dans.blog


The miscellaneous ramblings and thoughts of Dan G. Switzer, II

Couple Marries After 77 Years Together

After 77 years of living together, Zyness O'Haver and Sallie Warren have decided to make it legal. The blushing bride is now 94 and her new groom is 95. The couple married Wednesday at the Oklahoma County Courthouse in Oklahoma City. The judge said he can't remember a more anxious bride. Three of the couple's four grandchildren were on hand. Family members say it was O'Haver's idea to finally get married. He made good on a frequent promise to make an "honest woman" of his housemate.


OpenAMF: Flash Remoting for Java

A new build of OpenAMF was released recently. OpenAMF is an open source server-side Java implementation for Flash Remoting. It's definitely an interesting project and one that could increase the usage of Flash Remoting on the web.

OpenAMF:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/openamf/


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.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/weapons/3d.models/


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?

http://www.nfl.com/schedules


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

PGA.com 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.

http://www.pga.com/


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:

http://www.spocksbeard.com/photos_press/studioreport_040203.html

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."