QICBoy - NEWS category

Buy absinthe with thujone in Alameda

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:20:00 GMT

On Monday, St George Spirits in Alameda sold its first bottle of absinthe with thujone (10 parts per million). Starting Dec 21 you can buy your own for $75 through its tasting room. They're open Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 7pm, Sunday noon-6pm. The address is 2601 Monarch St. Alameda, CA.

St George will be offering free shuttle service from West Oakland BART every weekend in Dec. The service will operate from noon to 6pm on Sat and Noon to 5PM on Sun. You'll need to call them to schedule a pickup (510-864-0635). They will have live music on Dec 22 from 4pm-7pm and Dec 23 from 3pm-6pm.

SFGate - Alameda distiller helps make absinthe legitimate again - Wednesday, Dec 5, 2007
NYTimes - A Liquor of Legend Makes a Comeback - Wednesday, December 5, 2007
SFGate - Resurrecting spirits - Friday, October 19, 2007
Wired - Barely Legal: American Absinthe Passes the Taste Test - Thursday, July 19, 2007

Earthquake in the east bay

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 03:15:00 GMT

We just got rocked by an earthquake in Fremont. It looks like it was a 5.6.

Global terror

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:00:00 GMT

GlobalIncidentMap shows a frightening view of suspicious activity that could be terrorist attacks.

San Diego county fires map

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:00:00 GMT

The fires in San Diego County have caused over 350,000 people to leave their homes. The fire has burnt 356,000 acres and consumed more than 1,300 homes. KPBS has a Google map with information about the fire.

Dead body on 880

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:30:00 GMT

Traffic was a mess this morning. Apparently there was a dead body on 880 at A Street. They closed off parts of the freeway. I made if off to the frontage streets but traffic was just as bad there.

Kohei Yoshiyuki

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:00:00 GMT

In the 1970's a Japanese photographer Kohei Yoshiyuki did some documentary photography of people having sex in a public park in Tokyo. This series, "The Park", is available for the first time in the United States at the Yossi Milo Gallery in New York. As Philip Gefter points out in his feature for the NYTimes everyone is crossing a line: the couple, the peeping toms, photographer and us.

Genital mutilation season

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:00:00 GMT

The circumcision season of this year is underway. It starts every year during the annual school holidays. The death of the 11-year-old schoolgirl at a private clinic in an Egyptian village in June however has prompted the government to outlaw the custom of female genital mutilation, which is so widespread in Egypt that 95 percent of the country's women are estimated to have undergone the procedure.

Quantum tunneling

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:00:00 GMT

Günter Nimtz and Alfons Stahlhofen of the University of Koblenz, Germany, claim to have broken the speed of light using a phenomenon known as quantum tunneling.

Hacking Netflix

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:00:00 GMT

The digital rights management software from Microsoft has been cracked. Netflix is offering movies online and hackers have provided instructions on how to download get the movies without paying for them. Here are the Cliff notes.

Pick a movie from the NetFlix site.
Find the URL for that movie in the web page source and download it without getting the key to decrypt it.
Decrypt the file using a program called FU4WM (fair use for Windows media).

Wardriving

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:00:00 GMT

Two years ago Benjamin Smith III, 41, was charged with a third degree felony under section 815.06 of the Florida statues for accessing a resident's wireless network without permission. The trail of that story goes cold after the arrest. I wonder what happened to that case. Gregory Straszkiewicz, 24, was arrested on similar charges in Isleworth U.K. was fined $874 and received a 12-month conditional discharge.

(1) Whoever willfully, knowingly, and without authorization:(a) Accesses or causes to be accessed any computer, computer system, or computer network; (b) Disrupts or denies or causes the denial of computer system services to an authorized user of such computer system services, which, in whole or part, is owned by, under contract to, or operated for, on behalf of, or in conjunction with another; (c) Destroys, takes, injures, or damages equipment or supplies used or intended to be used in a computer, computer system, or computer network; (d) Destroys, injures, or damages any computer, computer system, or computer network; or (e) Introduces any computer contaminant into any computer, computer system, or computer network -- commits an offense against computer users.