The story goes as follows: In 1945, a gentleman named William Sianis tried to bring his billy goat to the World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Detroit Tigers. Now, while this might seem unusual, given that Mr. Sianis was the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago one can see that this was a brilliant marketing ploy. Due to personal hygiene problems (presumably the goat was the offender) Mr. Sianis was denied admission. Not a man to be taken lightly, he stood outside of Wrigley Field ...

I watch a lot of football at this time of year. Every single game that I watched had an ad for the new $20 bill. Not just a commercial, but an image of the new bill projected on the field. The image was at last 20' wide. All this to get me to accept a bill that I would have to use anyway. Looking at the massive images, I thought "Well, no wonder they are anticipating problems." Then a friend told me that the actual bills won't be that big. Good, 'cause I thought that I would have a hard time...

According to a new study reported in The Archives of Internal Medicine the number of severly obese people, people more than 100 pounds overweight, has increased dramatically. Based on a telephone study of 1.5 million adults conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 50 adults is severly obese. Compare that to 1986, when 1 in 200 adults was severly obese and you can see that we have a growing problem. During that same time the rate of moderate obesity roughly doubled, from ...

I don't hate Rush Limbaugh. Oh sure, I disagree with him strongly about most (well, maybe every) topic. But I don't hate him amd I find nothing joyful in his personal problems. And I don't understand why anyone would. When I came home today, I found that Michael Moore was in Ann Arbor, where I live. Mr. Moore was on a speaking tour for his new book "Dude, Where's My Country?" He had this to say about Rush Limbaugh: "I have been trying for the for the last 48 hours, with every single bone in m...

Princeton doctoral student John A. Halderman published an article about how easy it was to defeat some of the newly implemented anti-piracy measures- in this case as simple as pressing the Shift Key. Now SunnCom is suing him for bringing that defect to light. You can read John Halderman's original article here: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/cd3/ It hardly seems like a "pirate manifesto." John said "I find that the protections may have no effect on a large fraction of deployed PCs, and...

Inspired by an email written by a Toronto police officer to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Microsoft is developing new software to aid police in the fight against child pornography. After a particuarly difficult day, a Toronto police officer sent a note to Bill Gates about the difficulties that he faced. "To be real honest, I didn't expect anything back. I didn't even save the e-mail," said Det. Sgt. Paul Gillespie, a 25-year veteran of the Toronto force. Much to his surprise, three weeks ...

Today is my 48th birthday. I was born on September 30th, 1955 (coincidentally, the day that actor James Dean died.) As a self-indulgent bithday present, I would to share my thoughts on what has happened, what didn't happen and what has really surprised me. A personal perspective, leavened with a touch of humor! The Good- The Number 1 good thing on my list is a "non-event." No Atomic War. I was a little kid in the early Sixties. At the time of the Cuban Missle Crisis, I had just turned seven y...

I didn't know this until today, but Microsoft has a very thorough site devoted to their current research efforts. They list their current research projects, the names of their researchers and links for their recent publications. You can even download some SDK's and Beta versions. I will confess that much of what I found there is WAY over my head, but it is still worth a visit.

Software company Symantec, best known for anti-virus and security programs, has talen steps to acquire PowerQuest, the maker of Partition Magic and other storagte programs. By leveraging the strengths of the two companies, Symantec hopes to create a line of disaster recovery programs, tentatively called Active State Management. On the surface, both companies offer complimentary programs. Symantec, for example makes Ghost, a file back-up and recovery program. PowerQuest makes Drive Magic, a...

I read an interesting article in Time Magazine today entitled "Inside the War on Hamas." I have linked to it below. Two things are apparent to me: 1- Under the current state of affairs, no real peace process can go forward without the active participation of Hamas. I don't just mean peace between Israel and the Palestinians, I mean peace in the entire region. Please note also that I began by saying "Under the current state of affairs." 2- Hamas has little or no incentive to participate in a...

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is donating $51 million to the City of New York to create small, academically rigorous high-schools to help students prepare for successful careers. “Nearly one of three eighth graders in America today will not graduate from high school,” said Bill Gates. “New York City is demonstrating how we can bring our schools into the 21st century to make sure that all students, not just a select few, are prepared for college and the workplace. Our country’s civic, ...

This week two of my favorite musicians passed away. Johnny Cash, the legendary Man in Black, and Warren Zevon, the Excitable Boy, both joined the celestial choir this week. Their songs were important to me and I will miss them both. In memorial, I would just like to share the impact that they had on my life. I would never have said that I liked country music until I heard Johnny Cash perform "A Boy Named Sue." (Written by children's story writer Shel Silverstein, I should add.) The song is wi...

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By 3 PM, the Pentagon reported that 50 Tomahawk missiles had been fired, joined by 40 bomber and fighter aircraft that targeted sites around several Afghan cities. The targets were essentially strategic sites, chosen to cripple the Taliban's airpower. Many US allies, including Israel, defended the United States actions. British Prime Minister Tony Blair told his nation that the Taliban had been “given the choice of siding with justice or siding with terror, and they chose to side with terror.” ...