January 31, 2004

(Blue) Devils go down to Georgia

by Clark Kellogg, Yahoo! Sports

(1) Duke at (14) Georgia Tech - Sat, 5 p.m. ET (ESPN)

Blue Devils
1st, ACC
Record: 17-1, 6-0

Yellow Jackets
T-2nd, ACC
16-3, 4-2

To stay unbeaten at home, Georgia Tech will have to do a strong job on the glass and take care of the ball. Like Duke, Tech enjoys a fast-paced game with a foundation of pressure D and always attacking on O. Dribble penetration and the 3-point shot are big parts of both teams' offenses.

This should be a very entertaining and hard-fought game. Both teams are very disruptive defensively. Players will have to make 'basketball plays' - pass and catch, hard cuts, take and make good shots when available and so on. Neither team should be able to run much set offense. And both teams are good at playing fast and efficiently.

Duke has better post players in Sheldon Williams, Shavlik Randolph and even Luol Deng, and the Blue Devils are just as potent on the perimeter as the Yellow Jackets. The front line could be the difference in a Duke win.

Pick: Blue Devils

January 30, 2004

MyDoom Worm Spreads as Hunt for Author Intensifies

LONDON (Reuters) - A cyber dragnet aiming to flush out the author of the MyDoom computer worm intensified Friday as the outbreak crippled still more e-mail networks.

Investigators and security experts hoped their hunt would get a boost after Microsoft Corp. offered a $250,000 reward Thursday for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the creator of one variant, MyDoom.B.

The offer follows a similar $250,000 bounty from software firm SCO Group Inc . The 'doom' viruses are programmed to unleash digital attacks aimed at overwhelming both firms' Internet sites starting this weekend.

'If there is a break, it will come from the bounties,' said Mikko Hypponen, research manager at Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure.
MyDoom.A, also known as Novarg or Shimgapi, emerged on Monday often masquerading as an e-mail error message from a 'Mail Administrator' and other official-looking addresses that contains a file attachment.

Hundreds of thousands of computer users have clicked on the seemingly benign attachment, infecting their computers.

The attachment releases a program capable of taking over the victim's computer, experts warned, before scouring the Internet for more vulnerable machines.

The effect is a massive logjam of data traffic that bogs down e-mail servers and rejects many incoming and outgoing messages.

January 29, 2004

Pitt holds off Boston College

The seventh-ranked Panthers ran their nation-leading home win streak to 38 games and became the first team in the country to reach the 20-victory plateau by beating visiting Boston College, 68-58, Wednesday night.

Cal U. women continue to roll up wins

The top-ranked California University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team extended its home court win streak to 45 games, its PSAC unbeaten string to 41 games and its PSAC West run to 19 games as the Lady Vulcans defeated visiting Shippensburg 71-60 Wednesday.

January 28, 2004

Homepage of California University of PA Women's Basketball

Women's Division II Basketball Page

USA Today/ESPN/WBCA Division II Women's Basketball Poll (Jan. 27, 2004)

We're undefeated and we're #1!
Karl Malden to Get SAG Life Achievement Honor

NEW YORK - Michael Douglas will present the Screen Actors Guild's 40th Life Achievement Award to former television co-star Karl Malden at the 10th annual SAG Awards, executive producer Jeff Margolis announced Tuesday.

The 2004 Actors, honoring the outstanding performances of 2003 in five film and eight television categories, will be telecast by TNT from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center on Feb. 22 (8 p.m. EST).

Malden, who starred with Douglas in the 1970s crime drama 'The Streets of San Francisco,' is being honored by SAG for his career achievement and humanitarian accomplishments.

During his acceptance speech for the honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award at Sunday's Golden Globe Awards, Douglas thanked Malden for 'showing me what a work ethic is about' as the 91-year-old acting veteran smiled from the audience.

Clint Eastwood, Edward Asner, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Kirk Douglas, Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Lansbury, Robert Redford, and George Burns are among past recipients of the Life Achievement Award.
IMDb - Paul Hsu

Paul's page at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Miss you, Paul! I wish you'd write more often.

January 27, 2004

I just started a YahooGroup, ClassicMoviePix, for sharing photos of classic celebrities and stills from classic movies. Only .jpg attachments are permitted at this time. Other types of files may be shared via the group's "Files" and "Photos" sections.

To subscribe, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClassicMoviePix/ and join or send a blank e-mail to ClassicMoviePix-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

January 26, 2004

Recent updates to meredy.com:

General updates to meredy.com index page and assorted trivia pages

General updates to Pat Summitt - The Pinnacle of Success

Added MIDIs to Denis Desbiens' site

Added quotes to A Salute to Stefanie Powers

Coming soon:

Will be adding 50 more MIDIs to James K. Taylor's site
Photos From Second Mars Rover Dazzle NASA

PASADENA, Calif. - With one rover now ailing on Mars, NASA scientists were thrilled when its identical twin sent dazzling and intriguing photos from the other side of the Red Planet.

Images of a smooth red surface arrived at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory about four hours after the rover Opportunity bounced to a landing late Saturday some 6,600 miles from its temporarily crippled twin, Spirit.

"I am flabbergasted. I am astonished. I am blown away. Opportunity has touched down in an alien and bizarre landscape," said Steven Squyres of Cornell University, the mission's main scientist. "I still don't know what we're looking at."

JPL director Charles Elachi told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday that the outcroppings of bedrock visible in the pictures were "particularly exciting."

"For a geologist, this is really a gold mine because that will allow us to learn about the history of the planet and look at the layering in those rocks in a very specific location," he said. "So the scientists are absolutely ecstatic."

Opportunity plunged into the martian atmosphere at more than 12,000 mph and bounced down on Mars just six minutes later, swaddled in protective air bags. It hit with a force estimated to be just two to three times that of Earth's gravity. Engineers had designed it to withstand as much as 40 G's.

The six-wheeled rover landed in Meridiani Planum, believed to be the smoothest, flattest spot on Mars. Opportunity lies 6,600 miles and halfway around the planet from where its twin, Spirit, landed on Jan. 3.

On Sunday, NASA said Opportunity was in excellent health and Spirit was on the mend after a serious software problems had hobbled it.

Initial analysis of the images suggested Opportunity landed in a shallow crater roughly 66 feet across. Its low rim shouldn't block the rolling robot once it gets going, Squyres said.

Opportunity could roll off its lander in 10 to 14 days, mission manager Arthur Amador said. Opportunity's possible targets include a larger crater, maybe 500 feet across, that lies an estimated half-mile from where the spacecraft landed.

The rover's ramp off its lander also appeared unobstructed, unlike Spirit's landing, when a deflated air bag blocked its safest route to the martian surface, said Matt Wallace, another of the mission managers.

Together, the twin 384-pound rovers make up a $820 million mission to seek out geologic evidence that Mars was once a wetter world possibly capable of sustaining life. NASA launched Spirit on June 10 and Opportunity on July 7. Each carries nine cameras and six scientific instruments.

On Wednesday, Spirit developed serious problems, cutting off what had been a steady flow of pictures and scientific data.

Engineers now believe the problem arose with software that manages the file system within the rover's flash memory, project manager Pete Theisinger said. Other possible culprits include broken hardware or solar radiation.

"Spirit is still serious but we are moving to guarded condition," Theisinger said, adding Spirit could resume normal operations in two to three weeks.

NASA sent Spirit to Gusev Crater, a broad depression believed to once have contained a lake. Opportunity was sent to Meridiani Planum, which scientists believe abounds in a mineral called gray hematite.

The iron-rich mineral typically forms in marine or volcanic environments marked by hydrothermal activity. Hematite is common in the red soil found across the Southeastern United States and is frequently used as a pigment, said Doug Ming, of NASA's Johnson Space Center and a member of the science team.

NASA launched two rovers to double its chances of successfully landing on Mars. Both carry identical plaques memorializing the seven astronauts who died aboard space shuttle Columbia nearly a year ago, Opportunity mission manager Jim Erickson said.

As of early Sunday, there were a record five spacecraft operating on or around Mars, including two NASA satellites and one from the European Space Agency orbiting the planet.
BBC NEWS | Health | Cranberry juice clot drug warning

Patients taking the anti-clotting drug warfarin (Coumadin) have been warned to limit or avoid cranberry juice consumption.

The Committee on Safety of Medicines is concerned that mixing the two increases the risk of hemorrhage.

It has received five reports which suggest that cranberry juice acts to increase the potency of the drug.

One man died after his blood clotting levels changed dramatically six weeks after starting to drink the juice.

In a statement, the committee said: "Until this possible interaction between cranberry juice and warfarin has been investigated further, it would be prudent for patients taking warfarin to be advised to limit or avoid drinking it."

Cranberry juice has boomed in popularity in recent years and is often used by women to prevent cystitis.

However, it contains chemicals called flavonoids, which are known to inhibit the action of substances which the body uses to break down warfarin.

Warfarin is used to prevent blood clots from forming or growing larger.

It is often prescribed for patients with certain types of irregular heartbeat and after a heart attack or heart valve replacement surgery.

However, it is known to interact with many other drugs, which either increase or reduce its potency.

Modern anti-depressants, for example, can enhance the anticoagulant effect, while the herbal remedy St. John's Wort diminishes it.

January 25, 2004

U.S. Army Spec. Justin A. Bennett - PittsburghLIVE.com

Article about Justin.
Starting a new blog of Mrs_Skeffington's random ramblings.