Who'd a thunk it?

the 40's were in color

The Replacements

Well, it looks like our replacements are arriving. Can General Grievous be far behind?

P.S. i also heard the jet's search pattern kept reverting to "Sarah Conner" ;-)

He must have been a bad nut

"Daddy, I want a _trained_ squirrel"
                             -Veruca Salt

Tool Time

Must be Binford Brand...

Snow Blowing power

Hopless

Australia has considered a number of ways to get rid of cane toads. The part that is scary in this article is the "genetically modified virus". I'm glad all they want to get rid off is cane toads, but i wonder if there'll be any "collateral damage". How ironic would it be for Cane Toad Virus to create the pandemic that the media is waiting for Bird Flu to cause?

Villepin's Universe

I didn't want to just cut and paste the content of the story, so here's the link:

French Riots

reminds me of a Hall and Oates song i heard as a kid and will deny ever liking it

Hall and Oates Lyrics

The <blank> is broken

My wife occasionally calls me at tells me "The <fill in the blank> is broken." Having experienced this call to crisis for over a decade, I'll just say that "broken" has a variety of meanings. The following is an example dialog.

(i'm at work and the phone rings)
me: hello
wife: the printer's broken
me: what is it doing?
wife: it's not printing
me: are there any lights blinking? is it making any noise?
wife: no, it's just not printing
me: is it plugged in?
wife: YES
me: is the ethernet plugged into it?
wife: the what?
me: how many wires are running to the printer?
wife: two
me: (using my years of experience) is one of them the power cord?
wife: yes
me: is the other wire, the one that's not the power, is it in good?
wife: yes
me: the printer is turned on?
wife: yes
me: i'll have to wait until i get home
wife: why? what's wrong with the printer?
me: i don't know
wife: i need to print stuff for tomorrow
me: OK, i'll fix it tonight
wife: but i need it now so i can print stuff for tomorrow
me: and you can't print tonight?
wife: OK

(I get home and look at the printer)
me: uhhh, it's out of paper
wife: you didn't tell me to check that
me: I thought you'd do that on your own

(I put paper in it and it starts printing ... many copies)

me: how many copies do you need?
wife: one
me: then why did you print so many?
wife: it wasn't printing, so i kept trying

(cancel 20+ print jobs)

All that was background for what the wife means when she says something is broken. Important fact for next story: Our garage is below our bedroom.
It's early morning and i wake up to the sound of our garage door going up and down and up and down and up and down ad nauseum. A few minutes later i hear the wife coming up the stairs. She says, "The garage door is broken." I immediately "knew" the solution. A cold front had just blown through with 30+ mph wind gusts and a significant drop in temperature. Obviously, the sensor on the garage door had lost track of where the "down" position is and simply needed resetting. She leaves and i once again hear the garage door going up and down and up and down and up and down.... I decide it's time to fix the door, so i go down to the garage to investigate. I push the button to close the door to see what happens. The door attempts to close, but danged if it's not broken ... literally. The top panel on the garage door has flexed so much that it has actually broken and is not sturdy enough for the door to be pushed closed. I'm stunned. She said it was broken and it really was. I really hate when they throw you a curve like that.

Security

I recently finished reading Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" and am in a "crypto" phase. As a result, i've signed up for Bruce Schneier's newsletter. Bruce is the guru on all things security. I've scanned his book "Applied Cryptography" and "Practical Cryptography" and have "Beyond Fear" on the soon-to-be-read list. Here is a link to sign up for CRYPTO-gram

zBox

I want one:
zBox