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• WHERE Update Encourages User-Generated Content
  

  WHERE, a popular location-based app that helps users find cheap gas prices, movie showtimes, and more, has been recently updated.  Now, rather than simply giving you relevant information, they ha…

In January 2010, I had first talked about the East Coast Hydrogen Highway system being developed by SunHydro. The New York Times has now added a few details about the plan including the company’s founder and how the plan is to be financed.

In my last blog post, I roughly calculated the farthest distance between the 11 hydrogen fueling stations that run from Portland Maine to Orlando, Florida as being 145 miles apart. In the NYT article it states, however that according to Wired.com the stations, “…will be strategically located from Portland, Me., down to Miami, Fla., to account for the 300 mile range that state-of-the-art hydrogen cars are capable of traveling.”

When I checked the Wired article, however, this is not stated in the article itself but from someone commenting on the article. Why this is important is that if the 300 mile distance between stations is indeed accurate this would exclude the Honda Clarity and many other hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that do not have a 300 mile range. So, I’m checking on the details now about this one point.

SunHydro is a startup company that was founded by Tom Sullivan who made $544 million in sales last year from the other company he founded Lumber Liquidators. Another company called Proton Energy Systems was put up for auction and Mr. Sullivan paid $10.2 million for this company. Proton Energy Systems is building the electrolyzers for the 11 hydrogen fueling stations which will use solar panels and water to create clean energy for the hydrogen vehicles.

Mr. Sullivan expects to put $15 – $20 million into the building of the 11 hydrogen fueling stations along the East Coast Hydrogen Highway network. Mr. Sullivan has now secured most of the land he will need for this project and the first station is set to go online June 2010 in Wallingford, Connecticut at the Proton Energy Systems headquarters.

Coheed and Cambria is set to pitch in three more tracks into Rock Band this week, all of them coming off the band’s new Year of the Black Rainbow Album. Also on this week’s batch are Siouxsie

The United States Library of Congress is getting plenty of attention for announcing that they’re planning to digitally archive every single tweet ever made since Twitter’s inception in March of 2006 (the first ever tweet is here if you’re interested). Twitter now processes something like 50 million tweets every day, or about 600 tweets per second. While relatively easy to store due to that 140-character limit (the LOC already stores roughly 167 terabytes of online content for your grandkids to peruse), the vast majority of it will be people talking about the Twilight films, shampoo choices or weekend plans. Obviously offering easy access to the pertinent (to you) and historical bits of data is going to be important.

The LOC blog post is utterly devoid of any real information on that subject, though an accompanying Twitter blog entry indicates that only after six months will Tweets qualify for inclusion into the Library (so start deleting your offensive and incoherent tweets now), and direct or private tweets won’t be archived. Google seems to be helping on the accessibility angle by announcing a replay system, allowing people to examine snapshots in Twitter time (for instance take a look at this snapshot of the 2010 Winter Olympics). Given that history can often be written with a heavy focus on the elite, the Library of Congress focuses on the fact that this everyday chatter about events could provide very useful context for historians:

"Expect to see an emphasis on the scholarly and research implications of the acquisition. I’m no Ph.D., but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data. And I’m certain we’ll learn things that none of us now can even possibly conceive."

All of this raises the question of whether or not permanence will impact the way people use Twitter. As it stands (whether they should or not), most people treat Twitter as an off-the-cuff conversation. And while most people who use the service for business act professionally, even many corporate representatives are a little more candid and conversational while using Twitter. Getting a glimpse of the real human beings behind the brand has helped many companies immeasurably in dealing with customer support and public perception. Does all of this change once the participants realize their customer promises, clever barbs and burrito recipes are going down on their permanent record?

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The Mercedes SL65 AMG Black Series is already an impressive car, but the Brabus tuning company had to modify it even further for a customer in Dubai. Calling it the Vanish, Brabus hooked up the Mercedes SL65 with larger turbos, huge brakes, a new transmission, matte black wrap, and a strange plastic piece on the hood to push 800 horsepower. The tuned Mercedes SL65 AMG features the 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12 all concealed inside the complete carbon fiber body that shaved off a whopping 551 pounds. This raised the top speed to 199 mph, accomplished a 0-60 time in the three second range, but sadly only 350 will ever be made.

Enter all of the above modifications and you have the recipe for what is called the Brabus Vanish. The only problem with the custom Mercedes SL65 Black Series is that the transmission can’t handle the max torque of 885 lb-ft, so it has been limited to 737 lb-ft. However, the matte black car wrap on the Mercedes AMG flows well with the large blacked out wheels. Just what the heck is that on the hood of this tuned car?

[Source: jalopnik]

Source: Fancy Tuning – the latest car tuning news

Would anyone care to explain how a man in the throws of financial ruin can afford to buy a nine foot tall pyramid-shaped tomb in a New Orleans cemetery to serve as his final resting place? No word on how much the extravagant burial plot set back the cash-strapped Nic Cage, but this is a gutsy move for a man who’s foreclosure announcement make more headlines than his movies.

(Note To Nic: Whoever is managing your finances does not like you!)

Now the the Verizon Droid Incredible is out of the bag, it reasons that waiting for the Verizon-capable Nexus One became a bit moot. But we wanna hear your reasons why. Does anybody still care? Vote your hearts out, and let us know in the comments why.

Twitter will move into its own data center soon as it seeks to scale its social messaging service, according to a presentation by John Adams, one of the messaging service’s operations engineers. Speaking at the Chirp developer conference yesterday in a session on scale, he laid out Twitter’s strategy to keep the fail whale at bay — which included plans to soon move to its own data center (see slide below).

It’s unlikely Twitter is building and operating this data center itself. In 2008 Twitter signed a contract to host its servers at NTT because the latency in the cloud was too high for its service, and last August NTT said it had leased 15,000 square feet in Santa Clara, Calif. for expanding its data center operations in part because of Twitter’s success. So my hunch is that Twitter is moving into NTT’s data center dedicated to the messaging service, as opposed to building and operating its own, which would take a while. I’ve reached out to NTT and Twitter for more information. In 2008 Twitter saw year-over-year traffic growth of 752 percent and from 2008 to  2009, traffic rose 1,358 percent. It serves 55 million tweets a day.

Twitter has gone from hosting aspects of its service on Amazon Web Services and via Joyent to discarding the cloud because latency was too high (we’re going to have a talk about improving latency in the cloud at our Structure 10 conference in June). Essentially, like most IT folks, Twitter’s operations group plays a game of whack-a-mole attempting to add hardware, improve algorithms or add new code to solve the next engineering bottleneck.

Even if the dedicated NTT data center space manages to improve the service for a while, will Twitter ever end up following Facebook, which this year said it would build its own data center so it could control costs and reduce its energy consumption? And what does this say about the evolution of scalable infrastructure?

Chirp 2010: Scaling Twitter
View more presentations from John Adams.

I couldn’t wait to try out the new Opera Mini browser for the iPhone, so I didn’t. I downloaded it via my iTunes UK account (it was released there much earlier than over here) and set about running it through its paces. This is what I found.

First of all, let me be clear: Opera Mini will never replace mobile Safari on the iPhone. Not, at least, until Apple makes available to users the ability to switch which apps open by default when performing certain actions. As long as Safari is the default web browser across the platform, Opera Mini really can’t be much more than a well-executed novelty.

I did however say well executed. Using Opera Mini is definitely a pleasurable experience. From the snappy loading times that come from having the pages pre-rendered on Opera’s servers and pushed out to the phone at lightning speeds, to the pop-up tab drawer that gives you a quick glance at what you’ve got open without having to scroll through pages, viewing them one at a time as you do with Mobile Safari, Opera Mini is designed from the ground up with the aim of improving web browsing on the iPhone in mind.

There are other great features you won’t find in Safari as well. Like the speed dial home screen, which, if you’re not familiar with Opera, resembles what Chrome looks like by default when it first boots up. You can assign sites you visit frequently to appear in the speed dial view, so it’s like having instant access to your bookmarks. You can also sync your speed dial, bookmarks and installed search engines from the desktop version of Opera.

Very handy things like the ability to save pages for offline reading and a find in page function also make Opera Mini shine on the iPhone platform, but still, it’s the rare occasion these days when I’m firing up a browser on my device unprompted by another app. Generally speaking, Safari opens on my iPhone because a link in a Twitter or Facebook app has caused it to do so.

If you are still going to install and use Opera, and I recommend that you do, if only to prove to Apple that its users would very much appreciate browser choice on the platform, there are some neat things you can do by accessing the advanced settings. To do this, simply type “config:” into your Opera address bar. This will bring you to a Power-User settings page, where you can tweak options like whether or not Opera will automatically fit text to your screen, change the loading timeout, and set the minimum length for phone number detection.

Use it, enjoy it, and rate it highly in the App Store, but if you’re like me, Opera Mini won’t be much more than a show piece until Apple allows users to change their default browser, which, I’m guessing, will be never.

by Peggy E. Chaudhry

[Robert C. Bird is an Assistant Professor and Ackerman Scholar at the University of Connecticut School of Business; Peggy E. Chaudhry is an Associate Professor at Villanova University School of Business]

Professor Robert Bird, Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut and Peggy Chaudhry, Associate Professor, Villanova University will discuss their Article, “Pharmaceuticals and the European Union: Managing Gray Markets in an Uncertain Legal Environment.” Their Article investigates the divergent views of parallel importers and manufacturers and the resulting legal battles that have evolved to contest access to the €133 billion European drug market. Drug manufacturers and gray marketers provide conflicting information about the merits of their position. The manufacturers’ stance on parallel trade is evident at its trade association, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, and they respond that parallel traders exploit the regulatory price systems set up by EU governments and do not create benefits for health care, consumers, or the economy of Europe. Manufacturers also suggest that parallel trade results in safety and quality issues that stem from these distributors handling the pharmaceuticals. The counterargument from gray marketers is evident at the European Association of Euro-Pharmaceutical Companies (”EAEPC”) that profess that parallel trade provides competition and savings to consumers and health insurance funds across Europe. Manufacturers, they argue, charge the highest possible price in each country market and use supply restrictions to block parallel trade. Drug manufacturers respond that traders exploit the regulatory price systems set up by EU governments and do not create benefits for health care, consumers, or the economy of Europe. Manufacturers also suggest that parallel trade results in safety and quality issues that stem from these distributors handling the pharmaceuticals. The 2009 health scare of counterfeit pharmaceuticals in the supply chain of the NHS in the United Kingdom further supported the drug manufacturers’ trepidation about parallel trade in the EU. However, parallel traders through their associations, such as EAEPC, have been adamant in their claims that there is no link between the counterfeit and gray marketing of pharmaceuticals. The authors’ provide a synopsis of these divergent views and summarize the near-continuous stream of litigation in European courts through concise exhibits. The authors’ assert that parallel importers can never be eliminated altogether and provide several tactics that firms can use to slow gray market activity through a savvy mixture of legal and marketing strategies.

Sairam novas imagens do Novo Astra europeu, que foi flagrada pelo site Autohome. O modelo que será chamado de Buick Excelle no mercado chinês vai ser apresentado oficialmente no próximo Salão do Automóvel de Pequim, no próximo dia 25 de abril.

O design do carro está bem interessante, com um detalhe cromado sob a tampa do porta malas que apesar de diferente, ficou bonito. O novo Astra terá versões com motores 1.6 turbo de 180 cv e um 2.0i turbo de 220 cv.

Como sempre, um modelo legal assim não vai entrar no mercado brasileiro tão cedo pra não dizer nunca, já que os planos da Chevrolet para nós será o de lançar o Cruzue.

Imagens do Novo Astra

Via | Carplace

This kitchen remodel shows off one of our favorite tricks in making a kitchen look bigger. It also happens to make the kitchen much more functional. Do you know what it is? We talked about it here, too.

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In the last ‘Great Scenes’ post, we watched Cary Grant big facing Katharine Hepburn until she almost passed out from arousal. This time, we take a look at how deftly Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) handles Phyllis Dietrichson’s (Barbara Stanwyck) shit tests (and in the process practically invents film noir).

Phyllis (0:02): My husband! You were anxious to talk to him, weren’t you?

Walter (0:05): Yeah I was, but ah, I’m sort of getting over the idea if you know what I mean.

First shit test passed. She expected him to buckle when she introduced a competitive male threat, as most females are wont to do. (‘Let’s you and him fight’ is a convenient ploy used by women to separate the alpha wheat from the beta chaff.)

Phyllis (0:10): There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. 45 miles an hour.

Walter (0:13): How fast was I going officer?

Pitch perfect. Role playing is catnip to chicks. If you only remember one rule of game, it’s this: Never take her seriously.

Phyllis (0:15): I’d say around 90.

It’s ironic that back in the day when overt sex talk was more culturally censored than it is today, a flirty conversation between a man and woman could contain so much more sexual tension.

Walter (0:17): Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.

Great working definition of an alpha male: He is the one who has an answer for everything. Also note the subtle de-pedestalization in this line.

Phyllis (0:19): Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.

Walter (0:21): Suppose it doesn’t take.

Notice how Walter is increasing the voltage of his replies. When volleying a swarm of shit tests, you’ll want to get progressively edgier (*not* angrier), following the beat of your prey’s seductive syncopation. Imagine a woman slowly withering under your powerful presence, your magnetic pull getting stronger with each quip, until you deliver the ego killing blow like a Final Fantasy finishing move.

Phyllis (0:23): Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.

This chick is unstoppable.

Walter (0:26): Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.

Vulnerability game from a position of strength. Sarcastic bravos!

Phyllis (0:29): Suppose you try putting it on my husband’s shoulder.

“I have a boyfriend”. One thing you’ll notice after you get a lot of experience with women is that they often turn nastiest right before they succumb. It’s as if with one foul push of cuntery they can silence the screaming of the tingles.

Walter (0:32): That tears it.

A beta, once he gets in a groove with a woman, is likely to spin that tune until it’s worn-out. An alpha knows when to cut the action. And when he’s beaten, he doesn’t sulk. Watch Walter as he turns away from Phyllis with a grin on his face. He knows he got to her.

Walter (0:38): Eight-thirty tomorrow evening then.

A question posed as a statement. Commanding.

Phyllis (0:40): That’s what I suggested.

Walter (0:41): You be here too?

Phyllis (0:42): I guess so, I usually am.

Walter (0:44): Same chair, same perfume, same anklet?

The game never stops playing, even when she does. Every word, every glance, every interaction is an opportunity for game. Noticing tiny details of a woman besides her physical features (e.g., anklet) is a powerful tool in the alpha’s arsenal. Translated into womanese, it means “I could notice every detail of your 152 erogenous zones”.

Phyllis (0:46): I wonder if I know what you mean.

Walter (0:49): I wonder if you wonder.

Donned hat, smirk, staredown. This is a man who’s letting her know she didn’t rattle him. Just the opposite, in fact.

Filed under: Game, Videos

Over at Jeff’s new digs at Fox Sports Ohio, he published an article about today’s practice session.

You see, today is “QB and TE Day” with the media.  All those players will be made available to the media.  So Jeff asked his Fox Sports Ohio readers for some help.

What would YOU ask Terrelle Pryor?

There will be dozens of cameras and microphones all around TP, and the odds are good that Jeff will only get to ask him one question.

So he asked his FSN readers, and now he asks you, faithful BBC readers….what should that one question be?

Either head over to the article about Pryor, or e-mail him at jeffseemann-at-yahoo-dot-com, or leave your question here.  Jeff says he’ll give credit in his article tonight to whomever submits the best question.

By KevinYeaux

Several members of Louisiana Campaign for Liberty’s Sixth District were at the Tax Day rally held by our good friends at the Baton Rouge Tea Party. We were on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol, handing out information and talking to folks about Dr. Paul’s new bill, End the Mandate, in between speakers.

Several folks showed up with Ron Paul signs and many more came with End the Fed-related signs. Together we reached a good audience and the reception was overall very positive. We gave out a lot of flyers, all of which have links back to C4L.com, and signed up a few new members to the local C4L. Thanks to Rishi Vyas and James Lewis for coming out and handing out End the Mandate flyers, and Connie Bernard and her husband for bring the Ron Paul signs!

See our Flickr page for more photos!

Do you know what Jon Gosselin does for a living? (Don’t worry, we’ll wait…) That’s OK, neither does his ex-wife.

Kate Gosselin — Dancing With The Stars’ village idiot of the hour — says she’s not sure how her former husband makes money and is not aware if he currently has a job.

“Nobody else in that family is making money to support the kids,” Jay Leno told Kate — who is in the early stages of a custody battle with Jon over the former couple’s eight kids — on The Tonight Show Thursday.

“You said it,” Kate replied.

“What does Jon do for a living?” Jay asked.

“Umm,” Kate paused. “I don’t know.”

“Does he have a job?” Jay probed.

“Not that I’m aware of,” she remarked.

The ever-so-popular web browser alternative Opera submitted their mobile browser to Apple on March 23rd, it miraculously received the thumbs up, and became available in the iTunes App Store earlier in the week.  Obviously, it was something that users wanted, as Opera Mini for iPhone has since been downloaded over a million times.  As of 8 a.m. yesterday morning (April 15th), the actual download count was a whopping 1,023,380, and it has topped the charts for the number one iPhone app in Apple’s 22 worldwide App Stores.

Opera Mini provides quick mobile browsing to many mobile platforms and has been destined for success on the iPhone OS since it was first mentioned.  iPhone users, like most other smartphone users, are on an endless search to browse the internet faster from their handset.  Opera Mini provides just that, claiming to load pages up to six times faster than the native browser.  What are you waiting for?  Go grab your free download of Opera Mini and tell us what you think!

By Gary Howard

According to the Washington Post, Supreme Court Justices are predicting that the court may hear a case on the health care reform bill recently passed into law.

From the Post:

Justice Stephen Breyer predicted Thursday that the Supreme Court will one day pass judgment on this year’s health care overhaul.

Breyer told a congressional panel that the massive health care law, like most major federal legislation, is a good candidate for high court review. Continue reading…

This is good news, but everyone should be ready for a fight.

Breyer said the court’s relatively light caseload in recent years will soon be a thing of the past.

“I’d predict that three, four years from today, no one’s going to ask us again why we have so few cases,” Breyer said at a hearing on the court’s budget before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

Justice Clarence Thomas said at the same hearing that the court’s caseload, a third less than it was 20 years ago, depends in large part on what is happening in Congress. “Until recently, there hasn’t been comprehensive legislation of the kind that would fill our docket,” Thomas said. Continue reading…

Who knows how long this battle may last. Cases going before the court have a mixed history. The important thing to remember, however, is that it’s the justices that really matter. A good justice is one who is faithful to the Constitution, which means someone nominated by a President who is faithful to the Constitution.

Another important point to make is that we would not have ever gotten to the point of seeking out the Supreme Court as an arbiter if citizens remained faithful to their duty of voting in a Congress that remains faithful to the Constitution. I hope we all remember this.

And then of course, there is nullification–but that is a debate for later. H/T David g in Georgia.

Is the SEC’s war on Wall Street’s pre-eminent bank the move that will break the amazing calm in this market?

Right now it feels like it.

Goldman is down now 9%. The Dow is off over 60.

Follow Our Full Goldman Sachs SEC Charges Coverage Here >

Join the conversation about this story »

German blog webOS-Blog (Google translate link for those of you who don’t read German) has it on good word from Vodafone employees that the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be priced at € 579.90 and € 399.90 respectively without contract and for as little as € 149.90 and € 49.90 respectively when purchased on contract .  There’s still no official word from either Palm or Vodafone on pricing or release dates, but based what the non-plussed devices are selling for on other networks, those numbers make sense to us.

Thanks to Julian for the tip!