Yesterday I had a dentist appointment at 11am, to get my teeth deep-cleaned. As I was pulling in to the parking lot I got a phone call from $K (the contract agency) saying I'd gotten the contract at $D.

In spite of the fact that I think I'd probably prefer a full-time job at ( Read more... )

Not all that good a day. I woke up with a painful cramp in my right calf -- this has happened before, I don't know what causes it, and I don't like it. At least, after the first few steps, it didn't hurt to walk. But in the afternoon after I did walk about half a mile, which ( Read more... )

It isn't (Seattle Times)

Microsoft has developed a small plug-in device that investigators can use to quickly extract forensic data from computers that may have been used in crimes.

The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor ( Read more... )

Techdirt: Microsoft's Final 'Up Yours' To Those Who Bought Into Its DRM StoryRemember a few years back when Microsoft launched a new type of DRM under the name "PlaysForSure"? The idea was to create a standard DRM that a bunch of different online music download stores could use, and which makers of digital music devices could build for. Except... ( Read more... )

1. This bear has been stupid in a lot of ways recently, including ( Read more... )

First setback was discovering that the workstation I wanted to use to replace the possibly-flaky fileserver didn't appear able to find either of its ethernet ports when booted from the server's disk. Something in the boot-time kernel config, I suppose, but I didn't have time to diagnose it. If it goes down over the weekend, it goes down. The ( Read more... )

Techdirt: TSA Staffer Hires Buddies To Build Insecure Website For Folks Falsely On Watch List We've had so many stories of government computer systems or websites that have terrible security or are just useless (but expensive!) that it shouldn't surprise us to hear of another one. Yet, there's always someone who can go a step further. Witness the ( Read more... )

From this post in BoingBoing we get a link to a column by Patrick Smith in today's New York Times titled "The Airport Security Follies". Well worth a read, but it will make you angry. If enough people read it, maybe...

To understand what makes these measures so absurd, we first need to ( Read more... )

Now the TSA is afraid that spare lithium batteries will spontaneously combust. Or that somebody will try to light them instead of their shoe, but if so why are thay banned from checked baggage and not from carry-ons?

Never mind that they're just as likely to combust inside a laptop. Maybe more, since an external short might ( Read more... )

Techdirt: Western Digital Decides That You Shouldn't Be Allowed To Share Any MP3Rich Kulawiec writes in to let us know about a Boing Boing post about some fairly ridiculous limitations on Western Digital's networked drives. Apparently, once you've set up the drive, you can subscribe to a service that will allow others to access your drive from the ( Read more... )