Hippo, birdie, two ewes...

... to elemirion -- have a great one!!

Belated hippos and birdies to shapirac, snobahr, and kennita, who appear to have had birthdays while I wasn't looking.

Illustrated guide to computer cables

Giz Explains: An Illustrated Guide to Every Stupid Cable You Need

We put up with too many cables. There are at least four different kinds of USB plugs, two kinds of FireWire and like a million different ways to connect something to TV or monitor. Modern gadget life can be kind of retarded in this way. Why not one kind of cable, or just a couple? I don't know. But until everyone gets on the same appendage-to-hole scheme, in the meantime, you can use this: an illustrated guide to pretty much every kind of cable you will see in current gadgets and what it's used for (unless, you know, Sony springs a new one on us overnight, which is honestly possible).

Just in case you were wondering what all that spaghetti at the back of your desk is doing there. Not to mention an image that looks suspiciously like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

When network admins go bad...

... or at least go weird.

Sorting out fact from fiction in the Terry Childs case | InfoWorld | News | July 30, 2008 | By Paul Venezia

It's been nearly three weeks since Terry Childs was arrested on four counts of computer tampering and sent to jail on $5 million bail. In those three weeks, this event has taken turns to the strange, and wound up firmly in the land of the absurd. From bombastic claims in the press to midnight visits by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to pages of functional usernames and passwords entered into the public record, this case has certainly proven engaging.

Lost in all the drama is what actually happened. How could a large city government apparently lose control of its network, and how could its own characterizations of the system be so questionable?