Scientists have discovered immense oil resources in Titan, which is a moon of Saturn. The oil reserve of Titan is estimated to be several hundred times greater than that of earth. [..]

Titan has several hundreds times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the available oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, said the European Space Agency (ESA).

In Titan, the ethane and methane falls from the sky in the form of rain, forming massive lakes and seas. It is believed that complex organic molecules called tholins are responsible for Titan’s oily dunes, said the ESA.

“Titan is just enclosed in a carbon covered material. It is a giant factory of organic chemicals,” said scientist Ralph Lorenz.’

‘Has the Amber Room, the 18th-century chamber decoration the Nazis stole from the Soviet Union in World War II, finally been found? German treasure hunters say they may have solved the decades-old mystery.

Treasure hunters in Germany claim they have found hidden gold in an underground cavern that they are almost certain contains the Amber Room treasure, believed by some to have been stashed away by the Nazis in a secret mission in the dying days of World War II.

The discovery of an estimated two tonnes of gold was made at the weekend when electromagnetic pulse measurements located the man-made cavern 20 meters underground near the village of Deutschneudorf on Germany’s border with the Czech Republic.’

‘The U.S. Navy succeeded in its effort to shoot down an inoperable spy satellite before it could crash to Earth and potentially release a cloud of toxic gas, the Department of Defense said Wednesday.
art.satellite.usaf.jpg

The first opportunity for the Navy to shoot down the satellite came about 10:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. The plan included firing a missile from the USS Lake Erie in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii to destroy the satellite.

“A network of land-, air-, sea- and space-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” a Department of Defense statement said.’

Followup to Disabled spy satellite threatens Earth.

A cunning and amusing way to diffuse a tense situation.

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”’The trouble with the monkeys at Silver Springs,” says Linda Wolfe, professor of anthropology at the University of Florida, ”is that they don’t know they are in Florida. They think they’re somewhere in Southern Asia and they go looking for other monkeys.”

Instinct has led members of the rhesus monkey colony living in a semiwild state at the Silver Springs tourist attraction into brushes with the law that have turned into a life and death struggle. [..]

The problem began when agitated young male monkeys, rejected as suitors by females, set out to find companions elsewhere.

But very few rhesus monkeys live in Florida, which is not their natural habitat, and the male monkeys’ searches became long, lonely forays into the surrounding countryside.

In recent years, stray monkeys have been found in the streets and parks of the nearby city of Ocala foraging in garbage cans, according to investigators for the game commission, which regulates the 300 wildlife exhibits in the state. [..]

”We have reports of monkeys turning up 120 miles away from Silver Springs and we have documented 17 known attacks,” said Capt. Kyle Hill, chief inspector for the commission.’

‘Is nanotechnology morally acceptable? For a significant percentage of Americans, the answer is no, according to a recent survey of Americans’ attitudes about the science of the very small. [..]

“Our data show a much lower percentage of people who agree that nanotechnology is morally acceptable in the U.S. than in Europe,” says Scheufele, an expert on public opinion and science and technology. [..]

In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable.’

‘The mysterious G spot – supposedly a route to female sexual satisfaction – can be located with ultrasound, claim Italian scientists.

Some women say stimulating a certain part of the vagina triggers powerful orgasms, but medicine has not been able to pin down the exact location.

Researchers told New Scientist magazine they found an area of thicker tissue among the women reporting orgasms.

But specialists warned there could be other reasons for this difference.’

Then you can start to make it berrer..

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