Rantings of a Nerd

Sci Fi Wire -- The News Service of the Sci Fi Channel

This is too bad. I mean the show was in High Definition and all, but then so is, "The War at Home" on Fox. At least the latter is funny, while former is just sad.

Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament Asked To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "Et" Civilizations - Yahoo! News: "On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada�s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: 'UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head.'"

Gotta love those whacky Canucks.

/spadassin/: Webmasters who didn't think when they registered their URL

Shameless link to another blog.

Every walmart in my area had lines yesterday afternoon that were longer than the number of 360's they were getting in. Target opened at 8AM, sold out 8:05. 50 people slept over night at the Best Buy in the wind and rain. No joy. The Circuit City in Snellville had a sign in the door saying they were sold out. They hadn't even opened. Now that is a trick. They weren't open at midnight either.

Bottom line, I am waiting on the one I paid for at EBGames. It may be February before it comes in, but hey, I won't be sleeping in the cold rain to get one. I still haven't finished Halo 2 anyway. I need to get on that.

At least I took the day off of work and got to go to Starbucks.

Thanks SondraK for this one:

The Differential Theory of US Armed Forces (Snake Model) upon encountering a snake in the Area of Operations (AO)

1. Army Infantry: Snake smells them, leaves area.

2. Army Airborne: Lands on and kills the snake.

3. Army Combat Engineer: Studies snake. Prepares in-depth doctrinal thesis in obscure 5 series Field Manual about how to defeat snake using counter-mobility assets. Complains that maneuver forces don’t understand how to properly conduct doctrinal counter-snake ops.

4. Army Ranger: Plays with snake, then eats it.

5. Army Special Forces: Makes contact with snake, ignores all State Department directives and Theater Commander Rules of Engagement by building rapport with snake and winning its heart and mind. Trains it to kill other snakes. Files enormous travel settlement upon return.

6. Army Armor: Runs over snake, laughs, and looks for more snakes to squash.

7. Army Field Artillery: Kills snake with massive Time On Target barrage with three Forward Artillery Brigades in support. Kills several hundred civilians as unavoidable collateral damage. Mission is considered a success and all participants (i.e., cooks, mechanics and clerks) are awarded medals.

8. Navy SEAL: Expends all ammunition and calls for naval gunfire support in failed attempt to kill snake. Snake bites SEAL and retreats to safety. Hollywood makes fantasy film in which SEALS kill Muslim extremist snakes.

9. Navy: Fires off 50 cruise missiles from various types of ships, kills snake and makes presentation to Senate Appropriations Committee on how Naval forces are the most cost-effective means of anti-snake force projection.

10. Marine: Kills snake by accident while looking for souvenirs. Local civilians demand removal of all US forces from Area of Operations.

11. Marine Recon: Follows snake, and reports its movements.

12. USAF Transport pilot: Receives call for anti-snake equipment, delivers two weeks after due date.

13. Supply (All Branches): (NOTICE: Your anti-snake equipment is on backorder.)

14. Food Services (All branches): Feeds snake. Snake does not die, but wishes it could.

15. USAF Civil Engineer. Scrapes dead snake off of road surface, throws carcass into trash.

16. USAF F-15 pilot: Mis-identifies snake as enemy Mi-24 Hind helicopter and engages with missiles. Crew chief paints snake kill on aircraft.

17. USAF F-16 pilot: Finds snake, drops two CBU-87 cluster bombs, and misses snake target, but gets direct hit on Embassy 100 KM East of snake due to weather (Too hot also too cold, was clear but too overcast, too dry with rain, unlimited ceiling with low cloud cover etc.) Claims that purchasing multi-million dollar, high-tech snake killing device will enable it in the future to kill all snakes and achieve a revolution in military affairs.

18. Army Aviation: Has Global Positioning Satellite coordinates to snake. Can’t find snake. Returns to base for refuel, crew rest and manicure, all in time for happy hour.

19. Army AH-64 Apache pilot: Unable to locate snake, snakes don’t show well on infra-red. Infrared only operable in desert AO’s without power lines or SAM’s.

20. Army UH-60 Blackhawk pilot: Finds snake on fourth pass after snake builds bonfire, pops smoke, lays out VS 17 to mark Landing Zone. Rotor wash blows snake into fire.

21. Judge Advocate General (JAG) (All Branches): Snake declines to bite, citing grounds of professional courtesy.

22. Intelligence officer: Snake ? What snake? Only 4 of 35 indicators of snake activity are currently active. We assess the potential for snake activity as LOW.

23. USAF B-52 pilot: Pulls ARCLIGHT mission on snake, kills snake and every other living thing within two miles of target.

24. USAF Missile crew: Lays in target coordinates to snake in 20 seconds, but can’t receive authorization from National Command Authority to use nuclear weapons.

25. USAF Combat Controllers: Guides snake elsewhere.

26. USAF Para-Rescue Jumper: Wounds snake in initial encounter, then works feverishly to save snake’s life.

27. Military Police. MP shoots snake. Lays a .38 caliber pistol on the ground and claims that the snake was reaching for a gun.

28. USAF Security Forces: If snake has line badge in its possession or is not posing threat to nuclear weapons, lets it pass. If snake does not have restricted area badge, jacks it up, apprehends it, and transports snake to desk to be turned over to its commander.

Gnome-owners fall victim to schoolies' prank. 18/11/2005. ABC News Online

I contend that knowing garden gnomes are the source of many great pranks means that when you place one in your yard, you have a lessened expectation that it will remain there.

That being said, you do have the expectation that it will be returned after the prank is concluded or you can easily recover the "roaming" gnome.

Perhaps garden gnomes should come with a warning label with this implied social contract spelled out.

Just thinking out loud.

I have decided to try to create a catchy nickname. Instead of using the clunky name Xbox 360, I will use 2Pi. If you have no idea why I would choose that, then you did not take calculus and may ask a friend who did to explain measurements in Radians.

I will be trying to find a console when it launches. From what I have seen there will be no big events in the metro area, but that may change. If there is a launch event, I will be there with my camera in hand.

CryptoKids� America's Future Codemakers & Codebreakers

Fascinating. The things one discovers.

Freedom to Tinker � Blog Archive � SonyBMG DRM Customer Survival Kit

Nifty.

National Novel Writing Month - National Novel Writing Month

Ken!!! ( Doing my best William Shatner )



Okay, I have been writing for decades and have never finished that first novel. I have thrown out more writing that many published authors have ever sold. I would argue that all of it deserved to be thrown out.

Thanks to my friend Ken I have gotten off my ass and have cranked out 10,000 words in a week of the novel I have written and rewritten at leat 6 times.

We shall see how this goes.

NBC, CBS to offer shows on demand for 99 cents - Nov. 8, 2005

Sure this sounds cool, but I bet that my "comcastic" DVR will stop working when I try to record these shows. They already fail one out of 4 tries, I guess they will fail more often without explanation.

Energy Fiend - Death by Caffeine

Thank you boing boing for this... Now I know my limits.

I hate the word verification as much as everyone else. I am going to try using moderation and put the onus on myself to stop the spam. Post a comment here and give it a try. If it works here I will do it on my other blogs.

Please excuse the cross posting between blogs. I know there are some who read only one or the other, but few can stand to follow all 3 blogs.

Amazon.com: The Ultimate Star Trek Collection: DVD

I have been fooled before with complete series. No way am I falling for this. I have the Die Hard Trilogy and now they are making a 4th. As soon as I buy this and sit down for a few weeks of television, the freaks will announce another series.

Okay, I already have TNG and DS9. Those are the ones I care to see again. I will do just fine without Voyager and Enterprise in my collection.

Great... I have been challenged to get off my ass and actually write something. Guess I will do it. I have about 3000 words already. Why not 47,000 more?

Boing Boing: Sony releases de-rootkit-ifier, lies about risks from rootkits -- UPDATED: "SOFTWARE UPDATES/ PLUG-INS
November 2, 2005 - This Service Pack removes the cloaking technology component that has been recently discussed in a number of articles published regarding the XCP Technology used on SONY BMG content protected CDs. This component is not malicious and does not compromise security. However to alleviate any concerns that users may have about the program posing potential security vulnerabilities, this update has been released to enable users to remove this component from their computers. "

Thanks to boingboing there is an update. Wow, I blog, Sony reacts. If only I had that power.

# posted by Lee Ragans @ 11:20 AM 0 comments

Mark's Sysinternals Blog: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far: "Rootkits are cloaking technologies that hide files, Registry keys, and other system objects from diagnostic and security software, and they are usually employed by malware attempting to keep their implementation hidden "

I am far from the first to post about this. Thanks to Mark and his work this was discovered. I don't think that I can express enough how stupid this was of Sony to do.

I will never... and I mean never purchase another Sony CD until they apoligize and make restitution to all of the people who's computers they have damaged.

Should I be getting my money ready any time soon? I think it will be safe to assume that I will never buy one again.

In the interest of full disclosure I have only bought 3 CDs in the past 2 years. I now buy all my music from iTunes and have made myself subject to their DRM. However Apple has not installed any hidden software on my computers that damage my operating system if I try to remove it.

Sony is a giant company with many divisions. I can only wonder what the CEO will think when this story gets out and shows that Sony music is no better than spammers.

Attention Sony, you may want to do some damage control before the non-nerds get their hands on this story.