Halloween should not be an excuse for lack of judgment

While most Halloween pranks and costumes are in good fun, some clearly go too far.
Editorial
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Courts stalked by another pointless lawsuit

The convicted stalker of Britney Spears should not be able to sue the
pop-star for emotional distress simply because she filed a restraining order against him.
Editorial
(This was picked up by the New York Times Web site)
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The Plot Thickens

Congress just issued an ultimatum to the CIA to hand over files of interviews and facts they had on Iraq prior to the war.

This is certainly getting interesting.

Belkin’s Media Reader for iPods: Don’t Buy It

When I heard that Belkin released a flash card reader for iPods I got pretty excited, now I am just glad I didn’t actually buy one.

I often take tons of photos in one session (1,000 a day easily) and since my iPod is a constant companion it would be a logical choice to store photos on.

Apparently Belkin seems to think carrying an item around that is bigger than the iPod itself, needs batteries and gives transfer speeds of 300KBps for $100 is cutting it.

Well, it doesn’t.
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stay tuned

I am experiencing some technical difficulties (not Panther related) that keep me from posting right now. I’ll hope to fix it soon and you’ll hear the entire tale then. (Do yourself a favor and do a backup. Now.)

Panther attack!?

My entry on the release of Panther was featured on some Web sites, including MacNN, MacBytes.com, MacGuardians.de, MacLinkage, MacPlus, and many others.

This did not only get me 10,000 hits (!!) in one day, it also showed me again how democratic the Web can be. I hardly imagined getting this many hits when I took some photos of the lines outside the store, next thing I know my site gets more hits in one day than it usually gets in an entire month from all over the world.

When Panthers attack

Just got back from the Panther release party at the International Plaza Mall Apple Store here in Tampa. The lines were long…
(Photos inside)
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The Week Behind (including a leg that dragged)

Oh man… what a week. It’s 4 in the morning on Friday and I am still tense, even though I don’t have anything to go to tomorrow (well, except my geology class but my professor went out of the way to tell us that there won’t be a quiz in order to allow us to skip this one).
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Religious connotations have no place in the ?war on terror

Even remote association with Christian beliefs will hurt America?s efforts in the war on terror and must be avoided at all cost. Such utterances as comparing the war on terror with a “fight against Satan” hurt U.S. interests more than that they help.
Editorial
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Midterms

I am having my midterms this week and am going crazy with all the things I still need to study and do before the week is out. So updates to this site might be rather sporadic/erratic in the next couple of days.

Kill Bill not your average children’s movie

Kill Bill is violent, but movies such as this do not cause violent behavior all by themselves. It is when movies like this are seen by children and parents to do put the actions depicted into context when problems arise.
Opinion Column
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More rain, please

My wife and I were talking about places we’d rather live than Florida (about anywhere, really) and Seattle came up. So she looked around the Web for information on it and found the weather report for the next couple of days:

That in itself would make me feel right at home. My hometown of Aachen, Germany, was plagued by an almost constant drizzle.

But more there is also another climate I would like.

One fish, two fish, new fish

We just got back from the pet store where we bought a hole slew of new fish for our two aquariums. The cat had fun too… (photos included)
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Creepy

Am I the only person deeply disturbed by this? (That’s Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Mom.)

Paid advertising has to be marked as such

A TV station (NBC) here in Tampa is presenting paid advertising without warning. It is presented in a “morning show” format which exploits the viewers? trust because they don’t even know it is paid advertising.
Editorial
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I am speechless

Republicans claim that everything is going swell in Iraq. That’s one thing to say (even though it’s a lie) but this is the kicker:

“The story of what we’ve done in the postwar period is remarkable,” Nethercutt, R-Wash., told an audience of 65 at a noon meeting at the University of Washington’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs.

“It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day.” link

Holy shit, Apple!

Apple released a whole slew of products today. The biggest deal is probably the iTunes music store for Windows, including a free copy of iTunes for Windows, completely based on open standards. (wrap your head around that one, Microsoft)

Some other really cool additions are the new plug in accessories for the iPod: A microphone to record directly to the iPod (a journalist’s dream, let me tell you) and a card reader that allows storage of photos on the iPod that will later sync to iPhoto flawlessly.

Apple also integrated Audible.com audio book purchases into the iTunes music store and included a new game on the iPod that quizzes you on your own songs.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the microphone adapter and as soon as I do, I’ll let you know how it works. But for now I can only say, man, how do they keep doing this? These are exactly the things I wanted. Does the iPod read my thoughts and phones them home to Cupertino every day? Apple just seems to know exactly when and how I want things.

Also check out the really cool new iPod commercial. You know you want one! And in this case the typical Apple commercial method of not really telling you anything about the product in the ad actually works. Those who know care, the rest is not that much of a target group anyway.

In the interest of full disclosure: yes, I do have some Apple stock, but that is not the reason why I love their products so much. (rather the reverse effect) They are just simply that good. The main difference to Windows based computers is still that I say now “cool, I can do this and that with it” when Apple releases something new as it spurs my creative side. Back in the dark days of my Windows usage the first thing I thought when I was a new product was “I wonder if that will crash my computer.” And it seems as if Microsoft still operates by the motto “lets ship it and then worry updates later.” Who cares if it’s not secure, right?

Hard wired

Can you spell overkill? I thought that my bluetooth phone with PowerBook combination was bad enough already.

Genshaft?s bet on research money wagers USF?s future

University of South Florida’s President Judy Genshaft?s address Wednesday puts more emphasis on research grants, leaving undergraduate classes? future uncertain as their continued funding is not guaranteed.
Editorial
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International affairs - coming to a life near you soon

A lot of people ask me why I am so interested in international affairs (most of those do not know my background) so I explain it to them…
Opinion Column
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Dry Sebi

Even though BBC World reports that beer does not lead to beer bellies I’ve decided not to drink on other days than Thursdays anymore. The last couple of weeks I have been under a lot of stress and especially last week on the Radiohead/Atlanta trip there was quite a bit of alcoholic beverages involved to cope with it all. Not as much as the “3% of men drank more than 14 litres of beer in a week” in the study, (remind me never to get into a German vs Czech drinking match) but still.

And trust me, the weekly Thursday “hurray we put out the last paper of the week!”-drinking events should have me covered for the rest of the week.

The pope’s distortion of facts will end up costing lives

The untrue statement that condoms do not prevent HIV infection, issued by the pope, not only undermine his credibility but also jeopardize lives.
Editorial
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lame excuse

I am in Port Charlotte, FL until Sunday afternoon visiting my in-laws. I am trying to finish two writing assignments for Monday, so I doubt there is going to be much happening on this site until then. My column for Monday will be on Radiohead though. That’s something to look forward to, right?

87 billion dollars

This is hilarious, interesting and quite scary. This Web site shows what the $87 billion Bush wants to spend in Iraq would look like if you piled them up in comparison to a human. Definitely worth a look if only to proof that the right statistics or illustrations can make anything look convincing.