Dementia wrote:
] Dr. Demento fans will love this one.

Really Mooooving!

Laughing Boy

RE: Cows With Guns

] ...Rutan said that, in looking toward the future, hopefully
] within ten years, ordinary people, for the cost of a
] luxury cruise, might be able experience a rocket flight
] into the black sky above the earth's atmosphere. In doing
] so, they can enjoy a few minutes of weightless
] excitement, "then feel the thunderous deceleration of the
] aerodynamic drag on entry."

YES!!! I gave up the pipe-dream of being an astronaut when I was about 12 years old, but I might get my chance to fly in space yet! :)

Private Spaceship Undergoes Sky-High Test

For cat-lovers: 90 seconds of very funny cat-related home movies. About a 3 MB download.

Funny Cat Videos

] 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

More geek then thou? A sample of the several hundred questions that await you (no cheating!)

] I HAVE...
] programmed a calculator in math class
] studied a language on my own
] always hated mainstream
] dated a geek
] married a geek
] done homework that wasn't required
] done homework for somebody else
] looked forward to dissecting a frog, pig, etc.
] looked forward to doing my taxes
] attended public academic lectures on my own
] studied an artificial language (i.e. Esperanto, Klingon)
] created an artificial language
] filed the Census as my persona
] worn 2 watches at the same time

Woof! I scored "44.3787% - Major Geek" and I'm PROUD!

Laughing Boy

The Geek Test

] Among other problems, Berkowitz found that CIA analysts
] must bounce between multiple, isolated systems to gather
] information, including separate systems on each desk for
] accessing the CIA's classified network and using the
] public Internet.
]
] DI agents have no easy way to share classified
] information with authorized intelligence personnel
] outside of the CIA or access information stored in other
] classified information networks within the government,
] such as those at the U.S. Department of Defense.
]
] "The result is that DI analysts work in an IT environment
] that is largely isolated from the outside world. If they
] need to do work that is classified in any way, there is
] virtually no alternative other than to use the CIA's own,
] restricted system," the report said.
]
] Contrary to popular depictions of CIA agents using
] cutting-edge information-gathering technology, Berkowitz
] found that DI analysts lack access to even the most
] common information searching technology, such as
] Web-based search engines, for conducting intelligence
] analysis, relying largely on a 1970s-era database called
] CIRAS, for Corporate Information Retrieval and Storage.

Central Intelligence Agency. Does that name really apply anymore?

PCWorld.com - Study: CIA Behind the Times in IT

Jordi LaForge sez "Help!"

] In a plea for the life of "Reading Rainbow," host LeVar
] Burton returned to a familiar setting: the stage where he
] picked up the PBS show's seventh Emmy Award for best
] children's television series.
]
] "If you are a wealthy philanthropist out there, I'm not
] that difficult to find," said Burton, the show's
] executive producer and host since it began in 1983.
]
] He's still waiting. And "Reading Rainbow," which has
] counterintuitively used television to introduce children
] to a world of books, may only have a few months to live.
]
] "Reading Rainbow" has several strikes against it in the
] battle for funding. For starters, it has no access to
] merchandise licensing deals, an increasingly important
] part of PBS' funding scheme for children's shows. There
] are no "Reading Rainbow" action figures to sell, no
] "Reading Rainbow" jammies to keep kids warm at night.
]
] The series is also 20 years old when many corporate
] benefactors prefer being involved with something new. And
] the show's narrow audience -- children 6 to 8 who are
] just learning to read -- doesn't give sponsors the broad
] exposure they're seeking, said Amy Jordan, senior
] researcher on children and the media at the University of
] Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center.

'Reading Rainbow' fights for survival - May. 29, 2003

] XV THE DEVIL
]
] THE CARD: Grace Jones is a firey Devil. If she were not
] so desirable, could she be so frightening?

This one is moving my weird shit-o-meter near the red...

the eighties tarot

] 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