Online Home of Derek Meister
Users of Microsoft’s Windows 2000 operating system are advised to check for Microsoft security updates and stop by the website of their favorite anti-virus program for patches to fight the latest security vulnerability.
CNN, which itself was hit hard by the Win32/Zotob.A Worm, is reporting that the worm is spreading quickly among Windows 2000 computers.
If you believe you’ve been hit by the virus, consider taking your system to your local Geek Squad.
Ars Technica has an article up about Creative’s current financial situation in which they point out that the company has $396 million of inventory for the quarter, a number that is up from $184 million last year.
According to one of the company’s own reports, their total sales for the quarter were US$305.4 million, which if I’m understanding correctly, means that they’ve got more than a full quarter’s worth of product sitting in inventory slowly depreciating in value.
I have to wonder, then, just how much of an impact the number of quality motherboards available now that include on-board sound is having on Creative’s bottom line. My only real evidence is anecdotal, but it seems like the more people I talk to, the more I hear are simply sticking with their “sounds good enough” on-board sound.
I also have to wonder if Creative’s ability to buy out potential competitors and shelve their technology is causing a downswing in add-on sound card interest. While this business tactic obviously makes them the biggest name in the field, it also means that there’s no real competition to drive news items or reviews to keep the community interested in new product.
In many ways, I believe the competition between AMD and Intel or Nvidia and ATI keep interest in all their new developments high among consumers.
The BBC has a news story online about a prankster group calling itself the “Guardians of the Planet Earth”, which has managed to steal a Dalek prop on display in a Somerset, England tourist attraction called the Wookey Hole Caves.
The Dalek comes from the long-running British science fiction series Doctor Who, which explains why the ransom note demands further instructions from the show’s main character, the Doctor.
Along with the ransom note, the Dalek’s “plunger arm”, referred to in the letter as it’s “destructive mechanism”, was left at the scene of the theft.
Colin Baker, who played the 6th Doctor from 1984 to 1986, is currently in contact with the attraction’s officials and may be used to send a message to the so-called kidnappers.
Today marks the 16th anniversary of the infamous two days of violence in China’s Tiananmen Square, when the People’s Liberation Army ended months of pro-democracy protesting by moving in and confronting the protesters with military force on June 3rd and 4th, 1989.
The images from those events are powerful, even today. There are few people who aren’t immediately struck by the photo above, known as “The Unknown Rebel“, in which a single man stood out in front of a rolling column of Chinese tanks moving in on the protesters.
The video footage of this small, unarmed man is equally captivating, as he holds the tanks at bay for nearly a half-hour, stepping in front of them every time they try to turn and move around him. Eventually, he even crawls onto the lead tank and talks to the driver, though no one knows for sure what he said. Soon after that, nervous bystanders pulled him off the tank and into the crowd.
Though his identity and eventual fate were never completely confirmed, the “Unknown Rebel” was named in Time Magazine’s 1989 list of “the 100 most influential people of the 20th century“.
If you’ve been following the news this week, you’ve no doubt heard that the identity of Deep Throat, the secret informant who provided the Washington Post with information about the Watergate Scandal in the 1970s that resulted in Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency.
The side-effect of this news story, however, is the unintentional comedy of headlines involving the “Deep Throat” pseudonym, which was based on the name of a very successful 1972 pornographic movie of the time.
Like the ABC News story above, one has to wonder if news writers really are that oblivious to the connections made by the more puerile members of the public, or are they equally giddy over the ability to publicly resort to a bit of subtle, though immature, humor like the rest of us.