2007 Worst Jobs in Science

Number 6: Microsoft Security Grunt
Like wearing a big sign that reads "Hack Me"

Do you flinch when your inbox dings? The people manning secure@microsoft.com receive approximately 100,000 dings a year, each one a message that something in the Microsoft empire may have gone terribly wrong. Teams of Microsoft Security Response Center employees toil 365 days a year to fix the kinks in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and all the behemoth´s other products. It´s tedious work. Each product can have multiple versions in multiple languages, and each needs its own repairs (by one estimate, Explorer alone has 300 different configurations). Plus, to most hackers, crippling Microsoft is the geek equivalent of taking down the Death Star, so the assault is relentless. According to the SANS Institute, a security research group, Microsoft products are among the top five targets of online attack. Meanwhile, faith in Microsoft security is ever-shakier-according to one estimate, 30 percent of corporate chief information officers have moved away from some Windows platforms in recent years. "Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place," says Marcus Sachs, the director of the SANS Internet Storm Center. "They have to patch so much software on a case-by-case basis. And all in a world that just doesn´t have time to wait."


The rest are here. At least I am not a Whale Feces researcher...

Believers

I have often thought there are 3 kinds of religious believers:
A: Those who actually, truely and completely believe.
B: Those who .. kind of believe, mostly because everyone else does or they buy Pascal's Wager.
C: Those who are too smart to believe but who have no skills or are too lazy to make a living any other way.

With this in mind, I present Mike Huckabee, Class C Believer (and a homecoming queen).

What's the Word?

Thunderbird!

The history of Thunderbird is as interesting as the drunken effects the one experiences from the wine. When Prohibition ended, Ernest Gallo and his brothers Julio and Joe wanted to corner the young wine market. Earnest wanted the company to become "the Campbell Soup company of the wine industry" so he started selling Thunderbird in the ghettos around the country. Their radio adds featured a song that sang, "What's the word? / Thunderbird / How's it sold? / Good and cold / What's the jive? / Bird's alive / What's the price? / Thirty twice." It is said that Ernest once drove through a tough, inner city neighborhood and pulled over when he saw a bum. When Gallo rolled down his window and called out, "What's the word?" the immediate answer from the bum was, "Thunderbird."

Crystal Meth: Friend or Foe?

And other Science Faire Projects.

(via)

Obituary Corrections

Brian [2:11 PM]:
i wish i knew how to crack web sites
then i could change this obit: EMMA BEALE The angels came to the home of Emma Beale, 61, of Alkol, Lincoln County, to take her to be with her Lord Jesus on Saturday, February 9, 2008.
to: EMMA BEALE The angels came to the home of Emma Beale, 61, of Alkol, Lincoln County, and KILLED HER on Saturday, February 9, 2008.

I think it should be more like:
EMMA BEALE The angels came to the home of Emma Beale, 61, of Alkol, Lincoln County, to take her to be with her Lord Jesus on Saturday, February 9, 2008. Unfortunately, Jesus knew all about her secret gambling addiction, internet white slave trafficing and that roll of butterscotch life savers she stole from Mr. Bitter's Corner Emporium when she was 4. He passed judgement damning her immortal soul for longer than the universe has existed. Even with the possibility of last-moment redemption so close, she condemmed herself to the Lake of Eternal Fire by noting that Jesus perpetually seeping wounds made him look kind of "hunky" and wondered if that was the "rough trade" she'd heard tell about. Her soul will bake for 10 billion years in the lake before being transfered to the Beach of Flaying and Scraping in what is know in the 4th circle as "standard punishment 7". A Memorial will be held at Saint Albert the Great on Sunday, 2-4pm. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the United Way and the Knights of Columbus. Glory!

Playing Jesus to the Lepers in Your Head Just Got Much Easier

With new microwave/acoustic technology, those voices just *might* be real....

Because the frequency of the sound heard is dependent on the pulse characteristics of the RF energy, it seems possible that this technology could be developed to the point where words could be transmitted to be heard like the spoken word, except hat it could only be heard within a person's head. In one experiment, communication of the words from one to ten using "speech modulated" microwave energy was successfully demonstrated. Microphones next to the person experiencing the voice could not pick up the sound. Additional development of this would open up a wide range of possibilities.

I'm getting one of these for the next State of the Union Speech....

The Brits are Different

and, seemingly, have a lot of time on their hands.