Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Dave: How to edit an outline for the podcast directory. [Scripting News] 8:50:22 PM    comment []

E-Health Gaffe Exposes Hospital. An Indiana computer consultant finds a password hard-coded into a popular medical office application, and that leads to patient data from a hospital in Washington, D.C. By Kevin Poulsen. [Wired News: Top Stories] 6:35:23 AM    comment []

Update on HOPE speaker Rambam arrested by Feds at event. Xeni Jardin: Following up on this earlier BoingBoing post, Brian Krebs at the WaPo's security blog reports that the FBI is charging Rambam (aka Rombom) with witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Snip: The complaint, available here as a PDF, charges Rombom with obstruction of justice and with witness tampering, alleging that in April 2006 Rombom impersonated a federal investigator at the request of a client who had hired him to locate a government informant who was central to the client's money-laundering indictment in 2003. Rombom is a licensed private investigator and founder of Pallorium Inc., which bills itself as the largest privately held online private investigation service in the United States. The government charges that Rombom unlawfully interfered with an ongoing case prosecutors filed against Albert Santoro, a former Brooklyn assistant district attorney who was indicted in Jan. 2003 with one count of money-laundering (prosecutors have accused Santoro of agreeing to launder $100,000 in cash for drug dealers and claiming he knew how to stymie money-laundering investigations); The complaint says Santoro hired Rombom to locate one of the government's confidential informants, whom Santoro has publicly accused of entrapment. (...) Rombom appeared in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York yesterday and was released on his own recognizance. He is scheduled to appear again on Aug. 7. The Washington Post print edition today carries a brief story that draws from this update and reporting from the last two blog posts. Link to full text of post. And BoingBoing reader Jayzel reminds us that Rambam was "previously involved in a lawsuit against a prominent anti-spam blacklist hosting service." [Boing Boing] 6:34:58 AM    comment []

amazon drought nearing climate tipping point. The Amazon rainforest becomes "a desert" after three consecutive years without rain - the trees die. Next year would be the third year of an ongoing drought. The forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon (or about 45 years of stored human emmisions at current rates) - 3/4's of the carbon is released within a year of dieing. The Amazon is "headed in a terrible direction". [MetaFilter] 6:32:26 AM    comment []

Dave Pollard on Comfort Music. Saturday night as I was driving home from our daughter's house (about the only useful thing I've accomplished in the last week, thanks to the ulcerative colitis and the @&%^ drug that's supposed to alleviate its symptoms) I was listening to a CBC summer radio program called Sample This. At the end of the show they said next week's program would be about comfort music, and invited listeners to write in with their recommendations in that genre. Naturally, this hit home with me. . . . . I went through my iTunes list and concluded that everything in my 800-song collection is comfort music, of one of four kinds: angry, defiant, get it out of your system music (subjectively comforting) distracting, uplifting, relating music that has personal meaning to you (subjectively comforting) songs whose lyrics are unambiguously intended to comfort, calm, soothe everyone (objectively comforting) grooving, transporting, get away from your cares instrumental music (objectively comforting)   . . . Type 3 Calming Music (with calming melody and comforting lyrics): Shower the People, by James Taylor (pictured above) Bridge over Troubled Water, by Simon & Garfunkel Willow, by Joan Armatrading Happy Man, by Chicago Heal Over, by KT Tunstall Type 4 Transporting Music (instrumental): Sarah Victoria, by Acoustic Alchemy Zungulake, by Quatre Etoiles (it has lyrics, but they're in a Zairian language, so since nobody knows what they mean they don't count) Variations on a Theme of Erik Satie, by Blood Sweat & Tears (guitar/flute version of Satie's first Gymnopédie) Sand Sea & Time, by Bruce Cockburn Samba Pa Ti, by Carlos Santana Song With No Words, by David Crosby (brilliant 60s jam by 30 of the best musicians of the day) Smooching, by Mark Knopfler (from the Local Hero soundtrack) [How to Save the World] 6:32:17 AM    comment []