David Pescovitz: Police in Waldboro, Maine, have seized a severed hand that had apparently been, er, handed-down over fifty to eighty years. A construction worker found the hand in a box at a home he was painting for the owner, a man who buys homes to restore and sell. The owner and police contacted the woman who lived there previously to (sorry) get a grip on the situation. From the Associated Press:

(Current home owner Bo) Jespersen was struck by its size, with fingers about an inch and a half longer than his own...The wrist portion appeared jagged, Jespersen said, as if the hand had been removed violently, and 6 to 8 inches of what appeared to be tendons were looped around it...

The previous owner claimed she had gotten the hand from a man down the road, who is now in his 80s and remembers his father having the hand.

"She had heard it was from a farming accident," Jespersen said.

Link (Thanks, Loren Coleman for the link and puns!)

Xeni Jardin:

- synthetic bubblegum cards
- mr. picassohead
- flash sketchbook
- sketch swap
- paint by numbers
- pop art portraits
- cheap screen printing
- learning to love you more

Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

walterbyrd writes with a warning: "Microsoft is pushing Office 2007 with 'try-before-you-buy.' Please don't let your friends and relatives install Microsoft 'trial' software. When Microsoft tells you 'try-before-you-buy,' the 'buy' part is not meant to be an option. Once you 'try' a Microsoft 'upgrade' you can not easily go back, because your files will be replaced by new versions that you need the new software to read." The ChannelRegister article also notes how Microsoft's push goes against the grain of the consumer revolt against "crapware." Read on for an account of walterbyrd's experience with a previous Microsoft trial upgrade.

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cyberdelicat writes to let us know about a Swiss security firm called WabiSabiLabi that is causing waves with its open auction for zero-day security vulnerabilities. While WSLabi claims they will thoroughly vet both buyers and sellers of vulnerabilities, many researchers are skeptical about how effectively they can do this. The Washington Post article mentions the guy who almost opened a similar auction site several years back, to be called Zero-Bay, but pulled the plug at the last minute. SearchSecutiry notes that some security researchers are now referring to WSLabi as "zerobay" as they undermine the auction site by reproducing and publishing vulnerabilities as soon as they appear for sale.

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andhow writes "Practically any time I hear a large software system discussed I hear "X is a #%@!in mess," or "Y is unmanageable and really should be rewritten." Some of this I know is just fresh programmers seeing their first big hunk o' code and having the natural reaction. In other cases I've heard it from main developers, so I'll take their word for it. Over time, it paints a bleak picture, and I'd be really like to know of a counterexample. Getting to know a piece of software well enough to ascertain its quality takes a long time, so I submit to the experience of the readership: what projects have you worked on which you felt had admirable code, both high-level architecture and in-the-trenches implementation? In particular I am interested in large user applications using modern C++ libraries and techniques like exception handling and RAII."

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hazem invites us to have fun, learn about galaxies, and actually help astronomers by looking at pictures of galaxies and identifying the type. Warning: it's more addictive than Tetris. From the site: "GalaxyZoo... harnesses the power of the internet — and your brain — to classify a million galaxies. By taking part, you'll not only be contributing to scientific research, but you'll view parts of the Universe that literally no-one has ever seen before and get a sense of the glorious diversity of galaxies that pepper the sky. Why do we need you? The simple answer is that the human brain is much better at recognizing patterns than a computer can ever be. Any computer program we write to sort our galaxies into categories would do a reasonable job, but it would also inevitably throw out the unusual, the weird and the wonderful. To rescue these interesting systems which have a story to tell, we need you."

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An anonymous reader writes "Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs. The company will now be allowed to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge into Lake Michigan every day."

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Vary writes "The LA Times is running a story today saying that marketers are pulling out of Second Life, primarily because — surprise, surprise — the 'more than 8 million residents' figure on the game's Web site is grossly inflated. Also, as it turns out, the virtual world's regular visitors — at most 40,000 of them online at any time — are not only disinterested in in-world marketing, but actively hostile to it, staging attacks on corporate presences such as the Reebok and American Apparel stores. The companies aren't giving up on virtual worlds altogether, though, but moving on to games like There, Gaia Online and Entropia Universe. The article also contains some commentary from a marketing executive who conducted an informal survey of the game and discovered that 'One of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia.' What company wouldn't want to be in on that action?"

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FreetoCopy writes "Teenagers downloading music may not be the worst copyright offenders. See this item (available for download in PDF file with free registration) about the growing problem of copyfraud — in which publishers, archives, and distributors make false claims of copyright to shut down free expression. From the paper: 'Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern reprints of Shakespeare's plays, Beethoven's piano scores, greeting card versions of Monet's Water Lilies, and even the US Constitution. Archives claim blanket copyright in everything in their collections. Vendors of microfilmed versions of historical newspapers assert copyright ownership. These false copyright claims, which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner's permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use...'"

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SoyChemist writes "In 2004, the FDA approved the cone snail venom ziconotide (Prialt) for the treatment of chronic pain. It is only used for severe cases because it must be injected directly into the spinal column. This month, researchers from the University of Utah have reported the discovery of a new snail venom with a completely different amino acid sequence. Because it very selectively attaches to and blocks nerve signals by binding to a particular type of acetylcholine receptor without causing any collateral damage, the newly discovered venom could also become a fantastic medical tool."

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Frank writes "Rumors of the high definition holy grail persist. The latest is that Toshiba will be offering their basic HD-A2 player at $99 for one week only, beginning July 22. An added bonus is three free HD-DVD's."

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Mark Frauenfelder:
(Click on image for enlargement)

Cartoonist and all-around seeker of unusual truths, Jay Kinney, says:

Attached is a page from T-Man comics #3 from 1952. I just happened upon it by chance and - Holy Smokes! - all was revealed. We can now grasp the origins of the Bush administration's foreign policy! It was all there in T-Man #3, 55 years ago! Perhaps Cheney read this comic in his youth and just bided his time until he was in a position to actualize it in real life.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "For at least the second time, a federal judge has dealt the RIAA's campaign against college students a blow by refusing an ex parte motion by the RIAA for a subpoena against college students. In Newport News, Virginia, Judge Walter D. Kelley, Jr., denied the RIAA's motion for information about students at the College of William and Mary. The Court denied the motion outright, saying it was unauthorized by law. (pdf) Last month it was reported that a New Mexico judge had denied a similar motion directed against University of New Mexico students on the ground that it should not have been made ex parte."

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Virgil Tibbs writes "With the Launch of the BBC's iPlayer imminent, the BBC trust has agreed to hear the Open Source Consortium's concerns regarding the BBC iPlayer's tie in with Microsoft's software. The move by the BBC to use Windows Media DRM & their apparent lack of commitment towards other platforms has caused outrage in many circles and prompted several online petitions."

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ScaredOfTheMan writes "'The lawsuit, filed by brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accuses Zuckerberg, Facebook's 23-year-old C.E.O, of stealing the source code, design, and business plan for Facebook in 2003 when he briefly worked in the Harvard dorms as a programmer for their own fledgling social-networking site, now known as ConnectU. The plaintiffs have demanded that Facebook be shut down and that full control of the site — and its profits — be turned over to them.' I just wonder why they waited so long to sue? If he really stole their idea in 2003, why wait four years?"

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Katharine writes "Jason Krause, a legal affairs writer for the American Bar Association's 'ABA Journal' reports in the July issue that Windows Vista will be a boon for those looking for forensic evidence of wrongdoing on defendants' PC's and a nightmare for defendants who hoped their past computer activities would not be revealed. Krause quotes attorney R. Lee Barrett, 'From a [legal] defense perspective, [Vista] scares me to death. One of the things I have a hard time educating my clients on is the volume of data that's now discoverable.' This is primarily attributable to Shadow Copy, TxF and Instant Search."

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dgcrawford writes "A growing, 100-person company I work for is looking to integrate a Human Resources Management System into their Linux computer base. Does anyone have experience with any products that fit this need? Does it interface well with payroll, applicant tracking, maybe even finance and stock or other non-monetary compensation? I realize most of you would look at this from an IT point of view, but how did the system work across fields? And how important/useful did you find this interoperability?"

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skotte writes "According to a Trinity College survey released Friday, the boom in mobiles and portable devices that store reams of personal information has created a generation incapable of memorizing simple things. In effect, the study argues, these devices have replaced our long-term memory capabilities. 'As many as a third of those surveyed under the age of 30 were unable to recall their home telephone number without resorting to their mobile phones or to notes. When it came to remembering important dates such as the birthdays of close family relatives, 87 per cent of those over the age of 50 could remember the details, compared with 40 per cent of those under the age of 30.'"

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perbert writes "The PHP development team has announced that support for PHP 4 will continue until the end of this year only. After 2007-12-31 there will be no more releases of PHP 4.4. Critical security fixes will be made available on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08. For documentation on migration for PHP 4 to PHP 5, there is a migration guide. There is additional information available in the PHP 5.0 to PHP 5.1 and PHP 5.1 to PHP 5.2 migration guides as well."

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