Consumer Reports did a story about the effectiveness of various types of condoms (how they tested this, I don’t know). Apparently one from Planned Parenthood did the worst (which was probably intentional so they can sell you the morning after pill or some abortion service afterwards). Full story.
Richard Gere Urges Palestinians To Vote
Well known for his vocal support of Tibet’s Dalai Lama and celebrated for his captivating good looks, Gere urged Palestinians in a television commercial broadcast ahead of Sunday’s poll in the West Bank and Gaza to get out to vote for a new president to succeed Yasser Arafat, who died in November.
“Hi, I’m Richard Gere and I’m speaking for the entire world. We’re with you during this election time. It’s really important. Get out and vote,” Gere said in the advertisement. He repeated the final phrase in Arabic.
Why is Richard Gere doing this when I’d say probably less than 1% of the folks who saw his commercial knew who he was. But the best quote of the story goes to a soap-factory worker:
“I don’t even know who the candidates are other than Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), let alone this Gere,” Gaza soap factory worker Manar an-Najar told Reuters.
“We don’t need the Americans’ intervention. We know who to elect. Not like them — they elected a moron.”
Thanks Barney for the link.
Incredible Before And After Tsunami Photos
If you want to see the damage this thing really caused, check out these before and after photos.
And remember, if you want to dontate to relief efforts this month, President Bush on Friday signed legislation allowing people who donate to Indian Ocean tsunami relief to claim deductions on their 2004 tax returns, if they write the check before the end of the month. Full story on that.
That’ll Bring In The Tourists
Someone in the Census Bureau may be watching a little too much MTV. Bevis Lake, a 5.7-acre body of water in a forested area about 25 miles northeast of Seattle, is now appearing in Bureau records with a different name: Butthead Lake.
Thank Barn for this and many other links that will undoubtedly get posted today (as apparently he doesn’t even leave his computer like I did over the weekend).
3.6 Million Nickels Missing
Granted, that many nickels is worth $180,000, but how the heck is the guy who stole it going to spend all that change? I think it might raise somebody’s suspicions if you showed up to pay for something huge and all you had were a crap load of nickels.
How Has America’s Tsunami Media Coverage Been?
According to one professor, American’s media coverage has been “great at explaining what a tsunami is. But otherwise I can see why the rest of the world thinks Americans care about death and destruction only when Americans are involved.” He makes some very good points about the coverage. Full Story. Link from Barney.
Microsoft Blue Screens At CES Keynote
During a demonstration of digital photography with a soon-to-be-released Nikon camera, a Windows Media Center PC froze and wouldn’t respond to Bill Gates’ pushing of the remote control.
Later in the 90-minute presentation, a product manager demonstrated the ostensible user-friendliness of a video game expected to hit retail stores in April, Forza Motor Sport. But instead of configuring a custom-designed race car, the computer monitor displayed the dreaded “blue screen of death” and warned, “out of system memory.”
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has gotten a BSOD at a big show. It happened in 1998 at the spring Comdex when they were showing of Windows 98. Check out the video here.
The Rumors Are True
As I mentioned yesterday, there were rumors about SixApart buying LiveJournal. The rumors are true, confirmed by SixApart. Here’s their press release, and some FAQs. Mena Trott has posted a bit about it, as has Brad over at LiveJournal. If you want a more technical explanation about everything, MT’s ProNet site has a good article on it. Here’s a Merc-News interview of Ben and Mena.
Googleable Unsecured Web Cams and Printers
Anybody who likes to dig into and break things knows that Google can dig up quite a bit of stuff that people don’t realize. The latest trick? People are using Google to find unsecured Web and security cams (we’re talking Web cams that you can control, move around, zoom, etc…, potentially reading documents at an office).
Here’s the search links I’ve seen so far from here, here, here, here and here:
Link (root/pass works for the user/password on some of them)
People are having a great deal of fun with this, watching people’s reactions in the camera as they’re watching as the cam is moving around, acting funny, etc… . And there are piles of people hitting the same camera, so you sometimes can just sit there and watch while people move the camera around. It’s pretty dang fascinating, and bound to make people around the world wonder what the hell is going on. Some of these things even have sound.
Google can be used to search for unsecured printers and other networks as well. Check out these two articles for more Google hacks. Some people are using these kinds of searches to find printers, as well (I know I’ve already found quite a few using URL searches based on some of the ones in our office that are Web accessible). I won’t even point to some of unsecured network switches I came across (based on the unique URLs as some of the ones in our office).
On a side note, anybody whose “private” or “office use only” networks or Web cams that show up on here need to fire their IT guy.
Update: Here’s an easy to use UI for browsing open cams (with Geographic information).