Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Residents Moving After Home Invasion

POSTED: 3:27 pm EDT May 31, 2005

UPDATED: 5:52 pm EDT May 31, 2005


CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A family at the Waterford Creek Apartments are packing up and leaving after a frightening home invasion at a 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.
WSOC-TV



The family said they heard a knock at the door, but when one of the victims looked through the peephole, he couldn't see anyone. The culprits were hiding out of sight.


The man opened the door and that's when the attackers put a gun in his face.


The family didn't want to be identified because they are afraid the robbers will come back and kill them.


They did say once the men were inside, the intruders pointed a gun at their three children -- ages from 1 to 3 years old.


The gunman threatened to kill the kids if they didn't get money. read more »

Monday, May 30, 2005

Report: Injured Zarqawi has fled Iraq

Top insurgent may have been moved to Iran, source says
Updated: 6:09 p.m. ET May 28, 2005



LONDON - Al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had fled the country after being seriously injured in a U.S. missile attack, a British newspaper reported on Sunday, quoting a senior commander of the Iraqi insurgency.


Al-Zarqawi has shrapnel lodged in his chest and may have been moved to Iran, The Sunday Times newspaper reported, adding his supporters may try to move him on to another country for an operation.


The paper quoted an unnamed insurgency commander as saying the Jordanian-born militant was wounded three weeks ago when a U.S. missile hit his convoy near the northwestern Iraqi city of al Qaim.


“Shrapnel went in between the right shoulder and his chest, ripped it open and is still stuck there,” the commander said, adding a second piece of shrapnel penetrated Zarqawi’s chest but exited from his back.


“There was concern about spinal injuries,” the commander said. “But his ability to move eliminated that fear.”


The Sunday Times said Zarqawi, accused of masterminding many of the worst insurgent attacks in Iraq, was carried from his vehicle after the missile strike and given basic first aid in a hideout.


When he became delirious with fever four days later he was taken to hospital in the city of Ramadi, 68 miles west of Baghdad, it said. The paper did not say when the commander was speaking but said the source had proved reliable in the past.

Netscape 8.0 should be uninstalled due to XML problems

Category: SOFTPEDIA NEWS :: Internet Life


According to Microsoft, the new browser interferes with Internet Explorer




After Dave Massy, Microsoft's senior program manager for Internet Explorer, said in a blog that Netscape 8.0 may interfere with Internet Explorer, Microsoft confirmed today the problem.


Also, Microsoft has advised its customers using Netscape 8 and Internet Explorer in the same machine
to uninstall Netscape 8, because Netscape causes Internet Explorer to crash.In fact, according do Dave Massy, Netscape’s updated technology interferes with Internet Explorer’s ability to display some Web pages. Computer users who install Netscape 8, may see some Web pages appear blank in Internet Explorer.


“We’ve just confirmed an issue that has started to be reported on newsgroups and forums that after installing Netscape 8.0 the XML rendering capabilities of Internet Explorer no longer work. That means that if you navigate in IE to an XML file such as an RSS feed or an XML file with an XSLT transformation applied then rather than seeing the data you are presented with a blank page,” Massy said on the blog.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Nextel is a major player in the market and enjoys tremendous popularity.

From wholesalers Parnell-Martin (Charlotte, N.C.) and Hughes Supply (Orlando, Fla.) and from Miami-based wholesalers Bond Supply and Lehman Pipe & Plumbing Supply, to Home Depot Supply — each of them said they had at least one Nextel product.

“We understand the construction and distribution business,” says Henry Popplewell, Nextel’s vice president of distribution and transportation. “They are two of the backbone industries in our organization. We have worked together as partners and evolved together developing solutions for more than 10 years now.”

According to Kent Lee, Charlotte, N.C. complex manager for wholesaler Parnell-Martin, “Nextel has had good growth and profits along with good people. They give us the basic blocking and tackling tools we need.”

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Computers Seized in Data-Theft Probe

Federal Investigators Remove PCs, Discs From Several Locations; LexisNexis Break-In Linked to Paris Hilton Phone Hacking

By Brian Krebs

washingtonpost.com Staff Writer

Thursday, May 19, 2005; 6:16 PM


The federal investigation into the massive theft of sensitive personal records from database giant LexisNexis Inc. intensified this week with the execution of search warrants and seizure of evidence from several individuals across the country, according to federal law enforcement officials.


Three people targeted in the investigation confirmed that federal investigators had served warrants at their homes. The group included a minor who has been in contact with a washingtonpost.com reporter for three months and who said he was directly involved in the LexisNexis breach.
more »

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

MSN Virtual Earth To Take On Google Earth





Micrsoft sends news today that founder Bill Gates has announced a MSN Virtual Earth service is to debut in the summer. The service is promised to provide:



Satellite images with 45-degree-angle views of buildings and neighborhoods



Satellite images with street map overlays



Ability to add local data layers, such as showing local businesses or restaurants



The service will allow users to choose from a number of different data types plus allow people to contribute their own information. The announcement came today at the D3 conference happening this week.
Last week, Google announced that its Keyhole software allowing satellite views of the Earth will be renamed Google Earth. Better images will also be available to those getting satellite views via Google Maps. In addition, Google Maps has also been getting enhanced by others adding on data from other sources. More on this in is covered in our Google Factory Tour Recap post.




So, the planned Microsoft service will help MSN compete against some Google gains in this area, not to mention moves others like Yahoo have been making with maps. Some past reading you may find interesting on these topics:



Google Maps Not In Google Search; Comparing Services & How Do They Do That?


Satellite/Aerial Images Plus Local Info
This post discusses TerraFly. This service has been available for more than five years and receives funding from IBM. Terrafly offers several of the services that MSN plans to provide including street overlays and local business info.
Super Cool: Interact With Satellite and Aerial Images With NASA's World Wind Program

Global in scope. World Wind Central (a wiki) offers links to interesting images that users have found.

Just Mrap It!

Monday, May 23, 2005

LLNL’s ‘Science Week’ festivities celebrate World Year of Physics

Computer simulation of the gravitational radiation from the head-on collision of two black holes at a time just after the collision. The different colors represent the different strengths of the gravitational wave signal. Techniques for detecting gravitational waves, which are predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, will be discussed during a Science Day talk by Barry Barish of the California Institute of Technology.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

For Japanese Math Wizards, It's a Mind Game

The Washington Post

By Ginny Parker, Dec 15, 2000


For Japanese Math Wizards, It's a Mind Game; Contestants Test Skill on Invisible
Abacus


The contestants sit hunched over bare tables, some in sweat shirts, some in
neckties. A small audience watches quietly, while judges pace the floor.


Suddenly, a teenager's had shoots up and shout breaks the silence. "Done!" he
calls out, and passes his answer sheet to a moderator.


Within seconds, Hiroaki Tsuchiya has multiplied in his head a list of numbers
that would make an accountant's head spin. How does he do it? On an imaginary
abacus, just as merchants, students and others have done throughout Asia for
centuries.


Today, despite computers and calculators, the technique survives as a strenuous
workout for the brain. Teachers say almost anyone can master it, although it
takes hours of practice, mental dexterity and extraordinary powers of
concentration.


"If you space out, you lose," said Tsuchiya, who at age 13 recently became the
youngest winner of a Kyoto tournament where Japan's best mental mathematicians
display their amazing feats.


Tsuchiya, for example, takes only a few moments to figure out the quotient of
992.587318 divided by 5,647.723.
more »

Stanford Accelerator Uncovers Archimedes' Text


Posted by timothy on Sunday May 22, @12:49AM

from the 2-quarts-olive-oil-1-bunch-grapes-goat-milk dept.
AI Playground points to a Newsday.com report which reads in part "A particle accelerator is being used to reveal the long-lost writings of the Greek mathematician Archimedes,
work hidden for centuries after a Christian monk wrote over it in the Middle Ages. Highly focused X-rays produced at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were used last week to begin deciphering the parts of the 174-page text that have not yet been revealed." more »

Friday, May 20, 2005

KnowledgeNews :: Your Home for Learning on the Web:



"Luke, I told you to do your science homework!"


He's baaaack! Unless you've been living in a galaxy far, far away, you've probably heard that the final installment of Star Wars opened just after midnight on Thursday--28 years after Darth Vader and Co. first flashed across the silver screen. All over America, die-hard fans waited in huge lines to see Episode III: Revenge of the Sith at early morning showings.


We love a science fiction thrill as much as anyone, but we can't help noticing that, in Hollywood, the fiction often gets the better of the science. So, to restore balance to the media force, we're sending some simple science correctives. (Just don't blurt them out during the show!



Today's Knowledge

The Top 5 Science Fiction Foul-Ups



Every science fiction movie has them: stupendous scenes of movie magic that sacrifice science on the altar of special effects. Here are our top 5 science fiction foul-ups--common movie scenes where science takes a holiday so we can get our fix of big-screen thrills.


1. No Ear Plugs Necessary


The Scene: The big impressive spaceship flies across the screen, emitting an equally impressive rumble of powerful engine noise. Or maybe just that really cool TIE fighter howl.


The Problem: These ships are moving in space, which is a vacuum, and sound can't travel in a vacuum. It takes matter to propagate the energy waves that we perceive as sound. So the sound of any ship in space is the sound of silence. (Call it the Garfunkel Effect.)


2. This One's a Dud



The Scene: A deadly firefight in space rages until someone goes down in flames, complete with incredible explosion and massive ball of fire.


The Problem: Most explosions are based on combustion, a chemical reaction that requires oxygen to take place. Of course, there's no oxygen in space. You can't even light a match out there, let alone set off stunning fireworks displays.


3. Think Jellyfish


The Scene: Our heroes enter a seedy space bar, full of strange alien life forms. Yet chances are they've got tables and chairs at which to nurse a beer, because the aliens look, and sit, pretty much like us.


The Problem: Our own little corner of the cosmos sports life in all shapes and sizes. Of the millions of species on Earth, only a small fraction look much like us. The odds that the bar crowd on completely different worlds would evolve to look like we do are pretty slim.


4. Set Phasers on "Slow"


The Scene: Science fiction's chosen weapon is the laser. Phaser, blaster, whatever you want to call it--it's a blast of energy fired from a gun. Whether it's dueling ships or dueling pistols, the bad guys get their due in a blaze of beams flashing across the screen.


The Problem: The energy in these weapons doesn't behave like real energy. Energy travels at the speed of light--far too fast for your eyes to follow it in beautiful blue and red beams.


5. "I'm Going Retro!"


The Scene: Squadrons of starfighters duel in a dogfight that puts Top Gun to shame. Inevitably, somebody gets a bad guy on his tail, desperately declares he "can't shake 'em," and, well, see #2.


The Problem: Spacecraft don't fly like planes. Because space is a vacuum, there's no need to maintain "lift," and no "drag" to slow you down once you get going. A starfighter in a dogfight could easily use retro rockets to spin around in mid-flight and blast the guy behind him, all while "vectoring" in the original direction.


Christopher Call and Michael Himick

May 18, 2005


Want to learn more?

Visit the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame

http://www.sfhomeworld.org/

THE MOUSE THAT ATE THE PUBLIC DOMAIN:


Disney, The Copyright Term Extension Act, And eldred V. Ashcroft


By CHRIS SPRIGMAN



Unless you earn your living as an intellectual property lawyer, you probably don't know that the Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Eldred v. Ashcroft, a case that will test the limits of Congress's power to extend the term of copyrights. But while copyright may not seem inherently compelling to non-specialists, the issues at stake in Eldred are vitally important to anyone who watches movies, listens to music, or reads books.

If that includes you, read on.


Mickey Mouse Goes to Washington

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Demise of a hard-fighting squad


Marines who survived ambush are killed, wounded in blast


By Ellen Knickmeyer

Updated: 4:38 a.m. ET May 12, 2005


HABAN, Iraq, May 11 -
The explosion enveloped the armored vehicle in flames, sending orange balls of fire bubbling above the trees along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border. more »





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Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Information Technologies industry in North Carolina

NCTA is the primary voice of the Information Technologies industry in North Carolina. NCTA is dedicated to growing and strengthening the IT industry through increasing public awareness and influencing key public policy issues. We provide our members the opportunity to network with other industry leaders, share information on critical technologies, and promote their companies. Learn more!







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Charlotte Oracle Users Group

CLTOUG BYLAWS


ARTICLE I


NAME


The name of this corporation shall be the Charlotte Oracle Users Group, a not-for-profit business association organized under the laws of the State of North Carolina of the United States of America (hereinafter "CLTOUG”)


ARTICLE II


PURPOSES

Section 1. Not for Profit. CLTOUG is organized under and shall operate as a North Carolina not-for-profit business association.


more »


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Lebanese Political Journal

More on Aoun

The web is blazing with commentary about the recently returned General Michel Aoun.
Here's some more fuel for the fire.
I disagree fundamentally with the claim that Aoun is bad because he killed people.
I differentiate between good war and bad war.
Amal fought very bad war. Jumblatt fought bad sometimes and good sometimes (kind of like his political opinions). Aoun was like Jumblatt. In Lebanese terms, Hezbollah fought good far more than bad.

The reason Aoun and Hezbollah get along so well is because they are both nationalist parties fighting for nationalist causes, although using different allies.
Was President Hafez al Assad better than Saddam? Can Hama (where Assad massacred tens of thousands) be compared with Kurdistan (where Saddam gassed his people)? Can the Lebanese war be compared with Kuwait?

I think going through such lists leads to frivolity.
Aoun did kill, as do all field generals in combat. He was employed to do so. His assignment was to defend his country. When all leaders were gone, he took orders from himself.





more »






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'They Came Here to Die'

Insurgents Hiding Under House in Western Iraq Prove Fierce in Hours-Long Fight With Marines

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 11, 2005; Page A01


JARAMI, Iraq, May 10 -- Screaming "Allahu Akbar'' to the end, the foreign fighters lay on their backs in a narrow crawl space under a house and blasted their machine guns up through the concrete floor with bullets designed to penetrate tanks. They fired at U.S. Marines, driving back wave after wave as the Americans tried to retrieve a fallen comrade.


Through Sunday night and into Monday morning, the foreign fighters battled on, their screaming voices gradually fading to just one. In the end, it took five Marine assaults, grenades, a tank firing bunker-busting artillery rounds, 500-pound bombs unleashed by an F/A-18 attack plane and a point-blank attack by a rocket launcher to quell them.



more »











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Thursday, May 05, 2005

Wireless developers plan to meld Bluetooth

Plan comes at crucial time for developing technology

Minutemen end border watch, plan to expand

Gov. Schwarzenegger praises group heading to CaliforniaBy Brock N. Meeks
Chief Washington correspondent
MSNBC
Updated: 11:32 a.m. ET May 4, 2005WASHINGTON - The month-long volunteer effort by a grassroots citizen group monitoring illegal immigration along a desolate 23-mile stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border ended much as it started: in a war of words.

more »

U.S. unprepared for nuclear terror, experts say

Evacuation plans available to public, first responders faultedBy John Mintz

Updated: 7:21 a.m. ET May 3, 2005When asked during the campaign debates to name the gravest danger facing the United States, President Bush and challenger Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) gave the same answer: a nuclear device in the hands of terrorists. more »

Monday, May 02, 2005

President Bush Honors Volunteers on Earth Day

On April 22nd, President Bush traveled to Tennessee to promote volunteer service and environmental stewardship on Earth Day (continue..)


"Yigaquu osaniyu adanvto adadoligi nigohilvi nasquv utloyasdi nihi"

Cherokee - "May the Great Spirit's blessings always be with you."