The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Google Creates World's Largest Digital Archive of Holocaust Victims - by PC Magazine

2011-01-26T19:14:00.001-05:00

URL: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376715,00.asp

No one shall be forgotten ...

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/go4rqt

Jacksonville Mom Murders Baby for Farmville

2010-10-28T09:50:00.001-04:00

Are you kidding me?!?!?!

Amplify’d from jacksonville.com

Jacksonville mom shakes baby for interrupting Farmville, pleads guilty to murder

Posted: October 27, 2010 - 11:13am

By David Hunt

A Jacksonville mother charged with shaking her baby to death has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Alexandra V. Tobias, 22, was arrested after the January death of 3-month-old Dylan Lee Edmondson. She told investigators she became angry because the baby was crying while she was playing a computer game called Farmville on the Facebook social-networking website.

Tobias entered her plea Wednesday before Circuit Judge Adrian G. Soud. A second-degree murder charge is punishable by up to life in prison.

Prosecutor Richard Mantei said Tobias' sentence could be less because of state guidelines that call for 25 to 50 years. Soud offered no promises on what he'll order during a sentencing hearing scheduled for December.

Outside the courtroom, Mantei said Tobias' plea will help avoid the family reliving the tragedy during a jury trial.

Tobias told investigators that she shook the baby, smoked a cigarette to compose herself and then shook him again. She said the baby may have hit his head during the shaking.
Read more at jacksonville.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/e4pu

Stop The Bullying In Schools

2010-10-06T20:42:00.001-04:00

Schools and school districts need to be held accountable.

Amplify’d from technorati.com

Stop The Bullying In Schools

Tyler Clementi, Billy Lucas, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh: what do they have in common? They all committed suicide, last week, to end the torment of being bullied and harassed in school.

Tyler Clementi (18): A brilliant violinist, in New Jersey, jumped off a bridge.

Billy Lucas (15): Hanged himself in Greensburg.

Asher Brown (13): Shot himself in the head in Houston.

Seth Walsh (13): Hanged himself in their own backyard at Tehachapi, CA.

Justin Aaberg (15) last July was found dead in his room; he hanged himself.

Is this what we have become as a society: intolerant and ignorant? Where kids harass and bully other weaker kids just because they are different?

Where do these kids get the sense that it is acceptable to bully others, and that it is acceptable to be prejudiced and discriminating? The answer is simple; they learn it from their parents or at school.

Bullying teenagers, especially gay teenagers or the ones that are still questioning their identity, is becoming an epidemic. Gay teenagers are called names regularly, and the worst part is that the teachers and the school don’t address these issues, or don’t know how to address these issues; sweeping them under the carpet will not make them disappear.

The poor teenagers are tormented, feel isolated, unloved, hated, not accepted, ridiculed and mostly shamed for who they are. They have no idea where to turn, how to look for help. Most school administrations don’t have any designed system in place to address the gay issue in schools, and teachers don’t know how, are scared to face these issues, or they feel documenting the bullying or harassing situations to the office is enough.

Some schools have anti-bullying programs mentioned on their curriculum, but it is just to be politically correct, and they don’t intervene to stop the bullying, as in the case of Walsh, where they were made aware of the torment he was going through.
Read more at technorati.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/cwoQ3P

U.S. Giving Away too Much, too Early in Mideast Peace Talks ...

2010-10-06T20:06:00.001-04:00

What is your opinion?

Amplify’d from www.latimes.com

U.S. giving away too much, too early in Mideast peace talks, some say

The Obama administration appears desperate to keep the talks from collapsing and keep its reputation from taking a hit, allies and diplomats say.

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

October 7, 2010

Only a month into a new round of peace talks, the Obama administration is drawing criticism from allies and veteran diplomats that it is giving away too much just to keep negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians from collapsing.

Administration officials have offered an assortment of inducements to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a freeze on Jewish construction in the West Bank for two months. Palestinian officials have threatened to break off the talks unless Israel extends the freeze that expired Sept. 26.

The U.S. has been wooing Netanyahu for weeks with offers including a squadron of F-35 fighters, support for a long-term Israeli troop presence in a new Palestinian state, and a pledge to veto any anti-Israel resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. also is offering access to its satellites that could provide early warning of attacks.

To the Palestinians, the White House is pledging support for their position on the exact location of borders for a future state in exchange for a promise to continue negotiating even if Israel refuses to extend the construction moratorium.

Although the Obama administration was expected to eventually give out incentives to keep the negotiations alive, diplomats and other observers say they are surprised that it has offered so much, so early for such a small victory: a commitment by both sides to keep talking.

"From the left to the right, people are saying that the administration is looking desperate," said Robert Danin, a former U.S. official and an advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, an envoy to the region for the United Nations, U.S., European Union and Russia.

The U.S. offers have made waves in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Some Israeli lawmakers have urged Netanyahu to hold out for even more. Others believe that the U.S. pledges are so generous that Israel can't rely on President Obama to make good on them.

"Bizarre Bazaar — Haggling over the Price" was the headline this week in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

The Palestinian leadership has been shocked by the U.S. pledge to support a long-term Israeli security presence in the Jordan Valley, on the eastern edge of a future Palestinian state.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was "pale and incredulous" when he announced the offer to his team, said one person close to him. Palestinians were expecting that any agreement on an Israeli security presence would be negotiated well down the line in the horse-trading before the final deal.

The White House's willingness to pay a steep price so early in the game reflects the huge stakes for the administration. Obama has said repeatedly that peace the Middle East is vital to U.S. national security.

U.S. officials fear that if the talks fail now, it may be months before they can coax the sides back to the table, and by then they might be dealing with a new and less cooperative Palestinian leadership. And collapse of the talks would hurt U.S. prestige in the region.

"This has become all about American credibility, and that's why there's such an effort to keep it going," said one person close to the talks, who was unwilling to be identified by name because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Netanyahu, who wants to preserve good ties to the United States, appears to be leaning toward accepting the deal to extend the construction moratorium if he can garner enough support from some moderate Cabinet members.

But one Israeli official said the terms haven't been finalized and that Netanyahu hasn't made up his mind. "We're not there yet," he said.
Read more at www.latimes.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/aGhbbi

Titanic 100th Cruises Spark Buzz, Debate

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

Amplify’d from edition.cnn.com

Titanic 100th cruises spark buzz, debate

By A. Pawlowski, CNN

September 22, 2010 -- Updated 1334 GMT (2134 HKT)

This 1912 photo shows the RMS Titanic, which struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic.

(CNN) -- The frigid waters of the North Atlantic aren't among the most prominent cruise destinations, but that may change as the world remembers one of the worst maritime disasters in history.

At least two cruises are planned in the spring of 2012 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, with both touting special activities, lectures and memorials to commemorate the tragic voyage.

Organizers insist it's a learning opportunity and a way to remember the victims, but some critics have called the trips tasteless and dubbed them "disaster voyeurism."

Still, both voyages are attracting interest as Titanic -- the subject of countless books and movies -- continues to fascinate.

"There's a magic about Titanic that transcends reality," said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of CruiseCritic.com, a website that features cruise reviews.

"Perhaps what makes it special is that its story, and that of the passengers who didn't survive their journeys, never did have a satisfying conclusion. And so that's why the ship continues to live on."

The Titanic Memorial Cruise on the Balmoral will retrace the doomed ship's original itinerary, departing from Southampton, England; passing by Cherbourg, on the French coast; and calling into the Irish port of Cobh before sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to the sinking site.

Once there, a memorial service will be held at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 2012 -- exactly a century after Titanic sank.

The ship will take 1,309 passengers on the trip, the same number of people who were on the Titanic.

More than 30 relatives of Titanic survivors and victims will be on board, said Miles Morgan, managing director of the cruise. He wasn't surprised the voyage has almost sold out, despite the grim occasion.

"An awful lot of the people are simply just really interested in the Titanic and everything about it and to them it's the opportunity of a lifetime to do something very, very different," Morgan said.
Read more at edition.cnn.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/cT048C

2010-10-05T10:24:00.001-04:00

Racing around a big truck just to cut it off to make the exit is just plain stupid. At 80,000 lbs, that big truck has no reaction time if you brake suddenly because you misjudged. Is your life worth the 10 seconds of time you saved? #TruckSafety http://bit.ly/9fKcaG

GTA: Cabs with Credit Card Fees Break Bylaws #GTA

2010-09-16T07:21:00.001-04:00

Not only is charging a fee over and above the fare a violation of local bylaws, it is also a technical violation of the Credit Card Agreement set forth by the credit card company (MasterCard) So, if you have been charged this surcharge, be sure to lodge a complaint.

Amplify’d from www.cbc.ca

Cabs with credit card fees break bylaws

Last Updated:

Thursday, September 16, 2010 | 6:54 AM ET

At least three major cab companies in Toronto charge customers a user fee if they pay with a credit card, a practice that the city says violates municipal bylaws.

Three Toronto taxi companies say they ask customers who pay with credit cards to also hand over an extra fee.

CBC News contacted a number of Toronto's largest cab companies and three admitted applying an additional charge — known either as a "network" or "transaction" fee — to bills paid with a Visa or MasterCard credit card:

Co-op Cabs charge 25 cents per credit card transaction.

Maple Leaf Taxi charges 50 cents per transaction.

Crown Taxi charges $1 per transaction.

Management at each of those three companies did not respond to queries about why they were adding those fees to metered fares.

Bruce Robertson, the director of Toronto's licensing and standards division, said news of the fees came as a surprise to him.

"It's not authorized under the city's bylaws to charge anything more than what's on the meter," he said. "Now that it's been brought to my attention, I'll have my inspectors look into it. And on an individual basis we would consider that to be an overcharge."

The general manager of Beck Taxi said her company doesn't ask customers to pay a credit card service charge, adding it would be bad for business.

"I'll use the analogy of going into a restaurant. If I were to pay for my meal with my Visa card and I was told there would be an extra fee for using my Visa, I would be very upset," said Gayle Beck-Souter.

MasterCard Canada is also taking issue with the fee.

"MasterCard is unaware of this particular additional fee, however a ‘network fee’ added to a customer’s payment would be considered a surcharge," the company said in a written statement to CBC News.

"A merchant who accepts MasterCard and then subsequently surcharges a customer who opts to pay with their MasterCard is technically violating the rules of their agreement."

Meanwhile, Robertson is advising anyone who is charged extra to contact Toronto's licensing department to lodge a complaint. Cab companies who are found to be taking in more than the fare as indicated on the meter could be fined, he said.
Read more at www.cbc.ca

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/aWLuGm

2010-09-12T11:11:00.001-04:00

When moving around a heavy truck whether you are changing lanes, or turning a corner, use your turn signal. Heavy truck drivers need to know your intentions as they cannot move suddenly. Protect your safety and others' safety too. #TruckSafetyTip http://bit.ly/cvUhzb

Truck Safety Tip

2010-09-06T09:56:00.001-04:00

Throughout Kentucky Interstates, you will see these signs:

It is one of the safest things a motorist can do around a heavy truck. Most motorists do not understand just how long it takes a fully loaded 18 wheeler to stop. If you leave a single car length or less (personally observed) and you find yourself needing to brake suddenly and come to a stop, you are guaranteed to be hit by the truck you just cut off. (This is at highways speeds). Your car can stop four times faster than a fully loaded tractor trailer. (which can weight up to 80,000 lbs)

It is as much the responsibility of the average motorist to operate safely around commercial motor vehicles as it is the CMV operator.

Be safe this holiday weekend and leave plenty of space around those big rigs.

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/aeF3Td

NYC Subway Driver Stops Train Just in Time to Avoid Woman

2010-08-29T12:48:00.001-04:00

One very lucky woman. This comes close to home because my wife recently fell and had a seizure in a department store.

Amplify’d from www.foxnews.com

NYC Subway Driver Stops Train Just in Time to Avoid Woman

Published August 29, 2010

| Associated Press

A New York City subway driver with sharp vision and even sharper reflexes was able to bring his train to a halt just short of a woman who had fallen on the tracks.

Driver
Francis Lusk was bringing a train into the station at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street around 7 a.m. Saturday when he saw the woman fall into a drainage ditch between the tracks. Other travelers frantically waved and screamed to get him to stop.

He slammed on the brakes and sounded the horn to keep anyone else from jumping onto the electified rails. Lusk was able to stop the train about 70 feet from the woman.

The woman told Lusk she was feeling dizzy. She was taken to the hospital.
Read more at www.foxnews.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/dtE4Mp

TheStar.com: How panhandlers use free credit cards

2010-08-29T09:35:00.001-04:00

This is a great article with a cross section of the homeless in Toronto. Being homeless does not always equal being dishonest.

Amplify’d from www.thestar.com

How panhandlers use free credit cards

Published On Sat Aug 28 2010

Joanne Mitchell, 60, and an acquaintance panhandle at a subway entrance at Union Station.

Jim Rankin

Staff Reporter

What would happen if, instead of spare change, you handed a person in need the means to shop for whatever they needed? What would they buy? Can you spare your credit card, sir?

In New York City, an advertising executive recently handed over her American Express Platinum Card to a homeless Manhattan man after he had asked her for change. The man, who had been without home after losing a job, used the card to buy $25 worth of deodorant, water and cigarettes. And then he returned the card.

Concerns over the wisdom of sharing of credits cards and credit card fraud aside, the unlikely encounter became a talking point — a feel-good story about, as the New York Post put it in a headline: “A bum you can trust — honest!”

Is that such a surprise?

Over the past two weeks, I wandered Toronto’s downtown core with five prepaid Visa and MasterCard gift cards, in $50 and $75 denominations, waiting for people to ask for money.

When they did, I asked them what they needed. A meal at a restaurant, groceries, a new pair of pants, they said. I handed out the cards and asked that they give them back when they’d finished shopping. I either waited at a coffee shop while they shopped or — in the case of those who could not buy what they needed nearby or were reticent about leaving their panhandling post — I said I’d return on another day to pick up the card. That’s when I would reveal that I was a journalist.

Some were unbelieving at first. All were grateful. Some declined the offer. Some who accepted didn’t come back, but those that did had stories to tell.
Read more at www.thestar.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/dh1oGh

Filed Under Negative Publicity Stupidity: Facebook is trying to trademark 'face'

2010-08-28T21:04:00.001-04:00

Seriously?

Amplify’d from money.cnn.com

Facebook is trying to trademark 'face'

By Julianne Pepitone, staff reporter

August 27, 2010: 3:24 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Facebook, which has gone after sites with the word "book" in their names, is also trying to trademark the word "face," according to court documents.

But the social networking site has met with a familiar foe. As TechCrunch first reported, Aaron Greenspan has asked for an extension of time to file an opposition to Facebook's attempt. Greenspan is the president and CEO of Think Computer, the developer of a mobile payments app called FaceCash.

"I'd bet against 'face' being awarded to Facebook," said Henry Sneath, a patent and trademark lawyer based in Pittsburgh. "You cannot overtake the use of a generic word people use in everyday speech."

Greenspan, a former Harvard classmate of Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, claimed he had a hand in developing the social networking giant. The case was settled last year.

In an interview with CNNMoney.com, Greenspan said the two extensions he filed now give him until September 22 to oppose the "face" trademark attempt. The original deadline was June 23.

"If you search the patent database, there are thousands of marks that contain the word 'face,'" Greenspan said. "I understand where Facebook is coming from, but this move has big implications for my company and for others."
Read more at money.cnn.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/chsCju

Solarve: Sanyo Shows World’s First Solar Cell-Equipped Bus

2010-08-27T10:29:00.001-04:00

Exactly what is the point of this? There is no energy savings here. The vehicle still has to provide power for motion. Having solar lighting when the engine is running and already a source of energy seems redundant. LED lights don't draw enough energy to have an impact on the charging system.

Amplify’d from www.crunchgear.com

Solarve: Sanyo Shows World’s First Solar Cell-Equipped Bus

by
Serkan Toto
on
August 27, 2010

Sanyo in Japan today announced [JP] what it says is the world’s first solar-cell-equipped public bus, the Solarve (which stands for Solar Vehicle). The bus was unveiled to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a Japanese transportation and logistics company called Ryobi [JP]. The Solarve is essentially a city bus with solar cells on top that generate power for its interior LED lights.

Sanyo says the solar panels atop the diesel-electric hybrid bus are good for a total output of 798 watts (420W through crystalline silicon cells, and the rest through amorphous silicon cells). When the sun isn’t shining for an extended period of time, power will be supplied by storage batteries inside the bus for about nine hours.

The Solarve is expected to be first used as early as September 1 (in Okayama City in Southern Japan).
Read more at www.crunchgear.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/9o7oIo

Nearly 150 prisoners mistakenly released over time ...

2010-08-24T09:02:00.001-04:00

Do you feel safe now?

Amplify’d from www.thestar.com

Nearly 150 prisoners mistakenly released

Published On Tue Aug 24 2010

Daniel Dale

Staff Reporter

At least 143 prisoners were mistakenly allowed to walk out of Ontario correctional facilities over the last eight years — and the provincial government will not say who these prisoners were, how many of them were dangerous, and whether any of them are still at large.

Sixteen months after the Star filed a freedom of information request for the “incident reports” corrections employees must produce after each mistaken release, 143 censored reports covering the period from January 2003 to March 2009 arrived in July. Because the government has long refused to describe how any mistaken release occurred, the reports provide the most complete explanations ever made public.

There is much, however, that the reports do not reveal. Among the important details removed from them were the names of the mistakenly released prisoners, the names of the institutions they were released from, and significant facts about why the releases happened.

The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services said the disclosure of prisoners’ names would have violated privacy laws. Other information was not divulged, the ministry said, because some of the 143 prisoners were young offenders.

But asked how many were young offenders, the ministry said, “This information is not readily available.” And asked how many, if any, of the 143 had been in jail on charges of murder, attempted murder, sexual assault, armed robbery, assault with a weapon and other serious offences, the ministry also said this information was not readily available.

It issued the same response when asked how many of the prisoners were at large for more than one month, more than six months, or never rearrested at all.

Eddy Almeida, chair of the corrections section of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, said he does not believe any mistakenly released prisoner has posed a major danger to the public. “Usually, anyone that has been released, they’ve been caught pretty fast,” he said.

Usually, perhaps, but not always. On Jan. 6, 2009, repeat offender Timothy Davidson, then 35, was mistakenly released from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. He was captured in British Columbia more than six months later.

Davidson was convicted in late 2008 for an attack on a woman he was dating, Heather Dennie. He was released a day before he was to appear in court on charges that he called Dennie from jail and threatened to kill her.

“You have no idea what this feels like, to not even be able to go outside your apartment door without having someone with you,” Dennie, a 48-year-old with leukemia, told the Ottawa Citizen soon after the release. “He could be just around the corner, waiting for me.”
Read more at www.thestar.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/bkn71w

Now Playing: Night of the Living Tech

2010-08-23T14:49:00.001-04:00

wired Magazine has it wrong ... the Web is not Dead ... it's evolving ...

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Now Playing: Night of the Living Tech

By STEVE LOHR

Published: August 21, 2010

Life in the media and communications terrarium, it seems, is getting increasingly perilous. The predictions of demise are piling up. Phone calls, e-mail, blogs and Facebook, according to digerati pundits recently, are speeding toward the grave. Last week, Wired magazine proclaimed, “The Web Is Dead.”

Yet evolution — not extinction — has always been the primary rule of media ecology. New media predators rise up, but other media species typically adapt rather than perish. That is the message of both history and leading media theorists, like Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman. Television, for example, was seen as a threat to radio and movies, though both evolved and survived.

Still, if the evolutionary pattern remains intact, there are some fundamental differences in today’s media ecology, experts say.

Strip away the headline hyperbole of the “death of” predictions, they note, and what remains is mainly commentary on the impact of the accelerated pace of change and accumulated innovations in the Internet-era media and communications environment. A result has been a proliferation of digital media forms and fast-shifting patterns of media consumption.

So the evolutionary engine runs faster than ever before, opening the door to new and often unforeseen possibilities. “Change has changed qualitatively,” says Janet Sternberg, an assistant professor at Fordham University and president of the Media Ecology Association, a research organization.
Read more at www.nytimes.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/cqVd8B

Video Shows Ohio Woman Angry Over McNuggets Punching McDonald's Worker, Smashing Window

2010-08-10T15:53:00.001-04:00

Are you kidding me? What a moron. Is this truly how bad american society has become over fast food? Sad ...

Amplify’d from www.foxnews.com

Video shows Ohio woman angry over McNuggets punching McDonald's worker, smashing window

| Associated Press

TOLEDO, Ohio

A security video from a McDonald's in Ohio shows a woman punching two restaurant employees and smashing a drive-thru window because she couldn't get Chicken McNuggets.

The tantrum caught on tape in Toledo earlier this year shows the customer reaching through the drive-thru window, slugging one worker and then another. She then grabs a bottle out of her car and tosses it through the glass window before speeding off.

It happened early on New Year's Day. Police say Melodi Dushane was angry that McNuggets weren't being served, because it was breakfast time.

Dushane says she was drunk at the time. She was sentenced to 60 days in jail last month and ordered to pay McDonald's for the broken window.

The video was released Monday when it became public record.
Read more at www.foxnews.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/9hUs0e

Mexico Drug Cartels Thrive Despite Calderon's Offensive

2010-08-10T09:23:00.001-04:00

Time to employ even harsher measures. Since these criminals are nothing but animals, time to exterminate then using any and every means possible.

Amplify’d from dailyme.com

Mexico drug cartels thrive despite Calderon's offensive

LOS ANGELES TIMES

BY TRACY WILKINSON AND KEN ELLINGWOOD

MEXICO CITY -- Nearly four years after President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led crackdown against drug traffickers, the cartels are smuggling more narcotics into the United States, amassing bigger fortunes and extending their dominion at home with such savagery that swaths of Mexico are now in effect without authority.

The groups also are expanding their ambitions far beyond the drug trade, transforming themselves into broad criminal empires deeply involved in migrant smuggling, extortion, kidnapping and trafficking in contraband such as pirated DVDs.

Undeterred by the 80,000 troops and federal police officers arrayed against them, gunmen frequently take on Mexican forces in the open. Operatives of one group, the Zetas, did so in northern Mexico this spring when they blockaded army garrisons. In June a group believed to be linked to another organization, La Familia, ambushed federal police in the western state of Michoacan, killing 12 officers in early morning light.

Since Calderon announced the offensive when he took office in December 2006, more than 28,000 people have been killed. Most of them have been traffickers, dealers and associates. But innocent civilians account for a growing portion.

Billions of dollars have been spent on the anti-drug effort with the enthusiastic backing of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Calderon and his administration say one reason progress is proving so difficult is that the problem festered far too long. They have predicted that the violence will subside by the end of the year.

But statistics, intelligence reports and interviews with Mexican and U.S. authorities over the last six months make it clear that the effort has failed to dismantle the networks or significantly slow the flow of drugs.

Scarcely a decade after Mexico took a giant step toward genuine multiparty democracy, traffickers may now pose a long-term danger to its stability. Rising chaos "requires us to change our view of the problem, that it is no longer a matter of organized crime but rather of the loss of the state," the leading newspaper El Universal said in an editorial in June.

Calderon himself acknowledged the threat last week in comments at a national security conference: "This criminal behavior is what has changed, and become a challenge to the state, an attempt to replace the state."

Mexican traffickers have increased their shipments of several types of narcotics north across the border, becoming titans of an industry that by some estimates earns $39 billion a year, equivalent to almost 20 percent of the government's annual budget.

They have muscled aside competitors to gain control over shipments of most types of illegal drugs in the hemisphere: marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

And they are becoming increasingly important producers, a shift from an earlier age when Mexican gangs served chiefly as smugglers for South American producers. Marijuana and poppy fields have flourished for decades in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, but now production has expanded into states from Chihuahua in the north to Oaxaca in the south. Some of the world's largest meth labs have been uncovered in Michoacan.

The Zetas and La Familia have grown into trafficking powerhouses since Calderon became president. They have altered the playing field by employing methods once unthinkable, such as beheading or dismembering rivals and then displaying the remains in squares, on street corners and in other public places.
Read more at dailyme.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/cdqxCJ

HTML5 Reset

2010-08-09T17:43:00.001-04:00

URL: http://html5reset.org/

For those those web designers out there ...

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/clFycY

America Goes Dark

2010-08-09T16:56:00.001-04:00

The importance of correct spending is a major issue. The total disintegration of local economies will lead to a nation wide disaster.

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

America Goes Dark

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: August 8, 2010

The lights are going out all over America — literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.

Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

And a nation that once prized education — that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children — is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.

We’re told that we have no choice, that basic government functions — essential services that have been provided for generations — are no longer affordable. And it’s true that state and local governments, hit hard by the recession, are cash-strapped. But they wouldn’t be quite as cash-strapped if their politicians were willing to consider at least some tax increases.

And the federal government, which can sell inflation-protected long-term bonds at an interest rate of only 1.04 percent, isn’t cash-strapped at all. It could and should be offering aid to local governments, to protect the future of our infrastructure and our children.

But Washington is providing only a trickle of help, and even that grudgingly. We must place priority on reducing the deficit, say Republicans and “centrist” Democrats. And then, virtually in the next breath, they declare that we must preserve tax cuts for the very affluent, at a budget cost of $700 billion over the next decade.
Read more at www.nytimes.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/cOSCKl

There is no Right of Way in China.

2010-08-08T09:48:00.001-04:00

I do believe no one pays attention in China. Be it walking, cycling or driving ... wow.

Amplify’d from thatwillbuffout.com

See more at thatwillbuffout.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/ceF0fA

Khmer Rouge torturer sentenced to 35 years

2010-07-26T10:40:00.001-04:00

Justice was long in the wait, short in the sentence, but at least it is served ...

Amplify’d from dailyme.com

Khmer Rouge torturer sentenced to 35 years

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Comrade Duch, the former head of the Khmer Rouge's notorious torture and execution prison known as S-21, was sentenced Monday to 35 years in jail at the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal.

However, in his decision, court president Nil Nonn said Duch would benefit from deductions totaling 16 years, making the effective sentence 19 years.

Duch, who has spent the past 11 years in jail, would have that amount deducted from his sentence.

And he will benefit from a further five years deducted as compensation for being held illegally and for cooperating with the court.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, has 90 days to appeal.

He was convicted of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva conventions but the judge said there was not enough evidence to prove that he personally tortured anyone.

An estimated 20,000 people were tortured and condemned to death at S-21 as perceived enemies of the regime during the movement's rule of Cambodia between 1975-79.

Around 1.7 million died from execution, overwork, starvation and disease under the Khmer Rouge regime.

(c) 2010, Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany).

Visit dpa on the Internet at http://www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Read more at dailyme.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/bCwebl

The face of South Korea's boogeyman ...

2010-07-25T14:24:00.001-04:00

An interesting article recalling a North Korean's experience as a spy set to assassinate South Korea's President, Park Chung Hee. What happened, and how he live now as a citizen of South Korea.

Amplify’d from dailyme.com

The face of South Korea's boogeyman

LOS ANGELES TIMES

BY JOHN M. GLIONNA

Sun, Jul 25, 8:12 AM

NAMYANGJU, South Korea -- He looks more like a graying clergyman than the boogeyman of thousands of South Korean childhoods.

But Kim Shin-jo is both.

The 69-year-old may preside over a Protestant church in this picturesque community where the Han River bends among pointed mountain peaks. But he is also the reluctant grandfather of North Korean spies, a reminder of a cloak-and-dagger world that refuses to be dispatched to the history books on this divided peninsula.

On a recent day, Kim read a news story about the recent sentencing of two North Korean military spies. Such stories stir bitter memories of the night in 1968 when Kim and 30 other heavily armed North Korean commandoes slipped into Seoul on a mission to assassinate then-President Park Chung Hee.

For the infiltrators, the operation ended in disaster. Cornered outside the presidential residence, they waged a deadly, days-long gun battle with South Korean police and military forces. While nearly all of the north's commandoes were killed, Kim was captured. Interrogated for months about his spy career, he was eventually released and later became a South Korean citizen, marrying and having a family.

Years in a free society have exposed the fallacy of North Korea's argument that the south is an agonized wasteland that must be re-colonized. Still, Kim feels pity for these newest northern moles.

"I know they must be punished -- we have a rule of law here," he says. "Still, I'm a human being. I feel sorry for them."

As the recent U.S. arrest of nearly a dozen Russian agents illustrates, international espionage still exists decades after the Cold War -- especially on the Korean Peninsula, where north and south are still technically at war.

Without money for high-priced satellites, a cash-starved North Korea relies on a more practical resource: its people. "It's hardly believable, but in this high-tech age, North Korea still relies heavily on humans as information gatherers," said Lee Dong-bak, a former South Korean intelligence member.

Kim, whose parents were executed when he pursued citizenship here, still faces derision over his sinister mission of long ago. He's not a man of God, some say, but a would-be assassin. He remains haunted by guilt for surviving when others didn't.

"Sometimes," he says, "I think it would have been better if I had died that day."
Read more at dailyme.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/c0Q5l0

Fighter Jet Pilot Ejects Instant Before Fiery Crash at Canadian Air Show

2010-07-24T09:46:00.001-04:00

Amazing photo. I am glad he managed to eject.

Amplify’d from www.foxnews.com

Fighter Jet Pilot Ejects Instant Before Fiery Crash at Canadian Air Show

Published July 24, 2010

| NewsCore

A pilot managed to eject from his jet moments before it crashed in a ball of flames Friday during practice for the Alberta International Airshow in Canada, the Vancouver Sun reported.

Capt. Brian Bews was piloting the Canadian Air Force CF-18 fighter when the crash occurred just after noon at the Lethbridge Regional Airport.

Witnesses told the Calgary Herald that Bews managed to pull his parachute and eject from the plane only moments before it erupted into flames on impact with the ground.

He had been practicing for the air show, rehearsing low-level maneuvers.

He was about 100 feet (30 meters) from the ground when he ejected and came to rest near the exploding jet.

The experienced pilot was taken to Chinook Regional Hospital with minor injuries.

Witness Ryan Giffin told the Calgary Herald he could tell the plane was in distress as he watched it from his office desk near the airport.

He said: "Oh my god, it's crashing. Everybody looked and it was already hitting the ground. There was a massive fireball."

"You could tell something was going wrong. It was going way too slow. There was a sputtering sound and two puffs of smoke from the engines.

"It started to nose dive, banked to the right, and the pilot ejected."

The CF-18 Hornet was to take part in the two-day air show in Lethbridge, beginning Saturday.
Read more at www.foxnews.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/9OD52I

Testing Amplify by E-Mail

2010-07-22T18:17:00.001-04:00

Trying out posting by E-Mail ...

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/a2cIim

Sorry, Apple, but Our Phones aren't as bad as yours ...

2010-07-18T18:25:00.001-04:00

HTC, RIM and Nokia Challenge Apple’s Antenna Claims. Seriously, what did Steve Jobs think? Did he think that other wireless companies were just going to let him get away with his antenna statements?

Amplify’d from mashable.com

Apple claimed at its press conference Friday that virtually every competing smartphone faces the same antenna challenges as the iPhone 4, but three of its competitors — HTC, RIM and Nokia — have since stood up and challenged that claim.

Apple used as an example the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9700, saying that holding it a certain way will cause signal degradation just as with the iPhone 4, but RIM’s Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis were quoted by CrackBerry from the following statement:

Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.

Nokia jumped into the fray too, bragging that it was the pioneer of internal antenna technology, and claiming that it has this all figured out while Apple is just playing the blame game for its foolish design decisions. Here’s its statement.

Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.

Finally, HTC — whose Droid Eris was shown by Apple to have the worst signal problems of all during Steve Jobs’ presentation on Friday — decided against a lengthy statement and tried to let the numbers speak for themselves, telling Pocket-lint that only 0.016% of its Droid Eris buyers have called to complain about signal problems. Apple was saying with pride that 0.055% of its customers did the same about the iPhone 4.
Read more at mashable.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/bBLyoS

2010-07-18T17:37:00.001-04:00

When a Big Truck is passing another vehicle, it can be frustrating, but please wait until the truck is completely out of the passing lane before accelerating past it. It is unlawful to pass before the truck has completely vacated the lane. Worse, that truck can legally move back ... if you are there, you are at severe risk. Why would a driver move back into that lane? Seeing an emergency vehicle on the side of the highway it is Law to move over in most States and Provinces. #TruckSafetyTips http://bit.ly/byvoKY

2010-07-18T11:09:00.001-04:00

Being safe around Big Trucks saves lives. Big trucks have limited visibility, so don\'t stay in the No-Zone -http://bit.ly/aJ7Loq Image: http://bit.ly/9v2KSa #TruckSafetyTips http://bit.ly/akcqsJ

2010-07-16T15:00:00.001-04:00

So, I am an over the road trainer for a trucking company. I am a Canadian Citizen. My student, is a landed immigrant to Canada from Pakistan. We have to waste 2-3 hours every time we enter or leave the U.S. My student has a FAST card (Fast And Secure Trade) which means U.S. CBP has already gone through the process of checking out my student for security reasons. He has proved himself. Why all this CBP? It is profiling and racist. He has proven to them he is not a threat. *sigh* http://bit.ly/bFRPlw

2010-07-15T14:23:00.001-04:00

Thanks to the Amplify Team for adding Blogger and Wordpress autoposting :) http://bit.ly/aEJMYM

Twitter App To Let You Auto-Follow Facebook Friends BLOCKED By Facebook

2010-06-23T19:23:00.001-04:00

Really? Hopefully this is an oversight and not purposefully done ... http://amplify.com/u/75pz

Posted via email from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

This is Why You Slow Down on Turns

2010-06-22T20:01:00.001-04:00

This happened today at the 401 Westbound Service Center near Newcastle, ON

Be safe out there! Slow down on ramps and curves

- GCP

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

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

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

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

How do you control duplication with services like Amplify?

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

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

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

via thetrucker.com

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Rand McNally intelliRoute TND 500 Truck GPS

2010-05-28T09:01:00.000-04:00

A couple of months ago, I purchased a Rand McNally intelliRoute TND 500 Truck GPS. I liked the features it had and thought it a good deal at $399.99 (Pilot is currently selling them for $349.99)

At first, I have to admit, I was disappointed by it. There were issues with lockups, crashes, and features missing.

Now Rand McNalley did a great thing. They stepped up to the plate and freely admitted that it was not up to the high standards they have maintained with their products. An unusual bit of transparency not often found in today's corporations. My hat's off to them.

They are offering continuous updates as they make improvements. I called their technical support and requested to me added to the beta tester team instead of bitching and moaning and wanting my money back. I can see the full potential of this product and also see, that they are doing hard work fixing it.

I was accepted to the beta team and, after signing a non-disclosure agreement, got my hand on a beta of the software. And I must say, this beta, 1573, has addressed most of this issues I had first encountered with the unit.

Version 1573 will be released live on June 1st at 9am (not sure of the time zone)

With this release, I am 100% happy to recommend the TND 500 to anyone looking for a truck GPS. I also know there are even more features and fixes in the works -- but I can't tell you about them ;)

Here are some of the features and fixes in 1573:

Via points
Avoid issue fixed in route settings - Preferences\route settings
ETA adjust - truck tools\truck info
2 maintenace counters (count down) - truck tools\timers and logs
Able to delete mileage logs by date -truck tools\timers and logs
Quick stops (Truck stops, Walmart) - Choose Destination\Points of interest
current trip folder - Choose Destination\Multi-Stop Trips (used for current trip to add\delete\change stops on the fly)
physical speed indicator - main screen\go to map
Skip to next stop (used to skip stops in Multi-stops) - Main Screen\Go To Map\Cog (lower left)
Ability to detour roads from the Turn-by-Turn list.
No GPS sign on Map screen when GPS signal is weak or none.
POI's Car (turn on\off) - Preferences\truck settings
POI's Truck (turn on\Off) - preferences\truck settings
Crossing Country Border (allow/avoid) - Preferences\route settings
Map Auto Zoom (Off\Auto scale\Street scale\City scale\County scale) - Preferences\Device settings
Auto Dismiss Warnings (never\after 10 sec\after 3e0 sec) - Preferences\Device settings
Ability to continue current trip if TND is put into sleep mode or turned off, when powered on given the option to "accept and continue"
Multi-stop - when at stop the POP UP screen gives current location information, next location information in the Multi-stop, also given the option to skip the next stop or cancel route.

From: http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/electronic-connection/86377-rand-mcnally-intelliroute-tnd-500-a-173.html#post1354959

Thanks to all the hard work of the Rand McNally programming team, the beta testers and the users who gave feedback. Give yourselves a pat on the back!

So go out and grab one! You won't be sorry :)

http://trucking.randmcnally.com/ctonline/products/intelliroute_tnd/index.jsp

- GCP

Ke$ha "Your love is my drug" music video spoof

2010-05-07T20:28:00.000-04:00

I Completely Have No Excuse Not to Update My Blog!

2010-05-03T14:21:00.001-04:00

Nope, none now … I went out and regained Mobile Internet again :) Thanks Verizon.

It is a bit expensive, but after a week ago stuck with nothing for two days, I cannot live without it :)

Other things that have happened in the past month or so:

I was asked to become a Training Engineer. I passed the training course, and now take new hires on the over the road aspects of their training. Basically this mean I take them out for around two week and fine tune their school training, and teach them cross border, scaling, backing and other aspects of their job.

I hope to instill everything the need to be successful, safe drivers. Teach them how to be courteous to others, how to be professional, and how to have fun at the same time.

What is the sense of doing a job if you cannot do it right, safely, and still enjoy it.

-- GCP

Dear U.S. Customs: Train Properly.

2010-04-27T22:44:00.001-04:00

I mean, seriously, thanks for 21 hour delay because you can’t read the AES bond screen. Not the first Customs Officer, nor the Shift Supervisor. The next, day that Shift Supervisor looked at it and I overheard him say there is nothing wrong with it and that he was going to release me. I also heard him talk to his supervisor and tell them that they really need to train their guys on AES, as only one knew it properly. Really? Only one? As a result, I could not make it on time to the Canada Customs Bond House to clear the bond. So, luck me, I get to sit here from 8:45pm Friday, till 8:30aam Monday.

Too bad, I can’t bill you for your incompetence. :(

The worse part is there is nothing around here to do. Nada.

At least there is a washroom … nothing else …

Update: That was the longest weekend ever!!!!

*Sigh*

- GCP

Some More Pictures in the Boonies …

2010-04-16T08:10:00.001-04:00

A few more pictures taken earlier this week …

I am driving over a hydro dam in Quebec near Shawville, QC. Speaking of there, had one of the hardest corners to turn. Tiny streets … four telephone poles right on the corners. I had to start on the wrong side of the road, drive up on the sidewalk with my mirror about six inches from the building and still the trailer only cleared the telephone pole by an inch or so!!!!

After making that corner, I had to back into their dock … ugh. wasn’t a lot of room and I had to get within two inches of the building or the dock plates would not come down … blargh! I couldn’t see that side because there was no way to get the truck straight in the room I had. Once I was backed in, the truck was still not straight to the trailer … which was a good thing considering I still blocked over have the street!

Beautiful area around the dams.

I am glad I am done with it though … I did get to see some beautiful country, got to drive on a dam, so it wasn’t all bad :)

-- GCP

Done with Loblaw Dedicated …

2010-04-16T07:39:00.001-04:00

It’s over! Thankfully.

I cannot say that any part of it was enjoyable. Not in the least. Stuck working nightshift (which I hate) and never knowing what I was doing.

Dear Loblaw SNI people … communication is the single factor that you are missing. Without it, my experience on your team was very negative. I find it surprising that you can retain any drivers, let alone the contract.

-- GCP

Pictures Over the Past Month

2010-04-10T18:38:00.001-04:00

Here are some pictures that I have taken over the past month …

Wait? What? This trailer isn’t orange!! Recently Schneider National acquired the transportation division of Emerson Electric. About seven hundred and fifty air-ride trailers were added to the fleet.

Looks weird in the mirror when you’re used to seeing orange there.

Later that week, I had a live load at a place that was certainly never designed for a highway truck …

Not a lot of room to work with …

The bin and railing didn’t help much …

No room even if I wanted to run over the curb … lol.

Then I was asked to “Do a Quebec and return” … Which turned into a week (so far) of runs for Loblaw Companies. Some of the nastiest docks going too … not to mention rude French people in Montreal (Not all are … just the receiver at Maxi in Laval, QC.)

But wait! What is this????

It’s not orange and what is that thing on the front? A reefer?? Now this is a first for me!

Sure looks different attached to my pumpkin!

But besides several failings of communication this week, making it one of my worst since I started working here … last Wednesday was a bad day …

Beautiful country, horrid rainy weather, winding, hilly roads, and were they ever narrow! These pictures so the wider sections …

But the view was beautiful!!

Well that’s all for this post. I’ll explain the bad communication in a later post …

- GCP

Long Overdue Update

2010-04-10T10:18:00.003-04:00

I must admit, I have really got to pay more attention here and update my this blog far more often. The life of an Over-The-Road truck driver does lead to limited time to post updates.

I should smack myself because that is a lame excuse. I have offline access to create posts, ~~I have mobile internet (in some places)~~ so, really, I have no good excuse. (I used to have mobile Internet) But I will stick to the one I said.

So in the months that have passed, I have driven a lot of miles, seen lots of things. I guess I have a lot of updating to do … *sigh*

Hopefully, I will get myself disciplined to actually do some posts over the next few days …

It has been especially difficult the last week because I am temporarily on the Loblaw dedicated account. I have to work from around midnight to two in the afternoon. (UGH!!) It sucks because I am going to these horrible small towns in Ontario and Quebec plus Montreal. I hate driving in Montreal. I will post some of that experience in my next entry.

I have some pictures and stuff that I will post shortly.

- GCP

Seven Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School | Copyblogger

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

What is good writing?

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

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

But let me ask you something:

Is that really good writing?

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

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

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

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

Let’s go through some of them.

1. Trying to sound like dead people

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Expecting someone to hand you a writing prompt

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

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

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

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

3. Writing long paragraphs

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

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

Not.

Any.

More.

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

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

4. Avoiding profanity at all costs

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

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

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

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

‘Nough said.

5. Leaning on sources

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

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

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

But real life is the opposite.

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

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

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

6. Staying detached

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

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

For everyone else though, it’s a disaster.

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

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

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

7. Listening to “authorities” more than yourself

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

Well . . . nobody.

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

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

No one but you is an authority on your writing.

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

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

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

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

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

Sadly, most writers don’t know this

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

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

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

So stop sitting there, silly.

Go for it.

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

via copyblogger.com

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Doctorow: DRM advocates are "the real pirates"

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

Doctorow: DRM advocates are "the real pirates"

13.10.09 Catherine Neilan

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

digital Home Frankfurt Book Fair DRM Catherine Neilan

via thebookseller.com

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Does 'strengthening diplomacy' warrant Nobel? Americans split

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

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

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

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

Don't Miss

Obama's win unique among presidents

Obama: Nobel Peace Prize is 'call to action'

In Depth: Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize

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

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

via cnn.com

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

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

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

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

Legislative Analysis by Tim Jones

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

Related Issues: Bloggers' Rights

[Permalink] [Email this article]

via eff.org

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

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

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

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

via arstechnica.com

A closup of the Dell Z600

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

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

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

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

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

Always ON

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

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

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

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

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

Going completely wireless

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

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

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

FaceAware, additional trackpad

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

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

More details, conclusions

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

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

via arstechnica.com

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

2011 Rolls-Royce Ghost | flylyf

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

2011 Rolls-Royce Ghost

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

via flylyf.com

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

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

5 Illinois family members were beaten to death, sheriff says

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

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

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

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

Share this on:

Mixx Facebook Twitter Digg del.icio.us reddit MySpace StumbleUpon

| Mixx it | Share

All About Crime

via cnn.com

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

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

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

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

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

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

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

via cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com

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

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Swine Flu!

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

via brightkite.com

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

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Microsoft's Best Buy Lies About Linux Debunked

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Covered most of claims with the first slide but:

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

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

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

Office 2007: OpenOffice

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

Meets expectations: Already debunked!

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

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

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

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

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

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Technorati

2009-09-22T05:27:00.003-04:00

xjmkv7z9hc

Attention all drivers in or entering Ontario, Canada

2009-09-21T10:18:00.001-04:00

Bill 118

The Legislative Assembly of Ontario carried Bill 118, an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act now bans drivers from using handheld devices with display screens while operating a vehicle on the road. The bill has undergone several revisions during its consideration, but the new rules of the road will be as follows:

Holding or using a wireless communication device (a cell phone) or a portable electronic entertainment device (iPod) while driving is prohibited.
Commercial GPS units along with similar dashboard-mounted devices that provide gauges and displays relating to logistical or navigation uses are fine.
Using a cell phone or wireless communication device in hands-free mode, as long as you're not holding it during use, is fine.
Using any device while pulled-over or parked in a way that you are not disrupting traffic, is fine.
The systems used by Ambulances, Fire Departments, and Law Enforcement are exempt.

The ban is in effect as of today, September 1 2009 and will carry a fine of $500. Demerit points will not be included, but depending upon the violation, police will have the option to also use existing careless driving laws for additional penalties.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

The Intellegent Design Zoo Presents... [Pic] | I Am Bored

2009-09-19T22:44:00.001-04:00

via i-am-bored.com

LOL!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Oh, The Temptation

2009-09-19T21:51:00.001-04:00

via vimeo.com

Just plain cute!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Toxicity by System of a Down

2009-09-19T21:41:00.001-04:00

via youtube.com

Cool!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Full House Alternate Intro

2009-09-19T21:20:00.001-04:00

via youtube.com

ROFL!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Visited U.S. States

2009-09-19T14:30:00.001-04:00

<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=t&chs=440x220&chtm=usa&chf=bg,s,336699&chco=d0d0d0,cc0000&chd=s:99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999&chld=ALAZARCACOCTDEGAIDILINIAKSKYLAMEMDMAMIMNMSMOMTNENHNJNYNCNDOHOKORPASCSDTNTXUTVTVAWAWVWIWY" width="440" height="220" ><br/>visited 44 states (88%)<br/><a href="http://douweosinga.com/projects/visited?region=usa">Create your own visited map of The United States</a> or <a href="http://www.tonjafabritz.com/nederlands/legal">jurisdische veraling duits?</a>

Charles de Gaulle - "The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs."

Posted via email from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Hands-on: Haiku, the future of BeOS, is pure poetry - Ars Technica (Screenshot)

2009-09-19T11:33:00.001-04:00

via arstechnica.com

A screenshot of Haiku a rebranded, remade version of BeOS.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Hands-on: Haiku, the future of BeOS, is pure poetry - Ars Technica (Screenshot)

2009-09-19T11:31:00.001-04:00

via arstechnica.com

A screenshot of Haiku a rebranding remake of BeOS

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Hands-on: Haiku, the future of BeOS, is pure poetry - Ars Technica (A blast from the past!)

2009-09-19T11:30:00.001-04:00

In the second half of the 90s, a company called Be boldly entered the personal computing market with an operating system that was unlike any other. BeOS was highly modular and responsive, booted in mere seconds, made extensive use of threading, gave developers rich C++ APIs, and had a database-like 64-bit filesystem with support for journaling, indexing, and metadata. BeOS offered all of this while Microsoft was selling Windows 95 and Apple was still struggling to deliver features like preemptive multitasking.

Although BeOS was arguably one of the most advanced platforms of its time, it never gained sufficient traction to stay afloat in a market that was almost entirely locked up by its rivals. After the final BeOS release in 2000, a community of enthusiasts began an effort to bring the platform back to life by building a clean-room open source implementation from scratch. This effort, which became known as the Haiku project, has just announced the availability of its first alpha release after eight years of development.

I tested Haiku alpha 1 in VirtualBox to see how it compares with modern operating systems and the original BeOS user experience. It's significantly more robust and mature than the prerelease build that I explored last year, but a lot of work still remains to be done before it will be ready for broader adoption.

The Haiku alpha is available for download in several formats. There is a VMware image, a raw disk image, and an installable Live CD ISO. I tested the latter by installing it in VirtualBox. The installation experience is not quite as polished as modern Linux Live CD installers, but I was able to get through it without much difficulty. Partitioning was a bit unintuitive and had to be done manually with an included disk management tool.

In the spirit of BeOS, Haiku's boot performance is very good. In my tests, I got from the startup splash screen to a fully usable desktop in roughly four seconds. This is one of Haiku's strengths relative to modern operating systems and it is the envy of prominent Linux distributions that are ambitiously aiming for similarly fast startup.

The Haiku user interface is modeled entirely after BeOS, inheriting its signature variable-width titlebars and legendary spatial file management. When I was testing Haiku, I was surprised by how modern the user interface feels despite the age of the underlying paradigms. It has really aged well. The deskbar, with its application expanders, is still one of the most elegant and space-efficient approaches to desktop task management that I've encountered.

Several noticeable aesthetic flourishes visually differentiate Haiku from BeOS R5, including the extensive use of light gradients on user interface elements and the adoption of vector drawing for icons. In general, the look and feel is smoother and more refined.

One of the principal goals of the Haiku developer community is to deliver binary compatibility with BeOS R5, the last official version of the operating system. Binary compatibility is important, because it will make it possible for users to run the corpus of existing legacy BeOS applications on Haiku systems. One of the most notable impediments to achieving this goal is the fact that the GCC compiler itself discarded backwards binary compatibility with the release of the GCC 4.x series. To address this challenge, Haiku offers a "GCC Hybrid" model.

I didn't have much luck getting old software from BeBits to run on Haiku, but there are several complex third-party applications that have successfully been ported and are included by default in the alpha release. These include the Vision IRC client, the WonderBrush graphic editing tool, and BeZillaBrowser, a rebranded port of Firefox 2. Haiku comes with its own versions of the basic suite of standard BeOS desktop applications. This includes a media player, archive expander, lightweight Web server, command terminal, the workspace switcher, and a number of other tools. The obligatory spinning teapot demo is also present.

The Haiku alpha is primarily intended to facilitate application and platform development, so it is unsurprising that it ships with a relatively diverse assortment of standard development tools, including GCC, git, and Vim. It also comes with Python 2.6 and Perl 5 to enable scripting.

Haiku has come a long way, but there are still a lot of caveats and limitations. Haiku provides source-level compatibility with BSD network drivers, which brings support for a lot of modern network hardware, but it still lacks WiFi compatibility. At the HaikuWare website, a $2,000 bounty has been offered to encourage the development of a WiFi stack. There is already a preliminary implementation under development that has been shown to work.

Although some of the unique advantages of BeOS have faded with time as other platforms evolved, there is still intrinsic value in the Haiku project and it could have a lot to offer as it matures. As I said in my previous review of Haiku, I think that it has the most potential to shine on netbooks and other hardware devices where boot performance and low overhead are important. I look forward to the day when I can rock Haiku on my portable computer.

via arstechnica.com

I remember trying out BeOS. I was ahead of its time. Unfortunately it couldn't gain enough momentum to sustain it.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Cooking on a Budget with Rachael Ray

2009-09-18T14:54:00.001-04:00

via youtube.com

Just plain funny. :)

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Because it is so true ...

2009-09-16T08:16:00.001-04:00

via s3.amazonaws.com

Uber Douche Bag ...

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Google

2009-09-15T10:22:00.001-04:00

via google.ca

Google is at it again ... more alien logo fun!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

FAIL Blog: Best windows FAIL!

2009-09-15T06:51:00.001-04:00

via failblog.org

This has got to be the BEST Windows #FAIL yet!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats – I Can Has Cheezburger?

2009-09-15T06:42:00.001-04:00

via icanhascheezburger.com

Where did he go???

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Flickr User Shepherd Johnson Says Yahoo Security Officer and Former FBI Agent John Zent Threatens to Call Police on Him After Flickr Nuked His Account | Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

2009-09-14T17:35:00.001-04:00

Well the bizarre behavior by Flickr/Yahoo over recent customer service and account deletion issues may have just taken a big left turn from wackyland straight into the Twilight Zone. Earlier this week I reported an update on the case of Shepherd Johnson. You’ll remember Johnson as the Flickr user who had his account deleted without warning after posting remarks critical of President Obama on the official Presidential Flickr stream. It’s still not known if pressure from the White House played a role in having Johnson’s account deleted or not, but his account deletion gained widespread attention from both the blogosphere and the mainstream media after Yahoo nuked his entire account and photostream.

According to Johnson, after his account deletion he disconnected from Flickr for almost 3 months, reserved, he said, that nothing would come of his story. After giving more reflection recently to his situation, however, Johnson said that he became disgusted over how Yahoo! Flickr and the Whitehouse had treated him so he decided to try and readdress his account deletion issue with Flickr/Yahoo.

Johnson said that he started out trying to address his account deletion privately with Flickr Community Manager Heather Champ via Flickr mail. Johnson had spoken with Champ earlier last summer and said previously that she’d offered him a free $24.99 gift card so that he could get a new Flickr Pro account after the deletion. According to Johnson, however, this time around Champ promptly blocked his flickr mail messages. He then tried phoning Yahoo’s VP of Global Customer Care, Laura Narducci, using the phone number that she had given him when dealing with his high profile account deletion back in June. Johnson said he left voicemails but that Narducci did not return his calls.

Frustrated at being unable to contact Flickr/Yahoo directly over his account deletion, Shepherd next turned to Flickr’s Help Forum. As I reported on Tuesday, after Johnson posted requesting someone from Flickr/Yahoo contact him, Flickr locked his thread, ironically, telling him that he needed to contact them privately. Johnson started another thread complaining that he had tried to contact them privately with no success and ended up not only having that thread shut down, but being banned from the Flickr Help Forum indefinitely as well. (Note: I’m also indefinitely banned from the Flickr Help Forum. They banned me after referencing an anti-flickr blog in the forum last month). Interestingly, Yahoo employee Zack Sheppard told Johnson that “you are welcome to continue to communicate with us directly,” while locking his thread and booting him from the help forum.

Not willing to simply give up on what he felt was an unjust account deletion with no response from Flickr/Yahoo, Johnson tried again yesterday to contact Yahoo/Flickr over his issue leaving one more voicemail message for Narducci and one more for Champ. Johnson said that his voicemail messages were “not angry, not hostile voicemails, just me stating matter of factly that I wanted this issue resolved.”

And this is where things get weird….

After being totally ignored in his attempts to resolve his account deletion issue with Flickr/Yahoo staff. Johnson says that yesterday he finally did receive a call from someone at Yahoo. Only it wasn’t someone from Flickr’s customer care division at all. it was from someone named John Zent, apparently from Yahoo’s Legal Department’s Risk Management Group. Zent identified himself as a security professional for Yahoo as well as a former FBI Special Agent, Johnson told me. He told me that Zent threatened to have him removed from Flickr for TOS violations as well as have his IP address banned from the site. Zent went on to accuse Johnson of harassment and said that if he did not stop calling Yahoo that he would call the Sunnyvale Police on Johnson. “I was astonished that he had threatened to call the police on a customer who merely had an account dispute which he wanted to have resolved,” said Johnson.
.
While Johnson denies harassing anyone at Yahoo, he did admit to a couple of comments in a post inquiring about what had happened to Champ’s face in a post containing a photograph of her that he felt was unflattering. He said that Zent was “extremely upset” by his comments in this post and brought it up three times with him telling Johnson that his activity on Flickr was being “closely monitored.”

A little digging on Zent would seem to indicate that he indeed actually may be a former FBI agent — although I’m not sure how appropriate it is to be using that status formally against a customer with an account deletion complaint at Yahoo. In fact, it would appear that Zent has quite a colorful past of his own having been charged by a number of sources as being the individual responsible for having Al-Qaeda (I told you this was going to get weird) operative Ali Mohamed released from the Canadian police in 1993 as an FBI Informant. Mohamed was also alleged to have been a “a key planner of the 9/11 plot, and trainer in hijacking,” Apparently another bizarre case related to Zent is that of his daughter’s former boyfriend who was convicted of a triple murder over the killing of his parents for life insurance money. Zent had reportedly testified on the boyfriend’s behalf during the trial.

Johnson says that he is not giving up on his account deletion, which he sees as a free speech issue, just yet. He said he plans to try and contact Narducci again, but that next time he said he’ll leave instructions on where the Sunnyvale police can pick him up. “Yes, my 1st Amendment rights, the issue that this whole thing started over back when I posted comments in the Official Whitehouse Photostream, those rights are that important to me and in an act of civil disobedience I am willing to go to jail for them,” said Johnson.

Interestingly enough, Flickr has repeatedly claimed in the past that they have no way of reactivating customer accounts after deletions. Most recently Flickr staff confirmed this and said that they also were not working on any such feature at present. According to Johnson Zent refuted this claim. “I asked him if Yahoo! could actually turn my account back on to which he replied, “Absolutely!” and then asked and answered his own question, “Will Yahoo! do that? No we will not.” This statement confirms that Heather Champ is a liar when she told me they could not reactivate my Flickr account,” said Johnson.

I contacted both Zent as well as Yahoo PR yesterday to try and get a response on Johnson’s case, but as of yet neither have returned my emails. If/when I hear from them I will post their response.

Update more on this deletion, including additional comments from Shepherd Johnson here. On Reddit here and here.

Update #2: On digg here.

Update #3: Jason Khoury from Yahoo PR just emailed me back the following response from Yahoo on this matter: “It is Yahoo! policy that we don’t discuss members’ accounts and their activity.”

ShareThis

via thomashawk.com

Wow Flickr way to be the bully. Keep it up and this issue will go viral and the backlash will be huge.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

If this is not 'shopped, it is weird ...

2009-09-14T08:54:00.001-04:00

via thechive.com

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Montreal driver walks away from horrific highway crash

2009-09-12T09:08:00.001-04:00

via ottawacitizen.com

This picture goes with the previous post. Amazed?

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Montreal driver walks away from horrific highway crash

2009-09-12T09:05:00.001-04:00

MONTREAL — Emergency crews on Friday painstakingly cut free a 29-year-old driver of a hatchback car involved in a serious six-car accident on a highway leading into Montreal.
And the fact he survived, is a "miracle," said one fire department official.
The car was crumpled underneath the back of an eighteen-wheeler truck, pinned between the back wheel of one truck, and the crushed front bumper of another.
"I can't believe there is a car in between those two trucks. You can barely see it," said a man who didn't want to give his name.
It's believed a black pickup truck rammed into a cube van. An eighteen-wheeler tractor trailer then appeared to have rammed into the pickup truck. The Mazda3 crashed into the truck, and was then sandwiched by a second tractor trailer that rammed into it. A third truck — an eighteen-wheeler flatbed carrying an extending scissor lift on wheels — appeared to have tried to switch lanes at the last second, and hit the left corner of the second rig. It had a shattered windshield, and extensive damage to its front end.
The drivers of the first two tractor trailers suffered from shock and were treated in a hospital.
While they were being treated, it took firefighters two hours to saw through the barely accessible door of the Mazda3 and free its driver.
"He was conscious and oriented the whole time," said Gilles Ducharme, an operations chief with the Montreal fire department. "We had the jaws of life, and we called in our crew with heavy equipment. We also had a crane on standby just in case we had to lift one of the trucks."
When the driver emerged, he appeared only to have a cut on his head, and a fracture to his arm, but no life-threatening injuries.
"If that's all that happened to him, then it's a real miracle," Ducharme said.
Afterwards, the first truck was driven off the car, and there were no signs of the front end, and steering wheel. The dashboard had been damaged, and the windshield, and the top of the frame were folded up at the back of the car.
The accident caused gridlock for most of the day and forced closure of the highway for several hours.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

via ottawacitizen.com

Wow!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

(Don’t) Make Your Startup Look Stupid With Booth Babes And Chotchkies! « The SiliconANGLE

2009-09-10T14:35:00.001-04:00

It’s hard to make a splash at a trade show these days. Your engineers spend months crash-proofing your product for the demo, but what if no one notices it? Marketers have long relied on sex appeal and free junk to lure conference-goers into their booths, making booth babes and chotchkies one of the more talked-about aspects of the modern trade show. But what message does this really send to your audience?

Marketing and the Market

We all agree that marketing and PR has changed radically over the last decade. Press releases are passé, journals and trade publications have been replaced by blogs, your rep is no one if she isn’t on Twitter, and once-mighty conferences have shriveled or closed their doors. Technology buyers have changed, too: What was once a conservative club for middle-aged white men has broadened into a cross-section of society. Although minorities and women remain under-represented in IT, they are making their presence known.

A brief walk through a recent trade show vividly demonstrated to me that although the venues and audiences are evolving, many companies have been slow to adapt. They still rely on the tried and true techniques, hiring scantily-clad "booth babes", passing out flashy electronic junk in plastic bags, and staging distracting stunts rather than focusing on the product.

How To Look Stupid

As a speaker on cloud computing and enterprise data storage, I attend dozens of trade shows every year. Yet I am still amazed by the lack of consideration for the consequences of these cheap tricks. It boils down to a simple question: What does a sexy babe, a magician, and a flashing pen tell the world about your company?

It sounds like the beginning of a joke, and makes any company look stupid. More precisely, the typical trade show booth schtick demonstrates the following:

They’re out of ideas and are just here to amass a big contact list

They have little regard for your customers and don’t care if they alienate well over half of the world’s population

They don’t think anyone cares about the product because they don’t staff the booth with experts

They are wasteful of natural resources, buying cheap plastic electro-junk that will be in a landfill in a week

They are wasting of investor or shareholder money and aren’t focused on deriving a real return from marketing investments

As a man, I concede that attractive ladies get my attention. As a geek, I concede that flashing LEDs cause me to take notice. As an American, I concede that amassing stuff holds great appeal. But as a thinking person, I know that all of this is a waste.

Junk For Leads

Why would trade show exhibitors continue making the same stupid choices? One reason is laziness and a lack of creativity: A marketing manager recently told me he just couldn’t think of anything better to do! Mental inertia tends to take over when it comes to the complexities of planning a trade show booth. Girls dressed like nurses brought in the crowds at Comdex in 1989, so why not try it at VMworld in 2009? Plus, attendees love hauling home sacks of flashing plastic booty to taunt their co-workers who were unable to attend.

An odd combination of show policy and new technology is another reason: Companies attend trade shows primarily to collect sales leads in the form of contact information from attendees, but these lists are jealously guarded by promoters. Modern shows employ badge barcodes and portable scanners, allowing exhibitors to collect leads with the press of a button instead of relying on a fishbowl full of business cards. This is the only way for them to access the promoter’s contact list, so the show floor has devolved into a mad scramble for badges. Eye contact and a handshake has been replaced by endless repetition of the same question: "Can I scan your badge?" Chotchkies, booth babes, and raffles are a simple way to lure attendees in for a quick badge scan, but the resulting sales leads are laughably poor.

Building a Better Trade Show

I’m going to assume you would rather not walk away from your next trade show with a worthless lead list and a sour taste in your customers’ mouths. Let’s apply some new-school thinking to the problem and build a better trade show!

Replace the spokesmodels with informed techies – Rely on your recognizable and respected bloggers, speakers, and authors – you do have those, don’t you? Your solutions engineers and technical executives are another great pool to draw on. Staff with a 50-50 balance between sales and product expertise.

Replace the chotchkies with something that reflects your product – Use some creativity and think of a truly useful giveaway or socially-redeeming contest. Give away a worthwhile chunk of your product or service if possible, or represent the value of the product with a thoughtful giveaway. If you sell on efficiency and green IT, a flashing plastic pen or smooshy foam cloud sends the wrong message.

A hands-on lab beats a taped demo – Let your customers-to-be try your product out in person, both on the show floor and at a better-equipped lab. Offer a free training class with a certificate of completion so they can demonstrate their success back at work.

Get on the agenda and off the show floor – Your best leads and most-informed customers come from speaking engagements and social marketing, not badge-grabbed passers-buy. Arrange a customer roundtable or birds-of-a-feather session to locate and engage real sales leads.

I will be putting all of these into practice at my next show, TechTarget’s Storage Decisions in New York. I’ll be on stage speaking to attendees about cloud storage in general and the offerings of my company, Nirvanix, in particular. Our booth will be staffed by cloud computing experts (and little old me!) and we will be planting a tree for every visitor rather than handing out junk. We sell a managed storage as a service, so visitors can try it out for themselves either at the booth or at home. Finally, we will be inviting select attendees to a post-show cloud strategy roundtable event so they can continue the discussion in more depth.

VMworld booth babe photo by SpinMaster James Price, flash drive chotchkies by Stephen Foskett

[Editor’s Note: Stephen Foskett is a brand new SA contributor today – welcome to the team, Stephen! –mrh]

More on Chotchkies and Booth Babes:

BlogHer ‘09: The Weaponizing of the Blogosphere

A View From BlogHer ‘09

via siliconangle.net

Times, thy are a-changing. Time to update your show presentations, people :)

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Netbook use differs between U.S. and Canada > Personal Systems and Peripherals > Departmental and End User Computing

2009-09-10T11:22:00.002-04:00

Netbook use differs between U.S. and Canada
By: Rafael Ruffolo - ComputerWorld Canada (10 Sep 2009)
Chalk up another big difference between Americans and Canadians, says The Strategic Counsel’s Warren Shiau. Find out why the U.S. has latched onto the new form factor, while Canadians continue to lean towards laptops and desktops

While U.S. consumers are latching onto netbooks and using them for productivity applications in the U.S., Canadian adoption has lagged behind thanks to both conservative spending habits and high bandwidth costs, according to an industry observer.
Warren Shiau, lead analyst of IT research at Toronto-based The Strategic Counsel, said that Canadian netbook buyers are basically using the devices as a mobile entertainment machine and are deemed a luxury consumer purchase, even at the low price point.
“Right now, we’re using netbooks as a secondary mobile machine, in addition to the primary home machine, which is either the desktop or the laptop,” said Warren Shiau, lead analyst of IT research at Toronto-based The Strategic Counsel. “And that’s different from the States, where American consumers are using the netbook as a fully functional mobile machine, instead of a laptop.”
The findings were gleaned during the second quarter of 2009 in a survey of 1,500 Canadians and 1,500 Americans aged 18 to 70.
In both Canada and the U.S., Shiau said, the laptop is used as a form factor with mobile capability, rather than as a truly mobile device. “Its desk-to-sofa mobility,” he explained, adding that laptops are just as tied to home use as desktops are.
But in the U.S., Shiau said, the netbook hasn’t taken this route and already started to take off as a truly mobile productivity machine.
According to a recent survey by Retrevo Inc., the U.S. trend towards netbooks is particularly evident when looking at the purchasing pattern among college students. In a survey of 300 people from its pool of 4 million monthly visitors, the research firm found that one out of every three students plan to purchase a netbook, which prompted Retrevo CEO Vipin Jain to declare that 2009 “marks the dawn of the netbook.”
Retrevo also discovered a trend away from Apple Inc.’s MacBook line toward cheaper laptops and lightweight netbooks, which it said was a direct result of tough economic times, with only 18 per cent of respondents citing a laptop budget of more than US $1,000.

;

Shiau said that Canadians are historically conservative spenders and have always lagged behind American consumers in new electronics and even automobiles.
In the case of the netbook, for Canadians to catch up and view the technology as a viable, primary computing option, the cost of bandwidth in Canada must decrease. This is a problem that has also affected smart phone usage in Canada, he added.
“It’s one thing to have the machine, but it’s got to be connected and you’ve got to have bandwidth in order for the potential use of a netbook or smart phone to be fully realized,” said Shiau.
This echoed the sentiment shared by IDC Canada Ltd. in its wireless adoption report earlier this month. The research firm said that while devices such as smart phones and netbooks represent a key driver for the future of mobile handsets in Canada, the country has a lot of room to grow in the wireless space.
Lawrence Surtees, IDC Canada’s vice-president in charge of communications research, said that even though Canada has 22 million wireless subscribers (Internet and phone), wireless services only have a 67 per cent penetration rate.
“Penetration doesn’t max out at 100 per cent,” said Surtees, pointing to countries such as Hong Kong and Italy, which both have over 150 per cent penetration for wireless services due to consumers subscribing to more than one wireless service.
Whether or not these issues are addressed, however, there’s probably no stopping the continued rise of netbooks in Canada among both consumers and enterprises, said Shiau.
“There’s a fairly large possibility that a lot of corporate purchases could go the netbook way,” he said, adding that as more consumers get behind the form factor, IT enterprise will have to allow them inside the corporate firewall.
– With files from IDG News Service

via itworldcanada.com

Take note Canadian Wireless providers. You charge way to much for your service and are causing slower adoption and hinder economic growth.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

P.E.I. infant comes home with new heart

2009-09-10T09:28:00.001-04:00

Lily has to work on gaining weight and her physical development. (CBC)
Six-month-old Lily O'Connor has come home to Prince Edward Island for the first time since her heart transplant in Toronto.

The girl was born with a defect that kept her heart from getting enough oxygen into her blood. The condition was diagnosed before her birth and her mother, Melanie Bernard, moved to Toronto for the birth so she could receive care at the Hospital for Sick Children.

A transplant was Lily's only option for survival from the beginning. After a tense period of waiting for a donor, a heart became available in June.

Following the transplant on June 23, doctors in Toronto worked on getting Lily to gain weight and develop muscle tone. She will still have to visit the IWK Children's Hospital in Halifax every two weeks for checkups.

The family faces two main challenges, Bernard told CBC News on Wednesday. The first is getting Lily to eat enough —they have to feed her through a stomach tube every three hours. The second is avoiding germs, because the anti-rejection drugs she has to take for the rest of her life suppress her immune system.

The family has put hand sanitizer dispensers in every room in their house, and Lily can't be around cigarette smoke or cats.

Lily also has to have physiotherapy. She needs to work on movement — grabbing things and stretching — because she was very inactive while she was waiting for her transplant.

The first thing Bernard and her husband Kevin O'Connor want to do is take Lily to Veteran's Affairs Canada in Charlottetown, where Bernard works, and thank them for all their support and fundraising over the months they had to be in Toronto with Lily.

via cbc.ca

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Canada IP battlelines: "plagiarized" report, piracy "guesses" - Ars Technica

2009-09-08T19:56:00.001-04:00

What is going on in Canada? This week, a prestigious research group recalled a series of intellectual property reports that were highly favorable to copyright holders—and appear to have been plagiarized. And the Business Software Alliance admitted that its Canadian software piracy numbers were "estimates"—no surveying had been done in the country.

Irony alert

Both discoveries were made by law professor Michael Geist, a one-man IP wrecking ball. First up was a report from the Conference Board of Canada, a nonpartisan research group that was asked to produce a report on the digital economy. When the report in question came out, the press release trumpeted, "Canada seen as the file-swapping capital of the world."

The report was largely paid for by copyright lobbyists, but a reputable group like the Conference Board wouldn't just slap something today together that supported the view of its funders—especially not a report making broad claims about the need for "increased emphasis on enforcement of [intellectual property rights]." Right?

Geist revealed that numerous sections of the Conference Board report were lifted nearly verbatim from an earlier report by the International Intellectual Property Alliance. Credit was sometimes given to the IIPA, though a mere citation doesn't give someone the right to use another's exact words without quote marks.

Michael Geist

And apart from the apparent plagiarism, many of the other numbers used in the report are of dubious provenance or are just sloppy. For instance, Geist notes that "the OECD study that the Conference Board says found the highest per capita incidence of unauthorized file sharing in the world [in Canada] did not reach that conclusion. The report—which is based on six year old data that is now out-of-date—was limited to the 30 OECD countries (not the world) and did not make any comment or determination on unauthorized activity."

This is cutting-edge research? Rightsholders might be fine with a Conference Board imprimatur on some IIPA quotes, but the government of Canada (which contributed $15,000 for the report) didn't get much for its money.

The Conference Board said that it "stands behind the findings of its report." The group prides itself on being "the foremost, independent, not-for-profit applied research organization in Canada" and says that it is "objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests."

But the Conference Board has now announced on the front page of its website that it has recalled the reports in question because they "did not follow the high quality research standards of The Conference Board of Canada."

Hard numbers are hard to come by

Geist then took aim at the Business Software Alliance, which each year releases numbers estimating the rate of software piracy in countries around the world.

We've been skeptical about these numbers for years, since there's no reliable way to count pirated copies of software and no clarity about how much pirated software would have otherwise been purchased at full price.

Even the BSA concedes the point, with VP of Communications Dale Curtis telling us earlier this month, "I concede that, in this model, we express the value of pirated software in terms of retail value of what's being displaced. We assume 100 percent of the software would be replaced and we calculate the retail value of that. I don't know how much will be replaced or not. A lot of it will be replaced."

Hardly reassuring, but Geist has now made another charge: the BSA is literally "guessing" about the piracy rate in countries like Canada.

"While the study makes seemingly authoritative claims about the state of Canadian piracy, the reality is that IDC, which conducts the study for BSA, did not bother to survey in Canada," said Geist after checking with the organization. Surveys are only done in "volatile" countries.

"It is an express acknowledgement that the Canadian data this year is a guess," Geist added. "The data is never publicly presented in this way—the BSA cites specific numbers, the newspapers report it, and groups like the Conference Board of Canada and the Chamber of Commerce extrapolate these guesses into specific claims about job losses and economic harm."

Ars checked in again with Dale Curtis of the BSA here in the US. He had quite a bit to say, and it's worth quoting at some length:

It is not accurate to say BSA’s estimate of PC software piracy in Canada is a "guess," nor that our figures are "never publicly presented in this way." BSA has always been open about the methodology and the fact that it is a model, not a scientific measurement.

The methodology is explained in detail in the white paper, which is online at www.bsa.org/globalstudy. Briefly put, IDC bases its piracy rates and loss estimates on a model that includes many well-established, authoritative data sets, including figures on new PC shipments, the installed PC base, new software shipments, and average software prices in each country. Data on the average amount of software loaded on PCs in a given country is based on more than 6,000 end-user surveys in 24 countries, plus reams of similar data from previous years. The survey sample size is large enough—and consistent enough over time and geography—that IDC believes it is as accurate as it can be. The surveys on software loads are just one piece of the overall model.

Countries that are included in the survey portion are chosen to represent the more volatile economies. IDC has found from past research that low piracy countries, generally mature markets, have stable software loads by segment, with yearly variations driven more by segment dynamics (e.g. consumer shipment versus business shipments of PCs) than by load-by-load segment. IDC believes that in mature markets, piracy rates are driven less by changes in software load than other market conditions, such as shipment rates and volume licensing errors...

Bottom line: There is no way to measure software piracy with scientific precision, and BSA does not present its figures as such. That said, the study uses a robust methodology that provides us with the best trend data available.

But such numbers are routinely cited as fact by others, showing up for decades in some cases as talking points in favor of tougher copyright laws. Our own past attempts at getting to the bottom of some of the figures commonly used by copyright maximalists shows that some are flat-out ludicrous; others, like the BSA numbers, are estimates based on models, and need to be treated as such by policymakers.

This is Geist's worry. "Rather than using broad bands to account for errors (i.e. 30-40 percent range), they use very specific figures and then cite even small increases or decreases," he tells Ars. "They do not provide a margin of error. If this is just a model without great precision, the BSA should not be using it to lobby policy makers on the basis that it provides a fairly precise figure."

All of these piracy numbers are tough, if not impossible, to measure with any accuracy. That doesn't invalidate good-faith attempts at data gathering and modeling, of course, but it does mean that when a transparently interested party on any side of the debate comes calling with a dossier of specific numbers, policymakers are well-advised to start reaching for the salt shaker.

Update: While itBusiness.ca claimed that a government official told it that $15,000 of public money funded the report, a newer report out today in the Globe & Mail directly contradicts that account and says that no public money was spent.

via arstechnica.com

This story is from May of this year,but it is so true that using unscientific methods and "guessing" Pirated Software should not be allowed to stand as fact and used to toughen IP Laws without having a basis in fact.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Remember Shepherd Johnson, That Guy Who Had His Flickr Account Nuked After Posting Comments Critical of President Obama? | Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

2009-09-08T12:22:00.001-04:00

Yeah, you remember him. “That” guy.

Turns out he’s still unsatisfied with the way that Flickr handled his account so he politely posted his objection to the Flickr Help Forum. From Johnson:

“I have gotten zero cooperation from flickr or Yahoo! concerning my account. The account name was shepherdjohnson and it was deleted at the beginning of June 2009 with over 1300 photos. The issue has not been resolved to my satisfaction. More here:

BusinessWeek

Please have somebody from flickr/Yahoo! contact me concerning this issue. ”

So how does Flickr respond? They say that they can’t discuss his case except with the owner privately (even though it’s the owner apparently who is asking). All the guy is asking for is for someone to contact him because apparently he’s tried getting them to contact him privately and they won’t.

Unsatisfied at having his first thread locked, user Johnson opens a second thread objecting again and complaining that he’s already tried to contact Flickr privately but that they won’t respond to his private correspondence:

“Yeah, Zack, I tried getting in touch with flickr staff via the method you suggested. And nobody will talk to me. Heather never called me back. Like I’ve said before, this issue is not going to go away until we can come to an understanding. Why don’t you contact me or have another flickr staff member contact me, this is getting ridiculous.

-Shepherd “

So what does Flickr do next? They lock his 2nd thread complaining that nobody at Flickr will communicate with him and then indefinitely boot him from the help forum. Using typical condescending Flickr parent/child language, they call banning him from the Help Forum a “time out.”

What a crappy way to treat your customers. Especially a customer that lost a bunch of their photographs.

Of course I’m still indefinitely banned from the Flickr Help Forum as well. My crime? Simply posting a link to a blog (not mine) where some folks were complaining about what they felt was an anti-gay bias at Flickr over account deletions.

Censorship sucks.

ShareThis

via thomashawk.com

Time to Boycott Flikr!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked

2009-09-08T07:52:00.002-04:00

Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked
August 31, 2009 | Issue 45•36

A 1969 photo showing Armstrong, or anyone, really, standing on the surface of the "moon."

LEBANON, OHIO—Apollo 11 mission commander and famed astronaut Neil Armstrong shocked reporters at a press conference Monday, announcing he had been convinced that his historic first step on the moon was part of an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the United States government.
According to Armstrong, he was forced to reconsider every single detail of the monumental journey after watching a few persuasive YouTube videos, and reading several blog posts on conspiracy theorist Ralph Coleman's website, OmissionControl.org.
"It only took a few hastily written paragraphs published by this passionate denier of mankind's so-called 'greatest technological achievement' for me to realize I had been living a lie, " said a visibly emotional Armstrong, addressing reporters at his home. "It has become painfully clear to me that on July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module under the control of my crew did not in fact travel 250,000 miles over eight days, touch down on the moon, and perform various experiments, ushering in a new era for humanity. Instead, the entire thing was filmed on a soundstage, most likely in New Mexico."
"This is the only logical interpretation of the numerous inconsistencies in the grainy, 40-year-old footage," Armstrong added.
Enlarge Image
Amstrong was swayed by OmissionControl's use of bolding and capital letters to highlight NASA's many blatant fallacies.
Although Armstrong said he "could have sworn" he felt the effects of zero gravity while soaring out of the Earth's atmosphere and through space, he now believed his memory must be flawed. He also admitted feeling "ashamed" that he had failed to notice the rippling of the American flag he and Buzz Aldrin planted on the surface, blaming his lack of awareness on the bulkiness of the spacesuit and his excitement about traveling to the "moon."
"That rippling is not possible in the vacuum of space," Armstrong said. "It must have been the wind from an air-conditioning duct that I didn't recognize because you can't hear a damn thing inside those helmets."
"This is all just common sense, people," he added. "It's the moon. You can't land on the moon."
In a symbolic display of his newfound skepticism, Armstrong then grabbed a collection of moon rocks he had kept as souvenirs and dramatically dumped them into a trash can.
One of the main arguments posited on Coleman's website—that America could not, in 1969, have realistically possessed the technological capabilities needed to put a man on the moon—was reportedly one of the first things to cause the legendary astronaut a pang of doubt. Despite having spent thousands of hours training for the historic mission under the guidance of the world's top scientists, technicians, and pilots, Armstrong said he knew the conspiracy theories were true after learning that website author Coleman was "quite the engineering buff."
"Yes, at the time I thought those thousands of NASA employees were working round the clock for the same incredible goal, but if anyone would know what was really going on, it would be Ralph Coleman," Armstrong said of the 31-year-old part-time librarian's assistant. "He knows a lot more about faked moon landings than I ever could. He's been researching the subject on the Internet for years."
"Literally years," he added.
Addressing another inconsistency brought to light by OmissionControl, Armstrong explained he was probably so focused on piloting the lunar module that he failed to notice that one of the moon rocks visible in footage of the landing appears to have the letter 'C' stamped on it. An emotional Armstrong said that the only possible explanation for this detail was that the rock actually came from NASA's prop department.
"They forgot to turn it over," Armstrong said, removing his eyeglasses to wipe away tears. "Those lying bastards at NASA went through all the trouble to fake the moon landing, but they forgot to turn over one little prop rock. And now the whole damn thing's blowing up in their faces."
Although Armstrong initially questioned why the U.S. would attempt such an elaborate cover-up, he cited one overarching explanation provided by Coleman: that it was a ploy to defeat the Soviet Union and fulfill the Illuminati's plan to unify the world's banks and control the dissemination of information.
"Just ask Ralph Coleman," Armstrong said. "He'll answer any questions you have."
To conclude the press conference, Armstrong showed reporters footage of his first steps on the moon to demonstrate that the most daming evidence was "right under our noses." Speeding up the tape and replaying the graceful moonwalk several times in a row, Armstrong explained that the iconic images of humanity's triumphant dance with the cosmos was actually just a film of him walking backwards, slowed down, and played in reverse.
"What other explanation could there be?" Armstrong asked. "It's all right here. Everything is all right here if you'd just open your damn eyes and see!"
Added Armstrong, "I suppose it really was one small step for man, one giant lie for mankind."

via theonion.com

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Land Line Media Blog: Relieving congestion, but at what cost?

2009-09-07T22:22:00.001-04:00

You’re entering a major city – let’s say Atlanta – and traffic is moving slowly.
Just when you think you’re going to be late to pick up or deliver a load, an opportunity greets you in the form of a sign. It says you can pay a toll, hop on an express lane, and bypass the congestion.
That’s the concept behind congestion pricing, offering motorists a choice to pay a toll to travel in a faster-moving lane. Congestion pricing is also used to literally price excess traffic off of the roadway.
Starting in 2007, the federal government began handing out grants to major cities like Atlanta to convert managed commuter lanes into tolled express lanes. (In DOT-speak, it involves the conversion of high-occupancy vehicle lanes into high-occupancy toll lanes).
One batch of grants alone totaled $848 million. You have three guesses as to who’s footing the bill, and the first two don’t count.
You are.
Federal grants come from the Highway Trust Fund – your fuel taxes and other fees including the Heavy Vehicle Use Tax.
You’ve already paid for those commuter lanes the first time around, and now you’re going to pay again to have them converted into tolled express lanes.
If you think that’s bad, how about being charged a third time to use them?
OOIDA remains against the use of federal tax dollars to convert existing lane capacity to the tolled variety.
Truckers make up 7-10 percent of the vehicle population but shoulder 36 percent of the money going into the Highway Trust Fund.
Many truckers are at the mercy of “just in time” delivery, which means someone else dictates when they drive and when they arrive. These rolling warehouses do not always have the leeway of avoiding rush hour. Like anyone, they have deadlines to meet.
So will you take that tolled lane in Atlanta once the conversion is completed in 2011? You will have to decide if the cost of paying for that lane three times over is worth it.
Perhaps if enough cars chose the tolled lane during rush hour, things would move along better in the so-called free lanes. But then again, if the free lanes started moving again, the cars would likely move back.
– By David Tanner, staff writer
david_tanner@landlinemag.com
Please see related articles by Land Line:
Congestion pricing coming to Atlanta
Truckers say feds are bribing New York, other cities with toll grants
U.S. DOT grants $153 million to Chicago

via landlinemedia.blogspot.com

Another bad idea gets taxpayer's money.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Southwest faces Tuesday deadline to replace parts

2009-09-01T09:50:00.001-04:00

Southwest Airlines Co., facing a Tuesday deadline to settle a dispute with regulators over the use of unapproved parts, said Monday the parts were installed on almost twice as many planes as it first believed.
The airline also has suspended the maintenance firm that got the parts from a subcontractor.
Southwest said Monday it has replaced the unapproved parts in more than 25 planes but needs more time to find parts for the remaining jets and avoid a disruption in its service to its customers. Without an extension, the Federal Aviation Administration could force the airline to ground some planes.
FAA officials have said the unapproved parts -- designed to push hot engine exhaust away from the wings -- didn't pose an immediate safety hazard. On Aug. 22, they gave Southwest 10 days to fix the problem.
Southwest originally said the parts were installed on 46 planes, but spokeswoman Beth Harbin said Monday further checking boosted the number to 82 planes. That sparked a search for more replacement parts.
"Southwest did an exhaustive audit of the vendor, and are comfortable we've found all the parts at issue," she said.
Harbin called the parts "perfectly safe" but acknowledged they were made by a subcontractor who wasn't approved for the work by the FAA. The subcontractor was hired by a maintenance company hired by Southwest.
Harbin said Southwest has suspended the maintenance company, D-Velco, a unit of aviation parts maker Northstar Aerospace Inc., which was incorporated in Canada but lists corporate offices in suburban Chicago.
Northstar spokesman Scott Langdon said D-Velco was cooperating with the FAA and Southwest. "This is a paperwork and procedures issue, not a flight safety issue," he said.
Harbin did not say whether Southwest's suspension of D-Velco was temporary or permanent. The airline has not identified the subcontractor.
Southwest has more than 500 planes. If the FAA forced Southwest to idle all the planes that still have the unapproved parts, that would be about 10 percent of its fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft. The airline canceled 15 flights and suffered widespread delays when it grounded 46 planes for most of the day on Aug. 22.
Dallas-based Southwest, the nation's biggest discount airline, agreed in March to pay $7.5 million to settle FAA allegations that it operated nearly 60,000 flights using planes that had not been examined for structural cracks as required by federal regulations.
In June, a Southwest jet had to make an emergency landing when a foot-long hole opened in the roof. There were no injuries.
Southwest shares fell 33 cents, or 3.9 percent, to finish Monday regular trading at $8.18.

via dailyme.com

I know I won't be flying Southwest until all te parts have been replaced!

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Judge finalizes dismissal of Web hoax charges

2009-09-01T09:45:00.001-04:00

A judge has finalized his decision to throw out convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in an Internet hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who committed suicide.
U.S. District Judge George Wu said in his written ruling that the case was never a legal test of crimes involving "cyberbullying."
Prosecutors, who adopted that terminology early on, brought charges against Lori Drew under the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute which does not involve cyberbullying, the judge said.
Wu acquitted Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization last month but stressed the ruling was tentative until he issued it in writing.
Drew's attorney, Dean Steward, believes Wu's ruling in effect strikes down a portion of the computer fraud act.
"He's pretty much found that portions of it are unconstitutional," said Steward, who expects Department of Justice attorneys to go back to Congress for a clarification.
Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, said no decision had been made yet about a possble appeal.
Prosecutors say Drew sought to humiliate Megan Meier by helping create a fictitious teen boy on the MySpace social networking site and sending flirtatious messages to the girl in his name.
The fake boy then dumped Megan in a message saying the world would be better without her. Megan hanged herself a short time later, in October 2006, in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie, Mo.
Drew was not directly charged with causing Megan's death. Instead, prosecutors indicted her under the computer fraud act, which in the past has been used in hacking and trademark theft cases.
Wu's 32-page ruling, filed late Friday, cited vagueness of the statute and the chance that innocent users of the Internet could become subject to criminal charges if Drew's conviction was allowed to stand.
He gave examples of people who could be liable for violating MySpace rules online including "the lonely-heart who submits intentionally inaccurate data about his or her age, height and/or physical appearance," or "the exasperated parent who sends out a group message to neighborhood friends entreating them to purchase his or her daughter's Girl Scout cookies," a violation of rules against advertising or soliciting sales.
Much attention was paid to Drew's case, primarily because it was billed as the nation's first cyberbullying trial. The trial was held in Los Angeles because the servers of the News Corp.-owned social networking site are in the area.

via dailyme.com

I do not know if this was the right decision. If the law is not worded to support conviction, then, yes, the judge had no choice but to dismiss it. However, I think that Lori Drew should be held accountable for her actions. If the law is too vague to support conviction, perhaps a new law needs to be passed. However, there is always a civil suit possibility. I'm not sure I like that option is right because then the whole family suffers for what Drew did.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Tech21 iBand: Serious impact protection

2009-08-31T21:15:00.001-04:00

via youtube.com

Flubber for your phone! This stuff is cool.

Posted via web from The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Test Post

2009-08-31T17:37:00.001-04:00

From other e-mail

Posted via email from Robert's posterous

Educating the motoring public ...

2009-07-22T13:06:00.001-04:00

This is a response to the comments on this article:

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/20139742/detail.html

I started this in reply to a comment about trucks running red lights. The commenter made it sound like that's a truck drivers do ... it expanded into this ... but the comment system does not allow this many chars ...

Wanting to stop has nothing to do with anything. Many of those yellow lights are timed for automobiles to stop safely. If a fully loaded semi is less than three truck lengths from the white line when the light changes, it cannot stop safely. It is physically impossible for it to do so.

The big issue here is most automobile drivers have zero concept of the way a truck can be maneuvered.

Examples:

1. Auto squeezes between a truck and the vehicle in front of it with barely enough room and then hits their brakes because they are getting off at the exit. Instead of having patience, they make this very dangerous move. One little slip of, say, the car in front braking, and they are as good as dead.

2. Tailgating. There are three major issues with this.

a) If you cannot see our mirrors, we cannot see you. If we cannot see you, we cannot help to ensure your safety.
b) If you are so close that we cannot see you, you have zero warning of anything ahead of you. With that, if something happen in front of us, we can see it and react safely -- you, not a chance. That big steel bumper on the back of that trailer is going to do a lot of damage because you chose to tailgate.
c) Most trucks and trailers have retreads. They are legal on all axles except the steer axle. You have all seen evidence of when they fail. (We call them road gators) The Mythbusters did a bit on them and if you are tailgating and one lets go, it can come through your windshield and can decapitate you. Why would you take that risk by tailgating?

3. Running alongside of a truck in their blindspot. This is a bad idea. Trucks have huge blindspots. That means there is no way we can see you. Do stay there, pass or stay back until you an get all the way past.

4. Expecting a 75ft long truck to get out of your way when you are merging onto a highway. You, and not the truck driver are responsible for safely merging onto any roadway. No one is *required* to move over for you. It is far easier for you to slow down or speed up depending on ramp room and make a safe merge than for a truck that is far less capable of moving quickly for you. (As a side note, if the ramp is ending, don't try and force your way in front of the truck. That is a blindspot. Not only are you breaking the law, you are putting yourself in danger. And riding onto the shoulder to try and force you way in front of the truck because the merge lane is ending is very unlawful -- and extremely dangerous.)

On another note, trucks have just as much right on the road as a car. Just as cars, there are fast trucks and slower trucks. As long as there are no lane restrictions in place, we have every right to pass a slower moving vehicle. Neither of us own the road.

When a truck puts on his signal, it is not just to annoy you, we need to move over, speeding up and blocking us is very dangerous and downright rude. That is the main reason why you see truck changing lanes suddenly when there is a chance. It is because the majority of automobile drivers do not have the courtesy to slow down and let a truck come over.

It is this "me first" attitude that causes a lot of accidents.

Some here have complained about trucks speeding. I agree, they should not be speeding. Conversely, there is a far bigger percentage of cars that speed than trucks. Too often I see cars whipping past me doing 65-70+ when the posted speed limit is 55.

Some people here have complained about trucks tailgating. Again more automobiles tailgate than trucks. If you do have one of those poorly trained truck drivers tailgating you, check a couple things:

1. Are you in a lane that is considered a passing lane for trucks?
2. Is there no one within 100 yards in front of you?
3. Is there anyone to your right?

If these are true, move over, let the truck by. It is safer and more courteous than sitting in a lane you do not need to be in.

Please, please please, do not pass on the right. EVER!! Passing a semi on the right is tantamount to suicide. If a truck has just passed another vehicle, a safe driver will not immediately pull over. They will allow a safe margin of room for the vehicle they just passed. Be patient, he will move over. (Or will be passing another vehicle you cannot see) Suddenly jumping to the right to pass can get you killed. If you see a truck passing another vehicle, do not zoom up and the right and squeeze you way in front of the truck, that is dangerous.

When a truck has finished passing someone and is moving back to the right, do not start passing until the truck *and* trailer are completely out of your lane. By law, we occupy that lane lawfully until we have completely left it. If we have to suddenly go left to avoid road debris or something and you are there unlawfully, you will get hurt. Or worse.

You know, there are both good and bad truck drivers as well as good and bad automobile drivers. However, by proportion, there are many times more bad automobile drivers on the nation's highways. That is just math.

I have long pledged that, as a professional truck driver, I will do my best to keep myself, and the rest of the motoring public safe. I cannot do it alone. Everyone needs to do it no matter what vehicle they drive.

Also, take this into consideration. The average over the road truck driver drives more in a month than the average motorist drives in a year. Statistically, we have far fewer accidents/mile than any other driver on the road. Sadly, it is the size and weight of the vehicle that makes any of those accidents more severe.

One last thing. There is nothing in your house, at the mall, or anywhere that you consume that did not have a truck and driver bring it. Like it or not, those truck drivers are the backbone of the economy. Without them and the drivers who drive them, the economy would collapse, there would be riots, and the nation would be plunged into the dark ages.

Truck drivers do a thankless job for the same pay rate that was around in the 1970's. We are expected to do more for less every day. We have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

Think about it, and, maybe, take the time to say thank-you to a driver. Give him or her a wave, let them out when they want to change lanes, or help them safely merge onto a highway. These things would go a lone way to make a driver's life (and your own) happier and safer.

Thanks for your time :)

- GCP

I am alive ...

2009-07-21T09:12:00.001-04:00

No, really, I am ... I am just never disciplined enough to post updates ... I am going to fix this, honest :)

-GCP.

Testing Disqus Interation

2009-02-12T02:44:00.001-05:00

Just seeing if I setup Disqus commenting correctly. Nothing to see here ... move along ...

-GCP

2009-02-06T15:23:00.001-05:00

Wondering ... too many tweets from various SM sites?

2009-01-27T19:18:00.001-05:00

Taking a look at Spaz -- open source Twitter client. Planning on learning how to do an AIR app.

Hey, there’s a human in here

2009-01-06T11:27:00.001-05:00

Have you noticed how often someone comes up with a “brilliant” idea to solve the problems in the trucking industry and forgets that people, human beings, actually drive those trucks?We’ve been down this road with hours of service regs and idling restrictions, and now the California Air Resources Board is moving toward mandating fuel-efficient retrofits.The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers

Sweetman: He got the call you never want to get

2009-01-06T11:23:00.001-05:00

Many of us in the industry know by now – tragic news spreads faster than any other –that our friend, fellow OOIDA member, and popular columnist David Sweetman is dealing with a sudden and huge hole in his life now. His wife and best friend, Laurie, died unexpectedly on Sunday, Jan. 4.Dave, the matchless communicator and social person that he is, felt the need to express his anguish with an online

Christmas Week Solo Run …

2008-12-30T22:26:00.001-05:00

So to make some extra money, I volunteered to do a Christmas week solo run to Edmonton, AB from Etobicoke, ON. It was a great trip … for the most past …

Dec. 23rd … Picking up an empty to take to Purolator.

Oh the first picture doesn’t show the snow …

Hauling my first brand new trailer. It is empty, but I want to get these new ones into the Purolator pool.

Now I am on time despite the snow storm occurring. I get part way to Purolator when I get an urgent message over the satellite asking if I can drop my loaded trailer back at the OC (Operating Centre) and go back to Purolator to get another loaded trailer because the other driver was not going to get there soon enough.

Well, stoopid me, I said, “Sure!”

What a mistake! It took almost three hours to get the first trailer to the OC. I got stuck in the snow at the OC … took twenty minutes to get unstuck. Then I had to get an empty. I managed to do that without getting stuck! Got there and back and to the truck stop by my place in another three hours.

Maybe I should learn not to volunteer.

I spent the night at the truck stop and was picked up on the twenty fourth by my wife and mother-in-law. I got to spend a few hours at home while the boys opened a few presents. Then it was back on the road.

I missed them opening the rest of the presents Christmas Day.

So I headed off the Cobalt, ON in more miserable snow …

I woke up to this view Christmas Day.

A Winter Wonderland.

Will I get out? But wait!! I get a Christmas Present …

Anyone see what is wrong here?

Here is a hint …

Christmas Day and a broken air line? You have got to be kidding?? To be honest, it was leaking and I was moving along trying to make miles the night before. I had attempted to repair it, but the cheap plastic lines did not like the cold and shattered.

But to the rescue …

Crazy Dave came and fixed up the truck within an hour and a half of the line breaking.

And soon, I was back on the road … Except for the cold it was an uneventful trip to Edmonton …

Load delivered on the twenty-eighth, a day early. After a twenty-four hour layover I got my next load out heading to Kansas City, MO.

But that is a different post …

-GCP

The Great Canadian Pumpkin

Google Creates World's Largest Digital Archive of Holocaust Victims - by PC Magazine

Jacksonville Mom Murders Baby for Farmville

Jacksonville mom shakes baby for interrupting Farmville, pleads guilty to murder

Stop The Bullying In Schools

Stop The Bullying In Schools

U.S. Giving Away too Much, too Early in Mideast Peace Talks ...

U.S. giving away too much, too early in Mideast peace talks, some say

The Obama administration appears desperate to keep the talks from collapsing and keep its reputation from taking a hit, allies and diplomats say.

Titanic 100th Cruises Spark Buzz, Debate

Titanic 100th cruises spark buzz, debate

GTA: Cabs with Credit Card Fees Break Bylaws #GTA

Cabs with credit card fees break bylaws

Truck Safety Tip

NYC Subway Driver Stops Train Just in Time to Avoid Woman

NYC Subway Driver Stops Train Just in Time to Avoid Woman

TheStar.com: How panhandlers use free credit cards

How panhandlers use free credit cards

Filed Under Negative Publicity Stupidity: Facebook is trying to trademark 'face'

Facebook is trying to trademark 'face'

Solarve: Sanyo Shows World’s First Solar Cell-Equipped Bus

Nearly 150 prisoners mistakenly released over time ...

Nearly 150 prisoners mistakenly released

Now Playing: Night of the Living Tech

Published: August 21, 2010

Video Shows Ohio Woman Angry Over McNuggets Punching McDonald's Worker, Smashing Window

Video shows Ohio woman angry over McNuggets punching McDonald's worker, smashing window

Mexico Drug Cartels Thrive Despite Calderon's Offensive

Mexico drug cartels thrive despite Calderon's offensive

HTML5 Reset

America Goes Dark

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: August 8, 2010

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

There is no Right of Way in China.

Khmer Rouge torturer sentenced to 35 years

Khmer Rouge torturer sentenced to 35 years

The face of South Korea's boogeyman ...

The face of South Korea's boogeyman

Fighter Jet Pilot Ejects Instant Before Fiery Crash at Canadian Air Show

Fighter Jet Pilot Ejects Instant Before Fiery Crash at Canadian Air Show

Testing Amplify by E-Mail

Sorry, Apple, but Our Phones aren't as bad as yours ...

Twitter App To Let You Auto-Follow Facebook Friends BLOCKED By Facebook

This is Why You Slow Down on Turns

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

How do you control duplication with services like Amplify?

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

Rand McNally intelliRoute TND 500 Truck GPS

Ke$ha "Your love is my drug" music video spoof

I Completely Have No Excuse Not to Update My Blog!

Dear U.S. Customs: Train Properly.

Some More Pictures in the Boonies …

Done with Loblaw Dedicated …

Pictures Over the Past Month

Long Overdue Update

Seven Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School | Copyblogger

Is that really good writing?

1. Trying to sound like dead people

2. Expecting someone to hand you a writing prompt

3. Writing long paragraphs

4. Avoiding profanity at all costs

5. Leaning on sources

6. Staying detached

7. Listening to “authorities” more than yourself

Sadly, most writers don’t know this

Doctorow: DRM advocates are "the real pirates"

Doctorow: DRM advocates are "the real pirates"

Does 'strengthening diplomacy' warrant Nobel? Americans split

Don't Miss

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

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

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

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

Always ON

Going completely wireless

FaceAware, additional trackpad

More details, conclusions

2011 Rolls-Royce Ghost | flylyf

2011 Rolls-Royce Ghost