Jeez almighty! Even CNN is doing a new-years countdown.

Oh yea, -Happy New Year!- a little ahead.

There's got to be an age limit/barrier to this one, but hey, I just heard it.

"Remember that whenever you see a beautiful, single girl, somewhere there's a guy who's glad to be rid of her."

[Listening to: Track 04 - Artist - Album (03:53)]

So FedEx is buying Kinko's.. I wonder if they'll change the name from the founder's namesake, like UPS did with MBE.

[Listening to: New Year's Eve Party mix p3 - Mixed by Justin Cooke - dmc 252 cd1 (11:01)]

Google Fight : Make a fight with Googlefight 1..2..3..fight!

The Word Spy words, words, words ...

New, sneaky, evil new PayPal spoof. Do Not fall for it, people!!
Instead of putting ALL the details here, it's better for you to just read at Boing Boing

Hmm.... PoE is coming to the street level vendors, like Linksys' WAPPOE.
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12% of 'Holiday Shopping' is done from now till New Years'.
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CertificateSwap.com a new place to trade the gift certificates you don't really want.

Merry Christmas !!!

For More People in 20’s and 30’s, Home Is Where the Parents Are
Yet another article on transitional adulthood, but with this one, the NYTimes took notice.
I knew of the other trends, but this one surprised me: "Only about a third of those who go straight from high school to four-year residential colleges graduate four years later..... most education experts now use six-year graduation rates as their benchmarks. " I 'blame' inflation. IMHO, inflation is rampant. But that's a disussion for different day.
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Creator of Linux Defends Its Originality
Linus defends linux in the ongoing SCO saga, stating some of the code in dispute he wrote himself.
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Around Tree, Smiles Even for Wives No. 2 and 3 Whenever you think your family is messed up, you reach for a story like this.
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Falling Physics, When the Weather Outside Is Frightful The Physics, and Art, of Snowflakes..

Well, add In America to the list of films I'd like to see.
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Microsoft wins HTML application patent | CNET News.com
Without getting into the argument discussion over this, I'll just ask this: Why apply for a patent when you're not going to enforce it?
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MSN Money - 15 worst holiday gift ideas a list everyone should follow..
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MSNBC - 10 places to see before you die
list culled from (and to promote) the "1,000 places to go before you die" book that's on my amazon list. At least I can check off #4 (and I'm working on #8).
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While catching up on email and replying to someone sending me a hoax, I sent them a link to Sophos' latest hoaxes page. I then see the "La Bible Des Moines" hoax. What does it mean? (yes, I'm too lazy to go to Babelfish right now. I'd rather just wonder. It's not THAT important.)

What a Crappy Present - CD Gift Advice, Parents and Kids
While it's a sad commentary on the attitude of kids today, I do admit some of it is funny. The brains behind this it to drive traffic here to support their cause.
via Daypop

Christmas Mars Landing: "It’s wintertime in the northern hemisphere of Mars, and a flying saucer is about to land."
via Lockergnome

Animation Express: To See The Stars (Ver las Estrellas) Ever just stare at the stars and dream?

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Quit Slashdot.org Today! While I do heavily agree that the signal-to-noise ratio is low, I do admit to skimming through their RSS feeds (skimming through links).They occasionally "break a story" or link to something noone else has.
via Lockergnome

Citrix Systems » Citrix to Acquire Expertcity, Leader in Web-Based Desktop Access with GoToMyPC
I'm a little surprised I didn't catch this from a News-media source, but found it on Citrix's site. This is one of those M&As that'll work together well, like eBay & PayPal or Google & Blogger.
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Time Travel Spam Is this the weirdess piece of spam ever?
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For those wanting to kill time at work, now comes Pacman in Excel.
via memepool.com

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Private plane breaks sound speed: "On the day of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' 1903 flight, a small craft called SpaceShipOne demonstrated that supersonic flight is now possible by a small company working without government help."
They did it while working towards the X-prize.

RealNetworks Sues Microsoft Over Antitrust Issues
Was it any surprise this would happen again? No, it will continue until the companies filing suit find a judge that will discipline Microsoft for it's tactics. (I'm being PC, and not saying any more) The unfortunate thing about this lawsuit is RealPlayer/RealOne is not a contender anymore.The program stinks (don't even get me started on the spyware issue), and the company doesn't have the creativity it did years ago. It used to be a place with potential and vision, and now it's just another media outlet vieing for your attention. They simply did not keep up. There are many better choices for audio, and current versions of Divx & Quicktime (and maybe even WMV) are better at video. Few people outside of the company (and shareholders) would care if Real won. I suppose the Anti-Microsofties would be cheering, but this case won't affect anyone else.
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Montreal Gazette - Story - canada.com network: "Smart soldiers decided to flee the Rings battle
Digital warriors thought for themselves - and their first thought was to run away"
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Bakersfield prostitute strips attacker and takes him to police
One more person to add to the 'stupid-people' pile.
Naturally, he deserved what he got.

So, EMC agreed to buy VMWare this week. I haven't yet figured out if this is a bad thing or not. While it can't be a positive, it could be a neutral, if they mostly left things alone.

Salon.com Life | American gothic Strom Thurmond had a black mistress. Are we really all that surprised?

dOc DVD Review: Fashion Victim: The Killing of Gianni Versace (2000)
Joan Juliet Buck, editor of French Vogue, says early in the film, "Fashion has tremendous power in the absence of any prevailing ideology. Magazines, which are the unlived life, they are the life you're not living but you wish you were living ... They should be called 'longing' magazines."
'High-Fashion' is stupid.

Salon.com Sex | Mr. Spock's nudes
I had no idea.

Yahoo! News - Wheaton an Enterprising Author, Too
Congratulations, Wil!

Wired News: Open Source Takes on Hardware Biz
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Yeah, I need to get back into the swing of things..

Politics always has it's twists. This one's odd: Madonna is endorsing Clark. I had no idea anyone, including herself, thought she had enough (any) clout in this arena to be giving endorsements.

CNN.com - U.S.: 'We got him' - Dec. 14, 2003
As no doubt you've heard, Saddam Hussein was captured today. It'll be interesting to see if the attacks on western soldiers decrease, and if the stock markets of the world go flying tomorrow.

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column Voting in Iowa
Here in DSM, we should be taking a "Don't fix what's not broken" approach. Our voting machines are fine. For those not in DSM; We go in to our local precinct and record our votes on cardstock-like paper with a special felt pen. This pen is laced with a metallic compound (I'm not sure which). You then take your paper over to the machine and feed it in, a la vending machine style (only, with the paper being cardstock it works 99% of the time). The machine then reads them like those multiple-choice-fill-in-the-oval type tests schools used to give. The results are transmitted via modem to a central repository where the 'upper-level' election officials are at. Yes, by modem, and probably only 28.8kbps too. But even after error-correction and checksums, a 'yes' for one person and a 'no' for another is not much data to transmit. The machines are like little safes on wheels, locked, only to be opened again at the central election site in front of election and party officials. If there is a dispute or a close election, the paper ballots are re-tabulated.
The machines
This is a well-oiled system, that works perfectly fine. There are no good reasons to scrap what we have for fancy, expensive Diebold touchscreen systems that can be hacked and manipulated like nobody's business!
For those politicians who might happen google across this page: I do care, and I do vote. Regularly.
Cringley's facts on Canada were interesting though. If they're right, we're all pitiful. Oh wait, he gave a link to a Canadian government website. We are so wasteful.

DVD/CD SHREDDER I still say the best shredding practice is to burn them. (like throwing them in a fireplace)+

It's good to see someone else came to the same conclusion about security that I did. As a writer, Bruce Schneiner puts it better than I ever could.

Wi-Fi Networking News: Des Moines Airport Shares with Students
Whoa who! This is good news, but I've got to wonder, where did they dig up this story?; as that site is just a shell.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Scientists freeze beam of light
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Moskowitz on Hiding SSIDs
Turning off SSID broadcast may not be best.
via WiFi Networking News

Independent Lens . EROICA! Not as good as Bond, IMHO, but I'd still go see them if they came here.
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Did you know.. our 3rd largest export to China is garbage?
Our recyclable material, actually. Chinese firms are willing to pay more than US recyclers (plus shipping), and so it gets shipped there. New Chinese companies don't have the pre-conceived notions about recycling that American companies do,take it on, and are profiting from it. The not so small irony is that now, and especially more in the future, we pay for goods made in China, throw them away and they turn them into something else that we'll pay for. And there's no denying this cycle exists because America isn't really big on recycling.
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Maybe it's because I'm not the target audience, but Cosby's latest book just doesn't seem as good as his previous ones.
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I'd like to go see Pieces of April before it leaves the theatres..

[Listening to: Nulife - Cassius - 1999 (06:32)]

Hackers Steal From Pirates, to No Good End It's made the mainstream media now.
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The SciFi channel sues NASA. If they have this extra money, why don't they bring back Farscape?!
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Did you know.. the popcorn you eat at the theater costs less than the paper bag it's put in?
(It's because subsidies drive corn prices low) I knew it was cheap. -just not that cheap.

DJ's mummified body found behind wall in club
"If not for a recent citywide ban on smoking in bars, investigators said, they might never have found the body."
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Heads-Up Displays Move From Cockpits to Cyclists’ Helmets
This might go on my christmas list for next year. :)
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Blogger, are you down today? I keep getting 404s on your pages.

Was Walter Hewlett right?
HP would be better off without Compaq drain - Analyst
via The Register
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Just found SlashNOT. grinning from ear to ear.
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Dominatrix training at Red Hat What the hell is this?

I was wondering about this...

Thoughts on the New Crop of Ogg Aware Players?
Steve Andre' asks: " Given the approaching season, I'm wondering if many have used and have opinions about the new Ogg Vorbis capable portable players out ...
via Slashdot

[Listening to: Dog - Moby - Best Of Remixes (07:37)]

Dilbert Comic Strip Archive :) !! This is so me.

CNN.com - U.S. eyes return to the Moon - Dec. 5, 2003

Photoshop was invented for Star Wars

Photoshop was developed as part of the SFX efforts for Star Wars:Link
via Boing Boing
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No Parking Tree

Picture of a tree that has assimilated a No Parking sign. Link
via Boing Boing

Those who give up Liberty for Security get neither liberty or security.
                                                              --Benjamin Franklin
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Which Pulp Fiction Character Are You?
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Black People Love Us! Is this a joke? I think so, something like the Onion

Reuters | PluggedIn: SmartPhones May Someday Threaten Laptops
"The industry is trying to figure out what role does the PC continue to play in the digital home of the future.", "People were leaving their digital cameras at home because the camera phone is good enough,"
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NPR: All Songs Considered: Cool Music For Kids My mom might like this.

Convicted Utah man likens polygamy to homosexuality I guess it had to happen eventually.

"Donald Rumsfeld has won the 2003 Foot in Mouth award"
via Daypop

Xeni on NPR's "Day to Day": Hollywood Wardrive


On today's edition of the NPR show "Day to Day," I go wardriving with founders of the Southern California Wireless User's Group -- we hunt for wireless LANS that might be vulnerable to security breaches.

"As wireless network technology becomes increasingly popular, users still seem unwilling to outfit their networks with proper security to protect their information from hackers. "

Link to "Day to Day" home, listen to the archived show using Real or WinMedia here.
via Boing Boing

SFF Comparison Matrix awesome chart/matrix for comparing current SFF boxes!

Fortune.comWhy Google is #1.
btw, I don't like the conotation that just because a company isn't public, it isn't "grown up".

Warning about Amazon.com; as with many things in life, you can get carried away.
BTW, to those checking my wish list, you don't have to get anything from amazon, I just used it as a quick & dirty way to post it.

[Listening to: clubtech - - (01:10:00)]

Stone: Will The Last One Please Turn Off the Computer? Some of the smart people are leaving AOL!