It’s a shame to become so popular after someone dies. I guess in Michael’s case so extra popular (since he was so much more famous in the past and not so much lately).

And it’s always shame for someone to die so young.

Rest in Peace Michael!

Heard there was another earthquake felt in San Jose, Costa Rica. Actually, I saw a tweet from The Tico Times when they felt it. USGS reports that it was a 5.7 about 175 km (110 miles) SSE of San Jose. I was kind of worried after the last big one.

A 5.7 should be a bit less than the last one and it was centered in the water, but it was in the bay of the Osa Peninsula by Golfito. I’m hoping there won’t be as much devastation as the last one.

UPDATE: And this is followed four hours later by another quake of magnitude 5.9 just a few miles away. I’m not sure what makes this a new earthquake and not an aftershock, but @TheTicoTimes stated it that way.

LATER UPDATE: Looks like no injuries and very limited damages. And depending on where you look the magnitudes for the bother of the above range from 5.5 to 6.3. Here is an image from the Tico Times. They’ve got an article up, but I’m not sure how long until they rotate out the article.

So a bill has been proposed to repeal the 22nd Amendment, it’s the one that says how long you can be president.

The title for H.J.RES.5 (111th Congress) is:
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

Introduced 1/6/2009 by Rep. Jose E. Serrano [NY-16].

This is a direct link to the Library of Congress search results the actual document isn’t very long. If the link doesn’t work you can do the search yourself: go to the search and search for “H.J.RES.5″, be sure to change the search to “Bill Number” (make sure the 111 is selected at the top).

You know me, I’m not way into politics, maybe someone suggests this every year…?

I like this word cloud of President Obama’s inauguration speech that someone put together. Here’s a larger version of the cloud and a copy of the speech (I think this is who did the word cloud).

There’s also one for Obama’s Victory Speech.

FYI, the whole Inauguration Speech is available in HD.

Costa Rica had a huge earthquake yesterday (Thursday, January 8th, 2009), 6.2 on the richter scale (I’ve seen reports that say 6.1). Just north of the San Jose area. This is the biggest one that I’ve heard of in Central Valley. The Tico Times has a lot of the earthquake coverage (you do have to do some clicking and scrolling, they’re mostly a subscription service).

They’re reporting about 23 dead with 11 still missing (at least that’s how I’m piecing everything together, I’ve seen numbers all over the place; as high as 30 dead). Lots of damage, mud slides and people trapped in various areas. 1,000+ people relocated and another 1,000+ stranded. If you check out the news stories from around the world there are definitely conflicting reports (especially on the death toll). Lots more earthquake details here and if you’ve got Google Earth installed there are some additional visual details if you click on the spot of the earthquake.

I can’t imagine the chaos and devastation that something like this causes. My thoughts an prayers go out to everyone affected by this…

I’ve been having a hard time getting my head around some of the damage, I found some photos at Inside Costa Rica and a video clip (in Spanish).

You can see many of the areas that felt it on this map, people can actually report it and that’s what feeds the map (don’t know how long they keep these on-line).

How many people are affected by this that I’ve met on my various trips down there? Places that I’ve visited or stayed at the I don’t recognize the names. I wonder how much it freaks out the tourists, imagine if they didn’t speak the language. I don’t speak Spanish well enough, in a crisis, without my translation book, I don’t know what I’d do…

There was a slightly bigger one (6.5 richter scale) in November when I was there, but I didn’t feel it and I don’t remember this much death and damage, but it was way at the south end of the country (I think it might have been in Panama) and if it was a few of my more isolated days I wouldn’t have gotten much news. My biggest earthquake ever was also in Costa Rica (4.3 richter scale) but most people didn’t even notice it (it was just after midnight).

A slightly erratic post but these thoughts have been in my head and wanted to share them…

I’ll add more links below:
Pictures from the Tico Times newspaper (more landscapes and buildings are towards the end).
Photos from al Dia from La Cinchona de Sarapiquí, Heredia
La Paz waterfalls had to close down. I believe some people took shelter there when the roads got cut off (I might be mixing the location up).

FYI, I’ve been updating the details in this posting daily, it was originally from January 9, 2009 but some of the details might be from up to a week later.

Random results thoughts – (these are based on my observations not statistical calculations)

I was suprised to get this e-mail a few moments ago…

Subject: Sold out but more to come
Date: November 5, 2008 4:46:47 PM GMT-05:00

With the announcement of a new president and high voter turnout, this election has proven to be historic on many levels. Due to numerous requests to purchase additional newspapers, more copies of today’s Free Press are being printed and delivered to local retail outlets and select locations in outstate Michigan.
They will be available Thursday morning.

It’s just not a typical e-mail that I get from my paper…

Smart marketing though!

15 minutes later – I seem to have gotten a second copy of the same message.

Results for the election are interesting. They’ve got Michigan listed as won by Obama, but only 20% of the precincts have reported. Now most of those being waited for are smaller precincts but there is less than a 50,000 vote difference. Does that even count all the mailed in absentee votes?

A few years ago (in the early days of the Internet) the first time the Michigan government put detailed election results on-line I was the person who put them on-line so I needed to know what time I needed to be available for the uploads. I’m not going to get into particulars (and I’m sure many have changed now) but if I recall correctly, it was way way after the news shows posted their results and after the newspapers printed the results before real tallies were even started. And (if I recall correctly) two of the bigger counties didn’t even get in their totals until the next afternoon.

And pay attention on sites where you see election results they say things like “Results are based on projections and unofficial returns. Candidates listed in bold indicate projected winner”.

But these early “results” are generally correct so I guess I can’t complain. But you generally don’t call a sports game until it’s over unless it’s a landslide. From what I’ve been watching (and it’s not much) just in the last 90 minutes McCain has gained about 38 electoral votes (with 7 states still voting and 9 states that haven’t been called yet) so it’s still got a ways to go.

But if it goes the way Dori predicted we don’t even need the other states votes we just need all the tallies from the precincts that closed by 9PM EST. Just so you know Dori is a computer person, not a political blogger and generally just blogs life and tech (who does occasionally blog political things). FYI – As of 10:30 PM her chart matches all the states we have tallies for so far.

Here’s a cool election result widget from MSNBC.

Thought it was pretty simple in how it worked. Very Edward Tuft-ish

The video shows it all.

Here’s the original Detroit Fox video. Or try here.

Shouldn’t this be illegal since she’s buying votes?

I see websites and blog posts picking on McCain (and Palin) and Obama. I see lots supporting Obama. But I don’t see many supporting McCain…

Maybe it’s just the (digital) places that I hang out? Or maybe that just says more about me…

Current has a post up called “Candidates as…” and this shows one of the many images of the candidates compared to different types of objects with visual analogies. Yes, this does pick on the candidates, avert your eyes if especially sensitive.

Found at The Fire Wire (with Google Reader).Since I’m bringing up election politics again (not my normal thing). I was just listening to this Jay Leno interview with Rachel Maddow, I had know idea who she was before listening (has a show on MSNBC) and listened for the whole eight minutes; that’s pretty long for my attention span, especially if it’s about politics…

Odd coincidence:
And at the end Leno mentioned Rachel Yamagata was on next which was really weird since I had just finished listening to the preview of Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart just moments before and debating a purchase. I’m off to see if YouTube has a video of her performance now…

These are my new rules for campaigning:

• You can’t talk about your opponent.

That’s it. I’m tired of them answering a question by talking about their opponent. It doesn’t tell me what they are thinking. It’s a waste of time if I want to hear what a politician is thinking and planning if they are wasting half their time talking about what their opponent is (or isn’t) doing.

They need to sell themselves! Show us what they can do. Convince me to like you not to dislike the “other guy”…Imagine if you were trying to get a job and you spent half your time talking about (and bad mouthing) the competition. Or if you were trying to get a date and badmouthing the other guy trying to win her heart. Or telling the police office who pulled you over that guy in the other lane was driving faster. You’re not going to get very far.

Speaking the competitions name over and over and over again can’t be great marketing either. How often do you see Coke or Pepsi mention their competitor in an ad?

October is Domestic Violence month. They say one in four of us are affected some way by it and it’s why you’re seeing the purple ribbons this month. Every 15 seconds a woman is battered (it’ll probably take you twice that time to read this blog entry). October is kind of an everything month (there are only 12 months to share) and breast cancer seems to get a lot of the attention and sometimes DV gets overlooked. (Related news.)

First Step is a local shelter in Wayne County and they are celebrating their thirtieth anniversay this year. Over 14,000 crisis calls, 7,000 nights of shelter and 20,000 hours of counseling are provided almost every year. I’ve volunteered with First Step, generally I’d be on call a few times a month (8-12 hour shift) and get called to hospitals (police stations, etc.) and talk to people and their families after they’ve been assaulted, I’ve also done things with the kids such as day care, field trips, etc. I originally started doing this at a shelter in Lansing; taking the kids on field trips and watching them while the Mother’s were in meetings/sessions. Field trips were just the older kids (ones who walk on their own), but when were were just watching the kids it was from infants on up.

First Step always having fund raising events so keep your eyes out for those, it’s a way to donate and have fun at the same time (sometimes it’s a movie night with auctions, shopping at department stores [you get a discount and they get a cut]). Shelters are always looking for donations, please don’t just think of them around the holidays, they need donations all year round. They always need volunteers to help. My links here just point to First Step, please search around for services in your area.

The Tico Times is the english weekly paper from Costa Rica. For the last eight months I’ve been subscribing to the paper edition of The Tico Times. I’ve mentioned my Tico Times delivery issues before, it usually takes a while to get to Michigan but it’s much easier to read on paper than on the screen (they also offer a PDF subscription).

I’ve wanted to see what’s going on in the country when I’m not visiting. I’ve been paying attention to opinion pages, letters to the editor, classifieds and more local ads. Of the five times I’ve been there it’s all been in April or between the end of November and beginning of January (and really only covering half-a-dozen different weeks) so I’ve really only seen a portion of the year while there. So I’ve been paying more attention to the non-tourist type articles; when I’m there traveling I’m generally looking more for what’s going on there at that time.

Have you seen my news coverage yet?!? I’m so excited!!!

If the video doesn’t start, click the image once the video finishes loading.

Or go straight to http://GaryForPresident.com/

For much not being on television I’ve been highly entertained by the tube this week…

Who cares!?! Unless you own stock in Yahoo, of course

Microsoft has nothing to offer Yahoo, IMHO, they’ve never been great with the internet (search, MSN, webTV, etc.) and that’s okay. Really, Bill, it’s okay. It really is.

I’m assuming Yahoo! will take the money and run, unless they’ve got a lot of debt, this is a nice chunk of change (and if they’ve got a lot of debt, this’ll pay it off).

I do worry about Flickr, Del.icio.us, the nice mobile web portals and whatever other sites that Yahoo owns. But at the end of the day, I think the ‘net will be okay and not have anything to worry about…I don’t really understand the concept of business at 44 billion dollars, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about but I promise I’d be a fast learner if anyone ever put me into into a situation where I would need to learn about it…

I just think about Guy Kawasaki and he must be really kicking himself for not taking Yahoo’s offer to be president way back in the day. Several years ago I saw him speak and he mentioned that tidbit after mentioning other people’s famous mistakes like “640k is all anyone will ever need”.

So a few weeks before I left I subscribed to the TicoTimes. It’s a weekly English nation-wide newspaper about the size of Metro Times or a magazine from the Sunday section of a newspaper that comes out on Fridays in Costa Rica. A month’s subscription included the ability to download the PDF file every week. It’s a little hard to read on the screen, I think I get one more electronic issue, but I’ll probably buy a copy tomorrow.

It was nice to get a feel for what was going on in the country. From a to do list it wasn’t very helpful to me. It comes out on Friday and the calendar generally doesn’t stretch much past the weekend. So I might go somewhere else tomorrow and I should have stayed here for something, but I’ve already made my arrangements. I did find out about some kind of air festival in the northwest but I forgot all about it, I’ll have to check on that…

From a news standpoint I did know the rainy season was dying down early, I know the colon was going to go up in value (their “Greenspan” changed something), that the phone company might go on strike (they didn’t) and a few other things. It’s definitely worth the $8 to get the four issues on-line if you’re considering traveling the country. I recommend this for anywhere, I’ve gone to the bookstore and picked up a newspaper for London, England to get an idea of what’s going on there too (you might have to reserve these in advance).

So I’m sure many of you know about the student at the Kerry Forum at the University of Florida (here’s one of many videos available). What I don’t seem to understand is why everyone is upset that they tasered him for what he was speaking about. From what I saw, they made him leave for not giving up the mic (which was cut off) and possibly what he was speaking about (and the audience applauded for them making him leave). What they tasered him for was for fighting as they were trying to escort him out. There were four or five police trying to get him to leave and he clearly wasn’t leaving. To me, it looked as if he wanted a scene or had some kind of mental instability.

Am I missing something?!? I’m not saying the tasering was or was not excessive, but let’s be clear as to why they zapped him, it wasn’t for his words (I can’t imagine the zappers were even listening that close) it was for resisting to leave. I will agree the extra zaps were probably too much (it sounded like a few), especially if cuffed already, but it didn’t really slow him down so I can’t imagine it set as a regular taser (it never took Veronica Mars more than one zap to get someone in line). I generally don’t mess with the law, but I do know you don’t mess with security / police / secret service when it deals with senators / presidential candidates and when a bunch of people are escorting you out the building, you’re probably going to lose if you fight with them about it.

From this Blog from the Washington Post I get the feeling this student was familiar with the local police.

Here’s a local Miami news survey and 44% (of over 18,000 votes) say he deserved it, cast your vote! The results really surprised me…Random extra thoughts:

It didn’t even seem like he was listening to Kerry when he was talking to him.

When he was screaming “don’t taser me”, I have to assume they were threatening to taser him if he didn’t calm down. Otherwise why scream it?

It’s possible I’m mistaken and the audience was applauding him just for making the scene, but I don’t think they applauded until he was being escorted out. I don’t think he was considered to be under arrest until he was actually resisting leaving, I don’t think they arrested him for his words.

Watch some of the longer versions of the video that show after they get him out of the room and down the stairs (about 2 minutes in). He keeps acting like the “inciting a riot” charge was due to the talking and not the resisting to leave. He wouldn’t give them his name, or ID and acted like they were “going to give him [me] to the government”. It’s all cRaZy talk at the end.

He has his own web site at theandrewmeyer.com , please note his e-mail address if you visit.

The Bloggerheads do a lot of looking at the different angles and timelines.

Found this cool 360 degree panorama of Karnak Temple. It requires Quicktime (I was there last year, BTW).

(I was actually looking for something on The Moon Landing which was 40 years ago today….)

A very old friend asked me to mentioned the Korea Peace Network and the fact that they were taking out a full page advertisement in the NY Times on Friday (unfortunately, I didn’t see the message until today). The advertisement was an “Open Letter to Shinzo Abe” will be featured in a full page ad in the New York Times while the Japanese Prime Minister is in D.C.

It’s a article about the current prime minister and he seems to be attempting to be sweeping some slavery/servitute issues of the past under the carpet. It’s a ling letter with some photos and artwork of the atrocities that are mentioned in the letter.

I thought it was interesting that at the bottom in a very large font they added (the unrelated text) that “As a Korean American Organization, the KANCC expresses its deepest regret over the horrible Virginia Tech. masssacre and offers sincere sympathy to the families of the victims.”

Spam Arrest will be featured on ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson tonight (Monday, March 5th, 2007). World News will be discussing the ongoing trademark dispute between Hormel and Spam Arrest over the use of the word “spam”.

Spam Arrest has been defending itself against Hormel for the last 4 years while Hormel has been attempting to cancel the Spam Arrest trademark granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. (more info)

Definitely overstepping their trademark, no confusion between spam “food” and junk mail (IMHO). They should have to shoulder the blame for spam if they want exclusive rights to the name…

Spam Arrest is my favorite way of blocking e-mail spam from home. It’s practially impossible for spammers to get automated junk mail past their filter!

I saw most of these stories in The Week which I really like (I get the printed edition). They don’t write a lot (most?) of their articles, they get from other sources. They reprint some political cartoons and have a few columns I like such as “Only in America” (which contained the Seattle School article)

The Detroit Tigers made it to the World Series!!!! It’s totally weird that no one knew who it was that we were going to play until less than two days ago. Game one is tonight.

All I really remember about the last time we made it (in ‘84) was watching the news as the fans went nuts (they flipped/burned some cars and other stuff) and the newscasters were talking all very excitedly about the celebration. And I’m thinking that “this isn’t good” and then the national news came on and used the same footage with “Riots” in all the captions and descriptions that they used…

So this Tuesday the U.S. Population is supposed to hit 300 Million people. I was looking for some kind of cool counter to put on my page (even just a graphic that changes with each page load). Not having any luck, but I know I’ve seen one before. Here’s the current numbers, looks like only 10,500 to go…

FYI, if we round the world’s population to Six Billion (6,000,000,000) that means we’re only 1/20th of the world’s population. That’s not very much considering how big we think of ourselves in a global way.

Remember a few years back I talked about your ecological footprint and how much of the world’s resources you use. I thought I’d bring it up with the 1/20th number in mind and let you take the ecological footprint survey again.

I found a crappy JavaScript/CSS one but it just looked like it’d eventually become problematic sticking it in the post. Can anyone help me find one? I can find pages with the info (like this) but I wanted to embed it in my page.

Over 6,000 people die a day (most of them children) from water releated illnesses. These folks have created The LifeStraw, a straw about the size of a small clarinet that can be worn about the neck and weighs about 0.095 Kg (3.3 ounces). It’ll filter 2 liters (half gallon) a day for about a year! And they only cost about $3 each.

Over a billion people in the world don’t have safe drinking water! (Drinking salt water will reduce the life expectancy in half).

More info (from the FAQ):

So yesterday I knew Mark was on a train home from Battle Creek and gave him a ring just to see if he was home yet. He was still in Jackson. Turns out they hit a dump truck crossing the tracks on a private drive (the driver was likely killed instantly). He said a few of them got thrown to the ground as they stopped (which took about a 1/2 mile). They were in the car directly behind the engine (remember that if you watch the videos) and he said the windows turned black with smoke. Fifteen people had minor injuries and went to the hospital. They were then emergency bussed to the train station (city and school busses) and waited for hours to get another bus back home (I think he was supposed to get back around 2 and got back around 6:30…

He’s fine (mostly fine, today he’s complaining about his back) so that’s a good thing. This WLNS news report has 3 different videos (all with a little more info) if you’re interested. I don’t know how long they’ll keep the story/videos (which I never did get to play on my Mac, does yours play it).

I could be wrong but I don’t think they gave any of these people a free train trip or anywhere to call if they had problems after or anything. He did say the Red Croos showed up at the train station to hand out water and check on people.

I’ve always thought this would be a good idea for a web site but it seems like it’d be more work than I have time to do. The HappyNews site promises “Real News. Compelling stories. Always Positive.”

Stolen from Scott.

So just a few days ago I was thinking about the Oakland County Child Killings from a few decades ago. I thought it was pretty bizarre that I even thought about it at the time. I was in a parking lot and I remembered trying to recall the type of they were looking for (at the time I couldn’t think of they name but it was a blue Gremlin, with a white stripe). I do remember thinking it was strange that I was even thinking of it and I’ve thought of it several times since then. I was on the way to the car, not from it, so I wouldn’t have just heard it on the radio (besides I’m pretty sure I was listening to a Laura Veirs CD earlier, it was my day off, so I didn’t need the traffic report).

So here’s the extra strange part, I was googling around looking for John McElroy’s Automotive Insight show to see if they had an on-line feed (which I never did find) and I found this WWJ Audio Page with a link to a November 30, 2004 story about the killings. I’m 99% pretty sure it’s from the same day I was thinking about it. Coincidence? Or did I catch part of the story and not remember? or…?

The car involved looked similar to the one on the right. It’s not exactly right, but I’ve really been thinking about this the last 24 hours and googling for more info and the car in particular (I think because I was in a parking lot). I’m thinking the model they were looking for that the white stripe was definitely thicker (I really remember the white stripe when I think back), darker blue and the car wasn’t as long (stubbier?) click the image for what I think is closer to correct but wasn’t clear enough to shrink.

I only listen to that station for traffic and weather (on the 8’s) and you’d think I’d remember if I had heard a 5 minute story on the topic. This was huge when I was a kid since I was in Oakland County and one of the missing kids was from Berkley so I think I’d have listened. This was real life boogey man stuff…

So here’s the second extra strange part. I’m leaving the same store yesterday and while I’m getting in the car I see a police car four aisles down and when I sit down I see it’s in the second row already (that was quick) and then I realize it’s a different car. As I drive away I notice there are about five police vehicles slowly cruising the parking lot (this is one of the new outside malls in northern Allen Park). When I go down the hill/around the corner to the other new mall I see that a few minutes later they are down there too. Somethings going on…

You do have to factor in memory stuff, both short term and long term. I had totally forgotten that they had found the bodies and while I remembered the other cities were close I hadn’t recalled how close (right next door practically).

More info on the old case: WWJ, Oakland Press and Click on Detroit. Don’t know how long these links will last but this google search seemed to find quite a bit on it.

How many news stories weren’t heard yesterday (and today) because of election “news”. I say “news” that way because most of it was speculation after speculation until all the counts are done. And then they spend all day today talking about how close it was and/or why those guesstimates weren’t correct or why person X didn’t end up winning.

It’s a colossal waste of time until the real counts are done (and it’s not like we have to wait weeks for the results). There is real news they could be telling us. There are people missing, there are wars and disasters. There might even be something nice that happened in the world that they can tell us about. Heck, I’d rather hear the weather or traffic report than election speculation.

If they really want to give me election information today. Tell me the winners and give me 5 minutes of the winning candidates telling me the first dozen things that they are actually going to do/fix/implement once they take office. Condolence speeches to the losers and congratulations to the winners aren’t telling me anything…

This is different – I just saw this on the news (I rarely watch the news on TV). Natalee Holloway who disappeared in Aruba earlier this year has never been found and her family hasn’t gotten much response from authorities in Aruba. So the Governor of Alabama is requesting that the nation boycott travel to Aruba to hit ‘em where it hurts.

CNN has an interesting hurricane web page, you can go all the way back to Dennis of 2005 for information. The information for the current hurricanes is kept relatively up-to-date.

So for as much as I’ve been watching it the waves at this web cam in Corpus Christi at the Bob Hall Pier have definetly been getting worse today. They say they’re keeping it up during Hurricane Rita but as I started writing this I noticed people on the pier, so maybe I need to look at a map to see where this is in the path…

Found by Amy at All About Me.

UPDATE: So it looks like they are going to be just (and I do mean just) south of the hurricane’s path. Flooding warnings at the NOAA site.

Also, I fixed the link (it was the wrong one). And they are experiencing traffic difficulties with everyone linking so it’s gotten slower…

CNN says Rita becomes third most intense hurricane on record:

“Rita — the powerful Category 5 storm plowing across the Gulf of Mexico – has become the third most intense hurricane on record, according to National Hurricane Center data. Long lines of cars Wednesday headed out of coastal Texas towns and Houston — the fourth most populous city in the country. Evacuating parents were told to take photos of their children and to give them identification in case they get separated.”– CNN.com

Now that’s a nightmare, worrying about getting separated from your babies while during the storm, I can’t even imagine. What the heck is going on with the weather these days?!? I can barely remember any weather disasters compared to any of these hurricanes and tsunamis in the past year. I remember occasional hurricanes and tornados in my life, but it’s just been non-stop lately. They’re having to relocate the relocated people from Katrina. This is like Irwin Allen / Movie of the Week kinda stuff…

My thoughts go out to everyone who’s in this mess. The same for those worried about friends and family.

Tuesday night, the sheriff (from Louisiana) wrote a check for $2.5 million out of the department’s bank account — which only had $23,000 in it — to reserve 150 trailers for his staff.

I’m not sure how long NOAA will have this photo up (551k), but it’s amazing… They keep current events up for about 60 days, check out some of the archive.

This is a great thought, in an effort to support Hurricane Relief, Dean says:

For a confirmed donation of $50 to the American Red Cross, I’ll write a 600 word essay on the subject of your choice, with a minimum of two references.

I say you’ll be getting a deal for fifty bucks and he’ll post it or e-mail it to you privately. If you don’t read Dean’s World check it out (he blogs from Michigan). He’s “Defending the liberal tradition in history, science, and philosophy” and he talks about normal stuff like TV shows and the like…

I’m sure this is a limited time offer (and void where prohibited).

Brice Mellen is on G4 TechTV (Attack of the Show) right now. He plays Mario World and Mortal Combat and he’s blind. And in a few he’s going to play another sightless gamer in “the world’s first Sightless Gamer Mortal Kombat Challenge!” Here’s a link but they don’t really do show notes like they used to…

Here’s a little more from USA Today, CNN and Wired.

Plus they are going to show doom on the iPod (which I talked about last week).

So I didn’t hear any news about there being some small debris falling off at the launch yesterday.

NASA said it would know by Sunday whether debris that fell off the space shuttle Discovery’s external fuel tank during this week’s launch damaged the spacecraft as it blasted into orbit. – CNN

They make it sound like it’s not a big deal. And if this wasn’t the first flight in a long while I probably wouldn’t think twice. But I’d really like the flight to go 100% perfect so the program can get moving again.

Understand, I want all flights to go perfect but this flight (and the next few) are extra important.

One of those things I’ve always wanted to see is a Shuttle Launch. The problem is that delays can make a short trip to Florida turn into a several week trip. So I think after they get a few under their belt I might have to take a vacation down that way. Anyone got any tips the the best way to see a launch? Any stories…??

LATER: “according to current data, Discovery is in good shape for a safe return home”. They are grounding future flights until they get more of this figured out…

I’m watching CNN talking about the hurricane coverage. It’s been upgraded to a Class 4 which is 131-155 miles per hour(!), it’s near Pensasola (20mi ESE) and I guess Atlanta is in it’s path (but it looks more like Mobile to me). And these idiots crazy people are out there doing color commentary as these 100 mile per hour winds are knocking them around. The two guys were out there practically doing a talk show…

CNN is encouraging you to send in your stories, photos or video. Nice live Java animations at the National Weather Service (check out the Loops on the left).

I’m slightly confused about the class of the hurricane (but maybe it’s changing). CNN’s web site reports it as a Class 4

“This is going to be a destructive hurricane,” said Ed Rappaport of the National Hurricane Center, which has designated Dennis as a Category 4 storm.

but now the banner on CNN tv makes it sound like was just upgraded to a class 3 (111-130 mph).

In case you’ve been in a cave today here are some headlines.

The Daily Show had a great segment which pretty much picked on the major 24 hour news networks for their reporting on reading of blogs.

From Lisa via Tim. There are other copies on-line here and here.

So when I listen to these radio shows and podcasts on my iPod sometimes they’re a little old when I listen to them so the news is a little old too. Sometimes this is disorienting. I’ll hear someone mention the Pope is ill or one other news fact and it throws me off a little bit. When I think about getting the news late, it’s bothered me a little bit and I’m not sure why?

But I’ve been catching up on the TiVo and it’s the same thing when I see ads for the evening news and it’s old too (especially when it’s the weather for tomorrow). The odd thing is the TiVo delays don’t bother me so much (and I recall the same when I used to use my VCR).

So why do the iPod shows bother me more? One big difference is they get mentioned in the actual show (and not in an ad) Adam Curry will mention the Pope or Leo Laporte will mention it’s Easter. I guess maybe that reminds me I’m listening to something old…

A before and after photo of a residential area about a mile inland. This is totally unbelievable, I just don’t have any sort of frame of reference for this sort of disaster…

So the title is boring, but the content isn’t. At least watch the movie, preferably listen to the audio and then watch the movie.

So I was listening (3:28) to Future Tense today and they talked about this 8 minute film (watch it). It’s kind of how how personalized information will be presented to you in the future and some of the problems with it. It might be helpful to listen to Jon before watching the movie. It’s interesting.

This is extra interesting to me. I’ve been perfecting my personal daily “news” feed for my iPod. Everyday it automatically gathers a bunch of short shows for me to listen to; some are “real” radio shows and some are podcasts. It’s about 30 minutes of 10-12 shows that include (but not limited to): the news (NPR news, Future Tense and other tech), health, science (stardate astronomy, earth and sky, earthwatch), word of the day, and several fluff human interest stories (I’ll elaborate more on this in some futer posts). I do listen to more, but these are pretty much the for sure ones I listen to. It’s definitely limiting what I’m hearing, but at least it’s stuff I’m interested in. In the future I know these things will be smarter and I’ll get more variety with more choices but the searching just isn’t there yet so I’m manually having to make some generalizations.

I’d like some more variety but this is what I’ve found that I like so far. I’d love a few more “people” shows, maybe with some social/psychological-type info (but not a 30 minute show). I’d like my horoscope, I never read it but if it were to be read to me I’d listen. Letterman’s top ten would be fun too. And some local news would be great; not just the murders and fires but the things that are going on, what kids have done and other “stuff”. Any tips or suggestions?

Total eclipse of the Moon tonight. It’ll be 11 PM-ish in the eastern time zone in the US. See Yahoo for basic info, Space.com for Top 10 Lunar Eclipse Facts and this and this guide. This will be your last chance until 2007!

I think of all the silly things I’ve whined about this week. And the many more (even sillier) things I’ve heard others whine about. Most of us just don’t have anything to complain about. I cannot even tell you ho many evacuations I’ve heard about down there these last few months.

Actually no matter how bad someone else has it, I feel you shouldn’t neglect what it is you need to complain about it, you’ve still got problems too. Unless you’re just an incessant whiner and if so (hurricane or not) please shut up stop it.

And people complain like that have real problems (I only got a three day weekend, it’s too humid, etc.). I thank God that those are the only things we have to complain about. I hope things go well for families that have to go through such disasters as hurricane Francis.

And sunlight can suppress it then (according to this) we should just “sit in the dark picking our noses”.

Saw this in a magazine and found it on my first google attempt (”children eat boogers to increase immunity”).

The only concern is that too much Mucophagy may lead to Rhinotillectomania.

“A construction worker had six nails driven into his head in an accident with a high-powered nail gun, but doctors said Wednesday they expect him to make a full recovery.” And by the way the “Authorities cleared the co-worker of any wrongdoing.”

Original Yahoo! story.

Minor Update: I found someone with a better photo (x-ray) of this guy.

Funny Update: Here’s contextual text oops related to the same article

So you can visually see the Google! news now. You can break it down by types of news, location or even older news. It’s pretty neat (or at least neat enough to blog about).

“Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap’s objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.” For more information go to http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/ and they do some other cool stuff if you go to their home page.