This week in the world of weird tech-related news (or at least geek-related news) we find a life sold on eBay, a Bermuda triangle for laptops, flaming UFOs, and an '87 Ford Mustang that can out-MPG a Prius. Good reading all.
Sad man "disappointed" by auction price for sad life
ITwhirled readers remember Ian Usher, a man so disenchanted with his life that he planned to auction all of it off -- his house, his friends, his job -- on eBay and start over. Perhaps he didn't anticipate the fact that if he doesn't want his life, probably nobody else does either. He netted $384,000 -- about $100,000 short of his goal. read more...
Study: 10,000 laptops lost in airports every week
Can this possibly be true? In a study paid for by Dell, the Ponemon Institute claims that 10,000 laptops are lost in US airports every week. Where on earth do these half million laptops a year go? Is there some vast TSA warehouse somewhere stacked high to the ceiling with lonely computers, somewhere near the Ark of the Covenant? read more...
Flaming UFO terrifies Californians
Dozens of Californians reported seeing a flaming streak coming across the sky this week, resulting in panicked calls to 911. No landing site was found, so it's unclear whether the tentacles space monsters actually visited the surface of our planet. Authorities are claiming the alien spacecraft from beyond the moon was really a "meteor," but we all know that the TRUTH IS OUT THERE. read more...
Latest Automotive X Prize entry: a 1987 Ford Mustang
The Progressive Automotive X Prize, modeled after the competition that brought privately built craft into space a few years ago, offers $10 million to anyone who can build a road-ready 100 MPG car. While all sorts of high-tech entries are in the works, one Ohio man claims he's gotten his 20-year-old Ford up to 110 MPG with electronic tweaks to the engine. read more...
Mozilla's Firefox 3 sets geeky world record
It's official: Mozilla has set possibly the geekiest world record ever with the release of Firefox 3. The browser's 8,002,530 downloads in its first 24 hours of release set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in that period of time. read more...
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Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325
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