Allen, a Microsoft program manager for Web data, may have been the first company employee to begin blogging, launching his weblog about three years ago. Today, about 150 Microsoft employees maintain personal weblogs, by some estimates, and the number is growing steadily.

"My main worry with a lot of new webloggers coming on board is that somebody is not going to know where to draw the line and blow it for everybody else," Allen said in an interview. "But I think people just kind of try to use common sense."
(TODD BISHOP - SeattlePI) [via Technorati] 
11:57:16 PM      comment []   trackback []  



The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation: (11/19/1863)

And now please welcome President Abraham Lincoln.

Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. While we're waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It's great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn't live without it, could we? Oh - is it ready? OK, here we go:....
(via Teal Sunglasses) [via Christopher Ireland's Fresh Perspectives] 
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Mr. President, everything is finished How the Iraq war was lost. "'These were the orders of an imbecile. Qusai [Hussein] was like a teenager playing a video war game,' [Republican Guard Col. Raeed] Faik, 33, said in the cool reception room of his Baghdad home, gesturing to his teenage son banging away on a computer combat game." "We were like 10 different armies fighting their own private wars," said another Iraqi soldier. An account of the war as seen through the eyes of the Iraqi military. [MetaFilter] 
2:34:33 PM      comment []   trackback []  



The Colours of Numbers
For the math geeks out there (which I'm not - maybe his theories will be shot down in flames), Karl Palmen has discovered that numbers can be assigned one of eight "colours", related to their prime factors. He goes on to show the interesting mathematical properties of these colours. A novel way of playing with numbers. Software is on offer. [MetaFilter] 
2:30:41 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Walk the Great Wall of China
or rather, take a virtual stroll through the use of a QTVR-esque java applet along a good stretch of the Wall that seems to be in pretty fair shape. For the vast majority of us that will never get there in person, this is an interesting close up. [MetaFilter] 
2:23:45 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Newfound Moons Tell Secrets of Solar System
"Not too long ago, it was easy for an armchair astronomer to keep up to speed on the moons of the solar system. There was the Moon, of course, and the four Jovian satellites spotted by Galileo, those two around Mars, and some odd ones here and there that weird fractured cue ball orbiting Uranus, for instance.

These days, though, it is tough to tell the moons without a scorecard. In the past six years, dozens of satellites have been discovered around the giant planets, more than doubling the total in the solar system. Jupiter is the current leader, with 61, followed by Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The tally for these four planets is 124 (the other five planets have only four among them), but that number is sure to change in the next year or two.

(S)cientists say these moons offer some of the only clues to the early years of the solar system. They are a window into the past, some 4.5 billion years ago, when the planets formed from a swirling nebular disk of gas and dust."
[Follow Me Here...] 
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Japan Apologizes to China for Injuries From Remnants of War
Japan acknowledged that chemical weapons left in China by Japanese troops at the end of World War II caused 36 people to get sick early this month. By Norimitsu Onishi. [New York Times: International] 
6:35:31 AM      comment []   trackback []  



'Bring us home'
GIs flood US with war-weary emails: "An unprecedented internet campaign waged on the frontline and in the US is exposing the real risks for troops in Iraq... (amidst) rising fears that the conflict is now a desert Vietnam."
(via Guardian/UK) [Follow Me Here...] 
6:05:10 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Model plane goes transatlantic
An international team of enthusiasts are claiming the first successful transatlantic flight by a model aircraft. [BBC News | Europe | World Edition] 
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