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Wrenchware is 18/10 polished “drop forged” stainless steel, and comes in its
own individual blow-molded heavy duty ABS plastic box.
Measures 4 .5″ wide by 8.75″ long by 1.25″ high.

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Dice.com has done some ridiculous advertising in the past and, as Robert B. points out, they’re still doing ridiculous advertising. Now they’re targeting SQL developers. If this is actually how you do job searches on their site, they may want to add a disclaimer; Please do not enter the following in either field: “;DELETE FROM JOBS;SELECT * FROM JOBS WHERE “1″ = “1

for space!

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Balkenende wil zoals bekend minder ambtenaren, minder regelgeving en minder wetten. De resultaten tot dusver: een verbod op happy hour (werk voor 10 ambtenaren). Accijns op diesel flink omhoog, voor het milieu (lees: voor Wouter Bos). Accijns op vlees omdat het kan (registratie van karbonades is werk voor 100 ambtenaren). Heffing op fatsoenlijke auto’s (lees 150M extra voor Wouter Bos). Verbod op flitsscheidingen, via rookverbod toch coffeeshops verbieden, en zo gaat het maar door. Voor de duidelijkheid, dit is alleen van DEZE week… We keken in onze anp-berichtendatabase eens hoe vaak de woordcombinatie ‘is verboden’ de afgelopen jaren voorkwam in nieuwsberichten. Welnu. In 2003 kwam ‘is verboden’ slechts 44 maal voor in de volledige ANP-database. In 2004 al 53 keer. In 2005 opeens 87 keer. en in 2006, het jaar van Balkenende maar liefst 106 keer deze twee woordjes. Ongelooflijk mensen! Hetzelfde geldt voor combinaties als ‘verboden en regering’ ‘balkenende en strenger’ of ‘regelgeving aanscherpen’.

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In a dramatic acceleration of the seven-year sales decline that has battered the music industry, compact-disc sales for the first three months of this year plunged 20% from a year earlier, the latest sign of the seismic shift in the way consumers acquire music.

The sharp slide in sales of CDs, which still account for more than 85% of music sold, has far eclipsed the growth in sales of digital downloads, which were supposed to have been the industry’s salvation.

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The number of compromised computers that are part of a centrally controlled bot net has tripled in the past two weeks, according to data gathered by the Shadowserver Foundation, a bot-net takedown group.

The weekly tally of bot-infected PCs tracked by the group rose to nearly 1.2 million this week, up from less than 400,000 infected machines two weeks ago. The surge reversed a sudden drop in infected systems–from 500,000 to less than 400,000–last December.

The threat to Internet users from bot nets has steadily increased over the past few years. Increasingly, computer systems in China have become infected with bot software and used to attack or spam other targets, according to the latest Internet Security Threat Report published by Symantec, the owner of SecurityFocus. Spammers have taken a shine to bot nets as a way to reliably send stock-touting e-mail campaigns and other mass mailings of junk advertisements.

Since, according to that same Symantec, Windows is the most secure OS, Vista is the most secure version of Windows to date, and Vista has been available since November, it surely must be all those damn Mac and Linux boxes!

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The RIAA won The Consumerist’s “Worst Company In America 2007″ reader poll.

We predicted an RIAA landlslide, but they only managed a 53.8% majority over Halliburton’s 46.2%

The message is clear. The internet cares deeply about being able to download music illegally.

Congrats to you, oh RIAA! Your lucky golden shit trophy will be arriving at your headquarters shortly.

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Meanwhile, the University of Nebraska has told the RIAA that it can’t help them identify many of the students accused of file trading. The school’s system changes a computer’s IP address each time its turned on, and it only keeps this information for month. After that month, the school has no way of associating an IP address with a computer or its user. The RIAA is angry about this, and a spokesman for the group criticized the university for not understanding “the need to retain these records”. This is a ridiculous complaint. The university doesn’t have a need to retain these records, and there’s no reason it should do so out of some obligation to the RIAA. If there were any doubt that the university is really irritated by the RIAA’s requests, it has requested that the RIAA pay the university to reimburse its expenses from dealing with this (good luck with that).

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In a sign of the spreading economic fallout of mortgage foreclosures, several suburbs of Cleveland, one of the nation’s hardest-hit cities, are spending millions of dollars to maintain vacant houses as they try to contain blight and real-estate panic.

In suburbs like this one, officials are installing alarms, fixing broken windows and mowing lawns at the vacant houses in hopes of preventing a snowball effect, in which surrounding property values suffer and worried neighbors move away. The officials are also working with financially troubled homeowners to renegotiate debts or, when eviction is unavoidable, to find apartments.

“It’s a tragedy and it’s just beginning,” Mayor Judith H. Rawson of Shaker Heights, a mostly affluent suburb, said of the evictions and vacancies, a problem fueled by a rapid increase in high-interest, subprime loans.

[..]

Cuyahoga County, including Cleveland and 58 suburbs, has one of the country’s highest foreclosure rates, and officials say the worst is yet to come. In 1995, the county had 2,500 foreclosures; last year there were 15,000. Officials blame the weak economy and housing market and a rash of subprime loans for the high numbers, and the unusual prevalence of vacant houses.