London England - Engineers, Volkswagen personnel and bemused passers-by watched open-mouthed as a VW Touareg V10 TDI towed a 155-ton Boeing 747 down the auxiliary runway at Dunsfold airport, 60km south-west of London – not once but seven times.

Granted the Touareg could only pull the 747 at a constant 5 MPH, but still, a stock SUV pulled a 155 ton jet at 5 MPH!

As Jon Stewart would say, "And now, your moment of zen."

Stock VW Touareg pulls 747!

Efficacy of a 'functional energy drink' in counteracting driver sleepiness.

This just in: Red Bull contains caffinee, and caffeine will keep you awake.

NIH.gov: Red Bull gives you a kick in the ass

Erik Peterson: Thackery [our main tech writer] has assless leather chaps when he rides his motorcycle

Me:... uhhhhhhh ... why are you telling me this?

Bryan Sullivan: Wait, aren't all chaps assless? I'm mean, otherwise, they would just be leather pants.

Me: I don't think chaps cover the back of the leg like pants do

EP: I don't really care, its just so great to say "assless leather chaps"

Chet (our gay tech writer): What I don't understand is why three straight men are talking about assless chaps. Have I left work already?

I so love my work environment.

Catonic wrote:
This website will let you create your own South Park characters.

I wasn't able to find hair that represents mine all that well though.

Here's me, thought I wish there had been a plaid flannel shirt!

RE: Create your own South Park Characters

Internet fad + Internet fad = for great justice?

YouTube - All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us

Jason : [ Simone is all over him ] She’s making me really uncomfortable.

Simone : Ohhhh Tu es un beau garcon. Donnez-moi l’argent. [ Simone puts her hands in Jason’s pockets ]

Jason : Hey!

Simone : Donnez-moi l’argent…

Jason : Come on!

Simone : Donnez-moi!

Jason : No!

Simone : Tu es très beau… Je t’aime! (You’re good-looking boy, give me the money, give me, give me, you’re handsome, I love you.)

Jason : Listen I want a new partner sir. She smells like whisky and feet!

Don Barbrell : Is that your answer?

Jason : Get off me Ma’am! [ "wrong answer" sound. Kevin hits his buzzer ]

Best. French Whore Skit. Ever.

Old French Whore!

Every wonder what all the stuff in the query string for Google meant? Now you know

Google URL deconstruction - Google Blogoscoped Forum

In return, sites like the notoriously sluggish MySpace.com load significantly faster, thanks to the way OpenDNS caches IP addresses. Users who type "wordpres.sorg" or "craigslist.or" into their browser's address field are automatically routed to the correct address, instead of getting a 404 error page.

This is such a very bad idea. Any time you have a computer try to figure out what you meant at the end of a connection, you are creating a serious security vulnerability.

Prime example: Apache's mod_speling (SIC). If I send a request for indexh.tml, mod_speling detects the mistake and will serve back index.html. The problem is any security products like an IDS/IPS won't have this intelligence to try and "fix" the request before they analyze it. The IDS/IPS simply sees and logs a request for indexh.tml Modspelling, like this feature in OpenDNS, allows an attacker to side step the attack signatures on a IDS/IPS to exploit a site because the web server will "fix" the attack once it reaches its target.

OpenDNS Autofix: Very Bad Idea (tm)

So why are people trying to use the internet as a baby-sitting service? There are a lot of places where it isn't safe to leave unsupervised kids. The TV isn't a babysitter, the pub isn't a creche, and the internet isn't a safe place where innocent and naive people can be allowed to operate unsupervised either. Why are we trying to pretend it can be?

You can't let children roam the streets on their own; so why are we trying to be scandalised by the discovery that the net can't be sanitised?

The lesson is one that doesn't need a sermon about this week's MySpace scandal to drive home. The world is a dangerous place, and if you want your children to be safe you have to keep an eye on them.

What we know from studying security systems for large corporations is that a perimeter protection doesn't work. As soon as you have a stone wall you find yourself believing that everybody inside that stone wall is on your side.

El Register hits the nail on the head with this article. The internet is just like the real world. They are parts that are slummy and full of misinformation and crazies. Once you stop believing that the Internet can be controlled and made "safe" you see that things like the .xxx domain, COPA, banning IRC chatrooms, traffic filtering, and the like are backwards and counterproductive.

MySpace case part of larger issue

Doing some work with WML and WAP today and came across this gateway to Wikipedia for Mobile phones. Does a good job stripping and formatting the HTML to help low bandwidth devices like Sidekicks.

Wikipedia gateway for Mobile