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Apparently the right wing crazies are up in arms again about the fact that it happens to be a Muslim holiday – Eid al-Adha. In fact Muslims have been having holidays for the past 1430 years so perhaps it’s not that big of a deal if a store like say, Best Buy, wants to acknowledge the fact.

As it turns out, this is probably the first time a retailer has sent out such Islamic holy day greetings, according to CAIR (Council on Islamic Relations). And what happened?

Vitriolic spewing by hateful narrow-minded people who have no respect for others, such as this Best Buy forum demonstrates. Why is it either Christmas or Eid. Either Hannukah or holiday? This article at Right Pundits pretty much sums up their thinking. In my opinion, exploit them all! On one hand people complain about the commercialization of [fill in holiday here] and on the other, everyone wants a piece of the action. Go ahead, sell your soul. Let companies and corporations exploit your holy day for profit and consumerist values. Of course, they should also have sent out Happy Thanksgiving ones. And maybe they did, it’s unclear. I know I haven’t seen any Eid flyers but I’ve seen so many “Thanksgiving Sale” ads that it’s hard to keep track of whether I’m supposed to wake up at 4 am or 5 am to get the big sale. What?! Do “they” really want me to get up that early to shop?! Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to all Americans, happy Eid to all Muslims and happy whatever to whomever you are and want recognition 🙂

* Thanks to John Biggs at Crunch Gear for the picture of the ad

Japan, Asia | Unusual Monuments

Measuring around 600 feet high, this unusual tower is located at the Church of Perfect Liberty headquarters in Tondabayashi. The tower stands as monument to all the perished souls of war throughout all time. Within the tower is a shrine in which all known names of the lives claimed in human conflict have been recorded on microfilm and stored in a golden container.

The structure was originally designed using clay by the church’s late second founder. Built in 1970, the newly discovered technique of ‘shotcrete’ was employed in the creation of the tower, formed by spraying concrete on to a wire netting.

Once a year, the Church of Perfect Liberty headquarters is the site of one of the world’s largest fireworks show. Every July 6th, the members celebrate the passing of their first founder with what they call the “PL Art of Fireworks”. Unlike most fireworks shows which fire around 5,000 shells, the PL show consists of around 25,000 shells fired. During the finale about 7,000 shells are shot off in unison, nearly lighting the entire sky.

Square Enix has announced that Avalanche Studios’ highly anticipated action sequel, Just Cause 2, will finally hit the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on March …

Wired has an article about a court dismissing a lawsuit by a guy who claimed the government was spying on him. The claims sound pretty much like your run-of-the-mill tinfoil-hat-wearing paranoid, so it’s no surprise that the government tossed out the lawsuit. But, as David Kravets points out in the article, what if the government actually did put someone under 24-hour surveillance. Would there be any way to prove it? Since the government won’t admit to things like who’s on the no-fly list and still supports warrantless wiretaps, it could very easily make anyone who really is under surveillance out to be a nutcase tinfoil-hat wearing lunatic. It seems quite unlikely that was true in this case (or in most cases of such claims), but it does seem bizarre that if you really were in such a situation, proving it would be almost impossible as well.

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Alerted in part by your letters and calls, Senators have begun to express concern over the secrecy and content of ACTA, while the MPAA, RIAA and other established groups rush to reassure them that ACTA — while of course they know nothing of its actual content — will be good for business and that “transparency is a distraction”. Once again, it seems like one incumbent subset of the tech, content, and communications sector is banging the drum for ACTA while claiming to speak for creators, consumers, and everyone else affected in those large and increasingly diverse industries.

Meanwhile, from within the negotiations, it seems that the US proposals for an Internet chapter did not receive instant assent from other countries. Inside US Trade (for-pay article here) reports that the negotiators may not have successfully settled on a text for the Internet chapter of ACTA:

At the Nov. 4 to 6 negotiating round of the Anticounterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), ACTA partners reviewed the United States proposal for an Internet chapter but did not agree to adopt the language, sources said.

If pressure from the Senate successfully reveals the provisional ACTA text, what should you expect to see? Public Knowledge’s Sherwin Siy has an excellent piece on how dry diplomatic language can hide major IP changes, while Glynn Moody expands on the ratchet effect that occurs when countries decide to “harmonize” enforcement, but refuse to internationalize fair use or copyright exceptions and limitations.

The contrast between those two processes is evident in a current US Copyright Office Consultation on a proposed WIPO Treaty for the Reading Disabled, when the same groups that declared that it would be just fine that ACTA “codify best practices for enforcement” opposed attempts to codify the world’s system for the protection of the public interest, such as for copyright exceptions for the blind, visually impaired and those with reading disabilities.

In the U.S. Copyright Office’s WIPO treaty consultation, they are claiming that such a harmonization of standard copyright limitations would “begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms.” It makes one wonder: would rightsholders be as flippant about the transparency “distraction” if it was the Treaty for the Blind and Visually Impaired that was an executive instrument being negotiated in secret, and not ACTA?

This video has been making the rounds.

so I have two quick comments then a present.

1) Dear awesome student. You are awesome and there are many people in the blogosphere who would have loved to have been you for those few minutes.
2) Dear fucking trumpet player. Fuck you, you fucking fuck

Anyway, on the pharyngula comments about this video, one man, DorkMan, transcribed the video to text. I beleive he is a masochist. Anyway, via Dorkman, I give you the transcription:

Female Student: [Unintelligible] saying, “Origin of the Species! Go evolution!” So, when somebody —
Kirk: [Unintelligible]
FS: Yeah, you did, I heard you. And I was like, “What? Kirk Cameron’s believes in evolution?” Are you being ironic or –?
Kirk: No, I didn’t say “go evolution,” I took a picture and I said “Everyone say ‘Darwin’!” And I said “Darwin!”
FS: Oh, okay.
Kirk: I did say that.
FS: Okay. I’m sorry. But that’s not important. Anyways, so when a passerby is getting that book, and they don’t know about you, they haven’t seen your videos, and they don’t know who you are, they think, “Oh, okay, this is the book,” so when they read it, they’re not aware that the information is coming from a group that has a special interest in dissuading people from evolution.
Kirk: Okay. Okay, fair enough.
FS: It’s like hidden propaganda. Which you, like — atheists groups would never, like, hand out the Bible saying, like, “This is not true and this is all the scientific information” —
Male Student 1: I think you could have been more honest if [unintelligible].
Kirk: (to Female Student) Can I respond to what you’re saying?
Cameraman: (to MS1) Say it louder.
MS1: I think it would have been more honest you had just distributed the introduction by itself —
Kirk: I — I heard you earlier. (to FS) So, here’s my thought. I used to be — used to be an atheist, and studied evolution, and the Darwinian, the Neo-Darwinian [unintelligible], to the point where I’m, I’m convinced that it is not science, that Darwinism is atheism masquerading as science. That’s —
FS: Darwin wasn’t an atheist, actually. He was really hesitant to publish his work because he knew that it would go against the beliefs of, you know, the church.
Cameraman: And I kind of feel that’s undermining the faith of people who do accept evolution and who are Christian.
Kirk: (ignoring Cameraman, to FS) Well, why do you believe that?
FS: Because he has journals and because, like, you know, he took a long time — it wasn’t ’til Wallace said, like, “Hey, check this out!” and he’s like “Oh, boy,” you know, “I should probably publish what I’m doing.”
Kirk: Okay, have you heard… Okay. Here’s, here’s, here’s the other important…um…(lengthy pause) I believe that Darwin was absolutely…that the end game was to make God…was to remove God from…the, the worldview of… I think that that was his end game. Um. And if you read — I don’t know if you’ve read the introduction in here, yet.
FS: No, I have not yet. But I will.
Kirk: You’ll find things you maybe haven’t read before.
FS: I probably have never read what you wrote, no.
Kirk: In my, my… I think that it is…very, uh… dishonest, and extremely —
Trumpet: “When The Saints Go Marching In”
Kirk: — for, for…for teachers, in the name of science, to push an atheistic worldview. Which — and they use Darwin in order to do it.
FS: I don’t understand how… you’re combining atheism — because not all scientists are atheists, like, I would not say I’m an atheist.
Kirk: Yes, alright, but —
FS: But I, I, I…
Male Student 2: Francis Collins.
FS: Yeah.
Cameraman: I bet he knows about that.
FS: I don’ t understand [unintelligible]. Why is science an atheistic endeavor? I don’t understand that.
Kirk: Okay, let me —
FS: I don’t understand the problem.
Kirk: Why is science an atheistic endeavor?
FS: Yeah, and why is — particularly, um —
Kirk: You have to ask [unintelligible] of atheism being taught in the science classes to answer that question. I mean, look at Dawkins, for instance, look at Dawkins —
FS: I love Dawkins.
Kirk: …okay, so —
FS: But other science —
Kirk: But if you look at those who are the loudest proponents for, uh, Darwinism, and evolution, you’ll find that they are absolutely on the mission to demonstrate that God is irrelevant and doesn’t exist. And they’re atheists.
FS: What Dawkins argues is that God and science should not be in the same argument, because science is based on evidence, whereas religion is based on faith. And so —
Kirk: So is Darw —
FS: They don’t explain…
Kirk: But Darwinism is extremely based on faith, not on evidence.
FS: Not really, it’s based on a lot of evidence. He made, he made assertions that were based on faith, he didn’t have evidence for yet, but he had a lot of evidence. Later on now, scientists are, you know, doing research. And in fact, current scientific thought doesn’t accept, uh, plain Darwinian evolution. In fact now, there’s like a lot of different, uh…
Cameraman: It expanded over the years.
Kirk: Sure.
FS: It expanded, so —
Cameraman: Especially with genetics and that sort of thing.
FS: Yeah. So Darwin was the basis, but it is not, uh, what actual evolutionary biologists, you know, uh… go with. And in science, there’s no like “Okay, this is the FINAL ABSOLUTE TRUTH,” it’s always changing because —
Kirk: Correct.
FS: You know, all the evidence either against it, or that should show different things.
Kirk: So, what… so, what — I understand that — so, so I’m pro-science, I love science.
FS: Why not this specific branch of it? Because —
Kirk: Which branch are you referring to?
FS: I’m referring to biology.
Kirk: I love biology.
FS: Except the part where it says that — do you believe in micro-evolution?
Kirk: Are we talking about, um, adaptation?
FS: Yeah, that’s why you get a different vaccine every year because —
Kirk: Yes.
FS: — you know — okay.
Kirk: Yes, but to extrapolate that into speciation and macro-evolution by saying it takes lots of time —
FS: No, not if you accept, not if you accept that it does take — okay, so if you believe in micro-evolution, you believe that it continues happening, it just doesn’t happen in like, two minutes and then it’s done, it continues happening. The Earth is not six thousand years old, and even if it were six thousand years old, in that span of time, continuous micro-evolution would have added up to something, right? Even if you believe the literal Biblical, uh, idea that the Earth is not old, it would’ve still added up. Not to what we have here…
Kirk: Do, do you — I understand what you’re saying, [unintelligible] I think that they do change over time, but we don’t, but we don’t see speciation as a result of adaptation. We don’t see —
FS: Because we don’t have enough time. And in fact they are —
Kirk: Okay, but you have to, but you then have to concede, though, that that’s a presupposition that you’re assuming that it happened, even though we don’t have enough time to observe it.
FS: Well, it’s not — it’s because of geological evidence. What happens in science, is you bring different branches of knowledge together, and it’s not, it’s not isolated. You don’t just say, like, “Okay, biology proves it.” Because biology doesn’t prove anything. There’s evidence that there’s a biological process, but combining that with geology, physics, and —
MS2: Astronomy.
FS: Other sciences — astronomy, yeah.
MS2: They all agree.
FS: Then you, you combine that knowledge, right? And that’s how you think, like, “Okay, if this is happening now, and if we know that the Earth has been, you know, this old and this, like, many changes have happened” — all of this knowledge, then you — it, it is a safe, logical assumption to make that conclusion. For instance say, like, “Micro-evolution has been happening for this long, and it’s added up.” Whereas with, uh, a belief in a certain faith, particularly in this case the, the Christian persuasion, all the evidence that you have is based on the Bible, and that would be circular logic, because you think, “I believe in the Bible because the Bible says it’s written by God.” (draws a circle in the air) It doesn’t — there’s no outside body of evidence, there, there’s no conjecture —
Kirk: That’s not true.
FS: What other body —
Kirk; History, geology, cosmology, biology…
FS: So, okay, so history —
Cameraman: Do you mind if I ask you a question about geology, really quick?
Kirk: Hang on a second.
Cameraman: Okay, sure.
FS: How does history disprove evolution?
Kirk: How does history disprove evolution?
FS: Yes.
Kirk: Well, I didn’t say history disproves evolution, I said that history —
FS: Okay. Then give me another line of evidence other than the Bible that disproves evolution.
Kirk: Um, I would say evolution disproves — D, Dar — I would — (pauses) Evolution, talking about, we’re talking about speciation, I would say that, that…that Darwin’s theory, nor — and ANY theory — does not sufficiently, uh, account for speciation, apart from the existence of God. You don’t find the fossil record, you don’t find —
FS: Okay, what about the difference between bonobos and chimpanzees? Which are very similarly related, they just have —
Kirk: I’m not familiar with, what?
FS: Okay, bonobos are essentially chimpanzees, except they’re smaller, and they’re more, uh, friendly with each other. Whereas chimpanzees are, like, very aggressive —
[END OF VIDEO]

Thanks awesome woman, Thanks Awesome Dorkman.

Homebrew coder ant512 has released a new version of Woopsi, a handy Nintendo DS GUI library for creating homebrew user interface based on AmigaOS wind…

2009Nov24: 2009 will be one of the top five warmest years globally since records began 150 years ago, according to the Met Office (BBC).

Reference: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8377128.stm

Image Description: C.I.S.S. humanitarian tour to Sudan. Photo by Pier Luigi Bertola, 2008. Image Location: Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sudan_village.jpg Image Permission: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. In short: you are free to distribute and modify the file as long as you attribute its author(s) or licensor(s).

Walkman is a Sony brand originally used for portable audio cassette, and is now used to market Sony’s portable audio and video players as well as certain Sony Ericsson phones. The original Walkman introduced a change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry their music with them, a revolutionary concept for its time. The device was built in 1978 by audio division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent transpacific plane trips. The original Walkman was marketed in 1979 as the Walkman in Japan, the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden and the Stowaway in the UK. Morita hated the name “Walkman” and asked it to be changed, but relented after being told by junior executives that a promotion campaign had already begun using the ‘Walkman’ name and would be too expensive to change.

In this video courtesy of SonyLearnTV, we see the history of the Walkman (which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year) in just a few short minutes.

My familiarity with the Walkman brand is probably obvious to some of you who have been following my words for a while in my past ventures (Minidisc Community Forums and ATRACLife). Watching this video brought back many memories – what about you? Whats your favorite Walkman?

2009Nov24: Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, found that across Africa, conflict was about 50% more likely in unusually warm years when the food supply is scarce. The study appeared in Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “Studies show that crop yields in the region are really sensitive to small shifts in temperature, even of half a degree (Celsius) or so,” research leader Marshall Burke, told BBC News. “If the sub-Saharan climate continues to warm and little is done to help its countries better adapt to high temperatures, the human costs are likely to be staggering,” Burke added (BBC).

Reference: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8375949.stm

Read the full article – Marshall B. Burke, Edward Miguel, Shanker Satyanath, John A. Dykema, and David B. Lobell. Warming increases the risk of civil war in Africa. PNAS 2009 : 0907998106v1-pnas.0907998106 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/11/20/0907998106.abstract

Image Description: Palm trees growing on the Ashu land in between the land inundated by the Nile called Gerif and the irrigated Saqiah land. Photo taken on Sherari Island in Dar al-Manasir, Northern Sudan. Image Location: Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashu_land.JPG Image Permission: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one.

 As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, Sony has decided to bump up the PlayStation Network update a little bit early. This week’s lineup incl…

Sports leagues around the world have been trying to put more and more restrictive rules on various journalists and news organizations when it comes to reporting on their events. In the US, both the NFL and the MLB have put ridiculous restrictions on what reporters can write about or post on their websites. While, technically, these leagues cannot stop news organizations from covering their events, they can restrict what kind of access they have. Of course, for basic coverage, when the events are televised, reporters could just as easily cover the event while watching it on TV. Still, it’s been disappointing that the major news organizations have refused to stand up to the football and baseball leagues over this attempt to restrict their reporting.

Apparently, they only do that on sports that don’t get as much attention (in the US, at least).

Last year, we wrote how the press was planning to boycott various cricket matches over similar attempts to limit reporting. And, once again, major news organizations like Reuters are proudly announcing that they will not be covering certain cricket matches due to the press policies. The Associated Press has announced similar plans, and says that the AFP is also refusing to cover the matches. At what point do these sports leagues realize that they’re better off with press coverage than without?

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Filed under: Aftermarket, Coupe, Performance, Europe, Porsche

We’re not overly familiar with XTR Carchip, but the Berlin-based tuning company caught our eye with its “X-Wide” Porsche Cayman project. Designed as a daily-driver-turned-track-tool, the 987 S underwent a major exterior overhaul, with a detachable CFRP front splitter, fenders, side skirts, carbon fiber exterior mirrors and an adjustable rear spoiler, along with a set of three-piece, central locking 18-inch BBS RS wheels wrapped in Pirelli rubber.

Inside, the stock stereo and air conditioning remain, but a set of Recaro GT3 seats with six-point Schroth harnesses and a roll cage make it ready for a late night assault on Hockenheim.

Somewhat disappointingly, the only modifications to the engine are a Super Sprint Magnum cat-back exhaust and an ECU tune which boosts output to 310 horsepower and brings a top speed of 177 mph. However, XTR isn’t stopping there — they’re working on a twin-turbocharged version that will reportedly put out around 850 hp when it arrives next spring.

[Source: XTR Carchip via Porsche Point]

XTR Carchip Porsche Cayman X-Wide is the RS we’ve always wanted originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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These are two photos of my white wall (admittedly under slightly yellow light from an incandescent bulb, but still pretty white). The redness is very very obvious in the second of the two photos, but with the flash it seems to pretty much disappear.

I don’t know whether this is simply the flash being bluey, or the sensor/drivers doing a better job, but I’m guessing more publicity on this issue can only get HTC working harder to fix it!

I’d guess that the software patch may well just compensate for the redness, though in one of the comments here, it’s clearly at least partly software.

Interestingly my HD didnt have any pinkness when i first got bit but its now running a Leo based ROM and it now has some pinkness, although not as much as seen here.

According to a recent article in InformationWeek, the United States Air Force is moving forward in obtaining 2,200 PS3 systems to enhance its already 336 unit strong supercomputer. The PlayStation 3s will be used at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s information directorate in Rome, N.Y. The Air Force also has no plans to drop this method, as moving to an alternative technology hardware would also cause duplication of costs associated with redeveloping the software, military systems, and applications already based on the existing Sony PS3 cluster. This will become increasingly relevant as the magnitude of applications and supporting hardware infrastructure likely will increase over time.

With respect to cell processors, a single 1U server configured with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost up to $8K while two Sony PS3s cost approximately $600. Though a single 3.2 GHz cell processor can deliver over 200 GFLOPS, whereas the Sony PS3 configuration delivers approximately 150 GFLOPS, the approximately tenfold cost difference per GFLOP makes the Sony PS3 the only viable technology for HPC applications. Sony is the only firm capable of manufacturing the brand of required hardware without the Government experiencing substantial duplication of cost that would not be recoverable through competition among providers of alternative technology. Using cell processor technology besides the Sony PS3 would cost the Government the equivalent of several years of professional research and engineering effort.

Filed under: Etc., Celebrities

Another day, another country that hates Jeremy Clarkson’s guts. Or at least, another country that is seeking an apology from the Top Gear host for his no doubt rude, but no doubter funny comments about said country. In this case, it’s the former Iron Curtain nation of Romania. Seems that during the series’ season 14 opener, Jezza had some less than flattering observations about the country that shot former “Conductor” Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife before they could even be tied up and blindfolded.

Clarkson’s offending remarks? He referred to Romania as “Borat country.” He also donned the silly-looking pork pie hat above and stated, “I’m wearing this hat so the gypsies think I am one. I’m told they can be violent if they don’t like the look of you.” He also called Romanian water “Communist water” and mentioned that Romanians like to express their sense of humor with guns. Pretty innocuous stuff if you ask us. Especially compared to cracks Clarkson’s made about other non-British places. Like Germany, America and Malaysia. Regardless, the Romanian government is apparently expecting an apology. We think they’d have a better chance at satisfaction by issuing a Whamber Alert. In any case, you can see the offending footage in its entirety by clicking through to the jump.

[Sources: Telegraph; YouTube]

Continue reading Next in line to get irked by Jeremy Clarkson? The Romanian government [w/VIDEO]

Next in line to get irked by Jeremy Clarkson? The Romanian government [w/VIDEO] originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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