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Monday, August 12, 2002
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Voyagers Reap a Bounty of Discovery and Beauty. Twenty-five years ago, two identical spacecraft took off on missions of exploration. Now, the two Voyagers are approaching the true edge of the solar system. By John Noble Wilford. [New York Times: Science]
Fare thee well, Voyager 1 and 2. You may be small and a bit shabby by today’s standards, but you are the first of Us to leave the solar system. May you eventually find the intelligent life you seek, ‘cause there sure as hell ain’t much of it down here.
7:46:54 PM 
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Sept. 11 Strikes at Labs' Doors. Leading scientists are warning that government regulations on biological research threaten to undermine the fundamental openness of science and campus life. By Diana Jean Schemo. [New York Times: Science]
It seems to me that the more public information is, the less dangerous it becomes, not the other way round. But the White House, using 9/11 as a convenient excuse, seems bent on taking us back into the dark ages. Quality scientific research is impossible in an atmospehre where researchers can't share their findings.
7:44:00 PM
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Most Deadly of the Natural Disasters: The Heat Wave. Heat waves kill more people in the United States than all other natural disasters combined. By Tara Bahrampour. [New York Times: Science]
Of course, by now you’re heard the Boy Blunder’s answer to global warming, the cause of more deadly heat waves recently. Git yerself a lawn chair an’ sum sun block an’ enjoy, parder. It’s only gonna git hotter.
7:41:19 PM
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Tag&Rename 2.1 Beta 5 Released [BetaNews.Com]
This looks like a pretty useful little tool for the serious digital music collector. Things is, if you’re like me, 90% of your collection resides on CD, where file name and ID tag changes are impossible. But I’m sure it’ll come in handy when I finally get around to setting up a 400 gig IDE RAID as network music server.
That translates into 60,000 or more titles online all the time. I’m using an old P-III 500 and two 200 gig HDs bundled into a RAID 0 configuration. Cheap. And with more than 4000 hours of music online, who needs anything else as a home sound system. Listening 8 hours/day and never repeating a track, it would take almost 2 years just to listen to everything.
7:37:14 PM
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Brain's 'cheat detector' is revealed [New Scientist]
Given that the Dim Son is still enjoying high approval numbers – despite sharp drops recently – I’m thinking many Americans must have badly wired limbic systems, a part of the old, or reptilian, brain.
Personally, I didn’t have to use even that high a level of processing power to spot Shrub as a cheater. My enteric nervous system – a second “brain” in the lining of the human digestive tract that may be the source of “gut feelings,” sounded alarm bells the first time I saw that smirk.
7:11:10 PM
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Show Me The Madness - Felon Wins Nomination To Be State Auditor In Republican Primary. Plastic::Politics::Politics: "Al Hanson, despite being outspent more than 136-1 in the campaign, and having served nine months in a Minnesota prison in the late 1970s for theft and swindling, as their candidate for state auditor in November." [Plastic: Most Recent]
Wow, talk about single issue voters. Anti-abortion voters in Missouri have chosen a convicted felon as the GOP candidate for state auditor.
Turns out GOP nominee Al Hanson, an avowed anti-abortion activist, served 9 months in prison in Minnesota for – get this – theft and swindling. Just the kind of guy you want as state auditor, right?
In a typical GOP spinsanity move, sate GOP bosses blamed Hanson’s victory on Democrats crossing over and voting in the GOP primary. Well, it could have happened that way, Bert.
7:03:39 PM
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PGP defect reveals encrypted messages. Messages encoded with the Pretty Good Privacy algorithm could fall prey to a technique that fools senders into decoding their own secret messages, according to researchers. [CNET News.com]
If you think using PGP or any other encryption or computer security program means you’re safe, you don’t understand the problem or the technology. Any technology is only as good as its human implementation. Therein lies the real threat.
You are far more likely to suffer a security breach from inside your organization or through your own actions than through any malicious hacker type activity. This particular exploit, whch affects GnuPG, among other programs, is pure human engineering, not a technical flaw.
The gist of it is some users have been tricked into decoding their own messages by eavesdropping hackers posing as legitimate recipients. Don’t be one of them. Never re-hash previously encrypted messages. Instead, if there’s a problem on the receiving end, resend the original message or re-encrypt it and re-send.
6:57:55 PM
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Socrates. "Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
2:46:40 PM
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© Copyright 2002 Dusty Rhodes.
Last update: 8/31/2002; 4:42:31 PM.
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