Webmaster Resources

2008-06-10T04:05:00.000-07:00

Webmaster Resources
How Webmasters Get Exercise	IMAGE — uxxb.com (Gadgets) made popular	Webmaster Resources
42 Design blogs and sites designers and webmasters need to know	smashingmagazine.com — A list of designing blogs and sites that all you designers and webmasters need to read.
Michelle Malkin of fox news OWNED by porn webmaster	VIDEO — youtube.com (People) made popular
137 Online Tools for Webmaster	listible.com — An must keep one-for-all list for online free tools that help webmaster, programming, and web design to program, design, develope, optimize web sites.	Webmaster Resources
TV-Links shut down!!!! Let the pain begin.	business.guardian.co.uk — Guardian reports huge site shut down by British authorities, webmaster arrested
Top 20 Webmaster Bookmarks of 2005	web-graphics.com — Javascript, AJAX, CSS, Design, Search Engines, Web App, Blog, etc. Must read for webmasters
New Google Sitemap for Webmasters	googleblog.blogspot.com — Google is unveils a feature for webmasters to give google a sitemap of their site that will allow Google to do better indexing and at a faster rate.	Webmaster Resources
The Truth About DVD Shrink	afterdawn.com — According to the webmaster, it had nothing to do with legal issues.
Webmasters Can Watch What Visitors Do with AJAX-based Service	Unlike traditional web analytics that produce only pure statistics, ClickTale (www.clicktale.com) gives webmasters the ability to watch movies of users' individual browsing sessions. Every mouse movement, every click and every keystroke are recorded for convenient playback	becoming a webmaster
Digg Effect: The Top 10 Things Webmasters Should Know	One web guy's lessons he has learned from being on the digg front page a few times. He believes that webmasters trying to abuse digg to get ad clicks are just wasting their time. (Quit promoting yourself, you shmucks!) Good read	becoming a webmaster
How to Speed Read on the Web	Speed reading for the Web explained. Webmasters, geeks, info junkies and Web addicts take notice! Blast through the Web sea of information.
Google's unknown artist has huge following	The 28-year-old webmaster designs the whimsical logos that decorate Google.com's otherwise Spartan Web site on special occasions
Ten Tell-Tale Signs of a Lazy Webmaster/Designer	Through my years of browsing websites and coding them I have seen many things in common between them -- both the good and the bad. So as something that others may feel they are on common ground with, I present 10 tell-tale signs of a lazy webmaster/web designer (and I must admit, I've even fallen susceptible to some of these)..."
Learn how to use RSS	Newsniche is an RSS resource for webmasters. There are numerous pages of information about creating and promoting an RSS feed	Webmaster Resources
Which Google Webmaster Tools Do You Want?	Submit your requests for Google's Webmaster Tools here: "Google’s Matt Cutts told me he’ll be reading along for inspiration, so who knows, your wish might trigger something..."！	becoming a webmaster
Cool Webmaster Tool: What Websites are Hosted on this IP?	yougetsignal.com — Using the "Reverse IP Domain Check," you can see all of the other sites hosted on the same web server as a particular domain name. Try it！	Webmaster Resources
How Lucrative Is Bittorrent?	As we all know high traffic sites generate a lot of ad revenue. One question that I have been dying to see answered is how much money these big torrent sites are making. Armed with my scary question I emailed a few bittorrent webmasters and waited for them to reply.
The Economic Idiocy of Blocking Social Media Traffic	By now most of you have probably seen the site 'Why Digg is Blocked'. For those that haven't come across it, the site is on a mission to convince webmasters and content producers to reject social media traffic. Here's a look at the incredibly flawed logic the site uses to justify its purpose.	becoming a webmaster
Ebaums world responds to attacks!	For the last 36-48 hours, ebaumsworld.com has been the victim of a global cyber-terrorism attack allegedly conducted by an alliance of webmasters and their followers who disagree with our company's editorial process
Wikipedia adds new feature - Cite This Article	With no fanfare, Wikipedia has added a handy new feature - Cite This Article. From anywhere inside wikipedia (my example is to the article on webmastering), click on 'Cite This Article' to get the full citation in 9 different formats, MLA, APA, and Bibtex included! High School and college students rejoice
Protecting Your PHP/MySQL Applications from SQL Injection	SQL injection is a serious concern for webmasters, as an experienced attacker can use this hacking technique to gain access to sensitive data and/or potentially cripple your database. Are you safe?	Webmaster Resources
Great Webmaster tool - Find all domains that share your IP	This tool will find other domain names hosted on your IP address. Just enter a domain (www.example.com) or an IP address (127.0.0.1) to get a list of domain names that share the same IP address
Google: Website Tools for Webmasters	We've also put together a comprehensive webmaster help center to answer more of your questions, such as: * What are Google's webmaster guidelines? * How can I improve my site's ranking? * Why doesn't my site show up for a specific keyword? * My URL changed, so how can I get Google to index my new site?	becoming a webmaster
Nine things you can do to make your website better	9 great tips for creating better websites. A great read for any webmaster/web designer
Firefox Users: Sign The Petitions	"It’s important we all sign each of these petitions to make our voices heard! Webmasters, link to these from your own websites!"
How to Fix Google: Ranking, Algorithm & Webmaster Policies	An in depth four part series on Google's historical ranking and linking policies, and how the company can change such policies for the better.!	Webmaster Resources
What Is PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters	A comprehensive guide to PageRank designed for searchers and site owners alike.
Google Adsense Tips	Here are some good tips for webmasters. A quick guide on earning more revenue with Google AdSense
Hacker gets prominent evolution archive booted from Google Index	Webmasters aren't pleased when they run into problems with Google, and Wesley Elsberry was no exception. Elsberry, the webmaster of the Talk.Origins archive, made his displeasure public in a blog post after Google booted his site from their search index	Webmaster Resources
A Cool Hack of Google Webmaster Central for Additional Link Information	Did you notice the new Extended Link information at your Google Sitemap account? How it will be with some added information with the PageRank, AnchorText and NoFollows highlighted. With another useful must-have Firefox add-on for webmasters, two simple steps.
Interview with Adam Lasnik of Google	"This interview clarifies Adam’s role with Google as well as some of the most common webmaster issues, his thoughts on the common sense of site optimization (think about the user!), long but satisfying days at the Googleplex, the Google Webmaster Help Group, the increasingly important role of Google Base and his thoughts on SEO certification."
Let's get it right. Google vs DoJ is Not About Child Porn	Let's get it straight: Google isn't trying to protect child pornographers. News sites are casting a negative light against Google by mistakenly referring to "child porn" when the issue is actually about "children looking at pornography – i.e. webmasters not ensuring their sites are sufficiently blocking minors from viewing harmful content."	Webmaster Resources

Monitor Page Hits

2008-06-02T02:46:00.000-07:00

It is very important to statistically track visitors to your website. Web tracking software provides a wealth of information about website visitors that can help you improve your web content, navigational structure and "stickiness". Good information will help you formulate great strategies that will ultimately lower your costs and increase your revenues.
A good hit tracker provides answers to the following types of questions:
From which countries did my website visitors come from?
Which search engine did they use to find my site?
Which words or phrases did they search on?
Which sites and URLs are sending me traffic?
How did my visitors navigate through my site?
Which of my pages are the most and least popular?
By regularly analyzing your web stats, you will make some amazing discoveries! For example, you will probably find that only a few search engines are sending you most of your traffic. You will likely discover that a very few of your pages are receiving 90% of your hits.

It is important to use the information to refine your meta tags and develop strategies that will improve your site's visibility in the major search engines. For more information on meta tags, search engines and monitoring, check out Search Engine Watch .

Promote Web Page

2008-06-02T02:45:00.000-07:00

Many web page developers seem to think that if you build a page, people will come. Unfortunately, life isn't quite so simple. With several billion pages on the Internet, the odds of someone bumping into yours is rather remote, unless it is well promoted.
Web page promotion entails registering your URL with one or more search engines and portals.
There are literally hundreds of search engines in existence today. Although it is free to add your URL to some search engines, the registration effort does take time. Most major search engines now charge fees for registration.
Search engines can be national, international, of subject specific. A few very large search engines, however, are used by most internet users on a regular basis. You should certainly register your site with each of these.
Depending on your objectives, you may also want to register with some of the international, regional or subject based search engines. You can add your URL to each major search engines by clicking below:

Upload Web Page

2008-06-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

Copying files from your hard drive to the server is a simple process. The host site will prompt you for the name of the directory on your hard drive where your files are stored and the names of the specific files to be uploaded. To avoid confusion, make certain that all files are saved on the server using the same file names that were used on your hard drive. The only software that you require to upload files is a web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. Alternatively, free FTP software (File Transfer Protocol) can be used.

Once you have uploaded all your files, you should test your page on the web server and make certain that it functions properly and that all files have uploaded correctly. It is also a good idea to test your page using a different computer to ensure that graphic files are being read from the server and not from your hard drive.
It is now time to congratulate yourself. You have published your very first page!

Find a Web Server

2008-06-02T02:43:00.000-07:00

At this point, construction of your home page is complete but your page still resides on your computer, not on the internet. If you log on to the Internet, however, you should be able to test all your links to external web sites.
You are now ready to publish your page on the World Wide Web. To do this, you will need to copy your page and all graphic and music files which your page uses from your computer's hard drive to a web server (computer).
The Internet service provider (ISP) that you use for Internet access might provide free web hosting to its customers. Many do. If not, there are a number of companies that will provide server space at no charge. You will, however, be required to include a banner or icon somewhere on the page to promote the free hosting service or their sponsors

Although there are disadvantages to using free web hosting services, such services do provide an opportunity to learn and develop basic web publishing skills. Alternatively, there are many professional web hosting companies that offer inexpensive hosting packages with advanced features for under $10 per month.
When you register for web hosting services, you will be sent instructions on how to upload files to the web server. The web host will also provide you with a user ID and password so that other people can't access or alter your files.

Construct Web Page

2008-06-02T02:41:00.000-07:00

Once the HTML editor is installed, you are ready to begin construction. The first thing to do is to orient yourself to the HTML editor. Most products have good tutorial and "help" features that will explain how to use the tool. In general, however, they are intuitive and function much like word processors.
HTML editors let you insert images into the body of a document and create hyperlinks to other pages. They also permit you to reference a file to be used as a background image. Most HTML editors allow you to insert additional HTML code wherever you like. This is useful, for example, should you want to add a page counter, music or video clip to your site.
Hyperlinks are words or graphics on a web page that, when clicked, take the visitor to another page or another web site. To add a hyperlink, you simply highlight the text field or graphic, select the hyperlink icon and specify the destination address (URL). You should specify the full URL address.
Your main page should always be assigned the file name "index.htm". Other pages on your web site can be assigned any names you wish however keep them short and avoid using special characters. (e.g. #, @). For simplicity, all web page file names should end with ".htm".

If you feel really brave, you can write your HTML program using a simple text editor such as WordPad rather than using an HTML Editor. WordPad is a utility program that comes bundled with Microsoft operating systems (e.g. Windows XP).
To begin, find a simple web page on the Internet that you like and save it to your directory. Copy the graphics from that same web page to your hard drive. Print off the HTML code and see how it works! You can then make some minor changes to the HTML and watch the results in your web browser (i.e. Netscape or Explorer). Don't forget to save your program changes and "reload" your page in your browser. This method is not recommended for everyone, but is a very good way to learn HTML.
There are plenty of good HTML programming guides available on the Internet which explain the basic syntax of the HTML language. Tools are also available to validate the HTML that you write.
If you would like to add a Radio and Television Remote Control to your site, simply insert this HTML into your page. Your visitors will be impressed!

Webmaster Resources----Web Design Guide

2008-06-02T02:22:00.000-07:00

So, you want to build a website! Well, you've come to the right place. This site explains in very simple terms how to design, build and publish a website. If you haven't done it before, Internet publishing can appear rather daunting. In fact, it is not difficult at all.
There is very little you require to build a website and everything you need is available free on the Internet. In other words, you don't need to spend huge sums of money purchasing expensive software packages, programming manuals or web server space. You just need to know where to start.
Here is a list of what you do need:
basic computer skills
access to a personal computer
access to the Internet
a free HTML Editor (a web page construction tool)
a place on the world wide web to publish your page
There are eight steps involved in publishing a page. They are:
define your objectives
design your web pages
download an HTML editor from the web
construct your site
find a web server where your site can be published
copy your pages to the web server
promote your website
track your hits and fine tune

Little Richard

2007-07-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

Little Richard:

Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932), better known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist, who began performing in the 1940s and recording from 1951.

Little Richard

Penniman's reputation rests on a string of groundbreaking hit singles from 1955 through 1957, such as "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally", which helped lay the foundation for rock and roll music,[1] influencing generations of rhythm and blues, rock and soul music artists. Little Richard's injection of funk during this period[1] also influenced the development of that genre of music.

Little Richard's early work was a mix of boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues and gospel music, but with a heavily accentuated back-beat, funky saxophone grooves and raspy, shouted vocals, moans, screams, and other emotive inflections that marked a new kind of music. In 1957, while at the height of stardom, he became a born-again Christian and withdrew from recording and performing secular music.

James Brown, who called Little Richard his idol,[2] credited him with "first putting the funk in the rock and roll beat"[1] via his saxophone-studded, mid-'50s road band, by Smokey Robinson, in 1997 as, "the start of that driving, funky, never let up rock 'n' roll", by Dick Clark as "the model for almost every rock and roll performer of the '50s and years thereafter", and Ray Charles, in 1989, as "the man that started a kind of music that set the pace for a lot of what's happening today." In 1969, Elvis Presley told Little Richard, "Your music has inspired me - you are the greatest.".[2] Otis Redding, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, John Fogerty, Bob Seger, David Bowie, and numerous other rock n roll stars have also cited Richard as being their first major influence.

Macon, Georgia to Leva Mae Stewart and Charles ("Bud") Penniman, a bootlegger.[1][3] He grew up in a spiritual family, amid poverty and prejudice, and it was singing that made his family feel closer to God. His family had a group called the Penniman Singers, who would go around and sing in local churches, and enter contests with other singing families. Richard's siblings called him 'War Hawk' because of his loud, screaming singing voice. His paternal grandfather, Walter Penniman, was a preacher, and his father's family were members of the Foundation Templar African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Macon, Georgia. Richard's grandmother on his mother's side was a member of the Holiness Temple Baptist Church, also in Macon. Richard regularly attended the New Hope Baptist Church in Macon, where his mother was a member. However, of all the churches he frequented, Richard's favorite were the Pentecostal churches because of the music and the fun he and his friends would have doing the holy dance and talking in tongues along with members of the congregation. When he was as young as ten, he would go around as a healer, singing Gospel songs and touching people, who would testify that they felt better after he ministered to them. Inspired by Brother Joe May, a singing evangelist known as 'The Thunderbolt of the West', Richard wanted to become a preacher. It was in and through the church where Richard's life in music all began.[2]

Nearly all of Richard Penniman's dramatic phrasing and swift vocal turns are derived from Black Gospel artists of the 1930s and 1940s. He referred to Sister Rosetta Tharpe as his favorite singer when he was a child. She had invited him to sing a song with her onstage at the Macon City Auditorium in 1945, after hearing him sing before the concert. The crowd applauded and cheered and she paid him more money than he had ever seen after the show.[2] He was also heavily influenced by Marion Williams, from whom he got the trademark "whoooo" in his vocal,[2] Mahalia Jackson,[2] and Brother Joe May.[2] He was heavily influenced in appearance (hair, clothing, shoes, makeup, etc.) and sound by late 1940s gospel-style, jump blues shouter Billy Wright, who was known as the 'Prince of the Blues'.[2] It is reported that he got one of the inflections ("Lucille-uh") in his vocal from Ruth Brown.[citation needed]

One of Penniman's main influences on his piano-playing was Esquerita (Eskew Reeder Jr.), who demonstrated to Penniman how to play high notes without compromising bass. Penniman met Esquerita when he traveled through Macon with a preacher named Sister Rosa. Another influence was Brother Joe May. Penniman explained, "I used to get in a room and try to make my piano sound just like him. He had so much energy." May generated energy by moving from a subtle whisper to a thunderous tenor and back in a four-bar phrase.

He learned to mix ministerial qualities with theatrics by watching the traveling medicine shows that rolled through his native Macon. Colorful medicine men would wear lavish capes, robes and turbans, all of which left an impression on Penniman.

In 1952, Penniman's father was murdered. After this, he returned to Macon and performed blues and boogie-woogie music at the "Tick Tock Club" in the evening, whilst also washing dishes at the cafeteria of a Greyhound Lines bus station during the day.

Recording career

Modeled after recording artist Billy Wright, Little Richard had recorded songs for the Peacock Records label between 1951 and 1954, including "Little Richard's Boogie". These records sold poorly and Penniman had little success until he sent a demo tape to Specialty Records on February 17, 1955. Specialty's owner Art Rupe placed Richard's career in the hands of Robert 'Bumps' Blackwell, who had nurtured and groomed Ray Charles (then known as R.C. Robinson) and Quincy Jones at the start of their careers in the music business.

Blackwell had intended to pit Little Richard against Ray Charles and B.B. King by having him record more blues tracks. He arranged for a recording session in New Orleans in the late summer of 1955, when, during a break, Penniman began singing an impromptu recital of "Tutti Frutti", in his raspy, shouted vocal style, while pounding out a boogie-woogie based rhythm on the piano. Blackwell, who knew a hit when he heard one, was knocked out and had Little Richard record the song. However, in order to make it commercially acceptable, he had Little Richard's lyrics changed from "tutti-frutti, good booty" to "tutti frutti, aw rooty."[4]

The song, with Little Richard shouting its unique introductory "A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-whop-bam-boom!", became the model for many subsequent Little Richard songs, with a driving piano, boogie-woogie bass, funky saxophone arrangements, with sax solos usually from Lee Allen. Over the next few years, Little Richard had many hit singles, such as "Long Tall Sally", "Rip It Up". "The Girl Can't Help It", "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Jenny, Jenny", "Good Golly, Miss Molly", and "Keep A Knockin'". His performing style can be seen in such period films as Don't Knock the Rock (1956) and The Girl Can't Help It (also 1956), for which he sang the title song.

In the commercial fashion of the day, several of his early hits were re-recorded in other styles. Little Richard's first national success, "Tutti Frutti," was covered by Pat Boone, whose version outdid the source record, #12 to #17. Boone also released a version of "Long Tall Sally," with slightly bowdlerized lyrics. But this time, the Little Richard original outperformed it on the Billboard charts, #6 to #8. Bill Haley tackled Little Richard's third major hit, "Rip It Up," but again, Little Richard prevailed. With the record-buying public's preference established, Little Richard's subsequent releases did not face the same chart competition.

Despite the raw sound of his music, the singles were carefully arranged, as documented on the three-volume album The Specialty Sessions, which include many false starts and variations.

Born-again Christianity

Little Richard quit the music business in 1957, while on tour in Australia, claiming he had been warned of his own damnation in a vision.

Since then, he has been in and out of rock and roll as well as in and out of religion. He took the Voice of Prophecy courses run by members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, attended Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, and was ordained a minister in the Church of God of the Ten Commandments.[5] His stance at that time in his life was that rock music was of the Devil and that it is not possible to play rock and roll and to please God at the same time. He began performing Gospel music throughout the United States of America, often with Gospel artists who inspired him, including Mahalia Jackson, whom he met one day in Los Angeles, where he invited her to hear him sing at the Mount Maria Baptist Church.[2] In 1959, he married a Christian girl named Ernestine.

While Specialty Records released a few new songs based on past sessions, Richard recorded only Gospel music in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He performed only Gospel material on the Gospel circuit. During this time, he did not perform his early rock and roll hits, resenting the secular themes of the songs.

In 1962, Little Richard was invited to tour Europe. He took a young Billy Preston with him on the road as part of his band. They intended on performing only Gospel music, but were lured into performing his old, secular hits. That year, an unknown British group called The Beatles were his opening act. In 1963, his opening band was another young band, the Rolling Stones. In 1964, Little Richard then introduced another then-unknown artist, Jimi Hendrix, as part of his band. Hendrix said in 1966, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice."[2]

Richard performed on the rock revival circuit through the remainder of the 1960s and into the 1970s. He also recorded live and studio albums over this period of time. He experienced moderate chart success with new material in mid-1960s and again in the early 1970s.

Back to religion

In 1977, following the death of a nephew that he loved like a son, Little Richard returned to the ministry, this time for the Universal Remnant Church of God.[6] During this time, he traveled and preached to hundreds of thousands of people, and recorded more gospel music. He also represented Memorial Bibles International and sold the Black Heritage Bible for a short while. In his sermons in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Little Richard proclaimed that it is not possible to perform rock and roll music and to serve God at the same time. He said, "I like Pat Boone as a friend, but he's trying to serve two masters. Pat believes he can go to Las Vegas and do his thing, then preach on Sunday. I don't believe we can do that. God has not called us to do that. I can never see myself going back to rock 'n' roll."[2]

In 1984, Charles White released his authorized biography of Penniman, "The Life and Times of Little Richard," in which Little Richard testified about his conversion to Christianity and subsequent deliverance.[2] Mick Jagger proclaimed on the cover, "Little Richard is King." He launched yet another comeback, this time recording an album of inspirational rock and roll music. Ever since he has attempted to reconcile his role as a rock and roll star and his role as a minister. Penniman once said, "I believe that there is good and bad in everything. I believe some rock 'n' roll music is really bad, but I believe there is some not as bad. I believe if the message is positive and elevating, and wholesome and uplifting, this makes you think clearly. If it's not then it is not good even in Gospel."

As detailed in White's biography (2003 revision, pg. 221),[2] Richard's dilemma - whether to be a minister or to sing rock 'n roll - came to a head again while recording the soundtrack to the 1985 hit movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills, so he enrolled his old friend Billy Preston to help him write a song with spiritual lyrics that would sound like rock 'n' roll. The result was a song called "Great God A'Mighty", which he changed to "It's A Matter of Time", reflecting the conflict in his mind.

The song became his first hit in over a decade and became part of a Little Richard "messages in rhythm" album entitled Lifetime Friend released by WEA in 1986. Little Richard called his new music "message music", stating, "my mother died not long ago and it was only a few months before she died that she made me promise that I'd stay with the Lord. I have contentment and peace of mind, which is more important than anything. I am going to stay with God and just travel around."[2]

Recent events

Through the remainder of the 1980s, 1990s and into the twenty-first century, Little Richard has remained a popular guest on television, in music videos, commercials, movies and as a recording artist. He has contributed new recordings to movie soundtracks (ex. Twins, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Why Do Fools Fall in Love), sang background vocals on the U2 / BB King hit song "When Love Comes to Town, and preaches, as well, at times amid funky saxophone playing, in the extended "Live From The Kingdom Mix' of the track". Penniman appeared on Living Colour's "Elvis Is Dead", and also recorded new tracks for tribute albums, such as Folkways: A Vision Shared ("The Rock Island Line") (1989) and Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to Johnny Cash ("Get Rhythm") (2002). He also recorded duets in the 1990s with Jon Bon Jovi,Hank Williams Jr., Living Color, Elton John, Tanya Tucker, Solomon Burke, and in 2006 with Jerry Lee Lewis, in which they covered the Little Richard-influenced, early 1960s, hit Beatles track "I Saw Her Standing There." He also recently headlined the University of Texas event "40 Acres Fest". [7].

In 2006 he was a host on Celebrity Duets. In 2006/2007 he was featured in a Geico advertisement, wherin he uses his signature "whoop" to denote the joy he would receive while consuming "mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce" at a Thanksgiving dinner. In 2007 his song "All Around The World" was featured on a Cravendale Advertisement for an animation by PicPic which features a cow, a pirate, and a biker. In 2007, he also performed at the Capitol Fourth - a July 4th celebration (televised live on PBS) in front of the White House in Washington D.C.

Awards/honors

* In 1956, Cashbox awarded Little Richard the Cashbox Triple Crown Award for "Long Tall Sally".
* In 1986, Little Richard was one of the first group of recording artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[8]
* In 1990, Little Richard was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[9]
* In 1993, he then received a Honorary Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.[10]
* In 1994, Little Richard was the fourth recording artist (the others being Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown) to be recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.[11]
* In 1997, he received the American Music Award of Merit.
* In 2002, BMI, during the 50th Annual BMI Pop Awards celebration, Little Richard, along with Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, were awarded the first BMI Icon Awards in recognition of their “unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers.”[12] The same year, he was inducted into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Hall of Fame for having "distinguished himself as not only an unparalleled musical genius, but also as a unique and innovative performing artist—fusing pure vocal talent with exhilarating showmanship."[13]
* In 2003, Little Richard was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.[14]
* In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked [15] Little Richard #8 on their list of the 100

Greatest Artists of All Time,[16] although at least six of the seven artists which preceded him on the list were heavily influenced by Little Richard and his music.
* Joe Strummer of The Clash said in The History of Rock n Roll that he was heavily influenced by him and said his records had great sound quality.

Albums

* 1957: Here's Little Richard (Specialty)
* 1958: Volume 2 (Specialty)
* 1959: The Fabulous Little Richard (Specialty)
* 1960: Clap Your Hands
* 1960: Pray Along with Little Richard, Vol. 1
* 1960: Pray Along with Little Richard, Vol. 2
* 1962: King of the Gospel Singers
* 1963: Sings Spirituals
* 1964: Sings the Gospel
* 1964: Little Richard Is Back And There's A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (Vee-Jay)
* 1964: Greatest Hits (Vee-Jay)
* 1965: The Wild and Frantic Little Richard (Modern)
* 1965: The Incredible Little Richard Sings His Greatest Hits Live! (Modern)
* 1967: The Explosive Little Richard (Okeh)
* 1967: Greatest Hits: Recorded Live! (Okeh)
* 1967: Rock N Roll Forever
* 1969: Good Golly Miss Molly
* 1969: Little Richard
* 1969: Right Now
* 1970: Rock Hard Rock Heavy
* 1970: Little Richard
* 1970: Well Alright!
* 1970: The Rill Thing (Reprise)
* 1971: Mr. Big
* 1971: King Of Rock And Roll (Reprise)
* 1972: Southern Child (Reprise, unreleased)
* 1972: The Second Coming (Reprise)
* 1972: The Original
* 1972: You Cant Keep a Good Man Down
* 1973: Rip It Up
* 1974: Talkin' 'Bout Soul
* 1974: Recorded Live
* 1974: Super Hits (Trip)
* 1975: Keep a Knockin'
* 1976: Sings
* 1976: Little Richard Live
* 1977: Now
* 1983: 20 Greatest Hits (Lotus)
* 1988: Lucille
* 1992: Shake It All About
* 1996: Shag on Down by the Union Hall
* 2006: Here Comes Little Richard/Little Richard

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Amanda Beard

2007-07-12T04:06:00.000-07:00

Amanda Ray Beard(born October 29, 1981, Irvine, California) is an American Olympic swimmer and model.

Beard made her first Olympic appearance at the 1996 games at the age of 14. She won silver medals in the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststrokes, and a gold in the medley relay. Her young-teen manner captured the attention of the media, and she was often photographed clutching her teddy bear which joined her on the medal stand. She won a bronze medal in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2000 Games. Amanda attended the University of Arizona where she captured an individual NCAA National Championship in 2001.

In 2003 she became the world champion and world record holder in the 200m breaststroke. She also made a good showing at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, and she competed in the 2004 Olympic Games, where she won a gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke, her first individual gold medal. She also won a silver medal in the 200-meter individual medley, and she finished fourth in the 100-meter breaststroke.

Amanda has won eight United States titles (thrice in both the 200m breaststroke and the 100m breaststroke, plus twice in the 200m individual medley). She was 1st in world ranking of 200m breaststroke in 2003.

Her modeling work through photos in swimwear, including bikinis, have been in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. She is a spokesperson for Defenders of Wildlife, and she enjoys interior decorating. Both of her sisters, Leah and Taryn, are swimmers. Amanda placed eighth in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Celebrity car race in 2006.

Beard dated South African swimmer Ryk Neethling for nearly six years, but that relationship ended in the spring of 2005. She is well-known among stockcar racing circles, after dating several of the drivers. Her relationship with Nextel Cup Series driver Carl Edwards ended in April of 2006.

Beard was featured on the cover of the September 2004 issue of FHM magazine that was titled the "Sexy Olympic special". Alongside Beard were pro volleyball player Logan Tom, pro track stars Amy Acuff and Jenny Adams, and fellow pro swimmer Haley Cope. Amanda was featured on the cover and an inside pictorial for the August 2006 issue of FHM, which also named her the world's sexiest athlete on the cover.[1]

Amanda posed for the July 2007 issue of Playboy. She was featured on the cover and in a nude pictorial.

Google 快讯 - game

2007-07-10T05:28:00.001-07:00

Google 网络快讯：game

TRANSFORMERS: THE GAME
Transformers The Game, for Playstation 3, PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox 360, Wii, and Nintendo DS, is the official game of the upcoming blockbuster film from Producer Steven Spielberg and Director michael Bay where you protect the earth as ...

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SUN YUE

2007-06-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

SUN YUE

Position Point guard

League NBA

Height 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m)

Weight 205

Team Los Angeles Lakers

Nationality China

Born November 6, 1985
Cangzhou, Hebei, China

Draft 2^nd round, 40^th overall, 2007
Los Angeles Lakers

Pro career 2007–present

Former teams Beijing Aoshen

SUN YUE Strengths
Yue is a very unique player in this draft, being a very long 6-9 international who shows legitimate point guard skills. Watching him move with the ball in his hands, its hard not to be impressed by the talent he shows. Strongly favoring his left hand, Yue is a remarkable dribbler with his good hand, while improvable with his bad one.

Already an excellent passer, he takes advantage of his size to see the entire floor thanks to his impressive court vision. Displaying solid athleticism, he slashes well to the hoop with a good first step, primarily looking to dish the ball or sometimes finish with an elegant finger roll. He plays under control and appears to have an excellent feel for the game, being highly unselfish, almost to a fault at times. The game looks very easy for him, particularly playing in the minor leagues. Defensively, he is capable of getting in the passing lanes, pulling down rebounds and even blocking some shots on occasion, being a true stat-stuffer for his team.

SUN YUE Weaknesses
Yue looks far from becoming an adequate shooter. He doesn’t show any reliability, delivering awful jumpers from time to time, and his mechanics don’t look particularly consistent, and he has a fairly slow release. He needs to develop more of an in-between game, particularly a pull-up jumper. He has a tendency to go left almost exclusively when driving to the basket.

The biggest problem for Yue is his position on the court. He’s probably not quick enough for a point guard and he doesn’t have the shooting touch that you look for in a wing. He picks up his dribble at times and suffers from intense pressure he occasionaly sees from smaller and quicker guards. He also needs to add some bulk to his skinny frame. Defensively, there are concerns about him whether he’s playing the point or small forward. He has a tendency to be a little too passive at times, passing up scoring opportunities and not being quite as dominant offensively in a league where he is always the most talented player on the floor.

SUN YUE Competition
Yue plays for a Chinese team that migrated to the American ABA, a semi-pro minor league that is now a shadow of what it used to be 20-30 years ago. He puts up excellent numbers in this competition. He has some experience internationally with the Chinese national team, but has been inconsistent playing with them.

SUN YUE Outlook
Even without the flaws he shows, Yue played in the American ABA and therefore has not been scouted extensively against top-level competition, which makes him difficult to evaluate as an NBA prospect. He would probably be best served pulling his name out of the draft, improving on his highly correctable weaknesses, and playing in a setting next year that would allow him better competition both as a challenge as well as a comparison for NBA types to use.

golden state warriors (our hero)

2007-06-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

Season	W	L	%	Playoffs	Results
Philadelphia Warriors (BAA)
Philadelphia Warriors 1946-47	35	25	.583	Won First Round Won Conference Finals Won BAA Finals	Philadelphia 2, St. Louis 1 Philadelphia 2, New York 0 Philadelphia 4, Chicago 1
Philadelphia Warriors 1947-48	27	21	.563	Won BAA Semifinals Lost BAA Finals	Philadelphia 4, St. Louis 3 Baltimore 4, Philadelphia 2
Philadelphia Warriors 1948-49	28	32	.355	Lost Conference Semifinals	Washington 2, Philadelphia 0
Philadelphia Warriors (NBA)
Philadelphia Warriors 1949-50	26	42	.382	Lost Conference Semifinals	Syracuse 2, Philadelphia 0
Philadelphia Warriors 1950-51	40	26	.606	Lost Conference Semifinals	Syracuse 2, Philadelphia 0
Philadelphia Warriors 1951-52	33	33	.500	Lost Conference Semifinals	Syracuse 2, Philadelphia 1
Philadelphia Warriors 1952-53	12	57	.174
Philadelphia Warriors 1953-54	29	43	.403
Philadelphia Warriors 1954-55	33	39	.458
Philadelphia Warriors 1955-56	45	27	.625	Won Conference Finals Won NBA Finals	Philadelphia 3, Syracuse 2 Philadelphia 4, Fort Wayne 1
Philadelphia Warriors 1956-57	37	35	.514	Lost Conference Semifinals	Syracuse 2, Philadelphia 0
Philadelphia Warriors 1957-58	37	35	.514	Won Conference Semifinals Lost Conference Finals	Philadelphia 2, Syracuse 1 Boston 4, Philadelphia 1
Philadelphia Warriors 1958-59	32	40	.444
Philadelphia Warriors 1959-60	49	26	.653	Won Conference Semifinals Lost Conference Finals	Philadelphia 2, Syracuse 1 Boston 4, Philadelphia 2
Philadelphia Warriors 1960-61	46	33	.582	Lost Conference Semifinals	Syracuse 3, Philadelphia 0
Philadelphia Warriors 1961-62	49	31	.613	Won Conference Semifinals Lost Conference Finals	Philadelphia 3, Syracuse 2 Boston 4, Philadelphia 3
San Francisco Warriors
Philadelphia Warriors 1962-63	31	49	.388
Philadelphia Warriors 1963-64	48	32	.600	Won Conference Finals Lost NBA Finals	San Francisco 4, St. Louis 3 Boston 4, San Francisco 1
Philadelphia Warriors 1964-65	17	63	.213
Philadelphia Warriors 1965-66	35	45	.438
Philadelphia Warriors 1966-67	44	37	.543	Won Conference Semifinals Won Conference Finals Lost NBA Finals	San Francisco 3, Los Angeles Lakers 0 San Francisco 4, St. Louis 2 Philadelphia 4, San Francisco 2
Philadelphia Warriors 1967-68	43	39	.524	Won Conference Semifinals Lost Conference Finals	San Francisco 2, St. Louis 2 Los Angeles Lakers 4, San Francisco 0
Philadelphia Warriors 1968-69	41	41	.500	Lost Conference Semifinals	Los Angeles Lakers 4, San Francisco 2
Philadelphia Warriors 1969-70	30	52	.366
Philadelphia Warriors 1970-71	41	41	.500	Lost Conference Semifinals	Milwaukee 4, San Francisco 1
Golden State Warriors
Philadelphia Warriors 1971-72	51	34	.622	Lost Conference Semifinals	Milwaukee 4, Golden State 1
1972-73	47	35	.573	Won Conference Semifinals Lost Conference Finals	Golden State 4, Milwaukee 2 Los Angeles Lakers 4, Golden State 1
1973-74	44	38	.537
1974-75	48	34	.585	Won Conference Semifinals Won Conference Finals Won NBA Finals	Golden State 4, Seattle 2 Golden State 4, Chicago 3 Golden State 4, Washington 0
1975-76	59	23	.720	Won Conference Semifinals Lost Conference Finals	Golden State 4, Detroit 2 Phoenix 4, Golden State 3
1976-77	46	36	.561	Won First Round Lost Conference Semifinals	Golden State 2, Detroit 1 Los Angeles Lakers 4, Golden State 3
1977-78	43	39	.524
1978-79	38	44	.463
1979-80	24	58	.293
1980-81	39	43	.476
1981-82	45	37	.549
1982-83	30	52	.366
1983-84	37	45	.451
1984-85	22	60	.268
1985-86	30	52	.366
1986-87	42	40	.512	Won First Round Lost Conference Semifinals	Golden State 3, Utah 2 Los Angeles Lakers 4, Golden State 1
1987-88	20	62	.244
1988-89	43	39	.524	Won First Round Lost Conference Semifinals	Golden State 3, Utah 0 Phoenix 4, Golden State 1
1989-90	37	45	.451
1990-91	44	38	.537	Won First Round Lost Conference Semifinals	Golden State 3, San Antonio 1 Los Angeles Lakers 4, Golden State 1
1991-92	55	27	.671	Lost First Round	Seattle 3, Golden State 1
1992-93	34	48	.415
1993-94	50	32	.610	Lost First Round	Phoenix 3, Golden State 0
1994-95	26	56	.317
1995-96	36	46	.439
1996-97	30	52	.366
1997-98	19	63	.232
1998-99	21	29	.420
1999-2000	19	63	.232
2000-01	17	65	.207
2001-02	21	61	.256
2002-03	38	44	.463
2003-04	37	45	.451
2004-05	34	48	.415
2005-06	34	48	.415
2006-07	42	40	.512	Won First Round Lost Conference Semifinals	Golden State 4, Dallas 2 Utah 4, Golden State 1
2007-08	0	0	.000
Totals	2190	2565	.461
Playoffs	102	121	.457		Philadelphia Warriors

golden state warriors (our hero)

Mika Brzezinski

2007-06-28T04:18:00.000-07:00

Mika Brzezinski (born May 2, 1967) is co-host of MSNBC's morning program Morning Joe airing weekdays from 6-9am ET. In addition to providing regular commentary she also reads the news headlines for the program. Brzezinski recently began to contribute reports to NBC Nightly News and serve as alternating news anchor on Weekend Today. Previously she was a CBS News Anchor & Correspondent. Her full name is Mika Emilie Leonia Brzezinski.

On October 23, 1993, she was married to TV news reporter James Hoffer, now of WABC TV in New York. The wedding took place in Block Island, Rhode Island. They have two children.

Mika Brzezinski * Mika Brzezinski * Mika Brzezinski *

Brzezinski began her journalism career as an assistant at ABC's World News This Morning in 1990. A year later, she moved to Tribune-owned FOX-affiliate WTIC-TV in Hartford, Connecticut. There, she progressed from assignment and features editor to general assignments reporter. In 1992, she joined CBS affiliate WFSB-TV and quickly progressed through the ranks to become its primary anchor in 1995. In 1997, she left that role to join CBS News, where she served as a correspondent and Japanese enthusiast and as anchor for the Up to the Minute segment.

In 2000, Brzezinski began a short hiatus from CBS, during which she worked for rival MSNBC on the weekday afternoon show HomePage with co-anchors Gina Gaston and Ashleigh Banfield. She returned to CBS as a correspondent in September 2001, which thrust her into the limelight as a principal "Ground Zero" reporter for the September 11, 2001 attacks. Brzezinski was broadcasting live from the scene when the south tower collapsed.

Her last position at CBS, Brzezinski served as a CBS News correspondent, substitute anchor, and segment anchor for breaking news segments and routine updates.

On January 26th, 2007 Brzezinski was back, freelancing, on MSNBC doing the evening "Up To The Minute" news updates. Since then Brzezinski has anchored primetime newsbreaks during the week, filling in on MSNBC Live weekdays and on the weekends. Currently Brzezinski appears daily as co-host and news reader on the morning program Morning Joe from 6-9am on MSNBC.

On March 20, 2007, Brzezinski anchored "Early Today" on NBC. In the past three months NBC Universal has been expanding her role with NBC News and MSNBC.

On June 27, 2007, Brzezinski refused to air a story about Paris Hilton's release from prison. She attempted to burn the story's script on air but was prevented from lighting it by a co-host. Later in the newscast, she subsequently tore and shredded copies of the story.

Mika Brzezinski * Mika Brzezinski * Mika Brzezinski *

I can't be entirely clear whether this will start a trend, but a guy can dream (can't he?) MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski boycotted all references to Paris Hilton on this morning's edition of "Morning Joe."

Does Mika deserve a raise?

I think so.

No. I know so.

TVnewser, one of the few places that actually monitors "Morning Joe" at 6 a.m. offers this account of Mika's "I'm Mad-as-Hell-Not-Gonna-Take-Paris-Anymore" revolt:

"'Give her the Paris Hilton story,'" Joe Scarborough joked during the 6am news update. 'No, I will not read that,' she said [Mika's the show’s news anchor], before tearing the script into several pieces.

"'It's an awful story. We shouldn't cover it,' Mika said a couple minutes later.

"In the 7am hour, Mika pretended to light the Paris script on fire. 'This is a bad call to even be covering it,' she said...

"When her producer set Paris as the lead story again at 8am, Mika walked over to a paper shredder and destroyed the script..."

We all need heroes. Here's mine.

Google May Shut Germans Out Of GMail

2007-06-23T19:27:00.001-07:00

Google may shut German users out of Gmail in response to new laws passed by the German Government that would force Google to maintain personally identifiable records for every German Gmail account.

Google Blogscoped reports that the effect of the law on Google is not clear but potentially it may force Google to start requiring a verifiable full address from every single German based Gmail user.

Google’s Peter Fleischer said that the law is odds to Google’s policy to offer anonymous email accounts: “Many users around the globe make use of this anonymity to defend themselves from spam, or government repression of free speech … If the web community won’t trust us with handling their data with great care, we’ll go down in no time”.

There’s got to be something ironic about a country in the European Union, the EU being the so-called champions of privacy, imposing laws like this. Perhaps our German readers can enlighten us some more in the comments.

Last.fm Not Joining National Day Of Silence?

2007-06-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

The SaveNetRadio coalition will be holding a National Day of Silence June 26 to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that could lead to the shutdown of most of the US Internet radio industry.

Most large online music and radio providers are participating including Yahoo, Real (Rhapsody), Accuradio, Live365, MTV and Pandora. Conspicuous in its absence is the now CBS owned Last.fm.

To date there appears to be no comment at all from Last.fm, including no response to questions by users on the Last.fm forums.

On the surface it seems strange that CBS/ Last.fm wouldn’t be participating. Last.fm is obliged to pay royalties in the same way that any online music streaming service is obliged to. CBS is an investor in TargetPoint, a company that allows advertisers to customize online radio ads, pinpointing specific demographics and locations that would be affected by any industry down-turn. Is it perhaps a case of CBS deciding to let the competition die? CBS radio stations stream online and unlike many others in the business CBS has deep pockets and a much larger advertiser pool from which to cover costs under the new royalty scheme.

No matter what the reasoning, Last.fm’s failure to participate in the National Day of Silence runs the risk of causing a backlash. Many early adopters who are also Last.fm users will not be pleased to see a company they champion being a poor corporate citizen by failing to support the online music streaming industry.

Apple To Integrate iTunes Into Bebo

2007-06-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

Apple has announced a deal that will see the its popular iTunes service embedded into Bebo.

According to FT.com, Bebo’s 8.8m users in the UK and Ireland will be able to buy music directly from the profile of any musician who has a Bebo profile and whose music is available on iTunes.

The deal is a first for Apple. Bebo is a market leader in social networking in the United Kingdom despite not taking off to the same extent elsewhere.

It may not seem like major news, but to put it in perspective it’s on half hour leading story rotation on BBC World as I write this. It may also be indicative of a new direction for Apple; the wildly popular Facebook F8 is delivering benefits to many music related sites. To date Apple has remained silent in regards to its position on embracing the growing trend of social networking site integration.

PayPerPost Raises $7 million More

2007-06-12T03:50:00.000-07:00

Controversial pay-per-post startup PayPerPost has raised $7 million in a second round of financing, bringing their total raised capital to just over $10 million. Like their previous round from last October the financing was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, with participation from Inflexion Partners and Village Ventures. New investor DFJ Gotham, a fund affiliated with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, also participated.

It is generally a bad sign when a company is not able to bring in a new investor for a financing. The company and existing investors generally like to do so because it brings in fresh connections and ensures that a new third party is involved in valuing the round. When a company does a second round with the same investors, it can be (but isn’t always) a sign that the company is in trouble. In Pay Per Post’s case, the simplest explanation would be that most VCs want to keep their hands clean. Getting involved with PayPerPost could hurt their reputation and exclude them from other deals.

Listen to our podcast interview with founder Ted Murphy and investor Josh Stein here. The company’s profile is here.

Update: An email from Josh Stein at DFJ which points out an inaccuracy above and provides a believable reason for the makeup of the round:

Hi Mike -

Saw your post just now on the PPP Series B. We can obviously agree to disagree on the merits of Payperpost’s model but I thought I should correct you on one factual point: the Series A was not led by DFJ – it was led by Inflexion Partners, who introduced us to the company and brought us into the deal. When I first saw the Series A, $2m of the round had already been spoken for, so at the time I was only able to invest $1m and did not take a board seat due to the small size of the investment.

This is an important point as it leads into the genesis of the Series B. Having worked with the company closely over the past months and having been very impressed with the progress, I made a pre-emptive offer to the company to lead their next round, allowing us to increase our ownership % and enabling me to join the board. Put another way, I liked the company so much that I’d prefer to own more for my fund vs. bringing in an outside investor.

I only bring this up as a personal fyi (feel free to mention on TC or not).

As always, count me as a big TC fan. Keep up the great work.

Josh

Google Partners With Sina.com

2007-06-12T03:47:00.000-07:00

Google has announced a new partnership with Sina Corp as part of its continued efforts in China.

The deal will see Google users gain easier access to Sina’s news content as well as co-operation in advertising and search services.

The link-up between Google and Sina brings the total number of major Google partners in China to 3. As reported May 18, Google partnerships in China include Soso.com and 163.com. With this deal, Google will power or have a close relationship with the 2nd, 5th and 6th most popular search and portal destinations in China, with Google.cn sitting at 7th (Alexa figures).

The strategy of partnering top 10 search engines and portals continues to build a strong underlying presence for Google in a marketplace that will have more broadband users than the United States within the next 12-24 months.

charges Wiretaping for recording a traffic stop

2007-06-12T03:40:00.000-07:00

Paul says: "18 year old arrested on wiretapping charges for a friend's traffic stop."

[Brian D.] Kelly said his friend was cited for speeding and because his truck's bumper was too low. He said he held the camera in plain view and turned it on when the officer yelled at his pal.
After about 20 minutes, the officer cited the driver on the traffic charges and told the men they were being recorded by a camera in his cruiser, Kelly said.
"He said, 'Young man, turn off your ... camera,'" Kelly said. "I turned it off and handed it to him. ... Six or seven more cops pulled up, and they arrested me."

The Sopranos is good for New Jersey

2007-06-11T06:06:00.000-07:00

If you are wondering about how The Sopranos will end, the Associated Press reports that there were 3 alternate endings filmed for Sunday's finale. Knowing the creativity David Chase and his writing team have, I am confident the finale will be really good.

The Associated Press also reports that 3 out of every 5 New Jerseyians have watched The Sopranos, and 56 percent of people nationwide recognize the fact that the show is based in New Jersey. The article also contains other interesting facts derived from the poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind.

Rental Movies Coming To Apple

2007-06-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

Apple may have enough experience with selling movies now that they realize the music market is very different from the movie market. A lot of people want to own music to listen to it over and over again over the years, but far less want to own movies. Watching it once and moving on seems to be good enough for most people.

So Apple’s model of selling movies for $10 and up may leave a considerable chunk of the market on the table. That explains why they are now apparently negotiating with major studios for rights to rent movies via iTunes as well.

The new service may be coming this Fall, and will cost $2.99 for a 30-day rental.

This is also good news for Apple TV users, who will be able to download new movies and watch them on their living room televisions. The day when we can all simply abandon our cable TV subscriptions is coming; I plan to do it at the end of 2007.

By the way, this isn’t the first time rumors about rental movies on iTunes surfaced. See our post from a year ago on the same topic. It isn’t a sure thing until Steve Jobs gets up on a stage and announces it.

Many other services already support movie rentals. See our roundup post from late 2006 for details.

Technorati: When Will The Traffic Party End?

2007-06-11T05:40:00.000-07:00

Recent Comscore stats show Technorati continuing to surge in traffic, more than tripling since a year ago. Founder and CEO Dave Sifry recently mentioned about this staggering growth in a blog post. Technorati’s internal numbers showed massive growth early this year. They had nine million unique visitors in March, up from 3.5 million two months prior. And page views, he said, were up 141% over the previous three months.

There just isn’t any plausible explanation for traffic gains like these. Except that the company has perfected their search engine optimization approach, particularly with regard to Google.

For the last several months, Technorati “tag” results have risen steadily in Google search rankings. Technorati is now linked in the top few results for thousands of high-volume search terms: See MySpace (6th), Facebook (4th), Wikipedia (4th), etc.

The reason these terms are appearing high in Google search results is because Technorati was synonymous with tagging, and most tagging plugins for blogs default their tag links back to Technorati. Each day, tens of thousands of blogs have multiple links back to Technorati; one for each tag they use to describe their post. All of those links create massive search engine relevance and drive Technorati results higher in search results for commonly tagged words.

But there is a big problem looming for Technorati: their tag results pages are essentially search results. And Google doesn’t like to show search results within search results. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, recently wrote a post called “Search Results in Search Results” on his personal blog. He says that Google generally looks to exclude search results from their web search index; and they suggest to other search engines that they include a “disallow” note in their robots.txt file to let Google know that they results shouldn’t be indexed.

Google wants to keep people from clicking more than once to get where they want to go. Having them do a search on Google, and then being directed to Technorati to see a tag search, is counter to that goal.

But Technorati doesn’t disallow tag search within their robots.txt file. Compare Technorati’s file to what Google uses for their own blog search engine.

Technorati will argue that tag search isn’t normal search, and so the results should be indexed. But Google does not index tag results pages for its own YouTube property. Technorati tags are directly analogous to YouTube tags, and there is no reason why Google would keep Technorati in the index, but exclude their own properties.

But what really matters here is what Google thinks, and whether they will take steps sometime soon to remove those results from the Google index. If that were to happen, Technorati’s traffic would plummet. And their lucrative traffic party would come to an end.

Hilton sent back to jail in hysterics

2007-06-09T19:17:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES -
Paris Hilton was sent screaming and crying back to jail Friday after a judge ruled that she must serve out her sentence behind bars rather than in the comfort of her Hollywood Hills home.

"It's not right!" shouted Hilton, who violated her probation in a reckless driving case. "Mom!" she cried out to her mother.

Hours earlier, the 26-year-old hotel heiress was taken handcuffed from her home in a black-and-white police car, paparazzi sprinting in pursuit and helicopters broadcasting live from above. She entered the courtroom disheveled and weeping, hair askew, without makeup, wearing a fuzzy gray sweat shirt over slacks.

She cried throughout the hearing, dabbing her eyes, and her body shook constantly. Several times she turned to her parents, seated behind her in the courtroom, and mouthed, "I love you."

Hilton was taken to a treatment center at the downtown Twin Towers jail for medical and psychiatric examination to determine which facility she will be held in, said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.

"She'll be there for at least a couple of days," he said.

Despite being ordered to serve the remainder of her original 45-day sentence, Hilton could still be released early. Inmates are given a day off their terms for every four days of good behavior, and her days in home detention counted as time served.

Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer was calm but apparently irked by Sheriff Lee Baca's decision to release Hilton three days into her sentence due to an unspecified "medical condition."

"I at no time condoned the actions of the sheriff and at no time told him I approved the actions," Sauer said. "At no time did I approve the defendant being released from custody to her home."

The hearing was requested by the city attorney's office, which had prosecuted Hilton and wanted Baca held in contempt for releasing Hilton despite Sauer's express order that she must serve her time in jail. The judge took no action on the contempt request.

A member of the county counsel's staff said Baca was willing to come to court with medical personnel. The judge did not take him up on the offer.

Assistant City Attorney Dan F. Jeffries argued that Hilton's incarceration was purely up to the judge. "Her release after only three days erodes confidence in the judicial system," he said.

Hilton's attorney, Richard Hutton, implored the judge to order a hearing in his chambers to hear testimony about Hilton's medical condition before making a decision. The judge did not respond to that suggestion.

Another of her attorneys, Steve Levine, said, "The sheriff has determined that because of her medical situation, (jail) is a dangerous place for her."

"The court's role here is to let the Sheriff's Department run the jail," he said.

The judge interrupted several times to say that he had received a call last Wednesday from an undersheriff informing him that Hilton had a medical condition and that he would submit papers to the judge to consider. He said the papers never arrived.

Every few minutes, the judge would interrupt proceedings, state the time on the clock, and note that the papers still had not arrived.

He also noted that he had heard that a private psychiatrist visited Hilton in jail, and he wondered if that person played a role in deciding her medical needs.

The last attorney to speak was another deputy city attorney, David Bozanich, who declared, "This is a simple case. There was a court. The Sheriff's Department chose to violate that order. There is no ambiguity."

Hilton's twisted jailhouse saga began Sept. 7, when she failed a sobriety test after police saw her weaving down a street in her Mercedes-Benz on what she said was a late-night hamburger run.

She pleaded no contest to reckless driving and was sentenced to 36 months' probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines. In the months that followed she was stopped twice while driving on a suspended license. The second stop landed her in Sauer's courtroom.

Back before Sauer on Friday, Hilton's entire body trembled as the final pitch was made for her further incarceration. She clutched a ball of tissue and tears ran down her face.

Seconds later, the judge announced his decision: "The defendant is remanded to county jail to serve the remainder of her 45-day sentence. This order is forthwith."

Hilton screamed.

Eight deputies immediately ordered all spectators out of the courtroom. Hilton's mother, Kathy, threw her arms around her husband, Rick, and sobbed uncontrollably.

Deputies escorted Hilton out of the room, holding each of her arms as she looked back.

___

Associated Press Writer John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to the report.

Hilton Ordered Back to Jail!

2007-06-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

Paris Hilton was just ordered back to jail in Lynwood to serve out the remainder of her sentence! She'll get credit for at least 5 days already served.

Hilton left the courtroom in tears, screaming, "Mom, Mom, Mom." Hilton was also heard saying "It's not right."

One witness said that Paris was "physically escorted" out of the courtroom by a female deputy.

Hilton's mother was later seen pacing the hallways, telling reporters, "I'm paralyzed right now." Paris' father Rick is still in the courtroom.

A Sheriff inside the courtroom tells TMZ that officers are taking Hilton straight from the courtroom to Lynwood. No timetable has been set on her departure.

Secrets of contrails

2007-06-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

Air & Space Magazine tells the story of condensation trails, or contrails, the white streams of ice crystals generated by airplanes flying at high altitudes। From the article:

They are created by airplanes flying at high altitudes, where the air is below –38 degrees Fahrenheit। Exhaust from airplane engines contains water vapor as well as other gases and particles of soot and metal. When the exhaust is expelled into and mixes with the cold air, the water vapor condenses into droplets, which instantly freeze into tiny ice crystals...

It’s not only jets that make contrails; piston aircraft do too. So do rockets. So, apparently, do birds. “I have heard of wild geese leaving vapor trails high over the Canadian Rockies,” Guy Murchie wrote in his book Song of the Sky. A goose exhaling warm, moist air into –38-degree air could produce a contrail, Minnis allows, although “it would certainly be a small one..."

There are those who consider contrails to be downright sinister: noxious chemicals sprayed from aircraft to sicken populations and alter weather patterns, according to conspiracy theorists. The claims seem to rest on the notion that thin, short-lived contrails may consist of ice crystals, but the thicker, long-lived ones are not. In reality, the expanded lines are merely contrails that have evolved.

Secrets of contrails

2007-06-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

Air & Space Magazine tells the story of condensation trails, or contrails, the white streams of ice crystals generated by airplanes flying at high altitudes। From the article:

They are created by airplanes flying at high altitudes, where the air is below –38 degrees Fahrenheit. Exhaust from airplane engines contains water vapor as well as other gases and particles of soot and metal. When the exhaust is expelled into and mixes with the cold air, the water vapor condenses into droplets, which instantly freeze into tiny ice crystals...

It’s not only jets that make contrails; piston aircraft do too. So do rockets. So, apparently, do birds. “I have heard of wild geese leaving vapor trails high over the Canadian Rockies,” Guy Murchie wrote in his book Song of the Sky. A goose exhaling warm, moist air into –38-degree air could produce a contrail, Minnis allows, although “it would certainly be a small one..."

There are those who consider contrails to be downright sinister: noxious chemicals sprayed from aircraft to sicken populations and alter weather patterns, according to conspiracy theorists. The claims seem to rest on the notion that thin, short-lived contrails may consist of ice crystals, but the thicker, long-lived ones are not. In reality, the expanded lines are merely contrails that have evolved.

UK physics teacher says British physics suck

2007-06-09T18:33:00.000-07:00

Wellington Grey -- a British physics teacher whose wonderful comic flowcharts are often featured here on Boing Boing -- is fed up with the quality of physics education in the UK. He's written a scathing open letter to the Board of Education detailing his view of the crisis in British physics.

On topics that are covered by the specification, the exam board has answers that indicate a lack of knowledge on the writer’s part. One questions asks `why would radio stations broadcast digital signals rather than analogue signals?’ An acceptable answer is:
* Can be processed by computer / ipod [sic]
Aside from the stupidity of the answer, (iPods, at the time of this writing, don’t have radio turners and computers can process analogue signals) writing the mark scheme in this way is thoughtless, as teachers can only give marks that exactly match its language. So does the pupil get the mark if they mention any other mp3 player? Technically, no. Wikipedia currently lists 63 different players. Is it safe to assume that the examiner will be familiar with all of them? Doubtful.

MIT students demonstrate wireless power transfer

2007-06-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

In an experiment, a team from MIT were able to power a 60W light bulb from two meters away. Calling their demonstration 'WiTricity,' the researchers believe that a system is possible that could send electricity to your battery powered devices within a room sized space.

It's a Tesla-dream come true.

WiTricity is based on using coupled resonant objects. Two resonant objects of the same resonant frequency tend to exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with extraneous off-resonant objects. A child on a swing is a good example of this. A swing is a type of mechanical resonance, so only when the child pumps her legs at the natural frequency of the swing is she able to impart substantial energy. Another example involves acoustic resonances: Imagine a room with 100 identical wine glasses, each filled with wine up to a different level, so they all have different resonant frequencies. If an opera singer sings a sufficiently loud single note inside the room, a glass of the corresponding frequency might accumulate sufficient energy to even explode, while not influencing the other glasses. In any system of coupled resonators there often exists a so-called “strongly coupled” regime of operation. If one ensures to operate in that regime in a given system, the energy transfer can be very efficient.

At-Home Fertility Screening Available For Men

2007-06-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

By RONI CARYN RABIN, The New York Times

Many men, faced with the prospect of going to the doctor for a evaluation, will tell you: they would rather just stay home।

Now they can।

new at-home screening test, called Fertell, lets couples find out if they have problems without stepping into a doctor's office. The test has his and hers components -- a screening test for men that is the first at-home device to measure the concentration of motile sperm, and a test for women that measures a hormone considered a marker of egg quality.

The availability of the two-in-one test helps drive home the message that both men and women can contribute to infertility, experts say.

"It takes two to have a baby, as silly as that sounds," said Dr. Harry Fisch, director of the Male Reproductive Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, who does not have a financial relationship with the maker of the test, Genosis Inc.

The test results could give couples early warning that they should see a doctor, Dr। Fisch said. "Couples often don't appreciate this," he said. "So many times the woman goes through all these tests, and the guy doesn't even have a semen analysis."

The test for the male requires a semen sample; it assesses the ability of sperm to swim through a solution similar to cervical mucus, as well as the number able to do so, said Dr. Keith B. Isaacson, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School who is on the board of medical advisers at Genosis. Results are available in 80 minutes.

The female test is a urine stick, much like a home pregnancy test, that measures the level of follicle stimulating hormone on the third day of the menstrual cycle. An abnormally high level is an indicator that the ovarian reserve, indicating egg quality, is low. The result is available in 30 minutes.

The tests are not definitive and do not substitute for a thorough professional evaluation. They screen for main problems, experts say, but will not pick up all -related difficulties.

About one million American women seek medical help for -related troubles each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The problem lies with the woman 40 percent of the time, with the man 40 percent of the time, and with both 20 percent of the time, experts say.

"Most people are surprised to hear that almost 50 percent of the time, it's a male factor," Dr. Isaacson said.

But, he added, women are still more likely to initiate treatment. "My guess is the female partner is the one who's going to buy this and encourage the guy to use it."

Fertell, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, recently went on sale. No prescription is necessary, and it is expected to cost around $100.

Yourminis Delivering Triple Widget Play

2007-06-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

Personalized desktops are a crowded space. Startups compete for attention against the big three of myYahoo, iGoogle and Live. TechCrunch last covered Yourminis in November 2006 with Michael describing it as a solid product, however it’s not a name many would recall in the space.

Since then Yourminis, a service from Goowy media has taken a different approach to most of its competitors. Today, with the assistance of Adobe’s Apollo platform and some clever thinking Yourminis delivers a triple play of widgets: online personalized desktop widgets, actual desktop widgets and blogs widgets.

The emphasis on widgets delivers a different experience for Yourmini’s personalized desktop. Where as you might be stuck with a 2 or 3 column layout at iGoogle, Yourmini’s layout is as fluid as you want it to be; users can drag, drop and resize widgets on the desktop to their hearts content. It’s also pretty; users have the ability to fully customize colors or upload wallpaper delivering a superior aesthetic appearance.
Yourmini’s newly supported ability to place widgets on the actual computer desktop using Apollo is a nifty step. The extensive range of widgets may not defeat a Mac user’s library, but it would go close to having a superior range to Google Desktop or Windows Vista Sidebar, and as they are the same widgets as used on the online desktop they’re good looking as well.

The ability to export widgets to any blog or website rounds out the widget triple play. There are other sites and services that offer this functionality and the ability to embed widgets is either embraced or disliked depending on the person you’re speaking to. Then again, it’s not a separate widget offering but the same widgets as are available on the personalized desktop with the same level of customization; this has definitely a positive.

One of the most compelling things about the widgets on Yourminis is the depth of customization. Depending on the particular widget, options can include text size, what to include with a feed (headlines/ X text etc..), colors, image background and feed settings. It’s a focus that really helps Yourminis stand out from its competitors. Yourminis have been nominated in the Webware 100 awards and rightly so. It’s a really good offering with a little something for just about everyone.

Aniston's Touchy-Feely Mystery Man Identified

2007-06-08T04:43:00.001-07:00

Details on Jen's new beau; plus, why Jessica & John, Kate & Owen called it quits, couples news with Ashlee & Pete, the latest on Brangelina and more ...

June 7, 2007

If Jennifer Aniston were looking to steal some thunder from the media storm rumbling around Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who are currently stumping for "Ocean's Thirteen" and "A Mighty Heart," respectively, a People cover story about a hot new romance with a big ol' slice of beefcake would certainly be a good way to do it.

In its latest issue, the magazine identifies the easy-on-the-eyes mystery man who was spied "gently" rubbing Jen's back and holding her hand during a romantic three-hour candlelit dinner at a Santa Monica, Calif., eatery over Memorial Day weekend.

Turns out the affectionate guy is little-known (until now) British model Paul Sculfor, 36, whom the actress-turned-smartwater pitchwoman, 38, met a couple months back while dining with BFF Courteney Cox at Il Sole, their favorite Los Angeles restaurant.

A mutual pal reportedly introduced Jen to the chiseled, 6-foot-tall model, who left school at 16 and dabbled in boxing and bricklaying before fronting campaigns -- often sans shirt and pants -- for the likes of Christian Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier and Levi's Jeans.

Sparks, as they say, flew.

Aniston and Sculfor have been dating for only a few weeks, says People, but they've already discovered some common ground, including -- hold onto your hats! -- a love of Mexican food.

Another mutual interest is acting, with Sculfor, who is now living in Los Angeles, hoping to break into the business, an ambition that will likely get a bit of a boost now that his pretty mug is splashed on the front of a national magazine.

Aniston's rep, however, is quick to downplay the seriousness of the romance, telling "Extra," "It's premature to call this a relationship. They've only been on a couple of dates."

A pal also pooh-poohs the hot-and-heavy rumblings to Us Weekly, explaining that Jennifer "is dating a bunch of guys" and isn't looking to go steady.

"She has met a few really great, nice guys," says the insider. "She is just seeing what's out there."

At least Sculfor, who, if you squint really hard, bears a passing resemblance to Aniston's ex-hubby, should stack up well against the competition.

The model, who previously dated British TV host Lisa Snowden, a onetime flame of George Clooney's, is a charmer, according to another ex, London socialite Lady Victoria Hervey.

"He's a lovely guy," she tells People. "A gentleman. Simple things, like opening doors, he does all that. He'll think of the woman before himself."

While holding open a door seems like the least a gentleman can do, we'll take her word that Sculfor is a well-mannered catch, despite declaring to the London Mirror in 1997, "I've never had any problems with girls. I've turned heads."

Aniston, for her part, has been keeping a low dating profile since splitting with Vince Vaughn late last year and has denied rumors linking her to a handful of eligible bachelors, including Orlando Bloom and Keanu Reeves (she's remained mum on recent reports of a "friends with benefits" arrangement with her baggy-eyed, barrel-chested former beau).

Speaking of Vaughn, the New York Daily News says he was a veritable babe magnet while making the scene last week at Los Angeles hot spot Teddy's.

In the wee small hours, after extensively sampling the club's refreshments, Vaughn made a pit stop in the men's room, where, says the paper, he "slapped the back of every guy in the bathroom and said, 'See what happens when you come out alone? You get the ladies!'"

And how. He reportedly left with "a pretty brunette."

Don't Retire Poor -- Avoid These 10 Pitfalls

2007-06-07T05:47:00.000-07:00

ByJeffrey Strain, Special to TheStreet.com

There are a number of factors that can contribute to not having enough money when you , but the most serious are not starting to save early enough and funding other things before retirement.

Here are 10 mistakes many people make to shortchange their retirement:

1. Setting money aside for college ahead of retirement: Many people decide that placing money into their children's college funds is more important than placing it into their own retirement fund. This is rarely a good idea. While it is possible to get loans for college, the same can't be said about retirement. Make sure that you contribute to your retirement fund first, and then work on providing some help for your children's college education.

2. Believing it's OK to wait: The magic of compounding interest is an important factor in growing your retirement fund. Even when you save small amounts in your early work history, the returns earned on that money will build on the base and, over time, will likely help you come out much further ahead than if you wait until later in life to begin your retirement savings. You should begin contributing to your retirement fund as soon as you begin your first job out of college (if not sooner). This will make the question of whether you're contributing enough to your retirement fund a non-issue in later years.

3. Not taking advantage of 401(k) matches: If your company provides matching funds for your 401(k) contributions, then not contributing -- or undercontributing -- is the same as throwing away free money. You should be taking full advantage of these matches from Day 1. Even when money is tight in your first years in the workforce, contributing up to the amount matched by your company in your 401(k) plan should be a top priority in your budget.

4. Accumulating credit card debt: Credit card debt means that you are paying interest to the credit card companies instead of growing a retirement fund. It's one of the worst things that you can do. When you end up paying credit card debt rather than placing the same amount of money into your 401(k) or IRA, your retirement fund will look a lot less healthy in the long run.

5. Counting on an inheritance: Counting on an inheritance or some other type of cash windfall for your retirement is playing with fire. While your parents may have a good retirement fund for themselves, there are so many things that can happen to quickly drain that fund. This is especially true if they get sick and have a lot of medical bills or if they need to go into long-term care. You should always remember that their money is theirs and not yours, and they are free to spend it any way that they like. If you do receive an inheritance, it should be looked at as an added bonus. But you should not count on it for your retirement fund.

6. Buying more house than you can afford: Purchasing a bigger house than you can afford can do huge damage to your retirement fund. This is because you're placing all your money into your mortgage instead of investing a portion of it for retirement. While a house does have some tax advantages on the mortgage loan, they are not nearly as good as the tax advantages of a 401(k) plan or an IRA. It's also much more difficult to get your retirement money out of the house than from a retirement fund. While housing as an investment is something you might want to consider to create more wealth, your own house should not be viewed as a retirement investment, and you should make sure that you can pay your mortgage and contribute to your retirement fund at the same time.

7. Neglecting insurance: Insurance exists for a reason: to protect you against an unlikely but high-cost event such as a fire, an unexpected serious illness, a natural disaster or a major auto accident. People who forgo insurance in an attempt to save money run the risk of putting their entire retirement savings in jeopardy if an unfortunate event takes place in their lives. You want to make sure that you are adequately insured to prevent this from happening.

8. Failing to take advantage of IRAs: You should be taking advantage of IRAs from the day that you are able to. If you fail to do so, it can be a huge blow to your retirement savings, since there is a limited amount that can be invested each year. IRAs are set up specifically so that you can maximize the amount that you have when you , and if you forgo them in your early years, you will do great damage to the amount available in your retirement fund when you get older.

9. Investing too conservatively: Investing too conservatively in your retirement fund means that you will not grow it adequately to meet your needs when you . You need to take into account that over time, inflation will take part of the purchasing power away from your retirement fund. As you get closer to retirement, you can make your investments more conservative, but in the early years you want to make sure that you are not investing too conservatively to yield the gains you need for retirement.

10. Investing too aggressively: While you don't want to invest too conservatively, you also don't want to be investing in things that promise huge returns but are extremely risky. You should determine a set amount of money each month to put into something like a stock index fund for your retirement. If you can spare more money after you have contributed to the retirement fund, it is acceptable to invest in something a bit more risky. However, you don't want to be risking the main portion of your retirement money in risky investments that could very well leave you with no money in the end.

By keeping these retirement fund pitfalls in mind, you can help ensure that you have plenty in your retirement fund when the time comes.

Microsoft Kitchen

2007-06-07T02:25:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Kitchen

Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet has the scoop on ’s next best thing since sliced bread: .

According to Foley, will extend Windows to the with a tailored product that will include family calendar, recipe center, entertainment features and a shared bulletin board.

No, it’s not April 1 and as far as Foley is concerned this is actually being developed. Given ’s move into Surface Computing it’s not improbable that the may follow the coffee table as ’s next target.

There is some history of based internet appliances. The LG Internet fridge was launched several years ago and although wildly derided at the time, others saw it as a sign of things to come. The cost of computers in general is far more affordable today; a focused Tablet PC or similar device running Vista Edition may sound indulgent, but the economics make the path to success far easier than it was for the LG Internet Fridge.

Where do you want to go today with ? Will it mix drinks? Share your thoughts in the comments. More at CrunchGear.

Update: has just announced a new patent licensing agreement with LG. Could it be a case of Life’s Good with in the future?

Melinda Doolittle

2007-06-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Melinda Doolittle

FAST FACTS

Age: 29

Hometown: Brentwood, TN

Audition City: Memphis

Voted off: May. 16th

Favorite male pop artists?

Stevie Wonder, Jonny Lang, Donny Hathaway

Favorite female pop artists?

Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight

When did you first start to sing?

7th Grade

Do you have any formal singing training?

Yes – college (Music Major) and vocal lessons ever since

What other talents do you have?

Um… I love to make people laugh.

If you don’t make it on AMERICAN IDOL, what will you do?

Keep traveling and singing

What are your personal goals in life?

To represent Christ well and do everything 150%

What album would your friends be surprised you own?

Tchaikovsky

Who is your AMERICAN IDOL?

My mommy!

Do you have any rituals or things you do each time before you perform?

Pray and warm up

Most embarrassing moments?

Crying EVERY time I advance another round

What has been your proudest moment in life so far?

Actually auditioning for AI

If you couldn’t sing, which talent would you most like to have?

Dancing or gymnastics

What is your definition of an AMERICAN IDOL?

Someone who, when given the platform, represents who they truly are and can convey it in a way that makes the audience want to know more

Who is your favorite judge and why?

Simon! He’s so real with ya – Even when I don’t like it, I love it!

What would people be surprised to learn about you?

[blank]

How has this changed your life?

I’m singing lead now. Who knew?!

Do you have any lucky charms?

My Bible.

Who are your heroes in life?

My mom, dad, my vocal coach (Janet Kenyon)

What’s been your toughest obstacle in life?

Fear

Do you think the audition process was fair?

I think it has, although I have seen some great people go home.

If you win, who will you thank first?

Jesus and my mommy.

Poll: A fifth vacation with laptops

2007-06-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON - Sun block. Beach umbrella. Laptop. One in five people toted laptop computers on their most recent vacations, an AP-Ipsos poll released Friday said. Along with the 80 percent who said they brought along their cell phones, the survey shows going on vacation no longer means being out of the electronic loop.

Sizable numbers are interrupting their unwinding time to check in at the office and, even more so, to keep up with the social buzz.

About one in five said they did some work while vacationing, and about the same number checked office messages or called in to see how things were going, the poll showed. Twice as many checked their e-mail, while 50 percent kept up with other personal messages like voice mail.

The credit ― or culprit, depending on one's view ― is in part today's array of devices that can easily keep people digitally tethered to workplaces, friends and family. The electronic gear was most commonly brought along by younger people ― one in four below age 40 brought laptops, compared to 15 percent of those 50 to 64 and even less for older people.

Reasons vacationers performed work-related tasks include an expectation that they be available; a worry about missing important information; or in some cases the enjoyment of staying involved, according to analysts and some of those surveyed.

"I'm the final guy, so I make sure my customers are happy," said Don Schneider, 43, a plumbing contractor from Buena Park, Calif., who also runs an online business that supplies video equipment for plumbers.

Schneider says he limits his holiday check-ins to about a half-hour daily and tries to do it unobtrusively so he won't annoy family and friends, making calls from his hotel room or car.

Nineteen percent said they worked on their vacation even though they were technically off. Twenty percent said they checked work messages like voice mail, and another 15 percent said they called to check in.

"It's like a cloud hanging over my head until I get it done," Lee Ann Harrison, 37, a third-grade teacher from Halls, Tenn., said of the work she did on a family trip to Southaven, Miss., for her young son's baseball team. She said she found herself grading papers "between games, somewhere in the shade."

Men ― particularly white men ― were the likeliest to have checked for messages or worked while on vacation. Higher educated and higher-earning people were also likelier to do work-related tasks, in part reflecting the demands of professional or managerial jobs.

"Increasingly, especially when you're in a managerial sort of role, it's very difficult to walk away from the job totally given the communications technology we have today," said Suzanne Bianchi, who chairs the University of Maryland's sociology department and said she checks in about weekly while off.

Some, like attorney Barry Eisenson, 64, of Hollywood, Fla., said it would probably be more stressful not to check in while away. He said he stayed in touch with his office during a cruise to Alaska last year but had trouble getting through while sailing off the state's panhandle, "so I rested."

People under age 40 were likeliest to check their personal e-mails, voice mails or other messages from vacation spots. But people checking for work-related messages tended to be a bit older, perhaps reflecting the greater work responsibilities that can come with age.

"Men in their late 40s and early 50s, middle managers, feel they can't afford to miss something, and a vacation is secondary to them in terms of importance," said Geoffrey Godbey, professor of leisure studies at Penn State University.

The AP-Ipsos poll had not previously asked about people's work habits while on vacation. A Fox News-Opinion Dynamics poll in August 2005 had comparable figures to the AP's on those checking in from vacation.

"There are a lot of things about work that are very pleasurable," John Robinson, a University of Maryland sociologist who has studied time use, said of staying in touch with work during vacation. "The question is, is it something you want to do or feel obligated to do?"

Overall, about six in 10 in the AP-Ipsos poll said they were planning a vacation trip in the next year, with men a bit likelier than women to express that expectation. About half said they had taken one in the last year.

Seven in 10 women and half of men said they had read a book on their last vacation. About three in four men, and six in 10 women, said they had read a newspaper.

The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted from May 15 to 17 and included telephone interviews with 1,000 randomly chosen adults. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

___

AP Manager of News Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Microsoft: Silicon Valley Team Building Stealth Search Engine

2007-06-04T04:23:00.001-07:00

Microsoft has gathered a team of twenty or more "rock star" developers who've been tasked at building their next generation search engine, a source has told us. The team, which supposedly came together recently, is based at Microsoft's Silicon Valley headquarters in Mountain View.

We have few details on their approach to the product, other than hearing that it is definitely a "horizontal" engine (so, it's not limited to a specific vertical like images), and is "very cool."

Microsoft moved Sanaz Ahari down to Silicon Valley to lead the project. Ahari was previously on the Live.com team, and was reportedly the youngest lead product manager in Microsoft history at 23. She was part of the core team that developed the start.com product, which was later renamed live.com. Fast Company recently wrote an article on her.

Ahari has not responded to an email; I also have an email into Microsoft PR.

Man punished for using open Wi-Fi network

2007-06-02T08:27:00.001-07:00

A Michigan man was arrested by police for accessing a coffee shop's public Wi-Fi hotspot. He was charged with a felony and faced up to 5 years in jail, but he took an offer of "paying a $400 fine, doing 40 hours of community service and staying on probation for six months."

The coffee shop owner said she was surprised by the arrest of 39-year-old Sam Peterson, who is a toolmaker, volunteer firefighter, and secretary of a bagpipe club. "He could have just come in the cafe, even if he didn't have any money, I would let him get on it," said the owner. Before the arrest, Peterson had no criminal record.

In the article about the incident, Sparta police chief Andrew Milanowski and Kent County assistant prosecuting attorney Lynn Hopkins come off as brittle, badly-programmed automatons.

"I was sitting there reading my e-mail and he came up and stuck his head inside my window and asked me who I was spying on," Peterson told FOXNews.com.

Someone from a nearby barbershop had called cops after seeing Peterson's car pull up every day and sit in front of the coffee shop without anybody getting out.

"I just curiously asked him, 'Where are you getting the Internet connection?', you know," Sparta Police Chief Andrew Milanowski said. "And he said, 'From the café.'"

Milanowski ruled out Peterson as a possible stalker of the attractive local hairdresser, but still felt that a law might have been broken.

"We came back and we looked up the laws and we figured if we found one and thought, 'Well, let's run it by the prosecutor's office and see what they want to do,'" Milanowski said.

A few weeks later Peterson said he received a letter from the Kent County prosecutor's office saying that he faced a felony charge of fraudulent access to computer networks and that a request had been made for an arrest warrant.

Maestro: Social Music Streaming

2007-06-02T08:25:00.001-07:00

Music has been a killer app on the web ever since Napster met mp3 in 1999, and we've seen a lot of startups designing new social applications around it. Some startups are creating communities around discovering new music, others are helping you store and remotely access the music you already have. Atlanta-based Maestro is doing both.

Maestro lets you stream music from your computer across the web, for easy listening anywhere. This is a lot like what music locker services Oboe, MediaMaster, and Orb are doing with a social networking twist. Not only can you stream music from your own computer using Maestro, but you can also stream music from your friends on the network (Oboe lets you share channels with friends, but through email links). They plan on expanding to other types of media in the future.

maestrosmall.pngTo start streaming music, you need to download "Maestro Connector" and tell it where you stash your music. Maestro then sucks down all the meta-data (location, artist, album, length) and logs it in your profile online. From there, you can play songs complete with album art and organize your music into playlists. The songs aren't uploaded to the service like MediaMaster, Orb, or Oboe, but instead streamed directly from your computer. The major drawback, of course, is that you can't play your music anywhere unless you leave your main computer on.

But if your music server is off, don't worry, because you can listen to music off your friend's computers. Their playlists show up along with yours on your playlist page or from within an embeddable player widget like the one on the co-founder's MySpace page. However, streaming from your friends may put an unnecessary strain on their bandwidth. I imagine some bandwidth rules will be implemented to prevent abuse. If their computer is offline too, you can still see what music they have and what their most recently played tracks were. Since they haven't implemented any social music recommendation, these recently played lists are all you have to go on for finding new music.

Maestro is looking for funding and is currently testing amongst a small group in private beta. You can apply for an account on their site.

Weewar For the Weekend

2007-06-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

I just came across Weewar, an online war game that combines elements of risk and other strategy games. It's fairly simple pixel art, but they've gained an extremely loyal following during their beta period.

Like Kdice (which I am playing right now while writing this), Desktop Tower Defense and other games we've covered, Weewar is is a highly addictive game. You'll quickly get sucked into playing for hours at a time against other human opponents.

This is a turn based game. Any player can start a game, first by choosing from a number of terrains and then inviting other players. You take over factories and set them to produce more armies, tanks, etc., which then move on to take over yet more factories or battle other players. Not everyone has to be around at the same time to play the game. You have your turn, and then the next player is notified by email that it is their turn.

The game is still in private beta - they're blog indicates that they've had multiple server crashes and slowdowns from too many players at once. Sign up here to get into the beta.

Skaters play it cool on Olympic prospects

2007-06-02T08:21:00.001-07:00

TURIN, Italy: Miracles continued to happen to Zhao Hongbo, China's top figure skating pairs skater, here in Turin, Italy, where the 2006 Winter Olympic Games will start tomorrow morning. In just his second training session after arriving, Zhao, who severely injured his Achilles tendon last August, landed a tricky triple-double jump combination .

　　"It is the second time Zhao managed this move," said Yao Bin, Zhao's coach, after the training session at Palavela, the venue for the figure staking competition. "He also attempted the triple toe-loop and double axel, the two most difficult movements in his programme, several times today. It shows that he has overcome the fear of doing such dangerous movements."

　　Zhao and his partner Shen Xue used to be the biggest gold medal hopefuls for China before Zhao's injury. After breaking his tendon while doing a triple toe-loop last August during altitude training in South China's Yunnan province, their Olympic appearance was in doubt.

　　However, after surgery Zhao recovered with unexpected speed.

　　On November 24, just three and half months after the injury, Zhao returned to the ice. From January 5, he began to try easy jumps. Just before leaving for Turin, Zhao jumped the triple toe-loop successfully.

　　"Due to his injury, we have to lower Zhao's difficult level in the competition by changing the triple-triple jump combination to triple-double," said Yao. "His success today will strengthen his confidence a lot, which will help him to strive for the best result at his last Olympics."

　　In 1998, Shen/Zhao became only the third Chinese pair in history to compete at the Olympics, finishing fifth. Up to now, they have won two Grand Prix Final events, and have stood on the podium at six successive World Championships, winning in 2002 and 2003.

　　However, their best Olympic outing was a bronze at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002, where a judging scandal overshadowed the event.

　　"I never gave up my dream to come to the Olympics," said Zhao. "We want to do our best. We are looking for a perfect performance. It doesn't matter which medal we get."

　　Besides Shen/Zhao, young pair Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao could capture the public's attention with their striking quadruple throw salchows. Successfully landing the quadruple throw in the training session, the two Zhangs, silver medallists at this season's Grand Prix Finals, may add this highlight into their free skating programme.

　　"The quadruple throw is not a necessity for Zhang/Zhang to hit the podium in the competition since they are already at the highest level of difficulty," Yao said. "We will decide whether or not to include it after the short programme competition."

　　In the 2002 Winter Games, Shen/Zhao tried the quadruple throw salchows in the free skating programme but Shen failed in landing.

　　While the Chinese team rushes to get fully prepared for the Games, their biggest opponent Russia has set its eyes on a gold medal sweep.

　　But Yao showed no fear, and promised to let the final results do the talking.

　　"What they say won't affect us and we believe that the real strength has to be shown in the final competitions."

　　Like the figure skating team, China's star-studded short track speed skating team has attracted widespread attention and are considered strong challengers.

　　"China is strong. They have good skaters such as Li Jiajun and Li Ye on the men's side, while Wang Meng may be a tough rival for the girls," said Mathieu Turcotte of Canada's short track speed skating team, which is also a strong contender for a medal. "There will be strong competition between China and Canada."

　　The Chinese short track skaters are ready to face the challenges.

　　"I'm very lucky to participate in my fourth Olympic Games," said 31-year-old Li Jiajun, the multiple world champion. "Of course the best thing would be to win my first Olympic gold medal."

Amazing mystery of the new AACS key leak

2007-06-01T02:37:00.001-07:00

Today I had a remarkable conversation with an anonymous tipster who had a fascinating story to tell about the latest AACS key leak:

The world became a little more magical yesterday with the publication of a new "processing key" that can be used to unlock the AACS copy protection on the latest round of HD-DVD movies. This event is remarkable not only for its timing--barely a week after the release of the discs that the key was intended to secure--but also for the clever way in which the key first appeared on the net. Though this second part of the story hasn't received much attention, it deserves to go down in the annals of hacker lore.

The previous processing key, 09 F9 …, began circulating in February being discovered by a hacker named arnezami. With this 128-bit number, anyone could strip the encryption from every HD-DVD title on the market. The key was reposted on thousands of sites, and quickly made it to the front page of Digg. When Digg tried to censor the key in response to DMCA threats from the AACS authorities, users staged a revolt, reposting it in hundreds of creative ways. The movie studios switched to technological countermeasures, and, starting last week, all new HD-DVD titles were modified so that the key couldn't decrypt them. Hackers began furiously searching for a new key.

In the mean time, Ed Felten of Freedom-to-Tinker satirized the idea that someone could have legal rights to a number. He wrote a blog post, "You Can Own an Integer Too," that gives each reader his or her very own randomly generated 128-bit integer. Hundreds proudly posted their shiny new integers in the comments, some humorously threatening legal action against anyone who would copy them:

BC Says:
5D 4A F0 D9 58 04 3B 06 C8 B2 59 85 A1 5D 6A 88

For the record!! This ones mine. You can look but don't touch.

Anonymous Says:
B8 5C 6D 1E 07 F9 AB 5E 0F 0D 48 A5 3B 1F 6B C7

use it and ill sue! be prepared!

Blending in with the rest was this innocuous looking message from a user named BtCB:

        BtCB Says:
        Here's mine:
        45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2

What are the odds that this is the new processing key?
(Hint for arnezami: uv=00000047)

Of course, the odds are basically zero if the number was chosen at random. You have a better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot four days in a row. So, for more than a week, everyone who read the comment assumed that it was just another joke. But one thing about it was different: the cryptic hint to arnezami, a "uv" number, a pointer to a specific key within the AACS keyspace.

You can probably guess the rest of the story. Eventually someone tipped off arnezami about the strange comment, and he tried using the 45 5F … number to decrypt the new discs. It worked! It really is the new processing key. As a result, all HD-DVDs are open to the public again, at least until new titles can be updated once more.

The next move belongs to the AACS authorities. They're smart enough to know that they can't take the food coloring out of the pool. So will they send out another round of cease-and-desist letters, possibly sparking another revolt, or will they graciously admit defeat for now?

US makes Korea eliminate fair use

2007-06-01T02:37:00.000-07:00

Korea has just finished negotiating a free trade agreement with the US that is a complete disaster on copyright. Korea has agreed to give up all fair use to copyrighted works, and has agreed to shut down many of its web-hosting businesses. So much for Korea's power as a global Internet leader. It was nice while it lasted.

In one glaring example, the governments agree to shut down internet sites that permit unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or transmission of copyrighted works-- without reference to exceptions for art, education and critique. If the agreement is ratified, both US and Korean governments will begin shutting down an undisclosed number of peer-to-peer (P2P) and online storage ('webhard') services. Korea will also be required to crack down on book copying on university campuses.

The Korea-US FTA could set a dangerous precedent. If ratified, the US is expected to push other countries to accept the similar conditions in their respective FTAs. Much of the 'piracy' that the US wants to see cracked down on is of materials copyrighted by large US-based corporations, not individual creators. Since distribution of movies, news, internet software and images is a core area of the US economy, the US government has long been aggressively pushing for stricter copyright and patent regimes in international arenas, including through GATT and WIPO. The Korea-US FTA, represents a new step in this process.

Restore Fire-Resistant Longleaf Pines, Get Clean Energy

2007-05-31T04:18:00.000-07:00

One way to beat the large fires scorching drought-stricken Florida: restore the state's native Longleaf pine forests. But large-scale restoration of these forests―in actuality open savannas characterized by widely spaced stands of Longleaf pine trees―would require the removal of any existing vegetation, including established trees. Would this be the environmental equivalent of robbing from Peter to pay Paul?

Jack Putz, a botany professor at the University of Florida (UF), asserts that fires have been so intense of late because of Florida's too-dense forests, filled with hardwoods such as laurel oaks, water oaks, and sweet gums. Because fire-suppression have only encouraged the growth of these hardwoods, the native Longleaf pine that was common when Florida was first populated have largely disappeared. Only 3 percent remains of the original Longleaf pine ecosystem, which spanned more than 91 million acres across the southern United States.

The result: Fires raging out of control as dense stands of hardwoods and pines burn intensely all the way to to their crowns. Widely spaced stands of Longleaf pines, on the other hand, burn slowly, with low fires that creep along the grass and brush at one- to three-year intervals. Slow hand, easy touch, and all that.

While Florida foresters have been actively restoring Longleaf pine forests in small selected areas throughout the Southeast for a while, the catch is that the removal of a site's hardwood trees is expensive, energy intensive, and polluting. Make that really polluting.

But Putz argues that felled hardwood trees could be used as fuel to generate electricity.

In a press release from UF:

The hardwoods that invade after fire suppression could be burned in generators, a practice that already occurs at some sawmills, or converted to cellulose-based ethanol once that technology improves in the future. Such energy is "greenhouse gas neutral" because it emits no carbon from fossil sources.

Some landowners have taken to grinding up unwanted hardwoods into fuel chips, which are then burned, usually at sawmills, to generate electricity. This electricity is sometimes fed back into the grid when the sawmill is idle.

Putz and Brian Condon, a student in UF's food and resource economics department, analyzed 13 North Florida restoration projects producing such fuel chips with electricity generation in mind. They discovered that the amount of carbon harvested in the chips greatly outweighed what was consumed in the diesel used during harvest and transport. In other words, the process offsets carbon.

"People are looking for solutions and there are not many around, other than consuming less energy," Putz said. "But here's a solution to three problems: restoring our native Longleaf pine savannas, boosting clean energy and reducing fire risk." :: University of Florida

New Hubble Photograph Shows Stunning Details in Spiral Galaxy M81 --CfA Press Release

2007-05-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

Honolulu, HI - Today, astronomers unveiled the sharpest photograph ever taken of the nearby spiral galaxy Messier 81. The image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows stunning detail in a galaxy that resembles the Milky Way in many ways.

"The amazing detail in this image took our breath away," said astronomer Andreas Zezas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "We can see individual stars like tiny grains of sand."

Zezas presented the new photograph at a press conference at the 210th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Eighty years ago, astronomer Edwin Hubble was the first to resolve stars in the Andromeda galaxy, proving that it was a distinct galaxy separate from the Milky Way. Now, the space telescope named for Hubble has repeated his achievement with a galaxy more than five times farther away.

M81 is one of the brightest galaxies that can be seen from Earth. It is high in the northern sky in the circumpolar constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. At an apparent magnitude of 6.8, it is easily visible in binoculars or a small telescope. The galaxy's angular size on the sky is about the same as that of the Full Moon. Photographing such a large area required the equivalent of 2.5 days of HST time.

This beautiful galaxy is tilted at an oblique angle to our line of sight, giving a "bird's-eye view" of the spiral structure. The galaxy is similar to our Milky Way, but our favorable view provides a better picture of the typical architecture of spiral galaxies. Though the galaxy is 11.6 million light-years away, The Hubble Space Telescope's view is so sharp that it can resolve individual stars, along with open star clusters, globular star clusters, and even glowing regions of fluorescent gas.

"The view we have of M81 is similar to what an astronomer in Andromeda would see if they looked at the Milky Way," explained Zezas.

The spiral arms, which wind all the way down into the nucleus, are made up of young, bluish, hot stars formed in the past few million years. They also host a population of stars formed in an episode of star formation that started about 600 million years ago. The greenish regions are dense areas of bright star formation. The ultraviolet light from hot young stars are fluorescing the surrounding clouds of hydrogen gas. A number of sinuous dust lanes also wind all the way into the nucleus of M81.

"The presence of dust lanes shows that star formation is happening all the way down to the nucleus," said Zezas.

M81 may be undergoing a surge of star formation along the spiral arms due to a close encounter it may have had with its nearby spiral galaxy NGC 3077 and a nearby starburst galaxy (M82) about 300 million years ago. Astronomers plan to use the Hubble image to study the star formation history of the galaxy and how this history relates to the neutron stars and black holes seen in X-ray observations of M81 with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

This project is part of a larger, in-depth investigation of M81 using the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) in addition to Hubble.

"It's absolutely amazing to be able to study star formation in this galaxy with three superb space telescopes in ways we could never achieve from the ground," said John Huchra (CfA), who also is working on the M81 project.

The Hubble data was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2004 through 2006. This color composite was assembled from images taken in blue, visible, and infrared light.

Additional images can be found at http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/19/.

Scientists involved in this project include: A. Zezas, K. Gazeas, G. Fabbiano, A. Prestwich, M. Garcia, and J. Nantais (CfA), J. Gallagher (University of Wisconsin, Madison), J. Miller (University of Michigan), P. Kaaret (University of Iowa), V. Kalogera (Northwestern University), M. Ward (University of Durham), J. Brodie and J. Strader (Lick Observatory), and A. King (University of Leicester).

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. The institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

For more information, contact:

David A. Aguilar
Director of Public Affairs
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
617-495-7462
daguilar@cfa.harvard.edu

Christine Pulliam
Public Affairs Specialist
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
617-495-7463
cpulliam@cfa.harvard.edu

Userplane Launches Revenue Sharing Program

2007-05-30T02:36:00.000-07:00

Web messaging services company Userplane has launched a new revenue-sharing program that brings monetization to online instant messaging and web chat

Userplane Money serves ads in instant messaging, web chat and other widgets. The new program is said to be the first of its kind amongst community platforms.

Userplane CEO Mike Jones sees what he calls the "Platform Web" as the next area of online monetization. " Userplane Money offers rich application experiences that increase user engagement on our clients' websites, and provide them with a new revenue channel and increased site usage".

Userplane was acquired by AOL in August 2006 and the new program is linked into AOL's larger advertising strategy. "AOL has a rich offering of ad solutions for advertisers, including internal advertising within the AOL network, 3rd party publisher relationships through advertising.com, and a longtail ad offering through the Userplane network" said Jones."Userplane Money grows the Userplane longtail ad network and gives advertisers access to users and inventory they had not had access to previously on smaller, targeted niche web communities".

Jones sees Userplane Money as a way to reward users and position the service as a key revenue driver for smaller up and coming web communities.

The combination of Userplane's technology with a revenue-sharing program is sure to drive future growth to what is already a very smart offering.

Microsoft Announces Surface Computer

2007-05-30T02:35:00.000-07:00

At the D: All Things Digital conference Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will unveil Microsoft Surface, the first in a new category of surface computing products from Microsoft that will "break down traditional barriers between people and technology".

A Surface computer is able to recognize physical objects from a paintbrush to a cell phone and allows hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music and maps. Surface turns an ordinary tabletop into a dynamic surface that provides interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.

The new product is aimed directly at hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues and should be commercially available towards the end of the year.

It's an interesting product in that it's completely out of left field. Microsoft gives examples of ordering a beverage during a meal with just the tap of a finger and quickly browsing through music and dragging favorite songs onto a personal playlist by moving a finger across the screen. Build this into a bar and you'd get one-touch beer service although I'm not sure if they've found a way to work out when your beer glass is empty so replenishment becomes automatic, maybe in a later version.

The practical uses for Surface at the point of sale are broad. This is touch screen point of sale technology at a new level.

Initial launch partners include Harrah's Entertainment, Starwood Hotels and T-Mobile.

Halo 3 Cinematics To Be Great Improvements on Halo 2's

2007-05-29T05:03:00.001-07:00

1up is reporting that Bungie has admitted to not having the time to do cinematics right for the best-selling Halo 2. Along with statements they made earlier this year about flaws in Halo 2's multiplayer, the folks at Bungie seem quite willing to own up to previous mistakes. Their call to arms this time: everything will be better. "With Halo 3, they have artists and designers who've worked on epic Hollywood projects like The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, not to mention a former Industrial Lights & Magic guy (read: Star Wars) working out the details on an 'amazing space battle ... there's a bigger team, a team that has had the final cinematic script for much longer, and now has access to vastly more tools, resources and technology than ever before. These range from new tools for rigging facial animation, to better lighting and camera controls. Most of the improvements are a solid blend of technology and manpower this time around, and we hope the fruits of that labor end up as succulent as they look now.'"

Inside Bungie - Living The Spartan Life

2007-05-29T05:01:00.001-07:00

Straight from the latest issue of Edge, a great feature all about the life inside Bungie studios. The article gets into a good bit of detail on the mindset of this insular part of Microsoft's development network. Interviewed developers discuss what it is like working for Microsoft, and how hard it is not to be hard on themselves. Specifically, the developers have some surprisingly harsh criticism of their own opus - Halo 2. From the article, comments by technical lead Chris Butcher: "One of the things that stuns me when I think about it, and I can't believe this is true - we had [no time to polish] for Halo 2. Take that polish period and completely get rid of it. We miscalculated, we screwed up, we came down to the wire and we just lost all of that. So Halo 2 is far less than it could and should be in many ways because of that. It kills me to think of it. Even the multiplayer experience for Halo 2 is a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right. It's astounding to me. I f***ing cannot play Halo 2 multiplayer. I cannot do it. And that's why I know Halo 3 is going to be so much better."

Halo 3 Beta Impressions

2007-05-29T04:59:00.001-07:00

Yesterday in New York City Microsoft held an invite-only preview of the Halo 3 Beta, and passed out early Beta keys to a group of game journalists. The result is a barrage of coverage about this most-anticipated title. Notable features beyond basic previews include Dan Hsu's take on the game, Dean Takahashi's 'I got my butt kicked' perspective, the San Jose Merc's interview with Bungie Community Lead Brian Jarrad, CVG's hosting of the official Beta Movie, and Joystiq's interview with Frank O'Connor, Bungie's writing lead. From the 1up preview: "It's unmistakably Halo gameplay, despite the rearranged controls (which feel natural after 10 minutes), and all of the additions fit perfectly into the multiplayer universe we've come to love. The interface has been overhauled and is even easier to use, and you now have such niceties as being able to change your control layout at any point on any screen. While the visuals are rich and beautiful, it's the audio that's really impressed us so far. The rumbling throttle of unleashing dual SMGs makes them feel incredibly powerful, and the Spartan Laser tearing past your head is as scary as you'd imagine. Audio cues are more important than ever, and the better your sound system the more next-gen this will feel."

The TechCrunch Quick Guide To GrandCentral

2007-05-28T05:58:00.001-07:00

We've followed new telephone management startup GrandCentral since it's debut in September 2006. The company has deservedly received a lot of blogger and mainstream press: Tim O'Reilly said "The Web 2.0 Address Book May Have Arrived" when talking about it, and the New York Times did a long overview article in March.

The basic idea around GrandCentral is "one phone number for all your phones, for life." As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time.

Our follow up coverage wasn't entirely positive. In late March we noted some hiccups with the service that led some beta testers to abandon it. But we've continued to use the service, covered its mobile site launch, and in general I think it is one of the standout startups of the last twelve months.

For those of you who aren't using it yet, I've put together my user notes over the last couple of months. There are a lot of features to get used to, and to get the most out of the service you should be aware of at least some of them.

This is a service to keep an eye on - They are certainly still working out some of the bugs, but the GrandCentral team has created a truly useful service with less than $6 million in capital. I would not be surprised, given this acquisition climate, to see someone pick them up in the near term.

Here's the TechCrunch Quick Guide to GrandCentral:

Getting Started

GrandCentral will be free for light users, but most users will end up paying $15/month for the service once a lot of people start using it as the primary way to contact you by phone.

The center of the Grand Central universe is your Grand Central phone number. This is (theortically) the last phone number you will ever give out, so picking one that you like is important. The GC registration process begins by picking an area code or U.S. state. Once you've done that, GC will show you a number of available phone numbers. If you want to see if any of the numbers spell anything interesting or memorable, check out this site, which will show you various words made from the numbers.

After you've chosen your GC phone number you go through a standard registration process and then tell GC your home, work and cell phone numbers. When someone calls your GC phone number, GC will ring your real phones based on rules you set.

The Basics

A big hurdle to using GC is the fact that no one knows it's your new phone number, and they keep calling your old number. To get the maximum benefit from the service you need to route as many calls through it as possible. The only way to do that is to let your contacts know that your new GC number is the best way to reach you. Before you send out a mass email and reprint a thousand business cards, though, make sure you plan on sticking with the service.

The next thing you need to do is record a greeting that people will hear when they call the number. You can customize greetings by specific callers or groups, so business callers can get one message, and friends can get another.

You'll also want to import your address book. Supported formats are Outlook/Outlook Express, Yahoo, Gmail, vCards and CSV files. You can also add contacts manually.

Then you set up rules for phone calls. Have business contacts always ring your cell phone. Have family ring all of your phones. Friends go to your home number. Or whatever. You can also set certain people to go right to voicemail if you never want to talk to them directly.

You can also temporarily set all of your calls to go immediately to voicemail or to forward to another phone (this is great if you are out of town).

Handling Calls and Voicemails

Once you start taking calls you will fall in love with the service.

When someone calls your number they are asked to record their name unless they are recognized as a contact by caller ID. Your phones then start ringing based on the rules you've set. When you answer, the GC automated system tells you who is calling and asks you what you want to do with it. You can either accept it, send it to voicemail, send it to voicemail and listen in, or accept it and record the call. Hitting "4″ during a call turns recording on or off. If you are listening in on a voicemail, just hit "*" and you can jump into the call.

Voicemails are sent to your inbox - they can be reviewed by calling in or via your computer (see "mobile" below as well). All voicemails can be forwarded to others, or you can request an embed code to place it on a website.

GrandCentral has said that they will soon be releasing a feature that automatically transcribes voicemails into text and will deliver them to you via email or SMS.

Mobile Access

GrandCentral recently released a Mobile product. Visit grandcentral.com/mobile via a mobile browser and get a stripped down version of your inbox and other core features.

You can listen to and administer your voicemails directly from this mobile web page, without dialing into your voicemail system directly.

Advanced Features

GrandCentral also has a number of advanced features that will appeal to some users.

    * CallSwitch: Hit "*" while talking and your other phones will ring. You can then answer any of them and the call will transfer over
    * WebCall: embed a call button on your website and let people call you (the caller will not see your phone number)
    * Gizmo: GC will use your Gizmo ID as a forwarding phone number - get calls on your computer (great when traveling abroad)

Int'l. Space Development con: Glenn Reynolds liveblogs it

2007-05-27T22:46:00.001-07:00

I haven't been to an International Space Development Conference in years. Things have changed a bit, and that was probably more apparent to me than to people who have been going every year. But lots of people were remarking on some changes.

Most notably, the character of the attendees has changed. There's less of a science-fiction-convention feel, as more of the people attending are actually making their living in the space biz, and particularly the commercial space biz. One of the people I was talking to last night was noting that there were a lot more attractive women than in the past, a change she put down to the presence of a lot more "good-looking men with money."

There's something to that, and Alan Boyle has a post on the entrepreneurial activity at the conference. I have to say that it's the first time I've seen Brioni suits at an ISDC -- as happened a few years ago with the nanotech conferences I attend, suddenly there's a sizable contingent of venture capitalists, investment bankers, big-firm lawyers, and the like. There's not a space bubble yet, but a guy I spoke with who knows a lot said that "the bubble's scheduled for two years from now," and that seems about right.

Homework sucks: The case against homework

2007-05-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish 2006 book "The Case Against Homework" is a fine and frightening explosion of the homework myth: that giving kids homework improves their educational outcome. The authors start by tracing the explosion in homework since the eighties, and especially since the advent of the ill-starred No Child Left Behind regime, which has teachers drilling, drilling, drilling their kids on math and reading to the exclusion of all else.

Kindergarten kids are assigned homework. Kids get homework over the weekend. Over vacations. When they're away sick for a day.

What's more, all the credible research on homework suggests that for younger kids, homework has no connection with positive learning outcomes, and for older kids, the benefits of homework level off sharply after the first couple assignments.

Not that most teachers would know this -- homework theory and design isn't on the curriculum at most teachers' colleges, and most teachers surveyed report that they have never received any training on designing and assessing homework.

The book is composed of equal measures of interviews with kids, parents and teachers; hard research numbers from respected institutions; and strategies for convincing your kids' teachers to ease back on homework.

One thing the authors keep coming back to is the way that excessive homework eats into kids' playtime and family time, stressing them out, contributing to sedentary obesity, and depriving them of a childhood's measure of doing nothing, daydreaming and thinking. They quote ten-year-olds like Sophia from Brooklyn, saying things like "I have to rush, rush, rush, rush, rush, rush through my day, actually through my seven days, and that's seven days wasted in my life."

No Child Left Behind has to shoulder some of the blame here. No Child Left Behind and standardized testing not only turns your child into a slave to her test-scores, but they can even affect your property values: a school with low test-scores brings down the neighborhood property values. That means that whatever your approach to your kids, the chances are that the other parents in your neighborhood are busting their asses to get their kids great test scores, drilling them, sending them to tutors, helping them with assignments that they were meant to complete themselves. If you don't do the same, your kids will suffer by comparison.

The authors report on an elementary school in North Carolina where at least twenty standardized test books have to be replaced after their use because the stressed out elementary school kids working to them have vomited on them.

The stories go on and on, and just when you're ready to throw in the towel and send your kids into the woods to be raised by wolves, the authors supply several long chapters of strategies and sample dialogs for convincing your kids' teachers to ease off on homework, for changing the homework policies in your school district and for rallying other parents to their cause.

They're not whistling Dixie, either: the authors have gone through this themselves, challenging and changing the homework policies in their kids' school districts. The last section of the book is an activist guide and a postmortem of the strategies they employed. One of the authors, Sara Bennett, is a celebrated civil rights lawyer; the other, Nancy Kalish, is a famous editor and writer of material for parents, especially mothers. One imagines that their school board didn't know what hit them.

I was lucky enough to attend excellent, publicly funded alternative schools through my educational career. We had homework, but we were also given a lot of time for free play, and a lot of free rein to choose our subjects and design our curriculum -- I remember spending half of the fourth grade working my way through two or three math textbooks and the other half designing and writing a parody of MAD Magazine, to the exclusion of all other work. The next grade I followed the class for most of the semester, except when I didn't. In high-school, I took a year off, moved to a little house in Mexico, and wrote stories. All of this stuff contributed more to my learning than any amount of worksheets and homework ever could have.

Creation Museum opens Monday

2007-05-27T03:21:00.000-07:00

Some silly creationists are finally opening their wacky $27 million Creation Museum on Monday in Petersburg, Kentucky. The slogan on the museum's site? "Prepare to believe." From Reuters:

Here exhibits show the Grand Canyon took just days to form during Noah's flood, dinosaurs coexisted with humans and had a place on Noah's Ark, and Cain married his sister to people the earth, among other Biblical wonders.

Scientists, secularists and moderate Christians have pledged to protest the museum's public opening on Monday. An airplane trailing a "Thou Shalt Not Lie" banner buzzed overhead during the museum's opening news conference....

A Gallup poll last year showed almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

Three of 10 Republican presidential candidates said in a recent debate that they did not believe in evolution.

Harley Hearse

2007-05-27T03:18:00.000-07:00

The latest thing in "experience" funerals is a Harley Hearse from Milwaukee's Krause Funeral Home -- it joins a host of specialty funeral options available around the world, including "farmers being pulled to their rest by John Deere tractors" and "cremation urns that look like tear-drop motorcycle gas tanks।"
Now, he has what he prefers to call "the Krause Funeral Home Motorcycle Hearse" out of sensitivity to local manufacturing icon Harley-Davidson Inc., which carefully guards its famous brand.

"For so long, funerals have been so reactive," Krause said. "I think that's part of the reason that people don't like funerals - that they've been so traditional. . . . If we can offer people more options and be more creative in the way we say goodbye, it will certainly broaden our clientele."

Detailed anatomical t-shirts

2007-05-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

Medical illustrator Leslie Arwin's Skeletees feature highly detailed, stark anatomical drawings of the bones, muscles, nerves and digestive tract, printed on the front and back. I picked up a skeleton shirt today and I'm delighted with it -- it's a great, thick, high-quality tee with a nice cut and the design is wonderful.

Feds Give Warning on Contact Lens Solution

2007-05-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

ATLANTA (May 26) - Government officials are warning people to throw away a contact lens solution after an investigation linked it to a rare eye infection.

The warning concerns AMO Complete Moisture Plus Multi-Purpose Solution, used for cleaning and storing soft contact lenses, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The solution seems to be a factor cases of Acanthamoeba keratitis, a painful eye infection that can lead to permanent vision loss or blindness.

The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are investigating 138 confirmed cases since January 2005.

The solution is made by Advanced Medical Optics Inc., a publicly traded company based in Santa Ana, Calif. The company issued a statement Friday night saying it was "immediately and voluntarily recalling" the solution.

"There is no evidence to suggest that today's voluntary recall is related to a product contamination issue and this does not impact any of AMO's other contact lens care products, including our family of hydrogen peroxide disinfecting solutions," the statement said.

CDC officials said people should discard the solution, throw out their current contact lenses and toss the lens storage case. All of them may harbor the infecting amoeba, said Michael Beach, team leader in the CDC's division of parasitic diseases.

An estimated 85 percent of U.S. cases of Acanthamoeba keratitis occur in contact lens users, but it's extremely unusual - the estimated prevalence is one to two cases per 1 million contact lens wearers. Contact lens wearers who practice proper lens care and people who don't wear contact lenses can still develop the infection.

It's hard to diagnose and treat - and some of the drugs used to fight the infection are available only overseas or from compounding pharmacies.

Doctors first suspected a problem in 2004, when a University of Illinois-Chicago ophthalmologist, Dr. Elmer Tu, noticed more than a dozen cases of the infection. Normally, he might see only one or two in a year, Tu said.

UIC doctors saw 35 patients with the condition from May 2003 through September 2006. About 55 percent used the Advanced Medical Optics product exclusively, Tu said.

UIC investigators think the infection is not originating in the manufacturing process, but that the cleaning solution is not protecting people from the infection, which they get in their eyes through showering or swimming, Tu said.

The amoeba that causes the infection is naturally present in soil and water. Wearing contact lenses while swimming or in the hot tub appears to increase the risk of infection.

The cases were reported to the Illinois state health department, which notified the CDC. A CDC investigation in about 35 states led to Friday's announcement.

The company statement said consumers who believe they are in possession of the recalled product should discontinue use immediately and call 1-888-899-9183. The company said it was contacting retailers, customers and distributors regarding return and replacement instructions.

The solution is not marketed to protect against the amoeba. But "it's supposed to be free of any type of microorganisms. It's not supposed to result in anyone getting an infection," said Julie Zawisza, an FDA spokeswoman.

The FDA will take information from the CDC investigation and try to discern what about the solution - or how people were using it - could be responsible for the infection cases, she added.

Health officials have interviewed 46 patients so far. Of those, 36 wore contact lenses and used some form of solution, and 21 used the Advanced Medical Optics solution within a month of onset of symptoms, Beach said. It was a strong enough association to cause health officials to issue Friday's warning, Beach said.

Dozens of cases of this rare condition can be significant, eye experts said.

"It's a large number if it's happening to you. It's a large number if there is a little pocket of it. It's not a large number if you consider there are 35 million contact lens wearers in the United States," said Dr. William Ehlers, a University of Connecticut Health Center ophthalmologist.

The investigation is the second into eye infections associated with contact lens solution undertaken by the CDC and FDA in the past year. In 2006, a Bausch & Lomb multipurpose contact lens solution was linked to a fungal eye infection called Fusarium.

This week, Advanced Medical Optics disclosed it was considering making a bid to buy Bausch & Lomb, its eye-care products rival.

Associated Press writer Andrew Bridges contributed to this report from Washington.

Study Finds 90% of Handset Owners Believe iPhone Hype

2007-05-26T08:22:00.001-07:00

A study from Strategy Analytics has found that 90 percent of handset owners rate Apple's iPhone as being superior to existing mobile phones. This despite the rather pertinent facts that the iPhone has not yet gone on sale and none of those questioned would have used an iPhone.

The "Consumer Reactions to the Apple iPhone" study explored the appeal of iPhone features, developed comparisons with current products and investigated the nature of the iPhone experience. 90 percent of respondents gave the iPhone higher marks than their own handset and over 40 percent of respondents rated the iPhone as being much better across key functional categories, including music player, web browsing, voice mail, and phone call management.

The study found that whilst consumers are definitely buying the iPhone hype, price may be the iPhone's undoing. "While the iPhone "Wow" factor is impressive, our user panel indicated that challenges in pricing and positioning may act as a barrier to mass-market success," said Kevin Nolan, Director of User Experience Research at Strategy Analytics.

coRank: Build Your Own Digg Clone

2007-05-26T08:21:00.002-07:00

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery Digg would be at the top of the heap. The site that popularized social news has been copied, cloned and even spawned Pligg, an open source Digg style script.

If Pligg opened up Digg style clones to site hosts and developers, coRank takes the concept to the mass market; users who either can't or don't want to host Pligg on their own domain. coRank is to Digg clones what Blogger once was for blogging.

coRank has evolved from its earlier incarnation as a stand alone Digg clone. The new coRank is now a fully customizable hosted social voting platform. Users can set up social news sites through easy to use menu options without the need to edit code. Like Blogger there is a range of templates available, including one that looks just like Digg. The options are surprisingly broad. Users can customize everything from the name of voting members through to the names given to the actual voting system. Everything from user banning through to privacy options and user statistics has been included.

Although the entire morality of an army of Digg clones may be a passionate topic for debate, there's little doubt that social news continues to grow. Ethics aside coRank is a notable point in the progression of social news development. In time coRank is an idea that is sure to be cloned itself.

Last.FM Too Slow: Users Create Their Own Facebook Application

2007-05-26T08:21:00.001-07:00

Last.fm is a seriously popular music service (we've dubbed it a viral machine). So users are wondering why they are yet to release a Facebook application - competitors like iLike and MOG are the first and fifth most popular applications, respectively.

The Last.fm forums are being lit up with user requests for integration. In early May, a staff member (flaneur) commented "we've started work on some cool ways to get your music taste from Last.fm on [Facebook]" in one of the early threads requesting integration. But a month later and a day after the official launch of Facebook Applications, nothing has been released.

Perhaps Last.fm sees Facebook as more of a competitor than a partner, or maybe they didn't realize just how important the new Facebook Developer Platform would be, in making the decision to hold off on creating a Facebook application. It doesn't really matter, though, because users are starting to take over. Jake Jarvis (who's also the founder of Middio) released his own Last.fm Facebook application earlier today. One of the more popular Last.fm features is that it tracks music you listen to on your computer and displays it on your profile. Jarvis' widget displays the last few songs you've listened to on Last.fm on your Facebook profile.

I added it to my profile and it works just fine. Read more about this on Jake Jarvis' blog. And thanks to Daryn Haynes for pointing this out in a comment to our post on iLike.

If you are a Facebook user, get the (unofficial) Last.fm application here. I'm looking forward to seeing how many users it has by tomorrow, and Last.fm's response.

Yahoo Experiments With Non-Yahoo Links On Home Page

2007-05-26T08:20:00.001-07:00

The major Internet portals like Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Google, etc. do not place links on their home page that go anywhere except deeper into the properties. Advertising is generally the only exception.

So it surprised us when Yahoo contacted us earlier this week to say that they are testing outside links from their home page. The goal, they say, is to make Yahoo.com as relevant as possible to their. By linking to outside websites, their hope is that the relevance (perceived or actual) of the Yahoo portal will increase.

An article from CrunchGear was included in the test and was on the Yahoo home page for an hour or so yesterday. Other sites were linked to as well. The links were placed prominently at top center in the "featured" section.

Yahoo says that they will analyze the data and feedback from the test to determine whether or not they'll make this a permanent policy. My request is that they keep testing, and feel free to use our properties at any time.

Doctors deliver baby on Delta flight

2007-05-26T05:26:00.000-07:00

ATLANTA - Two doctors on a Delta Air Lines flight from Germany delivered a baby in the aisle of the plane and resuscitated him when he wasn't breathing, officials said.

Delta Flight 131 to Atlanta was over the Washington area when a woman about 32 to 36 weeks ― or nine months ― pregnant went into labor Wednesday afternoon, prompting an emergency stop in Charlotte, N.C., about nine hours into the flight.

Though the baby boy wasn't breathing when he was born, he was "like a normal newborn" by Friday, one of the doctors who helped deliver him said.

The baby was born in front of the first seats after first class, one of the roomiest aisles in a plane. Using a stethoscope that was part of medical equipment onboard, the doctors realized the baby had a very slow or arrested heartbeat as the woman was in labor.

"Delivering a baby in an aisle of a plane isn't an easy thing to do," one of the doctors, Dr. Robert Vincent, a pediatric cardiologist with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, said Friday. "I didn't think the child would survive."

Vincent worked with Dr. Dieter K. Gunkel, an adult cardiologist from Savannah, Ga., to deliver the baby. When he was born, he was blue and wasn't breathing or moving. Vincent started chest compressions and Gunkel did mouth-to-mouth breathing until the boy "pinked up," Vincent said.

"We were flying by the seat of our pants," Vincent said, adding that he didn't even realize baby was a boy until his birth was announced to applauding passengers.

Vincent said the baby weighed about seven pounds. His name wasn't available.

The mother, whose identity was not released, was taken to a hospital with the baby. About an hour after the emergency landing, the flight continued to Atlanta, officials said.

"It was a heroic effort by our flight attendant crew and our customers on board who were fortunately doctors," said Delta spokeswoman Betsy Talton.

Doctors usually discourage pregnant women to fly at the ninth month, but Talton said Delta has no policy to deny boarding. Other airlines, including Lufthansa and Northwest Airlines, require a medical certificate for women who are at the 36th week of pregnancy.

James Franco's height is 5 ft 10.75 in (180 cm)

2007-05-25T04:21:00.000-07:00

Date of Birth:
19 April 1978, Palo Alto, California, USA more
Mini Biography:
Best known for his breakthrough starring role on "Freaks and Geeks" (1999), James... more
Trivia:
Auditioned for the role of Peter Parker in Spider-Man (2002), but was given... more
Awards:
Won Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 4 nominations more
Alternate Names:
James Edward Franco

James Franco has 1 in-development credit available on IMDbPro.com.
Actor:

* In Production
* 2000s
* 1990s

1. The Pineapple Express (2008) (post-production)
2. In the Valley of Elah (2007) (post-production) .... Sergeant Dan Carnelli

3. Spider-Man 3 (2007) (VG) (voice) .... New Goblin/Harry Osborn
4. Spider-Man 3 (2007) .... New Goblin/Harry Osborn
... aka Spider-Man 3: The IMAX Experience (USA: IMAX version)
5. Camille (2007) .... Silias
6. Finishing the Game (2007) .... Rob Force
7. An American Crime (2007) .... Dennis
8. Good Time Max (2007) .... Max
9. The Dead Girl (2006) .... Derek
10. Grasshopper (2006) .... Travis
11. The Wicker Man (2006) .... Bar Guy #1
12. Flyboys (2006) .... Blaine Rawlings
13. Annapolis (2006) .... Jake Huard
14. Tristan + Isolde (2006) .... Tristan
... aka Tristan & Isolde (USA: promotional title)
15. The Great Raid (2005) .... Captain Prince
16. The Ape (2005) .... Harry Walker
17. Fool's Gold (2005) .... Brent
18. Spider-Man 2 (2004) .... Harry Osborn
... aka Spider-Man 2.1 (USA: recut version)
... aka Spider-Man 2: The IMAX Experience (USA: IMAX version)
19. The Company (2003) .... Josh
... aka The Company - Das Ensemble (Germany)
20. The Car Kid (2003)
21. Mean People Suck (2003) .... Casey
22. City by the Sea (2002) .... Joey "Nova" LaMarca
... aka The Suspect (Philippines: English title)
23. Sonny (2002) .... Sonny Phillips
24. Blind Spot (2002/I) .... Danny
25. Mother Ghost (2002) .... Skateboarder guy
26. You Always Stalk the Ones You Love (2002)
27. Deuces Wild (2002) .... Tino
... aka Deuces Wild - Wild in den Stra?en (Germany)
28. Spider-Man (2002) .... Harry Osborn
29. James Dean (2001) (TV) .... James Dean/Narrator
30. Some Body (2001) (uncredited) .... Apartment Guy 3
31. "The X Files" .... Officer #2 (1 episode, 2001)
... aka The X-Files (USA)
- Surekill (2001) TV Episode .... Officer #2
32. "Freaks and Geeks" .... Daniel Desario (18 episodes, 1999-2000)
- Noshing and Moshing (2000) TV Episode .... Daniel Desario
- Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers (2000) TV Episode .... Daniel Desario
- Discos and Dragons (2000) TV Episode .... Daniel Desario
- Smooching and Mooching (2000) TV Episode .... Daniel Desario
- The Little Things (2000) TV Episode .... Daniel Desario
(13 more)
33. At Any Cost (2000) (TV) .... Mike
34. Whatever It Takes (2000) .... Chris Campbell
35. If Tomorrow Comes (2000) .... Devin

36. Never Been Kissed (1999) (as James Edward Franco) .... Jason Way
37. "Profiler" .... Nick (1 episode, 1999)
- Three Carat Crisis (1999) TV Episode .... Nick
38. To Serve and Protect (1999) (TV) .... Matt Carr
... aka Family Shield (USA)
39. "Pacific Blue" .... Brian (1 episode, 1997)
- Matters of the Heart (1997) TV Episode .... Brian

Director:

1. Good Time Max (2007)
2. The Ape (2005)
3. Fool's Gold (2005)

Writer:

1. Good Time Max (2007) (written by)
2. The Ape (2005) (written by)
3. Fool's Gold (2005) (play Emma) (play Fools Gold) (screenplay)

Producer:

1. The Ape (2005) (executive producer)

Self:

1. Spider-Man 3: UK Premiere Special (2007) (TV) .... Himself
2. "Corazón de..." .... Himself (2 episodes, 2007)
- Episode dated 26 April 2007 (2007) TV Episode .... Himself
- Episode dated 24 January 2006 (????) TV Episode .... Himself
3. "Xposé" .... Himself (1 episode, 2007)
- Episode #1.7 (2007) TV Episode .... Himself
4. The Holiday (2006) (uncredited) .... Himself
5. "Last Call with Carson Daly" .... Himself (1 episode, 2006)
- Episode dated 22 September 2006 (2006) TV Episode .... Himself
6. "Fuse Celebrity Playlist" .... Himself - Guest (1 episode, 2006)
- James Franco (2006) TV Episode .... Himself - Guest
7. "The Tony Danza Show" .... Himself (1 episode, 2006)
- Episode #2.81 (2006) TV Episode .... Himself
8. Making the Amazing (2004) (V) .... Himself
... aka Making the Amazing: Spider-Man 2 (USA)
... aka Making the Amazing: The Making of 'Spider-Man 2' (USA)
9. "The Early Show" .... Himself (3 episodes, 2002)
... aka The Saturday Early Show (USA: weekend title)
- Episode dated 31 December 2002 (2002) TV Episode .... Himself
- Episode dated 25 December 2002 (2002) TV Episode .... Himself
- Episode dated 21 December 2002 (2002) TV Episode .... Himself
10. "HBO First Look" .... Himself (1 episode, 2002)
- Spider-Man (2002) TV Episode .... Himself
11. Behind the Scenes: Spider-Man the Movie (2002) (TV) .... Himself
... aka Behind the Ultimate Spin (UK)

Music playlist sharing site Webjay, acquired by Yahoo in January 2006, will be closing June 30 according to a message that has appeared on the site.

2007-05-24T07:57:00.000-07:00

Music playlist sharing site Webjay, acquired by Yahoo in January 2006, will be closing June 30 according to a message that has appeared on the site.

The announcement gives Yahoo a hat trick of closure announcements for May, Webjay joining Yahoo Photos and Yahoo Auctions in the TechCrunch DeadPool.

Founded by Lucas Gonze, Webjay allowed users to publish music playlists on the web. Media players such as WinAmp and Windows Media Player could then be given a list of songs to play from locally stored music or via web streaming.

No reasons have been given for the closure. Alexa traffic data for Webjay shows a gradual decline in traffic from a peak in early 2006.

Compete API Open For Business

2007-05-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

Web analytics startup Compete.com opened its API for public use today. Websites and applications can now access Compete's data and incorporate it into their own products.

This is timely for the company, which competes directly with Amazon's Alexa. Recenty, Statsaholic has been in a very public dispute with Alexa over use of its data, with both sides looking bad. That dispute recently went to litigation. As some services shy away from Alexa, either due to public perception or inflexibility over the Alexa APIs, Compete could grab additional market share.

Compete is using Mashery to handle the logistics and distribution of its API. We wrote about Mashery when they launched late last year. Our previous coverage of Compete is here.

Sequoia Leads Trulia’s $10 Million Series C

2007-05-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

Real estate search engine Trulia joins an elite Silicon Valley Club today with the announcement of $10m Series C funding in a round headed by Sequoia Capital.

Trulia moved out of beta earlier this month and launched a number of new features.

Sequoia is joined in the funding round by previous investors Accel and Fayez Sarofim & Co. The $10m takes Trulia's total funding to $17.7million. The new money is being used for additional staff, product development and a new marketing push.

There's a wealth of potential in the real estate market. Advertising spending alone in real estate will total $11 billion in the United States in 2007 (Borrell Associates), with over 80% of the consumers using the Internet as part of their home buying research.

Trulia is not alone in chasing this market. Zillow has raised $57 million and Redfin has previously raised $9 million in two rounds. Internet Brands also is also a competitor with Real Estate ABC.

Trulia's main features include a comprehensive database of active real estate listings, price trend heat maps, and a Q&A service.

Adsense For Video, Google Still Lagging

2007-05-24T07:52:00.000-07:00

Google has announced a closed beta test of Adsense for Video.

According to the post on Inside Adsense, Adsense for Video consists of "in-stream" advertisements. Publishers define at what point the advertisements will appear for each video.

It's a change in the right direction for Google. The previously announced advertising trials for YouTube consisted entirely of text advertising overlays that lead to video-on-video click to play advertisements; a form of advertising that can easily be ignored by the viewer. Whilst many may find in-video style advertising annoying, it at least comes with a guarantee that viewers are going to see the advertisement.

Adsense for Video, as it is currently explained lacks contextual delivery. Allowing publishers to select where a video is played may empower content creators, but it does nothing in terms of automatically optimizing advertising for the viewer.

Google appears to be lagging in this market; the technology to contextually serve advertising within video is already available, ScanScout providing such a service. Given the massive market share Google holds in the online video hosting marketplace through YouTube, it would normally be expected that Google would be leading development in this field. For reasons unknown, they are not doing so.

Google Print doesn't do exclusive deals with libraries, but still holds the public domain tight to its chest

2007-05-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks back, I blogged about NPR's segment on digital libraries, where Brewster Kahle criticized Google for striking exclusivity deals with libraries that prohibited Google's competitors from scanning their collections.

Google has replied, saying that it doesn't have any such deal with the libraries, and they've put it in writing. They've even included one of their library contracts. This is really, really good news.

I'm still disappointed that Google puts restrictive notices on their public domain works (these aren't licenses, just "polite notices") that tell what you're not allowed to do with these books. I know they're worried about their competitors getting ahold of those documents, but that's the deal with the public domain: it doesn't belong to you, period, it belongs to all of us. Just because you scan a public domain book, it doesn't confer the right to control it to you.

More importantly: Google is betting that it will make more money by locking these books up to be merely read than it could by making them available as a giant tarball for the Internet to bend, spindle, mutilate and fold. That merely hosting these will generate more pageviews than turning them loose for remix, mashup, scholarship and other forms of inventive re-use.

It just doesn't seem like Google, betting against the Internet's creativity and capacity to innovate. I know they've got a lot of smart people there, but I hope they understand that they don't have all the smart people. Google makes the bulk of its money by indexing the cool stuff other people make. Why restrict people from making more cool stuff? Link (Thanks, Alex!)

photo jessica alba

2007-05-24T04:40:00.001-07:00

Birth name: Jessica Marie Alba
Date of birth: April 28, 1981
Birth location: Pomona, California, United States
Height: 5' 7" (1.70 m)
Notable role(s): Nancy Callahan in Sin City,
Max Guevara in Dark Angel,
Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four

Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981, in Pomona, California) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in Dark Angel, Sin City, Fantastic Four and Into the Blue.
Contents

* 1 Biography
o 1.1 Early life
o 1.2 Career
o 1.3 Personal life
o 1.4 Religion
* 2 Filmography
* 3 Awards
* 4 Trivia
* 5 References
* 6 External links

Biography

Early life

Alba was born in Pomona, California to Mark Alba who is of Mexican-American descent and Cathy Jensen of Danish, French-Canadian, English and Italian descent. Alba was raised in an Air Force family, along with her brother, Joshua Alba, and her grandparents until she was sixteen. She grew up a sports fanatic. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before they settled back in California. Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies; she suffered collapsed lungs twice, had pneumonia 4-5 times a year, a burst appendix, a cyst on her tonsils and asthma. This served to isolate her from other children at school because, as she claims, she was in the hospital so often that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She also revealed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child. Her health improved, however, when her family moved to California.

Alba had expressed interest in acting since the age of five. She took her first acting class at age twelve, and an acting agent signed her nine months later.

Career

Alba's first appearance in film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two month job when the actress in one of the prominent roles dropped out. Alba was picked to replace her because her hair matched that of the original actress citation needed].

Young Alba appeared in two national TV commercials for Nintendo and J.C. Penney; she was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into TV in 1994 with a recurring role as the insufferable young snob, Jessica, in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the TV series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia. In 1996, she appeared in the film Venus Rising as Young Eve.

In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 and as Layla in an episode of The Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S..

After graduating from high school, Alba studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet.

Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique in the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, and as the female lead in the 1999 comedy-horror film Idle Hands, opposite Devon Sawa. Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically-engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara on the Fox sci-fi TV series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, Alba was the star in the series which ran for two seasons before being canceled in 2002. Since then her most notable roles have been as an aspiring dancer/choreographer in Honey, exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City and as the classic Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman in the Fantastic Four. Jessica went on to host the MTV Movie Awards 2006 and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission Impossible 3, and The Da Vinci Code.

She once told Dark Angel producer, James Cameron, that she did not want to direct because it appeared to be too difficult an undertaking, but he responded with the prediction that she would end up directing sooner than she expected citation needed].

Apparently, Alba fears being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. [1] "Somehow, I don't think this is happening to Natalie Portman," laments Alba. In the interview, Alba says she wants to be taken seriously as an actress but believes she needs to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hopes to be more selective in her film projects.

Personal life

Alba suffered anorexia[2] and a kidney infection in 2001. She also now suffers from motion sickness, which developed after childhood.

Alba was engaged to her Dark Angel co-star Michael Weatherly, but it was called off. In January 2005, she began dating Cash Warren, a director's assistant on Fantastic Four, whom she met when filming that movie. Regarding children, Alba has stated:

"I'm really girly when it comes to kids. I've been surrounded by kids my whole life because I'm the oldest of 15 cousins — I've been changing diapers since I was six. I want to have a couple, for sure". [1]

Alba announced on the UK teen website "Teen Today" in 2005, prior to the birth of her brother's child, that she was beginning a children's clothing line:

"About four of my girlfriends have babies so they have no time for me. I figure if I can do baby clothes maybe they'll have more time to hang out!"[3]

Religion

During an interview with GQ magazine, Alba said that in her teen years she became a born-again Christian in a rebellion against her parents.citation needed] As the daughter of conservative parents, Alba, whose grandparents did not even allow her to wear a bathing suit around the house, maintains a no-nudity clause in her contract, though she has claimed she had been willing to be fully nude in Sin City. She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad:

"They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties".citation needed]

Filmography
Year Title Role
2007 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Invisible Woman (Sue Storm) (pre-production)
Sin City 2 Nancy Callahan (pre-production)
The Eye Allison (pre-production)
The Ten Liz (filming)
Bill Lucy (filming)
2006 Good Luck Chuck Cam Wexler (filming)
Awake Sam (post-production)
2005 Into the Blue Sam
Fantastic Four Invisible Woman (Sue Storm)
Sin City Nancy Callahan
2003 Honey Honey Daniels
The Sleeping Dictionary Selima
2000–2002 Dark Angel Max Guevara/X5-452 (TV series)
2000 Paranoid Chloe
1999 Idle Hands Molly
Never Been Kissed Kirsten Liosis
P.U.N.K.S. Samantha Swoboda
1996 Too Soon for Jeff Christy (TV series)
1995–1996 Flipper Maya (TV series)
1995 Venus Rising Young Eve
1994 Camp Nowhere Gail

Awards

* 2000: Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television — Dark Angel
* 2001: TV Guide Awards for Breakout Star of the Year — Dark Angel
* 2001: Teen Choice Awards for Choice Actress — Dark Angel

Trivia
Alba on the controversial cover of the March 2006 issue of Playboy magazine.

* On E's "101 Sexiest Bodies", Alba was placed at 3rd, behind Brad Pitt in 2nd, and Angelina Jolie in 1st.
* In Maxim magazine's 2006 Hot 100, Jessica Alba came in 2nd, after Eva Longoria. She had jumped 7 spots (in 2005 she ranked Number 9). She is also featured in their Girls of Maxim Gallery.
* Her brother Joshua Alba appeared with her in "And Jesus Brought a Casserole," the first season finale of Dark Angel, in which he played Krit, one of her X-5 brothers who wanted to help destroy Manticore.
* Alba dyed her hair blond for her role in Into the Blue, a hair color her characters also required in her next two roles, playing blonde comic book characters Nancy Callahan and the Invisible Woman (Sue Storm).
* She has a tattoo of a daisy with a ladybird on it on the back of her neck, a bow on her lower back [4] [5], and the Sanskrit symbol for lotus flower, "padma", on her wrist. [6]
* She has a 3 dogs, 2 pugs and a pitbull named Bowie. Bowie is named after singer David Bowie because, like the dog, David Bowie has two different eye colors.
* Alba revealed that she envisions a much older man as her ideal partner, having made references to "Morgan Freeman, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, and Michael Caine. "I have this thing for older men. They've been around and know so much." [7]
* Playboy magazine named Alba among its 25 Sexiest Celebrities, and the Sex Star of the Year in its March 2006 issue, on whose cover she appeared. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude or semi-nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported.
* Alba came first in the Ralph 200 sexiest women.
* Star magazine listed her as "Best Female" in their 3rd "Best and Worst Bodies" list.
* Australia's FHM magazine Jessica Alba was voted 1st in the FHM Sexiest 100 for 2006
* Norway's FHM magazine Jessica Alba was voted 1st in the FHM Sexiest 100 for 2006
* Jessica Alba was voted as the #1 most desirable women of 2006 in AskMen.com's annual reader's poll.
* In a September 2006 magazine article, Jessica Alba was rated #3 as best dressed actress in Hollywood.

schwein haben

2007-05-24T04:26:00.001-07:00

Germans and other Germanic peoples today have many positive expressions that tie luck to the pig. Someone who comes into something good is told "schwein haben" (to have pig). One is a "lucky pig" if one picks the correct lottery numbers or wins something. A proverb says "One who wants to make an impression buys a horse, one who wants to become wealthy breeds pigs."

There are several legends discussing where the pig's reputation came from. Germany's ancient people, the Teutons, sacrificed the pig, their most valuable animal to the gods to ensure good luck. (The pig was a symbol of fertility and wealth to the Teutons as well, helping to ensure pregancy. Perhaps they shared or transferred this belief to or from the ancient Greeks, who revered the pig because pigs were said to suckle Zeus.)

In another story, the city of Luneburg became wealthy because a pig showed a hunter a source of invaluable salt and the pig is still thanked today. Our favorite story dates to the Middle Ages and says that the person who came in last in a shooting competition was awarded a pig. This person had undeserved luck to "have pig."

As a common domesticated animal it is not surprising that other cultures have legends about the lucky pig. The Greek fertility god Demeter was associated with pigs. The pig was associated with several Egyptian gods. Celts believed their god Manannan owned magic pigs that could be eaten and reappear the next day. Native Americans believed the pig had the power to bring rain. Of course, we're all familiar with piggy banks as a source of wealth.

We know the pig is intelligent. Pigs breed quickly and bring wealth. It is associated with good luck and fertility. All good qualities. We all need to "have pig!"

"Harry Potter" film to premiere in Tokyo

2007-05-23T05:53:00.000-07:00

OKYO (Reuters) - The fifth "Harry Potter" film, based on the best-selling books about the young boy wizard, will premiere in Japan on June 28, just months after "Spider-Man 3" marked a rare international movie debut in Tokyo.

A Warner Bros. spokeswoman in Tokyo said British actor
Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the broomstick-flying Harry, would come to Tokyo for the event, which is scheduled ahead of the movie's London showing on July 3.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is the latest installment in a series that began in 2001 with "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

The four previous "Harry Potter" movies, based on
J.K. Rowling's books, have grossed more than $3.5 billion worldwide.

There is "no special reason" why the film is making its premiere in Japan, the spokeswoman said.

But the Tokyo premiere last month of another highly anticipated sequel, "Spider-Man 3," was seen as a shrewd push into the faster-growing international market that could help boost box-office revenues.

The seventh and final book in the "Harry Potter" series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," will go on sale on July 21, but it is not clear when the film version will be made.

Plan could jail illegal border crossers

2007-05-23T05:46:00.000-07:00

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Democrats are seeking to slash the number of foreign workers who could come to the U.S. on temporary visas as the Senate prepares for another day of freewheeling debate over a bipartisan immigration measure.
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A Republican proposal to crack down on illegal border crossers with mandatory prison sentences also was to be discussed Wednesday, as leaders in both parties sought to alter elements of the broad agreement that are drawing criticism from their core supporters.

The measure would toughen border security, give quick legal status to the estimated 12 million immigrants in the country unlawfully and create a new workplace verification system to bar undocumented workers from getting jobs.

It would create a point system for future immigration applicants that would place less emphasis on family connections and more on education and skills in demand by U.S. businesses.

Republicans, responding to conservative criticism that the measure is too lenient, were considering efforts to bolster its security provisions and make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to get on a path to citizenship.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., who helped craft the immigration deal, was expected to offer the border security amendment.

Democrats, hearing criticism from labor unions and immigrant groups on the guest worker program, were focusing on shrinking or otherwise altering it.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (news, bio, voting record), D-N.M., was seeking to cap the number of annual visas available for temporary workers at 200,000. A similar amendment passed the Senate last year by an overwhelming margin.

As currently crafted, the temporary worker plan would allow up to 600,000 workers ― largely unskilled, nonagricultural laborers in areas such as construction, landscaping and meatpacking ― to stay for up to three two-year stints, provided they left the United States for a year between each stay. A Democratic attempt to strip the program altogether failed Tuesday in the first major test of the fragile immigration compromise.

Democrats also are planning attempts to ensure that more visas would be available for family members of permanent residents and U.S. citizens.

The coalition of conservatives, liberals and centrists who worked out the White House-backed deal are struggling to keep it intact.

Senate leaders in both parties, however, say it's important to have a wide-ranging debate on the measure. They have postponed a final vote until June.

"There's good and bad in this," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said of the bill. "That's what amending the legislation is all about ― trying to improve it."

amanda beard fhm

2007-05-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

Take a victory lap with The World's Sexiest Athlete
"After my last FHM shoot during the 2004 games, people were like, 'Wow, she's grown up,'" says the now 24-year-old Amanda. "And it's not only because I was in a sexy bikini but I also took on my own business ventures and I'm really in control of what is going on around me."

That control has turned her into the Tiger Woods of swimming. Amanda gets a cool $15,000 per speaking engagement. She has signed a $1 million contract to advertise Speedo's Axcelerate line. Throw in endorsement deals with Oroweat Bread, Red Bull and Penta water, and a signature line of fragrance products, and Amanda can earn up to $100 million by 2010. Is there anything she can't do? "I can't stop laughing every time I hear someone call me the World's Sexiest Athlete," she says. "I don't look in the mirror and go, 'Wow, I'm sexy.'" Amanda, perhaps you should take a look at these photos before you decide.

Trashed: Much left behind at colleges

2007-05-22T05:03:00.000-07:00

DAVIDSON, N.C. - With 1,700 students, Davidson College may be small. But you'd never know it when you see the stuff students leave behind at the end of year.

In a large room at a fraternity house, stacks of clothing, furniture, lamps and electronics were already piling up days ahead of last Sunday's graduation. Mixed in were odds and ends that could only wind up together in a college trash pile: a pair of giant Homer Simpson slippers; a collection of Pokemon cards; a batch of fashion disaster dresses you can only hope were costumes from a campus theme party called the Five Dollar Prom.

College students have more possessions than ever, and in the frenzy of finals, commencement and last-gasp partying before the end of the school year, little time is left for an orderly move. Purging is often easier than shipping or storing.

But recently, much of the flotsam and jetsam of Davidson's spring has at least avoided the Dumpster. Last year, students collected enough goods to fill the frat house about 10 times over ― twice as much as the year before ― and turned the material over to local charities.

"As you're trying to stuff your stuff into the car, you realize what you really need," said freshman Elizabeth Krebs.

Davidson isn't the only college trying to put its student left-behinds to better use. Next Saturday, up to 10,000 people are expected to descend on Penn State's Beaver Stadium to pick their way through 62 tons of student detritus at the annual "Trash to Treasure" sale, which has raised more than $200,000 for the United Way. Boston College collects up to 100,000 items annually for dozens of community groups. In the 15 years since its program started, the University of Michigan has channeled 123 tons of "gently used" student gear back to the community.

Programs also have sprung up in recent years at numerous other schools, among them Tufts, Santa Clara University, the University of Colorado, Furman University and Carleton College in Minnesota. Sometimes, student environmental groups are the driving force. But many colleges like the idea, too ― at least more than paying to haul it all away.

"There's a growing sense of the cost," said Lisa Heller Boragine, who started an organization called Dump & Run that helps recycling and resale programs at about a dozen colleges. Nor do schools like having trash pile up during prime parental visiting time.

While administrators used to tell her the year-end move-out mess wasn't a big deal, "I don't have that problem anymore," she said. "Nobody denies it's a problem at their school."

Why now? At schools like Davidson and BC, more students are coming from out of state and overseas. Those students fly home and can't fit everything in their luggage.

And many schools, such as BC, have a range of new upscale housing options. College students are living more apartment-style lives than their predecessors. Items such as microwaves, TVs, and refrigerators that used to be shared by a dorm section are now in every room. Everyone has a laptop, and many upgrade during college.

There is also more affluence on many campuses, and you can see it in the trash.

Wake Forest "could basically open our own clothing store" with what it collects from students, said Donna McGalliard, the school's director of residence life and housing. "Very well-known brands. Banana Republic. Old Navy. Chaps." Many still have price tags. Others "are a little worn or wrinkled, but they didn't seem to have stains or anything on them," she said.

In the items BC students leave behind, "you do see an increase in wealth over the years," said John McLaughlin, a BC employee who helped start the program as a young alum. He had recently returned from an Indian reservation and was bothered by how much went to waste at BC.

Ed Newman, who overseas the recycling and reuse programs at Ohio University, calls the spring move-out "a study in conspicuous consumption."

"There are 85 schools in Ohio and 4,000 in this country, and they're all living like there's no tomorrow," he said. Though proud of the efforts, he is also troubled by how much still is wasted. About 80 percent of OU's trash could be recycled or reused.

"It's more appalling than anything else," he said.

Boragine, who started a resale program at the University of Richmond when she was teaching there, said she can tell the difference between a school with a $20,000 price tag and a $40,000 one just by looking at what gets left behind.

"Instead of the dollar-store scissors, you'd probably find the $7 ergonomically correct scissors," she said. Rather than a hand-me-down TV that no longer works, there is a year-old one that is too heavy to ship.

Mostly, however, the left-behind items are the predictable, timeless staples of college life: casual clothes, low-grade furniture, countless unopened Ramen noodles. Penn State's sale features about 4,000 carpets, along with stacks of sweaters and T-shirts running down a row 100 feet long and 3 feet wide.

Those essentials are more useful to the charities than high-end appliances are. Texas State University-San Marcos, which serves a high poverty area, gave clothes and other items to about 1,000 needy people last year. Among the groups that collect from BC is The Second Step, an organization for domestic violence survivors, many of whom are trying to set up their own households and often don't have things like furniture and cookware.

At Penn State's annual sale, where nothing goes for more than $20, "there are folks looking for a bargains," said Al Matyasovsky, who heads the effort there. But, he added: "There are also people in the surrounding community that need this and can only afford the $4 pair of jeans."

The service project is now among the biggest on Davidson's campus, about 20 miles north of Charlotte.

Senior Liz Dover said locals have grown accustomed to post-graduation Dumpster-diving on campus ― so much so that volunteers now sleep on the pile of couches in the yard to keep them from being taken. If people really need something, they are sent to Goodwill and other charity groups where the donated goods wind up.

"We don't donate anything if it's dirty or has holes, unless it's Abercrombie style and it's supposed to be dirty and have holes," Dover said.

Eventually, the cartloads of sweat shirts and acres of carpet blur together, and it's the more colorful left-behind items that stick out. A six-foot boa constrictor got left in a drawer at the University of Florida a while back; a three-foot inflatable Jesus turned up at Bates College. This year's haul at Colgate includes a gross of chopsticks, a walking cast and a disco ball.

Some find anthropological significance in the mixture of the odd and humdrum.

A typical catch might include "hula hoops, dishes, a can opener, a couple of condoms and notebook paper," said Kim Yarbray, environmental sustainability coordinator at Guilford College, also in North Carolina. She sees it as a kind of symbol of the intersecting stages of life of college students: childhood playfulness, adolescent experimentation, the first tools for adults who must work and take care of themselves.

"Their whole life is right there," she said. "You can just see it in the things they choose to discard."

(joke)Materialistic

2007-05-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

One day, there was this lawyer who had just bought a new car, and he was eager to show it off to his colleagues, when all of a sudden an eighteen wheeler came out of nowhere and took of the driver's side door with him standing right there.
"NOOO!" he screamed, because he knew that no matter how good a mechanic tried to fix it, it never would be the same. Finally, a cop came by, and the lawyer ran up to him yelling. "MY JAGUAR DOOR WAS JUST RUINED BY SOME FOOLISH DRIVER!!!" he exclaimed.
"Your a lawyer aren't you?" asked the policeman. "Yes, I am, but what does this have to do with my car?!?!" the lawyer asked.
"HA! Your lawyers are always so materialistic. All you care about is your possessions. I bet you didn't even notice that your left arm is missing did you?" the cop said.
The lawyer looked down at his side and exclaimed "MY ROLEX!"
The girl snapped up the package, pointed to the old geezer standing beside her, and smiled, "Grandpa will pay the bill."