stimulus-response.net

Exxon Valdez $2.5 bln oil spill ruling overturned - The U.S. Supreme Court overturned on Wednesday the $2.5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon Mobil Corp was to have paid for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska. The high court ruled that the punitive damages should be limited to an amount equal to the compensatory damages of $507.5 million.




Hanson’s dilemma -




Hotkeys - Details about creating keyboard, mouse, and joystick hotkeys. In addition, the Keyboard, Mouse & Joystick Reference lists the keyboard keys, mouse buttons, and joystick buttons that can be defined as hotkeys. Finally, the remapping page describes how to transform keys and buttons into other keys and buttons.

Handy utility programs - I use these on XP via batch files, but they can all obviously be run directly from a command line: FTP (built into Windows). Shutdown (built into Windows). Example: %windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 2 Defrag (built into Windows). Example: “%windir%\System32\defrag.exe” “%homedrive%” -f -v PhotoResize: www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize Ccleaner can be run from command line. Example: “%programfiles%\CCleaner\ccleaner.­ exe” /auto Blat for sending email. Stunnel for SSL connection. Xcopy, XXcopy or Robocopy for backup. Sdelete for secure file deletion: www.microsoft.com/techne…ity/SDelete.mspx NetCPS for network line speed measurement: www.netchain.com/netcps Netsh (built into Windows) for easy change of network connection: www.microsoft.com/resour…en-us/netsh.mspx +1 for TinyWeb Thanks for the link to ‘Command Line SMTP Mailer for Windows’.

Writing out XML - You can’t just embed plain text into an XML element or attribute; character content and attribute values have to be escaped in a number of ways, not necessarily obvious. Here’s a checklist of things to make sure to do. (Once again, this post will look terrible in RSS readers that don’t fully understand Atom.)

Alexander Shulgin is the world’s foremost developer and explorer of psychedelic drugs. - Born in 1925, this self-described “manic libertarian psychedelic chemist”, over the past 30 odd years or so, has been a prolific writer and his publications (150 scientific papers, 20 patents and a handful of books) provide a great introduction into the world of psychedelics and also he is the discover of DOM (at one time known as STP), MMDA and many other psychedelics and is generally regarded as the reinventor or stepfather of MDMA (Ecstasy - E).

Barcode Yourself - Barcode Yourself is a complete, interactive experience in the series of barcode art, created using the personalized data of participants. Enter an individual’s gender, weight, height, age and location, and the barcode is formed using real-world data.

Don’t eat anything without a face -

Giving Mormons a taste of their own medicine - A WEEK of warm weather has brought forth an army of creepy-crawlies and squadrons of nasty flying things. They have, of course, invented repellants for pests like that, but, alas, it’s illegal to spray the stuff on Morons and Jehovah’s Witlesses, who have proved an even greater nuisance these last few days.

If god didn’t want people to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat? - In an ironic related story, a dozen protesters picketing the Hungry Carnivore Steak House in Dallas were allegedly assaulted by three patrons of the restaurant. Eyewitnesses say that the picketers were making their typical nuisance display of scorn and righteous indignation over the willful consumption of “the flesh of murdered animals” outside the Hungry Carnivore when two unidentified men and a woman stepped out of the establishment and sprayed the picketers with several gallons of what appeared to be blood.

Run a program automatically when Windows starts - Run a program automatically when Windows starts If you always open the same programs after starting your computer, such as a web browser or e-mail program, you might find it convenient to have them start automatically when you start Windows. Programs or shortcuts placed in the Startup folder will run whenever Windows starts. 1. Click the Start button Picture of the Start button, click All Programs, right-click the Startup folder, and then click Open. 2. Open the location that contains the item to which you want to create a shortcut. 3. Right-click the item, and then click Create Shortcut. The new shortcut appears in the same location as the original item. 4. Drag the shortcut into the Startup folder. The next time you start Windows, the program will run automatically.

Quickly View Stored Passwords for Any Website In Firefox 3 - Firefox 3 has been released and the tips and tricks are flowing in quite nicely. Firefox 3 has a nice little password manager that allows you to store and manage your passwords. With Firefox 3 it has become much more easier to find and manage your passwords for any given site. To quickly access and view stored passwords for any given site simply click on the favicon you can view more information about it.

A little Ruby goes a long way - A little Ruby goes a long way I’ve been coding PHP for 8 years now, and it can be hard to jump into another language when you’re so entrenched in the syntax and quirks of another. However, I still think it’s a useful exercise from an intellectual standpoint to dabble in “competitors” to PHP, like Python and Ruby. It can also provide some real productivity gains when you leverage something another language does more effectively than PHP.

Irish reject EU Treaty of Lisbon - Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowan did his best to persuade people to vote in favour of the treaty which was designed to strengthen the EU and streamline its institutions. However, opponents said it would give too much power to Brussels and could affect Ireland’s neutrality and abortion laws. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende called the result disappointing but said his government would press ahead with the ratification process. He refused to talk about a crisis, preferring to wait to hear from the Irish government during next week’s EU summit.