Meant to post this last Friday.  Sheep have never been considered bright but this is a stretching it a little, even for them.

Hundreds of sheep follow leader off cliff (Reuters) – Reuters – Hundreds of sheep followed their leader off a cliff in eastern Turkey, plunging to their deaths this week while shepherds looked on in dismay.

(Via Yahoo! Oddly Enough)

 Sweet mother (board) of all that is good!  I never thought I’d see it again.  But this site brings back the memories.  The Trash 80, the Commodore 64 (including the Datassette) and the one which stops my heart with memories of cartridge driven Hunt the Wumpus goodness……  The TI99/4A.

The site is in German but old school geekiness transcends the language barrier.  I mean seriously.  Check out the stainless steel body.  The low profile form factor.  The complete lack of a 10 key. This baby used to warm my hands as I banged out BASIC commands. 

Obsolete computer gallery – Cory Doctorow: This huge German site sports photos of dozens and dozens of obsolete computers, grouped by manufacturer. Link (Thanks, Mike!)

(Via Boing Boing)

A complete listing with Quicktime movies of all the Live8 perfromances is here.  Wish I could download and save em, but worth spending some time if you like any of the artists.

 Not sure that this particular girl deserves all the attention.  But its a feel good story and something she can tell her kids about in future years.

Girl gives jersey from perfect game to baseball Hall – Maria Pepe sees fruits of playing in 1971

by Associated PressCOOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Two months ago, Katie Brownell was happy to be playing Little League ball with all of her boy friends. Now, she’s a Hall of Famer. Sort of. The 12-year-old Brownell, who etched her name in baseball lore when she tossed a…

(Via ESPN To Stories)

 More gadegty goodness on a Friday morning.  Its a pretty simple idea and in a year or two I think most new car stereos will have something like this in them.  CDs?  Who carries CDs anymore?

USB MP3 car-stereo with SD reader – Cory Doctorow: This is a hella clever car-stereo idea: a car-stereo with a USB port and an SD slot. Stick in any USB media or SD card and it will play any MP3s it finds on the media. Also plays MP3 CDs. Link (via Red Ferret)

(Via Boing Boing)

 Plenty of news on this elsewhere.  Just a note to say that my brother (a London resident) was thankfully in Amsterdam.  It is a small globe.  This attack had a much more direct connection to me than 9/11 did.  Terrorists must be stopped, let’s just make sure that in our zeal to do so we don’t become that which we hate.

World recoils in horror at London attacks (Reuters) – Reuters – The world recoiled in shock on Thursday after bombs tore through London’s transport system killing at least 33 people in a coordinated rush-hour attack.

(Via Yahoo! Top Stories)

 Not that I agree with jail time or anything, but once in awhile it gives me a warm fuzzy when the law actually enforces good behavior.  When I am paying for the connection, its not yours to use.

That being said, if you are going to install wireless, don’t expect the law to protect you.  Take 30 minutes to get a basic understanding of the security tools offered and use them. 

Gas, Grass, or Ass, But No One Rides For Free – "More than 10-million U.S. homes are equipped with [wi-fi] routers that transmit high-speed Internet to computers using radio signals. The signals can extend 200 feet or more." And Benjamin Smith was just arrested for going online through an unsecured one that didn’t belong to him.

It begs the Doonesbury question: Isn’t it still a free country?

(Via Metafilter)

 Another spiffy little rig that could tempt me into gadget induced poverty.  Looks like it retails fro around $1900 and comes with wired/wireless/bluetooth connections. 

Motion Computing LS800 Mini Tablet PC –

Some of you are going to be very happy about Motion Computing’s new LS800 Windows Tablet PC. It’s small, for starters—just a 8.4-inch screen. And it’s reasonably powerful, with a 1.2GHz Pentium M (certainly strong enough to get any business computing done). But by being so tiny, it might not serve as the laptop-replacement some people want, despite an optional plug-in keyboard and dock. Whatever—we prefer options in form factors over ‘do everything’ devices any day.

Product Page [MotionComputing]

(Via Gizmodo)

 Not to lean too heavily on Boing Boing this morning, but they are hitting all the marks.  Living in a state where "intelligent design" is making the rounds at the highest levels of discussion, I may have to slap one of these puppies on my bumper.  Looks like they are also available as a PDF so you can print your own.

Darwin stickers – Cory Doctorow: Swarthmore students are selling these CHARLES DARWIN HAS A POSSE vinyl stickers that you can sport to show your support for Enlightenment, reason, and the separation of church and state. Link (Thanks, Bren!)

(Via Boing Boing)

 This is indeed good news.  While it may be too late for the American marketplace to avoid some catastophic fallout from our byzantine legal structure, its good to know that there is a competing ideal on the scene and that democracy works.

Euro Software Patents are DEAD! w00t! – Cory Doctorow: You have won the fight to keep software patents — America’s disastrous, failed system for awarding exclusive rights to mathematical instructions — out of Europe. Despite the other side’s nonstop dirty tricks, subversion of democracy, and outright lies, the will of the people has been upheld in the Euro Parliament. The day was carried because of the tireless efforts of orgs like the FFII, FSF Europe, and EDRI — and because of your tireless support in writing and phoning to your elected reps. You should be very, very proud. Congrats to all the copyfighters who’ve busted their humps on this!

The European Parliament voted 648 to 14 to reject the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive.

The bill was reportedly rejected because, politicians said, it pleased no-one in its current form.

Responding to the rejection the European Commission said it would not draw up or submit any more versions of the original proposal.

Note: Software patents have been staked through the heart before, but they keep rising from the grave. There’s too much monopoly rent waiting to be extracted by anti-competitive companies for them to simply give up and go home. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Link (Thanks to dozens of Boing Boing readers who submitted this!)

(Via Boing Boing)