Danish police find heroin stash in sword blades – Danish police said on Wednesday they had found heroin worth more than $1 million (559,000 pounds) that had been smuggled into the country from Pakistan in the hollowed-out blades of 25 antique sword replicas. Hollowed out blades? At first I thought they were stuffed inside the sheath. How much heroin can you stuff inside an already thin blade? The heroin packs look way too big to find in a bad. Then again, when I think sword, I’m thinking Katana. Maybe they’re referring to swords like the on that Gatz uses in Berserk or Cloud uses in FFVII or Sanosuke uses in Rurouni Kenshin.

Woman Allegedly Smuggles Grenade Into Jail – A Salvadoran woman was detained after she tried to smuggle a military grenade and marijuana hidden in her vagina into the country’s main prison, authorities said Wednesday. In her what?!?! I guess those things can get pretty wide. Would quite painful if the grenade went off…

Bras for miles: the cups runneth over… – Women on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus hope to form the world’s longest chain of bras with the twin aims of heightening awareness of breast cancer and winning a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Working at Microsoft (from /.) – It seems like there’s a lot of public interest in what it’s like to work at Microsoft. Here’s my personal persepctive on the good, the bad, and the in-between. It was an interesting read and there were many points I agree with him.

Phony doctor gives free breast exams – A 76-year-old man claiming to be a doctor went door-to-door in a Florida neighborhood offering free breast exams, and was charged with sexually assaulting two women who accepted the offer, police said on Thursday. One woman became suspicious after the man asked her to remove all her clothes and began conducting a purported genital exam without donning rubber gloves, investigators said. At first I thought he was a genius! Then after seeing all the missteps he took, I retracted that thought.

Retiree flushes fortune down the toilet – A German pensioner flushed bundles of old banknotes worth a small fortune down the toilet because he thought they were now worthless, police in the northern city of Kiel said Thursday. … Police said he dumped some 60,000 deutschemarks — which the euro replaced in 2002 — into the bowl, unaware they could still be exchanged for about 30,000 euros ($37,000). Sewage workers recovered about half the sodden currency from the 64-year-old’s plumbing. The remaining notes created a bottleneck in local sewers, where most were fished out.

Americans commute longer, farther than ever – Dave Givens drives 370 miles to work and back every day and considers his seven-hour commute the best answer to balancing his work with his personal life. Ouch!

Robotic Chair (direct download) (from Esca) – Future chairs will be broken and automatically put itself back together again! Check out this neat video.

Seagate Leaks 750GB Barracuda 7200.10 Details – Two 750GB models have already shown up on the Seagate website. The Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640A (PATA) and the ST3750640SA (SATA) will be two new models we can look forward to seeing this year. The Seagate webpage reveals dozens of other NCQ-ready 7200.10 based products ranging from 200GB on up. Cache information was not available via the website yet, but the official Seagate PDF claims the Barracuda 7200.10 series will come with 16MB and 8MB buffers. Considering these two drives will be the best of breed for Seagate, it is fairly safe to assume these drives will have 16MB caches. *drools*

(vid) 最高のプレゼント – Best Present – I can’t believe how excited this little boy is
(img) 王蟲の幼虫 – Bug King – that’s one giant catepillar or worm or larvae or whatever it is
(img) お、落ちる… – Oh, I’m falling – pretty neat mini cooper ad – though I don’ think the falling part was intended
(img) 食えますか？ – Are you going to eat it? – cute game character cookies (including chocobo, koopa troopa, the squid from mario and more)
(img) 燃える空 – Burning Sky – I thought this looked really pretty
(img) 裏表のない男 – The man with faces on both sides – awesome haircut, giving him shades, mustache, and beard on the behind
(img) 手作りケーキでおもてなし – Handmade Cake – really cute!
(vid) イスの爆発 – Exploding Chair – pretty neat video where the chair breaks apart into 6 or more different pieces and comes back together.
(vid) 指パッチン – Hand Tap Dance – never knew hands could make so much noise
(img) Universal Serial Bus – some interesting things with the USB adapter (i.e. syringe, tie, lock, phone, rotary dial, belt, bra). I wonder if these are real. I know most of them are for aesthetics, but the handset is actually useful for VoIP and the lock was actually quite interesting, because without the key, you actually won’t be able to read the contents inside. Just another layer of security
(img) 店先にて – At the store ahead – frog cookies
(img) ズコー – Puppy tripping
(img) ぐるぐる – Guru Guru – pretty trippy
(img) 折り紙 – Origami – a Gundam folded from paper!!! I learnt a new Japanese phrase today. I wasn’t sure what that first kanji (折) was so Babelfish told me it was to fold, so that phrase would mean folded paper. I took a step back and though, the last word paper (紙) was pronounced kami, so something ri kami, then it hit me it was origami!
(img) 雲の上 – Above the Clouds – pretty scenary
(img) 思わずジャンプしたくなる光景 – The spectacle that makes you want to jump uncontrollably – by placing Mario ? boxes and coins around the city
(img) 植木屋さん？- Gardener? – it’s a party filled with bush animals!
(vid) 冬といえば – If you mention the Winter – a collection of funnies
(vid) 水難事故 – Water Problem Stories – a collection of funnies
(vid) やわらか男子 – Rubber Man – oh how he stretches!
(img) びっくりフラッシュ – Surprise Flash – haha! I remember when these were popular and people would share them all the time
(img) 炭酸祭り – Carbonic Acid Celebration – I just thought it was hilarious they’re wearing Coke bottles as caps. I wonder if it’d work if someone didn’t have black hair.
(img) 唸れ！　ワンツーパンチ nya！！ – Groan! One Two Punch Meow!! – punching cat
(img) Σ(゜∀゜)アヒャンっ – Cute Puppies
(img) ベルト – Belt – belt that can hold your iPod Nano
(vid) 縦列駐車メンドクサイ – Parallel Parking Craziness – you’ve got to have a lot of balls to do that.
(vid) モデル面接 – Model Interview – haha! maybe you shouldn’t wear shoes you can’t walk in
(vid) この世の終わり – End of the World – a guy dances pretty neatly to O-Zone’s Dragostea Din Tei
(img) ガシガシガシ – Gashi Gashi Gashi – A very big biting mouth
(img) 金魚の揚げ物Friday – Fried Goldfish Friday – goldfish tempura just sort of grosses me out
(img) 職人技 – Craftsman Skils – chain made from one tree?
(img) HEART and LOVE – I really think the shirt says Hate and Love (not heart)
(img) 風の谷かハイジの村か – Valley of the Wind – reminds me of the pretty scenaries in Switzerland
(img) ダイダルウェーブ – Tidal Wave – run, run, as fast as you can
(img) 像 – Elephant – pretty neat puzzle made of 6 elephants
(img) 集団リンチ – Group Bullying – Mountain Dews vs 1 Coke
(img) 姉○設計 – Weird Building Design – I’d think it’d be pretty easy to get lost, but pretty neat though
(img) 自分探しの旅 – Searching for yourself – I wonder if his face really looks like that
(img) 手乗りウサ – Bunny in hand – cute bunny
(flash) ローゼンセブン – The Rozen Seven – interesting flash with characters from Rozen Maiden
(img) 額にマークnya – Cute Kitten
(img) 龍とお出かけ – The Dragon Backpack
(img) (wan)僕はもうだめだ – (woof) I’m lazy – sleeping puppy
(img) 一人になりたくて – When you want to be alone – that’s what you get for having roommates. i wonder what’s he doing under there that requires privacy
(img) へへへ – hehehe – boy pees on wall inside house
(img) 最近の携帯は・・・ – Recent on things you carry… – the Ring has returned!
(img) そびえ立つ我らの荷物 – Luggage Tower
(img) キティちゃん – Kitty Chan – I’m not sure if that hello kitty is suppose to be cute or scary
(img) 足元に蝶 – Camouflage Butterfly

One thing that many of you would agree is that IMAP support in most email clients are pretty horrible. I’ve encountered some problems after I switched to my new email account. Those who emailed recently should’ve gotten my updated email address. Anyway, I use webmail (RoundCube) when I’m not at home and I use outlook when I’m at home. That way I can move email around from my Yahoo! to *@krunk4ever.com. Outlook 2003 is my default email client and the delete flow is completely broken.

I understand that that maybe how IMAP system works, but there’s got to be a better way to deal with this. Most email clients when dealing with deleting emails on IMAP only marks the email for deletion and after a point you have to go purge the deleted emails. Same thing occurs in Pine, but when you exit Pine, it prompts a message asking if you would like to purge your deleted emails. In Outlook 2003 and as far back as I can remembered, emails marked for deletion appear with a line striked through it. The only way to purge is to click Edit > Purge Deleted Messages followed by clicking OK to confirm the purging.

If I had to write a email client for IMAP, what I would allow the user to do is set a trash folder. If none is set, then create a trash folder and move any deleted email into that folder (similar to how every other email client works in the world). None of this marking email for deletion and still appearing in the same folder. It’s like if you had to delete a file off your network drive, it won’t really delete it, but instead just have a line that strikes through the filename and won’t be truly deleted until you purge it. And of course, you have to do this by folder, there’s no purging of emails in multiple folders or even subfolders.

Okay, maybe I was dreaming a bit too much. A shortcut key to quickly purge would be nice too. The fastest and only way currently as mentioned above is to click Edit > Purge Deleted Messages and click OK on the confirmation.

I found out that in Outlook Express, they have a function which when enabled allows you to Purge deleted messages when leaving IMAP folders. I mean even that work around would do it for me, but after contacting the Outlook team, there isn’t such a feature on Outlook 2003, not even a shortcut key to purge deleted emails. However, I was told that in Outlook 12 (also known as Outlook 2007), they would have PurgeOnSwitch which basically does the same thing that Outlook Express did for years. For now, in Outlook 2003, we’re stuck with manually purging. The person who responded to me did say that I could filter out deleted emails or sort by deleted status so the deleted emails appear at the bottom.

My dear officemate did tell me a faster way to do this. With a keyboard, this is the combo to purge: ALT+E, S, <SPACE> (basically the keyboard combo of doing what I mentioned above). It’s the only way I can think of so far. If you have any better ideas or ways around this, please let me know. Guess I can only wish for now…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIAM!!!
and congrats for getting into Georgia Tech!

Random Crap:

Click image to start the animation or view it in the gallery.
Cowboy Bebop VS Naruto (from Artemyst)
– looks like blatant copy of action moves

Fullmetal Alchemist – Chibi Party OAV (from Tokyotosho) – hilarious and awfully cute 6 minute video clip with tons of FMA characters in chibi bodies (big heads, tiny bodies, awfully cute).

US comedian called world’s ‘unsexiest’ man – Comedian Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of the Aflac Inc. duck in television commercials for the insurer, was crowned “unsexiest man in the world” by an alternative newspaper on Tuesday. There’s also a video of the report.

Man Rediscovers Gift Fruitcake From 1962 – Nesta’s two aunts sent him the fruitcake in November 1962 while he was stationed in Alaska with the Army. “I opened it up and didn’t know what to do with it,” Nesta said. “I sure wasn’t going to eat it, and I liked my fellow soldiers too much to share it with them.” As best he can remember, he packed the cake with the rest of his belongings and shipped it home to Waukesha when he left the military a few years later. He recently rediscovered the boxed fruitcake in the attic of his mother’s home in Waukesha.

Clinical web site may be target of porn seekers – Of the more than 7800 dermatological images available on the site, 5.5 percent involve genital regions. However, 12 percent of queries for a specific diagnosis involved a genital area. Also, 37 percent of the requests for an anatomic site involved a genital region, and 12 percent of the 10,000 free text queries were for images of genitalia.

DB apparently fansubbed an episode of Pythagoras Switch. You can see my previous post on it. This episode contained 4 contraptions that I counted. It’s very much like a regular kids show (i.e. Sesame Street) with puppets and little kids teaching little kids. Here’s the torrent file (from Tokyotosho).

A rough decade for traditional camera makers mentions this article: Digital trend challenges camera makers: Camera buffs were stunned in January when Konica Minolta Holdings Inc., which traces its roots to 1873, said it was quitting the camera business altogether – digital and film – and selling its digital assets to rival Sony Corp. Nikon Corp. said the same month it would stop making seven of its nine film cameras and concentrate on digital models. Fuji Photo Film Co., which plans to cut 5,000 jobs, changed directions last month announcing it would spend nearly $8.5-million (U.S.) to diversify into pharmaceuticals. Europe’s biggest film maker, Germany’s AgfaPhoto GmbH, couldn’t adapt at all; it’s now bankrupt and liquidated. Meanwhile, Antonio Perez, who is leading Eastman Kodak Co. through a four-year digital remake, has warned that Kodak, the pioneer of point-and-shoot photography, is now “at the worst possible place” after a $1.03-billion third-quarter loss.

The Mega Man Effect for Windows (from MS newsgroup) – The Mega Man Effect is an application that emulates an effect seen in the classic NES game Mega Man 2. When you launch an OS X Windows application, the screen goes dark, stars sweep the night sky and your application’s icon is presented in a blue letter box bar with a cheesy 8-bit music introduction. Haha.

Deinsea 8 (from Artemyst) – The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae) (page 243-247) On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes. Then the author disturbed the scene and secured the dead duck. Dissection showed that the rape-victim indeed was of the male sex. It is concluded that the mallards were engaged in an ‘Attempted Rape Flight’ that resulted in the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard. I’ve read this article somewhere before.

Will Ferrell – Bush on Global Warming (from MS newsgroup) – hilarious parody video!

AskMen.com – Joke of the Day (from Cari). Found a couple I thought I’d share:

• New Anti-Aging Drug
• Are You Ready for Some Football?
• Management Lesson
• The Best Bar In The World…
• Don’t Lie to Mom
• Three Lawyers and Three Engineers
• Life Lessons
• Tough Operation

Man Accused of Changing Traffic Lights – – A man who said he bought a device that let him change traffic lights from red to green has received a $50 ticket on suspicion of interfering with a traffic signal. Jason Niccum of Longmont told the Daily Times-Call that the device, which he bought on eBay for $100, helped him cut his time driving to work. Interesting… I wonder if this same device works on traffic lights around here.

That’s a pretty big curse… – Russian police are looking for two mystics who persuaded a student to part with more than $160,000 in exchange for lifting a curse, RIA news agency reported Sunday. I mean if you’re dumb enough to believe that…

one red paperclip (from Decathanerd) – My name is Kyle MacDonald and I am trying to trade one red paperclip for a house. I started with one red paperclip on July 12th, 2005 and I am making a series of trades for bigger or better things. My current item up for trade is one year in Phoenix. Do you want one year of FREE rent in Phoenix? Pop your offer over to me at (oneredpaperclip@gmail.com) or give me a shout at 514-833-3980. (If you can’t get through – please send a text message) You can see the current offers here. I live in Montreal Canada but will go anywhere in the world for the right offer. – (click on the pictures below to read stories about each trade I’ve made so far.) He’s already up to 1 year in Phoenix (rent free apartment I presume).

Future sex: gizmos, robots – When America’s top sex researchers gathered recently to discuss the next decade in their field, some envisioned a future in which artificial sex partners could cater to every fantasy. “What is very likely to be present before 2016 would be a multi-sensual experience of virtual sex,” said Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Mobile phone users love their pornography – Porn has gone mobile. That’s one conclusion of a study done by Maryam Kamvar and Shumeet Baluja, computer science professors who are also affiliated with Google. The pair analyzed a random sampling of one million page view requests from mobile phones and PDAs last year, hoping to better understand the behavior of wireless search users. What they found is that wireless users really, really like porn. Less than 10 percent of all searches done on PCs these days are porn scavenger hunts, a number that is down 50 percent from 1997. As the Web has matured and more consumers have come online, porn’s percentage of searches has consistently dropped. On mobile phones, though, users are still partying like it’s 1997—more than 20 percent of all mobile queries looked at in the study were for “adult” content.

Jerry C (from Js8) – He now has his own homepage! The color is pretty awful (hot pink), but Js8 tells me it was designed by his sister. If you don’t know who Jerry C is, he’s the one that did Canon in D Rock.

I got an interesting comment on one of my really old blog entries from Michael: Ink all over my pants. He stated:

You do know that each GSM phone has an IMI IMEI number? If you report it stolen they can lock this number world wide and the phone becomes useless to the thief. Sure, you won’t catch him, but at least he won’t have a lot of fun with the phone either.

At first, I confused this with just disassociating my account with the SIM card, but it turns out there’s actually a global blacklist based on the phone’s IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity). From Wikipedia: When mobile equipment is stolen or lost, the operator or owner will typically contact the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) which blacklists the device in all operator switches so that it will in effect become unusable, making theft of mobile equipment a useless business. The IMEI number is not supposed to be easy to change, making the CEIR blacklisting effective. However this is not always the case: IMEI may be easy to change with special tools and operators may even flatly ignore the CEIR blacklist.

If what they say is true, then it appears all or at least most major networks will follow this blacklist in order to try to deter people from reselling stolen cell phones. Now both the phone and the SIM card are rendered useless, which is quite interesting and I wonder if they actually did that for me when I reported my phone was lost last time. The CSR (customer service representative) didn’t even mention about this and only seemed to want me to purchase a new phone.

However, I could totally see why phone companies would look the other way. Every stolen phone actually means more revenue for them. Since most phones are stolen when under a contract, there’s no longer any need to entice the customer. Either they buy a new phone at the full price or pay the heft cancellation fee.

I wonder if there’s a way to get off the blacklist. One day, I should call T-Mobile and report my stolen phone and see how long it takes them to take my phone off the network. Then I call back and tell them it was a mistake and I had found my phone. Maybe I’ll do it when I get a new phone just to test this.

Just got my tax refund today! w00t! That’s almost $5 grand ($4.8k to be exact). All thanks to my dad. =)

I wasn’t even expecting that much haha. I thought I was in the ball park of only $4 grand. Maybe I should’ve looked at the numbers more.