Internet News Record
Edition
Aide to former House Republican leader indicted
in Abramoff case
By Jeremy Pelofsky (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:33:12 PM
An aide to former U.S. House
Majority Leader Richard Armey
was indicted on corruption charges
in connection with disgraced U.S.
lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including
taking free sports tickets and
helping his clients with a
government contract.
Horace Cooper, who served as a
legislative counsel to Armey, was
charged with conspiracy,
concealing his actions, making
false statements and obstruction of
justice, according to the indictment
filed in U.S. district court.
Prosecutors accused the
legislative aide of receiving
valuable tickets to events like
Washington Redskins football
games and concerts including rock
singer Bruce Springsteen between
1998 and 2000, when Cooper
worked for Armey.
Cooper knew that Abramoff, his
firm and their clients “had
numerous issues pending before the
U.S. House of Representatives,” the
indictment said.
In 2001, when Cooper became
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chief of staff at the Voice of
America, which is a U.S.
government-run news outlet, he is
accused of telling Abramoff to let
him know if he can be helpful to his
firm.
Abramoff told staff at the
restaurant he controlled, Signatures,
to provide Cooper with
complimentary meals and drinks
and arranged for a free Super Bowl
party for him and 25 of his friends
at another Abramoff restaurant
21/08/09 - 22/08/09
called Stacks, the indictment said.
The indictment accused Cooper
of helping Abramoff and an
associate in 2002 in their efforts to
participate in a VOA broadcasting
project and obtaining $10 million-
$15 million in funding from the
State Department.
At one point during that time,
Cooper complained to Abramoff
that he was charged $141 at the
Signatures restaurant, telling him
that “I think there may have been a
LibertyNewsprint.com U.S.
little glitch at the restaurant.”
After leaving VOA for the Labor
Department during the Bush
administration, Cooper worked to
help an Abramoff client, CNMI
Garment Manufacturer, deal with a
pending investigation by the
agency, prosecutors charged.
During that period, Cooper also
solicited from Abramoff tickets to
numerous events including
professional basketball and baseball
games.
An attempt to reach Cooper was
not immediately successful. He
could face up to 40 years in prison
and a $250,000 fine.
Abramoff was sentenced in 2008
to serve four years in prison in a
corruption scandal that rocked
Washington’s power elite and
helped Republicans lose control of
Congress in 2006. He already is
serving a nearly six-year term on
unrelated charges.
Click here for more Reuters
political coverage.
- Photo credit: Reuters/Carlos
Barria (Abramoff outside a
courthouse)
Neb. man stole Virgin
Mary painting for
abortion (AP)
(Yahoo! News: U.S. News)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:48:55 AM
Scott buzzed up: Ex-model's
breast implants were key to body's
ID (AP)
9 seconds ago 2009-08-
22T11:24:24-07:00
Daily Crunch: Metal
Meets Metal Edition
By Bryce Durbin (CrunchGear)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 12:00:23 AM
Whitoken, a beautiful iPod Touch
theme
This steampunk flash drive makes
the meme sexy again
Awesome Terminator 4 T-600
USB skull
CrunchGear interviews up-and-
coming inventor ‘East Side’ Dave
McDonald from ‘The Ron and Fez
Show’
Do one thing, and do it well: 40
years of UNIX
2 Politics/ Top News/ *
The First Draft: too Mr. Nice Guy?
By Tabassum Zakaria (Front
Row Washington)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:30:12 AM
It doesn’t matter that the
healthcare debate has picked apart
every argument from every side
until nobody knows what actually
is going to happen on that front.
There are still fresh opinions to be
found every day.
Pointing out Paul Krugman in
The New York Times today saying
“It’s hard to avoid the sense that
Mr. Obama has wasted months
trying to appease people who can’t
be appeased, and who take every
concession as a sign that he can be
rolled.”
Don’t miss the exchange between
host Jon Stewart and Betsy
McCaughey, who started the saber-
rattling on what later became
known as death panels, last night
on“The DailyShow”.
President Barack Obama will
have a closed-door healthcare
consultation today with someone
who is quite well-versed in the
politics of Washington: former
Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle, who was Obama’s first
Breast implants yield murder data
(BBC News | Americas | World
Edition)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 8:37:35 AM
US police investigating a
gruesome murder near Los Angeles
identified the mutilated victim by a
serial number on her breast
implants, prosecutors say.
The naked body of Jasmine Fiore,
a 28-year-old former model, was
found in a suitcase a week ago.
Detectives were unable to use
dental records or fingerprints, as
her teeth and fingers had been
pick for health secretary.
Republican critics must
be savoring the sight of Democrats
unable to come together on
healthcare even when they control
Congress and the White House.
And we want to hear from you. Is
Obama being too “Mr. Nice Guy”
in the healthcare debate? What
should he do next? What about
opponents of the healthcare
overhaul — are they playing their
cards right?
removed. But they tracked the
number of her implants.
A reality-show contestant is being
sought in connection with the
murder.
Police believe the man, Ryan
Alexander Jenkins, 32, may have
fled to his native Canada.
He was taking part in the show
Megan Wants a Millionaire.
Described as an investment banker,
Mr Jenkins was one of several
wealthy young men trying to win
the affections of a young woman in
the show.
The Obama family is off on
vacation to Martha’s Vineyard next
week, Congress is still on summer
break, but it’s doubtful the
healthcare debate will take a
breather.
Click here for more Reuters
political coverage
Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin
Lamarque (Obama speaks at a
healthcare forum)
The TV channel VH1 cancelled
the series after he was identified as
a suspect.
Ms Fiore had no connection with
the show, but she and Mr Jenkins
had married in Las Vegas in March.
Media reports say she had sought
to annul the marriage.
Her mangled body was found in a
suitcase in Buena Park, south of
Los Angeles, on 15 August.
Authorities have offered a
$25,000 reward for information
leading to Mr Jenkins' arrest.
Print Sponsor
GM delays decision on
Opel future
(BBC News | Americas | World
Edition)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 4:15:03 AM
The board of US carmaker
General Motors has postponed
making a decision on who should
buy its Opel division, which
includes Vauxhall in the UK.
The Detroit-based firm said
directors had met on Friday to
discuss the options but "no decision
was taken".
An assessment on whether to start
exclusive talks to buy German-
based Opel had been expected at
the weekend.
The race to control Opel is
between the Canadian component
manufacturer Magna and Belgian
financial group RHJ.
The BBC understands that a
number of stumbling blocks have
emerged to delay the final decision.
The German government - which
has openly preferred the bid from
Magna and has offered it bridging
finance of 4.5bn euros ($6.4bn,
£3.9bn) - is thought to have added
further conditions to that support.
Magna has publicly promised to
cut fewer jobs in Germany, where
25,000 people are currently
employed in the division.
Buy-back option
Germany's economy minister said
he regretted the failure to make a
decision.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was
also quoted as telling the online
edition of the Hamburger
Abendblatt newspaper that "there is
still room for an agreement".
Tops & Flops: A Week in Fashion
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 7:15:00 AM
This week had its share of fashion
Internet News Record
UK Business Secretary Lord
Mandelson has been critical of
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
for politicising the bidding contest
ahead of federal elections in the
country, at the end of September.
Earlier this week Lord Mandelson
said GM needed to look for an
"industrial outcome based on the
long term viability" of Opel.
Lord Mandelson has also said he
would stand by the UK carmaking
industry - in particular Vauxhall,
which employs more than 5,000
people directly in its plants in
Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and
Luton, Bedfordshire.
He did not specify what level of
financial support, if any, would be
provided and he has also warned
there would be some job losses
irrespective of who gains control of
Vauxhall.
There is also speculation that
GM, which only recently emerged
from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a
host of new US government-
appointed board members, may
prefer to exercise a buy-back option
in the future.
That could see it re-acquiring
Opel and Vauxhall within a few
years at an advantageous price - an
option which may be unpalatable to
any potential buyers.
German media has also reported
that GM may be also toying with
the idea of placing Opel into
insolvency, though that was played
down on Saturday by a spokesman
for the US company.
Print Sponsor
finds and outfits that should have
been left behind. Whose looks were
second rate, and which were super
great? You rate!
Internet News Record
NYC school makes harbor its classroom (AP)
(Yahoo! News: U.S. News)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:50:49 AM
NEW YORK – It was an
optimistic gesture by a leading state
in the fledgling country. In 1790,
Governors Island, a half-mile off
the tip of Manhattan, was set aside
for the benefit of education.
But there was a catch: If the need
should arise, the military got first
dibs. And given the island's prime
location in a key port, it was no
surprise when, a mere four years
later, the military staked that claim.
Cannon on Governors Island
protected New York City during
the War of 1812. Later, Union
soldiers guarded Confederate
POWs there. More recently, Coast
Guard cutters patrolled from docks
on the island's shores.
Now, the spirit of that original
grant will soon be honored, and the
brick buildings of Governors Island
will welcome their first nonmilitary
tenant in more than two centuries.
It seems more than fitting that a
public school devoted to the harbor
itself will be the very first to arrive.
On a morning late last spring,
Murray Fisher disembarked a small
construction ferry from Manhattan
and walked a few hundred yards to
inspect the old Coast Guard
building under renovation as a
permanent home for his creation,
the Urban Assembly New York
Harbor School. Another building
nearby will house oyster farms, a
scuba club, sailing and crew teams.
The school is on track to move here
by the fall of 2010.
It's been a decade since Fisher
first conceived of the Harbor
School, and six years since it
opened in what were supposed to
be short-term quarters in
landlocked central Brooklyn.
Since then, Fisher has poured the
better part of his late 20s and early
30s into getting his dream started.
Most of the rest he's spent cajoling
and battling with bureaucrats and
developers to secure just a few feet
of waterfront, a place where a
school devoted to the water can
realize its full potential.
__
"Take it! Take it!" screams
Daquasia Sanders, a none-too-shy
ninth grader, as Fisher hands her a
horseshoe crab.
"You're embarrassing me," Fisher
kids. "Just hold it in your hands. It's
OK, you can trust me." Soon, she
joins several classmates nursing
eggs from the crabs, which tides
have washed up by the hundreds
along Plumb Beach in Rockaway
Inlet.
The setting could be a barren
stretch of the Chesapeake Bay, but
it's New York City, jets from JFK
audible when the wind dies down.
Fisher follows the students along a
grassy dune to the water's edge,
pointing out clams, oysters and
scallops, before climbing back on
the school bus to return to central
Brooklyn.
New York Harbor is by some
measures the biologically richest
body of water in North America.
Fisher can hardly believe how little
notice most New Yorkers pay to it.
Wooden piers once extended
from nearly every city cross street,
but today water access is elusive.
Most city kids especially the poor,
minority kids the school serves
might as well be living in Kansas.
"We want to create students who
feel connected to their local place,"
Fisher says. "They cannot do that if
they do not know those places
well."
In a way, the origins of the
Harbor School date back before
Fisher's birth. His great uncle was
LeMoyne Billings, a prep school
friend of John F. Kennedy. The
president's nephew,
environmentalist Robert Kennedy
Jr., spent summers during high
school working on a ranch Fisher's
parents managed in Colombia.
Years later, Fisher read
Kennedy's book " The
Riverkeepers," a call for citizens to
take responsibility for the bodies of
water around them. He wrote to
Kennedy and eventually went to
work for the groups Hudson
Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper
Alliance.
It was long hours and low pay,
investigating pollution complaints
and speaking to school groups. But
he learned everything there was to
know about the Hudson River. And
he met people common fishermen,
for instance with little formal
education but whose environmental
stewardship had taught them to
communicate, make arguments, and
lead.
Fisher realized he himself was
learning a range of skills he had
never fully picked up, even in
college at Vanderbilt.
Suddenly, it hit him.
"This should be a school," he
thought.
___
Over the last decade, New York
has been at the forefront of a bold
education experiment: the small
schools movement. More than two
dozen giant, failing city high
schools have been closed and
replaced with smaller institutions.
Eighty-six organizations applied
to start public schools in New York
City in 2002. Fisher's was one of 12
advancing to the next stage,
receiving $10,000 each to help
make their case.
He took his proposal to Richard
Kahan, the leader of a network of
small schools called Urban
Assembly, who guided him through
the city's bureaucratic and political
waters. Meanwhile, Fisher began
scoping out sites and recruiting
teachers and partners. He spent
$1,000 on a single ad in The New
York Times to recruit a principal, a
quest that eventually led him to
Nate Dudley, a former Yale
football player then teaching in the
South Bronx.
In September 2003, the Harbor
School welcomed its first 125
freshmen. The location: supposedly
temporary quarters on the fourth
floor of one of the closing schools,
Bushwick High.
The vibrant but low-income
immigrant neighborhood of
Bushwick was just the kind of
community Fisher wanted to serve.
But the whole point was to get
students to the harbor. Bushwick, it
happens, is the farthest spot from
water in the five boroughs.
"Hey, we're from the Harbor
School," Fisher introduced himself,
arriving to inspect the new digs for
the first time.
A security guard glanced up at
the fresh-faced, blond-haired 27-
year-old, who looked as if he was a
long way from home.
"Ain't no harbor in Bushwick,
sweetie," she shot back.
___
New York straphangers don't
easily surprise, but this weekday
morning sight seems to flummox
the subway commuters: 20
teenagers reading silently en route
from Brooklyn to Manhattan's
Upper West Side.
Harbor School ninth-graders
complete an intensive, yearlong
course introducing them to the
geography, science and history of
New York Harbor.
During the year, they'll travel 300
miles by subway to 17 sites, from
Jamaica Bay to the Hudson.
Discipline is tight.
"We decided from the get-go we
weren't going to let our distance
stop us," says Dudley, the principal.
"They know more about the estuary
than any other students in the city,
Top News/ 3
and more than most adults."
New York City's school
assignment lottery means some
Harbor School students arrive with
a real interest in water issues and
have ranked the school highly on
their list of choices. But many are
just neighborhood kids from
Bushwick.
Ninety-six percent are black or
Hispanic; three-quarters come from
families poor enough to qualify for
a federal free lunch. Only 15
percent of incoming freshmen can
swim (85 percent pass a swim test
by graduation).
The destination on this morning
was a replica Hudson River sloop,
the Clearwater, now an education
vessel operated by an organization
tied to folk singer Pete Seeger that's
one of dozens of partners Fisher has
lined up for the school.
Students rotate between four
learning stations history,
navigation, fish and water quality.
A dozen volunteer educators pepper
them with questions. Who was
Henry Hudson? Is the tide an ebb
or a flow? How do we signal other
boats we're fishing? And
everywhere they travel, students
collect water samples for a database
they keep in Bushwick.
Once on Governors Island, the
students will still travel, but much
less.
"The key is having a waterfront
that we own and manage so we're
not asking anyone's permission,"
Fisher says. "If it's 7 a.m. and
there's a blitz of bluefish out there,
a teacher can go with students right
then."
Maritime learning gets a lot more
exciting when the water isn't just
imaginary.
"A lot of the power of building a
boat is you get to use the boat,"
Fisher says. "Our kids have no
NYC page 4
4 Internet News Record
NYC
continued from page 3
place to use the boats they build."
___
New York's entire history, Fisher
says, stems from its role as a
harbor. Now, that history "is being
reawakened, but the first ones to
the plate at that reawakening are
developers, and that's who we're
fighting."
His morning subway commute to
Bushwick, over the Williamsburg
Bridge, offers a tantalizing view of
sites where for four years he
pursued a permanent home for the
school. He points to an old
warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn,
and spots along the Gowanus
Canal, and Newtown Creek in
Queens each the scene of an epic
bureaucratic ordeal.
In real estate, money talks.
"There's 600 miles of waterfront
in New York City, and every single
person wants a piece," Fisher says.
"It's not as cynical as developers
don't want 400 black kids in their
neighborhood," he adds. But, "that's
part of it."
All along, Fisher pursued
Governors Island, which had been
turned over to the city and state. It
was ideal, but a longshot. In the
final round of 25 proposals, he was
up against heavy hitters like New
York University and several of the
city's biggest real-estate developers.
"Everyone was putting up an
amount of money they could pay to
the state and city," Kahan recalled.
"We went in and said, 'we're not
paying you anything and we need
$34 million.' We didn't think we
had a very competitive position."
But Fisher hammered home the
argument that the Harbor School's
mission made it the ideal tenant.
He "put together certainly the
best program for integrating a
theme into a school that anybody I
know has done," Kahan said. "He
had to make the very difficult sale.
And he always made it. He was just
incredibly compelling, specific. His
excitement was contagious."
In November 2006, the authority
overseeing Governors Island named
Fisher's school the winner. The city
and state pledged $34 million for
construction.
Four years later than promised,
the Urban Assembly New York
Harbor School's name would at last
shed its irony.
___
Officially, Fisher's job title is
"founder and program director" but
he is involved in almost every
aspect of the school. From a shared
office in old Bushwick High, he
fires off fundraising notes and
drops in on faculty, budget and
hiring meetings. Between classes,
he steps into the hall to ride herd
over the noisy stampede of
students. At lunchtime, he buys
pizza from a senior raising money
to take a math CLEP test for
college credit.
A shy senior, a nonnative English
speaker, who is in danger of failing
a state-mandated earth science
exam studies in Fisher's office. He
helps her with questions on
earthquakes and sedimentary layers
and tells her to come back Friday to
prove she gets it.
"Imagine doing this in Spanish,"
he tells a visitor. "It's hard. I don't
think I could do this."
At the old Bushwick High, just 22
percent of students graduated. The
Harbor School's first class of
seniors, in 2007, graduated at a rate
of 65 percent. That rose to 75
percent in 2008 and was 70 percent
for the class of 2009.
Although relatively few students
have parents who attended college,
last year at least 90 percent of
Harbor School graduates moved on.
Most enroll in City University of
New York community colleges, but
many attend four-year schools,
including marine programs at state
universities and a handful have
reached the Ivy League.
Fisher calls 20 percent of students
here "true believers" arriving with
or acquiring genuine excitement
about the water-focused mission.
But he says the school won't fully
succeed unless it can offer
something to the rest.
He thinks it can: a more engaging
curriculum, a push out of their
comfort zone, career paths they
hadn't recognized. But he's torn
between his faith that the "water
stuff" can boost those students'
academic achievement, and his
frank acknowledgment the school
hasn't yet figured out exactly how.
Boat-building skills are nice, but
the SAT is a key ticket to college,
and its questions focus on reading
and math. Some other schools with
similar students have better
graduation rates and state test
scores.
"We know we're not doing the
best we can here," Fisher says.
Governors Island will be no
panacea. But he can't help but
believe access to the water will
help.
He's still bothered by a student
from the school's first class.
The boy's mom was dying of
AIDS. He lived in a car, belonged
to a gang, and had been smoking
pot since he was 10. But his eyes lit
up out on the water.
He devoured "anything we could
feed him," Fisher recalled. "But we
couldn't organize enough of that
stuff to keep him involved. It was
us versus the street." Eventually, he
dropped out; last Fisher heard, he
had a kid and was living in
Bushwick.
___
One afternoon last spring, the
steady stream of visitors to Fisher's
office included Tanasia Swift. The
2008 graduate is one of a handful
of minority students at marine-
focused Stony Brook Southampton,
and she returned to campus to talk
to current students about college
life.
"How's your mom doing?" Fisher
asked.
"She always asks about you," she
replied.
Fisher helped Swift line up jobs
and internships, and persuaded her
to join an educational program in
the Bahamas her junior year. When
she struggled there, "I just thought
about how much Murray wanted
me to do this."
It was Fisher who pushed Darryl
Gilbert into sailing, stopping him in
the hall until he agreed to take an
internship Fisher had lined up at
South Street Seaport. Now, Gilbert
wants to be a ship's captain and is
in a nautical training program at
Kingsborough Community College.
Another student, Jennifer Soto,
said it was Fisher who pushed her
to apply for a semester-long
program in Maine, where she's now
returning to an environmental-
focused college.
The anecdotes of how his force of
personality nudged students toward
the water go on and on.
The students aren't the only ones
rewarded. Fisher calls his one-on-
one time with students his "soul
food," and they're a big reason he's
drawn back to Bushwick most days.
Another is this: Without his eye
to the sextant, Fisher worries the
school could go the way of other
"themed" high schools that have
drifted from their original mission,
their leaders distracted by the
quotidian chores of running a
school.
During a recent meeting, Dudley
lobbied to spend money on clickers
and smartboards for the classrooms.
Fisher wanted to buy pumps for the
oyster farms being set up at
Governors Island.
Fisher admits to exhaustion and
has tried to cut back on some of the
weekend activities. Someday, he'd
like to help others start similar
schools, or perhaps reflect on his
experiences in an academic setting.
But he wouldn't argue with Kahan's
assessment.
"Without him, I don't believe it
could maintain the focus yet,"
Kahan said. "Until it becomes a
complete part of the school culture
and everybody understands the
connections between the water and
the harbor and education, he needs
to be around."
Yet to alter lives on the scale he
wants, Fisher must build something
that doesn't depend on him alone.
Much of that work takes place off-
campus recruiting middle school
students, nurturing partnerships and
above all raising money.
The Harbor School receives about
$9,600 per student annually in
public funding, but the
supplemental water programs cost
another $1,000 per year, per student
money Fisher must raise in a
recession-battered economy.
In addition, it will cost $1.6
million just to begin renovating a
second Governors Island building
with better water access, essential
for the site to reach its full
potential.
Several nights a week he's out
schmoozing politicians or donors.
Meanwhile, planning the move to
the island is a full-time job, too.
How do you get 400 kids on a
lower Manhattan ferry each
morning?
With so many duties, Fisher
regrets the days are gone when he
could regularly tag along on field
trips, and knew every Harbor
School student by name. Still, as
they left the Clearwater at
Manhattan's 79th Street Boat Basin
and walked toward the subway, he
quizzed himself, saying each
student's name aloud. Devin.
Shanice. Shalie....
For Fisher, as for his students,
time spent on the water makes all
NYC page 5
Internet News Record
Lutheran gay clergy vote tests mainline churches (AP)
(Yahoo! News: U.S. News)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:00:03 AM
In breaking down barriers
restricting gays and lesbians from
the pulpit, the nation's largest
Lutheran denomination has laid
down a new marker in a debate
over the direction of mainline
Protestant Christianity, a tradition
that once dominated American
religious life.
By voting Friday to allow gays
and lesbians in committed
relationships to serve as clergy, the
4.7-million member Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America will
either show how a church can stand
together amid differences, or
become another casualty of division
over sexual morality and the Bible,
observers say.
"We're going to be living in
tension and ambiguity for a longer
time, partly because the culture has
shifted," said David Steinmetz, a
Duke Divinity School professor of
Christian history.
The question is whether the
mainline church will shift
alongside, or if it will decide that
the more welcoming attitude
toward homosexuality is wrong, he
said.
The ELCA the nation's seventh
largest Christian church reached its
conclusion after eight years of
study and deliberation. That
culminated Friday when the
church's national assembly in
Minneapolis struck down a policy
that required any gay and lesbian
clergy to remain celibate.
The assembly also signed off on
NYC
continued from page 4
the difference. Trips like this, he
says, replenish his energy, and
remind him what his creation is
supposed to look like.
"I have to create an institution
finding ways for willing
congregations to "recognize,
support and hold publicly
accountable lifelong, monogamous,
same gender relationships." The
church fell short of calling that gay
marriage, but conservatives see that
as the next step.
While congregations will not be
forced to hire gay clergy,
conservative ELCA members
decried the decisions as straying
from clear Scriptural direction and
warned that defections are likely.
Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson
pleaded for unity, appealing to both
those who long felt marginalized
and thought the changes were
overdue and those "who feel they
were once more central but now
feel more peripheral."
"It would be tragic if we walked
away from one another," Hanson
said minutes after the vote.
The ELCA hopes to avoid the
kind of fissures that have strained
the Episcopal Church and the
broader Anglican Communion, of
which the 2.1 million-member
Episcopal Church is the U.S.
branch.
Just weeks ago, Episcopalians
approved a resolution saying that
"God has called and may call" gays
in committed relationships to
ordained ministry in the church,
defying Anglicans who urged
restraint.
The Presbyterian Church (USA)
has inched closer to joining the
Episcopalians and Lutherans, but
the latest effort to undo a policy
requiring chastity of gay clergy was
defeated this year.
where those experiences are
replicated more often," he says.
"And that's what Governors Island
is for."
The nation's largest mainline
denomination, the United
Methodist Church, has moved in
the opposite direction, hardening its
opposition to non-celibate gay
clergy.
That's likely to continue because
of declining Methodist membership
in the Northeast and on the West
Coast and growth in the South and
Sunbelt, said Steinmetz, of Duke.
The church also has a burgeoning
presence in Africa, a source of
conservatism in the Anglican
battles, also.
The ELCA's move is especially
jarring and significant because "it is
viewed by all of us as one of the
more Reformation-rooted, broadly
orthodox denominations" and takes
its theology seriously, said Richard
Mouw, president of the multi-
denominational and evangelical
Fuller Theological Seminary in
Pasadena, Calif.
"It's a huge, huge departure for a
church like that," said Mouw, who
has urged fellow conservatives in
the Presbyterian Church (USA) to
stay in the fold despite concerns
about a leftward shifts on sexuality.
He said one possible outcome is a
"new ecumenical dialogue on the
right" uniting beleaguered
conservatives from various
denominations though not under
the banner of a new one.
Barbara Wheeler, a former
president of Auburn Theological
Seminary in New York who is now
director of the school's Center for
the Study of Theological
Education, praised the ELCA for
laying a theological foundation for
Milla Jovovich Getting Married!
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:38:00 PM
'Resident Evil' firecracker Milla
Jovovich is reportedly getting
married this Saturday.
Friday's vote by first approving a
broad social statement on sexuality.
"It's a completely theological
argument toward openness to the
possibility of faithful, committed
same-sex relationships," said
Wheeler, who has played a central
role in gay clergy deliberations
inside the Presbyterian Church
(USA). "What you're seeing is two
things: The society is in the process
of changing its collective mind
about the moral status of same-sex
relationships, and there's a parallel
theological movement."
If gays and lesbians can stick it
out in mainline churches whose
official teachings "were dismissive
of their faithfulness and even their
personhood," so can disappointed
conservatives, she said. One of the
mainline's strengths, she said, is to
be a big tent.
"When you ask what religion has
to contribute to the wider society,
one hopes at least some religious
groups will give examples of how
to hold things together," she said.
Mainline churches are trying to
hold together at a time when
Americans' loyalty to
denominational affiliation and
organized religion is fraying. More
Americans are joining non-
denominational churches, which
tend to be more conservative, or are
discarding institutions altogether to
craft their own spirituality.
From 2001 to 2008, mainline
Protestants dropped from just over
17 percent to 12.9 percent of the
population, according to the
American Religious Identification
Survey, released this year. The
Jovovich and her fiancé, director
Paul W.S. Anderson, plan on tying
the knot at their home in the Los
Angeles area, says People.com.
The actress recently told the site
her wedding would be a small affair
Top News/ * 5
study also found that nearly 39
percent of mainline Protestants
consider themselves born-again or
evangelical Christians a group
likely to push back on liberal
stances on sexuality.
Though unity is the goal of many
mainline leaders, the future is more
likely to hold not a half-dozen large
and divided mainline churches but
25 smaller and stronger churches,
said Mark Jordan, a Harvard
Divinity School professor.
"I think we're coming up on an
epic reorganization of religion in
the United States," Jordan said.
"What we're going to see going
forward is more and smaller
churches, loosely organized and
federated around a progressive pole
or a conservative pole."
Conservative ELCA members
have warned of damaged
relationships with Lutherans in
other countries. While Lutherans in
Europe and Scandinavia are to the
left of the ELCA on homosexuality,
African and Asian Lutherans have
been taught a more conservative
line by missionaries and
theologians, said the Rev. Conrad
Braaten, senior pastor of Church of
the Reformation, an ELCA
congregation in Washington, D.C.
Braaten is optimistic the ELCA
can hold together through the
sexuality tensions.
"This particular discussion has
been going on with a lot of deep
feelings in the Lutheran church, but
not a lot of acrimony and not a lot
of bridges being burnt," he said. "I
think that's going to make a
difference."
attended by family and close
friends. She also said she’ll wear a
gown of her own design that she
described as a "1960s minidress."
6 Top News/ Economy/
Phillips wins men's long jump at worlds (AP)
(Yahoo! News: U.S. News)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 11:18:56 AM
BERLIN – Dwight Phillips won
the long jump at the world
championships Saturday, 73 years
after Jesse Owens did the same at
the Berlin Games in the Olympic
Stadium.
During a final laden with
symbolism, Phillips jumped 28 feet,
1/4 inch on his second attempt to
win. His main rival, Olympic
champion Irving Saladino of
Panama, was eliminated after
scratching on his first three tries.
Phillips was to get the gold medal
from Owens' granddaughter,
Marlene Hemphill Dortch, later
Saturday.
The American beat Godfrey
Khotso Mokoena of South Africa,
who jumped 27-9 1/2 for silver.
Owens won four gold medals in
1936 and as a black athlete became
a symbol of racial equality in sports
during the days when Adolf Hitler
promoted white Aryan supremacy.
Despite the long jump victory
Saturday, it still was a bittersweet
day for the American team. The
United States failed to make the
women's 4x100 relay final, with
CIA 'threatened' terror suspects
(BBC News | Americas | World
Edition)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 3:16:00 AM
Handguns, electric drills and
mock executions were used by CIA
agents to elicit information from
terror suspects, US media have
reported.
The reports contain details of a
2004 review by the CIA's inspector
general that has been kept secret
but is now due to be released next
week.
Muna Lee falling to the ground
injured after a handover in the
heats.
The accident compounded the
U.S. relay problems one day after
the men's team was disqualified
from its heat for handing over the
baton outside the designated zone.
At the Beijing Olympics, both
teams were also eliminated in the
heats.
The absences left Jamaica as the
favorite in both finals, with Usain
Bolt looking for his third gold and
world record later Saturday.
With Jamaica already leading 3-1
in the sprints, it also extended the
country's overwhelming sprint
domination over the Americans,
dating to last year's Beijing Games.
The American women were
running a smooth race but Lee was
struggling to get a clean handoff
from Alexandria Anderson, the
second of four runners.
Once she did, she was suddenly
overcome by pain, and everything
came apart.
"Just when she pushed off going
around that turn something
happened," Anderson said.
Lee hobbled and fell to the
ground, clutching her left leg. She
Publication of the CIA report was
ordered after a legal challenge by
the American Civil Liberties
Union.
The US has banned harsh
interrogation methods, including
death threats.
The gun and the drill were
brought into an interrogation
session of suspected USS Cole
bomber and alleged al-Qaeda
commander Rahim al-Nashiri,
according to reports in the
Washington Post, Newsweek
was taken off the track on a
stretcher, with ice on her leg.
The incident thwarted the goal of
200-meter champion Allyson Felix,
who was trying to equal her
accomplishment from two years
ago when she won three golds at
the worlds in Osaka, Japan.
Earlier Saturday, Abel Kirui and
Emmanuel Mutai made sure Kenya
is keeping an edge over Ethiopia,
finishing 1-2 in the men's
marathon.
The intense African rivalry for
medal supremacy might well have
been decided under the
Brandenburg Gate when the two
Kenyans ran Tsegay Kebede of
Ethiopia into submission in the
fastest marathon in world
championship history.
"We ran as a team," said Mutai,
who had to let his teammate go to
finish in 2 hours, 6 minutes, 54
seconds because an upset stomach
reduced him to vomiting over the
final stages.
The 1-2 finish gave Kenya three
golds and eight overall, and left
Ethiopia with one gold and five
overall. Later, defending champion
Meseret Defar will try to make it a
tight medal race again in the
magazine and AP news agency.
The CIA report says the drill was
held near Saudi-born Mr Nashiri's
head and repeatedly turned on and
off, the reports said. The agents
showed him the gun and tried to
frighten him into thinking he would
be shot.
In another case, a gun was fired
in another room to lead a detainee
to believe another suspect had been
killed.
CIA documents already released
under ACLU pressure indicate that
women's 5,000 final, which
Ethiopia could sweep.
Most eyes, though, will be
centered on Bolt, who will repeat
that rhetorical question he has
answered again and again over the
past week "Who faster?"
As if anyone still questions what
has been written on billboards and
T-shirts across Berlin for weeks.
But on Saturday, he will need a
little help from his Jamaican
friends.
And he sure won't waste the 23rd
birthday present he got from his
teammates when they qualified him
for the final. Bolt sat out the heats,
happy to give autographs to fans.
On top of that, Bolt received a
second gold medal in the stands and
accepted a second check of
$100,000 for a world record,
bringing his total to $320,000 in
one week of work. There still is
$180,000 at stake if the relay team
sets another world record on the
way to a third title.
Then again, that total would have
to be split with his teammates.
Other finals Saturday include the
men's pole vault and the women's
hammer.
Mr Nashiri is one of several
Guantanamo Bay detainees who
were subjected to waterboarding - a
practice that simulates drowning.
Waterboarding was one of a
number of "enhanced" interrogation
techniques approved by the Justice
Department in 2002 under
President George W Bush.
President Barack Obama has
since said waterboarding
constitutes torture. US law on
torture forbids threatening
detainees with imminent death.
Internet News Record
30-Year Fixed Mortgage
Rates Remain Steady
While Spreads Tighten
(Financial Sector and Stocks
Analysis from Seeking Alpha)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 10:10:36 PM
Since spiking from 4.8% to nearly
5.8% in June, the national average
30-year fixed mortgage rate
according to Bankrate.com has
stabilized in the 5.25% to 5.35%
range. With the Fed Funds Rate at
0%-0.25%, potential home buyers
would love to see mortgage rates
decline more, while the banks
lending the money would love to
see spreads increase (bottom chart)
so they could make more money.
US Attorney General Eric Holder
is considering whether to
investigate the Bush
administration's interrogation
practices.
A retired CIA official who lead
the 2004 investigation said the
report about to be released is a
comprehensive review of what the
CIA did under the secret detention
and interrogation programme began
after the 11 September 2001
attacks, AP said.
Print Sponsor
Internet News Record
Rioting inmates set central Ky.
prison ablaze (AP)
(Yahoo! News: U.S. News)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:02:47 AM
BURGIN, Ky. – Rioting inmates
set fire to trash cans and other items
inside a central Kentucky prison,
and damage to some buildings was
so extensive that officials were
busing many of the facility's 1,200
prisoners elsewhere, police said
Saturday.
By early morning, firefighters had
extinguished the fires at the
medium-security Northpoint
Training Center in a rural area 30
miles south of Lexington, state
police Lt. David Jude said.
Eight inmates were treated for
minor injuries, and eight staff were
also injured in the melee, although
none of the employees were
admitted to the hospital, said
Cheryl Million, a spokeswoman for
the Kentucky Department of
Corrections.
Officers in riot gear rushed the
prisoners with tear gas about 9 p.m.
Friday, and all the inmates were
subdued in less than two hours,
authorities said.
Six buildings had burned,
including a kitchen, medical center,
canteen and visitation area. Million
also said all but one of the
dormitories, a 196-bed unit, were
damaged and uninhabitable.
A bus carrying some 42 inmates
deemed higher security risks left
the property shortly after 6 a.m.,
Qik for iPhone 3GS update removes 'WiFi only' restriction, 3G streaming is a go
By Ross Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 8:15:00 PM
Well, that was fast. Just one week
after hitting the scene, Qik for
iPhone 3GS has been updated to
move that nasty "WiFi only"
heading to an undisclosed facility.
It wasn't clear how many other
inmates would have to be moved.
Gov. Steve Beshear praised
corrections officials and state police
for handling the situation without
any serious injuries.
"Their work last night in the face
of the most trying circumstances
was truly remarkable," Beshear said
in a statement. "Corrections
officials are currently assessing the
extent of damage to determine the
needs going forward for safely
housing prisoners in the coming
days and for the long term."
Some of the inmates would be
able to stay at Northpoint, Million
said.
"As we continue to assess the
situation, other inmates could
possibly be transferred," Million
said. "Decisions to transfer would
be based on facilities security levels
and inmates' needs."
Jude said the prisoners were
being kept in an outdoor courtyard
surrounded by prison guards. Police
formed a perimeter around the
outside of the facility to make sure
no one escaped.
Portable toilets were brought in,
and prison officials were using
temporary food stations to feed the
prisoners because the fire in the
kitchen destroyed much of the
prison's food supply.
"Everything seems to be at a
calm," Jude said. "They're sitting
restriction, meaning you can now
stream your videos to the internet
over a 3G network. We just tried it
ourselves and, sure enough, it
works like a charm. After you've
read through all that FCC literature,
hit up the read link and download
down, kind of going with the
program right now."
Jude didn't immediately say what
caused of the rioting, which began
around 6:30 p.m. Friday.
Prison spokeswoman Mendolyn
Cochran said Friday the prison had
been on lockdown since Tuesday,
when one group of inmates
assaulted two others, The Advocate
-Messenger of Danville reported.
Later Friday, some inmates started
setting fires in trash cans, she said.
Million wouldn't confirm the
report, saying only that some of the
fires started in trash cans and that
some inmates had access to
matches because smoking is
allowed in parts of the prison.
The melee in Kentucky comes
two weeks after more than 1,000
inmates rioted at the California
Institution for Men in Southern
California. The prison was
designed to hold about half as many
inmates, although investigators say
they don't know if crowding helped
spark the racially charged riot.
Northpoint has more than 1,100
general population inmates housed
in six open-bay dormitories,
according to its Web site. Another
60 special management inmates are
housed in single cells in a separate
structure, and 40 minimum-security
inmates are housed in another
separate structure.
It opened in 1983 and has a staff
of 285.
the (thankfully still free) app -- just
Top News/ Gadgets/ *
Latin star 'going ahead'
with gig
(BBC News | Americas | World
Edition)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 6:27:50 AM
Colombian rock star Juanes is
going ahead with a peace concert in
Cuba despite receiving threatening
messages, his manager has said.
The event, due to take place on
20 September, has been criticised
by some US-based Cubans for
supporting the country's communist
government.
Latin Grammy winner Juanes,
who lives in Miami, told police he
had received threats via his Twitter
account.
His manager said the star feared
for his safety and considered
pulling out.
'Nothing political'
Fernan Martinez Maecha told the
Associated Press: "The concert is
still on, and Juanes is maintaining a
positive attitude throughout all of
this."
Brody Jenner Undergoes Surgery on His
Birthday
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 6:50:00 AM
"The Hills" hunk Brody Jenner
underwent surgery on Friday -- his
birthday.
"Brody Jenner unfortunately spent
be careful how much fun you have
with it this weekend. Let's see how
AT&T's network handles this one.
[Warning: iTunes app link.]
[Via The iPhone Blog]
Filed under: Cellphones
Qik for iPhone 3GS update
7
But Mr Maecha added the threats
had made the star "act out like any
other husband or father would do in
order to protect his family".
According to a police report, one
of the messages stated: "I hate what
you are saying but you will die for
defending your right to say it."
Miami authorities have said they
will continue to watch Juanes'
home in the city, which is the base
for many Cuban Americans who
are opposed to President Raul
Castro's regime.
Mr Maecha said there is
"absolutely nothing political" about
the peace concert, which is set to
take place in Havana's Revolution
Plaza.
Juanes held a peace concert in
1998 on the Venezuela-Colombia
border when tensions were high
over a Colombian commando raid
into neighbouring Ecuador that
killed a leading rebel commander.
Print Sponsor
the morning of his 26th birthday
having his appendix removed," his
rep tells People.com. "He is resting
with family and friends and
expected to have a speedy
recovery."
removes 'WiFi only' restriction, 3G
streaming is a go originally
appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21
Aug 2009 20:15:00 EST. Please see
our terms for use of feeds. Read|
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8 Top News/ Gadgets/
FBI boss attacks Megrahi release
(BBC News | Americas | World
Edition)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:16:55 AM
FBI director Robert Mueller has
launched a scathing attack on
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny
MacAskill over the release of the
Lockerbie bomber.
In a letter, dated 21 August, Mr
Mueller said the decision makes "a
mockery of justice" and gives
comfort to terrorists around the
world.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi has
received a hero's welcome in Libya.
The Scottish Government said it
had consulted widely in the US and
UK and had made the right
decision.
Mr Mueller was previously a
Justice Department lawyer leading
the investigation into the 1988
bombing.
The director's letter is also being
sent to families of the Lockerbie
victims.
Mr Mueller wrote: "Your action
in releasing Megrahi is as
inexplicable as it is detrimental to
the cause of justice. Indeed your
action makes a mockery of the rule
of law.
"Your action gives comfort to
terrorists around the world who
now believe that regardless of the
quality of the investigation, the
conviction by jury after the
AT&T To FCC: We Did Not Block The Google Voice App
On The iPhone
By MG Siegler (CrunchGear)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:12:08 PM
Here it is, AT&T's statement on
what they sent to the FCC
regarding the rejection of the
Google Voice app on the iPhone.
As you can see, unlike last time
where the statement was vague,
AT&T is clearly stating here that it
defendant is given all due process,
and sentence appropriate to the
crime, the terrorist will be freed by
one man's exercise of
'compassion'."
Mr Mueller said that he had made
it a practice not to comment on the
actions of other prosecutors, but
that the release of terminally ill
Megrahi had prompted a change of
heart.
He added: "Your action makes a
mockery of the emotions, passions
and pathos of all those affected by
the Lockerbie tragedy: the medical
personnel who first faced the horror
of 270 bodies strewn in the fields
around Lockerbie, and in the town
of Lockerbie itself; the hundreds of
volunteers who walked the fields of
Lockerbie to retrieve any piece of
debris related to the break-up of the
plane; the hundreds of FBI agents
and Scottish police who undertook
an unprecedented global
investigation to identify those
responsible; the prosecutors who
worked for years - in some cases a
full career - to see justice done."
The FBI director said he was
outraged by the move, and
criticised the MSP for failing to
consult "partners in the
investigation and prosecution of
those responsible for the Lockerbie
tragedy".
He wrote: "You have given those
who sought to assure that the
had nothing to do with the Google
Voice rejection. This wording
comes from Jim Cicconi, AT&T's
persons responsible would be held
accountable the back of your hand.
You have given Megrahi a 'jubilant
welcome' in Tripoli, according to
the reporting. Where, I ask, is the
justice?"
A Scottish Government
spokesman said the minister had
made the right decision for the
"right reasons" on the basis of due
process, clear evidence, and
recommendations from the parole
board and prison governor.
He said: "Compassionate release
is not part of the US justice system
but it is part of Scotland's.
"Mr MacAskill could not have
consulted more widely - he spoke
with the US families, the US
Attorney General, Secretary of
State Clinton and many others.
"The US authorities indicated that
although they were opposed to both
prisoner transfer and compassionate
release, they made it clear that they
regarded compassionate release as
far preferable to the transfer
agreement, and Mr Mueller should
be aware of that."
The spokesman said that Mr
Mueller should also be aware that
while many families have opposed
Mr MacAskill's decision many
others have supported it.
He added that the justice
secretary would reply to Mr
Mueller in due course.
Print Sponsor
senior executive vice president,
external and legislative affairs.
Updated with the full AT&T
response to the FCC We're reaching
out to Apple on this right now and
will update. AT&T Statement on
Letter to the FCC Regarding Apple
App Store
The Daily Roundup:
here's what you
might've missed
By Ross Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 10:59:00 PM
AT&T, Apple and Google
respond to the FCC over Google
Voice and the iPhone App Store
Apple's not exaggerating when it
says these are entirely new
problems, and whatever happens
next will set a precedent for a long
time to come.
Google refutes USA Today report
on blocked Skype application
The story is surely fine fodder for
a FUD enthusiast up to that point,
but it appears (gasp) that USA
Today may have gotten one minor
fact wrong.
Video: Another look at PS3 Slim
and its removable HDD
The 2.5-inch Serial ATA hard
drive is indeed swappable and is
done so without risk of voiding
your warranty.
Other news of import
• Zune HD getting previewed at
select Best Buys this weekend
• Amazon says PS3 Slim already
facing supply shortages, Sony
disagrees
• Entelligence: Whatever
happened to SPOT?
Internet News Record
• It's coming
PS3 Slim bitsreams Dolby
TrueHD and DTS-HD MA audio,
at last
Slowly, ever so slowly we're
beginning to learn about the
internal differences between Sony's
new PS3 Slim and its chubby
ancestry. Bell's Palm Pre
commercial couldn't be more Apple
if it had an Orba Squara soundtrack
Hip, upbeat music? Check.
Mysterious hands showing off
mobile apps and other smartphone
capabilities? Check.
• Transformers 2 Blu-ray packs
special features inside & out
October 20
• Panasonic taking 3D, Avatar on
world tour this fall
• Video: HTC Click gets a 6-
finger 'Donut' salute
• Qik for iPhone 3GS update
removes 'WiFi only' restriction, 3G
streaming is a go
The Daily Roundup: here's what
you might've missed originally
appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21
Aug 2009 22:59:00 EST. Please see
our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Comments
Internet News Record
Researchers create robots
that can learn to lie and
deceive, on purpose
By Donald Melanson
(Engadget)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 7:32:00 AM
Teaching robots to find "food" and
share it with others seems like a
fairly worthwhile and noble
endeavor, no? Well, it apparently
wasn't quite enough for a group of
researchers from Switzerland's
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne, who had the bright idea
to to augment said robots with a
new artificial neural network that
let the robots learn a host of new
abilities -- namely, scheming, lying
and deceiving. Apparently, in their
younger days, the robots would
flash a light whenever they found
food to let their buddies know
Michael Jackson's Nephew Testifies: 'I Just Want to Do Right By Him'
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:37:00 PM
Taj Jackson, the nephew of the
late King of Pop, testified Friday at
where it was, but that of course
caused the food to dwindle a lot
quicker. After a bit of trial and error
and a few tweaks from the
researchers, however, the robots
apparently discovered that they
could keep more of the food for
themselves if they didn't flash the
light, and it seems like its been
Lord of the Flies on an incredibly
tiny scale ever since.
[Via Switched]
Filed under: Robots
Researchers create robots that can
learn to lie and deceive, on purpose
originally appeared on Engadget on
Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:32:00 EST.
Please see our terms for use of
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Comments
an estate hearing and shared his
insight on how Michael Jackson
would have wanted to handle his
memorabilia, says a new report.
The Associated Press reports that
TomTom's iPhone car kit promo
video is enticing, but still no
mention of price or release date
By Ross Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 3:46:00 AM
Not to knock cellophane tape as a
method for in-car iPhone
navigation, but if you want to use
the new TomTom app in a more
proper setting, you'll want the
official TomTom car kit. In
addition to enhancing the GPS
signal and charging your iPhone,
it's also got hands-free dialing and a
speaker that's (presumably) better
than the phone solo for giving
directions. At a rumored price of
just under $200 with software, it's
not a bad deal if you were planning
to shell out $100 for the US maps,
anyway. We're still on the fence,
Jackson’s nephew, 36, claimed that
his uncle was a perfectionist who
he claims would have wanted to
display his artifacts in his own way.
"At Neverland, he had a certain
but the hypnotic soundtrack of the
promotion video is admittedly
alluring. See for yourself after the
break.
[Thanks, Arthur]
Continue reading TomTom's
iPhone car kit promo video is
enticing, but still no mention of
price or release date
Filed under: Cellphones, GPS,
Transportation
TomTom's iPhone car kit promo
video is enticing, but still no
mention of price or release date
originally appeared on Engadget on
Sat, 22 Aug 2009 03:46:00 EST.
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Comments
section for memorabilia and he had
a plan for something grandiose,"
the younger Jackson said.
Gadgets/ * 9
Northern Michigan
University teams with
Motorola for campus-
wide WiMAX
By Donald Melanson
(Engadget)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 9:52:00 AM
Northern Michigan University
was fairly early to the game in
offering laptops and campus-wide
WiFi to its students, and it looks
like it's now stepping things up
even further with a little help from
Motorola, which is providing the
backend for NMU's new campus-
wide WiMAX network (a first in
the US). Better still, the university
is also providing some brand new
WiMAX-equipped ThinkPads to
nearly 3,000 of the school's more
than 9,000 students, and it's also
making a range of laptop and
desktop WiMAX adapters available
to students with non WiMAX-
enabled computers. With a radius
of some 30 miles, the network will
also encompass a number of off-
campus sites, and be made
available to local schools and
municipal offices though a
licensing arrangement.
[Image courtesy Wikimedia
Commons]
Filed under: Wireless
Northern Michigan University
teams with Motorola for campus-
wide WiMAX originally appeared
on Engadget on Sat, 22 Aug 2009
09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms
for use of feeds. Read| Permalink|
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10 Gadgets/ *
Southwest to roll out wi-fi
to its whole fleet starting
next year
By Devin Coldewey
(CrunchGear)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:00:43 PM
Well, that’s one more reason to fly
Southwest. Now that all the other
airlines are cutting down on the
frills that Southwest never really
had, there’s no reason to fly
anything but Southwest if you can
hack it. Wi-fi has been a touchy
subject for airlines, but the cost vs.
customer satisfaction it offers is
really hard to ignore. I guess that’s
why they’re going to put it on every
plane they’ve got!
Wait, wait, check this one out:
now you can even play WoW in the
air — talk about f lying the
friendless skies! Zing!
Seriously, though. This is great.
Although personally I kind of relish
the disconnection that comes with
travel, it will be handy for those of
you who like to idle on FriendFace
or MyTweet and talk about what
the guy down the aisle is doing.
They say they’ll be expanding the
service starting early next year, but
would continue to do beta testing
on certain flights until then.
The bad news is that once it rolls
out, it will no longer be free. That
may have actually been a major
factor in the popularity of the
service. I know I wouldn’t pay ten
bucks for it… well, maybe if the
flight was longer than three hours.
[via Electronista]
App Store Exposed: Notes Of
Interest From Apple’s
Statement To The FCC
By MG Siegler (CrunchGear)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:09:12 PM
Now that all of the letters to the
FCC have been filed by Apple,
AT&T and Google, we're more
carefully reading them over for
interesting details. The Apple letter
would seem to have the most
interesting information, as it
controls the App Store, and has
given some new information about
it. Here are some interesting tidbits.
On general app rejections: We
created an approval process that
reviews every application
submitted to Apple for the App
Store in order to protect consumer
privacy, safeguard children from
inappropriate content, and avoid
applications that degrade the core
experience of the iPhone. Some
types of content such as
How would you change Nintendo's Wii
MotionPlus add-on?
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 1:11:00 AM
It took the Big N right around a
year to actually ship its Wii
MotionPlus dongle after first
showing it off at E3 2008, and now
we're curious to know if you think
the wait was worth it. We've
already spilled our deepest, darkest
thoughts on the $20 add-on
accessory, but now that Wii Sports
Resort is out (and still firmly
lodged within your Wii's optical
drive), we just can't wait another
pornography are rejected outright
from the App Store, while others
such as graphic combat scenes in
action games may be approved but
with an appropriate age rating.
Most rejections are based on bugs
found in the applications. When
there is an issue, we try to provide
the developer with helpful feedback
so they can modify the application
in order for us to approve it.
second to hear from end users. Are
you pleased with the additional
sensing capabilities? Has it
enhanced your gameplay as you
Internet News Record
New Photos: 'DWTS'
Celebs Get Down to
Business in Rehearsals
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:58:00 PM
As the countdown continues
toward the premiere of the
upcoming season of "Dancing with
the Stars," celeb contestants and
their pro partners are breaking in
their dancing shoes!
Although the official pairings will
be announced on Monday, ET has
learned of the following partners:
Donny Osmond and Kym
Johnson
Aaron Carter and Karina
Smirnoff
Tom DeLay and Cheryl Burke
Mya and Dmitry Chaplin
Debi Mazar and Maksim
Chmerkovskiy
Chuck Liddell and Anna
Trebunskaya
thought it would? What aspects
would you like to see changed?
You just paid a Jackson for a brick
that attaches to your perfectly
functional Wiimote -- don't miss
your chance to pick it apart.
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
How would you change
Nintendo's Wii MotionPlus add-on?
originally appeared on Engadget on
Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:11:00 EST.
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Internet News Record
Installing the Whitoken theme
on your iPod Touch
By John Biggs (CrunchGear)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 7:14:20 AM
It seems like only yesterday that
we were slobbering over the
Whitoken theme for the iPod
Touch. Well, today you can install
this amazing theme with a little
muss and fuss. The first step is to
jailbreak your iPod with redsn0w
and install Cydia, the app installer,
and theme manager Winterboard.
QuickPWN will take up the slack
for you, showing you all the steps
necessary to make your iPod look
An Emptied Flask Makes for Empty Promises
By Hadley Leggett (Wired Top
Stories)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:53:00 PM
like the controller on the Axiom.
IThe biggest issue with this theme
is that it requires quite a bit of set-
up. Each app has to be stuck into a
mini folder using a program called
Categories and then creating a
bunch of weird blank icons that do
nothing but keep some icons away
from others. However if you’ve got
a few hours to kill this weekend -
Hurricane Bill is hitting the East
Coast so maybe you’ll have a nice
day in - you can give it a try. Send
us screenshots when you figure it
out.
Alcohol causes people to
thoroughly commit to goals they
know they'll never follow through
on when sober.
Lucky Mac mini buyer got
Snow Leopard disc in the box?
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 12:29:00 PM
If his story is to be believed (and it
seems pretty believable), an
anonymous tipster to Engadget
Japanese got a nice surprise with
his recent Mac mini purchase: a
Snow Leopard install disc. It's one
of those vanilla hardware-specific
install discs, dubbing itself Mac OS
version 10.6, and clearly packing
the goods if the screenshots don't
lie. This only adds confusion to the
ship date, which has been listed as
August 28th on Apple's online
store, dubbed as "September"
elsewhere, and obviously been
totally disregarded in this specific
case. No matter what, it looks like
we won't have long to wait. Hit up
the read link for a couple of
Japanese-infused screencaps.
Filed under: Software
Lucky Mac mini buyer got Snow
Leopard disc in the box? originally
appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22
Aug 2009 12:29:00 EST. Please see
our terms for use of feeds. Read|
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Gadgets/ * 11
Apple’s Response To
The FCC: We Didn’t
Reject The Google
Voice App, We’re Still
Looking At It
By MG Siegler (CrunchGear)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:11:26 PM
Apple has responded to our
request for a follow-up on AT&T's
statement to the FCC. Of note,
Apple is saying that it hasn't
actually rejected the Google Voice
app, but that it didn't accept the
version submitted because it was
too similar to the iPhone's
functionality. Here's the key blurb:
Contrary to published reports,
Apple has not rejected the Google
Voice application, and continues to
study it. The application has not
been approved because, as
submitted for review, it appears to
alter the iPhone’s distinctive user
experience by replacing the
iPhone’s core mobile telephone
functionality and Apple user
interface with its own user interface
for telephone calls, text messaging
and voicemail. Here's the full
statement, warning, this is long.
Today Apple filed with the FCC the
following answers to their
questions.
12 Gadgets/ Business/
Wiipod modder shoves an MP3
player in his Wiimote, calls it a day
By Joseph L. Flatley
(Engadget)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 9:23:00 PM
Readers, don't act like you're
appalled that this mod consists
entirely of an old iPod shuffle
shoved into the battery
compartment of a Wiimote game
controller. If anything, you should
be amused that this mod consists
entirely of an old iPod shuffle
KIRF shoved into the battery
compartment of a Wiimote game
Carefull, this is not an MP3 player (it’s JT’s fragrance)
By Matt Burns (CrunchGear)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:38:51 AM
Consider this a PSA. The object
above is not, I repeat, not an MP3
player. Oh no, it’s Justin
Timberlake’s new men’s fragrance
from Givenchy called Play. I just
controller. See for yourself after the
break.
[Via Technabob]
Continue reading Wiipod modder
shoves an MP3 player in his
Wiimote, calls it a day
Filed under: Portable Audio
Wiipod modder shoves an MP3
player in his Wiimote, calls it a day
originally appeared on Engadget on
Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:23:00 EST.
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Comments
want to make sure everyone knows
that so when you’re cruising
through Sears or JCPennys, you
don’t accidentally buy it. Because,
well, chances are that if you read
this blog, you probably aren’t the
target market for JT’s fragrance.
But you know what, if there was
Not to worry, you can still hack
your Wii without Twilight Princess
By Devin Coldewey
(CrunchGear)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:00:57 PM
Want to run some homebrew
games, apps, a DVD player, or
emulator on your Wii? Too bad!
Nintendo doesn’t want you to.
Fortunately, their console is far
from un-hackable, though the latest
versions aren’t vulnerable to the
original Twilight Princess hack.
Lucky for you there are other ways
of going about it. This new hack,
an MP3 player like the bottle
above, and the bottom part was a
which should work on any Wii,
works by injecting some
“malicious” code into a banner on
your home screen. Though it’s not
really malicious, is it? They should
have called it “friendiferous.”
Lifehacker has a nice long tutorial
on how to get it done — you’ll
need an SD card and some easily-
downloadable files. It’s free and
relatively easy — and it’s your
hardware now, so why not do what
you want with it?
fuel cell, I’d be all over it. I’m
guessing most of you would be as
well. See, we’re definitely not
suppose to buy Play.
[ Play by Givenchy via BBG]
Internet News Record
Earnings highlights:
B&N, Deere, Heinz,
Home Depot, HP, Sears,
Target ...
By Trey Thoelcke
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 12:10:00 PM
Filed under: Earnings reports,
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Home
Depot (HD), Target Corp. (TGT),
Penney (J.C.) (JCP), Agilent
Technologies (A), Sears Holdings
(SHLD), Lowe's Cos (LOW),
Limited Brands (LTD), Deere and
Co (DE), salesforce.com inc
(CRM), Trina Solar ADS (TSL)
Here are some highlights from
last week's earnings coverage from
BloggingStocks:
• Aeropostale Inc.(NYSE: ARO)
strong Q2 results beat expectations
due to rising same-store sales.
• Agilent Technologies
Inc.(NYSE: A) Q3 earnings topped
low expectations and revenue
declined.
• Analog Devices Inc.(NYSE:
ADI) posted better-than-expected
Q3 results but shares fell on weaker
margins.
• Baidu Inc.(NASDAQ: BIDU)
CEO said its new advertising
efforts will boost sales over the
long run.
• Barnes & Noble Inc.(NYSE:
BKS) had a better-than-expected
Q2 profit but same-store sales fell.
• BJ's Wholesale Club Inc.(NYSE:
BJ) reported solid Q2 numbers and
raised its full-year guidance.
Continue reading Earnings
highlights: B&N, Deere, Heinz,
Home Depot, HP, Sears, Target ...
Earnings highlights: B&N, Deere,
Heinz, Home Depot, HP, Sears,
Target ... originally appeared on
BloggingStocks on Sat, 22 Aug
2009 12:10:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Permalink|
Email this| Comments
Internet News Record
J.M. Smucker kills estimates in
Q1
By Steven Mallas
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 9:10:00 AM
Filed under: Earnings reports,
ConAgra Foods (CAG), Kraft
Foods'A' (KFT)
The J.M. Smucker
Company(NYSE: SJM), a food
manufacturer famous for its jelly
and baking products, reported a
great first quarter on Friday.
Adjusted earnings per share
increased 12% to 92 cents.
According to Reuters, management
was able to beat expectations by a
whopping 12 cents.
This is quite impressive given the
fact that an analyst quoted by
Reuters believes that more people
eating at home are helping to fuel
Smucker's success. I say this
because, if people are deciding to
dine at home more often, they are
most likely doing so because of the
recession.
Comfort Zone Investing: Starting over
By Ted Allrich (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:30:00 AM
Filed under: D.R.Horton (DHI),
Lowe's Cos (LOW), Lennar
Corp'A' (LEN), Toll Brothers
(TOL), Comfort Zone Investing
Most investors got slammed last
year, down 50% or more in their
investments. Didn't matter if they
owned stocks or real estate, they
got hammered. Many have to start
over. And if they're near retirement,
AP Top 25: Florida Is No. 1
By Michael David Smith
(FanHouse)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:44:00 AM
by Michael David Smith
Continue reading J.M. Smucker
kills estimates in Q1
J.M. Smucker kills estimates in
Q1 originally appeared on
BloggingStocks on Sat, 22 Aug
2009 09:10:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Permalink|
Email this| Comments
it's scary. Years of patient investing
wiped out, gains that were made
over a long time disappeared
Filed under: Florida
The Florida Gators will enter the
2009 college football season the
way they left the 2008 season: As
the No. 1 team in the country.
Options Update: News
Corporation volatility low
By Paul Foster
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:45:00 PM
Filed under: News Corp'B'
(NWS), Options
News Corporation(NYSE: NWS)
was recently up 21 cents to $12.98.
NWS is the owner of the Dow
Jones Indexes, and is shopping the
business to buyers, reports the
WSJ. NWS September option
implied volatility was at 43,
October at 45; below its 26-week
average of 54, according to Track
Data, suggesting decreasing price
frighteningly fast.
But now it's time to begin fresh,
to rebuild. What's the safest way to
regain some or all of the losses
without suffering another wipeout?
Continue reading Comfort Zone
Investing: Starting over
Comfort Zone Investing: Starting
over originally appeared on
BloggingStocks on Sat, 22 Aug
2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Read|
Permalink| Email this| Comments
AP Top 25: Florida Is No. 1
Business/ * 13
'Cataclysm' Expansion
Will Rock 'World of
Warcraft,' Blizzard Says
movement. By Tracey John (Wired Top
CBOE Volatility Index S&P 500 Stories)
Options: The VIX was down .25 to Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:33:00 PM
$24.84; The S&P 500 Index up
2.02% The wildly popular game will be
Options Update is provided by forever changed when the next
Stock Specialist Paul Foster of expansion pack hits. The
theflyonthewall.com gamemaker's BlizzCon presentation
Options Update: News also rolls out a host of features,
Corporation volatility low including new races and monsters.
originally appeared on
BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Aug
2009 16:45:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Permalink|
Email this| Comments
Ray of light: July existing home
sales hint at a price bottom
By Joseph Lazzaro
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:30:00 PM
Filed under: Good news, Housing,
Recession U.S. existing home sales
rose 7.2% in July to a seasonally-
adjusted annual rate to 5.24 million
units, the National Association of
Realtors announced Friday. It was
the fourth straight monthly rise.
However, the best news in the
data was not so much the sales price bottom
uptrend, as it was the apparent Ray of light: July existing home
bottoming of the price downtrend: sales hint at a price bottom
at minimum, the rate of decline is originally appeared on
abating. Don't misunderstand: BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Aug
prices are still lower, on a year-over 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our
-year basis, but there are signs of
terms for use of feeds. Permalink|
stabilization. Email this| Comments
Continue reading Ray of light:
July existing home sales hint at a
originally appeared on Fanhouse Blogs| Comments
NCAA Football Blog on Sat, 22
Aug 2009 10:44:00 EST . Please
see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Linking
14 Business/ Economy/ *
Atwood's shares are on the move
By Joseph Lazzaro
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:09:00 PM
Filed under: Stocks to Buy
It goes without saying that I favor
oil/oil services plays, including
drillers. And it likewise goes
without saying that I'm not
surprised by contract driller
Atwood Oceanics recently climb.
I'm reiterating my Buy rating for
This week's top stories [21 August 2009]
(The Economist: News
analysis)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:00:22 AM
The coming days
Aug 2nd 2009
From Economist.com New
evidence of the state of the
American economy, and other news
• IN IRAN president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad is expected to
consolidate his grip on power, after
disputed elections. On Monday
August 3rd the Supreme Leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will hear
Mr Ahmadinejad give the oath of
office. Later in the week a public
ceremony is planned. Although Mr
Atwood(NYSE: ATW), first
recommended on April 25, 2009 at
a price of $21.82. If you bought
ATW then, you're up a cool 35%.
Continue reading Atwood's
shares are on the move
Atwood's shares are on the move
originally appeared on
BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Aug
2009 17:09:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Permalink|
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Ahmadinejad has emerged
triumphant in his contest with
opposition figures, his dominance
of Iranian politics has been
constrained by fellow conservative
politicians.
See article
• AMERICA'S secretary of state,
Hillary Clinton, sets off on a seven-
country trip to Africa beginning on
Wednesday August 5th. Mrs
Clinton will travel to Kenya, South
Africa, Angola, Congo, Nigeria,
Liberia and Cape Verde. She has
sidelined recently by a broken
elbow, by President Barack
Obama's recent trips, including one
to Africa, and by the vice-president,
As expected, Cameron is on the rise
By Joseph Lazzaro
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:31:00 PM
Filed under: Stocks to Buy
If you hitched your train to
Cameron International
Corp.(NYSE: CAM) in late April,
as recommended on April 24, 2009,
you're up a nice 40%. And that's
before the next oil boom begins.
Joe Biden, who has been
enthusiastically travelling the
world.
For background, see article
• MORE evidence of the state of
health of America's economy will
become available on Friday August
7th, when monthly unemployment
figures are published. The housing
market has started to show some
encouraging signs of life and rallies
of various stockmarkets around the
world have given optimists cause to
cheer. President Barack Obama has
suggested that the recession in
America is nearing an end.
However unemployment typically
continues to rise for a period even
Hence, I'm reiterating my Buy
rating for Cameron, first
recommended at a price of $25.59.
Continue reading As expected,
Cameron is on the rise
As expected, Cameron is on the
rise originally appeared on
BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Aug
2009 16:31:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Permalink|
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after a recession has ended. A rapid
increase in unemployment would
not only be bad news for the jobless
but could indicate a greater risk of a
weak recovery or a double-dip
recession.
For background, see article
• MEXICO'S president, Felipe
Calderón, will welcome Barack
Obama and Stephen Harper,
Canada’s prime minister, to a two-
day summit of North American
leaders in the western city
Guadalajara starting on Sunday
August 9th. Discussions are likely
to centre on measures to tackle
greenhouse-gas emissions, the
threat of swine flu and prospects for
Internet News Record
Google Voice App
Rejection: AT&T
Blames Apple; Apple
Denies It Happened And
Google Hides
By Ryan Singel (Wired Top
Stories)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 7:54:00 AM
Federal regulators wanted to know
why Apple rejected Google’s
innovative Voice app from its
iPhone app store and what role
AT&T played in the rejection.
AT&T told the FCC that it had no
part in the decision, while Apple
claims it never happened. Google
released a heavily redacted
document.
economic recovery. Canada and
Mexico want assurances that
America will not resort to
protectionism particularly in light
of Mr Obama’s election rhetoric,
which suggested that he wanted to
renegotiate the North American
Free Trade Agreement.
For background, see article
Back to top ^^ Readers'
comments
Readers have commented on this
article (the window for new
comments is now closed).
Internet News Record
Tech.view: Sticker shock
(The Economist: Daily columns)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 1:32:09 AM
Tech.view
Aug 21st 2009
From Economist.com Ignore the
230 miles-per-gallon claims being
touted for GM's plug-in hybrid
SO, THE Chevrolet Volt—the
plug-in hybrid car on which
General Motors is pinning its
resurrection—will get a staggering
230 miles per American gallon (or
97 kilometres per litre) in stop-go
city driving? Well, er, no. That is
just marketing hype, albeit prose
that is permissible under the draft
guidelines for “extended range”
electric vehicles that America’s
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) is currently working on.
When it is launched, late in 2010,
motorists who have bought the
dream will awaken to find their
shiny new Chevy Volts get around
50mpg in traffic.
True, 50mpg is still pretty good
for a roomy five-seater. Though
slightly smaller and a good deal
cheaper than the $40,000 Volt,
Toyota’s latest Prius already boasts
50mpg for combined motorway and
city driving in the United
States—and considerably more in
Japan, where the method of
calculating fuel consumption is
different. And that is the problem.
There is no easy way to compare
the efficiency of an electric
vehicle—plug-in hybrid or pure
electric—with a fossil-fuelled
equivalent.
Comparing the performance of
self-charging hybrids like the
Toyota Prius and the Ford Fusion is
easy. As far as their fuel bills are
concerned, the motorist pays only
for the bit that comes from the
pump. The regenerative energy
captured during braking—which is
used to charge a hybrid’s
battery—is, in effect, free. Like any
other fossil-fuelled car, a self-
charging hybrid’s official fuel
consumption is simply the number
of miles it can eke from a gallon of
petrol while being tested on the
EPA’s cycles that mimic driving on
city routes and faster roads.
Not so the hybrid’s plug-in
siblings. The Volt, for instance, has
enough electrical storage to travel
40 miles (64 kilometres) on battery
power alone. GM reckons that is
enough to enable three out of four
Americans to travel to work and
back on a single charge. But if
owners were to restrict their
motoring to trips of less than 40
miles between charges from the
grid, the Volt would give them, not
the claimed 230mpg, but an almost
infinite number of miles per gallon.
Such quirks make a mockery of the
EPA’s tests.
The EPA has yet to reveal its
draft methodology for testing the
Volt and other plug-ins. It clearly
takes into account some
contribution from the vehicle’s
petrol-powered generator. It also
seems to factor in the cost of the
electricity (a national average of 11
cents per kilowatt-hour is quoted)
used to recharge the battery. But
how 230mpg can be claimed for the
Volt is difficult to fathom.
Start with what is known about
the vehicle’s traction system. GM
reckons the platform needs only 25
kilowatt-hours of energy to cover
100 miles of city driving. At 11
cents a kilowatt-hour, that would
cost $2.75 for 100 miles. If petrol
costs $3 a gallon (as regular does
today), then the Volt would be able
to travel 109 miles for the same
price as that of a gallon of petrol.
What if the owner does 50 miles
between charges instead of 40
miles? Then the Volt’s 1.4 litre
petrol-engine has to kick in to cover
the extra ten miles—not to drive the
wheels directly, like the Prius’s
engine does, but to recharge the
battery, which then feeds juice to
the electric motor, which, in turn,
drives the wheels.
If that were an efficient way of
delivering torque to the wheels, all
cars would have electric
transmission systems instead of
mechanical ones. They don’t, for
good reason. So expect no more
than 20mpg for a car the size and
weight of the Volt when running
under petrol power. In that case, the
fuel used for a 50-mile journey
would be half a gallon and the
efficiency would be 100mpg.
(Alternatively, you could take the
figures for the price of motoring
given above, and calculate an
efficiency of 58mpg.) Go 60 miles
and it would drop to 60mpg using
the first measure, or 44mpg using
the second.
And this assumes that no power-
sapping components are switched
on and the owner drives with a
featherlight foot. In the real world
the Volt’s 40-mile range on battery
power alone is likely to be 30 miles
at best—and perhaps half that if
driver is in a hurry, the terrain is
hilly and the lights, wipers and air-
conditioning are turned on. Any
reduction in battery-only motoring
hits the Volt’s overall fuel economy
hard.
The efficiency ratings that makers
are claiming for their plug-in
hybrids are nonsense. They are
little more than figures plucked
from the air because they depend
on specific sets of circumstances.
That makes comparisons with fossil
-fuelled cars almost impossible.
Petrol cars and diesels can also
get more or fewer miles to the
gallon depending on how they are
driven, but irrespective of the
distance the owner drives. And they
are, of course, oblivious to
electricity rates. So if any
meaningful comparison is to be
made (and one needs to be, so
customers can make intelligent
choices), the best way would be to
determine how many miles could
be driven for the energy used—that
is, the miles per kilowatt-hour. In
those terms, a plug-in hybrid that
uses 25 kilowatt-hours of energy to
go 100 miles would have a “fuel”
consumption of four miles per
kilowatt-hour.
To find out what that is
equivalent to in miles per gallon,
you need to compare the energy
content of the natural gas or coal
used to generate, say, 25 kilowatt-
hours of electricity with the energy
content of the gallons of petrol
needed to go 100 miles. To be
meaningful, however, the
calculation must account, on one
side of the equation, for all the
energy wasted in turning natural
gas or coal into electricity,
transporting it over the grid and
then pumping it into a battery. To
ensure apples are compared with
apples, the other side of the
equation has to take into account all
the energy wasted in refining and
transporting the petrol and pumping
it into a car.
Such an analysis has actually
been done by engineers at AC
Propulsion, a firm in the Los
Angeles area that makes parts for
electric cars. Their conclusion was
that around eight miles per kilowatt
-hour is the equivalent of 100mpg.
So forget GM’s outlandish claims:
the Chevy Volt will get at best
50mpg in the city. As your
correspondent noted at the
beginning, that is not at all
bad—but it is nowhere near the
preposterous 230mpg being touted.
Back to top ^^ Readers'
comments
The Economist welcomes your
views.
Economy/ 15
Ben Bernanke at
Jackson Hole: The
Panic, in Retrospect
(Financial Sector and Stocks
Analysis from Seeking Alpha)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:03:07 PM
I could not resist reading the text
of the Bernanke speech.
It is a recapitulation of the events
of the past year but sheds no light
on the future course of monetary
policy.
There were a couple of interesting
nuggets, though.
He refers to the “near failure” of
Bear Stearns. I guess in the legal
sense, but in reality the firm is
defunct, and would be legally so if
not for the deus ex machina
intervention of the Fed.
The Chairman discusses the
failure of Lehman Brothers and the
rescue of AIG ( AIG). He makes
the case that AIG had good
collateral and Lehman did not and
consequently the Federal Reserve
could not make a loan to Lehman.
In my humble opinion he fails to
note that the failure of AIG would
have had a domino effect which
would have endangered Morgan
Stanley ( MS) and Goldman Sachs (
GS).
He also concedes that the turmoil
in the market last September
through October was a panic. Not
an old-fashioned bank run panic,
but a panic which developed as the
short term liquidity which supports
long term assets was withdrawn.
I find it interesting because it is
unusual for a central banker, I
think, to use the panic word even
retrospectively.
The speech was an interesting
historical account, but I think it is
more valuable for graduate students
writing dissertations about the
Financial Crisis of 2007/2009 than
it is for market participants charting
a trading course for the balance of
this year.
16 Economy/ Social Net/ *
Art.view: Art and intrigue
(The Economist: Daily columns)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 1:43:04 AM
Art.view
Aug 22nd 2009
From The Economist print edition
A museum with a history even
more rococo than its collection
Hertford House, an imposing red
brick house on a leafy London
square was one of several
impressive properties inherited by
the fourth Marquess of Hertford
(1800-1870; he is also called Lord
Hertford). In 1900, having been
bought by the government, it
became the Wallace Collection, a
national museum. With its many
treasures and its domestic setting, it
has been a haven for connoisseurs
and dreamers ever since.
The generously proportioned
rooms envelop one of the great
surviving privately formed
collections of 18th-century French
art, furniture and gold boxes. This
ensemble of opulent objects and
lyrical pictures is displayed in
rooms “papered” with intensely
coloured silks. Crimson, emerald,
coral and sapphire walls sing in
harmony with the glazes of the
Sèvres porcelain for which the
collection is justly famous. (Even
some of the dainty fruitwood,
ormolu-mounted furniture is inset
with Sèvres plaques.)
Among many exceptional pieces
of French furniture, two by the
celebrated Jean-Henri Riesener,
cabinetmaker to the king, stand out:
one is an engagingly laid marquetry
Shocking New Michael Jackson Drug Revelations
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:00:00 PM
Michael Jackson insider Dr. Susan
Etok recalls the moment when the
King of Pop allegedly asked her for
desk, among the first with a rolltop;
the other is an elaborate secretaire
delivered to Marie Antoinette.
There are also gold boxes, elaborate
gilded bronze mounted clocks,
paintings by Boucher(including his
portrait of Madame de Pompadour,
which is pictured on this page),
Watteau and Fragonard. The
latter’s famous “Swing” appears
simultaneously light-hearted,
lascivious and cruel. But at the
Wallace, the world does not begin
and end in France. There is also
armour, majolica, medieval and
Renaissance objets d’art and scores
of Old Master paintings including
outstanding works by Rembrandt,
Velasquez, Hals and Titian.
At the entrance to each room, a
photograph displays what it looked
like in the 19th century, when this
was still a private home. Although
the collection remains the same as
it was then, the current artful
arrangement makes them look far
less cluttered. Most of what was
and is on view had been bought by
the fourth Marquess, a prodigious
art collector with a fortune so vast
he could outbid almost anyone else.
Lord Hertford spent most of his life
in France; Hertford House became
his store for what he had no room
for there.
One may wonder how a house
belonging to one man and filled
with his collection bears another's
name. To simplify a complex tale:
Lord Hertford bequeathed his
collection to Richard Wallace, his
long-time secretary, salesroom
the drug Diprivan -- and weighs in
on Mark Lester's claim that he may
be the biological father of Paris in
part two of her incredible ET
interview!
"Alarm bells went off in my head
agent and illegitimate son. Wallace,
whose mother was Scottish, had
been raised in Paris by Lord
Hertford’s mother, who pretended
to be his aunt (he claimed to have
learned the truth of his paternity
only after his father’s death.)
Wallace’s inheritance also included
a splendidly furnished Paris
apartment, an enchanting little
chateau in the Bois de Boulogne
called Bagatelle and a stupendous
fortune (which was compounded by
money from his aunt/grandmother,
who had also been left a large
fortune by her father, a duke).
Richard Wallace, once flush,
began adding to the collection;
much of the armour, Renaissance
and medieval objects on view come
from him. But mainly he devoted
himself to looking after the
collection and the rehabilitation of
his late father’s by-then inglorious
reputation. (Secretiveness,
debauchery and stinginess were
only some of the fourth Marquess’s
well-documented attributes.)
Wallace guarded the collection
throughout the siege of Paris and
the uprising that followed, and he
gave millions to help survivors.
Among his gifts were numerous
cast-iron water fountains; some of
them remain in place today.
Soon after the siege, Wallace
decided to move with his wife and
the collection to London. While
Hertford House was undergoing a
major restoration and enlargement,
he loaned hundreds of pictures and
objects from the collection to a new
and I knew I needed to get out of
there right away," says the surprise
witness about when Jackson
allegedly asked her for Diprivan --
and reportedly knew the proper
dosage he needed. "When
London museum. The show caused
a sensation. Five million people
visited during the three years it was
on public view. Lord Hertford’s
reputation as a discerning, major
collector was secured.
Sir Richard Wallace, as he later
became, died in 1890. He left
everything to his wife. Before her
death seven years later, Lady
Wallace bequeathed the contents of
Hertford House to the English
people. It was, and is said to
remain, the greatest ever single
collection bequeathed to the nation.
The Wallace Collection has been a
haven for connoisseurs and
dreamers ever since. The ebullient
Rosalind Savill (now Dame
Rosalind) has been its director
since 1992. She has enlivened the
Wallace, intellectually as well as
decoratively. But even now, with
annual visitors numbering around
300,000, it remains a place to study
and daydream.
October may produce scenes of
rare frenzy at the Wallace
Collection when a show of 25 oils
by Damien Hirst opens. He has
chosen to show his work in gilded
frames against walls of blue silk
specially woven in Lyon. Whether
this is hubris or homage, the show
is bound to attract thousands of new
visitors to this marvellous place.
Back to top ^^ Readers'
comments
The Economist welcomes your
views.
somebody has an addiction all they
care about is getting their next fix."
On Friday morning, former
'Oliver!' child actor Mark Lester,
who was good friends with Jackson
and godfather to his children, said
Internet News Record
Top 10
YouTube Fail
Videos
By Barb Dybwad (Mashable!)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 1:38:50 AM
It was the best of times, it was the
worst of times — but in the age of
both wisdom and foolishness,
somehow it always seems like the
latter is what gets caught on video.
It may not be as highbrow as the
works of Shakespeare are perceived
now, but surely even the Bard
could not resist a chuckle at some
of the finest fails YouTube has to
offer. And if laughter is truly the
best medicine, we hope you enjoy
this dose.
10. Skateboard Fail
9. Ski Jump Fail
8. Border Patrol Fail
7. Driving Test Fail
6. Law Enforcement Fail
5. Slingshot Fail
4. Catapult Fail
3. Carwash Fail
2. Parking Fail
1. Summertime Fails
Why is human failure so
fascinating? And do you have any
other great examples of it? Let us
know in the comments! Reviews:
YouTube
Tags: fail, funny, video, youtube
on the "Today" show that he
believed he was the biological
father of Michael's daughter Paris
after donating sperm.
Internet News Record
Politics in Iran : Battling on
(The Economist: News
analysis)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 7:12:44 PM
Politics in Iran
Aug 22nd 2009
From Economist.com Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad has announced his
chosen cabinet. Whether he will get
it is another matter
BATTLING to get his second
term as Iran's president off the
ground, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
this week named his cabinet. His
choices suggest that, in the face of
ongoing political turmoil, he prizes
personal loyalty over competence.
Mr Ahmadinejad has long
struggled with his cabinet. In his
first term he strove for months to
get his ministers approved by
parliament, and then went on to
lose so many of them through
resignations and sackings that he
came close to facing a vote of no
confidence. Parliament now has
until August 30th to consider his
latest nominations and there are
already signs that this will be a
difficult process.
Mr Ahmadinejad enters his
second term facing unusually
difficult challenges. The street
protests that followed a disputed
presidential election have died
down, but have not stopped
entirely. Many of Iran’s most
A Pre That Looks Like an iPhone? There’s An Ad For That [Video]
By Barb Dybwad (Mashable!)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:03:36 PM
If you watch these two videos
back to back, you’d be tempted to
think they were separated at birth.
Is Palm desperate enough to
counteract rumored lackluster sales
to literally steal a page from
Apple’s marketing playbook?
powerful figures, including senior
clergy, have lined up against him.
And the president’s parliamentary
base is weak. Nor does it help that
the country’s economic woes have
continued to worsen.
The president has responded by
putting a premium on loyalty rather
than on experience when choosing
ministers. Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi,
Fatemeh Ajorlou and Sousan
Keshavarz, if confirmed, would be
the first female cabinet ministers
since the Islamic revolution, taking
responsibility for health, social
welfare and education respectively.
Although some may rejoice at the
promotion of women, liberals
grumble that all three are hardline
conservatives with little experience
in their appointed fields.
Nor will moderates be pleased by
the choice of candidate for the post
of defence minister, Brigadier-
General Ahmad Vahidi. He was
previously the commander of the
Quds Force, an elite arm of the
Revolutionary Guard that is
accused by outsiders of supporting
groups such as Hizbullah. Mostafa
Mohammad Najjar, the man picked
to run the interior ministry, also has
close links to the Revolutionary
Guard.
The Revolutionary Guard has
accrued enormous economic and
political clout under Mr
This Bell Canada Palm Pre ad
seems to indicate as much. If you
squint and overlay one audio track
onto the other (in fact, someone
did), you’d be hard-pressed to tell
the difference.
Both videos are embedded below.
Have a look and tell us what you
think: is Palm trying to steal
Apple’s thunder? Is that a bit of
Ahmadinejad. These appointments
would consolidate its position and
close ties to the president. But they
would not assuage fears of those,
both conservatives and reformists,
who see the increasing influence of
the Revolutionary Guard as a
creeping militarisation of Iran.
The opposition has not fallen
silent. Mehdi Karroubi, one of the
defeated presidential candidates,
has continued to lambast the
government’s treatment of its
opponents and protesters,
comparing its behaviour
unfavourably with that of Savak,
the Shah’s notorious secret police.
He has called for an investigation
into the rape of people arrested
during the post-election protests.
He has also demanded a meeting
with Iran’s leaders so he can show
evidence to back up his allegations.
One result of the continuing
turmoil is that the relationship
between Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
the supreme leader, and Mr
Ahmadinejad has come under some
strain. Mr Khamenei, against
previous practice, overtly supported
Mr Ahmadinejad in the political
turmoil that followed the elections.
But in doing so, he has personally
come under criticism for the first
time.
In turn the supreme leader has
been anxious to shore up his own
iPhone-envy we smell, or are we
just projecting? And is it all moot
Economy/ Social Net/ *
position. To that end he has picked
Sadeq Larijani to be the head of the
judiciary. By choosing the brother
of Ali Larijani, speaker of the
parliament, who has criticised the
president for his choice of
inexperienced ministers, the
supreme leader has promoted a
family that is not entirely
sympathetic to Mr Ahmadinejad.
The powerful Larijanis are however
close to the supreme leader (a third
brother, Mohammad, is an adviser
to Mr Khamenei).
Sadeq Larijani takes over the
judiciary as it comes in for criticism
for staging show trials of
opposition supporters. His
appointment could make Mr
Ahmadinejad uncomfortable.
Larijanis now head two of Iran’s
three branches of government and
are emerging as a potential
counterweight to Mr Ahmadinejad.
As staunch conservatives they have
supported Mr Ahmadinejad’s
victory, but they have also sought
to distance themselves from the
president’s hardline principalist
movement. It may not be a smooth
road ahead for the president.
Back to top ^^ Readers'
comments
The Economist welcomes your
views.
since the Microsoft Fune will blow
them both out of the water? Let us
know in the comments. Bell
Canada Palm Pre Ad
iPhone 3GS Ad
[via TUAW]
Tags: advertising, apple, iphone,
MARKETING, Palm Pre, video
17
REAL OR FAKE: One
Woman’s Embarrassing
Facebook Message
By Pete Cashmore (Mashable!)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 9:28:16 AM
The top item on many social news
sites this morning is a screenshot
(below) that purportedly shows an
embarrassing message a woman
posted to her public Facebook page.
If real, it’s a mistake that might
take some time to recover from.
Is it genuine thought? The jury’s
out: while it doesn’t appear to be
Photoshopped, and the woman’s
friends are definitely real Facebook
members, it’s very possible the
account was compromised by
another person.
What do you think: real, fake, a
malicious prank…or something
else?
For more Facebook funnies, see
Top 5 Funniest Fake Facebook
Pages
The full size image is here.
[via Reddit] Reviews: Facebook,
reddit.com
Tags: facebook
Bogosphere: The
Strangest Things Pulled
Out of Peat Bogs
By Alexis Madrigal (Wired Top
Stories)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:49:00 PM
When a keg of 3,000-year-old
butter was pulled out of an Irish
bog this week, Wired Science
asked, what else has been found in
bogs? Turns out, a lot of weird
stuff.
18 Economy/ *
Private security contractors: Blackwater's dark
heart
(The Economist: News
analysis)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 1:21:59 AM
Private security contractors
Aug 21st 2009 | WASHINGTON,
DC
From Economist.com New
revelations about an American
private-security contractor
THE “war on terror” has left
many blots on America’s
reputation—weapons of mass
destruction, Abu Ghraib prison,
Guantánamo Bay—and one stain
continues to darken with time. This
week the New York Times reported
that the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) had once hired
Blackwater, a private-security
contractor, in connection with a
plots to assassinate al-Qaeda
operatives. It was the latest in a
string of controversial news. This
month Erik Prince, Blackwater’s
founder and chairman, was accused
of facilitating or committing
murder. Blackwater released a
statement calling the allegations
“unsubstantiated and offensive”.
Blackwater is not the only
security contractor in the Middle
East. The Congressional Budget
Office estimates that America spent
between $6 billion and $10 billion
on the services of these firms from
Gmail's task list can now be e-mailed
By Josh Lowensohn
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:49:00 PM
Google has enhanced the task
feature that's integrated into Gmail
and other Google products to let
users share their lists with others.
Gmail users can now choose to
share an entire task list in a new e-
2003 to 2007. But Blackwater is the
most prominent. In 2004 insurgents
in Fallujah killed four of its
employees, burned their bodies and
hung two from a bridge over the
Euphrates. The sight of charred
American bodies caused uproar at
home. Marines stormed Fallujah
days later. By 2007 Blackwater was
accused of being a perpetrator. The
company’s employees opened fire
on a busy square in Baghdad,
killing 17 Iraqis, claiming they
were ambushed. The incident
strained America’s relations with
Iraq. Blackwater exemplified an
American effort gone terribly
wrong.
The latest revelation is that the
CIA hired Blackwater in 2004 for a
multimillion-dollar plan to locate
and kill members of al-Qaeda. In
June a horrified Leon Panetta, the
new director of the CIA, called an
emergency meeting to brief
Congress on the programme, which
had been kept secret. According to
the New York Times, Blackwater
helped with training, planning and
surveillance. It is unclear whether
the CIA intended to use Blackwater
to carry out the assassinations—no
suspected terrorists were killed
under the auspices of the
programme. But the scheme adds to
doubts over the role of private-
mail message. Doing so transfers
all of your tasks including
information like due dates, and any
tasks that have been completed
which show up as being crossed
out.
One thing to note is that this only
works in Gmail, and not in other
places where tasks can be found,
including Google Calendar, the
security firms in the war and efforts
to hold contractors accountable.
A case in court in Washington,
DC, may eventually shed some
light on the way the company
works. In December 2008 federal
prosecutors charged five
Blackwater employees with
manslaughter for the Baghdad
shootings in 2007. A sixth
employee has already pleaded
guilty.
In the meantime, Blackwater
faces some of the most serious
allegations yet. A group of Iraqis,
aided by the Centre for
Constitutional Rights, a New York-
based human-rights pressure group,
is suing Blackwater for war crimes,
wrongful death and more. In sworn
statements submitted for the case
on August 3rd, two former
employees allege that Mr Prince
may have helped to murder at least
one person who had divulged, or
was about to divulge, damning
information to the government. He
denies the claims. The affidavits
also claim that Mr Prince smuggled
weapons into Iraq and that he
“views himself as a Christian
crusader tasked with eliminating
Muslims and the Islamic faith from
the globe”.
With these cases plodding
through America’s courts, security
mobile version of Gmail, and on
iGoogle. Although knowing
Google, the e-mailing feature will
contractors continue to work
abroad. Blackwater no longer has
an operating licence in Iraq—local
officials refused to renew it—and
the firm has lost a big contract to
defend diplomats. But many former
employees of Blackwater are now
working for the new holder of that
contract, Triple Canopy. And
Blackwater has rebranded itself as
Xe Services.
As the number of contractors in
Afghanistan grows, the mistakes of
Iraq may be repeated. Training for
Afghanistan’s security contractors
is weak and efforts to monitor them
are disjointed, according to a report
released in June by the Commission
on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and
Afghanistan, a bipartisan group set
up by Congress. Four Xe
employees are under investigation
for the death of an Afghan man in
May. Critics may be gladdened to
learn that there is at least some
semblance of oversight. The main
body charged with supervising
contractors in Afghanistan is also a
contractor.
Back to top ^^ Readers'
comments
The Economist welcomes your
views.
make its way to each of these
places soon enough.
Gmail tasks is the one and only
feature to "graduate" from Gmail
labs, which is Google's test bed for
new and experimental features. The
feature was launched in early
December of last year, and
graduated from labs last month.
The rest of the labs-only features,
Internet News Record
Judge Makes Ruling
on Michael Jackson
Memorabilia Deal
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:12:00 PM
A Los Angeles judge made a
ruling Friday about a proposed
memorabilia deal that the late King
of Pop's mother, Katherine Jackson,
had objected to. Read on to find out
how the judge ruled…
The Associated Press reports that
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge
Mitchell Beckloff has approved a
deal between Michael Jackson' s
estate and concert promoter AEG
Live to move forward with an
exhibit of the late star's
memorabilia. Attorneys for
Jackson's mother had opposed the
deal, arguing that the estate should
earn more than an even 50-50 split
of profits from the deal, among
other concerns.
The approved deal will consist of
a three-city exhibition that is
expected to open around the time of
the "This Is It" film release on Oct.
28, which will be a documentary of
Jackson's rehearsal footage. The
exhibit is expected to earn up to $6
million for the Jackson estate,
according to the AP.
including the 13 that were launched
alongside the release of the labs
program, continue to require user
action to be enabled.
Gmail users can now e-mail a
task list to someone else right
through the tasks UI.(Credit:
CNET)
Originally posted at Web Crawler
Internet News Record
Europe.view: No comparison
(The Economist: Daily columns)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:25:33 AM
Europe.view
Aug 21st 2009
From Economist.com
Criminalising historical
investigation is wrong
Correction to this article
HOW far does context determine
blame and praise? That is a
question facing anyone who wants
to pass a judgment or make an
observation on Hitler, Stalin or the
weather. Taken to one extreme,
when every attribute is seen in
complete isolation, morals and
reason disappear. Hitler was nice to
animals. Stalin loved children.
Churchill drank too much. John F
Kennedy was a philanderer. It is a
cool day in summer, so global
warming is a nonsense.
At the other extreme, when
everything is connected, judgment
becomes impossible for fear of
leaving out some important
comparison. Why complain about
Stalin when you could write about
Mao? What about the 19th century
colonial empires? They killed
millions more than the totalitarian
regimes of the 20th century. Who
are you as a British/American
/German/Chinese/Russian
Corporate BlackBerrys to get Google Apps syncing
By Jessica Dolcourt
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:12:00 PM
If your office has given you a
BlackBerry for work purposes, you
may soon be accessing your Google
Apps Gmail, calendar, and contacts
via the BlackBerry Enterprise
Server.
On Friday, Google announced
that some functionality in Google
Apps, its suite of premium
enterprise-level applications, will
commentator to say anything about
Russia/Germany/China/America/Br
itain? That may be a good debating
tactic, but it leads to mental
paralysis: when everything matters,
nothing matters.
The stormy response to a recent
column about an OSCE resolution
equating Stalin and Hitler
highlights the issue. One line of
attack goes like this: the article
“forgot” to mention the crimes of
the British. It is certainly true that
Britain has much to be ashamed of
before, during and after the second
world war. The Munich agreement
with Hitler to eviscerate
Czechoslovakia is one (which the
article mentioned); the deportation
of Cossacks and other anti-Soviet
forces to certain death after the war
in Operation Keelhaul is another. A
third was decades of denial that the
Katyn massacre was the work of
the Soviets, not the Nazis (that
subject occasionally surfaces in this
column too).
But the article was not trying to
argue Soviet history is more (or
less) wicked than Britain’s. Any
such comparisons are fraught with
difficulty, not least over how you
measure wickedness. It does not
come in convenient units (evils,
giga-evils, tera-evils) that can be
now give company-issued
BlackBerrys some push and sync
functionality.
The Google Apps Connector
promises to push Gmail messages
within 60 seconds, and sync in-box
actions like assigning labels and
archiving messages. You'll also be
able to search contacts from the
company's global address list, a
huge bonus for mobile workers.
Synchronization between the
Google Calendar and the
BlackBerry calendar is one-way in
neatly added up to produce a
balance sheet of murder and
mayhem.
What can be said, quite clearly, is
that Britain, like almost all other
countries that claim to be civilised,
does not criminalise investigation
into its history. If you are an
Australian who wants to research
the genocidal treatment of
Tasmanians, or an American who
wants to write about the bombing
of German civilians, you may even
get a scholarship. Unlike in Russia,
you certainly don’t risk a jail
sentence. The resolution by the
Parliamentary Assembly of the
Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe is chiefly
admirable because it challenges the
Kremlin’s attempt to put this area
of inquiry off limits.
The OSCE resolution is open to
legitimate challenge. John
Laughland, a British historian at the
pro-Kremlin Institute for
Democracy and Co-operation in
Paris, argued on the Russia Today
channel that politicians make bad
historians. Nobody comes out well
from the run-up to the second world
war. Poland, he noted, helped
dismember Czechoslovakia, seizing
the town of Cieszyn/Tšin. Hitler’s
plan to attack Poland predates the
this release, with Google's calendar
populating your schedule on the
phone. Google plans to include
bidirectional calendar syncing in
the future.
While the connector opens up
syncing to some of the Google
Apps, in this iteration it does not
sync with Google Docs, the intranet
site-hosting app called Google Site,
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, so that
deal, shameful though it was, did
not provide the definitive go-ahead
for the invasion. Mr Laughland also
argues that Nazism’s central
features were war and racial
persecution, whereas Soviet
communism was neither racist nor
(under Stalin) expansionist.
These are indeed good subjects
for historians. But it does not mean
that politicians should ignore them.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is not
a uniquely iniquitous event. Even
Mr Putin (shown here speaking on
the issue at a press conference on
May 10th 2005) seems a bit hazy
about the details. So the 70th
anniversary of the Stalin-Hitler deal
is a good time to raise it in
discussion—particularly in
countries where doing so runs no
risk of prosecution.
Correction: An earlier version of
this article said that Vladimir
Putin's press conference took place
on December 12th 2007. In fact it
took place on May 10th 2005. We
regret the error. This article was
corrected on August 21st 2009.
Back to top ^^ Readers'
comments
The Economist welcomes your
views.
and Google Video. You'll still be
able to view content through the
mobile browser, however.
The Google Apps Connector for
BlackBerry Enterprise Server (
download) is available for free to
corporate Google Apps Premier and
Education Editions customers, and
must be implemented by an IT
administrator.
Check out more details in this
Google blog post.
Economy/ * 19
'Basterds' Invade
Nashville with
Al Gore
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:47:00 PM
Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino
are in the business of making
movies, and cousin, business is a-
boomin'! We were with a few of the
'Inglourious Basterds' themselves at
the Nashville premiere of their
action-packed World War II
thriller, and you'll never guess who
hosted the red carpet event… Al
Gore!
"I had an opportunity to see a
copy of it beforehand and I'm
enthusiastic about the quality of the
entertainment," says the former
vice president. "I think it's a
suspenseful, entertaining movie and
I think people will like it. The main
character's from Tennessee, I might
add."
Al was there to show his support
as a favor to the film's producer
Lawrence Bender, who also
produced Al's acclaimed
documentary 'An Inconvenient
Truth.' Quentin is a Tennessee
native from the Knoxville area, and
Brad's character, Aldo Raine, is
from the Volunteer state.
BlizzCon 2009: Latest
Buzz From Blizzard
Blowout
By Tracey John (Wired Top
Stories)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 11:00:00 AM
Get the news from Blizzard
Entertainment, straight from the
World of Warcraft maker's massive
convention floor in Anaheim,
California.
20 Economy/ *
A sunny outlook
(The Economist: News
analysis)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 1:18:33 AM
Aug 21st 2009
From the Economist Intelligence
Unit ViewsWire Indonesia's robust
economy continues to grow
Indonesia has proved to be less
exposed to the global recession
than many of its neighbours, and its
economy expanded by 4.2% year
on year in the first half of 2009. As
a result, the Economist Intelligence
Unit has revised up its forecast for
real GDP growth to 4.1% (from
2.6% in our previous forecast) in
2009 and 4.4% (from 3.4%
previously) in 2010.
The government's Rp71.3trn
(US$7.1bn) stimulus package for
2009, which includes cash transfers
and higher salaries for civil
servants, is supporting household
expenditure. So are lower prices for
food and fuel, which have provided
a boost to personal disposable
income.
However, we forecast that fixed
investment will expand by only
0.5% this year, as domestic firms
will experience difficulty in
obtaining capital. Before the onset
of the global financial crisis,
domestic non-financial corporations
obtained almost 50% of their
financing from abroad. The
Western investors that provided
much of this cash have since
Mario Kart Power-Ups
Come to Indycar Racing
By Carey Lundin (Wired Top
Stories)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 11:50:00 AM
The "power ups" that have
reinvigorated the Indy Racing
League are the result of a cool
software hack. We probably won't
see the push-to-pass in road cars.
scrambled to sell assets to meet
their own short-term liabilities,
which have become difficult to roll
over. As a result, many investment
plans in Indonesia are being
postponed or dropped. Moreover,
weak overseas demand will
continue to prompt companies in
the export sector to reduce
investment. Although firms have so
far not moved to lay off employees
in large numbers, possibly because
of the high severance costs that
they must pay to sacked workers,
we expect the unemployment rate
to rise in response to the
contraction in investment.
Although exporters will struggle
amid economic weakness in 2009,
imports are also likely to decline
significantly. We therefore expect
the foreign balance to continue to
make a positive contribution to
growth. Indeed, this contribution, at
1.2 percentage points, will be
double that in 2007 and 2008.
There are still downside risks to
our forecast. The international
financial crisis could deepen, with a
more damaging impact on global
economic growth and capital
inflows to Indonesia than we
currently expect. The rupiah's
exchange rate is also important to
the health of the Indonesian
economy. Although the currency
has appreciated since mid-March,
renewed weakness is possible, and
the effect of a collapse in the value
Danger Room in Afghanistan: Hansel and Gretel vs.
Roadside Bombs
By Noah Shachtman (Wired
Top Stories)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:53:00 PM
of the rupiah (not our central
forecast) would be to lower the
spending power of most
Indonesians. A weaker rupiah
would also make it more difficult
for local corporations to meet their
external debt obligations, raising
the number of bankruptcies.
In addition, political risks exist: if
deteriorating economic conditions
spark social unrest, investment
growth could be even more
sluggish than currently forecast as
investors lose confidence in the
country. That said, the outlook
remains broadly encouraging. The
convincing re-election of the
president, Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, is likely to boost
political stability and will give the
new administration a strong
mandate to pursue economic
reforms—even though many of
these will have to wait until the
worst of the global economic
downturn has passed. There are
also signs that the rate of
contraction in the global economy
has slowed in recent months, while
conditions in global financial
markets have also improved. A
stronger recovery in the global
economy than we currently forecast
would enable Indonesia's economy
to grow at a faster rate.
Back to top ^^ Readers'
comments
The Economist welcomes your
views.
Combining off-the-shelf GPS
units with a British tactic from
Northern Ireland helps U.S.
Marines avoid improvised bombs.
Loans Aren't Better than
Securities
(Financial Sector and Stocks
Analysis from Seeking Alpha)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 1:35:54 PM
A bad asset is a bad asset, whether
it’s a loan or a security. And the
distinction between the two isn’t
particularly helpful, as is evidenced
by equal-and-opposite newspaper
stories today.
On the one hand, there’s Floyd
Norris in the NYT:
Banks are now losing money and
going broke the old-fashioned way:
They made loans that will never be
repaid.
As the number of banks closed by
the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation has grown rapidly this
year, it has become clear that most
of them had nothing to do with the
strange financial products that
seemed to dominate the news when
the big banks were nearing collapse
and being bailed out by the
government.
There were no C.D.O’s, or
S.I.V.’s or AAA-rated “supersenior
tranches” that turned out to have
little value. Certainly there were no
“C.D.O.-squareds.”
Staying away from strange
securities has not made things
better.
On the other hand, there’s Robin
Sidel in the WSJ:
U.S. banks have been dying at the
fastest rate since 1992, mainly
because of bad loans they made.
Now the banking crisis is entering a
new stage, as lenders succumb to
large amounts of toxic loans and
securities they bought from other
banks.
Federal officials on Thursday
were poised to seize Guaranty
Financial Group Inc., in what
Internet News Record
would be the 10th-largest bank
failure in U.S. history, and broker a
sale of the Texas bank to Banco
Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA of
Spain. Guaranty’s woes were
caused by its investment portfolio,
stuffed with deteriorating securities
created from pools of mortgages
originated by some of the nation’s
worst lenders.
Guaranty owns roughly $3.5
billion of securities backed by
adjustable-rate mortgages, with two
-thirds of the loans in foreclosure-
wracked California, Florida and
Arizona, according to the
company’s latest report.
Delinquency rates on the holdings
have soared as high as 40%, forcing
write-downs last month that
consumed all of the bank’s capital.
Guaranty is one of thousands of
banks that invested in such
securities, which were often highly
rated but ultimately hinged on the
health of the mortgage industry and
financial institutions.
So, which is it? Was Phase 1 of
the crisis based on securities while
Phase 2 is based on loans, or was
Phase 1 the souring loans and now
Phase 2 is the securities? Frankly,
it’s neither. Banks’ assets soured,
and they failed. Some of those
assets were loans, and others were
securities. Some banks trusted the
structured-finance wizards more
than they trusted their own
underwriters, and loaded up on
highly-rated CDOs. Others trusted
their own underwriting more than
the structured-finance wizards, and
lent out billions of dollars in
housing loans which will never be
repaid. Both were doomed: the only
way to win was not to play.
Internet News Record
Big Banks: Still in Charge
(Financial Sector and Stocks
Analysis from Seeking Alpha)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:22:19 PM
Sheila Bair has moved with
impressive alacrity to shutter failed
small and medium-sized banks. But
she is still held hostage by the too-
big-to-fail four.
Over the last eight days, her
agency has been particularly busy,
handling the two largest bank
failures of the year. Last Friday it
was Colonial Bank, today it will be
Guaranty Bank.
With $25 billion and $14 billion
of assets respectively, Colonial and
Guaranty are the sixth- and 10th-
largest failures in the history of the
FDIC. Still, they pale in size
compared to the biggest banks.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch (
BAC), which had $2.3 trillion of
assets at the end of the second
quarter, is nearly 100 times larger
than Colonial. JPMorgan Chase (
JPM), with $2.1 trillion, and
Citigroup ( C), with $1.8 trillion,
are nearly as big. Wells Fargo (
WFC) had $1.3 trillion, 100 times
more than Guaranty. These
amounts don’t include hundreds of
billions of dollars of off-balance
sheet assets.
Yet even Colonial and Guaranty
are large enough to give the FDIC
indigestion. Its deposit insurance
fund had just $13 billion as of
March 31. The 56 failures since
then will cost it an estimated $16
billion, including nearly $3 billion
for Colonial. (That amount
excludes Guaranty – the FDIC
should provide an estimate for
those losses later today.)
It’s an unsettling thought if you
have money in a bank. Officially,
FDIC backs $4.8 trillion worth of
deposits. If you include
“temporarily” insured deposits, the
total is $6.3 trillion. Yet the
insurance fund protecting these
deposits is going broke. Soon, the
FDIC may have to draw on its
credit line at Treasury.
It’s not surprising, given the sorry
state of the Deposit Insurance Fund
and the gargantuan heft of the big
four, that FDIC is taking a
bifurcated approach to bank
resolutions.
Bair has moved decisively to
close small and medium-sized
banks. With the monsters, she not
only assisted in their bailouts —
providing federal insurance for
their debt even as she already
insures their deposits — she also
sponsored their continued growth
— putting WaMu in the hands of
JPMorgan and pushing Wachovia
into the arms of Wells Fargo.
Not that she had much choice.
The biggest banks are far too big
for her to resolve. One way to
measure this is deposits in failed
Economy/ 21
banks as a percentage of GDP.
(Click chart to enlarge in new
window)
In 1934, the worst year for bank
failures during the Depression, the
total was 6.4 percent. In 1989, the
most expensive year for the FDIC
during the S&L scandal, it was 2.5
percent. Last year, the figure was
1.6 percent.
But the 2008 figure excludes Citi,
BofA and Wachovia, which
properly should be dumped in the
failure bucket. Citi and BofA were
goners without bailouts while
Wachovia failed and fell into the
arms of bailout recipient Wells
BIG page 22
22 Economy/ Social Net/
Proposal for Fed to Become the Next
AIG
(Financial Sector and Stocks
Analysis from Seeking Alpha)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:13:08 PM
You thought the Fed had a lot of
freedom? You ain't seen nothing
yet. According to two MIT
economists, Ricardo Caballero and
Pablo Kurlat, the Fed should
directly get into the credit default
swap business to "prevent the next
crisis." Says the WSJ:
Their proposal will be debated
today at the Fed’s annual Jackson
Hole, Wyo., symposium by the
world’s leading central bankers and
economists. Harvard’s Kenneth
Rogoff, former chief International
Monetary Fund economist, will
present a critique.
Just in case you missed what
destroyed AIG, and what, contrary
to the current CEO's desire, will be
the reason why AIG will be
subsidized by taxpayers for
centuries, is selling gluts of CDS on
virtually anything that had any risk
in it. But the MIT guys think next
time around AIG should actually be
the Fed:
The two professors say the
underlying idea — selling
insurance against extreme financial
risk — should be in the Fed’s
arsenal to manage financial crises.
“Insurance is an effective and
cheap tool during a panic,” they say
in their Jackson Hole paper. The
Fed did provide an ad-hoc form of
insurance during the crisis -–
guarantees to Citigroup Inc. and
Bank of America Corp. on the
value of more than $400 billion in
assets they held. More broadly, the
Fed provided insurance to the
whole financial system when
officials there vowed to do
“whatever it takes” to stabilize
markets last fall and extended their
safety net beyond banks to AIG.
The professors say the bank
guarantee program should be
formalized in instruments called
tradable insurance credits which
could be triggered by banks and
even hedge funds if another crisis
erupts.
Alas, some red lights ahead of
this proposal are imminent:
There are some practical
problems with the idea. The Fed
was able to offer these guarantees
to Bank of America and Citigroup
using legal authority only allowed
during “unusual and exigent”
emergencies. To make ‘TICs’ a
formal part of its toolkit, it would
likely need congressional approval.
That would likely be a tough sell
with Congress now populated by
many restive lawmakers who
complain the Fed used its power
too expansively during the crisis.
This may be a tough nut to crack
as lately over 280 members of
Congress have been pushing for
limited the Fed's powers, not
expanding it.
Yet most interesting, is that the
Fed may have well already entered
the CDS arena. Recent TIC data
(not Tradable Insurance Credits,
but the Treasury International
Capital variety) indicate that
beginning in March the Fed started
getting involved in derivatives
classified as " Other Contracts By
Risk Type", to the tune of over $1.3
trillion dollars!
Perhaps before the Fed decides to
wholeheartedly dominate CDS
trading in addition to every other
component of the financial system,
they can clarify what exactly is the
nature of these various "other"
derivatives.
Granted, while trillion is the new
million, US taxpayers may be quite
curious to know why since the start
of QE the Fed has been involved
with not only Credit, but Equity
and All Other types of this new
form of derivative contract.
hat tip Dan
Internet News Record
BIG
continued from page 21
Fargo. When you include those be downsized dramatically. A tax
three, deposits in failed banks jump
to 15.7 percent of GDP for 2008.
The FDIC, which was created to
on assets is a good idea, but not
enough. To break them up,
Washington should limit the
protect society from deposit runs, is deposits in any single bank to a
no longer able to fulfill its mission threshold far below what the big
because the biggest banks have four currently hold.
grown far beyond its grasp.
That’s why these banks need to
ODD: AT&T and Apple
Both Deny Rejecting Google
Voice From App Store
By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:45:58 PM
One of the hottest controversies
continuing to study the Google
on the Web right now involves the Voice application and its potential
rejection of Google Voice from
impact on the iPhone user
Apple’s iTunes App Store. The experience. Google is of course free
FCC is looking into the issue, and
to provide Google Voice on the
Google is working on a iPhone as a web application
workaround to offer Voice as a web
through Apple’s Safari browser,
-based iPhone application. just as they do for desktop PCs, or
Today brings an interesting new
to provide its “Google-branded”
twist in the saga: AT&T, the user experience on other phones,
iPhone’s exclusive carrier in the
including Android-based phones,
US, tells the FCC that it had and let consumers make their
nothing to do with Google Voice
choices.”
being rejected. Meanwhile, in a It would seem that at the moment,
separate statement, Apple says that
both companies are hiding behind
“contrary to published reports, semantics, because clearly, there is
Apple has not rejected the Google
no Google Voice application
Voice application, and continues to available for iPhone, and Google is
study it.”
actively working on an alternative
The key points from AT&T’s (which, seems to be fine with
statement: says“Let me state
Apple). Now, it’s up to the FCC to
unequivocally, AT&T had no role decide whether this is anti-
in any decision by Apple to not
competitive, or simply sound
accept the Google Voice business on Apple’s part that is in
application for inclusion in the
the best interest of customers.
Apple App Store … AT&T was not To be continued … Reviews:
asked about the matter by Apple at
Android, Google, Google Voice
any time, nor did we offer any view Tags: apple, att, Google, Google
one way or the other.” Voice
And from Apple’s: “We are
Internet News Record
TWEET SUCCESS: Why We Love Twitter’s 140 Character
Limit
By Barb Dybwad (Mashable!)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 8:54:24 AM
From its very inception, Twitter
faced complaints from the peanut
gallery about its 140 character
posting “limitation.” Over time new
services sprung up to address the
perceived “short-coming” of the
microblogging service, from
TwitLonger to Maxitweet to Glide
Engage: essentially Twitter with
1,400 characters.
Some folks will probably get
some value out of those services,
but I’m going to make the argument
that Twitter is the unique and
special snowflake that it is
precisely because of its 140
character “limitation.” If brevity is
the soul of wit, we are all facing an
unprecedented opportunity to be
hilarious all day long. Let’s not
squander it!
Creative Limitations are Good
In some ways it’s natural to
always want more. We’re an all-
you-can-eat society that’s always-
on, and we don’t take kindly to
limitations in almost any form.
People had the same reaction
when Flickr launched video
uploads with a 90 second time
constraint. At the time it seemed
like 90 seconds just wasn’t good
enough for anything. The family
reunion, junior’s graduation, and
cousin’s wedding could simply not
be uploaded to Flickr in their
entirety.
And looking back on it now —
aren’t you glad? There is something
about imposing limitations that
forces us to stop, reflect, and often
edit the material we’re trying to
share before simply hitting send
(tweets about what we had for
lunch or “I’m here” not
withstanding!). Conversely, it helps
us appreciate all the value and
meaning that can be packed into a
small space — whether it be
language, video, or other medium.
In the case of Flickr, it didn’t take
long for people to take up the call
and find creative new formats that
really worked within the 90 second
constraints. The long portrait is a
style that may never have emerged
without that particular constraint
inside that particular culture.
Promotional postcards and other
new inventive formats emerged out
of this constraint as well.
The same is true of Twitter.
When faced with the need for an
economy of language, you’re
forced to periodically think twice
about what exactly it is you’re
trying to say. Sometimes it may be
pointless babble, but even pointless
babble has a rightful place in the
pantheon of human communication.
And when you really are trying to
impart something meaningful in a
short allotment of the human
language, it can be an unexpected
and valuable mental exercise that,
in its own small way, helps hone
your ability to communicate with
your fellow humans. Brevity Keeps
Twitter Low-Obligation
We’re expected to keep ahead of
the overflowing inbox, the
voicemail, the neverending torrent
of RSS feeds, the Facebook
messages, and will even
occasionally get a cold shoulder if
we haven’t read that friend’s blog
post about a big life change. It’s too
much! Some of us who remember
back when the carefree days of
proto-blogging were all about fun
and the pure enjoyment of
connection — before the business
and the advertising and the VC
money came flowing in — now
appreciate all the more the low-
obligation social cloud that Twitter
really is.
The cycle, of course, has started
again — many professional
bloggers and those in the tech
industry and elsewhere now
consider Twitter a business tool
more than a social activity. Even
so, I can be away from Twitter for
hours on end and feel absolutely no
compunction to go back and read
the tweets I missed. Nor is there
any social expectation to do so.
That’s refreshing!
Twitter is one of the few tools
and social sites I use every day that
I don’t feel the need to “keep up
with” — it’s just a river of highly
relevant information flowing past,
and I can dip into the stream
whenever I wish. It’s still
completely opt-in, and the sheer
volume of tweets afforded by short
status updates is to thank for that
lack of obligation. Signal-to-Noise
Ratio is Kept Manageable
The same brevity that keeps
Twitter low-obligation keeps it
relatively manageable in terms of
signal-to-noise ratio. Sure, there’s
no shortage of boring tweets you
wish you hadn’t read, but a) there’s
a cure for that and b) at most you’re
out what, a few seconds? Think of
how many times you’ve gotten
halfway through a long blog post
before realizing it wasn’t worth it.
Think of how many books you’ve
started and never finished.
At least with Twitter, you have a
hard time wasting gobs of time on
things that are truly uninteresting.
Yes, you may “waste” time
following all those links to those
funny cat pictures, but that’s still
time “lost” to something you on
some level wanted to do. Curtailing
the effect of “interesting but not
necessarily productive” infostreams
is a different problem from trying
to avoid those timesinks that leave
you feeling like “that’s 30 minutes
of my life I’ll never get back.”
Moreover, people complain about
the banality of Twitter enough as it
is. Can you imagine how much
more banality some people can fit
into 1,400 characters and beyond?
And the psychological overhead of
having to figure out which output is
worth spending time on and which
isn’t? Brevity can act as its own
filter in that regard. Source
Agnosticity
Twitter’s 140 character limit was
originally based on the 160
character limitation of text
messaging. The net effect of that
limitation is that it doesn’t matter
where the heck you post your
Twitter updates from — it’s
extremely platform agnostic.
Being based inherently on the
SMS length limitation ensures that
Twitter works absolutely brilliantly
on mobile devices. It’s one of the
few social services that essentially
works just as effectively on your
phone as on the web interface (even
some natively mobile social
services have a disparity between
what you can do in the mobile app
versus what you can do in the
browser). That puts Twitter out
ahead of the pack of burgeoning (or
trying to burgeon…) mobile social
services like foursquare and
brightkite, in part because the
simplicity everyone is so quick to
decry makes it abundantly usable
on the go.
The other benefit is global
accessibility. SMS is a technology
Social Net/ 23
known and used around the world,
ensuring Twitter’s availability
practically everywhere without
having to overcome issues other
web apps may typically face, from
censorship to outright blocking to
technological incompatibilities. We
witnessed one manifestation of the
power this affords during the recent
Iran elections.
The mass proliferation of Twitter
clients too has been in part thanks
to its simplicity. There are no
messy formatting standards to
contend with and display, no rich
media incompatibilities to
overcome, no surprising
paginations or blinking tags — just
140 characters of text in any given
update. Not only does that make it
easier for a developer to whip up an
app, it also makes our eyes happier.
Short is Not the Death of Long
Much like every new
communication technology has
prompted dire prognostication
about the inevitable demise of the
Old Ways, there is no shortage of
punditry regarding Twitter’s
hastening the decline of
civilization. Won’t our children’s
brains be malformed if they only
ever have to come up with 140
character chunks? Won’t SMS
abbreviations and LOLspeak be the
death of language as we know it?
Just like TV didn’t kill radio and
the internet hasn’t ( yet) killed the
printed word, neither will short kill
long. Status updates and long-form
reflections are not mutually
exclusive, and both have a place in
the human communication buffet.
If anything, the short form turns out
to be an extremely effective
distribution method for the long.
And as for chatspeak, there’s an
TWEET page 25
24 Social Net/ *
Stupeflix: Powerful Movie Making
From Your Browser
By Jennifer Van Grove
(Mashable!)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:37:58 PM
This post is part of Mashable’s
Spark of Genius series, which
highlights a unique feature of
startups. If you would like to have
your startup considered for
inclusion, please see the details
here. The series is made possible by
Microsoft BizSpark.
Name: Stupeflix
Quick Pitch: Stupeflix is a web
service that turns digital content
(images, text, audio, videos) into
awesome videos.
Genius Idea: Think of Stupeflix
as an advanced way to mashup your
videos, photos, and music and
create a video collection or home
movie that you can download or
share on the web. Using the
Stupeflix editor you can upload
your content and music, drag and
drop to organize content in and out
of groups, add video effects,
associate tracks with groups (or the
whole movie), insert text overlays,
10 Photography Pet Peeves We'd Throw Down a Black
Hole
By Photo Dept. (Wired Top
Stories)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:13:00 PM
Tip-Off Timer: Red Auerbach Leaves on Top in '66
By Tim Povtak (FanHouse)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 9:00:00 AM
by Tim Povtak
Filed under: Celtics Tip-Off
Timer counts down the days until
the first game of the 2009-10
season. On Saturday, there are 66
days remaining.
and piece together your own movie.
The browser-based movie-
making service isn’t exactly a plug-
and-play application, but it isn’t
overly complicated either, and it
does provide a pretty impressive
tool for combining your video,
photos, and music in any fashion
you desire. It’s a unique and
sophisticated approach to turning
digital content into story-telling
entities that you can then share
across the web or save for personal
use. Advanced users can even use
the XML editor to add their own
parameters.
The site is also hoping to attract
business users by giving companies
the ability to broadcast on mobile
devices, brand their own content,
include call to actions, add
interactivity, and leverage text-to-
speech technology. They also have
a powerful API that can turn feeds
Wired.com's maestros of the
photographic arts tell you all about
(and show you) the stuff that drives
them crazy.
As the years pass, Red Auerbach
gets passed on all the lists that pay
homage to his coaching greatness.
Most victories, most playoff
victories, most NBA
championships, none of those titles
are his anymore.
Time eventually takes everything
away.
into libraries of videos, much like
this impressive group of videos
they created from Wikipedia
content. Sponsored by Microsoft
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Wikipedia
Tags: Movies, stupefix, video
Well, almost everything. It can't
take away the cigar, the symbol of
Remember Cuil? Now
It’s a Real-Time Search
Engine
By Ben Parr (Mashable!)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:35:39 PM
Do you remember last year, when
a startup named Cuil that was
founded by two ex-Googlers made
huge noise when it launched its
search engine with the claim of
having the largest search index in
the world?
The result was a huge initial
traffic spike. But when it didn’t
“beat Google,” its traffic dropped
like a whale being thrown out of an
airplane.
While Cuil has been quiet – a non
-story – for months, it has now
suddenly reemerged with an array
of new features based on bringing
real-time news and search results.
Did Cuil just launch its own
competitor to Twitter Search and
Facebook Search?
It’s Nifty, But…
This feature is very simple,
honestly. If you search keywords
that are generating real-time results
(i.e. Hurricane Bill, Obama), you
will see a new bar on the right hand
side with “# Realtime Results”
indicating just exactly how many
realtime results Cuil has found.
When you click on the bar, this is
the popup you get:
his superiority, and the symbol of
his decision to retire from coaching
in 1966, riding the wave of eight
consecutive NBA titles.
No one ever has left so on top of
the game. He did in '66.
Tip-Off Timer: Red Auerbach
Leaves on Top in '66 originally
appeared on Fanhouse NBA Blog
Internet News Record
The three features are (1) that you
can scroll through real-time results,
from blogs and news sources (2)
that you can see the “hotness” of
the real-time result, and (3) you can
drag and drop the bar onto your
desktop to monitor news about that
subject at anytime.
Okay, so is this a competitor to
Twitter Search? Maybe a little, but
really it’s more like OneRiot in
terms of real-time search. And to be
honest, OneRiot blows Cuil out of
the water in this vertical.
While features like these are good
additions, they still don’t make it a
better search engine than Google or
place it above the usefulness of
Twitter Search. Cuil’s losing more
traffic every month, and the launch
of Bing cannot help any either.
Real-time is a nice feature, but it
doesn’t do anything that isn’t
already on the market.
Reviews: Bing, Google
Tags: Cuil
on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST
. Please see our terms for use of
feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Linking
Blogs| Comments
Internet News Record
TWEET
continued from page 23
argument to be made that
subversion of the language requires
some level of mastery of the
language. If we imagine these short
forms as essentially dialects, then
research on multiple language-
speakers might be brought in to
back up the idea that being fluent in
two or more sets of communication
“codes” can strengthen, not
endanger, one’s ability to process
language.
Short bursts of communication
also provide a key element of what
is actually “conversational” — in
real life, people aren’t standing
about at cocktail parties spewing
off full blog posts and waiting for
onlookers to submit comments. It’s
a back and forth exchange,
typically in short bursts. And if
someone violates this social norm
by excessively soliloquizing, we
label them “a bit of a talker” or at
worst, downright rude — someone
to potentially avoid. And though
Firefox Mobile: Fennec 1.0 Beta 3 for Nokia tablets
By Jessica Dolcourt
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:02:00 PM
The last peep we heard about
Fennec was in late June, when
Mozilla updated its mobile edition
of the Firefox browser for
Windows Mobile phones. This
week, the Firefox browser maker
has released an updated version for
the platform powering Nokia N800
and N810 Internet Tablets: Fennec
1.0 Beta 3. (You can also download
it’s dangerous to start attaching the
label “pointless” to short, less than
earth-shattering statements, we as a
species actually derive value from
those short connecting segments of
conversation. Even the pointless
babble can nonetheless establish
and re-establish ties with people we
care about.
I’ve stated a case for Twitter’s
140 character limit, and would love
to hear your feedback.
Technological constraints are
nothing new, and it’s my feeling
that the imposed brevity makes
Twitter a nicer place to hang
around. What do you think? Would
Twitter be twice at good if Ev and
Biz would only raise the level cap
to 280? Let us know in the
comments! Reviews: Facebook,
Flickr, Twitter
Tags: communication, flickr,
SMS, texting, twitter
a desktop emulator for Windows,
Mac OS X, and Linux.)
Following 'the rule of threes,' it
could be a good guess that after this
third beta, the final version will be
next in line. A Mozilla
spokesperson, however, told CNET
that more beta builds are expected
in the future.
This beta update for the Linux-
based Maemo operating system
especially addresses performance
and user interface, starting with a
theme refresh. In the future, the
FoxyTunes Update: Share
What You’re Listening to on
Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm
By Jennifer Van Grove
(Mashable!)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:11:40 PM
While we all sit back and wait for
iTunes 9 and the rumored support
of Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm,
Yahoo decided to beat Apple to the
punch with a major FoxyTunes
update.
FoxyTunes is the browser add-on
that gives you the ability to control
any media player — iTunes,
Last.fm, Pandora, Windows Media
Player — while browsing the web.
Now the nifty plugin has added its
side project, TwittyTunes, as a
defaut feature. With the new
FoxyTunes you can manually or
automatically share the music
you’re listening to with the social
web.
The FoxyTunes team has built in
the ability to share your music with
Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo
Messenger, Last.fm, and Yahoo
Status. You can manually share
with each service by clicking on the
share button (the double arrow
button) as you listen, adding and
interface will also be better able to
support a variety of devices and
Social Net/ * Gizmos/
customizing text to include,
selecting your service(s), and
hitting send.
Your status updates will then
include a link to the FoxyTunes
music page ( like this one) for the
shared song. You can turn auto-
udpates on for Last.fm scrobbling,
as well as automatically update
your Skype and Yahoo Messenger
status with each new song.
While FoxyTunes was already an
incredibly useful browser add-on,
it’s now a social music service
giving us one-click sharing options
to our favorite social sites. It’s the
features we’ve always wanted from
iTunes, but on a much broader
scale because it works for any of
our favorite media players.
Reviews: Facebook, FoxyTunes,
Pandora, Skype, Twitter
Tags: FoxyTunes, itunes, music,
social music, twittytunes
orientations.(Credit: Mozilla)
Additionally, Fennec 1.0 beta 3
takes on slow scrolling and
panning. The third beta should see
sped-up performance and the ability
to scroll iframes. As you pan,
Fennec for Maemo's new image-
rendering system will save more of
the screen. It should take less time
to refresh the screen as you
navigate back and forth.
The next build will focus on
smoothing out rough edges, Stuart
Parmenter, Mozilla's director of
25
Progress Bar Clock
Concept Transcends
Nerdiness by Being
Actually Useful [Clocks]
By Dan Nosowitz (Gizmodo)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:30:00 AM
This progress bar-inspired clock
design from Mintpass actually
includes a great idea: Clip up to 24
rewritable tabs onto the clock to
mark appointments. It's a neat
visual organizer on a clock that
might otherwise be too gimmicky.
Each tab sets off an alarm that is
disabled by turning the tab itself 90
degrees, showing the progress of
your day's work along with the
actual clock's progress bar. I love
the tabs idea: It gives a clear visual
demonstration of events that day,
and being able to write (and erase?
Or just replace?) each item's title is
a really nice touch. It wouldn't be as
jam-packed as my iCal, but it'd
show big items in my to-do list at a
glance. So, Mintpass? Please make
this thing. [via DVICE]
mobile engineering, said in a blog
post. The team will particularly pay
attention to using the browser's new
rendering system to nix the
checkerboard pattern you see when
panning around.
As a beta product, Fennec 1.0
beta 3 is intended for testers to help
work out the kinks. Read the full
release notes here.
Article updated at 1:15 pm with a
comment from Mozilla.
Originally posted at The
Download Blog
26 * Internet News Record

Facebook apps for the film buff

By Don Reisinger
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 10:24:39 AM

If you're a film buff, you might be

happy to know that Facebook apps
are available that will help you stay
up-to-date on the industry, while
giving you the option to tell all
your friends what movies you love.
Some of the apps are better than
others, but one thing is certain: if
you're a real movie fan, you need to
add at least some of them to your
profile.
Social film going
Blu-ray Collection Blu-ray
Collection provides an extremely
useful way to track and share your
Blu-ray collection.
Once you find what you're
looking for through the app's search
field, you can add it to your listing.
Those movies can then be viewed
by other app users. The app lists
over 1,000 films. And since you
can rate your listings, you can see something for me It might have a LivingSocial: Movies starts by Unless you've seen several movies wrong, you'll lose 100 points.
how much you liked a movie, long name, but If you go to the requiring you to add movies to your and you can remember obscure When you accurately identify the
compared to your friends. Video Store buy something for me listing, saying what you have scenes, you'll probably have trouble problems, you'll receive 100
Blu-ray Collection keeps all your is a neat app that lets you share watched, what you're currently answering questions. If the quiz MoviePoints back. It's an addicting
movies in one place.(Credit: your movie interests with all your watching, or what you will soon isn't for you, MatchFlick also game, but it's extremely difficult.
Screenshot by Don friends. watch. You can also rate each film provides information on the latest Movie Expert asks you to find the
Reisinger/CNET) After you add the app to your out of five stars. From there, DVD releases, what's playing in problems with each film
Flixster Movies Flixster Movies profile, you're immediately LivingSocial: Movies provides you theaters, and reviews. It's a full- scene.(Credit: Screenshot by Don
connects you with other movie fans presented with several films. You with recommendations of films you featured app, but its design and Reisinger/CNET)
to talk about your favorite films. can choose the film you like and might like based on the movies you menu system make it difficult to My Movie Reviews My Movie
The app also lets you update your request them to rent it at the movie rated highly. The app even lets you sift through all the extras it offers. Reviews is one of the least-useful
Facebook status with the movies store. It might sound rather create a top 10 list to let all your MatchFlick quizzes you on your apps in this roundup, but if you're a
you want to see in theaters. simplistic, but the app can be an Facebook friends know which movie knowledge.(Credit: frequent moviegoer, you might like
Flixster Movies is like having the effective movie-recommendation movies you love. LivingSocial: Screenshot by Don it.
full Flixster experience in engine, since friends' opinions Movies is a must-have. Reisinger/CNET) My Movie Reviews is a bit of a
Facebook. You can review films, matter so much. A larger listing of LivingSocial: Movies has a great Movie Expert MovieExpert is a misnomer. You can't review any
take quizzes to test your films would have been nice, but the recommendation engine.(Credit: neat game that lets you watch clips movie you like. Instead, the app
knowledge, connect with other app app is still worth checking out. Screenshot by Don from different movies to find their limits your reviews to the films that
users, and research films you're A long name, but it's worth Reisinger/CNET) "goofs." are currently in theaters. When you
interested in. It's a full-featured checking out.(Credit: Screenshot by MatchFlick MatchFlick's chief After you add the app to your see those movies, you can use the
product that works quite well. Don Reisinger/CNET) function is to provide you with a profile, you'll need to watch a full app to write a review, choose a star
Flixster Movies provides a full LivingSocial: Movies quiz that, so far, has over 7,000 movie clip. When you find the rating, and post that to your
social movie experience.(Credit: LivingSocial: Movies is my questions. The more questions you problem with the scene, you can Facebook wall. Creating the review
Screenshot by Don favorite movie app on Facebook. answer correctly, the higher your click on it on the area where the is simple, but not having the ability
Reisinger/CNET) It's useful, unique, and effective at global rank on Facebook. mistake is. You'll start out with
If you go to the Video Store buy tracking film interests. Overall, the quiz is quite difficult. 3,000 MoviePoints. If you guess
FACEBOOK page 29
Internet News Record
The real Facebook-Twitter turf war:
Marketers
By Caroline McCarthy
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 9:13:00 AM
On Thursday night, Facebook
announced that it's launched its first
official Twitter app--sort of. In a
post on the company blog,
Facebook announced that updates
to " fan pages," public profiles for
celebrities, brands, organizations,
and what-have-you, can now be
sent out through Twitter.
"Public figures, musicians,
businesses and organizations of all
types who've created Facebook
Pages often want to share a status
update, a photo or an event with as
many of their supporters as
possible," the post by Facebook
employee Michael Gummelt read.
"Celebrities may want to share
personal news or charities may
want to put out calls for help to
both their Facebook fans and their
Twitter followers, all at the same
time."
This is basically something that
many blogging and publishing
services already do: offer a way to
automatically syndicate a short
blurb and a link onto Twitter. It's a
no-brainer. But Facebook and
Bills Present Challenge for Packers
By Bruce Ciskie (FanHouse)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 11:30:00 AM
by Bruce Ciskie
Filed under: Bills, Packers
GREEN BAY, Wisc. -- Typically,
it's the third preseason game when
you see starters get the most
playing time. Since the Buffalo
Bills are playing five games instead
of four, they only expect to use
their starters into the second quarter
Twitter have a complicated history.
Facebook attempted to acquire
Twitter last year, and Twitter
turned the offer down. Then, earlier
this summer, Facebook did acquire
FriendFeed, a social-network
aggregator that failed to gain
mainstream traction but pioneered
many of the real-time, streaming
features that are now central to both
Facebook and Twitter.
Relations between the two
companies still seem to be a bit
shaky. Facebook continues to roll
out Twitter-inspired features like a
souped-up search engine, a
revamped "publisher" tool that can
make status updates selectively
public, and soon a stripped down
"Facebook Lite" site that looks
quite a bit like the ultra-basic
Twitter.
Much has been said about
Facebook and Twitter as the two
forces vying for control of the real-
time social Web, but little light has
been shed on just how central a role
at Lambeau FIeld.
The Packers should use their top
players for around 20-25 snaps
the marketing industry has. The fact
that Facebook's first Twitter app is
exclusively for its brand-marketing
"fan pages" highlights this. In the
digital marketing world, the
buzzworthy place for brands to be
right now is Twitter--especially
since this week Twitter started to
elaborate plans for the paid
accounts it's going to offer to
businesses by the end of the year. If
Facebook is going to continue to
court brands effectively, it has to
offer a quick and easy way to plug
into that all-important "Twitter
strategy."
What's less clear is whether
Facebook will let ordinary users
syndicate their profile updates to
Twitter. Currently, they can bring
in plenty of data from elsewhere
thanks to Facebook's third-party
developer API. You can import a
Twitter feed into Facebook status
updates or use third-party clients
like TweetDeck to update Twitter
status and Facebook status
simultaneously, but you still can't
opt to publish your Facebook
profile updates elsewhere.
Originally posted at The Social
Saturday night at Lambeau Field.
That should even out fairly well.
When the Bills have the ball, the
Packers will face something they
aren't used to seeing.
Bills Present Challenge for
Packers originally appeared on
Fanhouse NFL Blog on Sat, 22 Aug
2009 11:30:00 EST . Please see our
terms for use of feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Linking
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Wikipedia Diver tracks
your Web exploration
By Josh Lowensohn
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:13:00 PM
We've covered a number of Web
history tracking and organizing
tools in the past, but Wikipedia
Diver may be one of the most
interesting, albeit niche. This
Firefox add-on gives you a visual
history of everywhere you've been
on Wikipedia, and organizes it
down to the day, order, and session
in which you visited the sites,
making it easy to revisit old entries.
Each visited page is presented as
a small red globe that you can click
on to advance the timeline. There's
also a source list of every site you
visited, that will take you right to
the page.
Tiny red balls tell you how you
got from looking at video game
descriptions to the molecular
makeup of precious metals.(Credit:
CNET)
Like some other Web history
trackers, Wikipedia Diver
intelligently tracks when you hit the
back button on your browser. Each
* 27
time you leave whatever Wikipedia
entry you're on to visit a link that's
on that page, it simply attaches it to
your history. In one entry I was
looking at, I had clicked on seven
different links that were on that
page, and the extension kept track
of how I had arrived at each of
those pages. That in itself can be
fun to look at--e.g. how I got from
the Zoopraxiscope to the
assassination of Alfred Herrhausen.
One thing it does not track are the
reference links you click when
exiting the site to view a source. I'd
like to see this added as an option,
but understandably that takes it into
the realm of watching everything
you do.
Also worth a mention is that all of
this data is kept safe and secure on
your local machine, and never sent
to the cloud. Like any other
extension that does this, this means
that your information isn't being
beamed elsewhere, although you
can only access your history on that
particular machine, and in that
particular browser.
Originally posted at Web Crawler
28 * Internet News Record
Bing strikes licensing deal with Wolfram Alpha
By Tom Krazit (Webware.com)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 11:12:00 AM
Bing will start using Wolfram
Alpha's data in search results
following a licensing deal.(Credit:
Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)
Microsoft's Bing search engine is
getting a little help from a very
smart friend.
Wolfram Alpha and Bing have
reached a licensing deal that allows
Bing to present some of the
specialized scientific and
computational content that
Wolfram Alpha generates,
according to a source familiar with
the deal. The deal was reported
earlier by TechCrunch.
Representatives from Microsoft
and Wolfram Research declined to
comment on the deal.
Wolfram Alpha's unique blend of
computational input and curated
output hasn't taken the world by
storm, but it is considered an
interesting enough take on the
business of Internet search to attract
high-profile attention within the
industry. Wolfram Alpha doesn't
return the usual list of links to
pages with search keywords,
instead providing answers to
questions such as stock prices and
complex mathematical formulas--
with mixed results.
Bing, on the other hand, is
enjoying a solid start in the three
months since it made its debut as it
gains users and will at some point
be the default search experience on
Yahoo's highly trafficked pages
following a long-awaited deal. It's
not clear whether Bing results will
carry Wolfram's branding (i.e.,
results "Powered By Wolfram
Alpha"), but there will be some sort
of presence.
It's unlikely that Bing is going to
turn over the bulk of its results to
Alpha, however. In a blog post
Friday, Wolfram founder Stephen
Wolfram admitted that linguistic
problems are to blame for half of
the occasions when Wolfram Alpha
doesn't return a result. That
percentage is changing as Wolfram
refines the science behind Wolfram
Alpha, but it will take some time.
Corrected at 3:30 p.m. PDT to
clarify that half the time Wolfram
Alpha doesn't understand an input
query, it's due to linguistic
problems. An earlier version
suggested that Wolfram Alpha
didn't understand queries half the
time.
Originally posted at Relevant
Results
Video Board Steals
Show in Opening Game
at Cowboys' New
Stadium
By Calvin Watkins (FanHouse)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 1:50:00 AM
by Calvin Watkins
Filed under: Cowboys, Titans
ARLINGTON, Texas -- The
video board at the Cowboys' new
stadium became a big part of the
story for the first-ever NFL game
played here on Friday night.
Following Dallas' 30-10 victory
over the Titans in this $1.2 billion
palace, there was a general sense
that the gigantic video board is a
problem -- but it depends on who
you ask.
Video Board Steals Show in
Opening Game at Cowboys' New
Stadium originally appeared on
Fanhouse NFL Blog on Sat, 22 Aug
2009 01:50:00 EST . Please see our
terms for use of feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Linking
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Photoshop.com
adds video hosting,
group
(Credit: albums
Screenshot by Lori
Grunin/CNET,
PHOTOSHOP.COM
photospage
by 29
Lori
Internet News Record
PHOTOSHOP.COM
continued from page 28
Grunin, Michael Ricca/CNET)
Photoshop.com may be Flash-y
and Air-y with photo-editing
capabilities, but it surprisingly still
seems to lag sites like Flickr and
Facebook when it comes to various
sharing features. For instance, only
this week has Adobe launched
video-hosting and group album
capabilities (available for free
accounts as well as paid), long
available from its competitors.
There are some done-it-better
aspects, however. For example,
Adobe allows for larger videos: a
maximum of 2GB vs. Flickr's
150GB/90 seconds. Of course, the
more large videos you upload the
closer it will push you to the 2GB
Minnesota Head Over Heels in Favre
Fevre, but for How Long?
By Jay Mariotti (FanHouse)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 1:00:00 AM
by Jay Mariotti
Filed under: NFL
MINNEAPOLIS -- As much as
they could hate anything in the land
of Garrison Keillor, cheesy brats
and county fairs, they used to hate
Brett Favre. His name was
bastardized into "Farce" and "Fart."
They lived to decibel-blast him into
making mistakes, often succeeding
during his 6-10 career with Green
Bay in the Metrodome. The ear-
torturing horn, the wild-haired
Norsemen on motorcycles, the Led
Zeppelin riffs -- "We come from
the land of the ice and snow" -- all
of it was aimed at the symbolic
mortal enemy in the Vikings-
Packers rivalry.
But now, in a surreal twist
perhaps unprecedented in American
sports, Favre is a Viking whose No.
4 jersey is bathed in purple. And
storage maximum of a free account.
As it's taking forever (it's up to
about an hour and still hasn't
completed) to process my short
177MB video, however--everything
gets transcoded to Flash video--I
shudder to think how long a 2GB
file would take.
There are still a few UI kinks to
work out as well. If you e-mail an
invite to someone at an e-mail
address other than the one
connected to their Adobe ID, there's
no way to link the addresses or
even allow the person to reply to
you with the correct address.
People you invite as
Collaborators to Group Albums
aren't automatically added as your
now, with predictable fickleness,
the same fans absolutely adore the
man they loathed for 16 years. Can
you think of another athletic legend
who literally crossed lines and
joined blood rivals? An itchy
Michael Jordan signed with the non
friends. And while it notifies you
via e-mail of updates to the album
there don't seem to be other
notification options, like posting
Twitter, Facebook, or even an RSS
feed. (Concurrently with the
rollout, Adobe updated
Photoshop.com's terms of service.
There doesn't seem to be anything
objectionable in the new terms.
Yay!)
You can see how
Photoshop.com's editing
capabilities stack up against the
competition in 15 online photo
editors compared.
Originally posted at Crave
-descript Washington Wizards. Joe
Montana finished up with the
Kansas City Chiefs, who evoke no
emotion in San Francisco. Wayne
Gretzky skated out his career for
U.S. teams that meant little to the
parochial puckheads in Canada. In
complete contrast, Favre has joined
the heated division rival in the next
state over from Wisconsin, making
his Friday night preseason debut
with the Vikings a study in human
psychology. Shouldn't we have
allowed a chance for some
awkward emotions? More: Brett
Favre: 'It Felt a Little Odd'
Minnesota Head Over Heels in
Favre Fevre, but for How Long?
originally appeared on Fanhouse -
Jay Mariotti on Sat, 22 Aug 2009
01:00:00 EST . Please see our
terms for use of feeds.
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* 29
Matt Cassel Impresses In
Spite of Chiefs' Offensive
Line
By Dan Graziano (FanHouse)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:00:00 AM
by Dan Graziano
Filed under: Chiefs, NFL
Quarterbacks MINNEAPOLIS --
The thinking was that Matt Cassel
came into Friday night's preseason
game against the Vikings on some
kind of hot seat. Thanks to a cryptic
interview session in which Chiefs
coach Todd Haley refused to
describe him as the team's best
quarterback, there was some
thought in Kansas City that Brodie
Croyle might actually have a
chance to overtake Cassel as the
starter. Nevermind the trade that
brought Cassel in, or the big
contract extension they just gave
him -- gotta play the best guy,
bench. More From Minneapolis:
right?
Well, Cassel sure looked like the Tarvaris Jackson 'Perfect'
Matt Cassel Impresses In Spite of
best guy Friday, completing 9-of-
14 passes for 99 yards and a Chiefs' Offensive Line originally
appeared on Fanhouse NFL Blog
touchdown. He was sharp, alert and
very mobile all night -- and that on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST
. Please see our terms for use of
mobility was a good thing, because
the Chiefs' offensive line was feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Linking
cheesecloth and looks like the kind
of unit that might make a Blogs| Comments
quarterback wish for a spot on the
FACEBOOK
continued from page 26
to write a review on any movie 1. LivingSocial: Movies: With so
detracts from the experience. My many great features, LivingSocial:
Movie Reviews is a great premise, Movies is simply the best app in
but limiting reviews to only those this roundup.
films in theaters is a major 2. Flixster Movies: It's a close
problem. second. Flixster Movies is a
My Movie Reviews needs more fantastic app for film buffs.
movies to review.(Credit: 3. Blu-ray Collection: There's no
Screenshot by Don better way to track Blu-ray films.
Reisinger/CNET)
My top 3
30 * TechTips/
Starting Five: Who Needs a Ryan Kesler Is Back From
Green Monster? The Yankees Camp and Likes USA's Chances
By Susan Slusser (FanHouse)
Have Godzilla
By Andrew Johnson
(FanHouse)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 6:00:00 AM
by Andrew Johnson
Filed under: Athletics, Marlins,
Mets, Rangers, Rays, Red Sox,
Yankees, Starting Five Starting
Five is our wrapup of the previous
day's baseball action with a quick
nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ...
That now it's the Red Sox who
can't get out of their own way
against the Yankees, as opposed to
the other way around.
After going 8-0 against New
York to start the season, Boston has
now lost five straight to its rivals
following a 20-11 drubbing at
Fenway Park.
Hideki Matsui was the standout
offensive star among many on
Friday night, homering twice and
driving in seven runs to pace the
Yankee attack. Matsui and his
Photoshop.com Hosts Videos up to 2GB in Size [Video]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:00:00 PM
It's too late to make much of an
impact on our call for the best
video-sharing sites, but today
online photo editor Photoshop.com
announced that they're now
allowing users to upload and share
videos up to 2GB in size.
Unfortunately Adobe hasn't done
much to make its video sharing tool
stand out. For one, you can't
currently edit videos at all, which
seems to us like the only reason
teammates have made it very
obvious that whatever hurdle there
was to playing the Red Sox early in
the year has now been cleared.
More Coverage: Scoreboard|
Standings| Statistics
Starting Five: Who Needs a
Green Monster? The Yankees Have
Godzilla originally appeared on
Fanhouse MLB Blog on Sat, 22
Aug 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please
see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Linking
Blogs| Comments
you might consider uploading your
videos to Photoshop.com in the first
place. You also can't embed videos,
unless I'm missing something. The
2GB file size seems decent, but
Submitted at 8/22/2009 12:00:00 PM
by Susan Slusser
Filed under: Canucks, Olympic
Hockey, FanHouse Exclusive The
USA Olympic orientation camp
made for some strange bedfellows.
Vancouver forward Ryan Kesler
found himself rooming with T.J.
Oshie of the Blues, who'd sent
some cheap shots Kesler's way in
the past, according to Kesler.
"I wasn't a fan," Kesler told
FanHouse by phone this week.
"And Paul Stastny once got me
with a stick on a faceoff and
chipped a couple of my teeth. But
we sat down and talked and they're
good guys. Stastny apologized for
high-sticking me in the face."
Could it be that some of the other
USA hopefuls felt equally
ambivalent about Kesler going into
the camp?
you're actually limited to 2GB of
space on your entire
Photoshop.com free account, so one
big video upload and you're done.
(Note: You can only upload videos
Ryan Kesler Is Back From Camp
and Likes USA's Chances
originally appeared on Fanhouse
NHL Blog on Sat, 22 Aug 2009
12:00:00 EST . Please see our
terms for use of feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Linking
Blogs| Comments
up to 200MB in size via the web
interface. For larger videos, you'll
need to download their Adobe Air
Uploader—which I couldn't even
find, even after digging around the
site and checking their support.
Update: Here's the answer.)
In short, then: It's cool to see
Photoshop join the video sharing
world, and editing would be a great
feature if it were there, but they're
going to have to step it up if they
want to attract anyone to use it.
Feel differently? Tell us why in the
comments. Photoshop.com
Internet News Record
Flip Your Old Deck
Boards Before Shelling
Out for a New Deck
['home]
By Jason Fitzpatrick
(Lifehacker)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 8:00:00 AM
If your deck is looking a little
weathered and you're considering
replacing the boards, you might
want to try this simple trick to see if
you can squeeze a few more years
of service out of them.
Decking planks aren't cheap. If
your deck looks rough, don't rush to
replace the wood just yet. Shine a
flashlight underneath and see how
the underside of the planks looks.
Most likely, the side not exposed to
the beating rain and scorching sun
probably still looks pretty darn
good.
It's labor intensive, but prying up
the boards and flipping them so that
the weathered side is down and the
less-aged side is up can give you
years more service out of the same
old materials. You'll be out some
hours of manual labor
and—depending on the size of the
deck—around $50-60 bucks for
new deck screws and some buckets
of stain.
Check out the Flickr pool of
subsixstudios, frugal deck
recyclers, to see how their deck-
flipping turned out, and judge for
yourself whether a totally new deck
is really necessary. DIY Deck
Project[via Re-Nest]
Internet News Record
Top 10 Tricks MacGyver Would Be Proud Of [Lifehacker Top
10]
By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 9:00:00 AM
When they draw up the Complete
History of Lifehacking, Angus
MacGyver will certainly merit a
chapter. We pay tribute to the
creatively can-do secret agent this
week with 10 tricks that make
extraordinary use of
overwhelmingly common objects.
Photo by PoweredByLarios™.
Note: The following snippets are
works of MacGyver fan fiction
(hopefully the non-cringe-inducing
variety). Any resemblance to events
transpiring in the seven-year run of
MacGyver, or any subsequent
television specials, are coincidental,
if a little inevitable. 10. Diffuse a
camera flash, no gear needed
MacGyver works hard, no doubt,
and likes to enjoy the days and
nights off as much as he can. So
when professional or consumer-
grade cameras threaten to wash out
party photos, he's prone to using a
converted cigarette pack, reversing
the lining foil to channel an SLR
flash into a manageable beam. A
coffee filter can also work, as can a
ripped out piece of tissue or very
fine piece of cloth. As a result,
you'll never see a red-eyed, washed
-out MacGyver flashing a thumbs
up in any Flickr stream. ( Original
post)
9. Pack a lunch in a CD spindle
Bagels, with their central fitting
holes and wheel-like shape, are an
engineering student's kind of
sandwich holder. Rodrigo
Piwonka's Flickr stream shows off
a CD spindle bagel holder
MacGyver would totally dig, and it
might just inspire you to reuse your
own Memorex/FujiFilm/Kodak
spindles for culinary transport
purposes. Angus would probably
also note that, turned upside-down,
the round plastic cylinder that caps
the spindle works great for holding
your salad. ( Original post)
8. Make an iPhone dock out of ...
anything
If MacGyver had done his covert
work in an age of iPhones, you
could totally see him sitting down
between missions, syncing the
tracks from Live Aid to his device
while it rests on—just about
anything, really. A dollar bill or
business card, perhaps, or maybe a
piece of cardboard. The iPhone
case itself can work, as can a binder
clip, or, if MacGyver had, say, 5
minutes, the plastic the iPhone was
shipped in and a piece of wood
molding. Really, though, we'd have
to go with the paper clip stand as
the true choice for the secret agent
of Scottish ancestry—he always
seemed to have one handy.
7. Relieve a bug bite with nail
polish (or toothpaste)
Minutes after escaping certain
death in the Pacific woodlands,
MacGyver finds himself
completely covered in itchy,
concentration-breaking mosquito
and chigger bites. This is bad,
because it will take every ounce of
effort to rig together a makeshift
rope bridge to get across the chasm
four miles ahead. Digging deep into
his seemingly infinite pockets,
MacGyver has to decide—will the
clear nail polish he uses to paint
over rusted dents seal off the itch?
Should he instead reach for the
aspirin, vinegar, or toothpaste? All
of them are slightly more non-
obvious than reaching for the off-
label use of Bengay for bug bites,
but any of them need to be applied
real quick, before the bad guys
break through his makeshift lock
jam and catch him scratching away.
Photo by 416style.
6. Dry a doused cellphone
You've successfully disarmed the
bio-agents set to be released into
the city's water supply, escaped
from a third-story window using
makeshift suction cups, and the
helicopter pick-up is only a phone
call away. You reach into your
pocket and—drat! That brief dive
into the reservoir killed your
phone! Or so you thought, until you
noticed the Indian buffet restaurant
just down the road. You talk your
way into the kitchen, borrow some
rice and a bowl, and wait until the
gadget-killing moisture has been
sucked out. Why not just make the
call from the restaurant phone, you
ask? It's a secret number! The
encryption only works on a
MacGyverBerry! If the All-Night
Tiger hadn't been open, Mac's next
best bet might have been to find a
house with some kitty litter, or
locate some rubbing alcohol,
neither of which is all that difficult
in the world MacGyver lives in. (
Original post).
TechTips/ 31
5. Boost a Wi-Fi antenna with a
drinking straw
Out of all these assembled items,
this most closely resembles a
MacGyver-like situation. There is,
say, a hacker with a laptop who can
break into the missile launch
mainframe, but he's been locked in
a secret room that MacGyver and a
fairly attractive agent can't get to.
The hacker needs access to the
network, but can't make a
connection! Luckily, MacGyver has
located a small bit of copper wire, a
drinking straw, a single wood
screw, and a Crème brûlée torch to
stand in as a soldering iron. Those
missiles won't be going anywhere!
If you find yourself stuck in a
different scenario without access to,
say, drinking straws and copper
wire, try one of our top 10 Wi-Fi
boost, tweaks, and apps to get
Sergei the network juice he needs. (
Original post)
4. Start a fire without matches
Out in the countryside, MacGyver
and the son of an esteemed
diplomat are tired, exhausted, and
hungry after dismantling a tank and
escaping a military prison. There's
no matches or fuel to start a fire,
but there are some supplies
ransacked from the galley kitchen
on the way out. With a 9-volt
battery or cellphone, or a pop-top
can and chocolate, you're well on
your way to getting a little flame
built. (Original posts: chocolate and
Coke, cellphone battery, steel wool
and 9-volt).
3. Smooth a scratched CD or
DVD
Wherever MacGyver goes, he's
amazed by the limitations of
product marketers' minds. When
you have a product that works
TOP page 35
32 TechTips/
Set Up Space-Saving, Permanent Gmail and Reader Tabs in
Firefox [Customization]
By Harsha Kotcherlakota
(Lifehacker)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:00:00 PM
Ed. note: Reader Harsha
Kotcherlakota wrote in to our tips
box with a very detailed, very cool
guide to how he uses a few Firefox
extensions we've featured to create
dedicated, always-available-yet-
unobtrusive tabs for Gmail and
Google Reader. Here's how.
So here's the deal. I like having
my Gmail always open. (Who
doesn't, right?) It's literally the first
thing I go to in Firefox. But I don't
want it to be my homepage, and
frankly, I don't like the fact I have
to always leave a full sized tab
open just to keep an eye on my
inbox. I am a fan of minimal, yet
functional and attractive interfaces.
So I went searching for the
perfect setup, and I'm happy to say,
I found it! Using Gina Trapani's
Better Gmail 2 add-on(specifically
the Unread Count Favicon feature)
and two other extensions, I found
an extremely easy and attractive
way to keep an eye on Gmail and
have it open all the time without
taking up a lot of space.
Here's what I did. (I'm doing all
of this on the nightly build of
Firefox 3.7 with Nightly Tester
Tool installed, and it works just
fine, so I'm positive this works for
ALL versions of Firefox 3.0+.)
First, I downloaded and installed
Better Gmail 2, and after enabling
the Favicon option, ended up with
this:
Looks fantastic, of course, but
still, since I am currently using a
netbook, I want to save as much
space as possible. So I searched and
searched until I found the
FaviconizeTab extension, also
previously mentioned on
Lifehacker. Essentially, it adds an
entry to the context menu when you
right-click a tab that allows you to
shrink it down to ONLY the
Favicon. Here's how it works.
Right-click the desired tab and
click FaviconizeTab:
Which gives you favicon-only
tabs like you see in the screenshot.
(I did this for both Gmail and
Reader.)
Looks awesome, right? Well, I
thought so too! Until I closed
Firefox, and when I opened it
again, I realized my faviconized
Gmail tab did not stay faviconized.
I also wanted a solution in which
Gmail and Google Reader always
appear when I opened Firefox. I
knew how to set up multiple
homepages in Firefox, but it's not
quite right for what I want. For one,
if i do that, every time I press the
"Home" button, all those sites load
up at once in multiple tabs.
So I went off hunting again for a
permanent tab solution. But wait!
Lifehacker, many moons ago,
highlighted an extension called
PermaTabs, an extension that
preserves selected tabs through
sessions and prevents accidental
closing.
Sadly, the developer of that
extension has long since forgotten
it. I was annoyed, but after a bit
more searching, I found another
extension called PermaTabs Mod.
It's the same as the original
extension, however it's updated and
modified to work with Firefox 3.5.
Essentially, this add-on allows you
to make a tab permanent—that is to
say, it cannot be closed by accident,
actions such as "Close other tabs"
in the Tab context menu do no
affect it, and better yet, the tabs
stay where they are in the order
they are even if you close/shutdown
Firefox! Here's how it works:
We right-click the tab we want to
make permanent, then select
PermaTabs -> Permanent Tab:
Now, you'll notice that the tab we
Internet News Record
just PermaTabbed is now a slightly
different shade, and when you try
to right click, you'll notice the
option to close it is now grayed out!
So here I am, jumping with joy,
excited to see if my experiment will
work. And lo and behold! It does!
When I open up Firefox, here's
what I see!
As you can see, this also works
with Gina Trapani's Better GReader
and its Favicon Unread Count
feature, and is equally useful.
Here's the skinny on what's
absolutely awesome about this
setup:
• Permatabs are not affected by
closing Firefox, cannot be closed
automatically, and can be "un-
permafied" at any time when you
want to get rid of them.
• When you first start up Firefox,
the Permatabs DO NOT
AUTOMATICALLY LOAD
THEIR PAGE. They only load
them when you click on them,
which is insanely handy for me for
when I'm on a terrible connection
and I don't want all my Permatabs
to load up instantly when I start up
Firefox. (This is why I do not like
having multiple homepages—I
cannot control when they load.)
• With this setup, you don't have
to make Gmail or GReader your
home page. Your home page is
separate; in my above example, I
have about:blank set as my
homepage, but this won't affect
your setup at all.
• Permatabs are not set in stone as
far as location goes. You can
reorder Permatabs by dragging
them around. (Be warned, you can
also pop-out Permatabs, but once
you do, you must pop them back in
or add them again manually.)
SET page 34
Internet News Record
From the Tips Box: Ditching Email Limitations, DIY File
Holders, and Musical Timers [From The Tips Box]
By Rosa Golijan (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:00:00 PM
Readers show us how to escape
the limitations of university (and
work) email accounts, turn a dryer
rack into a file holder, and remind
us that music is a great timer in a
pinch.
Don't like the gallery layout?
Click here to view everything on
one page.
Time Yourself With Music
Photo by 37Hz
Michael wrote in with a neat
reminder that songs can be a used
to time things in a pinch:
There is a red-light that I often sit
waiting for near my home in
Tennessee, and I have always had
the impression that it is a VERY
long light. My watch doesn't have a
timer on it, but one day I realized
that I could start a song on my MP3
player and measure the amount of
time the light took by tracking the
amount of time that elapsed on the
MP3 player. Since that moment, I
have started using the MP3 player
to track other times as well. It
works very well and I always have
it on me.
It wouldn't be too difficult to
create a playlist of songs based on
length and use that when you need
to time something without a
timer/alarm, or the ability to watch
a clock. For example, Coldplay's
Shiver is just a few seconds over
the five minutes mark and a
wonderful tune at that.
Turn a DVD/CD Spindle into a
iPod dock
Christopher shows off how he
repurposed a DVD-R spindle:
I got ambitious and decided to
make an iPod dock today. Basically
this is the cover of a DVD-R
spindle cut in half at a slight angle.
I cut a hole in which to mount the
actual docking piece included with
the iPod at the lowest point of the
slope on the spindle cover then
attached it in place with nothing but
hot glue. I also had to widen the
hole in the docking pieces base so
that I could snugly fit the data cable
in. It was quite snug, but it still
popped out when I plugged in the
iPod, so that too was latched in
place with hot glue. Overall, it was
a very simple and fast project (less
than an hour). I plan on going to
my uncle's later this week to make
the bottom perfectly even with his
large disc sander, then I'll paint it
white so it doesn't look like total
arse.
Turn a Dish Drainer into a Folder
Holder
Reader Michael Leddy, the guy
who brought us the laptop cooling
rack has another neat trick:
My wife Elaine Fine came up
with the great idea of using a dish
drainer to hold working folders.
Don't laugh — it looks great and
works well.
Get Google Groups Notifications
for Single Threads
Rupert tells us about a feature he
discovered in a Google Group
thread:
Much of the time I find that I
don't want to subscribe to a Google
group because I am only interested
in the posts in threads that I reply
to. However, in the membership
settings for a group, there is no
mention of how to set such a thing
up.
To get email updates for just a
single thread, simply open the
thread, click on "options"
underneath the title and then click
on "Email updates to me". Please
note this is only available on
Google Groups and not on Usenet
forums.
Get Google Tasks in a Full
Window View
Rupert writes in with a trick
similar to something we've
TechTips/ 33
mentioned before:
If you are a bit of a Google Tasks
junkie (like me) you can link to it
directly with the following:
https://mail.google.com/tasks/ig
It then opens up in a full page in
all its glory. It's a nice, lightweight
homepage since it doesn't seem to
load the entirety of Gmail or you
can keyword bookmark it.
Escape the Limitations of
University (or Work) Email
Accounts
Cardcrusher drops us a reminder
that there's no reason to be limited
by university email storage:
I was reading an article in Time
magazine about how Google and
Microsoft are competing to provide
email support to universities and
colleges. Specifically, schools that
provide their own email accounts
are only able to provide very small
inboxes in terms of megabytes, so
they outsource to Google or
Microsoft to get cheap or free
email. I actually found a way
around my university's small inbox.
I have a Gmail account to which I
set my school account to forward.
Mail goes straight to my main
Gmail account so I don't have to
check it on their inconvenient
student center and it saves space in
on the university server. Also I only
have one email account to forward
to my Blackberry.
It sounds like Cardcrusher's
university email account not only
forwards his emails, but deletes
them as well. So be sure to check if
yours will do the same, otherwise
you'll have to occasionally pop in
there for a cleaning to prevent
bounced emails.
Other than that, it seems that
between IMAP, forwarding, and
FROM page 35
34 TechTips/
This Week's Most Popular Posts [Highlights]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:00:00 PM
This week we helped readers
creatively stash their stuff, find free
Wi-Fi anywhere, and enjoy a little
homemade butter with minimal
effort.
• Top 10 Tricks for Creatively
Hiding Your Stuff Every kid has a
creative stash for secret stuff, but
that useful enthusiasm doesn't have
to die off just because we've traded
treehouses for desks. See how you
can hide money, files, workspaces,
and more in today's Top 10.
• The Definitive Guide to Finding
Free Wi-Fi You're out and about
with your laptop and you're in need
of some fast internet connectivity.
Here are some tried and true ways
to find and get free Wi-Fi.
• And the Most Popular Email
Service Is... On Monday we asked
you to share what email service you
use, and some 18,000 votes later,
the result is overwhelming (if
unsurprising): 80% of Lifehacker
readers who participated in the poll
use Gmail as their go-to email
service.
• Five Best Apartment Search
Tools Gone are the days when the
only place to find apartment listings
was the back of a newspaper. Now
you can conduct apartment searches
of all sorts online, and its almost
always packed with additional
photos, video, and information.
SET
continued from page 32
• Using this setup, I don't need to
use toaster popups from extensions
like Gmail Notifier or any third
party app. All I have to do is glance
to the top right to see if there's any
new messages.
Quick Note: If you use any sort of
script/extension that forces Firefox
to show the Close button on all tabs
• The Attic Playground Most
people think of attics as a place to
stash boxes of Christmas ornaments
and dusty boxes of mementos.
Follow the example of today's
featured workspace, and the attic
becomes a place for 8-core
workstations and Rock Band
sessions.
• Wallpaper Roundup: Getting
Things Done with Workflows and
Quadrants Whether you're gearing
up for the start of the school year or
you're plugging along at your 9 to 5
like usual, we've got a roundup of
productivity-centric wallpaper to
help you keep focused.
all the time, this setup WILL
visually break that feature. Try it to
see what it looks like, if you're
unsure.
So, now a bit of eye-candy. Since
the above screenshots are shown
with little to no visual
customizations at all, here's a look
at what my current setup looks like,
• Enjoy Homemade Butter in Less
Than Five Minutes Homemade
butter is vastly superior to its store-
bought equivalent, but nobody
wants to pull out or buy a butter
churn. This churn-free method
makes it worthwhile, producing the
kitchen staple (and some bonus
buttermilk, too) in under five
minutes.
• Crack an Egg with One Hand
Have a lot going on in your
kitchen? Master the art of the one-
handed egg crack to save time,
avoid messes, and increase your
culinary cred.
• The Buzz vs The Bulge Chart
optimized for my netbook:
(Click the image above for a
closer look.)
A few notes about my my web
setup:
• I'm using a 1024x600
resolution(Asus Eee PC), so
minimal interface design is key for
me.
Compares Caffeine to Calories
Does a small Frappuccino give you
enough caffeine to be worth the
calories? How long would you have
to run to work off an iced latte?
David McCandless' beautiful chart
puts all your caffeine concerns in
perspective.
• Stock Your Bar for $100
Stocking a bar is a difficult task.
Stocking a bar for $100 is even
more difficult. Let's take a look at
three different methods for gearing
up your liquor cabinet for parties of
various sizes on the cheap.
• By default, I hide my Menu Bar
and my Status bar. My Menu Bar is
easily brought up by pressing Alt,
and I use Fission( original post) to
display both on-hover links and
progress bars in my address bar. It
works very well and adds a nice
Safari-like touch as well as save
space
Internet News Record
Google, Apple, and
AT&T All Make Their
Statements to the FCC
over Google Voice
[Google Voice]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:30:00 PM
Apple's been bad, and now the
FCC is all over Apple, AT&T, and
Google trying to get to the bottom
of the Google Voice app rejection
from the iTunes App Store. So far
no one's really saying all that much
beyond some legal maneuvering,
and the only interesting bit of
information ("What explanation
was given for Apple's rejection of
the Google Voice application?")
was redacted. TechCrunch has the
responses from AT&T, Apple, and
Google if you really want the nitty
gritty. [TechCrunch]
• My theme is Heaven.Cube with
small icons.
• I'm using Stylish for the custom
about:blank page and the removal
of the Go button and the Search
button in the main toolbar.
Nice work, Harsha, and thanks
for the guide!
Internet News Record
TOP
continued from page 31
perfectly well at filling gaps and
polishing—like toothpaste, Pledge,
or Brasso—why not market them to
the owners of terribly scratched
CDs and DVDs? But whenever he
needs to get the launch codes from
a damaged disc (you know, to stop
the launch) in short order when in
the jungle, supermarket, or monkey
cage, MacGyver simply grabs a
banana and some glass cleaner and
gets to work. Assuming there's a
downed plane with glass cleaner in
the jungle, of course, and that
they're cleaning the windows in the
monkey cage. ( Original banana
post).
2. Bind paper without clips or
staples
Not every single day at the DXS
was spent at this or that reactor or
helping unfortunate kidnapped
souls. Somebody's got to expense
report all those hardware store
purchases, after all, but MacGyver
Video Chat Directly from iGoogle [Igoogle]
By Jason Fitzpatrick
(Lifehacker)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 7:30:00 AM
Earlier this year Google added the
chat sidebar to iGoogle, which gave
you Gmail-style chat in your
iGoogle start page. Now they've
expanded the chat functionality to
include video chat right from the
main iGoogle interface.
If you already downloaded the
This Fireball Cannon Will Be My Weekend Project [Cannons]
By Rosa Golijan (Gizmodo)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:20:00 PM
The shoulder-launched dry ice
cannon is great, but it takes $200 in
supplies. At $55, this fireball air
cannon is a far better deal for
occasionally ran out of staples and
paper clips. Rather than run for the
supply closet, he'd creatively fold
and cut the edges, keeping up to 15
sheets of paper together with their
own resistance. As a result, Amos
in accounts payable always knew
when a certain secret agent was
expensing his latest shipments of
wood glue, pipe cleaners, orange
juice, tinfoil, Mountain Dew, and
paper towel tubes. ( Original post)
1. Fix a dent with canned air and
a hair dryer
Now that MacGyver's settled into
married life, he's decided to sell the
Trans Am that saw him through so
many trips to and from the
Department of External Services.
Two hours away from an interested
Craigslist buyer inspection, his wife
points out a bit of a dent picked up
during that quick exit from a
nuclear reactor. He doesn't panic or
call off the showing—he grabs a
video-chat plugin when it was
released for Gtalk in Gmail, then
you're already set. If you haven't
bargain hunters. Actually, forget
being cheap. IT SHOOTS
FIREBALLS. It's better period.
What you'll need:
• Air Tank
• Air Valve
• Plumbing Nipples
can of compressed air and a hair
dryer, and uses the extreme cool of
the canned air and the heat from the
dryer to force the dent to return to
its original shape. His wife points
out that the buyer might still ask
about all the duct tape hidden in
various break-away pieces and
hidden pockets. MacGyver smiles,
slowly retracts the hair dryer cord,
and remembers the day he once
powered a trolley with an electric
whisk, rubber bands, and a battery
pack to fool an automatic weapons
system. Now that was a challenge. (
Original post).
We'd love it if you shared your
own totally possible, no-seriously-it
-works fixes, tips, and stories in the
comments. All you need is a
computer and a commenter
account, and neither require any
impossible odds or access to an
office supply store.
done so yet, you'll need to
download the plugin here.
Once you have the plugin
installed whenever you are talking
with another person using iGoogle,
GTalk, or supported third-party
clients or mobile phones, you'll be
able to start a video chat with them
directly form iGoogle. Video chat
from iGoogle[Google Talkabout]
• Plumbing "T"
TechTips/ Web/ Gizmos/ 35
FROM
continued from page 33
Gmail fixing that annoying "on
behalf of" issue, there's not even a
reason to log into your oh-so-
limited work or school email
account any more often than
necessary to keep it active.
BlackBerry Addicts: Sync
Your Phone With Google
Apps
By Steven Walling
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:28:51 PM
Syncing with BlackBerry
Enterprise server has long been one
of the most requested features fairly high-quality results. Emails
among Google Apps customers. sent to Gmail aren't true push, but
Especially within the BlackBerry they'll show up within 60 seconds.
dominated enterprise space, the fact
that there was no way to easily
You can also read and delete emails
and Calendar items with full unity
integrate the two platforms was a with the online backup; Gmail
huge disadvantage. labels will even translate into
But starting today customers can BlackBerry folders.
get their hands on a Google Apps Google has been public about
Connector for BlackBerry plans to get this feature out the door
Enterprise. This means that for the since May, but it's been a long time
first time, users can get good coming. Since the company
synchronization of core decided that Apps was something
applications like Gmail and Google they wanted to sell to enterprises,
lack of integration with BlackBerry
Calendar for the first time.
Sponsor Enterprise server has been an
impediment to making that sale.
The new Connector they
launched today will give you some Now that's changed. Discuss
• 45 Degree Elbow (optional) and you meet the required skill
• Air Compressor Nipple level of "Experienced and Insured"
• PVC Fittings then check out this second video
• Teflon Tape and the detailed instructions on
What you'll get: Inventgeek. And don't blame us if
Now, if you still want to make something goes wrong. [
one of these beasts after seeing that Inventgeek]
36 Web/
Why Jeremiah Owyang Is Leaving Forrester Research
By Marshall Kirkpatrick
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 1:10:42 PM
Jeremiah Owyang knows what he
wants and he knows how to get it,
fast. Just short of two years after
joining Forrester, the second
biggest professional analyst firm in
the US, Owyang announced
yesterday that he's decided to leave.
From working in the marketing
department of Hitachi Data
Systems to joining business podcast
network startup Podtech to
becoming the first blogger to be
hired as an analyst - Owyang's last
five years have been a model of
professional advancement through
social media.
He hasn't disclosed what he's
going to do next yet, but his so-far
brief career as probably the most
social-media savvy member of the
relatively conservative analyst
industry offers a rich snapshot of
how this important part of the
business world is changing.
Owyang has already played a big
role in changing it.
Sponsor
Jeremiah Owyang wasn't just any
analyst. Forrester employs an
estimated 250 analysts in a wide
variety of specialties, the company
reported $260 million in revenue
last year, but Owyang's incredible
use of blogging and Twitter
brought new attention to the firm
and made him a star. When an
analyst becomes a star, in a red hot
market like social media is now, it's
not at all unusual for them to leave
the cozy confines of the venerable
analyst companies. How The
Analyst Industry Works
If you're not familiar with how
the analyst industry works, here's a
very short summary. Companies
brief analysts on their plans, the
state of their businesses and the
products they are bringing to
market. Some companies pay the
analyst firms to have a two-way
conversation and get advice from
the analysts. Then the analysts
write up information-rich reports
about some important business
trend or another, based on all the
briefings they've done. They sell
those reports for hundreds or
thousands of dollars to consumers
wanting to benefit from all the
research performed by the analysts.
There are professional analysts
for every kind of business you can
imagine, and for every step of the
process of doing business. There
are hundreds of practicing analyst
firms doing business in the United
States, with some variations on this
basic business model, but most are
very small "boutique" shops. The
analyst market is dominated in
almost every sector by one name:
Gartner.
In a distant 2nd place, but also far
bigger than almost anyone else in
the analyst market is Forrester.
That's the company Jeremiah
Owyang just announced he's
leaving after nearly two years of
leveraging the company's huge
reputation and the emerging
communication technologies called
social media, to make himself a fast
-rising star. How Jeremiah Owyang
Works
Jeremiah Owyang came to
Forrester as a blogger and he leaves
even stronger in that role. Despite a
grueling travel schedule, a rigorous
report writing regimen and constant
briefings with companies large and
small, he's one of the most prolific
leading voices in the social media
blogosphere.
"My use of social media and my
career advancement are
intrinsically tied," Owyang told us
by phone today. "I started my blog
as a practitioner at Hitachi. I budget
time every morning to read and
blog. I do that before I check my
personal email or work email. I
believe you have to pay yourself
first. When you open your email
you pay someone else, because it's
usually people reaching out to ask
you for something. Taking the time
to read blogs, synthesize and add
value, that builds your community.
That's paying yourself first."
Whenever a major initiative is
launched by a large software
vendor or a controversy erupts
around best corporate use of
emerging online communication
tools, Owyang strikes fast with a
blog post at his site Web Strategist,
explaining complex matters in ways
that marketing staff can use to talk
to their executives.
Over the years he's created a
number of valuable resources that
lead people to return to his blog
again and again; most prominently
a running list of live-streaming
online video services and a regular
digest of "people on the move"
taking new social media-related
jobs in corporate communication
departments.
More than 100,000 unique
visitors come to his blog each
month - that's more people than
visit competing analyst firms
Gartner and IDC's websites each
month, combined. His skilled use
of Twitter has built him a
readership of more than 50,000
followers. That's unprecedented
visibility in social media
conversations for a professional
analyst. While analysts have
traditionally stood apart from the
messy fray of democratic
conversation online, Owyang is a
leader in a new trend of
engagement and broader listening.
His success has brought new
visibility and customers to Forrester
and inspired hundreds of other
analysts to join that silly-sounding
social network, Twitter.
Owyang has received some
criticism as well. Some other
analysts said his relative
inexperience was also amplified by
his high-profile in social media
circles right along with his
strengths. It's also not clear how
close a connection there is between
being high profile and landing big
clients. That's hard to judge from
the outside.
The voices praising Owyang's
work are more numerous than the
critics, though.
Carter Lusher is an analyst
analyst, if you will. The husky-
voiced man from Portland, Oregon
co-owns a firm called Sage Circle,
a two-analyst shop dedicated to
tracking changes in the larger
analyst industry. They aim to help
Analyst Relations departments in
corporations learn how to engage
effectively with the analysts who
are influencing customers whom
those companies then seek to sell
to. Lusher is bullish on Jeremiah
Owyang.
"We call Jeremiah the poster boy
for effective analyst use of social
media," Lusher says. "And he was a
Internet News Record
very good analyst; he is very
conscientious and does his
homework."
That homework became most
evident when Owyang stepped
away on occasion from the rapid-
fire chatter on Twitter and the fast-
reaction blog posts he puts up on
his personal site.
This Spring Forrester published a
particularly prescient report titled "
The Future of the Social Web,"
edited by Jeremiah Owyang. Less
than 20 pages long, the report was
based on interviews with 24
companies ranging from Google
and Facebook to Cisco, Dell and
this site, ReadWriteWeb. The entire
report (retailing at $499) is a
valuable read for customers seeking
an informed view of the future of
social networks, online identity and
commerce. Our favorite passage
reads as follows:
"... in a bid to extend the reach of
its new browser, Chrome, we
expect Google to build OpenID and
its associated friend connections
into the browser; look for Firefox
and eventually Internet Explorer to
copy this feature. Facebook and
MySpace will also likely build a
way for users to surf the Web
within the Facebook experience,
retaining the social functionality.
These connections won't be perfect,
but they'll allow social networks to
colonize communities and other
parts of the Web, extending their
experience out to other sites
through the shared ID. As a result,
in two years, portable identities will
become a ubiquitous part of the
online experience as they reach
maturity."
Less than four months later,
Owyang announced he was leaving
Forrester for a new project not yet
disclosed. Why Jeremiah Left
Forrester
WHY page 40
Internet News Record
Turning Your Browser into Mr. Hooper
By Guest Author
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:00:42 PM
Imagine a random web.
Your favorite current affairs news
blog, which couldn't survive on
Viagra ads, is now charging
subscriptions. Your e-tail site of
choice keeps recommending
country music, which you outgrew
years ago. And your default social
network's constant entreaties for
donations finally annoy you so
much that you do the unthinkable:
switch to MySpace (at least it is
supported by News Corp's old-
media money).
This is too much. So, you pick up
a copy of Portfolio magazine and
browse the ads for financial
products, reassured that at least this
medium knows how to target its
audience.
Sponsor
Okay, so Portfolio closed four
months ago, joining the ranks of a
host of other magazines killed by
the recession (or by new media,
depending on how you look at it).
Anyway, this extreme scenario
plainly won't happen, even if
Congress has its way and regulates
behavioral targeting in some
fashion. The advertising lobby is
far too strong to let policing efforts
slingshot us back to Web 1.0.
But the battle continues. We'll
likely see some form of
Congressional hearings, with
consumer advocacy groups and
watchdog legislators like
Congressman Ed Markey(D-MA)
trying to sort out whether
behavioral targeting companies are
really just stealth spy networks. The
ability of ad networks, social
networking sites, ISPs, and Web
publishers to capture user data
without disclosing that they're
doing so will remain under the
microscope. Who knows? We may
one day see a national "Do Not
Target" registry.
Let's hope not.
The main argument for
behavioral targeting is obvious:
profitable CPM advertising, which
allows advertisers to better reach
buyers, supports free sites. Users, in
turn, inhabit a less cluttered ad
environment with far more relevant
advertising.
But it goes deeper than that.
Targeting, when it works well,
creates a seamless relationship
between you, a site's content and
the ads on it. Consider magazines
like Architectural Digest, Vogue
and Travel + Leisure. If you're
interested in design, fashion, or
travel, you might ending up
scanning the ads as much as the
articles. Now, consider that the
Web can deliver those ads in a far
more segmented way (if you're
traveling to Turin, you're likely
interested in Piedmont wines).
In October 2007, Microsoft paid
$240 million to power Facebook's
ads, driven by private user data.
While jaws dropped over the $15
billion valuation, Facebook has
used the capital to quietly build an
advertising environment that shows
what behavioral targeting can do.
You may be too busy browsing
your friends' baby pictures to notice
the ads (and that is a downside:
social networks are not purchasing
environments), but as an exercise,
go to your personal page and click
the "More ads" link. If you're a
regular user, chances are it's getting
ever closer to nailing who you are.
Rather than showing a succession
of Netflix ads, Facebook now more
closely resembles a neighborhood
store, run by a knowledgeable
proprietor who makes smart
suggestions about what you might
want. Yes, that creepy spy is really
just Mr. Hooper. Seriously. The
dozens of clerks at your local
Web/ 37
boorish alternative, but because it know?" feeling.
can simply embed a little Java tag What's the solution? The digital
in your cookie and follow you until lobby certainly has to do a better
it (or you) expires. job of educating Congress on the
That is not a bad thing. benefits of targeting. And self-
Yes, targeting has its downsides: regulation is critical: NebuAd's
• Small sample sizes. Remember clumsy efforts to track browsing
that gardening book you bought for histories directly through ISPs hit
your grandmother last year? every wrong note possible for
Amazon sure does. privacy advocates.
• Psychographic characteristics The solution, though, may be
cannot be determined by browsing more technological than regulatory.
alone. Clicking on a Rolex ad Suppose ad networks, social
doesn't mean you can afford a networking sites, e-tailers and
Mercedes; gawking at eye candy search engines were to share IP
does not a luxury buyer make. data. The overall sample size would
• Perhaps most critically, every shoot through the roof, and both
behavioral targeting company has advertisers and users would benefit
to toss out user data on a regular from ad placement that is as spot on
basis or else invest in endless as iTunes' Genius. Some kind of
storage. AudienceScience, for universal cookie, perhaps, could let
example, can track 2 billion events e-tailers notify ad networks that,
Barnes & Noble can't possibly per day but purges data every 90 despite your apsirational browsing
remember what you bought a days.) of ArchiteturalDigest.com, you still
month ago. But Mr. Hooper? He Congress should in fact be shop at Ikea, and so that $40,000
knows. looking for ways to foster better George Nakashima coffee table
Let's face it: Facebook's targeting targeting, not limit it. The more an really is not a good fit.
has gotten much better because it ad network knows about you, the Suppose further that consumers
uses your personal data without more likely it will be able to serve could control this data. For
explicitly telling you. Were you an relevant ad and improve your example, once you returned from
given the opportunity to opt out, user experience. iTunes makes your European vacation, you could
you probably would. It's almost better recommendations than most simply delete your old browsing
reflexive for us now: "No, thanks. I for a simple reason: more often history on travel, eliminating any
don't have time to read the fine than not, it operates from a larger more ads for hotels in the
p r i n t a n d c o n s i d e r t h e collection of data. You may Mediterranean.
implications." frequent only one or two sites "Yeah right," you say, "Google
So when the behavioralists are powered by 24/7 Real Media's would never share its users' search
t r o t t e d b e f o r e t h e H o u s e Open AdStream, but if you've got histories with e-tailers, much less
Subcommittee on Communications, an iPod, you've spent time building other ad networks."
Technology, and the Internet, their an iTunes database of, say, a few Well, it doesn't have to. Your
first order of business will be the thousand songs, which directly browser already contains that
basics: that, fundamentally, the feeds iTunes' Genius. information. Having this URL...
Web is behavioral targeting. To see if Genius is better
LastFM introduces you to people c o n s t r u c t e d t h a n o t h e r http://www.google.com/search?q=k
who like what you listen to; recommendation platforms, create indle
DoubleClick tracks your browsing an iTunes database of only 10 ... means that you Googled
history to display relevant ads; songs (which could very well be the "Kindle." And having this one...
Amazon tells you a new Dylan number of books you purchased http://www.amazon.com/Free-
album is available because, well, from Amazon in the last year). ebook/dp/B002DYJR4G
that's what it does best. Digital Then ask Genius to recommend a ... means that you searched
advertising is killing the magazine playlist. You will almost certainly
industry not because it is a cheap not get that eerie "How does it TURNING page 39
38 Web/
Weekly Wrapup: 10 Exciting Web Apps, Top Twitter Clients,
State of Netbook Market, And More...
By Richard MacManus
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 6:00:00 AM
In this edition of the Weekly
Wrapup - our newsletter
summarizing the top stories of the
week - we poll our readers on their
3 most exciting web apps or
services, analyze the latest Twitter
client stats, report on MySpace's
acquisition of Facebook app iLike,
review the state of the netbook
market, talk to Tim O'Reilly about
his vision for a government web
platform, and more. We also check
in on our two new channels:
ReadWriteEnterprise(devoted to
'enterprise 2.0' trends and products)
and ReadWriteStart(dedicated to
profiling startups and
entrepreneurs).
Sponsor
The Weekly Wrapup is sponsored
by Raptivity, create interactive
websites:
Subscribe to Weekly Wrapup
You can subscribe to the Weekly
Wrapup by RSS or by email(form
below).
RWW Weekly Wrap-up Email
Subscription form:
Purchase The ReadWriteWeb
Guide to Online Community
Management
Our First Premium Report for
Businesses
Recently we released our first
premium report: The
ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online
Community Management.
Businesses seeking to engage with
online communities on their own
websites or all around the social
web will find the guide invaluable
in getting up to speed on the state
of the art and making sure their
employees have the foundation they
need to be effective.
The report is a 75 page collection
of case studies, advice and
discussion concerning the most
important issues in online
community. You will also get a
companion online aggregator that
delivers the most-discussed articles
each day written by experts on
community management from
around the web. All of this is
available for purchase at a price of
$299. You can download a free
sample section of the report here.
Web Products
Top 10 Most Exciting Web Apps
or Services
This week we asked what 3 web
apps or services you find the most
exciting right now. Not your 3 most
used or favorite, but the apps that
currently make you tingly with
excitement. We got some great
responses in the comments, so in
this post we picked out our top 10
from your choices. We chose 5
services that got the most number
of mentions, plus 5 lesser known
web apps or services which got
multiple mentions.
How to Use Facebook: 5 Tips For
Better Social Networking
Facebook is a social networking
site that is enormously popular, but
it can be a frustrating user
experience. The design of
Facebook leaves a lot to be desired
and there are almost too many
choices for things to do on
Facebook. So how can you best
utilize it and find the good apps? In
this post we aimed to find out.
iLike Acquired by MySpace
This week MySpace announced
an agreement to acquire iLike, a
social music discovery service.
iLike is one of the top apps on the
Facebook platform, so how will this
affect the competition between the
two social networking rivals? We
live blogged a press conference
with MySpace CEO Owen Van
Natta to find out more.
The Top Twitter Client Is Still the
Web
According to a new study from
social media solutions provider
Rapleaf, the most popular Twitter
client is the web via Twitter.com -
with 65% of tweets attributed to
this method. As far as the third-
party clients go, only a small
handful of clients had enough users
to warrant their own slice of the pie
chart, and those slices were in the
single digits.
Tr.im to Go Open Source,
Community Owned
After weeks of controversy
concerning a possible closure of the
service, URL shortener Tr.im this
week announced that it's open
sourcing its code, handing
ownership of its domain name over
to a community nonprofit
organization and making
clickthrough data freely available in
real time. The new Tr.im may be
the most exciting thing to happen in
URL shortening since now market
leader Bit.ly itself launched.
5 Reasons to Get Excited about
Linux on the Netbook
Late last year, we boldly
proclaimed that your next computer
might be a Linux PC. Thanks to the
ever-growing market for the low-
end machines dubbed "netbooks,"
this seemed like a real possibility at
the time. In this post we take a look
at the state of the market.
SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS
COVERAGE IN OUR
PRODUCTS CATEGORY A Word
from Our Sponsors
We'd like to thank
ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, without
whom we couldn't bring you all
these stories every week!
• Mashery is the leading provider
of API management services.
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where you can find and share new
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• Domain.ME, the official registry
for all .ME Domains.
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• Mollom, stop comment spam
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• Crowd Science gives you
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server hosting.
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services for small business hosting
needs.
• IronScale, Managed Hosting.
The Cloud Gets Physical.
• MediaTemple provides hosting
for RWW.
• SixApart provides our
publishing software MT4.
ReadWriteEnterprise
Our channel devoted to
'enterprise 2.0' and using social
software inside organizations.
15 Fluid Apps You Can Build for
Your Business
Fluid is a simple application for
creating site-specific browsers
(SSBs) on your OSX desktop. Fluid
is really for anyone, but the low
barrier to entry and the effect it has
on productivity make it an
attractive tool for getting things
done. Though it's been around for a
while, few businesses have really
taken advantage of its full potential.
ReadWriteStart
Our channel ReadWriteStart,
sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark,
is dedicated to profiling startups
Internet News Record
and entrepreneurs.
6 Awesome Apps Begging to Be
Developed
Y Combinator's getting pretty
fancy with their very detailed
Request for Startups idea, which
was somewhat like their " Startups
We'd Like to Fund" post of
yesteryear. While we can't offer
funding, it would make us picky
little Internet geeks terribly happy
if someone developed any of the six
apps listed below. You know, while
we're waiting for the flying cars and
food replicators.
SEE MORE STARTUPS
COVERAGE IN OUR
READWRITESTART CHANNEL
Web Trends
How Tim O'Reilly Aims to
Change Government Some people
go to Washington to try to make the
government more honest; others try
to make it smaller. Technologist
Tim O'Reilly is spending time in
Washington, and bringing
Washington officials to San
Francisco, to do something
different - perhaps something more
realistic. O'Reilly is trying to help
government become a platform for
innovation. A "government as
platform" would supply raw digital
data and other forms of support for
private sector innovators to build
on top of.
What Does Google's High
Customer Satisfaction Rating Mean
for Bing?
According to the results of a new
survey by the American Consumer
Satisfaction Index, Google's users
are extremely happy with their
search engine. Google scored 86
points out of a possible 100,
followed by Yahoo with 77 points.
While this survey was conducted
WEEKLY page 41
Internet News Record
Retweet.com Is No Competition for
Tweetmeme
By Sarah Perez
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 7:33:39 AM
When a service makes its debut by
getting accused of stealing code
from one of its competitors, you
know that it's going to be a tough
road ahead. That was the case with
the Twitter aggregator application
Retweet.com, which went live
earlier this week. Apparently, the
company snagged the code for both
their JavaScript retweet button and
WordPress plugin from their rival
and current top aggregator,
Tweetmeme.
Now with Retweet's official
launch, you may be tempted to give
them a second look... especially
considering the $10,000 they're
giving away. Don't bother. The
service is still buggy, still using that
stolen code (or so it seems), and
that $10K? Well, you had better
read the fine print.
Sponsor
The $10K Contest
A contest to promote the new
service isn't really a bad idea on
Retweet.com's part. But with this
contest, there's no guaranteed
winner. If, and only if, the site
reaches their goal of 1 million
visitors will that "lucky blogger"
receive any money. And then
there's the fact that their
promotional video doesn't even say
"visitors"; it says "page views"(or
Wii Sports Resort 8-in-1 Pack Preserves Every Ounce of Summer Fun [Nintendo Wii]
By Joanna Stern (Gizmodo)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:40:00 PM
Summer may be on its way out,
but the Wii Sports Resort kit makes
"page votes"... it's kind of hard to
tell). Obviously, 1 million page
views is quite a different thing than
visitors. In fact, it's quite a different
thing than unique visitors, which is
what they're actually counting by
the looks of it.
Bugs
Still, if you're thinking of taking
your chances, be warned that your
button might not end up displaying
the correct number of tweets, which
is the entire point of the service. As
one Twitter user discovered, the
button seems to have gone
completely haywire in this case:
Over 3 million tweets? We don't
think so. Normally, we'd give a
new service a pass when they first
launch, expecting there to be bugs
here and there, but considering that
Retweet.com stole the button code
from Tweetmeme, you would think
they could get it right. Stolen Code
Oh, and that stolen code?
Apparently even by launch day,
they were still using it... or at least
it appears that way. As Milo
Yiannopoulos and others
discovered when receiving errors
on their link submissions, the table
name referenced in the database
error still read s
sure the fun never ends. A ping
pong paddle, wakeboard and row
boat paddle attachment for the
Motionplus?! Sign me up.
CTA Digital has just released an
"tweetmeme_web.firstlinks_new."
That's right, the table name. For
those of you who aren't all that
familiar with databases, this is
much more troubling. Notes one
commenter, this means that the
Retweet.com folks somehow
managed to get their hands not just
on Tweetmeme's front-end code,
but also their database schema and
backend code, too. Either that, or
they decided to write their own
code using the names of their
competitor for the table names.
Which are you inclined to believe?
Tyson Quick of Mesiab Labs, the
company behind Retweet.com,
responded to the blog post angrily
saying"I can assure you that Mesiab
Labs isn't using any of tweetmeme's
code." However, he made no
mention of the screenshot or how
the word "tweetmeme" got in there.
We would still like to know.
Even with all of this drama, an
imitator such as this still stands a
chance, unfortunately. That's why
it's encouraging to see Tweetmeme
taking the high road and staying
busy creating new features for us
like the upcoming " retweetable
comments," for example. The
comments are part of a major
overhaul which will also bring
improvements to the news filtering,
spam detection, and search features
as well as other small changes.
Hopefully, Retweet.com won't try
to rip off these features too. Discuss
8-in-1 pack for the Wii Sports
TURNING
continued from page 37
Amazon for the Kindle version of
Chris Anderson's book Free. Solely
by parsing URLs, your browser
could even tell whether your
Amazon session ended with a
checkout.
For certain advertisers, that is
valuable information. And if that
personal data were kept safe, you
probably wouldn't mind if targeting
companies used it to display an ad
for Free on ad networks.
But let's say you did mind. Let's
say you preferred random Viagra
and Disney ads. Your browser
could resolve this, too. It already
stores thousands of cookies for
you—in fact, it stores all of the non
-logged-in data for sites across the
Web. Mostly, this is the Web pages
you visit, user names and
passwords, and other form data,
and it's not easy to discern what
cookies are storing what. But your
ability to monitor and manage your
cookies could be enhanced with a
simple extension.
If this extension could
communicate with third-party
cookie-based systems through a
standard protocol, you could set
simple controls for how much and
what kind of data to broadcast.
"Okay, re-targeting bot. If you want
to drop a Java tag on me and follow
me around the Web, here are the
Resort game for an MSRP of $40.
As you can see from the image
there is quite an assortment of
water and land sports equipment. In
all cases, the attachable handles
Web/ Gizmos/ 39
ground rules."
The rise and fall of NebuAd
illustrates a rather simple truth of
behavioral targeting: the data is
yours, not theirs. Yes, ISPs could
track your browsing history
universally, unlike individual ad
networks, social networking sites
and search engines. And shared
data would enhance the user
experience. But because the data is
yours, controlling it should be in
your hands, not theirs.
Which brings us to the real
treasure trove: data you've entered
on password-protected sites. Why
is Facebook, for example, the only
beneficiary of the personal data you
enter on that social network? It
knows you're an iPhone user, New
York resident, Ivy Leaguer, travel
lover, and Texas Hold 'Em player
for one simple reason: you told it.
If communicating that data
through a browser-based protocol,
at your discretion, turns Viagra ads
into iPhone app ads across the
Internet, wouldn't that be
something? We all understand the
nature of free: someone has to pay.
So, why not turn your browser into
Mr. Hooper?
Guest author: Chris Kincade is co
-founder of DesignBuggy. Discuss
have a compartment that fits the
Wii remote control and an open
ended handle to fit the Wii
MotionPlus adapter. [ CTA Digital]
40 Web/ Gizmos/
WHY
continued from page 36
Owyang's next move will remain
a mystery until next week, but he
has offered some clues about what
he'll be doing. "I will be spending
more time with less clients and be
practicing more," he told us.
"My passion is to help companies
communicate with the web,"
Owyang says. "That's my
background. I think companies can
be improved because they have
these communication channels with
their customers. They can build
better products, reduce resources
and have happier customers. That
means the world will be a better
place."
The desire to return to active
practice instead of analysis was one
of the reasons that Carter Lusher
guesses Owyang was motivated to
leave. Another is money. Lusher
estimates that Forrester paid
Owyang between $125k and $175k
per year. That's not a lot of money
for the responsibilities involved,
and it's just a fraction of the
revenue Owyang was likely
contributing to Forrester's coffers.
Dividing the company's reported
revenues by the estimated number
of analysts on staff brings the
average revenue per analyst to
between $650k and $750k per year.
That's the average and some
analysts are no doubt bringing in
Qik iPhone Video Sharing App Now Allows For Video Uploads Over 3G on
iPhone [Iphone 3gs]
By Rosa Golijan (Gizmodo)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 7:20:00 PM
On first mention, video-sharing
app Qik had one major flaw: video
uploading could only be done over
far more. That number is almost
twice as high as that of industry
leader Gartner, another firm that
experiences top staff departures
with noticeable frequency.
Lusher says it's not at all unusual
for rising stars in hot markets to
decide to venture out on their own
and try to capture more of that
revenue directly. It's also
understood by the firms, he says,
that this is how it goes.
The same day Owyang
announced his departure was very
successful enterprise analyst Ray
Wang's last day at Forrester.
Forrester rock star Charlene Li left
last year and struck out on her own.
Do these departures mean trouble
for Forrester? "Not really," Lusher
told us. "They acquired Jupiter
Research last year largely because
they had a very strong social media
practice. They have a very strong
team."
Of course not everyone who
rocks leaves. Many people in every
field produce far more value for
their employers than they receive in
pay. In that the analyst world isn't
unique. "Many go out and find out
that it's a lot of work being an
entrepreneur," says Lusher. "That's
why a lot of the smart people stay
at the firms."
Enterprise blogger Dennis
Wi-Fi. But thanks to an update of
this currently free app, you can now
get your video uploaded over 3G.
We're wondering whether the
approval of this update is in any
way related to those FCC
Howlett addressed these issues in
his coverage of Owyang's departure
as well. "Changes in the
compensation model may help
retain the next rock star analyst but
somehow I doubt it," he wrote
yesterday. "The analyst firms are
going to have to get used to their
brightest and best viewing the
analyst bench as but a stepping
stone for greater things. That has to
impact the business model and
quite how the firms respond
remains to be seen."
Owyang has decided to leave and
will now take his strong personal
brand, greatly strengthened by his
time at Forrester, with him. "I
recommend anyone who gets a
chance to be an analyst," he told us
today.
When he departs, it's not as if
he'll be taking social media away
with him. Forrester is already
looking to fill his position -
including with a Twitter
account@forresterjobs. What
Owyang will do next with his skills
and whether his replacement at
Forrester will bring the same social
media success to the firm remain to
be seen.
Photo CC by Frédéric de Villamil
on Flickr. Discuss
investigations since AT&T couldn't
TipJoy: Twitter Startup
Fails Despite Major
Blessings
By Marshall Kirkpatrick
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:07:22 PM
There's a seemingly infinite list of
startup companies based on adding
one form of value or another on top
of Twitter. One called TipJoy
closed its doors this week, despite a
remarkable set of blessings that
thousands of developers throughout
the Twitter ecosystem would be
wildly jealous of.
TipJoy offered a service that
would let people pay small amounts
of money as tips for online content,
with the transaction being
processed via messaging on
Twitter. That wasn't the only way
TipJoy worked, but the company
was very closely tied to Twitter.
Sponsor
TipJoy had three big advantages
that we can see. The company
raised money from investors,
something that few Twitter-related
startups are able to do. Among
those investors was BetaWorks, the
funding incubator that backed
search engine Summize and sold it
to Twitter. BetaWorks has invested
in a number of other related
services, including popular Twitter
client Tweetdeck. Backing from
BetaWorks is a big advantage for a
Twitter-related startup.
possibly like video uploading over
the network, but who cares? We're
happy to be able to share our
embarrassing moments without
having to find Wi-Fi. [ iTunes via
The iPhone Blog]
Internet News Record
Also among TipJoy's investors
was Chris Sacca, an early Google
employee turned startup investor.
Sacca also has money in Twitter.
Twitter founder and CEO Ev
Williams has more reciprocal @
conversations on Twitter with
Sacca than with anyone else except
his wife. Getting that guy's money
and backing on your side sounds
pretty great for a Twitter-related
startup, right?
Finally, TipJoy got placement in
the "definitions" section in the top
right corner of Twitter.com for
millions of people for some period
of time. Hardly anyone gets
placement there.
And still it didn't work. What's
the take away? Maybe that people
really don't want to do
micropayments. Maybe that close
connections with Twitter investors
and staff don't always impact a
Twitter-related startup as much as
you might think. Discuss
Internet News Record
Dorthy.com: A (Semantic) Search
Engine for Dreams
By Sarah Perez
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 9:08:03 AM
Dorthy.com, a site we've been
hearing about since late last year,
has just raised $4 million from
angel investors for their "new agey"
concept of a search engine for
dreams. Currently in private alpha,
the site makes fluffy claims about
how they're "reversing the
traditional search process,
continuously filtering and focusing
the Universe of online content, to
connect you with the best stuff
around your interests and
aspirations."
If you're not clear on what exactly
that means, don't feel bad... but
don't write them off either. Instead,
think of Dorthy.com as a new take
on the old 43Things, the site which
encourages users to list goals, share
progress, and cheer each other on.
Dorthy does the same but gets you
there by making interesting use of
Web 3.0 technologies like AI and
natural language search.
Sponsor
Semantic Search for Dreams
According to Jim Anderson, the
About.com co-founder who was
hired as Dorthy's CTO earlier this
year, the site's search engine doesn't
use keyword-based search but
rather has the user enter a fully
formed question, statement, or
ATM Card Skimmers Go Low-Tech, Start Using Pythons [Atm]
By Rosa Golijan (Gizmodo)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:40:00 PM
I used to worry about card
skimmers in ATMs, but now I have
a new nightmare: pythons. Six-and-
phrase like"run a marathon in 4
hours." Not only does the search
engine parse the semantics of your
input using its proprietary
algorithms, it also learns from you,
incrementally enhancing your
results upon every visit.
As an example, Anderson
describes how a fictional user
named Jennifer might search for
information about a trip to Paris.
Because Jennifer had previously
shared other background
information like the fact that she's
an avid marathon runner, fluent in
French, wants to learn to cook
French food, and hates cruises,
Dorthy.com will retrieve specific
information related to those
interests. The results would be
filtered to highlight info on cooking
schools, shopping, and popular
running routes in Paris - things that
would be interesting to Jennifer
specifically.
This example doesn't even
necessarily count as a "dream," it
seems - you could plan an actual
trip to Paris using Dorthy's
technology, too. However, the
overall point of the service is to
provide you with information about
a-half foot pythons like this one
which was lurking in an ATM in
a particular goal or aspiration and
then connect you with others who
feel the same. Using Dorthy
When performing searches on
Dorthy, you'll have the option to
create your own page on a specific
topic or view the topic pages others
have already created. These pages
feature popular articles, videos,
photos, and blog entries from the
web and are constantly being
updated with new content. When
you find content you like, even if
it's on someone else's page, you can
easily copy it over to a page of your
own.
After this initial "discovery"
process is complete, you can use
Dorthy's "Connect" feature to meet
others also interested in your topic
so you can share your progress and
encourage each other, much like
how the above-mentioned 43Things
operates.
In the future, Dorthy hopes to
expand their offering to go beyond
simply being a consumer-targeted
Web-based service to one that
could benefit the enterprise (think"I
want to go to a virtualization
conference in Las Vegas"), or so
reported eWeek earlier this year.
They also plan on moving to
mobile at some point, too.
At the moment, Dorthy.com is in
private alpha, but you can sign up
to join here.
Discuss
Nis, Serbia.
According to authorities, no one
WEEKLY
continued from page 38
before Microsoft's Bing arrived on
the market, they clearly show the
problems Bing faces in a
marketplace where most consumers
are perfectly happy with Google.
Bits of Destruction Hit the Book
Publishing Business: Part 4
In this fourth part of our
investigation into the ongoing
changes in the book publishing
business, we look at the author's
point of view. What are they
getting today? What would they
like to get? What can they
reasonably expect to get as this
drama unfolds? Authors are the
creative juice of the whole eco-
system. If they don't create material
that people want to read, no one
will make any money.
Race To Data Portability: Google
Water Soluble Bikini Really Works, Is
Still A Cruel Prank [Bikini]
By Rosa Golijan (Gizmodo)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 7:00:00 PM
Remember the water soluble
bikini? We didn't test it out on our
Jesus after all, but we did find some
videos showing just how well it
works. (Don't worry, the NSFW
version is hidden behind a link.)
has claimed ownership of the
reptile just yet, but you can't really
blame the owner: he or she will be
punished for negligence. [ Fox
Charlotte]
Web/ Gizmos/ 41
Chrome vs. Mozilla Weave
Google announced bookmark
sync to the Chrome browser this
week. Chrome users can sync their
bookmarks across various machines
and store them alongside Google
Docs. While the feature is not a
new concept amongst browsers, the
significance is that yet another
player is storing your data in the
cloud with the ability to distribute it
across networks.
SEE MORE WEB TRENDS
COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS
CATEGORY
That's a wrap for another week!
Enjoy your weekend everyone.
Discuss
This is exactly why you should
never wear bikinis given to you by
strange Belgian men. (Waffles on
the other hand are perfectly
acceptable. For eating and
wearing.) Hit up the link for the
NSFW version which is basically
an extended clip with nipples
showing. [ clint]
42 Web/ World/ Entertainment/
Wolfram Alpha Gears Up for the Fall Ahmadinejad appoints
Semester wanted man
By Frederic Lardinois
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 9:30:23 AM
The launch of Wolfram Alpha in
May is still one of the most exciting
product launches we have
witnessed so far this year, even if
the enormous hype around it also
meant that it disappointed a lot of
people who expected a "Google
killer." In the last couple of months,
however, the Wolfram Alpha team
has been working quietly on
improving Wolfram's
'computational knowledge engine.'
According to Stephen Wolfram's
latest post on the Wolfram Alpha
blog, things are moving ahead as
planned. The company has used the
summer months to tweak and
extend Wolfram Alpha quietly as it
got ready for more people to use it
more heavily once the fall semester
begins in the US.
Sponsor
As Stephen Wolfram points out,
the team wanted to launch Alpha
before the summer, so that it could
learn more about how users would
use the system and enhance the
code and data sources accordingly
before the fall. 54,233 Bug Reports
and Suggestions
Will you watch the Jackson Brothers reality show?
By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:29:00 PM
This was actually a reality show
that was already in the works at
A&E way before Michael Jackson
died in June. They filmed a one-
hour special and they were hoping
that a reunion concert with Michael
would happen in the last episode.
Among other things, the team
held true to its promise to make at
least one code update per week and
there have been over 50,000
manual changes to Alpha's data sets
over the last three months. Since its
launch, Alpha's codebase has also
grown over 50%. The team added
over 2 million lines of Mathematica
code to the project in the last three
months.
In addition, Wolfram has also
steadily hired more developers to
work on Alpha. As Stephen
Wolfram points out (with the
precision only an engineer could
really appreciate) the team received
over 54,233 bug reports and
suggestions. 31,006 of these "are
now in [the] implementation queue,
boiled down to about 5800 to-do
items." 3907 people so far heard
that the bugs they reported have
been fixed.
All of this, of course, means
nothing if the "computational
knowledge engine" doesn't return
the right results. What is more
important here than all the
engineering data, is that Alpha's
"fall-through rate" - that is, the
There's no official word yet, but
sources say A&E is going to do the
series after all, and it will focus a
number of queries that users
entered that it simply couldn't
understand - has now been reduced
to about 10%.
This is still a pretty high number
and there are still a lot of areas
where Alpha just doesn't know
enough yet, though according to
Wolfram, a lot of the things that
people want to know that Alpha
doesn't know yet are on the
company's to-do list.
Wolfram also mentions that the
team plans to give users more
options to get actively involved in
the project. He did not go into any
specifics, however. Ready for
School
As the fall semester is just around
the corner and as Alpha's current
users are most likely to be students
and academics, it is good to see that
development on Alpha moved
ahead during the summer. Wolfram
stresses that this is a long-term
project and that the team is
constantly adding new data sources
and new ways to query these
databases.
If you haven't used it yet, have a
look at this " Chemistry 101" post
on the Alpha blog for some
inspiration. Discuss
lot on how the brothers are coping
with Michael's death. Will you
watch it?
View Poll
Filed under: Other Reality Shows,
Programming, Celebrities
Permalink| Email this| |
Comments
By Aidan Jones (World news
and comment from the
Guardian | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:31:56 PM
Iran's new defence minister sought
by Interpol for 1994 bombing of
Jewish centre
A former commander of Iran's
Revolutionary Guards has been
nominated by Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, to
head the country's defence ministry,
despite being listed on Interpol's
wanted register for the 1994
bombing of a Jewish cultural centre
in Argentina.
Argentinian prosecutors joined
Jewish groups last night in
condemnation of Ahmadinejad's
decision to propose Ahmad Vahidi
for the senior cabinet post.
Vahidi has been on an Interpol
"red notice" since November 2007,
in connection with the car bomb
attack on the Israeli-Argentine
Mutual Association (AMIA)
building in Buenos Aires that killed
85 people and injured 150 – the
worst attack on a Jewish target
outside Israel since the second
world war.
Interpol's red notices are alerts to
its 187 member nations. They are
not arrest warrants but are
sometimes interpreted as a request
for apprehending a suspect.
At the time of the attack Vahidi,
who is currently Iran's deputy
defence minister, commanded a
notorious unit of the Revolutionary
Guards called the Quds Force. It is
known for orchestrating Iran's
overseas operations including
Internet News Record
working alongside Lebanon's
Hezbollah militant group, which is
accused of carrying out the Buenos
Aires attack on the instigation of
Iran.
Vahidi's promotion, which was
mooted on Wednesday, will be
interpreted as the latest act of
defiance of international opinion by
Ahmadinejad, as he seeks to
cement his hold on power after the
fiercely disputed elections in June.
Iranian lawmakers have yet to
ratify the 21-member cabinet. Fears
have been voiced that his selections
were based on their loyalty rather
than experience.
At least four nominees for
defence, interior, intelligence and
oil minister had ties with the elite
Revolutionary Guard, a powerful
base of support for the president.
Argentinian prosecutor Alberto
Nisman, who led the investigation
into the 1994 bombing, yesterday
said Vahidi is accused of being "a
key participant in the planning" of
the attack. "It has been
demonstrated that Vahidi
participated in and approved of the
decision to attack AMIA during a
meeting in Iran on August 14,
1993. Iran has always protected
terrorists, giving them government
posts, but I think never one as high
as this one," he told the Associated
Press.
• Iran
Aidan Jones
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News
& Media Limited 2009 | Use of this
content is subject to our Terms &
Conditions| More Feeds
Internet News Record
Dying for affordable healthcare
By Ed Pilkington (World news
and comment from the
Guardian | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 9:08:28 AM
In a week of claim and counter-
claim about the merits of healthcare
provision in the US and UK, Ed
Pilkington travelled to Quindaro,
Kansas, to see how the poorest
survive
Audio slideshow: Free health care
in Kansas City
In the furious debate gripping
America over the future of its
health system, one voice has been
lost amid the shouting. It is that of a
distinguished gynaecologist, aged
67, called Dr Joseph Manley.
For 35 years Manley had a
thriving health clinic in Kansas. He
lived in the most affluent
neighbourhood of Kansas City and
treated himself to a new Porsche
every year. But this is not a story
about doctors' remuneration and
their lavish lifestyles.
In the late 1980s he began to have
trouble with his own health. He had
involuntary muscle movements and
difficulty swallowing. Fellow
doctors failed to diagnose him,
some guessing wrongly that he had
post-traumatic stress from having
served in the airforce in Vietnam.
Eventually his lack of motor
control interfered with his work to
the degree that he was forced to
give up his practice. He fell
instantly into a catch 22 that he had
earlier seen entrap many of his own
patients: no work, no health
insurance, no treatment.
He remained uninsured and
largely untreated for his
progressively severe condition for
the following 11 years. Blood tests
that could have diagnosed him
correctly were not done because he
couldn't afford the $200. Having
lost his practice, he lost his
mansion on the hill and now lives
in a one-bedroom apartment in the
suburbs. His Porsches have made
way for bangers. Many times this
erstwhile pillar of the medical
establishment had to go without
food in order to pay for basic
medicines. In 2000 Manley finally
found the help he needed, at a clinic
in Kansas City that acts as a rare
safety net for uninsured people. He
was swiftly diagnosed with
Huntington's disease, a
degenerative genetic illness, and
now receives regular medical
attention through the clinic.
So how does he feel about the
way the debate in the US has come
to be dominated by Republican-
inspired attacks on Britain's NHS
and other "socialised" health
services which give people the
treatment they need even if they
cannot afford to pay for it?
"I find that repulsive and an
absolutely bone-headed way to go,"
he says. "When I started out
practising I certainly didn't expect
this would happen. I thought the
system would take care of
everybody."
Over the last month President
Obama's attempts to live up to his
election promise to extend
healthcare to all Americans has
stalled in the face of a sustained
rightwing guerrilla attack.
Opponents of Obama's reforms
have succeeded in distracting
attention from Manley and the 46
million other medically uninsured,
swinging the focus instead on to the
"evils" of publicly funded
healthcare. The fear tactics were
epitomised by Sarah Palin's wholly
inaccurate claim that the reforms
would set up "death panels" that
would force euthanasia on to older
people.
Such scaremongering has
dismayed and infuriated Sharon
Lee, the doctor who now treats
Manley in Kansas City. "I'm very
angry, very angry," she says.
"Many of the people I treat have
already been in front of a death
panel and have lost – a death panel
controlled by insurance companies.
I see people dying at least monthly
because we have been unable to get
them what they needed."
Lee's clinic, Family Health Care,
is a refuge of last resort. It picks up
the pieces of lives left shattered by
a health system that has failed
them, and tries to glue them back
together. It exists largely outside
the parameters of formal health
provision, raising funds through
donations and paying all its 50 staff
– Lee included – a flat rate of just
$12 an hour.
Poverty line
Lee has just opened an outpost of
her clinic in the outlying
neighbourhood of Quindaro, an
area of boarded-up houses and
deserted factories where work is
hard to find and crack plentiful and
a per capita income is $11,025. A
third of the population is below the
federally defined poverty line.
And yet the local health
department has decided the only
health centre in the area will be
closed by the end of this year and
moved 30 blocks west to a much
more prosperous part of the city
where income levels are five times
higher. Before long, one of the
poorest areas of Kansas – of
America – will be left without a
single doctor, with only Lee's
voluntary services to fall back on.
Even that is academic. Many of
the residents of Quindaro were
unable to see a doctor in any case –
because they were uninsured. In
Kansas, anyone who is able-bodied
but unemployed is not eligible for
government-backed health
insurance as is anyone earning
more than 39% of federal poverty
levels. That leaves a huge army of
jobless and low-income working
families who are left in limbo. "It's
the working poor who are most at
disadvantage," Lee says.
As a result, she sees the same
pattern repeating itself over and
over. People with no insurance
avoid seeking medical help for fear
of the bills that follow, until it is
too late. "When people come in
they are already very, very sick.
They have avoided seeing the
doctor thinking that something may
clear up, hoping they may be
getting better."
Beth Gabaree, who came in to see
Lee for the first time this morning,
has experiences that sound extreme
but are in fact quite typical. She has
diabetes and a heart condition.
Until two years ago they were
controlled through ongoing
treatment paid for by her husband's
work-based health insurance. But
he was in a motorbike crash that
pulverised his right leg and put him
out of work.
That Catch 22 again: no work, no
insurance, no treatment. Except in
this case it was Beth who went
without treatment, in order to put
her husband's dire needs first. He
receives ongoing specialist care that
costs them $500 a go, leaving
nothing for her. So she stopped
seeing a doctor, and effectively
began self-medicating. She cut
down from two different insulin
drugs to regulate her diabetes to
one, and restricted her heart drugs.
"I do what I think I need to do to
keep four steps out of hospital. I
know that's not the right thing, but I
can't justify seeing the doctor when
my family's already in money
trouble."
The problem is that she hasn't
kept herself four steps out of
hospital. Her health deteriorated
and earlier this year she became
bedridden. Even then, it took her
family several days to persuade her
to go to the emergency room
World/ 43
because she didn't want to incur the
hospital costs. "It was hard enough
without that," she says.
After an initial consultation, Lee
has now booked Gabaree for a new
round of tests for her diabetes and
is arranging for free medication.
"It's wonderful," Gabaree says. "I'm
so blessed. I didn't know you could
get this sort of help."
That she sees basic healthcare as
a blessing, not as a right, speaks
volumes about attitudes among the
mass of the working poor. Also
revealing is the fact that Gabaree
has absolutely no idea about the
debate raging across America. She
hasn't even heard of Obama's push
for health reform, nor the
Republican efforts to prevent it. "I
don't watch much television," she
says.
That provides Palin et al with a
massive advantage: the 46 million
people who would most benefit
from Obama's plans are also among
the least educated and informed,
and thus the least able to make
political waves. All of which leaves
Lee fearful about the prospects for
change. She has, after all, been here
before – in 1993 when Hillary
Clinton's pitch to overhaul the
health system foundered. That
attempt ended up doing more harm
than good from Lee's perspective.
Many of her most important donors
stopped funding the centre because
they assumed that the White House
was fixing the problems. After the
Clinton reforms crashed, brought
down by the same rightwing assault
that Obama is now enduring, it took
many months for the centre's funds
to regain their pre-1993 levels.
Recession
Lee fears history could be
repeating itself. This time round
there is the recession more
unemployed equals more uninsured
DYING page 49
44 World/
Gaddafi inflames Lockerbie fury
By Ewen MacAskill, Nicholas
Watt, Peter Beaumont (World
news and comment from the
Guardian | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 7:32:36 AM
British embarassment over
jubilant return of freed man to
Libya, while Washington expresses
'disgust'
The British government faces
fresh embarassment after the
Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi,
met the man convicted of the
Lockerbie bombing and heaped
praise on Scotland, his "friend
Gordon Brown", the Queen and
Prince Andrew, saying all of them
had contributed to the release of
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
Gaddafi's comments came during
a televised meeting with Megrahi
that is bound to intensify the
transatlantic row over his release.
The White House has described as
"outrageous and disgusting" the
triumphalist scenes that greeted his
arrival in Libya on Thursday.
The Foreign Office has strongly
denied claims by Gaddafi's son,
Saif, that Megrahi's release was
linked to trade deals. Lord
Mandelson, the business secretary,
said the suggestion was
"completely wrong" and
"offensive".
Gaddafi defied pressure from the
US and Britain by meeting
Megrahi, the only man convicted of
the bombing of Pan Am flight 103
that killed 270 people when the
plane exploded over the Scottish
town of Lockerbie in December
1988.
Megrahi has terminal prostate
cancer and officially was released
by the Scottish goverment on
compassionate grounds.
Television footage of the Libya
meeting showed the pair embracing
and speaking, with the Libyan
leader also meeting members of the
freed bomber's family.
The Libyan news agency Jana
quoted Gaddafi congratulating the
Scottish authorities for "their
courage and for having proved their
independence despite the
unacceptable and unreasonable
pressures they faced".
He continued: "And I say to my
friend Brown, the prime minister of
Britain, his government, the Queen
of Britain, Elizabeth, and Prince
Andrew, who all contributed to
encouraging the Scottish
government to take this historic and
courageous decision, despite the
obstacles."
Gadhafi compared Megrahi's
return to his government's 2007
release of five Bulgarian nurses and
a naturalised Palestinian doctor
imprisoned on charges of
deliberately infecting with HIV
more than 400 Libyan children. The
nurses denied the charges and said
they were tortured into confessing.
The Libyan leader noted there
were no such widespread concerns
for the families of the infected
children when the nurses returned
home to a hero's welcome. "Do we
not have feelings and they have
feelings?" Gaddafi said.
The growing anger on both sides
of the Atlantic at the decision of the
Scottish government to free
Megrahi has seen the British
government attempt to distance
itself from the decision.
The Foreign Office put out a
statement denying Megrahi's
release was linked to trade deals
after Gadaffi's son told Libyan
television the convicted bomber's
case was raised during talks over
oil and gas.
"There is no deal," the Foreign
Office said. "All decisions relating
to the Megrahi case have been
made exclusively by Scottish
ministers, the Crown Office in
Scotland and the Scottish judicial
authorities. No deal has been made
between the UK government and
Libya in relation to Megrahi and
any commercial interests in the
country."
However, European governments
including Britain have been
lobbying hard for business in Libya
as it emerges from years of
sanctions. Oil giants BP and Shell
are among several British firms
hoping to make big profits in the
desert country.
Yesterday Downing Street
confirmed that Gordon Brown had
written to the Libyan leader,
Muammar Gaddafi, calling on
Libya to "act with sensitivity" and
to ensure a "low-key return" for al-
Megrahi. But hours after Britain
sent the letter, Megrahi was cheered
by hundreds of supporters, some
waving Scottish flags, as he landed
at Tripoli airport accompanied by
Gaddafi's son. Gaddafi's decision to
meet the bomber this morning is a
further snub to Brown and is likely
to draw condemnation form the
Foreign Office, which made clear
yesterday it would be monitoring
Libyan conduct.
Megrahi vowed in an interview
with the Times newspaper
yesterday that he would present
new evidence before he died
exonerating him of any
involvement in Lockerbie.
He dismissed the international
furore over his release, saying US
President Barack Obama and others
should know he would not be doing
anything apart from going to
hospital for treatment and waiting
to die.
"My message to the British and
Scottish communities is that I will
put out the evidence (to exonerate
me) and ask them to be the jury,"
Al-Megrahi, sentenced in 2001,
said without elaborating.
The White House condemned the
scenes at Tripoli airport in
unusually undiplomatic language.
Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama's
spokesman, said: "I think the
images that we saw in Libya
yesterday were outrageous and
disgusting. We continue to express
our condolences to the families that
lost a loved one as a result of this
terrorist murder."
In an interview from his home in
Tripoli yesterday, Megrahi denied
he or Libya itself were responsible
for the Lockerbie bombing. He said
that before he died he would
present fresh evidence through his
Scottish lawyers that would
exonerate him. "My message to the
British and Scottish communities is
that I will put out the evidence and
ask them to be the jury," he told the
Times, declining to elaborate.
Obama described the scenes at
Tripoli airport as "highly
objectionable" and the White
House warned the Libyan
government that it risked a rift
between the two countries if there
was any repetition of the hero's
welcome for Megrahi. Gibbs said
the US would be watching what
happens next. Washington wants
Megrahi held under house arrest.
Part of the US anger is because
Obama had also asked Libya not to
award Megrahi a hero's welcome.
Downing Street was also irritated.
Sir Vincent Fean, the British
ambassador to Tripoli, delivered
Brown's letter to the Libyan prime
minister an hour after Megrahi's
plane left Glasgow airport.
British government sources said
they were "not over the moon"
about the celebrations but accepted
Libyan explanations that it had not
been an official demonstration and
that security officials had turned
away crowds.
Describing the scenes at the
airport as "deeply upsetting", David
Miliband, the foreign secretary,
said: "I think it's very important
Internet News Record
that Libya knows – and certainly
we have told them – that how the
Libyan government handles itself in
the next few days after the arrival
of Mr Megrahi will be very
significant in the way the world
views Libya's re-entry into the
civilised community of nations."
In a sign that relations have been
damaged, British government
sources indicated last night that it
was highly unlikely the Duke of
York, Prince Andrew, would attend
ceremonies next month to mark the
40th anniversary of the Libyan
revolution that brought Gaddafi to
power. No formal invitation has
been sent, but the duke, Britain's
official trade envoy, had been
expected to attend the event as part
of the growing trade relationship
with Libya.
The Scottish government is
planning to defend its decision.
Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish
justice secretary, who released
Megrahi on compassionate grounds
because he has terminal prostate
cancer, is expected to criticise
London's conduct when the
Scottish parliament meets in
emergency session on Monday.
MacAskill is said to be furious
with the British government for
refusing to take part in his
consultations over the release. SNP
sources have said they believe
Brown ordered ministers not to take
part so that London could distance
itself from the decision.
The British government refused
to answer in detail a letter from
MacAskill after the US authorities
told him that London had given an
assurance Megrahi would always
serve his sentence in Scotland.
MacAskill has said London's failure
to answer this question was one
reason he could not transfer
Megrahi to a prison in Libya.
GADDAFI page 45
Internet News Record
CIA faces torture bombshell
By Peter Beaumont (World
news and comment from the
Guardian | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 5:40:37 AM
Findings suppressed since 2006
detail death threats against
prisoners and other methods that
may constitute tortutre
CIA interrogators threatened a
captured al-Qaida leader with a
power drill and a pistol in what was
described as a mock execution,
according to a long-suppressed
report due to be released on
Monday.
Details of the report by the spy
agency's inspector general have
emerged in the Washington Post
and Newsweek. The full findings
on the CIA's interrogation
programme are to be made public
after a federal judge upheld an
appeal from the American Civil
Liberties Union for their release.
The report is understood to
describe mock executions where
interrogators tried to get detainees
to talk by firing a gun in an
adjoining room to pretend another
prisoner had been killed.
According to leaked information
from the report, Abd al-Rahim al-
Nashiri was threatened with a drill
and gun during his detention at one
of the CIA's so-called black site
prisons after his capture in 2002.
He was subjected to the near-
drowning technique known as
waterboarding, as were two other al
-Qaida leaders.
Nashiri, who remains in detention
Lifetime's Project Runway scores big with viewers
By Allison Waldman (TV
Squad)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:03:00 AM
In the war between the cable
channels, score this week for
Lifetime over Bravo. The battle for
at Guantánamo Bay, has been
accused of masterminding the 1999
bombing of the USS Cole, which
killed 17 American sailors.
Sources familiar with the report
told the Washington Post that
Nashiri was threatened with death
or grave injury during his
questioning. A CIA officer showed
Nashiri a gun and suggested he
would be shot, and a power drill
was held near Nashiri's body and
repeatedly turned on and off. US
law on torture prohibits a US
national from threatening anyone in
his custody with imminent death.
The disclosures come as the CIA
faces intense scrutiny. The US
attorney general, Eric Holder, has
been examining the legality of the
CIA's interrogation methods.
The inspector general examined
CIA techniques over a period of
two years – from 2002 until 2004 –
to see whether justice department
guidelines for so-called "enhanced
interrogations" had been followed.
Those guidelines were finally
released by the Obama
administration despite the
objections of the CIA and former
senior officials under George Bush.
The report is understood to be the
most detailed review of the
agency's interrogation programme
and is believed to be highly critical
of the techniques used, suggesting
that a number of them broke
international laws and norms. The
document has become deeply
controversial within the CIA itself,
not least because the agency was
Project Runway had been a legal
wrangle that delayed Lifetime
getting to show the fashion reality
series until last Thursday, but when
it finally appeared it was a ratings
bonanza. Project Runway was the
highest-rated series premiere in
advised two months before
Nashiri's capture in a memo from
Jay Bybee, the head of the justice
department's office of legal
counsel, that threats of "imminent
death" were legal if they did not
cause permanent mental harm.
The report – originally
commissioned by then CIA director
George Tenet – has become a cause
celebre. It was seen by justice
department and congressional
intelligence committee leaders
shortly after it was written, but not
shown to all members of the
intelligence committees until
September 2006.
Top Bush CIA officials, including
Tenet's successors as CIA director,
Porter Goss and General Michael
Hayden, lobbied for the report to be
kept secret, claiming its release
would damage America's reputation
around the world and damage CIA
morale.
Its public release comes after
revelations last week that the CIA
hired the private military contractor
Blackwater – now known as Xe
Services – to assassinate al-Qaida
leaders. The programme never got
off the ground and was kept secret
from Congress.
Previous scandals that damaged
the reputation of the CIA and the
US internationally during the Bush
years include the disclosure of the
US secret rendition programme for
terrorist suspects, the existence of
the black site prisons and the use of
waterboarding.
Barack Obama has said that
Lifetime's history. That's 25 years!
World/ Entertainment/
waterboarding constitutes torture
and is therefore forbidden under US
law.
In Europe, the Swiss senator who
has led an inquiry across the
continent into secret CIA-run
detention centres has urged
European nations to come clean
about their involvement "in this
shameful episode".
Dick Marty said Europe's
credibility was being damaged by
leaks about CIA interrogation
facilities in countries such as
Poland, Romania and Lithuania.
Marty said that instead of having
the truth trickle out gradually, all
participants in the illegal program
should publicly admit their
involvement.
In a 2007 probe conducted on
behalf of the Council of Europe,
Marty accused 14 European
governments of permitting the CIA
to run detention centres or conduct
rendition flights through their
countries between 2002 and 2005.
• Torture
• CIA rendition
• CIA
• George Bush
• Al-Qaida
• Guantánamo Bay
• Obama administration
• United States
Peter Beaumont
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News
& Media Limited 2009 | Use of this
content is subject to our Terms &
Conditions| More Feeds
Continue reading Lifetime's
Project Runway scores big with
viewers
Filed under: Other Reality Shows,
Industry, OpEd, Ratings
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Comments
45
GADDAFI
continued from page 44
• Lockerbie plane bombing
• Libya
• Obama administration
• United States
Ewen MacAskill Nicholas Watt
Peter Beaumont
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News
& Media Limited 2009 | Use of this
content is subject to our Terms &
Conditions| More Feeds
Bill O'Reilly
answers Jon Stewart
By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:00:00 PM
Yesterday, Jon Stewart and The
Daily Show had a little fun with
FOX News, saying the way that
they're covering the town hall
protests makes them sound like
liberals. Well, last night, Bill
O'Reilly turned the tables on
Stewart and gave him a little bit of
his own medicine. You decide
who's being more fair and balanced.
[via TV Newser]
Filed under: News, Video, The
Daily Show, Celebrities, Reality-
Free
Permalink| Email this| |
Comments
46 World/ Entertainment/
Taliban cut off voters' inked fingers
By Jon Boone (World news and
comment from the Guardian |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 4:03:14 AM
Afghanistan election monitors are
reporting irregularities and violence
- including an attack on voters with
ink-stained fingers
Taliban militants cut off the ink-
stained fingers of two Afghan
voters in the militant south during
the presidential election, the
country's top election monitoring
group said today.
Two voters who had dipped their
index fingers in purple ink – a fraud
prevention measure – were attacked
in Kandahar province shortly after
voting on Thursday, according to
Nader Nadery, the head of the Free
and Fair Election Foundation of
Afghanistan.
Rumours that militants would cut
off voters' ink-stained fingers
spread before the vote following
threats from the Taliban.
Nadery said his group also saw
widespread problems with election
officials pressuring people to vote
for certain candidates. Election
monitors also saw voters carrying
boxes of voter cards to polling
sites, he said, allowing them to vote
multiple times. There were also
problems with underage voting and
election officials being ejected from
polling stations by representatives
of candidates.
Western powers yesterday rushed
to declare Afghanistan's
Right now on Cinematical
By Kona Gallagher (TV Squad)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 11:05:00 AM
The folks at our sister site
Cinematical are working hard to
give you news and reviews of the
best -- and worst -- the silver screen
has to offer. Here are some of their
presidential elections a success
despite evidence of irregularities
and violence on polling day and
growing uncertainty about whether
the vote would return a credible
result.
Both the leading candidates,
Hamid Karzai and Abdullah
Abdullah, declared they had won
Thursday's poll, generating
concerns of a full-blown dispute.
Election officials warned that it
would take several days to
determine the result and the extent
to which voting had been marred by
corruption and low voter turnout.
Last night Barack Obama
described the election as "an
important step forward" in attempts
by Afghans to take control of their
future. Referring to attempts by the
Taliban to derail the democratic
process, he said: "Even in the face
of this brutality, millions of
Afghans exercised the right to
choose their leaders and determine
their own destiny. I believe that the
future belongs to those that want to
build, not those who want to
destroy."
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato's
secretary general, said the poll was
a "clear demonstration that the
Afghan people want democracy,
they want freedom and reject
terrorism".
Richard Holbrooke, the US
special envoy to the region, said the
Taliban had "utterly failed to
disrupt these elections", despite a
day of clashes. Other western
musings on the latest blockbusters,
indies, and everything in between:
• Cinematical is trying to figure
out what the greatest superhero
movie of all time is. They're on
round 6, and Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles is still in the competition.
Perhaps you should go over and
diplomats were also bullish about a
poll they said could have been "far
worse" in terms of Taliban attacks.
US military officials have already
qualified the vote as a reasonable
success.
Democracy and rights groups
offered a more sober assessment.
The Washington-based
International Republican Institute,
said: "Unfortunately, such issues as
lower turnout, fraud and abuse of
state resources brought these
elections to a lower standard than
the 2004 and 2005 Afghan
elections."
Human Rights Watch also
questioned whether "one of the
most violent days witnessed in
Afghanistan in the last eight years"
could be described as a success.
Rachel Reid, an HRW researcher
in Afghanistan, said the claims
would "not ring true" for Afghans
living in the south and east, where
Taliban attacks were most severe.
"They deserve an honest
assessment … If international
standards are dropped, there risks
being a serious credibility gap,
which will only serve to increase
disillusionment with the efforts to
create a democracy."
A senior Nato envoy cautioned
against being too quick to welcome
results that could turn sour if
examples of mass fraud were
detected. Western powers with
more than 60,000 troops in
Afghanistan are eager to avoid the
elections being deemed a sham or a
vote.
• Just in time for the Inglourious
Basterds Premiere, Cinematical
Seven takes a look at Tarantino's
muddle, compounding a worsening
security situation in which dozens
of foreign troops are dying each
month. The post-election
uncertainty is not helping to calm
tension. The Independent Election
Commission said today it would
not publish any official data until
Tuesday.
Glenn Cowan, an observer from
Democracy International, said the
delay was "probably a mistake".
"Almost all elections add somewhat
to political tension and this one is
not different," he said. "The best
way to relive that tension is to
provide information to people about
an already uncertain election."
That uncertainty has stemmed
from three principal factors:
violence, intimidation of voters and
candidates, and allegations of fraud.
The election complaints
commission said it had received
around 120 complaints so far,
mostly relating to allegations of
voter fraud, intimidation of voters
and ballot-box stuffing, but the
main candidates were unwilling to
criticise the process, with Abdullah
saying the vote had been "quite
good".
• Afghanistan
Jon Boone
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News
& Media Limited 2009 | Use of this
content is subject to our Terms &
Conditions| More Feeds
greatest hits.
• Speaking of Inglourious
Basterds, is the movie as bad as the
spelling, or does it belong on the
list above? Check out the review
here.
• The internet was all atwitter
yesterday with the release of the
Internet News Record
Now 30 Rock has
been honored (ahem)
with a porn film
By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 9:00:00 AM
I would bet that most porn movie
parodies are kinda lame (or so I've
heard). This one, a take-off of
NBC's 30 Rock, actually looks
pretty good! It's well cast anyway,
and they have all the aspects of the
show right. The title is kinda lame
though. Shouldn't it be called 30
Rock Hard or something? (Video is
mostly safe for work.)
[via nymag.com]
Filed under: Video, 30 Rock,
Reality-Free
Permalink| Email this| |
Comments
India gripped as
supermodel's
marriage dissolves
By Randeep Ramesh (World
news and comment from the
Guardian | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 11:45:41 AM
Couple parried accusations of
violence, kidnapping and even
political influence
She was India's first supermodel,
sashaying down runways with
Naomi Campbell. He was a film
producer and buddy of Guy Ritchie.
INDIA page 47
Avatar trailer. Cinematical asks if it
ruined all the buzz.
• A Dirty Dancing remake? No
thank you.
Filed under: Site Announcements,
Reality-Free
Permalink| Email this| |
Comments
Internet News Record
INDIA
continued from page 46
They met on a blind date in Paris.
But what began nine years ago as
a "mad affair" has descended into a
vicious fight through India's
labyrinthine legal system over
property and a child – filling the
Delhi papers with a tale about the
fickleness of family, fame and
fortune.
It was not meant to be like this.
The 31-year-old catwalk queen
Ujjwala Raut and her British
businessman husband Maxwell
Sterry, 47, were once the toast of
New York's fashion scene – they
married in David Bowie's
Manhattan apartment with the pop
star's model wife Iman overseeing
the nuptials five years ago.
But, up until recently, the couple
parried accusations of violence,
kidnapping and of even using
political influence to bend the rules.
Until late tonight it appeared
Ujjwala had all but triumphed.
Maxwell had been "asked to
leave" India within 72 hours after
immigration officers issued a
deportation notice based on his
wife's allegations – which he denies
— that he had threatened to hurt
her and their three-year-old
daughter.
However it is understood
Maxwell met with home ministry
officials on Friday evening to seek
assurances he could stay to dismiss
7 years plus 70 days
(Scripting News)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 8:52:28 AM
7 years ago today: "Tomorrow is
Day 70 of No Smoking Dave. Ten
weeks. A non-smoking story at the
Bowie concert last week. As I'm
walking out I see people lighting up
everywhere. Smell of smoke all
around. It smells good. I really
want one. In my mind I outline the
the divorce and get access to his
child.
Maxwell, who is a director of a
mining company in India, earlier
told the Guardian he understood
and respected India's "due process".
"My wife tried to have me harassed
out of the country by using her
influence in Delhi to have my visa
revoked with false claims … I have
never been abusive or hit or
threatened my wife or my
daughter."
Maxwell says he has not seen his
daughter Ksha since March this
year, saying the child was taken by
her mother who has subsequently
barred him from having any contact
with the young girl.
In the divorce petition filed by
Ujjwala, the model says her
husband had been living off her
"hard-earned money" and she could
no longer stay with him because of
"cruelty and emotional suffering".
The model said she lived "in the
flickering hope that her husband
would realise his behaviour has
caused her pain and agony".
Maxwell has counter-sued,
arguing that as their marriage was
registered in New York and Ksha is
a US citizen the divorce cannot be
settled in India.
Ujjwala refused to comment
when contacted by the Guardian.
Her publicist said the model would
steps it would take to be smoking
and the amount of time it would
take. I would ask someone if they
could spare a cigarette. If they said
no I'd offer them $1. Oh hell, just
offer $1 to begin with. Whoo,
where would I get a match. I'd ask
for a light. Take a drag. Estimated
time, 15 seconds to one minute to
first nicotine rush. My heart started
beating faster. I felt scared like you
not talk as matters were before the
court and she was "taking time off
to be with her family".
Ujjwala grew up in Mumbai,
India's glamour capital. As one of
the five daughters of a senior
policeman she led a comfortable if
sheltered life – until she decamped
to Paris in 2000 after conquering
the small Indian fashion world in
her teens.
It was there she met Maxwell,
who had been a model, and they
soon moved to New York where
Ujjwala's reed-like frame and her
walnut-tinted skin were in vogue.
She became the first Indian to
appear as the face of Yves Saint
Laurent and could command
$15,000 a day for shoots.
The pair married in 2004, each
taking the surname Raut-Sterry.
Their daughter was born eighteen
months later and the couple bought
a run-down villa in northern Goa in
2006. Maxwell stayed with Ksha to
build a family home in India while
Ujjwala moved back to New York
for work. The couple would jet
between the palm-fringed beaches
of southern India and New York's
avenues every three months.
Maxwell says that the marriage
floundered in 2008 with Ujjwala
bringing home expensive gifts from
suitors. The tension burst open in a
confrontation in December last year
feel on a NY subway platform as a
train is entering the station and
you're standing on the platform and
in the instant before it passes you
think how you could end your life
by leaning forward. I never actually
jump, and that night I didn't smoke,
and it's good that inside I equate
smoking with death so deeply that
it invokes my subway nightmare.
Do I have it beat? No way. I am
Tech Musings/ TechNews/
– in which Maxwell and Ujjwala
each accuse the other of an
unprovoked attack. A few days
after the alleged incident police in
Goa they each dropped their
complaint.
Ujjwala then filed for divorce in
Mumbai in January this year,
saying she was terrified for her and
her daughter's life. Despite this,
says Maxwell, Ksha was left in his
care while Ujjwala jetted off to
Milan for a month in February.
Upon her return in March she
allegedly closed down all
Maxwell's bank accounts and took
Ksha back to Mumbai. Since then
Maxwell says he has been barred
from seeing his daughter and found
himself locked out of the villa he
built in Goa.
"I find myself without my
daughter, my home and my money.
My life is in India and I want to
stay so this divorce can be settled
fairly," he said.
• India
• Celebrity
• Models
Randeep Ramesh
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News
& Media Limited 2009 | Use of this
content is subject to our Terms &
Conditions| More Feeds
still an addict, I expect I will be for
life. But I'm an addict in recovery,
who is not taking the drug. Even
better, I am becoming a constant
evangelist for a nicotine-free
lifestyle for nicotine addicts,
illustrating the old adage that you
teach what you most need to learn."
Wish I could send a message
back in time to that Dave, seven
years ago. I'm sure at some level
47
The AP Not So Happy
About Reporting
Restrictions When It
Goes In The Other
Direction
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 2:40:00 PM
Well, this is amusing. Remember
how the AP is trying to limit how
others can report on or make use of
AP news? Right. Hold that thought.
Now remember how the
Southeastern Conference (SEC) is
trying to restrict how both the fans
and reporters can report on games?
Well, you know what's coming
next. Stephen points out that the AP
is now protesting the SEC's
policies. Apparently, the AP is only
a fan of such reporting restrictions
when it impacts others rather than
themselves. The full letter(pdf) sent
to the SEC by the AP and some
other reporting groups takes issue
with many of the restrictions, and
apparently doesn't notice the irony
in the fact that the AP is trying to
restrict others in much the same
way.
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I'm still a nicotine addict, but I no
longer go through this torture when
I see someone smoking. Quite the
opposite. I smell it and it repels me.
Given enough time, you go into
remission. Maybe never all the
way, but pretty close.
48 World/ Entertainment/
Western diplomats laud election
By Jon Boone (World news and
comment from the Guardian |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:33:15 PM
US and Nato officials quick to
proclaim poll a success despite
violence and fears of electoral fraud
Western powers rushed today to
declare Afghanistan's presidential
elections a success despite evidence
of irregularities and violence on
polling day and growing
uncertainty about whether the vote
would return a credible result.
Both the leading candidates,
Hamid Karzai and Abdullah
Abdullah, declared they had won
yesterday's poll, generating
concerns of a full-blown dispute.
Election officials warned that it
would take several days to
determine the result and the extent
to which voting had been marred by
corruption and low voter turnout.
Last night Barack Obama
described the election as "an
important step forward" in attempts
by Afghans to take control of their
future. Referring to attempts by the
Taliban to derail the democratic
process, he said: "Even in the face
of this brutality, millions of
Afghans exercised the right to
choose their leaders and determine
their own destiny." He added: "I
New Smallville promo trailer
By Brad Trechak (TV Squad)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 12:14:00 PM
In anticipation of the season
premiere on Friday September 25th
(and nothing says 'the last season"
like a move to Friday nights), a new
promotional trailer for Smallville
Season 9 has been released (it's on
the EW.com site and is sadly not
embeddable). The good news is that
believe that the future belongs to
those that want to build, not those
who want to destroy."
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato's
secretary general, said the poll was
a "clear demonstration that the
Afghan people want democracy,
they want freedom and reject
terrorism".
Richard Holbrooke, the US
special envoy to the region, said the
Taliban had "utterly failed to
disrupt these elections," despite a
day of clashes. Other western
diplomats were also bullish about a
poll they said could have been "far
worse" in terms of Taliban attacks.
US military officials have already
qualified the vote as a reasonable
success.
But democracy and rights groups
offered a more sober assessment.
The Washington-based
International Republican Institute
praised the campaign, but said:
"Unfortunately, such issues as
lower turnout, fraud and abuse of
state resources brought these
elections to a lower standard than
the 2004 and 2005 Afghan
elections."
Human Rights Watch also
questioned whether "one of the
most violent days witnessed in
Afghanistan in the last eight years"
could be described as a success.
the trailer gives a pretty clear view
of Clark's new costume.
It's somewhat different than the
leaked Comic-Con trailer, and that's
a good thing. As for the outfit itself:
others have said it reminds them of
Neo's outfit from The Matrix.
While there are similarities to that,
it reminds me more of the outfits
worn by the Phantom Zone villains
in a recent Superman comic co-
Rachel Reid, an HRW researcher
in Afghanistan, said the claims
would "not ring true" for Afghans
living in the south and east, where
Taliban attacks were most severe.
"They deserve an honest
assessment … If international
standards are dropped, there risks
being a serious credibility gap,
which will only serve to increase
disillusionment with the efforts to
create a democracy."
A senior Nato envoy cautioned
against being too quick to welcome
results that could turn sour if
examples of mass fraud were
detected. Western powers with
more than 60,000 troops in
Afghanistan are eager to the
elections being deemed a sham or a
muddle, compounding a worsening
security situation in which dozens
of foreign troops are dying each
month. The post-election
uncertainty is not helping to calm
tension. The Independent Election
Commission said today it would
not publish any official data until
Tuesday.
Glenn Cowan, an observer from
Democracy International, said the
decision was "probably a mistake".
"Almost all elections add somewhat
to political tension and this one is
not different," he said. "The best
way to relive that tension is to
written by Richard Donner and
Geoff Johns. Given this season's
provide information to people about
an already uncertain election."
That uncertainty has stemmed
from three principal factors:
violence, intimidation of voters and
candidates, and allegations of fraud.
The election complaints
commission said it had received
around 120 complaints so far,
mostly relating to allegations of
voter fraud, intimidation of voters
and ballot-box stuffing, but the
main candidates were unwilling to
criticise the process, with Abdullah
saying the vote had been "quite
good".
After polls closed yesterday
Ashraf Ghani, the candidate who
had been polling in fourth place,
called for calm.
He also said: "The fifth most
corrupt government in the world
has shown that in its relentless
desire for power it would hold no
law sacred and violate all legal and
constitutional norms."
• Afghanistan
• Nato
Jon Boone
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& Media Limited 2009 | Use of this
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Conditions| More Feeds
big bad, the costume design was
likely done that way to evoke
Clark's Kryptonian heritage.
So what do you think of the
trailer? Does it make you want to
stay in Friday nights and not miss
an episode?
Filed under: Programming, OpEd,
Smallville, Reality-Free
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Internet News Record
Rifftrax Live
scores a coast-to
-coast success
By John Scott Lewinski (TV
Squad)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 7:00:00 PM
The first nationally-broadcast live
Rifftrax event successfully piped a
horrible movie and plenty of witty
banter into more than 400 movie
theaters coast to coast Thursday
night.
Originating from Nashville,
Tenn., Michael J. Nelson, Bill
Corbett and Kevin Murphy went all
Mystery Science Theater 3000 on
Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer
Space before a live audience.
With only a couple technical
glitches that delayed the hilarity for
a few seconds here or there,
Fathom Events broadcast the event
to movie theaters nationwide,
allowing thousands of fans to
experience a successful riff live and
more or less in-person.
Continue reading Rifftrax Live
scores a coast-to-coast success
Filed under: Other Comedy
Shows, Reality-Free
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Internet News Record
DYING
continued from page 43
people who come knocking on the
door of Family Health Care. Last
year Lee and one other doctor
between them dealt with 14,000
visits, and the numbers are rising
daily. All of which leaves Lee part
despairing, part determined to fight
even harder for the bare minimum
of human dignity. The frustration is
that every day she must beg and
plead with other health providers
for simple treatments for her
patients. "It drives me crazy with
frustration," she says.
She rattles off a litany of horror
stories. There was the man who
walked into the clinic with a brain
tumour. It took Lee three months to
get him an MRI scan and another
two to get an appointment with a
neurosurgeon. Or the patient whose
nerves in his neck were pushed
against his spinal cord so that he
lost use of both arms; by the time
Lee found a way of getting him an
MRI he was so sick he had to be
operated on immediately. Or the
woman who had such heavy
periods she would wind up in ER
every three months requiring a
blood transfusion. What she really
needed was a hysterectomy. "It
took us almost a year to beg
hospitals until she finally did get a
Qik for iPhone updated, now uploads video over 3G
By Mel Martin (The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 8/21/2009 9:30:00 PM
Filed under: iPhone, App Store
Hmmmm. Seems that FCC pressure
might be doing wonders for those
App Store approvals. Qik, which
we reviewed earlier this month, had
been pretty well kneecapped by
either AT&T or Apple; choose your
villain.
But lo and behold, today Qik [
hysterectomy," Lee says.
These are the stories, the broken
lives, that have been obscured by
the fury generated by the
Republican rump. Unless Obama
finds a way to regain the political
initiative, to remind Americans that
only nine months ago they voted
overwhelmingly for change, then
the future of millions appears bleak.
"Here's what I'd like to ask Palin,"
Lee says. "People without health
insurance are dying, here in
America, right now. So I'd like to
ask her: how does that fit into your
vision of good and evil, Sarah
Palin?" Obama's plan: health of the
nation
What is Obama trying to do?
The goal is to increase access to
healthcare by regulating costs. His
plan would guarantee all citizens
eligibility for care, but the
government is not proposing a
"single-payer system", like the
NHS. Instead, private health
insurers would continue to operate
under new rules that would lower
premiums and remove loopholes
that allow them to avoid paying for
treatment when it is most needed.
Per person, healthcare costs are
higher in the US than in any other
country, and have been rising faster
iTunes link] was updated so now it
can upload video over the 3G
network, not just WiFi as was the
case in the first release of the app. I
just tried it and it worked fine,
happily uploading a video with no
WiFi in sight. That realy improves
Qik, but on every other smartphone
Qik allows live streaming. Only the
best and most powerful smartphone
in the world has the no live
restriction.
Coincidence or conspiracy? I
than the level of inflation. The
quality of care is less of an issue —
although citizens with solid
insurance may be frustrated by the
paperwork and costs associated
with the current system, they have
fewer complaints about their
doctors and hospitals.
Who's opposing Obama's plan?
Those who fear the government
would introduce congressional
"death panels" to make end-of-life
decisions for the elderly. The
insurance industry is worried about
their bottom lines. Members of
Congress and voters on the left and
right are concerned about the future
tax burden. Many Americans also
object to any increase in
government involvement in their
personal lives.
How can healthcare costs get so
out of hand?
Many insurance plans do not
cover "pre-existing conditions", so
it can be difficult for people who
have a chronic ailment to secure
cover. Loopholes allow insurers to
refuse reimbursement even if the
policyholder did not know they had
a particular condition when they
took out insurance. "Lifetime caps"
allow insurers to set a maximum
amount of cover.
downloaded the update, and yes, it
works over 3G now. It's clear that
AppleBlog/ TechNews/
Who are the uninsured?
Up to 46 million Americans are
uninsured, because they are
unemployed, or their employer
does not provide cover, or because
they do not qualify for existing
government-funded healthcare.
People 65 and older can qualify for
Medicare, the poor can qualify for
Medicaid, veterans and members of
the military can qualify for
Veterans Health Administration
and Tricare and children can be
covered under a programme called
SCHIP. Those overlooked by the
system include the young just
entering the workforce, the self-
employed, the unemployed and
people who work for small
businesses.
Megan Mulligan in Washington
• Health
• Health policy
• Health & wellbeing
• Health insurance
• Healthcare industry
• US healthcare
• United States
Ed Pilkington
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News
& Media Limited 2009 | Use of this
content is subject to our Terms &
Conditions| More Feeds
something is causing Apple/AT&T
to loosen up a bit. May that
continue. Kinda hard to argue that
Sling Mobile can't work over 3G
now, isn't it? As most know, Sling
Mobile was crippled for the iPhone
even though it is allowed on every
other capable phone on AT&T.
Let us know your results with
Qik, and if you get a moment, send
the FCC some flowers.
TUAW Qik for iPhone updated,
now uploads video over 3G
49
Latest Misguided
Lawsuit: Apple Hit With
Copyright Infringement
Claim For Third Party
App
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:28:00 PM
I'm really beginning to wonder if
there should be sanctions on
plaintiffs who sue the obviously
wrong party. We write about so
many cases, where people sue
whoever has the deepest pockets,
rather than those actually
responsible, that it's clearly an
abuse of the law. The latest
example, sent in by davebarnes,
involves a photographer suing
Apple, because an iPhone app from
a third party developer includes
some of his photos. Note that the
guy did not sue the actual app
developer: just Apple. I'd also like
to see the argument that explains
how getting this guy's photographs
more publicity somehow
"damages" him, but that's another
story...
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originally appeared on The
Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
on Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:30:00 EST.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone-
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AT&T
50 World/ Tech Musings/ Entertainment/
Nazi-Soviet pact documents
declassified
By Tom Parfitt (World news and
comment from the Guardian |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:05:54 PM
Russia has declassified top-secret
surveillance documents in an
attempt to justify its occupation of
Eastern Europe under the Nazi-
Soviet pact, signed 70 years ago on
Sunday.
The hidden protocols of the pact,
in which Joseph Stalin and Adolf
Hitler agreed to carve up Poland
and other sovereign states, were
denounced by the Soviet parliament
in 1989, shortly after they were
revealed for the first time.
But the pact, which lasted until
Hitler's invasion of the Soviet
Union in 1941, is now being
rehabilitated to chime with Kremlin
ideology that claims a Russian
sphere of interest in the "near
abroad" former Soviet republics.
Hundreds of formerly secret spy
documents have been published in
a compendium by Lev Sotskov, a
retired KGB major general working
under the auspices of the SVR,
Russia's foreign intelligence
service. The SVR said the files
demonstrated the Soviet Union was
left with no choice but to agree a
non-aggression pact with Nazi
Germany in August 1939 after
Britain and France signed the
Sylar wants to save arcades
By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 8:07:00 PM
I know, I know, maybe I should
have said "Mr. Spock wants to save
arcades," but readers probably
wouldn't know if I was talking
about Leonard Nimoy or Zachary
Munich agreement appeasing
Hitler's partition of Czechoslovakia
the previous year.
The pact – signed by foreign
ministers Vyacheslav Molotov and
Joachim von Ribbentrop – bought
time for the Kremlin after the west
had betrayed Stalin, Sotskov told
reporters in Moscow. Declassified
documents collected by the NKVD
showed London and Paris wanted
to "direct Hitler's aggression to the
east" and were indifferent to the
fate of the Baltics, he said, adding:
"Now the thinking behind English
politics is revealed: let Germany
start a war with the USSR and then
we'll see what happens."
Most contentious is likely to be
Sotskov's claim that Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania willingly acquiesced
to Soviet domination. "There was
no occupation," Sotskov said.
Historians and politicians in those
countries vehemently deny such
claims, saying tens of thousands of
people were killed or sent to the
Gulag and puppet authorities
installed to enable annexation.
Russia's president, Dmitry
Medvedev, stressed after the war
with Georgia last year that Russia
has a "zone of privileged interests"
in its "near abroad". Earlier this
year he set up a commission to
battle "falsification of history",
saying neighbouring states were
Quinto, so Sylar it is.
Quinto is trying to help Stride
Gum with a special promotion to
help raise money to save four old
arcades. They've set up a web site
where you can help too.
I didn't even realize that old
school arcades were on the decline.
trying to distort Russia's past for
political gains.
Pavel Felgenhauer, a military
expert at the Novaya Gazeta
newspaper, claimed Moscow was
praising the Nazi-Soviet pact's
secret protocol outlining a sphere of
influence in Europe because "the
Kremlin clearly wishes to re-enact
it."
"In his understanding of
realpolitik, [prime minister]
Vladimir Putin does not diverge
from the line set by Josef Stalin,"
military analyst Alexander Golts
wrote in the online Yezhednevny
Zhurnal. "Military force decides
everything, and if there is an
opportunity to grab a piece of
someone else's territory, it should
be taken."
Latvia's ex-president Vaira Vike-
Freiberga said in a radio interview
that Russia was "incapable of
understanding the tragedy of our
occupation". "We will have to
battle to preserve our independence
until the end of our days," she said.
• Russia
• Second world war
• Joseph Stalin
• Adolf Hitler
Tom Parfitt
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News
& Media Limited 2009 | Use of this
content is subject to our Terms &
Conditions| More Feeds
Sure, I knew that home video game
My #blogpostfriday post
(Scripting News)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:00:18 PM
I've had a non-productive week,
I've been fighting a cold -- but I
made a commitment to the web to
write at least one post every Friday,
so here I am keeping my promise.
I'm worried about the web.
We pour so much passion into
dynamic web apps hosted by
companies we know very little
about. We do it without retaining a
copy of our data. We have no idea
how much it costs them to keep
hosting what we create, so even if
they're public companies, it's very
hard to form an opinion of how
likely they are to continue hosting
our work.
A few weeks ago an entrepreneur
said to my face that he was the one
who made the money and I was the
one who worked for free. My chin
dropped. I knew most if not all of
them secretly believed this, but I
had never heard one say it out loud.
I know others who told me their
business model was to patent my
work.
Shaking my head. This can't
work.
This system is terrible. It's a
bubble, like the real estate bubble.
It's going to burst, and when it
does, it will take a lot of our history
with it.
But not this blog post if I have
any say about it. It's stored as a
static file on a Windows XP server
running Apache. It could just as
consoles are more popular than
ever (I have a Playstation II and a
Blu-ray player that plays games
myself), but I thought they would
still fill a niche for kids. Guess kids
would rather stay at home or at
their friend's home than go to an
arcade. I remember when I was in
Internet News Record
easily be stored on a Linux machine
running anything. Or even an iPod
or iPhone. Text files are the
ultimate in stability. The same text
file you could read on a mainframe
40 years ago could be read on a
netbook today.
I'll post a link to this piece on
Twitter, that probably won't last
very long. But -- the backup I'm
making of it is being stored as a
static text file on Apache. So it may
well be around for a while.
I'm really obsessed with creating
a historic record. I want to feel that
our writing has a future. I also don't
want to work for people who are as
openly greedy as the typical
entrepreneur of 2009.
Anyway -- time to go to lunch.
I've taken my vitamins on behalf of
the web.
my teens/early 20s I went to the
arcade quite a bit. My game was
Millipede.
Do people still bowl?
Filed under: Celebrities, Heroes,
Reality-Free
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Internet News Record
FCC Responses: Apple's take on the GV apps mess
By Michael Rose (The
Unofficial Apple Weblog
(TUAW))
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:00:00 PM
Filed under: Apple Corporate,
App Store The hits just keep on
coming, folks: Apple has posted a
full response to the FCC inquiries
on its web site. It's a long document
-- and oddly similar to a fake open
letter written two weeks ago by Ian
Hamilton -- but some of the
highlights (and lowlights) include a
short list of sample rejected apps
(Twittelator was rejected for
crashing! What a burn) and plenty
more:
Contrary to published reports,
Apple has not rejected the Google
Voice application, and continues to
study it. Well, that's all well and
good, but cold comfort to the other
GV apps pulled from the store
unceremoniously.
The application has not been
approved because, as submitted for
review, it appears to alter the
iPhone's distinctive user experience
by replacing the iPhone's core
mobile telephone functionality and
Apple user interface with its own
user interface for telephone calls,
text messaging and voicemail....
The Google Voice application
replaces Apple's Visual Voicemail
by routing calls through a separate
Google Voice telephone number
that stores any voicemail,
preventing voicemail from being
stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling
Apple's Visual Voicemail.
Similarly, SMS text messages are
managed through the Google hub-
replacing the iPhone's text
messaging feature. In addition, the
iPhone user's entire Contacts
database is transferred to Google's
servers, and we have yet to obtain
any assurances from Google that
this data will only be used in
appropriate ways. These factors
present several new issues and
questions to us that we are still
pondering at this time. Since we
haven't seen the official Google
Voice app, there's no way to
independently support Apple's
claims regarding its potentially
disruptive functionality. On one
point in this section, however, I can
call a yellow card.
The functionality allowing an app
to replace Visual Voicemail with a
separate service is neither novel nor
categorically banned from the App
Store, as this is already available in
the YouMail app. The iPhone
supports standard GSM codes for
conditional forwarding of calls to
third-party answering services, and
YouMail's app works just fine for
collecting and receiving voicemail
on the iPhone. There are also third-
party services that sync contacts for
the iPhone. The SMS component
may be a new wrinkle, and the
'takes over the iPhone' approach is
certainly of concern... but none of
that explains clearly what changed
between the time the other GV apps
were approved and the 'non-
rejection' hold of the official app.
Apple goes on to agree with
AT&T that the carrier did not
engage on any level regarding the
GV apps.
Question 4. Please explain any
differences between the Google
Voice iPhone application and any
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
applications that Apple has
approved for the iPhone. Are any of
the approved VoIP applications
allowed to operate on AT&T's 3G
network?
Apple does not know if there is a
VoIP element in the way the
Google Voice application routes
calls and messages, and whether
VoIP technology is used over the
3G network by the application.
Apple has approved numerous
standard VoIP applications (such as
Skype, Nimbuzz and iCall) for use
over WiFi, but not over AT&T's 3G
network. As we noted in some of
our original coverage of the GV
controversy, Google Voice is not a
VoIP service in the same way that
Skype or Gizmo are, since it
continues to use the cell network
for voice connectivity to the device.
Apple's response to the FCC
inquiry shows that they are on the
same page.
Apple developed a
comprehensive review process that
looks at every iPhone application
that is submitted to Apple.
Applications and marketing text are
submitted through a web interface.
Submitted applications undergo a
rigorous review process that tests
for vulnerabilities such as software
bugs, instability on the iPhone
platform, and the use of
unauthorized protocols.
Applications are also reviewed to
try to prevent privacy issues,
safeguard children from exposure
to inappropriate content, and avoid
applications that degrade the core
experience of the iPhone. There are
more than 40 full-time trained
reviewers, and at least two different
reviewers study each application so
that the review process is applied
uniformly. Apple also established
AppleBlog/ 51
an App Store executive review
board that determines procedures
and sets policy for the review
process, as well as reviews
applications that are escalated to
the board because they raise new or
complex issues. The review board
meets weekly and is comprised of
senior management with
responsibilities for the App Store.
95% of applications are approved
within 14 days of being submitted.
If nothing else, this is a bit more
transparency into the approval
process than what we've seen
before.
TUAW FCC Responses: Apple's
take on the GV apps mess
originally appeared on The
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on Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST.
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52 AppleBlog/ Tech Games/ Internet News Record

TUAW Guide: Setting up the Ultimate Mac mini Home

Theater
By Christina Warren (The
Unofficial Apple Weblog
(TUAW))
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:30:00 PM

Filed under: Multimedia,

Software, How-tos, Mac mini,
Apple TV
The Mac mini has always been
the perfect form factor for a media
center appliance (often called a
Home Theater PC/HTPC). It's
extremely small, almost completely
silent and it can easily blend into an
existing electronics shelf - or be
hidden away completely.
The lack of a refresh (and rumors
that the line was going to be
discontinued), coupled with
technical specs that didn't justify
the price-point, have led many
would-be HTPCers to write off the Flash, Silverlight or any other together, the current Mac mini is accessories and lots and lots of hardware and software, as we
Mac mini as an option because they streaming content. more than capable of serving as that software to make it into the best transform a 2009 Mac mini into the
assume it is just too expensive. Still, when you look at the product right now. HTPC around. My goal was simple: ultimate HTPC!
However, as more and more numbers, nettops aren't much more Now that Apple has allowed the my Mac mini needed to work with Part I: the hardware side
content moves online and people inexpensive than a Mac mini. You purchase/rental of some high- my existing surround sound setup Part II: the software side
become accustomed to getting their get what you pay for, too: the mini definition films via iTunes, the and it needed to seamlessly connect TUAW TUAW Guide: Setting up
media from a computer, the idea of is much more powerful and can media content options for the Mac to the FreeNAS media server where the Ultimate Mac mini Home
a HTPC is starting to make sense to actually be used as a workhorse mini match that of the Apple TV several terabytes of audio and video Theater originally appeared on The
more and more families. Taking off computer. and then some. files reside. It needed to connect Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
where netbooks left off, nettops are Thanks to updated hardware and Last month, Robert wrote about and work with our other Macs -- as on Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:30:00 EST.
starting to enter the marketplace. a much-improved graphics chipset, his experience transforming well as our Windows 7 machines -- Please see our terms for use of
These low-priced machines are the current revision really hits the his"Switcher-Dad's" mini into a and it needed to be silent and feeds.
diminutive, low-powered and sweet-spot for the ultimate HTPC. nice Mac media center. simple, with an interface that a Read| Permalink| Email this|
connect easily to a television set. Although many of us have longed In mid-June, my fiance and I visitor or guest could easily suss Comments
There's just one problem. Although for Apple to release an official bought a 2009 Mac mini (the 1GB out. Sponsored Topics: Apple-
nettops are pretty good at playing media center product that brings the 2.0GHz model). For the last few Read on for tips and tricks to get macmini- Unofficial Apple Weblog
back regular video content, they Mac mini and the Apple TV months, I've been testing hardware, the most out of your machine's - TUAW- ITunes
absolutely choke when it comes to

Rock Band Weekly: Tom Petty, Billy Idol, Jet

By Ben Gilbert (Joystiq)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 1:00:00 PM
Whoops! In case you didn't notice,
we let this week's Rock Band
Weekly slip -- there were a few
more pressing matters to attend to
at the time. Alas, dear reader,
spread across the various platforms
you have a veritable smorgasbord
of downloadable music at your
finger tips. The premiere of Tom
Petty in Rock Band? Got it. How
about some Billy Idol? That's here
too. Head past the break for a
week's worth of Rock Band DLC
across all four platforms.
Select a platform below to view
complete DLC listing:[ Image
credit]
Continue reading Rock Band
Weekly: Tom Petty, Billy Idol, Jet
Rock Band Weekly: Tom Petty,
Billy Idol, Jet originally appeared
on Joystiq on Sat, 22 Aug 2009
13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms
for use of feeds.
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Internet News Record
Distinctions without differences:
Apple's inconsistent app store
rejection policies
By Sang Tang (The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:00:00 AM
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion,
App Store
I admit, I was one of those to pile
on ol' Ma Bell as the culprit for
keeping the Google Voice app(don't
I wish that was a real iTunes link)
off the App Store. Restrictions on
Skype and the SlingPlayer app on
the iPhone had conditioned me to
believe that the "game changing"
iPhone had, well, a completely
different set of rules applied to it by
AT&T. While many in the tech
community continued to jump atop
the dog pile, in which AT&T was at
the very bottom, Apple ran the ball
back the other way without
anybody noticing.
Apple's response to the FCC's
questions covers several areas --
including the fact that it acted alone
without AT&T's consultation -- in
rejecting not yet allowing the
Google Voice app. Almost as
striking as Apple's admitted
culpability, however, is its rationale
for it, which smacks of odd logic
and damages the spirit of the App
Store.
In short, Apple states that it
rejected"continues to study" Google
Voice because, in its current form,
the app "replaces the iPhone's core
mobile telephone functionality and
Apple user interface for telephone
calls, text messages and voicemail."
While the iPhone is more than the
sum of its parts, the phone portion
of it is arguably the least
compelling when compared to other
features. Out of the box, the iPhone
comes with several apps pre-
installed. And, based on their
placement at the foot of the home
screen (as well as Steve Jobs'
Macworld proclamation), Apple
views the iPhone as "an iPod, a
phone, and an Internet
communicator (Safari and Mail)."
But the advent of the App Store and
the third party apps that arrived
with it further reinvented a device
that had already reinvented the
entire tech market. If the iPhone
wasn't already viewed as a
computer-first, phone-a-distant-
second device, it certainly took this
form after the App Store.
Taken at face value, Apple's
rationale for rejecting Google
Voice also means that YouMail[
iTunes link], TextFree[ iTunes
link], and Skype[ iTunes link]
should be rejected as well. As Mike
noted yesterday, YouMail could
serve as a replacement for Visual
Voicemail, TextFree could supplant
the iPhone's SMS client, and Skype
could do both, albeit in a different
and slightly limited capacity.
Continue reading Distinctions
without differences: Apple's
inconsistent app store rejection
policies
TUAW Distinctions without
differences: Apple's inconsistent
app store rejection policies
originally appeared on The
Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone- App
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AppleBlog/ Tech Games/
BlizzCon 2009: Day one
round-up
By Elizabeth Harper (Joystiq)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 8:30:00 AM
The news coming from BlizzCon
has been fast and furious -- and we
can hardly blame you if you haven't
been able to keep up with the
announcements coming from
Anaheim so far.
• WORLD OF WARCRAFT: A
little expansion by the name of
Cataclysm was officially
announced, with a world of pain
now on its way to classic Azeroth
and two new races. So what's new
in Azeroth? Two new races,
Goblins and Worgen(Horde and
Alliance respectively), the
reordering and rezoning of much of
Azeroth, an array of new race/class
possibilities, a brand-new
secondary skill, and some shake-
ups in class mechanics and
character/guild advancement.
• DIABLO 3: Meet the Monk, the
game's latest class and -- so the
trailer suggests -- a kick-ass martial
artist. Also, surprise surprise, the
game may still be coming to a
console near you.
• BATTLE.NET: Battle.net will
gain new features in the expansion,
53
including an Xbox-Livesque ability
to see what your friends are playing
and which servers they're on, in
addition to sending messages to
them.
• PICTURES: Here's a map of the
reordered post-Cataclysm Azeroth,
a gallery of the art display at
BlizzCon(containing some
Cataclysm art, employee-decorated
noobz, and StarCraft and Diablo
universe pieces), a dedicated
gallery for Cataclysm concept art,
and a gallery of the costumes at
BlizzCon.
• VIDEOS: We have video for
you of the Cataclysm trailer, what
Azeroth zones will look like post-
Cataclysm, and the animation for
Human-to-Worgen transformation.
• THE GUILD: The entire cast
showed up and brought the funny at
their live panel and at our reader
meet-up. Gallery here!
Gallery: BlizzCon 2009
BlizzCon 2009: Day one round-
up originally appeared on Joystiq
on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 08:30:00 EST.
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54 AppleBlog/ Tech Games/
(Re)locating your Mac mini's or
iMac's headphone jack for easy
access
By Joachim Bean (The
Unofficial Apple Weblog
(TUAW))
Submitted at 8/22/2009 1:00:00 PM
Filed under: Accessories, Audio,
Desktops, Mac mini Are you
wishing for an easier way to plug in
and unplug headphones from your
Mac mini or iMac? There are a few
ways to make it easier. You should
be able to reroute the jack, allowing
you to speed up your plug-in
process.
The first solution, which only
works on Mac minis, is to use two
right-angle audio adapters. This
will relocate access to the
headphone jack to the front or side
of your mini, allowing for much
easier access. You can buy these
for less than $4 each (you'll need
two) at Radio Shack (or whatever
it's called these days). You'll need
to plug one into the back of your
mini, while you'll want to plug the
other one in to the other right-angle
adapter. Once you've done this, you
should be able to have an easy way
to access your headphone jack.
The next solution, which works
with both minis and iMacs, is to use
a headphone extension cable to
provide easier access to plug in
your headphones. This offers a
more flexible solution to this issue,
allowing you to route access where
you want it. These cables can be
purchased for about $10, and can
be found in many places. You can
choose a shorter cable or longer
one, depending on how you want to
manage your cords and where you
want access to the headphone jack.
Please note if you use one of
these solutions, it will override the
internal speaker in your Mac, so
you might want to unplug the
extension if you're not frequently
using headphones. These solutions
Internet News Record
will also work for microphones, so
if you frequently use microphones
with your iMac or Mac mini, you
can also access the port more
quickly.
Yet a third approach is to use a
USB audio adapter, which will give
you a separate set of headphone
and/or mic jacks plugging into your
keyboard or USB hub, or at the end
of a USB extension cable. These
adapters are available from lots of
manufacturers and range in price
Rumor: Walmart catalog
from $8 on up; Plantronics also
ships one with many of its audio
headsets.
lists $100 price cut for
Check out the gallery below to
see an example of an extension
Xbox 360 Elite
cable in use: By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) If it is legitimate -- and the
Gallery: Headphone extensions Submitted at 8/22/2009 11:00:00 AM rumors of an Elite price cut end up
How do you handle this being true -- then the flames of
inconvenience? Leave a comment Oh, man. This ish just got real, console war are likely ready to flare
and let us know! son. Last week, a supposedly up once again. For the first time
TUAW(Re)locating your Mac leaked Meijer's catalog revealed a this console generation, Sony and
mini's or iMac's headphone jack for $100 price cut for the Xbox 360 Microsoft would have two SKUs
easy access originally appeared on Elite SKU -- we weren't sure what available at the same price. The
The Unofficial Apple Weblog to make of it, but a recent Walmart resulting struggle for market
(TUAW) on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 catalog (due to hit stores on August dominance would be brutal.
13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms 30) revealing the same exact Continue reading Rumor:
for use of feeds. discount adds a hefty amount of Walmart catalog lists $100 price
Permalink| Email this| Comments credence to rumors that Microsoft cut for Xbox 360 Elite
Sponsored Topics: iMac- is dropping the price on the Rumor: Walmart catalog lists
MacMini- Headphones- console's 120GB SKU. You can see $100 price cut for Xbox 360 Elite
RadioShack- Universal Serial Bus the full ad posted after the jump, originally appeared on Joystiq on
courtesy of one of our readers Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST.
(thanks, Patrick). A few sites have Please see our terms for use of
gotten the ad, presumably from feeds.
different sources, leading us to Read| Permalink| Email this|
believe it's not just a high-quality Comments
fake.
Internet News Record
FCC Responses: Google's turn to
answer to the FCC
By Joachim Bean (The
Unofficial Apple Weblog
(TUAW))
Submitted at 8/21/2009 8:30:00 PM
Filed under: Apple Corporate,
iPhone, App Store
Along with Apple's and AT&T's
response, Google has also
responded to the FCC's inquiry on
the Google Voice rejection.
Unfortunately, the contact between
Apple and Google on the rejection
has been removed from the letter,
which will not clear up everything
just yet. There's no apparent reason
why these details have been kept
confidential. Anyway, Google's
letter states first the features of their
Google Voice app, mainly the
standard features of Google Voice
on other smartphones.
Next, in the question below, the
FCC asks what Apple's explanation
was for rejecting and for any
communication Google has had
with Apple.
How to reach the Reach beta on ODST
By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 2:00:00 PM
Bungie is trying to make entry
into Halo: Reach's beta as easy as
possible -- at least if you pick up
Halo 3 ODST next month. Bungie
What explanation was given (if
any) for Apple's rejection of the
Google Voice application (and for
any other Google applications for
iPhone that have been rejected,
such as Google Latitude)? Please
describe any communications
between Google and AT&T or
Apple on this topic and a summary
of any meetings or discussion.
Google's answer to this question
simply states "[BEGIN
CONFIDENTIAL]" and "[END
CONFIDENTIAL]"
Next, they go on to asking if
Google has any other applications
that have been approved on the App
Store. They answer that they have
Google Earth and Google Mobile
(search) already approved and
currently on the App Store. They
also note Google provides the map
data for the "Maps" application on
the iPhone.
In the next question, they state
that they don't have any other
proposed applications pending to be
explained to Joystiq at GamesCom
ODST's main menu will host an
"extras" tab, which will contain
access to the Reach beta once it
activates sometime next year.
Bungie considers the beta to be "a
big part of the value of the disc."
submitted to the App Store.
When asked about other methods
to access Google Voice on the
iPhone, they answer that a user can
can call in to their Google Voice
number or visit Google Voice on
Safari to access some Google Voice
features on their iPhone.
Finally, they ask about the
practices of Google's Android
Market, Google's competitor to the
App Store for devices that run
Google's Android OS.
You can read the entire letter over
at our sister site, Engadget.
TUAW FCC Responses: Google's
turn to answer to the FCC
originally appeared on The
Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
on Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:30:00 EST.
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Sponsored Topics:
GoogleLatitude- GoogleVoice-
AppStore- Google- IPhone
And as much as the studio hopes
AppleBlog/ Tech Games/
Cosplayer gathering at
GamesCom attempts to break
Guinness record
By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 10:00:00 AM
Over 400 cosplayers are expected
to gather and break the Guinness
record for "The Largest Gathering
of Games Characters" today at
GamesCom. We were looking
forward to telling you if they broke
the MCM London record of 376
characters ... but we forgot one
little detail: Um, all those people
need to be officially counted and
that seems to take a really long
time.
With a couple Guinness
representatives on hand, each
cosplayer has to write down the
that the beta launch will "work like
buttah," we're already preparing to
shut down our tips box on that day
to stop the whining wave of
entitlement when if something
inevitably goes wrong.
How to reach the Reach beta on
55
name of their character and
respective game. Following that, a
photo gets taken and then they get
to bake in the summer sun --
waiting for everyone else to be
counted. We felt really bad for the
Tetris pieces! We'll update when
we get the official count.
Gallery: GamesCom cosplay
(Guinness attempt)
Cosplayer gathering at
GamesCom attempts to break
Guinness record originally
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2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our
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ODST originally appeared on
Joystiq on Sat, 22 Aug 2009
14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms
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56 AppleBlog/ Tech Games/ TechNews/
Apple's Address Book app getting social in 10.6?
By John Burke (The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 8/22/2009 11:30:00 AM
Filed under: Rumors, Software
Update, Apple, Snow Leopard
We're all still waiting to see if the
rumors of an earlier-than-expected
release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow
Leopard are going to come true.
There's been no shortage of news
regarding Snow Leopard going to
golden master, but 9to5Mac has
received a tip that the build
everyone has expected to be final
(10A432) might actually not be.
Some shots of built 10A435 have
surfaced and while there's not much
information to go by, the new build
features an updated Address Book
FCC responses are in: AT&T disavows any knowledge
of App Store internal shenanigans
By Michael Rose (The
Unofficial Apple Weblog
(TUAW))
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:20:00 PM
Filed under: Apple Corporate,
iPhone Engadget got a copy of
AT&T's response to the FCC
inquiries, and to sum it up: the
Death Star finds the FCC's lack of
faith disturbing. The telecom giant
says that it neither supported not
opposed the Google Voice apps for
iPhone -- in fact, Apple didn't
mention the GV apps to AT&T, nor
Halo 3 ODST's multiplayer disc: all frag, no Chief filler
By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 12:00:00 PM
The easiest way to encapsulate
Halo 3 ODST's multiplayer disc is
to call it " Halo 3 Multiplayer
Complete." That was our takeaway
from a meeting with Bungie at
app.
A screenshot from the new build
has been floating around featuring
an updated version of the Address
Book application with one big
addition. A "social networking"
menu is added showing both
does Apple typically consult AT&T
on App Store approvals. The Apple
& Google responses are just
coming in now.
In a section of the letter that
Engadget has posted, AT&T does
acknowledge rare occasions where
the company has consulted on app
approvals with Apple -- but only
where an app might be responsible
for 'significant network congestion,'
like SlingPlayer. Are we to assume
from this that any telephony-related
geldings or rejections (ahem, no
Skype over 3G) are due to Apple
GamesCom today. Discussing "the
other game" in the ODST box, the
Bungie rep reiterated, "It's all the
multiplayer maps we released with
Halo 3, then all of the DLC we've
released since then, along with
three new maps."
The standalone disc pretty much
Twitter and Facebook icons. This
could mean that Apple will allow
you to keep (and possibly edit) your
contacts pulled from social
networks.
There's no word yet if the
screenshot is credible or not, but it
acting completely on its own?
That's a mite far-fetched, but with
any luck we'll be seeing a similar
means that precious Xbox 360 hard
does look pretty convincing and
would make sense given recent
news that Apple is likely to
incorporate social media into other
applications such as iTunes.
TUAW Apple's Address Book
app getting social in 10.6?
originally appeared on The
Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:30:00 EST.
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Sponsored Topics: Apple- Snow
Leopard- Unofficial Apple Weblog
- Address Book- Mac OS X v10.6
letter from Apple shortly.
TUAW FCC responses are in:
AT&T disavows any knowledge of
App Store internal shenanigans
originally appeared on The
Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
on Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:20:00 EST.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone-
AppStore- Apple- Unofficial Apple
Weblog- TUAW
drive space can be cleansed of Halo
3 maps ... of course, there's always
the option of putting the whole disc
on the HDD as well. The Bungie
rep explained it best by saying, "It's
like putting in Halo 3 into your
Xbox, except it doesn't have the
campaign."
Internet News Record
Open Source
Textbooks
Gaining Traction
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 3:33:00 PM
Earlier this year, we wrote about
the very cool business model being
used by "open source textbook"
company Flat World Knowledge.
Basically, you could read the books
for free online, but there were also
other ways to get the book in other
formats where you would have to
pay. The company seemed to be
gaining traction lately, with a nice
round of funding, and now it's
being reported that 40,000 students
at over 400 colleges and
universities will be using Flat
World texts this fall. That sound
you hear? It's an old stodgy market
getting disrupted.
Related to this, Slashdot points
out that here in California, where
the state was running a free digital
textbook competition, the results
showed that some of the open
solutions won the competition and
were considered better reference
materials than the ones provided by
big publishers. In fact, the e-texts
from a small company called CK-
12 seemed to do quite well -- 3 of
the 4 online texts that were deemed
to meet 100% of the state's
standards all came from CK-12.
Permalink| Comments| Email
This Story
Gallery: Halo 3: ODST (6/1/09)
Halo 3 ODST's multiplayer disc:
all frag, no Chief filler originally
appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 22 Aug
2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds.
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Internet News Record
How To: Use the Heck Out of Usenet [How To]
By John Herrman (Gizmodo)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 11:00:00 AM
Usenet: Everyone's heard of it,
nobody uses it. This is ridiculous.
Not only is Usenet a fantastic way
to download—it's not that hard to
use. Here's how to kick your torrent
habit with Usenet, once and for all.
This point of this guide is to get
people acquainted with the basics
of Usenet, but if any of you old
timers (I'm looking at you, Jesus)
have any tips, tricks, advice or teary
memories to share about your
decades on the 'Net, that party's in
the comments. Anyway!
What is Usenet?
I'll spare you a deep historical and
technical explanation, because it'd
bore you to death, and I'm not
expert (read: old and bearded)
enough to give it, so here are the
basics: Usenet has been around
since the late 70s—really— as a
sort of sister tech to the early
bulletin board systems that the first
generation of true nerds cut their
teeth on. It was designed for
discussion, and lived across tons of
decentralized servers. For most
intents and purposes it was replaced
by modern web technology, but it's
still very much alive, albeit with a
different face.
You see, somewhere back in the
80s, someone started uploading
binary content—files, not
words—to Usenet. This was—and
in some ways, still is—an awkward
fit, but it quickly became one of the
main uses for the service. Why?
Because nobody seemed to care
much about regulating it—they still
don't, for whatever reason—and
because, man, it is fast. Like,
unbelievably, connection-maxing
fast. These factors made for a
perfect refuge for downloaders, and
now the pure amount of stuff
available on Usenet rivals—and in
a lot of categories, exceeds— the
best torrent trackers, many of which
we don't even have anymore.
For download junkies, Usenet is a
wonderland. It's got a reputation for
being hard to figure out, and has
sort of become a nerd refuge. This
isn't really fair, since Usenet isn't at
all hard to get into. Here's how to
get started:
Hacking the Gibson (Also Known
As "Choosing a Usenet Service")
There was a time when ISP
weren't just cool with Usenet
binaries—they actually hosted
them. Some still do, but in those
rare cases there are usually
crippling bandwidth restrictions,
throttling measures and all kind of
missing content. To mine the
Usenet gold you really care
about—the alt.binaries
content—you're going to need to
buy access. Sorry! Usenet isn't a
peer-to-peer service, so you've got
to pay someone, somewhere for all
that bandwidth and storage. The
good news is, you can get away
with spending about $15 a month
for unlimited, unthrottled access. If
you're not comfortable with this,
get your feet wet with a free trial,
like GigaNews'.
There are a couple things to look
out for in a Usenet provider, but
most major, reputable services are
roughly comparable. Retention is a
word you'll see a lot, and there's
good reason for that: Usenet
servers, given the pure volume of
content they get loaded with, have
to clear themselves out every once
in a while, meaning that files have a
limited available life. Retention is
just a term to describe how long a
provider can afford to keep files.
The longer they can, the more files
they have. 365-day retention is
what most of us expect nowadays,
so don't settle for much less. You'll
also see connection numbers
advertised, which is how many
parallel connections you can have
to the servers during downloads.
More=faster, but past 5-10 the
numbers really stop meaning
anything, unless you're on some
kind of insane commercial
connection or something, in which
case WHAT ARE YOU DOING
DOWNLOADING FILEZ, HMM?
Lastly, there's bandwidth. This
should be more obvious, but just
just in case, this is how much you
can download form your provider.
This one's all you: If you really
don't think you'll break 10GB a
month, only buy 10GB a month.
Once you really start to kick your
torrent habit, though, you might be
Gizmos/ 57
surprised at what your click finger
is capable of.
I've been using Astraweb for
years—they're cheap, and fast
enough to saturate my
connection—so the rest of the
tutorial will assume you've chosen
them. If you've gone with another
provider, the only difference will be
your server settings, which your
provider will give you after you
sign up. Remember: Usenet servers
are all meshed together, so no
matter who your provider is, the
available downloads should be the
same, at least for as long as your
provider keeps them around.
Choosing a Client
As with torrents, there's some
pretty weird stuff going on behind
the scenes with Usenet. As I
mentioned earlier, adding binary
files to Usenet was kind of an
afterthought, which makes for some
generaly strangeness. For example:
Usenet binaries can't be very big, so
any large files need to be split up
into a million piece. You know how
sometimes a torrent file is full
about about 40 RAR files that you
have to rejoin after downloading?
That's because it came from Usenet,
where files can't be much more the
20MB. So, your client's got to be
able to handle all these group
downloads, and preferably join
them together for you. It's
complicated.
There a plenty of Usenet clients
out there, but most of them are
either don't support the kind of file
downloading we want—your email
client fall into this category—are
command-line-based or, you know,
cost money. I'm done spending
your dollars for today, so I'll point
everyone toward the only free,
cross-platform Usenet binary client
I know of, and one I've been using
for quite a long time: It's called
HOW page 58
58 Tech Games/ Gizmos/
HOW
continued from page 57
SABnzb. The guide will be based
on this, though you can try to
follow along with some other free
apps if you like. Mac OSers may
want to try Hellanzb(GUI version
linked, and Windows folks could
go with Alt.binz. But SABnzb is, to
put it bluntly, pretty great.
SABnzb runs a local web
interface, so it'll look the same no
matter what OS you're on. Here's
what you've got to do:
1.) Download and install the
client (For Windows, it's an
installer like any other app; for Mac
OS, it's a DMG)
2.) Start it up. It should open a
browser Window with a control
panel-esque page on it.
3.) Navigate to the "Config" Page
and click "Servers"
4.) Input the server settings your
Usenet provider gave you after
signup (Astraweb's at left)
5.) Staying in the "Config" page,
click "Folders"
6.) Choose where you want
downloaded files to go, and where
you want the temporary files to live
before they're finished downloading
and joining together.
7.) Choose a "Watched" folder.
This how SABnzb will know what
you want it to download. Make it a
Overheard@GamesCom: Kicking babies is bad
By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 6:00:00 AM
The protagonist in Activision's
Singularity has the ability to age
and, um, youth-enize people and
objects, which led to a burning
question on the minds of a few
people during a presentation of the
place that's easy for you to save to,
from a browser. Your default
browser downloads folder is a safe
bet here.
That's it! Now just leave SABnzb
running, and we'll start to explore
Usenet. Feel free to play around
with more of SABnzb's options,
like the cool theme featured in the
top image, but follow this general
rule: if it's not totally obvious to
you what an option changes, you
should probably ignore it. The only
thing you might have to worry
about outwith this list is enabling
an SSL connection, if your ISP is
throttling your download speeds.
More on that here.
Finding Those Files
Now that you've got access to
Usenet, and the right tools to draw
those sweet, sweet files from it, it's
time to dive in. Since Usenet in the
raw is an incomprehensible mess,
something has emerged called the
Newzbin, or NZB standard. NZBs
are a lot like torrent files: They're
little pointers that contain
information about all the little
scattered pieces of a given
download, and which give clients
like SABnzb everything they need
to make the downloading
experience seamless to users. To
title during GamesCom. See, when
you age enemies, they'll turn to
dust. However, when un-aging
them, they'll turn into "Reverts,"
creatures in an unnatural state that
can assist or attack the player. It
only seemed reasonable to those in
the room: Why wouldn't they be
turned into babies?
explore Usenet is to explore
NZBs—and to do that, you need a
good NZB search engine. The best
is the original from Newzbin, the
people who invented the NZB
format. Unfortunately, it too is
paid, and currently invite-only.
Instead, you can use one of the
decent free alternatives, like
NZBs.org, Binsearch or
Newszleech. Searching takes some
practice, but once you get a sense
of how people name stuff'round
these parts, it's a breeze.
Once you find your NZB,
download it to the directory you
marked "Watch" in SABnzb.
Alternately, you can just download
it to whereever you want, and add it
to SABnzb at the program's
homepage, under "Add File". Now
check on your SABnzb queue,
where you should see something
like this:
It's working! And yes, it's really
going that fast. If it's not
downloading, you may need to
check your server settings:
Sometimes ISPs block the default
port, 119, meaning you'll have to
use another one that your provider
supports. 8080 is a common one, as
is 1818.
SABnzb takes care of all that
An Activision rep explained, "If
we start turning them into babies,
nasty RAR rejoining and extracting
for you, so once the download is
done, your designated download
folder should have a fully-cooked,
ready-to-watch/listen/run file. So,
that's Usenet!
Odd and Ends
As you've probably guessed by
now, there are a lot of ways to
make Usenet, and specifically
SABnzb, more powerful. For that,
have a look at this fantastic thread
on SomethingAwful by one of the
app's developers, and the SABnzb
wiki, which answer just about any
support question you might have.
Also, there's a big subject we
didn't ever address here today,
which is where all this content
comes from. It comes from
volunteer users like you and me,
but the process can be a little
involved, and hey, you're brand
new to the world of Usenet—let the
rest of us worry about uploading for
now. That said, when you're finally
ready, here's a primer.
So that's about it! Please add in
your experiences in the
comments—your feedback is a
huge benefit to our Saturday
guides. Happy torrenting
Usenetting, and have a great
weekend!
and kicking babies, we're going to
run into ratings issues." Oh, come
on! There's the ... and the ... okay,
we can't really argue with that. It's
also worth mentioning that
Singularity's violence is edited on
the show floor -- something about
German censorship issues.
Gallery: Singularity
Internet News Record
Remainders -
Things We Didn't
Post [Remainders]
By Wilson Rothman (Gizmodo)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:00:00 PM
Snow Leopard Shipping (or Not
Shipping) August 28th...Nokia
5800 Navigation (aka Free Maps
and Car Kit) Edition...Will
Southwest Airlines Wi-Fi Be Cheap
Like Its Tickets?...Blu-ray Quality
1080p on an iPhone 3GS...
We've seen Snow Leopard
making random appearances on
Apple retail pages for days now,
but this one was special: A UK
retail page identified Snow
Leopard's ship date as August 28th.
I use the past tense because when I
REMAINDERS page 59
Overheard@GamesCom: Kicking
babies is bad originally appeared on
Joystiq on Sat, 22 Aug 2009
06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms
for use of feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Comments
Internet News Record
REMAINDERS
continued from page 58
checked it, the ship date had been
revised to a more vague, and more
disappointing, "September." What's
to glean from all of this? That
within five weeks, your Snow
Leopard will be purring. But it
might not be within one week. [
Engadget]
Nokia just re-released its 5800 in
a "Navigation Edition," and though
it's Europe only, and I don't really
give a fig about the 5800, I hope
this idea catches on. For a modest
increase in price (in this case,
around $40), buyers get a car
charger, dashboard mount and a
lifetime of updated roadmaps,
lifetime for the phone that is, so
that you can hop in the car and
really get somewhere. Compared to
the $100 it costs now just to get
software for, say, an
iPhone—charger and mount sold
Readers pick best webcomic: Bro Gamers
By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 12:30:00 PM
We enjoyed VG Cats' " Bro
Gamers" as much as everyone else
who voted it last week's best
gaming-centric webcomic-- but
we're not quite sure about the two
overzealous' Bros' style of dress.
Could Evidence-Based Copyright Law Ever Be Put In Place?
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 7:33:00 PM
Recently, we were discussing how
copyright law seems to only get
worse and worse, and it got me
thinking how likely it is that
"better" copyright laws could ever
be put in place. Michael Geist
recently put up a post on how to
design copyright law that would
last, emphasizing "balance" as
being essential for durability. I have
to admit, I tend to wince when
separately—this is a pretty good
deal. [ Nokia via Symbian Guru]
Southwest Airlines is home of the
cheapest plane tickets I ever
bought, so it's exciting to see them
getting Wi-Fi on board. The free
beta testing appears to have ended,
and now Southwest promises to roll
out the service to its fleet starting
early next year. What's still up in
the air (whoops!) is price: Says
Forbes, Southwest will "continue
testing prices for the service
through the end of the year." So if
someone comes up to you on a SW
flight and asks what you'd pay for
in-flight Wi-Fi, be sure to low-ball
'em. I'm thinking like $2/hr. [
Forbes]
It's times like this I wish I knew
Chinese (and make a note to force
my kid to learn it): A guy claims to
have tested some sick HD video on
You don't have to be a "Bro" to
enjoy wearing your visor upside-
down and backwards -- it's a
convenient way of shielding your
sensitive neck from the sun's
unforgiving rays. You also don't
have to love Madden to sport a
popped polo collar -- it's actually
really comfortable. Seriously, give
people talk about a "balanced"
copyright law, because it usually
means a copyright law where
everyone is worse off. A balanced
copyright sets up the argument as if
there's a real give-and-take, where
what's good for some is bad for
others.
I don't think copyright law needs
to be that way. If the real purpose
of copyright law is to "promote the
progress," then why not make sure
it's doing so? In other words, why
not have actual evidence-based
the 3GS, by tricking it to accept the
files. Like the original 3G, the 3GS
is capable of decoding 1080p video.
But this fella says he loaded some
video on the order of 35Mbps
1080p—pretty much Blu-ray
quality—and that it played fine,
only encountering issues when he
hit 40Mbps. Again, that's via
Google Translation (and via
MobileCrunch to boot), so it's not
terribly actionable info. Still, it's
worth looking into, and maybe
duplicating this guy's hack if you
can. I hope Apple really does lift
the resolution caps, though, because
I am tired of iTunes telling me what
I can't load, even after I go through
all the trouble to encode in their
fancy H.264. [ WeiPhone via
MobileCrunch]
it a try!
Second and third place went to
copyright law? There's a lot of
historical evidence that can be
looked at, and different ideas
around copyright law can be
empirically tested. If it doesn't
promote the progress, get rid of it.
If it does, then shouldn't that make
almost everyone better off?
The real problem, though, is that
there is a very small group of
companies who disproportionately
benefit from today's copyright laws
-- at the expense of the public. And
they have a ridiculously powerful
Tech Games/ TechNews/
Looks Like IP Is About
To Slow Down
Innovation In Clean Tech
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:51:15 PM
Plenty of studies have shown, over
and over again, that in an emerging
market, the last thing you want is
patent protection. It slows down
innovation and adoption drastically.
That's because in a brand new
emerging market, the bigger issue
is actually figuring out how to get
the market established -- and that
means a lot of different efforts
getting thrown at the wall, and the
ability for multiple parties to try
different approaches to getting
Virtual Shackles' " Hey Paisanos"
and Brawl in the Family's "
Fireballs," respectively. If you've
got a favorite strip from this past
week that you think is Wrapup-
worthy, drop a link to it in the
comments, or send in a tip!
Readers pick best webcomic: Bro
Gamers originally appeared on
lobby who aren't about to give up
their monopoly rights, no matter
how much evidence there is that it
harms the public and does not
promote the progress at all. So
we're left with a bad system that
continually gets worse. And no
evidence-based system will ever be
allowed, because it would almost
certainly strip that small, but
powerful, group of their monopoly
rents.
People often assume that I'm in
favor of just tossing out all
59
things to work in a way that the
market wants. Often this means a
lot more sharing of ideas (even
among competitors), as everyone
begins to recognize that getting
over that adoption hurdle is a much
bigger deal than hoarding IP. And
that's a key point. With these
emerging markets, the incentive is
often the realization that when the
market need is actually met, it will
make a lot of people very wealthy,
not by hoarding IP, but by selling
product. This is a perfect example
LOOKS page 60
Joystiq on Sat, 22 Aug 2009
12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms
for use of feeds.
Read| Permalink| Email this|
Comments
copyright law. I'd argue that I'm
more agnostic on the subject than
anything else. I don't care about
"copyright law" per se. I care about
what's going to best promote the
progress. If someone can show me
that copyright actually can do that,
I'm willing to understand how. But
if we can't present the evidence of
how, or actually defend what good
copyright does, the I'm left
wondering why it's there at all.
Permalink| Comments| Email
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60 TechNews/
LOOKS
continued from page 59
of a market where patents make no
sense at all. There's no need for
monopoly protections where the
market can accurately reward the
innovators.
The clean tech market has been
an interesting one to watch, because
it certainly has not needed patents
to keep people interested. Lots of
companies have been jumping into
the market, realizing that the world
needs better energy solutions, and
recognizing that those who
successfully crack that nut won't
have to worry about patents, but
about being able to actually serve
the demand. But, those who look at
innovation entirely through the
spectrum of patents would like to
paint a different picture. Reader
bretton points out that a recent
document sent around by a big law
firm is pushing the idea that patents
will be essential for "fostering
innovation" in clean tech(pdf). Of
course, studies (and history) have
shown exactly the opposite... but,
of course, more patents would be
good for the law firm and its
business.
At almost the same time as that
link was sent over, Michael Koch
alerted us to a discussion of how
some big companies are suddenly
very interested in patents on clean
tech. It notes that, prior to this year,
there was very little interest in the
clean tech community for patents or
RIAA Loses To Yahoo Over Webcasting Rates
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:50:44 PM
Well, finally. The RIAA has lost
its case against Yahoo over what
royalties the Launchcast service
needed to pay. As per usual, the
RIAA kept trying to add on
additional fees. Rather than just
webcasting fees, it also wanted an
additional royalty for being an
patent issues, but as the new
administration talked up the
importance of working together and
sharing information (even across
borders) to further the goal of
actual innovation (rather than the
hoarding of ideas), suddenly the US
Chamber of Commerce unleashed
its lobbying muscle to demand that
patents be a big part of this:
However, this situation changed
dramatically in the spring and
summer of 2009 with the advent of
the Obama administration making
public statements about sharing
technology related to energy. In
reaction, the United States
Chamber of Commerce, a leading
lobby representing businesses, is
expressing growing concern that
moves to spread new energy
technologies to developing
countries could erode the IP rights
that have driven commercial efforts
to innovate for generations.
Late in May 2009, the group and
representatives of General Electric,
Microsoft and Sunrise Solar
gathered in Washington to launch
the Innovation, Development &
Employment Alliance, or I.D.E.A.
The initiative is aimed at pressing
Congress and the Obama
administration to ensure that global
climate-treaty talks do not weaken
protections on who can profit from
new technologies that provide
abundant energy without abundant
interactive service. This is a neat
trick that the RIAA has been
pulling a lot lately. In the past,
every time some new technology
comes along, the recording industry
runs screaming and crying to
Congress about how unfair it is,
and how it needs a special new
royalty for that new
technology/service. But here,
because Launchcast was online and
pollution. The creation of I.D.E.A.
has been widely noted, with some
alarm, in the IP "watchers"
community, and likely means the
status of alternative energy as a less
-observed IP sector is finished for
good....
The new Secretary of Energy,
Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize winner,
has publicly supported
collaborating with developing
countries - in particular China - and
sharing all IP rights of the resulting
technologies. He has already
pushed forward with a new U.S.-
China Clean Energy Research
Center, developed with $15 million
dollars each from the U.S. and
Chinese governments, and designed
to create innovative technologies
for building energy efficiency,
clean coal (including carbon
capture and storage) and clean
vehicles. In addition, Secretary Chu
is advocating for the development
of open-source building energy-
efficiency software that will make
it cheaper and easier for developers
to implement energy saving
measures in new buildings, both in
the U.S. and in emerging
economies like China and India.
Such an effort could certainly help
advance some of the important
scientific research and innovation
in clean tech issues... but of course,
this new lobby is having none of it:
In reaction, I.D.E.A.'s first act was
combined elements of different
services, the RIAA simply figured
it could lump all the different
royalties together and get
Launchcast/Yahoo to pay multiple
times for each use of a song. The
entertainment industry sure does
love trying to get everyone to pay
multiple times for the same thing.
But, it appears the court was
having none of that, saying that the
to back the Larsen-Kirk
Amendment to the Foreign
Relations Authorization Act (H.R.
2410). The amendment calls on the
President, the Secretary of State
and the Permanent Representative
of the United States to the United
Nations to uphold the existing
international legal requirements for
IP rights and avoid any weakening
of them for the UNFCCC in the
context of energy and
environmental technology. The
Amendment passed the House with
a 432-0 vote. It was described as an
amendment to protect U.S. green
jobs and U.S. technology
innovation. Of course, the reality is
exactly the opposite. If we don't
make the necessary innovation
breakthroughs then there won't be
that many US green jobs at all. It's
stunning in this day and age that
politicians can still be convinced
that such protectionist policies
protect jobs rather than limit them.
Getting serious innovation in the
clean tech market will create
tremendous job opportunities.
Focusing on who gets to own the
patents (and blocking foreign
collaboration) at this stage only
delays the ability for the US to
create those jobs and to move to
better energy options.
What a shame.
Permalink| Comments| Email
This Story
service didn't provide enough user
control to make it an interactive
service that would require a
different license (though, it still has
to pay the basic webcasting fees).
The ruling here did not take kindly
to the RIAA's argument that being
able to choose which station you
wanted to listen to (or that you
could skip songs) made it somehow
interactive beyond regular
Internet News Record
Microsoft, Google,
and VMware
redefine the OS
(CNET News.com)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 5:42:00 AM
While the open-source crowd gets
(rightly) excited by Linux's
growing market share, three
companies are pulling the rug out
from under the feet of traditional
operating systems.
Red Hat is winning in Linux
while IBM cleans up the Unix
market. But those are increasingly
yesterday's markets as Microsoft,
Google, and VMware create
different breeds of operating
system, each tuned to the strength
of its product portfolio.
The easiest to understand are
Google and VMware. Google, with
its Linux distribution Chrome OS,
is placing secondary emphasis on
the operating system and primary
emphasis on where it takes you: the
Web. Given Google's strength in
cloud computing, this makes
perfect sense. Google needs an
operating system just long enough
to move users "off" their personal
computers (or mobile phones, for
which Google has developed
Android) and into its cloud
services: Google Apps, Search,
Wave, etc.
MICROSOFT, page 61
radio:"Launchcast listeners do not
even enjoy the limited
predictability that once graced the
AM airwaves on weekends in
America when 'special requests'
represented love-struck adolescents'
attempts to communicate their
feelings to 'that special friend'."
Permalink| Comments| Email
This Story
Internet News Record
MICROSOFT,
continued from page 60
While Google won't find this
strategy to be easy, it has the brand
and expertise to bring "desktop"
substance to cloud applications.
Similarly, VMware's vSphere
attempts to untether computing
from "desktops" and on-premises
servers. VMware describes vSphere
as:
...the industry's first cloud
operating system, transforming IT
infrastructures into a private cloud--
a collection of internal clouds
federated on-demand to external
clouds--delivering IT infrastructure
as a service.
VMware recently acquired open-
source Java leader SpringSource to
complement this strategy, giving
developers an easy way to build,
deploy, and manage Java-based
applications for vSphere (and
beyond). With Java applications
already running at full steam in
vSphere, this move should serve to
heighten the value of vSphere.
And then there's Microsoft. The
company prints billions of dollars
worth of profits each quarter from
its Windows franchise, yet for years
it has been quietly developing its
next big operating system. And no,
Sweden launches criminal probe of
Pirate Bay sale
(CNET News.com)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 1:23:00 AM
Sweden's Economic Crimes
Bureau has begun an investigation
into some of the events surrounding
the planned acquisition of The
Pirate Bay by Global Gaming
Factor X.
Swedish newspaper SvD reported
Saturday that authorities are
looking for possible insider trading
after Global Gaming's stock rose
sharply a week before Global
I'm not referring to Windows 7.
With Windows under fire from
VMware in virtualization (though
Gartner thinks Microsoft stands to
gain on VMware) and from Google
in Web-based applications,
Microsoft has created a bridge
"between personal productivity and
line-of-business applications," one
that stitches together Microsoft's
"desktop" dominance with its cloud
ambitions.
It's called SharePoint, and with
over 100 million seats and $1
billion in revenue, the odds are that
your company already has it
installed.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
long ago declared that "SharePoint
is the definitive operating system or
platform for the middle tier," and I
don't think he's using the term
"operating system" lightly.
Increasingly, SharePoint is the
center of the Microsoft universe, at
least, for enterprise computing.
SharePoint serves as the hub for
Microsoft's suite of operating
systems, applications, and third-
party software. It is a content
application server, of sorts, one that
provides the platform upon which
Gaming announced plans to acquire
The Pirate Bay--the best known
BitTorrent tracker in the world,
which was used by millions to
pirate films.
Trading of Global Gaming shares
was halted by AktieTorget, a
Swedish exchange, on Friday after
officials there requested proof that
Global Gaming had enough money
to complete the sale. Global
Gaming has yet to produce the
required documentation. Until
officials get the proof they need,
so much of Microsoft's value is
now being built.
I've disparaged SharePoint in the
past for its tendency to lock
customers into its proprietary
repository. But let's be clear: a large
number of companies seem
perfectly happy to make that trade-
off and are actively using
SharePoint at the heart of their
intranets, extranets, and Web sites.
Between Microsoft SharePoint,
Google Chrome OS, and VMware
vSphere, we're in for real
innovation in what "operating
system" means. While this shift
will take awhile, leaving traditional
vendors plenty of time to make
money in traditional operating
systems--hey, companies are still
making money in green-screen
software--the future of the
operating system is almost certain
to look different from vanilla
Windows, Linux, or Unix.
Disclosure: My company,
Alfresco, offers an open-source
content application server that has
been positioned in the past as
directly competitive with
SharePoint.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
they said they won't allow the stock
to be traded again. The
investigation and Friday's halt of
trading were unrelated, SvD
reported.
The news of the criminal
investigation comes as several of
the people involved with Global
Gaming have cast doubts on the
company's ability to pay for The
Pirate Bay or, at minimum, get the
site up and running anytime in the
SWEDEN page 62
Intel acquires two
software firms
(CNET News.com)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 7:05:00 AM
Intel has quietly snapped up two
software companies in the last 30
days with aim of boosting
development of applications that
take better advantage of chips with
more than one processing core.
The chipmaker acquired Cilk at
the end of last month and then
Rapidmind earlier this week. Both
are small companies that employ
under than 50 people. The
acquisitions follow the purchase of
software company Wind River
Systems in June.
"Over the last few years, there has
been a gradual emergence of
multicore microprocessors. It's put
parallelism in more and more
machines," James Reinders, chief
evangelist and director of
marketing and sales at Intel, said in
a phone interview Friday,
explaining why Intel bought the
two firms.
"If you look at traditional
applications, ones that we use
everyday, it's fair to say that most
are not exploiting parallelism--at
least not to the full extent,"
Reinders said.
A multicore processor is defined
as any chip with more than one
processing core. Today, almost all
Intel chips that go into laptops,
desktops, and servers have at least
two cores. The challenge for Intel is
to make sure that applications take
advantage of all the cores--so-
called parallelism. This has
historically presented a challenge
for software programmers.
"The operating system does stuff
TechNews/ 61
for applications in parallel,"
Reinders said, referring to
operating systems such as
Windows. "But considering that we
can produce more and more cores
every year, to truly get the benefit
of what the future holds,
applications need to change. And
most applications haven't changed,"
he said.
The goal is to facilitate the
development of parallel
programming. "How do we help
software developers tackle parallel
programming? Both companies had
teams of experts that had been
focused on this problem. So, they're
kindred spirits," he said.
Writing about Cilk in a blog,
Reinders said Intel sees "great
opportunities for Cilk to integrate
with our parallel tools...including
Intel Parallel Studio." The firm's
technology enables "mainstream
programmers to develop
multithreaded (or parallel)
applications...Providing a smooth
path to multicore for legacy (older)
applications that otherwise cannot
easily leverage the performance
capabilities of multicore
processors," according to Cilk's
Web site. Original Cilk research
was done at MIT.
Rapidmind was founded five
years ago as Serious Hack and grew
out of work at the University of
Waterloo. It boasts advanced
technology for helping software
developers with data parallel
programming for multicore
processors and accelerators.
The cost of the two acquisitions
was not disclosed.
62 TechNews/
SWEDEN
continued from page 61
near future.
Separately, SvD also called into
question the veracity of some of
Global Gaming's press releases.
Global Gaming issued a release on
July 31 and claimed that it had
rejected an informal $10 million
bid for The Pirate Bay from John
Fanning, who along with nephew,
Shawn Fanning, founded Napster.
Fanning presumably would buy the
site after Global Gaming purchased
it, but Global Gaming said that it
had rejected Fanning's overture.
Again, Global Gaming's stock
rose in the days before the company
released that information, according
to SvD.
According the press release
issued by Global Gaming,
Fanning's offer had come via
Wayne Rosso, who worked for
Hans Pandeya, Global Gaming's
CEO, for three weeks before
leaving. Rosso said that when he
walked away, he did so because of
doubts about whether Global
Gaming had the financing to pull
off a Pirate Bay sale.
Rosso said late Friday evening
that he never delivered such a
message from Fannning.
"The press release was patently
false," Rosso told CNET News. He
said he told managers at
AktieTorget the same thing and
said he would testify in court if
asked.
Fanning also denied that he ever
gave Rosso any offer to deliver to
Internet News Record
Pandeya, according to SvD's report.
So why didn't Fanning come
forward when the press release was
first circulated?
"I thought it was harmless, but
misleading," Fanning told the
Swedish newspaper.
Pandeya called Fanning a "liar" in
an interview with SvD. He said in
an interview with CNET News that
the insider trading investigation had
nothing to do with him and that no
one he knew had done anything
wrong. He said the acquisition
would go ahead. Global Gaming's
leaders apparently will decide on
Thursday whether to go ahead with
the acquisition.

Wikipedia Diver tracks your Web exploration

(CNET News.com)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 5:13:00 PM
We've covered a number of Web
history tracking and organizing
tools in the past, but Wikipedia
Diver may be one of the most
interesting, albeit niche. This
Firefox add-on gives you a visual
history of everywhere you've been
on Wikipedia, and organizes it
down to the day, order, and session
in which you visited the sites,
making it easy to revisit old entries.
Each visited page is presented as
a small red globe that you can click
on to advance the timeline. There's
also a source list of every site you
visited, that will take you right to
the page.
Tiny red balls tell you how you
got from looking at video game
descriptions to the molecular
makeup of precious metals.(Credit:
CNET)
Like some other Web history
trackers, Wikipedia Diver
intelligently tracks when you hit the
back button on your browser. Each
time you leave whatever Wikipedia
entry you're on to visit a link that's
on that page, it simply attaches it to
your history. In one entry I was
looking at, I had clicked on seven
different links that were on that
page, and the extension kept track
of how I had arrived at each of
those pages. That in itself can be
fun to look at--e.g. how I got from
the Zoopraxiscope to the
assassination of Alfred Herrhausen.
One thing it does not track are the
reference links you click when
exiting the site to view a source. I'd
like to see this added as an option,
but understandably that takes it into
the realm of watching everything
you do.
Also worth a mention is that all of
this data is kept safe and secure on
your local machine, and never sent
to the cloud. Like any other
extension that does this, this means
that your information isn't being
beamed elsewhere, although you
can only access your history on that
particular machine, and in that
particular browser.
Internet News Record
BEAR robot roars to the
rescue
(CNET News.com)
Submitted at 8/22/2009 6:00:00 AM
While unmanned air vehicles are
putting pilots out of business, a new
U.S. Army-funded robot could do
the same for rescuers and
stevedores.
The humanoid BEAR (
Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot)
can locate victims in a mine shaft,
battlefield, toxic spill, or
earthquake-damaged structure. And
then it can lift them up and then
carry them over long distances to
safety, according to the
manufacturer Vecna Robotics. And
it does this without risking any
more lives ( PDF).
The challenge was to enhance
search and rescue while reducing
the time military, police, and
emergency response personnel have
to risk their lives each day. More
than half of the Medals of Honor
earned by medics are awarded
posthumously, according to Vecna.
So far there are nine incarnations
Did People Think No One Would Recognize REAL
ID If Introduced Under Another Name?
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 4:13:33 PM
Last year, it became clear that
REAL ID was dead on arrival as
pretty much everyone was against
it, and states were refusing to
implement it. With the changing of
the administration, it seemed like
REAL ID was finally going to die
completely... but apparently not just
of BEAR--each a little more
capable than its predecessor.
Improvements to date include
explosion- and fire-resistant treads;
a ruggedized, high-speed, high-
energy drive system; explosion-
and fire-resistant battery cells; and
enhanced dexterity.
The current prototype features a
powerful upper body controlled by
hydraulics that can lift 500 pounds,
according to the developer. A
"mobility platform" featuring two
independent sets of tracked "legs"
allows it to balance on the balls of
its "ankles."
But don't lay those firefighters off
just yet. Vecna is still working on
the BEAR's ability to navigate
through complex environments and
to elevate the level of human-robot
interaction.
The project is sponsored by the
U.S. Army's Telemedicine and
Advanced Technology Research
Center, which is part of the U.S.
Army Medical Research and
Material Command.
yet. EFF alerts folks to the fact that
the same concept has basically been
reintroduced under the name PASS
ID, as if that would trick people:
The plan sounds equally as bad and
unnecessary: Proponents seem to be
blind to the systemic impotence of
such an identification card scheme.
Individuals originally motivated to
obtain and use fake IDs will instead
use fake identity documents to
Open Science And Closed Science:
Aren't Papers Supposed To Be A
Part Of The Conversation?
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 6:11:00 PM
It's no secret that we've got some
serious problems with the way the
old school scientific journals work -
- basically locking up scientific
research rather than really living up
to their mandate to spread scientific
knowledge. Stephen alerts us to a
separate issue with traditional
journal publications: how they
handle the followup discussion.
There's a great blog post at
Scienceblogs, that compares two
separate journal articles where
readers felt that the results were
falsified in some way (despite
being peer reviewed). In one, the
scientist had to go to hell and back
just to get the editors publish a
comment questioning the original
article. In the second, even though
the article was published in a
procure "real" drivers' licenses.
PASS ID creates new risks -- it
calls for the scanning and storage of
copies of applicants' identity
documents (birth certificates, visas,
etc.). These documents will be
stored in databases that will
become leaky honeypots of
sensitive personal data, prime
targets for malicious identity
thieves or otherwise accessible by
journal, an outside blog post and its
comments became an impromptu
forum to question the data in the
article -- with many scientists
conducting the same experiment
themselves and posting the results
(including photos) in real-time.
The second one is obviously a lot
more of the way research should
work these days, though it shouldn't
all be hidden in a separate site's
comments. If journals are serious
about advancing knowledge, rather
than locking it up, why not give up
on the obviously faulty simple peer
review process, and open up the
content so that knowledgeable
people can input their own thoughts
in comments directly on the article
in question? Isn't that what
knowledge exchange is supposed to
be about?
Permalink| Comments| Email
This Story
individuals authorized to obtain
documents from the database.
Despite some alterations to the
scheme, PASS ID is still bad for
privacy in many of the same ways
the REAL ID was. But why let that
stop the gov't from coming up with
more ways to keep tabs on you?
Permalink| Comments| Email
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TechNews/ Sports/ 63
World Records
Become Broken
Records for Bolt
(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 7:06:03 AM
There was no photo finish
Thursday at the world track-and-
field championships in Berlin.
Since Usain Bolt arrived on the
scene, there hasn’t seemed to be
much of a need for one in his
events. The Jamaican obliterated
the field in the 200-meter final,
finishing in 19.19 seconds, an
absurd 0.62 second ahead of
Alonso Edward of Panama. In the
process, Bolt lopped 0.11 second
off the world-record time he set at
the Beijing Olympics last year. It’s
the second time this week he’s
trimmed 0.11 second off a world
record. He also did it in the 100-
meter final last weekend (9.58
seconds). Associated Press Usain
Bolt ran around the Berlin track
twice in the time it took to take this
photo.
“Given his size and confidence,
Bolt’s potential to become the
ultimate speed freak seems
unlimited,” Allan Maki writes in
the Globe and Mail. “Not only does
he possess the mental fortitude to
produce under the most intense,
pressure-packed conditions, those
who are monitoring his progress are
convinced he can move faster yet.”
Before the race, American track
WORLD page 64
64
WORLD
continued from page 63
legend Michael Johnson had
wondered whether missing a month
of training because of an auto
accident would hinder Bolt in the
200. “With a minimum of fuss, Bolt
dispensed of that theory,” the
Guardian’s Anna Kessel writes.
“The question is, what on earth
would he have done to the record
had he prepared properly? In an
event where the world record has
been broken just four times — now
five — since electronic timing
began in 1977, compared to the 14
times the 100m record has fallen,
Bolt’s achievement last night was
simply extraordinary.”
Bolt is now the only runner ever
to hold world records in the 100
and 200 simultaneously. “The
biggest difference between his
performances in Berlin and Beijing
has been the huge improvement in
his start, and yesterday he had the
quickest reaction time in the field,
making up the stagger on Edward
in the adjacent lane in a matter of a
few strides,” the Telegraph’s Simon
Hart writes. “The race was pretty
much over from the gun.”* * *
Plaxico Burress took a relatively
lousy deal and avoided being stuck
with an even worse one. The
former New York Giant accepted a
two-year prison sentence Thursday
for carrying an unlicensed gun into
a Manhattan club last November.
Burress accidently shot himself in
the thigh. He was looking at 3 ½
years if he had been convicted in a
trial.
The sentence doesn’t seem right
to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Phil
Sheridan. “Earlier this year, another
NFL wide receiver, Don’té
Stallworth, served 24 days in jail
for striking and killing a man while
driving under the influence. That’s
one day for every month Burress is
facing,” Sheridan writes. “Throw in
Michael Vick — the Eagles’ new
quarterback and spiritual
reclamation project — and you can
cause serious synaptic damage
trying to get it all to make sense:
Stallworth’s 24 days compared with
Vick’s 18 months in prison
compared with the term Burress is
facing.”
At Yahoo Sports, Jason Cole says
Burress’s history of resisting
authority led to his downfall. In the
New York Daily News, Gary
Myers writes that general managers
think Burress will have a difficult
time returning to the NFL at age
34.* * *
John Calipari wasn’t implicated
in the NCAA’s decision Thursday
to vacate the Memphis Tigers’ 38
wins and their trip to the Final Four
in 2008 over the use of an ineligible
player. (That player has been
reported to be Chicago Bulls star
Derrick Rose, but he was not
named in the report.) The player
found a substitute to take his SATs
for him so he could become eligible
to play at Memphis. The school
plans an appeal.
But in the opinion-osphere,
Calipari is far from blameless. “[I]f
you think Calipari didn’t know how
his star player qualified to play
basketball at Memphis, I have a
2007-08 Final Four banner I’d like
to sell you,” the Commercial
Appeal’s Geoff Calkins writes. “Of
course he knew. He absolutely
knew. This is a coach who knew
the name of the fan who won a big-
screen TV in a promotion in FedEx
Forum’s upper deck. You think he
didn’t know how Rose, on the brink
of losing his eligibility at Memphis,
planned to pass his standardized
test?”
The Louisville Courier-Journal’s
Eric Crawford says that while the
NCAA ruling sullies Calipari’s
reputation as he prepares for his
first season at the helm of
Kentucky, “If he wins big and
makes it stick, those black marks
will recede to footnotes. If he
builds another façade for the
NCAA to tear down, he’ll be the
footnote.”
Sports Illustrated’s Luke Winn
wonders whether Calipari will run
from Kentucky at the first sign of
trouble, while Yahoo Sports’s
Jason King thinks the punishment
was too light against Calipari and
Memphis.* * *
There will be plenty of bells and
whistles Friday night when the
Dallas Cowboys open their mega-
expensive Cowboys Stadium to
football fans for the first time for an
exhibition game against Tennessee.
In the Dallas Morning News, David
Moore writes that the Statue of
Internet News Record
Liberty could be air-dropped on the
field and the roof closed without
scraping the tip.
Today, attending a sports event is
as much about the “experience” as
about the result on the field. That’s
left the Miami Herald’s Greg Cote
a little melancholy. “This isn’t a
bah-humbug thing but a simple
longing for the halcyon days when
the game was the star (the only one
needed) and the only enhancement
required of a fan’s experience was a
great effort by the home team and,
on a good day, maybe a win,” Cote
writes. “Gradually, the essence of a
sporting event (ostensibly the
reason we are there) has gotten
away from pro teams, who now
adorn stadiums and arenas with so
many bells and whistles that the
noise, literally and figuratively,
drowns the senses.”* * *
It’s been 34 years since Daniel
Ruettiger, the undersized walk-on
at Notre Dame, had his moment of
glory, getting a sack against
Georgia Tech quarterback Rudy
Allen in the final game of his senior
year. The inspiration for the movie
“Rudy,” Ruettiger today runs a
foundation and is a motivational
speaker, Dan Bickley writes in the
Arizona Republic.
Found a good column from the
world of sports? Don’t keep it to
yourself — write to us at
dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll
consider your find for inclusion in
the Daily Fix. You can email Garey
at ris84rap@gmail.com.
Internet News Record
The Count: Bolt Is Speeding Human
Evolution
(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)
Submitted at 8/21/2009 12:26:35 PM
Usain Bolt is indisputably, and by
big margins, the world-record
holder in the 100-meter and 200-
meter sprint; he lowered both his
personal marks at the world track
and field championships this week.
However, he still trails two
legendary American sprinters in
another category: the speed with
which they lowered those records
before Bolt made them his own.
Getty Images
Usain Bolt has become his own
chief competition in the race for
new human speed records.
Bolt this week shaved 0.11
seconds off each of his records, set
last year in Beijing. In the recorded,
electronically timed phase of the
evolution of the human species’
sprinting abilities, that’s a
remarkably fast progression. For
comparison, when Bolt broke
Michael Johnson’s record in the
200-meter sprint last August in
Beijing, he was shaving just 0.02
seconds off a 12-year-old mark.
That’s progress of less than 0.002
seconds per year. In fact, each of
the five 200-meter records set since
Tommie Smith set the
electronically timed standard in
1968 was dwarfed by Bolt’s feat
this week — except Johnson’s time
of 19.32 seconds in 1996. That beat
Johnson’s prior record, set barely a
month earlier, by more than a third
of a second. That’s a record-setting
pace of more than three seconds per
year — 29 times the acceleration of
Bolt’s feat this week. To match
that, Bolt could run 200 meters in
18.85 seconds in early September,
Sports/ 65
or a 19.17 this Saturday.
Bolt’s rate of accelerating the 100
-meter record is closer to historical
highs. His latest mark of 9.58
seconds represents less acceleration
than his 9.69-second record at the
Olympics last August. That came
less than three months after he set a
new mark of 9.72 seconds,
representing a pace of 0.13 second
per year. Both those records stand
atop the list of 14 new records in
the 100 meters since Calvin
Smith’s mark of 9.93 in 1983 —
except Carl Lewis’s 9.86 time in
Tokyo in 1991. That was 0.04
seconds better than the old mark,
set two and a half months earlier.
Bolt could match that feat with a
9.54 in late October.
Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson
aren’t bad company to keep. Oh,
and Bolt is faster than both of them
ever were. The next world-record
holder after Bolt will have a tough
job of extending human speed at his
rate.