Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

Nicole Richie to grow the stagnant end of the gene pool

Well, what can be done? Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to stop people from reproducing just because they inhabit the shallow end of the gene pool.

After months of rumors, Nicole Richie confirmed Tuesday that she is pregnant.

“Yes I am. We are,” Richie told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in an interview to be aired this week. “I’m almost four months.”

I know. I’m hateful. But really, she and Paris are responsible for a lot of the bad that is reality television that we have to suffer through these days. Not the first, but some of the worst.

[tags]Nicole Richie pregnant, The shallow end of the gene pool[/tags]

Anyone care to remind me how much a single bullet costs?

Man, people like this really peeve me. Enough for me to feel we need harsher punishments for people who intentionally cause harm to children – thus the price of one bullet question above.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A Florida woman accused of using aliases to adopt 11 New York children received as much as $2 million in child welfare payments even as she starved, bound and abused them, police said Tuesday.

. . .

Authorities believe Leekin held the adopted children like prisoners in her Port St. Lucie home, often handcuffing them together and forcing them to soil themselves because they weren’t allowed to use the bathroom.

. . .

Leekin’s lawyer said his client denies the allegations.

Every time I read crap like this, I think how much we need another update to the comic character Vigilante (and his updated version known as Vigilante). Read the full article to get a better idea of just how bad this was. I’ve left out some of the more disturbing details. Sounds like the kind of thing that would make one of the children who have since moved out turn all Samuel L Jackson on the worthless ass of this woman some day.

[tags]Woman abuses children and welfare payment system, People who need to not waste oxygen, Where is a vigilante when you need one[/tags]

Handy software tool from Secunia

In beta test right now, the Personal Software Inspector from security vendor Secunia inspects your installed software and tells you if it is up-to-date, insecure, or at the end of its life.

Test the Secunia PSI (BETA) Technology Preview, an upcoming addition to the Secunia Software Inspector series, based on the proven Secunia File Signatures Technology.

The Secunia PSI detects installed software and categorises your software as either Insecure, End-of-Life, or Up-To-Date. Effectively enabling you to focus your attention on software installations where more secure versions are available from the vendors.

Needless to say, we are very excited about this new free service for the Secunia security community. We appreciate all feedback, thoughts, and ideas that you wish to share with us.

On the security side, Secunia is a good company, so I expect this tool will be good, too. As already noted, its currently in beta, but the final release will still be free for personal use. For more details on the tool, hit the above shortcut or look at the more detailed software information page.

[tags]Secunia, Personal Software Inspector, PSI, Security tools, Software checker[/tags]

Refrigerator LED signs

fridge_lights-1.jpgOn Instructables, there is a guide to making your own refrigerator LED light kit, so you can put up cool (no pun intended) signs or images. It seems to be a pretty easy project, requiring just a few out-of-the-ordinary things to make.

Turn your fridge into a canvas for LED art. Any passerby can place and relocate the magnetic LEDs any way they wish to create illuminated pictures and messages.

It’s great for high traffic kitchens and It’s fun for kids and adults alike.


fridge_lights-2.jpg

. . .

  • Super Shield conductive nickel paint
  • 1/4″ copper tape used for circuit board repair (optional)
  • Spray Paint
  • 10mm LEDs in quantities and colors of choice
  • 330 Ohm surface-mount resistors
  • One 4.5 Volt, 500 milliamp AC power supply
  • 1/8″ diameter x 1/16″ NdFeB Nickel plated disc magnets
  • 1/4″ diameter x 1/16″ NdFeB Nickel plated disc magnets
  • 5 minute epoxy
  • Masking tape
  • 1/4″ Quilter’s tape

More details on the ingredients listed above as well as necessary tools for the project are available in the full Instructables guide.

As a side-note to those few readers who know much about the late life of the Tandy Color Computer, this project was done by none other than the amazing Sock Master, creator of some of the most amazing (at the time) demo-scene style work ever seen on the CoCo.

[tags]DIY, LED, LEDs, refrigerator lights, Sock Master[/tags]

Aquafina – water from the same tap you use

Yes folks, that bottled water you like so much comes from the same place your tap water does.

PepsiCo Inc. is the latest company to offer some clarity about the source of its top-selling bottled water, announcing Friday it will change Aquafina labels to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water.

The group Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices. It says the Aquafina label’s mountain logo perpetuates the misconception that the water comes from springs.

Makes me think of the episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit in which they tested perceptions of tap water sold as bottled water based on price and descriptions of each water type. Yes, we are, on the whole, idiotic consumers.

[tags]Tap water, Water, Bottled water = tap water for many[/tags]

Pentagon had plans for a gay bomb

I’m noticing the WTF? category often coincides with the Stupid category on the blahg. Well, in instances like this, I think that is a reasonably accurate way to categorize the information that follows.

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called “Gay Bomb.”

OK, so they considered and then rejected the idea. But really, the way to make men more interested in sex than in fighting is to, well, suggest they have sex instead of fight. Provided there are enough willing women to put out for the men, that’s the end of the necessary weapons and attack planning.

See, I should be a military planner – I totally understand men’s sexual desires more than the current planners.

[tags]Stupid, Sex, Gay bomb[/tags]

Man dies after cops taser him while he choked his granddaughter

I have no idea what to even make of this.

Officers responding to a report of an exorcism on a young girl found her grandfather choking her and used stun guns to subdue the man, who later died, authorities said Sunday.

. . .

A bed had been pushed up against the door; the officers pushed it open a few inches and saw Marquez choking his bloodied granddaughter, who was crying in pain and gasping, Tranter said.

A bloody, naked 19-year-old woman who police later determined to be Marquez’s daughter and the girl’s mother was in the room, chanting “something that was religious in nature,” Tranter said.

He was taken out in hand-cuffs, but later stopped breathing. That is just so frikkin’ bizarre that I’m not sure what to make of it. I know the difficulty of dealing with a 3-year-old, but I have never attemped an exorcism not choking the child.

[tags]WTF, Man dies from taser shots, Exorcism gone bad, Choking a child[/tags]

The future of hi-def DVD?

Some interesting rumbles going on in the retail market lately. Rumblings from the sales-outlet side indicate Target will carry only Blu-Ray players this holiday season, Blockbuster will expand Blu-ray offerings but not HD-DVD movies, and BJs wholesale will stop carrying Hi-Def DVD movies in store (although the format will still be available to online shoppers for the wholesaler). Microsofts support of HD-DVD aside, this suggests Blu-ray is going to push further ahead in the fight for next-gen DVD supremacy.

Could Sony have avoided the Beta-Max/PSP Memory Stick Duo/Digital8 losing format problem they seem to have suffered since the days of the Walkman? It is looking like Blu-ray is coming out on top this time, which has to be good news to Sony. (some information via Joystiq and more Joystiq)

[tags]Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, Next-gen hi-def video, Target, Blockbuster, BJs wholesale, Format wars[/tags]

Finally done

I know I’m late to the party on this, but I have finally finished the last Harry Potter book. Bought it release day, read one-third of it, then the wife took it to read after she finished whatever it was she’d been reading that week-end. After I got it back, I only read a few chapters a day – I’m not a reader in a hurry to get to the end. So I just finished it, and now my wife can talk to me about it all she wants. Seems she has been waiting for me to finish it because there is something in or near the end she wants to talk about but she did not want to spoil the book for me.

Since I am not bothered by knowing endings of movies or books before I finish them, I told her she could talk about it, but she wanted to wait. Guess tonight she will finally get to tell me whatever it is that she wanted to discuss.

[tags]Harry Potter, Worthless knowledge, Stick a fork in me[/tags]