Talk Like A Pirate Day

International Talk Like a Pirate Day is a parodic holiday invented in 1995 by two Americans, John Baur ("Ol' Chum Bucket") and Mark Summers ("Cap'n Slappy"), who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like pirates. For example, instead of "hello," an observer of this holiday would greet his mates with "Ahoy, me hearty!"

Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs

Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

Fingers of Instability

There is a long and interesting arictle on safehaven.com about critical states and how system changes can produce non-deterministic effects at these states.

The term critical state can mean the point at which water would go to ice or steam, or the moment that critical mass induces a nuclear reaction, etc. It is the point at which something triggers a change in the basic nature or character of the object or group. Thus, (and very casually for all you physicists) we refer to something being in a critical state (or the term critical mass) when there is the opportunity for significant change.

Personal Info Thrown In Trash - 2.6M Credit Card Accounts

DJ Chase Card Services: Client Data Tapes Mistakenly Trashed

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP)--Chase Card Services, a unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), on Thursday said it is notifying 2.6 million Circuit City (CC) credit card holders that computer tapes containing their personal information were mistakenly thrown in the trash.

Scanning Children's Finger Prints

It may be optional to have finger print scans now, but that will change in a year or two.

Kids Buy Lunches With Scans of Fingers
School children in Ga. town pay for their lunches with scans of their fingers

ROME, Ga., Sep. 5, 2006
(AP) The never-ending march of technology now means school children here can pay for their cafeteria sloppy joes with their fingers.

Rome City Schools is switching to a scanning system that lets students use their fingerprints to access their accounts.

...

"It may be perfectly secure, but my daughter is a minor and I understand that supposedly the kids have the option to not have their prints scanned, but that's not being articulated to my daughter," said Hal Storey, who's daughter is a 10th grader at Rome High.