Travolta's Head and M$'s Lunacy
This post I would like to discuss 2 things.
First let me state that like Satan, I HATE John Travolta. But this has nothing to do with how much I loath him.
JOHN TRAVOLTA'S HEAD IS GROWING AT AN EXTREME RATE !!!
As you can see below (image 1), his head is getting very large. His head on the left is from the Saturday Night Fever - this was about 1977. John was 23 years old at that time. His head on the left is circa 1998, his age was 44.
Now both of theses heads are from slightly different angles (the left his chin is down, the right the chin is more level with the camera) but as you can see from the red lines that the eye size and distances are the same, so we can use this as a basis for comparison. Also before editing the heads for clarity (ie: cutting them out of their original pictures, the one on the left showed a small portion of his right ear lobe). Now the best path comparison I could come up with was earlobe to earlobe. In both pictures (prior to cropping) both of his right ear lobes were exposed at the same percentage and as you can see the size of his left ear is the same. So as you can see in about 21 years his head as severely enlarged. Granted these images are somewhat crude, but this was the best of the media I could find. For further study, I suggest renting Urban Cowboy or Saturday Night Fever and then renting Primary Colors or Michael and the head increase will not only be apparent, but striking and somewhat unsettling. This image also disproves the "he got a little fat" theory, because even if you get fat, that doesn't make your ears spread farther apart from their original origin.
Image 1: Head size comparison
During my research I also found this picture below (image 2). This image is from the movie "Face-Off" and is obviously snapped by someone on the set before filming where John was having a very bad head pain during one of his head's growth spurts. Nicholas Cage is on his back trying to keep his head from expanding further, but if you have seen Swordfish, you can tell his effort was futile.
Image 2: Head Growth Spurt on the set of "Face-Off"
And as my last bit of evidence I submit this cover picture of Rolling Stone (image 3). Now as you all know, Rolling Stone's magazine is quite wide. Wider than many normal magazine sizes. I contacted Rolling Stone's Managing Editor Robert Love, he confided in me that the picture of Travolta's head on this issue was actually life-size. To compare his head size to yours, go to your local library and pick up this Rolling Stone to compare.
Image 3: Rolling Stone Cover
Now for some crazy shit I found on some Microsoft's websites.
From Microsoft's Visio 2002 (XP) Comparison Site
Visio Standard
Diagramming solutions that help business professionals—project managers,
marketers and salespeople, HR personnel, administrative staff—visualize and
share information they work with every day. $199
Visio Professional
Tools to help technical professionals—IT specialists, developers, and
engineers—visualize existing ideas, information, and systems, and prototype
new ones. $499
So from these descriptions, it would seem that if you want to "visualize existing ideas" you need the Professional version. Visio Standard doesn't appear to be compliant with any of your existing ideas only the ones you have after you buy Visio Standard. If you want Visio 2002 to work with your older ideas, you will need the Professional version for $300 more.
From Microsoft's PressPass website on WindowsXP and Privacy
Product Activation has already been cracked, or at least it will be cracked
very quickly, and therefore is of no anti-piracy benefit.
Actually, Product Activation has yet to be cracked. The so-called "crack"
now being passed around the Internet contains a set of instructions for
setting a registry key that disables activation. Microsoft made the existence
of this registry key public to its technical beta testers back in early
February telling them where it was and how to set it to disable activation,
and included it as a testing tool.
Still, the intellectual property protection arena is a cat-and-mouse game.
All intellectual property protection technologies will be cracked at some
point — it’s just a matter of time. The measure of success is not
completely stopping software piracy, which is probably an unattainable goal.
Success is more likely to be measured in increased awareness of the terms of
the license agreement and increased license compliance.
If cracking protection is "just a matter of time" why in the hell would you do something that is going to bug the hell out of Customers and be totally non-existent to pirates ? I also like their arrogance about the "crack" that is out now. Let me let you in on a little secret Microsoft, that is just one of many that is out. And you releasing your version to external BETA testers was retarded. Let's call a spade a spade Microsoft, the Authentication stuff is dumb and pointless (you say so yourself) and the "crack" that is out from your release was a major fuck-up by you, as it should have never been sent to public testers.
And for some general link fun, check out the Web's WayBack Machine. They have been archiving snapshots of just about every website out there for a couple of years and you can watch the site's progression thru time. Its way cool.
