meehawl

So I thought I’d get up to the current state of the art on CD ripping, both for CDROMs and for audio CDs.

This is a good analysis by CDRInfo on the current version of Midbar’s Cactus Data Shield. This is the format Universal will use to protect its new audio CDs. It’s been reported already that some DVDs effectively bypass this protection, but this article addresses the specific concerns of how best to backup these protected CDs, and how to extract the music data at high quality for download to a personal MP3 listening device.

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Meanwhile, Ariel Sharon’s fear of being successfully tried for war crimes over his role in massacres of civilians during the 1980s in Lebanon must now has lessened due to the convenient slaughter of a key witness in a massive car bombing in Beirut.

It’s good to know Mossad hasn’t lost any of its formidable touch.

In this case, they seem to have been working with elements of the Israeli-aligned Christian militia that carried out the original atrocities. Motto of the story? if you’re an Arab working for Mossad, don’t expect many retirement benefits.

Beiruit sources claim Sharon was behind it, but that’s what they would always say. The uninvolved just have to look at the matter objectively, especially the timing.

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It is forbidden to be merciful to [the Arabs], you must give them missiles, with relish – annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones. May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arabs’ heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them, and cause them to be vanquished and cause them to be cast from the world.

Nope, that wasn’t an excerpt from Dubya’s State of the Union speech, it was in a Passover sermon by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas party, the political party of Sephardic Jews in Israel and an integral part of Sharon’s war-oriented government. He’s now saying “Ooops!”, when I said Arabs I really meant Terrorists.

Which for me is worse in a way because it demonstrates the massive stereotyping and hatred used and believed by poltiicians on both sides in that conflict.

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So I finally bought myself a digital camera. One of those cool Intel gadgets.

It does movies as well…

It’s pretty neat.

$99 retail, but I found it for $40 here.

It’s the Pixelvision of the 00s. Or so they tell me. Sadly, I don’t think it’ll get the same dreamy analog PXL quality on images.

But it’s a lot more affordable… old PXLs go for around $500. Intel has closed down its consumer products department, so the supply of cameras is going to dwindle… This is a modern collectible.

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This guy (who’s a FTM) is suing for custody of his kids, one of whom is adopted and the other created from his brother’s sperm. Meanwhile, his ex-wife is worried God will punish her for being a lesbian.

I can’t believe there’s no trailer involved here someplace.

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This is sad. 19-year-old woman dies after giving birth secretly in her college dorm. Apparently, nobody thought her weight gain was significant. She had three brothers and six sisters so I guess contraception was not popular in her family.

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Another priest in the mind candy business. This time a cleric was making “gallons” of GHB. Just how hard is it for priests to get dates, anyway?

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Not just a Slashdot favorite anymore, this man had sex with a female goat in full view of train passengers. Sometimes, the world really is stranger than you can, or want to, imagine.

Police Detective Inspector Dave Crinnion, who investigated, said: “I saw the goat the next day – it did not seem too upset but it is difficult to tell.”

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I had no choice, my back was against the wall in work, so finally I had to be made a Manager. It was that or be sidelined. Now I have all this management shit to deal with as well. This sucks – I dislike hierarchies.

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September 11 undoubtedly bound the American nation. But it did not blind it. Sooner or later, Mr Bush, self-styled universal soldier for truth, will have to stop pretending that tragedy gave him a free hand to remake America and the world to fit his simplistic, narrow vision – or risk having voters and US allies end the pretence for him. For this is the delusion under which he labours.

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