] Beginning July 1, Tennessee motorcyclists can legally run
] red lights -- if they stop first and "exercise due care"
] -- under a bill signed into law by Gov. Phil Bredesen.
]
] Motorcyclists had complained they were forced to wait
] excessive periods of time at stop lights because sensors
] that control the lights did not recognize motorcycles,
] which are now made mostly of aluminum and fiberglass, not
] metal.

ajc.com | News | Law allowing motorcycles to run red lights effective July 1

] The Earth has become significantly greener over the past
] two decades, the result of climate changes that have
] furnished plants with more heat, light, water and carbon
] dioxide, according to a new Science magazine report.
]
] The overall plant bulk went up about 6 percent over much
] of the planet, with spikes in the tropics and high
] latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere accounting for 80
] percent of the gains, researchers said.

Good news. Too bad the rain forests continue to be clear-cut for live stock. :/

Laughing Boy

Climate changes making planet greener

]An American doctor has claimed that cheese can be as addictive as
]morphine.

]Dr Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee on
]Responsible Medicine, says cheese is addictive because it contains
]small amounts of morphine from cows' liver.

Behold the power of cheese!

Cheese can be as addictive as morphine

] Joel Freedman grew upset at seeing lobsters, with rubber
] bands on their claws, piled atop one another in a
] supermarket tank. The animal-rights advocate figured it
] was time to make his anger known.
]
] Freedman bought a pound of scallops and, before anyone
] could intervene, lifted the tank lid and dumped them in.

What a waste of perfectly good scallops.

Yahoo! News - Man Feeds Lobsters at Supermarket

] NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of International Business
] Machines Corp. IBM.N were halted on Monday in
] over-the-counter trading, pending news.
]
] IBM said in a statement shortly after the halt it is the
] subject of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and
] Exchange Commission.
]
] It said the probe is related to revenue recognition in
] 2000 and 2001.

Stay tuned for more information about this. This could be very bad.

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

] 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

[41.42012% - Major Geek
Well I guess I could have done better, but didn't try to remember the names of all the Smurfs --Wilpig]

The Geek Test

] 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

] It's perhaps the clearest evidence yet of the computing
] power of sophisticated but inexpensive video-game
] consoles, the National Center for Supercomputing
] Applications at the University of Illinois at
] Urbana-Champaign has assembled a supercomputer from an
] army of Sony PlayStation 2's.
]
] The resulting system, with components purchased at retail
] prices, cost a little more than $50,000. The center's
] researchers believe the system may be capable of a half
] trillion operations a second, well within the definition
] of supercomputer, although it may not rank among the
] world's 500 fastest supercomputers.

HAH!

From PlayStation to Supercomputer for $50,000

] In August, Buena Vista Home Entertainment--Disney's home
] video unit--will begin a pilot program using technology
] that renders discs useless 48 hours after being removed
] from packaging and exposed to oxygen, Reuters reported.
]
] The DVDs will play perfectly during the two-day period,
] Flexplay Technologies, which developed the technology,
] told Reuters.
]
] The discs cannot be hacked after 48 hours because the
] technology is based on chemicals and not computers, it
] was reported. But the disc can be copied before it
] oxidizes.
]
] The move allows Buena Vista to expand its market by
] "renting" movies from almost anywhere without having to
] provide a return point for the discs, Reuters said.

This is moronic. My first thought is, "Oh great, disposable DVDs. Wonder how much waste that will cause?" Well, my question was answered later in the article:

"Self-destructing DVDs would create considerable waste. A study conducted for Flexplay by environmental policy expert Jonathan Koomey found that if disposable DVDs made up 10 percent of all U.S. video rentals, an additional 350 million DVDs would be discarded, creating 5,600 metric tons of solid waste annually."

I'm glad Disney is so concerned about our world.

Also in the article is this tidbit of market research:

"The technology can also work on music CDs and software CD-ROMs, according to SpectraDisc, but movies are the target, since people generally buy music and software to keep."

Who are they talking about? I buy movies to keep, and so does everyone else I know. This is going to get mauled by the "video on demand" development going on in the cable industry.

Warning: This DVD will self-destruct in 2 days