SATURDAY, 7/28/2001, 6:58pm HST by Penfold
The "Way Late" Edition

Sorry for no post yesterday, I was ummmmm, occupied with something more important last night.

Seems that Disney will be releasing Tron to DVD and will be releasing the sequel to Tron, Tron 2.0. Read about it here.

The Naked Cowboy is making his rounds around Time Square. He actually makes decent money doing this. While he's not really naked, you can check him out here.

How do combine the stories about the Sircam virus and the MSN pr0n hole? Like this of course. Really, I just want to quite the title of the article.

Someone is suing the makers of Pop-Tarts after the Pop-Tart allegedly caught fire and burned down the house. Maybe the should have went with the Toaster Struedel. Check it out here. This story even made CNN Headline News.

FRIDAY, 7/27/2001, 1:30pm HST by Raul
An abbreviated post

Just a couple of items for now, gotta get to work already. I'll archive later.

I was poking around a digital imaging forum and found this link to a site about a new method of blind deconvolution -- that is, sharpening blurry images without knowing the cause of the blur. Very interesting stuff.

Greetins!

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (CNN) -- The Missouri attorney general has filed two lawsuits against a television psychic hotline for false advertising, fraud and other unlawful business practices, alleging the company bilked consumers out of money and caused them significant injury.

The hotline advertises services by Miss Cleo, who speaks with a Caribbean accent and promises psychic and tarot card readings. The commercial, which has been broadcast across the nation, offers to "find the answers for free" with the slogan "Keepin' it Real."

MAC OC'ing

A Japanese 867MHz Power Mac G4 owner claims to have souped his machine up to 1.067GHz with a simple (ish) flip of a few resistors on the new machine's motherboard.

Also from the Reg: Man faces charges for running RC5 on state computers.

THURSDAY, 7/26/2001, 10:58pm HST by Penfold

Finally, no court tommorow.

I must be getting fixated with traveling to Cuba. But anyways, the U.S. House of Representatives voted today to lift the ban on travel to Cuba. It's fate in the Senate isn't as rosey.

Ring ring

A potential juror in Cleveland, Ohio, has been fined for letting his mobile phone ring in court.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Edward Zaleski fined Christopher Jones £70 for contempt when his phone rang twice.

A woman in Edmonton, Canada was fined $100 for the home neutering of her cat. Man, that doesn't sound to pleasant. Women, you'd better not be getting any ideas now.

THURSDAY, 7/26/2001, 1:45pm HST by Raul

This post is being cut short by technical difficulties.

Now you can be a part of all the stick fightin' action with this game by the creator of the original "Stick Fighting." I swear, this guy must have LOADS of bandwidth to spare to survive getting HardOCP'd so often.

To reload, press the space bar when you have 2 bullets or less remaining. -Penfold

WARPIG's got its hands on an exclusive sneak peek at one of Tippmann pneumatics' latest prototypes, which looks like a hybrid F/A and Model 98. I wonder if it's designed for efficient dispatching of protestors?

Metallica loves you

It's official - Metallica supports music sharing and always has.

What other conclusion can be drawn from once anti-Napster band's latest missive to its fans? Says the posting, on the Metallica Web site, "we look forward to continuing to share music with you in the future".

I'll use this as an excuse to post my latest Napster rant. I am no longer just of the opinion that Napster should shut its doors. I am actually OFFENDED that Napster continues on. The latest move, changing the CEO, was, in the words of the previous CEO, a move that would "help distance (them) from the company's past." Well if that doesn't take the cake. "The company's past" is what made Napster so powerful and so great. All they are doing now is confirming that, "Yeah, we sold out and now will moneygrub unabashedly." Forget all that. Napster must die already. It must not become an apparatus of the empire. Napster was once an entity that showed the power of the people. The people must not let their efforts be subverted.

Bionic exoskeleton

LONDON (Reuters) -- Back injuries suffered by nurses from lifting heavy patients could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a bionic suit invented by Japanese scientists.

The computer-operated Power Assist Suit designed by scientists at Japan's Kanagawa Institute of Technology is strapped onto the body and eases the strain of lifting patients.

WEDNESDAY, 7/25/2001, 10:58pm HST by Penfold

Beer, the nectar of the Gods (but only good beer).

Coming next week friday, Rush Hour 2. All the Chan and Tucker that you can handle.

Submit your favorite mangling of the english language by respectable media here. While this one isn't particularly egregious, it is a wire story so worthy of special attention. So I guess Levy and Condit were hanging out around the Oort Cloud.

The Register is reporting that Hotmail's virus scan check doesn't detect the new SirCam virus. I can vouch for this as I got an email with a tainted attachment. Strangely enough, it was from a totally strange email address.

Missing member

He said: "I flew out of the curve and smashed against a tree. I was squashed between the tank and the seat. The tank was ripped off, and with it my penis.

"It was agony, I looked down and it was gone and then I don't remember any more because I passed out."

WEDNESDAY, 7/25/2001, 1:15pm HST by Raul

Went to the Waikiki aquarium this weekend and gave the E-10 a low-light workout. Overall I'm pretty happy with the results. Most shots were at 160 ISO, some at 320. Above is a Clown Anemone Fish and a striped fish found in seabeds that I can't seem to remember the name of. (It was in this tank.)

Above, is the ever-so friendly piranha which was apparently culled from someone's illegal aquarium locally. (Not to be confused with the PMI Piranha) To its right is everyone's favorite gamefish the tuconare, or peacock bass. I believe these are the "Royal" models.

Palm ARMs itself

Palm will announce on Tuesday its initial steps to adapt its operating system to run on ARM-based processors, CNET News.com has learned.

Sources familiar with the plan say the handheld maker will make public a collaborative agreement with chip companies Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments and ARM Holdings to transition the Palm OS to chips with ARM technology.

I know this is a joke, but it's just wrong. Nic-a-tampon, the quit-smoking aid for women. Lord.

Someone pointed these out to be a while back, I'm only getting around to posting about 'em now. These are valve stem caps with LEDs in them, so when you go driving around town, you'll have bright circles in your wheels. I wonder about the legality issues here.

TUESDAY, 7/24/2001, 11:58pm HST by Penfold

I really should be asleep right now.

Oregon has a medical marijuana law (which I wrote a huge paper in law school about) which allows patients to grow with a Dr.'s recommendation. This doctor has signed for over 900 permit application for medical pot growing. I wonder if he has a branch office in Hawaii.

Napster announces a new CEO to lead the company, ending the leadership of the former CEO Hank Barry. Under his leadership, Napster became a vanguard of the digital revolution. Now, the new CEO Konrad Hilbers gets to rule over it's demise. Shawn Fanning should get out already while there's a shred of respect left in the company.

Deutschland uber phallus, NOT

Urologist Gunther Hagler, head of the team compiling the research, said: "By checking hundreds of patients we found German penises were too small for standard EU condoms.

"On average they were 14.48 cms long and 3.95 cms wide. That makes them much smaller than the EU standard condom size of 17 cms in length and 5.6 cms in width."

TUESDAY, 7/24/2001, 2:45pam HST by Raul
The Re-install edition

I am in the midst of a hard drive change and Windows reinstall. You may not see much of me for a day or two until I finish the job, but it is progressing well. My old drive was failing, with ever-slower read times. This post is from the new drive, a Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 40 gig. I'd forgotten what a fast drive is like!

Yet another iteration of the am i? concept, this one especially for, um, pedophiles. It's am i jailbait or not? Not that I look at that sort of thing.

So the latest incarnation of ICQ fucking with the user is the refusal of their servers to register existing ICQ numbers on new installs of old clients (e.g. 99b) In other words if you are doing a hard drive reinstall like mine and want to use an older ICQ client, the ICQ servers will refuse to register you. Well fuck em. Here's how you can get around that bullshit:

1. Download ISoaQ, an ICQ "patching" program.
2. For this example, let's assume your ICQ # is 1111111. Load ISoaQ and insert 1111111 into the registry.
3. Set 1111111 to the LastOwner.
4. Copy all the databases for your ICQ number (found in the DB99b folder in your old ICQ directory) into your new DB99b directory. If these are not available, try this: Create two empty files in the Db99b folder: 1111111.dat and 1111111.idx. (New -> Text Document), then run DbConvert.exe to 'reindex' this dummy database. It should create 64 K .DAT and 20K .IDX files.
5. Load ICQ and you should be set.

Natural process

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish bullterrier swallowed 1,000 crowns ($94) but returned the money, almost unspoiled, to its mistress the natural way, the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported on Tuesday.

Gotta run.

MONDAY, 7/23/2001, 8:58pm HST by Penfold

Not quite as junk.

Now who was complaining that they had a big camera?

This 24X Plextor CD-RW drive makes my 12x look pitifully slow. I want one.

This comes straight out of Happy Gilmore, the hockey stick putter. Think I'll try and get one when I'm in Canada.

We all know that sex sells, but will it sell WindowsXP?

MONDAY, 7/23/2001, 3:00pm HST by Raul
Junk post

At least they weren't flying felineous assaults.

Penfold sends this site dedicated to Coke Machine Accidents. Just pay the lousy buck!

Looks like the USPS is getting into the digital imaging game too. You can upload a photo and they will print out a postcard from it and send it to a person of your choice. Check details here. I suppose they are hurting from Bluemountain and such.

Dungness paper

AYUTTHAYA, Thailand (Reuters) -- A Thai elephant park has given new meaning to the phrase 'waste not, want not'.

It is raising funds by making paper from elephant dung.

Too weird for words

BERLIN (Reuters) - An Austrian artist dropped a dead cow stuffed with fireworks from a helicopter in Berlin on Thursday in a controversial performance that an animal-loving teenager had failed to stop in a last-ditch legal bid.

Patrizia Strunz, 13, told a Berlin court that watching a cow flying through the air and exploding when it hit the ground could trigger "spiritual shock," but the court rejected her complaint, saying the teenager did not have to watch.

SUNDAY, 7/22/2001, 2:30pm HST by Raul

Got a special place in your heart for someone? Now you can send them just the gift they deserve. Dogdoo.com lets you do just that, with three different sizes of dog to produce the appropriate "gift."

Sendaturd.com offers the same service, but they don't let you see what you're buying. And Smellypoop.com offers different types of turd to send, and have some good dung FAQs. However, I am not sure how legit this site is, as they offer human poop, which is of questionable legality. Thanks to M&C

For the tweaker that can't get enough of their electronic device while in the woods, the solar battery charger has got something for you. Here's one that will do up your cell phone.

Resources for the sex-ed teacher. They have some pretty complete models with, uh, realistic action.

Collegiate copulation

College girls are most likely to be satisfied with life in middle age if they were eager to have sex when young, US researchers claim.

Now available at a Sports Authority near you: straight from Canada, the sponge puck. $2 each.