France opens secret UFO files covering 50 years

From Yahoo!


PARIS (AFP) - France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades.
The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.

"It is a world first," said Jacques Patenet, the aeronautical engineer who heads the office for the study of "non-identified aerospatial phenomena."

Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption.

"Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper" are clearly not worth investigating, said Patenet.

But many others involving multiple sightings -- in at least one case involving thousands of people across France -- and evidence such as burn marks and radar trackings showing flight patterns or accelerations that defy the laws of physics are taken very seriously.

A phalanx of beefy security guards formed a barrier in front of the space agency (CNES) headquarters where the announcement was made, "to screen out uninvited UFOlogists," an official explained.

Of the 1,600 cases registered since 1954, nearly 25 percent are classified as "type D", meaning that "despite good or very good data and credible witnesses, we are confronted with something we can't explain," Patenet said.

On January 8, 1981 outside the town of Trans-en-Provence in southern France, for example, a man working in a field reported hearing a strange whistling sound and seeing a saucer-like object about 2.5 meters (eight feet) in diameter land in his field about 50 meters (yards) away.

A dull-zinc grey, the saucer took off, he told police, almost immediately, leaving burn marks. Investigators took photos, and then collected and analyzed samples, and to this day no satisfactory explanation has been made.

The nearly 1,000 witness who said they saw flashing lights in the sky on November 5, 1990, by contrast, had simply seen a rocket fragment falling back into earth's atmosphere.

Patenet's answer to questions about evidence of life beyond Earth was sure to inflame the suspicions of those convinced the government is holding back: "We do not have the least proof that extra-terrestrials are behind the unexplained phenomena."

But then he added: "Nor do we have the least proof that they aren't."

The CNES fields between 50 and 100 UFO reports ever year, usually written up by police. Of these, 10 percent are the object of on-site investigations, Patenet said.

Other countries collect data more or less systematically about unidentified flying objects, notably in Britain and in the United States, where information can be requested on a case-by-case basis under the Freedom of Information Act.

"But we decided to do it the other way around and made everything available to the public," Patenet said.

The aim was to make it easier for scientists and other UFO buffs to access the data for research.

The website itself -- which crashed host servers hours after it was unveiled due to heavy traffic -- is extremely well organized and complete, even including scanned copies of police reports.

To visit the website: go here

more tabliness

under the weather

Well, if this isn't craptacular. I'm home not feeling too good. I will spare you the disgusting details and just leave it alone.
I was reading some blogs that are part of the Weblogs, Inc. Network and came across this-

"An act of sabotage shocked viewers in Phoenix last week when hardcore porn interrupted a health special hosted by Tom Brokaw. It happened on KPPX-TV 51, a PAX affiliate. That's a Christian station, people!

Station managers say someone in master control did it intentionally because, well, there's just not a lot of hardcore porn laying around at the Christian affiliates these days. It sounds like the station isn't sure who did the dirty deed because managers are promising a "rigorous investigation" and termination of whomever is responsible. I'm guessing the person who did it is a tad bit disgruntled with his/her boss and welcomes the firing. Viewers in Phoenix said the porn stayed on the television between five and ten minutes and there was no sound."

Yikes!

dudley dooright

I'm sure just a few of you will remember who Dudley is. Or who remembers Chumley?

never knew these existed

Not that I am losing sleep over that...

throwback videogame #2

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin.


I recall many hours of enjoyment from this game. I figured out the tell-tale signs of knowing when a monster was behind a door, or when there was an "invisible" monster waiting to rip me apart. This game wasn't so much about controlling your player as it was about controlling the environment. What it boiled down to was actually moving everything else, more specifically the walls. Difficult to explain, but movement seemed to be in 90-degree turns and you never saw any part of your player on-screen. Nonetheless, it kept my attention. It really threw me for a loop when I decided to not kill the minotaur in the final dungeon, but instead opt to seek out a ladder taking me to one possibly below, and sure enough I found it. I-am-a-dork.



Here are two reviews of it-
#1:
Treasure of Tarmin must have been awesome in 1982, with its first-person view of the dungeon and a wide variety of monsters and objects. The control scheme makes excellent use of the keypad, allowing you to easily manipulate an inventory of items. As you move forge ahead, the hallway animation conveys an effective illusion of movement, although turning 90 degress requires about a second to redraw the screen. The small, non-animated monsters include snakes, scorpions, skeletons, dragons, and a minotaur. Items you come across include normal weapons, spiritual weapons, armor, containers, treasures, keys, books, and more! So what's the problem? Well, it's tedious to make your way through a huge dungeon, especially when every freakin' hallway looks the same. Still, AD&D Treasure of Tarmin is incredibly deep for a 1982 release, and if you have enough patience, you might still enjoy this one.



#2:
Without a doubt, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin was an ambitious effort. In their first offering in the series of AD&D carts, Mattel produced an action-oriented adventure. Tarmin is more akin to an AD&D 'simulation'.

Your goal is to recover the 'Treasure of Tarmin,' which is guarded by a fearsome minotaur. Along the way, you encounter various beasties that attack your body or your mind. Fortunately, you can also recover powerful weapons, armor, and magical items that will aid you in your quest.

Tarmin is much closer to a traditional RPG than the first AD&D cartridge was. Combat is turn-based, though if you don't take your action within a certain time, the monster will again attack. You can maintain an inventory of items as well, which offers you interesting strategies in combat. Rather than the simple three-hits-and-you-die system in the prior game, you actually have 'hit points' and 'mana points'. Your limits in these stat pools grow as you 'gain experience.' (Tip: You can scam the system by letting yourself get injured more, then healing up.)

Some of the best improvements compared with the first game are that you can arm yourself with quite a few different weapons—both ranged and mêlée. The ranged weapons are limited-use items, and some are dual-mode weapons. For example, you can throw spears and daggers as ranged weapons or use them in-close. Similarly, there are several categories of magic items, as I recall... Staffs, scrolls, and books come to mind. Any item can eventually 'wear out' as well.

The game forgoes the outdoor aspects of the original, thrusting you immediately into the dungeon crawl. You begin at the first level of the dungeon, and delve deeper, until you reach the minotaur. A continuous corridor surrounds each level of the dungeon, and each of the four sides has two entry points into the labyrinth. These entrances are always in the same place, but the layout of each level can be different. There are regular, secret, and magically sealed doors throughout the mazes, as I recall. You may actually need to enter combat to 'destroy' some of the doors. Moving between levels in the dungeon is done by climbing the ladders you will find. One feature sorely lacking is a map, such as the one in Tower of Doom.

Graphically judging the game is a challenge. On the one hand, there is no animation to speak of, and the monsters you encounter are all single-color, rather blocky beasts. However, you must bear in mind that the game presents a first-person perspective, in which the corridors stretch before you, and monsters must be rendered from various distances. This was undoubtedly quite a challenge to accomplish.

There is no sound to speak of, but the game world is immersive (for its time) and, with the various levels of challenge, the number of possible 'different' monsters to encounter is quite impressive. There are a total of 256 levels in the dungeon - climbing down the last level wraps you back to the top, I think.

If you are a D&D enthusiast—or especially if you were back then—then you will likely enjoy this game. Although it is not and action game, it is a good example of an early RPG—albeit one with a scant story to go with it. I spent many hours playing this game, mainly to try to recover as many of the cool magic items as possible. Getting the über magical books is a much more challenging quest than recovering the treasure!

farewell old friend, you have served me well

I bought my Gateway PC way back in '99. It was when one could walk into a Gateway store and the Pentium 3 had just been released. The original specs were: 14GB HDD, nVidia graphics card with a whopping 16MB RAM, 500MHz P3 processor, 56k modem, and 128MB RAM . Heck, I don't even remember i what the specific type of RAM it is. All I know is since then I have maxed out the RAM to 348MB, upgraded the video card to an nVidia 4400Ti that has 128MB on it, added a CD burner in addition to the factory installed CD-ROM drive, floppy drive, and the Zip drive.
Well, it is time to put this PC to rest. I have noticed over the past few months that web pages take longer and longer to load, and it just feels sluggish, especially compared to my G5- everything feels slow. I have just reached the point where, even though I hardly do anything at my desk, I am just sick and tired of having two computers take up so much real estate. Aside from the occasional glitch when viewing something through Safari/Firefox on my G5 cos it's just not 100% compatible with stuff designed for IE, it is fine with me. It will suffice until I get a new laptop later this year.
I have been on the fence what my first major purchase will be (laptop or new TV), and I have decided it to be a DLP HDTV. I just cannot watch TV in the living room on a 22" Magnavox flat tube any more. There is nothing wrong with the TV itself, but after having had a 32" in there, it just isn't anything except tolerable.
Another reason I am waiting on a laptop is that I have noticed two things. The first being all the sales Dell and Gateway are having. They must be trying to clear out as much of their inventory as possible as the hybrid HDD is making its identity known. Here it is straight from Engadget-
Samsung and Microsoft have been touting the wonders of the hybrid hard drive since 2005 -- in other words "forever" on a technology timeline. Now, finally, Samsung is pushing their ReadyDrive-friendly HHD out the door to OEMs starting today (March 7). The MH80 series of 2.5-inch drives build in 128/256MB of NAND flash to augment the traditional 80/120/160GB of traditional hard disk capacity. Samsung claims that their new HHDs offer 5x the reliability of conventional hard disks while shaving up to 50% off Windows Vista boot times and cutting power consumption by 70-90% to deliver about 30-minutes more laptop run-time off battery. Sweet. No prices given, but look for 'em to hit higher-end laptops as relatively costly (no prices given) options any day now. With any luck, the higher cost will be offset by more bang-for-the-buck.
Add to that DirectX10 coming out and the possibility of an LED lit LCD, I would rather wait a few months and finally get a new TV.

On a final note- how sad is it that my old PC had a smaller HDD than my iPod? For shame...

it's been a while, huh?

First off, there is something that really chaps my hide.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/25/two-teens-assault-teacher-after-he-confiscates-ones-ipod/

Two teens assault teacher after he confiscates one's iPod. Are you fricking serious? You have got to be kidding me.


Finally, this is the second thing that really boils my blood

In it, he states this, "Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity."
Once again, are you kidding me?
What is wrong in the world? I know technology has a huge part in this as it makes it far too easy to be unfaithful. Cells phones, email, and the Internet all play a huge part in this. Once again, something that was intended to be used for the benefit of man, and the world, has been twisted and warped into tools of all things bad and evil.
What is it that is so difficult to maintain one's vows? I am not saying I am perfect by any means, but at the very least I never have and never will be unfaithful.
Cut and past since I cannot get this to be a link-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_go_co/gingrich_affair