] Alan Eldridge (AlanE) passed away on 6 June 2003 in
] Denver, Colorado, USA, apparently the result of a
] self-induced overdose.
]
] Born on 15 December 1961, Alan moved from Iowa to New
] York City some 15 years ago to make a life for himself as
] a first rate Unix programmer. Recently, however, his
] professional and personal life was severely disrupted,
] and as a result, Alan moved to Denver to start anew.
]
] A member of the KDE on FreeBSD Core Team, both a FreeBSD
] and KDE committer and maintainer of numerous FreeBSD
] ports, Alan will be sorely missed by all those of us who
] knew him personally, by those who knew him only through
] his work and, indeed, by the entire FreeBSD and KDE
] communities at large.

KDE on FreeBSD - Alan Eldridge 1961 - 2003

] ALBANY, N.Y. (Reuters) - With the widely anticipated
] computer-animated movie "Finding Nemo" set to debut in
] theaters on Friday, the Walt Disney Co. has found a novel
] way to guard against people illegally taping the film in
] advance showings.

Yahoo! News - Disney Uses Night Goggles to Guard 'Nemo'

] He said he discovered the problem this weekend through a
] random finding in a Sacramento Dumpster, where a Cingular
] store had discarded records about a customer's insurance
] claim for a lost phone. By simply typing in a URL listed
] on the detritus, Lamo was taken to the customer's claim
] page on a site run by lock\line LLC, which provides the
] claim management services to Cingular.
]
] Normally, this page should have been reachable only by
] passing through a password-protected gateway, but by
] simply entering the valid URL, Lamo discovered that
] individual claims pages could be accessed, no password
] authentication needed.
]
] Each page contained the customer's name, address and
] phone number, along with details on the insurance claim
] being made. Altering the claim ID numbers (which were
] assigned sequentially) in the URL gave Lamo access to the
] entire history of Cingular claims processed through
] lock\line, comprising some 2.5 million customer claims
] dating back to 1998.

Bet Cingular is embarassed as hell to be exposed by a wandering hacker. Later in the article it mentions that "Lamo, 22, doesn't have a permanent address. He wanders cross-country on foot or by public bus. Spring and summer usually bring him to Northern California. Until recently, he used terminals at Kinko's to perform his hacks. He has graduated to using a Wi-Fi-ready laptop at Starbucks to do his work."

Wired News: Lamo Hacks Cingular Claims Site

] Some unfortunate news, everybody. Ghyslain, aka the "Star
] Wars Kid," and his family may be pursuing legal action
] against the individual(s) who originally posted his video
] on the Internet.

How retarded!

Waxy.org: Daily Log: Ghyslain Pursues Legal Action

When icons go bad...

Icon War

] AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch "coffee shops" famous for
] selling cannabis are about to see business go up in
] smoke.

Yahoo! News - Bad Trip Ahead for Dutch Joint Joints

] Stinkyfeet Goal: To infect myself with athlete's foot.

This is actually pretty gross.

The StinkyFeet Diaries (TheSpark.com)

] Visualizing huge numbers can be very difficult. People
] regularly talk about millions of miles, billions of
] bytes, or trillions of dollars, yet it's still hard to
] grasp just how much a "billion" really is. The MegaPenny
] Project aims to help by taking one small everyday item,
] the U.S. penny, and building on that to answer the
] question: "What would a billion (or a trillion) pennies
] look like?"

The MegaPenny Project

Panoramic view of Mount Everest. Quite impressive.

Mount Everest. 360 degree panorama from the top of Mt Everest - QTVR panoramic movie from panoramas.dk

] A bomb exploded in an empty classroom at the Yale
] University law school Wednesday, sending debris flying
] and students scrambling for safety. No injuries were
] reported

Bomb damages Yale University law school; no injuries reported