You Gotta Know that This is Gonna Get in the Wrong Hands

Microsoft has sneakily provided special plug-in hardware that allows law enforcement to bypasses PC security.

For the most part, I'm all for saving taxpayer time in punching through the security in a suspected criminal's PC. But what about when these things are available for sale to the general public? You know it's gonna happen. They'll start showing up on Ebay, first. (I checked; they don't seem to be there, yet.) Then, they'll show up at online retailers specializing in security.

Microsoft is providing this gizmo to law enforcement officials for free.

PETA offers $1m for test tube chicken | The Register

This is worth waking up from blog oblivion, especially the "bootnote" and "disclosure" at the end of the article.

PETA offers $1m for test tube chicken The Register

Today, as envisioned 40 years ago

Check out how Modern Mechanix envisioned What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008. Sounds like it would have been a virtual paradise! What on earth happened? It is amazing how much they got right.

Even YOU Can Be a Telepath

Watch the video in this article for a demonstration of a nerve-tapping neckband which intercepts your brain's voice signals to produce a digital voice. No voice box necessary! Special training is requied, but apparently it will be possible to bring limited speech back to Lou Gehrig disease sufferers. And we don't even have to get into the possible cellphone applications.

Down With Daylight Saving Time!

I saw this in my daily paper and I'm only too thrilled to link this WSJ article on Daylight Saving Time. I lived in Arizona for fifteen years, and we never missed Daylight Saving Time once. Every year, my husband and I gripe and complain when we must change the clocks.

I feel vindicated. Now, down with daylight saving time!

More Windows Woes

Damn.

More and more unpleasant news is coming out about Windows Vista. Windows appears to be operating according to the way things were done in the late 80s and early 90s. Ship something--anything--as long it is on time. I remember buying computer games that were just horrible gameplay experiences, or that had such exacting requirements that they wouldn't run on most computers. The folks who made Doom and Diablo changed all that with excellent games than ran while hardly ever crashing. And they would run on the typically available machine at that time with no problem.

Windows seems to adhere to that outdated model. They worked on Longhorn aka. Vista for YEARS and needed to ship something, or so it seems. I remember the days when Windows 95 released and everyone just HAD to have it, incuding me. There was a similar but smaller stampede for Windows 98. The stampede has dwindled ever since, and now the stampede is backwards--people are running from Vista to XP.

My husband and I intend to buy a new computer before XP is no longer available. However, if Microsoft keeps getting more bad Vista news, they may simply have to keep XP available due to customer demand.

At my place of work, there has not been a whisper of upgrading (downgrading?) to Vista and we have been outright forbidden to install IE7. I don't have to wonder why.

More fascinating details at ZDNet.com

And Now, Some History!

In honor of Leap Day, Wired Magazine take a look at the first Leap Day, ever!

Feb. 29, 45 B.C.: Julius Caesar Takes the Leap

At first I thought they were going to make it sound like a news story, which would have been great fun. You know, fictional quotes from Caesar and the priests who convinced him to instutite the Leap Day.

I was a bit disappointed when it turned out to be only a historical article. Oh, well; it was interesting, anyway.