"Ongoing research compiled over the weekend suggests that Chinese threats of a hacker attack on US Web sites is continuing to build, says Vigilinx, the risk assessment service company. "
"US and Chinese hackers have turned the (spy plane) incident into a personal hacking war. Vigilinx says that pro-American hackers have hacked over 100 Chinese Web sites since early April, and a concerted Chinese hack is planned for the beginning Tuesday (May 1) . "
"'At least two sources (Qianlong and ChinaByte) have tied the threatened hacktivist action to the Hackers Union of China (aka Honkers Union of China, Red Guests an Red Guest Union), and various reports say the action will be called the '51 Network War of National defense' (wu yi wei guo wang zhan).'"
51? Should we call this hacker fight the "Area 51 War?"
based on an article by By Steve Gold, Newsbytes
Oxford University has teamed up with United Devices, as well as Intel, to work on a cure for cancer. The project looks to use the unused power from PCs to process information from a central server. The university quoted studies that showed average office workers using as little as 20% of the available power on their computers. The unused power would then be used to process information on molecules...
... So they're hoping Windows 2000 will cure cancer? WE'RE DOOMED! I can't even get it to run my Internet browser correctly...
from Comedy on Tap
"I want to know what good is a web search engine that returns 324,909,188 'matches' to my key word. That's like saying, "Good news, we've located the product you're looking for. It's on Earth."
-Bruce Cameron, from "Clean Laffs"
If People Bought Cars Like They Buy Computers
General Motors doesn't have a "help line" for people who don't know how to drive, because people don't buy cars like they buy computers -- but imagine if they did ...
HELPLINE: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "I got in my car and closed the door, and nothing happened!"
HELPLINE: "Did you put the key in the ignition slot and turn it?"
CUSTOMER: "What's an ignition?"
HELPLINE: "It's a starter motor that draws current from your battery and turns over the engine."
CUSTOMER: "Ignition? Motor? Battery? Engine? How come I have to know all of these technical terms just to use my car?"
..............................
HELPLINE: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "My car ran fine for a week, and now it won't go anywhere!"
HELPLINE: "Is the gas tank empty?"
CUSTOMER: "Huh? How do I know?"
HELPLINE: "There's a little guage on the front panel, with a needle, and markings from 'E' to 'F.' Where is the needle pointing?"
CUSTOMER: "It's pointing to 'E.' What does that mean?"
HELPLINE: "It means that you have to visit a gasoline vendor, and purchase some more gasoline. You can install it yourself, or pay the vendor to install it for you."
CUSTOMER: "What!? I paid $12,000 for this car! Now you tell me that I have to keep buying more components? I want a car that comes with everything built in!"
..............................
HELPLINE: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "Your car sucks!"
HELPLINE: "What's wrong?"
CUSTOMER: "It crashed, that's what went wrong!"
HELPLINE: "What were you doing?"
CUSTOMER: "I wanted to run faster, so I pushed the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor. It worked for a while, and then it crashed -- and now it won't start!"
HELPLINE: "It's your responsibility if you misuse the product. What do you expect us to do about it?"
CUSTOMER: "I want you to send me one of the latest versions that doesn't crash anymore!"
Contributed by Kathy
HELPLINE: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "Hi! I just bought my first car, and I chose your car because it has automatic transmission, cruise control, power steering, power brakes, and power door locks."
HELPLINE: "Thanks for buying our car. How can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "How do I work it?"
HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?"
CUSTOMER: "Do I know how to what?"
HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?"
CUSTOMER: "I'm not a technical person! I just want to go places in my car!"
..............................
Users of Microsoft's Office program have inevitably seen him, the cheerfully happy all-to-eager to help animated paper clip: "Clippy."
He's so eager to help, especially when you don't need it, and double-especially when he annoys you so much he slows you down.
The "Barney" of the computer world.
Now, in what most feel is a long-overdue move, Microsoft says it's newest Office software, Office XP, will not have "Clippy." In an unsually light-hearted move (for Microsoft), they made a webpage and animation about his layoff.
Darn, another advantage of the Mac, "No Clippy," is gone.
I saw the following on the Freefall comic bulliten board:
"Latest thing I heard on Gene-splicing was some one crossed a little bit of spider into some goats. The end result is goats milk from which you can extract a huge about of spider silk from."
"I have to wonder about the cheese." :)
And I answered:
"My guess is it would look and taste normal, but a cartoonist can have a field day with such a thing - coating a strip of flypaper with such a substance, and any flies landing on it for a tasty meal would be stuck."
How is an office clerk fired?
Defiled.
How is a programmer fired?
Decoded.
from Cofeebreak
Due to growing privacy concerns, President Bush has decided to cease all email correspondence since moving into the White House...
The President told the American Society of Newspaper Editors, "I used to be an avid e-mailer, and I e-mailed to my daughters or e-mailed to my father, for example, and I don't want those e-mails to be in the public domain"...
... Like anybody could decipher his spelling, anyway...
from Comedy on Tap
"This guy is building a spaceship in his backyard. It's planned to go fast and go far. He wants to fly around Jupiter and party around Mars":
from Coffeebreak
In the news recently, some announced their plans to clone Dracula: News Article
Cloning Dracula? Man, that just bites. It really s ...
I wonder what line of work the clone will be taking? Laywer? IRS agent?
How Did The Colored Seas Get Their Names?
(Okay, this is a geography joke and not a sci-fi one, but still interesting)
Many children at school wonder why this sea was the Red Sea and that sea was the White Sea, but they hesitate to ask the teacher why. Here are the answers:
Whenever floods occur, yellow mud is carried into the sea, giving it a yellow color. That is how the Yellow Sea got its name.
The Black Sea has no outlet, and because it is entirely landlocked, its deficiency in oxygen at a depth of 200 meters gives it a high concentration of hydrogen sulfide. This comes from the decomposed bacteria that drift down from above, resulting in a black color. And so the Black Sea got its name.
The Red Sea got its name because there is an everrecurring bloom of small algae that gives the seas its permanent look of red.
Because the White Sea is covered with ice for more than 200 days a year, and has a white appearance so much of the time, it is called the White Sea.
Unfortunately, due to so much pollution in the Danube River, anyone taking a boat ride is lucky if he sees any blue at all in what is called the Blue Danube.
from Coffeebreak
Based on the model of the brain cell, scientists in Russia are claiming that they have developed the first artificial brain. This "neuro-computer" is using new findings in neurophysiology to create an intellectual, thinking machine. Scientist Vitaly Valtsev stated, "It's extremely important for us to make it a friend, not a criminal or an enemy"...
... I wonder what they'll do the first time the brain says, "Your system of government stinks on ice"...?
from "Comedy on Tap"
"I love to mess with their minds."
Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Pittsburgh report that they have been able to grow everything from human muscle and bone to cartilage when they did research on stem cells taken from fat. The scientists isolate the cells from the fat, which is removed by liposuction, and they then assist it in growing into a specified type of tissue...
... Well, now "big-boned" WILL mean "fat"
from Comedy on Tap
Here's a story about how to terraform Mars with some very interesting plants: Space Plants Get Glowing Review
" 'Panels of experts' are nothing new in Washington, but when a panel of experts says UFOs are real, it tends to raise a few eyebrows" Panel Calls for Congressional UFO Hearings
In 1972, came the first electric power fueled by garbage...
... The junk in my apartment could run a city for a year...
From Comedy on Tap
In the news, some NASA planes are going to help coffee growers by using ariel studies to see when the best time to pick the beans is: News Article
With help from above, hopefully the coffee will turn out heavenly.
PPL Therapeutics, the Scottish based company that also worked on cloning the famous sheep Dolly have taken cloning another step further, this time with a litter of five transgenic cloned pigs. If the piglets survive, it is researchers hope that they may be able to engineer pigs whose organs will not be rejected if they are transplanted into human patients ...
... You'll have a human pig's heart, a human pig's liver, a human pig's tail ... oops...
from Comedy on Tap
Saw this in the news: Professor set to 'control' wife by cyborg implant
Can't you just see the femminist groups about to use this in their ads.
An alternate fuel is being developed for diesel engines, made from recycled cooking oil: News Article The main benefit is a vehicle that instead of sooty exhaust leaves behind the smell of fries.
Two things: One, wouldn't this just replace one problem with another - the fry smell would make people so hungry they'd blimp out from all those extra stops at the burger joints?
Second, somehow "You want motor oil with that?" doesn't sound as catchy.
Moonhoax - "This web site looks at the 'evidence' that the conspiracy theorists present to prove their notion that NASA faked the whole thing, while at the same time not actually being very good at it.Ê Much of this 'evidence' is so transparently moronic you'll wonder just how anyone believes it."
Looks like Pizza Hutt sent some specially made pizzas to the Space Station: News Article
Two things: first, how many "This pizza is out of this world" jokes were there?
Second, will they use this in a "we deliver anywhere" commercial?
"Joel Bellenson is CEO of Digi-scents is working to bring odors to the computer. Its iSmell device plugs into your computer or video game console like a printer. Inside is a cartridge that can reproduce thousands of 'naturally based vapors' based on software developed by Digi-scents." - Games & Smell-o-vision .
Now overhyped games quite literally can stink.
A recent photograph taken of the "Face on Mars" has further dimmed the idea that there could have been such a formation there, revealing only a moutain range that showed little resemblance to the Viking picture. So what must've happened was the first picture was taken when the sun was at a certain angle: News Article
Looks like the Life on Mars enthusiasts have "lost face."
Pizza Hutt found an inderect way to advertise in space by sending pizza. Too bad NASA won't allow advertising for real:
"We at Perdue decides to give NASA a little help by providing them with a few bucks" ...
:::cut to chickens in weightlessness going 'buck, buck, buck' :::
Password -
A guy did system support in a law firm. One day, he had to log a user off and then back on. He entered her initials and then she gave me her password.
Her password was "genius".
After three tries and the system telling him "access denied," he asked her how to spell it.
She said, "G - E - N - I - O - U - S."
from IB Laffing
"Spam's squabble with cyberspace is done.
Hormel Foods Corp. (HRL.N), the maker of the legendary spiced lunch meat made of pork shoulders and ham and creator of the Spamburger Hamburger, says it can live with Spam's double meaning as junk electronic mail.
In a message posted on the official Spam Web site (www.spam.com/ci/ci-in.htm), Hormel says it has no qualms with the alternate meaning as long as one writes SPAM, the meat, in all capital letters, and spam, the unsolicited e-mail, in lowercase.
'We do not object to use of this slang term,' the Spam Web site states, 'although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term.' "
Now how much spam would a SPAM spam SPAM (inc.) , if a SPAM could spam SPAM (inc.).
based on article from Daniel Sorid
