Archive for September, 2003

Gabe Breaks A Minute – Proof!

Tuesday, September 30th, 2003

Here’s a video of Gabe when he broke the minute in the 100-meter Free at Holy Cross on Sep. 21. He’s in the top lane.

It’s big (15 megs) so I wouldn’t try without a fast connection. I’m still learning…

Okay, here’s a better one – 3.6 megs.

HOOM! Maps

Tuesday, September 30th, 2003

(making the rounds of the blogosphere)

Middle Earth – via Yahoo maps

Journalists = Terrorists?

Tuesday, September 30th, 2003

(via Dan Gillmor)

Apparently so, to the FBI.

MIT OpenCourseWare Redux

Tuesday, September 30th, 2003

(via Slashdot)

As mentioned before, MIT is putting their course materials online. The first batch of 500 courses is up.

Linc, We Found Your Hair

Friday, September 26th, 2003

Linc, we found your hair.

The Oracle Of Bacon At Virginia

Friday, September 26th, 2003

(via devnull)

This is cool…a database app that figures out any actor’s Bacon number. It’s amazing how many even old-time actors have low Bacon numbers. I mean, come on, Mary Pickford? Ollie???

Industorious Clock

Friday, September 26th, 2003

(via devnull)

I love this clock!

Dyson telescope game

Friday, September 26th, 2003

(via MetaFilter)

A cool puzzle game, from, well, a vacuum cleaner manufacturer.

Why Mozilla Blinks

Friday, September 26th, 2003

(via dive into mark)

According to this bug report:

“2002-04-23: This just got upgraded to Hixie-P1 because there is a StarGate SG1 episode that uses Netscape 4, and the only reason appears to be that if they’d used IE the “Access Denied” text wouldn’t have been blinking impressively.”

Guess Who’s Back!

Friday, September 26th, 2003

The Doctor will see you now! Woo-Who!

Yeah! Librarians rule!

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2003

The Worcester librarians are making sure library records are disposed of quickly, in opposition to the so-called Patriot Act which allows law enforcement agencies to get search warrants for medical, educational, library, and bookstore records by claiming the records may be related to a terrorism investigation. Not proof, not reasonable suspicion, just the claim is good enough.

It also includes a gag order, so anybody served in this way isn’t allowed to talk about it!

The Patriot II Act will do away with even the need for a court order.

Here’s the American Library Association’s response to the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act is already being used against non-terrorist criminals.

Gabe broke a minute!

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2003

In Sunday’s meet at Holy Cross, Gabe broke a minute for the first time in the 100 Free with a time of 59.47! Woo-hoo!

He placed fourth in the 100, third in the 200, and fifth in the 50. Not bad for his first meet swimming in the 13-14 age group.

ICANN on Verisign

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2003

(via Dan Gillmor)

ICANN responds to Verisign’s ‘hijacking’ of .com and .net domains.

“VeriSign’s change appears to have considerably weakened the stability of the Internet, introduced ambiguous and inaccurate responses in the DNS, and has caused an escalating chain reaction of measures and countermeasures that contribute to further instability.”

“VeriSign’s change has substantially interfered with some number of existing services which depend on the accurate, stable, and reliable operation of the domain name system.”

Verisign’s response? Thanks, but we’ll keep doing it.

It’s also reported that the page includes a web bug, but it looks like it’s just javascript collecting browser stats and installing a cookie to track repeat visits. Lots of sites do this, it doesn’t seem all that sinister.

UPDATE: ICANN told them in no uncertain terms to cut it out, and this time, Verisign backed down.

More on SCO vs Linux

Friday, September 19th, 2003

(via devnull)

SCO hates Linux, even though SCO distributes Linux, because SCO hates the GPL.

“At the end of the day, the GPL is not about making software free; it’s about destroying value.”
— Darl McBride, SCO CEO, in a recent keynote speech.

But SCO llikes Samba, even though Samba is GPL.

Go figure.

Avast, ye swabs!

Friday, September 19th, 2003

Yes, it be Talk Like A Pirate day again, ye scurvy bilgerats!

Don’t let me catch ya talkin’ like no land-lubber, or it’ll be Davy Jones’ locker for ye! Arrrh!

Soccer news

Monday, September 15th, 2003

Burncoat lost Saturday, 4-1, with Damon scoring the only Burncoat goal.

UMass reserves lost Sunday, 4-1, with Ben scoring the only UMass goal.

Hmm, I think I see a pattern…

Skittlebrau

Friday, September 12th, 2003

“Such a product does not exist, sir! You must have dreamed it.”

Oops! You bwoke it!

Friday, September 12th, 2003

(via MetaFilter)

A satellite plunges to earth – from 3 feet.

“As the NOAA-N Prime spacecraft was being repositioned from vertical to horizontal on the “turn over cart” …, it slipped off the fixture, causing severe damage. … The 18′ long spacecraft was about 3′ off the ground when it fell.”

It seems a gang of technicians had purloined the screws that hold the satellite to the cart for their own cart. The NOAA-N crew didn’t notice the missing screws and tried to turn the satellite over.

I hate it when that happens!

The Coolest Thing In The Universe

Friday, September 12th, 2003

(from NewScientist)

(Couldn’t resist that headline!) The ‘coolest thing in the universe‘ is in Cambridge, MA. The head researcher gets it right: “Nothing in the Universe that we know of is naturally this cold” He makes no claims on what scientists on other planets may have come up with.

Siloam Tunnel dates to about 700 BC

Wednesday, September 10th, 2003

(via Nature)

The Siloam Tunnel, according to Biblical verses in Kings 2 and Chronicles 2, was built in the reign of King Hezekiah – 727 BC-698 BC. Carbon dating of plant material and thorium dating of stalactites puts the tunnel’s age around 700 BC.