Microsoft to cut swastikas from software

SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) –Microsoft Corp. said on Friday that its latest version of Office software inadvertently contained a font featuring two swastikas, and said it would offer tools to remove and replace the offending characters from the program.

The swastika, which was made infamous by Nazi Germany, was included in Microsoft’s “Bookshelf Symbol 7” font. That font was derived from a Japanese font set, said Microsoft Office product manager Simon Marks.

“It was discovered by one of our customers a couple weeks ago,” Marks said, adding that there was “no indication of malicious intent.”

The Redmond, Washington-based software maker said that it had contacted various Jewish organizations about the font and said a utility would be immediately available on its Web site that would remove the characters from the system.

Microsoft said it will release other tools at a later date to remove only the offending characters.

A form of the swastika has been used in the Buddhist religion to symbolize the feet or footprints of the Buddha. The symbol, which was also used widely in the ancient world including Mesopotamia, Scandinavia, India and the Americas, became common in China and Japan with the spread of Buddhism.

German dictator Adolf Hitler adopted the swastika as the symbol of the Nazi Party because of its nationalist identification, according to the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights group.

The backspace key! You are happy in life and you will be happy enough to help anyone at all and the backspace key helps a lot of people by correcting their mistakes.

Which key on the keyboard are you?

My buddy from high school and an all-around-good-guy, Matt Mixan, recently joined the LiveJournal community.

Welcome, Matt!

Check out his thoughts and ramblings online: The Weird World of Mixan

Don’t believe it? Try this on for size.

As I drove up to my house yesterday afternoon, prepared to shovel my driveway (with the help of my friend, Matt), I saw a trio of pre-teen boys standing across the street, up against two snow blowers and a shovel. I inquired about their price to clear my l-o-n-g, hilly driveway and front walk. Their reply?

“There’s a driveway over there? Where?”

Yeah. So you can see the dilemma I faced. It took all of 2 seconds when the boys replied with “10 to 15 bucks.” Sold to the boys in the multi-colored parkas! It took them all of 20 minutes to clear away the snow, thereby creating a path for me to scoot my car up the driveway and into the garage. Whew!

Let’s hope I can track them down the next time it snows :-)

I’m about to head outside and unearth my car from a mountain of snow. I couldn’t make it up the driveway last night and parked on the street. If I slip, fall and pass out, I’m hoping one of my friendly neighbors rushes outdoors and helps.

If not, let me say it has been an absolute pleasure sharing my thoughts with you all.

It’s go-time.

As I write this, Omaha is covered under a fresh blanket of the white stuff; 7 inches, to be exact. Driving today was not fun. A commute that typically takes me 15 minutes took nearly 40. My Acura didn’t do too bad on the roads, but I longed for my 1993 Jeep Wrangler. Oh, what a love affair I had with that car, especially in the winter. With 4-wheel drive, I rarely got stuck. And driving a stick shift is absolute heaven. I loved my Jeep, so VERY much. I know, I know; it’s just a car. But it became part of me, part of my personality. I cried and cried when I drove off in the Acura, leaving my Jeep behind. There were so many memories still floating around the inside, it was hard to let them go.

Look close; you’ll see the coveted Apple sticker in the rear window!

Since August, I’ve been working on a three-part series on adoption for the Bellevue Leader. The story focuses on a Bellevue (Neb.) couple who adopted twin girls in 1980. The twins and adoptive parents were reunited with the birth mother in 1998 after nearly 18 years of corresponding only through letters. The series ran for three weeks last month.

Check it out: Bound by Love: An adoption story

Thanks to TJ for this delicious photo.

I’m not obsessed. Seriously. Adam Brody is just so damn pretty. And what makes this photograph so intriguing is his pose; Adam Brody wouldn’t feel comfortable in such a position, as far as I can tell. He’s too geeky, too unsure of himself to bow out his hip and run his hand through his curly brown hair.

Yowza.

Google tricksters giggle at president’s expense
NEWSDAY

A search for the phrase “miserable failure” on the popular search engine Google brings up the biography of President Bush on the official White House Web site, in one of the more prominent search-engine manipulations with political overtones.

The phrase appears nowhere in the bio. But computer users rigged the search engine’s results by posting the phrase on Web pages and linking it to the Bush bio, in a technique called Google bombing.

Search engines work much like an index in the back of a book, allowing people to look up words and directing them to the page in which the words appear. The search engines scour Web pages to create the index. If you get enough links connected to a phrase, the engine identifies it as a popular one that is probably relevant to the Web site.

In this case, computer users wrote links labeled “miserable failure.” When users click on the link, it takes them to the official Bush bio.

“I thought it was absolutely one of the funniest ideas I’ve ever heard,” said Don Waller, owner of Don Waller Interactive, a Web design company in Islip Terrace, N.Y., who joined the prank in late October.

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius had no comment.

Google bombings are created by people who run Web sites and Web logs, or blogs, which allow people to post information about particular topics. One person posts an idea for a bombing online, then it spreads like, you might say, Webfire.

The latest Google bombing appears to have spread within a matter of weeks.

It apparently doesn’t take much for Google to make the association. At least 826 pages link to the Bush bio but just 32 of those pages include the phrase “miserable failure,” according to a Google search.

In previous pranks, tricksters have rigged Google to bring up spoof pages. For instance, after France refused to join the coalition forces fighting Iraq, a Google search for “French military victories” brought up a spoof page that said no documents were found and asked, “Did you mean ‘french military defeats’?”