I love a good controversy - especially when it involves google rankings, blog comments and maybe even the mob. (Okay probably not the mob, but some jerks at Quick Boys Moving & Storage.)

Adam Laurie, chief security officer of the London security and networking firm ALD shows Wired News how using Linux he was able to expose billing systems, read other guest’s e-mail, and open the minibar at hotels around the world before he spoke about the vulnerability Saturday at the DefCon hacker conference in Las Vegas.

I find this sort of stuff very interesting.

Windows Vista (formerly code-named Longhorn) will have six new fonts included when it is released next year. The fonts are called Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia and Corbel and are available for download. Constantia is my favorite.

(via tipmonkies)

Update (September 20, 2005): It appears that the download link above is not working. Try these links instead: Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia and Corbel.

Update (November 23, 2006): Microsoft has released a compatibility upgrade for older versions of Microsoft office, and within that package they have included finished versions of the new Vista fonts. I’m removing the old incomplete versions from my server now. See my post, Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for more details and your link.

Update (March 4, 2007): Looks like the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack has been removed, so I’ll just put my links back up. Update (March 31, 2008) It’s back up.

Update (October 2, 2007): The fonts have been out of beta for a long time, but the versions here are incomplete. Check out the new and improved versions.

Update (March 31, 2008) I’ve been asked to take the links down. Luckily Microsoft is still offering the fonts on their website, so find them there.

For those interested in a more liberal view of Mormons, their history with blacks and the priesthood, and the some thoughts about their policy: The Mark of the Curse by Keith Norman (PDF link).

As any long term readers of my blog know, I’m a pretty big fan of Disneyland. However, I have to say my love of the park is slowly diminishing with all the bad news coming out of Disney theme parks lately. For instance there was a low speed collision on Disney’s California Adventure’s Screamin’ rollercoaster yesterday. No one was killed but about 15 people have minor injuries. What is going on with the maintenance lately that there have been so many theme park accidents? From NBC News 4:

Fire crews, ambulances and other emergency vehicles were at the California Screamin’ ride, which features a 108-foot drop. Crews received the report at about 6:40 p.m.

City spokesman John Nicoletti said 15 of the 48 people on the ride were hospitalized for treatment of minor injuries.

…

The slow-speed collision occurred on a flat portion of the roller coaster. Officials were attempting to determine a cause.

It was the second accident in four months at a Disneyland Resort park in Anaheim.

Hey, look who they made a game about.

Yesterday The Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the levy on recordable media like Mp3 players. My iPod was purchased in the States so I never paid the tax, but from what I understand if you bought your iPod in Canada and paid the levy, you might be eligible for a refund; great for you.

However, as Canadian copyright lawyer Michael Geist points out, the ruling is actually not so good for users of the iPod because without the tax (although we’ll certainly hear more about this in the future) it looks like the government now considers any copying of music onto any hard drives, including iPod’s or personal computer drives, as illegal.

Further, today’s decision represents a serious blow to the iPod, which has been an incredible boon to the music industry. Simply put, copying store bought CDs onto iPods, as CRIA’s own Graham Henderson has supported, may now be unlawful in Canada since it is difficult to find an exception within the Copyright Act that would permit that form of copying. While perhaps some in the industry may think this is a good thing as it transitions users to re-purchase the same music yet again as MP3 files from services such as iTunes, I think it will ultimately lower the value that consumers associate with music to the detriment of everyone in the industry.

Link to Canada.com news report on the issue.

Back in April I received an email about my Stairway to Heaven backwards clip. I know there is probably just as much chance that what this guy says is completely made up as true, but nonetheless he emailed me back yesterday and whether it’s true or not I find the possibility interesting.

Hey dude, amazing what you can find on the net when your bored, pretty cool site, some of the lyrics im really skeptical about but hey thats life.

The main thing i wanted to say was my uncle’s cousin is Robert Plant and the next time they get together i’m gonna ask if i can tag along and i’ll ask Rob about the lyrics, more than likely he’ll say it’s all ‘Bollocks’ but hey - Worth a go.

To which I replied:

I figured it was bound to happen that eventually my site would reach someone from the band. Let me know what he says.

Yesterday I received the following:

Hey, i spoke to Rob a week ago and when i asked him he kindly replied “Not all this bollocks again” but he swore that the lyrics we’re just as they we’re and nothing was intentionally there when played backwards.
So words from the horses mouth seems that people are jst reading too much into the song, always good to have a bit of controversy though.

So there you (apparently) have it. Robert Plant, member of Led Zeppelin and the writer of Stairway to Heaven, thinks this whole backmasking controversy is a bunch of bollocks. It’s too bad he didn’t get a photo of Rob, that would have gone a long way in knowing that he really did talk to him.

Google has a really cool service called Individualized Google. I love it because it not only lets you set your personal bookmarks on a google start page, but it also lets you track all your favorite RSS and news feeds and even your gmail on the same page!

I went for a quick dip at the Fritz Sick pool tonight. Over the couple years that I worked at that pool I’ve seen a few relatively minor instances of theft from the lockers so since I didn’t have a lock with me, I just brought my stuff out on deck with me.

It turns out that it was a very good idea because when I got out of the pool I overheard that someone had been going through the change rooms stealing whatever they could find. Apparently at least one lady had lost her watch and maybe some other belongings.

What makes people so selfish and inconsiderate? Thieves of the world, please quit thieving.

Lately, I have been using a great program called Sharepod to copy songs on and off of my iPod onto computers that don’t have iTunes installed. I have tried some other software to do the same thing, but this one works just fine. You can even run the software right off your iPod - no installation necessary; best of all - it’s free!

Ahhhh, it’s some kind of miracle! (Satellite image from somewhere in Peru). Well it’s probably just as miraculous as deciphering messages in music you play backwards anyway.

Google Siteseeing is full of other interesting satellite images.

My house is infested. It’s really frustrating, but I have a serious moth problem. (Not to be confused with a math problem which I may or may not also have).

I have been killing these intruders like crazy but every morning when I wake up there are fresh ones all over the house. (Actually I can usually find about… Let’s see three or four each morning but let’s not talk about numbers, as I said earlier this is a moth problem and has very little to do with math.) Just so you know, I’m not talking about the huge scary “Silence of the Lambs” style moths, luckily, but still even though they are small they are still annoying.

I poured out some Vector cereal this morning and discovered a moth in the bowl. This was pretty sick, but whatever, I scooped it out and ate it anyway. Looking in the box indicated that there weren’t any other moths and so I didn’t think much of it.

Tonight I grabbed myself another bowl only to pour in the milk and find ANOTHER moth in my food! GROSS! Little bits of moth dust spread through the milk. I inspected some of the other (old) boxes of cereal - which should have been tossed long ago just because nobody is going to eat Bran Flakes anyway - but when I opened them I found what you might describe as a moth hive. There were tons of dusty dirty moths creeping and crawling around everywhere inside the box. I didn’t count them (see paragraph 1) but I certainly tossed them. Which serves me well anyway because now that I’ve cleaned the cupboards I have room for more tasty cereal.

Hopefully that will be the last of them, if throwing out that old cereal doesn’t take care of them I’ll have to get some mothballs. Which begs the question of which is worse: moths in your food or the smell of mothballs in your kitchen?

I updated my backmasking page with a clip from The Hotel California. Tell your friends! Tell EVERYBODY!

Yesterday I discovered a link to the moon and today I read about the background of the project. It started as a birthday wish on a post-it note.