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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. |
| 11-year old boy devises new way to clean up oil spills |
| 1:12:28 am mst / 12 March 2001 found by paul / filed in inventions / source Ananova 181 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| An 11-year old German boy has invented a new way to clean up oil tanker spills. His idea won a first prize at his school's science fair, and experts have invited him to continue developing it on a large scale. |
| His idea is quite simple: "[P]ut barriers around the slick to prevent it spreading, drop nets onto the sea and then freeze the oil with liquid nitrogen." |
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| Mysteries Of The Power Grid |
| 5:48:02 am mst / 12 March 2001 found by diana / filed in science / source ABC News 141 hits / 2 comments / 0 e-mails |
| The Answer Geek explains how our delicate and complex power grid works. |
| Let's just hope that the grid gets beefed up in the next few years. Unfortunately, the government can always be counted on to deliver substandard goods at high prices! |
| read 2 comments |
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| Roam at Home |
| 6:29:47 am mst / 12 March 2001 found by diana / filed in hardware / source Wall Street Journal 72 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Mossberg laments the lack of easy home networking and reviews some wireless options. They might be a hassle to set up, but he says the results are worth the effort. |
| My home network runs through my Linux gateway. It works great, but boy, it was a terrible pain to set up! I hope that setting up wireless network will work at least as well, with preferably a bit less hassle. |
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| To Cell or Not to Cell |
| 9:14:24 am mst / 12 March 2001 found by diana / filed in communications / source Ironminds 173 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Ironminds staff advises one of their own on the pros and cons of getting a cellphone. |
| I liked the kangaroo story! |
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| Will penguins rule? Not any time soon |
| 11:20:19 am mst / 12 March 2001 found by diana / filed in operating systems / source ZDNet 71 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Jason Brooks argues that Linux world domination isn't coming anytime soon; Microsoft is too well-entrenched. |
| However, present dominance doesn't always translate into future dominance -- otherwise Microsoft wouldn't have risen to its present position of prominent! |
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| Inside Russian Cracker Culture |
| 1:04:02 pm mst / 12 March 2001 found by paul / filed in security / source Wired 142 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| The world's best computer crackers are Russian, in part because of an abundance of knowledgeable computer hackers as well as a lousy economy. As one cracker said, "Here hacking is a good job, one of the few good jobs left." |
| A fascinating look inside their subculture. |
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| Slimy new spamming technique |
| 1:14:59 pm mst / 12 March 2001 found by paul / filed in business / source San Francisco Chronicle 150 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| Some aggressive web marketers are including hidden bits of Javascript code on their websites which instructs the websurfer's computer to send them an e-mail unbeknownst to the sender. That way, the marketers can collect valid e-mail addresses for spam purposes. |
| As usual, reactions differ. One real estate agent who sells this software said, "It's marvelous. I get about three leads a day". Others have more accurately said, "This is a sleazy trick". |
| read 1 comment |
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| Tech Horror Stories |
| 3:06:20 pm mst / 12 March 2001 found by diana / filed in humor / source Usenix 307 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| BBspot pointed us towards this funny (although probably pretty old) contest for sysadmin horror stories. |
| It's just one "Doh!" after another, although the winning cricket story does really take the cake... |
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| Nanobelts |
| 6:44:42 pm mst / 12 March 2001 found by paul / filed in nanotechnology / source Science Daily 49 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new class of nanostructures known as "nanobelts". These ribbons may be especially useful in forming microelectronic sensors. |
| Some pictures are available here. |
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| Will my Compact Discs work in Australia? |
| 11:13:35 pm mst / 12 March 2001 found by diana / filed in humor / source Usenet 242 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| BBspot pointed us towards this hilarious 1996 Usenet thread that started when someone asked whether US compact discs would work in Austrailia. |
| Those Aussies just kept outdoing themselves with crazy explanations! |
| read 1 comment |
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