ÜberBit

Okay Readers, this is awesome. Microsoft's ineptitude has created a new opportunity for entrepreneurial IT firms. EEYE(dot com) is an IT security company that has beaten Microsoft to the punch in the release of a fix for the IE6 script vulnerability. What I find interesting is the "potential" here. Microsoft products are so bad (but numerous) that they are spawning business opportunities for firms who can patch MS bugs faster (and probably better) than the creator. Imagine the traffic that is being generated to the Eeye(dotcom) web site. They could probably make a bundle on ad placement alone. FYI: I originally read about this at sci-tech-today(dotcom)

As you probably heard on the news, Google resisted the department of justice's attempts to play big brother. The feds wanted Google to cough up our searches. Last week in court, Google partially derailed the government's attempts to walk all over of them. The result was that the goverment recvd only a portion of the URL's that were requested and none of the user's search queries they wanted. Yeah for Google...right??? (Insert thoughtful pause here) Maybe, Google is really just an anonymous tool for perverts? Are they encouraging illegal material and behavior on the web by fighting the "good guys?" Afterall, the department of justice just wants to protect children. Why would anyone resist that? Besides, you know that if the feds got ahold of all that information, they would ONLY use it for the purposes that they claim...right? They would never ask for an inch and sneak a mile...right? What do you think?

A Professor of chemistry at the University of Texas at Dallas, Ray H. Baughman has developed fuel storing, self powered "muscles" that are 100 times for powerful than our own. Evidently there are two kinds of designs for this muscle. One involves two types of metal and fuel like methanol. Chemical reactions cause expansion and contraction (like muscles). The other type is composed of tiny carbon tubes and a reaction between a fuel and oxigen. The resulting electrical charge causes expansion and contraction of the material. The application is reportedly intended for robots, but I am wondering if there is some possibility for cybernetic application? Imagine what it would be like to someday be able to replace our own tissue with devices that out perform the original? The Dr. Baughman suggests that the new technology is simple enough that commercial uses could be only three years away.

Sources: Science (the journal) New York Times

MIT churns out some brilliant people, ideas and inventions...Clocky is not one of them. Clocky is an alarm clock that literally hides after you hit the snooze button. Yeah, that's right, it moves by itself to a different location. When the alarm goes off again, you have to find the damn thing in order to hit the snooze button again. It could be under the bed, in the corner, the closet. Pure Evil.

I give the average Clocky two sequential mornings of its buzz-n-hide torture routine before it receives a fatal blow from a sledge hammer or gleeful fling out the nearest window.

If you are a masochist and are tantalized by my description, you can learn more at http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~nanda/projects/clocky.html

Consider these facts and find the problem here:

1) There is lawsuit against Apple (in California) declaring that the iPod can damage hearing.

2) Democrat Edward Markey has asked the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study what IPODs can do to hearing.

I swear, Americans can be such dolts. [I am, by the way, an American and glad and to be one] However, what the hell is going on? If I were to follow this lawsuit's line of reasoning, I guess I should sue a halogen light bulb manufacturer. After all, when I stare into one of their light bulbs from a distance of an inch and a half, my retinas suffer a bit of scarring. Also, while my logic is floundering on the shores of nincompoopery, I might as well request that my tax dollars be spent to find out if EXTREMELY BRIGHT and HOT light can damage eyes. ...OF FREAKING COURSE it can! I suppose it's an ice-pick manufacturer's fault when I stab myself in the groin.

Let's sue publishers because of paper cuts.

Let's do a study on blenders to see if they can mutilate your fingers if you put your hand inside it while its running.

...I'm sorry, I must stop writing. I'm dizzy from the rolling of my eyes. (I wonder if I can sue someone for that?)