MILITANTPLATYPUS

Archive for the 'Monday Morning News' Category

Security

F-Secure sees smaller botnets on the rise

LA Airport Uses Random Numbers To Catch Terrorists

Windows Update update screws updating

Freeware of the week

FLV Player - Standalone FLV player for Windows

News of the Weird

These ballots can’t be stuffed

Man finds human leg in smoker purchased at auction

Just when Internet newspaper sites appear to be gaining ground as replacements for printed editions, a 70-year-old woman identified only as Maggie told the Edmonton (Alberta) Sun in September that her paper edition of the Sun is a crucial part of her daily diet, literally. She eats it, in strips, and has, she said, for the past seven years because it tastes good. “I can’t explain it,” she said, and it was only when she recently experienced a blockage of her esophagus, and doctors found a ball of paper, that she revealed her obsession. Doctors cited by the Sun said that except for the blockage danger, newspaper eating is not unhealthful. [Edmonton Sun, 9-5-07]

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Posted in Monday Morning News 8:47 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

New version of Gmail being tested

Starbucks To Start Up iTunes Wi-Fi Store with 50 Million Free Songs

Microsoft readies “Halo 3″ for launch

Australian Web Censorship Continues Down The Slippery Slope

Feeling tinfoilish? $5 billion suit against Google over privacy, terrorism - “Mr. Jayne has filed suit against Google and its founders for supposed “crimes against humanity,” aiding terrorism, and putting his personal safety at risk.”

Institute urges the EU to unbundle Windows

T-Mobile Kiosk: We Unlock iPhones!

Security

Critical Acrobat Reader security flaw exposes Windows to arbitrary exploits

Myspace to launch ad-supported cell phone

New $5 Bill Debuts

Freeware of the Week

Foxit Reader

News of the Weird

Tech worker dies in vat of sulfuric acid

Australian Navy Pays for Breast Implants

A Lake Charles, La., man was killed in August by a single gunshot, which was explained by Sheriff Tony Mancuso: “(The man and his girlfriend) were engaged in consensual sexual behavior involving a firearm when the firearm was discharged, resulting in his death.” [KPLC-TV (Lake Charles), 8-2-07]

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Posted in Monday Morning News 8:21 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

Tonight there will a total eclipse of the moon. I have the best times to see the eclipse for the US below. To find more information, or viewing times for the rest of the world: nasa.gov

click for bigger

Coming to grips with the iPhone’s design

Facebook plans to offer targeted ads

Embattled Attorney General Resigns

Model train software spat threatens future of open source

Acer buys Gateway

AllofMP3 To Rise From The Dead

Fully SIM Unlocked iPhones

Security

Comcast Cuts Off Heavy Internet Users - though no limit is listed

No Harm, No Foul In Yet Another Data Leak Case

Clearing the air: Bioshock does not contain a rootkit

Freeware of the week

Pandora Desktop Player 1.5 - Listen to Pandora from your systray.

News of the Weird

Fake money doesn’t fool Tenn. strippers

Cheveon Ford, 21, was arrested in Pensacola, Fla., in July and charged with making false 911 calls; according to authorities, Ford’s only explanation was that he had no more minutes on his phone and knew that 911 calls were free. [WFTV (Orlando), 7-25-07]

Copy the character below into your address bar, and start typing.
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‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉ Cool Huh?!?!

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Posted in Monday Morning News 10:05 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead

Zune 2nd Gen Confirmed

Canadian valley aims to keep cell phone-free quiet

Flash Alternatives Blessed by Google

Next Version of Windows: Call it 7

DVRs In Nearly Half U.S. Homes By 2010

Security

IPhone Flaw Lets Hackers Take Over, Security Firm Says

Potter Publisher Says Selling Legally Obtained Copy Is Illegal

Spammers dump images, switch to PDF files

Freeware of the Week

VLC media player

News of the Weird

Prisoners Figure Copyright Abuse Is A Way To Get Out Of Jail

Pupils browse porn on donated laptops

Pablo Castro, 26, was sent to the hospital twice in Decatur, Ala., on June 24, once after being stabbed in an argument and, after his release later that day, being stabbed again while arguing with a different person.

And Tony Hicks was hospitalized in Knoxville, Tenn., for separate wounds on July 1, 2 and 3; he was hit by a car one night, then released from the hospital the next day, but was back in after an intruder attacked him in his home, and after his release the next day, he was back after police shot him in connection with a robbery.
[Decatur Daily, 6-26-07] - [WBIR-TV (Knoxville)-AP, 7-5-07]

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Posted in Monday Morning News 8:26 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

Samsung may be eyeing up AMD

E3 2007: The wrap-up

QuickTime Web Movie Secrets - O’Reilly

Wireless USB devices

“DVR” added to Merriam-Webster dictionary

Intel announces Extreme mobile CPU

The Facebook lawsuit that hasn’t gone away

Security

Confirmed: Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM cracked (again)

Crazy cyber-jihadi emails planned death for Mayport, FL

Firefox attack uses Internet Explorer

Freeware of the Week

Full FTP client in your browser

News of the Weird

Pushing tourism in a drug stronghold

11-year-old girl charged with DUI after leading Alabama police on high speed chase

Andres Vasquez, 20, of Verona, Ky., initially told the 911 operator in May that someone had “thrown” his truck on top of him, but he finally admitted he was drunk, had had a one-vehicle accident, was trapped upside-down and was in dire pain, fading in and out for over two hours to the dispatcher. The operators pleaded the entire time for Vasquez to just say where he was so that they could send a rescue party, but, as the Kentucky Enquirer put it, “When repeatedly asked his location, (Vasquez’s) answer was always the same: ‘I’m under the (expletive) truck.’” (He finally gave a clue and was rescued.) [Kentucky Enquirer, 5-18-07]

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Posted in Monday Morning News 9:33 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox

787 Dreamliner launch a big deal

Can Beijing get its 3G act together for 2008 Olympics?

BBC stumbles on email list

Google grabs Postini for $625 million

Why the iPhone Lacks a Wi-Fi Service Plan

Why Microsoft’s Xbox bill will rise to $3 billion

Security

Spammers overcome Hotmail and Yahoo CAPTCHA systems

Geek Squader gets fruity with customer porn

Windows Vista SP1 Beta - Mid July

Freeware of the Week

3dmailbox
- via trfj

News of the Weird

Man’s smelly feet trigger police raid

Stretch your talents as a condom tester..

Police in Guelph, Ontario, were on the lookout in May for the man they thought responsible for three incidents in which someone approached a woman and asked that she kick him in the groin. A police spokesman said no crime had been committed, but that they are “concerned.” [Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader-AP, 5-28-07]

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Posted in Monday Morning News 8:33 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

Militantplatypus is going on vacation!
I am off to Maine to see my best friend get married. I will leave this Thursday, and be back to blogging next Tuesday. I will make sure to put a bunch of posts in the pipline, and I also have another blogger that you should check out in my absense.

A Dog or a Cat? New Tests to Fool Automated Spammers

Google files antitrust complaints against Microsoft: report

Indian Offshoring Firm… Offshoring To Mexico

Skype goes out to mobile phones

Microsoft hints at general plan for IE 8

Adobe blasts Apollo into beta through AIR

Security

Yahoo releases critical security patch for IM

Best Buy Lawyer Admits He Falsified Documents in MSN Case

Yahoo weighs in on free speech in China

Freeware of the Week

azureus - All your BitTorrent needs

News of the Weird

Randy sniffer dogs get the sack

In West Des Moines, Iowa, Rob Lowe’s golf ball hits state bird in mid-flight

Spectacular: Last year (according to a March 2007 Associated Press report), a computer technician for the Alaska Department of Revenue accidentally erased a disk containing all the data for paying the state’s 600,000 residents their annual oil-revenue dividends, and a duplicate disk was also erased, and the fail-safe backup tape was discovered to be unreadable. It took two months of around-the-clock work for state employees to re-computerize all paper records. [CNN-AP, 3-20-07]

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Posted in Monday Morning News 8:34 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

iPhone Release Date Officially Set for June 29

Homing in on a plan for cellular 911

Google et al. Want 700 MHz Auction Opened Up

Honda to Use Clean Diesel Instead of Hybrid Powertrain For Next Accord

Palm sells 25 pct. stake to buyout firm

The camera behind Google Maps 360-degree View

Nielsen: Ratings drop nonexistent when DVRs are accounted for

Mozilla says Firefox 1.5 is dead - Get 2.0

Security

Stealthy attack method causes concern

ChoicePoint Promises To Write ‘Personal Information Should Be Protected’ 500,000 Times, Promises Not To Do It Again

Patched Macs Vulnerable to Samba Bug

Freeware of the Week

tcp\QP - Measure your bandwidth

News of the Weird

Corgi eating artist sets mashed potato target

Check Mistake

At least five convicted sex offenders in Florida’s Miami-Dade County have their official residence in a makeshift encampment underneath a bridge on the Julia Tuttle Causeway to Miami Beach, with the blessing of the state Department of Corrections, according to an April report by CNN. Officials say that the state’s tough zoning law for sex offenders bars the offenders from most neighborhoods in the county because they are too close to where children congregate (and some sex offenders maintain regular homes even though they can’t live in them because of the zoning law). The causeway camp, officials say, at least keeps the men visible to probation officers. [CNN, 4-5-07]

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Posted in Monday Morning News 8:01 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

FAQ: 21st-century guide to indoor lighting

Microsoft Passes One Million Mark With Zune

NEC staff caught faking orders, taking kickbacks - to the tune of $18 billion

T-Mobile parent invests in upstart Jajah

Nissan Warns Drivers: Don’t Put Mobile Phones Near Our Keys

Sony to Ship HD Radios in July

FTC probing proposed $3.1B Google deal

Security

Security Bites Podcast: Skype worm jumps apps

Germany adopts “anti-hacker” law; critics say it breeds insecurity

Best Buy Or Bait And Switch?

Freeware of the Week

Remove It Permanently - Get rid of those stupid floating ads

News of the Weird

Gay pub wins right to ban straights

Woman gives birth in a car — twice

Nigerian Internet scams were thought for years to be so transparently fraudulent that they would work only on the very gullible, who would send thousands of dollars overseas in the naive expectation of receiving millions in return. However, it was also too good to pass up for a professional money manager, the longtime treasurer of Alcona County, Mich., Thomas Katona, who admitted in court in January 2007 that he had lost $1.25 million of taxpayer money, plus his own life’s savings, in a Nigerian scam. [Detroit Free Press, 1-18-07]

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Posted in Monday Morning News 8:32 am by MILITANTPLATYPUS

Monday Morning News

Amazon snaps up Digital Photography Review - Dpreview.com

SKorea’s LG Philipps develops first A4 colour e-paper

Toyota Charges Ahead With Hybrids

Microsoft lifts shroud off Halo 3 to mixed reviews

RFID being tapped to stifle exam cheaters

US soldiers banned from using Youtube

iPods Can Cause PaceMaker Malfunctions?

Security

Thailand Goes For Internet Censorship With An Anti-Circumvention Twist

Massive DDoS attacks target Estonia; Russia accused

Symantec: malware can hijack Windows Update, bypass firewall

Freeware of the Week

sandboxie - a safe place to try a new program

News of the Weird

Fistfight mars Boston Pops’ opening night

Paris Hilton sculpture shows heiress in deadly pose

In March three homeless men were awarded $10,000 each in a settlement with the city of Las Vegas because they were arrested in November for violating a since-repealed ordinance. The men had been cited for “illegally” sleeping within 500 feet of public urine or feces (a restriction the city thought would drive the homeless to isolated parts of town to relieve themselves and/or to sleep.) [Las Vegas Sun-AP, 3-29-07]

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