On May 18, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) says, it will launch into space a “solar yacht” called Ikaros—the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun (named, of course, in honor of Icarus in Greek mythology). JAXA plans to control the path of Ikaros by changing the angle at which sunlight particles bounce off the silver-coloured sail [AFP].
Actually, the solar sail is a dual-purpose system, taking advantage of both the pressure and the energy of sunlight. The sail, which is less than the thickness of a human hair and 66 feet in diagonal distance, will catch the actual force of sunlight for propulsion as a sailboat’s sail catches the wind. But the solar sail is also covered in thin-film solar cells to generate electricity. And if you can make electricity, you can use it to ionize gas and emit it at high pressure, which is the propulsion systems most satellites use.
Potential velocity using a solar sailor has been theorized to be extremely high. “Eventually you’ll have these missions lasting many years, reaching speeds approaching 100,000 mph, getting out of the solar system in five years instead of 25 years,” said Louis D. Frieman, the Executive Director of the Planetary Society [Clean Technica]. The society has toyed around with its own solar sail.
For now, though, JAXA has a six-month test mission planned for Ikaros. If it works, they want to send a solar sail-powered mission to Jupiter and then the Trojan asteroids. That voyage would employ both the force of the sun and ion propulsion, and the Japanese are brimming with confidence: “Unlike the mythical Icarus, this Ikaros will not crash,” Yuichi Tsuda, an assistant professor at JAXA, said today [BusinessWeek].
We’re excited to report a great response to our inaugural Defcon 18 Getaway Contest since we announced it two weeks ago. Seventy-one participants have raised over $1900 so far!
Registration is still open, and the contest is still very much up for grabs! Current first place team Holy Handgrenades is sitting pretty at $575, with individual contestants Evan Keiser at second place with $65 and Robert Rowley at third place with $25. The pool of fabulous prizes is still within your reach!
Big thanks to Ninja Networks and Friends for sponsoring the contest and raising over $1200; however, contestants please note that its team has declared themselves ineligible for the prize package, leaving the contest wide open. Form a team; put a badge up on your blog; ask your friends and family — there are lots of ways to help EFF and compete for the prizes. (See Official Rules for full details).
EFF is also thrilled to announce that security firms iSEC Partners and IOActive have joined us to sponsor the Defcon Getaway Contest! We’re grateful for their support of the contest and EFF’s Coders’ Rights Project.
iSEC Partners is a proven full-service security consulting firm that provides penetration testing, secure systems development, security education and software design verification. iSEC Partners’ security assessments leverage our extensive knowledge of current security vulnerabilities, penetration techniques and software development best practices to enable customers to secure their applications against ever-present threats on the Internet.
Established in 1998, IOActive is an industry leader that offers comprehensive computer security services with specializations in smart grid technologies, software assurance, and compliance. Boasting a well-rounded and diverse clientele, IOActive works with a majority of Global 500 companies including power and utility, hardware, retail, financial, media, router, aerospace, high-tech, and software development organizations.
Stay tuned for more developments and updates regarding EFF’s Defcon Getaway Contest. If you haven’t already registered, what are you waiting for? Click here, and see you in Vegas!
Highrise Tout lets you templatize your email campaigns and track the results in Highrise
Tired of re-writing the same e-mails? Tout lets you templatize your emails so you can reach out to potential customers, journalists, and bloggers faster and then analyze the results. And it now integrates with Highrise. That means the people you pitch to are automatically added to your Highrise address book.
[Case study] UK’s largest graduate job website uses Highrise to manage thousands of business contacts
“On our desktops, we have it hooked it into our VOIP phone system so we can just ‘click-to-dial’. It’s fast and easy. Using the iCal feeds, our tasks appear on our Google Calendar’s and iPhone calendars, so we’re always aware of what to do next. Integration with Mailchimp means we can see who received our newsletter and whether they opened it, right in Highrise. The export functions & API are very simple for extracting data, so we use these to make extra reports and spreadsheets when the need arises.”
“Can I select the contacts I want to export by tags?”The answer: Yes. When viewing a group of contacts filtered by tag, you can choose “Export contacts tagged…” at the top of the right sidebar to download a vCard containing just those contacts.
Basecamp A preview of the new Basecamp messages and comments editor
The new editor (a WYSIWYG – “What You See Is What You Get” – editor) lets you turn text bold or italic without having to know the special “Textile” formatting codes you used to have to use. You can also create bullet lists and numbered lists by just clicking a button. No more battling with Basecamp just to make a bullet list or some bold text in a message.
In a short speech to supporters, Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.) just announced his run for the U.S. Senate as an independent candidate.
Crist, once the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination, has fallen far behind Marco Rubio in recent polls. While his path to the Senate may be easier as an independent, he acknowledged the difficulties ahead.
“I know this is uncharted territory,” he said. “I’m aware that after this speech ends, I don’t have either party helping me.”
He provided little in the way of explanation of his decision, instead referring repeatedly to “the people” of Florida and his desire to put them first.
Mother’s Day‘s just around the corner, and NewEgg’s got “gift ideas for every mom.” Let’s see… we’ve got an HDTV for her programs, DVDs for her movies. Oh, and a vibrator for her “home.” Obviously. [NewEgg via The Daily What] More »
Over on Ghacks, Martin Brinkmann describes how he’s been living without Flash installed on his work computer, due to an increase in the number of hacks targeting it. Brinkmann’s now four weeks into his experiment, and says he mostly hasn’t missed Flash, although there have been times when not having it has been awkward. In particular, he’s found not being able to view Flash videos difficult, although he lists a number of workarounds, including using YouTube’s experimental HTML5 video player, downloading videos to view them, and using the developer version of Chrome (this one could be described as cheating, as it has native Flash support built in).
It seems that getting by without Flash is becoming easier (there’s no Flash on the iPhone or the iPad, for example), and I’m looking forward to a future where open technologies like HTML5 will render Flash obsolete (for more about why open standards matter, see my interview with Bruce Lawson of Opera). However, even though HTML5 video is becoming more commonplace, and I don’t come across Flash-based websites quite as often as I once did, I don’t think I could do without having Flash installed on my machine just yet. Personally, I don’t believe Flash is enough of a security risk or a resource hog to force myself into having to use workarounds to access web content on a daily basis. What do you think, though? Could you live without Flash?
Photo courtesy Flickr user e³°°°, licensed under CC
It’s an earthworm so mysterious, people compare it to the Loch Ness Monster. Rarely sighted since the 1980’s, the giant Palouse earthworm was said to grow almost three feet long, smell like lilies, and spit at predators. It was so elusive, that some even doubted its existence–but now, a team of conservationists from the University of Idaho has found several of these mysterious creatures in a prairie field.
But what a let down it was.
Contrary to popular claim, the earthworms did not smell like lilies or spit at their predators. They weren’t even particularly giant, causing lead researcher Jodi Johnson-Maynard to remark: “One of my colleagues suggested we rename it the ‘larger than average Palouse earthworm’” [The Telegraph].
The team started combing the prairie region between Idaho and Washington state last summer in search of the Palouse earthworms. It was researcher Karl Umiker who eventually struck gold–or in this case, worm. Umiker used a tool called an electroshocker, in which electricity is passed through a number of electrodes that are stuck in the soil. Umiker was “shocking” a fragment of unploughed prairie when two giant earthworms emerged from the soil–a juvenile and an adult.
The Palouse worms were said be abundant in the 19th century, but farming of the prairie land reduced their numbers drastically. The worms were considered extinct until 2005, when Idaho graduate student Yaniria Sanchez-de Leon found a specimen near Albion, Wash. But that worm had been cut nearly in half as she was digging a hole [AP]. It’s not clear whether the worms retrieved last month were part of tiny population of remaining worms, or whether they’re considered rare simply because they live deep in the soil (down to 15 feet below the surface) and flee from the vibrations caused by digging scientists.
When they were extracted from the soil, both worms were about seven inches long. Says Johnson-Maynard: “But when we stretched it out and relaxed it, the adult earthworm got bigger…. It’s between 9 and 10 inches” [The New York Times]. That’s still a far cry from the myth of 3-foot-long Palouse worms. Johnson-Maynard says that legend may have arisen from reports of one truly giant specimen recovered many years ago. “Apparently some boy was swinging it in the air like a rope, and it stretched” [The New York Times].
Johnson-Maynard confirmed that the worms did not smell like lilies either, saying, “I have a fairly sensitive nose, and I just can’t smell the lily” [NPR]. The researchers have also seen no evidence of spitting.
While the adult was killed in order to confirm whether it was indeed a Palouse earthworm, researchers are excited to still have the juvenile alive and in one piece. For now, the captured juvenile is resting comfortably, Dr. Johnson-Maynard said, adding, “We have it in a cooler in soil with ice packs” [The New York Times].
Mazda2 Yozora edition – Click above for high-res image gallery
Canadian buyers can now get a Mazda2 with “2”s all over it, since that’s apparently what you’ve been dying for. The Mazda2 Yozora edition wears a suit of black as well as a rear spoiler, short antenna, chrome pipe and special alloys on winter tires summer tires, with an additional set of steel wheels on winter tires thrown in. And a decal theme that looks like it was designed by John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Just five hundred will be made at a starting price of $19,280 ($19,178 U.S.). Follow the jump for the details on its “captivating design,” or go straight to the gallery of high-res photos below.
Social networking companies don’t have it easy. Advertisers covet their users’ data, and in a niche that often seems to lack a clear business model, selling (or otherwise leveraging) that data is a tremendously tempting opportunity. But most users simply don’t want to share as much information with marketers or other “partners” as corporations would like them to. So it’s no surprise that some companies try to have it both ways.
Monday evening, after an exasperating few days trying to make sense of Facebook’s bizzare new “opt-out” procedures, we asked folks on Twitter and Facebook a question:
The world needs a simple word or term that means “the act of creating deliberately confusing jargon and user-interfaces which trick your users into sharing more info about themselves than they really want to.” Suggestions?
And the suggestions rolled in! Our favorites include “bait-and-click”, “bait-and-phish”, “dot-comfidence games”, and “confuser-interface-design”.
Although we didn’t specifically mention Facebook in our question, by far the most popular suggestions were variations on this one from @heisenthought on Twitter:
How about “zuck”? As in: “That user-interface totally zuckered me into sharing 50 wedding photos. That kinda zucks”
Other suggestions included “Zuckermining”, “Infozuckering”, “Zuckerpunch” and plenty of other variations on the name of Facebook’s Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Others suggested words like “Facebooking”, “Facebaiting”, and “Facebunk”.
It’s clear why folks would associate this kind of deceptive practice with Zuckerberg. Although Zuckerberg told users back in 2007 that privacy controls are “the vector around which Facebook operates,” by January 2010 he had changed his tune, saying that he wouldn’t include privacy controls if he were to restart Facebook from scratch. And just a few days ago, a New York Times reporter quoted a Facebook employee as saying Zuckerberg “doesn’t believe in privacy“.
Despite this, we’d rather not use Zuckerberg’s name as a synonym for deceptive practices. Although the popularity of the suggestion shows how personal the need for privacy has become for many Facebook users, we’d prefer to find a term that’s less personal and more self-explanatory.
No, our favorite idea came from Twitter user @volt4ire, who suggested we use the phrase “Evil Interfaces”. The name refers to a talk by West Point Professor Greg Conti at the 2008 Hackers On Planet Earth conference.
Here’s Conti explaining Evil Interfaces to a puppet named Weena:
As Conti describes it, a good interface is meant to help users achieve their goals as easily as possible. But an “evil” interface is meant to trick users into doing things they don’t want to. Conti’s examples include aggressive pop-up ads, malware that masquerades as anti-virus software, and pre-checked checkboxes for unwanted “special offers”.
The new Facebook is full of similarly deceptive interfaces. A classic is the “Show Friend List to everyone” checkbox. You may remember that when Facebook announced it would begin treating friend-lists as “publicly available information” last December, the change was met with user protests and government investigation. The objections were so strong that Facebook felt the need to take action in response. Just one problem: Facebook didn’t actually want to give up any of the rights it had granted itself. The result was the obscure and impotent checkbox pictured here. It’s designed to be hard to find — it’s located in an unlikely area of the User Profile page, instead of in the Privacy Settings page. And it’s worded to be as weak as possible — notice that the language lets a user set their friend-list’s “visibility”, but not whether Facebook has the right to use that information elsewhere.
A more recent example is the process introduced last week for opting out of Instant Personalization. This new feature allows select Facebook partner websites to collect and log all of your “publicly available” Facebook information any time you visit their websites. We’ve already documented the labyrinthine process Facebook requires users to take to protect their data, so I won’t repeat it here. Suffice to say that sharing your data requires radically less work than protecting it.
Of course, Facebook is far from the only social networking company to use this kind of trick. Memorably, users of GMail were surprised last February by the introduction of Google Buzz, which threatened to move private GMail recipients into a public “frequent contacts” list. As we noted at the time, Buzz’s needlessly complex “opt-out” user-interface was a big part of the problem.
OK, perhaps the word “evil” is a little strong. There’s no doubt that bad user-interfaces can come from good intentions. Design is difficult, and accidents do happen. But when an accident coincidentally bolsters a company’s business model at the expense of its users’ rights, it begins to look suspicious. And when similar accidents happen over and over again in the same company, around the same issues, it’s more than just coincidence. It’s a sign something’s seriously wrong.
As expected, Canonical today released the latest long-term support version of Ubuntu (v. 10.04, a.k.a., “Lucid Lynx”). This release carries considerably more weight than the usual bi-annual Desktop and Server updates because long-term support (LTS) come only biennially — once every two years. They typically don’t get treated to experimental feature additions, and are meant to be more stable. They do, however, include three years of package support for Ubuntu Desktop and five years for Ubuntu server. The last LTS versions Canonical released were “Dapper Drake” (4.0) in 2005 and “Hardy Heron” (8.04) in 2008.
This version of Ubuntu comes with a new color palette that departs from the usual brown, and a couple of new features directed at the demands of the everyday user. The popular Linux distro is definitely going for widespread appeal with this release.
One of the new features is the “Me Menu,” an interface for social Web sites like Twitter and Facebook built directly into the operating system. The tool is based on Gwibber and was originally intended to be a part of the “Karmic Koala” release, but did not make it into it, and was officially shown off as a part of Lucid Lynx last December.
Another is the new Ubuntu music player which has a music store and the Ubuntu One cloud file-sharing interface built into it. With the Alpha 3 release, Lucid Lynx also got full support for iPod Touch and iPhone, adding even further to the distro’s mainstream appeal.
FileForum user jcollake summed it up quite nicely today, “As for Ubuntu, I find it a highly valuable contribution to the Linux ‘sub-culture.’ It has introduced many new people to Linux and is an easy-to-use distribution. There are still areas — particularly in third-party hardware support — that aren’t quite as smooth as Windows, despite the best efforts of Ubuntu…but that’s not their fault…Bottom line is that they’ve done a good job, and it will work well for a lot of people — not everyone, but a lot.”
Motorola and Verizon spent a combined $100 million to advertise the original Droid and it resulted in the best selling Android device to date. The Droid is now the second best selling smartphone (behind the iPhone) and accounts for up to 17% of AdMob’s U.S. smartphone requests. Even the latest platform version breakdown from Google suggest that the Droid could account for up to 30% of all Android handsets that access the Market.
We were wondering if the Droid Incredible would receive the same treatment and it appears a similar campaign is in store. Verizon has already launched an Incredible mini site and the first ad spot just appeared on YouTube. We have also spotted Incredible ad banners on many of our favorite tech blogs.
Keep an eye our for Incredible ads and let us know what you find.
From Verizon Wireless: Forget what you thought you knew because you’ve never seen a DROID like this. The DROID INCREDIBLE, nothing short of its name.
The plug-in Prius goes much further and faster on electricity alone, but remains a Prius in every other respect.
Way back in the waning years of the last millennium, the Toyota Prius was born, becoming the first Toyota hybrid. Since then, of course, many other Toyota and Lexus hybrids have hit the roads, as have many from nearly every other automaker. But it’s the Prius—thanks to distinct (if unsexy) styling and industry-leading fuel economy—that remains the unofficial green-mobile for Toyota and the world.
Naturally, then, the Prius is set to become the first Toyota to make the next big leap in fuel efficiency for 2012 by going plug-in with its new Prius PHV, or Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle. And since 2012 is a long ways off—in our impatient minds, at least—we jumped at the chance to drive one of the 150 powder-blue preproduction Prius PHVs bound for the U.S. in 2010. All are part of Toyota’s Prius PHV pilot program that places vehicles with various utilities and government agencies to gather data on vehicle performance.
While reading the long list of threads on the touch HD2 section of XDA, I found something that might interest those hardcore HTC sense users. This mod/tab was created by a Russian Fed citizen on XDA, whose called xaoc747. He managed to envision a new way to display your compass, and GPS data, and has made it happen with the first release of his new Sense Tab.
This Tab contains many thing going on at once, and I am sure all HTC HD2 users that want the experience will loss a lot of battery in the process. But that’s neither here or there. If you want to have your GPS in your face and easily accessable at all time this tab comes with:
– work with GPS module without using a third-party navigation software – definition of current position – definition of object motion parameters for calculation between the current and previous points – Determination of directions and distances to given calculation points – recording of tracks (routes) in automatic and manual modes in a format Yandex maps with further viewing them – an analysis of the tracks (the specified distance route, maximum and average speed on the route and time of movement on the route) – Work with the payment points (in the format tags Yandex maps) – sending SMS with your coordinates in the automatic and manual modes for a given number – to set the maximum speed and control the speed while driving with the gradation by the fine
Now this might not be the best GPS system you will have on your Windows Phones(I personally use iGo,) but for a free software that looks good and comes with all these features… I only have one question, where do I sign up .
You can download it, and install it with the instructions.
If you’re in LA this weekend, and you love SciFi and mad scientists — and c’mon, who doesn’t? — then you’ll want to attend the screening of “Monsters from the Id”, a documentary on mad scientists, 1950s movies, and the future of science in the US. Seriously, check this video out and tell me you don’t want to see this:
There will be a panel after the screening, talking about these topics as well. That trailer hits all the right notes, and features some of my favorite movies of all time (“War of the Worlds”, “Them!”, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, “The Thing from Another World”, “Forbidden Planet”, und so weiter). Man, I wish I could go, but I don’t think I can make it. But don’t let that stop you. Put down the Krell brain enhancing machine and get moving!
It’s easy to be a foodie in your own home, where you have control over all of the ingredients you use, but when you’re traveling it’s not always possible. And I don’t mean traveling half way around the world, either. Ever had a sandwich at lunchtime that really needed something to give it some zip? There is a Foodie Survival Kit that lets you bring a complete set of spices wherever you go. Now, there is also a Chef’s Case that makes it even easier. This secret agent-style briefcase is packed with all kinds of gourmet ingredients – a.k.a. a foodie’s secret weapons – that are ready to go at a moment’s notice. The kid includes: Pomegranate Teriyaki Sauce, Lemon and Mint Chili Sauce, Garlic Chili Sauce, BBQ Figs Sauce, Red Wine Onion Sauce, Salt and Pepper Blend, Grilling Spice Blend and a Provence Seasoning Blend. All of these are made with all natural ingredients, no fillers, high fructose corn syrup or anything else like that.
Naturally, the case makes a great gift for foodies, especially those who have to be on the road a lot (you don’t always have the chance to hit up foodie hot spots on business trips, for instance). And it’s a great gift for yourself. When you’ve run through the contents of the case, you can refill with your favorite sauces and seasonings and pack it up for your next road trip.
Given a chance, what would you say to a top federal policy maker about rural broadband? I had my chance at the Broadband Properties Summit this week in Dallas with USDA Rural Utilities Services Administrator Jonathan Adelstein. I first saw him in the elevator and he asked me what I wanted to hear from him during his keynote. I asked him how we will get broadband to the countryside surrounding RBOC-served communities that have been CLEC’d by smaller independent companies who have cherry-picked the significant customer base in the town but are unable to overbuild the countryside. He told me that this was too hard of a question! As we got off the elevator, I saw that he was heading to the restaurant for breakfast alone. I overcame my natural shyness and asked him if I could join him and he welcomed me to his table. What followed was a very interesting discussion (at least for me!).
He was a very good questioner. We talked about the marvel of cooperatives as a model for rural broadband development. We talked about the appropriate scale for this type of cooperative development and whether new cooperatives could make it economically today as start-ups. Necessary scale versus local control – how does one find that balance. As Minnesota’s telecommunications providers get larger through acquisitions (CenturyLink purchasing Embarq and Qwest, growing independent telcos like ACS, Iowa Telecom and New Ulm Telephone), will the connection to the local community remain a priority?
The Broadband Properties Summit includes a focus on the business linkages between real estate development and telecom services. Telecom providers like ATT and Verizon pay real estate developers commission when tenants sign on with these providers. This got me thinking about if there was any real differences between an apartment building and a community? If communities are actively working to boost broadband adoption and subscriptions for community economic vitality, what is the proper role between communities and their providers on broadband promotion initiatives? I will be meeting with Minnesota’s telecom providers to discuss this very topic as we prepare to implement the Blandin Foundation’s MN Intelligent Community NTIA BTOP program.
I think it’s safe to say that if does come true Verizon will have the most impressive Android lineup even with the EVO on the horizon. Most people have been holding out for an Android with power and a physical keyboard, this may be the one all you have been waiting for.
This device was formerly known as the LG LU2300 which then turned into the Aloha. It has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 3.5-inch AMOLED touch screen at 480×800 pixels, QWERTY keyboard, Android 2.1, 720p video out, 5MP camera and D-Pad. According to AndroidCentral, this device will be released in the middle of May. If this is correct, more information should leak soon.
If you thought that the worst housing market collapse in 80 years would make Americans much less comfortable with buying a home as an investment, then you would be wrong. A new Rasmussen poll shows that most Americans still view a house as a great investment. This sort of news must really upset those who believe a house isn’t an investment to begin with.
In fact, a whopping 59% of Americans think buying a home is the “best investment a family can make.” 21% disagreed, while another 21% were unsure. Even if a home is an investment, there’s no guarantee that it will be a very good one. House appreciation doesn’t always occur, even in good economic times.
What makes this statistic surprising is that it’s changed very little since the financial crisis. Back in September 2008, it was only 7% higher, according to Rasmussen. Since then, houses in the U.S. have broadly experienced price declines. Many homeowners faced foreclosure. Yet, Americans still largely believe buying a home the best investment they can make.
In that context, however, Rasmussen also found that just 15% of Americans think it’s a good time for someone in their area to sell a house. 68% disagreed, and 17% were undecided. Of course, they’re right: the housing market continues to have a huge amount of inventory, as foreclosure hit a new record high in March. As long as inventory grows, it will be a buyer’s market.
This may appear to fly in the face of February’s seemingly good news that home prices experienced their first year-over-year increase since December 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Index (.pdf). Yet, that increase wasn’t particularly impressive, considering it was due more to prices decreasing by more from January 2009 to February 2009 (-1.5%), than from January 2010 to February 2010 (-0.1%). It’s hard to celebrate a year-over-year price increase, when it’s in the context of month-over-month a price decline. As the home buyer credit ends this month, and demand evaporates, prices could suffer further. If interest rates go up, that will make matters worse for sale prices as well.
Hour after hour, department after department, the worst show on earth — City Hall’s Dancing for Dollars Budget Ballet — is playing out on Channel 35 this week.
Just as they have for the past 10 months, City Council members are breaking the public’s legs doing pathetic pratfalls and spastic missteps falling all over themselves with their top priority protecting city workers’ jobs — and their own, of course.
Forget tree trimming and sidewalk repairs — those are now the responsibility of property owners with the intent to shift liability and costs away from City Hall. Forget pothole repair. Forget there is just anything your tax dollars get you.
Your money is solely for the benefit of the system itself. Anything that most people get from city government falls under the category of “full cost recovery” so you get to pay twice for it.
There is no vision of a better city — let alone a great city — that drives the mayor and Council’s budget plan, just the preservation of the system itself by papering over the problem through transfers of money from one pot to another — every one of those transfers representing a city job saved, a public service eliminated.
It is survival of the un-fittest, this desperate attempt to protect themselves no matter how much damage they do to the quality of life of the four million residents.
Over and over, all they want to know is how they can protect the jobs of those who bring in revenue from the city’s people and businesses and how they can find other jobs for those who actually provide services directly to the public.
They don’t have a plan to actually fix what’s broken — wages and benefits that are no longer affordable, inefficiencies and low productivity in too many departments.
They only have their prayers and hopes for an Obama economic miracle.
It will take a miracle because their long-term inattention to how the city is run, their corrupt sellouts to special interests, their transformation of city government from a services provider into a jobs program are the back story for this unending crisis.
They don’t even know at this point whether the DWP will deign to give them get the $73.5 million promised to bail out this year’s deficit or the $257 they budgeted for next year.
Once again, we are facing a hypothetical budget, relying on the same plan to sell parking structures and other valuable assets that didn’t deliver a single dollar this year. CAO Miguel Santana gives them hope, they are better off now with $80 million hole based on optimistic projections for 2010-11 than they were when they passed this year’s budget with a $300 million hole before revenue projections turned out to be hopelessly optimistic.
They are living in a fantasyland while the rest of us live a nightmare with libraries and parks open only part-time and the infrastructure deteriorating and our rates, fees and taxes soaring.
In the end, they will cover the nakedness of their shame with the fig leaf of their pompous posturing and trust the public will remain apathetic and ignorant.
They are living in the past and unable to see winds of change are blowing hard, that hard times are waking people up and TV news’ sudden interest is filling their distracted minds’ with facts for a change.
In the name of saving LA, they are destroying it.
They think Neighborhood Councils should be out there trimming the trees and helping out in the parks even as they kill the Neighborhood Empowerment department, and refuse to share power with them.
It’s only a matter of time before it all falls apart — unless, of course, you believe in miracles. So we either need to throw these political bosses out and replace them with genuine public servants or get down on our knees with them and pray for LA.
On May 18, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) says, it will launch into space a “solar yacht” called Ikaros—the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun (named, of course, in honor of Icarus in Greek mythology). JAXA plans to control the path of Ikaros by changing the angle at which sunlight particles bounce off the silver-coloured sail [AFP].
It’s an earthworm so mysterious, people compare it to the Loch Ness Monster. Rarely sighted since the 1980’s, the giant Palouse earthworm was said to grow almost three feet long, smell like lilies, and spit at predators. It was so elusive, that some even doubted its existence–but now, a team of conservationists from the University of Idaho has found several of these mysterious creatures in a prairie field.
![Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx"](http://images.betanews.com/media/4905.jpg "Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx"")
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