May Steve Irwin rest in peace, but hilarious and educational videos of him live on…
The Time Fountain
The tech behind this thing is fascinating, but the video below shows it in action and the kinds of tricks that it can play on the eyes.
Flickr: Putting Professional Photojournalists Out Of Work
This just appeals to the journalist in me, but it’s interesting to see stories that use Flickr photos as primary news imagery. There are well-respected folks that foresee doom and gloom for the professional photojournalist.
Interesting thoughts. Links via E-Media Tidbits.
Idiot For The Day
This Portland man was so mad that he didn’t receive a speeding ticket (yes, you read that right), that he decided to ram his car into a police car to get his point across. Thanks Barney for the tip.
High End Security to Protect A Goat
This is just … well … odd.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — For 40 years it has been torched, vandalized, had its legs cut off and even been run over by a car. But officials in the Swedish city of Gavle are guaranteeing that this year’s giant straw Christmas goat – the victim of Sweden’s most violent yule tradition – will survive unscathed.
The 43-foot-high goat – a centuries-old yule symbol that preceded Santa Claus as the bringer of gifts to Swedish homes – has been burned down 22 times since it was first set up in Gavle’s square on Dec. 3, 1966.
The Swedes think they’ve outfoxed the vandals this year, but you can watch a live goat cam to see if the thing goes up in flames.
Thanks Cheryl and Snowbuggies for the links.
This Wasn’t Covered in the FAA Manual
What do you do when a passenger on your airplane is trying to disguise her flatulence? You make an emergency landing.
You Thought Your Week Sucked?
You got nothing on the Bend DEQ office, which has burned, froze, and flooded.
First came a smoky electrical fire in the attic last Friday, spotted when one of the 40 or so workers in the leased building heard popping sounds and saw sparks from a fluorescent overhead light fixture. No one was hurt, but damage was estimated at $95,000.
[…]
“Over the weekend, the temperature got down to about 12 degrees,” McKnight said. “We froze a water line in one part of the building that had no power.” When the half-inch line thawed out Sunday, sure enough, it burst and ran for about 90 minutes to two hours, flooding one end of the office with an inch or so of water.
[…]
The problems also knocked out the main phone number for the DEQ in Bend (388-6146), meaning lots of use of cell phones, but even one of those went on the fritz for a time Tuesday.
Man, talk about having a crappy few days.
Comment Spammers Are Evil Bastards
OK, let me rephrase that: Comment spammers are evil, but the folks who let their systems be infected by malware that turns their systems into zombies are just as bad.
On a nightly basis, the server running this site is set to do usual middle-of-the-night maintenance chores: update cPanel and various other software packages I have installed (including the great ConfigServer products), check the logs, run AWStats, etc… . Obviously, it pushes a bit of load, but I tried to spread it around the night a bit so Apache is still responsive to the few requests that will come in. Last night, this server was attacked hard by comment spammers, with my comment script on this site getting hit by zombied computers at a rate of about 100 per second. My various MT Plugins were fighting off a lot of it, but the load was still up to 30 in top at many points through the evening (according to my log reports I read in the morning). Web pages were still getting served, but just not as quick as they could’ve been.
Renaming my comment script, and installing this plugin hasn’t put my load above .5 all day. There are still tons of requests coming in for my old comment script, but they’re just getting 404s or sand trap redirects, which Apache can serve up without issues or load.
What that does mean is that if you’re visiting this site with Javascript disabled, you will not be able to comment. I was trying to avoid that, as I know some folks insist on turning Javascript off in their browser, but the reality is that zombie spamming bots can read straight form tags far easier than broken up Javascript that actually gives the proper form action target. I’ve tested it in a few places, and it appears to work OK, but if you’re noticing that you can’t comment, e-mail me using the form to the right, tell me what browser you’re using, and I’ll see what can be done.
James Kim’s Body Found
And the news is grim — CNN and the AP are reporting that he was dead, but Kim’s employer is waiting for confirmation (and has a far better story that will undoubtedly be updated).
Update: Confirmed — Kim is dead.