From an article about the recent OfficeMax security breach…
Oakland resident Alicia Vagts, 34, illustrates this possibility. She discovered in October that someone in Estonia was running up about $2,500 in fraudulent charges on her Washington Mutual debit card.
"I barely knew where Estonia was," she said. (It's on the Baltic Sea, right next to Russia.)
Hurricane Center May Run Out of Names
Only 21 names are reserved each year for hurricanes. The letters q, u, x, y, and z are not used.
The same list rotates every six years, so names are reused. The names of historical storms like Hugo and Andrew are retired. Katrina will certainly be retired.
When the names run out (which has not happened since alphabetic names have been used) they will use Greek letters: Alpha, Beta Gamma, up to Omega The cited article above does not say what happens if they ever have to retire Alpha.
(A chain e-mail worth posting.)
Dear Dad,
$chool i$ really great. I am making lot$ of friend$ and
$tudying very hard. With all my $tuff, I $imply can’t think of
anything I need, $o if you would like, you can ju$t $end me a card,
a$ I would love to hear from you.
Love,
Your $on.
Reply from dad…
Dear Son,
I kNOw that astroNOmy, ecoNOmics, and oceaNOgraphy are
eNOugh to keep even an hoNOr student busy. Do NOt forget
that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a NOble task, and you can
never study eNOugh.
Love,
Dad
———————-
Support the victims of Hurricane Katrina
In his statistical observation, Ted asks:
“I wonder if people will think all we do is smoke cigars? ”
And the answer is emphatically, no, that is not all we do. Not even Cuban cigars. Nor do we sit around and drink cognac with the Cuban cigars, even if our son did go out shopping on the island with his big sister and get a good deal on a few Cubans, bringing them back to the ship. Not even if the bartender were to suggest the proper way to smoke a Cuban cigar is by dipping the drawing end into your cognac. Not even then. We don’t want people to get the wrong impression.
Take this test and see how you rate. Post your results as a comment here.
I ranked: “71% (Dixie). You are a solid Southerner!”
Thanks to Scot for sharing this one. While the article is full of horrible plans, the author is up front explaining that the earth is very old and rock solid. Go Earth!
Now playing: Saturn Return by R.E.M
Below is a link to a rather long, academic article that argues why Wikipedia is as good as and even better than conventional Encyclopedias.
Anyone can add an article. Anyone can edit any article. Anyone can undo anyone’s edits. Sounds like a formula for chaos, and indeed sometimes there are “Wikiwars” when an argument over an article (often political) begins. Some steering group helps govern these.
In practice, Wikipedia is amazingly orderly and professional.
I agree with the author that Wikipedia is a very useful resource. I use links to it in my own blog postings and e-mails. I visit it regularly to look things up. I also end up visiting it because others use it as a reference.
Greg added an entry for Rosary Army. Looking under the edits history it looks like others have come in and helped “tidy up” the article. I thinking the word organisation (a British spelling) is evidence of such tidying.
Article:
Wake the kids and gather the family around. Thursday night from 8 pm to 10 pm.
ABC News: The UFO Phenomenon — Seeing Is Believing
(Kathy was born in Roswell, New Mexico.)
Ted found this story: Hopkin Explained, the story behind lostfrog.org which is now up to 119 variations. One of my favorites is the modified Pioneer plaque that has left our solar system. This article explains that the plaque will outlast the Earth and the Sun. If the Internet follows us to new worlds, then Hopkin may outlast the Earth and Sun, too.
This requires QuickTimeVR which can be installed free. It looks (and sounds) great on our widescreen iMac.
Apollo 11 – 17 Mission First man on the Moon – Fullscreen QTVR photo from panoramas.dk