Capacitive screens are of course a blessing and a curse, and in the winter the curse side is more evident when you find your favourite gloves no longer work with your brand new HTC HD2.
Instructibles have the solution, with a quick tip for turning your standard gloves into ones suitable for a capacitive screen by the simple expedience of sewing in some conductive thread in the finger and thumb area.
See Instructibles here for the simple and detailed instructions.
Via Mobilemag.com
Filed under: Europe, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, GM, Opel
General Motors shouldn’t expect to achieve David Hasselhoff-level popularity in Germany anytime soon. The Detroit News reports that since GM has elected to keep and restructure its Opel division, 9,000 jobs (or somewhere thereabouts) will likely be cut, with the majority of those losses expected in Deutschland. The jobs will be eliminated as part of a $5 billion restructuring plan, which GM hopes to fund with a lot of help from European governments, as well as “employee contributions” (read: concessions). Just don’t expect Angela Merkel to break out her Visa debit card anytime soon.
Opel/Vauxhall CEO Nick Reilly wins the Unintentionally Hilarious Quote of the Day award for this line: “We have also said that GM can and will put some money in, as well.” What a novel concept. Digressing for a moment: Given that GM is out shaking the coffee can looking for ways to fund the Opel restructuring, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where they find a way to save Saab, too. Getting the Opel business in order hardly sounds like it’s going to be a picnic, so a rescue of the ailing Swedish automaker has got to be low on the priority list right now.
[Source: The Detroit News | Image Source: Thomas Lohnes/Getty]
GM swings the axe: 9,000 Opel jobs likely to be eliminated originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
I FELT THIS WAS NECESSARY TO POST HERE AS WELL.
I just want to post this because we are receiving a massive amount of copy threads. Alot from beginners, some looking to change it up and everything so i figured id post here and have everyone post here with all the basic fundamentals so we can open up the forusm to product reviews, new products, etc..
Fundamentals of gaining mass:
Proper diet – about 1-1.5 grams of protein per lb of bodyweight
water intake – about 1 gallon a day, dont chug at once (water intoxication blog on my site)
sleep – this is necessary for recovery
calories – know what good calories vs empty calories are
fats – know saturated vs unsaturated means
if your going to supplement and have never done so, or your getting back to it.. You’ll want the following
protein – on gold whey isolate or hydrowhey, dymatize elite, myofusion
multivitamin- universal animal pak, russian bear 5000, cl orange triad
creatine – go for a monohydrate flavorless, higher power, creapures good
can do a fish oil –
if you want a pre workout.. Which you take roughly 30 minutes prior to working out.. Use…. Jack3d, superpump 250, cl white flood, vpx redline
intra workout – cl purple wraath, cl purple in train, vpx redline
post workout – feed that muscle baby!!! Get that protein in their, grab some chicken grilled or a protein shake, throw some carbs such as brown rice and oats and do some creatine
before bed – grab a protein – casein is fine, some zma if you wish and sleep dont stay up late.
If you want to do a weight gainer- on pro complex gainer, gaspari real mass,
its all about doing the research and find what works for you, different strokes for different folks.
Training : There is a thing of overtraining shouldnt be lifting for more than 45min to an hour.. Do a 10 minute cardio warm up to get the blood going and prevent cramping, stay hydrated.
Pre package your meals the day before or on a sunday, you cant tell me you dont have time.. It requires 30-40 minutes to do this.
This is the best advice in general you can get and its what we preach all the time to everyone. Take advantage of this posting, pm me or anyone you choose. Have a great day everyone
More than a year ago I wrote a post (see below) about taxing stock transactions. I suggested 10c per share on both sides. Some of our politicians are suggesting .025pct. There really is no reason not to do it either way. Spreads have narrowed in the past several years to pennies from nickels, dimes and quarters. So we know that the market can operate with the wider spreads. Historically spreads are the profit margin of market makers. Well in this era, who is a bigger market maker than the US Treasury ? They are providing liquidity at every corner, so why shouldn’t they (we) get paid for it ?
Of course like any other government attempt to raise taxes, how they use the money is where they will absolutely screw it up. In this example they want to use half the money to fund a Job Creation Fund. A government run Job Creation Fund is the ultimate Oxymoron. Let me offer another post of mine that suggests that we open the doors to entrepreneurs and simplify and cheapen their cost to start businesses. The process of creating a company in this country has become so burdensome at the hand of regulation, insurance, taxes and administrivia, that we are slowing the true job creation engine that this country needs right now. Instead of the Government funding jobs, if the focus is on job creation, which is what it should be today, these funds should be used to remove all friction to those who start, fund and run companies.
This is from an excerpt from a post of mine and it is exactly what a smart politician should propose today in order to stimulate the creation of jobs in this country
Jul 28th 2008 10:13AM
What has impacted my decision on whether or not to start a business is the amount of paperwork involved and the local, state and employer taxes involved. Its complicated and expensive to start even the smallest business in the real world. The real world of course is different than the Internet world. The state of business, and in particular, entrepreneurship in the US has devolved into two worlds, the Internet and the real world.
In the Internet world, all you have to do is setup an account with an ad network, put it on your website, generate some traffic and they send you a check. . No licenses, no tax id, no announcements in the newspaper. It took me minutes. Its exactly what millions of people do as well and its created an entire Internet economy that lives off of Google, Yahoo, MIcroSoft, AOL, Ebay and others. Its the entrepreneurs path of least resistance, which is exactly why most take this route.
Compare that with setting up a real world business. This is from the State of Texas: (Which I am proud to say makes it far easier than most states to start a business).
Step 1:Legal Structure and Registrations
Step 2:Business Tax Responsibilities
Step 3:Licenses Permits and Registrations (Note to State of TX, this link was broken, I had to find the destination page )
Step 4:Business Employer Requirements
As an entrepreneur , I can tell you that working through the requirements of these four steps is scary and intimidating. Why ? Because to merely start your business, you have to deal with lawyers and accountants, which not only costs a lot of money, but more importantly, requires you to trust those lawyers and accountants to make decisions that could have make or break consequences on your business. You may have the best idea with the ability to execute on that idea, but one little snafu by these professionals and your business is down the tubes.
Even worse, if you mess up on any of this, you could get in legal trouble. You could get sued, or find yourself in the middle of some legal nightmare.
Then of course, there is the financial reality of having to pay all of the business and employer taxes and ever increasing insurance premiums.
Which brings us back to How to Jump Start the Economy.
If you want to see an immediate re invigoration of the economy, open the door back up for individual entrepreneurs to enter the real world without fear and without an immediate financial burden that pre empts their ability to be successful.
If we really want to stimulate job creation in this country, take the same approach to small business with 25 or fewer employees that we take to Internet taxes. Outlaw them.
No taxes or license fees of any kind on small businesses with 25 or fewer employees. No employer payroll tax. No state or local taxes. No taxes on earnings. No Payroll taxes. Nada. Use the money from the proposed taxes on the trade of public shares to fund not only this, but healthcare insurance premiums as well. The business owners and their employees will pay income taxes on their personal income , but not corporate earnings
The only taxes they would collect and remit are sales taxes and of course they would still file personal income taxes on their individual earnings.
Make this available exclusively to owner operated companies and only allow the operator to own and operate a single company (to prevent gaming the system).
The impact on the economy would be amazing and immediate. Those without jobs would be able to work for themselves. They would be able to join together and start companies. They would be able to take risks with far less capital and far less fear of failure. Sweat Equity would be all it takes to start a business. In addition, we would see many cash only propreiters go legit.
Not only would we see hundreds of thousands of new businesses started seemingly overnight, with millions of new hires, but from those new businesses would come new ideas that hopefully would give us our next engine for economic growth that super cedes today’s ideas.
For Congress, the challenge will be to keep the process simple. A simple no cost, online registration for the businesses, with information about the who, what, where and ownership of the companies so that they can track and help fund them. Which in turn would create the information base from which to fund the state and local revenue that would be lost. Easy ? No. But a far greater reward in job creation and growth for the country than the Government creating Job Funds and public works efforts.
In this economy we should open the door to our country’s Intellectual capital and the entrepreneurial energy that separates us from the rest of the world. Make it easy for entrepreneurs to do what entrepreneurs do, and great things happen. Voters and politicians alike seem to have forgotten what has made this country an economic powerhouse. We need to focus on creating a friction free environment for small businesses. That is exactly what will create jobs
Sep 30th 2008 9:02AM
Tax every single share of stock that is bought and sold 10 cents per transaction. One dime. If you buy a share of stock, your brokerage pays a 10c tax. If you sell a share, your brokerage pays a 10c tax. 1 share, 100 million shares. Its 10 cents per share.
Of course the tax will be paid for by those of us who are buying and selling stocks. So what. Here is the reality. If you are a true investor. Someone who wants to own a share of stock in a company you believe in, then its an amount that is not going to impact your investment decision making process.
If you are a professional trader or an institutional trader that trades continuously, then it may impact your decision making process, but only to the point of reducing your returns by a minimal amount. Its not going to change your inclination to trade. If you make 9.9pct instead of 10pct, you aren’t going to stop trading.
Whats the economic impact ?
If the NYSE, Nasdaq, Amex and OTC are trading 2 Billion shares a day, thats $ 200 Million Dollars PER DAY. If there are 260 trading days a year. Thats about 52 Billion dollars a year.
Thats real money.
Of course there has to be some fine print. You could reduce the tax per share for stocks under $5 dollars to 5cents. But i would leave it at 5cents even for stocks priced at pennies per share or less. This tax would act as a protection for investors and traders who get pitched unregulated penny stocks and who are more often than not the victims of rip off artists.
Take this $52 Billion Dollars and ????. I will open it to the floor for suggestions and save my conclusion for a later post.
The TV channel ARTE runned a special on child labour and the limitations of ethical labelling on November 25 which featured ECCJ and our demands to the EU. The documentary was shown in the program ZoomEuropa and can be seen in French and German speaking countries in Europe.
The programme is now available online here.
Tune in!
Most people, when asked which holiday has the highest frequency of drunk driving fatalities in the U.S., will quickly say New Year’s Eve. They’re wrong — it’s Thanksgiving.
Car travel is expected to rise this weekend over last year, with 38 million Americans traveling more than 50 miles for a Thanksgiving celebration. Nearly 400 people died in crashes in the U.S. last year over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday and most of these accidents involved alcohol. Almost 16,000 people died in drunk-driving crashes last year alone.
This holiday weekend is a wonderful time to be with family and friends, but please remember to be safe.
There is a bright side to this story, though. This year has seen an increase in programs aimed at preventing driving under the influence — and there’s a good chance that DUI deaths will continue to fall in the year ahead. It appears that we’ve turned a corner on driving under the influence, and I think interlock devices have played a role in the progress.
A new law signed this week in New York is an example of both good DUI prevention policies and the mistaken long sentences that got our criminal justice system into the mess it’s in.
I guess it’s natural to lash out at technologies and companies that undermine a business model built up on artificial barriers and scarcity, but it won’t do much good in terms of actually adapting. But it’s kind of amusing when it’s done at the same time that someone is embracing those new technologies as they undermine other business models at the same time. Taylor Davidson points us to a photographer bashing the idea that microstock sites like iStockPhoto help “create new markets.” It’s actually been really depressing to see so many photographers react so poorly to new technologies, and this case is no exception. In the ranting post, he compares microstock sites to pollution in China and drug dealing. All the rant really screams out is “I’m so set in my ways that I can’t compete or adapt my business model.”
However, the really amusing part is highlighted by an anonymous commenter on the site who mocks the photographer for whining about how microstock sites are undercutting his old business model at the same time that he’s advertising his own books and services online, rather than advertising in newspapers and phone books. As the commenter notes:
If everyone is supposed to stop posting their photos and selling to istock, how about photographers stop using the Web and advertise in phone books and newspapers so those jobs aren’t lost? And maybe you can go back to using film instead of digital so that film manufacturers aren’t put out of business? Sounds like to me you’re all for taking advantage of technology except when others doing it hurts your bottom line.
And that’s really a key point. Technology changes markets, and the more you look, the more you realize that it almost always enlarges the overall market for those who take advantage of it. Yes, there’s more competition in the photographer market, and the model for stock photography has changed. But the nice thing about the microstock market is that it has opened new markets. A lot more people can and do buy stock photos than did in the past. If I can’t find a decent Creative Commons/public domain photo for presentations, I’ll go in search of one I can license from a microstock photo site in a second, because it’ll just cost $1 or so. So I actually end up spending a fair amount on stock photos in the course of a regular year. Compare that to the situation seven years ago when we were working on a revamp of our corporate website. We went in search of a photo to use, and the licensing deals we saw wanted about $1,000 for just one year of usage. That meant we spent nothing, because that just doesn’t make sense.
So, yes, the economics are changing, but if you’re smart, you can take advantage of it. It may mean moving beyond just the stock photo market, or using such photographs (or even giving away works for free) to build up reputation for freelance or custom assignments. Most photographers I know never made much money from stock photos anyway, finding much more value in commissioned work. And recently, I’ve been hearing of success stories from some really good photographers who have used their existing work, given away for free, as strong advertising to get more (and more lucrative) commissions.
In the end, it really comes down to how you deal with it. Do you whine and stomp your feet and compare the new world to pollution? Or do you figure out how to adapt? Economic progress doesn’t care in the slightest how much you liked how things used to be.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
Those not-so-naughty chaps at Naughty Dog has something special waiting for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves players this Friday, November 27: a new multipl…
Filed under: Spy Photos, Performance, Geneva Motor Show, Europe, Hatchback, Mini, Diesel
Spy shooters posted outside Mini’s testing facility in Germany snagged a duo of prototypes heading out for testing, but something seemed amiss. Both models — a standard Cooper and a mildly camo’d Clubman — sported the tell-tale exterior elements found on the S versions, specifically a central-mounted dual exhaust on the Cooper and the twin-tips and hood scoop on the Clubman. However, the exhaust note was decidedly diesel, causing us to wonder: Is Mini working on hotted-up S versions of its oil-burners?
If they are — and we’re not convinced either way — then a Cooper S and Clubman S diesel would need to benefit from more than a few design tweaks and an uprated suspension. Considering that the standard Mini D puts out around 90 horsepower and the Cooper D boasts another 20 bhp, then these S-ified models could be packing upwards of 140 to 150 hp and, more importantly, over 200 lb.-ft. of torque from their 1.6-liter turbodiesels. If they do make it to dealers, we’d expect them to debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March, with sales beginning in Europe late next year.
Spy Shots: Mini working on diesel “S” versions of Cooper, Clubman? originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
It can’t beat the recent free Mac Heist giveaway (what could?), but a new Mac software bundle does offer a lot of good applications for a steeply discounted price. The somewhat awkwardly named MacGraPhoto bundle provides seven graphics applications for the same amount that one alone would normally set you back, $39.99.
The seven apps are all new to me, but they seem to have garnered favorable reviews and even some official accolades from Apple itself. They also cover quite a range, meaning that no two really duplicate the functions or features of the others. Here’s a brief rundown of the apps you get in the bundle.
All of the apps included in MacGraPhoto have apparently been Apple Staff Picks except for Graphic Designer Toolbox, which won a Think Different award for graphic image editors. At the very least, you’ll probably shave a few steps off of your current process for doing light image editing by picking up the bundle. Plus, if you tell three people about the deal and they buy the pack as a result, the price of your purchase is refunded and you get it free. The bundle pricing expires in a little over five days.
Just after midnight on September 21, Rebecca Rush of Lilburn in Gwinnett County woke to crackling lightning and the sound of pounding thunder and her two dogs barking excitedly. The heavy storm system that had pounded the Atlanta metropolitan counties for four days, dumping up to 22 inches of rain. Within 30 minutes of waking the following morning, Rush was knee-deep in floodwaters.
“Two days after being rescued from clinging to the tree, I returned to the house and could not walk through the front door,” said Rush. “You know it’s going to be bad, but when you actually see everything, you just cry. The floodwater line on the walls reached nearly seven feet. Everything was covered in thick mud and sludge. It smelled like a sewer. Everything was contaminated.”
“I was convinced at the time I bought the policy that I didn’t actually need flood insurance,” said Rush. “That’s the reason I just bought what I had to—coverage for the structure and not my contents. Looking back, that was not the wise thing to do.”
Read the entire Best Practice: http://www.fema.gov/mitigationbp/bestPracticeDetail.do?mitssId=7031
Find additional Resources: http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/bestpractices/resources.shtm
InformationWeek reports that a third-party MacBook power adapter manufacturer is being sued by Apple for allegedly violating one of its patent designs.
On Monday, Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Media Solutions Holdings in federal district court in California. Apple says that the company is using various different websites and business entities to sell what they describe as a ‘knock-off’ MacBook power adapter. “Through various Web sites and otherwise,” Apple says in the suit, “…the Defendants market these knock-off power adapters for use with Apple portable computers, such as the MacBook.”
The websites include laptopsforless.com, laptopacadapter.com and ereplacements.com. Apple says these sites sell “various consumer electronic accessories at retail,” and the naughty power adapter is amongst the products they sell.
The other named defendents also include companies eReplacements and Laptops For Less.
Apple also adds in the claim that, “The Defendants’ infringing conduct has damaged Apple and inflicted irreparable harm.” They don’t elaborate on the monetary value of that “harm” but they do seek an injunction against the defendants that stops them selling their knock-off adapters. For now, the offending power adapters have been removed from sale from the websites listed in the suit (but although they can no longer be ordered, they are still listed on those sites).
The suit includes line-drawing illustrations comparing designs from Apple’s power adapter patent with photographs of the power adapter sold by the defendants. The patent was awarded to Apple by the United States Patents and Trademarks Office over six years ago, in August 2003.
InformationWeek notes that Apple is not accustomed to being the Plaintiff in patent disputes; of the 15 patent lawsuits filed during the second half of this year, Apple has been the defendant in every case but this one. At an average litigation cost of $4.5 million (through trial), that’s a tremendous expense created — for the most part — by what InformationWeek calls “non-practicing entities” but what the rest of us call Patent Trolls.
Filed under: Hybrid, Technology, Videos, Chevrolet, Electric
As the popularity of hybrids has grown over the last few years, advocates for the blind have been raising a red flag about noise, or — more to the point — the lack of it. Because electric-drive vehicles emit much lower levels of sound on the street, blind pedestrians who’ve relied on the noise emitted from traditional vehicles lose a major source of information when navigating the streets and sidewalks.
There have been movements in various legislatures to mandate some minimum sound level from electric vehicles to ensure that blind pedestrians can tell when they’re approaching, and General Motors recently conducted a test session at its Milford Proving Grounds with a group of the visually-challenged to assess the audible warning systems on the Chevrolet Volt.
The engineers have employed the car’s horn to emit a series of warning chirps when a pedestrian is in proximity to GM’s gas-electric hybrid, evaluating the nature and level of the warnings to alert pedestrians rather than startle them. GM spokesman Rob Peterson tells us that on the first generation Volt the warnings will be manually activated by the driver, although future iterations are likely to incorporate some sort of active system. Currently, the biggest hurdle is developing an active system that can distinguish a pedestrian from another vehicle. Otherwise, without a reliable detection system, the horns would be going off at all times, increasing noise levels and making it largely useless.
[Source: ChevroletVoltage.com]
Continue reading VIDEO: Chevrolet Volt tests driver-controlled audio warning system with the blind
VIDEO: Chevrolet Volt tests driver-controlled audio warning system with the blind originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
I’d like to give a shout out to what may possibly be the greatest gift to give this Holidays for that special someone who is a true music aficionado. The Miles Davis Complete Columbia Album Collection (currently $293) is a deluxe, limited edition retrospective of the iconic music Miles Davis created during his 30 years with Columbia Records. If you don’t know, Miles Davis was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. But he was just more than that, he was an iconic figure whose music has withstood the tests of time and plays in a way that always captures you. Widely considered one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music including cool jazz, hard bop, free jazz, fusion and techno. Many well-known jazz musicians made their names as members of Davis’s ensembles.
Anyway, this exquisite package, comprised of 70 CDs (!) and 1 DVD, contains all 52 of Miles’ Columbia recordings in Japanese-styled mini LP jackets and includes a 250-page book with a biography, a fully annotated discography, a complete song index, and rare photos. It’s so amazing to see such a large box set of Miles Davis like this – I would dedicate the time to eventually listen to every CD. I couldn’t imagine trying to do it in one sitting, though.
Appearing on DVD for the first time in this box is Live in Europe ’67, shot in Stockholm and Karlsruhe during the Miles Davis Quintet’s European tour of 1967. Completely remastered from the original broadcast tapes, these performances feature Miles with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. In addition to the DVD, there will be a first-time audio release of the full performance from the 1970 Isle of Wight festival. Bonus tracks and other rarities that have been added to the CD reissues of individual albums in past years are also included.
Just to whet your whistle, here is one of my favorite Miles Davis songs:
GTTV’s Geoff Keighley has revealed via Twitter that Tron Legacy won’t be the only game premiering at this year’s Spike Video Game Awards. Apparently a…
Its not the biggest budget production ever, but this promotional video by HP shows perfectly well who the target market for the HP Glisten (previously HP iPAQ Obsidian) is, and also demonstrates what the Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional smartphone is useful for.
While the device misses out on the high level of customization seen in HTC’s devices, the native Windows Mobile 6.5 user interface is perfectly fine for the business and busy people market its aiming for.
Are any of our readers considering this device? Let us know in the comments.
The accelerator pedal, right, in a 2010 Toyota Avalon is seen on the show room floor of Bobby Rahal Toyota in Mechanicsburg, Pa. , Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009.
When the news of Toyota’s spontaneously accelerating vehicles first broke, it was in the form of a grisly accident in Texas involving a Lexus, a jammed accelerator pedal, and 3 unfortunate fatalities. In response to the outcry immediately following the accident Toyota released a 3.8 million vehicle recall, pinning the primary source of the problem on improperly secured floor mats. Suspecting something significantly more sinister at play, a class-action lawsuit sprung up in California alleging that the problem was not with wayward accessories but rather an intrinsic, and fatal, design flaw.
Today, just a few short weeks after the lawsuit was filed, Toyota has recalled the same group of vehicles affected by the flighty floor mats for a different issue: misshapen accelerator pedals. Apparently, Toyota reached the conclusion that jerry-rigging the floor mats was not enough to eliminate the problem entirely and although they have not admitted to any faulty engineering, they do appear to be treating the issue with considerably more severity. In addition to reconfiguring the shape of the accelerator pedal in all vehicles recalled (which includes the bulk of the current line-up), Toyota will also install a brake override system in Camry, Avalon, and Lexus ES 350, IS 350 and IS 250 models.
Toyota will begin notifying owners by the end of the year and dealerships will begin receiving vehicles for repair in April, assuming both the vehicle and the owner are still in one piece.
Source: AutoNews
Image Cred: AP Photo
The folks in Hollywood have been working overtime lately trying to convince the world that piracy is harming the industry, even as the industry is having its best year ever in terms of both money made and the number of movies released. It’s an uphill slog, so lobbyists, lawyers and execs from the various studios have resorted to what can only be described as “making stuff up.” But, like the poor corn farmers that NBC Universal lawyers think are being hurt by movie piracy, most of these claims don’t pass the laugh test.
But, of course, the story goes even deeper than that. As we’ve noted before, despite claims to the contrary, “piracy” is almost always an indicator of unmet consumer demand and a failure on the part of the industry to meet that demand. Matt Mason’s book from last year made this quite clear, and now the EFF’s Fred von Lohmann has done a great job detailing how any “problems” that Hollywood might face from “piracy” are problems of its own making. He points to the attempts by the major studios to block Redbox and delay movie rentals.
It’s the same thing we’ve seen over and over again. You don’t win customers by taking rights away from them. You win customers by adding more value. But that seems to be total anathema to Hollywood. Instead, it seems to think that the only way to run a business is to take away or disable rights and features from users, and then charge them to re-enable them. It’s not difficult to see why this is not just a recipe for failure, but one that will only drive more people to piracy, after the industry blocks them from getting what it seems perfectly reasonable to expect — and what the technology clearly allows.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
Eric Volz, an American who spent a year in a Nicaraguan prison for a murder he didn’t commit before he was freed in 2007, is back in the U.S. but still fighting his wrongful conviction. And he’s enlisting our help in a very worthy project.
Volz was convicted of the 2006 murder of an ex-girlfriend despite convincing evidence that he was two hours away at the time of the crime. He was freed after a year when his conviction was overturned, but the Nicaraguan government has continued to appeal the decision and seek his return to prison.
Now Volz is stepping up efforts to clear his name. He and supporters recently began selling T-shirts (one of the two designs by Adam Paredes is above left) to support efforts to build a new website where Volz can post original documents from the case and mount his defense in the public eye. They’re beautiful shirts for a good cause. Need a holiday gift? Buy one here.
I asked Volz today why he’s launching this effort and what his goals are.
“This experience of being falsely accused and imprisoned has started to talk back to me,” he said. “The truth about Doris Jimenez’s murder has been the subject of heated debate in many circles since the moment the crime was made public. The challenge has always been how to shape the story as engrossing narrative that people will take time to familiarize themselves with, while also intending that it will serve as a piece of evidence; an insider’s investigative report of an unsolved murder and the ongoing legal case surrounding it. This website is my attempt at a solution. “
The iPhone has been our Golden Child for over two years and we’re much accustomed to reading how it’s setting this record, or breaking that record, or changing “the game” in some revolutionary way. I’m not complaining in the slightest — credit where credit is due — but by now all the plaudits have blended into a gentle, harmonious, background hum.
So, it’s a bit disjointing when a few errant notes are played out of tune. If you’ve managed to survive this disaster of a metaphor this far, you know I’m talking about Bad News. A few numbers-heavy reports this week present us with news that, if not entirely bad, is at least disappointing…
According to Electronista, NPD Group reported this week that the Blackberry Curve — of all things! — kept the iPhone 3GS from the title of first place handset in this summer’s smartphone handset sales in Northern America. Verizon’s “Buy One Get One Free” deal is said to have been the culprit; it not only offered two handsets for the price of one but also lowered the average selling price of a ‘feature phone’ handset from the same period the previous year ($88 down to $85). The iPhone 3GS and the older 3G took second and third spots respectively, which is not too shabby considering they were only beaten-out on price.
More recently, Verizon’s wily ways have proven (again!) to be bad news for Apple’s smartphone. In its BrandIndex report last week, YouGov announced that Motorola’s Droid had a loyalty score of 29.3 among younger men, easily beating the iPhone’s score of 22. Why is Verizon to blame for Motorola’s success? YouGov say that loyalty scores for Motorola remain largely unchanged, so they attribute the success of the Droid to Verizon’s cunning ad campaign that has very openly criticised AT&T’s spotty 3G coverage and poured scorn on the iPhone, decrying its closed software platform, low-resolution camera and lack of multitasking ability.
Might not sound so bad, but consider that just prior to Verizon’s ad campaign, the iPhone’s loyalty score was running at a high of 48.1! It seems obvious that Verizon’s advertising was hugely effective; irrespective of whether or not the Droid is a superior platform, Verizon managed to significantly influence customer perception.
It’s not all bad news, not really; according to a recent study conducted by AdMob and reported by Hardmac, the iPhone has captured 50 percent of the world’s 3G network bandwidth. Other mobile OS’s are trailing far behind it seems, with Symbian taking second place with 25 percent share. Android takes third place with 11 percent and RIM and Windows Mobile fail to make double digits.
I said it’s not all bad news, but the carriers might disagree with me. They’re suffering at the hands of smartphone-wielding customers and their bandwidth-hungry handsets. AT&T has been gradually upgrading its 3G network to try to cope with the added strain of millions of data-hungry mobile devices but it’s an expensive upgrade that will take years to complete. But, still — nice to know we iPhone users are being a nuisance and shaking things up a bit for The Man!
