January 7, 1904: “CQD” is adopted as the international distress signal for the operators of Marconi wireless installations.
The Morse code signal (dash-dot-dash-dot, dash-dash-dot-dash, dash-dot-dot), which became effective February 1, 1904 was approved for maritime use by the Marconi International Marine Communications Company.
Although widely used by Marconi operators, CQD never became a true international standard.
Two years later, members of the International Radiotelegraphic Convention meeting in Berlin adopted SOS as the standard distress signal, and CQD began fading from the scene.
CQD originated by combining CQ, which alerted stations that a message was incoming, with D for “distress.”
SOS, on the other hand, represents the Morse equivalents for those letters (dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot). It does not stand for either “Save Our Ship” or “Save Our Souls.” SOS was adopted because it’s easy to send and easy to decipher.
SOS remained the maritime distress signal until 1999, when it was replaced by the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System.
The most famous maritime distress call of all time was sent by the RMS Titanic following its fatal collision with an iceberg in April 1912.
In that instance, Marconi radio operator Jack Phillips began by sending the CQD signal, then still commonly used aboard British ships.
On the suggestion of his junior, Harold Bride, Phillips began alternating between CQD and SOS.
Both signals were received, and the ships that could responded, but …
Posted in Geekery + Technology + Trivia | 
OK, between Guitar Hero and this, I’m totally outing myself as a geek. Here it is: I play World of Warcraft. It’s not a problem; I can quit any time I want.
Ever since I started playing, I’ve started noticing little references to WoW everywhere.
South Park and The Simpsons have both had episodes featuring the game or in the case of The Simpsons, a suspiciously similar game.
And the more I advance in the game, the more pop culture references I notice in the game itself. I just love sly little mentions that not everyone would catch.
I started doing a little research and there are way, way too many to mention, but I’m going to list a few of my favorites.
I haven’t actually discovered all of these myself, so it gives me something to watch out for while I’m playing… besides murlocs and ghouls, I mean.
14 Pop Culture References in World of Warcraft:
1. The inscription on a couple of weapons (the Finkle’s Lava Dredger and Finkle’s Skinner) says, “Property of Finkle Einhorn, Grandmaster Adventurer.”
Ace Ventura fans will recognize this from the moment near the end of the movie when Ace figures out that Lois Einhorn is, in fact, ex-Miami Dolphins footballer Ray Finkle. “Einhorn is Finkle! Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is a man!”
2. This one’s also in the town of Stormwind – there’s a traveling salesman who goes by the name Antonio Pirelli.
In both the theater and recent movie versions of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, there’s a traveling hair tonic salesman named Adolfo Pirelli. Coincidence? Not in my book.
3. This one’s a little trickier. In one of the large cities in the game, Stormwind, there’s a flower shop owner named Bernard Gump. Florist Gump. Get it?
4. If you head to a town called Lakeshire and train with the fisherman there, you might be getting more of a lesson than you bargained for: the trainer’s name is Matthew Hooper. Richard Dreyfuss played shark expert Matt Hooper in Jaws.
5. More naming fun. In the Eastern Plaguelands, there’s a priest named Father Inigo Montoy, which is just one letter away from Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride (“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”)
6. The creators must be fans of The Princess Bride, because the stable master in the town of Southshore is named Wesley. That’s not quite the same as the stable boy Westley in The Princess Bride, but it’s close enough that it had to be intentional. Right?
7. Another movie that gets multiple references is Silence of the Lambs. One quest requires players to get an ogre tannin out of a basket. (No, I don’t know what a ‘tannin’ is.)
The second the tannin is removed, an ogre runs after the player yelling, “It puts the tannin in the basket or else it gets the club again!”
This is a combination of Buffalo Bill’s “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again,” and “It places the lotion in the basket.”
8. There’s a blacksmith in the town of Darkshire who sometimes mumbles about hearing the lambs scream. Her name just happens to be Clarise.
9. Visit the city of Orgrimmar and you’ll have the chance to check out a shop called “Boomstick Imports”. Bruce Campbell would be proud.
10. My favorite category of movies – the horror genre – does not go unnoticed in the World of Warcraft which is only appropriate since it’s crawling with the undead, ghouls, zombies and banshees.
The innkeeper in Undercity is named Innkeeper Norman and the innkeeper of Sepulcher is named Innkeeper Bates… see, Norman Bates, our favorite Psychopath hotel manager.
11. The trick in the bullet above – giving two people of the same profession names that relate to one another – is a favorite trick of the WoW game designers.
Next time you visit Undercity, take notice of the auctioneer there. His name is Yarly. Not something you’d think much of, right? But if you travel to Stranglethorn Vale and check out the auctioneer there, you’ll see that his name is O’Reely. O’Reely and Yarly is a reference to the “O RLY? YA RLY!” owls of Internet fame.
12. There’s a kitty at the start of the Naxxramas instance whose name is Mr. Bigglesworth… AKA Dr. Evil’s cat in the Austin Powers movies.
13. It isn’t just movies that are referenced. The punk movement also gets a little love from the good people of Blizzard Entertainment.
In the Alterac Mountains, there’s a non-playable character named Nancy Vishas. This is likely a nod to Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, whom he stabbed to death in 1978.
14. Finally, not one, but two Homestar Runner references.
First, a non-playable character in the Searing Gorge named Master Smith Burninate…. as in the Strongbad drawing Trogdor the Burninator.
I wonder if there’s a poorly-drawn dragon lurking somewhere that I haven’t found yet.
The second reference is a bad guy named Jorb. This may or may not be a reference to the Homestar short “A Jorb Well done” where Coach Z is unable to pronounce the word ‘job’ correctly.
Those are a few of my favorites. So tell me, Warcraft people, what have you come across that made you giggle to yourself?
Posted in Gaming + Geekery + Software + Technology |
Way back in 2004, Microsoft released a little OS upgrade they called Service Pack 2. Windows XP owes much of its current popularity to the changes made in SP2.
Although Vista is grabbing all the front page attention with its soon-to-be-released Service Pack 1, XP hangers-on are hopeful that the upcoming Service Pack 3 can solve the nagging problems of software middle age.
Early results show that SP3 might even provide a performance boost. So Vista may be hip, but XP is getting a hip replacement.
The XP SP3 Release Candidate is available now, with the final version set to ship in the second quarter of this year. Whatever the actual date, you can bet that Vista SP1 will ship before XP SP3)
XP SP3 adds four new features. Only two seem really significant, one for corporate environments and one for the small-business/consumer side.
For the corporate world, XP SP3 will support the Network Access Protection (NAP) feature that is already available in Vista and Windows Server 2008.
It allows IT managers to deny a PC access to network resources based on whether they are configured according to company policies.
For example, if a PC does not have the latest antivirus signatures installed, NAP can limit its access so that it can only contact a remediation server that contains up-to-date signatures to be downloaded.
Given the concern that many companies have about security, the NAP feature could have been one that pushed them to upgrade to Vista. Now, they can stay put with XP and still reap the benefits.
It seems so much like the right thing to do that I can hardly believe that Microsoft has done it. Perhaps the goal is to sell more Windows Server 2008 licenses?
Consumers get a Vista feature transplant in XP SP3 with the ability to install without the need to enter a license key during setup.
Within 30 days of installation, the user needs to enter a product key or XP will go in to a reduced-functionality mode similar to Vista.
The final two XP SP3 features seem relatively trivial: additional cryptographic providers, and enabling black hole router detection by default.
XP already has the ability to detect black hole routers with a single change in the registry, so the feature here just seems to be that the setting will be enabled by default in SP3.
So if these are the only new features and the rest of the changes are patches, why would SP3 be faster? It’s a bit of a puzzle.
Maybe the tests were anomalous, or perhaps there is a benefit from several non-security-related patches rolled into SP3 that haven’t been previously released.
Whatever the reason, it actually leaves me looking forward to this mid-life OS boost.
Posted in Microsoft + Security Patches + Software + Technology |
January 2, 1860: French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier announces the discovery of Vulcan, a planet orbiting between Mercury and the sun, to members of the Académie des Sciences in Paris.
Le Verrier, who used Vulcan to explain an anomaly in Mercury’s orbit, already enjoyed a stellar reputation among astronomers, having discovered Neptune in 1846 using only mathematic principles to detect its presence.
Turns out Le Verrier was a bit hasty this time, not to mention gullible, basing his claim on some pretty dubious observations by one Edmond Modeste Lescarbault, a provincial physician and amateur astronomer working from a homemade observatory.
Le Verrier interviewed Lescarbault at length, though, and was convinced that the good doctor knew what he was talking about.
Doubts about this “new” planet surfaced immediately and the professionals set to work attempting to either confirm or debunk Vulcan’s existence.
Although numerous reports of “transits” by heavenly bodies passing in front of the sun were received, no reliable observation of Vulcan was ever made.
Le Verrier also theorized the existence of a second asteroid belt in the solar system. He got that one wrong, too. Le Verrier steadfastly maintained Vulcan’s existence to his dying day in 1877.
The hubbub pretty much died with him and the idea was put to rest for good with the publication of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity in 1915, which explained Mercury’s eccentric orbit as a byproduct of the sun’s gravitational pull rather than the presence of a nearby planet.
Posted in Geekery + Technology + Trivia |
Are you just about sick to death of the so-called magic phrase “Web 2.0?”
If so, you’ll be pleased to hear that it’s doomed to crash and burn faster than Britney’s, Lindsey’s (or insert scandal-ridden starlet’s name here) career.
At least, that’s what one UK-based research firm claims. The folks at Scivisum predict that 2008 will see the end of Web 2.0.
Their logic: worried about the effect that questionable content might have on their products’ good names and reputations, companies will begin pulling advertising from the open pastures of social networks, wikis, Second Life and so forth.
In other words, Disney might think twice about advertising family vacation getaways on a Myspace or Facebook-esque site where half-naked, drunken co-eds proudly post their Spring Break pictorials.
Or will they?
Duncan Riley over at TechCrunch thinks the odds of this happening are slim at best, and I’m inclined to agree.
Sure, there might be some flight risks among a few advertisers who hold their corporate images and name brands in high esteem, but ultimately, what company is going to let their principles outweigh the prospect of serious revenue?
So what if your billboard overlooks a Red Light District in Second Life? Who cares about a couple of off-color comments in a LiveJournal blog post?
High-traffic sites mean more eyes on the ads, and more cash in pocket.
So while you won’t see ads for the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel on some Triple X site, you can be sure the marketing folks will continue to plaster MySpace and similar sites with them.
What do you think? Will 2008 ring in as the year that Web 2.0 soars or strikes out?
Posted in Geekery + Technology + Web |
Google does it again with a great tribute logo to the year 2008 which is just a few hours away:
Not only are we celebrating the upcoming year 2008, we are also celebrating 25 years of TCP/IP which is a very important part of the intarweb 
So with that in mind, how about a little TCP/IP technology trivia?
The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on which the Internet and most commercial networks run.
It has also been referred to as the TCP/IP protocol suite, which is named after two of the most important protocols in it: the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which were also the first two networking protocols defined.
Today’s IP networking represents a synthesis of two developments that began in the 1970s, namely LANs (Local Area Networks) and the Internet, both of which have revolutionized computing.
The Internet Protocol suite—like many protocol suites—can be viewed as a set of layers.
Each layer solves a set of problems involving the transmission of data, and provides a well-defined service to the upper layer protocols based on using services from some lower layers.
Upper layers are logically closer to the user and deal with more abstract data, relying on lower layer protocols to translate data into forms that can eventually be physically transmitted. The TCP/IP reference model consists of four layers.
Want to know more? Check out the official Internet protocol suite Wiki.
On that note, have a Happy New Year. See you next year!
Posted in Google + Technology + Trivia + Web |
