With number portability in full effect, eBay has some listings for phone numbers. Would you like to own 212-867-5309? I have thought about wanting this number (in the 415 area code), but you would get so many crap calls it might not be worth it. I would rather have 362-4368 from AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap than a Tommy Tutone song.
Gnomedex 4.0
Gnomedex 4.0 is going to take place from September 30-October 3 at Harrah’s in South Lake Tahoe. I should actually be able to drive this time! I will wait to see the conference schedule before confirming.
First same-sex marriage in the United States
Today Del Martin, 83, and Phyllis Lyon, 79, took their wedding vows in San Francisco’s city hall, becoming the first same sex couple to be officially married in the United States. The couple will celebrate their 51st aniversary this Saturday.
Exploding water balloons without gravity
Ever wonder what would happen to an exploded water balloon in zero gravity? NASA answers the question with 3 liter balloons.
New York Times interviews Bram Cohen
Seth Schiesel interviews Bram Cohen in today’s New York Times. Bram created BitTorrent while unemployed. His solo effort led to a job at Valve Software starting in October 2003.
August 14 Northeast blackout caused by software bug
SecurityFocus.com reports that the huge blackout of Northeast states on August 14 spread from Akron, Ohio due to a software bug in GE Energy’s XA/21 software system. 50 million people in eight states without electricity.
The North American Electric Reliability Council is now directing power companies to be sure their software has the latest patches installed.
Fighting your parking ticket by phone or Web
If you live in San Francisco, New York City, or Washington D.C. you can now fight your parking ticket over the phone and/or Internet using ParkingTicket.com. They claim 75% of parking tickets submitted through their system are completely dismissed. Designed for corporate fleets, but good for the individual as well. They guarantee the ticket will be dismissed. They take 50% of the parking fee in return for its dismissal.
Interesting idea, and they might be able to pull it off with a New York staff applying similar ticket tactics across the country. Looks interesting enough to try out. I wish the service could hook into the city’s parking system and retrieve all outstanding tickets for my car after providing adequate identification.
Dave Winer’s Microsoft Research talk
Dave Winer‘s lecture at Microsoft Research is now available online. Addresses “Weblogs, RSS, aggregators, OPML, content management, how we can work together, and the care and feeding of online communities.”
Apple Store San Francisco
Apple’s new store in San Francisco’s Union Square is scheduled to open on Saturday, February 28 at 10 AM. It will have an Internet Café with 12 computers, a 32 foot Genius Bar, and a nice theater.
Searching for confidential documents
On the front page of today’s Washington Post is an article by Yuki Noguchi about Google’s proficiency at locating confidential documents that may have publicly revealed themselves for only a brief moment in time.