The Prius Versus HUMMER: Exploding the Myth

photo from xtcian
"Over the past year, there has been an explosion of stories raising questions about the real environmental cost of hybrids.

One of the most misleading ones, which has been spread by countless blogs over the past several weeks, and cited without verification by several sources that appear reputable, looks to have originated in a story last November in England's Daily Mail, a right-leaning, British tabloid paper, which bore the gleefully spiteful title 'Toyota factory turns landscape to arid wilderness.' An editorial, published last month in a newspaper for a small state university on the East Coast, helped bring this misleading report a new life."
The click here to read the full article

A.I. (Artificial Inteligence) busted for A.L. (Artificial Lawyering)

AI Cited for Unlicensed Practice of Law

"A web-based "expert system" that helped users prepare bankruptcy filings for a fee made too many decisions to be considered a clerical tool, an appeals court said last week, ruling that the software was effectively practicing law without a license."

When to buy a mac?

MacRumors Buyer's Guide page

This page provides a product summary for each Apple model. The intent is to provide our best recommendations regarding current product cycles, and to provide a summary of currently available rumors for each model.

Phillips roll-up Display

Phillips plans on releasing a portable display unit with a black and white screen that rolls up into the "Smaller than the screen itself" case.

Mairo in Grand Theft Auto

What would happen if Mario and his brother from another mother went for a joy ride in Vice City? Here's Robot Chicken's take on it.

Play OLD games on your PSP

So, you want to get in on the PSP homebrew scene? This ought to get you started.

First your going to need a way to get files to your PSP, get a nice size memory stick and a card reader from the electronics store or get some online. Sandisk makes a 5 in 1 reader that reads almost every card out there, well, at least five of them. The price of memory sticks have dropped dramatically and a card reader is real cheap. They run you about $20. You'll need it to copy files over to the PSP and a place to store all of your software.

If you want to know how to start emulating old game systems on your PSP, go here.

If you have a mac, or just don't understand filing systems too well, go here.

My favorite emulator to run is DGen, a Sega Genesis emulator. It's pretty flawless and the speed is spot on. Games like Vectorman and Sonic run without a hitch. Brings back memories of thumb blisters and orange carpet.

Have fun

A sense of scale

The variety of scale in the known universe is amazing. Think how big we feel when we look at an ant. Next, think of how tiny we are in relation to our planet, how tiny earth is in relation to our sun. Then there is VV Cephei, an eclipsing binary star system that makes our average sun look miniscule in comparison. If it were placed at the center of our Solar System, it would extend to the orbit of Saturn

iPhone

...and I thought my white chocolate was cool

SWF DECOMPILERS / SWF EXTRACTORS

have some old swf files you made but lost the source files? check out this list of flash extractors

SWF Decompilers / SWF Extractors

WEB - MySpace Friends Private Status Hacked!

Simple Hack to view all comments on a private Myspace profile | Help For Beginners

Thought your "private" myspace comments were really private? Well think again! This simple code lets ANYONE view all the comments on your PRIVATE profile. With a simple variation you can also view "private" pictures.

Digg-poster Kevgig nailed it when he wrote: "There is nothing private about the internet, period. Just goes to show that if there are parts of your life that you do not want to share with the world, keep it to yourself."

It appears this hack is restricted to friends seeing others friends private info. Even so, this is a major security flaw and if not fixed immediately, could spell disaster for MySpace AND some friendships.  Hahahahahahahahahaha!

technorati tags:MySpace, Security

TECH - Writely, google's web based word processor launched

Welcome to Writely


Writely, the web word processor from Google says.

Can I ... upload from Word? YES!
Can I ... save to my desktop? YES!
Can I ... publish on the web? YES!
Can I ... post on my blog? YES!

Writely was purchased by Google some time ago and is now poised to do for document creating what Gmail did for email. To take the application off of your desktop and make it web accessible. You can also share a document with a group for collaborative editing. Read up on the terms of service when deciding how personal you want to make your documents.

WEB - Web2.0 Logo Creator

Web2.0 Logo Creator by Alex P

Create your own WEB 2.0 logo with this automatic WEB 2.0 generator. Even has the obligatory "BETA" burst as an option.

technorati tags:logo, generator, WEB2.0

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TECH - Conceal Your Web Surfing From Prying Eyes?

workFRIENDLY - BETA

Hahahah. For those of you for whom research on the tubes is shunned upon at the workplace, then I recommend you try "WorkFriendly". It masks the content of your most favorite page as a Word document.

technorati tags:surfing, secure

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Doug Engelbart: The Demo

"Doug Engelbart giving the "mother of all Demos" Watch as the computer mouse is introduced, back in December of 1968

SPACEPORT - New Mexico spaceport unveils new name

Goodbye Southwest Regional Spaceport. Hello Spaceport America.

New Mexico officials planned to unveil the new name Monday for a proposed $225 million space hub where British billionaire Sir Richard Branson hopes to send paying tourists on suborbital flights.

The previous name was a mouthful to pronounce and didn't reflect the cutting-edge vision of the project, said New Mexico Economic Development Secretary Rick Homans.

USATODAY.com - New Mexico spaceport unveils new name

technorati tags:spaceport, newmexico

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TECH - Program for mac users to remap keys on your keyboard

DoubleCommand.

DoubleCommand is software for Mac OS X (a kernel extension) that lets you remap keys, in other words change the way your keyboard works. Often used to make a PC keyboard more comfortable with a Mac, swapping the Alt (Option) and Windows (Command or Apple) keys, since they are in swapped positions on Mac and PC keyboards. DoubleCommand is a quick and easy way to fix this if you use a PC keyboard with your Mac.

I bought a spill-proof PC keyboard for my mac recently (since I went through three non-spill-proof keyboards recently) and this software works great. I can see windows switchers using this to make the transition from win-dose to mac more comfortable by remapping the mac keybord keys back to what they are used to on a windose keyboard.

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VIDEO GAMES - Program your own xbox360 games!

NexTechNews - Microsoft to allow 360 "Homebrew" well ... kinda.

XNA Game Studio Express, a set of (dumbed-down) development tools that will allow hobbyists and their ilk to develop games for both the Xbox 360 and the PC. Initially, these homebrew (is it still considered "homebrew" if you're using official tools?) games will only be playable to other coders part of a so-called "Creator's Club," a nice way to say that Microsoft will charge you $99 for a one-year subscription to play such games.

Still, $99 to play as many games as you like and the chance to develop your own with like minded folks? Don't sound so bad to me. I would even consider getting a PC for that.

technorati tags:xbox, video, games, development, homebrew

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TECH - Easily Create and Share Customized Google Maps

Show Me Where: Easily Create and Share Google Maps.

Need to make your own custom google map? With "ShowMeWhere", you can

• Drop markers or draw lines.
• Annotate markers or lines with any HTML you want.
• Send your map in an email, or host map on your website.
• Open your map directly in Google Earth.

Show Me Where is a point-and-click interface to creating customized Google Maps. Want to place a marker on a map? Just click there. simple stuff.

technorati tags:google, map

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TECH - Space Ship Builder Guru Burt Rutan talks about His Plans for Space Tourism

• SPACE.com -- Burt Rutan on Civilian Spaceflight, Breakthroughs, and Inside SpaceShipTwo

At ScaledComposites—home of the privately financed and built SpaceShipOne that made atrio of piloted suborbital flights in 2004 under the rubric of Tier 1—thefabrication of a fleet of passenger-carrying space planes and huge carrierlaunch planes is underway. This activity is labeled Tier 1b.

Burt Rutan,head of the firm, is chief design maestro leading a spaceliner workforce. Whilehe’s not about to roll out blueprints or show you factory floor hardware, hegave this reporter a squat down, legs folded, but relaxing beanbag chairinterview in his office to discuss the business of public space travel.

What does visionary space frontiersman say about his planned fleet of space tourism crafts?

“I’d loveto be working on going to the Moon. I’m doing this really because I don’t thinkI can convince a funder to go out and invest in an orbital system that we’renot sure would work.”...

...Along withlots of windows, a close second on the “must have” checklist is for customersto experience weightlessness. A person in SpaceShipTwo will feel just fourminutes of freefall, so having a great big cabin is extremely important, Rutanpointed out, “to be able to stretch out your arms and legs and float around.”

“Theimpression you get is that it’s important to know why you’re floating, so youneed windows. You want to fly…you don’t want to be strapped in. And toexperience weightlessness in shirtsleeve is important, not being bothered witha pressure suit or tied down to a cable or having a helmet on,” he said.

technorati tags:spaceship, space, tourism, burt, rutan

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Robot - No legs and no wheels, this robot balances on a ball

• New Scientist Tech - Breaking News - Ball-balancing robot refuses to roll over

The tall, thin robot, called Ballbot, sits on top of a ball, which it controls using a pair of rollers. Balance sensors feed information to an onboard computer. This continually moves the ball to make sure it is always under the robot's centre of gravity. Ballbot can also move in any direction, and regain its balance after a push, by making minor adjustments to the ball beneath it.

Click through for cool video clips

technorati tags:Carnegie Mellon, robot, movement

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