Breaking up is hard to do

Breaking up with girlfriend via posting in Wikipedia = bad.

Breaking up is hard to do

Breaking up with girlfriend via posting in Wikipedia = bad.

Chuck E. Cheese slugfest?

It's not clear from this brief Boston Globe online story exactly how bad the brawl was. What is clear is that a 9-year-old kid's birthday party had to be stopped when his mom and another mother became embroiled in a fight.

The mothers face A&B charges. *eye rolling* Great examples for your kids, ladies.

Chuck E. Cheese slugfest?

It's not clear from this brief Boston Globe online story exactly how bad the brawl was. What is clear is that a 9-year-old kid's birthday party had to be stopped when his mom and another mother became embroiled in a fight.

The mothers face A&B charges. *eye rolling* Great examples for your kids, ladies.

One if by land; two if by LED

Boston's famed Old North Church, sez the Globe, is moving to install LEDs to replace the compact fluorescents and incandescent lights in the historic property. Okay, that's all well and good and green. But then I hit this paragraph:

The 18 strips of LEDs inside the church's sanctuary - replacements for old-fashioned incandescents - are an anachronism at the most visited historic site in a city with a rich Revolutionary War legacy.

Um, the LEDs aren't the only anachronism -- those "old-fashioned incandescents"? They didn't have those in Paul Revere's day, either.

*doh*

One if by land; two if by LED

Boston's famed Old North Church, sez the Globe, is moving to install LEDs to replace the compact fluorescents and incandescent lights in the historic property. Okay, that's all well and good and green. But then I hit this paragraph:

The 18 strips of LEDs inside the church's sanctuary - replacements for old-fashioned incandescents - are an anachronism at the most visited historic site in a city with a rich Revolutionary War legacy.

Um, the LEDs aren't the only anachronism -- those "old-fashioned incandescents"? They didn't have those in Paul Revere's day, either.

*doh*

Free speech vs. spam

Ars Technica reports that the first felony spam conviction has been upheld in Virginia, but by a fairly narrow margin.

Virginia's Supreme Court on Friday upheld the first US felony conviction for spamming. The spammer will serve nine years in prison for sending what authorities believe to be millions of messages over a two-month period in 2003.

Jeremy Jaynes is the man who will make history. A Raleigh, North Carolina, resident who made Spamhaus' top 10 list of spammers, Jaynes was arrested in 2003 even before the CAN SPAM act was passed by Congress. Jaynes was convicted in 2005, but his lawyers appealed the conviction. This past Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld that conviction, but the vote was a narrow 4-3.

[...]

While defending Jaynes, his lawyers attempted to argue that a provision of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act violates constitutional First Amendment rights to "anonymous speech," as well as the interstate commerce clause of the US Constitution. The court rejected these claims due to Jaynes' use of fake e-mail addresses, which breaks the US CAN SPAM law's condition of giving recipients a means of contacting the sender. The court also stated that his peddling of scam products and services excludes him from First Amendment rights. In effect, the court said that you can't scam people and then cry "free speech!" when hooked by the law.

One hopes Jaynes asks the SCotUS for a writ of certiorari...because I'll be fascinated to see how the Court finds.

Free speech vs. spam

Ars Technica reports that the first felony spam conviction has been upheld in Virginia, but by a fairly narrow margin.

Virginia's Supreme Court on Friday upheld the first US felony conviction for spamming. The spammer will serve nine years in prison for sending what authorities believe to be millions of messages over a two-month period in 2003.

Jeremy Jaynes is the man who will make history. A Raleigh, North Carolina, resident who made Spamhaus' top 10 list of spammers, Jaynes was arrested in 2003 even before the CAN SPAM act was passed by Congress. Jaynes was convicted in 2005, but his lawyers appealed the conviction. This past Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld that conviction, but the vote was a narrow 4-3.

[...]

While defending Jaynes, his lawyers attempted to argue that a provision of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act violates constitutional First Amendment rights to "anonymous speech," as well as the interstate commerce clause of the US Constitution. The court rejected these claims due to Jaynes' use of fake e-mail addresses, which breaks the US CAN SPAM law's condition of giving recipients a means of contacting the sender. The court also stated that his peddling of scam products and services excludes him from First Amendment rights. In effect, the court said that you can't scam people and then cry "free speech!" when hooked by the law.

One hopes Jaynes asks the SCotUS for a writ of certiorari...because I'll be fascinated to see how the Court finds.

See, the plagiarism thing? It just doesn't pay.

It delights me no end to see another plagiarist getting their just desserts. The BBC online notes,

A public relations aide to US President George W Bush has quit after admitting to plagiarising an academic in a newspaper column on education.

The White House earlier expressed disappointment at the "unacceptable" actions of Timothy Goeglein, who worked for the US president since 2001.

Mr Goeglein, whose column appeared in Indiana's News-Sentinel, had agreed he was wrong, the White House added.

I would have preferred that the White House fire him, but this president isn't really high on accountability.

See, the plagiarism thing? It just doesn't pay.

It delights me no end to see another plagiarist getting their just desserts. The BBC online notes,

A public relations aide to US President George W Bush has quit after admitting to plagiarising an academic in a newspaper column on education.

The White House earlier expressed disappointment at the "unacceptable" actions of Timothy Goeglein, who worked for the US president since 2001.

Mr Goeglein, whose column appeared in Indiana's News-Sentinel, had agreed he was wrong, the White House added.

I would have preferred that the White House fire him, but this president isn't really high on accountability.

Stranger than fiction

The Moscow Times offers a fascinating story about a 1959 case of 9 skiers who died under weird and mysterious circumstances...and whose deaths were classified as "secret" by the Soviet Union.

Nine experienced cross-country skiers hurriedly left their tent on a Urals slope in the middle of the night, casting aside skis, food and their warm coats.

Clad in their sleepwear, the young people dashed headlong down a snowy slope toward a thick forest, where they stood no chance of surviving bitter temperatures of around minus 30 degrees Celsius.

Baffled investigators said the group died as a result of "a compelling unknown force" -- and then abruptly closed the case and filed it as top secret.

The deaths, which occurred 49 years ago on Saturday, remain one of the deepest mysteries in the Urals. Records related to the incident were unsealed in the early 1990s, but friends of those who died are still searching for answers.

I found the story via Neat-O-Rama's pointer to a Wikipedia entry about the case. While six of the skiers died of hypothermia (not surprising, since they were in their pajamas and underwear), three died of injuries sustained with no external wounds, and their clothing had high levels of radiation.

I'm going to go off and play the Twilight Zone theme song, now.

Stranger than fiction

The Moscow Times offers a fascinating story about a 1959 case of 9 skiers who died under weird and mysterious circumstances...and whose deaths were classified as "secret" by the Soviet Union.

Nine experienced cross-country skiers hurriedly left their tent on a Urals slope in the middle of the night, casting aside skis, food and their warm coats.

Clad in their sleepwear, the young people dashed headlong down a snowy slope toward a thick forest, where they stood no chance of surviving bitter temperatures of around minus 30 degrees Celsius.

Baffled investigators said the group died as a result of "a compelling unknown force" -- and then abruptly closed the case and filed it as top secret.

The deaths, which occurred 49 years ago on Saturday, remain one of the deepest mysteries in the Urals. Records related to the incident were unsealed in the early 1990s, but friends of those who died are still searching for answers.

I found the story via Neat-O-Rama's pointer to a Wikipedia entry about the case. While six of the skiers died of hypothermia (not surprising, since they were in their pajamas and underwear), three died of injuries sustained with no external wounds, and their clothing had high levels of radiation.

I'm going to go off and play the Twilight Zone theme song, now.

Oh, monkey boy!

Friends of mine once referred to a very unpleasant fellow as "chunky monkey boy." Perhaps this $49.95 Frank Cho model is his younger brother:



Via Nerd Approved.

Oh, monkey boy!

Friends of mine once referred to a very unpleasant fellow as "chunky monkey boy." Perhaps this $49.95 Frank Cho model is his younger brother:



Via Nerd Approved.

All your pwnage are belong to us

A Finnish company wants to make sure that whenever you get pwned, you get your pwnage^TM from them. Via Tradmork.com:

On February 26, 2008, Finnish software development company Futuremark filed to protect the trademark Pwnage in relation to “computer game software and computer game programs enabling users to play games with mobile phones and personal digital assistants” and “online computer games provided via network between communications networks and computers”.

Here's the USPTO filing. *snort*

All your pwnage are belong to us

A Finnish company wants to make sure that whenever you get pwned, you get your pwnage^TM from them. Via Tradmork.com:

On February 26, 2008, Finnish software development company Futuremark filed to protect the trademark Pwnage in relation to “computer game software and computer game programs enabling users to play games with mobile phones and personal digital assistants” and “online computer games provided via network between communications networks and computers”.

Here's the USPTO filing. *snort*

Ah, the joys of vacuuming

I think this story from the UK Telegraph just sort of stands on its own:

A Polish worker has come up with an unusual excuse after being caught in the act with a vacuum cleaner.

The building contractor claimed he was cleaning his underpants with Henry Hoover when he was found naked and on his knees in a hospital's staff canteen.

A stunned security guard stumbled onto the man in the middle of a compromising act with the cleaner, which has a large smiley face painted on its front and a hose protruding from its "nose".

The man has since been fired. Here's a picture of the Hoover cleaner model in question:

Ah, the joys of vacuuming

I think this story from the UK Telegraph just sort of stands on its own:

A Polish worker has come up with an unusual excuse after being caught in the act with a vacuum cleaner.

The building contractor claimed he was cleaning his underpants with Henry Hoover when he was found naked and on his knees in a hospital's staff canteen.

A stunned security guard stumbled onto the man in the middle of a compromising act with the cleaner, which has a large smiley face painted on its front and a hose protruding from its "nose".

The man has since been fired. Here's a picture of the Hoover cleaner model in question:

Dear FedEx Ground delivery person:

I appreciate your work ethic and your desire to get our package to us as quickly as possible.

But if you ever ring my frickin' doorbell at 6:50 a.m. again, I will shoot out your truck tires. With my bow. And a flaming arrow.

Love,

Me

Dear FedEx Ground delivery person:

I appreciate your work ethic and your desire to get our package to us as quickly as possible.

But if you ever ring my frickin' doorbell at 6:50 a.m. again, I will shoot out your truck tires. With my bow. And a flaming arrow.

Love,

Me