Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Friday, November 7, 2003

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DNA That's Yours for the Taking: "British researchers have documented 200 billion letters of DNA. That's a lot of DNA. To make sure lots of researchers can access and make sense of the data, it's freely accessible to anyone who's interested." [Wired News]

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First Unofficial k5 Fiction Challenge: "The K5 fiction section is much derided for a) not belonging on a tech/culture site and b) offering only low quality drivel by uninspired hacks. I am not here to try to convince believers of either of these propositions otherwise. I am here to offer an entertaining proposal for those who believe neither. I present to you: THE FIRST UNOFFICIAL k5 FICTION CHALLENGE." [kuro5hin.org]

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EU dismay at Berlusconi remarks: "EU leaders distance themselves from comments by Silvio Berlusconi defending Russia's actions in Chechnya." [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

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A difficult week: "FireWire 800 firmware problem under Panther, white spots on 15" PowerBooks, security issue on Jaguar. And the HR department told me we have the best employees. You can't trust HR people." [JustOneMoreThing.com]

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Penguins for President? "As we swing into the thick of the 2004 electoral playoffs, it's interesting to see what kinds of platforms are running under the candidates' official campaign Web sites. [...] As of this writing, November 5, 2003, the [Republican National Committee] has an uptime of 4.26 days (maximum of 39.04) and a 90-day moving average of 16.91. The [Democratic National Committee] has an uptime of 445.02 days (also the maximum) and a 90-day moving average of 395.38 days."

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Microsoft forgets to renew hotmail.co.uk domain: "Microsoft was busy covering up an almighty cock-up last night after forgetting to renew its hotmail.co.uk domain name. Despite being warned that the domain for its popular Web mail service was up for renewal, it seems Microsoft - or whoever had the task of managing its hotmail.co.uk domain - overlooked this vital piece of administration. [...] In December 1999, Microsoft forgot to renew the domain name Passport.com, and so rendered its Hotmail service partially crippled. A Linux programmer, Michael Chaney, paid the $35 fee and promptly handed over ownership to Microsoft."