Category: Miscellaneous

You may have noticed your Windows operating system telling you it has updates today. This Techweb Article summarizes the revisions.

Microsoft took it on the security chin Tuesday as it released April’s round of security vulnerabilities. The total number of vulnerabilities in the four security bulletins tallied an astounding 20 separate flaws in Windows and Outlook Express.

“This is simply an unprecedented number of vulnerabilities,” said Vincent Gullotto, the vice president of Network Associates’ AVERT research team.

April’s mega collection includes 20 new vulnerabilities, 8 of which are rated as “Critical,” the most dire assessment in the Redmond, Wash.-based developer’s four-level ranking system. Sixteen of the 20 vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely, the most dangerous type of bug because hackers can conduct an attack over the Internet.

I’m in the process of updating right now.

Apparently so is everyone else.

As readers of my blog know, lately I’ve been reading Stephen Hawkings’ book, The Universe in a Nutshell. That’s why I was particularly interested in this NASA project which although it has had funding since 1964 is soon to lift-off.

Awaiting the right conditions and containing the world’s most accurate gyroscopes, Gravity Probe B is set to test Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. The experiment aims to measure a weaker and even stranger effect called “frame dragging”, a warping of space-time by the gravity and angular momentum of a spinning body.

In principle, it is possible to measure [frame dragging] by monitoring the spin axis of a gyroscope orbiting the Earth. The axis should change its orientation relative to that of a distant star.

Once we can measure the effect in the Solar System, says Kip Thorne, a gravitational physicist at the California Institute of Technology, “we can definitely understand how the same phenomena are working in the distant Universe and around black holes,” which cause much stronger warping.

I can’t say for sure what exactly this project will do for the average Joe, but here is an impressive list of previous NASA spinoff technologies.

True or False? The Urban Myth’s board game thoroughly researches all of its “facts”.

False.

I remember reading about the rumor that Mr. Ed was actually a zebra on Snopes.com and finding myself at a loss for words, when it was so obviously not true. But it’s SNOPES! They are the best source for urban legend debunking, how can it not be true? Now I know. So the moral of the story is, don’t believe everything you hear or read just because it comes from a reliable source – even Snopes.com.

Eye jewellery? Words can’t describe how insane I believe these people to be.

Via MeFi:

“What you are hearing is Nickelback’s “Someday” in your left speaker and “How you remind me in the right”. All of those left shocked please raise their hands.”

I’ve never understood what the big fascination with Nickelback is anyway. I mean I’m happy for them being somewhat of locals making it to the big time, but for some mysterious reason I just don’t dig their music. I don’t think it’s just that their music is formulaic either, it’s probably just the old argument that the music from your highschool days is going to end up being your favorite no matter when you grew up.

It also makes me wonder, is a band still a one-hit wonder if all of their next hits are just subtle reworkings of their first hit?

My brother is into photography. He has been the photo-editor at the Gauntlet Newspaper (The University of Calgary’s Student Run Paper) for the past few years and always has a few good tips. Anyway he told me that you can really improve your pictures with a steady cam tripod but they usually run between $600 and $1500. Well today I found a site that shows you how to build your own Steady-Cam for about $14 (I’m guessing that’s USD).

The Memespread project is a little experiment in the way information travels across the blogosphere.

SYDNEY, Australia – A retired Australian crocodile hunter saved a young girl from the jaws of a 10-foot crocodile when he jumped on top of the man-eating reptile and gouged its eyes, local media said Tuesday.

This article was of particular interest to me, given that I used to work in The City of Medicine Hat’s GIS department.

When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue, they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a neighborhood – their own neighborhood. And their house will be graphically circled.

Free Registration Required or you could go to Bugmenot.com and pickup a username and password there.

An intesting look at categories of blog posts from BoingBoing’s Guest blog:

Informative: short, sweet, linked. Makes a quick point and backs it up with a link to another site. Boing Boing has made this into an art form.

Blisdom (blog wisdom): can be short or long, relies on a narrative to make a subtle point. Often pulled from a life experience. Here’s an example from a conversation with my wife:

Wife: I just had the strangest dream. I was on a train…

Me: Coach or First Class?

Wife: Honey, I don’t dream in coach.

Vanity Post: Often inane. Represents everything that journalists like to point to and say, “See, blogs are worthless.”

‘While the unexamined life may not be worth living the overexamined life is not worth reading.’

–Scott Simon of NPR on “inane weblogs”

That doesn’t mean these blog entries aren’t interesting when read as part of the whole blog…it just means that if there is a point, it is often missed by the casual visitor, like going from Sopranos series 1 to series 4.

Fiction: There is a lot of emerging fiction popping up from blogs. Harder to find, but worth the journey.

Then comes the post that has had the biggest affect on my life. I don’t have a clever name for it, so let’s just call it the “shoes” post…as in walk a mile in another’s shoes. Sometimes it has a clear point, and other times it just resonates inside you. Whatever the author’s point behind the post, it takes on new meaning in your own mind. Sometimes you learn something about someone else, but often you learn something about yourself.

I like to think of my posts as a combination of Informative and Blisdom, giving a tiny slice-of-my-life to readers while at the same time posting short sweet links along with my thoughts on the matter.