Extra, Extra, Read All About These 240,000 Credit Card Numbers

We wondered yesterday just how clueless newspaper owners really were, and two Massachusetts papers are doing their best to say "quite clueless indeed". It's got nothing to do with Google News, but the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette -- both owned by The New York Times -- exposed the credit card data of up to 240,000 subscribers. What's so stunning here isn't the mere leak of the data, since that's becoming so common, but rather how it was leaked. The Worcester paper prints its delivery routing slips on internally recycled paper -- the paper it used last weekend happened to be some sort of internal reports with all the credit card numbers on them. The paper now says it's taken "immediate steps" to increase security, and it's set up a hotline for subscribers to call and see if their credit card data was compromised. Why is the burden on their subscribers? Shouldn't the papers be proactively letting people know their card numbers could be circulating? It's continually amazing how so many of these data leaks aren't the results of anything active, like hackers, but rather just products of sheer stupidity.

The Fine Line Between Spam And Doing What The System Allows

The MySpace community has had issues with "spam" within the system before. A year ago there was the highly publicized case (where the details were murky for a while) involving a guy who was hired (maybe) by MySpace to write a system for sending messages to everyone, but who then tried to extort the company or he would reveal to the world how to spam everyone in MySpace. That guy is now in jail -- which seems reasonable based on the extortion part. However, what about the spamming part? From what happened in that case, it's pretty clear that it wouldn't be that hard to create a system to spam everyone in MySpace... and that's exactly what a few people have done. However, MySpace is now threatening one with a lawsuit, which is where the story gets somewhat interesting. The guy isn't thrilled that he's being considered a spammer and points out that he isn't hacking anything, but just automating the basic process MySpace allows to let people to contact each other. Of course, a spammer is just doing that too to the regular email system. So, while there's an argument that MySpace should just make their system more secure to block out automated tools like this, it's more difficult to reconcile that with the spammer analogy. Either way, though, it would seem that MySpace shouldn't be going after the guy who wrote this software, but those who use it inappropriately. After all, they're the ones who are causing the real problem.

Microsoft Clarifies: Amateurs And Hobbyists Not Wanted

A few weeks ago, we noted that the details of the proposed "analog hole" legislation made it clear that the bill was less about "protecting" content from being copied, and all about killing off amateur content production. It was so focused on setting up a different set of rules for "professionals" and "amateurs" that it was really just about trying to handicap the disruption that amateur content represented. Now, it appears that Microsoft has bought into that same vision. Two separate stories point to two separate quotes from Microsoft execs that both make this abundantly clear (they're not even tap dancing around the issue, like you'd expect). The first comes from Tim Lee, who points to a Jim Allchin interview where he was quoted as saying that the only way anyone will be able to watch digital TV is if it's been certified by CableLabs -- meaning that hobbyists and tinkerers are out. Meanwhile, someone in the comments to that article point to a talk by another Microsoft exec, talking about how the company views copy protection as only being for professionals: "We don't want this technology to be available to every hobbyist. We need to keep the number of licensees down to a manageable number. We charge a license fee to keep the number of people we have to deal with down to a level we can handle." They may want to do that to keep it "manageable," but it has the side effect again of trying to block out hobbyists -- who are doing some of the most innovative work right now. Of course, while some people are pointing out the anti-competitive nature of these statements, the truth is that the only ones it's really damaging for are for Microsoft and for the professional content producers. They're pretty much guaranteeing that everyone else will look elsewhere to work with technology that isn't trying to hold them back.

Mobile Content Portal Lets You Move Content To New Devices

A mobile content player that has struggled in the past is trying again with a new name and a new strategy to differentiate it from others. It's deceptively simple: when you buy something, they keep a record of what you bought so that if you later switch mobile phones, you can just login and re-download all the content you already purchased. It's the basic online locker strategy, recognizing the power of connectivity when it comes to digital goods. Others have tried it with regular downloadable content, but they often run into legal issues as the entertainment industry isn't necessarily comfortable with such an arrangement. They, obviously, have no qualms about asking you to buy stuff again if you switch devices. What's not entirely clear, however, is how they're doing this. Google's video offering has a similar feature, but in order to do so you have to give up quite a bit of privacy, by agreeing to "check in" every time you play a video. From the description in the article, it doesn't sound like this system does that, but then it's not clear how they prevent you from downloading the same content to many, many devices which would obviously upset the entertainment industry.

Could Newspaper Owners Really Be This Clueless?

Just as stories are hitting the press about slow-to-innovate newspapers finally embracing the internet comes the news that a bunch of newspapers are quite upset that Google drives more traffic to their websites. This isn't a first. Last year, AFP sued Google over the same issue -- and Google yanked AFP stories out of their news index. This meant that newspapers that carried AFP stories lost out on a lot of valuable traffic. So, why are more newspapers trying to go down the same path? It would appear that like book publishers and telcos, they're all jealous of Google's ability to make money. The quotes from all three are almost identical. This latest one, from the newspapers is: "They're building a new medium on the backs of our industry, without paying for any of the content." But, that's wrong. What Google is doing is making that content more valuable by making it easier to find. If the newspapers want to opt-out, that's fine -- but it ends up hurting them. This is all about jealousy that Google has figured out a way to make a lot of money by making their content more useful. That doesn't take away from their content, but actually helps them -- which is why the anger towards Google is so ridiculous. Maybe Google should just call their bluff, and take them out of the index. The main problem here is that it appears most newspapers don't know what business they're in -- and that's leading to very confused (and sometimes backwards) strategies. Chris Tolles, over at Topix.net, drives home the point forcefully by pointing out that newspapers don't recognize what business they're in: "The newspaper of the future needs to fight for audience –- fight for its life, before someone comes and takes it from them." Dropping out of any aggregator service is a giant leap backwards. Any news provider moving in that direction isn't trying to be a newspaper of the future... but one of the past. Update: A good point was made in the comments that I had totally forgotten about. This is even more ridiculous, because Google still hasn't monetized Google News. In other words, they're not making any money directly off of this, and yet the newspapers are still upset. That doesn't apply to other news aggregators who do use ads, but since Google News seems to be the main target, it just emphasizes how ridiculous the newspaper publishers' position really is.

Average Laptop Contents Worth A Million Bucks?

An anti-virus and security firm's new study says the contents of the average business laptop is worth nearly a million dollars. Disregarding the firm's obvious bias for a moment, the figure is pretty unbelievable. A childhood spent trading baseball cards taught me that something's worth what somebody will pay you for it, not what a magazine says it's worth -- or in this case, a security company that wants to sell you something. If the stuff inside people's laptops is really that valuable, why aren't they "lost" more often?

Why Are Copy Protection Firms So Insecure?

It's amazing how insecure most copy protection firms seem to be. And, by insecure, I'm not talking about how they open up security holes, but how they react to criticism. Remember SunnComm, makers of the MediaMax copy protection scheme that began the process of suing Alex Halderman for pointing out that its copy protection could be defeated by pressing the shift key as you loaded the disc? Well, now we can add StarForce to the list. We first wrote about problems with their copy protection a few years ago, noting reports that it "installs itself without letting you know (not even in the EULA), hides itself on your PC, slows down the PC, causes all sorts of other problems and errors, and is nearly impossible to remove -- even after the protected application has been removed." Basically, it's no different than malware. Yesterday BoingBoing posted a similar story spurred on by a plan to boycott StarForce-enabled games... and the company responded by telling Cory Doctorow they were suing him (not clear for what), while also reporting him to the FBI for violating "approximately 11 international laws." It's unlikely (a) that they're really doing anything or (b) that, even if they did, any lawsuit or FBI interest would get anywhere. However, it does say something about these firms and their inability to take even the slightest criticism. Why not actually respond to the critics instead of trying to threaten them into submission? The threatening, of course, tends to backfire as the Streisand Effect kicks in and more people learn about the problems the company faces (and its inability to deal with them constructively). And, by constructively, we don't mean silly contests with conditions that are almost impossible to meet -- which is exactly what StarForce has done.

Google's Ishtar Moment

It's really quite impressive how much life there is in the story about Google censoring results in China. Considering that plenty of other companies have done it for years, it seemed like the reaction was a bit out of the ordinary. However, Andy Kessler has put his finger on the problem. It's Google's big sellout moment. It goes against everything they represented -- something they're now trying to explain away with doubletalk and a quick rewrite of history. As Kessler explains (with plenty of amusing examples), it's not the censorship that's the problem -- but that Google set themselves up to be such an idyllic company that would never do such a thing. He also shows how it's possible to sellout in a way that keeps you cool -- which Google didn't do. In the meantime, it turns out that people are discovering the way to get around Google's filters is pretty much the same way that spammers get around spam filters and the way file sharers got around Napster's original filters: by misspelling words. This is curious, because one of Google's features is that it tries to infer what you really meant when you put in a misspelled word. You would think that they would be able to more easily block creatively spelled variations... So, now we can start the conspiracy theories (all bogus, of course) that Google purposely left this as a loophole.

Open source changes journalism's rules

Open source changes journalism's rules by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- Once you tell anybody in the open source world about anything, you’ve told everybody everything.

Linux Hearts GPL Version 2

Linux Hearts GPL Version 2 by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- Torvalds has always been fairly agnostic on license questions, which is why so many different licenses use his kernel at the heart of their operating systems, which in turn is why Linux is such a popular operating system which has now pretty-much unified the Unix development world.

Liferay makes your Web look like a Mac by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- The winning theme (or skin) mimics the look-and-feel of the Apple Macintosh OS

Do mammals other than humans have menstrual cycles?

ANSWER 1: Menstrual cycles vary in length from an average of 29-32 days in orangutans to an average of 25-37 days in chimpanzees.

Females of other mammalian species go through certain episodes called `estrus' or `heat' in each breeding season.

During these times, ovulation occurs and females become receptive to mating, a fact advertised to males in some way.

If no fertilisation takes place, the uterus reabsorbs the endometrium: no menstrual bleeding occurs. Significant differences exist between the estrus and the menstrual cycle.

Some animals, such as domestic cats and dogs, do produce a very short and mild menstural flow, however due to its small amount (and personal cleanliness in cats) it passes pet owners largely unnoticed.

Manasa Nagarajan
Chennai

ANSWER 2: Mammals other than primates do not menstruate and their sexual cycle is called an estrous cycle.

In mammals the sexual activity of the male is more or less continuous but in most species the sexual activity of the female is cyclic. Most of the time the female avoids the male and repulses his sexual advances.

Periodically, however, there is an abrupt change in behaviour and the female seeks out the male, attempting to mate.

These short episodes of heat or estrus are so characteristic that sexual cycle in mammalian species that do not menstruate, is named the estrous cycle.

The change in female sexual behaviour is brought on by a rise in the circulating estrogen level. Rabbit and ferret come into heat and remain estrous until pregnancy or pseudo pregnancy results. In these species ovulation is due to a neuroendocrine reflex.

Stimulation of the genitals and other external stimulation at the time of copulation provokes release from the pituitary of gonadotropin that makes the ovarian follicle to rupture.

In captivity, monkeys and apes mate at any time. But in the wild, females accept the male more frequently at the time of ovulation.

In rats the underlying endocrine events are essentially the same as those in the menstrual cycle, but the first day of the cycle is the first day of bleeding, while day one of an estrous cycle is the first day of heat.

M. Vaitheeswaran
Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu

Clemenceau and cobras

THE DISCARDED warship of France, named Clemenceau after the one-time French Prime Minister and War Minister of the First World War time, is set to sail towards Alang in Saurashtra, where it will be broken down and the salvaged metal is expected to yield India some profit.

But there is a huge concern about the affair because the ship contains anywhere from 40 to over 200 million tonnes of asbestos. The trouble is that this asbestos is not in a form to be recovered and used for other purposes safely. It will simply have to be removed and discarded as well.

The Supreme Court of India has asked its Hazards Monitoring Committee for advice. Dr. G. Thyagarajan of the committee is not convinced about letting Clemenceau enter.

But the Union Environment Minister, A. Raja, has been reported to claim that the workers in Alang can safely remove the asbestos. Dr. Thyagarajan counters: "If a ship comes with 1 lakh cobras, will we accept it just because some Indians can catch cobras?" (Come to think of it, death from a cobra, being faster, is kindlier.)

The journal Environmental Health states that of the over 100,000 Indians working with asbestos, 23 per cent are affected by asbestosis but a mere 30 have been compensated.

And what will Clemenceau fetch us? About Rs. 50 crores as scrap. What should our priority be? To paraphrase what Mr. Clemenceau said about 100 years ago about war and the military, Clemenceau is too serious a matter to be left to the government alone. For the sake of our health, let us not allow the ship to enter India.

Sun considers GPL 3 license for Solaris

Sun Microsystems is considering a dual-licensing move that could raise tantalizing possibilities of open-source cooperation between Linux and Sun's Solaris operating system, but legal issues complicate the possibility.

The server and software company is considering releasing Solaris under the forthcoming version 3 of the General Public License in addition to the Community Development and Distribution License that currently governs the Unix variant, Sun President Jonathan Schwartz said in his blog Friday.

"We want to do what we can to drive more efficiency and cross-pollination between Linux and OpenSolaris," Schwartz said. "Why recreate the wheel with technologies like DTrace and ZFS--or GRUB and Xen?" (DTrace and ZFS are Solaris technologies for sophisticated performance analysis and file storage, respectively; GRUB and Xen, technologies for booting computers and running multiple operating systems, were first developed for use alongside Linux, but Sun is building them into Solaris.)

But there are legal barriers that could curtail sharing between different open-source software realms. Linux kernel project leader Linus Torvalds has said Linux will stay under the current version 2 of the GPL. That means that if Solaris is released under version 3, it's not necessarily the case that software from one project could be incorporated into the other.

Torvalds: No GPL 3 for Linux

Linus Torvalds said Wednesday that he won't convert Linux to version 3 of the General Public License, as he objects to digital rights management provisions in the proposed update.

The position is a significant--though not entirely unexpected--rejection of the update, the first to the seminal license in 15 years. Linux, the kernel at the heart of an operating system that clones much of generally proprietary Unix, is considered the best-known and most successful example of open-source software.

"Conversion isn't going to happen," Torvalds said in a posting to the Linux kernel mailing list. "I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code."

Torvalds specifically objected to one new provision in the GPL 3 draft that opposes digital rights management, which is technology that uses encryption to control the use of content and running of software. "I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn't do it," he said.

On the other side of the divide is Richard Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation. His goals are explicitly ethical and social, and his principles are unbending. "The foundation believes that free software--that is, software that can be freely studied, copied, modified, reused, redistributed and shared by its users--is the only ethically satisfactory form of software development, as free and open scientific research is the only ethically satisfactory context for the conduct of mathematics, physics or biology," Stallman and FSF attorney Eben Moglen wrote in a GPL 3 background article.

The GPL 3 draft contains new words opposing digital rights management, which Stallman and Moglen regard as technology that restricts freedoms users must have.

"As a free software license, this license intrinsically disfavors technical attempts to restrict users' freedom to copy, modify and share copyrighted works," the draft license states. "No permission is given...for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this license."

In other words, some form of locking of GPL code to prevent changes from an authorized version is forbidden.

Torvalds' position is not a surprise. In a 2003 posting to the kernel mailing list, the Linux founder explicitly opened the door to DRM.

"I also don't necessarily like DRM myself," Torvalds wrote. "But...I'm an 'Oppenheimer,' and I refuse to play politics with Linux, and I think you can use Linux for whatever you want to--which very much includes things I don't necessarily personally approve of."

Torvalds founded the Linux project in 1991, the same year the current GPL version 2 was released, and is still its leader. His kernel project dovetailed with work Stallman had already began to create a free clone of Unix, called Gnu's Not Unix (GNU). Because of that combination, the Free Software Foundation prefers the entire operating system be called GNU/Linux--though it has other important components, such as the Xorg graphics system, that come from other groups.

Online game warns gay-lesbian guild

Longtime virtual gamer Sara Andrews didn't know she would cause much of a ruckus when she began recruiting new members of her "World of Warcraft" virtual gaming guild, which mostly caters to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender players.

Sun Java Desktop System

The Sun Java Desktop System is a secure and comprehensive enterprise desktop software solution that combines the best of open source innovation with significant contributions from Sun. Java Desktop System is a major component of the Solaris 10 Operating System, x86 and SPARC architecure editions, and an earlier release is also available with a Linux OS. As a result, Sun customers have the option of deploying the same desktop environment on Sun workstations, Sun Ray ultra-thin clients, as well as a broad range of non-Sun notebook and desktop systems with standard x86-based architectures.

Release 3 of Sun Java Desktop System is shipping now as part of the Solaris 10 Operating System. Release 2 for Linux OS, which includes an integrated Linux operating system, is also available.

American Express: Leaving Home With Someone Else's Credit Card

Dave Farber's Interesting People list has an anonymous story about an American Express screwup. The writer noticed that his or her AmEx card was about to expire and a new one had not been delivered. American Express explained that the card had been sent, but it had been returned for some unknown reason, and promised to overnight the card -- which they did. Unfortunately, in the package American Express also included 34 other ready-to-go American Express cards for other people that had also been returned when sent. Mistakes happen -- and even though that's a pretty big one for a credit card company -- what's worse is how the company responded when told about it. Basically, they didn't respond. They promised to call the person back, but never did and no one seems particularly concerned that 34 American Express cards that don't require authorization were delivered to someone they don't belong to.

Efficiency In The Drive Through

It's somewhat amazing just how much effort goes into innovating the fast food industry. In the past, we've seen stories of outsourced order takers (call center so they can handle multiple restaurants at once), a system called "Hyperactive Bob" to better predict demand, and even an automated burger flipper. That last link also discussed order kiosks where fast food customers punched in the order themselves, rather than have the cashier do it. It seems that they're now taking that same concept out to the drive through also. In an effort to speed up the drive through line and making it more accurate, many fast food restaurants are trying to simplify the drive through order menu and show visual confirmations to make sure there are no mistakes. Of course, the article also mentions that realistically, the best way to speed up the whole process is to simply cut items off the menu. Perhaps the folks at In-N-Out might want to reconsider any plans to expand their menu beyond the four "official" items currently listed.

Antivirus Firm Pays Up To Avoid Being Barred From Selling In The US

Last summer we noted that a seller of anti-virus appliances was on the verge of being completely barred from selling in the US for infringing on a patent held by Trend Micro for server-based anti-virus software. It seemed a bit odd that server-based anti-virus software could be patented -- but that's what happened. Of course, with the risk of having its US sales blocked out, Fortinet has decided to settle the lawsuit. The terms aren't stated, but you can assume that Fortinet had to pay some sum to Trend Micro just to keep selling its product in the US. Considering just how obvious the "invention" is, it hardly seems likely that Fortinet needed Trend Micro's info to create its appliances -- but now it has to pay up just to keep selling. That doesn't seem like promoting innovation at all.

When Free Makes You More Money

Way back when WiFi was first becoming popular and all these businesses came out with plans to charge people monthly subscription rates or huge hourly rates and somehow expected to make money, a few people pointed out that the added expense of managing all of the billing and customer support probably outweighed all of the revenue from users. It would appear that one local WiFi operator now agrees. WiFi Networking News is reporting that MetroFi has done the math and is opening up all of their hotspots for free. They note that cutting out the customer acquisition costs and billing-related costs were adding up. However, by replacing the little bit of revenue they were making from subscribers with advertising revenue from a lot more subscribers (and the lower costs), they actually end up making a lot more money. It's not that surprising when you understand how all the factors play together, but it still seems like a good case study for those who got so angry claiming it was impossible to make money from "free."

Market Corrections: Offshoring To India Getting Expensive

A few years ago, when tech jobs were still difficult to come by there was a series of silly articles pushing for protectionist policies that would not let companies offshore jobs. It doesn't take a very thorough understanding of economics to see why this is a bad idea. It makes the US companies a lot less competitive, and simply makes them more likely to go completely out of business -- meaning those jobs would disappear anyway. However, that said, we've been pretty vocal from the beginning that those who were rushing to offshore jobs were ignoring the hidden costs of offshoring -- and that many would regret their decision to go offshore (something that proved to be true). It was usually done as a way to cover up a problem at home, with the hope that sending it overseas would magically fix the problem. The reality is that it often made it worse. Managing an overseas team can be quite difficult, and slow down the process considerably. However, more importantly, market inefficiencies only last for so long -- and some companies are noticing that offshore Indian developers are getting a lot more expensive and don't represent such a good buy any more.

Do They Make A Card That Says, "Look, We're Making Money Now"?

One of the most visible signs of the dot-com bubble was the $780 million buyout of e-card site Blue Mountain Arts by Excite@home in 1999. Just why anybody would pay nearly $1 billion for an e-cards site with no real business plan wasn't clear, and as part of its spectacular implosion, Excite dumped the property less than two years later for $35 million. But The New York Times reports that the online card industry is going through a resurgence, generating profits either through advertising or from subscription models. AmericanGreetings.com -- formed from the purchase of Blue Mountain Arts -- says it has 2.4 million subscribers at $14 per year, while a five-person company from the UK says it's got 527,000 paying about $8 yearly. Those are decent revenues, generating healthly profits, the companies say -- but certainly won't ever justify the dot-com-era prices.

Unbreakable Software Broken By Helpful Security Researcher?

Oracle is now facing a similar situation to the one that Microsoft faced a few weeks ago. After a vulnerability was exposed with Microsoft was slow to fix, an independent security researcher created his own patch to fix it -- which Microsoft reacted negatively to (though, they did speed up the release of their own patch). Oracle is in a similar situation. While they released a security patch recently, it didn't fix a security vulnerability that one researcher felt was particularly critical -- and not that difficult to fix. So he fixed it himself and released the patch. Now, Oracle is quite upset about the independent patch, claiming that just by releasing it, the researcher has alerted those with malicious intent to the flaw, while also claiming that fixing the security hole isn't as easy as the researcher made it out to be. However, here's where Oracle's spokesperson made a poor choice of words. For a while, Oracle had been marketing some of their products as "unbreakable" -- and even though they meant it in a very specific way, it still leaves them open to some amount of ridicule when they're quoted as saying: "We know it will break a number of Oracle products..." in discussing the security patch. If an independent security researcher trying to fix a vulnerability "breaks" your software, it's tough to see how it's "unbreakable."

Studio Embracing P2P While Missing The Point

Time Warner is apparently embracing P2P in parts of Europe, saying that the company is finally "changing" its business model. The actual details of the story show how little things have actually changed. In this case, it's mostly that Warner Brothers is using a tiny aspect of P2P as a publicity stunt. The rest of this is business as usual. They will allow downloads of movies and television shows. It sounds like it will be using a BitTorrent-like system that will share the bandwidth burden among people who already have the content. While the content won't have an expiration date, it will have copy protection that will require the content to "call home" to a central server. Warner Brothers will be releasing content for sale on this system at the same time as DVDs go on sale... but will charge the same amount as a DVD. So, basically, they're using P2P to lower their own costs. By going online, it saves them packaging costs. By going P2P it saves them in bandwidth costs. But, do they pass the savings on to customers? Hell no. Instead, they expect you to offer up your bandwidth to help them out. The only one getting any benefit here is the studio, which makes it seem unlikely that users will come rushing in.

Microsoft To Answer The $100 Laptop With Mobile Phones

The decision by Nicholas Negroponte to use open-source software in his $100 laptop for the world's poor instead of a special version of Windows CE ruffled some feathers at Microsoft, with Bill Gates described as being "privately bitter" about it. It upset them enough that the company is now working on its own similar project to get poor people online with mobile phones that have keyboards and adapters so they could be connected to TVs, with Microsoft saying that it's a better and more sustainable idea than laptops. It's not really clear that one solution is better than the other: on the face of it, giving people a computer might appear more useful, but there are plenty of examples of people using mobile phones for economic empowerment. The danger, though, is that the benefits of both ideas take a back seat to some sort of ego-driven battle over whose approach is best. The bottom line here should be to help people, not to create a giant PR platform for your company's products.

If nothing else could prove im a nerd ... atleast this post should

Someone had made a nerd test and now ppl are complaining its for geeks

Nerd:

Thanks for you pointing this out to me. You are not alone in this fight between the defining meaning of Nerd and Geek. I have had at least 20 emails in the past week. The "strange" thing is that half are applauding this quiz as the "Finally a quiz for me! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" The other half are, "HEY this is a GEEK quiz, arRgH!"

The funny thing about the whole thing is that I feel that they are all one-in-the-same. If I am called a geek, I gloat. If called a nerd, I gloat. I think the words should be combined into gerd or neek.

But being that I was bored, and was surfing eBay for collector slide rules, when I received your email. I figured I should research this further. Being that I am a neek (or gerd) I went to Google. I mostly found top-ten lists, and no really defining information could be found. Here is the link to the Google search I did:


Being unsatisfied, I went to an online dictionary, and found this out

From Merriam-Webster Online: (www.m-w.com)

Nerd:
Etymology: perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits

Geek:
Etymology: probably from English dialect geek, geck fool, from Low German geck, from Middle Low German
1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of

I frankly like the 1st definition of geek best :p...

Well, thanks for your input, and I hope you find this information useful. I think I will include the above information with the quiz so that others can benefit in this knowledge.

Darrell Sydlo
ChE2B

Note: If you have stepped upon this page via a search engine, and would like to take the quiz the above message is referring to, click here.



Btw if u still didn't get what im talking abt this pic will surely help u

Sony Puts AIBO Robot Dog To Sleep

Sony Corp. has officially euthanized the Sony AIBO entertainment robot and stopped development on its QRIO humanoid robot, the company said today.

Have Xbox 360 Sales Failed Microsoft?

Though Microsoft successfully pushed Xbox 360 out the door in North America, Europe and Japan by the end of last year, the launch hasn't been without troubles. Supply shortages and a less than stellar start in the land of the rising sun have blemished the company's otherwise ridiculously optimistic next-generation viewpoint.

Project Deep Blitz: Chess PC Takes on Deep Blue

Feature: PC hardware has advanced amazingly since 1997, when IBM's Deep Blue took on world chess grand master Gary Kasparov. But has it advanced enough to make it possible for a PC built with over-the-counter parts and software to compete with IBM's custom hardware and software? Guest contributor Ron Herardian has the answer.

On eBay, It Isn't Always What It Says It Is

theodp writes "Selling knockoffs isn't just for Times Square anymore. The NY Times reports that smaller eBay buyers and sellers are grumbling about the abundance of counterfeit pieces, and Tiffany has filed a lawsuit accusing eBay of facilitating counterfeiting, finding that three out of four 'Tiffany' pieces they secretly purchased on eBay were fakes. The Tiffany case threatens eBay's very business model, since it would be nearly impossible to police a site with 180M members and 60M items for sale." The article is actually really one-sided. There's a serious legal question concerning whether or not eBay has legal responsibility -- and, so far, the law is pretty clear that they don't. They're just the service provider and shouldn't have responsibility. The responsibility should fall on the sellers who are falsely advertising products. The law is pretty clear on that. However, from a PR standpoint, it would make sense for eBay to come up with a better solution for policing their own sellers. Another thought is that this should open up more opportunities for others to provide certification services for certain products. Either way, the idea that this is eBay's fault is simply shifting the blame to the easier, but not accurate, target.

For Just $8,699 You, Too, Can Control Your Oven Over The Web

For years and years, we've been hearing stories about internet connected appliances -- with most of the focus being on refrigerators. However, why stop there? One company is apparently using some NASA technology to create a internet connected oven that will set you back a cool $8,699. We've actually heard of similar things before, but this is the first one we've heard of actually being available. What's not entirely clear is how this is possibly worth nine thousand dollars and why it needed twelve years to develop. Twelve years? Was this originally intended to be run using Gopher or something?

Court Determines That Downloading Porn Qualifies As Making Porn

Child pornography is obviously a subject that gets a strong negative reaction from most people -- as it should. However, it gets a little worrisome when that reaction clouds legal judgment. We've had stories in the past of child porn busts based on very bad info, and now Jim submits a story about an appeals court in Michigan that has decided that downloading and putting child porn on a CD is "making" it under the law. The guy in question clearly had child porn, and should be punished accordingly -- but the question is whether he should be charged with "possession" or "making" it. Obviously, making it gets you more stringent penalties. However, the court has decided that the guy who downloaded it and burned it to a CD has, under its understanding, "made" the pornography. The folks over at Slashdot have quite a discussion going on this as well. While this case is likely to go up to the state Supreme Court before it's finally decided, it raises some questions for other, non-child porn, content as well. For example, with just regular movies and music, it could change the type of punishment the entertainment industry could go after for anyone caught burning content to a CD or DVD -- or even just moving content to an iPod

Companies Not So Interested In Talking To Congress About China

Late last week, we were a bit surprised that Congress had finally decided to investigate American companies agreeing to help the Chinese government censor content. It's been going on for many years and it was only when Google joined the party that Congress decided it was worth looking into the issue. Well, it appears that a few companies would rather not discuss the issue at all. Microsoft and Cisco have already turned down the invitation to attend the briefing, while Yahoo and Google are still considering the request. While the companies have every right not to send someone, it certainly could be portrayed by some as these firms not wanting to publicly discuss their dealings in China.

Bringing A New Definition To Ad Sales

We've been going on around here for years that companies need to have a much better understanding of the fact that advertisements are content, too. The point is that a good advertisement is one that not only educates people about a product or service, but that the ad itself is enjoyable to the point that people seek it out. The reasoning is that the concept of intrusive ads is going away. The captive audience is a dead concept. There's so much demand for anyone's attention right now that it's simply impossible to believe you can get away with intrusive advertising for long before people simply go elsewhere. So, you have to work on ways to make your advertising compelling in its own right. It would appear that the executives at ESPN have this mixed up a bit. The sports network seems to have bought into the vision of Steve Jobs' (suddenly their largest shareholder) a bit too much, and decided to start selling their classic commercials on iTunes for $2 a pop. Yes, they wanted you to buy a commercial for $2 (though, some say they couldn't access it, so it may have been a mistake). However, it didn't take long for the commercials to get a ton of negative feedback as people couldn't figure out why they should want to buy a 30-second commercial for $2 -- especially when they could see the entire commercial in the 30-second "preview" iTunes allows. It's great that they view ads as content, but that doesn't mean charging for them, but recognizing that there's promotional value in making them worth people seeking them out.

Comic Blames Text Messaging On Lack Of Laughs

A few years ago, some folks in Hollywood started complaining that text messaging was destroying the movie business. Their argument was that kids would see a movie and immediately text their friends saying how bad it was. In the past, it would take at least a week or so before the word of mouth messaging got around to let people not to go see a movie. However, with text messaging, apparently people would find out very quickly and not buy tickets. Of course, there was a simple solution: make better movies, because the same effect works both ways. However, now it appears that an offshoot of this complaint has reached a different industry. Textually reports that a comedian is complaining that text messaging is ruining his act, because people are sending his jokes on by SMS. The first night, his jokes kill, but after that everyone knows his jokes. Of course, you have to wonder how good a comic he is if his jokes lose all of their humor once known. A good comedian should also have timing and presentation on his or her side. Besides, how many people in the audience are seriously texting around all the jokes he makes? It seems that a much more likely reason for the lack of laughs was that he just wasn't particularly funny.