The media was out there covering hurricane Isabel. CNN had 3 reporters out and all of them showcased their experience covering Mother Nature like a regular football event. Watch Jeff Flock’s hairdo blow away! No: Watch Susan Candiotti’s waterproof lipchap!.
Compare that with WVEC’s Isabel Blog, where people are encouraged to submit their experiences with their own pictures.
More Reuters: the agency reports that a group of computer owners has filed a lawsuit against hardware and computermakers, claiming that their advertising is deceptive, overstating the true size of harddrives.
The suit names Apple, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba and the center of the controversy is that these companies showcase the size of harddrives in decimal notation while the computers read and write in binary system.
Didn’t get it? Well, again: the group claims that harddrives described as 20 Gb, actually have a size of 18.6 Gb. Yes. As if we didn’t know.
Over at Reuters an article about Microsoft and their ambitions to sidetrack Google, the ever-popular search engine.
The company is pretty confident too. Says a strategist of Microsoft:
“The decision to build or buy came down to our ability to innovate. Our ability to innovate is predicated on our ability to own the platform”
Third-parties and analysts suggest that Microsoft’s ultimate goal may be the integration of a Web search application into Longhorn, the database driven upcoming version of Windows.
I went to the store to pick up some yeast (traditional type), sesame and poppy seed, but upon arriving home I found out that the package of poppy seed wasn’t there in the bag. Must have lost it in the store. It took some time for the shop assistants to find me that package of sesame seed. What I needed it for. ‘Oh, I was going to make bread’. Sure I was. I mean, I go to the store to buy yeast while there are plenty loafs of bread for a dollar each (or more). Better yet, try some of the best of the best: Uncle Ben’s Dutch style bread. Dutch style with 13 grains or more.
Reuters reports that NASA is thinking of replacing the shuttles with next-generation Apollo-type capsules.
Under pressure to ensure safe manned spaceflight and space transport, the agency said it is looking in the option to use capsules as a viable alternative for the ageing shuttles.
“Certainly we have considerable amount of experience flying with capsules. One might say on the capsule side it could be that that design experience may lead to a capsule being available sooner than a winged vehicle.”
According to Reuters, many astronauts support the idea of the use of capsules. A study headed by John Young, a veteran shuttle and capsule astronaut, cited the versatility of the capsules which can move from low orbit to beyond the moon.
While cleaning up the harddrive I bumped into a couple of old RAM files. Most of them were snippets of old recordings, once used for a webpage from the olden times. Some of them were of pretty good quality, actually capturing the mood of that specific time. Later more on that: first, my eye fell on a couple of files with names suggesting that they were RealAudio recordings of my MIDI compositions for my Roland SCC-1 ready PC.
I have no idea why I bothered recording the midi compositions, but hearing them again convinces me that we were damn happy (and lucky) owners of that precious Roland card. Introducing: ‘Birth, Life, Death I’ (1993) [MP3 from RealAudio]
Update: I encountered problems with the original RA files, so converted them to MP3 for my own convience.
AOL Time Warner is planning to ditch the AOL in their name. So does this mean that the executives finally admit that the whole merger was a big mistake, I wonder.
The funny thing is that it appears to be easier to change the name of a company than to have your name changed. Not that I’m not happy with my last name, which I happen to be proud of, but sometimes I feel for those telemarketers who are forced to say my name.
me: Hello?
telemarketeer: Hello, mister Hooo.. Hoe—oek. Hotcherpotch?
me: Wrong answer. Bye.
On preview: Life is good.
Canadian Idol, naturally, smashed Canadian records. The 2 hour sitcom show will probably make into today’s hot topic of the day, most likely replacing regular number one topic, the nation’s weather (Calgary = snow!, Ontario = Isabel).
The Globe has probably one of the most dry commentaries on the show, carefully suggesting that the two hour long show could have been cut into a 15 minute sing-along-and-vote-now event.
“Other flashback segments included host Ben Mulroney and sidekick Jon Dore singing the Idol anthem Choose Me alongside early-round Idol rejects. Some of the off-notes would have shattered glass.”
Last evening brought you plenty of winners! There’s a new Idol, Canadian, plus most importantly: an extremely happy record industry, eager to raise those profit margins after bad-bad-bad pirates, software programmers and dancing-boy-groups tried to ruin the market. Vive l’Idol!
I salute you, Gamelan Pacifica, for blending the voices of instruments and humans, just like an original Gamelan troupe.
I salute you, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, for dedicating yourself to the presentation of traditional and contemporary Balinese performing arts.
I salute you, Gamelan Galak Tika, for developing new works in colaboration with Balinese and American artists.
I salute you, dad, for introducing me to this music. I will never like it, but at least the music makes me understand.
I was going to add Ken Kifer’s Bike pages to the Elsewhere links, after reading the thread at Metafilter that he was killed in an accident. Highly unfortunate circumstances he died in, so might just as well add it to the actual weblog contents.
Kifer’s experiences on his bike and traffic safety pages are so recognizable that it leaves me wonder what would happen if there was an official policy in NS or Canada, to promote cycling.
Related to this story, we managed to get me some more tools for the bike (a pump and a couple of small tools to patch the tubes). I should show my wife how to quickly fix (rather patch) a bike tire since she isn’t used to seeing me actually fixing something that has not to do with computers or programs.
Isabel, the tropical storm currently beating the Caribean, is gearing up for the East coast. That is the US East Coast of course, but there is a possibility that it will be moving up towards Ontario and Quebec (however, it would surprise me if it wouldn’t lose its power after making landfall). It will be interesting to see how this hurricane (or remnants) will affect North American weather.
Anyways, the prettiest picture comes from NASA (like always), with
this shot from the ISS.
A Canadian researcher says that Greek alphabetical numerals and Egyptian demotic numerals (what is this?) have so many striking similarities, suggesting that the Greek probably borrowed knowledge from their Egyptian masters.
Earlier it was thought that the Greek system was developed in Western Asia Minor, nowadays known as Turkey.
I wasn’t planning to mention this, but since it’s on Canadian TV repeatedly, the final for Canadian Idol will be on tonight. I’ll be the first one to say that I haven’t followed the complete show, basically because I’m not interested in these kind of media events.
I did notice that a Nova Scotian guy has entered the finals and he seems to have a good chance winning the show too. Naturally, there’s a frenzy going on in Nova Scotia. If I remember correctly, the city of Halifax issued a couple of billboards showing their support. And ATV (the local broadcaster) has invited everyone to a place somewhere to watch, see, sing and celebrate the whole event.
