After over six years as The People’s Republic of Seabrook, Jack Cluth is now What Would Jack Do?, reflecting the reality that he is no longer based in Texas, but Beaverton, Oregon.

Clara Moskowitz at LiveScience writes that Scientists discover black holes on the Internet

You’re pounding the keyboard, double-clicking away, sighing and grumbling, but to no avail: That devilish little hourglass icon refuses to give way to the Web site you’re trying to reach. Most Internet users have encountered trouble reaching online destinations, but they often attribute the problem to their wireless network cutting out or a server momentarily going down.

Sometimes, though, the problem is more mysterious. At any given moment, messages throughout the world are lost to cyber black holes, according to new computer science research.

I think that my current problems are related to the TLD [Top Level Domain] DNS [Domain Name Server], essentially the “phonebook” for sites that are in the “.us” domains, but it could be a hidden backbone problem.

One annoying thing about the article is that it doesn’t provide a link to the “Hubble” site, which is an odd omission for Internet technology reporting.

Proving it will attack anyone if the interests of the Six-PAC of Media Conglomerates is annoyed, the Associated Press reports: FCC Fines Stores For Hawking “Useless” TVs

(AP) Federal regulators fined Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc. and other retailers a combined $3.9 million on Thursday for failing to label analog television sets properly as subject to become essentially useless after the United States switches to digital TV next year.

The Federal Communications Commission also handed down $2.7 million in fines to other companies for violating other digital TV rules that involve shipping analog equipment and blocking technologies such as the V-chip.

An FCC rule, adopted last May, requires retailers to add labeling to analog-only TV equipment that says it will not receive signals without a special converter box after the nationwide digital transition.

[Read more →]

Ready For Launch

These cats need some discipline.

[Editor: Ringo sweeps back her ears in preparation to go zooming off. As the weather has improved she spends more time outside.]

Friday Ark