pimblr.com

It appears that Mozilla has shot itself in the foot with the Firefox 3 Download Day Guinness Book of World Records attempt.
As of 2:00pm Eastern time, a full hour after Mozilla said that Firefox would be available, the site is sporadically producing errors reading “Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.” A Mozilla rep said the team was working to get the download site up quickly.
A Mozilla blog post stated the following: “The outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!). Our servers are currently feeling the burn and should be back to normal shortly. Download day will officially commence once the site goes live. The 24 hours period will be clocked from that moment.”
The statement acknowledges that the browser maker has missed its launch time of 10 AM Pacific Time, which was already a postponement of the announced 12:01am Pacific time launch.
PC Magazine has published a review of Firefox 3, which seems to be handling heavy traffic without incident.
Update: As of 3PM Eastern Time, the Firefox 3 download site is up and running. Said Mike Schroepfer, VP of Engineering: “We are currently serving almost 14,000 downloads a minute, which puts us on track to clear 5 to 7 million downloads in one day. The systems are busy, so individual requests may not get through—but are up and serving a tremendous amount of traffic.”
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American Idol. Season 7. Final Three. Three Songs. I’m so freakin excited, I think I might pop a vein. *Chill* Before the Show starts, Bitten would like a brief word with the Final Three, a pep talk of sorts. That’s right, let’s all huddle around now…
Squinty – Awright Archie, you know I like to make fun of your squinty-eyed Barry Manilow-singing McFetus ass, but I still think you’re talented and a good kid to boot. Because I like you (and because everything I say is important), I’m going to give you some sage advice, which I will condense into one simple word: Emancipation. You need to break free from Poppie Dearest now, or you are going to come home from school one day and find Jonah Crawford roasting the family jewels on wire hangers over an open fire. Oh, and if Cra-zee Dearest gives ya any crap, Bruiser Bitten would be happy to come over there and personally pop a jujitsu on his overbearing, cap-wearing ass. Or Palais will run him over with her Zamboni. Either way, ya really need to cut the cord, luv. That’s all.
Timex – Syesha, gurl, nobody in Season 7 knows the view from the stools quite like you, and yet you have somehow risen like a Phoenix from the ashes each and every week. So… let’s all give it up for Syesha, a standing O for the Energizer Bunny, the freakin Timex watch that takes a lickin and keeps on tickin. Yeah, Gurl, I’m going to let you in on a little secret… I want you in the Final Two. Granted, I want David Cook to douse your flame with a big ole bucket of wodka and then join me for a mud bath as we frolick about and do the Nasty in your ashes (…TMI?), but I still want you on the stage, which is truly saying something. After all, I think you’ve earned it.

tvfan.ew.com

Just Cause (www.jcause.org), a Local Non-profit Working with Refugee, Immigrant and Marginalized Communities, Has Joined with Partner Agency, Engeye, to Assist in Facilitating Susan Nabukenya's Trip to the United States
Atlanta, Georgia (PRWEB) May 9, 2008 — Young Susan Nabukenya never expected to see the world outside the boundaries of her tiny Ugandan village. Few of her friends or family did either. Such is life in impoverished rural Africa. However, Susan's prospects were far more dire than most. A tragic and fateful day early in her childhood changed her life in one horrifying instant. Her kerosene-stained dress had caught fire while she helped her mother cook a family meal over an open fire, and severe burns covered much of her tiny body. Her burns had been left to heal with no medical supervision, and her badly scarred leg never had the chance to heal properly. Walking inevitably re-opened her wounds, and the pain was excruciating. Susan was denied most of the pleasures that makes childhood and adolescence special. She couldn't play with her friends, and she was missing much of her schooling. Susan's mother passed away shortly after the accident, leaving Susan with her paralyzed grandfather who could be of little help to her. The prospects for this shy young woman were grim indeed.
Then one day in 2006, word came to Susan that a small clinic had just opened its doors in a nearby village. A remarkable group of medical professionals and students were in place to bring medical care to local villagers for the first time ever. Team Engeye knew when they met Susan that her needs far eclipsed the limited capabilities of the fledgling clinic which had no electricity or running water. If she were to have a chance for a normal life, she would need to have access to sophisticated surgical techniques and extensive physical therapy in the United States. It was a daunting task for anyone, but for this group of financially and academically-stressed medical students, it seemed almost insurmountable.

emediawire.com

Posted on: Saturday, 26 April 2008, 03:00 CDT
Abstract: In order to get undergraduates interested in mathematics, it is necessary to motivate them, give them good reasons to spend time on a subject that requires hard work, and, if possible, involve them in undergraduate research. This article discusses how cryptography can be used for all these purposes. In particular, a special topics course on cryptography developed by the author is described.
Cryptography has played an important role in human lives over the centuries. The Spartans used the scytale to send secret messages in 500 B.C., and militaries all over the world have used various cryptographic methods over the years. The breaking of secret codes like the German Enigma and the Japanese military cipher has often had a decisive effect on the outcomes of major wars. Some authors have argued that as early as 1900 B.C., ancient Egyptians modified standard writing symbols in the writings on the tombs of some of the pharaohs, just to intrigue the reader. Deciphering ancient languages has often led to the understanding of those cultures. Thus, cryptography is of interest not only to the military, but also to the historian, the artist, the anthropologist, and many others.
Until about 30 years ago, even though many found it intriguing, as far as making investments of time and resources was concerned, information secrecy was largely of interest to the military and the diplomats. But in the modern world, cryptography plays a crucial role in many aspects of life, like Internet banking, e-commerce, email, automatic teller machines, etc. We make use of cryptography, perhaps unknowingly, in many of our common everyday transactions. Modern cryptographic methods have had tremendous impact on the economic, sociological, and political aspects of our society.
With the development of public key cryptography, this “science of secrecy” does not need to be “secret” any more. There are many websites devoted to this interesting topic. There are many popular books, movies, and television serials on this topic. Traditional undergraduates are naturally interested in learning about the science behind sending secret messages. Interestingly, the mathematics behind this topic is easy to explain to the undergraduates. The problems in this field are easy to understand, although they may be very hard to solve.

redorbit.com

On January 25 a 16-year-old boy boarded a flight to Nashville concealing on his person a pair of handcuffs, a roll of duct tape and a length of rope. Had airport police been less vigilant, he might have got away with his plan to hijack and crash the plane into a Hannah Montana concert.
On December 29 last year, the mother of a six-year-old girl whose moving essay about the death of her father in a roadside bombing in Iraq won her tickets to a Hannah Montana concert admitted that the essay was entirely fictitious. “We did whatever we could do to win,” said the mother in her defence.
On October 4, 2007, the entire 54 dates on the Hannah Montana Best Of Both Worlds Tour sold out in four minutes, causing a tsunami of hysterical, bereft pre-teens and putting the nation’s confused, beleaguered parents in the position of having to shell out thousands of dollars for scalped tickets.
That’s a considerable amount of controversy to be resting on the slim shoulders of a peppy 15-year-old girl who doesn’t actually exist. The American Idol franchise may command bigger audience figures and generate more income but in the uncertain world of mass entertainment, there is no corporate entity more skilled at creating stars than the Disney Channel. And the reason the cable network, originally intended as nothing more ambitious than a repository for old movies and TV shows, is so ruthlessly efficient at unearthing, indoctrinating and exploiting tween icons is that it used to be rubbish at it.

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Sony has released a new version of its PS3 firmware. Turn on your PlayStation 3 console today and you’ll be informed that firmware version 2.17 is available for download. Provided you’ve signed up to the PS Network (for free) obviously.
Sony tends to release new updates as soon as they’re ready, leading to regular, small updates. That contrasts with Microsoft, which only updates the Xbox 360 firmware every six months or so.
So does this new PS3 firmware update add any exciting new features? Or is it just a minor back-end tweak? Well, unfortunately it’s the latter.
Sony says that the only real changes in the latest firmware is that the “the operating stability of some online PS3 titles has been improved”.
Nothing really to shout about then. But let’s face it, what with DivX compatibility, new music visualisations and DVD upscaling options, PS3 owners have been spoiled by the amount of new features in past updates.
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