I'm reasonably certain that most (if not all) of the visitors here are, to one extent or another, fans of Science Fiction, so this may (or may not) be somewhat interesting. Or, perhaps not. Take it as you will.

1.) The Terminator series of robots are nothing more than an Anti-virus program gone horribly wrong.

2.) (somewhat involved, so bear with me) The event that occurred in the Star Trek TNG episode "Ship in a Bottle", where Geordi tells the holodeck computer to create a villain that can "beat Data", was exactly the same as what happened in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", when Arthur Dent asked the Nutri-matic Drink Dispenser to make him some tea. This is why networking computers is, ultimately, a REALLY BAD idea.

Just some thoughts that have occurred to me this morning. As I said, make of it what you will.

Found this post on Bad Astro Blog and thought I'd share it.
There is a Video too.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/05/ice-island-heading-south-off-labrador/

Hi guys, anyone know of anything, free open source or cheap as I am a tight wad.

I tried CamStudio but for some reason it does not pick up the audio...maybe I was missing something.

So far I have had most success with Fraps but it only does 30 seconds in the free version. I figured there has to be some free software somewhere that will do the capture job.

Or will I have to let the moths out ?

Cheers

This came up in the news feed here :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/13958630

It made me chuckle.

Found this article on the Bad Astronomy website.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/29/awesomely-weird-expanding-halo-of-light-seen-from-hawaii/#more-33949

If you don't agree with his explanation, then make up your own. I'm sure someone will believe it.

Here are two sites that I've been using recently to for images modifying, you might find them handy from time to time.


For Image reflections
http://www.generateit.net/reflection/index.htm

Put rounded corners on images.
http://www.roundpic.com/

And if you know any other ones, please post them too if you like.

WARNING! This is a rant!

First off, I want to state that I love my family. In general they're great folk. But sometimes I want to take away their computers and replace them with a box of crayons and some recycled newsprint.

Yesterday, I got an email from a sibling; it was one of those sendings that one usually just tosses in the round file without even really reading them. You know the kind; with cutsie sayings, or "funny" pictures, with "pass this along to all your friends", or "this is REALLY important, so make sure that everyone you know gets it". I think this one mentioned President Obama in it, but honestly the content didn't really matter. What DID matter was that said sibling sent that email to FIFTY people, with each and every email address placed in the "TO:" line!

This happens to me from time to time, and each time before, I would just delete the offending email and give a discreet word to the sender about why this behaviour is a bad thing. This time, however, something inside me snapped, and I decided to take action of a different sort.

What I did was to compose an email to myself, and I included every one of those addresses that I could see in the BCC line, so that everyone who got the same email that I had gotten would also get my missive, hopefully educating at least one person in the process. Below is the content of that email:

---

Many of you know me. Most of you don't. That's fine. For the sake of what I'm trying to accomplish, it doesn't matter whether you do or not. I don't send emails of the type you just received earlier today because I feel that it's a perversion of what email was originally intended for. That doesn't really matter, either. What matters is this: You received this email because your email address was visible to me in the email that I received from someone else on this list, and I'm trying to educate everyone I can as to why this is a bad thing. So please pay attention here.

Let's pretend that I'm not the nice person that I actually am. Let's, just for a moment, say that I don't treat everyone with respect, dignity and compassion. Let's imagine, instead, that I'm the sort of person who doesn't care about others. Since I no longer have any concern for you, and since I know of a great way to make money on the internet, I've just sold all of your email addresses to a company who sends out those "male enhancement", home mortgage, or Canadian pharmacy emails we all hate. There were fifty email addresses in the "To" line of that email you all got earlier, which makes your address visible to everyone else who received it. That's bad enough, but let's say I didn't get that email, but one that was forwarded to me at a later time. Emails zip around the world, and spread faster than any deadly contagious illness ever made, and each time an email is forwarded, any new entries in the "To" or "Carbon Copy" (CC) line are included, as well, and I've seen emails with SEVERAL HUNDRED email addresses visible. If only one person out...

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