[H]ardNews - Blair's Tech Ed.

New Years In Orbit:

The U.S.-Russian crew of the international space station will mark the New Year along with Britons and feast on a roast chicken. U.S. Astronaut Michael Foale and his Russian crew mate Alexander Kaleri, who arrived on the orbiting outpost in October for a six-month stint, said in a video hookup Wednesday that they would toast each other when the clock strikes midnight in London since the station's clock is set to GMT.

How Alcohol Works:

If you have ever seen a person who has had too much to drink, you know that alcohol is a drug that has widespread effects on the body, and the effects vary from person to person. People who drink might be the "life of the party" or they might become sad and droopy. Their speech may slur and they may have trouble walking. It all depends on the amount of alcohol consumed, a person's history with alcohol and a person's personality.

Fiber Optics Tech:

The United States had telecommunications visionaries three decades ago, when John Fulenwider, then an engineer at GTE Laboratories in Massachusetts, first suggested stringing optical fiber to homes. It was part of a project to build "wired cities"—an idea that grew out of birth of cable television and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. The plan was to offer households a broad but vaguely defined family of services, including interactive television and perhaps video telephones. Fulenwider thought fiber could do the job better than copper coaxial cable.

Wipe Before You Dump:

If you're like me, that PC's hard drive contains a compilation of your personal and business life. If the wrong people were to grab it, they could hurt you and your business very seriously. Here's the problem: An index of files is maintained for the hard drive, telling it where things are stored. When you install a file, especially a big one, it is scattered around the hard drive in bits and pieces. On your command to open the file, the hard drive checks the index, then gathers the pieces and reconstructs them.