01/03/2007: How about a bunch of random stuff to start off the New Year? President Bush says he has a plan to "balance the federal budget by 2012". Why didn't he have this plan 6 years ago? An Israeli company is starting work on yet another hydrogen-powered car; I'm a big fan of hydrogen as a fuel, so let's hope that this design works. Ever heard of "greenwashing"? It's how food companies take (somewhat) more wholesome ingredients, make traditional junk food items and dress it all up in homey packaging. The New York Times has a great article about it - you should check it out! Ars Technica has just posted a great article about how the RIAA is desperately trying to keep their wholesale song costs a secret. The gist of it is that Marie Lindor - a victim of one of RIAA's "John Doe" lawsuits - is arguing that RIAA's proposed $750 per song penalty is far too excessive and that such penalties should be capped between $2.50 and $7.00 per song - around 3 to 10 times the song's assumed 70¢ wholesale cost. Wanna know what bands will be hot in 2007? Whitney over at Pop Candy has posted a link to a Blender list of what it feels are the year's best upcoming bands. And lastly, two interesting milestones for you: after 500 years+, there will now be a female Beefeater at the Tower on London! Also, 2007 marks the 70th anniversary of the hit soap Guiding Light. It seems hard to believe, but this show started off as a radio drama way back in 1937 before moving to TV in 1952. That's one hell of a long run, folks! I wonder what the early storyline were like, and how tame they'd seem today?

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I updated the Up To The Minute section, the Front Page Poll, and the "What You Didn't Know About..." sections today!

01/30/2007: Enrico Fermi was one smart guy. The Italian physicist is most famous for building the world's first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago in 1939, but he was also famous for his work in the development of quantum theory and for winning the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity in 1938. However, one of his more enduring theories came about as a result of a seemingly flippant remark that Fermi made one day at lunch.

The year was 1950. Fermi and some colleagues were sitting down and enjoying a nice lunch. The topic of the day was extraterrestrial life; professors and grad students eagerly traded theories about where alien life could be found and what it might be like. As the excitement level of the crowd continued to rise, someone noticed that Fermi hadn't said anything. In fact, he was just sitting there quietly, eating his lunch. During a brief lull in the conversation, that person asked Fermi what he thought about extraterrestrial life. Fermi looked up, thought for a minute, then asked "Where is everybody?"

Now, that three word phrase might seem silly. Condescending. Flippant, even. But it was actually a very deep thing to say. And it would become the basis of the Fermi Paradox. The paradox is awfully complex, but in a nutshell it goes something like this: modern human beings (that is, humans that have left a physical record of their existence, such as writing or buildings) have been around for around 6,000 years. The universe has been around for around 14 billion years. Obviously, 6,000 years is a teeny, tiny fraction of the universe's 14 billion total years, so isn't it logical to assume that some other intelligent life has been around for longer than ourselves? And if so, why can't we see any trace of their existence? We haven't seen any evidence of their space probes, their battles to colonize other planets or their messages left in radio waves. Not only can we not find the alien equivalent of a Starbucks on Mars, we can't find any evidence of their existence whatsoever.

The interesting question is why. Does intelligent life eventually get smart enough to destroy itself... and then do just that, as is the fear with nuclear weapons? Does the very process of gaining the intelligence necessary to colonize space ruin home planets, as is the fear with global warming? Is space simply so very vast that Wars of the Worlds are going on at this very minute, but humans lack the ability to notice it? Or is our greatest fear true: that we really are alone?

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Not only did I update the History Blog, I also added a new article about converting the AC3 tracks in your videos to MP3!

02/28/2007: Yep, still here. I've updated the FrontPage Poll, the Up To The Minute section, the Useless Fact, and have edited several articles. For example, I cleaned up some of the entries in the British English glossary (and even added an entry for "brown sauce"!), and I also updated the Office 2003 Slipstream guide because of the stupid way that Microsoft Update checks for updates to Office. But other than that, it's pretty quiet. I have some things I'm working on though, and I hope to get them out soon!

02/26/2007: Yes, I'm still around. I've been working on a project for the past two weeks that's taken up most of my time; now that the project is winding down, I'll have a chance to post some stuff in the next few days. But before I go, how about a nice, loud "YOU GO, MARTY!!" to Martin Scorsese for finally winning an Oscar for best director! It's about damn time!

March 2007

03/12/2007: Hey everyone! HAPPY BIRTHDAY - not only to me, but to jimcofer.com too, which is officially five years old today! Although it sometimes seems as if I abandon this site for weeks at a stretch, I still enjoy running this site and putting out new stuff for you, "the little people". Things where I can define my "cooldom" by being snooty and choosing a list of Top 20 Albums or 31 Great 80s Movies. Or showing you "cool" new bands like Saint Etienne. Or posting how cool I and my friends are in the Photo Gallery. hehehehe! But seriously, I've also enjoyed putting together how-to articles like How To Reencode DVD Movies and How to slipstream Windows, as well as the ever-popular GeekStuff page. Stuff like this gets me email and comments from strangers - mostly stuff like "thanks for the info, it worked perfectly", but sometimes "I tired it, but I had this problem...". I've helped dozens of strangers fix their computer problems, and I've seen my work referenced or linked to at other sites. It's genuinely heartwarming to get your feedback, and I hope to keep everyone coming. Thanks to you guys for enjoying my silly hobby. And thanks especially to you, "Chip VA", for always reading my stuff and commenting on it. You've kept my computer skills in check while you held my hand through the finer points of British life as depicted on this site.

Having said all that, you might have noticed that I changed the main site logo (the one in the upper right corner of this page). I'm not 100% sure that I like the new one, therefore I might change it again soon. The important thing about the new graphic is that it has an updated list of the other URLs that point to this site. N2MADONNA.COM still redirects to this page, but I've decided that I'm not going to renew that domain when it expires in a couple of months. Instead I purchased the all-new domain name SPANKINGVERONICAMARS.COM. You can get to this site via that address, or you can use any of the others listed in the logo above, or you can just use plain ol' jimcofer.com. You may also email me at the new domain - just put a "jim@" in front of it (of course, all my old email addresses still work as well). And, for the record, let me state that I have never, at any time, spanked Kristen Bell, either in her person, or in character as "Veronica Mars", nor have I advocated the spanking of the same thereof. The domain was just the result of one of those random "hey, that would be a cool band name" moments. You know you have those moments.

I closed the jimcofer.com message board without notice a week or two ago and have no plans to restart it in any way. The message board lived for over a year with only one post by someone other than me! (Just as my good friend Terri Nicholson Harrington was the only one to ever buy something from the old jimcofer.com online store, so too was she the only friend that ever posted on the board. And while I'm thinking about it, other than my sister Terri's the only one that's submitted anything to the Useless Fact page. Thank you for being a true friend, Terri!).

I also removed the "Feedback" page because of the ever-increasing spam generated by it which ended up in my junk mail folder. I now have the privilege of offering you a spiffy new PHP-based Guest Book as a substitute. I hope you enjoy it.

03/17/2007: HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!! Wow! Who says we don't live in a golden age of television! Both HBO's Rome and the BBC's Life On Mars were excellent this week, and the premier of Eddie Izzard's new FX show The Riches was delightful and far more engaging than the previews would have led me to believe. Some say it mimics HBO's Big Love - both stories are about families actively finding secrets while trying to cut ties with hillbilly relatives - but I think there's far more to the show than that. You should check it out! It's a really good show - almost as good as anything on HBO or Showtime. Oh, and speaking of Showtime, they're currently offering free online viewings of the first two episodes of The Tudors (the password to view the episodes is king). I just finished watching those two episodes and all I can say is... Wow! History Porn!! Though not as good (i.e. accurate) as I'd like, the show is still awesome! It's junk food for the history buff! But all is not OK in TV land. Word on the street is that Veronica Mars has been cancelled, or that if it *does* return it'll be very different (as in, ditching the college storyline altogether by skipping 4 years ahead with Veronica as an FBI agent). Of course, this news comes from E! and those folks have been majorly wrong in the past, so take it with a grain of salt.

Fans of London's Chelsea football club have been cautioned against... throwing celery onto the football pitch? Why celery? Apparently there's some "unprintable" song about the vegetable that the fans have been singing in the stands for 20 years. Recently, some fans have been throwing celery at each other, and in a couple of instances things got out of hand and the veggies ended up on the pitch instead. Chelsea. Celery. OK, then. I guess that's better than German teenagers spray painting swastikas on sheep, or a block of ice falling out of the sky in Spain. Lastly for today... planning a trip to the Grand Canyon any time soon? If so, you might wanna check out the Skywalk, a glass-bottom walkway that extends out 70 feet over the rim of the canyon. Built by the Hualapai tribe of Indians, Skywalk is due to open on March 28th and Yahoo! has a cool article about some of the technical issues with building the $25 million project.

03/19/2007: jimcofer.com reader Derik from Illinois was the last person to communicate with this site via the old Feedback page. He asked the following last week:

"Great site. I had a question that I hope you might anwser: what's the diff. between 'close caption' and 'subtitles'. Most of my DVD 's come with both. why?"

Well Derik, it's because of the history of the two. Subtitles have been around forever - almost as long as there were foreign-language "talkies" that people wanted to see. Because subtitles were developed for people that could hear the movie but not understand the language, subtitles historically only showed what people were saying, or translated certain printed materials (like letters or notes shown on the screen). Closed captioning is much newer, and was designed for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Because these people, by definition, cannot hear the background music or sound effects in a show or movie, such things are often added to the closed captions, such as "[techno theme playing]" or "[glass shatters off-camera]". In recent years, the lines between the two have blurred, such that sound effects are sometimes added to subtitles where they would not have been a few years ago. But, in general, the rule is: subtitles are spoken word only, while closed captioning handles spoken word, music and sound effects too. Why have both though? Why not? I often turn on the subtitles if I watch a movie in the bedroom, as the missus is probably sleeping. I keep the TV low enough to where I can hear the background sounds, but can just barely make out the dialogue. Subtitles help for this, while close captions just get in the way.

I added a new guide to Installing Your Own Instant Message Server and updated a few older articles. Enjoy!

03/22/2007: Happy Thursday! Here's some trivia to keep you entertained for a while:

The most stolen\hijacked Social Security number in history is 078-05-1120. This number was originally issued to Hilda Schrader Whitcher. Ms Whitcher worked for the E. H. Ferree company, a wallet manufacturer in Lockport, New York. In 1938, the company developed a men's wallet with spaces for cards in them (which was new, since neither credit cards nor standardized photo ID cards had been invented yet). The company wanted to put a sample card in the wallets as an advertising gimmick, and the still-new Social Security card was chosen for this purpose. The company was prepared to use faux cards printed with an imaginary name and SSN, but company VP Douglas Patterson thought it would be "neat" to use his secretary's real name and SSN. For some reason she agreed, and millions of sample cards were printed and inserted into the wallets with Ms. Whitcher's name and Social Security number. The wallet was a huge success, and millions were sold at Woolworth's and other department stores across the country. And even though the sample cards were smaller than a standard Social Security Card, were printed in red ink, and had "specimen" written across the front, over 40,000 people claimed the number as their own through the years. Even though the Social Security Administration issued Ms Whitcher a new SSN and made clear to the public that number 078-05-1120 was off-limits, the theft of Ms Whitcher's ID continued. It peaked in 1943 when 5,755 people used her SSN; the theft continued until at least 1977, when 12 people were still using her SSN.  Although Ms Witcher enjoyed her 15 minutes of fame at the time, in later years she'd come to say that "they started using the number. They thought it was their own. I can't understand how people can be so stupid. I can't understand that." Click here to go to the SSA's own website to read more.

Even if you don't know what the "Wilhelm Scream" is, you have heard it. It's a stock sound effect used in movies since it was first recorded for the film Distant Drums in 1951. The scream is believed to be the voice of actor Sheb Wooley, but no record exists to confirm that. Although it has been used in movies ever since, it became a "cult classic" effect because of (and got its nickname from) Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt, who nicknamed it after "Pvt. Wilhelm", a character in the 1953 movie The Charge at Feather River. Since then, hundreds of movies have used this same scream, especially the Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings films. It's probably one of the most famous movie sound clichés, except for perhaps the "red-tailed hawk" scream (in adventure movies), the "universal phone ring", or "castle thunder", a sound effect created for the 1931 version of Frankenstein, but heard in such films as Citizen Kane, Cleopatra, The Hindenburg, Ghostbusters, Airplane!, Murder by Death, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Clue, Back to the Future, Big Trouble in Little China, Trading Places, Short Circuit, Star Wars, The Monster Squad, Death Becomes Her, Young Frankenstein and Escape from Alcatraz, as well as TV shows like Gilligan's Island and Scooby Doo.