==pla|\|ing lakes==

Saturday, March 20, 2004

Have to admit Century City was engaging -- and this from someone who as a rule avoids all shows featuring lawyers, cops or doctors

Of course I doubt whether life will be quite as bright and shiny as this show depicts, but it's not bad writing.

11:50 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Photo diary of present-day Chernobyl by young Ukrainian female cycle enthusiast [twin cities babelogue]

Something cheerful soon. Really.

11:39 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, March 19, 2004

EMF experiments in UK too?

Another rash of malfunctioning car alarms, this time in England

10:05 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Don't pay through Western Union

ebay miffed at posses of fraudwatchers, says it can handle spiking fraud

Yet far more rampant than art forgeries and fake collectibles these days are fraudulent listings for expensive consumer goods. Plasma televisions and laptop computers, mountain bikes, fancy espresso machines, treadmills, telescopes, even vehicles are prime candidates to be phantom objects on eBay, sometimes promoted with photos and descriptions lifted straight off the manufacturer's Web site. Often, the seller uses auction software to post dozens of items at once, flooding a category with fake listings.

Last year, some $200 million lost to online fraud was reported to the Federal Trade Commission. And nearly half the 166,000 complaints the agency received last year were about online auctions, a 130 percent increase from 2001. While the F.T.C. does not break out figures by companies, the vast majority of online auctions are conducted on eBay.

"It's gone nuts just since November of last year," said Greg Schiller, a computer and network technician in Aztec, N.M., who says he reports hundreds of fraudulent listings every day to eBay.

9:41 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Looks like 2 recent books on the rise and context of Nazism are complementary and definitive: Richard J Evans' The Coming of the Third Reich (actually the first of a trilogy) and Michael Burleigh's The Third Reich: A New History, a single volume

Here's a capsule review of the Evans with reference to Burleigh.

11:12 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Scientists now admitting November's huge solar flare was much bigger than they had claimed -- upgraded from X-28 to X-45 [Urban Survival]

That's more than twice as big as the previous record, and would undoubtedly have created havoc with satellites and electrics if it had been pointed our way.

1:39 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell says alien bodies under study, presidents since Kennedy not briefed on ETs [Subtle Energies]

2:06 AM - [Link] - Comments ()