Reuters - Almost every second German is cheating on, or has cheated on, their partner, according to a new survey. A November survey of 1,059 men and women aged between 20 and 60 by the Hamburg-based GEWIS research institute for "Stern" magazine showed 51 percent of men and 43 percent of women said they had cheated at least once on their partner.

[Yahoo! News - Oddly Enough ]

Most site porn distributing vicar and frequently naked co-eds as reasons for their behavior.

I glance through my referrers every now and then, as I expect most people do. I find it interesting that, of the hits that leave a referrer, a good majority are from Google followed by other various search engines.

The searches that are topping the list these days are:

• What does GTI in a VW GTI stand for
  (Which I covered)
• McCafe
  (Which I'd love feedback on, but if you're searching for info, you probably haven't been in one)
• GameCube
  (Which I highly recommend purchasing)

This also means that well over 95% of what I rant about, is either not cared about, or no one looks to me for an opinion.

I'm not sure if this is upsetting or comforting.

Following up on comments from last weeks “Killer Saved from Sword by Victim's Family”:

I'm not sure that this is an exorbitant amount. I'm sure that many a business man has a life insurance policy that pays this amount. (Which I believe is not allowed by Islam).

It's not just law in Saudi, but any country or region that claims to live by Islamic Law. And rich people can't get away with it, unless the blood money is accepted by the deceased family.

I think I'll also argue that Reuters would like to be seen as a global news service, as would Yahoo!, and “our” (aka Western) culture shouldn't necessarily be the rule to judge all others by. Though I could just be subscribed the the US edition.

The “women can't drive” thing, however, I think is a good candidate for “odd”, and this fact would likely seem odd to 99% or more of the world (IMHO, no facts to back this one up).

And I'm rather sure that the penalty for breaking a Kosher law, according to the Torah, isn't jail time.

However I can see that I have a different view on this.

I'm sure my concern is more “isn't it rude to point and laugh” than anything else, which I guess I feel is a connotation of “odd”. Differences are a great thing to discuss and try to understand, but it's no wonder that there are so many bullies in the world, when people might be made to feel “odd”.

I really was hoping to get a bit more feedback, not that I expected to be anything but the minority on this one, just curious if anyone else even remotely would take “my side”. Though there is a good chance that the comments here represent 50% of my regular readership...

And one last thing, how is this practice different when countries do it?

Most say they didn't even feel anything, those that did doubted me.

It was an earthquake.

AP - Tips for reducing the amount of unsolicited e-mail

[Yahoo! News - Technology ]

Including sending copies of your spam to uce(at)ftc.gov.

Does this strike anyone else as odd? AP warns you to not put your email address on websites, because you will get spam. And the government wants you to send the spam to the address uce(at)ftc.gov. But they've obfuscated the email uce(at)ftc.gov so that spammers won't send spam to that address. Although they do want you to send spam to that address.

I'm not sure how I feel about Reuters (or Yahoo!, if they made the call) categorizing the belief of 1 billion plus peoples around the world as “odd“.

Reuters - A convicted Saudi Arabian murderer was spared execution after tribal sheikhs persuaded his victim's father to accept five million riyals ($1.33 million) in return for his life, Saudi newspapers reported on Friday.

[Yahoo! News - Oddly Enough ]

What do you think?

It's bloated. It's slow. It sucks up bandwidth. It makes my machine slow and cranky. It has a bad extra navigation bar in the in-browser version.

Too many sites seem to think that the ease of posting a PDF to a website in lieu of converting it to a much more streamlined HTML format, is worth the trade-offs. More and more I think that anything in PDF is just not worth reading (Tax forms excepted).

In a vain attempt to rid myself of about 1/2 of these complaints, I've installed the newest ghostscript/ghostview, and I'm going to see if my woes go away.

Wish me luck! (Or point out a better, light-weight, small footprint, PDF viewer. Because Adobe Acrobat Reader 5 sucks, and 6 sucks even more.)

Battlestar Galactica is set to return, and apparently they've done quite the job. However, it's already clear that it's not just a redo of the old version that I loved so much, as Starbuck and Boomer are now women (and Boomer is a bit of a hottie, if you'll pardon the expression).

It does appear that there is many voices that would condem this version before it even airs, but I think I'll be watching anyway.

Update: In his own right, the original Boomer was no slouch either. Not Starbuck, but no slouch.

Duncan the Wuss asks: "So, almost everyone I know loves the DVD-rental-by-mail service Netflix. But what about the videogame rental market?

[Slashdot: Games ]

How timely. N8 (of Spork fame) and I were just (as in hours) discussing online game rental places. The discussion here doesn't even mention rentzero.com or AngelGamer.com, which are the two that N8 has been eying. All I know is that by the time I get around to using one of these, I'm sure that they'll be a clear winner or two, no?

[I am] now a Napster Premium member, which means [I]'ve got half a million tracks at [my] fingertips. [My] Napster Premium service includes unlimited streaming and downloading of full-length tracks, commercial-free radio, unbridled access to exclusive community features, and much more. Don't forget, every track or album [I] purchase goes right to [my] hard drive and is [mine] to burn, transfer or do whatever.

[Napster Welcome Email]

Which so far, is not bad. The streaming isn't all messed up like some online radio stuff. And I'm assuming that most anything that is streamed to me is easily located and purchased, if I wish to burn CDs of music for listening “off-line” like in my car.

I'm also assuming that this will curb my urge to spend mucho dinero on the purchase of music from Napster, and only buy the really good stuff.

You figure that you'll knock a hard pigeon, or your barbeque is dracula, eh?

We'll I'm not unhip to that, and I don't have my glasses on.

You can check out the rest of the lingo, I'm trilly.

[Courtesy, Swarthy One]

A search function has been added to davidkearns.com, courtesy Google's GoogleApi.

The Islamic Shura Council of North America and Fiqh Council of North America, of which ISNA is a member, agreed that there were confirmed moon-sighting reports from Texas on the evening of Monday, November 24, 2003, the 29th of Ramadan. Therefore, Tuesday, November 25 will be the first day of Shawwal in North America. Eid Mubarak!

[MoonSighting.com]

Update: ICNA agrees, as does the ADAMS center, as does ISNA

Update: The DC Eid Committee also agrees

Well, not really. The only vestiges from Napster's previous incarnation appear to be the name and the logo.

Napster is now open for business, and located right inside Windows Media Player. If you have this swell little media player installed, you can go to “Premium Services” and install Napster from there.

The claim to have at least 500,000 tracks by now, and are adding more each day. I warn you, however, you might spend a few bucks if you check it out. I've already purchased They Might Be Giants: Flood, a Kurtis Blow track from back in the day, “I'm Chillin'”, and the new Sting Album: Sacred Love.

The sound quality is good, and since I already use Windows Media Player for playback, it's convenient. I expect that it's best for buying brand-new music that is more expensive than the $9.95 that Napster charges, or for getting one or two tracks off of otherwise lackluster albums. Also, nostalgia is a big factor, and it's easy to throw together a quick mix play list, and then burn it to CD.

Can someone tell me why software that lets you change the appearance of Mac OS X is not late-to-the-party (Windows and Linux have had this for years), not cool, but actually "revolutionary"?

[Joe Grossberg]

Exactly. I've been getting rather tired of the Apple propaganda lately. Especially the iTunes/iPod crap. Apple didn't invent digital music, digital music stores, digital music players, or digital music anything. They weren't first to market. They haven't made the best options that are available. So why are all the press claiming Dell, Microsoft, Wal*Mart, etc. are stealing Apple's ideas. Sure they want a piece of Apple pie, but just like a windowing OS, the mouse, WYSIWYG interfaces and the like, Apple didn't invent them.

Don't get me wrong. I like Apple. They make things pretty. They make solid interfaces. They are willing to try something different. But they are not the end-all-be-all. And very few things have been “stolen” from them, that they didn't “steal” from somewhere else. So, please, enough of the Apple worship.

In case you were wondering:

The Washington, DC Metrorail system is a regional rapid transit system consisting of five lines, 83 stations and approximately 103 miles of track. System completion as originally planned was achieved on January 13, 2001.

[NYC Subway]

What is that? You thirst for more knowledge? Then head on over to NYCSubway.org for more trivia than you knew existed, and then read up on other cities train systems.

Although I'm a bit of a Micro-softy, this is good news. I've always liked Sun (and Novell, who has good news of their own):

Struggling Sun Microsystems yesterday unveiled a major software deal with China's government -- a sign that the company is far from on its death bed. And given that the deal involves open-source software, Sun's news is a definite slap to rival Microsoft's attempts to woo overseas government customers. (washingtonpost.com)

[Yahoo! News - Technology ]

For my money, a bit of competition never hurts. I still like Windows, and I'm way excited for Longhorn, but a bit of Linux in the mix can only be good, right?