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Tuesday ReadsPosted: December 28, 2010 Filed under: Global Financial Crisis, Gulf Oil Spill, investment banking, jobs, New Orleans, the blogosphere, The Bonus Class, The Great Recession, the villagers, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, We are so F'd, Wikileaks | Tags: AIG, Bradley Manning, cylical unemployment, Dispersant, Emeril, Gulf oil Gusher, Harry Shearer, Hoppin' John, Labor Unions, Levee failure during Hurricane Katrina, Levees.org, Nancy Pelosi, structural unemployment, The Big Uneasy, The New Orleans Saints, Those Crazy Pauls!!, Wikileaks, Wired won't release documents 29 Comments
Good Morning!
I had a productive day yesterday for a change and I hope you did too! Dare I go shop for plumbing stuff today? I was bemoaning a shortage of headlines on Sunday. I should be a bit more careful about wishing for things because today's list of reads will be long.
The other good news for me is that we're going from hard freeze warnings to weather in the 70s this weekend. It sounds like it's going to be a fun New Year's Eve here in New Orleans! That should explain the picture! I also wanted to give you a bit of New Orleans News before I moved on to other things.
First, if you haven't had a chance to read Sandy Rosenthal's piece at HuffPo on the failure of the Levees during Hurricane Katrina, please do so. There are still folks out there that think our devastation was from Hurricane Katrina and that just isn't so. I was on the edge of the bowl. I know. My house experienced very little actual damage because my house was on high ground and above the waters. A failure of engineering devastated my city. It was not an act of nature. I signed the petition. Will you?
Last week, I wrote to the New York Times asking them to please resist using fast and easy "Katrina shorthand." Forty-eight hours passed and we heard no response, so we decided to let our supporters step in. We urged our followers to sign our petition to the NY Times urging the paper to be more specific when referencing the flood disaster.
Over 1,000 people all across the nation signed our petition in under 48 hours. This immediate huge response – during the holiday no less – will hopefully show the New York Times that informed citizens understand that "Katrina" did not flood New Orleans. Civil engineering mistakes did.
Saying Katrina flooded the city protects the human beings responsible for the levee/floodwall failures. It is also dangerous since 55% of the American people lives in counties protected by levees.
If you haven't yet, please sign our petition. We will keep it live until Jan 4, 2011.
In a similar vein, I would like to shout out HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY!!! to fellow New Orleans Blogger, neighbor, actor, musician, and polymath Harry Shearer (12/23/49) who made his film debut in the great epic 'Abbott and Costello Go To Mars' in 1953. There's another New Orleans connection in that movie. The Abbot and Costello characters–Lester and Orville–accidentally launch a rocket that should've been Mars bound. They land in New Orleans for Mardi Gras instead. Harry plays an uncredited "Boy".
I also want to offer up a plug for Shearer's wonderful documentary on the Levee Failure called 'The Big Uneasy' that was released last August on our 5th Katrina Anniversary. It's going to be re-released in 2011. I'm including an interview with him by local radio show host Kat (not me). You'll learn that the Golden Globes are a simple piece of business and that Harry's songstress wife is spoonable. Who knew? Also there seems that there's a chance his documentary will be shown on PBS so you may get to see it there. I wonder if we can help encourage that situation.
I'd like to take another chance to remind you that we're still living with the results of the BP Oil Gusher here on the Gulf Coast. There also appears to be covered-up as well as forgotten stories down here. You may want to take a look at this from Open Channel on MSNBC.com: ' Is dispersant still being used in the Gulf?" This story reports on pictures and samples take in early August that are being investigated now. I'd written about some of these reports earlier.
Kaltofen is among the scientists retained by New Orleans attorney Stuart Smith to conduct independent environmental testing data from the Gulf on behalf of clients who are seeking damages from BP. (Click here to read about their effort.)
An independent marine chemist who reviewed the data said that their conclusion stands up.
"The analytical techniques are correct and well accepted," said Ted Van Vleet, a professor at the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida. "Based on their data, it does appear that dispersant is present."
Why responders would continue to use chemical dispersants after the government announced a halt is a mystery. If the oil was gone or already dispersed, as the federal government and BP have said, what would be the point? And, because dispersants don't work very well on oil that has been "weathered" by the elements over long periods of times, there would be little point in spraying it that situation.
I wanted to share a New Orleans and indeed a Southern New Year's eve tradition. We serve a concoction of black eyed peas, cabbage and sausage/ham called 'Hoppin' John' to bring us luck and wealth in the New Year. I evidently didn't make enough of it last year, so I'm planning to cook more this year. The pea's black eyes represent coins, the cabbage represents cash, and the sausage or ham is meat that always symbolizes luxury to hungry, poor people.
Here's Emeril's 'Hoppin' John' recipe provided courtesy the Food Network:
Hoppin' John
Prep Time: 15 min Cook Time:50 min Serves: 10
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large ham hock
1 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 pound black-eyed peas, soaked overnight and rinsed
1 quart chicken stock
Bay leaf
1 teaspoon dry thyme leaves
Salt, black pepper, and cayenne
3 tablespoons finely chopped green onion
3 cups steamed white rice
Heat oil in a large soup pot, add the ham hock and sear on all sides for 4 minutes. Add the onion, celery, green pepper, and garlic, cook for 4 minutes. Add the black-eyed peas, stock, bay leaves, thyme, and seasonings. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 40 minutes, or until the peas are creamy and tender, stir occasionally. If the liquid evaporates, add more water or stock. Adjust seasonings, and garnish with green onions. Serve over rice.
Okay, so enough about my home town.
The AFL-CIO wants to talk unions this holiday season because there is so much misinformation about these days. It's a nice list of myths and facts that you may want to arm yourself with when talking to those right wing nattering nabobs of negativism.
MYTH: Unions only care about their members.
FACT: Unions are fighting to improve the lives of all workers.
- It's easy to forget that we have unions to thank for a lot of things we take for granted today in today's workplaces: the minimum wage, the eight-hour work day, child labor laws, health and safety standards, and even the weekend.
- Today, unions across the country are on the frontlines advocating for basic workplace reforms like increases in the minimum wage, and pushing lawmakers to require paid sick leave.
- Studies show that a large union presence in an industry or region can raise wages even for non-union workers. That means more consumer spending, and a stronger economy for us all.
- So it's no wonder that most Americans (61 percent) believe that "labor unions are necessary to protect the working person," according to Pew's most recent values survey.
Here's a gift that keeps on giving er… taking from FT: "AIG secures $4.3bn in credit lines".
AIG, took a step closer to independence from government as it said it had secured $4.3bn in credit facilities.
The US insurer bailed out by Washington during the financial crisis is is in the process of repaying the $95bn the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York lent following its disastrous decision to insure billions of dollars worth of securities backed by mortgages.
Under the facilities arranged by 36 banks and administered by JPMorgan Chase, AIG can borrow $1.5bn over three years and an additional $1.5bn over 364 days, according to a regulatory filing. Separately, Chartis, an AIG division, obtained a $1.3bn credit line.
Let's just hope they clean up their act this time. I'm not holding my breath or any stock offers that may come up. Notice one of the usual suspects is 'facilitating' the arrangements. Cue 'The Godfather' music, please.
There's an item from Slate that you may want to check out. It's "A selection of gaffes from the 2010 campaign we should forgive". Here's one from Pelosi that gave me a chuckle.
Nancy Pelosi: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."
On March 9, the Speaker of the House spoke to the National Association of Counties about the health care bill that was days away from final passage. This was the phrase that launched a thousand campaign ads. Nine months later, this is remembered as Pelosi admitting what Tea Partiers had feared: that Democrats were ramming through bad bills without reading them.
BostonBoomer sent me to Glenn Greenwald's latest which really is a must read: ' The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired'. Greenwald's work on behalf of massacre leaker Bradley Manning is Nobel Peace Prize worthy. I don't mean aspirational prizes either.
For more than six months, Wired's Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen has possessed — but refuses to publish — the key evidence in one of the year's most significant political stories: the arrest of U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning for allegedly acting as WikiLeaks' source. In late May, Adrian Lamo — at the same time he was working with the FBI as a government informant against Manning — gave Poulsen what he purported to be the full chat logs between Manning and Lamo in which the Army Private allegedly confessed to having been the source for the various cables, documents and video that WikiLeaks released throughout this year. In interviews with me in June, both Poulsen and Lamo confirmed that Lamo placed no substantive restrictions on Poulsen with regard to the chat logs: Wired was and remains free to publish the logs in their entirety.
We're waiting for a response from Wired since vacation seem to preempt media responsibility these days. Will we find out that there's been some active media suppression of the truth regard Manning's accusations today? This morning, Greenwald continued his admonition to fellow journalists in the excellent article "The merger of journalists and government officials".
From the start of the WikiLeaks controversy, the most striking aspect for me has been that the ones who are leading the crusade against the transparency brought about by WikiLeaks — the ones most enraged about the leaks and the subversion of government secrecy — have been . . . America's intrepid Watchdog journalists. What illustrates how warped our political and media culture is as potently as that? It just never seems to dawn on them — even when you explain it — that the transparency and undermining of the secrecy regime against which they are angrily railing is supposed to be . . . what they do.
There's another economics story covered on The New Yorker's The Financial Page headlined: 'The Jobs Crisis' by James Surowiecki. It's a good explanation of a debate between economists and politicians right now. Guess which one knows best on this?
Why have new jobs been so hard to come by? One view blames cyclical economic factors: at times when everyone is cautious about spending, companies are slow to expand capacity and take on more workers. But another, more skeptical account has emerged, which argues that a big part of the problem is a mismatch between the jobs that are available and the skills that people have. According to this view, many of the jobs that existed before the recession (in home building, for example) are gone for good, and the people who held those jobs don't have the skills needed to work in other fields. A big chunk of current unemployment, the argument goes, is therefore structural, not cyclical: resurgent demand won't make it go away.
Though this may sound like an academic argument, its consequences are all too real. If the problem is a lack of demand, policies that boost demand—fiscal stimulus, aggressive monetary policy—will help. But if unemployment is mainly structural there's little we can do about it: we just need to wait for the market to sort things out, which is going to take a while.
The structural argument sounds plausible: it fits our sense that there's a price to be paid for the excesses of the past decade; that the U.S. economy was profoundly out of whack before the recession hit; and that we need major changes in the kind of work people do. But there's surprisingly little evidence for it. If the problems with the job market really were structural, you'd expect job losses to be heavily concentrated in a few industries, the ones that are disappearing as a result of the bursting of the bubble. And if there were industries that were having trouble finding enough qualified workers, you'd expect them to have lots of job vacancies, and to be paying their existing workers more and working them longer hours.
Here's a fun read at New York Magazine about living large in a libertarian world.
No one exemplifies that streak more than Ron Paul—unless you count his son Rand. When Rand Paul strolled onstage in May 2010, the newly declared Republican nominee for Kentucky's U.S. Senate seat, he entered to the strains of Rush, the boomer rock band famous for its allegiance to libertarianism and Ayn Rand. It was a dog whistle—a wink to free-marketers and classic-rock fans savvy enough to get the reference, but likely to sail over the heads of most Republicans. Paul's campaign was full of such goodies. He name-dropped Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek's seminal The Road to Serfdom. He cut a YouTube video denying that he was named after Ayn Rand but professing to have read all of her novels. He spoke in the stark black-and-white terms of libertarian purism. "Do we believe in the individual, or do we believe in the state?" he asked the crowd in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on Election Night.
It's clear why he played coy. For all the talk about casting off government shackles, libertarianism is still considered the crazy uncle of American politics: loud and cocky and occasionally profound but always a bit unhinged. And Rand Paul's dad is the craziest uncle of all. Ron Paul wants to "end the Fed," as the title of his book proclaims, and return the country to the gold standard—stances that have made him a tea-party icon. Now, as incoming chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the Fed, he'll have an even bigger platform. Paul Sr. says there's not much daylight between him and his son. "I can't think of anything we grossly disagree on," he says.
Well, they must have both been impacted by the same disease or environmental catastrophe to share so many views so out of the mainstream and be so far removed from experience, data, and science. I can't help but believe the more the media shines a bright light on them, the more the warts and the brain damage will become noticeable.
So, one more suggested read comes via Lambert and Corrente. It's really interesting piece from The Atlantic on 'The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks'. It talks about Hackers, Assange, and the Hacker code of conduct. Any one who as read Assange's manifest can see the connect and disconnect that simultaneously occur in the ideas. BB and had discussed that Assange might have a form of Aspergers disease about a month ago and I was also interested to see that Lambert, Valhalla, and some others had similar thoughts. It frequently runs in brilliant people who can decode a lot of things with the exception of other people. Anyway, here's a taste of Jaron Lanier.
The strategy of Wikileaks, as explained in an essay by Julian Assange, is to make the world transparent, so that closed organizations are disabled, and open ones aren't hurt. But he's wrong. Actually, a free flow of digital information enables two diametrically opposed patterns: low-commitment anarchy on the one hand and absolute secrecy married to total ambition on the other.
While many individuals in Wikileaks would probably protest that they don't personally advocate radical ideas about transparency for everybody but hackers, architecture can force all our hands. This is exactly what happens in current online culture. Either everything is utterly out in the open, like a music file copied a thousand times or a light weight hagiography on Facebook, or it is perfectly protected, like the commercially valuable dossiers on each of us held by Facebook or the files saved for blackmail by Wikileaks.
The Wikileaks method punishes a nation — or any human undertaking — that falls short of absolute, total transparency, which is all human undertakings, but perversely rewards an absolute lack of transparency. Thus an iron-shut government doesn't have leaks to the site, but a mostly-open government does.
I'm still fascinated by the sideshow that is driving ad hominem attacks on Assange and the women involved with the charges. Still, that does not cloud my appreciation of what's being released by Wikileaks. We'll definitely have more coming. I'm personally waiting for the BOA stuff as that's the stuff that I can personally decode. I'm glad we're extending the Front Page Team to include more and more people that can tackle some of the other technical stuff from their vantage points. Stay tuned for more on all of this.
Just ONE MORE NAWLINS THANG: New Orleans Saints 17 – Atlanta Falcons 14. My home town continues to be the Great American Comeback Story.
So, what's on your reading and blogging list today?
Saturday Night Turkey "Surprise" TreatsPosted: November 27, 2010 Filed under: Food, open thread | Tags: Cajun Thanksgiving leftovers, Emeril, Gumbo, Jambalaya, sweet potato 63 Comments
Still got leftover bird?
Try some of these Cajun recipes then bring them on because we know you have them!!!
Turkey Jambalaya from Epicurious
Here's some of my things to do with leftover sweet potatoes, if you got 'em!
Sweet Potato Biscuits
1 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter (soft)
1/3 cup milk
Sift the flour salt and baking powder in one bowl. Mix the sugar and sweet potatoes in a second bowl. Add the butter and beat the mixture until it's smooth. Add the dry ingredients to the sweet potato mixture and add the milk. Blend well.
Roll out the dough on a floured board. Cut with a biscuit cutter. Place in a buttered baking pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I serve this with some whipped honey butter.
Du Pain Patate (Sweet Potato Bread)
2 cups grated raw sweet potatoes
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter melted
1 tsp cloves.
1 tsp salt.
2 unbeaten eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cane sugar syrup (yes, CANE SUGAR syrup … it's a Cajun thing and we make it down here)
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp. orange zest.
Put the grated raw potatoes in a bowl. Ad one egg at a time and beat it real well until it's mixed and kind of fluffy. Add the orange rind. Mix it some more. Add the sugar and beat it. Add the syrup and the melted butter. Mix. Then Mix the spices, salt and flour together then add that to the rest of the mixture. And, right, mix it again.
Okay, this is the fun part. You're going to transfer that to a well-greased iron skillet. Bake it at 300 to 325 for an hour. You can tell it's done when the bread pulls away from the sides. Cool it about 10 minutes before you get it out of the skillet. This is going to make a really sticky type potato bread and if you put fresh cream on top, you'll think you just about tasted the best thing ever. Remove it in wedges with a spatula while it's still hot.
This one is a really old recipe from a friend's family and I had to beg for it … enjoy!!!
* (It's a thanksgiving turkey that's been through a TSA scan, that's all!!!)


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|Project RevRadio
|In progress
|Last Update
This project consists of several small sub-projects related to radio reception at RevSpace. Reception is based (so far) on DVB-T dongles using an RTL2832 chip to do SDR (software-defined-radio).
HF (0 - 30 MHz)
To receive signals from the relatively low frequency "HF" band, we have a ham-it-up board. The ham-it-up converts signals from 0-30 MHz up to 125-155 MHz, this makes is possible to use an RTL2832-based dongle to receive them.
Things that can be received with this setup:
- morse and rtty beacons;
- amateur radio voice;
- amateur radio SSTV (slow-scan TV);
- number stations such as the buzzer;
- commercial AM broadcasts
- etc.
Generic VHF/UHF (30 - 1700 MHz)
For generic radio reception in the VHF/UHF bands, we have a setup consisting of a discone antenna (ICOM AH-7000) on the roof of RevSpace and an RTL2832 dongle (R820T tuner). A simple filter (1/4 wave open stub) has been built to suppress very strong pager signals.
Things that can be received with this setup:
- Citizens Band radio, 27 MHz
- 10 meter amateur band, 28-29.7 MHz
- 4 meter amateur band, 70-70.5 MHz
- broadcast FM stereo, 88-108 MHz;
- air traffic (voice);
- P2000 paging traffic at 169.650 MHz;
- weather images from the NOAA-15/18/19 weather satellites, at around 137 MHz;
- APRS traffic;
- weather info from weather balloons, at 400-410 MHz;
- ads-b/mode-s airplane transponders, at 1090 MHz
- etc.
HAB tracker (434-435 MHz)
For tracking high-altitude balloons, we have a setup consisting of a Diamond X-50N antenna on the roof of RevSpace, a so-called hab-amp (bandpass filter and 430-440 MHz LNA) and an RTL2832 dongle (FC0013 tuner). For more information, see the dedicated page at HAB_Tracker_Station
Things that can be received with this setup:
- high-altitude balloons, see spacenear tracker
Currently one PC is dedicated to radio reception, called "habtracker". To start the PC:
- Windows XP, hostname "habtracker", IP 10.42.44.94 (MAC 00:21:70:02:62:0f)
- Start the machine with a magic WoL packet: 'wakeonlan -i 10.42.255.255 00:21:70:02:62:0f; ping habtracker'
Remote control
The PC can be remotely controlled as follows:
- Teamviewer, ID: 675540724
- VNC: geheim ;-)
Stuff we are still planning to do:
- wait for proper cables for the ham-it-up
- think about an antenna for HF

subset: commoncrawl


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Info Spaceshuttle Radio >
Test the 15 years celebration-transmitter today tuesday 11th of July.
Power limited 5 watts - 31 mtrs freqs 9270 and/or 9290 kHz. - so we
are even more interested of our propagation and quality.
We plan to start around 18 h UTC /20 Central European Daylight saving
time and will have few short transmissions until morning hours of Wednesday.
Our px includes nice Summer selection of mx .
e-mail >>> firstname.lastname@example.com
CoolAM Radio - ShortWave
the Netherlands


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MNsure Debuts 3 New 'Paul and Babe' TV Ads
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Paul and Babe are back in new TV ads from Minnesota's health insurance exchange.
MNsure, the state portal for delivering federal health insurance changes, has been employing mythical Minnesota icons Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in a series of spots that playfully describe the state as the "Land of 10,000 Reasons to Get Health Insurance."
In one new ad, which starts airing statewide next week, the plaid-shirted Paul finds himself partially submerged in a freezing lake after an ice fishing mishap.
Two other Paul and Babe ads that previously only aired online have also started airing on statewide television. Those two ads feature Paul in a pair of disastrous doctor visits.
Potential MNsure customers have until Dec. 15 to enroll if they want coverage starting Jan. 1.


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0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
We need a laser range finder to get accurate measurements. Does anyone have one available? Thanks for getting us updated. I plan to do a little work on the course over the next few days. Saturday, I hope to be there by ten for a little work and hopefully, you and I can get a few things done Tuesday at ten.
For example, measure to point A, note it, go to point A, measure to point B, note it, go to point B, measure to basket and sum up the distances.


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your bag
Your bag is empty.
Sorry, this product has sold out!
If you would like ARCHFASHION to try to and find it for you complete the form below.
Superdry ''orange label hood eclipse navy'' colour : eclipse navy superdry men's hoodie from the orange label range. The classic superdry hoodie, featuring an embroidered superdry chest logo, drawstring hood, front pouch pocket and a superdry sleeve logo tab.


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This story has been updated. See details below.
A bill introduced by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake) to invest in a citrus-saving research initiative is headed to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
AB 571, which would appropriate $5 million for research and prevention of Huanglongbing, a citrus-destroying disease, passed the Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday with a 3-0 vote.
If approved by the Appropriations Committee, the bill will go to the Senate floor for a final vote.
Huanglongbing, which is spread by the Asian Citrus Psyllid — a small winged insect — infects citrus trees and destroys them, and there is no known cure.
According to Gatto's office, the disease has almost destroyed China's citrus industry, and has caused the loss of more than 6,600 jobs and billions of dollars in Florida's citrus industry.
"Agriculture forms a large part of California's economy," Gatto said in a statement. "It is appropriate, likely even a duty, for the Legislature to take steps to prevent [Huanglongbing] from spreading."
In recent years, the disease has been found in Southern California, but not yet crossed into the Central Valley — which produces 82% of the nation's fresh fruit and employs more than 14,000 people.
"California cannot afford to lose another of its 'signature' industries," Gatto said. "AB 571 is a proactive measure that will save money and jobs for one of our most iconic and important industries — California citrus."
[Update, June 20, 2013: At the time this story was originally posted, the bill was slated to go to the Senate floor. However, according to Gatto's office, it has since been referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee for consideration. A date for the Appropriations hearing has not been set.]
-- Daniel Siegal, firstname.lastname@example.com
Follow Daniel Siegal on Google+ and on Twitter: @Daniel_Siegal.


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In a People Magazine interview, Michelle Obama shared that President Barack Obama still takes the time to tuck her in at night.
"We have a ritual where he tucks me in, because I'm usually in bed before anybody," Michelle said. "He'll come and turn the lights out and give me a kiss, and we'll talk. He's like, Ready to be tucked? I'm like, 'yes I am.'"
The First Couple also make it a point to share dinner together as a family despite their hectic schedules.
"The first half hour, we're talking to the girls, then we shoo them off to go walk Bo and catch a little check-in without the kids," she said.
Michelle also gives insight to many more moments from their personal lives such as the President's knack for singing.
"He loves it in the shower in the morning, sings to the kids," she said. "But it's not a song. He'll sing one line of something romantic or cute. Oh yes."
The article will hit newsstands on Friday.
One thought on "Michelle Obama: Barack Still Tucks Me in at Night"
WOW…I just love my first Lady and President. They are trully an inspiration to all people of color. I pray and hope that I will meet my BARACK some day. Lord knows I'm tired of the clydes, and Lems, lol.


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Said Bills assistant G.M. Doug Whaley of this year's draftable quarterbacks, "Is there an RG III or a Luck out there? From this point you can't see it. Could these guys develop into that? Yes. So if their strengths are strengths that you put a high value on then you'll like him better than another guy."
A review of the Dolphins' 2012 draft class.
We're closer to finding out whether the Patriots will use the franchise tag.
CFL RB Chad Kackert said that the Jets were interested in him before he re-signed with the Toronto Argonauts.
QB Joe Flacco's contract will determine much of the other things the Ravens do this offseason.
A look at the Bengals roster before the start of free agency.
Former NFL LB Pierre Woods was the oldest player trying out at a regional combine at the Browns facility.
Said Steelers T Mike Adams of his season-ending ankle injury, "You just have to keep your mind right and keep pushing to get that thing right. There isn't much you can do about it but try and get back. It makes you stronger."
Are the Texans looking for an outside receiver in the draft?
Colts C Mike McGlynn was honored for helping a family during the holidays.
Is Georgia LB Jarvis Jones a possibility for the Jaguars?
The Titans hope their new position coaches mesh with the high draft picks studding the roster.
A look at free agent cornerbacks who could help the Broncos.
The Chiefs website takes a look at TE Delanie Walker as part of their series on impending free agents.
Raiders offensive coordinator Greg Olson is the latest to try to solve the puzzle of the Raiders offense.
The Chargers website provides a quick summary of what goes on at the combine.
The 2006 Cowboys draft class is one of the worst of the Jerry Jones era.
Here's a positive review of Giants coach Tom Coughlin's new book.
Justin Peelle has fulfilled one of his goals by becoming an assistant with the Eagles.
A Redskins-centric look at tight ends from the combine.
The Bears are moving closer to the deadline to make a decision on franchising DT Henry Melton.
Lions QB Matthew Stafford has started following impending free agent RB Reggie Bush on Twitter.
John Clayton of ESPN takes a look at where Charles Woodson might wind up after his release from the Packers.
Are the Vikings satisfied with Charlie Johnson at left guard?
The Falcons did well against quarterbacks with Pro Bowl pedigrees in 2012.
Panthers coach Ron Rivera gave the keynote address at the NFL-NCAA Coaches Academy.
Projecting the possible roster cuts coming to the Saints.
Former Buccaneers CB John Holt died at the age of 53 last week.
Cardinals coach Bruce Arians doesn't see any specific challenges about working with a first-time general manager.
The Rams would be awfully thin at wide receiver if Danny Amendola leaves the team.
Longtime 49ers front office fixture and one-time part owner Lou Spadia died at 92.
Is there a place for Charles Woodson in the Seahawks secondary?


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Delete Your Own Video Comments
41 comments :
AWSOME UPDATE!!!!!! 10/10ReplyDelete
Its wicked that you guys have done this !No need for worrying!ReplyDelete
Very good update to the site 5*'sReplyDelete
I have a criticism\suggestion: removing your own comments means that debates can become worthless. I mean sensible debates, which do occasionally happen amidst the fagging and the trolling and the poorly spelled diatribes. If someone can effectively go back in time and remove something they've said, all foundations for discussion will erode.ReplyDelete
Any chance of specifying which author removed their comment so they can be called on it?
I'm aware this sounds petty, but I guarantee the removal feature will get this kind of abuse.
Anyway. Thanks.
Thats a great update. I like that idea because of the fact that if somebody gets on to your channel, you can just delete the comments on the videos that you made. I've been wishing for that to happen. Yours faithfully: Jamie Marriner of CrippleManiaReplyDelete
nice added feature. thanks.ReplyDelete
Finally! YouTube has found the postive side on adding a new feature. Removing our comments. Great update!! When ever you make a spelling mistake, you can just remove your own comment and edit your comment. About damn time! Thanks YouTube!! Also, keep this good updates up and I will give respect to you.ReplyDelete
At last, you've done something right!ReplyDelete
We've all been there. Whether you've been a prick, or just completely wrong - now you can rest assured you will no longer have to claim responsibility for your actions.ReplyDelete
I concur with Th1sWasATriumph, actually it was the first thought that came into my head. But it is a useful feature.ReplyDelete
I am a fan of 'The Young Turks' and it is no longer on 'YouTube', WHY? what happened to it - if it wasn't for 'TYT' I probaly would not tune in daily for the updates.ReplyDelete
If it's not going to be restored then I definately know I won't be coming here - on the daily.
why did you add this feature? Please remove it!ReplyDelete
It shows what kind of a person you are. Why should someone be so abusive in someone's video without reading the description in the first place?
Yes, it would be good to change what you've done in the past, but live with it! If I can remove the comments I've done in the past, why can't I change the bad things I've done in my life O_o.
I mean, people will just abuse this feature, if people know they can't change their comments, in future they'll learn to be more respectful without saying bad stuff first.
By the way...what is this new Annotation thing?
"What is this new devilry?" Lord of the Rings:P
This,update is outstanding.Many thank's youtube... :DReplyDelete
I think it's funny that people are misspelling pwned.ReplyDelete
Good idea.
I'm new here now but thank you for the update and if you wouldn't mind watch my video which is called RAD episode 1 The New Ride, i've made it for a college project, it's funny and want the whole world to know about it.ReplyDelete
Thanks {;o)
my other account got disabled/suspended for no reason how can i contact youtube.ReplyDelete
why has this happened.
can you please help me.
i'm just testing this featureReplyDelete
just testing..ReplyDelete
I guess there will be a mass surge in people deleting their comments which have been given negative feedback - and It will make discussions harder to follow - please no one reply too this post, because I may delete it in a few days lolReplyDelete
Ohh, I guess it doesn't work on the blog then .. lolReplyDelete
I'm just testing to see if I can delete my own comments from this blog.ReplyDelete
Just a query- If someone deletes their comment, but the video poster/replyee still has comment email-notifications enabled, will they still get the email about what the comment said? Especially with the speedy connection between YouTube and Gmail, there's really no time to modify these messages accordingly, so in a way the comment or reply will still be recieved. What then?ReplyDelete
Great stuff! thanks for this!ReplyDelete
i put paper roses kaye sisters on face book and you have took it of youtube..i did'nt know i was doing anything wrong sorry triptrots.ReplyDelete
check out my video about itReplyDelete
Nice feature, but I am wondering why I can no longer view comments with high negative ratings. I can no longer find out what someone said to get someone else angry. lolReplyDelete
To AndyTheEnglishman: Just select "all comments" in the comment viewing bar.ReplyDelete
Yes, this will be interesting - to see how it plays out - I tend to agree that we should consider the gravity of what we say before we post, knowing it is permanently displayed. But then, when I want comment-forgiveness for myself, I'll sure be glad it's there!ReplyDelete
what about the comments on people's profiles?ReplyDelete
@YouTube Team. It would be nice to have other friends help manage comments. When you get over 100 or even 1,000 comments its a big time consumer to manage all that without some help from others. Could you add a feature to authorize some friends to edit/delete those comments?ReplyDelete
Great that YouTube is moving with the times - it drives me crazy if I 've made a comment and it's mispeled! LOL. Kerrianne. http://www.Vision-to-Reality.comReplyDelete
- Anonymous21 August 2010 at 05:02
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.ReplyDelete
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- Anonymous4 October 2010 at 07:22
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I left for work at CFI Los Angeles Sunday morning while thousands of Catholics prepared to gather for Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrations at the L.A. Coliseum just down Vermont Ave.Our branch hosted author David Layton who talked about the humanistic and scientific aspects of the long-running British TV series Dr. Who. David made a good case that the show does an excellent job of combining humanism, science, reason, and enlightenment values – all while entertaining its audience. The internationally popular Dr. Who is (despite a gap in its broadcast history) the longest running sci-fi TV show in history.
So my day began with the confluence of science, entertainment, and humanism. Not bad for a Sunday morning in Hollywood.
After lunch, a delightful family from (among other places) Orange County, Japan, and England gathered in the Steve Allen Theater for a baby-naming ceremony. Far from a christening, this is a way for secular people to gather, welcome, and express their joy about the birth of a new member of their family. I was honored to preside over a celebration so filled with warmth, humor and love.
Later that evening, my wife and I hiked from our house up to the Griffith Observatory (with family and members of The Heathens) to watch the touchdown of the latest Mars rover, Curiosity. The good people at the Observatory showed the progress of the Curiosity in the Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock, on Star Trek, of course) Event Horizon Theater, and also in the Gunther Depths of Space exhibit. There were probably a thousand people there gathered to watch the U.S. space program lower a car-sized extra-terrestrial laboratory into a very specific crater on a planet millions of miles away. Whoa.
For the third time that day, I was among people who had a deep appreciation for science, reason, and humanity in a way that did not invoke anything supernatural to gain that appreciation. We humans made that art, that child, and that spaceship. People took the risks associated with those creations and accepted those consequences.
All three times the risks paid off.
It was a great day to be a humanist in L.A.


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Breaking Bad 4.2 – "Go Home, Walter."
Tonight's episode begins with a lesson for all casting directors: if you're on the lookout for a grizzled-looking good ol' boy who's filled to the gills with folksy wisdom, you need look no further than Jim Beaver. You've seen him on "Deadwood" and "John from Cincinnati," you've seen him on "Supernatural" and "Harper's Island." Accept no substitutes: Jim Beaver's got what you need, and he delivers every time…and, yes, that includes tonight, when he played Lawson, an :::cough, cough::: independent businessman helping Walt to procure a handgun.
It's pretty clear that most of what Walt knows about guns came from watching TV westerns, because every time he draws his weapon, he looks desperately like he's trying to be the fastest gun in the west. Lawson offers up a lot of helpful advice, including a beautifully delivered line explaining why Walt should stick with a .38 special over an automatic: "If you can't get it done with five, then you're into spray-and-pray, in which case I wouldn't count on another six sealing the deal." Lawson tries to be the gun dealer with the heart of gold, recognizing Walt's handicap as a marksman ("You're gonna want to practice your draw…a lot") even pointing out the merits of buying legally over illegally, but when Walt refuses to concede that the gun will be used for anything other than defense, he has little choice but to shrug and say, "I'm happy to take your money." The next time we see Walt, it's clear that he's taken Lawson's advice about practicing his draw to heart…as well he should've. You know, I think you have to wonder just how much of Lawson was on the pages of George Mastras's script and how much was turned into gold simply by Beaver's pitch-perfect delivery, but either way, Lawson = awesome.
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Posted in: Entertainment, Television
Tags: Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Badger, Betsy Brandt, Bob Odenkirk, Breaking Bad blog, Breaking Bad fourth season, Breaking Bad Season 4, Bryan Cranston, Dean Norris, Giancarlo Esposito, Gus Fring, Hank Schrader, Jesse Pinkman, Jonathan Banks, Marie Schrader, RJ Mitte, Saul Goodman, Skinny Pete, Skyler White, Walter White


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Course Types
WVU Parkersburg offers college-credit courses through several instructional methods, including online, hybrid and blended learning. These courses are equivalent to on-campus sections of the same course in terms of objectives, competencies, content, credit and transferability:
|Course Type
|Hybrid courses may include electronic delivery for up to 80% of the course content. Instructors may require students to attend onsite or synchronous class sessions and/or take onsite examinations. Typically no more than five class meetings may be required during a semester.
|Uses remote electronic delivery for 100% of the course content. No onsite or synchronous class sessions may be required during a semester, however proctored exams arranged locally, library research, or other activities may be required.


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Re: Favorite Scenes
Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 9:42 am
i think you may've misunderstood me Jazz Girl. I also hated the fact that Victoria was there, i was (in a terrible way) trying to describe the section of the prom scene that i loved. When they're in the gazebo dancing, and she's asking to be changed and he leads her on making her think he's about to do the deed, but kisses her neck instead is the moment i'm talking about. It's the little girl inside me wishing to have someone that in love with me, staring into my eyes while i stare into his knowing that i've found the love of my life. Well not so much of a little girl dream but still a lovely idea and wishful thinking lol. The music, the setting the environment all adds to one of those moments i still dream of happening to me.
[ Post made via Mobile Device ]
[ Post made via Mobile Device ]


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Coded colour rings for identifying individuals at a distance
The three young peregrines at St John's Church, Bath, were ringed on Saturday 14th May by BTO licensed ringers Ed Drewitt and Denise Wawman.
In addition to the metal BTO ring secured to the left leg the chicks were fitted with a blue plastic identification ring on the right leg. The blue rings are marked, CT, CX (males) and CV (female) and are designed to be read through a telescope when the bird is perched.
The adult male also has a blue leg ring, marked AA. He was ringed previously after hatching at St John's and returned to mate with his mother in 2010.
After the ringing was complete Ed had a good look around the base of the church tower and found the remains of a bar-tailed godwit – a wader not normally to be found in the Bath area. The peregrines had taken the bird while it was on migration.


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Commissioned custom on a 3" Dunny for a private toy collector.
Enjoy yall while Jango PhuEk! rocket-off...
Thursday, December 29, 2005
PhuEk! x Dunny = Jango PhuEk!
Friday, December 16, 2005
Custom Circus Punks Show and Auction
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
PhuEk! in Vinylpulse
Friday, December 09, 2005
Playtimes Issue 11
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Coca-Cola Custom
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Next-in-line project for Moda3
The name Phu in short is a self-created lingo. Entirely imaginative and not based upon adherence to actuality.
3D art is his pursuit, especially in vinyl customizing. Phu's Phuturistic concept is a manifestation through his artistic form of thought and personalized treatment in which he exercises the habit of recycling.
And it's with this Phuturistic niche, Phu's customed vinyls have been commissioned and showcased in various international exhibitions and shows worldwide.
: : Deconstruct / Recreate : :
© Phu. All Rights Reserved
: : Deconstruct / Recreate : :
© Phu. All Rights Reserved


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I've now taken 36 dares for "I'll Take That Dare," and this week's dare goes down as the roughest, toughest one yet.
Being a roller derby queen is MUCH harder than it looks.
Click through to see the video, then tell me in the comments whether you'd try out for a roller derby team!
All I can tell you is that when I got home that day, I literally felt like I had been beaten up -- and that was pretty much the truth.
These girls were ROUGH!
Despite the difficulties, roller derby was really fun, and it would be tempting to start training with the team. Real tryouts require months (not hours!) of training beforehand. There's only one problem.
I haven't got time for the pain.
As fun as roller derby can be, there were a lot of injuries among this group. The thought of breaking a bone or spraining my back is going to keep me off the concrete. It's not that I'm afraid of the pain -- I'm afraid of not being able to take care of my kids!
If I were still single and in my 20s, though, I'd TOTALLY want to be a roller derby queen in my spare time!
How about you?


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1 Participant
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2 Participants
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3-4 Participants
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5 or more Participants
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Page Views : 109
Team Kanban Practitioner - Getting Started with Visualization and Limiting Work-in-progressis a highly interactive one-day entry-level course accredited by the Lean-Kanban University (LKU) and start implementing Kanban at Team Level. Participants will gain sufficient knowledge about the Kanban Method and related topics to get started with introducing Kanban on the existing process and taking that first steps to making it successful.
What will you learn?
Participants will learn about:
What will you receive?
o Visual Board
o Local Cycle Time Metrics
o WIP
o Delivery Rate & Little's Law
o Personal Kanban
o Team Kanban


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It's always rewarding to begin moviegoing at a sizable event like the Toronto International Film Festival by moving well off the beaten path. Your sense of adventure is still intact, your expectations have yet to be raised or lowered, and your overall energy level doesn't need any assistance. That's why a film like Golam Rabbany Biplob's Beyond the Circle benefits from early scheduling; this Bangladeshi work—the only in the fest this year and likely the only many Westerners will get to see in any context this year—is hardly difficult, but it does offer a simplistically constructed and reasoned melodrama that might turn off viewers no longer accustomed to such broad strokes painted in such ideological black and white. Judging by mass press-screening walk-outs, the cultural disconnect is perhaps too large for this film to get an appreciative audience halfway across the world. Yet its nonviability as a product in the West is what makes it the sort of festival-going experience that should be valued: it may not be particularly good, but the film will give its viewers a brief glimpse of a national cinema that for most has been simply a mystery.
Bangladesh does indeed have a film industry, approximately churning out a relatively modest (by the standards of its movie-behemoth neighbor, India) eighty films a year. Yet Biplob's example still appears as though the result of homegrown artistry. A rigidly moralistic portrait of big-city corruption on a sweet-souled country innocent, Beyond the Circle has what might be called a "straightforward aesthetic," or if we're feeling less charitable, a primitive approach to filmmaking, from its dully artless camera setups to its thuddlingly literal musical cues to its sound synchronization mistakes and overly emphatic ADR work; often the film looks and sounds as if it were some sort of corporate training video. Yet Circle is not without its charms in its telling of the Capra-esque tale of a simple village flautist, Haripada, who is pressured by the assistant of a wealthy "big shot" in the distant capital of Dhaka to come to the city to, it seems at first, only entertain his boss with some tunes and perhaps become an inspirational music star, representing traditional values.
Much disillusioning ensues, some of it deriving from the discovery of the racism of the big bad city, often directed toward Haripada's son, who has accompanied him: a Muslim adopted by a Hindu. The film hits every expected beat, from fish-out-of-water restaurant hijinks to the basic revelation that moving up equals selling out. There's even a late-film nightmare sequence in which a terrified Haripada is attacked by intensely gelled visions of evil city billboards and cartoon lightning that might have seemed old-fashioned to Western audiences even in 1927. Yet there's still something immensely appealing and, when the camera is trained on the gorgeous lily pads and vast skies of Bangladesh's muddy countryside, visually lyrical about this unpretentious city-vs.-country tale. And for most moviegoers, it can only be seen in Toronto. —Michael Koresky
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It is often said that politicians require a steady stream of crises from which they can purport to save us. In that dynamic, environmentalists have come to play an important role. Rachel Carson and Paul Ehrlich were among the pioneers, and the model they established hasn't changed much. Environmentalists issue hysterical warnings about disasters that threaten to overtake us, and the remedy is always the same: we must turn over more money, more power, and more of our freedom to the government. Some of the environmentalist doom-mongers are misguided but sincere, while others are outright frauds.
You likely will be hearing soon about a new prophet of calamity, a Brit named Stephen Emmott, the author of a book titled 10 Billion. 10 Billion is a short paperback, published by Vintage in the U.S. and Penguin in the U.K., that tells its story of disaster largely through a series of charts that were created by the author, ostensibly based on the work of actual scientists.
As science, 10 Billion is a bad joke. The folks at Watts Up With That? have been having fun with Emmott, and particularly with the charts that undergird his predictions of doom. Geoff Chambers dissected Emmott's work in "The Thirteen Worst Graphs in the World:"
Wherever we could check Emmott's claims, they turned out to be false or exaggerated. His claim that a Google search uses as much electricity as boiling a kettle was the subject of a retraction at New Scientist, following a complaint from Google that the claim was out by a factor of a hundred. His claim in a talk that species lost is running at more than a thousand times the natural rate was based on a 20-year-old source which estimated loss at "a hundred to a thousand times the natural rate". Emmott simply took the upper estimate and added "more than". It's true that there is an official UN estimate of a population of ten billion by the year 2100 (in a 2010 online update to the last official report in 2004) but Emmott fails to mention that the report has population flatlining by this time, and declining thereafter. …
The publicity handout is a collection of thirteen graphs, which I've analysed very briefly at
They are, quite simply, terrible. They'd be a disgrace in an essay by a first year university student. In at least two cases, the timescale on the x axis changes half way along with no indication. They appear to have been drawn by hand by someone who can't use a ruler. Decadal changes appear to happen roughly every 12-15 years. Scales are deliberately chosen to create hockeysticks. Future population growth is represented as a vertical line, instead of the S-shaped curve which every serious demographic study supports.
Another poster at WUWT, Willis Eschenbach, analyzed the Emmott chart relating to species extinction. This is Emmott's graph:
Of course, the first thing you notice is that massive extinction is a prediction; it takes place, on this chart, entirely in the future. But that only scratches the surface of the graph's lunacy. Eschenbach, who has written on the subject of species extinction, begins by noting the obvious deficiencies on the face of the graph:
I'm sure the alert reader can see a few problems with Figure 1 at first glance, including chartsmanship of the highest order. The things that caught my eye were the use of the logarithmic vertical scale; the lack of units on the vertical scale; the short level section followed by the abrupt jump around 53,000 years BC; the huge increase at the end; and oh, yeah, see the little hash marks " // " along the bottom time scale to the right of -50,0000?
… Usually, that just means they've left out a chunk of years, it's a common and legitimate technique used to show two separate time periods on the same graph. But they usually don't splice the graph lines for the two periods together as he has done.
In addition, in this case the hash marks don't mean just that. In this case, it also signifies a change in the time scale itself. So on the left side of the hash marks, the graph shows a span of about ten thousand years. On the right side of the hash marks, on the other hand, it shows a span of only about two hundred and fifteen years (1835-2050). Bizarre. The consequences of this are displayed and discussed later.
Next, regarding units, the extinction rates are usually given in units of extinctions per million species per year, or E/MSY. This makes comparisons awkward because we don't know how many species there are. We can reduce the inexactness somewhat by noting that the Red List shows 207 extinctions of birds and mammals over the last 500 years. And in total, they list 15,565 species of birds and mammals. That gives us a raw rate of about 25 extinctions per million species per year (E/MSY). And that's roughly the number that they give for the recent part of the data. So it seems that they are using the standard units, E/MSY.
The key point regarding the modern history of species extinction is that humans have, indeed, been responsible for an elevated level of extinction in modern times, because we have introduced alien predators to previously insulated regions:
In the case of extinctions, once again humans are indeed the cause … but again, not through the mechanism they claim, that of habitat reduction. Instead, humans have caused widespread extinctions through the introduction of "alien predators" into new areas which had never before seen them. These alien predators were and are a wide variety of species, humans among them. The list includes dogs, cats, rats, rabbits, foxes, mongoose, gray squirrels, brown tree snakes, and a host of other species including funguses and diseases. Heck, in a wonderfully strange case of environmental recursion, it turns out that for a while the lovely Central American frogs were being helped to extinction by the fungus unknowingly spread by the very biologists studying their extinction … introduced predators.
But there's an oddity in that kind of extinctions, those caused by introduced alien predators. It is reported, perhaps apocryphally, that when Alexander the Great saw the extent of his domain he wept because there were no new worlds left to conquer. And the same is true regarding extinctions from introduced predators. Most of those extinctions occurred in several waves. First there were early extinctions in the Caribbean in the 1500s. Then extinctions rose again during the first wave of expansion and exploration in the 1700s, and then again during the age of empires after 1850. Since peaking at the start of the 20th century, they've generally declined. Here's the data from my earlier post.
Note the peak rate of 1.6 bird and mammal extinctions per year, and the most recent rate of 0.2 extinctions per year. [I]n 2013, as with Alexander, there are few new worlds left for alien predators to conquer—there's not much of the planet that hasn't already seen invasive alien predators of many kinds. …
Now, if we leave out the extinctions by introduced predators, then out of the 207 bird and mammal extinctions there are only 9 extinctions in 500 years, three mammals and six birds. This means that other than extinctions from introduced predators the extinction rate is only 1.2 extinctions per MSY … very low.
This is what Emmott's chart actually looks like if the data he uses (including his predictions for the future) are presented in a normal fashion:
Hilarious! This is Science For Suckers Only. Eschenbach next takes a look at the two halves of Emmott's graph, individually. This is what Emmott represents for Ice Age extinctions:
The notable feature is a sudden spike, which never comes back down, so it is hard to see how it can be attributed to any natural event. Apparently Emmott just made it up:
Now that, I have to call hokey. It has a huge jump between 53000 and 52000 years BCE, and while I imagine that it is supposed to reflect the so-called "Late Quaternary Extinctions" of the megafauna, I've never seen it represented like that. Nor do I have any idea why it would jump up and not come back down again … and I can't find any such jump in the two works he cites, Pimm and Barnosky.
Finally, Eschenbach gives us Emmott's "data" for the modern era, presented with a normal rather than logarithmic scale. Eschenbach comments: "In Figure 4, you can see that the man is truly barking mad."
Here's the looney part. From 1835 up until the present (2013), the extinction rate is claimed to increase slowly from 16 E/MSY at the start to 28 E/MSY in 2013. Over the next 30 years, to 2043, this slow increase is supposed to continue at the same rate, with the 2043 value estimated at 37 extinctions per million species per year. Then, in seven short years, by 2050 it's supposed to increase more than tenfold, to 4,600 in 2050. Does he really believe this pseudoscience?
First off, there's no indication that the extinction rate has been rising steadily since 1835 as he claims. Compare his claims in Figure 1, to Figure 2 for what the data actually shows about the historical waxing and waning of extinctions over the years.
More to the point, my goodness, what's supposed to happen in 2043 to drive extinction rates up by a factor of more than a hundred, two full orders of magnitude, up from 37 extinctions to 4,600 extinctions per MSY? A nuclear winter? A meteor strike? Runaway gene-spliced chimeras? The world wonders…
Eschenbach sums up:
So in summary, Emmott took three different datasets. One was a bogus dataset regarding the middle of the last ice age. The second was a bogus estimate of modern extinction rates. The third was a colossally ridiculous estimate of the future changes in extinction rates. He spliced them all together and voila! The famous extinction hockeystick is born, the 13th unlucky bastard step-child of one Stephen Emmott.
Sometimes, these guys are beyond parody.
It's really fun to rip the alarmists apart, but count on it: No matter how bad Emmott's work is, it will be widely cited on left-wing web sites, he will be interviewed admiringly on television and radio, legislation may even be predicated on his flimsy "science." And he will make a lot of money on his book. Thus does the machinery of leftism grind on. They don't need quality, they only need persistence. Because, never forget: they are not trying to fool the smart, they are trying to fool the stupid, a much easier task.


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The mother of missing toddler Ayla Reynolds says she hopes information she reveals from the investigation puts enough pressure on prosecutors to press charges.
Trista Reynolds said in a telephone interview Tuesday that evidence the police showed her should be enough to charge the three adults who were in the house where Ayla was reported missing.
"After seeing what I've seen, I do believe Ayla is dead and I don't think they're going to find her," Reynolds said.
Reynolds said she plans to release more information police gave her, but added that she wouldn't provide additional specifics until next week on the website aylareynolds.com.
Ayla's father, Justin DiPietro; his sister Elisha DiPietro; and Justin's ex-girlfriend Courtney Roberts were the three adults in the Waterville home when the toddler was reported missing in December 2011.
Reynolds said she thinks the three adults who were in the house should be held accountable for whatever happened. "I honestly believe there is something they can be charged for, and I just want justice served for Ayla," she said.
Last week Reynolds said during a television interview that police told her they found Ayla's blood in Justin DiPietro's vehicle, on his shoes and in his bedroom.
Last month, Reynolds announced that she would provide more information on aylareynolds.com about what she said she had received from state police. It was described on the website as "horrific physical evidence." The website is maintained by Ayla's stepgrandfather, Jeff Hanson.
Reynolds said she will release the information through the website Tuesday and hold a news conference in Portland's Lincoln Park the next day. Reynolds' news conference is scheduled to start right after DiPietro is scheduled to appear at nearby Cumberland County Superior Court on a domestic-violence charge unrelated to his daughter's case.
"The goal for releasing this is to get Justin to crack and speak about where Ayla is," Reynolds said. "That's our main goal: Get Justin, Elisha and Courtney to speak on Ayla's behalf."
Roberts, Justin DiPietro and Elisha DiPietro couldn't be reached for comment.
Reynolds said the last time she contacted Justin DiPietro was in February, and that she and he "can't seem to hold a conversation." After DiPietro was charged with domestic-violence assault stemming from an incident in Portland in which he allegedly shoved Roberts, Reynolds tried calling Elisha DiPietro.
"I thought by reaching out to her and talk to her and see where I'm coming from, mom to mom, but that failed to happen. She just doesn't want to talk to me at all," Reynolds said. "She was one of the last people to see my daughter. I just have questions about what Ayla's last few hours were like."
Reynolds said she spoke with the Maine State Police a couple of weeks ago but was given no assurance that the investigation was progressing or that any charges would be brought soon. Reynolds said police are hesitant to press any charges now because if anyone is acquitted and additional evidence surfaces, police will be unable to bring the charge again.
"Every time I asked the questions about why hasn't anyone been charged yet with the evidence that has been presented, it's the same thing with this whole double jeopardy," Reynolds said. "I don't care about double jeopardy anymore."
Maine State Police spokesman Steve McCausland confirmed that police spoke to Reynolds about three weeks ago, but he would not get into specifics about the conversation.
"We have done our best to keep her informed and we'll continue to do so," he said.
Reynolds still holds out some hope that she will one day see her daughter again, but from what she's been shown by police, the optimism is dwindling.
"I don't want to believe I'll never see her again, because I hope there's that day that Ayla and I are together and I get to hold her and love her," she said. "But after seeing what I've seen, it made it clear to me that she's probably deceased."
Ayla was reported missing on Dec. 17, 2011, from 29 Violette Ave., where her father was living at the time.
State police have said those who were home the night Ayla disappeared know more about the disappearance than they are saying.
State police, at a news conference in May 2012 in Waterville, said Ayla probably no longer was alive.
Jesse Scardina can be contacted at 861-9239 or at:
Autopsy: Woman found in Auburn drowned
Local & State
Farmington residents vote to oppose CMP power line, despite pitch by Mills
Boston Bruins
Bruins beaten on a last-minute goal by Lightning
Monday's NBA roundup: Orlando shuts down 76ers, 119-98
Local & State
Woodstock voters agree to sell garage to Tucker Carlson


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Stamping is easy! Here are a few must-have tips for perfect stamping results.
Your work surface
Stamp on a smooth, hard table or countertop. Use a non-stick Craft Sheet to protect your tableits one of the best investments you can make, since you can just wipe off or peel up spills. You can also place scrap paper underneath the paper youre stamping on to protect your table.
Applying ink to your stamp
Press the stamp two or three times onto the pad. You dont need to use extreme pressuresquashing the stamp into the ink pad will get way too much ink on the stamp! Look at the stamp to make sure its completely inked.
If your stamp is larger than your ink pad, hold the stamp image-side up in one hand and tap the ink pad onto the stamp with the other hand. For very finely detailed stamps, slide the ink pad over the image instead of tapping it.
Stamping onto your paper
Press the inked stamp straight down onto your paper. Press firmly around all corners and edges with your fingertipsnot just in the middle of the stamp. Dont rock or wiggle it. Lift the stamp straight up. With acrylic stamps you will need an acrylic block, to mount your stamp.
(I find I get better impressions if I stand while stamping! This is especially important for large designs, which seem to require more pressure.)
Get to know your stamps
Every stamp has its own personality, which youll discover when you stamp with them. Small stamps require less ink and less pressure. Large stamps may need a firmer hand. And youll probably find that some images need a little extra pressure on one particular area.
Always test out new stamps before using them on a project. Just ink it up and stamp onto a piece of scrap paper. This way you can see exactly where you need to apply more pressure or less ink.


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seyong needed a new stationery design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 13 designs submitted by 7 freelance designers.
I got the company logo and need a stationery set using the logo. You can find the logo from http://99designs.com/contests/10454…try-744460
the business card should be two sided.
- simple and informative
complex and confusing design


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Our boiler is broken. Is there anything more awful? (Why always in a really cold snap? WHY??) The chill in the house has slowed my brain right down, right back past even its most shoddy 2+2=time for a cup of tea calculations. It has done absolutely nothing for my shitty mood these past few days, I can tell you.
My husband is being terrifically sporting about the whole thing. He sees a broken boiler as rather an excitement - time for a vast fire in the sitting room, dust off the blow-heater, micro-manage everyone's wash times so as not to use up the weedy amount of warm water we have via the immersion heater, while our boiler guy sources a vital part for the fucking twatty twathead bastard boiler from, like, MARS, or somewhere.
I, on the other hand, have been moping about in a right old funk complaining about the cold like a really annoying ghost with a drippy nose.
Let's just say this: the highest praise my father can give to a woman is: "We won both wars thanks to girls like you." He has never said this to me.
It doesn't help that I'm having trouble sleeping at the moment. This is a really terrible realisation, but I think I need to do some exercise.
Anyway for the time being, if you'll excuse me, I'll sit the hard work of yet another post out. What?! FFS. I've got a note. Instead the heavy lifting today has been done by another great gal I met on Twitter called Danielle. She's American but lives in Kent and she's terribly funny. (@pochyemu)
So here we go, Chilli and Cornbread, by Danielle Barton
As a clueless and deluded teenager growing up in small-town America, I decided that by the time I was 25 I was going to be a millionaire and Secretary of State for the U.S. government. Right hand to the president. Swanning around Washington D.C., confident as hell in my power suit and my helmet-esque hair-do. "Anything is possible", I thought, "seeing as how 25 is forever away and also so old I'll be practically dead".
I was such an idiot.
Anyway, I'm 27 now, a graduate who holds two degrees largely to do with minority rights issues in Estonia (always an in-demand subject). Hillary Clinton pipped me to the post for Secretary of State. I live in Kent. Oh, and I'm unemployed with zero millions of dollars in my bank account.
It's at times like this (times when you're unemployed and haven't showered or dressed in, like, maybe 3?, days, eating tuna out of the tin with your fingers because getting a plate seems like SUCH a hassle) when one reaches for comfort food. Quick and easy food that tastes good. The food you grew up on. The food your mother or father made you. You know, when you were young and stupidand living at home rent-free with no responsibilities or worries except how your parents were so mean, keeping you from drinking all your brain cells away and making you apply to universities.
I am no different from you in this respect. Therefore: chilli and cornbread muffins.
Some of you think you know chilli. You do not. You know English chilli, which is generally horrible. Real chilli should be full of recognizable vegetables and soup-like, NEVER SERVED OVER A BAKED POTATO FOR THE LOVE OF MARY. This is my mom's recipe (or near enough) and it's good.
Cornbread, I understand, may be new to you. That is a shame because it is God's own food. It's bread that tastes like cake that you eat with lashings of butter. It's amazing (if done right). I normally make it with boxed mix that I bring over in my suitcase, but I'm out and therefore have made it from scratch for the first time ever. This recipe is the real deal and delicious.
2 tablespoons cooking oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
500g mince (can be beef, pork or turkey, depending on your preference and whether you're watching your weight)
2-3 carrots, cut into small chunks
3 or 4 smaller potatoes, cut into cubes
1 tin sweetcorn
2 tins chopped tomatoes
2 tins kidney beans
2 tins'-worth of water, or enough to just cover the ingredients
2 packets chilli seasoning (I prefer Old El Paso)
1 In the pot you'll be cooking in, fry off onions, peppers and mince in oil, draining off any fat that comes off the meat. Add the remaining ingredients and top with water. Simmer 30-40 minutes until veg is cooked through, then add spice mix and simmer for another 15-20 minutes to combine the flavours. Serve in a BOWL like SOUP, not over a potato. Potatoes already inside, see?
Honey Cornbread Muffins
(Recipe adapted from one on RealSimple.com, which has good American recipes)
4 tbsp unsalted melted butter, as well as some to grease the tin
160g plain flour
125g course cornmeal [No idea where to find this... Waitrose? – E]
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
280ml buttermilk (280ml whole milk plus one tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar, left 5 minutes on the side to curdle and thicken)
80ml runny honey
1 Heat oven to 180C. Grease 12-cup muffin tin. In a bowl, mix together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and soda. Whisk in eggs, buttermilk, honey and melted butter. Combine (mix will be a bit lumpy, just try to break down any big clumps). Pour batter into muffin cups until nearish the top and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and the inside is just cooked through when a toothpick is inserted into the centre.


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If it has Flash...
...it could truly be an iPod Touch Killer. It'll be interesting to see pricings.
Samsung has launched its latest media player, and it's a clear case of 'iPod Touch meets Android'. It even looks a lot like the early Touches. The Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 borrows branding from Samsung's smartphone line, along with the kind of 4in, 480 x 800 LCD touchscreen, 1GHz processor, front and rear cameras - 0.3Mp and 3.2MP, …
But without the phone part, why would anyone buy this? Unless you don't carry a mobile phone around why would you want 2 devices in your pockets occupying twice the space with a big overlap in function.
Although that goes for the failpod touch too, can't imagine why people buy those but then they are apple fanbois so who can tell their motives.
Their machines are already bloated monstrosities because their manufacturer helpfully included McAffee, etc. So the main experience of iTunes is that when they plug the device in, it just sorts itself out. No need to do anything manual whatsoever. Easy.
Nevertheless, a version that didn't seem primarily built of treacle is something Apple really should invest in.
Deary, deary me...
I don't really see your problem. They've sold lots, so certain people obviously like a particular device you don't. That doesn't make them stupid, they just have different requirements.
As for why would you want 2 devices, here's a couple of suggestions:
First and most obvious is battery. iOS and Android ones tend to be heavy on the battery, and crap out after a day of moderate use. Add in an hour of watching some telly on the train, and you can't get your work done.
Then you've got the people with work smartphones, who may not want their personal email on their work device. This, tethered to a MiFi or other smartphone can be a combined emailer, diary, address book and games/media device.
Personally I have a cheap, dumb-phone. I like it. It's simple, the battery lasts ages, I can make 3 hours of calls in a day and still have enough charge for tomorrow. I can read the screen in sunlight. I can drop it. And it's got large text, so I can make calls without my reading glasses. If I get a smartphone I lose a lot of this. But if I get a cheap(ish) iPod touch / Android mp3, then I could have semi-mobile internet and email, plus games and music.
My phone is for work. I can't justify a smartphone (or the data contract), so I'd have to carry 2 devices anyway.
I'll probably go for a smartphone myself in the end. But it doesn't stop the other being a sensible choice. Especially as Samsung appear to have stuck GPS on it.
Due to the growing proliferation of 'smart phones' I find that the continued push of these type of devices a little strange.
These (and iPod touches) must be aimed at people, without smart phones, otherwise, are they expecting us to carry around essentially 2 of the same item?
I think sometimes people forget that the phone versions do all the MP3 player stuff as well.
I saw the other day, someone on the train, doing something (playing /listening/watching) with what looked like a first gen iPod Touch, before putting it in their pocket, and taking an iPhone4 out of their other pocket to do some texting.
I have a 2nd gen touch and the biggest problem is Apple control freakery. I was interested in upgrading but I'm getting sick of having to jail break my current iPod ever time I want to install an update or hearing about the latest app to get killed, so I've been waiting for something with similar features or better that is not from Apple. I'll be looking for real reviews to see if this is it.
I just hope Samsung don't fine some way to screw it up, and that it shows up in Canada.
friend of mine had an old 1st gen ipod touch for playing games on the train to work and when looking for a phone got the Galaxy S as he figured he could play games on that and only carry one device
he still uses the old ipod touch to play games each day, because even on the old machine, there are more games worth playing on the ipod touch than there are available on the android platform. he's been patiently waiting for the marketplace to improve, but so far he's still having to carry around two devices.
when his contract is up on the Galaxy S, he says he's getting an iphone next.
so while
Price and, most importantly for a PMP, battery life will be the main point on which it will stand or fall.
Looks lovely, but my current mp3 player goes a good couple of weeks on one charge and although the Samsung can display movies etc, it's still a lot of screen real estate to light up when just choosing a track.


text:
To be fair to um,
It's exactly the same way all HDD sizes are advertised. Do apple and other mp3 player manufacturers do the same?
Creative has been successfully brought to book over the way it previously calculated hard drive-based MP3 player storage capacities. The company was accused of misrepresenting the storage capacity of its players by two punters, Vibhu Talwar and Patrick Finkelstein, who fomalised their complaint at the US District Court of …
Creative are not the only ones to do this. For example, the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps were happy to go with this interpretation for the sake of making their disc capacities sound larger than they were.
Unfortunately by introducing the term 'Gibibyte' this interpretation is almost vindicated.
Seriously, El Reg, this is your fault, together with every other news and reviews site on the net. Why do you tow the manufacturers line and refer to these devices as having these fictitious storage capabilities on them?
Lead the way and call a new 60G mp3 player a 57G player if that's what it really is...
Would Flash memory manufacturers really make 1,000,000,000 byte modules just for Creative? Seems a bit odd to me...
I would have thought it would be more likely that they make a real 1Gb module but because of it formatted to whichever file system, it becomes less. For example my Sony Ericsson W880i with 1Gb M2 card has a capacity of something a little less that 950Mb ish (my 1Gb Panasonic MP3 player is approximately the same)...
I suppose the difference here is that I know the real formatted capacity will be less than the 1Gb touted and so expect it, someone else less knowledgable about formatted capacities, bits/bytes/binary may not (I remember back in the good ole days when a 1.44Mb HD Floppy Disk formatted to something closer to 1.36 or 1.38Mb was it?... (cue comments regarding proper Floppy 8" or 5 1/4" floppy disks)
Adios amigos
Not strictly true. Back in the dark ages a kilobyte was well established as 1024 bytes. When storage manufacturers reached a megabyte there was no formal definition so some went for a definition of 1000 kilobytes to steal a few percent in their size claims, and others went for 1000000 bytes to steal even more percent.
So actually you sometimes find 3 definitions of GB. Sometimes its a billion bytes, sometimes it's a million kilobytes, when actually in all but hard disk manufacturers claims we all know its 7.37% more than a billion bytes, or 4.97% more than a million kilobytes.
Whatever salesman thought this up in the 70s should be given a medal.
"Giga" is an SI unit meaning 1,000,000,000 - used in every walk of life.
"Gibi" is an IEC unit meaning 1,073,741,824 - used for calculating storage, and has been standard since 1999.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
The judge of this case is an idiot and the writer of the article needs to apply a service pack to his brain.
This is a long standing bugbear. It's been long established, rightly or wrongly, that fs storage is measured using M=10^6 and G=10^9 whereas RAM has always been K=2^10 and M=2^20 and G=2^30 (more due to their intrinsic design requirements). I guess it's debatable which one applies to flash memory. Clearly the marketroids are going to go for the one that makes it look bigger. Traditionally communications and bitrates have always been powers of 10.
We have long had the prefix K=1024 so as not to confuse it with the SI unit of k=1000. But after that all bets are off. The other prefixes, whether "G" or "giga" are strictly SI units. So Creative are correct about using powers of 10 to describe gigabytes. Some smart folk came up with Ki/Mi/Gi (kibi/mibi/gibi and so on) for the powers of two. While they are a bit ugly, perhaps it's time to start using them. Linux already uses them for its utilities. Maybe The Reg can champion their use?!
So, I have a 4Gb UFD that is 4043Mb or 3948Mib.
And before that (from 1985 forward), the megabyte was 1024 kilobytes and there was no MiB. Hard disk manufacturers initially labelled their disks in the proper byte notation, until some jerkoff thought of the scheme and invented some "Joe User" issue with the real byte.
Which is all irrelevant nowadays, but back in the day the megabyte was over $15, and getting stuffed for 7% was not a small deal.
Today, however, with 1024 megabytes coming in at pennies, it is really irrelevant to continue arguing about GBs and GiBs. I will remain true to the original GB, since gibbing is quite a different activity.
...and the capacity of a backup tape is 50Gb... except it isn't, because its typically only half (or less) and the manufacturers just lie about the real capacity hoping that we won't find or read the small print. Some are getting better at it, but not all of them.
Yes I had heard this before, but funnily enough, my Oz dictionary says a Billion as 10^12 is "becoming obsolete". I'm sure they don't mean all British though ... surely ...
But I like the 3rd definition - "a large amount" - as in, my 60GB MP3 player holds 60 large amounts of music.
I was going to post: "First one to mention the universally hated KIRBYBYTES and its evil offspring as a 'standard' shall die a fiery death" ... except someone already did.
Computers can't understand base-10 natively, using kilo-base-1024 has an actual reason for its existence. The IEC and the metric nazis think otherwise, so they began this stupid "-bibyte" thing which seems to only benefit dodgy HDD vendors. No one in its right mind uses base-1000 bytes, RAM manufacturers would never ever be able to get away with such a thing as a "512 million bytes RAM" as it would bring any PC crashing down.
Fortunately the -bibyte trash has not infected standard computer courses; I just hope some more sensible people go into the IEC and drop the stupid convention.
Are you all soft in the head? Have any of you any idea how computers have always historically addressed memory? Forget legal definitions and marketing-speak and go back and do Computing Part 1.
A Gigabyte IS 1024 Megabytes. End of story. There is no way for a digital machine to octally address (or store) this fantasy figure of 1000,000,000.
1Kb = 1024 bytes
1Mb = 1024 Kb
1Gb = 1024 Mb
This is THE empirical definition. Everything else is unforgivable pathetic ignorance.
Waaay back when computers came with a floppy drive and 640K *was* enough for everybody, marketing used to call HDDs "memory". They used powers-of-two megabytes.
Then a few called a gigabyte a thousand megabytes. Not all, and there was some outcry but since it wasn't prevalent, it was not persued legally. So more HDD marketers used thousand meg (where a meg was a power-of-two megabyte) until they all used it.
Then a few used powers-of-two kilobytes and a gig was 1,000,000 of them.
And we progress on until now it's all powers-of-ten.
I guess the difference between a megabyte and a million bytes wasn't worth anything, but the difference gets bitter and now we're looking at terrabytes, that's a BIG difference and so there's more "need" to use the lower figure.
But remember that computer memory IS in powers-of-two and that HDD used to be called by HDD and PC manufacturers "memory".
And so this suit isn't as silly as some would have it.
"A Gigabyte IS 1024 Megabytes. End of story. There is no way for a digital machine to octally address (or store) this fantasy figure of 1000,000,000."
Oh thanks for putting the exact reason for using base-1024. I actually think that the base-1000 "standard" came to be because newer CompSci generations aren't literate enough on how memory is addressed inside a computer.
0x0400 bytes = 1 kilobyte.
0x03e8 bytes = 1000 bytes
Just try to map that into fixed-bitlength integers and you'll find your answer quite fast. Plus, all the argument of storage needing to be base-1000 is garbage, as in practice, secondary storage is basically an extension of RAM, as data is loaded from/stored to HDD from RAM, so the same principles apply. Case in point: 512-byte blocks/sectors, 1024 (1kb) blocks, 4096 blocks... No sane filesystem ever uses base-1000 blocks.
"but only in the English speaking world. The rest of the world still calls 10^9 milliard and 10^12 billion."
For some reason (don't ask me), the same happens in Brazil vs. Portugal; in Brazil, 1 billion is 10^9, while in Portugal it's 10^12. It seems like Spanish-speaking countries here in the Americas follow the European pattern though...
"No sane filesystem ever uses base-1000 blocks."
No, not in the real world, though it is true there are a few non-standard one-off custom filesystems which are designed to store sparse data in scientific applications and they do have some very weird block assignments specific to the data structure they're trying to store and read. Just because it makes sense to them at the time.
But meanwhile, back to the real world of hardware. Memory (RAM or magnetic) is assigned addresses in 8-bit blocks (or multiples thereoff) and all computing REAL standard and all operating systems and hardware are designed this way. It's the ultimate in backward compatibility.
Redefining 60 years of computer science is like re-specifying the wheel. There's really no point. So I wish they would start actually educating CompSci students these days instead of allowing them their backward little innumerate fantasies. If you can't do binary arithmetic or count in your head as well in base 6 or 8 as you can in base 10 then you really ought not to be doing "Computer Science". Just my own personal prejudice but one I find holds true.
I am aghast at the quality of CompSci grads these days. I met one who didn't know what a weighted average was or how to calculate it.
OK -- ye olde fashioned bloke rant over.
that would be fun, using a 1000 byte cluster on a 512 byte per sector storage device...
The problem here is that the general public do not understand the tech reasoning. We all learned in school that 1 kilogram = 1000 gramms. 1 kilometer = 1000 meters. Everyone that watched the Battle of Britain, "Angels 10" meant 10000 feet.
Then we start in IT and learn that for technical reasons, 1 kb is 1024, (10^2) due to the binary nature of a computer.
The, as mentionned before above, storage manufacturers start selling drives as 40, 80, 120 gigabytes as a marketing ploy as they have found out that it's better to give a nice full number than the real capacity (For John Q. Luser, for the same price, would you buy a 40 gb drive or a 38 gb drive?).
Some drives actually seemed to stick to the truth : I'm looking at a trio of old IBM Deathstars in my parts bin - 20.5, 46.1 and 61.5 gb respectivly, a quantum fireball at 20.5 gb, and guilty looking Maxtor "DiamondMax Plus 9 200GB ATA / 133 HDD".
Changing from Base 2 to Base 10 allowed lower capacity drives to be "uprated" - and oversold.
The stinger is when you install 3 TB of disk storage, you actually find 2.79 Tb available. Marketing moths have eaten a 210 Gb hole in my storage...
Changing to processors, Cyrix invented the infamous "Pentium Rating" (fond memories of my first Cyrix 6x86 PR200+), followed by AMD. Intel stuck to their standard frequency ratings until they too fell to the marketing sirens and found it easier to market a T5500, Q6600 and god knows what rather than PIV 3.06Ghz HT.
At least with intel you knew what you were buying. Now it's all dumbed down.
Back to storage - you do not really know what you are really getting: your real storage is calculated in base 10. Your (possibilty unknown) needs are set in base 2. They are not compatible. It's time that the storage vendors either relable clearly their capacity (it's your player 8 or 7.3 gb storage?).
RAM vendors do not have this "underselling" problems. You want 2 Gb, god darn it, you'll get 2 gb (2^(32-1) bytes). WTF can't storage vendors do the same?
... if what they are advertising is the hard disc capacity.
If they are advertising capacity as Windows would see it (Gibi), then that's another matter.
I wish Microsoft would go down the Linux road* and start quoting all their figures as MiB GiB etc. The extra i would likely go unnoticed to many or educate others, and resolve complaints when manufactures quote GB when the OS quotes GiB.
* - and no, I'm not going all Linux fanboy here. I run XP and much prefer it to Linux on the desktop, but it's just one of those things they do a little better in Penguin world.
"Are you all soft in the head? Have any of you any idea how computers have always historically addressed memory?"
You're talking memory.
Storage has been long established to be quoted correctly as per the SI & IEEE definition of Mega, Giga, etc.
The same is also true of networking.
The fault is in software developers using the binary form to not just calculate memory but to represent this to the user, and the misuse of the standard scientific terms. i.e. "ah well, 1024 is near enough 1000, so kilo will do".
"You're talking memory."
Storage IS memory, and is read and written in precisely the same way.
Magnetic storage is formatted in 8-bit blocks (cylinders, heads, etc) and goes 512, 1024, 2048 and so on.
Please don't tell me about how storage works: I have been writing software drivers for years and I know how it works. A Gigabyte is 1024 megabytes regardless of whether it's silicon or disk.
Go and read up on hardware interrupts.
A Gigabyte is a Gigabyte — it's a constant. It doesn't change on the whims of marketing wanks.
I think I nailed this back in 2000 when I wrote a comment on the subject in my country's main computing newsgroup.
We have to be _consistent_ about the use of kilo, mega, giga, etc.
kilo means 1000 (one thousand), whether we're talking bytes, hertz, grams, bits, metres, or Pascals(pressure).
Otherwise, we wind up in lala-land, where you don't know if someone means 1024 or 1000 when they say kilo-[some unit].
If you want to specify 1024 and powers thereof, use the kibi-prefix and relatives.
Let's say your internet connection speed is 1 megabit/s.
Is that 1000000 bits/s, or 1048576 bits/s?
Oddly enough IBM used to sell 1e6 byte Mbytes for years and years (their dictionary's definition of Kb and Mb for storage is metric (power of 10, not power of 2)) and AFAIK no-one ever sued them for that.
Datacom's K and M are metric by definition that is a DS0's 64kbps, are 64000 bps and not 65536bps.
"Intel stuck to their standard frequency ratings until they too fell to the marketing sirens and found it easier to market a T5500, Q6600 and god knows what rather than PIV 3.06Ghz HT."
Uhm, not quite. Intel was VERY happy to keep selling CPUs based on clock speed while their architectures required VERY high clock speeds to do ANYTHING (aka: P4s of all strips).
Once they FINALLY realized they were getting there butts kicked by AMD and it's impact on server sells (it only took management 3 freaking years to realize that!), they designed a new architecture that was MUCH more efficient, but it also ran at MUCH slower clock speeds.
After shoving 3.6Ghz this and 3.6Ghz that down our throat for years, they didn't feel like spending the money to explain that while a P4 at 3.6Ghz was FAST!!!! (insert marketing hype here), the new chip at 2.0Ghz was actually much FASTER!!!!. It was just much easier to adapt AMDs idea and drop the clock speed entirely.
Of course, if you have looked at Intel's CPU line up lately, things are definitely NOT any clearer now than they where.
And as for the topic at hand, the whole MB = 1000 kB was all done so a specific drive manufacture could over state their capacity by a few percent and gain an advantage over competitors. The other manufactures quickly jumped on the bandwagon because the first lier wasn't quickly took out and hung.
It's all like the way air compressors where rated in power in the US: initially, everyone was using the actual continuous HP rating of the motor to rate the air compressors power. Then one manufacture (Sears if my memory is correct) decided they could make THEIR air compressors look better if they used a "different" hp rating... So they came up with the whole "peak hp" rating thing that is about 80% high than the motor can actually put out (hell, it's generally rates them higher than breaker the compressor is plugged into can actually supply!)
People eventually got wind of it and got tired of it. Now, you are starting to see most all compressors rated on an ISO specific test (back to the more rating for all intents and purposes!) and the "peak hp" small print is disappearing across the board.
Thank God!
Oh, and as for consistency, I agree FULLY!!! In a base 10 system, we should be using base ten powers. But in a base 2 system (your computer), we should be using base 2 because your computer CAN'T use a base 10 system!


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(Chinese recipes, prepare authentic Chinese food now!)
Chinese dim sum is my favorite. Other than the regular har gao (steamed shrimp dumplings) and sui mai, I also love steamed buns . (Previously, I made some red bean steamed buns.) I simply love the soft and pillowy texture of chinese steamed buns–known as bao (包)–filled with meat, vegetables, or a combination of both.
Sinking my teeth into a steaming hot and soft Chinese steamed bun, slowly chew it to savor the flavors, and then down it with a cup of Chinese tea is a ritual that often reminds me of how great life is.
Last weekend, I had a tray of steamed chicken buns or 鸡仔包 at a dim sum restaurant; they were so good that I was longing for more after I came home. I made my own chicken buns to satisfy my craving the next day.
The toughest part of making steamed buns is the pleating and folding to make them perfect looking. I am really not good at it (as you can see from the shape of my bao!).
Anyway, if you love bao or Chinese steamed buns, you can try my steamed chicken buns recipe below. The taste is rather close to the ones served at dim sum restaurants.
If you like Chinese recipes, don't forget to check them out.
Do you like Chinese steamed buns?
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Google Maps has recieved it's first updated since its launch in December. Version 1.1 includes Google Contacts search, improved local search, and the choice between miles and kilometers for distance units. The English language version of the app is now available the following countries: Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.
Google Contacts search allows you to search for a friend's name and have their address appear in your search if you have thier address saved. You will be taken to that address on the map when you tap their name. Search has been improved with the addition of quick search icons. Tapping the search bar will cause the app to display icons for restaurants, coffee, bars, and gas stations. Tap the right-most icon to be given more quick searches. Tapping your chosen icon will automatically take you to a nearby establishment.
The update is live on the App Store. Grab it and let us know what you think.
Source: Google Maps blog
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