This is great: How to Destroy the Earth. Sam Hughes (no relation) does an excellent job of outlining any of a variety of ways to bring this planet to it's end. And he clearly has a lot of time on his hands.

Preamble

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

Fools.

The Earth was built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I (Sam Hughes) can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems. If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.

This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.

Read the whole thing here.

(via Jeremy's linkblog)

New to .NET? Thinking about trying the VS 2005 Express editions, but like me you're intimidated by people like Scott who make people like me look, well, cerebrally challenged?

To the rescue: The Absolute Beginner's Video Series to Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions

Thank goodness for online resources like this. The first three parts of the 16-part series are available now, and they look like a good way to learn for those of us with Adult Onset ADD and stuff... Videos for C# and VB.NET are available, along with the accompanying VS 2005 project files.

The videos make it clear that these are for people who have never programmed before, or who - like me - have not programmed in ages. From the web site:

This video series is designed specifically for individuals who are interested in learning the basics of how to create applications using Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition and Visual C# 2005 Express Edition. This includes over 10 hours of video-based instruction that walks from creating your first "Hello World" application to a fully functioning RSS Reader application. Learn how to write your first application today!!

Lesson Outline

• Lessons 1-3: Workflow, Visual Studio Express Interface (Now Available!)
• Lessons 4-7: Programming Language Basics (Coming Soon)
• Lessons 8-11: Working with Data and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (Coming Soon)
• Lessons 12-16: Creating an RSS Reader (Coming Soon)

I was making an online payment on my Discover Card account today when I noticed they are offering a computer program called Discover Deskshop that not only fills out web forms for you when you are making online purchases, it also has an option to use a unique one-time card number instead of your actual Discover Card account number. That means if you use their application, you never have to send your real card account information to online vendors. Instead you send a pretend card number assigned at the time of purchase by Discover, and that information can only be used for that one purchase.

I buy things online frequently. I'm a computer security guy by trade, so I am extra careful about how I do Internet purchases. I have one thing to say about Discover's Deskshop software:

THAT IS SO COOL.

There's also a web-based version that one can use from any web browser. It won't fill out purchase forms for you automatically, but does allow you to use one-time card numbers for purchases you make.

I installed it and used it for the first time today as I purchased a copy of HotRecorder (software that lets you record Skype conversations without the typical hassle). It worked great, but did not set the expiration date for me - I had to do that myself. Every other field it nailed right on.

I like this - it's a real step up in security, with the one-time card number and associated info. Discover's auto-complete software and one-time card number feature will mean I will be using that card more frequently for purchases, which mean it's good news for Discover and for the customer. Good deal.

I've scribbled out a few things in the image at right to protect myself, but you can get an idea of what the program looks like and how it works. It's all automagical. I have to log onto my Discover Online account in the program interface before I can use the program to make purchases (so moms and dads can rest assured Junior won't be able to make any sneaky purchases).

All I did was tell the program to fill out the form and it did the rest. I set the expiration date and executed the purchase.

Nice. No more taking the card out of my wallet and squinting my getting-older eyes to read the account info and type it in. No more fat-finger mistakes. And better security on top of it all.

Thanks, Discover - you just made me a much happier customer.

• The Discover DeskShop FAQ is here
• The Deskshop demos are here

If you're a SharePoint 2003 developer or system administrator, you know how lost one can get in the guts of the systems. For the longest time, SharePoint documentation was almost non-existent, but now you can get decent information from Microsoft, as well as from other parties. The SDK, however, can be a bit difficult to wade through. A visual representation of some of the underlying SharePoint core functionality would be a great thing to have.

Enter Mindsharp - they offer documentation, courseware and training for SharePoint professionals, and one of their offerings is three free posters, which they will ship to you. You'll have to sign up on the web site, and they'll ship to the address and info you provide. One set of posters is available at no cost to residents of the US, UK, and Canada. Additional sets can be purchased for $20 (Mindsharp's cost to produce, package, process, and post). Electronic versions of the posters are also available for $45/each (the entire set must be purchased).

The three posters include:

• Windows SharePoint Services Object Model
• Windows SharePoint Services Administration Roadmap
• SharePoint Portal Server Administration Roadmap

Mindsharp also sponsors a mailing list for SharePoint admins and developers. Send email to subscribe-sharepointdiscussions@yahoogroups.com to join.

Other SharePoint information from MindSharp that you can get from their web site:

White Papers

• Best Practices for Designing and Deploying a SharePoint Portal
• How to Move Your Portal Farm from One Server to Another

Webinars

• Reader Course
• My Site Course

Live Meetings

• Moving a Server Farm

Seth Godin points to a photoshop contest gallery with some pretty funny images by some talented photoshoppers. The contest challenged people to depict corporate logos everywhere:

Contest Directions

Everywhere you turn there is another Starbucks, McDonalds or GAP popping up whether it's the logo, store or actual ad you see. In this contest you're going to take corporate takeovers of society to the extreme. Put ads, logos and/or stores in the most unexpected areas you can think of (i.e. the Sphinx in Egypt wearing RayBan sunglasses, or a Taj Mahal McDonalds). The rules of this game are thus: Depict the world completely overrun by logos, advertisements and stores in the most unexpected places. As always, quality is a must. We will remove poor entries no matter how much we like you. You'll have 48 hours to submit for this contest, so make your submissions count.

And the participants came up with some cool - and occasionally subtle - stuff:

View the whole gallery here.

There's another new version of the Firefox web browser out. You know, it's a good browser, but the number one problem I have with Firefox is a lack of automated, verifiable security patching... Plus apparently you have to download a whole new version to update it, and the release notes known issues section says not to install it over an older version:

"Prior to installing Firefox 1.0.3, please ensure that the directory you've chosen to install into is clean and doesn't contain any previous Firefox installations."

Anyhow... The following security issues are fixed in v1.0.3, so if you are using Firefox, go get it now:

Severity key: critical, high, moderate, low

MFSA 2005-33 Javascript "lambda" replace exposes memory contents
MFSA 2005-34 javascript: PLUGINSPAGE code execution
MFSA 2005-35 Showing blocked javascript: popup uses wrong privilege context
MFSA 2005-36 Cross-site scripting through global scope pollution
MFSA 2005-37 Code execution through javascript: favicons
MFSA 2005-38 Search plugin cross-site scripting
MFSA 2005-39 Arbitrary code execution from Firefox sidebar panel II
MFSA 2005-40 Missing Install object instance checks
MFSA 2005-41 Privilege escalation via DOM property overrides