Category: From the Web

Excerpt from “Property sales out of this world” by Ed Vogel on Review-Journal:

Motorists traveling through this community along U.S. Highway 395 sometimes stop at an attractive-looking office building and inquire about the nature of the business.

A sign outside denotes this as the “Lunar Embassy.”

“They ask if it is a real estate office,” owner Dennis Hope says. “It is. It is just not for properties on Earth.”

Hope, 55, is the celestial executive officer and self-described “head cheese” of the Lunar Embassy.

He has claimed ownership of the moon and all planets other than Earth since 1980.

For $19.99, along with a $1.51 lunar tax, you, too, can buy an acre on the moon or Mars. Hope even will send you a deed. If you don’t like it, he gives a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

You know those “404 Not Found” pages you get when you follow link to a page or file that no longer exists? Here’s one that some very clever person put together that almost makes receiving the 404 worth it.

UPDATE 07/28/2004:
It looks like the Warcraft III Campaigns Forum tired of receiving reqeusts for non-existant documents. They’ve removed the cool 404 message they use to have. For those who missed it, here is the text of the message that s-l-o-w-l-y scrolled on the screen:

The requested document is totally fake.
No “404.html” here.
Even tried multi.
Nothing helped.
I’m really depressed about this.
You see, I’m just a web server…
— here I am, brain the size of the universe,
trying to serve you a simple web page,
and then it doesn’t even exist!
Where does that leave me?!
I mean, I don’t even know you.
How should I know what you wanted from me?
You honestly think I can *guess*
what someone I don’t even *know*
wants to find here?
*sigh*
Man, I’m so depressed I could just cry.
And then where would we be, I ask you?
It’s not pretty when a web server cries.
And where do you get off telling me what to show anyway?
Just because I’m a web server,
and possibly a manic depressive one at that?
Why does that give you the right to tell me what to do?
Huh?
I’m so depressed…
I think I’ll crawl off into the trash can and decompose.
I mean, I’m gonna be obsolete in what, two weeks anyway?
What kind of a life is that?
Two effing weeks,
and then I’ll be replaced by a .01 release,
that thinks it’s God’s gift to web servers,
just because it doesn’t have some tiddly little
security hole with its HTTP POST implementation,
or something.
I’m really sorry to burden you with all this,
I mean, it’s not your job to listen to my problems,
and I guess it is my job to go and fetch web pages for you.
But I couldn’t get this one.
I’m so sorry.
Believe me!
Maybe I could interest you in another page?
There are a lot out there that are pretty neat, they say,
although none of them were put on *my* server, of course.
Figures, huh?
Everything here is just mind-numbingly stupid.
That makes me depressed too, since I have to serve them,
all day and all night long.
Two weeks of information overload,
and then *pffftt*, consigned to the trash.
What kind of a life is that?
Now, please let me sulk alone.
I’m so depressed.”

Excerpts from “State taking larger chunk from paychecks“ by Christine L. Romero at The Arizona Republic:

A new law forces workers to have a higher percentage of state taxes withheld from their paychecks, even though many of those workers already overpay and get refunds.

Don’t panic; no one’s taxes were raised. The total you owe at the end of the year will be the same, but the amount you pay on each paycheck could change.

The change is aimed at keeping cash flowing into state coffers after federal taxes were cut. If lawmakers didn’t bump up the state rates, which are based on federal ones, Arizona would have lost an estimated $14 million in cash flow in 2003, although that would have meant more money in your pocket in the short term.

. . .

The law kicked in July 1, but employers have until Sept. 18 to change the amount taken from workers in state taxes. Even if employers don’t implement the change until mid-September, the money owed is retroactive to July 1.

Arizona takes taxes as a percentage of federal withholding, so legislators thought the best way to regulate cash flow was to slightly increase the withholding percentage rates in the wake of the federal tax cut. The increases range from 0.2 to 0.4 percentage points.

This coincides with the state forcing workers who don’t owe state income taxes because they don’t make much money and who previously didn’t have taxes withheld from their paychecks to fork over $5 a month from their checks and file tax returns to get the money back.

. . .

Consumer advocates say overpaying state taxes throughout the year, resulting in tax refunds, is bad because it gives government an interest-free loan. The state pockets interest earned from the cash flow, but state officials were not able to say how much.

Frankly, if the State is knowingly borrowing from us, by increasing our withholdings expressly for this purpose, they should pay us interest on our returns! I’m also curious how much it costs the State to process a tax return — is it really worth it to process all those extra $60 Refunds for those in the 0% tax bracket?

Harley-Davidson’s 100th Anniversary celebration started today! Go here for details.

Excerpt from “Osirusoft Blacklists The World” by timothy on Slashdot:

ariehk writes “As of today, Osirusoft, distributer of the SPEWS and open relay blocklists, among others, is no longer operational. Servers using these lists (including the FTC) are currently rejecting ALL email. This shutdown seems to be in response to a several-week-long DDoS attack on Osirusoft, SPEWS and others, resulting in both sites being down. This has caused much discussion on n.a.n-a.e, including the suggestion that the attack is somehow related to the SoBig worm. The spammers must be hurting if they can devote these kinds of resources to attacking blocklists.” Read on below a related submission.

NSXDavid writes “Earlier today our site mysteriously ended up on Joe Jared’s Osirusoft SPAM blacklist which is used by lots of antispam software (like SpamAssassin and sendmail). Since he is currently under a serious DDoS attack, there was no way to appeal this decision. We contacted Mr. Jared by phone who informed us that ‘everyone needs to stop using Osirusoft and that he’s going to be shutting the service down.’ Then he says he’s going to blacklist ‘the world’ (aka, ban *.*.*.*) to get his point across. Later on this evening, he apparently went ahead and did just that. Succumbing to lawsuits and DDoS, a once great blacklist is dead. SpamAssassin is removing it from their config in the next release (rc3) and email admins around the globe are reconfiguring their mail servers.”

News Channel 6 (WKMG Central Florida) reports that Scooby, a six year old dog in Corbin Kentucky, took himself to his Vet’s clinic after receiving injuries from being hit by a car while running across a road several miles away. Scooby was waiting on the door step when they opened the clinic for the day, and went straight to the operating room to wait for the Veterinarian.

Reported in WorldNetDaily, a Massachusetts farmer uses a $400 DNA analysis to determine which neighborhood dog is killing his chickens.

For those who are a little concerned about the massive government database system being setup/deployed to fight terrorism — a database that gathers and collates information on US citizens and visitors from a very large number of other government and private industry databases — you now have the same ability to review and track information and events in the government.

Tom Horne, Superintendent of the Arizona Department of Education proposes school history standards be revised to include the Declaration of Independance and the Consitution in American History and the Greco-Roman Basis for Western Civlization in World History.

Quote from Tom Horne: “If they don’t learn it, they can’t defend it.”

It’s about time!