The Normal Guy

Why are manhole covers round? What if you get that in a job interview?

2006-08-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

The question of why manhole covers are typically round, at least in the U.S., was made notorious by Microsoft, who began asking it as a job-interview question. Originally meant as a psychological assessment of how one approaches a question with more than one "right" answer, the problem exerts a strange fascination on people.

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Moving Towards Fax Over IP

2006-08-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

Voice over IP may be getting more attention right now, but fax over IP could be a quick, simple way to enter the VoIP network realm and save money in the process. In some industries, such as health care, this can be a surprising amount of your traffic. I have seen 30% to 40% fax traffic among the offices of a multicenter health system.

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Math genius living in poverty

2006-08-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

Grigory "Grisha" Perelman, the genius who won fame last week spurning a million-dollar prize after revealing his solution for Poincare's Conjecture. Is living with his mother in a humble flat in St Petersburg, co-existing on her $74-a-month pension.

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The 'Reallionaire'

2006-08-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

Farrah Gray began contributing to his family's financial support at the age of 6, and he made his first million by the time he was 14. His success made a lot of people change their thinking about where life in the projects of Chicago's South Side could lead. Secret to Your Success? Ask Yourself Three Questions...

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7 Steps on How to Win Monopoly Everytime

2006-08-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick guide to mastering the classic board game.

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How I (color blind person) see the world!

2006-08-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

After 26 years I discovered that I see the world in a different way than all others see it!
I'm a successful web designer, and a lot of people were asking me "so, what do you see!!". This post is to make you see what exactly I see.

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1,159 Words Banned on NFL Shirts

2006-08-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

This is the list of "naughty" words not allowed on personalized jerseys at the NFL Shop. They were extracted by a reader from a java script list found on the NFL Shop site.

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YouTube Surprise: British Grandpa(79) is at the top of the most-subscribed

2006-08-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

79,000 viewings and 6,500 subscribers, putting him at the top of the most-subscribed list on YouTube in the past week

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EA to Cut Back Game Development for PSP & Refocus Efforts on Nintendo DS

2006-08-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

"Thereâ??s no doubt that EA has historically bet more on PSP," Gardner explained. "I think we were excited by the technology, but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun. What we need to focus on is fun and so EA is putting more effort behind DS games
â??and creative ones that really take advantage of the hardware.

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RIAA Asks Judge for Blanket Gag Order - The Digital Music Weblog

2006-08-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

RIAA member companies have pulled a long list of legal stunts. This trumps them all in my opinion. To put it in plain and simple English, what Sony BMG have asked is that the court remove the 1st amendment rights of the defendant and the defendant's council in order to save them from public scrutiny of their own words during deposition.

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Dungeons & Dragons maker looks for success in competitive gaming market

2006-08-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

The company responsible for marketing successes like Dungeons & Dragons and Magic The Gathering is betting its newest game will develop the same cult-like following.

To make sure Dreamblade, a science-fiction game, hits it big with players, Wizards of the Coast Inc. is backing the game's release with a half-million dollar tournament circuit.

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Guy Mugged At McDonalds (VIDEO)

2006-08-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

This is the ultimate sucker punch. "This was not on the menu"

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RIAA Sues LimeWire

2006-08-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

The RIAA has sued the popular P2P program LimeWire in federal court today. "The labels are seeking damages, including $150,000(!) per occurrence of an illegally traded file."

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Kevin Rose Discusses the Business Week Cover Photo

2006-08-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

He also admits to using cheap headphones despite being worth $60 million.

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Tricking Spammers

2006-08-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

They pilfer nearly $200 million from Americans annually and drive some of their victims to suicide, but Nigeria's notorious e-mail scam artists may finally have met their match -- and the results can be hilarious.

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NETSCAPE HACKER INTERVIEWED!

2006-08-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

"Since Jason was being such a twat and because they continued to ignore my warnings, I decided to alert the general public to the exploit; if that didn't cause them to fix it, apparently nothing would."

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Police camera captures a fireball in the sky over Texas

2006-08-05T09:08:00.000-07:00

Fireball that streaked through the sky on 08/01/2006 over Texas was caught on tape. 15 second video clip included in story, which appears to turn night into day for a few seconds. Astronomers believe fireball was space junk or a meteor.

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Dumbledore "Definitely" Dead, Says Rowling

2006-08-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

Author JK Rowling explicitly clarified tonight on her final appearance at Radio City Music Hall in New York City that Dumbledore is "definitely" dead.

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MMO Game Risks Security of Players

2006-08-03T16:28:00.000-07:00

Artifact Entertainment developed Horizons: Empire of Istaria and eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy.

In an extremely controversial deal, Artifact Entertainment's assets (including Horizons: Empire of Istaria) were sold to Tulga Games. Tulga Games was then privately funded.

When the individual privatley funding the project decided that it was time to pull out he sold Horizons: Empire of Istaria to EI Interactive (a week ago).

EI Interactive changed the billing system for Horizons on August 1st.

Here's where the blunder of epic proportions comes in...

Their new billing system was a site without an SSL certificate. On top of that it's running on an Apache server which is known to have a number of remote control vulnerabilities. It gets worse... When a client updated their billing information it was saved to a TEXT FILE in a PUBLIC DIRECTORY! If you read the source code of the form on the HTML page you knew exactly where the text file was being saved. When you opened up the directory you got a listing of ALL the TEXT files containing account information, personal addresses, and billing information - all unencrypted.

EI took the billing site down, but within hours put it back up without applying any new security! They did, however, add a new payment option: send your credit card information BY MAIL! Lastly, EI has STILL failed to issue a statement (any statement) regarding the billing blunder.

Intstead, this error message has been created:
Horizons is in the process of a billing systems update,
therefore we are not able activate new accounts at this time.
We will again be accepting new accounts very soon,
please check back.
If you created a Free Trial account between 8:00 pm ET, Monday, July 31, 2006
and 8:00 pm ET, Tuesday, August 1, 2006, there was a system error
which prevented your account from being created properly,
if you used PayPal to subscribe, your account will be cancelled, if you used
a direct credit card payment, it will not be processed.
YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE A NEW FREE TRIAL ACCOUNT
ONCE THE SYSTEM HAS BEEN REACTIVATED.

PlayStation 3 Uses Heat Pipe Cooling

2006-06-26T15:13:00.001-07:00

In an interview with Japanese site PC Impress Watch, Sony
â??s Ken Kutaragi said that because of the power of the Cell processor and the RSX graphics chip, PlayStation 3 will use a custom cooling solution, with heat pipes. Heat pipes conduct the heat much faster than conventional cooling, and are commonly used to cool high-end PCs.

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Wii launch in late Oct in Japan... 10 Days Later in US/UK

2006-06-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

A French gaming website has dropped some info on the Wii launch, and they are claiming that this info comes from someone very close to Nintendo. The author of the article even says that they obtained the info themself, thus trying to push this story further from rumor, and more towards fact. Take this with a grain of salt

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Wii's final secret: What's under the flap?

2006-06-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

Speaking to US mag Game Informer, Nintendo of America's recently elected president, Reggie Fils-Aime divulged exactly what the Wii's flap was for...

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Grand Theft Auto 4 Gets RAGE

2006-06-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

Rumors have been confirmed. The next Grand Theft Auto title will make use of the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine -- the same one the developer used for Table Tennis on the 360. Does this mean we'll see extra-sweaty mobsters and ping-pong physics?

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Great Ideas That Changed Videogames Forever

2006-06-16T11:23:00.001-07:00

An awesome list of the 20 most important gameplay ideas that changed videogames - everything from the life bar, to power-ups, to grappling hooks, to end bosses.

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The 11 Most Ground-Breaking Controllers of All Time

2006-06-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

GamePro.com recently compiled a list of the most influential, revolutionary, and just downright ground-breaking video game controllers ever released. Did your favorite controller make the list?

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