Ink Pixi - Men: Personalized T-Shirts, Sweatshirts and Hats

Ink Pixi - Men: Personalized T-Shirts, Sweatshirts and Hats

Personal Tech - Microsoft Uses Court Order To Cripple Waledac Botnet

Personal Tech - Microsoft Uses Court Order To Cripple Waledac Botnet

Managed Web Site Hosting Services - Web Hosting Dedicated Server Online By Rackspace

Managed Web Site Hosting Services - Web Hosting Dedicated Server Online By Rackspace

Glenn Reynolds: Disaster Recovery thoughts

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/worst_case_scenarios/4343077.html

Popular Mechanics: Survival Talk

http://www.popularmechanics.com/survival/

Project Manager Paradox

http://projectsteps.blogspot.com/2009/04/project-management-paradox.html

Death by ITIL: How IT departments streamline themselves into oblivion | IT Leadership | TechRepublic.com

Death by ITIL: How IT departments streamline themselves into oblivion IT Leadership TechRepublic.com: "It strikes me that many if not most departments fall victim to the same kind of fascination, when it comes to various frameworks and methodologies du jour. CMM and CMMI, PMBoK or Prince 2, ITIL and COBiT, Agile (I cannot bring myself to listing its gazillion flavors), TQM and Lean, Six Sigma, RUP, and all that crackle and pop ad infinitum. If you have been in this profession long enough, you know that every few years a new fad diet comes along."

Ray Ozzie's view from the clouds | CNET News

An interesting interview. If he can pull off his vision, Microsoft will be a seriously player for a long time.

Ray Ozzie's view from the clouds Beyond Binary - CNET News:
"When Ray Ozzie penned his Internet Services Disruption memo back in 2005, he had a pretty good idea where the computing world was going. He just didn't know how Microsoft was going to get there. While many are ready to write off Microsoft as an declining icon of computing's last generation, Ozzie sees Microsoft positioned to leapfrog some of the companies that tend to be thought of as the leaders of the cloud computing world--names like Amazon, Salesforce and Google."

CleverWorkarounds » SQL God? No… I just know how to do a maintenance plan#more-936#more-936#more-936#more-936

CleverWorkarounds » SQL God? No… I just know how to do a maintenance plan: "A SQL Server without a maintenance plan is like the band Queen without Freddie Mercury. Sure it will keep going, but it will provide a sub-optimal user experience."

Millennials + Enterprise Software: Doomed to Fail | CIO - Blogs and Discussion

Millennials + Enterprise Software: Doomed to Fail CIO - Blogs and Discussion: "According to Schooley, 76 million Millennials were born between 1980 and 2000 (scary, I know) and are now infiltrating corporations everywhere—approximately 40 million already have, with an additional 35 million getting ready. 'They bring sharp technology skills, a desire for challenging work, flexibility, mobility and an ability to work well in teams,' writes Schooley. However, she adds, 'These new employees often meet a seasoned workforce that has very different work styles.'
When it comes to enterprise software today, just take out the word 'workforce' in that last sentence and insert 'application suite.' This unfortunate situation is going to be one of biggest challenges for old-school businesses with tons of legacy software and infrastructure. (Of course, it should help that the tech workers are going to be Millennials, too.)"

Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS: "Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve."

CleverWorkarounds » SharePoint ROI Slide Deck and Sample Scenario worksheet published

CleverWorkarounds » SharePoint ROI Slide Deck and Sample Scenario worksheet published: "Hot off the press (okay – well SlideShare magic), I’ve just posted by Best Practices Conference slide deck for the 'speak to your CFO' session, along with the ROI spreadsheet for the PMIS scenario that I used during the demonstration. Like the 'wicked problems' slide deck, slideshare conversion isn’t quite there, so just contact me if you want a pptx version."

The Road to SharePoint 2010: News Coverage - SharePoint 2010 - Bamboo Nation

The Road to SharePoint 2010: News Coverage - SharePoint 2010 - Bamboo Nation: "Fresh from the pages of SharePoint Daily, your one-stop-shop for SharePoint news and comment, The Road to SharePoint 2010 is packaged exclusively for readers interested in tracking the path towards the release of Office 2010 in general, and SharePoint 2010 in particular. This page of news coverage will be maintained until the public beta. Found a story that we missed? Send it along for our consideration!"

SharePoint Worst Practices: 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid

meetdux.com - SharePoint Worst Practices: 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid : sharepoint, project management, pmp, best practices, tips, tricks, hacks:
SharePoint Worst Practices: 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid
Categories: SharePoint, Business
In my post 'Mr. Miyagi is Not a Direct Descendant of Superman' I mentioned that along with my colleague Mike Taylor, we presented: 'SharePoint Worst Practices: Five Common Mistakes to Avoid' at the recently concluded SharePoint Technology Conference in Cambridge, MA.

We explored common mistakes organizations commit when deploying SharePoint, namely:

1. Lack of Proper Planning
2. Showcase Features, not Building Solutions
3. Undefined Business Case
4. Poor Understanding of SharePoint
5. Unrealistic Staffing


More importantly, we discussed key strategies and techniques on how to avoid these mistakes. Want to learn more? Click here to download the slide decks.

Also, here's the 65 minute screencast that I recorded from our presentation. Enjoy!"

Swing, Batter-Batter-Batter! « The Effective CIO

Swing, Batter-Batter-Batter! « The Effective CIO: "Swing, Batter-Batter-Batter! June 29, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.
Tags: Communication, Leadership, Teams
trackback
It’s easy to tell when a youth baseball team is struggling: they fall silent. If the silence persists for any length of time, the coach (or a parent in the stands) will yell out, “Let’s hear a little chatter out there!” This request hopefully refocuses the team as they start talking again."

Whose Fault? Yours. « The Effective CIO

Whose Fault? Yours. « The Effective CIO: "When people fail to get their jobs done as quickly and efficiently as possible, it’s our fault. Period. It doesn’t matter why they failed; we still own the problem. That’s a hard concept for some people in IT to grasp and accept."

Medical-device engineers do best work for others

Medical-device engineers do best work for others

Motorcycle Safety Statistics: Crash, Fatal Bike Accidents

Motorcycle Safety Statistics: Crash, Fatal Bike Accidents: "Motorcycle Accident Causes and Factors

In 2006 about 4,935 people were killed riding motorcycles of different kinds (see above). A major Motorcycle accident study analyzed information from thousands of accidents, drew conclusions about the causes and looked for ways people can avoid accidents. The 'Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures,' was a study conducted by the University of Southern California, with funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, researcher Harry Hurt investigated nearly every aspect of 900 motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area. Additionally, Hurt and his staff analyzed 3,600 motorcycle traffic accident reports in the same geographic area. Below are some of the findings."

SharePoint Reviews

SharePoint Reviews

Idera – Tools for SQL Server, SharePoint and PowerShell

Idera – Tools for SQL Server, SharePoint and PowerShell

Official Google Blog: Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.

Official Google Blog: Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.: "Back in early 2004, Google took an interest in a tiny mapping startup called Where 2 Tech, founded by my brother Jens and me. We were excited to join Google and help create what would become Google Maps. But we also started thinking about what might come next for us after maps.

As always, Jens came up with the answer: communication. He pointed out that two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the '60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented — blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. — and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point, and I was immediately sold. (Jens insists it took him hours to convince me, but I like my version better.)

We had a blast the next couple years turning Where 2's prototype mapping site into Google Maps. But finally we decided it was time to leave the Maps team and turn Jens' new idea into a project, which we codenamed 'Walkabout.' We started with a set of tough questions:

Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication — email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?
Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?
What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers' current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms?

After months holed up in a conference room in the Sydney office, our five-person "startup" team emerged with a prototype. And now, after more than two years of expanding our ideas, our team, and technology, we're very eager to return and see what the world might think. Today we're giving developers an early preview of Google Wave.

Podcasting Kit for Sharepoint - Home

Podcasting Kit for Sharepoint - Home: "What Can You Do With Podcasting Kit for SharePoint (PKS)?:"

- Listen and watch audio/video podcasts, anywhere on your PC or mobile device (Zune, SmartPhone, or any podcasting device)
- Share content by producing your own audio/video podcasts and publish them on PKS on your own.
- Connect and engage with podcasters via your integrated instant messaging program
- Find the most relevant content using the five star rating system, tag cloud, search engine and provide your feedback via comments.
- Get automatic podcast updates by subscribing to RSS feeds fully compatible with Zune and other podcasting devices
- Simple RSS feed based on a defined podcast series
- Simple RSS feed based on a person
- Dynamic RSS feed based on search results (will be implemented later in 2009)
- Play podcasts in real-time using Microsoft® Silverlight™ and progressive playback
- Retrieve instant ROI and metrics with the ability to track the number of podcasts downloaded and/or viewed, instant feedback via rating system and comments, and subscribers via the RSS feed
- Access the richness of SharePoint to extend the solution: workflows, community sub-sites, access rights, editorial and more
- Customize your own PKS User Experience

Transfer VHS to DVD, Vinyl Records to DVD and 8 mm to MP4s - Popular Mechanics

Transfer VHS to DVD, Vinyl Records to DVD and 8 mm to MP4s - Popular Mechanics

The GL 1800 as tow truck

The GL 1800 as tow truck: "Cool, the Honda Goldwing GL 1800 disguised as a tow truck!"

IHE.net Home

IHE.net Home

Medical device interoperability. Includes HL7, DICOM, etc.

Top 10 amazing holes photos in the world | Xemanhdep.com photos-Stock images

Top 10 amazing holes photos in the world | Xemanhdep.com photos-Stock images

Zach Mathe

Zach Mathe

Singer-guitarist. Saw him at the local coffee shop (The Bean Factory). Good guitar, decent voice, good melodies, all original songs.

April Fools

To date, I have had only one good April Fool's day prank. At my former company, we had a large long, 4 story building. The morning of, my partner in crime and I put up signs on all the doors (over a dozen) that said (paraphrased) "Roof Spraying Work Today, please park away from building to avoid overspray". As we watched from our office window (the building had a curve to it so we could see 6 of the doors), people would walk up to the door, pause, and then turn around and go back to move their cars. About a quarter to a third of the people moved their cars to the far side of the lot.

USB finger

ProtoBlogr.net Blog: USB finger, more details

YouTube - 40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

YouTube - 40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

this is really cool. Try to watch it w/o getting goosebumps....

Geeks: Guy in Chain Mail Faraday Suit Takes Star Wars Tesla Coil Music To the Next Level

Geeks: Guy in Chain Mail Faraday Suit Takes Star Wars Tesla Coil Music To the Next Level

Facebook | 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Facebook | 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know: "Everyday I receive an email from somebody about how their account was hacked, how a friend tagged them in the photo and they want a way to avoid it, as well as a number of other complications related to their privacy on Facebook. Over the weekend one individual contacted me to let me know that he would be removing me as a friend from Facebook because he was “going to make a shift with my Facebook use - going to just mostly family stuff.”"

SLAs: A CIO's Guide to Success

SLAs: A CIO's Guide to Success:

"The work doesn't stop once all the SLAs are in place, either. The agreements
require constant discussion and renegotiation as the needs of the business
change. Untended SLAs can lull IT into a false sense of security about the level
of existential happiness among its customers. E-mail response time and network
availability statistics may look great to IT, but the business may actually be
seething about a wholly unrelated issue. To be effective, SLAs require more
thoroughness and vigilance in measuring customer satisfaction so that
dissatisfaction not reflected in the SLA metrics will reach IT before a real
crisis hits.

Yet despite the trouble and expense, SLAs provide
invaluable performance metrics to IT and create more informed customers. 'The
biggest benefit of an SLA in my mind is it makes the business aware that there's
a relationship between support and dollars,' says Tim Parsons, senior vice
president for IT at Interstate/Johnson Lane Inc., a brokerage firm based in
Charlotte, N.C., that created an SLA for help desk support. 'If they can
understand the relationship between cost and the level of support, then they can
make a better business decision about what support is required and how much it
will cost.' Without lining up customer expectations with IT's ability to
realistically meet those expectations, IT stands little chance of breaking out
of the first circle of 'service bureau hell': unrealistic expectations matched
to limited resources."

YouTube - Rock'em Sock'em 2008

YouTube - Rock'em Sock'em 2008: "Rock'em Sock'em 2008"

Interesting TouchTable video

the whole Iranian nuclear facility is interesting also...

xkcd: converting To Metric

The Temperature list is actually pretty handy. Original - full size

xkcd: I Know You Are Listening

InternetNews Realtime IT News - Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control

InternetNews Realtime IT News - Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control:

"The need for 'attention,' rather than 'hard work,' as the centerpiece of
the new work ethic has arisen along with the rise of distractions carried on the
wings of Internet protocol. In one generation, we've gone from a total
separation of 'work' from 'non-work' to one in which both work and play are
always sitting right in front of us.

Now, we find ourselves with absolutely nothing standing between us and
a universe of distractions -- nothing except our own abilities to control
attention. Porn, gambling, funny videos, flirting, socializing, playing games,
shopping -- it's all literally one click away. Making matters worse, indulging
these distractions looks just like work. And it's easy to work and play at the
same time -- and call it work. These new, increasingly compelling distractions
get piled on to older ones -- office pop-ins, e-mail, IM, text messages,
meetings and others.

Kids now grow up with the whole range of distractions, from big-screen
TVs to video games to cell phones to PCs in their rooms. They're addicted to
screens before they even start high school. Their attention spans have been
whittled down to seconds, and their expectations for constant amusement are
highly developed.
In a world in which entire industries bet their businesses
on gaining access to our attention, which value leads to better personal
success: hard work or the ability to control attention?"

The Cigarette Camps: U. S. Army Camps in the Le Havre Area -- Introduction

My grandpa on my Dad's side was a PX Officer at Lucky Strike and Chesterfield.

The Cigarette Camps: U. S. Army Camps in the Le Havre Area -- Introduction: "Introduction: The Cigarette Camps"

TaxProf Blog: Inside Higher Ed: Women Profs Spend More Time on Teaching, Less on Research

TaxProf Blog: Inside Higher Ed: Women Profs Spend More Time on Teaching, Less on Research:

"Joycelyn K. Moody, the Sue E. Denman Distinguished Chair in American Literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said that what most troubled her about the responses was that women reported feeling shame about their interest and success in teaching. Women should be feeling pride in their success as teachers, she said, but are “perceiving themselves as performing below expectations,” because they aren’t doing more research. It’s time to “dismantle those institutional values,” Moody said, so that the shame disappears."

What If New York Goes Bust? - The Daily Beast

What If New York Goes Bust? - The Daily Beast: "The Alice in Wonderland absurdity of the current budget debates was nicely illustrated by the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. She was quoted without irony in The New York Times saying, 'We understand there will be cuts. The real question, will there be cuts, not just cuts against growth, but real cuts that will turn back the clock.'

A close reading reveals that for union leaders like Ms. Weingarten, the only acceptable 'cuts' are not cuts at all, but rather reductions in the rate of increase for public spending. She is willing, in effect, to receive a reduced bonus this year, but not the cut in pay or benefits that would constitute shared sacrifice in a financial crisis."

Armchair Commentary: Exclusive Interview: Fillion on Captain Hammer & Classic "Firefly"

Armchair Commentary: Exclusive Interview: Fillion on Captain Hammer & Classic "Firefly": "Exclusive Interview: Fillion on Captain Hammer & Classic 'Firefly'"

xkcd - A Webcomic - 11th Grade

xkcd - A Webcomic - 11th Grade

LiveWeb - insert and update web pages real-time in PowerPoint

LiveWeb - insert and update web pages real-time in PowerPoint

Christmas bokeh | dooce ®

Christmas bokeh | dooce ®

The picture at this link is the first I have seen that starts to capture what a Christmas tree looks like to me when I don' have my glasses on. For years, I have enjoyed sitting with my glasses off and staring at the tree after it is decorated. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The only difference between this picture and what I see is that I don't see a smooth circle. Instead I see a pattern of lighter and darker in each circle. Note that each light circle is the same size, regardless of how obscured some of it may be. If it is mostly obscured, it appears not as bright, but it exactly the same size and has the same pattern in it.

One of the few joys of wearing glasses.

CD/DVD drives disappear after installing iTunes - GEAR CD / DVD Software Support Knowledgebase

CD/DVD drives disappear after installing iTunes - GEAR CD / DVD Software Support Knowledgebase: "Summary:
After installing a GEAR Software or a GEARWorks GEAR Powered Product (such as Apple iTunes and Norton Ghost) on Vista, the CD/DVD drives disappear in Windows Explorer and the installed software is unable to detect any CD/DVD drives on the system"

CIO - SOA What? Why You Need SOA Governance Framework

CIO - SOA What? Why You Need SOA Governance Framework:

"Without an established governance plan and policy, the original author and
support organization may not even know this 'use' of their software is
happening. This can lead to a lawless environment where: 1.) Increased volume
may cause a jump in users from hundreds to thousands overnight. Servers or
networks being used for this process may not be able to handle the load; 2)
Contrarily a service is created but 'no one comes' to re-use it because there is
no established procedure about how to communicate service availability within
the enterprise; 3) Finally, it is easy for a developer to read a service
definition and create a sample request message in minutes. In a SOA world, the
data travels on the wire in the clear and even has tags identifying each and
every data element. Ease of access to SOA services raises an important issue of
security policies and SOA governance.

So without a well-thought out governance plan SOA can seem like the lawless Wild, Wild West."

Op-Ed Contributor - What They Hate About Mumbai - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - What They Hate About Mumbai - NYTimes.com

Minnesota Management Institute

EDC General Management Programs - Minnesota Management Institute

Obama's small donor base image is a myth, new study reveals | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

When people try to make something look like something else, it makes me wonder why...

Obama's small donor base image is a myth, new study reveals | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times:

"Everybody knows how President-elect Barack Obama's amazing campaign money machine was dominated by several million regular folks sending in hard-earned amounts under $200, a real sign of his broadbased grassroots support.

Except, it turns out, that's not really true.

In fact, Obama's base of small donors was almost exactly the same percent as George W. Bush's in 2004 -- Obama had 26% and the great Republican satan 25%. Obviously, this is unacceptable to current popular thinking."

Slashdot | Suggestions For Cheap Metrics Eye Candy Software?

Slashdot | Suggestions For Cheap Metrics Eye Candy Software?: "Suggestions For Cheap Metrics Eye Candy Software?"

An Online Journal of the Stories & Passions Behind The Research ‎(The Heart Of Research‎)

An Online Journal of the Stories & Passions Behind The Research ‎(The Heart Of Research‎)

Sorting 1PB with MapReduce

This is just crazy..... If you are a computer person, you understand just how crazy this is. If you aren't, this is similar to sorting all the junk mail, junk email, everything on your computer, everything in your cupboards, under the sink, sock drawers, that one junk drawer everyone has (yes, you do!), the nightstand, the basement and the garage, and basically every single piece of somethingt you and everyone in your city has every owned, possessed, touched, looked at, or smelled in the last 5 years...sorted *all* of that in, oh, a few seconds. All of it...every piece...sorted, organized, and arranged...oh yeah, and copied 3 times (before the sort) for disaster recovery.

Official Google Blog: Sorting 1PB with MapReduce: "We are excited to announce we were able to sort 1TB (stored on the Google File System as 10 billion 100-byte records in uncompressed text files) on 1,000 computers in 68 seconds. By comparison, the previous 1TB sorting record is 209 seconds on 910 computers.

Sometimes you need to sort more than a terabyte, so we were curious to find out what happens when you sort more and gave one petabyte (PB) a try. One petabyte is a thousand terabytes, or, to put this amount in perspective, it is 12 times the amount of archived web data in the U.S. Library of Congress as of May 2008. In comparison, consider that the aggregate size of data processed by all instances of MapReduce at Google was on average 20PB per day in January 2008."

Missing CD/DVD drives: solution?

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39) « Barugon’s Cave (^_^): "A few days ago I ran into an issue where my DVD drives no longer appeared in Windows and were not accessible either. What was strange was that I have two physical DVD drives (a DVD-RW and an Xbox HD DVD drive), as well as a virtual drive provided by Daemon Tools for loading ISOs - yet all three were highlighted with an exclamation mark and the same error code: Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)."

The Final Inch: The Eradication Of Polio

Official Google Blog: The Final Inch: "Early readers of the Google.org blog may recall us embarking on a film project portraying public health heroes working in the field to eradicate polio. Gone from the modern world, new cases of polio continue to afflict mostly children under age 3 in the poorest regions of just a few countries — India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. When we first announced this project and the collaboration between Google.org and Vermilion Films, filming was underway primarily in India and Afghanistan, documenting the front lines of public health in some forgotten corners of our world.

David Heymann of the World Health Organization reminds us, 'When you haven't seen a disease for quite a while, which is the case in the industrialized countries, you forget about the terrible disease that it really is.' Polio is such a disease, as it can ruin the lives of children even before they are old enough to understand how to prevent it."

Beloit College Mindset List 2009

This lists all the things that people born in 1987 know about their world.

Beloit College Mindset List

1. Andy Warhol, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, and Lee Marvin have always been dead.
2. They don't remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.
3. Heart-lung transplants have always been possible.
4. Wayne Gretzky never played for Edmonton.
5. Boston has been working on the "The Big Dig" all their lives.
6. With little need to practice, most of them do not know how to tie a tie.
7. Pay-Per-View television has always been an option.
8. etc......
   

Read the whole thing...

Five-Star Hospitals Might Not Kill You

FOXNews.com - Study: Five-Star Hospitals Might Not Kill You - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News: "If all hospitals performed as well as 5-star facilities, as ranked by an independent healthcare ratings company, 237,420 U.S. Medicare patient deaths could have been prevented between 2005 and 2007.

That's the upshot of a new study that finds you have a 70 percent lower chance of dying at a facility that is top-ranked by HealthGrades compared to its lowest-ranked ones across 17 procedures and conditions that were the reasons for the hospital visits.

More than half of the Medicare patient deaths were associated with four conditions: sepsis (a systemic response to infection), pneumonia, heart failure and respiratory failure."

Redistribution of Wealth Experiment

Bluey Blog | Robert Bluey » Blog Archive » Redistribution of Wealth Experiment: "In a local restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08″ tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference–just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need–the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application."

Street Legal, 256 mph, Made in the USA

SSC Ultimate Aero is All American Supercar - Jay Leno's Garage - Popular Mechanics: "The guy who built it, Jerod Shelby (no relation to Carroll Shelby), did it all in reverse compared to most fledgling supercar companies. First, after seven years of work, he produced the car. Next, he set a production car world speed record on the road and certified the SSC for U.S. emissions. Only then, after he broke the record, did he finally tell everybody about it. At a two-way average speed of 256 mph, the SSC Ultimate Aero is actually faster than a $1.5 million Bugatti Veyron, which has been clocked at 253 mph. And at about $650,000, it’s a lot less expensive."

*This* is how to test software

Chromium Blog: Putting It to the Test: "At last count, we run more than 9100 individual tests, typically 30-40 times every weekday."

Gone Darker

A proper send off... read the whole thing...

Ravenscroft Dog Farm: Gone Darker: "Sad times at the dog farm. We lost one to cancer."

A Look Inside Virgin Galactic's Flight Training | Popular Science

A Look Inside Virgin Galactic's Flight Training | Popular Science: "Would-be astronauts train for the world’s first suborbital space tourism flight
By Brooke Borel Posted 11.11.2008 at 10:25 am 4 Comments

As early as next year, if you are one of a lucky few, you may find yourself strapped in a six-passenger rocket some 50,000 feet above the Earth’s surface, bracing yourself as it disengages from the specially designed jet plane mothership, and shoots cannon-like 60 miles up into suborbital space at three times the speed of sound. If all goes well, you'll then get to unbuckle and float in zero gravity for a full fifteen minutes, spying on the earth’s curvature, all of North America and the Pacific Ocean."

Training video

Right to work - Megan McArdle

A very thoughtful piece on the auto bailout.

Right to work - Megan McArdle: "I understand that this is not what the auto workers want; they want their jobs. But while I am happy to help the auto workers, I am not happy to help them manufacture undesireable cars at massive social cost. I too, would have liked to keep my job as a management consultant. But I didn't have a right to have the job I wanted merely because I liked it. And it wouldn't have been good for America if I had."

Tor's Worlds Without Death or Taxes

Tor's Worlds Without Death or Taxes: When is a mainstream publisher also an anti-authoritarian propagandist? When it publishes science fiction. - Reason Magazine: "High in Manhattan’s famous Flatiron Building you’ll find the headquarters of Tor Books, the most successful science fiction publisher in the world. The Flatiron is a monument to mad Belle Epoque futurism, with a wedge shape that makes right angles rare. Inside Tor’s cramped office, drifts of books cover every horizontal surface and most of the vertical ones. The mind boggles at the destruction that could be wrought here by a dropped match, let alone a misfired laser gun.

Tor publishes between 110 and 120 new original titles each year, routinely topping the science fiction bestseller list compiled by the industry magazine Locus. For 20 years running, it also has won the highly respected Locus Award for the best science fiction publishing house. This year Tor earned yet another distinction when its authors claimed all five finalist spots for the Prometheus Award, the annual prize for best science fiction novel of the year handed out by the Libertarian Futurist Society.

So is this the most successful libertarian propaganda venture in modern history? Publisher and founder Tom Doherty denies any ideological agenda. “First comes the story,” he says. His only stated goal is to “do a story in a way that’s honest.”"

MormonTimes - Heroes and victims in Prop. 8 struggle

I probably would have voted no on Prop 8 if it was here. But the response of hatred and violence towards the Morman Church is dispicable. Let's see if those that pointed out the racism towards President-elect Obama will speak out unconditionally against this.

MormonTimes - Heroes and victims in Prop. 8 struggle: "Many people worked to pass Proposition 8 in California. Those who wish to be our enemies are working hard to blame it all on the Mormons, but our votes alone could never have done the job of protecting marriage from a fatal redefinition."

Google Phone Number Search

Google Phone Number Search - Use Google to Find Phone Numbers - Phone Number Search on the Web

The Hospital Is Watching You - WSJ.com

The Hospital Is Watching You - WSJ.com:

"Automatic-tracking software programs were introduced more than a decade ago to
help hospitals prevent infant abductions. Now, institutions are putting
electronic tags on all sorts of things, from EKG monitors and ventilators so
they can readily be located in an emergency, to surgical sponges so they don't
get sewn up inside a patient. Some hospitals have begun tagging arriving
patients to help cut waiting times in emergency rooms. Some have also begun
tracking employees to help supervisors move them to understaffed areas."

A Butler Well Served by This Election

A Butler Well Served by This Election: "He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week. 'I never missed a day of work,' Allen says.

His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print. The man in the kitchen.

He was there while America's racial history was being remade: Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock school crisis, the 1963 March on Washington, the cities burning, the civil rights bills, the assassinations.

When he started at the White House in 1952, he couldn't even use the public restrooms when he ventured back to his native Virginia. 'We had never had anything,' Allen, 89, recalls of black America at the time. 'I was always hoping things would get better.'"

Helicopter Installs New HD Antenna | WUSA9.com | Washington, DC |

Helicopter Installs New HD Antenna | WUSA9.com | Washington, DC |

Cloud Computing Requires Changing Your Mindset on Security | Advice and Opinion

Cloud Computing Requires Changing Your Mindset on Security | Advice and Opinion: "Here's a couple of questions:

Do you have a personal account with Amazon where you enter in your credit card information?

Has your business done Web advertising through Google?

It's funny that I can't remember the last major data breach either of those companies have had as a trusted vendor in the consumer space. So tell me, why would they fail to extend the same security policies to enterprise data if you entrusted it to them? Would that be good business for them?"

Collateral Damage | PBS | Window Mobile is doomed.

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Collateral Damage | PBS: "I am not a very sophisticated mobile phone user. I don't use most of the bells and whistles on my phone, probably because I don't know what they even are. But just because I'm an idiot about USING mobile phones doesn't mean I don't understand the emerging mobile market, to which I have been paying a lot of attention of late. And why not? As personal computers fade from what Al Mandel called 'ubiquity to invisibility,' something has to take over. And everyone I respect thinks the new dominant platform will be mobile. So it's my job to tell you, then, that Windows Mobile is probably doomed."

America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree - Chronicle.com

America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree - Chronicle.com: "Unbelievably, according to the Spellings Report, which was released in 2006 by a federal commission that examined the future of American higher education, things are getting even worse: 'Over the past decade, literacy among college graduates has actually declined. … According to the most recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, for instance, the percentage of college graduates deemed proficient in prose literacy has actually declined from 40 to 31 percent in the past decade. … Employers report repeatedly that many new graduates they hire are not prepared to work, lacking the critical thinking, writing and problem-solving skills needed in today's workplaces.'"

Summary of Findings: Most Voters Say News Media Wants Obama to Win

Summary of Findings: Most Voters Say News Media Wants Obama to Win: "Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4. Another 8% say journalists don't favor either candidate, and 13% say they don't know which candidate most reporters support."

Orson Scott Card

Meridian Magazine:: Ideas and Society: Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?: "It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices."

See? Now THAT’S Funny. | The Truth About Cars

It would never happen in America and so much the shame for that...

See? Now THAT’S Funny. | The Truth About Cars: "Awesome Cop Work in Europe!"

YouTube - Evolution of Dance

YouTube - Evolution of Dance

Digital Camera Accessory Review: Our favorite AA Charger: The Maha/PowerEx C-204W

Digital Camera Accessory Review: Our favorite AA Charger: The Maha/PowerEx C-204W: "As you'd expect though, over the course of three years, even something as seemingly ordinary as battery charging technology has evolved. In part based on our my test results (see the aforementioned Battery Shootout page), Maha has developed a charger that does an even better job of 'topping off' batteries than the C-204F did, and added a host of other advancements as well. The result is the new Maha Powerex C-204W, the subject of this review. Thanks to the advancements that Maha has made, the C-204W has finally taken over the top spot as the charger I most prefer for routine use."

Dan's Motorcycle "Storing Your Motorcycle"

Dan's Motorcycle "Storing Your Motorcycle": "Every year lots and lots of people just come in from riding, push their bike over in a corner and walk away. They return in four or five months and wonder why their bike won't run... well DUH ! If you want that bike to work for you, you've got to take care of it. Let's take a look at how you do that."

Winterizing your Motorcycle - CycleChaos

Winterizing your Motorcycle - CycleChaos: "Although storage procedures vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, there are some general processes that you should do for your ride before you put it into storage."

Motorcycle Winterization

Motorcycle Winterization: "Half A$$ Winterization

Let’s all face it. We live in the meteorological dead zone of the Pacific Northwest, where overcast days outnumber sun-dress sightings by about 300 to 1. All too often, when the clocks roll back, I tool along behind other cars in heavy traffic under a light drizzle. And I watch with envy as that same Beemer-guy rides past me in the HOV; all toasty and dry in full rain gear and heated vest and gloves, I feel like a wimp."

Motorcycle Winterizing Tips

Motorcycle Winterizing Tips: "This is difficult for me to write about because it means that the Michigan riding season is ending. Regardless, I hope you find these tips helpful. For those that live in a climate that does not have off road months, you can ignore this. Those of us in the snow belt... read on..."

How to winterize your motorcycle

How to winterize your motorcycle: "Winter is fast approaching and if you live in a frigid climate it's time to store your bike for the season. In storing your bike for a few months over the winter, your main concern is to avoid corrosion while in storage and the goal is to have a bike that is ready to go when you are."

Motorcycle Winter Storage - Motorcycle Maintenance Guide

Motorcycle Winter Storage - Motorcycle Maintenance Guide: "Outside a single white snowflake falls... Disbelief falls on your face as another snowflake falls... Then you realize, another riding year over and it's time to put the bike away for the winter. This is the time to get in that last few riding days and put our bikes properly away for the winter so they are ready for the next riding season to start again."

How to Winterize Your Motorcycle - wikiHow

How to Winterize Your Motorcycle - wikiHow: "For many motorcyclists across the country, the end of fall marks a crucial maintenance time for their cycles. Some fortunate riders enjoy year round suitable cycling climate. If you are not one of the fortunate, you need to follow a few important steps to protect your cycle over the winter months ahead. The following steps are helpful guidelines to assist you in winterizing your motorcycle to assure come spring, you can get back on the road with little trouble."

Winterizing your motorcycle

Winterizing your motorcycle: "For Canadian motorcyclists autumn marks the end of the riding season and a time of completing a crucial step in the maintenance for your motorycle-Winterizing! The following are simple guidelines to assist you in accomplishing this task to assure that next spring you are back on the road with no problem."

Road Star Clinic - Re:How to winterize your bike

Road Star Clinic - Re:How to winterize your bike - Road Star Clinic Forum: "I have a friend who just bought a bike and I put together a list of how to winterize her bike. This is written assuming the bike will be stored inside a non-heated garage in the midwest over the winter from around the end of November to the beginning of April. Her bike is a Yamaha V-Star 650."

Solar-Powered Electric Motorcycle

I'm not sure how useful this would be, but it is interesting...

Prometheus Demonstrates Solar-Powered Electric Motorcycle : CleanTechnica: "This past weekend, Prometheus Solar founder Jim Corning demonstrated his proof-of-concept electric motorcycle at the Santa Monica AltCar Expo. The motorcycle is a reconstructed Ninja 250 that uses four solar panels which provide 800 watts of power."

sometimes late at night

Sometimes, late at night, you are heading back from a late meeting or a movie or something, you stop at a SuperAmerica or some other quick stop kind of place. You go in looking for a particular snack, say Mallo Cups. And they don't have any. Do you ever start wandering looking for something else to spend your money on but you really don't find anything so you start looking at the other snacks and you notice the hot dog rolly thing that has several nasty looking hot dogs that have clearly been there all day and you quickly look away hoping to see something else and all the while you feel the Krispy Kreme donut case calling calling calling you but you resist and head for the corn nuts next and on the way you remember that you need aspirin for the car so you head over there and see the beef jerky in 40 different flavors and you pause, thinking hmmm maybe, and then you realize you are thirsty and you end up spending at least $15 in the store? Me neither...

Scott Adams Blog: Only Good News 10/10/2008

Scott Adams Blog: Only Good News 10/10/2008
a bit about his voice problems and a new comic writer he likes.

Remember: when all is said and done...it usually isn't.

YouTube - Honda Cub is the number one motorcycle in the world

YouTube - Honda Cub is the number one motorcycle in the world

Test from MS-Word2007

This is a post using the built-in template for blog posting. The ribbon changes to a "Blog Post" ribbon with "Publish", "Home Page", "Manage Accounts" buttons and some others. There is both publish and push as draft.

Fountainhead Speech

I've never read Ayn Rand. This is a speech from it that someone recommended. I've read it but want to read it again. So I am putting it here for future reference.

Fountainhead Speech

SanDisk Unveils USB Drive With Online Backup -- Storage -- InformationWeek

SanDisk Unveils USB Drive With Online Backup -- Storage -- InformationWeek: "SanDisk Unveils USB Drive With Online Backup

The device comes with a six-month subscription to the BeInSync backup
service and two years of BoomerangIt's lost-and-found service.
By Antone
Gonsalves
InformationWeek
January 2, 2008 04:41 PM

SanDisk
(NSDQ: SNDK) on Wednesday introduced a USB flash drive with automatic online
backup, so files can be recovered from any Internet-connected computer if the
drive is lost, forgotten, or stolen.
The Cruzer Titanium Plus is SanDisk's
first USB drive with backup capabilities. The 4-Gbyte device will be featured at
the International Consumer Electronics Show Jan. 7-10 in Las Vegas.

The Cruzer Plus comes with a six-month subscription to the BeInSync backup
service at no additional charge. After opening a personal, password-protected
account, any files copied to the drive from a computer are automatically backed
up online. If the computer is offline, then the files will be backed up the next
time the drive is plugged into an Internet-connected machine."

No where else can we imagine
No one else can be sure
No one thing can make us believe
No one except us
No one

43 Folders

43 Folders: "Drowning in email? Try Inbox Zero to learn sane tips for dealing with high-volume email. And don’t miss the free Inbox Zero video."

Recent Volcanic Activity - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Recent Volcanic Activity - The Big Picture - Boston.com: "Several volcanoes have erupted in the past few months - two in Chile (Chaiten and Llaima) and one in Alaska (Okmok). At any given time, approximately 20 to 50 volcanoes are active worldwide (depending on the definition of 'active'). Collected here are photos of volcanic events from the the past several years, seen from many angles, including low Earth Orbit. (15 photos total)"

Slashdot | Software Logging Schemes?

Slashdot | Software Logging Schemes?:

"'I've been a software engineer for just over 10 years, and I've seen a lot of different styles of logging in the applications I've worked on. Some were extremely verbose — about 1 logging line for every 2 lines of code. Others were very lacking, with maybe 1 line in 200 devoted to logging. I personally find that writing debug and informational messages about every 2 to 5 lines works well for debugging an issue, but can become cumbersome when reading through a log for analysis. I like to write warning messages when thresholds or limits are being approached — these tend to be infrequent. I log errors whenever I catch one (but I've never put a 'fatal' message in my code, because if it's truly a fatal error I probably didn't catch it). Recently I came across log4j and log4net and have begun using them both. That brings me to my question: how do the coders on Slashdot handle logging in their code?'"

YouTube - How to Fix a Wet Cell Phone

YouTube - How to Fix a Wet Cell Phone

MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine

MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
good resource for medical stuff. The videos are supposed to be pretty good.