Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Friday, May 9, 2003

-- Comment()
Flaw exposes Microsoft ID service: "Microsoft's online ID system has been vulnerable to malicious hackers and thieves for months." [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

Moving the blogroll -- Comment()
Private Ink writes: "My blogrolls are starting to become rather large. Though I enjoy having them handy I am thinking it would be less of an eyesoar to move them. I am going to set up a few pages and give each blogroll its own area."

Moving the blogroll out of the homepage of a weblog seems to be a trend. I had to do this several months ago, because blogroll-loaded pages took so much disk space on the Radio UserLand server. Unfortunately, many blog search services don't find any pointers to the feeds I read from the main page. But you (humans and search robots) are welcome to have a look at my blogroll.

Ali G is wicked -- Comment()
t e c h n o c u l t u r e points to Maureen O'Dowd on how Ali G nails former US Secretary of State James Baker:

YOUNG MAN: How does you make countries do stuff you want?

MR. BAKER: Well, the way you deal with countries on foreign policy issues . . . is you deal with carrots and sticks.

YOUNG MAN: But what country is gonna want carrots, even if it's like a million tons of carrots that you're giving over there--

Don't trust the spam -- Comment()
I got a spam message titled Reviewing Your Resume: "Search thousands of recruiters and employers and send your resume directly to them! Our database includes Complete Descriptions, Full Addresses and Phone Numbers! This enables you to send your resume to targeted recruiters and employers. You can search our sample database and see the results you will achieve."

I would hesitate more than twice in giving my contact information to these guys, who advertise these fact to millions. Who knows to what purpose this information could be used?

Measuring the blood pressure -- Comment()
I bought an Omron M4-I blood pressure monitor for home use. This upper arm monitor won the test in a Finnish technical magazine, which compared the current upper arm monitors. And the Omron monitor is indeed easy to use: fully automatic, including a fuzzy logic system for regognizing when to stop applying more pressure and start the measuring/pressure decreasing phase. I sound like a commercial here, but I must say I like this monitor. It is convenient to use compared to the old half-automatic ones, where you (or someone else) had to pump up the pressure manually.