Rythan's Tech Commentaries

U.S. mission in north Iraq: get Kurd and Arab forces cooperating.

2010-06-20T16:10:00.001-04:00

I think that things will become more tenuous as soon as U.S. troops are recalled. http://amplify.com/u/72nc

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How do you control duplication with services like Amplify?

2010-06-20T14:43:00.001-04:00

http://amplify.com/u/72lv

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Untitled

2010-06-20T14:23:00.001-04:00

Is Foursquare down? http://amplify.com/u/72lj

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TheTrucker.com - OOIDA challenges EOBR rule in court, concerned about future mandates

2010-06-18T15:37:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON — The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) has filed preliminary papers to challenge the new electronic on-board recorder rule for Hours of Service that mandates the devices for the worst offenders.

The rule goes into effect June 4, 2012, and EOBRs will be required for carriers that in one on-site review have 10 percent or more HOS violations.

OOIDA, along with three members, William J. Culligan, Adam D. Burnett, and Douglas A. Oldham, filed a petition for review in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit June 2. The notice doesn’t have details; it just states that it is a petition for the court for review of the order and final rule “Electronic On-Board Recorders for Hours of Service Compliance” Docket Number FMCSA-2004-18940, which is the latest FMCSA EOBR rule to date.

But despite the limited wording in the court filing, The Trucker was able to get more information from OOIDA about why they are challenging the rule at this time.

“The challenge is to the current rule only,” said Norita Taylor, media spokesperson OOIDA. “But it’s certainly fair to say our members have expressed concern about future related rules. We are challenging it because our members are concerned about privacy interests, [that] EOBRs do not guarantee an accurate record of a driver’s HOS compliance and they are not economically justified.

“EOBRs only measure when the truck is running and give its location. They do not measure when a driver is doing something else for on-duty time such as fixing the truck, searching for a load, etc. If the whole point of EOBRs is to avoid allowing drivers to provide input into a logbook, then the problem hasn’t been fixed because they still have to provide input.”

In response to an inquiry by The Trucker, an FMCSA spokesman said the agency had “no comment” at this time regarding the challenge to the final rule

In some ways this challenge was a surprise since soon after the final rule was announced The Trucker spoke with OOIDA, which said it had no plans to challenge the EOBR rulemaking.

“The rulemaking as it stands is eminently avoidable for motor carriers if drivers take care of their logbooks and make sure all date- and time-stamped documents match their logs,” said Joe Rajkovacz, regulatory affairs director.

But later, there was a hint of a challenge when Todd Spencer, executive vice president at OOIDA, pointed out during a Congressional hearing in Washington that there’s no data on EOBRs and how they may or may not improve safety.

But Spencer also said OOIDA did not oppose the latest EOBR rule which mandates EOBRs for only the worst offenders, which goes along with what Taylor said, that they were concerned about future rules.

“The point I want to make on EOBRs is that there’s no safety data to show they enhance highway safety,” Spencer said during the hearing. “They can’t tell if a driver is sleepy, they can’t tell if a driver needs to rest, they can’t tell whether a driver is off duty or whether he’s physically handling 44,000 pounds of cargo. They are no more reliable than the paper logs that they would replace.”

Spencer also said they would have a large financial impact because of cost on the small companies.

The EOBR rule that was issued is small considering what some say is coming down the rulemaking pipeline.

On May 20 Dave Osiecki, the American Trucking Associations senior vice president, spoke in Little Rock at the Arkansas Trucking Association annual business conference about EOBRs as they relate to HOS recordkeeping.

“There are three rules coming,” he began. “Well one’s already come. Rule number one was published [in April]. This is a rule that targets historically non-compliant companies, companies that have had some HOS compliance issues in the past. The government believes they need to have all of their trucks with an on-board recorder. This rule kicks in June 2012 so it’s still about two years away.

“Number two is coming later this year and will likely be November/December time period and it will likely cover, at least from a proposed rule standpoint, new carriers, hazmat companies, and bus operators.

“And then the third rule is everybody else. So the big question becomes, when does the third rule hit? And it is a DOT/Congressional race to the finish line on that. DOT will get there. Congress may beat them with the Highway Bill and if the Highway Bill passes before rule number three comes about it will include an EOBR mandate for every truck in this industry. We can almost guarantee that.”

It’s unknown at this time how this challenge may or may not disrupt the two rules that Osiecki says are coming soon.

Barb Kampbell of The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at barbkampbell@thetrucker.com.

via thetrucker.com

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Untitled

2010-01-31T17:06:00.001-05:00

Tesing Ping.fm posting using Hootsuite ...

via Ping.fm

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Seven Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School | Copyblogger

2009-11-23T12:36:00.001-05:00

What is good writing?

Ask an English teacher, and they’ll tell you good writing is grammatically correct. They’ll tell you it makes a point and supports it with evidence. Maybe, if they’re really honest, they’ll admit it has a scholarly tone — prose that sounds like Jane Austen earns an A, while a paper that could’ve been written by Willie Nelson scores a B (or worse).

Not all English teachers abide by this system, but the vast majority do. Just look at the writing of most graduates, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s proper, polite, and just polished enough not to embarrass anyone. Mission accomplished, as far as our schools are concerned.

But let me ask you something:

Is that really good writing?

I think most good writers listen to the way English teachers want them to write and think, “This isn’t real. It has no feeling, no distinctiveness, no oomph. You’re the only person in the world who would willingly read it. Everyone else would rather chew off their own eyelids than read more than three pages of this boring crap.” And they’re right.

Compare an award-winning essay to a best-selling novel, and you’ll notice that they are written in almost completely different languages. Some of it has to do with the audience, sure. It’s natural to write differently for academics than you would for everyday people. But my question is: who are you going to spend more time writing for?

My guess: everyday people — your family and friends, your blog audience, your boss at work, maybe even a Letter to the Editor every now and again. None of them are academics. None of them want to read an essay.

Personally, I think good writing doesn’t have to be educated or well supported or even grammatically correct. It does have to be interesting enough that other people want to read it. Much of what comes out of high schools and universities fails this test, not because our students are incapable of saying anything interesting, but because a well-meaning but flawed academic system has taught them a lot of bad habits.

Let’s go through some of them.

1. Trying to sound like dead people

It’s a sad state of affairs when the youngest writer on your reading list has been dead 100 years, but that’s the way it is in school.

I don’t know who exactly decides what’s worth reading and what’s not, but they (whoever “they” are) believe in reading the “classics,” and most of those classics are centuries old. What’s worse is that many teachers hold up the classics as examples of what good writing is, and they expect you to mimic those writers with your essays.

Sure, Chaucer and Thomas More and Shakespeare were the stud muffins of their day, but you don’t see them on the New York Times Bestseller List now.

Not because they aren’t good (they were freaking great), but because people can’t connect with them. By mimicking their style, you might make a few teachers happy, but you’re essentially handicapping your writing in the eyes of the public.

If you want to make a connection, you’re much better off studying the hot writers of today — like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Seth Godin. Watch what they do, and play with using some of their techniques in your own writing.

Yes, you’ll still be mimicking the work of another writer, but at least you’ll be mimicking something people want to read.

2. Expecting someone to hand you a writing prompt

Looking through the eyes of an educator, I can see why telling students what to write about would be useful. You have a bunch of students who couldn’t care less about your curriculum, and making them write a paper about the assigned readings is a great way to force them to read the material.

Makes sense . . . but it doesn’t make it any less damaging.

One of the biggest challenges of writing is figuring out what to write. Whether you’re writing a memo, an article, or a letter to your mother, the process is always the same: you start out with a blank page, and you decide what to put on it.

Sure, that involves considering what your audience will want to read, but no one but you makes the final decision of what to put on the page. That act of deciding is what writing is all about.

3. Writing long paragraphs

Once upon a time, it was acceptable to write paragraphs long enough to fill multiple pages with big blocks of text.

Not surprisingly, that’s the way most of us were taught to write: long paragraphs, topic sentences neatly organized, lots of supporting evidence in between assertions. It was the “correct” way to write.

Not.

Any.

More.

Nowadays, most paragraphs should be a maximum of three sentences. It’s also a good idea to include some shorter paragraphs with only one or two sentences, using them to punctuate powerful ideas.

It’s not so much about having a “correct” length as using paragraphs to give your writing rhythm.

4. Avoiding profanity at all costs

I admit it; this is a controversial one. Many excellent writers still hold that profanity has no place in a professional publication, while others curse like a lovable two-dollar, er, paid companion.

The rest of us sit around feeling uncomfortable and wondering whether it’s okay to express ourselves “that way” or not.

So who’s right? Well, I think Stephen King says it best:

Make yourself a promise right now that you’ll never use “emolument” when you mean “tip” and you’ll never say John stopped long enough to perform an act of excretion when you mean John stopped long enough to take a shit. If you believe “take a shit” would be considered offensive or inappropriate by your audience, feel free to say John stopped long enough to move his bowels (or perhaps John stopped long enough to “push”). I’m not trying to get you to talk dirty, only plain and direct.

‘Nough said.

5. Leaning on sources

Most kids I knew hated digging up sources and quoting them in their papers, but not me. No, the sneaky little bugger that I was (and still am), I realized that sources were an escape route from creativity. With enough quotations from other writers, I could fill up an entire paper without coming up with a single original thought of my own.

And I was rewarded for it. From kindergarten to getting my degree in English Literature, I got an A on all but like five papers.

Here’s why: a lot of teachers care more about solid research than original ideas. They don’t want to see daring and inventive arguments, challenging the foundation of everything we hold to be true and arguing boldly for a new worldview. To them, it’s much more important that you understand the ideas of others and be able to cite them in MLA format.

But real life is the opposite.

Go around citing the sources of all of your ideas and people will start avoiding you, because it’s boring as hell.

They don’t care who said what, and they aren’t interested in hearing the chronology of an idea. What they want to hear is a new perspective on a favorite topic.

If it comes from you, that’s fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too.

6. Staying detached

We are taught that good writing puts the focus on the subject, not the writer. It’s unemotional. It gives equal attention to opposing points of view, presenting them all without singling out one as best.

And sometimes, it’s true. If you’re a scientist, engineer, or a doctor, then maintaining your role as a detached observer is a great idea.

For everyone else though, it’s a disaster.

Have you ever read the stuff scientists, engineers, and other so-called “detached observers” write? It’s boring! Outside of their exclusive circles, you couldn’t pay people to read it.

If you want people to want to read what you write, then you should do the opposite. Be more like Oprah Winfrey, Howard Stern, Gary Vaynerchuk. They are opinionated, have a unique style, and are prone to emotional outbursts.

It’s no coincidence. That’s what makes them interesting.

7. Listening to “authorities” more than yourself

Who am I to criticize the writing habits you learned in school?

Well . . . nobody.

Yes, I’m a professional writer. Yes, I have a literature degree. Yes, other writers have paid me up to $200 an hour to edit their work, and they’ve been amazed when all I did was correct the above mistakes.

But that doesn’t mean I’m right. In fact, that’s probably the most important lesson you can learn about writing:

No one but you is an authority on your writing.

Not me. Not your English teachers. Not Strunk and White and their highfalutin Elements of Style.

The longer you write, the more you’ll realize that other writers can’t tell you what to do. You should listen to more experienced writers, sure, but never more than you listen to yourself.

Great writers don’t learn how to write by sitting in writing courses, reading writing blogs, or browsing Barnes & Noble for yet more books on writing.

They learn how to write by coming to a blank page, writing something down, and then asking themselves if it works.

If it does, they keep it. If it doesn’t, they don’t. Then they repeat the process until they finish something they feel is worth publishing.

Sadly, most writers don’t know this

They labor under the mistaken assumption that there is an invisible standard of good and bad. And they worry that the Writing Police are going to show up at their door any minute, handcuff them, and haul them off to jail for failing to measure up.

If that was true, you wouldn’t see a single writer walking the street without one of those blinking bracelets around their ankle.

The truth is that you’re in charge. You. The blank page is sitting there, and you can fill it up with whatever the hell you want.

So stop sitting there, silly.

Go for it.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on twitter.

via copyblogger.com

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Doctorow: DRM advocates are "the real pirates"

2009-10-13T13:53:00.001-04:00

Doctorow: DRM advocates are "the real pirates"

13.10.09 Catherine Neilan

Publishers who continue to use digital rights management (DRM) or other methods to tie readers to a single e-book device, are "bent on the destruction of publishing" and are the "real pirates", according to Cory Doctorow, a keynote speaker at today's O'Reilly Tools of Change (TOC) conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
The author, activist and co-editor of the influential Boing-Boing blog urged TOC delegates to "restore ownership to books" and blasted publishers and rightsholders who continue to apply DRM to their content.
Doctorow said: "Digital licensing systems currently employed destroy the bond between the readers and the book."
He said that DRM was a "farcical" way to get money out of readers, adding that "there is no mechanism whereby a retailer of a [print] book can take it away from you", describing a system that this happens as "insane". Earlier this year, Amazon was the centre of controversy in the US when it remotely deleted Kindle versions of 1984 from customers' devices after the edition was added to Amazon's catalogue without the rightsholder's permission.
Amazon last week settled a lawsuit over the fiasco with a Michigan teenager—who had his Kindle notes deleted as well as his e-book—for $150,000.
Doctorow added that ownership was the "most valuable asset that publishers have" knowing that a book "is passed to kids or has come from your parents".
The third keynote speaker at TOC—the first of publishing's pre-eminent digital talking shops to take place in Europe—Doctorow sounded a note of optimism. He said: "The library of tomorrow will better than the library of today. Just stop believing that the pirates in your digital department are right."

digital Home Frankfurt Book Fair DRM Catherine Neilan

via thebookseller.com

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Does 'strengthening diplomacy' warrant Nobel? Americans split

2009-10-10T09:56:00.001-04:00

(CNN) -- The decision to award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to "strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" appears to have left some in the United States divided over whether intangible achievements are worthy of such an esteemed award.

iReporter Katy Brown couldn't understand why Obama won the award. iReporter Egberto Willies celebrated it.

"So can anyone tell me how this man won the Nobel Peace Prize?" iRepoter Katy Brown wondered, asking whether it had more to do with him becoming the first black U.S. president. "The people who have won the Nobel Peace Prize in the past -- I'm sorry but the legitimacy of this award has gone down the drain."
Twenty other Americans have won Nobel peace prizes. Among them, President Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Prize in 1906 for negotiating a peace settlement in the Russo-Japanese War, and President Wilson for the creation of and advocacy for the League of Nations.
While the committee's decision to honor Henry Kissinger in 1973 was widely criticized by some, his peace prize was awarded for helping to end the Vietnam War.
The Nobel committee said of Obama: "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."
Brown, who goes to school in Kent, Ohio, and calls herself a conservative, said she couldn't believe based on the lack of accomplishments so far in his first term as president that Obama was given the award. iReporters mixed on Obama's Nobel win »
" 'SNL' put it best, whether you want to call it a comedy skit or not, this man has done two things: jack and squat," Brown said, referring to this past weekend's "Saturday Night Live" skit that characterized Obama as a man with many promises who hasn't fulfilled them.

Don't Miss

Obama's win unique among presidents

Obama: Nobel Peace Prize is 'call to action'

In Depth: Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize

"Has he ended a war? No. He's only made matters worse. Has he provided health care for everyone? No. He's just caused a big disaster in Congress.
"And has he even closed Guantanamo Bay, the first thing he [said he would do] when he was in office? No; hasn't even done that." Rollins: Obama must now "earn" Nobel Peace Prize
For others, it's not about Obama's political initiatives. For them, it's more about the message Obama is sending to the rest of the world and the hope he has given them.
"To move a country like the United States -- in the eyes of all countries around the world -- from being perceived as one of the most belligerent Americas ever to one that decides it wants to work with the rest of the world -- that is the real definition of a path towards peace," iReporter Egberto Willies said. Zakaria: Nobel honors Obama's "bold gambit"
Willies, a 48-year-old from Kingwood, Texas, who described himself as a liberal, was proud of Obama's intangible achievements.
"I felt like we were reintegrating back into the world," the software developer said. Obama is more inclusive of other countries. That's important."
Like Brown, Thomas Strom, a 39-year-old salesman from Wallingford, Connecticut, who described himself as a conservative, couldn't grasp the committee's decision.
"Obama hasn't accomplished anything to deserve an award of such stature," he said.
Strom couldn't help but wonder what it meant for future recipients.
"This is almost turning the Nobel Peace Prize into a bogus award," he said.
Matt Milam, an iReporter and Obama supporter from Chicago, Illinois, said while he was thrilled to see Obama win, he understood why some people might question it.
"I'm personally glad for the man, but some people are sitting around scratching their heads. And perhaps there's a good reason. He's still fresh in the White House and yet he's getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe it's just that he's just that good."
And the fact that Obama said he was surprised at the award and humbled, and didn't question it, made Milam support it even more. He compared it to Cuba Gooding Jr.'s surprising Oscar win for his role in "Jerry McGuire."
"He didn't sit there and question it. He didn't sit there and analyze it," Milam said.
Milam hoped that despite what people felt about Obama winning the award, it would serve as an inspiration for the country.

"We need to give each other hope, we need to give ourselves hope," he said.
"It's something to strive for so let's be glad for President Obama."
All About Nobel Peace Prize • Barack Obama

via cnn.com

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F.T.C. Proposes Problematic Regulation of Online Free Speech | Electronic Frontier Foundation

2009-10-09T14:32:00.001-04:00

F.T.C. Proposes Problematic Regulation of Online Free Speech

Legislative Analysis by Tim Jones

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published vague new advertising rules that require online writers to disclose whether they've been compensated for product endorsements. The rules are full of ambiguities and double-standards, many of which are summed up on this article in The Atlantic Wire.
Significantly, the new rules place requirements on social media from which traditional print and television media are exempt. For instance, if a blogger publishes a book review, the rules will require her to disclose whether she received a free copy of the book from the publisher. Book reviews in print media face no such restrictions.
When pressed on the rules' discrepancies by blogger Edward Champion, the FTC's Michael Cleland explained that newspapers are more trustworthy than social media because "most of the newspapers have very strict rules about that and on what happens to those products." This is an unsupportable assertion, and one which seems to lie in the now time-worn assumption that the Internet is somehow more conducive to corruption and dishonesty than traditional media. We've heard this story before; it was unreasonable then and it's unreasonable now.
EFF believes that bloggers ought to have the same legal protections and privileges as traditional journalists. We urge the FTC to rethink and clarify the problematic aspects of these new rules.

Related Issues: Bloggers' Rights

[Permalink] [Email this article]

via eff.org

It is completely unfair to impose regulations on Online Media and not Print Media.

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Dell shooting to be Apple of business IT's eye with new Z600 - Ars Technica

2009-10-05T17:25:00.001-04:00

via arstechnica.com

A closup of the Dell Z600

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Dell shooting to be Apple of business IT's eye with new Z600 - Ars Technica

2009-10-05T17:24:00.001-04:00

Every company that makes any sort of netbook or notebook seems to have figured out sometime in late 2007 that industrial design matters—indeed, "if you bling it, they will come" seems to be the PC industry's number one takeaway from watching Apple's success in the notebook market. But with today's launch of the new Latitude Z600 notebook, Dell has demonstrated that it knows something that other netbook makers have yet to discover: if you want to compete with Apple at the level of design and user experience, then you have to do more than just offer the same Windows laptop, but in different colors and finishes; you must also apply some software and hardware engineering effort to solving problems that users didn't know they had. With the 16-inch, 4.5-pound Z600, Dell is clearly angling to position itself as the "Apple" of business portables by making products that mix form, function, and novelty.

We joined Dell for a prelaunch demo of the Z600 and its accessories, and the company impressed us with some technologies and ideas that may even have Cupertino starting its photocopiers.

Always ON

The first idea, Latitude ON, announced over a year ago but fully debuting on the Z600, is basically a instant-boot OS combined with a self-contained system-on-a-daughtercard. The OS is Linux-based with a bunch of Dell customizations to both the OS and the applications (browser, mail, contacts, calendar, VPN client, and Citrix client); on the hardware side, the tiny daughtercard contains a TI OMAP SoC (Dell wouldn't reveal which exact part), a 512MB pool of flash for storing the OS, and a WiFi radio.

What Dell does with this system-in-a-system is more than just fast booting, which always sounded pointless to us since we rarely boot our laptops anyway (they remain in sleep mode while closed). ON's basic idle mode runs with the laptop closed, with the device acting sort of like a Blackberry in that it gets all of your inbound e-mails from over the network (WiFi or 3G). When you open the laptop and the screen turns on your new messages are already there waiting for you. The idea is that every time you open the laptop, there is fresh data for you to access instantly, so that you don't have to first connect to a network and/or start an application.

Dell claims that in the normal idle mode, with the laptop closed yet constantly polling for e-mails, you can get up to 12 hours of battery life; in a low-power idle mode, where the laptop polls for new e-mail every 6 minutes, you can get some two days of battery life.

For security reasons, you can't get to the hard drive at all in ON mode, so if the ARM daughtercard is compromised, your data remains safe. For the idle mode e-mail polling, ON uses the on-card WiFi radio; if there is no WiFi signal available, then it can connect via an optional built-in 3G radio. The ON feature will be standard on the Z600 and optional on other portables.

In all, ON is a solid idea that will probably find many fans in the road warrior set. The fact that it can check your e-mail all day long with the laptop closed is the killer feature that causes the whole "lightweight, instant-on OS" to make real sense.

Going completely wireless

The two other great features on the Z600 are the wireless charging dock and the wireless HD video and I/O capabilities.

Dell has designed an elevated laptop stand that uses induction to wirelessly charge the Z600 whenever it's placed on the stand. If you're going to charge by docking (as opposed to just plugging a cable into the laptop), then this is a better way to do it than lining up proprietary ports.

Also of interest is Z600's built-in support for wireless I/O (video, USB, and sound) connections. The Z600's hardware establishes a UWB-based link with a Dell wireless docking station that contains a DVI out, two USB ports, and an audio out. The end result is that you can walk into a room, set your laptop down anywhere (perhaps on the inductive charging platform), and immediately begin using the laptop via a stationary monitor, mouse, and keyboard without plugging in a single cable. The whole wire-free setup is quite impressive to see in action, especially for someone who frequently juggles their MacBook Air between a stationary workstation (external monitor, mouse, and keyboard) and a recliner throughout the day.

FaceAware, additional trackpad

FaceAware is another new feature of the Latitude Z600, and it involves the laptop using its built-in 2MP webcam to spot when a registered user has stepped away from the computer. When the Z600 sees that the user has left, it automatically locks the machine.

Also novel is a thin, invisible trackpad that runs down the right-hand bezel on the screen. Swiping a finger up and down this trackpad will scroll the active window up and down, and pressing it at the bottom will bring up a launchbar-type widget that lets you launch programs. This is a nice idea, but it's not immediately clear that this is oddly placed, additional touch surface is a real improvement over a regular multitouch trackpad.

More details, conclusions

The Z600 uses Intel's new CULV processors, which helped Dell get the notebook's thickness down to half an inch and its weight down to 4.5 pounds, despite its 16" screen size. Being a business portable, it also comes with a full complement of ports, including Ethernet, eSATA, and DisplayPort. The Z600 is available today starting at $1,999.

It's clear that Dell put quite a bit of engineering effort into designing both the software and hardware sides of the Z600 and accessories, so that the whole package presents a unified user experience. Not every aspect of the Z600 is an obvious win, but it represents a step in the right direction. If Dell can continue to generate these kinds of ideas, which represent a lot more work than just repackaging someone else's hardware and software in bright plastic, then the company can go after enterprise users who have Apple envy but who need business features like vPro that Apple doesn't provide.

via arstechnica.com

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2011 Rolls-Royce Ghost | flylyf

2009-09-26T11:39:00.001-04:00

2011 Rolls-Royce Ghost

Posted by: Diego |
View comments Comments 73 ♻ Retweet
Rolls-Royce has officially released images and tons of details on the new Ghost. We now know that its 6.6-liter V12 generates an impressive 575 lb-ft of torque at 1,500 rpm, along with 563 horsepower in U.S. trim. The 212.6-inch body stretches over a 129.7 inch long wheelbase, and the whole car weighs in at 5,445 pounds unloaded. Source

via flylyf.com

Looks too much like a Chrysler 300. Even still, I'll take one because it is still way cool. Notice the suicide doors?

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

5 Illinois family members were beaten to death, sheriff says

2009-09-25T08:03:00.001-04:00

(CNN) -- All five members of a family found slain inside a Beason, Illinois, home early this week were beaten to death, police said Thursday.

Police officers stand patrol outside the Gee household late Monday evening.

A pathologist determined that the five -- Raymond Gee, 46; Ruth Gee, 39; and three children -- had been beaten, Logan County Sheriff Steve Nichols told reporters. "All the injuries at the scene were from blunt-force trauma."
The three children were identified as Justina Constant, 16, Dillen Constant, 14, and Austin Gee, 11.
A 3-year-old girl remained in critical but stable condition Thursday at a hospital, Nichols said.
He said he would not divulge or speculate what the family was beaten with, and remained tight-lipped about many aspects of the deaths, including when authorities believe they occurred.
Beason is in central Illinois, about 45 miles northeast of Springfield, the state capital.
A task force has been formed with officers from several different agencies to investigate the homicides, the sheriff said. Processing of the crime scene concluded Wednesday afternoon, and "hundreds of seized items" are being processed, he said. "Forensic evidence in this case is significant."
The sheriff has said authorities received a 911 call about a possible shooting at the home shortly before 4:30 p.m. Monday.
Nichols said authorities are looking for a gray-primer-painted pickup truck that was seen in the area Sunday night. "We'll take any tip that anybody has," he said.
A tip line has been set up at 217-732-3000, Nichols said.
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via cnn.com

What animal(s) can do this type of thing? Tragic.

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Source: Iran acknowledges second nuclear facility – The CNN Wire - CNN.com Blogs

2009-09-25T07:58:00.001-04:00

(CNN) — Iran has admitted the existence of a second uranium enrichment plant in a letter sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.S. diplomatic source told CNN.

The letter mentioned the facility, located on a military base near the holy city of Qom, the source said. It is thought capable of housing 3,000 centrifuges, not enough to produce nuclear fuel to power a reactor, but sufficient to manufacture bomb-making material, she said.

U.S. and French intelligence officials have known about the facility for several months, the source said. When Iran discovered that Western nations had knowledge of the facility, it sent the letter to the IAEA.

via cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com

And they claimed they are NOT making weapons grade material. What else are they hiding?

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Swine Flu!

2009-09-23T14:22:00.001-04:00

via brightkite.com

Ahahahahahhahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Microsoft's Best Buy Lies About Linux Debunked

2009-09-22T07:44:00.001-04:00

In an effort to thwart Linux sales on netbooks, Microsoft has started a training program at Best Buy to “educate” their “experts” on Linux. And true to their fashion, MS resorted to FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) and straight out LIES! However, Microsoft still maintains that Linux is not a threat to their market, they are just spending all this money to “help” people make an educated decision. Funny thing, is that they ended up promoting Linux.

Over here on The Linuxologist, we already debunked most of the general myths about Linux, however this one warrants its own response:

No camera support? What are we exactly talking about here anyways? Webcams? Or regular digital cameras? Doesn’t really matter, both work perfectly fine on Linux, and out of the box in most cases. If we are talking webcams here, some webcams might require tweaking and hacking. But remember we are talking about netbooks where Linux is pre-installed at the OEM level, so all webcams SHOULD work. Regular digital cameras work also, they would act like any regular USB peripheral.

Most MP3 players sync perfectly fine with Linux. Microsoft doesn’t seem to know the difference between iTunes and MP3 player. iPod Touch can prove a bit tricky, but still Songbird among others provide good support. In any case, this is not Linux’s problem, but Apple’s and their draconian methods.

Printers work perfectly fine, whether through CUPS or a manufacturers driver. While anecdotal, I have blogged about my woes of getting an HP printer to work on XP. The same printer worked out of the box on Ubuntu

Limited software compatibility? Well if you are talking about software designed specifically for Windows environment, then yes of course it is limited! However there is NOTHING that you would want to run on a netbook that doesn’t have a suitable replacement.

No support for Windows Live services. This one really takes the cake! I wonder why Redmond? Still Messenger works perfectly fine through other clients that are more superior to the bloated Live messenger provided by MS. I am not sure what they mean by Mail, but I am assuming its their web-based E-mail (hotmail), but it also works. As for Photo Gallery, I don’t have the slightest idea of what it is, but really who uses it? People seem to be on Flickr or Picassa.

Who would even buy a netbook for gaming? Still, WoW (their example) works fine through wine and so do other high-end games. But I don’t know why one would do gaming on an 8 inch screen. Stick with solitaire.

Authorized support? Red Hat, Canonical? Hell even Novell?

Video chat works perfectly fine on Skype, Yahoo, and Live messenger (aMSN, Kopete…etc.) Gmail doesn’t yet support video or voice, but they are working on it. However, they do have a testing version (request here.) Not sure about other networks, but I am sure they work also.

Covered most of claims with the first slide but:

iTunes and Zune users might face problems because of Redmond and Cupertino’s monopolistic practices. Still Linux users found ways around these issues (wine, Amarok, Songbird…etc)

Quicken: Moneydance, GNUCash, and KMyMoney. Also, Mint and Quicken Online both work

Photoshop: Gimp (lets not get into that endless PS Vs. Gimp debate, remember this is a netbook, no serious work should be done on it)

Office 2007: OpenOffice

Regular updates: Yeah because updating is an exclusive domain for Microsoft! Because nothing says secure like an update once every second Tuesday every month

Meets expectations: Already debunked!

Free downloads: Linux doesn’t need “free” security add-ons, the system is built from the bottom up to be safe Oh, and the whole OS is free!

Funny how they were boasting that they update regularly, then use that same argument against Ubuntu

It doesn’t have to be clear, unlike Windows, Linux doesn’t have to reboot after every freakin minor update. Hell you almost NEVER need to reboot, and even when you do, you don’t have to do it immediately. The system doesn’t nag you about it either

LOL, this one actually deserves its own demotivational poster. Share them with us. Be creative!

This can only be true if you are one of the clueless sheep out there. That is what Microsoft relies on.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

New record set for fastest data transmission -- 2.56 terabits a second

2006-03-25T17:44:00.000-05:00

New record set for fastest data transmission -- 2.56 terabits a second: "

Filed under: Networking

Now that is fast!!

More to come ...

coComment is now open to all.

2006-02-19T09:38:00.000-05:00

coComment has now opened the doors to everyone as invitations are no longer required.

But what is it? coComment is a unique way of keeping track of all the comments you make on all the blogs you visit. Sometimes you just get lost on where you last made comments. With a simple Bookmarklet that works in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera, you simply add the bookmarklet to your favourites/links toolbar and then write your comment. Then hit the bookmarklet, then, finally, submit your comment as normal.

coComment will then track the comments for you in that section. There is also two additional tool you can use. The first is a little bit of javascript that you can put on your own blog that displays your comments -- I have one on this blog on the right. Second, there is an RSS feed available that you can put into your aggregator.

It works with most major Blogging sites with more planned. My only suggestion is that they make deals with these sites so that the coComment code could be integrated so that the use of a bookmarklet would no longer be needed.

This is all still in beta, but it does show promise in making it easier to keep track of all those comments floating around the Internet.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Internet, coComment

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Opera 9 Build 8225

2006-02-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

This week's build of Opera 9 is quite unstable compared to last week's. The previous build did not crash once. This one has crashed three times in two days.

I love living on the bleeding edge :)

Technorati Tags: Opera, Browsers, Internet

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Opera 9 Build 8219

2006-02-16T09:55:00.000-05:00

Opera has long been a browser with some innovative features. They were the first to come up with tabbed browsing (that I recall) Now they are stepping up the ante with weekly tester builds which can be found at the Opera Desktop Team site.

I have been trying Opera on and off since version 5. One of the biggest holdbacks, of course, was that you was shareware. Then they came up with the ad-supported free version (blech). Finally, they went with a totally free version.

This sparked my interest. (What can I say, I'm not rich.)

However even still, there were issues that kept me from adopting Opera -- such as the ability to use WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) or rich text blog editors such as TinyMCE. They did not work in Opera. With the upcoming version 9, this has been addressed. (Update: Apparently I must stand corrected as The Blogger WYSIWYG editor still does not work.)

A big change is the introduction of widgets. Now this feature has good points and bad points depending if widgets are you thing or not. The nice part is, if you don't like widgets, then you don't need to use them. Check out their widget page to find out more about them.

There are dozens of changes and improvements to Opera and if Firefox keeps giving me issues, I may just permanently switch :)

Technorati Tags: Browsers, Opera

More to come ...

Win a Trip by using Qumana v3b1?

2006-02-12T17:24:00.000-05:00

That's right ... I am surprised :) Hopefully, I have a chance since I am helping test bugs too :)

For details check out this blog entry

More to come ...

Testing Qumana v3b1

2006-02-12T11:09:00.000-05:00

After being in contact with the author of Qumana, Ianiv Schweber, I have begun testing Qumana. So far there has been issues with setting up my blogs as documented below. Since then, I have managed to setup my blogs but have had other issues.

My first attempts at publishing to this blog failed. The next day, I tried republishing and it did publish, but without the title. (I erased that post.) Subsequent attempts to publish returned a cryptic "Method not supported by Blog" error. Ianiv has stated that he will be working on better error messages in a future release.

With Ianiv being prompt with responses (something I always appreciate in a developer) I am looking forward to new bug fixed releases. Most importantly the issues of publishing to Blogger based blogs must be addressed, but I have every confidence that all issues will be addressed.

More to come ....

Tags: Qumana, Blogging

Beta 3 of Qumana is just that - a beta.

2006-02-10T13:33:00.000-05:00

I just downloaded Beta 1 of Version 3 of Qumana. I was hoping for a cool tool for accessing my various small blogs.

It has potential, but this clearly is a beta. Unfortunately attempts to connect to my Blogger based blog on blogspot fails the auto-detection and manual setup fails with an HTTP Error 405. :( I suspect that they will be rectifying this and I will revisit their software at a laeter date. Either that or it just is being difficult today.

I will uninstall v3b1 and try their stable v2 and see if it has similar issues. For more information:

Qumana blog editor and blogging tools

More to come ...

Digg vs. Slashdot

2006-01-12T23:30:00.000-05:00

Digg vs. Slashdot (or, traffic vs. influence) (kottke.org)

An interesting discussion on the differing effects on Digg vs /. influence. Well thought out and well worded.

Neither is going away anytime soon as each has their audience and methods.

Technorati Tags: Digg, Slashdot

Has an Innocent Company been Hurt?

2006-01-12T17:25:00.000-05:00

Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: PriceRitePhoto Update #24, Has an Innocent Company Been Hurt in My PriceRitePhoto Coverage?

Sometimes the blogosphere has a very negative impact. It is here that one must sit back and think about their impact on others when they have a popular blog.

Journalistic skills may fall short when the resources for fact checking do not exist. In this case, the author relied on a source and it looks like that source does not have accurate information. This has caused irrepairable damage to an innocent company.

However, this also draws attention to the source, the Better Business Bureau (BBB.) Somehow there data may be incorrect. As a source looked upon for reliable and accurate data on businesses, their attention to accuracy must be held to the highest standard. Perhaps they should look into their database and information gathering practices.

Most importantly, however, I think Thomas Hawk needs to be commended for his public apology. One can only hope that this can all be resolved.

However, I expect that this is not the end of this matter. Knowing the U.S. penchant for lawsuits, I see a couple forthcoming from the damaged business owner.

More to come ...

Technorati Tags: Law, Technology, Blogging, Journalism

Rythan's Tech Commentaries

U.S. mission in north Iraq: get Kurd and Arab forces cooperating.

How do you control duplication with services like Amplify?

Untitled

TheTrucker.com - OOIDA challenges EOBR rule in court, concerned about future mandates

Untitled

Seven Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School | Copyblogger

Is that really good writing?

1. Trying to sound like dead people

2. Expecting someone to hand you a writing prompt

3. Writing long paragraphs

4. Avoiding profanity at all costs

5. Leaning on sources

6. Staying detached

7. Listening to “authorities” more than yourself

Sadly, most writers don’t know this

Doctorow: DRM advocates are "the real pirates"

Doctorow: DRM advocates are "the real pirates"

Does 'strengthening diplomacy' warrant Nobel? Americans split

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Source: Iran acknowledges second nuclear facility – The CNN Wire - CNN.com Blogs

Swine Flu!

Microsoft's Best Buy Lies About Linux Debunked

New record set for fastest data transmission -- 2.56 terabits a second

coComment is now open to all.

Opera 9 Build 8225

Opera 9 Build 8219

Win a Trip by using Qumana v3b1?

Testing Qumana v3b1

Beta 3 of Qumana is just that - a beta.

Digg vs. Slashdot

Has an Innocent Company been Hurt?