Todds Spleen's blog

This looks interesting.

Weekend Edition Sunday, March 8, 2009 · This weekend, the nation sees the closing of yet another big box store. Circuit City was once the nation's second largest consumer electronics retailer, with 567 U.S. stores and 34,000 employees. After 60 years in business, the store will close for good on Sunday.

Mismanaged into the ground

Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009), better known as Paul Harvey, was an American radio broadcaster for the ABC Radio Networks. He broadcast News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, and at noon on Saturdays, as well as his famous The Rest of the Story segments. His listening audience was estimated at 22 million people a week. Harvey liked to say he was raised in radio newsrooms.

The only time I ever heard Paul Harvey on the radio was when I was in the middle of nowhere. It's how I knew I was on vacation. I'm not sure I'll miss him, but it's definitely the end of an era.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A surveillance picture released by police Wednesday afternoon shows a man armed with what appears to be a small Klingon sword, holding up a 7-Eleven convenience store.

That same man robbed another 7-Eleven store store a half-hour later, and remains at large, Colorado Springs police Lt. David Whitlock said.

full story here

it's reality.

(click here to view)

John Sherffius Jan 17, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

A protest over the fatal shooting by a BART police officer of an unarmed man mushroomed into several hours of violence Wednesday night as demonstrators smashed storefronts and cars, set several cars ablaze and blocked streets in downtown Oakland.
via SFGate

Photo courtesy of The Inadvertent Gardener Some rights reserved

While I was standing there taking this picture, the guy in the left of the frame was asking the police officer whether he could join the protest. The officer told him very politely that he could not, because it was an unlawful protest and the police officers were now just trying to contain it. The guy in the left of the frame asked about his Constitutional right to assembly. "I understand how you feel," the officer said, "But these people have already committed acts of vandalism. Right now, our job is just to contain them."

-The Inadvertent Gardener

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity may still have big achievements ahead as they approach the fifth anniversaries of their memorable landings on Mars.

Of the hundreds of engineers and scientists who cheered at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 3, 2004, when Spirit landed safely, and 21 days later when Opportunity followed suit, none predicted the team would still be operating both rovers in 2009.

"The American taxpayer was told three months for each rover was the prime mission plan," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The twins have worked almost 20 times that long. That's an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times."

The rovers have made important discoveries about wet and violent environments on ancient Mars. They also have returned a quarter-million images, driven more than 21 kilometers (13 miles), climbed a mountain, descended into craters, struggled with sand traps and aging hardware, survived dust storms, and relayed more than 36 gigabytes of data via NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. To date, the rovers remain operational for new campaigns the team has planned for them.

Happy anniversary to the MER team!

There may be a good reason for social networking sites after all.

"Holy Fucking Shit I Was Just In A Plane Crash!"
Henry Blodget | December 21, 2008 9:17 AM

A Continental airlines 737 slid off the runway in Denver last night. The engine on the right side burst into flames. Passengers escaped out the left side on slides. 38 people were hurt. Fortunately no one was killed.

In another first for Twitter, passenger Mike Wilson tweeted his miraculous escape. Read from the bottom up. And then buy this man (and everyone else on the plane) a vodka tonic!

via SILICON ALLEY INSIDER

This should do it.

Constructed of a soft, flesh-like gel, the remote appears cold when off. Once turned on, however, it seems to come to life. A soft light emanates somewhere from within as the center of the device begins to slowly rise and fall, mimicking the tranquil motions of breath. Left undisturbed, the remote will slumber peacefully. Buth should a human hand approach, sensors inside alert it to the imminent touch. It stops breathing, grows rigid – the light from within is extinguished. A remote is the ideal meaphor for the disturbance electronic distration poses to life. If we had to interrupt its life before it could interrupt ours, we may think twice before picking it up.

via Next Nature

Adam and Jamie, hosts of the known Mythbusters show compared a CPU vs a GPU to explain parallel processing and the GPU drew an ACTUAL mona lisa drawing using paint balls in 80 milliseconds!