INTERESTING: Kon Tiki

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/knut-haugland-a-reallife-adventure-story-1851472.html

Knut Haugland: A real-life adventure story

He fought the Nazis. He braved the Pacific. And he hated being called a hero. Jonathan Brown looks at the extraordinary career of Knut Haugland, the last Kon-Tiki survivor

Monday, 28 December 2009

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Adventure stories rarely come more epic than that of Knut Haugland, the Norwegian resistance fighter who died on Christmas Day at the age of 92. His exploits were already the stuff of legend even before he joined Thor Heyerdahl’s crew aboard his balsa wood raft, Kon-Tiki. Together they not only conquered the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean using only the most primitive of technologies – but in doing so, they helped rejuvenate the crushed spirit of human endeavour in the bleak aftermath of the Second World War.

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I remember reading Kon Tiki in high school. The good brothers were always challenging us to be skeptical. (That lesson took in my case. I rarely believe ANYTHING!)

I remember seeing the Kon Tiki movie and the Telemark movie (I loved movies. I’m an escapist.) Who knew that the same men were involved in both.

Reminds me of the guy who championed the idea that a Chinese admiral found “America” and Marco Polo brought the discovery back to Europe.

Guess that’s why I’m a “tin foil hat” kinda guy.

If we “know” so little about the past, then what make you think we “know” current events.

Sheeple are so easily manipulated.

Remember it’s all propaganda!

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SOCIALNETWORKING: “Privacy Theater”

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/27/privacy-theater

Privacy Theater: Why Social Networks Only Pretend To Protect You

by Guest Author on December 27, 2009

Editor’s note: The following guest post was written by Rohit Khare, the co-founder of Angstro. Building his latest project, social address book Knx.to, gives him a deep familiarity with the privacy policies of all the major social networks.

*** begin quote ***

The philosophical question at hand is what rights do I have in my friends’ information. When I accept a business card from someone I’ve just met, I don’t believe I have the right to re-sell it on Jigsaw in good conscience (they’d disagree 18M times). If it’s a colleague’s card, on the other hand, I might take the initiative to forward a new lead, or even buy a gift subscription to a magazine. Does that constitute a violation of their privacy, or spam?

Social networks haven’t let their users make their own decisions on this issue. Through selective enforcement of their policies, some startups get locked out while big partners get exemptions. Power.com ended up in (and out of) court. Plaxo found out the hard way that they couldn’t assist their paying customers to OCR Facebook email addresses; or to synchronize with LinkedIn. It says a lot about LinkedIn’s draconian ToS that even with paying customers demanding it, Comcast hasn’t signed up for their API. Even if users manually download their own LinkedIn address books, it won’t even include links back to folks’ public profile pages.

*** end quote ***

Interesting post!

Unfortunately, it was posted during the holidays; many people won’t see it.

I haven’t found anything that will allow me to have a unified directory.

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POLITICS: Good cop; bad cop

Monday, January 4, 2010

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100020863/obama-tries-to-find-new-words-to-fight-terrorism/

Obama tries to find new words to fight terrorism
By Janet Daley World
Last updated: December 29th, 2009

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Barack Obama has launched a new offensive against jihadi terrorism – which is to say, a new rhetorical offensive. Having discovered that the earlier Obama doctrine of “reaching out” to the Islamic fundamentalist enemies of western democracy has made no difference whatever to their determination to blow innocent people out of the sky (or, in the case of Iran, to build a nuclear bomb), he is opening another verbal front.

*** end quote ***

I guess we can declare “reaching out” a failure. Especially with supposedly hundreds more in training.

If you’re going to be in a war, you have to fight it to win.

I’m reminded of the old KGB “insurance policy”. During the Cold War, no one messed with the Soviet agents or diplomats. Anyone who did would risk having their families wiped out. Find something that the terrorists hold dear, and NUKE it.

That would establish “detante”.

Clearly, the “good cop” is getting worse results than the old “bad cop”.

Not unexpectedly!

And, they laughed when Ron Paul talked about “blowback”.

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INTERESTING: Roy Roger’s Museum closed

Monday, January 4, 2010

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/roy_rogers_museum_closes_dale_evans_trigger/celebrity/67877

KING OF THE COWBOYS ROY ROGERS REIGN ENDS WITH NO HAPPY TRAILS . . .

*** begin quote ***

Roy Rogers and his trusty steed Trigger may have come to the end of their “Happy Trails” – television’s most famous horse is going on the auction block, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.

The beloved golden palomino’s home, the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, has closed – doomed by bitter family feuding, greed, mounting debts and IRS demands.

*** end quote ***

This saddens me. I loved Roy’s shows.

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POLITICAL: Top 10 disasters of the 2009 Obama administration

Monday, January 4, 2010

http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/12/libertarians-release-top-10-disasters-of-2009-obama-administration/

*** begin quote ***

Libertarians release

Top 10 disasters of the 2009 Obama administration (in no particular order):

   1. Cash for Clunkers

   2. War escalation in Afghanistan

   3. Giant government health care expansion bill

   4. Post office loses money hand over fist

   5. Stimulus package

   6. Expansion of “state secrets” doctrine

   7. Big increase in unemployment

   8. “Bailout” Geithner as Treasury Secretary

   9. Skyrocketing federal spending

  10. Huge federal deficits

*** end quote ***

“Cash For Cluckers” was a bone-headed move on so many levels, but it was “cheap” in comparison to the items lower on the list. There’s no way I’d give it the #1 slot!

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RANT: Arguing with idiots

Sunday, January 3, 2010

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/12/loose-lips-and-hyperbole.html
?showComment=1262014283785#c5749020565567766168

Anonymous said…

   Oh please, Health savings Accounts (HSAs) are the biggest bunch of crap ever, a steaming pile of cow dung. They are great if you are wealthy (they are a tax shelter for the rich), healthy or young. They do absolutely nothing for the poor, the lower middle class, for working folks who live from paycheck to paycheck. HSAs are crapola pumped out by the right wing and libertarians so they don’t have to think about all the people who are dying, suffering and going bankrupt from lack of health insurance or from being victims of greedy insurance companies.

OK. Let’s examine this assertion. HSA’s are characterized by (1) a high deductible insurance policy and (2) a basic deposit savings account like and FSA. When I’ve priced HSAs, they are about a third of the cost of other policies. So which is better, have an HSA policy or none? Can’t go bankrupt from a medical expense with an HSA. And, using the SA part of the plan, the individual is in control of their expense.

Insurance companies typically earn about 4% on their capital. No one is getting rich on earnings like that. So “greedy” doesn’t fit.

   What the hell do tax credits do for the poor or for working folks who work from paycheck to paycheck, who can’t save anything and who are in fear of going bankrupt from medical expenses, whether they are insured or not.

So, is the problem paycheck to paycheck? Or underemployment. As usual, ANONYMOUS want to be chicken little. THe sky is always falling. Automobile insurers offer payment plans; I know BCBSNJ does the same thing. The “POOR” have medicaid; the working folks have payment plans. SO what IS the problem?

   Buying insurance across state lines is more garbage from the right wing and their libertarian lap dogs. Buying insurance across state lines will have no affect on anything worth mentioning.

Except that state mandated coverage for hair implants, and all sorts of other “stuff”, makes the cost of insurance in New Jersey higher that without it. Insurance should allow one to CHOOSE what risks you wish not to bear. Personally, I’d like to forgo “hair implants” insurance. Old folks don’t need maternity coverage. So, once again with the gooferment interference, “one size” fits all!

   Single payer or Medicare for all would have been the way to go. This whole libertarian freak show is a cancer on any intelligent discussion about health care and is a total waste of oxygen.

Medicare is going broke in the next few years. Your beloved Health Care Bill cuts 500M$ from Medicare while the coverage group will increase 30%. And, what about all the fraud that’s going on?

   Why should there be caps on suits for medical malpractice? If hospitals, doctors, drug companies, medical equipment companies screw up, they should pay up, no damn caps. Right wingers love to protect the rich and the powerful against some poor schlub who has been maimed through medical malpractice.

Tort reform is to take the GIGANTIC lottery aspect out of the system. And, when the gooferment takes over healthcare and you get screwed, who will you sue then? The gooferment int he gooferment court.

   Ending FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals is just insane. If anything, the FDA and its regulations should be beefed up and strengthened.

Sure, no one wants cheap drugs quickly. For someone who argues against corporations, you don’t recognize “regulatory capture”!

   The drug companies have too much power and influence over our government as it is, the FDA must be insulated from undue influence and all this massive economic power of the drug companies.

Never ever going to happen. Name one “regulatory agency” that hasn’t been “captured”?

   Dr. Mary J. Ruwart works for Cannabis Science Inc and previously worked for Upjohn. She’s nothing more than a corporate shill for the drug companies who don’t want any kind of regulations and the public be damned.

That’s why she advocated for more freedom.

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RANT: It’s not OK to run up the score

Sunday, January 3, 2010

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/womens-basketball/recap?gid=201001020050&prov=ap

Griner dunks twice, No.5 Baylor rolls 99-18

*** begin quote ***

WACO, Texas (AP)—Brittney Griner and No. 5 Baylor put on a show—at the expense of Texas State.

*** and ***

“We would have beat a lot of teams tonight,” Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. “I don’t care who we would have played tonight, this basketball team was ready to play.”

*** end quote ***

What idiot SCHEDULED this game in the first place?

Guess Coach Mulkey thinks beating up on little kids is “OK”!

Sorry, but even if the scrubs were in, I wouldn’t permit this embarrassment.

If there is any justice in this world, the admonishment will come from UConn.

OK, Geno, I hereby release you from any criticism if you run up the score on Baylor.

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MONEY: Fun way to get the message across

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Bullion Is A Girl’s Best Friend

ROFL!


TECHNOLOGY: Lost camera

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Recently I lost my camera. Argh!

Fell out of my pocket in cab.

My fault.

But it had no way to identify itself to a finder who might be interested in returning it.

The product design should have a place for a name or phone number. Maybe it should have a sensor to alert me that it was “leaving”. Or the ability to “phone home”?

Argh!

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John Edward OConnor

or maybe just use one of those address labels every charity ion the world sends you trying to guilt you into a donation?

Do you really need a technical solution where glue and paper will work? :)

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No good place on the old or new camera to put one. And, they wipe off over time. (I’ve tried it on other things. Like cars and toys.) Same the maker doesn’t do serial number registration and retrieval services. Give a token to the finder; modest recovery fee to the owner? Like an extended warranty against loss?

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POLITICAL: Nuke power for the USA!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/02/1330245/Thorium-the-Next-Nuclear-Fuel
?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A
+slashdot%2FeqWf+%28Slashdot%3A+Slashdot%29

Science: Thorium, the Next Nuclear Fuel? on Saturday January 02, @10:57AM
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 02, @10:57AM

*** begin quote ***

mrshermanoaks writes “When the choices for developing nuclear energy were being made, we went with uranium because it had the byproduct of producing plutonium that could be weaponized. But thorium is safer and easier to work with, and may cause a lot fewer headaches. ‘It’s abundant — the US has at least 175,000 tons of the stuff — and doesn’t require costly processing. It is also extraordinarily efficient as a nuclear fuel. As it decays in a reactor core, its byproducts produce more neutrons per collision than conventional fuel. The more neutrons per collision, the more energy generated, the less total fuel consumed, and the less radioactive nastiness left behind. Even better, Weinberg realized that you could use thorium in an entirely new kind of reactor, one that would have zero risk of meltdown. The design is based on the lab’s finding that thorium dissolves in hot liquid fluoride salts. This fission soup is poured into tubes in the core of the reactor, where the nuclear chain reaction — the billiard balls colliding — happens. The system makes the reactor self-regulating: When the soup gets too hot it expands and flows out of the tubes — slowing fission and eliminating the possibility of another Chernobyl. Any actinide can work in this method, but thorium is particularly well suited because it is so efficient at the high temperatures at which fission occurs in the soup.’ So why are we not building these reactors?”

*** end quote ***

Here’s an excellent idea!

Why can’t we have nuke power here int he USA? France does it.

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