Question of the day: How come you get over 160,000 hits when you search Google for "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e"?

F-Secure : News from the Lab

Clostridium difficile–associated diarrhea and colitis have emerged as major complications associated with use of systemic antimicrobials. In this study, the medical records for 18 subjects who received donor stool by nasogastric tube for recurrent C. difficile infection during a 9-year period at a single institution were retrospectively reviewed. During the period between the initial diagnosis of C. difficile colitis and the stool treatments, the 18 subjects received a total of 64 courses of antimicrobials (range, 2–7 courses; median, 3 courses). During the 90 days after receipt of treatment with stool, 2 patients died of unrelated illnesses. One of the 16 survivors experienced a single recurrence of C. difficile colitis during 90-day follow-up. No adverse effects associated with stool treatment were observed. Patients with recurrent C. difficile colitis may benefit from the introduction of stool from healthy donors via a nasogastric tube.

Aas et al., Recurrent C. difficile Colitis

Paul Bates sent a Christmas card to his friend in this envelope with no street name, no town, and no postcode, and the thing still arrived. He forgot all his friend's mailing info so he drew the above picture on the front of the envelope and a put a dot writing "somewhere here." The card arrived nine days later, because apparently the postal service has amazing super powers.

Geekologie - Mail with drawing instead of address arrives at destination

Paraphrasing from NPR this morning on the circling of Daimler Chrysler (NYSE: DCX) by private equity vultures:

Daimler Chrysler is reported to be exploring selling its Chrysler division. According to our sources, private qquity firm Cerberus has made several awfuls…offers for the unit.

The core competency of Cerberus is presenting firms with “awfuls”.

Long or Short Capital » An Awful Freudian Slip on Cerberus - Paying Dividends Since Q1'06

possibly noteworthy wrote:

I doubt you'll ever find yourself associating a YouTube video with a place and time in your life.

I have a distinct memory of the first place and time I saw soxmas.mov. I remember the struggle to download, then find the right machine to watch it on, etc. Not quite the YouTube experience, but now it probably would have been.

I also have associations with watching episodes of "The Wire" on my wife's laptop in our oceanfront bungaloo on our honeymoon. Not quite YouTube, either.

Most YouTube does not have the production values that would translate to a classic. Remembering time and place with a viral or homemade movie is like remembering where you read a pulp paperback or newspaper... if it resonated, great, but otherwise they are disposable media for disposable time.

RE: A Traveler's Library

Mike the Usurper wrote:

I don't even know what to say about this one. Coffee for $100 a pound?

I covered some of this in my old comic in 2003.

Would you trust shitty-origin coffee that didn't carry a serious premium?

RE: Life After Coffee � The Straight Poop on Kopi Luwak Coffee

Two Edgewood High School students were arrested Thursday and accused of hacking into the school district’s Web site to schedule an unplanned – and unauthorized – snow day.

School officials had originally planned a one-hour delay for Monday morning, following an established procedure, so they were surprised to see an announcement Sunday night that classes were canceled.

“We immediately looked at ourselves, because we thought someone pushed the wrong button,” said Superintendent Tom York.

Officials said they were pilloried for the change on an Internet message board, and York said the two culprits joined in on the bashing without revealing they were responsible.

If by "hack" they mean "logged in and changed the html".

News 5 was also duped by the alleged school closing hackers. For 22 minutes, just before midnight Sunday night, our system listed Edgewood City Schools as closed.

Someone reported the error to our hotline and used the Edgewood Web site as verification and, at 12:05 a.m. Monday, we corrected the error.

We have since improved our security to make sure only school officials can list schools as closed or delayed.

I wonder what they did to improve it? Now they make a call?

Authorities: Students Hacked Into Web Site, Canceled School

A majority of people who moved out of Massachusetts last year report they are very satisfied with life in their new state and would not move back, a Boston Globe poll has found.

Born and raised in Boston. Pittsburgh homeowner. I would love to return to Boston, but only if I could maintain a similar standard of living... but that would be a very dramatic raise indeed.

Most who left state don't plan to return - The Boston Globe

Doctors' unions in Romania have criticised a decision to make a surgeon pay �100,000 in damages after he lost his temper and hacked off a patient's penis during surgery.

Surgeon Naum Ciomu, who had been suffering from stress at the time, had been operating on patient Nelu Radonescu, 36, to correct a testicular malformation when he suddenly lost his temper.

Grabbing a scalpel, he sliced off the penis in front of shocked nursing staff, and then placed it on the operating table where he chopped it into small pieces before storming out of the operating theatre at Bucharest hospital.

Row over angry, penis-removing doctor | Metro.co.uk

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope