Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Origin of Halloween

When Irish immigrants first came to North America, they brought with them a Pagan festival celebrating the End of Summer known as Samhain. These immigrants translated their holiday to All Hallows' Even' in English, which later became All Hallows' Eve. English writers then shortened the name to Hallowe'en, and finally to Halloween. While Samhain was recognition of the coming of winter, the Celts also believed that on that day the boundary separating the dead from the living became blurred. This later led to the North American tradition of dressing up in costume on Halloween.

Now that you know the Origin of Halloween, here's hoping all my Loyal Readers have a safe, warm, and Happy Halloween this year. Due to the changes to the Daylight Savings Time, the kids should have even more fun this year with the extra hour of daylight provided to them.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

RealNetworks RealPlayer Format String

An attacker could remotely execute code on a vulnerable system because of an exploitable format string vulnerability found in Linux and Unix versions of the Helix Player and RealPlayer. To exploit this vulnerability, simply specify an invalid value for the "time format attribute" in a realpix file.

Monday, October 29, 2007

CN Tower

Toronto, Ontario's CN Tower is no longer the world's tallest freestanding structure. The world record no longer belongs to Canada. The Burj Dubai, a 555 metre tall skyscraper, is currently two metres taller. Housing 150 "liveable levels", it not only broke the CN Tower's 30-year record for height, but also set another for the number of floors humans can safely be on.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Daylight Savings Time Reminder

Traditionally Daylight Savings Time changed at 2 am on the last Sunday of October. Last year the United States Government changed the official duration of Daylight Savings Time. As a result, some of your clocks may have automatically changed, incorrectly, already. Daylight Savings Time now ends at 2 am on the first Sunday of November.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Happy Holidays

Today is Columbus Day for my American Loyal Readers, and Thanksgiving Day to my Canadian Loyal Readers. Hopefully everyone is safe and warm and enjoying a good turkey with friends and family today!

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Sputnik I

On this date in 1957, the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics launched the world's first artificial satellite into outer space. Launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakhstan, Sputnik I became the first man-made object to orbit the Earth. Spurring on the creation of NASA and the development of the Canadarm thus began the Great Space Race between Cold War enemies the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.