Current affairs
The first thing I thought when I saw this article was, Sweet Jiminy Christmas, that looks painful! Click on the link and you’ll see: a woman beaming, somewhat maniacally, and a X-ray of her skull with wires and electrodes buried deep into her brain. The radical procedure is being used to address the woman’s crippling depression issues by delivering electric charges right into her noggin. So far it seems to be working. And good for her.
Now, of course, I’d like to get an iPod Nano inserted directly into my brain and pipe in a mix of Rush tunes and Henry Rollins spoken word recitals. That’s a sure-fire cure for the blues.
Hello, 2007? It’s 1994 calling with a dang Windows virus
Most 13-year-olds probably have more tech-savvy in their little fingers than I have in my entire body. The little darlings are texting and downloading music and handing me my ass at Halo 2, typically all at the same time. It should come as no surprise, then, that a teenager has brought Vista to its knees. The youngster in question isn’t a snotty lad with a crush on Avril Lavigne, but a virus. First seen in the wild in 1994 – which is practically the stone age in Web terms – “Stoned.Angelina” has returned to put the hurt on Vista. The infection itself is pretty much harmless, but as this article points out, Microsoft is probably red-faced that a pipsqueak like this has managed to slip through its security net.
Hubble trubble
Nothing stings quite so much as flushing $1.5 billion down the toilet. Well, maybe dropping your keys in the toilet, but you get my meaning. That’s roughly what was shelled out for the Hubble telescope – a device with a silly name and more troubleshooting woes than a copy of Microsoft ME. A group of astronomers from the California Institute of Technology and Cambridge University say that they’re getting twice the resolution of the humble Hubble using equipment that cost them roughly US$20,000. Granted, that’d be an expensive camera if you’re taking pictures of your three-year-old kid’s kindergarten recital of I’m a Little Teapot, but it’s peanuts compared to . . . well . . . $1.5 billion. That’s a lotta money.