Journal robi2106's Journal: Prodigies, SW@OMSI, SPAM, Police, BSU vs BCS 3
Journal Spam (Many at once). I've just got a lot to say and since you are reading this, then you at least pretend to care.
- A new Star Wars Exhibit at OMSI (Thanks to PK)
- Scary article on the Front Page of Slashdot about Russian Bot Nets that send 1 BILLION spam a day for Pump-and-dump stock scams.
- Assult on gay student was fraudulent, Police report
- Boise Micron CEO driving in famous Baja Race.
- A 14 yr old girl who's art is worth millions.
- Wal-Mart rolls out their cheap generic drugs to Idaho.
- Boise State & The BCS
1) Star Wars & OMSI.
This is cool for so many reasons. I am a long time SW fan (1999 SW Celebration participant in Denver CO!) so these things just push all the right buttons. It is OMSI so it even to start with it will be fun. Then it involves Star Wars. And then to finish it off with a bang, the exhibit has modern engineering thrown in! You Cannot Go Wrong With That Combination!
2) I read a _lot_ about security online. I am responsible for several small companies IT needs (as an independent consultant). And this is just freaky and fun, all in one (any rhythmically rhyming!). The sophistication of modern organized cyber crime is astounding. The common internet surfer almost doesn't stand a chance against these criminal brains at work. But I give the virus writers some credit.... they bundled their trojan with an anti-virus detector so that the machine would not get any other viruses (except theirs of course) so the owners might not even know what is going on.
3) There was a BIG stink in town recently about a gay student who said he was attacked by some homophobic students shortly after reading derogatory material on a restroom wall written about him. It turns out that he made the whole thing up and beat himself up to fabricate the evidence. Naturally the activists and loudmouths that usually hang around a college campus set up a big pep rally, the usual "Not In Our Town" thing. Understand that I am not in favor of any beatings, physical intimidation, or anything similar, against ANYONE. Period. Even child molesters deserve to be able to live with out death threats (doesn't mean I won't hesitate to take one out if I see him/her fiddling with my kids). So having said that, I am still not surprised that the activist students believe that there is a climate of "extreme hate" on the BSU campus. What? I went there. I missed this extreme hate that is suppose to permeate the campus. You want to see extreme hate.... go to the U of Idaho wearing BSU's Orange & Blue. That will be an example of some hate. Or show up in Michigan chanting "Buckies" to see what hate means. Or go to Iraq. That entire country is full of seething hate for almost everyone.
What really pisses me off is the utter waste of resources this selfish student created. For something like this selfish attention grab, dozens of cops would have been pulled off of regular duties to canvas the area and several detectives working on other cases would have been reassigned to interview potential witnesses / suspects in the area. This probably cost the city thousands if not more than ten thousand dollars chasing bogus information. But that isn't even the worst part. What crimes went unstopped because the cops were not where they should have been? What other investigations were put on hold because this had "hot button" issues attached to it so administration and command staff felt guilted or obligated to act because of the extremely effective lobby efforts of this movement.
4) The entire Micron executive team was required by the CEO Steve Appleton, to race the 2006 Baja 1000 as a showcase for their flash memory products and digital sensors. They will be racing 4 car/trucks (what do you call them any how) and will record all 4 cars video feeds for the entire race to demonstrate the quality of their products. Our KTVB has the interviews and fun facts about Micron's race attempts. See here for a shameless plug for Micron where the give a closeup view of the camera and storage system to be used. Any idea how much storage is needed for ~30 hours of video? Yeah I know..... It depends on resolution, frame rate, bit depth, compression, etc. But this is Micron, so they can probably afford to stick 100GB or so of flash ram in an array and hook that up to their cameras. Live Track the Micron Team. Looks like the race has already finished, but I want to see the video. I wonder how or when they will release this content.
6) (yes out of order) Wal-Mart is extending their generic prescription drugs to Idaho. Here is hoping that SingulAir will have a generic and that it is available soon.
7) BSU (6-0 in conference and 10-0 overall) plays against Utah State (1-5 in conference 1-9 for the season) and for some love from the BSC rankings. Here is hoping we at least get #12 and a bowl game. Our QB has had the chicken pox so his performance last week against Fresno is understandable. Our nation leading RB Johnson has finaly gotten out of the hospital due to a collapsed lung from the SJSC game last week. He probably will not play.
5) Akiane Kramarik, a binary child prodigy (art and poetry) has an art exhibit opening in Boise tomorrow. I'll just quote Ch6 News... At the age of four, Akiane Kramarik could draw better than many adults. By the age of seven, Akiane was painting and writing poetry and by the age of nine, this Idaho girl was declared a child prodigy in both art forms. She can paint and write poetry, but at age 4 she had some visions where she said God took her up to heaven for what seamed like days, but was just hours. Now many readers will say this is the product of overbearing parents. But her mother is an immigrant (and atheist) and she never heard of the word "God" before that vision. That doesn't mean she couldn't have read something somewhere, but the story is still amazing. Check out the paintings at the new Boise-Downtown art gallery or at KTVB's good link. Her parents took video of her painting to prove that it was actually their daughter and not themselves doing the painting. Now apparently the girl is taking up the piano. She even has a book available on Amazon. There is an audio podcast available for the vary curious (technically not the best audio production, but an interesting interview with the girl). Christianity Today has an article as well. She gets up at 4am so paint before the rest of the family is up. Then she spends +8 hours on her homeschooling homework and chores. Listen to the podcasted interview and she is amazingly articulate for how young she is.
Religious issues aside, this leads me to believe that there are some people that just get all the talent and the rest of us are here to gave on in amazement and then go back to our hum-drum lives wondering what we can do that will add beauty and love to this world.
Jason
Let's hope OSU and Michigan both stumble (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course all true Idaho fans want BSU to crash and burn because BSU has dominated the WAC since 00-ish when Hawkins started coaching there and led the amazing winning streak.
That would be a
Fake beating story reminds me of a real one (Score:1)
Guess who security wrapped up? Yep, Penn Gillette. He said he sat calm