Operation:NetTalk Entry#016

What application do you use to store and organize your photos?

I use Picasa on my PC and iPhoto on the mac. Each work reasonably well. Recently I found an application that not only stores and organizes your photos, but does it in an unique way. It’s called Photopolis.

What is Photopolis?

Photopolis is a new way to experience your photo collection. Photopolis extracts the date you took your photo. Then it assembles the photos that were taken in a week as a “house”. Out of 4 houses a month is created and so on. The result is a checker-board arrengement of houses in a city. The straight streets represent years, the cross streets months. Because of this arrangement you can for example view your Christmas photos of all the years by walking along the “December” street.

Photopolis is available for PC and mac. So if this application seems of interest to you, you can find it here.

Operation:NetTalk Entry#015

I came across this funny cartoon last week, it’s a remake(sort of) of Scooby-Doo. Instead of the original characters, Sam T uses President Bush and his clan.

You can watch this and all his hilarious cartoons at Ebolaworld.

I’d like to share one more video. It’s of a computer generated animation of water.

It was made by Ron Fedkiw, Assistant Professor at Stanford Computer Science. Here’s a link to a bio of him and his research.

Operation:NetTalk Entry#014

Don’t Wait For A Genius: Quick Drop Your Mac And Go

With Quick Drop, we’ll never again wait in line for a Genius.

We love Apple, but fixing a broken computer can be a pain. Too much planning, too much waiting, and none of the instant gratification we love. Now, thanks to a tip from a disgruntled genius, the next time our Mac fails, we’ll know to use Quick Drop: (The Consumerist)

John Edwards Stands by Bloggers

John Edwards issued a statement today defending his hiring of two bloggers, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister, saying he believes “in giving everyone a fair shake.” (New York Times)

Microsoft: Novell deal a milestone despite squabbles

reporter’s notebook SAN FRANCISCO–Microsoft’s deal late last year with Novell may have set a record for shortest honeymoon, with the two companies publicly bickering within days.

Nonetheless, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith hails the deal as a landmark that still holds the potential of bringing together the open-source and commercial software business models.

“I actually think that when the decade is through, we’ll look back, and we’ll say the agreement between Microsoft and Novell was one of the most important milestones in the decade from an (intellectual property) perspective,” Smith said Thursday at a dinner with a handful of journalists. (CNET News)

Online forums replacing coffee shops for tip-seeking farmers

MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — Tucked away in the den of his 127-year-old farmhouse, Ed Winkle huddles over his computer. The screen’s soft glow lights up his eyeglasses, reflecting messages about tractors, corn hybrids and crop insurance.

Winkle is checking the latest postings on his favorite Internet farm forum. Advice from fellow farmers around the country has enabled him to increase his corn and soybean production, better market his crops, learn how to rebuild engines and get good tires for his tractor. (USAToday)

How do I… Install Windows Vista in a dual-boot configuration along with Windows XP

Are you really excited about the prospect of experimenting with the new features in the Windows Vista operating system, but are not yet ready to give up your existing Windows XP installation? For instance, you may be on the fence, because you’re not 100 percent sure that all your existing hardware and software will work in Vista and you still need them to get your work done.

If so, then you may be the perfect candidate for a dual-boot configuration. With this type of configuration, you can easily experiment with Windows Vista and still use Windows XP. In other words, you get to have your cake and eat it too.

In this article, I’ll discuss some of the options you’ll need to consider as you begin thinking about and planning for adding Windows Vista to your existing system in a dual-boot configuration. I’ll then walk you step by step through the entire procedure. (TechRepublic)

Operation:NetTalk Entry#013

Hackers Slow Internet Root Servers With Attack

Online attackers have briefly disrupted service on at least two of the 13 “root” servers that are used to direct traffic on the Internet. (PC World)

New York may ban iPods while crossing street

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Yorkers who blithely cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine. (Reuters)

At retail stores, Apple prepares to counter Vista

February 7, 2007 - Apple has been waging a quiet war against Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system in its television ads and on its Web site. Now, the Mac maker is bringing the fight to its chain of 170 retail stores, as well. (Think Secret)

Music industry sues Augusta man

In its running legal battle against unauthorized downloaders, five recording companies have sued an Augusta man in federal court claiming he illegally pirated and shared copyrighted music.

Scott Hinds, 23, is a defendant in one of a number of lawsuits by Recording Industry of America affiliates seeking to halt illegal sharing of copyrighted songs — a once-widespread practice some maintain was “fair use,” encouraged by certain computer software. (Morning Sentinel)

Hidden Vista tricks that can make you more productive

There are literally hundreds of new features and hidden tricks in Vista. Here are a few that will be helpful to you as you begin to get accustomed to using the new Windows Vista operating system. (Tech Republic)

AMD cranks out new Opterons

Three low-power Opterons and two processors in the mainstream power category were added to AMD’s product list. The low-power chips are said to consume no more than 68 watts, while the mainstream processors consume no more than 95 watts. (CNET)

Apple: Record labels should drop DRM

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple Inc. indicated it would open its iTunes store to other portable players besides its ubiquitous iPod if the world’s major record labels abandoned the anti-piracy technology that serves as the industry’s security blanket.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, made the case for abolishing the protections known as “Digital Rights Management,” or DRM, in an open letter posted Tuesday on the Cupertino-based company’s Web site. He also explained why Apple had decided against licensing its own DRM technology, known as “FairPlay,” as an alternative method for making iTunes accessible to all portable players. (Yahoo News)

MySpace offers 1m directing job

Social networking website MySpace is running a competition to win the director’s job on a 1m feature film (BBC News)

Soldier’s Blogs Monitore, Group Sues For More Info

It is no secret that the military monitors soldiers’ Web postings, can remove certain items and will punish those posting content that violates military rules.

Still, recent publicity about a special military group monitoring soldiers’ blogs and other Web postings has gained widespread attention and led to a lawsuit. (Information Week)

Security better, but needs more work, Gates says

SAN FRANCISCO — In his swan song to an annual gathering of 15,000 computer security experts here Tuesday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the software giant has made giant strides in security.

But he acknowledged that threats from malicious computer code and the proliferation of devices connected to the Internet have made security a moving target. (USA Today)

Operation:NetTalk Entry#012

News stories that interested me today…

Oregon Man Arrested For Using Stun Gun on 18-Month Old Son

(ALBANY) – A 21-year old mother contacted the Albany Police Department Saturday afternoon to report child abuse allegations against her husband.

She told officers that her husband, 23-year old Rian James Whittman, shot her 18-month old son repeatedly with a stun gun causing injury.

The investigation revealed that Rian James Whittman used a 100,000 volt stun-gun device multiple times on his 18-month old son over an approximately 3-week period.

The child was taken to Samaritan Albany General Hospital where he was examined and treated for injuries from the stun-gun. (Salem News)

Google me, Google you

I, Richard Chin, am a newspaper reporter and the writer of this article.

But did you know that I’m also a judge in Massachusetts, a Rhodes scholar, a squash pro, a martial arts expert and a male model?

Actually not me, but other people named Richard Chin.

I know this because I engage in an activity that bored, vain, self-centered, insecure people like me are prone to indulge in.

In other words, I Google myself. (Red Orbit)

A loo worth skipping too

Roto-Rooter is offering an online sweepstakes for its “Pimped Out John,” a bathroom throne for the gadget junkie. The fully loaded Kohler commode comes with a Philips 20-inch LCD TV; Star Wars DVD; Xbox 360; Philips DVD player; Gateway EMachine laptop with robot arm, iPod with docking station equipped with a toilet paper dispenser; TiVo; stocked Avanti refrigerator with beer tap; magazine rack and subscriptions to Sports Illustrated, ESPN and GQ; bike pedal exerciser; cup warmer/cooler and Roto-Rooter emergency service button.

Credit: Roto-Rooter

 

Google Earth prompts Indian fears

Citing security worries the Indian government has asked Google to reduce the detail in a selection of images. The government is drawing up a list of places it considers sensitive, which is expected to include military bases and government buildings.

Many other areas in Google Earth have been blurred by governments keen to stop people seeing sensitive sites. (BBC News)

Two Skeletons Push Primates Closer to Dinosaur Era

Two newly reported complete skeletons of primates show that this group that includes humans’ closest relatives such as chimps and lemurs is 10 million years older than scientists previously thought, pushing our earliest ancestors even closer to the Age of Dinosaurs.

 

This discovery, the most primitive known skeleton of a primate, extends the primate record by a big chunk of geologic time and changes the prevailing view of how primate traits evolved.

“It’s sort of a window into what the earliest primates would have looked like,” said study author Jonathan Bloch of the Florida Museum of Natural History. (Live Science)

I Hate Macs

Unless you have been walking around with your eyes closed, and your head encased in a block of concrete, with a blindfold tied round it, in the dark – unless you have been doing that, you surely can’t have failed to notice the current Apple Macintosh campaign starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, which has taken over magazines, newspapers and the internet in a series of brutal coordinated attacks aimed at causing massive loss of resistance. While I don’t have anything against shameless promotion per se (after all, within these very brackets I’m promoting my own BBC4 show, which starts tonight at 10pm), there is something infuriating about this particular blitz. In the ads, Webb plays a Mac while Mitchell adopts the mantle of a PC. We know this because they say so right at the start of the ad. (Guardian Unlimited)

Doctors mistakenly amputate baby’s arm and shoulder joint

A criminal case was filed in the Krasnodar region of Russia against a group of doctors, who caused severe bodily damage to a little girl aged only two months. The surgeons mistakenly amputated the girl’s right arm. (Crazy News)

 

Beheaded Ronald MacDonald Statue Found

STEWARTSTOWN, Pa. (AP) – February 5, 2007 – A Ronald McDonald statue taken from a family’s York County home last month was found beheaded in a wooded area over the weekend. The statue owned by the Grieger family disappeared January 15th. On Thursday, Joy Grieger found its severed head returned to her family’s Stewart stown property, complete with X’s drawn over its eyes. Police say the rest of the 300-pound statue turned up in Hopewell Township on Saturday. Grieger used to work at a McDonald’s, and her family adopted the statue decades ago. Police say the family did not know anything about its whereabouts until its cement head showed up on their lawn last week. The Griegers say they plan to offer a 500 dollar reward for information leading police to the culprits. Associated Press Article

 

 

 

Operation:NetTalk Entry#011

Once again I want to talk about a neat Firefox extension. I came across Sage this morning while searching for a RSS reader that I enjoy using, not one that I have to learn to live with. In the past I’ve used Thunderbird, Google Reader and a few other’s. None of which worked the way I wanted them to.

What does Sage do?

• Reads RSS (2.0, 1.0, 0.9x) and Atom feeds
• Newspaper feed rendering customizable via style sheets
• Feed Discovery
• Integrates with Firefox’s bookmark storage and Live Bookmarks
• Imports and exports OPML feed lists
• Technorati and RSS search engine integration
• Support for a number of locales: Argentine Spanish, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish
• Simple, one step install / uninstall

If Sage sounds appealing to you, give it a try.

Operation:NetTalk Entry#010

How many people out there has turned on the radio and the first song playing takes you back to your long lost youth? Well, that happened to me today. Like every morning, I sit in my truck waiting for it to heat up on these cold wintry mornings. Normally I don’t bother with the radio. But I was in the mood for music and the song I tuned into was Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. So I thought I would share a few of my favorites from a day long past. Before I do, I’d like to say, as I was searching for and watching these music videos I noticed some were classified as “classic”. Does this mean I’m old? I remember joking as a child when I would see tv commercials selling 8 tracks and records of the music my parents listened to in their youth. Now I see those same kind of commercials selling the music of my youth. Pfff!!! No matter, I’m young at heart. If only I still had the hair I had back then. Oh well, at least I don’t have to worry about having a bad hair day Anyway, onto the videos.

Operation:NetTalk Entry#009

What Your Sleeping Positions Say About You

By Scott Roeben

What do your sleep positions say about you? What insights do your nocturnal contortions provide about your inner thoughts, your hopes and secret fantasies? For years, sleep experts have studied the relationship between how we sleep and how we feel. At last, the results of the research are available here—exclusively at Dribbleglass.com.

	A whopping 43 percent of us sleep on our backs. The position shows confidence and mental wellbeing. It expresses an openness and a generally bright outlook on life.
Many people sleep on their side. This popular position shows a small degree of insecurity, and often indicates growing stress overflowing from the sleeper’s waking hours.
	Sleeping on the stomach has been shown to correlate with hidden aggression. The “face down” position is often a precursor to dramatic and sometimes detrimental shifts in the sleeper’s emotional life.
This variation of lying on one’s back is known as the “Deathwish.” It is characterized by hands folded on one’s chest and shows the sleeper’s subconscious hope that he or she will be pushed into the path of an oncoming bullet train.
	The “L” position was first observed during the 1940s. Experts believe this fairly rare position reveals the sleeper’s secret yearning to swim in a giant vat of alphabet soup.
Referred to as the “Hazel,” this position clearly indicates that a sleeper harbors an unnatural desire to become a domestic servant.
	In this position—which utilizes a strategically positioned pillowcase—the sleeper reverts to infancy. It is clear this represents a longing for simpler times, as well as a profound urge to “go poopy.”
The unusual utilization of pillows in this configuration indicates a sexual timidity, usually brought on by some sexual dysfunction such as not being able to “get any” even after dating livestock.

	“The cheerleader”—likely to use pillow cases as makeshift pom-poms—has a need to “cheer” others on. This person often has a waking life full of shopping, spouting superficial cliches and “petting with really cool guys.”
The “Drooler” does just that. This isn’t exactly a sleep position, but we just think it’s icky.
	This position, the “Cousteau,” seems to be connected with the sleeper’s feelings they are “swimming against the current” in life, commonly mixed with a sense of “drowning with worry” or getting the love “bends.”
Scientists have no idea what this position represents, but it certainly does give one what experts call “the willies.”
	The “Roman Senator” harbors painful feelings of inadequacy. This position should not be confused with the “Braveheart,” which indicates painful feelings of wanting to rebel against one’s own “Longshank.”
It’s clear this sleeper wants to hide from his or her problems. He or she seeks to remain anonymous to the world, a place where he or she hates being referred to as “he or she.”
	This painful posture has been called the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” position by experts. It shows a deep-seated compulsion to default on loans from underworld figures with nicknames like “Johnny the Chin.”

These are some of the more common sleep positions. You may have some of your own. Listen to what your body is saying. Sometimes, of course, it’s not saying anything—it’s just making noises.

Operation:NetTalk Entry#008

Bizarre, sick, obscure news stories for today.

Student faces child porn charges

School-lunch streaker gets unexpected shock

Taped beatings a ‘new trend’

College Student Jailed For Two Days After Reporting Rape

Three charged in child prostitution

I won’t be happy until I lose my legs

Jumpers leave workers sleepless in Seattle

Sunburnt skin record bid

Update:

LAWMAKER AIMS TO ALLOW THE BLIND TO HUNT
(Texas, Reuters) – A Texas lawmaker is aiming to allow the blind to hunt. Texas State Representative Edmund Kuempel has introduced a measure that would allow blind people to hunt any game that sighted people can currently pursue. “This opens up the fun of hunting to additional people, and I think that’s great,” Kuempel told Reuters. The bill may find little resistance in Texas, where politicians of all stripes endorse hunting, which is wildly popular in the state. Under the bill, blind hunters would be required to have a sighted hunter with them and would be allowed to use laser sights and other devices that are currently not allowed. “A blind person can shoot a rifle by mounting an offset pistol scope on the side of the rifle instead of on top,” said Terry Erwin, the Austin-based Hunter Education Coordinator with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “This allows their companion behind them to peer over their shoulder and help them sight it, but the blind person can pull the trigger,” he told Reuters.

WARM BEER LED TO KILLING, POLICE SAY

(Missouri) – A St. Louis man was shot to death over a warm beer, police said. St. Louis police say a woman shot her husband, who was about 70 years old, four to five times in the chest after he tried giving her a warm can of Stag beer. Police said the wife admitted shooting him about 5:40 p.m. in the kitchen of their home in the 5100 block of Terry Avenue. Police said the home had no electricity at the time. Homicide detectives would not identify the man. The woman, whom police also did not identify, was taken into custody.

WORLD’S TALLEST MAN SAVES CHOKING DOLPHINS
(China, AP) – The long arms of the world’s tallest man saved two dolphins in northeast China by reaching inside of them to remove plastic they had swallowed, state media reported. The dolphins at an aquarium in Fushun, Liaoning Province, had fallen sick after swallowing the plastic from the edge of their pool, and attempts to use surgical instruments to remove the plastic failed because of the contraction of the dolphins’ stomachs in response to the instruments. Veterinarians then decided to ask for help from Bao Xishun, a 7-foot-8 herdsman from Inner Mongolia. Bao, 54, was confirmed last year by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s tallest living man. Bao was able to reach deep enough into the dolphins to pull out the plastic. “Some very small plastic pieces are still left in the dolphins’ stomachs,” Zhu Xiaoling, a local doctor, told Xinhua. “However the dolphins will be able to digest these and are expected to recover soon.”

CONDOMS CAUSE PROBLEMS FOR SOME INDIAN MEN
(India, Reuters) – Condoms designed to meet international size specifications are too big for many Indian men as their penises fall short of what manufacturers had anticipated, an Indian study has found. The Indian Council of Medical Research, a leading state-run center, said its initial findings from a two-year study showed 60 percent of men in the financial capital Mumbai had penises about one inch shorter than those condoms catered for. For a further 30 percent, the difference was at least two inches. A poor fit meant the prophylactics often didn’t do the job they were bought for, and led to some tearing or slipping off during use. “One of the reasons for a failure of up to 20 percent of condoms is the association of the size of the condom to the erect penis,” the council’s Dr. Chander Puri told Reuters, adding another reason was couples often put them on in a hurry. Puri said many men in India, which has the world’s highest HIV positive caseload, were too shy to ask for condoms. “We need more vending machines for condoms of different sizes so people can pick a condom with confidence that is suited to their needs,” he said.

TONGUE MADE FROM BUTTOCKS
(Poland) – A Polish man who had his tongue removed has had a new one made using tissue taken from his buttocks. Jarislav Ernst, 23, from Gliwice, now has a functioning tongue made from his backside after surgery at the Oncology Clinic in Gliwice’s General Hospital. Head doctor Stanislaw Poltorek said, “The new tongue is alive and well-supplied with blood, and the patient is doing well.” Ernst’s tongue was removed after it was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. Poltorek added, “We removed the tumor-filled tongue, checking that there were no remaining cancerous cells around the patient’s mouth, then collected skin, fat and nerve tissue from the man’s buttocks and modeled that into a new tongue, which we sewed into his mouth.”

Operation:NetTalk Entry#007

I stumbled across this website today – RetroJunk. It has alot of old tv intros, commericals, movie trailers, etc… It’s one of those sites where you sit back and say, ohhh… I remember that! I thought I would share a few of my favorites.

This last video is not from RetroJunk. But I thought I would share it anyway. I’m not for sure how to categorize it. I’ll let you be the judge.