AUGUSTA, Maine — Teeth are chattering in New England, where scientists just spent about a month scrutinizing weather data before proclaiming Tuesday that, yes, Maine has pulled even with Vermont in bragging rights for the region’s lowest recorded temperature — 50 below.That's some Global Warming.
Interesting approach. It will be more interesting if it works. 250 large might just do the trick.Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the virus writers behind the infamous Conficker (Downadup) worm.
The bounty, announced Thursday, represents a revival of Microsoft's mothballed Anti-virus Reward Program, launched in 2003 and virtually moribund since 2004.
The "quick to say" part about the operational network not being exposed may be - almost certainly contains - PR spin. However, it's plausible, given the way the Bad Guys look for highly salable personal information.The Federal Aviation Administration has joined the growing list of government agencies that have had their supposedly safe systems hacked. The agency this week notified about 45,000 employees that one of its servers was hacked into and employee personal identity information was stolen.
The FAA was quick to say the server that was accessed was not connected to the operation of the air traffic control system or any other FAA operational system. It did say two of the 48 files on the breached computer server contained personal information about more than 45,000 FAA employees and retirees who were on the FAA's rolls as of the first week of February 2006.
So be wary. kthanxbai.Virus authors are attempting to hoodwink unwary and lovestruck internet users with malware that poses as Valentine's Day-related games and email greetings...
Surfers and sysadmins need to be wary of email with such gooey subject lines as "Deeply in love with you", "I Knew I Loved You" and "I Love Being In Love With You". The body text of the malicious emails varies, but generally includes a heart-shaped graphic followed by a link to a website offering up Windows malware in the guise of loved-up applications.
... near the end of the show things turn tasteless as well. Ferrell/Bush asks the audience for a moment of silence to honor our troops who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the performance I saw, most of the audience members went silent but a few tittered nervously. Who can blame them? This is a comedy show. They were expecting a gag, and they soon got one.Cheap laughs at the expense of men and women who have given everything for their country. Stay classy, Will.
After a few seconds of silence a phone on the stage rings, and everyone laughs. The relief is palpable. Hurrah! That thing about honoring our war dead? It really was just the setup to a joke!
Ferrell/Bush is startled by the noise too, because he's already told us that the phone is just a prop that isn't connected to anything. He picks up the phone, listens for a second and says, "I didn't know 'Annie Get Your Gun' is playing! I love Tom Wopat too!" Then he tells the audience that he was afraid God was calling him on the phone. "Swear to God - I thought I was having a heart attack in my butt hole!"
It's no secret that red light cameras are often used to generate more ticket revenue for the cities that implement them, but a scam has been uncovered in Italy that has led to one arrest and 108 investigations over traffic systems being rigged to stop sooner for the sole purpose of ticketing more motorists.There is a very interesting discussion of traffic safety in the comments at Slashdot. As we see more and more communities using red light cameras as a revenue source, we can expect to see higher accident rates - the incentive structure will tend to push communities naturally to shorter yellow light times. This will generate more tickets, although will cause more accidents as drivers slam on their brakes to try to avoid a $200 fine, and get rear-ended. Of course, the costs of the accidents are borne by the public, not the government, so it's all upside for the government.
A computer virus has attacked the communications network of almost the entire Royal Navy fleet, knocking out e-mails and the internet.It's not just Her Britannic Majesty's Fleet:
It is understood the worm disabled the NavyStar network in up to 75 per cent of the navy's ships last week ...
French fighter planes were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus, an intelligence magazine claims.In How to Hack a Classified Network I talked about how malware gets on networks that are ostensibly isolated from the Internet. USB thumb drives seem to be a big part of the French infection.
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting. Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
And oh yeah, shooting things is fun.
