Strange hum keeping West Seattle awake

Julie Schickling stood out on her porch in West Seattle just after midnight because she couldn’t explain what she was hearing. So she recorded the sound (listen here on West Seattle Blog).

“It gets high and lower, and goes away, then comes back,” said Schickling.

Some of her neighbors report being shaken out of bed by the low rumble, also described as a growl. In fact, as many people you talk with is about how many different words you heard to describe it.

“It is kind of creepy,” Kay Kirkpatrick, the West Seattle resident said of the sound. “It creeps you out a little bit.”

The neighboring large industries say they aren’t to blame.

Then what is? Something the City of Seattle is looking into.

Some long time residents say they’ve heard this sound before over the years. Others say it’s the first encounter they’ve had with the eerie noise.

“We want to know,” Kirkpatrick said. “Tell us what it is.”

via Strange hum keeping West Seattle awake | KING5.com Seattle.

Web inventor denies ‘off-switch’

The inventor of the world wide web has denied there is an “off-switch” which could turn off the internet across the globe.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who launched the web on Christmas Day 1990, said the only way the internet could ever be entirely shut down is if governments all over the world co-ordinated to make it a centralised system.

It comes after moves by the Egyptian government last year to suppress use of the web led to speculation that the Hosni Mubarak regime had found a kill switch for the internet.

Speaking at the launch of the first ever global league table classifying countries which put the web to work best, the 57-year-old computer scientist said: “The way the internet is designed is very much as a decentralised system. At the moment, because countries connect to each other in lots of different ways, there is no one off-switch, there is no central place where you can turn it off.

“In order to be able to turn the whole thing off or really block, suppress one particular idea then the countries and governments would have to get together and agree and co-ordinate and turn it from a decentralised system to being a centralised system. And if that does happen it is really important that everybody fights against that sort of direction.”

Sweden has topped the Web Index league table launched by the World Wide Web Foundation, followed by the US in second and the UK in third. Nepal, Cameroon and Mali were the bottom three of 61 countries measured using indicators such as the political, economic and social impact of the web, connectivity and use.

Asked about rumours that he himself was one a handful of people who had the ability to switch off the net, Sir Tim joked: “I am afraid that now that you know I will have to shoot you.

“I have put on filters which allow me just to investigate just every single word that any of you have said to each other. You won’t know what is happening but as you talk to each other it will be quietly modified to appear to be whatever I want you to be saying. I will take a deep control of the world. Apart from that, everything will remain as usual.”

Comedian and avid Twitter user Stephen Fry, 55, was also present at the launch of the Web Index at the National Theatre in central London, and said the greatest threat to freedom on the internet was the attempt to curb the free exchange of ideas.

via Web inventor denies ‘off-switch’ – Yahoo! News UK.

LimeWire Pirate Edition …. Still works.

Resurrected version of the P2P application let’s you search and share files through the Gnutella network.LimeWire allows you to search for multiple files at the same time, available in several different languages, and is most famous for its easeofuse and crossplatform compatibility.

via LimeWire Pirate Edition 5.6.2 – TechSpot Downloads.

This is interesting. I own the Star Trek Enterprise TV series, purchased from the Apple Store, but now I want to watch them on my PC, so I thought I’d see if Limewire works to get the episodes. (~300 MB each episode, so p2p is fast) I hate iTunes and I don’t want it on my laptop.

If you thought Limewire was dead, it is, but someone released a Pirate version that still works.

You may need to remove Java 7 and install Java 6 update 35 and then find run this hard to find file: (LPE ConnectFix 303KB  – Windows users, use 7-Zip to unzip .exe then run it.) It did the trick. Microsoft Security Essentials found no security threats with it, but be sure to check with your own AntiVirus software before you run it.

With the Pirate version you can skip the advertisements and spyware in the paid official Limewire.

Update: It sort of works, probably not enough people using it because the download stalled. I was able to download the theme song and it played, however. I still think P2P is great technology with plenty of legal uses.