Now this is a cool story from ArsTechnica.com:

Windows XP Service Pack 2 available to pirates
Posted 05/09/2004 @ 11:28 AM, by Ken “Caesar” Fisher

A Microsoft product manager has said that the company has not made any effort to prevent Windows XP Service Pack 2 from installing on computers without properly licensed copies of Windows XP. SP1 was released with anti-piracy measures aimed at rendering pirated copies of XP inoperable. Barry Goffe, the product manager who spoke with ComputerTimes, explained the decision.

“It was a tough choice, but we finally decided that even if someone has pirated copy of Windows, it is more important to keep him safe than it is to be concerned about the revenue issue,” he added. “Having these unsecured users means bigger worm and virus outbreaks - which also impacts the Internet and consequently, our legitimate users as well.”

The issue of protecting pirates with software updates and the like is a hot one. Many are quick to say that pirates deserve to be unprotected, but recent attacks have shown that everyone suffers when major worms hit the scene. Even those users who use non-Microsoft OSes can be affected by deluges of e-mail, Internet slowdowns, and other headaches caused by the side effects of the latest worm. Goffe was clear that this does not represent a change of heart at Microsoft, saying that “for SP2 we’ll make one exception.”

Had ourselves quite a fun-filled weekend. Welcome to Spring, I suppose.

Friday night
We had a nice dinner and bonfire party over at Kim and Matt’s. Damn good time. Had some steaks, some drinks, some bonfire action. Great bonding time. Hope we do it again real soon.

Saturday
Friday night led me to Saturday’s activity: building an 8’ x 25’ garden in the backyard. It’s along the back fence, in the center. Matt had just put up a garden at his house and offered to help me put mine up. Hell yeah. I’ll take the help. We also ran into Castellano, who was trying to find me. I had my phone on silent, so he ended up showing up at the house. Great timing. He found me 4 yards of screen top soil for $60 delivered. I would’ve been scammed by a landscaping place in Rochester that wanted to sell me 6 yards for $175. That would’ve sucked for two reasons: 1) Cost, and 2) 2 yards TOO much dirt! Anyway, the job took WAY longer than expected. I feel HORRIBLE about not going to JT$’s graduation party. Michelle and I had planned on this for over a month. By the time I was done, it was close to 8pm. Getting showered and ready would’ve taken us to 10pm. Sorry JT$!!! From the bottom of my heart.

Mother’s Day
We all, and I mean ALL, went to Fern Hill for a Mother’s Day Brunch. It was: Me, Michelle, my mom, my dad, my brother, his fiance, Danielle, my sister, Michelle’s mom, Michelle’s dad, Michelle’s sister, her husband, Matt, Michelle’s cousin, David, his wife, Christine (soon to be a mommy), Michelle’s aunt, Michelle’s uncle, Michelle’s cousin, Jill, and her boyfriend, Carlos. 17 of us! Crazy!!! We had a good time, taking up two tables. Lots to indulge in today. No diet today. No diet last night, as we ran up to Erma’s and got some parfaits. That’s okay, life is meant to be lived.

After the brunch, I took care of my lawn, while Michelle did some breakfast and lunch preparations for the week. We’re just laying low today, enjoying the nice weather and catching up on some “computer lifing”.

We were supposed to go mountain biking today, but we just had some stuff we wanted to tidy up around the house and all that jazz. :D All that jazz, tight!

My Uncle John Pappadopoulos in Greece has 3 clogged arteries. 90%, 85%, and 80%. Angioplasty is out. He’s home now, but needs to get bypass surgery. Dirty Greek medical system. He had to pay $500 just to get his catheterization read. He’ll have to fork out about $5000 to have the surgery. This is above and beyond what their insurance and social health care takes care of.

Comcast Fires the Entire TechTV Staff!!!

I can’t believe this. I LOVE TechTV. I don’t get it.

I wonder what’s going to happen with it. Be sure to read some of the supporting information linked to from that ArsTechnica.com article.

Not really bloggy lately. Don’t quit, though.

Passed on from Pepe:

Nail Gun Horror

I love sport sedans. I work in a cooler location at work these days. We just moved on Friday, actually. I now to get see all sorts of new cars. Just yesterday, a Hydrogen Fuel Cell car was behind me!

Here’s the fun Aussie car:

JT$ sent this along the way of Rodrigo.

MC Hawking

This is some awesome stuff! All My Shootings Be Drivebys is exceptional. They are all very good.

Another semester is completed…in the rearview mirror. We have five more semesters to go with two 3-credit classes each time. Tick tick tick… time flies, I suppose, when you’re having fun.

As promised, I am posting pictures of my old cube and my new cube. WHAT A DIFFERENCE this makes in my daily “existence” at work.

Old Cube

New Cube

I actually have storage now. I actually have a “nice” place so sit and put out my things, as needed.

My uncle John, in Greece, my mom’s brother-in-law, had a heart attack recently. My aunt Koko was the star. She’s on oxygen full-time now, due to asthma. So, anyway, she took off her oxygen and gave it to John, while she diluted an aspirin for him during the attack. This pretty much saved him. He’s in intensive care, but should be coming home today or tomorrow. He’ll most likely have to have angioplasty, which is a non-issue these days. Good for my aunt, knowing what to do!!!

Besides that, marathon training has started. We have 27 weeks of it this year. I can’t wait.

I moved to a new location at work. My environment is WAY better. I’ll try and post some before and after shots in the next few days.

Amazing.

I can’t believe this is cracked already. Let’s see how long this dude’s site stays up.

Of all the time I spent this weekend “computer lifing”, all of it was spent getting Red Hat Linux 9 installed on my main desktop and getting the network card on the motherboard to work. It’s not normally supported by Red Hat, as it was released after Red Hat 9 was released. I had to get a few file packages to get it to work. Then, I spent the rest of the time getting KDE 3.2.2 installed. It’s very slick.

My RD9/KDE3.2.3 environment. I know, I had a typo. “I weight”… funny. I fixed it in the real blog entry.

I took the direction on tweaking my space from ArsTechnica’s review of KDE 3.2.2.

I weighed 190.2 this morning. That’s 12.2 pounds in two weeks. I’m so excited. Can ya tell?

Bo-peep sent this along.

Anti-piracy raids. They can do this all they want. It’s never going to stop it. INFORMATION IS FREE!!!