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American ID Cards: Now you can share in the fun, too!
For those who thought that it was only busted old non-arms-bearing monarchies that indulge in this sort of thing, comes proof that America is not too far behind in the pointless and stupid fascism stakes. [news.com.com] What’s all the fuss with the Real ID Act about? President Bush is expected to sign an $82 billion…
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…and the voice recognition folk will be having kittens…
[www.thisislondon.com] Noisy neighbours have become a scourge of modern life, resulting in stress, sleepless nights and even violence. Now Westminster Council hopes a new wireless microphone could help tackle the problem. It plans to attach the device to lamp posts outside houses, allowing inspectors to monitor sound levels. […] “Noise monitoring and CCTV are just…
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California to ban hunting over Internet
Does this include hunting script kiddies? Or maybe they’ll ban halflife? [www.cnn.com] SACRAMENTO, California (AP) — Wildlife regulators took the first step Tuesday to bar hunters from using the Internet to shoot animals, responding to a Texas Web site that planned to let users fire at real game with the click of a mouse.
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iBook Shock Gleep?
OK – this has happened twice in the past three months, although the last time I was not really certain I’d observed it; I put my elbows down on the tabletop, hard, enough to cause a vibration shock to the G3 700 iBook upon which I was working. There was an extended, low-pitched, piezoelectric-speaker-sound warning…
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Cynthia Milton Update
The latest epistle from Cynthia: Jess arrived here on Monday, and has already fallen in love with Coyhaique. We’ve spent a total of three and a half hours dismantling the bike to the point where the engine will jump out on its own – great stuff. I ve sent some pix to Phil so you…
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24 hours from New Jersey
Fri 8th April – Newark Airport, 7pm Eastern Apparently I “look skinnier” in my passport photograph. In the photograph in my American passport, to be precise. This is what the lady from the TSA told me as I entered International Departures Terminal B at Newark Airport, for my pleasantly upgraded Upper Class Virgin Atlantic flight…
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Natalia Dmytruk
Via [www.worldchanging.com] – a warming tale: [www.sun-sentinel.com] Dmytruk, 48, made sign language her vocation and today interprets for Ukraine’s state-run television. Her face and hands appear in a little box at the bottom of the screen as she sends out the news on the mid-morning and early afternoon telecasts to the hearing-impaired. During the tense…
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Blog meme: five people you’d like to blog with
Geoff Arnold poses me the following challenge: Name five people you’d like to blog with. I interpret this as “name five people, living or dead, whose blogs you’d like to read and link to”; only a supreme egotist would expect mutual blogrolling from a superstar. […deletia…] The blogs where I read about this said something…
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Solaris 10 Security Feature Checklist
So this is something I created and have been editor of for some while, and which has been used often as a quick reference for security features of Solaris; I don’t consider it definitive, nor complete, nor error-free, but I do try and keep it up to date and accurate on a best-efforts basis, and…
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“Three-Strikes” Password Security Considered Antiquated, Hazardous, Stupid and Wrong.
Native “three strikes” password lockout is something that has only recently been added to Solaris 10, and that only in response to customer demand. This is because modern security geeks (myself included) tend to view “three-strikes” as a horrible, complicated, messy, stupid security risk, irrespective of the number of stuck-in-the-1980s VAX-VMS-based / IBM-mainframe-based customer security…
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New Bike Bits! Happy New Toy!
In the mail today, I received a new Secdem Screen and a pair of Fastway F3 pegs for fitting to the 12GS at soonest opportunity! More details, and a review, to follow.
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‘Extinct’ woodpecker found alive
This is superb – every American bird book I have, the ones of the coffee-table variety at least – cites this creature as a tragic example of extinction, along with the Passenger Pigeon and others: [news.bbc.co.uk] The spectacular ivory-billed woodpecker, which was declared extinct in 1920, has been found alive in North America, Science magazine…