LiveScience mini-link dump

Here are a few articles from livescience.com that caught my eye over the week-end:

  • Sadly, emergency responders are using larger ambulances in some locations. In Las Vegas, one ambulance is now providing an ambulance with extra width and pulleys capable of lifting 1600 pounds. That number may be more than anyone currently needs, but:
  • Crews have called 75 times in the last six months for additional manpower to handle morbidly obese patients, said Chris Piper, a western regional spokesman for Greenwood, Colo.-based AMR. He said the largest patients weighed more than 500 pounds.

    As I’m tipping the scales at roughly 50 pounds above where I should be, I am painfully aware of how overweight we are in America. But 500+ pounds is just tragic.

  • Nano-tech at work for you:
    • iPod Nano by Apple
    • Nitro Hockey Sticks by Montreal Sports Oy
    • Nanowax by Eagle One

    More, plus details of why these are nano-tech items in the full article

  • When cheating is OK in American’s eyes.

    Nearly one in five Americans think cheating on taxes is morally acceptable or is not a moral issue. Some 10 percent are equally ambivalent about cheating on a spouse. In a survey by the Pew Research Center released today, 88 percent of respondents said it was morally wrong to have an affair. Not reporting all income on taxes was called morally wrong by 79 percent of the people.

  • Smart kids brains just develop differently.

    As children grow up, the outer mantle, or cortex, of their brains thicken and thin as new neural connections are being made and then pruned to become more efficient. Using brain scans, researchers have found that the cortices of kids with high IQ scores thickened faster and for a longer period of time than children of average intelligence.

You know, that last one explains a lot about me… 🙂

64 Gig on a USB 2.0 flash drive?

(via Engadget)

bdp264u2.s.jpg

As I write this, I am mere moments away from drooling. I have no need for it.

I have no practical reason to get one. But it’s shiny, and pretty, and I could whip it out and show everyone that mine is the biggest. Of course, it is $15,000. Is carrying a 64 Gig flash drive worth that? No, but if I had cash to burn, I’d still get one just for geek coolness.

[tags]USB Flash, 64 Gig[/tags]

Ben Stein comments on the Oscars

(via Snopes)

Ben Stein is great.  He is entertaining and intelligent.  When he has something to say, it’s usually worth reading.  So tonight, I’m posting a link back to an article he wrote on the faux patriotism of the Hollywood “elite” at the Oscars.  A brief snippet follows:

I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace — as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.

Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars’ ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.

[tags]Ben Stein, Hollywood[/tags]

A brief history of Pr0n

(via boingboing)

Pardon the mangling, but some filters won’t even let the term through when that ‘0’ is replaced with an ‘o’ and the ‘r’ and ‘o’ are switched.  Makes a dirty word, I guess.  Anyway, some folks over at Oprano.com are building a timeline of pr0n.  Interesting, but far from comprehensive – quite incomplete, in fact.  Still, fun to read.

1st century BC – Kama Sutra was created
1440 – Gutenberg Press Invented
1928 – Dr. Ruth was born.
1953 – Hugh Hefner starts Playboy

. . .

1993 – World Wide Web goes live.
1994 – Sex.com was registered by Gary Kremen
1995 – First confirmed blowjob in the White House.
1995 – Sex.com was stolen by Stephen Cohen

More at the forums.

[tags]Pr0n[/tags]

A site dedicated to hating DRM

(via boingboing)

If you’ve read much of what I post, you might have picked up on the fact that I think Digital Restriction Mangling is a bad thing.  I knew I wasn’t the only one, but here is someone who is really dedicated to hating DRM.

Welcome to the “official” I Hate DRM site.  Over the last couple of years and especially over the last couple of months, the DRM issue has really received a lot of press.  I created this site because, as a consumer, I am fed up.  I feel like all of the entertainment that I love is slowly being eroded away by overly greedy companies.  This website is meant to be a platform to capture how DRM is changing the way paying customers are receiving content.  I want to hear your complaints, your horror stories, your whatever…even your good stories if you have one.

. . .

I created this site because I could no longer sit back and let this stuff happen without saying something.  The single consumer has little power and I didn’t know what else to do without going overboard.  So I figured I would start up a site and dedicate it to the horror stories around DRM.  My hope is that, at some point, someone from one of these companies realizes that DRM only hurts paying customers.

[tags]DRM hate[/tags]

Suggested name change for DRM – I concur

(via Dubious Quality)

David Berlind at ZDNet has come up with a name change suggestion for Digital Restriction Mangling (DRM – real meaning Digital Rights Management). Instead, he proposes calling it CRAP instead. A fitting name, and very accurate.

Hi, I’m David Berlind, Executive Editor at ZDNet. Today, we’re going to talk about a rather uncomfortable subject, CRAP. That’s right, CRAP. Now, CRAP stands for Content, Restriction, Annulment and Protection. It’s my catchy buzz-phrase for a technology that’s really called DRM. Now DRM technically stands for Digital Rights Management, and it’s a rather cancerous technology that technology vendors are actually building into most of the products that we’re buying today.

So for example, if you own an iPod, it’s got CRAP in it. That’s right, it’s got this technology that will restrict what you can do with your content, allows the owners of the content to annul that content-in other words, take it away from you-or protect it from being copied out onto the internet.

[tags]DRM, CRAP[/tags]

Buy your own Enigma machine!

(via boingboing)

You know, it appears that you really can buy just about anything on ebay.  Check out the auction in German, or, if you can’t quite make that out, see the auction in English.  And for the half of my readership that don’t know what an Enigma machine is, read all about it on Wikipedia.

[tags]Enigma, Crypto hardware[/tags]

JC Penney makes unfortunate abbreviation choice for new clothing line

This is just unfortunate. I don’t believe for a second JC Penney intended to name their new clothing line anorexia nervosa, but it seems that’s what happened anyway.

Whilst flipping through the Sunday circulars, reader Thomas B. was surprised to see JC Penney’s new clothing line called, “a.n.a. : A New Approach.”

A worker in the mental health field for several years, he was reminded of another meaning for “ana,” that it’s a slang term for anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder characterized by not eating to the point of extreme weight loss and malnutrition, amongst some anorexia or “pro-ana” communities. As a proper name, “Ana” serves as a sort of anorexic avatar or imaginary anthropomorphization amongst anorexia groups.

[tags]JCPenney, anorexia[/tags]

Creative combination of Zelda and Pac-Man

(via Aeropause via 4 Color Rebellion)

zelpac.jpg

Some genius took Zelda and Pac-Man, mixed them up in a magical mixing bowl, and baked it up reaaaaallllll goodly. The result is the clever and delightful, umm, well, it has no short name, but the long name is “The Legend of Zelda: The Collecting of Pills”

If you are into gaming, you really need to check it out.

[tags]Zelda, Pac-Man, retro gaming[/tags]