The Rigged-Up Net

Ok fine, Alec, its true:

Claim: A Houston doctor was decapitated by an elevator.

Status: True.

Lift and Separate

In May, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education posted the inevitable culmination of a trend: Last year for the first time, women earned more than half the degrees granted statewide in every category, be it associate, bachelor, master, doctoral or professional.

College gender gap widens: 57% are women

Good stuff:

Start-Up Sound

Older women are not the only ones prone to having defective eggs – young women have flaws in about half of theirs too, two separate studies suggest.

Young women have flawed eggs too

Check this out: With Millennials/Gen-Y entering the workplace, managers are starting to feel the effects of over-involved Boomer parents. Like, say, after Johnny gets a not-so-glowing performance review, Johnny’s mom calls his boss: “The best way to motivate Johnny is not through negative feedback!” reprimands Mom. That isn’t going to fly in this company, you might say, but guess what, this is your new workforce (born between ’79-2000). So you’re going to have to learn deal with it.

This is Your New Workforce: Gen Y

The EFF has broken the tracking code for the Xerox DocuColor. The DocuColor prints a faint 15×8 grid of yellow dots on every page. To see these dots you need a magnifying glass. You can also use a blue light to make the dots appear black. The EFF page has a built in application for decoding the dots which hide the time, date, and serial number of the printer. The EFF also maintains a list of printers which do or don’t have this “feature”.

EFF reverses color laser printer fingerprint

This is got to be the most simple, yet cool, thing I’ve seen!

Airtrax Sidewinder Video

You can see more of Airtrax here:

http://www.airtrax.com

Before dawn on a rainy Friday, John Richards totes a stack of CDs and a paper cup of coffee into the booth at KEXP. On the wall, yellow-headed pins stuck in a world map mark the origin of song requests. Baltimore. Boston. Baghdad.

Tiny Seattle station emerges as leading force in indie radio

Fibre to the home is coming! And its already avaible in parts of Dallas:

Verizon FiOS TV User Review

Waistlines are inching up on hemlines as fashion’s barometer. Navel-obscuring in the ’80s, they were navel-baring a few years ago, and this fall they’re creeping up toward the bellybutton again.

Jeans lowdown: Waistbands are inching up

My Canon SD300 arrived home safely today after having its flash module replaced… all repair done free of charge – I love Canon. 🙂

YAY! JetBlue is coming to Austin!

Between Nov. 8 and April 6, the New York-based carrier will add 52 weekday departures, including high-frequency service between its base at New York John F. Kennedy and Boston Logan. JetBlue also is adding service to Richmond, Va., and Austin.

JetBlue to expand routes

With a good night’s rest increasingly losing out to the Internet, e-mail, late-night cable and other distractions of modern life, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that too little or erratic sleep may be taking an unappreciated toll on Americans’ health.

Scientists Finding Out What Losing Sleep Does to a Body

So it looks like Treo is blaming a faulty SIM tray for its problems… we’ll see if this helps:

Palm offers a Treo 650 SIM tray replacement

Ditch the rice cereal and mashed peas, and make way for enchiladas, curry and even — gasp! — hot peppers. It’s time to discard everything you think you know about feeding babies. It turns out most advice parents get about weaning infants onto solid foods — even from pediatricians — is more myth than science.

Experts Seek to Debunk Baby Food Myths

Woohoo!

Current Repair Status

Date:11-02-2005
Status:Completed (Unit will be delivered to you within approximately 4 business days)
Shipping / Tracking: Not yet shipped

This is very well done… I’m assuming it was done on SNL…

Matrix in the City

When compiling our second annual list of The Most Expensive Restaurants in the U.S., a question arose. Has fine dining gotten a little too fine when bills for two (including a good bottle of wine and maybe a snifter or two of cognac) at the best establishments in the country routinely approach–and exceed–the $1000 mark?

Most Expensive U.S. Restaurants 2005

I ordered mine tonight – should be here by friday [crosses fingers]. 😀

With the OSx86 (OSX Tiger for Intel chipsets) leak, hundreds of people have been attempting to install OSx86 on their home computers. Some are having great luck, while others are finding that their hardware is not compatible, and it just wont install. In the following article I will discuss how to build a Intel based computer that comes very closely to meeting the specs of the OSx86 Development machines. We will discuss exactly WHAT hardware you want, WHERE to find the software, and HOW to install it. Meaning that with a little magic, this complete walkthrough will have you installing OSx86 on a $200 Intel machine using the OSX install disc, and have everything work great!

Building the $200 OSx86 Mac

Is it just me, or is this creepy?

This picture released by LifeGem, shows one of their creations: a diamond made from the ashes of cremated remains. LifeGem uses super-hot ovens to transform ashes to graphite and then presses the stone into blue and yellow diamonds that retail for anywhere from 2,700 to 20,000

AFP/LifeGem

In the back room of an unmarked brown building in a run-down strip mall, eight machines, each the size of a bass drum, are making diamonds.

That’s right — making diamonds. Real ones, all but indistinguishable from the stones formed by a billion or so years’ worth of intense pressure, later to be sold at Tiffany’s.

Man-made diamonds sparkle with potential

Running Ubuntu? You need Easy-Ubuntu… it does everything you’d do by hand anyways after installing it:

Easy Ubuntu is an easy way to make Ubuntu usable in few minutes. This is a beginner’s tool using a graphical interface.

Easy Ubuntu allows you to:

• Add extra repositories for installing a lot of additional software.
• Install multimedia codecs for reading all videos, musics and DVDs.
• Activate the “audio preview” feature in Nautilus.
• Install the most needed Firefox plugins: Flash, Java, Real, videos. Adds Microsoft fonts, GNOME’s Firefox buttons, officials Firefox icons.
• Install archiving support for RAR and ACE.
• Install the most used peer-to-peer softwares: aMule (a clone of eMule) and Azureus (for Bittorent).
• Install the Skype voice-over-IP software. (Warning: at this time Skype is not packaged for Breezy so install don’t work)
• MSN: Install AMSN cvs with webcam support.
• Num lock: Active the num lock at system startup.
• Replace the GNOME foot logo with Ubuntu’s logo.
• Install the NVIDIA or ATI driver for 3D support.

Easy Ubuntu 2.4 beta

So I dropped my SD300 the other day and the flash died… sent it in for repairs:

Canon Factory Service Center1440 Chase Avenue Elk Grove Village , IL 60007 Telephone: 630-250-6500 Fax: 847-439-5628 Track your repair Online: www.usa.canon.com/repair

Equipment:

POWER SHOT SD300

Repair #:

XXYYYYYY

Received:

October 31, 2005

Repair Cost:

0.00

Status:

Received

This notice is to advise you that we have received your equipment for evaluation and repair at a Canon Factory Service Center. We will now process your equipment for repair.Please note that in the unlikely event that any additional internal damage is found due to liquid / water, sand, corrosion, battery leakage or impact (such as dropping the unit), a revised estimate will be sent for your authorization, since these conditions are specifically excluded from warranty coverage.
Thank you for purchasing Canon products and for allowing us this opportunity to serve you.Best Regards,Canon Factory Service CenterPlease note that this E-mail is to inform you of the status of your repair only. Please contact Canon’s Customer Care Center at 1-800-828-4040 with any questions concerning your repair. Please do not reply to this email.

These SBC guys are CRAZY!

“If there were any delusions that Ma Bell Wasn’t Back, SBC CEO Edward Witacre has cleared that up in an interview with Business Week Online. When asked about Google, Vonage and other Internet Upstarts he responded in typical Ma Bell Style: ‘How do you think they’re going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?’.”

SBC CEO: Pay up if you want to use our pipes

Occasionally getting drunk is a core part of national identity for most Australians, according to new research

Getting drunk part of Australian identity, study finds

This is really neat – I’ve always found adjusting the volume in windows to be a pain since you have to click, wait for the volume widget to show up, then adjust…

Volumouse allows you to use your scroll-wheel as a volume control – perfect!

Volumouse v1.21 – Control the sound volume with a wheel mouse

San Antonio has been ranked the fourth most dangerous metropolitan areas for children walking to and from school, according to a study

San Antonio named one of the worst cities for child pedestrians

Treating infant ear infections with the common antibiotic amoxicillin doubles children’s risk they will suffer a problem later on with their permanent teeth, a study said on Monday.

Antibiotic affects some children’s teeth: US study

If anyone knows where to buy these, please let me know… these seem really cool:

AmacroX Camera Phone Lens

Here’s a review of them:

The AmacroX Super Wide Camera Phone Lens is a high quality glass lens that needs no tools and no modification to the camera mobile phone that the user wishes to use it with. It merely clips in place and provides an improved image in conjunction with the mobile phones in-built camera lens and software.

AmacroX Super Wide Camera Phone Lens

Americans are doing a lot more dashboard dining and takeout than they did 20 years ago, according to a new survey from a leading market research firm.

Takeout, curbside dining are on the rise

This is one nutty game of ping-pong:

Watch here

If you own a Treo… you need VolumeCare…. it fixes all the volume problems with the earpiece, speakerphone, and headset. It works and its refreshing. It annoys me that Palm simply couldn’t have this built in.

Loud & Clear with VolumeCare

These unGoogleables don’t post online, blog, publish or build web pages using their own names. They’re careful about revealing information to businesses, belong to few organizations that can leak personal data, and never submit online résumés — all common ways that Google captures your data. They spoke to Wired News only on condition that their names be changed for this story.

UnGoogleables: People who don’t appear in Google

D’oh!

To our valued Mailblocks Customers,
The Mailblocks Team has been busy creating the next generation free email service, called AIM Mail. AIM Mail is a free web-based email service with a sleek interface and a client-like feature set, based on Mailblocks technology that youve grown to love.
AIM Mail has the following advanced features:
– 2 gigabytes of account space
– industry-leading spam and anti-virus protection
– integrated address book
– an email address based on the AIM Screen Name
– seamless integration with the AOL Instant Messenger program
– accessibility using an email program (IMAP)
– and more coming soon
All Mailblocks customers can transition to the new AIM Mail service immediately, because the Mailblocks email service will be discontinued on November 16, 2005. Per our Terms of Service, we are providing 30-days advance notice. The Mailblocks email service will be discontinued on November 16, 2005 and any future email after that date will be returned to the sender. Once the account is closed, there will be no way to gain access to the account and all the data will be permanently deleted.
For the smoothest transition, we recommend you take the following steps immediately:
Create a new free AIM Mail account by going here.
Give your contacts your new AIM Mail address.
Move your emails from your Mailblocks account to your local computer. See instructions below.
Move your Contacts from your Mailblocks account to your new AIM Mail account. See instructions below.
As an alternative, currently paid Mailblocks accounts may be eligible for a full refund until November 16, 2005. To request a refund check, submit your full name, mailing address, phone number, birth date, Paypal address if you paid with one, and your accounts secret question/answer, using the contact form at http://contact.mailblocks.com. All information is required for validation of account ownership. Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for check processing. You can check the authenticity of this email by going to the main Mailblocks web site.
We hope youve enjoyed your spam-free Mailblocks account. Thank you for your continued support of both Mailblocks and the new AIM Mail account. We apologize for any inconvenience this transition may cause and we hope you continue enjoying our free spam-and-virus-free email service from AIM Mail.
The Mailblocks Team

The majority of foreign women in UK jails are there on drugs offences. Here, one Trinidadian woman explains why she risked her life and liberty by swallowing cocaine to smuggle into Britain.

Sunshine island’s deadly trade

Austin ranks No. 9 in a new ranking of “Hot Cities” for entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur.com and the National Policy Research Council.

Austin is No. 9 among hottest cities for entrepreneurs

New service by Audible… AudibleAir – audiobooks directly to your Treo… no need to sync with your desktop… sweet!

AudibleAir

The brains of pathological liars have structural abnormalities that could make fibbing come naturally.

Liars’ brains make fibbing come naturally

And to think, I actually visited RLX back when they were only 15 employees or so… its weird to have seen both the beginning and the end.

Hewlett-Packard is adding to its server arsenal with the purchase of blade pioneer RLX Technologies.

HP to buy blade pioneer RLX

Dell Inc. plans to ship many of its computers to U.S. post offices for customer pickup, instead of straight to buyers’ homes, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday.

Dell to stop computer deliveries to some customers’ homes