Urinal Soccer

"Only Brazil would invent urinal soccer"

It’s a Sad Time To Be a Muslim

Apparently the Muslims actually are crazy, or at least their clerics and leaders in Afghanistan. First they say they're going to kill a guy for converting from Islam to Christianity. That in and of itself is insane and has no place in a civilized society. Then they say he's unfit to stand trial. Now they're upset that he left the country. What did they think he would do? How stupid would you have to be to stay in a country that wants to kill you? For that matter, why would anyone want to live in such a backwards country?

Grow Your Own Meat

From Fark.com: "Coming soon to a home near you: Grow your own meat overnight in a device the size of a coffee maker. EWWWWW"

Fair Use

Looks like Denmark is now going to follow France’s lead and force Apple to make iTunes, and all other DRM software, interoperable with other devices. If you can’t figure out how to get your iTunes music onto a real mp3 player, here’s how:

1. From within iTunes, burn a CD.
2. From within the software you use to put music on your mp3 player, rip that CD to your player.
3. Enjoy.

Fences and Walls

When a homeowner wants to put up a fence or a wall they have to consider a few things. What or who are they trying to keep out or in? What is the initial cost? What is the maintenance cost? What are the alternatives?

Would you really want to pay the maintenance costs on a 700 mile chain link fence? You would need to hire a crew to work on the fence every day. I the people trying to get through the fence are motivated or desperate enough, you will need a lot more than one crew.  If we can't afford to spend money on education, health care, and other necessary things, why would we do something stupid like build a 700 mile fence? It's not a "build it and forget about it" solution.

It is a better idea than putting people in prison for coming here illegally. Whoever came up with that idea ate too many paint chips as a kid. Our prisons are over crowded. We don't have adequate funding for the ones we have, so more prisons isn't an intelligent idea. We don't have adequate funding to patrol the borders and ports. "Let's combine those problems and put the illegal immigrants in prison." People coming here to pick strawberries don't frighten me.  Politicians wanting to put people in prison for such a minor white collar type of crime, frighten me. Essentially the difference between an illegal alien and a legal one is the paperwork.  If a politician doesn't have his paperwork exactly right for his campaign finances, should we put him in prison? Sounds like a better idea than putting illegal aliens in prison. If we put a politician in prison we don't have to pay that politician. We can even charge them for the cost of their incarceration. We can't get any money from people who are in a situation that is so desperate they are willing to risk their lives to do jobs we won't do for wages we won't take.

Silly Frenchmen

French president Jacques Chirac left a meeting to protest the fact that a speaker was speaking in English. That's just silly. Of course the subject of the meeting was French protectionism.

 

The BBC version is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4840160.stm

Happy Birthday Mr. Yuck

Mr Yuck is 35 years old.

"Where the bloody hell are you?", again...

Now the Canadians are upset at the Australian ads asking "So where the bloody hell are you?"  They're getting a hell of a lot more out one bloody line of copy than they could have hoped. 

Who do you trust?

AOL, MSN and Yahoo! gave the US government your search requests. Google did not. This issue is really about the free flow of information. Including information the government may not want the public to access. Except in specific situations the government has no constitutional right to decide what information is accessed.  So why be concerned if they monitor? Senator McCarthy taught us why.
We don't know what will be politically or socially unpopular in the next 20 years. A student, who researches a topic that seems innocent by current standards, may find that search is the subject of government scrutiny and my even be denied employment or worse in the right social/political environment. It may sound unlikely to some people, but similar events have actually happened. That is proof that they can happen.
I'll avoid using search engines that have little regard for my privacy. When I need to find something I'll Google it.

No your cat's RFID tag is not going to infect your home computer.

A Dutch university released a study that claims RFID tags are not secure because they can be used to exploit security weaknesses in computer systems that use them.  I didn't know this university existed before this study. After reading this study I would be embarrassed to attended the university.  The report is complete crap. You can find a greater list of exploits by reading a Best Practices document. You can also find out how to secure your app against those exploits in the same document. Can RFID tags contain a virus?  They can contain data that could be used to to take advantage of an exploit in an application that is not very secure.  That same application is at risk with or without the RFID technology. We might as well state that hard drive technology is not secure since the same data could be contained on a hard drive. My best guess is that the authors are not programmers and have very little experience with application security. If they are programmers, I wouldn't trust an app they wrote. Most likely they have a political motive behind creating the report.

If You Can't Stand the Heat...

Isaac Hayes should have got out of the kitchen years ago. Yesterday he said, "There is a place in this world for satire but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs begins,". Come on Isaac, do you really think that Scientology is being treated worse by SouthPark than Christianity, Judaism, Islam and others? If you only whine when your religion is being made fun of, you are guilty of "intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs". You're just another lame Hollywood whiner who is only tolerant of those who don't disagree with you. Good riddance.

How to get directions on Mars

Men are from Mars and we don't need directions; we can get lost without any help. In 1895 Percival Lowell created a map of Mars. Now Google, in collaboration with NASA researchers at Arizona State University have created Google Mars. I'll play with it some and maybe post a follow up. I'm sure both of you are dying to know what I find.

Those Bloody Censors

In an apparent attempt to imitate the FCC and increase tourism in Australia, the UK version Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) has banned the word "bloody". They banned an advertisement by Tourism Australia because of the headline "So where the bloody hell are you?" Scott Morrison, managing director of Tourism Australia, responded appropriately "We thank the UK authorities for the extra free publicity and invite them to have a 'bloody' good holiday in Australia…"  The bloody ad will run in print, cinema and online media. In the broadcast version the word "bloody" will be removed.

"You Only Search Twice"

I missed this one.  Google's attempt to index and store all data is just a part of their overall plan for global domination.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

Wireless Cities

Metropolitan Wi-fi networks are a good idea that will happen world wide.  The biggest argument at the moment seems to be how to pay for it. 

Some people are in favor of making the users pay for it. Critics of this solution point out that this excludes those who can't afford it.  They are right. It does.  It's also a hassle since you might have to subscribe to multiple networks if you frequent multiple cities. Another issue is tourists. Yes it sounds like a good way to make money off of tourists, but it excludes those who don't want to pay and those who can't or don't want to figure out how to use the network in a new city.

Some people are in favor of government paying for it. I hate to disillusion anyone but the government doesn't pay for anything. The taxpayers do.  The government simply adds an expensive bureaucratic system to anything funded "by the government".  That's great for some things; not so great for others. It also brings up the question, "Do you want the government to own the machines your internet searches go through?"  If a corporation owns them and betrays the public trust, they can be replaced a lot easier than government institutions.

Some are in favor of "allowing" private companies to provide the service free of charge to the consumers.  At some point that company will need to find a way to profit from the endeavor. Why not advertising? It wouldn't be hard to write localization software (think GPS without satellites) that displays ads for nearby businesses. You could find out what the daily special is at a nearby restaurant and have recent reviews available as you walk down the street.  Clubs and bars could advertise what band is playing and their current drink specials.  Need a new shirt? It's an advertising opportunity for some retailer. Want to find a museum in a city you are visiting? Part of the revenue could go to public service ads. Tourists, locals and business users would all benefit. Don't want to see ads? Get out of the city. If you can see, you can't walk down a city street without seeing an ad for something.

Even if the network is run by a government entity, localized advertising is a good way to either offset the costs or pay for the service. We might find, like we did with TV and radio, that it actually generates income.  How much will a 10% spot during Mardi Gras cost in The French Quarter?

Furry Lobster

Marine biologists have discovered a new species of crustacean that is so unique they have created a new taxonomic family for it.  It looks like a furry lobster. No word yet on how it tastes or what the market price is.

If we don't report it no one will know.

An independant research group accuses the media of sensationalizing science. The media promptly ignored the accusations.

Censored Email?

I'm not comfortable with the idea of US Postal Service deciding who can send me mail. Likewise I'm not comfortable with the idea of my email provider deciding who can send me email. AOL plans to charge bulk mailers for sending email. It sounds harmless, until you consider non-profit groups. AOL has said that non-profit groups will be exempt from charges. I see an opportunity for AOL, or one of its employees, to censor based on their personal beliefs. For instance, email from one political party may get "accidentally" blocked in the weeks before an election. I'm not saying AOL intends to use the system in that manner; I'm just pointing out that the possibility is there. I hope Gmail doesn't do the same because I would have to stop using it as my primary email address.

The Ultimate Tanning Machine

Tired of traditional ways to get a suntan? Don’t like getting your hair messed up by a convertible? Rinspeed has a Porsche for you.

College students have to read

Obvious headline: Study: Reading Key to College Success I'm surprised that this wasn't obvious to the rest of the world. In college, you must do a lot of complex reading. Therefore the better you are at complex reading the better you will be at college. There are other factors, but I had assumed that the rest of the world was aware of this because it's so obvious. Maybe I should let everyone know that higher grades will lead to a higher GPA?

ADO.NET performance tip

When creating a SqlParameter in an ADO.NET application you can significantly improve performance simply by specifying the data type of your parameters. When you specify an enumerated data type the data provider does not have to do any data conversion. Since data access is typically the most expensive thing an app does, especially with ASP.NET, anything you do to increase the performance of the data access layer will have a big impact on overall performance. Not using parameterized queries? You should. If you do not you are opening your app up to a SQL injection attack. Specifying the data type also helps in this regard. Compare this line of code:

objSQLCmd = New SqlCommand("UPDATE [TableName] SET [ColumnName] = " + _

UserInput.Text + " WHERE [ColumnName2] = @SQLparam2", objSQLConn)

Not only does the data provider have to convert the data type, a user could insert malicious code which your app dutifully injects into your SQL server. If you do this instead:

objSQLCmd = New SqlCommand("UPDATE [TableName] SET [ColumnName] = _

@SQLparam1 WHERE [ColumnName2] = @SQLparam2", objSQLConn)

You can specify the data type and your app will be faster and less vulnerable