OMG Steven Colbert is just a screaming genius. lol

This is funny.

Congressman that sponsored 10 commandments bill asked to name the 10 commandments

For those of you following the mystery of two phone numbers stations found from postings on Craigslist, I have interesting news: A third posting, and a third message, have appeared.

The phone numbers stations, when called, play a short message reminiscent of ordinary numbers stations normally heard on shortwave radio. On May 8, someone posted a message to Craigslist with a telephone number which, when called, played such a message, and on May 29, a second message was posted to Craigslist with a different telephone number and a different message.

I find these messages very interesting. I wish I had more time to devote to learning about cryptanalysis. I'm definitely in the camp that thinks there's a message here and that it's discoverable. I doubt it's anything very important (national security), but that doesn't curb my desire to know what it says.

Third phone numbers station: 678-248-2352 - Homeland Stupidity

An initiative of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Defective By Design is urging all technologists to get involved at the start of the campaign. "Technologists are very aware of the dangers of DRM," said Peter Brown, Executive Director of the FSF. "We see this as the tip of the iceberg and it is our duty to do something about it." The tech community is uniquely qualified to lead this effort, in Brown's view. "We know about the collusion of Big Media, device manufacturers and proprietary software companies to lock us down," he continued. "Their aim is to put Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into all our computers and homes".

FSF - Protesters provide a nasty

Jeremiah Ransom, a sophomore from Macon, was leaving a Wesley Foundation pirate vs. ninja event when he was detained.

After being held in investigative detention, he was found to have violated no criminal laws and was not arrested.

“It was surreal,” Ransom said. “I was jogging from Wesley to Snelling when I heard someone yell ‘freeze.’”

Ransom said he thought a friend was playing a joke before he realized officers had guns drawn and pointed at him.
...
“Seeing someone with something across the face, from a federal standpoint — that’s not right,” McLemore said, explaining why agents believed something to be amiss.

Basically some ATF agents that were here for training tackled a kid because he had a bandana over his face. The picture in the article really shows the excessive force the agents used.

redandblack.com - ATF rids Univ. of ninja threat

Savanna Samson, star of "The New Devil in Miss Jones," has gone further than simply slapping a steamy label on some cheesy chardonnay. Her Italian red wine has received a score of 90 to 91 out of 100 by wine guru Robert Parker.

Porn star's wine passion gets plaudits

This is a video of a guy answering a question with what he believes is a correct answer, but Trebek gives him shit over it. (Safe for Work)

I think that should have been an acceptable answer. BTW the guy is Ken Jennings, the current record holder for longest winning streak on Jeopardy.

Jeopardy Goof

believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

There Is No God By Penn Jillette

The spyware that Sony installs on the computers of music fans does not even seem to be correct in terms of copyright law.

This article is a translation of this article I wrote for Webwereld.

It turns out that the rootkit contains pieces of code that are identical to LAME, an open source mp3-encoder, and thereby breach the license.

It just keeps getting worse for Sony. It'll be a long time before I knowingly buy anything from Sony again.

De Winter Information Solutions - open solutions in an open world - Spyware Sony seems to breach copyright

The next phase of my investigation would be to verify that the rootkit and its hidden files were related to that CD’s copy protection, so I inserted the CD into the drive and double-clicked on the icon to launch the player software, which has icons for making up to three copy-protected backup CDs

Sony is using rootkit like programs to "protect" their cds now.

Mark's Sysinternals Blog: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

If you are near to this picture, Mr Angry is on the left and Mrs Calm is on the right. If you view it from a distance, they switch places.

Weird

Optical Illusion: Mr Angry and Mrs Calm