Google Blackout For Earth Hour
Looks like Google has turned the lights out! Why? Well for Earth Hour of course. Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone.
Google users in the United States will notice today that we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don’t do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display.
I have read post about how much energy Google would save if they changed the homepage to black. I’m glad they pointed out why they keep it white. Aside from the fact that it looks terrible in black. If they were going to changes colors they should use THIS color scheme.
Reporter Gets Owned by a Sled
New Reporter is covering a sled race and…
(youtube.com)
Haha, Did you hear the camera guy? Can’t believe he finished his report!
This one goes out to you News Report Guy!
iPhone Rumors Galore
My contract with AT&T ended at the end of January and I can’t wait to get an iPhone. So why didn’t I purchase one February 1st? The reason I am willing to wait is because of 3G. The next version of the iPhone will support 3G over the current EDGE connection to the tubes. What kind of speeds are we looking at? Well 3G could be pretty fast.
It also allows the transmission of 384 kbit/s for mobile systems and 2 Mb/s for stationary systems. 3G users are expected to have greater capacity and better spectrum efficiency, which allows them to access global roaming between different 3G networks.
However I am not sure we’ll hit those high speeds. Over in the UK, where 3G coverage is really very good, a 3G plan can *replace* wired network connections. Speeds of 180kB/s are pretty common, and the bandwidth limits are pretty high too.
According to Mac Rumors and iPod Observer, Apple has placed a 10 million unit order for 3G iPhones. Plus the new version of the iPhone might support an OLED display which could improve battery life! Even Toms Hardware Guide said that in a report released by Bank of America analyst Scott Craig, Apple will have an major increase in iPhone product sometime in June.
The new iPhone SDK Beta was just released, but support for iTunes Store is not out yet. As for Bernie’s Prediction, when the SDK is final, they will also announce the next generation of the iPhone with 3G support on June 9-13th, 2008 in San Francisco. How do I know the exact date and location? Well thats because thats when the WWDC 08 is happening =)
Thats just my $0.02. Everyone has predictions and I could be wrong. Even Kevin Rose was wrong about the first iPhone. Thats not to say he wont try again.
Episode 142 - iPhone Rumor Du Jour Friday, March 21st, 2008 - running time 00:49:52
Speed Reading Test Online
I just created a new page on RunGeek called Shared Feeds. Its a list of RSS feeds I find and want to share with people. Google Reader is my RSS Feed Reader of choice for many reason.
- Like The Interface
- Easy To Add New Feed
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Its A Web App (access from any computer)
- Cool Features (share feeds)
- Integrates With Other Google Apps (G-Mail)
- It Works!
I reads tons of screen text (Code/Blogs/Documentation/Articles) but my reading speed is pretty slow. And no matter how much I read, I cant seem to get faster. So now I believe its my technique used to read. Try out the Speed Reading Test over at ReadingSoft.
My results were:
240 wpm on screen
91% (10/11) comprehension.
Which puts me at
240 wpm, oral reader. You may rapidly and significantly progress by suppressing subvocalization.
I do think that everyone should consider reading an area they can improve on. However in the world of technology and development comprehension is very important. Wikipedia’s entry on Speed Reading is lacking citations and good examples, but I think this is a great quote about speed reading.
The trade-off between “speed” and comprehension must be analyzed with respect to the type of reading that is being done, the risks associated with mis-understanding due to low comprehension, and the benefits associated with getting through the material quickly and gaining information at the actual rate it is obtained.
I understand material better with subvocalized reading, so I don’t want to stop. I might try processing information based on the structure of the text to improve speed and keep up comprehension. Thanks Will for the tip.
Happy Easter!
The Art World Can Finally Go Fully Digital
I work with advance information systems like distributed computing and stream data… and I have never seen technology like this before.
(youtube.com)
That one tool is awesome… I mean it looks just like spray paint, it really does!
Play With Your Food
Hey its the weekend, and I have a little humor for today.
Eggcellent picture!
Emo Orange in the same style.
I like how the wife orange takes her clothes off. =)
And Jib Jab’s with special effects.
Air Force Emails Sensitive Information
BBC News has an article about how the US Air Force (USAF) sent sensitive mass e-mails to wrong address. The e-mails were meant to go to the US Airbase at FAF Mildenhall, but instead they went to a tourism website for the town of Mildenhall.
Gary Sinnott, of Mildenhall, set up the website “mildenhall.com” in the late 1990s to promote the town.
But by 2001 he was starting to get hundreds of e-mails meant for people at the airbase.
Sensitive information and e-mail should never go together. Some of the e-mails contained data about the flight plan of Air Force One!
My job has had issues with sensitive data going out over e-mail. Its impossible to contain. Is encrypting data (TrueCrypt.org) that hard? Not really… Our 1980’s IT department has updated Lotus Notes (rungeek.com) to add the super secure “Label”.
Now I feel safe that Lotus Notes inserts text into the subject and body of the e-mail. If your going to go through all that work, why didn’t you just add some sort of e-mail encryption (wikipedia.org)like GNU PGP (gnupg.org)?
The open source community has provided great tools like True Crypt (TrueCrypt.org), Password Safe (sourceforge.net), and GNU PGP/OpenPGP (gnupg.org/openpgp.org). Only good things can come with government use of these tools. Government and military organizations would be more secure. Also the community benefits by the Big G paying people to make sure these programs are secure and close any security holes they might find.
TSA Gangstaz
TSA (Taken Suckers Assets) Security at air ports is getting pretty ridiculous. I can’t wait for Americans to get brave again and stop waiting for someone else to protect them. Those weak rules about 4oz of fluid don’t make anyone feel safe. Laptop batteries (youtube.com) are so much more dangerous, but those are fine to take aboard.
TSA Gangstaz
..
P.S. - I LOL @ “You better lose your pre-9/11 mentality.”
How NOT To Release a Bear Into the Wild
Found this on the picture section on Digg (digg.com)
The original (anotherdotcom.com) site is really slow so I am just going to mirror the pictures.
These Fish and Game people didn’t secure the bear trap to the back of the truck. If they got video of this I swear it would be on “When good animals go bad!”
And of course you gotta love the digg comments.
