Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category
Just got this notice from Army Public Affairs:
Please join us this afternoon for the FINAL day of the 26th Army Science Conference. Some conference presentations are now available at www.asc2008.com.
For those of you interested in Army gaming, our afternoon begins with a 1:45 roundtable with the Army’s experts on autonomous systems – find out the latest in Army artificial intelligence and robotics!
Then stay tuned as we hear from the dynamic duo and closing ceremony keynote speakers, Dr. Joel Primack, Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Dr. Nancy Ellen Abrams – they’re discussing The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos. This is your chance at an exclusive sneak peak before their official remarks!
Listen and ask questions live at
www.blogtalkradio.com/asc-2008! You can ask questions in the chat room, dial-in, or send me your questions via e-mail at this address.
I won’t be able to listen in, but go ahead and check it out yourself if interested.
The Top Holiday Deals
I’m a bit tempted to pick up an Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch Mini Laptop for $380. Does anyone have any experience with one of these little guys?
I continue to hope that increased online shopping will not only kill the “Black Friday” one-day sale model but will also keep me out of stores altogether. You never know what’s going to happen in those madhouses.
One of the coolest things around is GasBuddy.com. Here’s their current US price temperature map:
By way of comparison, here’s a map from the AP showing state-by-state gasoline tax (including federal tax):
There is some noticeable correlation between the two maps. The red (higher tax) states on the tax map tend to be orange or yellow (higher price) on the price map. Blue states (lower tax) on the tax map tend to be green states (lower price) on the price map. But it isn’t absolute. For instance, Arizona and New Mexico have lower taxes but higher relative prices. The same goes for Vermont and New Hampshire. On the flip side, Michigan seems to be the only state with higher taxes and lower prices right now. For which Murdoc is thankful.
Compare this price map to two previous versions posted on MO, one from June 2007 and one from November 2006. Note that the price range varies over time and green in 2006 is not the same as green in 2008.
Meanwhile: Venezuela’s Chavez calls for fix oil price
CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 25 (UPI) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said crude oil prices should be set at a fixed price in the wake of recent oil price decreases.
Chavez said that prices should be set between $80 and $100 a barrel, El Universal reported Tuesday. Prices closed Monday at less than $54 a barrel.
Chavez said that price fixing would stabilize the market and prevent the sharp spikes and declines in the petroleum market that marked the last year.
Especially the declines is what he’s thinking, I’d guess. Oil is currently uner $51, and the head of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation thinks it will go down to $40.
I would have never guessed it would drop this far. I doubt it’s going to stay for long.
I wonder if we’ll see an effort to push through gas tax increases while prices are down in an effort to get rate hikes in while they don’t seem so bad.
Thank-you.
UPDATE:
Here’s a screenshot of today’s front page at Live.com:
Korean War Veteran's Memorial on Live.com
The new front page at Live.com features images that include hotspots with links to related content if you hover over them.
UPDATE 2: Also see America’s War Stories In Honor of Veterans Day at Smithsonian Channel.
Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1
Army Times had a story a few weeks ago about the 3rd infantry Division’s 1st BCT upcoming mission:
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.
But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
The Einsteins at Reddit seem to have just noticed it now and are fully supportive:
- U.S. Troops In Homeland “Crowd Control” Patrols From October 1st (in complete violation of Posse Comitatus)
- US troops will patrol American streets, starting on 1 october 2008
- U.S. Troops, Just Home From Iraq, In Homeland “Crowd Control” Patrols Beginning October 1st — R.I.P. Posse Comitatus
I pointed out that there’s nothing in the story about patrols, but my comments are sure to be downvoted because instead of playing nice I’m getting all factual and everything.
Does anyone have a favorite social bookmarking-type site with a wide range of submissions that doesn’t seem to be populated mostly by teenage revolutionary wanabes?
UPDATE: Here’s a brilliant comeback to one of my comments:
And maybe they are getting ready for the “october suprise” that a few politicians have warned us about.
And I am just as sick of the anti-alarmist. The ones who have been warning have hit the nail on the head every time, including this current wall street problem, the housing market, wars, false flag operations, media lies, government deceptions and coverups.
geeze, I fear the anti-alarmist more than the alarmist.
If I could make up stuff like that and publish it, I wouldn’t have to work for a living.
I’m a little confused about the “anti-alarmist” tag. Is everyone who doesn’t get alarmed an “anti-alarmist”? Or only people who say that alarmist claims aren’t correct?
UPDATE 2: A couple more posted by the same guy seven minutes apart:
- US Combat Troops to Patrol the ‘Homeland’ Starting October 1st in Complete Violation of ‘Posse Comitatus & Insurrection Act’ for “Civil Unrest & Crowd Control” – NORTHCOM Martial Law in America!
- US Combat Troops to Patrol the ‘Homeland’ Starting October 1st in Violation of ‘Posse Comitatus’ & the ‘Insurrection Act’ for “Civil Unrest & Crowd Control” – NORTHCOM Martial Law in America!
You might think I made a mistake and posted the same one twice. I didn’t. He just apparently isn’t terribly creative other than posting crap headlines.
This sort of thing has to stop.
Really really sucks. Sucks, as in Murdoc will probably be dropping SiteMeter from all his sites at the end of the month if this is for real sucks.
Just my opinion. It’s only after looking at it for a little bit. However, unless my browser has been hijacked and this really isn’t SiteMeter, I probably won’t be changing my opinion.
UPDATE: Murdoc will give them credit. They appear to be in the middle of a total roll-back due to negative feedback and performance issues. Though I believe that their screw-up is of monumental proportions, they wasted no time stepping back. You can’t really ask for a whole lot more.
I was a bit surprised to see that the bad feelings about the new SiteMeter were so widespread. Lex had rounded up a few links, and in the comments section here asked what I might be thinking about trying.
Well, the first traffic meter I ever used (other than the old Blogspot meter) was ExtremeTracker. That served well for quite some time, and I kept it running until just a few months ago when I removed the code from MO during some housecleaning. I also have Google’s Analytics set up and running, though I don’t often look at it. I’m not overly excited to get more involved with Google, and I’m glad that SiteMeter is rolling things back.
UPDATE 2: Even more linkage to suckery at PoliGazette.
All of today’s reading and posting will be done via Google’s new Chrome browser.
At first glance, it appears a bit sluggish (okay, a lot sluggish), but I mostly want to verify that my sites display and function correctly. In the early going, all appears fine.
UPDATE: Hmmm. It appears that each tab you open is actually a separate process with its own discrete resources. Makes each tab its own little island, but memory usage grows quickly that way. Ouch.
UPDATE 2: End of experiment. Performance was a 1 out of 10. Until the first production release is out, I will not try Chrome again other than to check my site design for compatibility.
Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid’s Limits
When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.
That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.
The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.
Secret? It’s a secret that the electric power transmission system is at its limit and moving electricity to where it’s needed is a major problem? That’s a secret to exactly who?
This isn’t a problem limited to alternative energy generation either, though you can (sort of) put a coal, gas, or nuclear plant wherever you want while the wind, water, and sun-based generation has to be built in the correct environment.
Heh:
Wind advocates say that just two of the windiest states, North Dakota and South Dakota, could in principle generate half the nation’s electricity from turbines. But the way the national grid is configured, half the country would have to move to the Dakotas in order to use the power.
Meanwhile, Tigerhawk has some thoughts on the issue.
Olympics Opening Ceremony Fireworks ‘Faked’ on TV
The Telegraph picked up a story in the Chinese newspaper the Beijing Times which explained that filming the 29 firework “footprints” from the air would have been impossible. So visual effects artists spent a year creating a computer-graphic simulation — inserted precisely at the same time the real fireworks went off — to bedazzle home viewers as if they were at the actual ceremony. The fireworks themselves were real enough, but if you were watching on TV, what you saw was a CG simulation of that reality, happening in real-time.
Also: Olympic opening uses girl’s voice, not face
A 7-year-old Chinese girl was not good-looking enough for the Olympics opening ceremony, so another little girl with a pixie smile lip-synched “Ode to the Motherland,” a ceremony official said–the latest example of the lengths Beijing took for a perfect start to the Summer Games.
A member of China’s Politburo asked for the last-minute change to match one girl’s face with another’s voice, the ceremony’s chief music director, Chen Qigang, said in an interview with Beijing Radio.
At this point, assume everything was faked.
UPDATE: Oh, and don’t forget the landlocked aircraft carrier, either.
