jamotto

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Pvt. Ernesto R. Guerra, 20, of Long Beach, Calif., died July 29 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained on July 28 in Baghdad, Iraq, when his HMMWV was involved in an accident. Guerra was assigned to the Army's 4-3rd Brigade Troops Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.Link May you rest in peace...

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lance Cpl. Christopher P. Lyons, 24, of Shelby, Ohio, died July 28 when his unit came under attack by enemy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades while conducting combat operations in Cykla, Iraq. He was assigned to the Marine ReserveÔÇÖs 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Columbus, Ohio. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, his unit was attached to Regimental Combat Team-2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).Link May you rest in peace...

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Spc. Edward L. Myers, 21, of St. Joseph, Mo., died July 27 in Samarra, Iraq, where his unit was conducting patrol operations and an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV. Myers was assigned to the Army's 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.Link May you rest in peace...

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of four soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died on July 24, in Baghdad, Iraq, where an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV while they were on patrol. The soldiers were assigned to the Army National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, 48th Infantry Brigade, Albany, Ga. Killed were: Spc. Jacques E. Brunson, 30, of Americus, Ga. Staff Sgt. Carl R. Fuller, 44, of Covington, Ga. Sgt. James O. Kinlow, 35, of Thomson, Ga. Sgt. John F. Thomas, 33, of Valdosta, Ga.Link May you rest in peace...

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Cpl. Andre L. Williams, 23, of Galloway, Ohio, died July 28, when his unit came under attack by enemy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades while conducting combat operations in Cykla Village, Iraq. He was assigned to Marine Forces ReserveÔÇÖs 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Columbus, Ohio. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, his unit was attached to Regimental Combat Team-2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).Link May you rest in peace...

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Capt. Benjamin D. Jansky, 28, of Oshkosh, Wis., died July 27 in Al Taqaddum, Iraq, where his HMMWV was accidentally struck by another military vehicle. Janksy was assigned to the Army Reserve's 983rd Engineer Battalion, Monclova, Ohio.Link May you rest in peace...

quote: The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Staff Sgt. Michael W. Schafer, 25, of Spring Hill, Fla., died July 25 in Oruzgan, Afghanistan, when he was shot by enemy forces while on a quick reaction force mission. Schafer was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, Vicenza, Italy.Link May you rest in peace...

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Spc. Adam J. Harting, 21, of Portage, Ind., died July 25 in Samarra, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Harting was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 42nd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.Link May you rest in peace...

quote: The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Sgt. Christopher J. Taylor, 22, of Opelika, Ala., died July 24 in Balad, Iraq, when he was hit by mortar rounds while he was exiting a bunker. Taylor was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 41st Field Artillery, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.Link May you rest in peace...

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Sgt. Jason T. Palmerton, 25, of Auburn, Neb., died on July 23 in Qal'eh-Yegaz, Afghanistan, where he came under enemy small arms fire while conducting a dismounted patrol. Palmerton was assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C.Link May you rest in peace...

quote:The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Sgt. Bryan J. Opskar, 32, of Princeton, Minn., died July 23 when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Ar Rutbah, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.Link May you rest in peace...

Russian Sub Surfaces; All Seven Crew Alive quote:PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russia - Seven submarine crew members trapped for nearly three days under the Pacific Ocean were rescued Sunday after a British remote-controlled vehicle cut away the undersea cables that had snarled the vessel. The seven crew members, whose oxygen supplies had been dwindling amid underwater temperatures in the mid-40s, appeared to be in satisfactory condition, naval spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said. The seven were being examined by ship medics, he said. The sub surfaced late Sunday afternoon, some three days after becoming stranded in 600 feet of water off the Pacific Coast on Thursday. "The rescue operation has ended," Rear Adm. Vladimir Pepelyayev, deputy head of the navy's general staff, said in televised comments. Russian authorities had hoped that the British unmanned submersible could help free the sub and avoid losing a sub crew as they did with the Kursk nuclear submarine, which sank almost exactly five years ago, killing all 118 aboard. In sharp contrast to the August 2000 Kursk disaster, when authorities held off asking for help until hope was nearly exhausted, Russian military officials quickly sought help from U.S. and British authorities. Earlier Sunday, a British remote-controlled Super Scorpio cut away the cables that had snarled the vessel in Beryozovaya Bay, about 10 miles off the east coast of the Kamchatka peninsula. The United States also dispatched a crew and three underwater vehicles to Kamchatka, but they never left the port. Officials said the Russian submarine was participating in a combat training exercise and got snarled on an underwater antenna assembly that is part of a coastal monitoring system. The system is anchored with a weight of about 66 tons, according to news reports. Russia's cash-strapped navy apparently lacks rescue vehicles capable of operating at the depth where the sub was stranded, and officials say it was too deep for divers to reach or the crew to swim out on their own. An earlier attempt to drag the vessel to shallower waters failed when cables detached after pulling it some 65 yards. The submarine's problems indicated that promises by President Vladimir Putin to improve the navy's equipment apparently have had little effect. He was criticized for his slow response to the Kursk crisis and reluctance to accept foreign assistance. By early Sunday, Putin had made no public comment on the latest sinking, but Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had traveled to the site of the rescue operation. The new crisis has been highly embarrassing for Russia, which will hold an unprecedented joint military exercise with China later this month, including the use of submarines to settle an imaginary conflict in a foreign land. In the exercise, Russia is to field a naval squadron and 17 long-haul aircraft.

quote:Originally posted by $iLk: Underdog's version is horrible because it cuts video and most audio.All of which can be found and downloaded at the Freespace Oracle. The link is even provided on the Underdog's site

wow, 5 grand! mmm, what's wrong with him? That's way too cheap. LOL

You can also shutdown the Genuine Advatage service in XP.

quote:Originally posted by Teknocack Prime: Frankly, I'm glad someone cracked it. I wonder if OS X or whatever they end up calling it, will be the same when it is released for PCs. Hope not.I am very sure that it will, and most likely be expanded.

quote:Originally posted by Joel Schultz: So where can one get the FS2 game CD-ROM without having to sell one's own mother and spleen?With Interplay gone bust, you may have too. Appears people have snatched nearly all available copies.

Hacker forced new planet discovery out of the closet quote:BOFFINS WHO discovered that there was a 10th planet in our solar system, had been sitting on the news for years until a hacker turned over their servers. Michael Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, announced the discovery over the weekend. But according to the South African Sunday Telegraph, here, the briefing was hastily arranged after Brown received word that his secure website containing the discovery had been hacked. The unnamed hacker was threatening to release the information. It transpired that Brown and his friends had been sitting on the information since 2003 when they snapped it with a 122cm telescope at the Palomar Observatory. However they couldnÔÇÖt confirm much about it until it was analysed again last January. So in the time honoured tradition of boffins everywhere they decided to keep the data from the common people until they knew a bit more. Brown said that data is still being processed and it will take at least six months before astronomers can determine the planetÔÇÖs exact size. The planet seems to be about 1.5 times the size of Pluto, which is usually dubbed a planetoid because it is so small.story from The Inquirer

Link quote:Get ready to register with Microsoft if you want to update your Windows operating system. In a shift toward greater monitoring of personal computer systems and potentially less copying of software, Microsoft will require users to let the company place a software "key" on their systems if they want the free, regular system updates it provides. Privacy advocates are concerned, but Microsoft said the system is anonymous and won't be used for anything other than verifying the operating systems' authenticity. Called "Windows Genuine Advantage," the system is designed to limit the spread of copied software, a widespread practice that has grated on co-founder Bill Gates since the earliest days of personal computing. Today, Microsoft claims to lose billions in sales to counterfeiting and works with police to aggressively pursue bootleggers. Since it began testing the system last September, more than 40 million users have voluntarily registered. Starting today, registration is mandatory for anyone seeking updates, such as the updated versions of its media player or graphics program, glitch fixes and other features the company may issue 10 or more times a year. It works with Windows XP and 2000. Older systems don't require validation for updates. Security updates are not part of the system. They can still be downloaded free without the validation process. The system works by identifying unique characteristics of a system and implanting a software key that can be read by Microsoft when updates are requested. The only way to remove the key is to reformat the hard drive, said David Lazar, director of Genuine Windows. The key won't be used to identify individual users, only individual systems, he said. "I would go back to our privacy policy, which says we have no knowledge of the identity of the users, so a user shouldn't be concerned about the use of that key," he said. But privacy advocates aren't sure. Chris Hoofnagle, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's San Francisco office, is waiting for a technical analysis to gauge the system's invasiveness. "It's a march onto trusted computing, where basically the user is not trusted anymore." Hoofnagle is concerned Microsoft may share its user database with the government, or limit usage somehow. The system is also part of a broader effort to add copy-protection technologies to more media and devices, he said. "The ultimate goal of companies like Microsoft is to have it in the personal computer, so the operating system can effect a high level of control over the user, including things like being able to enforce policies against forwarding e-mail," he said. To make the program more palatable, registering customers will receive discounts for other software products and services, as well as a free downloadable photo-editing program, screensaver, card game and video tutorials. The system isn't foolproof, however. A researcher in Bangalore, India, cracked it last month, developing a way to generate keys for illegal copies of Windows, according to Indian news site Rediff.com.

Perhaps we should take another look at the VentureStar, which would of fixed the problems that plague the shuttle.

Link quote:By NAFI DIOUF, Associated Press Writer MARADI, Niger - Behind the high, brown wall of a clinic run by a Muslim charity, nurses care for hundreds of hungry children. Down the road 150 yards, members of a Christian congregation discuss how to stretch funds collected at Sunday services to help more of the poorest in drought-stricken, overwhelmingly Muslim Niger. "There is no rivalry between the two communities," said Abdou Laouali, permanent secretary of the 250-member Evangelical Church of the Republic of Niger. "We are working toward the same objective." Niger, which is 95 percent Muslim, has seen little of the tensions and even Muslim-Christian violence of neighboring Nigeria. But international aid workers like Bishir Ismael Brahim know they are under scrutiny after allegations elsewhere of Islamic groups funneling some of their funds to terrorists or spreading fundamentalism. Brahim, dispatched from the Kuwaiti-funded Center for Muslims in Africa's Kenya offices to respond to the hunger crisis in Niger, said the West misunderstands Islam and is unfairly suspicious of everything Muslims do. "I can assure them that a hungry stomach has no ears," he said. "So, whatever they can imagine we are telling these people, is falling onto deaf ears." "What we are doing here is purely humanitarian ... I came to save lives," said Brahim, sitting on a sofa in one of the agency's offices. Drought and severe locust invasion last year has left some 3.6 million people in this country of 11.3 million faced with severe food shortages. Children are most at risk, with some 800,000 aged under 5 years who need to be fed urgently. The Center for Muslims in Africa was founded in 1981 and is run with financial support from the Kuwaiti government. It has been working in Niger since 1986, but increased its activities here because of the hunger crisis. It is active in 34 African countries, building schools, mosques, health units, water facilities and also caring for orphans. The group, which has former Kuwaiti Cabinet ministers among its directors, has passed the Kuwait's governments increased scrutiny of such organizations following allegations of links between terrorists and charity groups. Kuwait has removed unlicensed kiosks that collected donations on the streets and instituted an independent auditing system. Some Muslims complain that crackdowns by the United States as well as Arab governments have left them wary of donating, troubling as giving alms is a central Islamic tenet. Among the other Islamic groups working in Niger is the Burbank, Calif.-based Islamic Relief organization. U.N. agencies like the World Food Program and UNICEF rely on the Center for Muslims in Africa and Islamic just as they rely on Christian and secular international groups to distribute food and medicine in Niger. Growing numbers of families are seeking help at the Center for Muslims in Africa's high-walled clinic in Maradi, 410 miles east of the capital, Niamey. Maradi has become a hub for aid agencies in Niger. Brahim recently helped set up another branch in Zinder, some 160 miles north of Maradi. With the number of children in need of treatment continuing to rise, Abdelkak Azeroual, another Center for Muslims in Africa coordinator, approached the World Food Program two weeks ago to seek assistance. On Saturday, WFP started delivering 250 tons of sorghum for the Center for Muslims in Africa to distribute. "We feed everyone without distinctions, religious or others," Azeroual said. "Ask them," he said, pointing at a group of women sitting on the sand with their children resting on their thighs or trying to find nourishment from their mothers' empty breasts. "You will certainly find some animists, Catholics. The food here is for everybody." Only the cook and a handful of women in the courtyard responded to the noon call to prayer.

Think it might be a bit cold for most life forms there but who knows.

Link quote:LONDON - British artist Mark McGowan finally shut off the spigot Friday ÔÇö 32 days after turning on the water in an art gallery's kitchen sink as part of an exhibit intended to mock the waste of water. "The Running Tap," as it was called, was McGowan's ironic effort to protest the waste of water in London by blatantly letting it go down the drain. After the sink swallowed 211,344 gallons, McGowan ended the project. "It was really quiet," he said, since he'd grown used to the faucet's gushing sound. "I felt quiet inside as well." The idea came as London experienced its worst drought since 1976. The cold water was intended to gush for one year and waste 3.9 million gallons ÔÇö all in an effort to alert Londoners that precious water is needlessly wasted every day. "Water's quite cheap," he said. "I think that's why people waste it so much." McGowan decided to abort the project after the public utility, Thames Water, hand-delivered a notice ordering McGowan to turn off the tap within seven days ÔÇö or else. He celebrated the end of the exhibit with a cool glass of water. "The reason behind my art will linger," he said somberly. Thames Water had tried in exasperation to get McGowan to shut off the tap several days after the exhibit began, but McGowan adamantly disobeyed. He claimed they waste millions of gallons of water every day through pipe leakage ÔÇö a charge the company did not deny. "We don't deliberately leak," said Nick Tennant, the utility's spokesman. The company acknowledged that the art helped illuminate water waste problems, but complained that McGowan shamelessly squandered the precious liquid. Even after its death, "The Running Tap" might be resurrected. With a $2,614.62 price tag, the stainless steel sink is up for sale, ready to cascade once more. McGowan said he had received an e-mail from an interested art connoisseur in the U.S. "I think it's one of my best pieces because it's so simple," he said. "Myself, I still leave the tap running sometimes because I forget."

So anybody seen this one? Critics have torn this one to pieces

Wow.