Motorcycle apparel and accessories retailer Hot Leathers was recently signed as official representative of the Harley-Davidson Footwear products, which will be brought from now on at all major motorcycle rallies. Harley-Davidson Footwear is manufactured by Wolverine World Wide, under license from Harley-Davidson Motor Company.
Any enthusiast knows that genuine biker style isn’t achieved without premier footwear from Harley-Davidson Footwear or the bold and original apparel availa… (read more)
Folks in Europe, Africa, and Asia can say goodbye to 2009 by viewing a very slight lunar eclipse on the last day of the year: Thursday, December 31. The event lasts for about an hour starting at 18:52 UTC, with deepest eclipse, such as it is, at 19:22.
Only a small part of the Moon will be in the deepest part of the Earth’s shadow, so this is nowhere near a total eclipse, when the Earth fully blocks sunlight from reaching the Moon. However, if you go out and take a look you’ll see the full Moon looking distinctly flattened on one side, and perhaps the rest of the Moon’s surface will look dusky. I’ve made a little image here to show you about how much the Moon will be covered, and approximately where. Like I said, only a small part will be darkened.
Not everyone will see this; North and South America are basically shut out of this event since it happens on the other side of the planet and the whole thing’s over before the Moon rises. The image of the Earth here shows where the eclipse will be visible: if you can see where you live, then you can see the eclipse. The closer you are to the center of the map, the higher the Moon will be in the sky at midpoint of the eclipse.
The next lunar eclipse visible will be in June 2010, but it’s partial and will only be visible in Australia. After that, there is a full eclipse in December 2010 which will be seen by North and South America — though the farther west you are the better as far as decent viewing times go (it’ll be around midnight for me in the Mountain time zone).
Anyway, if you want to learn about lunar eclipses (like what I mean by partial versus total, and what an umbra and penumbra are) then take a look at the Mr. Eclipse site, which has great info.
I’ll note that this last eclipse of 2009 is also a so-called Blue Moon: the unofficial term for the second full Moon in a single month. There’s no real significance to it — the Moon ain’t blue, folks, despite a bunch of news sites already posting pictures of the Moon Photoshopped to look that color without explanation. But the real thing here is that celestial geometry is putting on a small show for you, and what better way to ring in a new year?
Tip o’ the umbra to AstroPixie for reminding me about this!
The new Opel Astra now has a new bodykit from Irmscher, which was originally presented at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. The German tuning company has always specialised in Opel models, and has changed the look of the new Astra, without modifying the technical or mechanical aspects.
The Irmscher Astra kit includes 20-inch wheels, or an 18-inch option is available if you want something smaller. The front of the Astra takes on a different grille design, and new look spoiler and side skirts. The rear now includes a spoiler on the roof, and a redesigned rear bumper to accommodate the diffuser and the two or four exhaust outlet. The Irmscher kit lowers the Astra by 30 mm, and on the insider we get leather seats, door panels and central arm rest, with the final touch of aluminium pedals.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released yesterday the new and improved boosters ratings (devices which elevate children so belts will fit their small frames better), in an attempt to "take the guesswork out" of the selection of the devices. According to the new ratings, 9 belt-positioning boosters will got the Best Bets title, while 6 are Good Bets.
The IIHS tested 60 models, finding that 11 boosters aren’t recommended at all because they do such a poor job… (read more)
Message from Montie’s home office
I’m starting to see the differences in the way Chicago Public Libraries are going to operate in 2010. By now you probably know the library hours will be cut short in January 2010. Within the past couple months, Rogers Park library now puts books on shelves that are being held for library patrons instead of waiting in lines to decrease checkout times.
We already have the perks of reserving our own library books online instead of being on hold for a ridiculously long time. For those who want to reserve Internet computers, you can put in your own library card, check for availability and disappear until your reservation time. But oftentimes, while picking up books, I see those who are not computer savvy struggling to use computers and overworked librarians who don’t have time to walk each person through the steps of reserving books and Internet time.
This is yet another advantage of the library–computer courses. The unemployment rate in November 2009 was down 10 percent with 15.4 million unemployed people in the
During my college years and after graduation, I’ve worked with three different temp companies, and every last one of them wanted to test me on my computer skills–Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, typing and editing. As a Web Editor, then the requirements became more sophisticated with HTML editing and coding, Web 2.0, e-blast creations and content management systems.
I remember working for a claims company during grad school, and a new hire was dismissed the very first day because he didn’t know how to use a computer. He’d had decades of experience in claims, but he couldn’t check his email. My first reaction was, “Wow, how in the world did he manage to not learn how to learn the computer basics?” However, after I met this guy, I met more and more people who simply do not know how to use computers and it’s unfortunate.
If you know someone who isn’t computer savvy, please urge them to check out the free computer courses at Harold Washington Library or
And for those of you who already know the basics of computers, why not help out? There are companies that are charging people hundreds of dollars per course when they could be learning the same things for free at the library? Without being computer savvy, how could a temp company help someone find a job and why would a company want to hire someone who’s computer illiterate? Why not help someone change that glitch in their resume? Volunteer to work with a company that needs people who understand the Internet, web design or social networking sites. Help a student with internship credit by teaching them computer techniques. Apply to be a computer tutor, and make some extra cash.
If you’re unemployed and own a computer, use your downtime to learn more computer courses at home. Or, contact the library and volunteer to help with a computer course. May as well do something constructive with your computer literacy skills.
Nelsinho Piquet’s days outside Formula One are numbered. At least that’s how things are going if we are to trust Spanish motor racing website Motor21.com, who reported on Monday that Piquet will join Bruno Senna in the Campos-Meta Racing lineup for the 2010 season of F1.
It’s worth mentioning, however, that the story was not picked up by any of the other big publications in Spain or Brazil. In addition to that, some of the information disclosed by the Spanish site – not necessaril… (read more)
Last summer Google introduced a new service dubbed City Tours which generated a tour of various attractions near a location within walking distance of the starting point. It debuted in Google Labs as the service still had some rough edges, but it proved useful enough to become quite popular. It had a few major drawbacks, though some of which have since been remedied by the dev team which is now providing an update on their progress.
“Six months ago we launched City Tours on Google Labs with the goal of making vacation planning as easy as searching the web,” Trevor Johnston, software engineer from Google Zurich, wrote. “Though City Tours is still in Google Labs, the purpose was clear and the demo was popular, so we’ve continued to work on it over the past few months to take into account the hundreds of suggestions from users all across the globe.”
The biggest update and certainly the most welcome one is the addition of actual walking directions giving users the exact path they must take to reach their destinations. Up till now the tool would plot out a straight-line path between the locations and leave the users to figure out exactly how to get from one point to the other. This led to sometimes less-than-helpful suggestions with paths going over rivers or other obstacles.
Now, City … (read more)
Lucas Martell writer/director/producer/animator spent 5 years to create Pigeon Impossible, a wonderfully told and funny story. Over 2 million views since it was posted on Nov 8, 2009. Highly recommended.
[HT Pogue]
Posted in animation, united states, Video, YouTube 
Norwegian car manufacturer Think, which has already started to produce its electric car called Think City in Finland, is trying to make a deal for a plant in the United States.
On January 9, Think will apply during a public hearing for a 10-year tax abatement for a plant in Goshen, Indiana, where it intends to build its Think City model for the North American customers. The Norwegian automaker plans to build about 60,000 cars in the US.
The company has not announced… (read more)
Apple’s mythical tablet may or may not be here, but let’s indulge in last-minute conjecture on what Apple may have in store. So let’s try a thought experiment: a rundown of the ten things that would guarantee that Apple’s tablet is an enduring success.
To begin with, I assume we all know what a tablet device is and what it does. Imagine an iPod Touch with a 10-inch screen. I assume, too, that the tablet will run something similar to the touch-flavored OS at the heart of the iPhone; probably iPhone OS 4.0 (which has already been spotted in the wild).
Other lessons will be learned from the iPhone. Sleek industrial design, precious few hardware buttons and oleophobic coatings will feature in the spec sheet. So, too, will accelerometers, magnetometers and flux capacitors.
A cautionary note; despite assertions from unnamed Apple execs that we’re going to be “very surprised” by how we interact with the tablet, take it from an old cynic: it will be nothing like Apple’s 1987 Knowledge Navigator concept device (seen below). It might be similar in form factor, but I guarantee the Tablet has more in common with Apple’s venerable Newton than it does the crazily-ambitious platonic paradigm that was the Navigator.
So with that out of the way, let’s get started with the 10 prescriptions for guaranteed tablet success for Apple, in reverse order:
10. OLED Display
I’m sure we won’t get this, and that’s a shame. Sure, we’ll still get HD resolution with an LCD, but the battery will suffer.
09. High-Definition Prowess
HD is crucial; 720p natively, 1080p via external screen. It has to manage at least three hours of continuous HD playback on a single battery charge.
08. eMagazine Reader
eBook readers are greyscale and dull. An eMagazine Reader offers colors, animations and adventure. (Plus you can get automatic content delivery via iTunes subscriptions.) The concept below is by Bonnier R&D.
07. Ubiquitous Connectivity
Sounds fancy, but it’s just a 3G radio for connecting to the Net. For an added awesome factor, let’s do it WhisperNet style, with no monthly 3G fees. (Never gonna happen, but what a wonderful dream!)
06. Cameras
That’s right, cameras is deliberately plural. One on the back and one embedded up-front for video iChat. Anything less than 5 megapixels, by the way, is criminal.
05. Touch Media
You know what we want here – multimedia creation, editing and consumption, all touch-friendly. The retrofitted iPhone’s iPod app just won’t cut it — what we need is a touch-based iTunes. And a touch-friendly iMovie would be very welcome.
04. Multitasking
We need real background processes, Apple. No excuses this time.
03. Awesome Battery
My dream in terms of battery life would be five days between full charges. But, realistically, this being a first generation device, the battery will probably be weak.
02. Apps
Actually, apps are doomed. HTML5 will see to that, eventually. Until then, Apple’s tablet needs to run all the apps already in the iTunes store. Even the fart apps.
So, from an HD screen, Internet connectivity, incredible battery life and support for software to more factors, there are many things needed to make the iTablet a success. What’s the one killer feature that will guarantee Apple’s tablet huge and sustainable success?
01. Price
It comes down to this. Most sane people will not buy a tablet if they can get a notebook (or an iPod Touch!) that does all the same stuff at a lower price.
Of course, Apple may have already considered these things, and there are many other aspects of the iTablet that people are hoping for. While I’m sure we won’t get even half of these wish list (though perfectly reasonable) features, when Steve Jobs eventually makes the much-anticipated tablet announcement, he may convince many people that they need a tablet. If that happens, just check this list again for a brief reality check before reaching for your credit card.
Photo courtesy of Gizmodo. Photo rendering by Jesus Diaz.
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Business social network LinkedIn made a major upgrade to its iPhone app tonight but coming from a service with such incredible potential, there remain some major disappointments.
The new app looks like a less elegant version of the Facebook iPhone app, but it’s less customizable. There are a variety of useful new features, from faster invite sending to importing contact info to your phone, but the app remains based on the company’s mistaken desire of late to be your all-in-one social media messaging platform. It also fails to deliver the features that would make it most useful. If you’re looking for good news about new features, you can find it in the self-flattering company blog post. Here are the three things that disappoint me most about this new app; hopefully it’s a work in progress and will improve soon.
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For some reason LinkedIn will not deliver you a simple feed of the new jobs that contacts of yours have taken. Not by email, not by RSS, not through its fancy new API and not on this new iPhone app. Update feeds are cluttered with imported ephemera from Twitter and all too often job changes are obscured behind the phrase “contact X has updated their profile.” They have? How did they update it? It’s maddening.
LinkedIn says it’s working on solving this problem, but it doesn’t seem to be a very high priority. Prompting users to click more and engage with a wider variety of message types seem more in line with LinkedIn’s strategy. The company clearly wants to be Facebook and Twitter for the business world – not just a place where we all go to find out essential work information that we use while doing other forms of social networking on other sites better suited for things like short, trivial messages.
Perhaps LinkedIn isn’t to blame for this, but the ability to import LinkedIn contacts’ info onto your phone is rendered a whole lot less useful by the inability to merge that info with existing contacts. Say you’ve got someone’s name and phone number on your phone already – it’s a headache to pull in a person’s LinkedIn profile info and then merge the two manually.
Of course your phone number isn’t an optional field you can fill out on LinkedIn, so all those imported contacts will be people you’re unable to call. You won’t even be able to look them up on LinkedIn again from your phone’s contact list – peoples’ LinkedIn profile page URLs aren’t included in the contact info that gets imported.
This is a professional application that people use on the iPhone – shouldn’t it include push notifications? LinkedIn is used by tons of sales people, for example – you know they’d like to get some of these updates pushed to them. As a writer, I would too.
Look at it this way. Last month my LinkedIn contact Tara Hunt changed her profile to show that she’s founded a new company called Shwowp. I want to know that, preferably right away. But I don’t know about it until a month later because I didn’t want to fish through a bunch of cross-posted Twitter updates inside LinkedIn to catch Tara’s news and I didn’t want to click through 3 screens starting with the bland “Tara Hunt has updated her profile” in order to see if she’s happened to change jobs or just noted a new personal interest on her profile page.
When someone who has accepted my contact request changes jobs, I want a push notification about what the new job is and the option to call them on the phone immediately to discuss it. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask and that’s when I’ll know that LinkedIn is really serving my professional life.
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Car renderings are undoubtedly predicting a revolutionary future as most designs are pointing to futuristic appearances and top-notch technologies that would change the auto world entirely. But here’s something entirely new that caught our attention: the so-called Mercedes Benz Cyborg Sensation Vehicle concept made by designer Derek Chik Kin Ng.
Before jumping into description and specifications, you should know that this concept is projected to hit the market – or, better said, t… (read more)
PosiMotion announces Helix gaming grip for iPhone / iPod touch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Concept hybrid vehicles are being showcased all over the globe today. However, a hybrid Expedition Vehicle isn’t something we see or hear about a lot. The EVC (Expedition Vehicle Concept), designed by Prodan Dragos, is a vehicle that can adapt and be configured according to the needs of the user. It can be changed from a camper to an open top cruiser in just a few minutes and boasts of a 250mm ground clearance, a nano-polymere body and a 4×4 hybrid drive train. This vehicle can eat up off-road areas easily and is designed to be used for exploration. The car can seat four people and has a great legroom with swiveling front seats. The vehicle also has large hexagonal windows,
which brighten up the car. These different sized hexagonal windows set into the roof also acts as photovoltaic cells juicing up for additional electrical charge.
The car also has three workboxes upfront that can be used to store a number of things needed outdoors. The headlights of this vehicle can be detached and used as flashlights when the car is packed due to an in-built battery pack. This new concept hybrid vehicle is sure to perk up the off-road experience.
The Japanese have another proof that tuning is sometimes incredibly stupid: the eco-tuned 2010 Toyota Prius. The project was developed by the Tommy Kaira tuning house and seems to be just in time for the Tokyo Auto Salon 2010.
The exterior of the modified Prius features an aggressive body kit. The new exterior parts are made from carbon fiber and are available in the same color as the car or in a matte black finish.
The Tommy Kaira Prius bodykit includes:
If the International Automobile Federation (FIA) and the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) would have allowed each team to field a 3rd car from 2010 onwards, Michael Schumacher would have undoubtedly competed for Ferrari next year.
Nothing had been discussed on the matter within the Maranello organization prior to Schu’s signing with Mercedes GP, but test driver Marc Gene strongly believes the German driver left the Italian company solely because he didn’t have the opportunity … (read more)
Do you love the environment and dig simulation games? Well, here’s a game that should fulfill both these passions! City Rain, the game released by The Ovolo Corporation, Montreal, is a simulation and puzzle game that emphasizes strongly on saving the environment. Somewhat similar to Tetris and Sim City, this new game requires the player to save and reorganize a city ridden by pollution and transform them into greener places to live in. A percentage of all sales of this game will be donated to organizations that are fighting to save the environment. City Rain is meant to educate people about the environment and is available for use on PCs and the Xbox.
The game is a tweaked version of the original City Rain game developed by Mother Gaia Studios and is available for download for USD$10. Get addicted to this awesome new game, and educate yourself about the urgency of saving our environment and the ways in which we can make our city a better place to breathe and live in.
Imagino que todos los aficionados a los deportes extremos conocen el nombre de este piloto, y si por casualidad es la primera vez que lees acerca de él te recomiendo buscar artículos y videos referentes a su trayectoria; no te arrepentirás.
A mediados de año Travis anunció que rompería el record mundial de salto largo en un coche el 31 de Diciembre, y como sólo faltan unos días para el evento busqué información acerca de los preparativos.
Y encontré un video que muestra parte del entrenamiento del piloto, lo curioso es que Pastrana informó que desea utilizar un coche de producción estándar proveniente de Subaru (su patrocinador); pues quiere emplear los trucos de la vieja escuela para que el espectáculo sea lo más real posible.
El evento será transmitido en vivo por ESPN a las 11:00 pm (5:00 am del 1 de Enero hora española), así que podríamos aprovechar los festejos de año nuevo para disfrutar de otro asombroso record.
El video que disfrutarán a continuación es uno de los mejores incentivos para ver el salto.
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Some one week ago, we brought you a piece of news about a car with a wacky name and even a wackier price: the $865 Kandi Coco. Having seen the interest this little street legal, neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) managed to raise, we thought it would be a good idea to return to the subject and tell you on what you may spend your $865 on (beware, this price can only be paid in Oklahoma, thanks to federal and state rebates).
As said, the Kandi Coco is a NEV, with the engine mounted… (read more)
