June 1, 1495: King James Will Have a Scotch, Good Sir: "The King of Scots commissions a batch of Scotch whisky. However old the beverage itself, this is the first known record of its magnificent existence."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Why Science Needs to Step Up Its PR Game: "Climate change and evolution are facts, yet the public still falls for half-truths. Researchers need to campaign for their causes and sell them to the people who don't have Ph.D.s.
"
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Cognitive Surplus: The Great Spare-Time Revolution: "Put those spare cycles to use! Authors Daniel Pink and Clay Shirky see a revolution in how we use our free time."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
The Human Spectacle That Is Russell Brand: "Forget CGI. Brit comedian Russell Brand proves that people being people is the greatest show on earth."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Roseburg woman gives secret for living 105 years: "
Linus Oakes resident celebrates 105th birthday and tells why she has lived a long and healthy life.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
BUSINESS MONDAY: Marvel Comics' miracle man set up business' success » Naples Daily News: "Success stories, especially in business, often begin as failures. Galton’s 15-year run as the head of Marvel Comics began as both had experienced a bit of failure. Galton was fired from his post as president of a paperback publishing company owned by CBS. Marvel was spiralling toward bankruptcy.
It’s kind of hard to imagine the company responsible for the X-Men, Spider-Man and Iron Man franchises could struggle. But this was the world before superheroes were bankable Hollywood commodities.
"
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Sony: Developers aren't 'fully utilizing' PS3 yet: "PlayStation 3 has more to show, according to Sony's European gaming chief, who says it could take a while before developers fully harness the power its console."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Cloud Browse lets you view Flash on iPhone: "Sneaking past Apple's aversion to Flash on the iPhone, the free Cloud Browse app connects you to a remote PC where you can browse the Web and view your favorite Flash content."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Japan plans $2 billion robot moon base by 2020: "Government panel has outlined plans for humanoid robots to begin lunar surveys in five years and a robot base on the moon's south pole by 2020."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
U.S. to change strategy for war on drugs in Mexico: "The Obama Administration wants to shift U.S. aid in Mexico away from high-priced helicopters and airplanes and toward reforming Mexico's corrupt law enforcement, courts and politicians.
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Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
7 Key Turning Points That Made Apple Number One: "Revisit the key historic moments that contribute to Apple attaining the mantle of the most valuable tech company in the world.
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Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Having Sex: It's All in Your Head: "The next time lil' Johnny asks about the birds and the bees, give a lesson in biochemistry: 'It starts in the ventral tegmentum and ends in the nucleus accumbens ...'
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Slideshow: Eight tips for photographing panoramas: "Stitching tools makes creating big, detailed panoramas from a series of photos easy. Here's how to shoot for the best results.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Three tips for using Apple's Remote app with iTunes: "Apple Remote app can help you control iTunes from afar, and in interesting ways.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Apple surpasses Microsoft to become second-most-valuable U.S. company: "In one of the clearest signs yet of the renaissance that's finally putting a close to The Dark Age of Personal Computing..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Facebook Open Graph: A new take on semantic web: "By re-imagining the web as the graph of things we are interested in, a new dimension, a new set of connections gets unlocked -- everything and everyone connects in a whole new way."
An iteration of Ian's work, called RDFa, has been adopted as a W3C standard. All the signs point in the direction of RDFa being the solution of choice for describing entities inside HTML pages.
O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/
Get a new 16GB iPhone 3GS for $97 | The Cheapskate - CNET News: "Proof positive: Walmart is making a big push to unload its existing iPhone stock, as evidenced by this fairly spectacular deal: The 16GB iPhone 3GS for just $97 (plus sales tax in most states).
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Review: Twitterrific for iPad: "As you might expect from its counterparts on the Mac and iPhone, the Iconfactory's Twitterrific for iPad is a well-designed, elegant Twitter client, though it may lack some bells and whistles.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
The iPad and immersive computing: "
Do you remember the first iPhone? Only a pathetically slow EDGE cell network, no GPS, 8 GB max, and worst of all, no app store? And still it changed everything about smartphones, and was the first step in what seems to be a new industry war. Would you buy one today? Oh, so limited -- never!
I thought about that while reading Marco Arment's post about everything the iPad doesn't do. The iPad today isn't a perfect device; developers haven't yet figured out how to make it really sing; it doesn't yet occupy an indispensable role in many of its owners' lives. It's the first step, and I believe it will continue to grow. But I'm amazed by some of the things I already love about it.
Probably the strongest of these is the focus the iPad creates for me. The lack of multitasking is a feature. I thought I'd miss this, and thought Android's work on multitasking might be a strong counterpoint. It's not. I love how focused I am using an iPad, versus working on a laptop. New mail isn't constantly arriving; tweets aren't Growling into view; I don't even have an RSS reader installed. Instead I'm just reading a book or just playing a game or maybe just working. This is a huge relief, an antidote to interruption. (I'm sure having more than just one app running, as promised in OS 4.0, will be a benefit in some ways, but for today I love not having it.)
That focus, plus the direct manipulation interface that loses mouse and keyboard in favor of pointing and tapping, makes the experience of using an app more intimate than on a laptop. I think now of personal computing and iPad computing as significantly different. It's not just a different form factor, but a different kind of work that I do on the iPad. Put simply, it seems to produce a flow state much more easily for me, and once I'm in it, I fall out into distraction much less easily.
The apps and features that I most look forward to on the future iPad are those that make this immersive computing experience more ubiquitous and useful.
O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/
Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.
Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.
Psychologists have found that one's mind can only attend to a certain amount of information at a time. According to Miller's 1956 study, that number is about 126 bits of information per second. That may seem like a large number (and a lot of information), but simple daily tasks take quite a lot of information. Just having a conversation takes about 40 bits of information per second; that's 1/3 of one's capacity. That is why when one is having a conversation he or she cannot focus as much of his or her attention on other things.
Bass guitarists often describe a state of Flow when properly playing between the percussion and melody as being 'in the pocket'.
Hands-on: Skype video conferencing: "Despite weak points in the beta feature, the presence of video conferencing in Skype's computer-to-computer communicator boosts the app's value, particularly for those already using Skype's services."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Elgato debuts EyeTV HD, delivers live TV to your Mac and iPad in full HD: "Today, Elgato debuted the world's only DVR solution which provides full access to premium..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Abstinence proselytizer Mark Souder regrets nothing: "
Illinois Republican Mark Souder resigned from the House because he had a sad sexual affair with a staffer despite loving the institution of marriage so much that he refuses to allow gay people to enter into it.
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
"Lost": Ruined by its own fans?: "In the final showdown between Faith and Reason, put me down for 'None of the Above': I have no faith in the reasoning behind the series finale of 'Lost,' and see no reason to take it on faith. "
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
As Lost Ends, Creators Explain How They Did It, What's Going On: "After six seasons of riveting weirdness — smoke monsters! wormholes! tropical polar bears! — Lost comes to a close.
"
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
"Quantum": When physics got spooky: "'I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics,' wrote Richard Feynman, and given that he won a Nobel Prize in physics, why should you or I want to take a shot at it? Not that you or I could plausibly claim to understand the weird, protean, paradoxical subatomic world that quantum science describes, but anyone reading Manjit Kumar's 'Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality' will surely feel they've gotten a bit closer. It's an exhilarating, if also disorienting, sensation.
"
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
Mark Twain's autobiography to be finally published, 100 years after his death - Boing Boing: "The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.
That milestone has now been reached, and in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain's autobiography. The eventual trilogy will run to half a million words, and shed new light on the quintessentially American novelist...
'He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He's also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there.'
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Kitzhaber wins Democratic governor nod in Oregon: "
John Kitzhaber has won the Democratic nomination to run for an unprecedented third term as governor of
Oregon.
KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
Google's new Android is divine, GoogleTV no sure thing :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Andy Ihnatko: "And I can’t help but wonder why Google didn’t bother showing everybody how well Flash 10.1 works with the one Flash site that truly matters: Hulu.com."
Naturally, Google’s biggest twist is a powerful search feature. Search for “House” and quickly, through a translucent window that hovers over your live TV, GoogleTV will display a list including the season two rerun that’s airing right now on the USA Network, the new episode that airs next Monday night on FOX, and the episodes that are available for streaming on FOX.com.
Adobe? Over the past few weeks, they’ve been sending a different kind of message about the company’s role on the Web. They used to be sent out to pick up Apple’s dry cleaning. Now they’re making coffee runs for Google.
Whatever; if you’re rushing back to the office with a wire hanger in one hand and a tray of Starbucks in the other, you’re probably not in a position of power and influence.
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Diary Of An x264 Developer » The first in-depth technical analysis of VP8: "The killer mistake that VP8 has made here is not making macroblock-level quantization a core feature of VP8. Algorithms that take advantage of macroblock-level quantization are known as ‘adaptive quantization’ and are absolutely critical to competitive visual quality. My implementation of variance-based adaptive quantization (before, after) in x264 still stands to this day as the single largest visual quality gain in x264 history. Encoder comparisons have showed over and over that encoders without adaptive quantization simply cannot compete.
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Parents group on TV show: What the @#$%! - CBS - Salon.com: "It stars William Shatner as the father whose politically incorrect musings are put out on Twitter by his son.
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Lightning May Cause Hallucinations: "Lightning strokes could stimulate people's brains and cause them to hallucinate bright blobs of light the same way a medical procedure that applies magnetic fields to the brain does, two physicists propose.
"
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Best Trilogy Films: The Force Is With 'The Empire Strikes Back': "With Star Wars' most excellent episode celebrating its 30th birthday, it's time to ponder the most powerful installments of sci-fi and fantasy movie trilogies — and to wince at the inevitable weak links.
"
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Scientists Create First Self-Replicating Synthetic Life: "An artificial genome is successfully implanted into a cell. Scientists have thus created what the J. Craig Venter Institute calls 'synthetic cells.'
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
House votes to expand national DNA arrest database: "Americans arrested but not convicted of certain crimes would be likely to have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to FBI database, according to legislation approved by a 357 to 32 vote with no Democratic opposition."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Netflix iPad app adds video output support: "The Netflix for iPad 1.0.2 update adds support for video output via the iPad's optional VGA, component, or composite adapters.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
"Smallville" To Wrap with Season 10: "Reports are circulating that the CW plans to announce that the next season of 'Smallville' will be the popular series' last one. The show, which debuted on the WB in 2001, will wrap with a total of ten seasons under it's belt."
CBR News - http://www.comicbookresources.com
May 19, 1780: Darkness at Noon Enshrouds New England | This Day In Tech | Wired.com: "At Hartford, Col. Abraham Davenport opposed adjourning the Connecticut legislature, thus: ‘The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty.’
"
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Thirty Years Ago Today: "I quit smoking. I have a cigarette on the desk in front of me right now. Left there by my brother Jim. It sure is tempting."
Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/
Alabama geometry lesson: How to shoot Obama: "
A math teacher at Corner High School in Jefferson County, Ala., decided the best way to teach his students about 'parallel lines and angles' would be to have them calculate the best angle to use when firing a gun at President Barack Obama:
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
A Look Back at Steve Jobs' 2003 Stock Options Swap Reveals $10 Billion Opportunity Lost: "
MarketWatch takes a look at 'what might have been', examining Apple CEO Steve Jobs' decision to accept a March 2003 offer from the company to exchange his existing stock options for new ones at a more attractive price in comparison to the com..."
MacRumors - http://www.macrumors.com
Queen Elizabeth returning to Wimbledon (AP): "Queen Elizabeth II is returning to Wimbledon for the first time in 33 years. The All England Club says the British monarch is planning to attend the tournament on June 24, her first visit to the grass-court Grand Slam since 1977. In a statement on the Wimbledon website, All England Club chairman Tim Phillips said 'we are delighted and honored that the queen has indicated that she will be..."
Yahoo! Sports - Tennis News - http://sports.yahoo.com/ten
Dan Rather: Pornland, Oregon: Child Prostitution in Portland: "The girls, sometimes as young as 12, often 13-16, are lured by a 'front man' in his mid-to-late teens. He becomes her 'boyfriend,' taking her to dinner, buying her nice things, sometimes meeting her parents. The girl eventually moves in with him. Then he says they need money to continue being together. First, she's enticed to sleep with his friends to pay the rent. Soon she's turning tricks for what police say is an endless supply of older men willing to pay top money for sex with very young girls. Other times convincing the young adolescent girls to sell themselves happens very quickly."
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Does your iPad prevent you from sleeping?: "Some researchers are starting to believe that using your gadgets late at night, or leaving them on in the bedroom, affects sleep patterns."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
YouTube Overtakes Networks' Primetime Viewership: "As YouTube enters its fifth year online, its owner Google announces that this month, the site topped the television networks' primetime viewership with over two million viewers. The networks needn't worry yet, but the stars are aligning to make YouTube a more serious threat to traditional television viewing.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
iPad Poised to Change Comic Book Industry: "Apple's iPad could do for comic books what mp3s did to the music industry — for better or for worse."
Newsarama.com - Comics - http://www.newsarama.com
May 17, 1902: Ancient Antikythera Calculating Mechanism Discovered: "It's more than 2,000 years old, and it's taken more than a century to decipher it.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
So, I'm kicking back this Sunday afternoon (not in the park with George), watching HULU, catching up on shows I've missed - in this case, BONES - "The Rocker in the Rinse Cycle".
As the opening credits roll, I see this episode guest-stars MICHAEL DES BARRES.
He was the lead singer of SILVERHEAD - whose self-titled debut album is still, 40 years later, one of my favorite albums. It must be one of my favorite albums 'cause I still play it almost everytime I get drunk with my drinking buddies.
Their second, and final, album was "Sixteen and Savaged." I think he was later lead singer for a band called DETECTIVE.
He transitioned into acting, and I've seen him exactly four times now (although, now I know that he appeared on a lot of other shows I might have watched). The first time was an episode of "St. Elsewhere". The second, "My Sister Sam". The third, an episode of "ALIAS". And, now, the fourth, this episode of BONES.
Even old master Photoshop can learn new tricks: "Photoshop CS5 greatly expands the tool set that Adobe offers in its flagship product, charting new ways to make image manipulation easier while making older tools work better than before."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
"Ungovernable?" No Kitzhaber apology for the word: "
Meet Democrat John Kitzhaber, once and perhaps future governor of Oregon: Pressed blue jeans? Check. Jacket and open-neck shirt. Check and check.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
It's Official: NBC Cancels 'Heroes': "Ending months of speculation, and perhaps dashing a few hopes, NBC announced this afternoon that it has canceled 'Heroes,' the once well-regarded superhero drama that this season saw a steep decline in ratings."
CBR News - http://www.comicbookresources.com
Apple may soon be the U.S.’s largest company: "Apple is suddenly America's third-largest company by stock market value..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
The laser turns 50 (images): "In 1960, the race to build the world's first laser came to an end as Hughes Aircraft researcher Theodore Maiman beat everyone to the punch. The laser is now 50 years old."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Victim: Attack 'like a chain saw massacre': "
A Medford man used a running chain saw to attack a vehicle with a former girlfriend and two other women inside, one of whom said it was 'like a chain saw massacre.'
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
Playboy centerfold expands to 3D: "The magazine decides that it is not enough to feature the assets of its June playmate, Hope Dworaczyk, in two dimensions. Glasses will be provided."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Are you ready to say goodbye to these animals?: "With the still-booming human population climbing toward the nine billion mark -- where it will hopefully stabilize, fingers crossed -- the demand for natural resources has never been higher, and the pressures on animal populations never more acute. We can thank that ever-burgeoning demand, along with a persisting sense of entitlement, for the fact that humans have played a greater role in decimating the world's species than any other factor in recent history.
"
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
May 11, 1951: RAM Is Born: "An MIT team files a patent application for the matrix core memory, promising microsecond speed in mid-century computers.
"
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Miss USA's sexpot hypocrisy: "
It seems of late that behind every wholesome, all-American beauty queen, there's an impressive array of embarrassing, scantily clad pictures. So this year, Miss USA appears to have come up with a genius way of heading scandal off at the pass: by releasing a spank-worthy collection of its contestants in lingerie.
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
Comic Book Artists Remember FRANK FRAZETTA: "Comic book artists give us their thoughts on the legacy of the legendary late fantasy artist Frank Frazetta"
Newsarama.com - Comics - http://www.newsarama.com
Fantasy Art Legend Frank Frazetta Dies: "The iconic comic book, film poster and fantasy painter has passed away at 82, leaving behind countless paintings and characters as well as an indelible, incalculable impact on fantasy and science fiction art."
CBR News - http://www.comicbookresources.com
Artist FRANK FRAZETTA Dead at 82: "Legendary Conan artist (amongst much more) Frank Frazetta has passed away."
Newsarama.com - Comics - http://www.newsarama.com
Some weeks ago, while my boyfriend and I ate at a restaurant bar in New Orleans, the bartender repeatedly checked on the progress of our meal by asking, 'Is everything perfect?'
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
New Frequency Set to Turbocharge Wi-Fi: "Wi-Fi technology will soon support the 60-GHz bandwidth, which will means up to 10 times faster speeds for applications such as high-definition video and audio streaming.
"
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Betty White charms on "SNL": "Some people say women aren't funny. Some people say old people aren't funny. Some people say 'Saturday Night Live' isn't as funny as it used to be. Well, Betty White, a comedic triple-threat, is a funny old lady who, briefly, made 'SNL' good again.
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Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
Google Apps users to get Blogger, Picasa, AdWords: "Company plans this summer to integrate more of its services into its Google Apps platform for Web-based tools."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
IHOP's kinder, gentler novelty fat food: Cheesecake-stuffed Pancake Stackers: "
Snicker if you want, but IHOP matters to me. My parents used to take me there for breakfast on weekends -- when I was really young and we had moved an hour away from their friends to live at our aspirational suburban address. I remember meeting aunties and uncles of all kinds of real and imagined relation. We sat at a big table, under huge dark beams that made the restaurant look like a cathedral, and I ate faraway-sounding foods like German pancakes and Spanish omelets. I loved it. For a kid eating Chinese food at home every night, the International House of Pancakes felt like a window to all the exotic tastes of the world. Back then, I was too young to know or care that the Spanish omelet was just eggs with canned salsa.
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
"Iron Man 2": Parody or party?: "
During the first few minutes of 'Iron Man 2,' it's pretty hard to tell the difference between this movie and Mike Judge's 'Idiocracy,' or for that matter from a host of earlier nightmarish parables about America's future that preceded it. (Schwarzenegger's late-'80s vehicle 'The Running Man,' anyone? Anyone?) In a delirious opening scene, arms dealer turned human weapon Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) descends to the stage of some arena-rock spectacle, wearing his impenetrable iron-dong costume, and emerges from it perfectly coiffed, without a drop of sweat, clad in a designer suit that is to Armani couture as Peruvian cocaine is to sidewalk chalk. The crowd roars. Some dude yells, 'Blow something up!'
Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss
"