mordant wit

No, you won't be able to see it from space, but Saudi Arabia, unnerved by the violence next door in Iraq, plans to spend up to $7 billion on a partly virtual fence along its 500-mile border with Iraq. The ultramodern barrier will combine fencing, electronic sensors and sand berms. Saudi and U.S. sources tell TIME the kingdom is seeking bids from contractors, including U.S. defense giant Raytheon. (A Raytheon spokesman says the Saudis asked the company not to comment.)

Saudi diplomats say the fence is intended to stop weapons and drug smuggling and illegal immigration. But they admit they fear that Iraq's sectarian fighting and jihadi militancy could spill south. "We're worried about the war in Iraq coming into Saudi Arabia and spreading into the whole region," says Nail al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington. "Having some of these guys heading toward the Saudi border is something we want to make sure doesn't happen."

While good fences may make good neighbors, this one will not ensure Saudi Arabia's security. The kingdom has had at least five deadly terrorist attacks since 2003, and some of the perpetrators were homegrown.

Polaroid-o-nizer

Computer programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis testifies under oath before the U.S. House Judiciary Members in Ohio. [Video]

A partial transcript:

Are there computer programs that can be used to secretly fix elections?
Yes.

How do you know that to be the case?
Because in October of 2000, I wrote a prototype for Congressman Tom Feeney [R-FL]...

It would rig an election?
It would flip the vote, 51-49. Whoever you wanted it to go to and whichever race you wanted to win.

And would that program that you designed, be something that elections officials... could detect?
They'd never see it.


The link to the video.

Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) was shot by Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince using the Le Prince single-lens camera. It lasts for less than 2 seconds and includes 4 frames.

Cell Phone of the Future

Bush Now Says What He Wouldn’t Say Before War: Iraq Had ‘Nothing’ To Do With 9/11


If Iraq wasn't involved in it, and had nothing to do with it, I fail to understand how they could pose a threat to American interests.

How the American news media is dumbing down

A group of Indian television journalists allegedly gave a man matches and diesel to help him commit suicide in order to get dramatic footage which was later broadcast on the news, police said on Thursday.

The man died from severe burns to his body in hospital in Gaya town in the eastern state of Bihar on August 15, India's Independence Day.

Footage of the man, screaming and writhing in pain as he ran with his back on fire, was aired on several television channels. Police identified the man as Manoj Mishra.

"We have seized footage clearly showing a group of journalists handing over matches and some inflammable substance - which we later verified to be diesel - to the victim," acting Gaya police chief PK Sinha said.

Mishra, who worked as a delivery man, was upset over what he said was a large sum of money owed to him by a state-run dairy farm whose milk he transported to customers, police said.

"We have prepared charges for abetment against the journalists. There were five to six of them who were conspirators in this suicide attempt which is a criminal offence," Sinha said, adding that arrests were expected shortly.

The TV crews left the scene without aiding Mishra who suffered burns to over 70 percent of his body, Sinha said.

Indian law says a person can be sentenced to up to 10 years imprisonment for aiding a suicide.

There has been an explosion of private TV news channels in recent years in India, each competing aggressively for exclusive stories and dramatic footage.

These channels often show graphic footage of victims of bomb blasts and other violence as well as partly blurred pictures of sex acts while exposing scandals as part of sting operations.

They also have shown marital spats between husbands and wives or between wives and their husbands' mistresses.

18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work

Ridiculous diagram for a ridiculous patent

The IAU has proposed a new definition for planets that brings the tally to 12. See them all!

Scientists don't entirely agree on whether kissing is learned or instinctive. Experts estimate that hundreds or even millions of bacterial colonies move from one mouth to another during a kiss. Yet anthropologists report that 90 percent of the people in the world kiss.

The US has now been in Iraq longer than it fought Germany in WWII.

High quality renders

Hmmm... I thought for a second, maybe it's the icons. But no, the icons are pretty modern with all the gradients and stuff you would expect of any modern app. Then? Suddenly I realised what it was! The default Windows XP UI!! I was basically exploring the UI of certain apps to figure out why some were uglier than others.

But then I thought, hey I am on windows. If the windows UI was so ugly then why don't I find all the other apps ugly too?That is when I started noticing this. How many programs of everday use *really* use the Windows native UI? Lets take a look.

First lets see the programs running in my system tray -

* Windows Messenger
* Yahoo Messenger
* Google Talk
* Outlook 2k3
* ZoneAlarm
* AVG Anti Virus
* LeechGet
* Copernic Desktop Search

Guess what, NONE of the above programs use the native Windows look and feel!!!

Then I look at my Quick Launch bar which is to the side of the Start Button.Here I just keep (instead of the 'Show Desktop' button)

* Winamp
* Itunes

NO windows native UI in these either!

Now I really start thinking. Here are some of the most commonly used programs which *don't* use native windows look and feel-

* Everything in MS office (word, excel, etc)
* Visual Studio
* Windows Media Player

Actually NONE of MS programs have the native windows look and feel. Talk about following what you preach! Anyway continuing with our list -

* Ad Aware
* Macromedia Dreamweaver
* Adobe Reader
* Opera
* WinDVD
* Quick Time
* Real Player

And of course a lot more.

In fact after noticing this I tried to see what programs that I frequently use on my computer *do* have the native look, and here is what I found -

* Eclipse
* Firefox
* Solitare :)

So the next time you find that a UI is ugly, don't blame the programmers, they were just following the MS guidelines for Windows apps :)

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he essentially was too busy to testify at a public hearing on the Iraq war, raising a new furor on Capitol Hill over the three-year-old conflict.

The war is now part of the global conflict between the U.S. and radical Islam


Something radically new is emerging in the Middle East: the century-old Arab-Israeli dispute has been transmuted from a nationalist to a religious war. And as a result, the Arab-Israeli wars are now merging into the global conflict between radical Islam and the West.

The transformation was swift in coming. Hamas' electoral landslide in Palestine just six months ago marked the political death of Yasser Arafat and the secular, vaguely socialist and entirely nationalist movement he represented. Hamas is fighting not to create a 23rd Arab state but, as its charter explains, to recover "an Islamic Waqf." Meaning? Territory claimed under the Islamic precept that "any land the Muslims have conquered by force ... during the times of [Islamic] conquests" more than a millennium ago belongs to Muslims forever because "the Muslims consecrated these lands to Muslim generations until the Day of Judgment."

In the first period of the Arab-Israeli dispute, Israel was at war with pan-Arabism, the idea of essential Arab unity across states and the rejection of any non-Arab state in their region. Pan-Arabism was humiliated by Israel's six-day victory in the 1967 war. The subsequent death of Egyptian President Nasser, who instigated that disaster, accelerated pan-Arabism's decline. Its final collapse occurred when its last great proponent, Saddam Hussein, was swept away in 2003. The successor Arab rulers no longer dream of a single Arab state and have grudgingly come to accept a small Jewish state in part of Palestine. Hence the peace treaties that Egypt and Jordan signed with Israel.

It's the only fully automatic legal in all 50 states and is recommended for kids of ALL ages. I would hate to see some 3 year old aiming one of these at me. 12 rotating barrels filled with 12 rubber bands each = 144 welts & it's only $395.00!

A man who wants to pay "every penny" of his fine for careless driving in one penny pieces has been banned from paying the £40 instalments in copper.

Michael Rees, 41, of Tonteg, south Wales, was told the court did not have accept the 4,000 coins he brought in.

He said his 2003 conviction was a "raw deal" and that he was prepared to go to jail if he could not pay in coins.

Rhondda magistrates said the Coinage Act of 1971 meant the court did not have to take more than 20p in copper.

Mr Rees, was convicted of careless driving by Rhondda magistrates in 2003 and was told to pay a £250 fine. An unsuccessful appeal added £400 costs.

He has so far paid £540, but only by going to a bank and changing his £40 instalments into 4,000 one penny pieces.

Wikipedia Showdown is a running list of Wikipedia articles submitted and ranked by our community members - Value is assigned to each article based upon the number of votes and ranking within these votes, giving us an constantly evolving picture of the best Wikipedia has to offer.

Good how-to about cheating on a polygraph test.

General Musharraf wants to remain president-in-uniform till 2012. America wants to keep Pakistan occupied by its armed forces for as long as possible. It seems that with these complimentary objectives, Musharraf and Washington are getting along well. The reality, however, is totally different.

The United States extracted all concessions from General Musharraf through sheer blackmail. Musharraf would never have surrendered Pakistan’s sovereignty and independence merely on a phone call from Collin Powell or George W. Bush if he were not blackmailed for the ISI’s role in Operation 9/11.

Of course, the ISI was used to frame Arabs for the 9/11 attacks. But in the process, ISI’s guilt was established as an agency supporting and financing the so-declared hijackers. There are ample reasons to believe that evidence about ISI’s involvement in 9/11 was used to blackmail General Musharraf into the quickest surrender of our age.

Washington knows that the general did not concede much by choice. With elections for the next parliament due in 2007, General Musharraf is desperately building a political base in the country to get a re-election from the new parliament for the next term or to get a change in the constitution to a presidential democracy to be able to shed the uniform and also to retain the political and executive powers as president. If he succeeds in this plan, this will go in favour of Washington. But Washington sees some serious problems, which would derail Musharraf’s bid to remain the most powerful man in Pakistan. This may lead Washington to settle General Musharraf’s issue the way it dealt with General Zia. The following factors show that assassinating Musharraf might become one of the best options for the United States in the present circumstances.


Alternative Link 1
Alternative Link 2

Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there.

Why geeks and nerds are worth it...

If Stephen King ever wants to hear a really scary story, he should talk to me.

Early in 2005 I placed my résumé with several online job sites. Then, one day, my cell phone rang. “Hello,” said a man’s voice. “This is Hourly Computers. We’re an information technology organization, and we’re looking for a full-time engineer.” The next morning I met with Ben, the owner, and Maria, who identified herself as Ben’s business consultant. The interview was a little weird -- Maria kept bragging about their large technical staff, none of whom were in evidence. But it went well.

I started the next day, at a nice office building downtown. For the first week Ben drove me around and introduced me to the firm’s clients in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Whenever we visited a client, after he or she explained the problem, Ben would turn to me and say, “What do you think?” I would then suggest a solution, and fix whatever problem was occurring. Eventually I figured out that Ben didn’t know how to do anything! Once or twice, when I failed to come up with a quick fix, his only idea was to call the vendor’s tech support line.

Nor did I get much help from the other engineers, because there weren’t any. After three weeks on the job, I asked Maria where the large team of tech support staffers was. “Why are you so concerned with my engineers?” she yelled. I explained that I was driving across three states trying to keep my clients satisfied and could use some help.

She glared at me and said, “I had to fire them all.”

The designers of some elevators include a hidden feature that is very handy if
you're in a hurry or it's a busy time in the building (like check-out time in
a hotel). While some elevators require a key, others can be put into "Express"
mode by pressing the "Door Close" and "Floor" buttons at the same time. This
sweeps the car to the floor of your choice and avoids stops at any other floor.
This seems to work on Most elevators that I have tried! Most elevators have the
option for this to work, but on some of them the option is turned off by whoever
runs them. This is a rather fun hack, so the next time you are on an elevator,
give it a try, you have nothing to lose.

With the recent rains in Karachi, the whole civil structure has come under extreme pressure. This just shows the planning of the municipal authorities.





The recently completed underpass at Schon Circle is now a swimming pool.