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Rock Star alter egos are growing in numbers
"You're forming a fake band -- that's what you do," says Sadri, calling the game "the best part of karaoke, adding in a drummer and guitars."
The Magpie Developer
Jeff Atwood is one of the best programmer/writers around. I love reading his stuff, some I agree wholeheartedly with, other stuff we disagree, but this post is about a dead-on as they come. This idea has been floating in my head for a long time, but it is hard for me to conceptualize it in words, Atwood does a brilliant job at it. Must read for any developer.
Andy Olmsted's Last Blog Entry.
(Warning: Pretty rough) No matter how you feel politically about the war, this reminds you that each number people throw around as statistics is a human life. This is extremely well written, and pretty rough on your soul towards the end, but something everyone should read. Its a shitty situation all around, but there is always a human face behind the statistics and I want to make sure I never forget that.
LSU scared of the prospect of some Moreno action?
Photos of Abandoned Swimming Pools
9 Things You Didn't Know About Rockband.
Drinking stories that put yours to shame
Via Keith


To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.



Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood.
making vodka pills in 24 hours
Recently, Chef Fabian was experimenting further with the Adria/Torreblanca technique of making 'vodka pills.' I use this word to describe the process of making liquid-filled candies by pouring flavored alcohol syrups into cornstarch and letting it set until a hard outer shell forms.
Strategy Letter VI - joelonsoftware.com
As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.

Entire Article is Dead On. A must read for anyone in the software biz.
Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village




 
 
 
 


(Tuesday, November 30)

The Onion | Iraq Adopts Terror Alert System

Click image for some Oniony Goodness...


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Hot Fuss



Wow.


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(Monday, November 29)

Play Station 3 Processor Info

PS3 Pricessor Specs


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Seattle Post-Intelligencer: AP - High-Tech: REVIEW: Microsoft search falls far short

You don't use Firefox? Everyone uses Firefox, even Microsoft. Check out the pic provided by MS: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: AP - High-Tech: REVIEW: Microsoft search falls far short Here is a pic of the AP Picture release: That ain't IE :)


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(Wednesday, November 24)

Open Letter

This is an open Letter to the guy (or extremely dexterous girl) that pisses all over our bathroom seat: Dear Seat Pisser All Overer, Please clean your pee up. I don't care if you spray, just clean your spray up. We work in a one toilet office the other toilets in this company are just too far away to walk too. I hate walking in and seeing piss all over the rim of the toilet, then having to exit because I don't want to clean up your piss. But I know as soon as I exit I will be remembered as the last person to leave the bathroom (hence labeling me the un-true shot). So please wipe the damn thing, I understand if you have shudder (or in some cases Seizure) when you go and happen to miss the target, but at least have the decency to clean it up when you do. It's just fucking gross. -E


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Free iPod?

Ok Check this out, I got a link to join FreeiPods.com from a friend (a friend who does thier research on things before doing anything) and I thought the site looked really cheesey. The thought of a free iPod is nice, but I didnt want to get scammed. So I did some reaserch myself and Wired has an article posted on it. I went ahead and signed up and will let people know about the status on an ongoing basis: Free iPod Website: http://www.freeiPods.com/


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Ideologies Vs. Eduation

As people do better; they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing." -Karl Rove Senior Politcal Advisor to the President "Bush's Trillions" by Nicholas Lemann Issue Feb 19 & 26 2001. Is this a shameless attempt at making me feel better about the outcome of the election? You beat your ass it is :) Feel free to replace the 'John Kerry' with 'Guy Who Wasnt GW' Thanks to the anon. donator of it: (remember if you click the link to click on the image again to bring it up fullscreen)


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(Tuesday, November 23)

Baghdad Burning

I watched, tense, wondering what they would do- I expected the usual Marines treatment- that a heavy, booted foot would kick the man perhaps to see if he groaned. But it didn't work that way- the crack of gunfire suddenly explodes in the mosque as the Marine fires at the seemingly dead man and then come the words, "He's dead now." VERY interesting Blog entry from an Iraqi woman who blogs continuously about the war. MC sent me a link to this entry about the Marine shooting in Falluaja and her thoughts on it. I am sure this IS NOT an isolated incident; it just happened to be one that was video taped. I don't think anyone will ever know what the environment of the situation was, except those people in the mosque. It is really unfortunate that Americans and Iraqis are still being put through this, more than a year after "mission accomplished". Mission has not been accomplished. There are still people dieing on both sides, and we are not better (as Americans) in the war on Terrorism today than 2 years ago. I would be willing to say there are MANY MORE people hating Americans (especially if they see us as occupiers) in Iraq than there were 3 years ago. Good planning GW. We are fighting 2 wars, the War on Terrorism VS OBL (What I call the war of financial attrition) and Iraq. It is a pretty shitty situation our President and his "Intel" got us into. -E Baghdad Burning


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(Monday, November 22)

MSNBC - Rejecting the Next Bill Gates

Sorry Fareed, you didn't sell your case with this article. MSNBC - Rejecting the Next Bill Gates


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US approves $300m military aid: Programme for Afghanistan, Pakistan -DAWN - Top Stories; 22 November, 2004

It looks like it pays to be an ally. "A total of $300 million has been earmarked for Pakistan under an arrangement reached between President George W. Bush and President Pervez Musharraf when they met at the Camp David presidential resort in June 2003. Overcoming last minute objections from various lobbies, the House of Representatives voted 344 to 51 on Saturday evening to pass the bill. Hours later, the Senate gave its approval, 65 to 30. " US approves $300m military aid: Programme for Afghanistan, Pakistan -DAWN - Top Stories; 22 November, 2004:


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Kevin Sites Blog

After reading this, you really just don't know what to say. There isnt anyone wrong in this kinda situation, you just wish the situation didn't exist, but you are glad someone didn't ignore it. Kevin Sites Blog


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Download the Google Deskbar Plug-in Development Kit

Google Released an API for thier Deskbar Google Deskbar Help


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(Friday, November 19)

Inmarsat zapping

Arrrrrrr Matie... "Pirates are the heroes of age-old adventure stories, but most of us forget that whole regions still depend on modern pirates. The coast around Malacca in Malaysia is such a spot, together with the Bay of Thailand and the Southern Chinese Sea. In South America the coast of Northern Brazil is another centre of pirate activity. On average every other day sees an attack, and whenever pirates strike they leave good manners at home. Typically all people on board of a ship are killed, unless they manage to escape with a rescue boat. Most pirates know in advance if the ship and its cargo is worth an attack, because they use state of the art equipment to monitor Inmarsat communications and even fax transmissions listing every single cargo item. Quite a substantial portion of Inmarsat reception units that are being sold in Germany or the United States are channelled to those regions where they are of invaluable service to modern age pirates. French journalist Eric Paquier managed to interview one pirate recently and when asked what pirates do with their victims he got the following response: 'We hang them upside down on one of the masts, then burn them alive and later eat their ears for dessert." Inmarsat zapping


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Tee-ball with George (Keep your Eye on the Ball)

What? My President said that Iraq had the WMDs! So your saying that North Korea has 8,000 spent fuel rods, able to make multiple A-Bombs? and they need money really bad? I am glad we have stopped the sale of Sadaam's WMD to terrorsists. MSNBC - U.S.: N. Korea may sell plutonium to terrorists


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MSNBC - U.S.: N. Korea may sell plutonium to terrorists

What? My President said that Iraq had the WMDs! So your saying that North Korea has 8,000 spent fuel rods, able to make multiple A-Bombs? and they need money really bad? I am glad we have stopped the sale of Sadaam's WMD to terrorsists. MSNBC - U.S.: N. Korea may sell plutonium to terrorists


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USE THE DAMN VETO GEORGE!

I really think GW believes that we can live on a 'Credit Card Economy' while he is in office and whoever is in office in 10 years will take the blunt of it. For the love of God, we cannot afford everything. Learn to pick and choose. It really amazes me people think he is 'Conservative'. When it comes to fiscal responsibility and foreign relations, GW is anything but Conservative. Bush signs debt ceiling increase into law - Nov. 19, 2004


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(Thursday, November 18)

BBC NEWS | Business | Bill Gates 'most spammed person'

"But he said only about 10 e-mails a day made it through to his inbox, because of anti-spam technology that filters the messages. He went on to describe the system, which may be available to consumers with the next Windows release, as a form of a Klingon Cloaking device in which he can be transported back in time to find and terminiate the spammer before he/she send the email." Ok, I admit i added the last sentence. Sounds about as truthful as the first one though doesn't it? BBC NEWS | Business | Bill Gates 'most spammed person':


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JOLLYBLOGGER - a weblog for jolly beggars: Lost TV Show on ABC and The Green Lantern/Flash Connection

Via Joel: VERY Cool for all you 'Lost' Fans: OK, all of you "Lost" groupies out there, it's time for another blog entry on our new favorite show. In my prior post on the show I mentioned that one of the producers said there is a connection between the show and a comic book. The comic book is Flash/Green Lanter: Faster Friends I and II. I can see I'm going to have to go out and buy the comic, but for now I have found a page that gives a quick summary of the comic. I may blog a bit about last night's episode later tonight or tomorrow, but for now, I figured this would give us all some food for thought. This comes from a website apparently devoted to the Green Lantern, and first saw this referenced here. Here's the summary. Read On: JOLLYBLOGGER - a weblog for jolly beggars: Lost TV Show on ABC and The Green Lantern/Flash Connection


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Crossing Party Lines for Panty Lines.

Bill: "DAMN George! Check-Out-That-Ass!"


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TheBostonChannel.com - Entertainment - Rolling Stones Top 100 Songs

Actually only 50 I guess they will put other 50 out later. Thanks to Joel for the list: (My Esteemed Opins in Italics) Rolling Stones Top 100 Songs Where the Hell is Stevie Wonder/Van Morison ? 1. Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan Biased? 2. Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones 3. Imagine - John Lennon 4. What's Going On? - Marvin Gaye 5. Respect - Aretha Franklin Amen. 6. Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys 7. Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry 8. Hey Jude - The Beatles 9. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana 10. What'd I say? - Ray Charles 11. My Generation - The Who 12. A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke Interesting. 13. Yesterday - The Beatles 14. Blowin' In The Wind - Bob Dylan 15. London Calling - The Clash 16. I want to Hold Your Hand - The Beatles 17. Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix 18. Maybellene - Chuck Berry ? 19. Hound Dog - Elvis Pressley 20. Let It Be - The Beatles 21. Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen 22. By My Baby - The Ronettes 23. In My Life - The Beatles Amen. 24. People Get Ready - The Impressions ???? Is their and Impressionist Editor at RS? 25. God Only Knows - The Beach Boys 26. A Day In The Life - The Beatles 27. Layla - Derek and the Dominoes 28. Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay - Otis Redding 29. Help - The Beatles 30. I Walk The Line - Johnny Cash 31. Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin 32. Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones Should have been higher! 33. River Deep, Mountain High - Ike and Tina Turner How the hell is this right next to Sympathy for the Devil?!? 34. You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - Righteous Brothers RIP Goose 35. Light My Fire - The Doors 36. One - U2 37. No Woman, No Cry - Bob Marley and The Wailers 38. Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones 39. That'll Be the Day - Buddy Holly and the Crickets 40. Dancing in the Street - Martha and the Vandellas 41. The Weight - The Band Take a Load off Fanie and move her Ass up to Top 10. Whats this #41 Bullshit? 42. Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks 43. Tutti Frutti - Little Richard 44. Georgia On My Mind - Ray Charles 45. Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Pressley 46. Heroes - David Bowie 47. Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel 48. All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix 49. Hotel California - The Eagles 50. The Tracks of My Tears - Smokey Robinson and The Miracles Only the B2K Remix. Those Guys Roxxx!!!11 TheBostonChannel.com - Entertainment - Rolling Stones Top 100 Songs:


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(Wednesday, November 17)

What to my wandering eyes should appear?

Is it just me or is GW checkin' her out? Spellings got SPECSappeal Baby...


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Grey Video

I dug the Grey Album a lot. This video is pretty cool. Looks like a lot of the clips are from Hard Days Night. Neat video mix. The Grey Video (Grey Album Encore) Right now I am listning the The Kleptones - A Night at the Hip Hopera the new Hip Hop/Queen Mashup... Man is it awsome... Might even be better than The Grey Album. Go find it on a p2p.


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Try scratching this DVD | CNET News.com

"Researchers at electronics giant TDK have developed a tough new coating that promises to make scratched DVDs a thing of the past and that will help usher in an emerging data storage format with 10 times the capacity of the current DVD standard." Try scratching this DVD | CNET News.com:


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High-Definition Personal Video Recorder Cookbook

High-Definition Personal Video Recorder Cookbook "So you want to build your own HDTV personal video recorder before the broadcast flag mandate takes effect on July 30, 2005, leaving you with nothing but devices laden with Hollywood-imposed restrictions? With just a little bit of spare cash and basic computer tinkering skills, you can build yourself a high-definition PVR that out-performs any similar product currently on the market. " EFF: High-Definition Personal Video Recorder Cookbook:


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Best Buy hopes to exorcize devil patrons

Customers Searching for the Best deal?!? What is this world coming too? Here's an idea, why don't you guys open more than 2 f'ing registers at a time so it makes shopping there a more pleasurable experience. I am more than happy to drive 30 extra mins to Fry's seeing as how their store is cleaner/bigger/and at any given moment has more than 2 register's open, guaranteed. All Hail thy Fry's Mecca. Best Buy hopes to exorcize devil patrons


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Amazon is Amazing

The Amazon Simple Queue Service offers a reliable, highly scalable hosted queue for buffering messages between distributed application components. The Amazon Simple Queue Service reduces the costs associated with resolving the producer-consumer problem that arises in distributed application development. Such costs include increased application development time, and potentially significant investment in server and network infrastructure to support distributed application messaging. Amazon has already invested in the large-scale computing infrastructure that runs the Queue Service, and since the Service's interface is exposed via Web services, integration with applications is fast and easy. Using the Amazon Simple Queue Service, you can decouple components of your application so that they run independently, with the Queue Service easing messaging management between components. Any component of a distributed application can store any type of data in a reliable queue at Amazon.com. Any other component or application can then later retrieve the data, using queue semantics. The queue acts as a buffer between the work-producer that is saving the data, and the work-consumer that is retrieving the data for processing. Thus, the queue resolves issues that would otherwise arise if the producer were producing work faster than the consumer can process the work, or if the producer or consumer were only intermittently connected to the network. Registered developers have free access to the Simple Queue Service during the Beta, but storage is limited to 4,000 queue entries per developer. How utterly brilliant. No longer a Book-dot-com. Amazon is leveragin its large scale hardware system, and extending it to developers. I am sure the switch will be flipped to charagable messages as this grows popular. Anyone need a 100% uptime message queue? Bezos is Brilliant.


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Arena Force Jedi has a good write up on Illegal US Immigrants.

The Force Arena - EDUCATION - PART 2


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Record Industry Sucks - P2P ads leave music industry fuming

I love how the Record industry loves to get mad at other companies making money off innovative software. Arn't these the same guys who got fined for price gouging CDs when they first came out? P2P ads leave music industry fuming


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Neowin.net - Where unprofessional journalism looks better - Exclusive: MSN Desktop Search Revealed

I have talked a lot on this blog about the upcomming Search Engine war between MSN/Yahoo/Goog, but this came out earlier this morning which i thought was pretty neat looking. I for one, really enjoy the quality of MSN's beta search results. I think they are far less spammy than Google's results, and as a whole more on target. I saw this article this morning about Microsoft/MSN's new Intergrated desktop search and I will admit it looks better than Google Desktop in my opinion. Will privacy issues come into play to determine if I install this or not? You bet your ass it will. But if I decide too, I must say the UI looks very good. Neowin.net - Where unprofessional journalism looks better - Exclusive: MSN Desktop Search Revealed


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(Monday, November 15)

Fool.com: Boeing Wields a New Laser [Motley Fool Take] November 15, 2004

Very cool, we will call it 'The Allan Parsons Project'. Fool.com: Boeing Wields a New Laser [Motley Fool Take] November 15, 2004: "n"


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Trojan horse spies on Web banking | CNET News.com

From Salimer..... Pretty scary Trojan. Trojan horse spies on Web banking | CNET News.com


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(Sunday, November 14)

Microsoft's Search Falls Far Short of Google's (washingtonpost.com)

Amazing, the Washington Post (who uses Google Internal as thier site based search engine), doesnt like the new MSN search? What a surprise. Microsoft's Search Falls Far Short of Google's (washingtonpost.com)


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Rapper ODB and Wu-Tang Clan co-founder found dead in NY studio at age 35 @ Top40-Charts.com - 40 Top 20 & Top 40 Music Charts from 25 Countries

"'This ain't no joke. This is real life, just like you lose your mother, or your brothe. This is a big loss, but I guess he's with the Father now. He's in good hands,' GhostFace Killah said to the New York Daily News." Rapper ODB and Wu-Tang Clan co-founder found dead in NY studio at age 35 @ Top40-Charts.com - 40 Top 20 & Top 40 Music Charts from 25 Countries:


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(Friday, November 12)

Teen Wolf

Me and some friends were having an email discussion about Teen Wolf and someone mentioned Styles character and I brought up the character 'Boof'. Not convinced the characters name was 'Booth' (and all through childhood I had the misnomer stuck in my head) I went to IMDB.com to go check out her character's name. That's when I just laughed my ass off at this review of the movie: "Date: 2 January 2004 Summary: Big Bad Movie I hate this movie, but somehow it made enough money to warrant an even weaker sequel. I'm a horror purist and I hate it when a movie twists and distorts the facts to squeeze a script out of nothing. Michael J. Fox plays a teen with a werewolf heritage, but instead of turning into a wolf man at the sign of the full moon and terrorizing the countryside, he just spouts hair and wins basketball games. Just when the concept couldn't get any more stupid, he is graciously accepted by being a freak by his peers. I've known kids who terrorized others for mismatched socks ! And who knew wolves were basketball players; that's one tidbit that I'm sure Steve Irwin would like to know about. If a wolf attacks, just distract it with a basketball ! Please don't waste your time watching this movie; I cringe today just wondering how this movie got made !" The review just about made me cry thinking that there is one person out there in the world that is a 'horror purist' that got upset when they threw in the Teen Wolf VHS tape and was hoping for some sort of scary movie with MICHAEL J FOX and was actually let down by the movie?!?! And this was my favorite line "I hate it when a movie twists and distorts the facts" I, Eric Thompson, must have missed the Werewolf Fact Ship when it left the dock. It gets better too, in the middle of the review one can easily see that at sometime in his life this reviewer was beat up (probably more than once) because he fucked up when choosing his socks one morning. This was definitely a great laugh for my day, and I may have to start commenting on the psychology of other peoples comments more often.


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(Thursday, November 11)

Veteran's Day

Don't forget Vets day today. Both my grandfathers served. The picture above is of my Mother's father. He passed away before 3 months before I was born, some think because of a heart-weakening sickness he contracted while he was liberating Dachau in WWII. My other grandfather served in WWII and the 50-53 Korean war aboard a bomber doing mass calculations on where to drop the goods (now you can see where me and my father get our math skills, imagine doing our number cruntching 40,000 feet in the air). I really do consider them the greatest generation and both great men that people from my generation may never understand what they had to go through.


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(Wednesday, November 10)

Bush revives bid to legalize illegal aliens - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - November 10, 2004

"President Bush yesterday moved aggressively to resurrect his plan to relax rules against illegal immigration, a move bound to anger conservatives just days after they helped re-elect him. " When Bush said he wanted to Unite America after the election did he mean with Mexico? Bush revives bid to legalize illegal aliens - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - November 10, 2004:


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Microsoft search set to take on Google - Nov. 10, 2004

Yahoo fired the first shot. Big news outta Redmond about the date of thier launch. To those who don't know Search Engines dynamics well, about 1 year ago 70% of websearches were done on Google's search engine. Now that did not make 70% of searches were done on Google.com about 30% (of that 70%) of all those were done on AOL search. Now on the flip side MSN's results (aka SERPS) were from Yahoo's PFI (Paid for Inclusion) results set. Now MSN has their own spider and is now breaking away from Yahoo. Which gives a slight bit better amount of traffic to websites from Non PFI (as of right now) traffic. In short its a nice little boost of free traffic to websites and also puts another competitor out in the Search Engine Market so one engine does not dominate near as much (Google) and consumers have a wider choice of SE to compete for better results. Microsoft search set to take on Google - Nov. 10, 2004


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Fox News Sucks

Fox News is so lame. They are the only News Company that would put more value (ie higher position on the web page) on the Peterson Jury losing a member than American Soldiers fighting tooth and nail (and even to the death) in Fallujah. Rupert Murdoch makes me sick. That is pretty "American" if you ask me. Fox News looks like some shitty british tabloid. Please folks get your news anywhere but here. There is *liberal* media, and there is also Extremest-We-Are-Only-Out-For-Advertisers-And-Gossip-Numbers newspapers online. Know your enemies and know your friends. _E


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(Tuesday, November 9)

Ding Dong the Ashcroft Gone

"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved" Hmmm....[waiting for him to look at the camera and yell "NOT!" in Wayne and Garth style]. Eric: "Asphictersayshuh?" GW: "Huh?" Respect and Hate go hand in hand. In all honesty I think Ashcroft held internet policies that were so far right, AnneCoultier.com could cut her teeth on them, I do wish him the best health wise. Politicians that want to "cover female statues breasts" in our nations capitol may be old school (and almost Amish for that fucking matter) but I know here lately he has had some health problems and we all know he is a 'popular target' for the patriot act (when it is the Bush admin, and certain intelligence executives who want to make *their* job easier) that push it. I wish him well and hope he stays out of the spotlight and enjoys life. Dear God please don't let GW appoint another Zealot. I fear Ashcroft was step 1 and we may be about to see step 2. Prepare the world for Joe Smithism. MSNBC - Ashcroft, Evans resign from Cabinet


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THREAT ADVISORY: McAfee Avert Raises Risk Assessment to Medium on New W32/Mydoom.ah@MM Virus

I'm not sure if people realize this, but this is a pretty big line crossed by this new MyDoom variant. You no longer have to be an idiot that opens an email attachment, but you just have to click on a link in an email. Scariness, watch out for this one. THREAT ADVISORY: McAfee Avert Raises Risk Assessment to Medium on New W32/Mydoom.ah@MM Virus


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(Monday, November 8)

IT IS HERE!

My EQ2 is now in hand. I can feel my belly and beard (ok ok native american moustache) already starting to grow. Do I smell yet? Not sure. The game is 10 disks So I am planning on buying this to store the game on... LaCie - Bigger Disk Extreme FireWire 400 and FireWire 800


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Age 33 Pg. 1 of 2

Arena Force sent me this. I wanted to pass along in case anyone needs a date quick for some special occasion: Age 33 Pg. 1 of 2


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(Sunday, November 7)

BBC NEWS | UK | Flying taxi vision for commuters

VERY cool. BBC NEWS | UK | Flying taxi vision for commuters


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(Saturday, November 6)

New Tom Wolfe Novel

Regardless of the girlie-ass cover, I am really pumped about the new Tom Wolfe novel coming out. In all honestly I have only read two Tom Wolfe novels, but it has not been in spite of me not wanting to read more, it has just been the amount that time/work/life have allowed me to read. The first book I read written by him was 'A Man in Full' If anyone lives within 50 miles of a square foot of the (Atlanta) Perimeter (285) then you need to read this book. You will relate in some way to one of the characters. The entire book is set in Atlanta and has southern drawl and southern executive business character to a T just like whip cream on a pumpkin pie with a side of Good Ole Boy politics thrown in. Man what a great book. About seven years ago I read The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. Let me say this, I believe Tom Wolfe is the only American writer who is currently putting pen to paper (or finger to keystroke [of some manner, bit-processing or not]) who will be studied in High School and College Level English classes as a 'Master' in the future. That level of a specific artistic job that is so far beyond journeymen of a particular trade that it is always an expectation, but never a reality. I am really excited to read this novel. I hope it lives up to my (a computer programmers) expectations.


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Fool.com: Spam Scam Lands 'Em in the Can [Motley Fool Take] November 5, 2004

As much as I hate spam, and find it completely useless. 9 years?!? Do we put those guys that send paper advertisements in my mailbox away for that long? No wait that's legal. Do we put those guys that waste my companies paper and toner with advertising faxes away for that long? No wait that's legal. I fucking hate spam. But 9 years?! I think the judge who gave this sentence probably needs 'T0 Hav3 A B1GGER PENIS' or has invested money in Nigerian 'banks'. Fine the shit out of the guy, take all 24 million bucks away from him, but 9 years!?! Fool.com: Spam Scam Lands 'Em in the Can [Motley Fool Take] November 5, 2004


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(Friday, November 5)

Lawnmower Be Gone.

National Weather Service issued a frost advisory for Friday night into Saturday morning for numerous Metro Atlanta counties. Awww yeah first freeze of the year. You know what that means boys and girls...... NO MORE LAWN MOWING. I am going to drink heavily tonight to celebrate. Frost Expected in Metro Counties


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UPDATE: Episode III Trailer (No Login)

UPDATE: Episode III Tailer (No login required)


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Indian Outsourcers For Bush

I sent this to a group of friends yesterday, thought I would share: Their are a bunch of Indian Programmers in Hyperbaud, India that did work for us at one point and I thought it was really interesting when they IM'd me late last night. The conversation went like like (Edited) : Indian Contractor: I guess you are satisfied with the voting? (I was a lil confused, I was 'satisfied in my mind with the voting, I didn't necessarily enjoy the out come, but I was satisfied it had been done fairly, of course by this he meant 'I assume you are happy that Bush is president again. Instead of trying to explain my very involved political feelings, I just got lazy and said:) Cyanbane: Yes I am. The following response was very weird at first, but I completely understand it in hindsight. The response was Indian Contract: Good we are too. We were worried for a small amount of time earlier. I was really confused based on my perception of foreigners views of America. Then it hit me why he wanted bush voted in so much. I asked him: Cyanbane: I assume you are happy also? He proceeded to tell me about how India was very pro bush as all their jobs depend on it. He explained that some companies had actually already been preparing programmers for layoffs and documenting basically 'pink slips" to certain people because Kerry would be such a hurt to the IT outsourcing businesses. He continued to talk about how a lot of the major companies like Wipro and others will probably continue expanding at the amazing rates they expanding because of the Bush win. I personally do not see a problem with outsourcing, it is a natural form of business evolution. From a business perspective it is something that is bound to happen. Not only in India, but also former Russian States and China. I just thought it was interesting how my perception was so skewed about India's loathe for Bush (with relation to our diplomacy with Pakistan). The bottom line is it is all about the American Dollar for them also.


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Episode III Frame By Frame

Form Arena Force and Force.net: 00:07 - 20th Century Fox Logo 00:09 - Lucasfilm Logo 00:14 - "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." 00:19 - Luke Skywalker in ANH walks out to view the binary sunset on Tatooine. 00:23 - Obi-Wan Kenobi in ANH speaks to Luke about the Jedi. 00:26 - Qui-Gon Jinn in TPM brandishes his saber before the final duel with Darth Maul. 00:27 - Shot from AOTC of the Clonetroopers walking into the transport. 00:29 - Shot from AOTC of the Clonetroopers at the end of the movie with transports lifting off in the background. 00:23 - First Revenge of the Sith shot of Obi-Wan and Anakin with their backs toward the camera, walking up to a window during the day. 00:36 - AOTC shot of Anakin looking evil just before the Tusken slaughter. 00:38 - AOTC shot of Anakin riding the Swoop on Tatooine. 00:41 - ANH Obi-Wan continues his voice-over. 00:42 - Second Revenge of the Sith shot. A hooded Anakin turns to the camera with red and yellow eyes much like Darth Maul's. 00:50 - Shot of erupting volcanoes on Mustafar. 00:56 - Geonosians ride giant beetles in a Mustafar lava field. 00:58 - Black screen with Darth Sidious saying "Lord Vader?" followed by Vader's "Yes Master?" and Sidious' "Riiiiise". 01:04 - Darth Vader, strapped to a table, begins to rise. 01:05 - A hooded Obi-Wan looks up. He is in a darkly lit area with sunlight seen in the background. This is possibly a location on Utapau. 01:06 - Palpatine turns to look at the camera. 01:07 - Vader continues to rise. 01:08 - R2D2 on the Tantive IV. 01:08 - C3PO on the Tantive IV. 01:09 - Padme turns to look at Obi-Wan with a terrified look on her face. 01:09 - Mace Windu raises his saber above his head. This shot is inside Palpatine's office. 01:10 - Vader continues to rise. 01:11 - Chewbacca and Tarfful. 01:12 - Yoda, in Palpatine's doorway, opens his cloak to reveal his saber. 01:13 - Vader finishes his rise and locks into frame. 01:17 - Two starfighters speed past the camera during the Battle of Coruscant. 01:18 - Anakin kisses Padme. 01:19 - Yoda, in Palpatine's office, pulls out his ignited saber and points with it. 01:19 - A starfighter in the Battle of Coruscant speeds along the hull of a capitol ship towards the camera. 01:20 - Mace Windu fights against a red lightsaber in Palpatine's office. 01:20 - A large Wookiee army cheers on the Kashyyyk beach. Republic walkers and troop transports can be seen in the background. 01:21 - Tion Meddon snarls at Obi-Wan. 01:22 - Flaming capitol ship heads into Coruscant with a fire ship spraying water on it. 01:22 - A very angry Anakin does an overhead slash with his saber. 01:23 - R2D2 in a grimy area. 01:24 - Padme, with a ANH Leia haircut, hugs Anakin. 01:24 - A small Naboo cruiser flies away from Mustafar. 01:25 - Obi-Wan and Anakin, both with blue sabers, fight on Mustafar as lava erupts around them. 01:26 - Capitol ships fire on each other above Coruscant. 01:27 - Anakin grab's Obi-Wan's neck with his robotic arm. 01:27 - A "Tri-fighter" flies toward the camera during the Battle of Coruscant. 01:28 - Obi-Wan held near the ground by Anakin. 01:29 - Anakin holds Obi-Wan's saber arm as he continues to force him to the ground. 01:30 - A starship hanger door slams shut. 01:30 - A very angry Darth Sidious swings his red lightsaber at something possibly small and close to the ground. 01:31 - A large explosion on a capitol ship above Coruscant. 01:36 - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith logo.


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Analysts Call Outlook For Bush Plan Bleak (washingtonpost.com)

"'If there was a need to raise taxes, I'd say, 'Let's have a tax bill that raises taxes,' as opposed to 'Let's simplify the tax code and sneak a tax increase on the people,' ' he said. 'It's just not my style. I don't believe we need to raise taxes.'" I have accepted the fact that GW is our President till 2009. The only problem is that GW has not accepted that we HAVE TO RAISE taxes to pay for the wars to attempt to cut down the deficiet. It is not brain surgery. He needs to learn that he has this power to VETO spendatures so that we can get on a postive margin. We CANNOT let our kids be taxed 40-60% of thier wage (also mine becuase I expect to be working during this period to pay for my social security loss). Some one has to pay (re Us) has to pay for Iraq sometime. The US Gov't cannot live on a Credit Card economy that we have to pay for in 10 years when the War on Terrosim is still going on. Analysts Call Outlook For Bush Plan Bleak (washingtonpost.com):


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(Thursday, November 4)

Episode III Trailer Is Through the Blockade

UPDATE:

Arena Force Jedi just came down here and showed me the trailer via his AOL account. I just crapped my pants, twice. The trailer is awsome. They mended scenes from almost all 5 of the other and it doesnt look bad at all. Oh man this is gonna be darker than ROTJ. Me and Arena were talking about if this one is gonna be the first PG-13 SW movie. It might be. It looks soo dark. Ohhh so awsome. Ohhh so awsome. Made my day. The link below is to the trailer, but you have to have an AOL account as of right now: http://www.aol.com/starwars/trailer/index.adp?type=lrg


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Episode III Trailer Release Day

Update: Arena Force Jedi Found this small clip: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/herrkeen/ep3.mov If anyone has the real deal let me know. As a reminder, here are all of the ways one can go about catching the trailer today: November 4th * The Official Site: Hyperspace members will have exclusive access to a high-quality Quicktime version of the teaser in "early afternoon (U.S.) of November 4." * AOL Users: Since AOL/Moviefone will be hosting the trailer for download on their servers, we've received reports that AOL subscribers will have access to some version of the teaser (unknown of what quality) at 1 pm EST. * Total Request Live! The MTV program will have the first televised airing at 5 pm EST on November 4th. * Access Hollywood: The next televised viewing will occur on the syndicated Hollywood news program during Thursday, November 4th's evening broadcast. Check local listings for your time and channel.


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Jay-Z recruits friends

I dig Jay-Z a lot. I think R Kelly is a pud. But this articles ending sentence made me laugh so hard in light of last weekend "walk-by pepper macin' ". "[T]heir album together, Unfinished Business, is expected to top the US chart." Jay-Z recruits friends


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(Wednesday, November 3)

Politcally Incorrect Hallow's Eve

Man the Kids in my neighboorhood are so politically incorrect it is great. I just had to go looking for their costumes on the net. The Nancy Reagen/Jenna Bush Liver are the best along with this little fella up top. More Great Costumes


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Chornicals of George

me and Scott were reminded today of the fun some people have reading support tickets.. .. Chronicals Of George


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AP Wire | 11/03/2004 | Voters toast the minibottle farewell

Atleast thy minibottle is gone.... Pass the rum... AP Wire | 11/03/2004 | Voters toast the minibottle farewell


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CNN.com Election 2004

And it all comes down to 130k Buckeyes. I am about to head to bed, but doesn't look good for Kerry with 82% of precincts reported he is still 130k behind GW in Ohio ( I hope Neil is there writing a song about this). I looked at the math and at this time (12:38 AM) Ohio is it. Winner Take all. In all honestly I thought this would be a Bush blowout, I have not given up all hope, but Kerry has succeded far beyond my expectations. I do hope if the margin is over 100k in Ohio no one tries to instigate litigation. With Fla and 6k - 7k difference in 2000 I could understand it, but 100k+ is a lot to try and argue and is a waste of all our tax dollars in the court room. I am sorry that I have to endure another 4 years of GW, but I am a fair person about chips falling, and in all honesty they fell a little better than I had even hoped they would. -E CNN.com Election 2004


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(Tuesday, November 2)

CNN.com Election 2004

I must say I am very impressed with CNN's web based results GUI. It is simple to use and allows the user to see tons of different axis of info how they want. Kudos to CNN. CNN.com Election 2004 Overview CNN.com Election 2004 - Georgia


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MSNBC - Generation E will make a difference today

�Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed it is the only thing that ever has.� -Margaret Mead Very interesting article about the "Young Vote" (Under 30) and the effect it may have on today's election. MSNBC - Generation E will make a difference today


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Diabolical Plan

"It is true that this shows that al Qaeda has gained, but on the other hand it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something that anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. "And it all shows that the real loser is you," he said. "It is the American people and their economy." As for President Bush's Iraq policy, Bin Laden said, "the darkness of black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America. "So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future," bin Laden said. My God. In all 25 years on this planet I have never read anything so chilling. It is scary to me because I see it happening in my own eyes and I can only hope that 51% of my countrymen do also. This bastard is fighting a war America is not used too. I hope tomorrow is not the beginning of the downfall of this great country. These people do not fight a war of attrition, they fight with strategic economic interests as targets. I cannot put my feelings on this issue into words because if this IS his plan, it is working, and it has worked before (USSR). Ronald Reagan used it as a tactic also, and it worked and I am glad it did work, but I will always believe that GW has abused his power in the United States. The war in Iraq is an ugly thing, and is easy to agree with 10,000 miles away. But we are taking our eye off the ball. What scares me most about this message is that it sounds like they planned on us doing it. I hope and pray for my children that they will not enter a world where private interest and private profit, control decisions that are made at the highest levels of government and also that there is a large portion of the population who either cannot see it or refuse to believe it under the guise of "character" and "consistency". Mistakes have been made in the past 4 years along with good decisions. Bad decisions (mistakes) are one thing, but bad decision (mistakes) that cause the deaths of American soldiers and countless other men of a sovereign nations (who WILL** have children that grow up to be extremists against the cause that killed their parents, the kind of extremists that coordinate 4 planes flying into our buildings when we least expect it) needs to be relieved of duty. I truly believe that the fate of the USA (yes Fate, it is an amazingly strong word that reminds of the finite) depends on this election. It is not about one team winning like in NCAA football, but about convictions about being American and your perception of America around the world. You can either choose an isolationistic approach or understand the conceptions of a global community (my god we are exploring Mars and Jupiter this week, global perspective is a part of America). This is not a opinion of a granola eatin' tree huggin barefoot left wing hippie this is from a gun totin' this-election-exception fundamental open-eyed=can-see-who-is-makin-the-money-and-see-writing-on-the-wall American. CNN.com - Bin Laden: Goal is to bankrupt U.S. - Nov 1, 2004


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(Monday, November 1)

ESPN.com - NCF - Wojnarowski: Just (don't) do it!

"What's more, it wouldn't be long until Foley was paying his basketball coach Billy Donovan a rock star wage for cover band music." Sorry I just had to laugh my ass off at that, and every dawg should. I Respect Spurrier. I laugh my ass off at the young gel haired guido directing the basketball team. Don't get me wrong he DOES win a lot, but he just looks so cheesey. -E ESPN.com - NCF - Wojnarowski: Just (don't) do it!:


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Yahoo! News - Iran Parliament OKs Nuke Enrichment Bill

I used to think North Korea was going to get the first post World War II American nuclear bomb dropped on them. Now I think it may be Iran. This definitely drew a lot of crosshairs. Iranian lawmakers chant slogans including 'Death to America' as they stand up to show their 'yes' vote to approve the outline of a bill that requires the government to resume uranium enrichment - an issue of national pride that provides a rare point of agreement between conservatives and reformers in Iranian politics - in parliament, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004. (AP Photo) Yahoo! News - Iran Parliament OKs Nuke Enrichment Bill


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