SmashTech

From WOOD-TV:

“A man accused of calling in a bomb threat at a courthouse was arrested after being spotted in an elevator in the building.”

Long story short, this guy who was to be sentenced for credit card fraud decided that calling in a bomb threat to the courthouse was a smart way to delay his sentencing. He called in the threat from his house, and then showed up at the courthouse.

Of course, as soon as the threat came in, police traced the call to him and had his description.  As he tried to get off an elevator, he ran right into a Sheriff’s officer who was just handed a printout of his photo and his description.  The inevitable occurred, and he now faces additional charges with calling in the bomb threat.

From the OC Register -

“SWAT officers expected to find a victim shot to death, drugs and a belligerent armed suspect when they surrounded the home of an unsuspecting couple, but found they were only a part of a false emergency call caused by a teenager who hacked into the county’s emergency response system, authorities said.”

Fortunately nobody was killed, but the couple was handcuffed before SWAT members realized this was a prank call.  The ‘father’ I assume is lucky to be alive.  He heard noises outside the house and grabbed a knife from the kitchen before SWAT came in.

Randall Ellis is expected in court Monday to face charges of “computer access and fraud, false imprisonment by violence, falsely reporting a crime and assault with an assault weapon by proxy.”  Hopefully they throw the book at this kid and put him away for a long time.

From the Daily Herald -

House Concurrent Resolution 3 has been introduced in the House.  It wants to seperate the internet into ‘adult’ and ‘family friendly’ zones.  What it really boils down to is allowing/disallowing porn on certain ports.  For example, Port 80 (HTTP) would be family-friendly only, and port 3284 (or some other random port) would be for porn.

The CP80 Internet Channel Initiative is playing a part in the drafting of this legislation.  Matt Yarro of CP80 had this to say about people who don’t think this will work:

“There is this assumption that you can’t control it (the Internet),” Yarro said. “It’s a toaster, we made it, we can fix it. … We can solve the Internet pornography problem tomorrow if we decided to.”

So now instead of tubes, the internet is a toaster.  Great.  Thanks Matt.

From CBS4 Miami -

“An elderly woman who had been living without power in her home due to hurricane damage was finally seeing the light Friday night, when power to her home was restored. What makes her story amazing is that the hurricane which put her in the dark was Andrew, almost 15 years ago, and she’s been living without power to her house since August 24, 1992.”

‘Norena’, as she goes by in the article, was without power after Andrew hit.  Her contractor didn’t finish the electrical wiring to code because the insurance money ran out.  Instead of asking for help from FEMA (back when it worked), the Red Cross, or even her neighbors, she decided to live for 15 years without electricity in her home.

The only electrically powered items in her house were a refridgerator and some lamps, powered via extension cord, but the article doesn’t say where.   If I was her neighbor, I might start asking when she was planning on getting the power back after the first month or so of her mooching.

(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.

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.”

Well Im hardly claiming that Slashdot is an unbiased news source, this quote on the front page directly from Michael is a bit much: “So it looks like the reason Intel was vague about their announcement is that they didnt want the WORLD TO KNOW THAT THEY WERE COPYING AND FOLLOWING AMD rather than developing some new thing on their own. Slashdot is proud to help Intel in this quest; wouldnt want the public to know that INTEL WAS SIMPLY FOLLOWING IN AMDS FOOTSTEPS. Hope this helps.”

Now regardless of your stance in the Intel/AMD Jihad, that quote is a bit much. Yes, he did use that many caps. Ever since JonKatz left, I can always look to Michael to ruin the glory of Slashdot with his shittiness.