Monterey aquarium releases white shark that set captivity record

A great white shark that survived longer than any other in captivity was released back to the wild early Thursday because it was growing too large for its tank and beginning to prey on other fish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

We’ll be visiting the Aquarium on April 9, and were very much looking forward to seeing the shark. Ah well.

John Shea runs down the outlook and chances for the Giants and A’s in the upcoming season.

Last year, for the first time since 1999, neither the Giants nor A’s made the playoffs. Both were flawed teams, partly because of inadequate bullpens and a lack of true closers. The A’s had holes in their offense. The Giants had holes in their gloves.

Both got eliminated on the final weekend and have been reshuffling their rosters ever since. Six months after checking out of ’04, they’re ushering in ’05 with new characters and new visions.

That last weekend of last season was terribly disappointing. There have been a lot of changes since then, and I think both teams have what they need for a great season. The cross-Bay preseason series starts tonight, 7:15 PM on FSNBA. I can’t wait!

SFGate: High court expands right to sue for age bias / Intentional discrimination by employers not necessary for older workers to prevail

The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave workers age 40 and older greater rights to sue an employer for age discrimination, even if there is no evidence that such bias was intentional.

I’ll be 40 in four and a half years. I don’t feel quite old enough to be suing for age discrimination just yet!

Here’s the simple answer to the blizzard of initiatives slated for this fall’s Special Interest Bonanza: Vote no on all of ‘em. You can read all about the bizarre politics behind the special election at the article linked above.

Yesterday, we saw a guy pushing petitions on University Ave in Palo Alto. He had a whiteboard sign, with a line down the middle, and “Liberals!” in blue on the left (with a list of so-called “liberal” issues) and “Conservatives!” in blue on the right (with a similar list). I was just amazed.

FiringSquad.com has an interesting feature today: Advanced System Building 301. This is not an average system setup guide; it’s intended for those who are already very comfortable building their own machines and want the latest tips and tweaks.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably built dozens of desktop computers on your own and for others and consider yourself a seasoned system builder. You laugh at the so-called expertise of Best Buy’s GeekSquad, and are the one doing the teaching when calling technical support. If this sounds like you, you’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to take your system building skills to the next level. This isn’t the place to if you want to sit and listen to an expert tuner take a didactic approach and give lecture on building a highly optimized system. This article isn’t written like a tutorial – this article is for experts.

I did catch the author in a couple of mistakesareas where I disgree, though:

1. Do not place Windows’ swap file on a separate partition of your single hard drive. If you only have one drive, there’s no performance gain at all in moving the swap file. If you have more than one, place your swap on the fastest drive you have–and install Windows on the second-fastest.
2. He suggests updating sound, video, motherboard, etc. drivers from the manufacturers’ Web sites before hitting Windows Update. I have to strongly disagree here; unless your components are totally unrecognized by Windows, it’s always best to make Windows Update your very first destination once you’ve secured the machine enough to feel comfortable plugging in the network cable.
3. There’s been quite a lot of research and testing done to optimize the size of Windows swap files. The author doesn’t seem to have read it, listing general estimates for various amounts of RAM. A few days of perfcounting will tell you exactly how big to make your swap for your specific system.
4. Classic search vs. XP search: XP search is not great, but classic search is worse. Leave XP search on and instead install Google Desktop search. It beats them both.
5. Having IE check for new versions on every load is just a waste of time, since you’ve enabled automatic Windows Update downloads.

Aside from these admittedly minor, and probably personal preference issues, the article is a good read for anyone who builds systems regularly.