Cows with guns and chickens with choppers

LOL This was amusing

Cows With Guns

] 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

] The film depicted a bound and gagged Iraqi inside a net
] that was suspended from a forklift, according to The Sun,
] which first reported the story this morning. The Sun also
] reported that the roll included pictures of soldiers
] performing sex acts near Iraqi prisoners.

Sex acts?

Photos Raise Allegations of Torture

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

] SALT LAKE CITY, May 28 -As it does now and again,
] Utah is looking for a few good marksmen.
]
] A search for volunteers began early this month after a
] state judge signed death warrants for two convicted
] murderers who have requested death by firing squad. Utah
] is one of only three states, along with Idaho and
] Oklahoma, where execution by a team of riflemen is
] available as an alternative to lethal injection.

I couldn't help but put this in THAT category. So much news about the death penalty lately, it's driving me to a giggling insanity.

Utah Officials Look for Firing Squad

] A protoplanetary nebula forms when a red giant star
] ejects most of its outer layers, and is observable when
] dust within the nebula reflects light from the central
] star.
]
] Subsequently, as the very hot core (six or more times
] hotter than the Sun) gets further exposed, the cloud of
] ejected material becomes bathed with ionizing ultraviolet
] light, which makes it glow. At this later stage these
] objects are known as planetary nebulas.

RedNova

] In a letter on its Web site from Novell CEO and President
] Jack Messman, the Provo, Utah-based company lashed out by
] challenging SCO's assertion that it owns the copyrights
] and patents to Unix System V. Novell, which had earlier
] acquired the Unix systems business of AT&T Corp., broke
] up and sold its Unix properties in 1994 and 1995. One of
] those deals was with the former Santa Cruz Operation,
] which was bought by Caldera International Inc. and later
] became The SCO Group.

http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html
The Letter from Jack Messman to SCO

Novell calls on SCO to prove allegations about Linux - Computerworld

When icons go bad...

Icon War

] 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

] Matthew's Angels
] Teen Cancer Survivor Takes Five Nurses to Senior Prom
]
] May 27— When Matthew Stasik walked into his high school
] prom, he had three dates on one arm, and two on the other.

Goes to prom dressed like a pimp with five hot dates, way to go!

ABCNEWS.com : Teen Beats Cancer, Takes Nurses to Prom