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ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the games, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!

Some of the adventures ScummVM supports include Adventure Soft´s Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2; Revolution´s Beneath A Steel Sky, Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2; Flight of the Amazon Queen; Wyrmkeep´s Inherit the Earth; Coktel Vision´s Gobliiins; Westwood Studios´ The Legend of Kyrandia and games based on LucasArts´ SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) system such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max and more. You can find a thorough list with details on which games are supported and how well on the compatibility page.

Among the systems on which you can play those games are Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Dreamcast, PocketPC, PalmOS, AmigaOS, BeOS, OS/2, PSP, PS2, SymbianOS/EPOC and many more.

What’s New in version 1.1.0:

New Games:

• Added support for Blue’s Art Time Activities.
• Added support for Blue’s Reading Time Activities.
• Added support for Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove.
• Added support for Pajama Sam: Games to Play on Any Day.
• Added support for SPY Fox 3: Operation Ozone.
• Added support for Dragon History.
• Added support for TeenAgent.

General:

• Added support for a custom SJIS font for FM-TOWNS and PC98 games.
• Added support for 16bit graphics. (GSoC Task)
• Removed QuickTime MIDI backend on Mac OS X; it was buggy and did not compile on modern systems.

CinE:

• Added support for Amiga style menus for Amiga versions of Future Wars.

KYRA:

• Added support for the Amiga version of The Legend of Kyrandia. (sound support was done as a GSoC Task)
• Adapted KYRA to support the custom SJIS font.

SCUMM:

• Added support for the PC-Engine version of Loom.
• Added support for music and sound effects in the the Amiga version of The Secret of Monkey Island. (GSoC Task)
• Fixed some other bugs related to game versions for the Amiga.
• Added support for original save/load dialog in MM NES.
• Added support for savepoint passcodes for Sega CD MI1 via debugger command ‘passcode’
• Added support for Kanji rendering in Japanese version of Monkey Island Sega CD.

Homepage: http://www.scummvm.org/
Download: scummvm-1.1.0.zip
File Size: 12.32MB

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The demand for eco-friendly transportation has not only brought some changes in the automobile industry but in the aviation industry as well. With us getting busier with every passing day, the only way to save the precious hours that are wasted in traffic jams on highways is to follow the aerial route. Since aviation is often criticized for polluting the atmosphere, designers are following a greener approach to make your personal air travel clean and emission-free in the near future. Here is a list of 10 such electric aircrafts that you might fly in the future:

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The debt crisis in Greece is approaching the point of no return. As prospects for a rescue plan seem to be fading, largely thanks to German obduracy, nervous investors have driven interest rates on Greek government bonds sky-high, sharply raising the country’s borrowing costs. This will push Greece even deeper into debt, further undermining confidence. At this point it’s hard to see how the nation can escape default.

It’s a terrible story and clearly an object lesson for the rest of us. But an object lesson in what, exactly?

Yes, Greece is paying the price for past fiscal irresponsibility. Yet that’s by no means the whole story. The Greek tragedy also illustrates the extreme danger posed by a deflationary monetary policy. And that’s a lesson one hopes American policymakers will take to heart.

The key thing to understand about Greece’s predicament is that it’s not just a matter of excessive debt. Greece’s public debt, at 113 percent of gross domestic product, is indeed high, but other countries have dealt with similar levels of debt without crisis. For example, in 1946, the United States, having just emerged from World War II, had federal debt equal to 122 percent of GDP. Yet investors were relaxed, and rightly so: Over the next decade the ratio of U.S. debt to GDP was cut nearly in half, easing any concerns about our ability to pay what we owed. And debt as a percentage of GDP continued to fall in the decades that followed, hitting a low of 33 percent in 1981.

So how did the U.S. government manage to pay off its wartime debt? Actually, it didn’t. At the end of 1946, the federal government owed $271 billion; by the end of 1956 that figure had risen slightly, to $274 billion. The ratio of debt to GDP fell not because debt went down, but because GDP went up, roughly doubling in dollar terms over the course of a decade. The rise in GDP in dollar terms was almost equally the result of economic growth and inflation, with both real GDP and the overall level of prices rising about 40 percent from 1946 to 1956.

Unfortunately, Greece can’t expect a similar performance. Why? Because of the euro.

Until recently, being a member of the euro zone seemed like a good thing for Greece, bringing with it cheap loans and large inflows of capital. But those capital inflows also led to inflation. Greece found itself with costs and prices way out of line with Europe’s big economies. Over time, Greek prices will have to come back down. And that means that unlike postwar America, which inflated away part of its debt, Greece will see its debt burden worsened by deflation.

That’s not all. Deflation is a painful process, which invariably takes a toll on growth and employment. So Greece won’t grow its way out of debt. On the contrary, it will have to deal with its debt in the face of an economy that’s stagnant at best.

So the only way Greece could tame its debt problem would be with savage spending cuts and tax increases, measures that would themselves worsen unemployment. No wonder, then, that bond markets are losing confidence and pushing the situation to the brink.

What can be done? The hope was that other European countries would guarantee Greek debt in return for a commitment to harsh fiscal austerity. That might have worked. But without German support, such a deal won’t happen.

Greece could alleviate some of its problems by leaving the euro, and devaluing. But it’s hard to see how Greece could do that without triggering a catastrophic run on its banking system. Indeed, worried depositors have already begun pulling cash out of Greek banks. There are no good answers here – actually, no non-terrible answers.

But what are the lessons for America? Of course, we should be fiscally responsible. What that means, however, is taking on the big long-term issues, above all health costs – not grandstanding and penny-pinching over short-term spending to help a distressed economy.

Equally important, however, we need to steer clear of deflation or even excessively low inflation. Unlike Greece, we’re not stuck with someone else’s currency. But as Japan has demonstrated, even countries with their own currencies can get stuck in a deflationary trap.

What worries me most about the U.S. situation right now is the rising clamor from inflation hawks, who want the Fed to raise rates (and the federal government to pull back from stimulus) even though employment has barely started to recover. If they get their way, they’ll perpetuate mass unemployment. But that’s not all. America’s public debt will be manageable if we eventually return to vigorous growth and moderate inflation. But if the tight-money people prevail, that won’t happen – and all bets will be off.

One of my favorite novels of the last decade is Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” which chronicles the journey of a father and his young son as they struggle to survive in a bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape. Though McCarthy cleverly avoids naming the cataclysm, it was natural for me to suspect nuclear war.

Natural, because my generation was born during the age of the atom and shadowed by the threat of nuclear annihilation. In my youth, Hollywood reveled in odd radiation disasters (“Them!” remains a personal favorite), the landscape was dotted with civil defense shelters, and my mother stocked canned goods in the crawl space under the house during the Cuban missile crisis. (No kidding. My father poked fun, but she would not be deterred.)

That era has ended, but the threat of nuclear annihilation is still very much with us. I don’t agonize, as my parents did, over the prospect of wholesale nuclear war with another superpower. I’m not teaching my toddler to duck under a desk. But I do worry that she is growing up in a world still haunted by nuclear weapons.

That’s why I’ve been heartened by President Barack Obama’s compelling promise to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” And this week, the president made a small down payment on that pledge. He and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new treaty in which both countries – which together control 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons – promised marginal cuts in their nuclear arsenals (assuming the treaty is ratified by legislators here and in Russia).

Let’s be clear about this: Both countries will maintain nuclear arsenals powerful enough to destroy the planet several times over. This hardly amounts to disarmament – by either side. The treaty doesn’t even reduce each nation’s arsenal by half.

But alongside Obama’s revised policy on the use of nuclear weapons, New START, as the treaty is called, does provide prominent leadership from the world’s remaining superpower. The United States can never hope to persuade other countries to forgo development of nuclear weapons if we remain committed to a bristling arsenal, refreshed every 20 years or so by new technology.

Obama’s interest in reducing the world’s nuclear capacity also helps to reinvigorate an effort that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves: keeping nukes out of the hands of terrorists. A suitcase-size nuke could wreak widespread and lasting havoc, and the United States needs cooperation from other countries, including Russia, to secure them.

Despite the modest changes Obama has made in U.S. nuclear policy, he’s already facing a barrage of criticism from conservatives, who, predictably, argue the president’s proposals will embolden our enemies and make us weaker. In fact, Obama’s policy revisions and treaty proposals are less dramatic than I would have liked, since they take only small steps away from our Cold War posture.

But at least they’re steps in the right direction. I’ve long since given up my dream of living long enough to see nuclear weapons abandoned and dismantled, but I still have hope for the world in which my daughter grows old. As the president said in a speech in Prague last April, a year before the historic treaty:

“I’m not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now, we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, yes, we can.”

Here’s hoping he’s right.

Bruce Maiman

Even if you use it responsibly, marijuana is the only drug you can get fired for using legally in California.

Each day, many of Californians show up for work medicated, even hung over, and the only person the employer can legally fire is the pot smoker.

Christian Hughes managed a senior citizens apartment complex near Redding for five years. A new company bought the complex and implemented drug testing. Hughes failed and was fired despite:

• Informing his new employer that he used medical marijuana outside the workplace under his doctor’s advice.

• A five-year work history with no evidence of impairment on the job. Residents never even knew he smoked medicinally.

• The irony that pot probably made it easier for him to do his job, as it helped relieve pain from a shattered jaw sustained in a car accident.

Pot helped him get back to work. We want folks to work, don’t we? Christian’s new employers saw it differently. But after a month on unemployment, Christian found similar work with another company at a facility in Red Bluff.

Christian’s biggest mistake: He wasn’t using something worse, like Vicodin, OxyContin or Percocet. Such prescription drugs are far more dangerous. Over-the-counter allergy medicines warn us not to operate heavy equipment. Alcohol can have immediate debilitating effects.

In most cases those trace elements in a drug test will get you fired.

The problem: We’re conflating usage with impairment.

No impaired employee should be on the job, and employers should be able to fire an impaired employee if his condition impacts job performance, jeopardizes the safety of individuals, co-workers or customers, or puts companies at risk of liability.

But that’s not what this is about. Whether it’s the 2008 state Supreme Court ruling allowing employers to fire medicinal users or federal laws making marijuana illegal no matter the use, what this really boils down to is zero tolerance based on old-school paradigms, arcane drug laws, hypocritical prejudices and outright ignorance.

It’s a bias based on underlying beliefs within lingering remnants of society that pot smokers are dopers, hippies and Dorito-munching deadbeats leeching off the system while listening to Grateful Dead albums on vinyl.

For instance, the California Chamber of Commerce argues that an employer’s right to maintain a drug-free workplace is critical in order to protect the safety of all workers and limit exposure to potentially costly litigation.

Please! What the chamber really thinks is that pot smokers and only pot smokers are dangerous. Otherwise they’d insist that all drug-tested employees who show traces of prescription drugs, allergy medicines and alcohol be subject to firing.

Indeed, they should be subject to termination, if they smoke on the job, drink on the job, are impaired on the job. Someone who smokes medicinally after dinner is no more impaired the next morning than the employee in the afternoon who had a cocktail at lunch. But our preconceived notions tell us the pot smoker is a subhuman lawbreaker and the cocktail drinker is a white collar professional.

Christian Hughes wasn’t fired for performing tasks made more dangerous by smoking pot. He was fired simply for smoking pot despite its medical approval by a licensed physician, its legal protection under Proposition 215 and his responsible usage as an exceptional employee.

It’s not the substance that makes an employee a liability; it’s the behavior that makes the employee a liability. You fire the behavior, not the drug.

A 2008 bill introduced by then-Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would have allowed employers to fire workers who were impaired on the job, but protected employees from being targeted because of their medical status as marijuana-medicating patients.

“Otherwise,” says now-state Sen. Leno, “you might as well have passed a law that stipulates you can’t smoke medical marijuana unless you’re unemployed. That’s the logic.”

The bill passed both houses of the Legislature, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it. Leno says he’ll try again with a newly elected governor.

Back when I went to work for ABC News, I took a drug test. In private, I took the cup handed to me by the attendant and poured in a bottle of warm apple juice. I immediately felt better knowing this would befuddle some poor lab technician.

It didn’t get that far.

With a quizzical look on her face, the attendant held the cup to the light and said, “My, this sure looks peculiar.” I grabbed the cup and said, “Well, maybe we better run it through again.” I drank it, and the woman shrieked in horror and fainted to the floor.

I still got hired.

I don’t do drugs, don’t smoke or drink. But targeting pot smokers just because they’re pot smokers is beyond unfair.

If we think it ludicrous to suspend a third-grader for bringing nail clippers to school, then it’s equally absurd to fire someone for traces of pot smoked at home despite a job history showing no evidence of impairment at work.

Let’s address the abuse and not the use of a drug – any drug. We’re smart enough to know the difference.

Celebrating his 90th birthday next week after 35 years on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens has announced that he will retire in June.

The fourth-longest-serving justice and the last of the moderate Republicans, appointed in 1975 by President Gerald Ford, Stevens will be remembered most for his defense of civil liberties in wartime – when the temptation is to allow fear and expediency to prevail and to dismiss the niceties of the law and the U.S. Constitution.

Stevens will go down in history for his staunch defense of “habeas corpus,” the notion that any time a person is detained, the government must produce the prisoner in person and state why he or she is being detained. This has been a bulwark against arbitrary power since the Magna Carta in 1215.

During the presidency of George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, that long-standing doctrine came under threat with indefinite detentions at Guantánamo Bay, a legal netherland where neither the U.S. Constitution nor any law applied.

Stevens drew upon his World War II experience, where he had earned a Bronze Star, to challenge the Bush practice. As a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Wiley B. Rutledge after the war, Stevens had written key memos in a 1948 case on the wartime detention of 120 German-born U.S. residents, who were being held at Ellis Island even after the war.

Did they have the right to challenge their detention in a U.S. court? Stevens wrote to Justice Rutledge, “I should think that even an alien enemy ought to be entitled to a fair hearing on the question whether he is in fact dangerous.”

A half-century later, Stevens wrote the key decisions rejecting Bush administration practices in the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. In Rasul v. Bush (2004), Stevens wrote that the detainees did have the right to challenge their detention in American courts (a 6-3 decision). In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), Stevens wrote on the issue of military tribunals that “the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law.”

Stevens believed, courageously during wartime, that liberty and security can be reconciled. He stood for the principle that fair process, even in wartime, is no threat to the United States.

Still spry as he approaches 90, Stevens may be around for a long time to continue defending that enduring principle.

Imagine a job that pays $25,000 a month, plus a guarantee that you would fly first class, and be chauffeured to the finest hotels. And if you landed a deal, your piece of the action would be $2.5 million, minimum.

Indeed, life is sweet for some placement agents, the middlemen who help investment houses win business from public pension funds. Yet the time has come for California to put a lid on the sugar bowl. To reduce the potential for kickbacks and corruption, state lawmakers must rein in these behind-the-scenes deal-makers and make their dealings more transparent.

The initial read is not good. Legislation to regulate the worst excesses of placement agents passed the Assembly Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security Committee on Wednesday. But it faces more Assembly hearings, and since it changes the Political Reform Act, it must get a two-thirds vote in both houses.

Four Democrats voted for it, the bare minimum. Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, a Republican from Dana Point, voted against the bill. Assemblyman Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert, abstained.

The bill, Assembly Bill 1743, would require that placement agents register like lobbyists. Importantly, it would bar placement agents from collecting contingency fees based on success. California lawmakers banned such fees for lobbyists 60 years ago, knowing such arrangements are corrupting.

That ban faces stiff resistance from the investment firm Blackstone Group and a trade group, as The Bee’s Dale Kasler reported.

There are other opponents.

Former Sen. Richard Polanco was in Sacramento working to weaken the bill, arguing that newer or small-scale money managers, many of them Latinos, need placement agents who receive contingent fees in order to get to pension fund managers.

Polanco has a stake in the outcome. He worked with Alfred Villalobos, the former California Public Employees’ Retirement System board member who earned more than $60 million in placement agent fees.

One Villalobos-Polanco contract with a Wall Street firm included a $25,000 monthly retainer, plus a 1 percent fee so long as they won a CalPERS commitment worth at least $250 million.

Treasurer Bill Lockyer is leading the charge for transparency. He knows the bill is in trouble, but has a suggestion. If it stalls, he will push to have CalPERS and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System halt all business with funds using placement agents.

The fate of AB 1743 will be a test of Democratic leaders, John Pérez and Darrell Steinberg, and also of Assembly GOP leader Martin Garrick and his Senate counterpart, Dennis Hollingsworth. Will they side with placement agents that have brought disgrace upon the state’s pension funds? Or will they stand behind the interests of taxpayers and open government?

When you sign a two-year, $12 million deal to be a closer, there’s an automatic leash that comes with the package. But if Mike Gonzalez(notes) can’t find his form soon, winter smiles and promises aren’t going to mean a thing.

Gonzalez turned in his third messy outing in five days Friday night, allowing two runs in the ninth as the Blue Jays rallied to beat the Orioles. Gonzalez couldn’t find the strike zone (just nine strikes over 19 pitches), his velocity was down (this was a problem all spring), and his command was spotty. The O’s don’t want to make a hasty, knee-jerk change to their bullpen order, but one or two more stomach-punch losses in April could force Dave Trembley’s hand. (If you want to see the critical hit, a double by Travis Snider(notes), your video is here.)

"Obviously, Gonzalez isn’t off to the start that he wants or that we expected," Trembley said after the loss. "You live with it. It doesn’t sit with you real good, but that’s all I can tell you."

Jim Johnson(notes) worked a perfect eighth inning in front of Gonzalez Friday, with two strikeouts. He was mediocre as the stopper after the O’s traded George Sherrill(notes) last summer, but anytime you’re hedging against a closer on the bring, you look at the eighth-inning man first. Johnson doesn’t come close to the strikeout potential Gonzalez has at his best, but Johnson gives you far better control.

How you choose to play the Gonzalez-Johnson situation depends on the scope of your league. In the shallowest of groups, you can just wait for things to play out, then make a move if and when a switch is announced. In medium groups you have to consider being proactive with a possible move now, and in deeper leagues, Johnson surely is long gone, either from March’s draft or from an earlier pickup earlier this week. One size never fits all in this game. We’ll toss this around in the comments, get through this together.

• Home runs were all but illegal for the Mets during home games last year but the New Yorkers got off to a nice push Friday, cranking four out of the yard in a victory over the Nationals. Jeff Francoeur(notes) and Rod Barajas(notes) both connected twice, and David Wright(notes) would have joined the parade had they been playing in a smaller park (his double in the seventh just missed clearing the left-field wall). Mike Pelfrey(notes) was solid if unspectacular in his first turn of the year (6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 4 BB, 4 K) and a trio of relievers backed him up with three scoreless innings. If the Mets could just get Mike Jacobs(notes) out of the lineup somehow, things would be groovy.

• Adam Dunn faced an exaggerated shift in New York, as usual, which makes you wonder why he doesn’t lay down a bunt now and again. Drop anything down the third base line and Dunn could walk to first base, and after a few of these cheap hits teams might go back to defending him in a more conventional manner. Ian Desmond(notes) had a two-run triple to produce the Washington runs; I really hope the Nats aren’t going to jerk him in and out of the lineup all year. Let your young players develop, already.

• Jorge De La Rosa is already owned in three-quarters of the Yahoo universe, but this is a guy who deserves to be 100 percent bankrolled. He finally got control of his awesome arsenal over the final two-thirds of 2009, he looked great in spring training, and the Padres didn’t have a prayer against him Friday (7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K). Have a look at some nasty pitching here.

• The modern manager’s handbook probably cost the Red Sox a shot at a win Friday in Kansas City; Jonathan Papelbon(notes) sat in the bullpen waiting for the "ninth inning save chance" while Hideki Okajima(notes) and Daniel Bard(notes) lost the game in the eighth inning against the heart of the Royals lineup. I’m not picking on Terry Francona, he’s merely doing what just about everyone does these days: manage by the save rule. If I can a professional ballclub, my ace reliever would pitch when the situation was most critical, stats be damned.

• Magglio Ordonez earned a controversial contract vesting with his hot finish in 2009 and he’s kept things rolling in the first week of the new year (9-for-18, two doubles, homer). Batting third in an American League lineup, slotted between Johnny Damon(notes) and Miguel Cabrera(notes), sure, this could work out.

• Trevor Hoffman only gave up two homers for all of 2009 but a long ball from the unheralded Nick Stavinoah cost Hoffman a ballgame Friday. Ryan Franklin(notes) had an uneventful save conversion on the other side, getting three batted-ball outs over four batters.

• Javier Vazquez back in the AL East, what could possibly go wrong? The Rays ate his lunch Friday at the Trop (5.2 IP, 8 R) while post-hype sleeper David Price(notes) was effective on the other side (7.2 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 7 K). Vazquez will look west for a fix, as his next two starts will probably come against the Angels and Athletics.

• Maybe it’s best to hold off on the Jason Heyward(notes) anointing oil for a bit. He struck out four times in six plate appearances at San Francisco, and he’s now 3-for-17 on the year with eight strikeouts. Heyward might want to do something against Todd Wellemeyer(notes) Saturday, as Tim Lincecum(notes) awaits for Sunday.

• We had a good joke at Oakland’s expense earlier in the week, but the pesky Athletics offense has been heard from of late, piling up 22 runs in three games. But the most interesting potential pickup that emerged from their Friday victory in Anaheim is lefty starter Gio Gonzalez(notes) (6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 6 K); if he gets the ball over the plate and trusts his stuff, good things can happen.

• Kelly Johnson’s big day out Thursday was a blast, but he was back in the No. 8 slot in the lineup Friday. Chris Young (grand slam) and Adam LaRoche(notes) (3-2-2-3) got the best of a lopsided win over the Pirates.

Speed Round: The Phillies are good and the Astros aren’t, no new spin on that one. Imagine how lethal this Philly offense will be when the weather heats up in Citizens Bank Park this summer. … The Rangers aren’t fun to pitch to in Arlington (Nelson Cruz(notes) looked primed for a monster year), though Julio Borbon(notes) has yet to join the party. … Jason Frasor(notes) needed a day off so Kevin Gregg(notes) got the save in Baltimore (1-2-3, two strikeouts). … Francisco Liriano’s(notes) first start wasn’t a gem by any means (6 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 5 BB, 3 K) but it’s something to grow on. He’ll probably face Boston next week. … Jon Rauch(notes) worked around two hits and grabbed his third save in five days. … San Diego’s Chris Young has a sore shoulder and will miss a start. … Ian Kinsler(notes) (ankle) has April 21 set as his return date. … Brian Roberts(notes) left Friday’s game after stealing a base in the first inning and straining his abdomen. Keep in mind he had a back problem all spring. … Edgar Renteria(notes) bailed out the Giants with a ninth-inning homer off Billy Wagner(notes); the shortstop is on an 11-for-16 tear. … Drew Stubbs(notes) put Cincinnati ahead with an eighth-inning grand slam off Esmailin Caridad(notes), and Francisco Cordero(notes) barely held on in the ninth (some spotty infield play didn’t help).

Making fast cars faster
By Nauman Farooq

Hennessey Performance has been around for awhile now. They first made headlines when they started tuning the Dodge Viper back in the early 1990’s. They had turned a fast car into an absurdly fast car.

Hennessey Performance

In recent years they have tuned everything from Chevrolet Corvette’s to the Ford F-150 Raptor truck. But these masters of speed weren’t content, and they recently began work on a project that would require more than just adding some turbos and superchargers.

The result is the Hennessey Venom GT, a fully modified version of the Lotus Elise. While it shares some basic structure to the Elise, the Venom GT is much bigger and packs a 1000 hp punch.

Having just completed this project, Hennessey were all set to unveil their latest creation at the 2010 New York International Auto Show. Sadly, the only piece they have was sitting in England and they weren’t able to ship it to New York in time for the show.

To fill up the space they had, they brought along some of their other modified muscle cars.

Most notable among which is the new Chevrolet Camaro HPE700. This limited edition Camaro (only 24 will be built) features the engine out of the Corvette ZR1. Now just installing this mammoth motor into a pony car would normally be enough, but the guys at Hennessey can’t be described as normal. They tweaked this 6.2-liter, supercharged V8 to produce 725 hp and 741 lb/ft of torque. As a result, this Camaro can go from 0-100 km/h in just 3.5 seconds, and covers the ¼-mile in 11.3 seconds, while doing 202 km/h. Keep the pedal buried until it runs out of gears, and you’ll see speeds reaching 330 km/h.

So be in no doubt, this is one serious muscle car. To ensure you don’t confuse it with just another ordinary Camaro, Hennessey has given the car unique 20-inch wheels, but most notably, the nose is modified with a new grille that even covers the headlamps. The look is very menacing indeed and gives a hint of the aggression this car has.

But what if Camaro’s are not your choice of muscle car, what if you prefer the Dodge Challenger? Hennessey has you covered there too.

Their Challenger HPE600 features a supercharger bolted onto the 6.1-liter HEMI, V8. End result as you’ve guessed it is 600 hp. It also produces 585 lb/ft of torque, which would come in handy when overtaking slower moving traffic.

The modification to the Challenger’s looks are a bit more subtle. The hood scoop is the easiest giveaway, but also spot the unique wheels and lowered suspension.

These modifications and plenty more are available for your car right now, so if you fancy tuning your muscle car, check them out.

Eco Factor: Sustainable architecture designed to run on renewable solar and wind energy.

The Eco-Sushi House by eco-conscious designer Michael Jantzen explore ways in which to create new and exciting architectural art aesthetic for commercial structures. This is done through the careful integration of alternative energy gathering and storage systems into the design. This structure incorporates two large vertical axis wind turbines and a large area clad with flexible photovoltaic cells for all of the electrical power generation requirements.

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Daily Random Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 small leeks, halved
• 4 T olive oil
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• 1 t wholegrain mustard
• Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:
Steam or boil, or grill the leeks until tender, for about 8-10 minutes. Drain thoroughly. Whisk the oil vinegar and mustard together and season to taste. Serve the leeks drizzled with balsamic dressing.

Eco Factor: Sustainable streetlights powered by solar energy.

The amount of electricity that is consumed by streetlights installed to keep highways safe after dark is staggering. To reduce burden on the grid, industrial designers have often thought of potential systems that make use of renewable solar energy. Moreover, since streetlights are installed in the open, they can easily harvest solar energy for nighttime illumination.

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Los Angeles Times

Second story on the page.

A new book, “Preserving Egypt’s Cultural Heritage,” offers intriguing glimpses into dozens of projects. A collection of essays edited by Randi Danforth, the book, which includes before and after photographs, is a reminder of the passion and meticulousness that comes with conserving Egypt’s glorious and often troubled past.

The splendor is much diminished these days. The world’s first empire, which the book describes as once spanning “from the fourth cataract of the Nile in the south to the Euphrates River to the northeast,” disappeared centuries ago. Today’s Egypt is a poor, chaotic and dusty offspring, a nation still important but slipping in stature in a changing Middle East.

“Preserving Egypt’s Cultural Heritage” is the story of saving for new generations what flourished from the days of Pharaohs to Christian monasteries to the rise of Islam.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Article Tags: Lawrence Solomon

Those determined to prove the existence of man-made climate change may soon taste their own medicine

Climate scientists play a good game of whack-a-mole.

Right from the early days of the global warming controversy, they whacked any scientist who dissented from the view that CO2 was warming the planet in a dangerous way. Up popped other skeptical scientists, and WHACK!! Down they went.

Up popped skeptical journalists and WHACK! Down they went, too. Then more whacks for new scientists who surfaced, or pesky scientists who resurfaced.

Today, decades later, the climate science establishment is still whacking away, faster and more frenetically than ever, as more and more skeptical scientists, journalists and politicians surface. And now there’s a new species of skeptic in need of whacking down ­— the many inquiries that have sprung up in the wake of Climategate, the unauthorized release of some 3,000 documents from the computers of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University showing that data had been manipulated and destroyed.

Source: network.nationalpost.com

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Twitter anuncia que lanza su propia aplicación para iPhone, que no es otra que Tweetie, comprada por ellos y que ofrecerán gratis. Esto supone que desde la plataforma empiezan a competir con algunas de las empresas que más han ayudado a hacer popular Twitter, como son los desarrolladores de clientes en el móvil: Tweetdeck, Echofon, Seesmic… En definitiva, parece que ponen en práctica los consejos de uno de sus inversores, Fred Wilson: terceros han ido “llenando agujeros”, carencias que Twitter debería cubrir de forma natural y que esto se tiene que acabar. Acortadores de URLs (bit.ly), clientes de móvil y escritorio y servicios para almacenar fotos son los siguientes en la lista si desde Twitter le compran el argumento completo a Wilson.

El equilibrio entre plataformas y quienes construyen sobre ellas es uno de los más complicados de resolver, atendiendo a casos históricos y a los actuales. Si miramos la plataforma por excelencia en la informática personal hasta hace poco – el PC con Windows – había dinero para “toda la pila”, pero sobre todo para quien controlaba la relación con el usuario, Microsoft. En las nuevas plataformas de internet esto no está tan claro, de hecho hasta hace muy poco servidor entendía el negocio de Tweetdeck mucho mejor que el de Twitter. Si eres el interfaz en el móvil y la localización tienes un negocio claro para los próximos años y esa es la apuesta de todos estos clientes, mientras Twitter se queda el rol de almacenar toda la información.

Toda plataforma tiende a un equilibrio en el que hace negocio y los que construye sobre ella sólo pueden aspirar a tener un negocio estable en ese momento. En caso de que esto no ocurra, la plataforma cambia las condiciones… y eso es lo que ha hecho Twitter tras años de beneficiarse de la labor de estos terceros con los que ahora compite. Puede ser injusto, puede ser un verdadero palo para quienes hayan invertido años y mucho dinero en desarrollar sobre Twitter, pero al final hay que tomar posturas pragmáticas como la de Loic Lemeur de Seesmic: no depender de sólo una plataforma porque eso te convierte en rehén de la misma. De hecho desde Twitter han debido observar algo que no les conviene: estos clientes están evolucionando a clientes multiservicio, Facebook incluido. Y claro, Twitter no quiere ser “uno más”, quiere ser el sitio a donde se envía el “estatus” por excelencia.

Relacionado: los problemas de negocios sobre APIs de terceros, el caso Twitter.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Geoffrey D. Summers)

Not specific to Egypt, but as Kat pointed out – probably of interest to many readers.

Barbara Ann Kipfer, Dictionary of Artifacts. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

This book entitled Dictionary of Artifacts comprises a two-page “Preface” in which the author sets out the ambitious aims of providing “informative definitions in accessible language about the vocabulary describing artifacts.” She then states that entries relate to a wide range of related issues from analysis, examination and identification to production and technology, and includes examples of artifacts and types. Thus a main failure of this work lies perhaps in the choice of a misleading title for what is in fact an eclectic dictionary of archaeological terms amongst which artifacts feature very prominently. The book is aimed at “students, archaeology professors, archaeologists, museum staff, archaeology volunteers, and general readers.” There follows 346 pages of dictionary entries. Some 110 line illustrations (slightly more if each individual drawing is counted) and occasional small photographs are scattered throughout, sometimes confined to the wide margin on the outer edge of each page, occasionally indented into the relevant portion of text, or more often spread across a section of a page. These pictures are generally informative although line illustrations are not provided with scales.

It was exciting to learn that Barbara Ann Kipfer, a professional lexicographer with a special interest in archaeology, had produced a Dictionary of Artifacts because I thought it would be extremely useful for a course entitled “Artifact Analysis” that I teach in the Graduate Program in Settlement Archaeology at the Middle East Technical University at Ankara, where the great majority of our students speak Turkish as their first language but English is the language of instruction. I have however been greatly disappointed and found it difficult, in spite of the inordinately long time taken to write this review, to come up with much to write that is positive.

One underlying problem is that the majority of what archaeologists, for whom this book has been principally compiled, call artifacts, objects, or simply finds, are, in actual fact, only those parts of complex artifacts that have survived burial in archaeological contexts. Survival is a result of both the accidents of preservation and the different organic and inorganic materials from which they are made. The author is clearly aware of the shortcomings for, in the Preface, she writes, “More than 2000 entries [the publisher’s blurb on the flap says close to 3000] cover all aspects of artifacts: specific artifact types, prominent examples of artifacts, technological terms, culture periods, words associated with the making of and description of artifacts (including material and methods), principles and techniques of examination and identification, and terms regarding the care and preservation of specimens.”

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Seattle PI (Rob Hodges)

You know you’re in trouble when you’re forced to flag down a camel caravan for help.

That’s the situation my wife, Kate, and I were in the last morning of a three-day/two-night jeep trek in a fairly remote part of Egypt’s White Desert. Our Land Cruiser would not start — leaving us stuck several miles west of the only road between the Bahariya and Farafra oases.

We have both had to jump-start cars at one time or another but never a loaded-down Land Cruiser — and never through thick desert sand. Even with the addition of two helpful guys from the camel crew, our group of six pushed to no avail.

The camel caravan was a tourist procession, which departed in the direction of the road with the promise to signal for help. That was cold comfort since it might have been hours or days before a four-wheel-drive vehicle capable of reaching us and pulling the Land Cruiser out of the sand happened along. It could have taken just as long for word to reach one of the oases via a random passer-by.

Fortunately, our situation was more hitch than hazard. Our driver and guide had satellite phones that could receive a signal from the top of nearby peaks (though the guys seemed reluctant to use them, perhaps out of pride). We could call the tour operator for help, and we had enough food and water in case it took all day to arrive.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Eco Factor: Sustainable vehicle designed for use after a global disaster.

With global temperatures on a steep rise researchers are anticipating times when natural disasters will make humans live like nomads again. However, there are several eco-conscious souls who are planning out systems that might prevent us from going back to the Stone Age, using present technology. The Nomad is one such proposal for post-apocalyptic times that is designed to keep you safe and healthy.

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