moonbuggy

Various web tools that are fun to play with.

`Major labels Sony BMG and EMI are releasing more and more new CDs that block fans from dragging their tunes to iPods.

Now, in the most bizarre turn yet in the record industry’s piracy struggles, stars Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters and Switchfoot — and even Sony BMG, when the label gets complaints — are telling fans how they can beat the system.’

`An Army sergeant based at Fort Huachuca walked into a bank Monday, his mouth covered in duct tape, and presented a note saying he had a bomb in his mouth, police said. [..]

The officers “rushed the suspect,” took him into custody, walked him to a metal rail fence away from other people, handcuffed him to one of the rails and backed away. They recognized him by the tape on his mouth, Robinson said. [..]

A bomb squad robot removed the tape. Robinson said once the tape was taken off, Lewis spat out an unidentified object, which was not an explosive device.’

with a photo of the robot taking the tape off. It looks like it could pull his whole face of, if it wanted to. Actually, it kinda looks like it does want to rip his whole face off. 🙂

`Vancouver is the world’s best place to live, a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has found.

The EIU ranked 127 cities in terms of personal risk, infrastructure and the availability of goods and services.

All the cities that fell into the top “liveability” bracket were based in Canada, Australia and Western Europe.’

Some images of the landing gear of that plane that had the dodgy landing the other week. The wheel has been nicely ground down by the asphalt.

`On May 5th, 2005 (05/05/05 spooky!) I set out to determine just how much money I could lose by trusting SPAM.

What if I purchased 1000 shares of stock from EVERY stock tip mentioned in a SPAM email? Could we all really be missing out on a great opportunity?

Of course, I don’t have the money to actually waste on an experiment like this. I made this little web site to keep track of the value of those stocks… without my actually purchasing anything.’

`The FBI’s counterterrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering some vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed US troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior US Government officials. [..]

The inquiry began after coalition troops raided a Falluja bomb factory last November and found a Texas-registered four-wheel-drive being prepared for a bombing mission. Investigators said there were several other cases where vehicles evidently stolen in the US wound up in Syria or other Middle Eastern countries and ultimately in the hands of Iraqi insurgent groups, including al-Qaeda in Iraq.’

`The stress of standing in line to buy the German edition of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince proved too much for a man in Germany, who ran amok and threatened to kill people unless he got a book, police said on Tuesday.

The unnamed 24-year-old man stormed into a book shop in the Hanover railway station and absconded with six copies of the German-language edition, which went on sale nationwide on Saturday.

Finding it difficult to carry the books while running, he dashed into another shop on the railway concourse and pushed shoppers aside to demand a shopping bag from a sales clerk. He punched a customer in the face when admonished for being rude.’

`The idea is simple: to try and make $1m (US) by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each. Hence, ‘The Million Dollar Homepage”. The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies, because I don’t like the idea of graduating with a huge student debt. I know people who are paying off student loans 15-20 years after they graduated. Not a nice thought!’

This fellow has already made $250,000 selling pixels. Interesting. 🙂

I like the geek ones. 🙂

`Your mom’s weight is modeled by the summation of a diverging sequence. [..]

Your Mom is so fat that she makes neighboring carbons split into 5 peaks on her NMR spectrum. [..]

If your mom was a polar solute then intelligence would be a non-polar solvent. [..]

If your mom’s intelligence were a shell script, it’d be commented out. [..]

The shortest distance between your mom and any given person is 50 cents.’

`As we head into 2005’s home stretch, I thought I’d do a round-up of my top 10 pieces of Windows Freeware for 2005. Some of these aren’t new, but certainly what I’d consider essential. Some on the other hand, are new. I’ve tried to avoid the instantly popular ones like Firefox and Opera, although I did give way to Winamp and Konfabulator in the end. But hey, it’s my top 10. If you don’t like it, post your own.’

`The Dutch are gearing up for climate change with amphibious houses. If rivers rise above their banks, the houses rise upwards as well.

37 “swimming” houses are already strung along a branch of the Maas. At first glance, they seem quite unremarkable. The cellar, in this case, is not built into the earth, but on a platform. The hollow foundation of each house works in the same way as the hull of a ship, buoying the structure up above water. To prevent the houses from floating away, they slide up two steel posts – and as the water level sinks, so they sink back down again.’

`While we knew that Tinky Winky was gay, TSG was unaware of the Teletubbies cocaine connection. When federal officials in New York yesterday announced the arrest of 22 members of an international drug cartel, they revealed that cocaine shipments seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were labeled with a sweet portrait of the colorful cartoon quartet.’

with pictures.

People are stupid and it’s funny. 🙂

(3meg .wmv)

Some arty thing with mail boxes.

`Stunned Colin Cousins returned from a pub night out to find this Vauxhall Astra “buried” nose-down in his driveway.

The fork-lift driver was greeted by the amazing sight just before his 49th birthday.

But he quickly realised it was a revenge act by chum Ady Feeney, landlord of his local — Southampton’s Bridge Tavern.’

`Surveillance tape screened by police shows the two getting out of a taxi near an all-night rave club. A few moments later, Mark Kraynak and Steve Wright are seen running away. The taxi is captured on tape pursuing them down a back alley.

Police investigating the unsolved deaths say the pair jumped a fence surrounding a quarry near the club. Unbeknownst to them –it was pitch black — only 20 feet separate the fence from the quarry’s abyss.’

`Getting that grumbling snuffling bulk out from under the duvet in the morning is a challenge you really shouldn’t have to bother yourself with. Especially as the thing that emerges is inevitably grumpy and looks like a hung-over swamp monster. Well the Sonic Alarm makes the whole ‘getting them out of bed’ exercise a very simple, and indeed amusing, operation. Looking like an old-fashioned comedy hand grenade, the Sonic Alarm will wake pretty well anything up. Simply pull the pin, yell an emphatic “fire in the hole” and lob the grenade into the sleeper’s room. After ten seconds a very annoying and piercingly loud noise (there are three volume settings) will blast out from the alarm. That’s not all however, what makes this especially great is that to stop the alarm the sleeper has to find you so you can put the pin back in. It’s stupid, and brilliant, and will be the bane of every over-sleeper on the planet.’

`Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.’

`Welcome to Florida, the Sunshine State…but please, avoid any unnecessary confrontations with the locals.

They just might shoot you.

A new, shoot-first-ask-questions-later law goes into effect Monday, allowing gun-toting Floridians to shoot anyone they feel “threatens” them, including Canadian, for whom Florida is the number one tourist destination in the world.’

This guy gets very angry when he dies.

(5.9meg .wmv)

see it here »

`Two major blasts are thought to have struck a crowded main square at central Kuta, at the Hard Rock Cafe and the Matahari shopping mall. Another two bombs were at the Jimbaran beach, one of which was outside the Four Seasons Hotel. These areas are generally popular with Western tourists.’

(1.2meg .wmv)

`First the TC2K computer (any standard PC) is connected to the phone line via a Caller ID modem or serial Caller ID device. The user creates a setup text file (called a “hit list”) that declares all of the Caller ID strings (numbers and/or names) he considers “annoying” and wants intercepted on the first ring. When a call on the users “hit list” arrives, the computer intercepts the call and picks up the extension. This feature alone is very valuable. It gives the ability to identify legitimate calls anywhere in the house by simply waiting to hear a second ring.

As if that feature wasn’t enough, the TC2K then plays a wave file over the extension for the telemarketer to hear. The user can declare a list of wave files, in a specific order, that he wishes to be played to calls on his “hit list”. The first wave file is played immediately after picking up the extension, the TC2K then waits for the telemarketer to respond, then the TC2K waits for silence (for the telemarketer to finish speaking), then plays the next wave file on the list. The cycle of play wave file, wait for response, wait for silence is repeated for each wave file the user has declared in his setup text file. This way the TC2K can carry on a “virtual” conversation with the telemarketer and the content of that conversation is completely up to the user. All the user needs to do is record his own set of wave files to be played and declare them in a setup file.

Perhaps best of all, the “virtual” conversation between the TC2K and the telemarketer is recorded for the user to enjoy and share with other TC2K users. I will try to maintain links to as many TC2K conversations as possible from this page.’

More of the same here: AstCrapper 2000!

`A randy Mick Jagger impersonator got plenty of satisfaction at a Chelsea nightclub when the hoodwinked hot spot lavished him with VIP treatment — including free liquor, a personal security guard and lots of female attention. [..]

“After about an hour and a half of partying with what became a large crowd, the fake Mick told the security guard that he was becoming overwhelmed by the crowd and the cameras . . . and needed to leave,” Spirit spokeswoman Claire O’Connor said.

“The security guard called for additional backup, and the clone was whisked, with three girls, down a back staircase. He asked to stop at the ladies’ room on the way out, and spent 10 minutes in the ladies’ room with the three girls.” When they came out, the impish imposter and his date bid farewell to the groupies and hailed a taxi outside.’

`Featured here are some of the most unique Halloween props ever offered! Simple, yet highly effective, these morphing images are designed to transform when you change your position. When your unsuspecting guests walk past them they will see these seemingly normal “relatives” change into hideously frightening creatures or macabre apparitions! Check out their transformations by clicking on each character (if you dare!)’

`Investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center reported this month in the Journal of Virology that compounds secreted by frog skin are potent blockers of HIV infection.

The findings could lead to topical treatments for preventing HIV transmission, and they reinforce the value of preserving the Earth’s biodiversity.’

`One man was shot to death and another wounded after they allegedly attempted a carjacking against two FBI agents who were conducting surveillance, officials said.

The FBI agents apparently were targeted randomly and the incident remains under investigation. [..]

The agents were “accosted by four young male subjects, at least one of whom was armed” about midnight and an altercation ensued when the four suspects allegedly tried to take the agents’ vehicle, FBI officials said.

Authorities did not say how many shots were fired or how many individuals had guns.’

`Stray dogs are being skewered on hooks and dragged behind boats as live shark bait, The Sun can shockingly reveal.

The cruel practice takes place on French-controlled Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, where Prince William spent two holidays.

A six-month-old labrador pup was recently found ALIVE with a huge double hook through its snout – like the dog above – and another through a leg.’

In other news, people are cunts.