Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Gene Ray's Time Cube Theory

No human or god can match Nature's simultaneous 4 day rotation in 1 Earth rotation.

No human has a right to believe wrong - for that would be evil thinking.

Ignorance of 4 days is evil, Evil educators teach 1 day. 1 day will destroy humans.

OPPOSITES CREATE. Mother and father gave me birth, not a queer jew god.

Singularity god is EVIL as Creation reigns as Opposites. Educators, and You - ought to be killed for ignoring the fact that "Earth is Cubed".

Steve Jobs' iTunes dance

In early February, Apple CEO Steve Jobs published an extraordinary memo about the music industry, iTunes and DRM (digital rights management), the technology used to lock iTunes Store music to Apple's iPod and iTunes Player. In the memo, Jobs said that "DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy," and offered to embrace a DRM-free music-sales environment "in a heartbeat," if only the big four music companies would let him.

I doubt Jobs' sincerity.

Best muscle-rub ever

Sports Akileine Start Cream is the best muscle-rub I've ever tried -- even better than my beloved Tiger Balm, which I adore so deeply that I have often considered brushing my teeth with it.

Two-Phased Approach to photo-sharing/licensing model

Photo licensing is currently done using a traditional model where buyers go to online agencies or directly to photographers. However, as per my previous posting, I believe that it is inevitable for other photo-related sites to get into the licensing business, which will change the fundamental landscape for how licensing is done. Because I have always believed that the photo industry has vastly underestimated how much consumers really participate in both the photo buying and selling economy, the migration of consumer-oriented photo sites toward a licensing model is a perfect fit.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Making telemarketers pay -- in cash

When André-Tascha Lammé was granted a judgment of $3,500 last month in a Sacramento, Calif., small claims court, he heard gasps.

“You could hear people in the courtroom saying, ‘You can sue telemarketers?’” he said. You can. In fact, you can make some decent cash for your trouble.

Why Sprint's Customer Service Sucks: They Only Let Reps Adjust Billing Up To $3 Per Call

Sprint has such shitty customer service because they don't give customer service reps enough leeway to disburse billing adjustments, nor do they provide enough support, asserts our inside source.

Ewa sucked into storm and lives to tell

A German paraglider survived lightning, pounding hail, minus 40-degree temperatures and oxygen deprivation after a storm system sucked her to an altitude higher than Mount Everest.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Bruce Campbell "Old Spice" commercial

Socialising with sea lions

Wisdom is an illusory concept. More often than not, we’re not aware of the wisdom we lack until we reflect on situations in hindsight. As such, the quantum of wisdom we possess often falls short of the level we actually require. It seems the fate of humanity to profit from experience mostly in retrospect, and to acquire wisdom as a consequence of folly. As Leonardo da Vinci put it, “Wisdom is the daughter of experience.”

I’d like you to keep this thought in mind as I tell you about my recent trip to learn about Australian sea lions (Neophoca cinerea) at Carnac Island, Western Australia.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Missourian News: Cycling race through Columbia contingent on sufficient funding

Columbia will host a leg of the first Tour of Missouri cycling race if the City Council appropriates up to $60,000 to the Convention and Visitors Bureau this month.

Pujols officially becomes U.S. citizen

Albert Pujols became a United States citizen on Wednesday, a representative for the slugger confirmed.

How to organize all your rewards cards

Is your wallet overstuffed with rewards cards? To slim down your wallet and keep those cards organized, check out this fantabulous tip from LifeClever reader, Michael Willits.

Fidelity myPlan retirement calculator

If you want to get a ballpark estimate of how much you need to save monthly to meet your retirement goals, and want a friendly painless internetty wayt to do it, Fidelity has the myPlan snapshot. It's very Fisher-Price basic, but might be good for people who are terrified of the topic.

Elements of a whole-home audio system

Imagine music that follows you from room to room in your house, playing the soundtrack of your home life. Using an unobtrusive system of amplifiers, in-wall speakers, and control devices, you can enjoy your music anywhere in the home.

All this is possible with distributed audio, allowing you to play and control music from a centralized system. You can listen to the radio in the bedroom while someone else listens to the CD player in another part of the house.

Dolphins are smart...very smart

[N]ot only has Kelly the dolphin been trained to keep her pool clean, she's also figured out that a big piece of trash gets the same reward as a small piece of trash. Naturally, she's learned to deliver only small pieces of waste to her trainers in order to keep the snacks coming. Moreover, she's discovered that by saving some of her fish-treats, she can lure gulls to her tank, catch them, and receive even more fish from her trainers. She's taught this trick to several of her pool-mates, as well, and now they're all doing it.

The Case of Mistaken Gamedenity

I walked into my previous place of retail enjoyment in the mall in which it was situated, punched in and had a normal day until she arrived.

Questions for a potential real estate agent

Recently, my wife got the bug to move just because her brother was (I quickly killed that bug - we are NOT moving). I did however have a chance to interview 4 Real Estate agents. I quickly learned that they are not all created equal.

I took some notes specifically for Dumb Little Man. Here are the questions I asked, the answers I got, and the answers I wanted to hear.

Top 7 Credit Score Secrets

As a former credit counselor, I know that most individuals have a misguided perception of credit and I am here to debunk some common credit myths and provide you with some free information about how to improve your score. Since it is an absolute fact that a higher credit score means better interest rates for car loans, mortgages, and other debts, these tips can translate into a few extra dollars in your wallet each month.

Help Find Jim Gray With Web 2.0

When famous computer scientist Jim Gray went missing a few days ago, the coast guard launched a large scale search that found absolutely nothing. On Thursday, they gave up.

Then Amazon stepped in. They arranged for a satellite sweep of the area and stored the images on their S3 storage service. They then created a task on their Mechanical Turk service to allow volunteers to scan the images to look for the boat. It’s a tough task - the boat would only be about six pixels in size in an image, and there was a lot of cloud cover obscuring large parts of the area scanned. But volunteers are pouring in to help out.

What is the difference between a HDTV and a monitor?

We have seen this questions a few times in the comments and it's time we addressed it. What is the difference between a computer monitor and an HDTV? While it is true that the line between the two is narrowing there is a difference.

The future of photo sharing sites and agencies

Where I have a lot more to discuss is how this is only the beginning of what is going to be much bigger stuff to come, and most of it isn't what people expect: that stock photo agencies will move into the consumer arena. There are stumbling blocks though, and how photo company executives overcome them will determine who comes out ahead.

New bill to keep XM, Sirius from offering local news and alerts

The foes of satellite radio are marshaling their forces again, as a bill introduced to Congress this week would bar XM Radio and Sirius from broadcasting "locally differentiated services" such as traffic, weather, and emergency information.

Consumerist.com Using Flickr images without attribution?

Looks like the fine folks over at the Consumerist.com are using images from Flickr without attribution as spots for their articles.

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Joel Johnson Returns...to Spank Us All for Supporting Crap

Get it together: every single one of these consumer electronics companies should be approached as the enemy. They work for us. Hold their feet to the fire when they say their product is going to change even a small part of our lives. Circle back again in six months when they're shilling the incremental upgrade and ask them why the last version didn't cut the mustard. Step out of your blogging trench and ask yourself what your responsibility is to the tens of thousands of idiots who are reading this site right now to determine what they should spend their next paycheck on.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

FBI lost 160 laptops in last 44 months

How many laptops does the FBI lose? The Office of the Inspector General (or OIG; it's a part of the Department of Justice) sought to find out back in 2001, when it did an initial audit of the Bureau's losses of both weapons and laptops. The findings of that first audit were bad enough that the OIG began a follow-up on it, the results of which have just been released. The good news is that losses are dropping. The bad news is that they're still happening, and the FBI doesn't know if secure information is entering the wild.

Skydiver survives 12,000 foot fall

It shows him plummeting 12,000ft to earth after both his parachutes failed, saying goodbye to the world... and hitting the ground with a sickening thud at 80mph.

Osama Teen Hunger Force

Deciding Which Financial Records to Keep

This list will tell you at a glance which financial records you should retain and which ones you can dump.

How to Kill a Lobster, Redux

[I]n the name of treating lobsters humanely, Whole Foods has discontinued the sale of live lobsters. Instead, the gourmet food chain will sell processed lobster meat. That, of course, begs the question: what technology will be used to kill and process these lobsters behind the scenes? Will it be humane?

Here are the new death machines.