I discovered earlier this week that Windows 7 has another annoying holdover from Windows Vista. It turns out that if you have CD or DVD burner, Windows will conveniently eject the tray for you if you double-click the drive from Windows Explorer (or single click it from the file save/open dialog).

That’s a great idea EXCEPT when you have a case like this one. (Mine’s an older Sonata but the same situation applies.) Let’s think about it: Ejecting the tray when there’s a lid outside the drive that operates to keep it closed. Thank goodness I didn’t damage anything.

Thankfully, there’s a solution. It’s not a great solution. They don’t have an obvious “uncheck this to prevent Windows from stupidly ejecting your drive during accidental clicks.” Instead, you have to disable and remove burning features from Windows explorer using the group policy editor (gpedit.msc).

TLDR version/I don’t like clicking links:

To disable ejecting your CD tray after an accidental click, enter gpedit.msc into the run menu or the start menu’s search bar and then browse to: User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> and click on Windows Explorer. From here, set Remove CD Burning Features to Enabled.

I’ve released a new version of Routing v0.2.1. This update resolves issues with the route preferences and correctly prioritizes static routes. The internal route decisions are now handled by a scoring system. There are still a few bugs, but Routing is fast moving toward something usable.

Head over here to grab the latest version. I also wrote some documentation this evening for you to examine!

Biology

New Scientist has an article on the 10 things you didn’t know about humans.

Remember the Ukranian president Victor Yushchenko who was poisoned back in 2004? The doctors who treated him speculate that the strange skin growth he suffered from may have saved his life.

Databases

Joe Uhl has a fascinating article on improving PostgreSQL performance (although the tips can be adapted to other DBMSs).

Economy

Those jobless figures you hear about on the news–a “meager” 9.4%–might be wrong. Current estimates, including people who have stopped looking, peg unemployment at between 16 and 20 percent. Yeeouch. It explains some of my acquaintances who have been laid off (and good luck finding a job here locally–I’m glad I’ve been doing some freelancing!).

Science

Read more about the Large Electron-Positron Collider and how it discovered Z bosons with mass that changed during different times of the day. Spoiler: It wasn’t the boson.

The Earth’s mysterious hum has finally been tracked down. There’s also another but much older article detailing specific locations.

Wired science has a lot of good related articles all linked together. Here’s one about Earth’s “breathing” cycles. In related news, Earth may have another billion years (bringing the total to 2.3 billion) before the sun fries us all to a crisp.

The first ever asteroid to be tracked from space to ground was recovered back in March.

New Scientist describes five snacks shaped like the universe. While you’re reading, you may as well take a look at a gallery they listed as a related article.

Cassini has spotted a peculiar anomaly in Saturn’s rings .

Planetary collisions do happen and it’s quite spectacular.

Speaking of big things (although things that aren’t really big), it appears that monstrous rogue waves are surprisingly common.

Technology

Twitter isn’t as popular among young people as it is among people between 24 and 54 (I’m not one of them). This corroborates with some of my younger colleagues and peers. They see twitter as a pointless waste of time! Oh, if only people in my age group had such insight.

If you like spending time in coffee shops with your laptop, you may have to reconsider.

Windows developers: version checking is evil. No really, it is! Don’t do it. Ever.

Scott Hanselman has an article on 10 things developers should know about Windows 7.

Take the search engine blind-folded taste test.

Here’s how to scale up a quantum computer.

Testing the Limits

Improbable Research tests the limits of the post office by sending a variety of packages with different shapes and sizes. The verdict is counter to what many believe of the post office: most of the weird items made it through. Of particular note: The postal clerks simply noted that bare items (there were many) must be wrapped. Wrapped or not, the bare items (including a football) were still delivered.