Eric Lippert has updated his favorite search terms, which inspired me to examine my referrer logs again and find the most interesting ones. The following are all search terms that people have entered into Google to get to this blog.

“How to spot a terrorist”

Hmm, I hope this wasn't the FBI searching Google trying to learn how to spot terrorists. I am not an expert, but I bet it is probably pretty difficult to spot a real terrorist. Many innocent people have been harrassed at airports because they happened to go to the bathroom too many times, or winked at someone else on the flight. Probably the only way is to infiltrate a terrorist group (either in person or electronically) and identify the people associated with that group.

“I'm sorry you feel that way” apology

I once said that the phrase “I'm sorry you feel that way” is not a genuine apology. You're not apologizing for your actions, or for hurting the other person. You're basically telling the person “You're wrong to feel like that”.

“You're more likely to die” lottery

Given that most major lotteries have a 1 in 14 million chance in hitting the jackpot, and death is a 100% certainty, you are definitely more likely to die than win the lottery. So if you think about it, you are more likely to die than do almost anything.

1 in 50 die in “car crash” peanut butter

This reminds me of the strange story that you are more likely to die from the carcinogens in peanut butter than the radiation from a nuclear power plant, yet people are not afraid of peanut butter but often are very afraid of nuclear power.

10 billion dollars to talk to me for one minute through my brains

I won't pay 10 billion to talk to you for one minute, whoever you may be. But what intrigues me about your proposal is how you expect me to talk to you THROUGH your brains. Do you have multiple brians? My brain actually hurts thinking about the possibilities here.

Are NDP socialists?

The New Democratic Party in Canada are indeed a socialist-like party, although they would rather use the term progessive. The party proposes increasing taxes to support more government programs, such as free prescription drugs, higher pensions and unemployment benefits. They are heavily supported by labor unions, but only enjoy 15% popular support nationwide.

ASP.NET jobs $100 per hour

If you find any ASP.NET jobs that pay that, drop me an email.

Bill O'Reilly Donald Trump double date

Apparently, it really happened. According to Bill O'Reilly's last book, he once went on a double date with The Donald. I haven't read the book, so I can't tell the full story, but I will assume it was a one-time occurrence. I wonder who the lucky ladies were. 

As an aside, I don't understand how my web log has become such a magnet for searchers looking for Sean Puffy Combs, Mark Cuban, Donald Trump and/or Bill O'Reilly. My referrer log is full of those references.

Employment with Sean Puffy Combs

Sean Combs, or P. Diddy as he is sometimes called, runs Bad Boy Entertainment, Sean John clothing, and a number of other empires. The Bad Boy web site doesn't have a Jobs link, so I don't know how you'd go about applying for a job. How about calling their main number and asking for their fax number?

See pictures of easy gymnastic moves with instructions on how to do them on the net

I guess with the Olympics on, people want to do the gymnastic moves themselves. That is admirable, but not advisable. Seriously. You could hurt yourself. Falling from a balance beam hurts. Are you trying to do the Iron Cross on the rings? Don't bother - you can't. (It's ok, neither can I.) Maybe you can do a cartwheel, which I can't even do.

What do Brazilians look like?

Brazil is the largest country in South America. Brazilians looks a lot like other Americans, but with more of a tan. And they wear less clothes apparently. According to the CIA World Factbook, Brazilians are 55% white, 38% mixed, and 6% black.

What does Bill Gates do for a living?

Well, Bill, or “The Gatester” as he lets me call him, is the Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation. He provides technical leadership to Microsoft, and probably gets involved in the biggest decisions, such as where the company should invest its technical future.

This is so cool it's scary. The U.S. government is experimenting with a technology that can identify the molecular components of cargo crossing the border. So it can tell if the contents of a barrel are flour or cocaine. Or anthrax.

Right now, it's just one machine, and it will only be used for suspicious trucks passing in from Mexico. But if the government made everything passing through its border pass through this, the drug trade would stop in its tracks. As would other smuggling activities.

The downsides are significant right now. First, the cost: $10 million per unit. Second, the time: it takes 10 minutes to scan the contents of a 18-wheeler. And third: it's nuclear, so operators require radiation protection. Still tough, those things can be overcome in time.

The privacy invasion brought on by the PATRIOT act may be nothing compared to this. Soon, the US will be able to count exactly how much money is in your wallet without you even knowing. Or be able to tell what you had for lunch by examining the contents of your stomach as you pass through the XRay machine.

New Nukes at U.S. Border

U.S. agents next week will start scanning trucks crossing the Mexico border with a device that shoots neutrons to detect what exactly is hidden in the cargo. By Ryan Singel.

 

Alice Cooper is selling school supplies for Staples. That is cool.

Little Girl: “I thought you said school was out forever.”
Alice Cooper: “No no no. The song goes, school's out for summer. Nice try though.”

On a recent trip to Dallas, Texas, I came across a sign warning patrons not to bring their handgun into the restaurant.

I guess the gun culture found in Texas (and other Southern States) is quite foreign to me as a Canadian, so seeing signs like this makes me laugh.

What makes it funny, to me at least, is that bringing concealed handguns into a Texas bar is such a common occurrence, that they have to create a sign to tell people not to.

I've talked a lot about my experience ripping open my old Dell Inspiron laptop. Here are some pictures.

Here's a picture of the laptop without the keyboard or the screen:

Here's a picture of the laptop with the palmrest assembly removed:

Notice the battery and floppy disk have already been removed, which are the two empty bays at the bottom left and right of the picture.

Here is a picture of the laptop motherboard:

On the left is the PCMCIA slot. On the right is the laptop security mechanism, to which a cable can be attached so noone steals your laptop off your office desk. Just to the left of the security mechanism, taking up most of the right side of the motherboard, is a complex looking heat redistribution system.

A few months back, I blogged about my broken Dell laptop. I was determined to fix it, since I spent so much money on it 6 years ago to purchase it. Read the history here and here.

The symptoms:

The battery stopped recharging. Even when plugged in, the laptop reported running on battery power. The laptop would not boot when plugged into the wall with the battery removed.

The possible causes:

Searching the web, I discovered that there are three possible causes:

1. A bad electrical cord
2. A cracked motherboard
3. An expired battery

Discounting the causes:

The bad electrical cord looked unlikely, because the green light was still working. Also the cord was not frayed.

The battery was indeed old - the original battery from 6 years ago. But the laptop was still working off the battery, so it's not like the battery just stopped working. There is a diagnostic button on the back of the battery, and it showed everything was OK.

So that left the cracked motherboard. Replacing this sounded exciting - I'd never seen the inside of a laptop before.

Fixing It: Attempt One

I ordered a new motherboard off eBay for about $100. I downloaded the laptop disassembly instructions from Dell and printed them. I got my tools out, and started taking the laptop apart.

It was easier than I expected. I was quite worried that the laptop was put together in a way that once you took it apart, it was impossible to put back together. This turned out not to be true. There were only a couple of places were cables were either glued or taped on, and so you definitely have to be gentle with this thing.

The one tip I would give is, there are a LOT of screws you need to remove, and they come in about 15 different sizes and shapes. What I did was arrange the screws on a desk in the order in which I removed them. Then when I put the thing back together, I just used the screws in reverse order. It makes things a lot easier. (Somehow, I had two extra screws left over. I don't know where they were supposed to go.)

So after I replaced the motherboard with the one off eBay, and put the whole thing back together, I plugged it back in and turned it on. I noticed two things on reboot. One, my touchpad mouse was not working and two, the battery was still not recharging. So the motherboard replacement did not fix the problem.

Fixing It: Attempt Two

So, the next logical step is to order a new power cable. Those cost about $12. (A new battery costs $125 or so, so I wanted to leave that option til last.) After some confusion with the seller, in which he apparently shipped it to the wrong address, I got my new power cable.

Plugged it in, and lo and behold, it worked! After all the motherboard stuff I did, it was the power cable. Of course, my touchpad mouse still did not work. But, oh well. Worst case scenario is that I have to use an external mouse.

Unfixing the First Attempt

I decided to remove the new motherboard and put the original back in. This meant disassembling the laptop again. I waited a little while before embarking on that journey one more time.

Last week, however, I did replace the new motherboard with the old one. This time, I also found places for those two leftover screws from last time. And I must have plugged the touchpad in correctly, because it now works.

Everything is back to normal.

I don't know what to do with this extra laptop at this point. In the time since my old one broke, I bought a new one. I might repave the old one, put some experimental OS on it (like Longhorn) and play around with it. We'll see. But for now, I have a working laptop.

I'm sitting here watching the Olympics, and I notice a significant percentage of the commercials shown are simulations of Olympic events. I don't mean that they are Olympic-related (ie: “Official sponsor of the 2004 Olympics!“) I mean these commercials show actor-athletes participating in events.

Air Canada - Cycling
Volkswagen - Cycling
LG Plasma TV - Relay, high jump, diving, gymastics
Bell Expressvu - Weightlifting, gymnastics
Royal Bank - Running
Air Canada - Floor dance

All within a fifteen minute span of watching TV. I think these type of commercial has been overused.

I did not know this, but in order for a new Olympic record to be set in weightlifting, the old record has to be broken by at least 2.5 kg (or 5 lbs). Apparently, the officials at the Olympics didn't know this either. A female weightlifter from Thailand thought she had set a new record by lifting 125.5 kg, beating the previous record of 125 kg. Even official news sources celebrated her new record. But “she should not have been allowed to lift that weight” according to an anonymous official.

The good news is that this female lifter asked the Prime Minister of Thailand if she could join the army, and he said yes. It's important to have dreams, I guess.

Tennis superstars Venus Williams and Andy Roddick are finding themselves playing in front of record crowds - record-low that is. For instance, the first match Venus Williams played was in front of about 500 spectators in an arena that seats 8,000.

When was the last time Venus Williams played a real event in a stadium only 5% full? I'm guessing it has been since the days before she turned pro.