3D Models of Military Vehicles
CNN has put together an impressive 3D gallery of some of the Military vehicals being used in the War in Iraq.
Chemical Weapons Found?
Thousands of boxes of white powder, nerve agent antidote, unidentified liquid and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare were found by U.S. troops at an industrial site south of Baghdad, a U.S. officer said.
Reuters reported that U.S. troops also found a second site containing vials of unidentified liquid and white powder. A U.S. officer said the site was close to the other plant, at the Latifiyah industrial complex, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, where soldiers had found the other vials and manuals.
Mike Portnoy Imposter Arrested
This story is just plain strange.
I wanted to somehow get word to Mike, that there's a guy in NYC who is pretending to be Mike, picking guys up at bars, restaurants, and on the street, convincing them that he's Mike Portnoy, the world famous drummer from Dream Theater... (he has all their music CD's, knows every beat of every song, and the words, and has Mike's schedule, both past and present down to a "T")... He says that he's been struggling with his sexuality lately, thinking back to a molestation when he was 14, and has decided to give it another try to see if he can finally find happiness. After convincing them of who he is and of his sincerity, they get it on, and at some point, when they aren't paying attention, he steals whatever he can find from them, (from me, it was my wallet, with ID's, credit cards, ATM card, social security card, etc., as well as 2 cell phones and a set of keys.) From another guy, he stole his house keys, intending to go back when the guy wasn't home and clean him out
Iraqi informer angered by treatment of POW
After he saw Lynch slapped, the lawyer slipped into her room at the Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah and told her, "Don't worry." Then he walked six miles to the nearest U.S. Marines and told them where she was.
NFL Schedule Released
The 2003 NFL schedule was released today! I can't wait until football season. Anyone else looking forward to draft weekend?
Proposal: Laser replaces NFL chain gang
It's similar to the yellow line superimposed on the TV image for home consumption, but it's visible to the players and fans in the stadium as well, under the lights or in bright sunshine.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. From a fans prospective, it's great, but I'm not sure I want the players to see the line. There's no doubt the "yellow line" has been the best innovation to viewing football on TV since they first starting airing games nationally. I'm just not sure if I like the players being able to see it. I guess it just makes the game a little more sterile. I like the fact that it's not perfect now (even with the little yellow line) and sometimes the two don't match up. It just add some suspense to the game. I just think the game could get sterile with the laser lines. Then again, maybe the game becomes more exciting. Either way, I'll still be watching the Steelers so I guess it doesn't matter much to me. :)
New PGA.com Site Online
The new PGA.com site went live this week. It's a huge
improvement over the old one. I know a couple of
the developers working on the site, so I know a couple
of the ideas that they're working on. When they get
completely done implementing the new features, it'll
be the best golf resource on the net.
You can't always believe your eyes...
An LA Times photographer was fired today after using Photoshop to alter a picture he'd taken. He combined the results of two pictures taken just seconds apart. Even though I can understand why the photographer probably thought the merging of the two photos wasn't a big deal in this case, this is very dangerous ground and I think the LA Times did the right thing. People are accustomed to taking things in print with a grain of salt, but we're much more likely to believe what we see with our eyes. In todays computer aided world, it's very easy to manipulate a photo to the point where only the best trained eyes can tell the photo has been altered. I guess the lesson here, you can't always believe your eyes...
In an editor's note in Wednesday editions, the Times said photographer Brian Walski acknowledged in a phone call from Iraq that he had used a computer to combine elements of two photos to improve the composition.
Holes found in RealPlayer, QuickTime
The vulnerabilities have cropped up in RealNetworks' RealPlayer and Apple Computer's QuickTime. While unrelated, the weak spots could allow an intruder to execute damaging arbitrary code on a victim's computer. In both cases, updates are available to remedy the problem.
Spock's Beard Studio Update
An update from the Spock's Beard HQ:
I really dig Spock's Beard, they're a band I'd heard about for a while, and when I finally listened to the album "V" about 8 months ago, I've been hooked since. If you like Yes or other 70s prog bands, then check out Spock's Beard.
The one thing I'm really bummed out about is that Neil Morse (Alan Morse's brother and former lead vocalist/keyboard player) decided to leave the band after their last album "Snow." It'll be interesting to hear what the new album sounds like.
CFMX Simultaneous Requests Setting
There isn't a difference between simultaneous requests for CF and for JSPs/servlets. They're being throttled by the same underlying setting in the JRun engine. Configuration done through the CF Administrator just changes the number of requests the underlying Servlet engine is allowed to process simultaneously, thus limiting Servlets and JSPs as well.
How to install Neverwinter Nights on Linux
As soon as I saw the news that BioWare released a beta of a Linux client for its popular and successful Neverwinter Nights title, I downloaded the beta (registration required) and went shopping for the prerequisite retail Windows version of the game. Before I proceed, let me offer this brief warning: Neverwinter Nights is the mother of all timesinks. Do not follow my path unless you have nothing important you want to get done for the next week or so.
Run For Cover; It's Mozilla 1.4 Alpha
Mozilla 1.4 Alpha is out. This release features dynamic image and table resizing in Composer, smooth scrolling (see release notes for enabling this feature,) and usability improvements to spam filtering. In addition to these feature improvements, 1.4a also contains fixes for performance, stability, standards support and website compatibility. This is an alpha release so expect bugs, and don't use it unless you are willing to live with the risks inherent in such a release (ie. crashes, data loss, etc.). More information is available in the release notes."
Stupid Tim Horton Contest
Tim Hortons (a coffee/pastry fast-food chain owned by Wendys Corporation) is running a contest called "Roll Up The Rim To Win." They've run this contest in the past as well. I really hate this contest. On each paper cup, under the lip, there's text which indicates whether you've won a prize or not.
The reason I hate this contest is I end up just about ripping my nails out try to "Roll Up The Rim." About the only way I can reliable read the text is to take scissors to the cup and cut the rim up and then flatten out the lip using my thumbs on a hard surface.
I've got to think they make it difficult to get to on purpose. In the past month, I've ripped my thumbnail and permanantly damage my teeth trying to reveal that stupid text, all for a free cup of coffee and a donut.
Web-based XML Editors
Lately I've been thinking about building a WYSIWYG XML editor to use within a content management. I've never been a huge fan of storing pure HTML as content, because you're extremely limited in what you can do with the content. So, I've been re-reading some information on building an browser-based XML editor. I may decide to tackle creating a cross browser (i.e. IE6+/Mozilla v1.2+) XML editor, in the meantime, here are a couple links: