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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. |
| Windows XP Visual Styles: Not! |
| 4:34:47 am mst / 17 February 2001 found by diana / filed in operating systems / source The Register 110 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Windows XP is copying more than its style from Apple; it also seems to be copying Apple's mistakes with "Appearance Manager." MS seems to have pulled away from the idea of "Visual Styles" on XP due to serious incompatibilities with some UI elements, just as Apple had to with their "Appearance Manager." |
| Double doh! |
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| A different kind of "digital" sex |
| 7:34:01 am mst / 17 February 2001 found by paul / filed in medicine / source IOL 133 hits / 3 comments / 1 e-mail |
| Surgeons in the Caucasus republic of Georgia have made medical history by replacing the amputated penis of a patient with a "fully functional" replacement made from his left middle finger and some skin grafts. The man is able to urinate and have sex. His two girlfriends are reportedly "very satisfied" with the results. |
| This adds new meaning to the term "boner". |
| read 3 comments |
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| Hitching a Ride on Light Beam into Space |
| 11:52:59 am mst / 17 February 2001 found by MysteriousStranger / filed in space / source How Stuff Works 152 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| Scientists are developing a new propulsion system that will use light to send spacecraft, and anyone who wants to go, into orbit and to other planets. |
| Once again, science fiction slowly becomes science fact. |
| read 1 comment |
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| "Earwitnesses" are surprisingly unreliable |
| 8:27:14 pm mst / 17 February 2001 found by paul / filed in legal / source BBC News 20 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Although most courts and juries regard human voice recognition as fairly accurate, this is simply not true. One expert notes, "The law assumes that once someone has heard a voice, they can recall that voice and report it accurately... Research has shown that that is not the case. Not only are we not good at identifying voices, but we think we're much better at it than we are... So when we are on jury duty and we are listening to a trial and somebody says, 'Yes, the voice that I heard 11 months ago is the voice of the defendant', we will tend to overestimate the accuracy of that identification." |
| I wonder how many people have been wrongly convicted due to this problem? |
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| Penis in 1975 Sears Catalog? |
| 10:13:20 pm mst / 17 February 2001 found by diana / filed in humor / source Straight Dope 336 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Cecil answers that burning question: "Was a model's penis visible in a 1975 Sears catalog?" The 200% blowup of the picture is indeed suggestive, although proportionally improbable. |
| Okay, so this isn't very geeky. But it is funny. |
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