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Theres a video out on Engadget that pits Flash Lite 4.0 against Flash 10.1 Beta obviously the winner is Flash 10.1 running on a Nexus One with Android 2.2 Froyo installed. While you could tell which version was doing better Flash Lite 4.0 really stood in there and gave 10.1 Beta a run for its money the performance differences were not that huge really.Flash Lite 4.0 was shown off on the HTC Desire and while it stuttered a little bit it was still quite watchable thought I wouldnt

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Sunday morning was cool and foggy, and so we were not surprised to discover the garden full of craters and trenches. A snapping turtle the size of a manhole cover was busy laying her eggs.

This is an annual ritual in this part of New England. The first time I encountered a snapping turtle here, not long after we had moved into our house, I was terrified. Our children were toddlers, old enough to run but not old enough to know they should stay away from animals that can snap off your finger. Somehow I had to get the turtle out of my yard and back into the creek that runs behind our house. With no experience in turtle-wrangling, I decided to get a broomstick. I tapped the turtle on its shell, to signal that I wanted it to leave. It looked up at me with supreme indifference.

My helplessness made me hallucinate. I feared the turtle was going to break into the house somehow and eat our cats. I called our town’s animal control line, and ended up talking to a policeman. He gave me a suprisingly detailed lecture on the natural history of the snapping turtle. On cool, foggy mornings in late spring, he explaned, females emerge from streams and wetlands to bury their eggs in the soft earth. They take care of their business in about an hour, and then they leave. He would not be coming to my house to rescue us.

He was right. The turtle picked a lush bed of mulch and mud, near a rose bush, and laid her eggs. I stared at from the front door with my children until we got bored. When I checked back a few minutes later, it was gone. I never realized that a snapping turtle can disappear when it wants to. After a few weeks the eggs hatched. In the summer we discovred adorably vicious baby snapping turtles trying to find their way back to the water. Every spring since, the snapping turtles have returned, and we’ve gotten more comfortable with them. I don’t bother the police. Instead, we get reasonably close to the turtle to observe.

We usually get one snapping turtle visiting us each year. We’re grateful, but we also know these visits are a shadow of a former glory. One of our neighbors, who grew up in our town, remembers armies of snapping turtles swarming up out of the creek in the spring. We live in biologically impoverished times, with constipated streams, filled-in marshes, and other assaults on the habitat of turtles in New England. Snapping turtles have been wandering out of marshes for millions of years. The oldest turtle fossils are about 220 million years old, but snapping turtles evolved much later. They belong to a 90-million-year-old lineage that also gave rise to species that span the extremes of turtle biology, from tiny mud turtles to leatherback turtles, the biggest reptiles on Earth, which swim across oceans.

This morning’s visitation was particularly mesmerizing, because the snapping turtle angled her body in such a way that we could see her eggs drop into the hole she had dug. They were the size and shape of eyeballs. As the eggs eased out of her cloaca, she tapped them with her right back foot into the hole, like a soccer player giving a ball the extra kick it needed to reach the goal. One after another, the eggs tumbled out. We counted a dozen, but snapping turtles can lay dozens more at a time. They pick these nests carefully. They chose these spots for their temperatures. Like many other turtle species, snapping turtles end up male or female depending on the temperature. At low and high temperatures, they produce females; at intermediate temperatures, they make males. Snapping turtles don’t have thermometers, but they have evolved a simple rule of thumb (or claw). They seek out soft, sandy soil, which tends to be the right temperature to produce a mix of males and females.

Unfortunately, we may be setting ecological traps for the turtles. They sometimes lay eggs in yards underneath planted trees or near houses. The shadows cool the temperatures compared to sites they pick in natural habitats. On the other hand, global warming may send them in the other direction. In either case, we may cause them to make too few males. And because they live so long (they can live 40 years), they will be slow to evolve new preferences. I hope that my grandchildren will be able to come see snapping turtles rip up our garden, but I cannot be sure.

Via UFO Casebook News Feed

UFO Spiral in the Sky across Western Canada – Photos and Video

Can’t get enough of the lovely Jill Valentine? Here’s your chance at getting her in your room. Capcom is releasing a 1/6 scale figure of Jill from Resident Evil 5.
 
 
 
 

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Article Tags: Public Polls

Only 62% of Britons interested in subject, down from 80% in 2006, according to YouGov survey

Popular concern about climate change has declined significantly, following this year’s harsh winter and rows over statistics on global warming, a survey has found.

The numbers of those interested in where Britain’s electricity comes from have also slipped back, according to a survey commissioned by the energy company EDF, demonstrating what appears to be growing consumer complacency in an era of electric-powered gadgetry.

At the same time resistance to building new nuclear power stations appears to be slackening. The results of the YouGov poll, based on a sample of 4,300 adults questioned during the week after the general election, show that interest in climate change fell from 80% of respondents in 2006, to 71% last year and now stands at only 62%. Only 80% say they are interested in where electrical power is made, down from 82% the previous year.

Other recent polls have recorded a similar drop in public alarm about the imminence of climate-triggered disaster. The number of climate change agnostics – those unsure whether human activity is warming the planet – has risen from 25% in 2007 to 33% now.

Click source to read more from Owen Bowcott

Source: guardian.co.uk

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The Buick that enthusiasts have been clamoring for–the Regal GS show car revealed at the Detroit auto show–will soon be reality.

This turbocharged demon packing 255 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque with a six-speed manual transmission and a host of performance enhancements has been approved, spokeswoman Dayna Hart told AutoWeek on Monday.

There is no time line for the launch, and other details are not available.

“We’re kind of just saying, stay tuned,” Hart said.

GS, or Gran Sport, channels Buick’s heritage of sporting drives going back to the 1960s. The Riviera, the Wildcat, the Skylark and the Regal have all worn the badge.

The car at the Detroit auto show had all-wheel drive, two more vertical front air intakes, forged aluminum 20-inch wheels, a sport steering wheel and Recaro seats.

Though called a show car, the Regal GS was a gussied-up production Regal. Another turbo version of the Regal making 220 hp from the same Ecotec four-cylinder is due this summer.

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Source: Car news, reviews and auto show stories

The new world of Mobile technology was ever changed when the iPhone was released with the greatest Multi-Touch software. Well XDA member l3v5y has brought that and more to the Windows Mobile world. Him and a friend have created an application called LMT launcher, and what makes this application special is the ability to launch anything with the use of two finger gestures. It is a Multi-Touch based application launcher for the Windows Phone device the HTC HD2.

The application is truly amazing and after using it for about one month now on my HD2, I love it, and here is what the creator had to say about it.

Use the controller as a generic gamepad for e.g. FPSEce, morphgear or flash games. The controller is multitouch capable and converts the touches to key events. You can define the keys to be sent via registry value "ControllerKeys": Down, up, left, right, 1, 2, A, B, C, D, X, Y. The button "R" toggles between portrait and landscape mode and partial and full screen lock. The button "X" deactivates the controller mode. The registry value "ControllerVibrate" defines the vibrate status: 0=off, 1=default, >1=time in ms. To quickly install and configure LMTs controller with FPSEce and morphgear I made a fpse.ini file and a registry file for morphgear. The howto:
FPSEce:

• install FPSEce on internal memory
• before first start replace the existing fpse.ini with the attached one
• now start FPSEce
• load a rom, start LMTs controller and have fun!

Morphgear:

• install morphgear and e.g. the generator plugin on internal memory
• start morphgear and close it again
• import the attached registry file
• now restart morphgear again
• load rom, start LMTs controller and have fun!

These aren’t the perfect settings since I only patched the key inputs to work properly with LMTs controller but it’s a good base for further settings. If anyone has better settings, it would be nice if he could post them here…
Settings
There are 3 blacklists available to exclude processes from taskswitching (BlackListSwitch), from the closeApp feature (BlackListClose) and to deactivate LMT when the process is the current foreground app (BlackListAll). Just add the full path to the process to the multistring. There is also 1 whitelist available: WhiteListBack. If Opera 9 is the current foreground app and you activate the internal command “Back”, LMT will send a special key to navigate back in Opera.
With the registry value “SingleTouchGestureSupport” you are able to activate or deactivate the single touch gestures (Square, Diamond and Delete) and with the registry value “TapAndHoldGestureSupport” you can activate a special feature where you can draw all dual touch gestures with one hand: Just tap with one finger somewhere on the screen and draw "one part" of the multitouch gesture with another finger. Then release the tapped finger and the gesture will be recognized.
Changelog 0.8

• Fixed rotation feature
• Controller button "R" now toggles between: Portrait (fg app touchable) -> Landscape (fg app touchable) -> Portrait (full screen lock) -> Landscape (full screen lock)
• Added Mario feature in controller mode: The areas between A and B, C and D and X and Y will lead to both keyevents. When you e.g. run in Mario Bros. with button "C" and jump with button "D" you can run with "C" and then slide your finger right. Then "C" and "D" will be both pressed. Mario will run and jump…
• Fixed rotate and exit button in controller mode (no interference with fg app)
• Added dword reg value "ShowOverlay": 0=overlays deactivated, 1=overlays activated with default time, >1=overlays activated with custom time (ms)
• Optimized square gestures
• Removed arrow gestures
• Added 5 new mt gestures: Double Diamond and Swipe left/right, right/left, up/down, down/up
• Added 1 st gesture: Diamond
• Added \Windows\services.exe to BlackListClose
• Set new defaults for gestures (see registry!)
• LMT is now rotation arware and works also in landscape mode (only 270°)
• Controller supports now real landscape mode (e.g. for flash games)

You can try this out and download it over at XDA

The world of document management is not one that most people associate with fun, laughter and good times. It has been described (by me on occasion) as about as exciting as watching paint dry

Much thanks to Stephanie for stepping in last week while I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth yanked.

Our third set of molars, nicknamed "wisdom teeth" since they generally surface between ages 17-25, were useful to our Stone Age ancestors who had wider jaws, coarser diets and rougher lives. These teeth helped them chew easier and helped ease the loss of other teeth during the course of their lives.

Flash forward to now and -surprise- these teeth can cause problems for some people. If your wisdom teeth are impacted, they can rub up against other teeth and cause bad breath, your bite to be misaligned, an abscess of the tooth or gums and even gum disease.

I never had any problems with my wisdom teeth, but when I was at the dentist last month, she noticed an abscess forming in the gums of one of the impacted teeth. She was concerned that the abscess could be malignant and I was sold on getting all four of my wisdom teeth removed.

Luckily, the lab results said the abscess was benign, but I did suffer one post-extraction problem—dry sockets. While that has not been fun at all, I’ll recover and I’m happy that I got my wisdom teeth removed so there are no future complications.

Have you had your wisdom teeth removed?

The Rally Ends With a Bang
Michael Schlee

The Route 66 Rally wound down on Friday with a blowout awards ceremony at the Big Texan Steak House. To say the 50 teams participating in the event had a good time would be a gross understatement. The organizers of this amazing event deserve a huge shout out. So, here it is; way to go Scott Spielman and Tony Intrieri!

On the 3rd day of rally, Team Autotrader.ca (me) stuck to our plan of touring the historic Route 66 as opposed to racing to the finish line for the quickest time.

This idea was expanding as our original group of two cars had grown to 5 vehicles on the 3rd day. With a Canadian built American car (Camaro), a German car built in the United States (BMW Z4), a Japanese car (WRX), an American truck (F-150 Raptor) and a British car designed by Germans but built in Britain (new Mini) we decided on naming ourselves the fitting “Team United Nations Alliance”. Or TUNA for short.

After getting lost for over an hour in the maze that is Oklahoma City, ‘TUNA’ visited many historic sites on Day 3 including a tour of the National Route 66 museum in Oklahoma. The highlight of the day though actually came the following morning when we visited the world famous Cadillac Ranch. As one of my good friends on the rally said; ‘Visiting the Cadillac Ranch is one more thing I can cross off my bucket list’.

As a footnote, all of this determination to site see at our own pace paid off as we were awarded the ‘Die Hard Rally Award’ (see picture with the space man) for driving every inch of Historic Route 66 we could between Chicago and Amarillo. 

On May 21, 2010, the company Google again surprised the world with the first interactive doodle which also was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. To start a game, they changed the button “I’m Feeling Lucky” to “Insert Coin.” The game takes place directly on the Google logo, which has been created in compliance with many of the features of the original Pac-Man, challenging users with 255 levels that make up the game. If you press twice “Insert Coin” can play a two-player version where you can guide Pacman and Ms. Pacman through the maze.

Over the years the Pac-Man became the biggest selling game of all time and its main character and the little ghosts that chase (historically known by the nicknames of Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) became a cultural icon.

It is said that the perfect game is completing the 256 levels with the highest score and without losing lives. The first person who could have done it is Billy Mitchell in 1999. After a six-hour marathon session, reached 3,333,360 points.

However, in December 1982, the 8 years old Jeffrey R. Yee received a letter from then U.S. President Ronald Reagan congratulating him on achieving a world record of 6,131,940 points, a score that can only be achieved if the player passes through the level of the split screen. Since then is hotly debated in video game circles on whether this actually took place or not. Billy Mitchell was offered $ 100,000 if he could complete the level of the split screen before January 1, 2000, but nobody could do it.

On June 5, 2007 was held in New York City, the world championship of Pac-Man, where the Mexican native of Pachuca, Hidalggo, Efren Cuz Bernardo Riveros, took home the tournament after being crowned by Toru Iwatani himself as the first and only world champion of Pac-Man.

Related posts:

1. Pac-Man 30th Anniversary! Insert Coin to Play Pacman Game Before…
2. Pac Man 30th Anniversary: ‘Insert coin’ for two player pacman free online game
3. PacMan 30th anniversary: Google PacMan game

Following nearly a year of contentious debate, the Democrats’ Wall Street reform bill stalled in the Senate last week, as all but two Republicans voted against the measure designed to overhaul the financial regulatory system.

Joining the GOP in preventing the advancement of the bill were two Democrats—Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.)—who oppose the legislation because they do not feel that it goes far enough.

Soon after the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) criticized Republicans for blocking a piece of legislation that would prevent bailouts and strengthen consumer protections, according to CNN.com.

"Wall Street and, obviously, 39 out of 41 Republicans… think that things going on, on Wall Street, are just fine," Reid said. "I think that’s a real stretch to think the American people think that they want this to go on as in years past."

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that the bill is just another example of the increasingly intrusive nature of big government.

"Not only does the bill still contain a massive new government agency with broad new powers over consumer spending and Main Street businesses, it does nothing to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the main protagonists in the financial meltdown," said McConnell.

Reid indicated that the Democrats plan to hold another vote on the bill in the coming days.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has found himself in a hot seat for the controversial comments he made in his latest book, where he compared President Barack Obama’s administration to the Nazi and Soviet regimes.

In To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine, Gingrich wrote that Obama and his closest Democratic collaborators, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), are implementing a socialist agenda, especially in areas such as the healthcare reform and economic stimulus, according to media reports.

In Gingrich’s view, these types of policies pose "a great threat" to America, and are comparable to those that characterized Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

His comments have provoked a strong reaction from many groups, including the American Jewish Council (AJC). David Harris, executive director of the AJC, said the analogy was "foolish and dangerous."

"It is vital that the Republican leadership say clearly that such analogies are unacceptable," Harris said. "Unfortunately, as the recent controversy over the new immigration law in Arizona also demonstrates, demonizing political opponents as Nazis is becoming all too common in American political debate."

Criticism has also come from Gingrich’s own political allies. Former GOP Congresswoman Susan Molinari told talk show host Joy Behar that she wanted to "distance myself from that remark. To compare anything that is going on in this country to the atrocities of Nazi Germany in any way, shape or form is just crazy," quoted by CNN.

President Barack Obama’s paternal aunt Zeituni Onyango, who is a citizen of Kenya and was living in the United States illegally, has been granted political asylum by a court in Boston.

The court accepted Onyango’s argument that she feared violence—she and Obama’s father, who was her half-brother, were members of the Luo tribe, a minority in Kenya—if she returned to that country. The ruling opens the way for her to apply for legal permanent residency in a year, according to The Boston Globe.

However, the court’s decision has angered immigration reform proponents, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The organization called it "a case study in how those seeking to evade U.S. immigration laws can manipulate the system," and demanded that the entire record of the case be made public.

FAIR representatives were particularly angered at the fact that Onyango was granted the asylum despite having her 2004 petition denied by a Federal immigration court, a ruling she ignored.

"[The] case is an all-too-typical example of how our asylum laws are used to thwart the enforcement [of] U.S. immigration laws," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR, adding that "the system allows people who defy our laws repeated opportunities to [come up with] new reasons to be granted legal permission to remain."

According to a new Cornell University study, older women may be able to significantly decrease their risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by regularly taking vitamin E supplements.

For the study, researchers analyzed the medical data of more than 40,000 women over the age of 45 who were randomly assigned to take either 600 mg of vitamin E or a placebo every other day for several years.

At the conclusion of the research, the investigators found that participants who regularly took nutritional supplements had an approximately 10 percent lower risk of being diagnosed with COPD compared to those in the control group. However, vitamin E had no statistically significant effect on preventing the development of asthma.

"If results of this study are borne out by further research, clinicians may recommend that women take vitamin E supplements to prevent COPD," said lead author Anne Hermetet Agler.

She also noted that the benefits of vitamin E supplementation were apparent in smokers and non-smokers alike.

The findings will be presented at the ATS 2010 International Conference in New Orleans later this week.

Dear Bob

What about people who don’t have large sums of money to “invest” in your precious metals. What about the poor or the ones who struggle every day to get by. What do they do?

ALC

Dear ALC,

I understand that many are struggling to get by, especially those who are out of work or are on fixed incomes. However, you can still take steps to prepare for an uncertain future. Without knowing your specific situation I can’t give more than general advice. However, you should work to extricate yourself from debt. You should set aside a little non-perishable food (as much as you can afford) every time you go shopping. To invest in precious metals, I would recommend silver. Its price is around $17-$18 per ounce and you can buy it one ounce at a time, if that better fits your budget.

Best Wishes,
Bob

The administration of President Barack Obama has itself tied up in quite a knot.

The administration that opposes enhanced interrogations, that wants to treat terrorists caught both on the battlefield and in country as common criminals, that wants to try suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a New York City courtroom, that read Miranda rights to the foreign-born underwear bomber right away but delayed it for hours for the naturalized citizen Times Square bomber, has targeted an American citizen living in Yemen for assassination.

Of course, since the United States government has a policy against assassination that’s not what it’s being called. But what else do you call the order designating American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki as a target for a strike by a drone missile?

Awlaki is suspected by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of actively plotting violence. He is described in The New York Times as “a charismatic preacher who has said it is a religious duty to attack the United States.” The CIA says it believes Awlaki’s rhetoric inspired Times Square attempted-bomber Faisal Shahzad.

Of course Shahzad’s visit to Pakistan where he met with a member of an intelligence group with ties to the CIA surely had nothing to do with the bomb attack, but that is a topic for another day.

Whether Awlaki gets blown to bits by a Hellfire missile or shot in the head by a sniper, he’s dead and the U.S. government has become judge, jury and executioner.

To eavesdrop on Awlaki’s telephone calls the CIA—because of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—would first be required to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But to target him for death the CIA only needed approval from the National Security Council (NSC).

As former CIA lawyer Vicki Divoll told The Times, “Congress has protected Awlaki’s cell phone calls. But it has not provided any protections for his life. That makes no sense.”

I wonder if Awlaki will be read his Miranda rights before the missile explodes, or will Attorney General Eric Holder wait until afterwards and read them over Awlaki’s bits and pieces.

But wait. That might not be a problem because some in Congress want to take away Americans’ guaranteed citizenship rights if they target fellow citizens with terrorist violence.

Senator Joe Leiberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said recently, “If you’re attacking your fellow Americans in an act of war you lose the rights that come with citizenship.”

And this is where it gets really sticky. The Obama administration has yet to call the Times Square bomb plot an act of terrorism. On the White House website it is referred to as the “Times Square incident.” Or, to paraphrase Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, it was a potential man-caused disaster.

We are no longer sliding down a slippery slope. Now we are cascading down a steep mountainside.

It began soon after 9/11 with the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in the weeks following the attack. That act is already being used to strip U.S. citizens of their rights. Just ask Jose Padilla and Ashton Lundeby how that act is working out for them.

Now we have an administration that has shown a proclivity to use missile attacks from Predator drones to kill what it is calling insurgents or terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan—and killing innocents in the process—saying that it’s time to use them in a country we’re not currently at war with to kill an American citizen who hasn’t harmed anyone himself.

That same bunch doesn’t call planting a bomb in Times Square terrorism. But it warns that those who oppose its policies—and show their opposition by demonstrating and holding up signs outside the Capitol building and in cities and towns across the country—are potentially inciting attacks similar to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

If they think the rhetoric of Tea partiers—or Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or whoever—is somehow inciting violence, how long is it before the administration starts authorizing drone missile attacks on them?

Apparently, all it takes to get on the CIA’s short list for a missile strike is for someone in the administration to decide you are inciting violence. That doesn’t bode well for a group that has drawn the ire of Obama, his administration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid, who are on record as considering Tea partiers, former military members and anti-healthcare reform protestors as Nazis and terrorists.

American citizens… beware… this administration thinks you’re more dangerous and deserve fewer rights than foreigners planting bombs on U.S. soil. And if you hear the far-off hum of an airplane or the whoosh of a missile being fired, run like Satan himself is on your heels.

But if you’re al-Qaida don’t worry. Holder will read you your rights and have a court appointed attorney standing by.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said his administration will simplify the process whereby New Yorkers can obtain gun permits, reversing what gun rights advocates have long criticized as arcane and restrictive rules. However, his move appears to have failed to satisfy gun proponents.

The decision—which the administration explains is meant to increase efficiency by allowing for better investigation of applicants who might not qualify for a gun, while processing those fit to have them more swiftly—has been described as a reversal for Bloomberg who has been known for his anti-gun policies, according to The New York Times.

However, representatives of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) have said that on reviewing the new regulations they see the announcement as "a lot of flash and very little substance."

The program, which Bloomberg said will streamline licensing requirements, reduce renewal fees and speed up the application process, "sounds good on the surface," said SAF executive vice president Alan Gottlieb.

He noted, however, that there is only one handgun licensing office in Manhattan and only one office for registering and licensing rifles and shotguns in Queens.

"The handgun application fee is $340, and there is a $94.25 fingerprinting fee on top of that. This fee structure screams ‘for elites only’ because those fees are outrageously expensive for average citizens," Gottlieb concluded.