Fireworks Likely When NASA Blows Up Comet

(AP) - Not all dazzling fireworks displays will be on Earth this Independence Day. NASA hopes to shoot off its own celestial sparks in an audacious mission that will blast a stadium-sized hole in a comet half the size of Manhattan. It would give astronomers their first peek at the inside of one of these heavenly bodies.

You've got spam...

Analysis from IT security consulting firm Prolexic claims that AOL's network hosts more zombie-infected PCs than any other in the world. Infected machines can be used by remote hackers to instigate distributed denial of service (DoS) attacks.

Napoleon Dynamite

I saw this movie last night at the Laurelhurst Theatre. Fantastic. It was great to see in the theatre but it would be great anywhere.

Graduates fear debt more than terrorism

USATODAY.com - Forget terrorism. The generation that came of age after Sept. 11, 2001, fears college debt and joblessness more than another terrorist attack. That's according to a new survey of college seniors and graduates of the class of 2005, most of whom were just weeks into their college careers that fateful Tuesday.

South wind stirs up a spectacle

Lightning splits the sky east of Northeast Portland's Rocky Butte about 9 p.m. Sunday. The thunderstorm started in Eugene and moved north to Portland where the setting sun painted the clouds red and created long, arcing rainbows.

This storm had it all: Towering clouds and powerful winds. Thick bulbs of rain and long veins of lightning. Red skies and rainbows.

And timing. Sunday was the start of national Lightning Awareness Week.

"It was a doozy," State Climatologist George Taylor said. "That's about as strong a thunderstorm as we get" in the Willamette Valley.

Balmy temperatures and unusual southerly winds, circling around a Pacific low-pressure zone, fed the storm. Warm, wet air climbed the Cascade foothills. Without the wind's usual eastward push, the mass circled back into a rare valley thunderstorm.

The storm gathered around 6:30 p.m. near Eugene and dropped a third of an inch of rain. As it marched up the valley, witnesses reported hail, two funnel clouds and winds topping 70 mph. That made it officially "severe."

In Portland, the setting sun shone past the storm's well-defined western wall to paint the clouds electric red and build huge rainbow frames for its lightning. Nightfall stole the storm's heat and power soon after it crossed the Columbia.
--Andy Dworkin/The Oregonian
Top Photo: NICK RAINS/The Oregonian, Bottom Photo: Luis Contreras

Not just a geek's diary anymore

From USATODAY.COM: Blogs are proliferating as fast as a computer virus. According to a report this year by public relations firm Edelman and Intelliseek, a provider of business-intelligence solutions, about 20,000 new blogs are created daily, and an estimated 10 million U.S. blogs will exist by the end of 2005. Together, these blogs link up to create what is known as a blogosphere, a collective Internet conversation that is one of the fastest-growing areas of new content on the Web.

More than 8 million adults in the USA have created blogs, according to two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a non-profit research center studying the Internet's social effects. And 32 million Americans are blog readers — a 58% jump in 2004.

Dude, you're getting a Mac-Dell?!

In this article from Fortune, Dell CEO Michael Dell mentions that he would offer OS X to customers if Apple were so willing.

Schools Try Screening Test to Prevent Teen Suicide

In Oregon, suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth between 10 and 24, right behind motor vehicle crashes. In some public schools around Oregon, educators and mental health workers are using a computer screening test to try to identify those students before they try to harm themselves.

Scariest development from Microsoft. Ever.

The BBC is reporting that Microsoft is censoring blogs on MSN China. The words 'freedom', 'democracy' and 'demonstration' are reportedly among the words being blocked. But the article also points out that Microsoft is not the first corporation to censor content when the Chinese government requests it.

Graduation 2005

Somehow, I ended up with the only odd looking hood... Here are some of my amazing friends who I've had the pleasure of attending classes with for the last two years. Now, on to bigger and better things.... Pass the classifieds.

Thank you...

This was last night at the Lucky Labrador in Portland after my graduation ceremony. I am truly blessed with amazing friends and family.

Hey Mister Postman...

PhotoStamps, a service that’s been approved by the United States Postal Service (USPS), lets you turn your digital images into valid postage that can be used to send letters, post cards and packages.

PhotoStamps for Mac is coming to Panther and Tiger later this month.

Supporters urge passage of 'mental health parity' bill

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Dozens of supporters of a proposal to require medical insurers to cover the costs incurred by treatment for mental illness pleaded with members of the Oregon House to support the plan during a recent hearing.

The proposal is the latest in a string of similar bills that have been introduced over the years to require insurance coverage for treating mental disorders.

But unlike those previous bills, this plan, Senate Bill 1, has passed one chamber, winning Senate backing in March on a 23-6 vote.

Still, the Republican-controlled House has been reluctant to take up mental-health parity proposals, given objections by businesses to the increased cost of fulfilling insurance coverage mandates.

Vincent Salvi of Portland, urged House members to consider the bill at a hearing this week, saying the trauma of discovering that his son was afflicted with a schizo-affective disorder was heightened by the fact that treatment costs quickly exceeded what insurance would pay.

Salvi said he and his wife ended up dipping into their retirement savings and taking out a second mortgage to pay for their son's treatment.

"Very few people can make those types of financial commitments," he said.

Even so, Rep. Billy Dalto, R-Salem, said the bill needed more work on such issues as designing coverage standards and mitigating business concerns about rising insurance costs.

Twenty-three states have already passed or are considering legislation requiring private insurers to provide as much coverage for mental-health treatments as they do for physical medical care. Washington's Legislature passed such a bill this year.

Many businesses, which share the costs of insurance with their employees, have opposed such efforts. In Oregon, the National Federation of Independent Business, Associated Oregon Industries and insurance companies are lobbying against SB 1.

Lisa Trussell, a lobbyist for AOI, told the House panel that for every 1 percent increase in mandated insurance coverage, 3,000 Oregonians will lose their employer-provided insurance because companies won't be able to afford the increase.

But another business lobbying group, the Oregon Business Association, urged lawmakers to pass the mental health parity bill, saying the bill was good for society and for business.

Covering mental-health treatment will help employers' bottom line by reducing absenteeism and increasing productivity, the association said.

Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
Released 5/22/05

NBA legend George Mikan dead at 80

George Mikan, professional basketball's first dominant big man who led the Minneapolis Lakers to five championships, died after a lengthy illness at a Arizona rehabilitation center, family members said Thursday. He was 80.

The family has accepted a financial assist from one of basketball's most dominant players. On Friday, Shaquille O'Neal finalized arrangements to pay for the late center's funeral expenses.

MSN Site Hacking Went Undetected for Days

Password-stealing software planted by hackers was active on Microsoft's popular MSN Web site in South Korea for days before the world's largest software company learned about the break-in and removed the computer code.

Laptops Now More Popular Than Desktops

In a sure sign that the era of mobile computing has arrived, notebooks have for the first time outsold desktops in the United States in a calendar month, the research firm Current Analysis says.

Tiger Named the Best OS

PC World last week named Mac OS X Tiger the "Best Operating System" in its 100 Best Products of 2005. Here's the relevant bit about Tiger: "Tiger's big new addition--to what was already a well-engineered Mac operating system--is Spotlight, a speedy, well-integrated tool for searching your hard drive. And it's the best-looking OS around.

"w00t" is 3rd Favorite Non-Dictionary Word

The word has been getting out apparently. No longer just a word for gamers, 'woot' now appears as #3 in Merriam-Webster's What's Your Favorite Word (That's Not in the Dictionary)? contest. It was beaten out by ginormous and confuzzled.

I know only two people that use the word "w00t". Turns out they know something the rest of us don't. Way to go, Sonja and Rhett!

Big Brother "W"

Wired is reporting that the Bush administration wants back the ability to make ISPs turn over information on their customers. The U.S. Court of Appeals is handling the case and of course the feds want to hide details of it from the public. The law giving the government the power to seize communications records from 1986 was strengthened in 2001 by the Patriot Act and struck down after the ACLU challenged it.

Hey Mister DJ...

Stuck in traffic and sick of Howard Stern? You may soon be able to tune in to the music collection of the person in the car in front of you. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing an ad hoc networking system for cars that would allow any driver to broadcast music to any other vehicle within a 30-mile radius. Developed by a group of current and former master's students at the Human Computer Interaction Institute, the Roadcasting project would allow drivers to stream their MP3 music collections by Wi-Fi or similar technology to any other vehicle within range that is equipped with compatible hardware and software.

Microsoft Ends Era Of Closed File Formats

Yea XML!

Microsoft Corp. announced last week that the next version of its Office software will use Internet-friendly XML technology as the default file format for documents created in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The new format will make it easier for other programs to read Office documents, an improvement the software titan says is aimed at boosting workers' productivity.

XML, short for eXtensible Markup Language, is designed for sharing diverse data across different systems with a uniform appearance. Previously, Office saved files in a format that doesn't always translate well when opened in other programs.

The file sizes will be much smaller, letting people send files as e-mail attachments more easily. Also, within a single document, the new XML format will store text, charts, images and other chunks of data as separate components. That will make it easier to access the data and recover undamaged parts of any files that get corrupted.

Steve has left the building

Suns guard Steve Nash leaves the court after being eliminated by the Spurs in Game 6.
Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

Goodnight, Phoenix

San Antonio Spurs Manu Ginobili is hugged by Phoenix Suns Steve Nash after game 5 of the western conference finals Wednesday night in Phoenix. San Antonio won 101-95.
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)


Fellow All-NBA First Teamers Steve Nash and Tim Duncan embrace after the Spurs advance to the NBA Finals.
(NBAE/Getty Images)

Spurs forward Tim Duncan congratulates his Suns counterpart, Amare Stoudemire, on an amazing series. (Barry Gossage/NBAE)

All together now: Bo Outlaw (left) leads the Suns' pregame ritual circle dance. Join him are (left to right) Shawn Marion, Quentin Richardson, and Steve Nash.
Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic