Cyberwar costs only 1,600 dollars these days

So, back in 2007, Estonia was under a brutal denial of service attack and Estonia thought it was Russia's goverment authorizing the attack. So, it turns out in was just some mad dude, who lives in Estonia.
And what was the punishment, you ask?

And so it comes as quite a shock to THREAT LEVEL to learn that the attacker convicted today isn't a member of the Russian military, nor is he an embittered cyber warrior in Putin's secret service. He doesn't even live in Russia. He's an ethnic Russian who lives in Estonia, who was pissed off over that whole statue thing.

The court fined him 17,500 kroons, or $1,620 dollars, and sent him on his way.

I guess the costs of a Cyberwar that almost started World War III are dropping these days.

From Wired.com

Cyborg Bonanza Prediction Comes True!

In a post a few down (from July '07), my cohort "Berg" predicted that Craig Venter would be well on his way to creating life.
TIME Magazine, always well behind the Cyborg Bonanza bleeding edge, covers Mr. Venter's discoveries today.

Working with only the four basic nucleotides that make up all DNA—adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine—he has assembled an entirely new chromosome for an entirely new one-celled creature. Insert that genome into a cell—like inserting a disc into a computer—and a new species of living thing will be booted up.

Allow me to be the first to welcome our Craig Venter organism overlords.

From TIME Magazine

Hey you guys!

New look and logo around these parts.
I hope you all like it.

Inbreeding == Good...what?

A new study has come out that indicates that inbred people live long lives, even longer than non-cousin diddlers. The researchers have found a town that has a very high rate of incest.

Passarino and his colleagues used census data to identify a geographically isolated region of southern Italy with more than its fair share of male nonagerians. When the team looked at the local phone book, they found many people in the region shared the same surname, suggesting marriage between related individuals was common...

So, because there was so much inbreeding in this town, the few inbred folks that didn't get serious diseases lived to be very old indeed. Good news for inbred kids, I guess you don't see that every day.

Found at New Scientist. Warning: New Scientist registration required.