Odd Lots

[jeff_duntemann]

• NASA is making a sort of ad-hoc satellite out of an old space suit. This is a fine piece of duct-tape engineering, and you can listen to its telemetry on 145.990 MHz FM, within the 2-meter amateur radio band. The word "telemetry" here is not quite how I mean it (old guy that I am) but that's OK: SuitSat will recite its internal condition in English (after a prerecorded greeting in five languages) through a speech synthesizer. SuitSat will be inflated and will look like a human being with arms and legs outstretched. Now, does anybody dare to hope for sufficient resolution to get a photo?
• Many of you have already seen this (it was the EDS Superbowl ad in 2000) but if you haven't, go take a look. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV. I think it's even better than 2001's "Running of the Squirrels." Thanks to David Beers for the pointer.
• Wines to Avoid Dept: Run screaming from Three Thieves Zinfandel, which counts as one of the five or six worst wines I've ever tried. Fortunately, it's in a weird jug and easy to spot. I ended up dumping half of it down the sink. It'll be awhile, however, before anything will challenge Sweet Walter from Bully Hill. (The name itself is ironic; having met the man once, "sweet" is not a word I would use to describe Walter Taylor.) Whatever bad karma sweet wine didn't get from Mogen David it got from Sweet Walter. Yukkh.
• You might want to uninstall Winamp 5.12 until such time as AOL/Nullsoft comes up with a patch: There's a nasty security hole in it allowing an exploit that can be triggered by playing a sound file from an infected Web site. I've used Winamp since 1998 but I'm looking for another MP3 player at this time; what are your favorites?