Author: RagManX

Celebrity geeks

Cracked.com routinely cranks out great articles, and their recent “8 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were Geeks” is no exception. I first opened this up (courtesy digg) figuring it would just be of interest to me. But since the first celeb listed is the uber-sexay and even smarter Natalie Portman, I figured I could post here just so I could post an eye-candy pic of Ms. Portman.

natponerd3_clip.jpgWhen Golden Globe winner Natalie Portman was 10 years old, a representative of Revlon found her at a pizza parlor and asked her if she wanted to model. Portman turned her down and said that, all things considered, she would much rather act.

. . .

By the time she got her bachelor’s, she had studied four languages in addition to Hebrew, the language of her birth, had been published in professional science journals twice, killed an ass-load of aliens, and generally made us look like big human-shaped piles of poo. Seriously, when we were 10 years old, we wanted to be doctors or space cowboys or, at the very least, fire fighters. The closest we’ve gotten so far is one of those little shiny red fireman helmets.

I’ve been a fan of hers since watching Léon (aka The Professional for us in the US – which, BTW, is when I became a fan of Jean Reno as well). And I’ve long know she was intelligent. But I had no idea just how brainy she was. Smart, way damn sexy, so, so, so very pretty, and she can deal an alien ass-kicking to make your eyes pop out. And have I mentioned she super hot?

[tags]Natalie Portman, geeks, Stuff I want, Eye Candy[/tags]

Cyst removal

Shelley recently posted this snip about the removal of a parasitic cyst from a young girl’s brain.  She even included a video (which I’m not embedding due to my recent climax-like explosion of video posts) plus a bit of information on the nature of the cyst, the danger of removing, and just what happens to the brain around the cyst after it is removed.

The cyst is a hydatid cyst, which is the result of a parasitic infection by tapeworm larvae(Echinococcus). Generally speaking, it does not occur in the USA, but rather occurs in Mediterranean countries, the Middle East, the southern part of South America, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and southern parts of Africa. The cysts, which are initiated by one larvae, eventually come to house thousands of tapeworm larvae. So it is very important not to rupture the cyst during its removal, else the host could easily die.

I’m normally squeemish in regards to video of medical procedures, but this is just such an interesting procedure.  ScienceBlogs rock.

Now I’m hungry.  Be back after I fix a bite of early lunch.

[tags]Cyst, Parasite, Brain surgery, Hydatid cyst, Shelley, Retrospectacle, ScienceBlogs[/tags]

F-Secure HealthCheck application patch security tool

In a past career, I was big in to computer security, and got paid well for doing the work. Since I’m now elsewhere professionally, I’m less in touch with the security industry than I used to be. However, I still keep up with a few important resources, and like to pass along really useful tips when I find them. Today in reading some security news and trying to catch up, I caught word of the F-Secure HealthCheck application patches scanning system. While this is unfortunately an Internet Explorer only tool currently, the site indicates work is in process for supporting other (and better, in my opinion, BTW) browsers. Hopefully that will happen soon.

Run HealthCheck to get a scan of applications on your system along with checks for patches and updates to those applications. This should help you track down security problems that have fixes available. If you keep up to date on these patches, it should help significantly with avoiding your machines getting taken over by a ‘bot-network. The tool appears to have been developed or at least re-announced (I’m not familiar enough with HealthCheck and it’s history nor age to know which is the correct term) as a result of an F-Secure poll regarding application patching.

It appears that many people are uncertain if their computers are fully patched when there are third party updates involved.

Q — What can you do about it?
A — F-Secure Health Check.

Health Check is a free online tool designed to help consumers identify security updates needed on their computers.

I will point out that HealthCheck requires installation of an ActiveX control in your Internet Explorer window. I personally trust the eggheads at F-Secure to not do malice as a result of this, but you need to understand that installing an ActiveX control is a security risk which gives the control vendor pretty much full access to your operating system. While *I* personally trust the F-Secure worker-bees to not corrupt, control, nor destroy my system, you’ll have to make that decision for yourself.

After running the test, here’s a snip of what I got as a result:

healthcheck_clip.jpg

In my case, I’m on a work computer without anti-virus and anti-spyware protection. Sadly, I am not allowed to correct this flaw. I make up for it by using the PortableApps version of ClamWin, and regularly scan my system. I also run Firefox for my browser (actually, I use the PortableApps version of this application, too) and stick mostly to web sites I know and trust. I save my home computer for more risky online activity.

If you are unsatisfied with your HealthCheck scan results and the problem turns out to be a browser security issue, can I suggest you update to FireFox?

[tags]security, healthcheck, scanning, vulnerability, patch, Windows, Internet Explorer, FireFox[/tags]

I want to be Neatorama!

One of the absolutely greatest sites on the great wide intarw3b is Neatorama. I like it almost as much as I like boingboing (which gets bonus points because of Cory Doctorow – one of my favorite online peoply-persons – and Xeni Jardin – one of the sexiest online weblishly-folks), particularly because the frequent oddities that get posted like this Ultimate Geeks compilation.

Tracking down and posting all this greatness is inspiring, and I wish I had the time, tenacity, and skill to find and put together all the cool stuff that they give us over at Neatorama.

[tags]Neatorama, Ultimate geeks, YouTube, boingboing[/tags]

Grokking movie ratings

I’ve not seen Beowulf yet, but I would like to eventually. So while looking for reviews and bits of info on the movie today, I found this restricted audiences only intarweb trailer for the movie. And this begins my wondering at just how little the motion picture ratings board understand rating motion pictures.

(I have no idea if this video will even work embedded, but I’ll try it)

To watch the video on YouTube, you have to log in and verify your age. I believe it restricts viewers under the age of 18 (at least, for those who tell the truth in verifying their age) from accessing the trailer.  But what piques my curiosity is how a trailer, composed of scenes from the movie, could be restricted and require an age check when the movie itself is rated PG-13.  Anybody know?

So I start looking, and I find out that I’m not the only one curious about the movie’s rating.  Most of the stuff I find, though, is commentary from before the release of the restricted trailer, so not too many people talk about that.  One site I found with commentary on this idiocy has a list of a few other movies that are similarly baffling in their ratings and show the politics/idiocy/WTF? nature of the movie ratings board.  But hey, if anyone can tell me why 2 hours of semi-realistic animated nudity and extreme violence is appropriate for ages 13 and up but the 2.5 minutes of semi-realistic animated nudity and extreme violence is restricted, I’m all ears.

Oh, and by the way – I have a friend who says every time he sees Angelina Jolie’s face it makes him think of her father, and that pretty much kills her sex-appeal for him.  I completely agree with that, but man I could look at her body a long time and totally forget about her face long enough to think inappropriately about Ms. Jolie.

[tags]Beowulf, Angelina Jolie, Boobies, Motion picture ratings[/tags]

Candy art – M&Ms make good geometric patterns

This isn’t exactly new news, but it’s not ancient history so it can still get a post by me.  A talented young nursing student has a knack for crafting M&M art in her spare time.

This is what my soon to be wife created with several bags of M&M’s and three days.

And while that might not look like much from that angle, when you get the full on look at it, it’s really pretty cool.

Continue reading “Candy art – M&Ms make good geometric patterns”