Just Imagine

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's who's name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: Milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: And call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi.
George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.

Your Birthday

Stick your Birthday in here Birthday Calculator and find out lots of stuff about it. For instance, one of my interesting facts:

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 6.2 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)

There's hope for me yet :)

Laughing Yogi

Right, every morning we should all jump out of bed and do this:

Laughing Yogi

May need vast ammounts of alcohol tho :)

GoogleHack

Try this search in Google 'Cam server search' It's amazing some of the things you can Google for! Try a few of the results, some of them won't work, some of them do. It's fun driving someone else's  webcam.  Ok, well I think it is anyway :)

Chinese mirage

Looks almost unbelievable

Thousands of tourists and local residents witnessed a mirage of high clarity lasting for four hours off the shore of Penglai City in east China's Shandong Province on Sunday.

Mists rising on the shore created an image of a city, with modern high-rise buildings, broad city streets and bustling cars as well as crowds of people all clearly visible.

Just Focus

Scary Stuff: The RFID Hacking Underground

They can steal your smartcard, lift your passport, jack your car, even clone the chip in your arm. And you won't feel a thing. 5 tales from the RFID-hacking underground.

The RFID Hacking Underground

Remix My life in the Bush of Ghosts

Fancy remixing 2 of the songs from Brian Eno & David Byrne's masterpiece 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'?







Here's your chance, You can (legally) download all the multitracks from 2 of the songs and mangle them as you wish and then upload back to the site to subject others too. All fully sanctioned by the head honchos.

This album used to scare my Sisters Hubby to death :)

Get Mangling

Hmmmmmm, Beeeeeeeeeer

So, you've considered brewing your own beer but you're not yet willing to drop the cash for the entry level kit just yet. With a few simple pieces of equipment and ingredients here's how you can brew your own mini batch. In just a couple of weeks you can taste for yourself if homebrewing is a hobby you want to take to the next level.

Make beer

YamiPod

This works well. Another reason to get rid of that horrible nasty software. You know the one I mean ;-)

YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation. Take a look at the feature list to find out what it can do and feel free to suggest anything that might be missing.

Yet another iPod manager - Home

Hottest Chilli in the World

This caught my eye, me being a bit of a chilli freak. Think I might just have to order some. Why is it only men seem to be into this sort of thing? Do I move in the wrong circles? (or are men just stupid, Ok don't answer that! ;0) )

Dorset Naga

JACK DANIELS - Master Distillers

The ultimate in Jack's

Master Jack

Though only 5'2" tall, Mr. Jack's stature as a distiller kept growing. To mark his 21st birthday, Jack went on a shopping spree in the city. He returned wearing a formal knee-length frock coat and a broad-brimmed planter's hat, which would become his daily uniform for the rest of his life. Those acquainted with the man claim, "Once he got something the way he liked it, he never changed it." It was a personality that would characterize his whiskey.

Breakout variant

Simple, but horribly addictive. I just can't stop. Arrrghhh, just 1 more game

breakit2

Good (and very cheap) alternative to iTunes shop

You pay by the quality of the tracks you download, hence by Mb I suppose, and it's much cheaper than iTunes. It says it's 'LEGAL'.
Also it does it's encoding on the fly so you can choose your format and encoding (quality) rates. An example of a price is the Arctic Monkeys: Whatever People say I am, That's what I'm Not. From Allofmp3 (192 Kbps encoding) $1.15 (!) and from iTunes £7.99. Don't know how they do it, but I know who I'd get it from. They also provide an iTunes alternative for shop browsing called, wait for it, AllTunes!

Devoted to digital music, AllOFMP3.com is one of the oldest Russian contributions to the Internet. Over four years of experience in the multimedia industry has enabled us to bring you this unique service. Our service provides you the opportunity to search and download music files with ease.

MP3 Download, music mp3 downloads. ALLOFMP3.

Update 06/06/06

Britons Warned Over AllofMP3 Use

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

June 6, 2006, 4:15 PM

Britons were warned Tuesday by the British trade association BPI that use of AllofMP3.com was illegal, although it did not plan to pursue users of the service when it files suit against the Russian company in British court. The industry claims that the site is not authorized to sell digital music.

"AllofMP3.com is illegal under UK law and it is illegal to download from it," BPI General Counsel Roz Groome said. "We are going to sue AllofMP3.com in the UK courts - we are going to seek a judgment not against the users of the site, but against the site itself."

[AD]

The music site has disputed those claims, saying it carries the necessary licenses. AllofMP3 has become the second most popular download site in the country behind iTunes with a 14 percent share of the market. Individual tracks on the site sell for as little as four pence (7 cents US), with entire albums retailing for as low as one pound ($1.88 USD).

AllofMP3 claims licenses from Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS) and the Rightholders Federation for Collective Copyright Management of Works Used Interactively (FAIR). However, the industry has called the ROMS license invalid and said that is would not cover users in foreign countries.

The site went offline in mid-May for "maintenance," leading some to believe it had finally given in to pressure. However, AllofMP3 has since returned.

It was believed at the time that the Russian government may have played a hand in the shutdown. Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to crack down on his country's piracy problems and lack of copyright protections.

Putin is attempting to bring Russia into the World Trade Organization, and support from the United States will be a necessity to make that happen.

Life Tools

Interesting site. There's all sorts of stuff for life managment and to make yourself a better person. Boy do I need most of it! This will be added to my list of things I need to do.

Life Tools

Life Tools covers numerous areas including:
Time Management
Stress Management
Goal Setting
Behaviour Attitude
Relationships
Career

The words 'Run AWAY!' spring to mind

Think the pilot got out just before touch down...Very lucky. Can't think what the guy who was videoing the 'fly past' thought. "Sh*t" probably went through his mind! Mind you the pilot was probably thinking much along those lines also!


Fly by

The Modern Antiquarian

Fantastic site For all things 'Megalithic'. It is based on The Modern Antiquarian by Julian Cope (yes, him of Teardrop Explodes). It's grown to be massive resource for news, information, images, folklore weblinks on the ancient sites across the UK Ireland. The site is updated by a dedicated group of volunteers.

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/home/

Six Tips for Happiness

Six Tips for Happiness

Advice from Tal Ben-Shahar.

1. Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions -- such as fear, sadness, or anxiety -- as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.

2. Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.

3. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?

4. Simplify! We are, generally, too busy, trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.

5. Remember the mind-body connection. What we do -- or don't do -- with our bodies influences our mind. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.

6. Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.

How to peel a cooked potato in one go

Ah ha, I've always wanted to be able to do this. I still haven't worked out the folding tea shirt yet tho' so this is probably one of those things that other people make look easy but are in fact just impossible.

Potato peeling made easy

Not your typical Disney film!

Disney - VD Attack Plan - (Venereal Disease Education) - Google Video

A general addressing his troops, which happen to be syphilis and gonorrhea germs. There are also characters representing ignorance and fear.

This is an educational short produced at the Walt Disney Studios.

Some essential Windows tools for sysadmins. Well, anyone really

If you're only going to use a few tools on Windows pick these from sysinternals, they're free, they are extremely good and, I'll say it again, they're free.

Autoruns:

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/autoruns.html


Process Explorer: (this one's brilliant for us geeky types ;0))

Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html


Regmon:

Regmon is a Registry monitoring utility that will show you which applications are accessing your Registry, which keys they are accessing, and the Registry data that they are reading and writing - all in real-time. This advanced utility takes you one step beyond what static Registry tools can do, to let you see and understand exactly how programs use the Registry. With static tools you might be able to see what Registry values and keys changed. With Regmon you'll see how the values and keys changed..

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Regmon.html

There's loads of stuff on the site http://www.sysinternals.com. Makes essential reading if you're into this sort of thing! Oh yes, did I mention that it's all free, yes maybe I did. Yes I do like this site lots and no they're not paying me

Wikipedia study 'fatally flawed'

War of words (or a scholarly slanging match as the beeb puts it) between Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Magazine Nature on whether Wikipedia and the afformentioned Britannica were accurate in their information. It seem Encyclopaedia Britannica aren't happy that 'they are about as acurate as one another'. Hmmmm, one is free, the other isn't, can't imagine why they're unhappy.


BBC NEWS | Technology | Wikipedia study 'fatally flawed'

A study on the accuracy of the free online resource, Wikipedia, by the prestigious journal Nature has been described as 'fatally flawed'.

The Vinegar Institute (Yes, really)

Hints & tips from the world famous vinegar institute. Some of them look quite good. I want to try them!

How to build a volcano:
First, make the “cone” of the volcano. Mix 6 cups flour, 2 cups salt, 4 tablespoons cooking oil and 2 cups of water. The resulting mixture should be smooth and firm (more water may be added if needed). Stand a soda bottle in a baking pan and mold the dough around it into a volcano shape. Do not cover the hole or drop dough into it. Fill the bottle most of the way full with warm water and a bit of red food color (can be done before sculpting if you do not take so long that the water gets cold). Add 6 drops of detergent to the bottle contents. Add 2 tablespoons baking soda to the liquid. Slowly pour vinegar into the bottle. Watch out – eruption time!

http://www.versatilevinegar.org/usesandtips.html

Skyhawk

This Looks lots of fun

In 2006, Cedar Point will add a world-record-breaking thrill ride – Skyhawk. Located near Snake River Falls in Frontiertown and standing 103 feet above the ground, Skyhawk will be the tallest ride of its kind in the world.

Skyhawk will feature two giant swinging arms, each 84 feet in length, with 20 seats on each arm. Each set of 20 seats will consist of two rows of 10 seats, positioned back to back, that will provide each rider with a “front row” view. Using pneumatic technology similar to that used on Power Tower, riders will be thrilled as they are pushed toward the sky, then experience weightlessness as they reverse direction and rush back toward the ground – just like the drop side of a roller coaster – with no ride structure in their path. the peak of the arc, riders on Skyhawk will be more than 125 feet in the air and will reach speeds of 60 mph in both directions! The $6 million ride will give nearly 800 rides an hour. Each ride will be approximately two minutes long. (Guests must be at least 48 inches tall to ride Skyhawk.)

http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/park/rides/thrill/skyhawk/

PortaPuTTY

PortaPuTTY is a portable version of the popular SSH client PuTTY that can run off your USB thumbdrive.

PortaPuTTY stores all of its information in files on your USB drive rather than in the Windows registry, perfect for all you security hounds on-the-go. Aside from that small difference, it seems to look and work the same as the original.

http://socialistsushi.com/portaputty

I want some of this!

This I need.........anyone?!? Only problem is it costs £190-00 ($330).

Gran Patron is the world's finest platinum tequila.

Triple distilled then aged to perfection, it is a true connoisseur's
silver tequila. This is the smoothest sipping tequila ever produced.
With this claim of being the smoothest sipping tequila ever produced, the Patron Spirits Company's Gran Patron Platinum Tequila is created using hand selected Waeber blue agave grown in the hills of Jalisco, Mexico.

The agave is pruned, steam baked, triple distilled and aged to provide a superior taste.

Each bottle is surrounded by velvet and embraced in a hand made, violin quality, curly maple wood box.

Like each bottle, every box is a hand-crafted, collectible piece of art that is signed and numbered by its craftsman.
Producer: Patron - www.patrontequila.com
ABV: 40%
Country of Origin: Mexico

The iPod's Diagnostic Mode

I didn't even now this existed. Plenty of opportunity to do/show things you don't really need to ;-)

'If you have tried trouble shooting your iPod to no avail, chances are your iPod has a hardware problem. The iPod's built-in Diagnostic Mode is a quick and easy way to determine if you have a "bad" iPod'

http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/ipodsupport/diagnosticmode/index.shtml

Plan to get fit (Yeah right)

I need to get fit and this is my plan! Like all the other plans before, it'll probably never happen but hey let's be positive!

Now, when shall I start, or shall I go to the pub instead to think about it over a beer.

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml