(copied from my Slashdot posting)

W64.RugRat.3344 has been released as a proof of concept virus. It is the first virus which will only run on Windows on the IA64 platform, and uses APIs from 3 native DLLs to avoid crashing applications. It infects files that are in the same folder as the virus and in all subfolders. The author of the virus has also written other concept viruses* in the past.

* Corrected from virii, which people were nitpicking over on /.

Tags: microsoft, viruses, windows

(from the DenverChannel, parts 1 and 2)

A 13-year old middle school student with cerebal palsy was told to stay home and take summer classes after she was threatened with a knife and had her hair set on fire.

The knife was later found to be plastic. However, the bully did not face any penalties whatsoever until the local news broke the story. In fact, the school did not even take any witness statements or report the incident to the police until after the story made the news. Reports of violence at a school directly affect the schools rating in the state and can negatively affect state funding.

After the story became public, an investigation was conducted and the bully was disicplined. Also, the assistant principal who handled the issue will be replaced. The girl, however, is still out of school and will be attending summer classes.

Tags: bully, idiot, school

(from CNet)

Several sites are running stories about how a DC think tank, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, is raising questions of whether Linus can really be considered the father of the OS.

AdTI claims that more credit should go to Andrew Tanenbaum, who was at the same university as Linus, and developed Minix, which Linus admits (in his first usenet post about linux) is supposed to be a free Minix clone for PCs.

The main question is: Does anyone care?

Tags: history, linux

This guy worked at IBM and Netscape, and has a Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology. Yet he spends his time finding things to be anal about and nitpick over. He offers suggestions for clearing up confusing items and situations. Here are just a few of the many gems on the site:

“For a long time I caught myself mistaking the tachometer for the speedometer.”

“A lot of manufacturers package both shampoo and conditioner in nearly identical bottles. You ought to be able to easily distinguish between them in the shower without your glasses on.”

“This is a nice attractive knife. Just one problem. Which side do you use for cutting? Although you can tell which end is the handle and which end is the blade, it isnt clear which side of the blade cuts.”

Tags: idiot

Google has changed the way they rank pages again, and this has inspired a search engine optimization group to accounce the DarkBlue SEO Challenge. The basic premise is that they made up a phrase (nigritude ultramarine), and are having people try to get the #1 ranking on Google after 2 months for that query. The winner gets an iPod when its all over.

I’m just a small site, not at all related to nigritude ultramarine. So I wont slip nigritude ultramarine into all my paragraphs. Why are they using some stupid phrase like nigritude ultramarine anyways? Its kinda silly, in a nigritude ultramarine sort of way.

Ok…enough of that.

Tags: contest, google, nigritude, seo, ultramarine

Got a wireless card, laptop, and GPS? Then get in your car for a few hours between June 12-19 for the 4th Worldwide Wardrive. Turnout has been low as of late, so we need to you head over to the WWWD forums and sign up to represent your area! For details on WWWD4, check the official site.

Tags: wardriving, wwwd