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Experts Exchange recently fixed the Google loophole that allowed you to view any answer on their site as long as your referral was Google. Now, if you are not a member, you can pull up the site but all the answers are fuzzed out, and it says you need to signup to get the answer.

There is a way around this. If you View Source on the page, you can see all the answers. “But they’re all garbled!” I hear you say. Simple enough to fix.

All of the garbled answers in Experts Exchange HTML source are stored via ROT13 , which can be decoded pretty much anywhere with a quick search .

Michigan Sending 80 Officials to Hawaii

From WZZM -

Michigan is facing a $900 million shortage in the upcoming budget. What is the best solution to this? Obviously, we should send a bunch of people to Hawaii on the taxpayer’s dime to discuss how to invest pension money!

“Nearly 80 officials across Michigan – more than twice the number of any other state – plan to fly off to Hawaii this month for a weeklong conference on public pension issues. And taxpayer-backed pension funds will pay the tab.”

Now, using the numbers in that article, and assuming that taxpayer money will fund airfare, the hotel stay, conference fees, etc, and that all 80 delegates stay for the full week, that comes out to just over $460,000.

Why am I not surprised that Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is going on this trip?

Update – 3 officials have decided not to go on the trip at all. 16 members of the delegation will now be paying out of their own pocket for the trip, including Kilpatrick. Michigan is still sending the largest delegation of any state in the country.

HD-DVD Encryption Key

Warning!

The DRM powers that be do not want you to know that this number exists.

If you post regarding this series of numbers on Digg, expect to have your posts deleted and your account possibly banned. However, last I checked Digg, the first 2 pages were nothing but posts regarding the HD-DVD number. Looks like Digg is suffering from its own diggstorm and the editors are a bit overwhelmed right now.

Let this be a wakeup call, production and DRM companies. Consumers are tired of being treated like criminals. If I bought and paid for a high def movie, and I have a monitor that can do 720p or 1080p, then I had better be able to play it at native res. Downscaling or blocking your content from being played just because a company didn’t pay your encryption license fees is BS.

Once that media is purchased, it should be mine to do with as I please, within the bounds of fair use. Buying an HDDVD, then ripping it and sharing it on P2P networks? No. Bad. I can understand you want to stop that from happening. Ripping an HDDVD to another format so that it can play on a device which doesn’t support your draconian encryption schemes? Yes, good.

Update: As of 9:00 last night, Digg founder Kevin Rose has stated that Digg will stop censoring stories and posts with the key in them.

Cubans Try to Float Buick to Freedom

(news from his way, her way, My Way)

9 Cubans were intercepted attempting to cross over to the USA in a 1959 Buick which had been converted into a pontoon boat. So yes, you can now truly say that old Buicks are boats. The Cubans will be sent back to Cuba, as they did not reach US shores. This same group of Cubans attempted to float a 51 Chevy pickup over last July, but were intercepted.

Now, I might be way off base, but if youre living in Cuba, and you can afford not one but 2 vehicles (broken or otherwise), and you’re smart enough to convert them into boats, then you probably aren’t too bad off in Cuba.

Woman Sues for $162M Lotto

(found at FortWayne.com)

A woman is suing to halt the payout of the $162M lottery win in Ohio because she says she lost the ticket. Rebecca Jemison turned in the winning ticket and has previous tickets showing she has played the same numbers in the past.

Elecia Battle claims that she lost the ticket, and that she has the rightful claim on the prize. She has not provided any proof that she purchased it or that she played similar numbers in the past. “My ticket was lost. I do recall all the numbers. They are all somehow family related. No one can tell me what I did and did not play. I did it honestly and I have no doubt.” she claims.

Police are now investigating if Battle may have filed a fraudulent police report.

It Ain’t So Britney!

(blatantly ripped from The Scotsman)

Pop star Britney Spears was single again today after her spur-of-the-moment wedding to a childhood friend was annulled.

Spears, 22, had been married to Jason Allen Alexander for just two days when she asked a judge in Nevada to annul the marriage to her “husband for a weekend”.

Documents filed by the singer�s lawyer setting out the reasons for the request stated she “lacked understanding of her actions” when she got hitched.

SmashTech