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Today’s Guests:
- Sebastian Rupley, Co-Crank, PCMagCast.com
- Dan Goodin, Reporter, The Register
- Jason Cross, Senior Editor, ExtremeTech
- iPod guru at Apple defects to Palm.
- Symantec and McAfee get stung.
- Web 2.0 is now a word? How does that work?
- Virgin creates pay-as-you-go Internet dongle.
- MSFT to discontinue MS-Money.
- 27,000 bank accounts frozen. Online poker players stuck.
- What is the mother of all inventions? One newspaper wants to know.
- This show brought to you by Squarespace.com. Use the code word TECH.
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An elderly gunman opened fire inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, wounding a security guard before two other guards returned fire. The assailant and his victim were both hospitalized.
The extent of the injuries was not immediately known, U.S. Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser said.
Nor did authorities immediately provide the name or any other biographical information about the assailant, who they said used a “long gun” in the shooting.
He’s an activist racist and anti-semite named James Von Brunn.
The episode unfolded inside the museum, which maintains a heavy security presence, with guards positioned inside and out. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.
It was not immediately known whether the gunman made it through the detectors before opening fire.
The museum, across the street from the National Mall, and within sight of the Washington Monument, was closed for the day after the shooting. Nearby streets were cordoned off by police.
In a statement, museum spokesman Andrew Hollinger said an assailant shot a museum security officer and “two museum security officers returned fire, hitting the assailant.”
This nutball believes in a “Negro and Jewish conspiracy” for every occasion.
A robot snake with a camera and microphone in its head is the Israeli military’s latest battlefield weapon, according to an Israeli TV report broadcast this week.
Channel 2 showed video of the snake twisting into caves, tunnels, cracks and buildings, broadcasting pictures and sound back to a soldier controlling it with a laptop computer.
The “snake” appeared to be about two metres long.
Covered by fabric in military camouflage colours, it slithered along the ground and climbed rocks, its segments connected with joints that flexed in several different directions…
The report said no price has been determined for the snake, which is in the experimental stage, but the Israeli military plans to deploy the robot with combat units. No target date was given.
The report suggested another role for the robot – carrying a bomb to blow up militants or a building. In that case, Channel 2 said, it would be a “suicide snake.”
I want one.
Twitter user says vacation tweets led to burglary | CNET News — I’ve always been baffled why people announce their every move online. Some boneheads even publish their schedule in advance on blogs! What’s the point?
Here’s either a cautionary tale or an example of social-media paranoia. An Arizona man believes that his Twitter messages about going out of town led to a burglary at his home while he was away.
Israel Hyman posted to approximately 2,000 followers on Twitter that he and his wife were “preparing to head out of town,” that they had “another 10 hours of driving ahead” and later, that they “made it to Kansas City.”
When he came home, he found that someone had broken into his house and stolen thousands of dollars worth of video equipment he used for his video business, IzzyVideo.com, which he uses for his Twitter account.
“My wife thinks it could be a random thing, but I just have my suspicions,” he told the Associated Press. “They didn’t take any of our normal consumer electronics.”
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to advertise to the world that your home will be unoccupied for a period of time. I also don’t think it’s necessary to reveal too many other personal details on social media sites that could be used for identity fraud, like your birth date.
When going on vacation use Twitter to post: “Spending the weekend cleaning my gun collection. I’m itching to try my new Springfield XD on something. My wife says I’m trigger-happy. What does she know?”
Found by Derek Thomas.
Two longtime friends have been accused of killing a suspected drug dealer, dismembering the body, and then “cooking” the remains at a Walpole concrete business…
The two men, who became friends while attending Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury decades ago, are accused of conspiring to kill Angel Antonio Ramirez, 37, on March 20 in Walpole, said Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Robert Nelson.
Nelson said that Moccia owed Ramirez $70,000 in an outstanding drug debt and decided that he was going to kill Ramirez, 37, instead of paying him. Nelson said Moccia sold kilos of cocaine he received from Ramirez, a Guatemalan immigrant who obtained his cocaine from the West Coast.
Nelson said Moccia lured Ramirez to Walpole, shot him once in the back with a .357-caliber revolver, and then he and Bradley moved Ramirez’s body to R.J. Bradley Co., a concrete business co-owned by Bradley.
Bradley then dismembered Ramirez’s body and took one more step to eliminate any trace of the Guatemalan man’s existence and his death, Nelson said.
No details available yet on what they did with the bits and pieces after they cooked them.
Or how they were seasoned.
June 10 (Bloomberg) — Edward E. Whitacre Jr. built AT&T Inc. into the biggest U.S. provider of telephone service over a 43-year-career. By his own admission, he becomes chairman of General Motors Corp. knowing nothing about the auto industry.
The 6-foot-4-inch Texan nicknamed “Big Ed” said steering the nation’s largest automaker after bankruptcy is “a public service.” People who know him say he can meet GM’s need for the type of transformation he orchestrated at Dallas-based AT&T.
“I don’t know anything about cars,” Whitacre, 67, said yesterday in an interview after his appointment. “A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.”
Whitacre is “well qualified” for the GM post, the (US) Treasury said in a statement.
Veterinary group rethinks fish toss in Seattle
Seattle’s famed fishmongers may be tossing rubber fish instead of real ones at a national veterinary association’s convention next month following complaints from an animal-rights group.
American Veterinary Medical Association chief executive Ron DeHaven said the Schaumburg, Ill.-based organization had thought inviting one of Seattle’s top tourist attractions — the fish-throwers at the Pike Place Fish Market — to the event would be a great “team-building experience.”
But after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals raised concerns about the ethics of using dead fish as props at a veterinary event, DeHaven said the AVMA would explore other options, including an alternative PETA suggested: using rubber fish.
“If there is criticism that we’re being disrespectful, we need to be sensitive to those concerns,” DeHaven said Tuesday.
Yeah, just think of the feelings for the families of the dead fish being tossed around like so much, uh, fish. Hey, DeHaven, grow some nards for godssake.
Found by Meetsy.
Spoons ditched to shave costs | The Sun — When accountants start running things, then this is the result. Prediction: it gets worse.
COST-CUTTING airlines are making spoons smaller and dropping in-flight mags to make planes lighter and save fuel. The International Air Transport Association has revealed Northwest Airlines has taken spoons from its cutlery pack if the in-flight meal doesn’t need one.
And another carrier, JAL of Japan, took everything it loaded from a 747 and put it on the floor of a school gym to see what it really needed. It shaved a fraction of a centimetre off all its cutlery to cut weight.
The body’s director of the environment Paul Steele said: “When you are talking about a jumbo jet with 400 people on board, being served two to three meals, this can save a few kilos.
Let’s see… I buy a hunk a junk for $50 and get a voucher for $3500-4500? Sounds good to me!
The vehicle scrappage bill has been under negotiations for months as lawmakers try to find a solution that boosts car sales while providing some environmental benefits. Proponents have pointed to similar programs in Europe that have enhanced auto sales.
[…]
Separately, House and Senate appropriators were discussing providing $1 billion to a supplemental war funding bill for the “cash for clunkers” program, which aims to generate about one million new auto sales. Since the yearlong vehicle program is expected to cost $4 billion, lawmakers would attempt to find the additional money later this year.Under the House bill, car owners could get a voucher worth $3,500 if they traded in a vehicle getting 18 miles per gallon or less for one getting at least 22 miles per gallon. The value of the voucher would grow to $4,500 if the mileage of the new car is 10 mpg higher than the old vehicle. The miles per gallon figures are listed on the window sticker.
Owners of sport-utility vehicles, pickup trucks or minivans that get 18 mpg or less could receive a voucher for $3,500 if their new truck or SUV is at least 2 mpg higher than their old vehicle. The voucher would increase to $4,500 if the mileage of the new truck or SUV is at least 5 mpg higher than the older vehicle. Consumers could also receive vouchers for leased vehicles.
And then there’s Israel.
An interesting aspect (bug?) of the game is that you can pilot your ship right through downtown if you get seasick and tired of the ocean. Imagine this technology being incorporated into ‘regular’ video games so that instead of fighting, say, WWII in a simulated German town, you could do it on the actual geography of a real town.
In this ship simulation program you get to be the helmsman of your own fleet of ships. “Ships” will take you past worlds incredible scenery at a leisurely pace. All you need to play ships is a small Google Earth plugin.
The idea to use Google map data for a game came almost 2 years ago. The “Ships” concept was initially written in Scratch Since the release of the Google Earth plugin and it’s versatile programmers interface it became feasible to write a comprehensive application using Google Map data.
“Ships” is a case study / Technology show piece that demonstrates what can be achieved with Google Earth. While map data has a tremendous value for practical purposes, it can also be used as a backdrop for a range of games.
In a radically different usage of Google Earth, if you have Google Earth 5 installed and click on this link, it will open the Map of the Fallen. Each casualty is represented by a Google man figure at the person’s hometown. A line connects the most recent casualties to the spot where they died. Sobering doesn’t come close to describing this.
This Memorial Day I would like to share with you a personal project of mine that uses Google Earth to honor the more than 5,700 American and Coalition servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have created a map for Google Earth that will connect you with each of their stories—you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died.
- Western Digital shows off 4-TB drive. Nice!
- $99 iPhone will begin to erode the cachet of the device.
- PS-3 price drop expected.
- ABC News does yet another computer injury story.
- This Friday everything goes digital.
- Google going after enterprise users for Office apps.
- InfoWorld lists hardware Hall of Fame. Horrid list.
- Today’s show sponsored by Squarespace.com code word TECH
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Some of the commenters on DU need to use their right hemisphere a little more.
Found by Marina Lenz.
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