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| Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com. |
| How Microsoft could make a liar out of me |
| 5:11:31 am mst / 23 January 2001 found by diana / filed in legal / source ZDNet 85 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| David Coursey argues that MS's forthcoming copy protection scheme (of only allowing two installations for each software license) will force people to lie despite being within the bounds of fair use. Plenty of people, after all, have a legitimate need to have software installed on more than two computers even if they only use one copy at any given time. |
| It's never good to give your customers an incentive to lie! |
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| Expert Analyzes White House Site |
| 6:26:15 am mst / 23 January 2001 found by paul / filed in politics / source Wired 62 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Now that George W Bush has taken over for Bill Clinton, Wired spoke with web design expert Jakob Nielsen about what's good and bad with the new Whitehouse.gov website. |
| Among the more curious quirks: "If you click 'Search' without typing anything in, it searches for the word 'search.'" As Nielsen says, "that is silly". Admittedly, this is the first time that a new Presidential administration has had to update a website. |
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| A Girl's Guide to Geek Guys |
| 8:51:54 am mst / 23 January 2001 found by diana / filed in culture / source Bunnyhop 269 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Want to snag a geeky guy? (After all, as the article says, other women won't try to steal them and moms love them.) This 1994 article details how, inclduing tips on "The Trek Factor" and "Geek Cuisine." (Thanks to BBspot for the link.) |
| As a geeky girl, it took me far too long to discover that a geeky guy was a requirement for me. I married the next good one I found! |
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| Letter "W" missing from White House keyboards |
| 10:02:51 am mst / 23 January 2001 found by paul / filed in politics / source Reuters News 201 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| In a final parting prank, departing Clinton White House staffers removed the letter "W" from dozens of computer keyboards. The letter "W" featured prominently during George W. Bush's campaign, and he often held up three fingers of his hand to form the letter. (Link from MetaFilter.) |
| As BBspot says, "read between the lines". |
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| Dead Hard Drive Kept "Just in Case" |
| 11:37:38 am mst / 23 January 2001 found by diana / filed in humor / source BBspot 178 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Local packrat-geek Ty Coleman just can't bear to throw away that dead 2.1 GB hard drive, as it might come in handy someday. |
| This satire hit a bit too close to home for me! I can't even identify all of the computer parts in my "misc" box! |
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| How much electricity is California using? |
| 3:35:29 pm mst / 23 January 2001 found by paul / filed in business / source Memepool 203 hits / 0 comments / 1 e-mail |
| Click through to see a real-time graph of electricity usage in the state of California. (Link from Memepool.) |
| The peak at 1800 hours is when my co-worker Norm Chen gets home and turns on his massive home entertainment system... |
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| Tackling Physics |
| 4:40:18 pm mst / 23 January 2001 found by diana / filed in science / source ABC News 63 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Some university physicists are examining the physics of NFL tackles, looking at the role of the increasing weight of NFL players, foam and plastic padding, and more. |
| Stat that you'll never hear on Monday Night Football: the lifespan of NFL players is 11 years shorter than the average man. |
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| The Mystery of the Comet Cursor |
| 5:17:59 pm mst / 23 January 2001 found by diana / filed in software / source ZDNet 271 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| Puzzled by the mysterious appearance of "Comet Cursor" on all of his machines, David Coursey investigates this self-replicating little bit of software. |
| I just removed the "Comet Cursor" from my computer. I wonder how long until it reappears... |
| read 1 comment |
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| Linux's Bug Problem |
| 6:22:00 pm mst / 23 January 2001 found by paul / filed in security / source Business Week 62 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| In the aftermath of the recent (and relatively benign) Ramen virus scare which affected an older distribution of Red Hat Linux, the author argues that the purported increased security of Linux systems over Windows may not be as much as previously claimed by open source advocates. In particular, he is concerned that with more non-geeks assuming sysadmin responsibilities for Linux servers, security could be worse. |
| I'm not sure his main point is valid. A busy or lazy sysadmin running a Windows NT server could create as many security holes as one running Linux. |
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