Free Kareem
ALERT!! A serious injustice was committed. Please take action now! Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger who was imprisoned for exercising his right to freedom of speech, is still in prison and needs YOUR help!
Find out more information by visiting FreeKareem.org or by networking with us.
Latest News from freekareem.org- Free Kareem campaign in Berlin, Germany – PICTURES February 27th, 2010
- Video: Free Kareem rally in Washington, DC
- Kareem forbidden visits by his lawyer
- Meklit Hadero sings a song for Kareem
- Kareem’s final appeal rejected
Kareem has been in prison for: 1232 days.
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CES 2008 – Have touch phones jumped the shark?
Touch Phones.
There are all sorts of announcements coming out of CES. Not the least of which was Motorola’s news of a new touch-sensitive addition to it’s Moto ROKR line of phone’s called the E8. I blame Apple for the abundance of new touch phone’s coming out. Everybody seems to be making some kind of iPhone clone. HTC has it’s touch, Motorola now has the E8. Who’s next?
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Canada’s Gravity Hole
Massive Ice Sheet Partial Cause of Missing Canadian Gravity
A mysterious dip in gravity over northern Canada has long been a weighty topic for some scientists.
Satellite data indicates that that a massive ice sheet that once covered eastern North America is at least the partial cause of this gravitational anomaly.
Scientists have known that the area around Hudson Bay has lower gravity than the surrounding areas.
Two theories have emerged to explain the strange phenomenon, but conclusive evidence has been elusive. Read more
Interesting Book Facts
Agatha Christie’s fictional character Hercule Poirot is the only fictional character ever to be honored with an obituary on the front page of The New York Times.
Author Dr. Seuss wrote the book “Green Eggs and Ham” because the editor made him a bet that he could not write a book, which contained less than fifty words.
During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville’s timeless classic of the sea, “Moby Dick,” sold only 3,715 copies.
Edinburgh has more booksellers per head of population than any other city in Britain.
Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a fifty thousand-word novel, “Gadsby,” without any word containing the letter “e.”
General Lew Wallace’s best seller Ben Hur was the first work of fiction to be blessed by a pope.
George Orwell’s book “Animal Farm” was turned down many times by different publishers. One of them actually said, “it was impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.”
In 1998, Ten Speed Press publishing company published a book, “The Eat A Bug Cookbook” by David George Gordon that contains over 33 bug recipes.
Keeping Warm With an Axe, is the title of a real how-to book.
The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. has the world’s largest collection of comic books with over 5,000 titles and 100,000 issues.
The all time best selling electronic book is Stephen King’s “Riding The Bullet.”
The book “Little Red Riding Hood” was banned in 1990 by two school districts in California. They did this because in the book there was a picture of a basket that had a bottle of wine in it.
The smallest book in the world is “Chekhov’s Chameleon,” which measures 0.9 by 0.9 millimeters. The book has 30 pages and three colour illustrations and is not much larger than a grain of salt.
The world’s largest public library is the Chicago Public Library, which has a collection of over 2 million books.
There was a book written fourteen years before the sinking of the Titanic happened titled “Futility” by Morgan Robertson. This book was remarkably similar to the tragedy that happened to the Titanic in 1912.
Kentucky Derby
Kentucky Derby
| Grade 1 Race | ||
|---|---|---|
| Kentucky Derby | ||
 “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” |
||
| Location | Churchill Downs Louisville, Kentucky, USA |
|
| Inaugurated: | 1875 | |
| Race type | Thoroughbred | |
| Website: | 2007 Kentucky Derby | |
| Race information | ||
| Distance | 1¼ miles | |
| Track | Dirt, Left-handed | |
| Qualification | 3-year-old | |
| Weight | Colt/Gelding: 126 lbs (57.2 kg) Filly: 121 lbs. (54.9 kg) |
|
| Purse | US$2 million | |
| Bonuses: | US$ 200 | |
The Kentucky Derby is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old thoroughbred horses, staged annually in Louisville, Kentucky, on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is over one and a quarter miles (2 km) at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds (57.2 kg) and fillies 121 pounds (54.9 kg).[1] The race is known in the United States as “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” for its approximate duration, and is also called “The Run for the Roses” for the blanket of roses draped over the winner. It is the first leg of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing in the US and typically draws around 155,000 fans. It is the single oldest annually held sporting event in the entire South. Read more
Liviu Librescu
Liviu Librescu
Liviu Librescu (August 18, 1930 – April 16, 2007; Hebrew: ליביו ליברסקו) was a Romanian born and educated Israeli-American scientist and academic whose major research fields were aeroelasticity and aerodynamics. His most recent position was Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech.[3] The 76-year-old Holocaust survivor was shot and killed in the Virginia Tech massacre while holding off the gunman at the entrance to his classroom so his students could escape through the windows.[4]
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Bill Maher and Ann Coulter had intimate relationship
Maher and republican media voice Ann Coulter confirmed a short lived relationship on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor, that occurred in 1994 while Maher circuited in California.
Source: Wikipedia
Joost
(pronounced ‘juiced’) is a system for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer TV technology, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa).
Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name “The Venice Project,” Zennström and Friis have assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. Joost’s CTO is Dirk-Willem van Gulik.[1]
The teams are currently in negotiations with FOX networks. It has signed up with Warner Music, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Productions (Indianapolis 500, IndyCar Series) and production company Endemol for the beta.[2] In February 2007, Viacom entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks, BET and film studio Paramount Pictures.
Company representatives have gone on record as saying the name should be pronounced as “juiced”, unlike the Dutch first name Joost, which is pronounced ‘Yohst.’
Technology
P2PTV overlay network serving three video streams.
P2PTV overlay network serving three video streams.
The program is based on P2PTV technology and is expected to deliver (relaying) near-TV resolution images. It turns a PC into an instant on-demand TV without any need for additional set top box. News updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget overlays.
The current version of the software is based on XULRunner and the audio management re-uses the ZAP Media Kit. The peer to peer layer comes from the Joltid company, which also provided the peer to peer layer of Skype. The video playback utilizes the CoreCodec, CoreAVC H.264 video decoder.
[edit] Financing
[edit] Joost development
As co-owners of Skype, Friis and Zennström received part of a $2.6 billion cash payment when eBay acquired Skype in 2005, which easily covered the development and marketing cost of their Joost venture. Just a week after launching the service, the founders announces that they have raised additional $45 million. Sequoia Capital, which backed Yahoo, Google and YouTube; Index Ventures, an early investor in Skype; Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong tycoon; and CBS, the US media group, have all taken “small minority†stakes in the start-up. Viacom is also understood to be among the partners, although the nature of its backing has not been disclosed.
[edit] Content distribution
As opposed to streaming technology in which all clients get the feed from the server, P2P TV technology differs in the sense that the servers serve only a handful of clients; each of the clients in turn propagate the stream to more downstream clients and so on. This moves the distribution costs from the channel owner to the user.
The Joost service will be ad-supported, with advertising analogous to that shown on traditional TV, according to CEO Fredrik de Wahl.[4]
[edit] Availability
Currently, the software is in an open beta stage; an invite is required to become a user. However, a new stage of the beta was announced on May 1st, and all users were given unlimited invitations.[5] Linux is not yet supported.
[edit] Programming Content
Viacom Inc. and Joost entered into a content provider agreement for the Joost platform on February 20, 2007. Under the agreement divisions of Viacom (including MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures) will license their “television and theatrical programing” to Joost.[6] This came shortly after Viacom requested 100,000 potentially infringing videos to be removed from YouTube.com, which showed a preference by Viacom for the Joost platform over YouTube.[7]
Joost also currently has licensing agreements in place with Ministry of Sound TV, Warner Music, the production company Endemol[8], Diversion Media[9], CBS[10] and CenterStaging’s rehearsals.com[11]. On May 1, 2007, Joost signed a deal to distribute NHL content, including full game replays of the Stanley Cup Finals, and vintage games.[12]
[edit] Channels
The Joost applications includes three special channels What’s Popular, Search, and Joost Suggests which offers services, like searching the channel list or gathering statistics about channels, that can be used to find a channel that can be viewed. Apart from that, it also lists a number of channels serving various genres of content.[13]
[edit] History
[edit] Timeline
* 2006, October: The Venice Project announced.
* 2006, December: Invitation-only beta testing began.
* 2007, January 16: Officially announce real name, “Joost”[14]
* 2007, February 17: Macintosh beta testing began
* 2007, February 20: Viacom announces that it will be a “key partner” in television programming for Joost.
* 2007, March 7: CHUM Television announces its partnership with Joost to provide content, the majority of which to come from MuchMusic.
* 2007, April 5: Joost opens the newest beta version 0.9.1 to many new users, however bugs prevail and problems with playback now exist.
* 2007, April 10: Joost releases beta 0.9.2 to remove a hard-coded security certificate. Previous versions no longer run.
* 2007, April 24: Joost releases beta 0.9.4
* 2007, May 1: Joost releases beta 0.10.1 , granting existing beta users the ability to invite up to 999 peers to try Joost.
* 2007, May 9: Joost releases beta 0.10.2
[edit] See also
* Internet television
* Democracy Player
* TVUPlayer
* Babelgum
* Zattoo
Amazon Kindle
Click for More Information, Specs, and Deals
Amazon Kindle is an ebook reader which uses an electronic paper display, reading Amazon’s proprietary Kindle format (AZW format), and connects by downloading content over Amazon Whispernet, which uses the Sprint EVDO network. The Kindle does not need access to a computer. Whispernet is accessible through Kindle free of charge. The day that the Kindle was released, the Kindle Store had over 88,000 digital titles available for download. The initial sale of the Kindle sold out in 5.5 hours.
Technical specifications
The Kindle features a 6″ diagonal, 4-level grayscale electrophoretic display (E Ink material) with a resolution of 600×800 pixels (167 ppi), although the largest graphic image that can be displayed without being resized is 450×550 pixels. It measures 5.3 inches × 7.5 inches × 0.7 inches (134.5 mm × 190 mm × 19 mm) and weighs 10.3 oz (295 g). The Kindle’s internal storage capacity is 256 MB, shipping with 180 MB free. A SD memory card expansion slot is present, officially supporting up to 4GB which implies support for SDHC. It has 64 MB of RAM. The battery lasts roughly two days with wireless on, and one week with wireless off. The battery charges in about two hours. A USB 2.0 port (mini-B connector) is available for connecting to a computer (where it acts as a USB flash drive). The Kindle features a headphone jack and one-year warranty. The device runs on a modified version of Linux based on the 2.6.10 kernel.
Content
The internal memory of the Amazon Kindle can hold approximately 200 non-illustrated titles. Users can download content from Amazon in the proprietary Kindle format (AZW), or load unprotected Mobipocket (PRC, MOBI) or plain text content. Amazon offers an email-based service that will convert HTML, DOC (Microsoft Word), JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP documents to AZW. It also supports audio in the form of MP3s and Audible 2, 3, and 4 audiobooks, which must be transferred to the Kindle over USB or on an SD card.
Users can download content through the Kindle Store. The Kindle Store is accessed through Whispernet, over Sprint’s EVDO network, which Amazon provides free of charge. New releases and New York Times bestsellers are offered for approximately $10. Classics like Bleak House sell for around $1.99, with free samples available of the first chapter of each book. Subscriptions to newspapers cost between $5.99 and $14.99 per month, magazines between $1.25 and $3.49 per month, and blogs for $0.99-$1.99 per month. Users can send documents to a conversion service which will send a Kindle-formatted file to the device directly for $0.10 or to a personal e-mail account for free. Users can transfer converted documents from a computer to the Kindle via a USB cable or an SD card for free. Access to Wikipedia is offered at no additional charge.
Digital Text Platform
Concurrently with the Kindle device, Amazon launched the Digital Text Platform, a system for authors to self-publish directly to the Kindle. Currently in open beta, the platform was promoted to established authors by e-mail. Authors can upload documents in several formats for delivery via Whispernet and charge between US$0.99 and $200 per download. The authors receive 35% of revenues based on their list price, regardless of discounts by Amazon.
Fidel Castro Steps Down – Cuba News
On February 18, 2008, Fidel Castro revealed in a letter that he would not be accepting the roles and responsibilities of President and Commander in Chief at the February 24, 2008 National Assembly meetings, saying “I will not aspire nor accept – I repeat I will not aspire or accept – the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief.” This decree will effectively announce his retirement and stepping down from government service. This letter is published on the internet by the official Communist Party Paper Granma. In it, Fidel Castro noted that his health was a large reason for this critical decision, saying that “It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion, that I am not in a physical condition to offer,” however such has yet to be confirmed.
Somewhat crazy guess for today…Castro is actually dead. If Radio Havana starts playing mournful, dirge-like salsas later today, watch out. I would guess this means he’s probably not too far from death, based on his known health. Lots of turnover in world leadership.. Blair, Musharraf, Castro, and now Bush.
Northern Illinois Shooting
Five dead in Illinois university mass shooting
By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 2:38am GMT 15/02/2008
A gunman has opened fire in a packed university lecture hall in Illinois, shooting 18 people and killing four before turning his gun on himself.
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| Rescue workers carry a victim out of the university lecture hall where the gunman opened fire |
The attacker, described as a tall skinny white young man dressed entirely in black, walked out from behind a screen in a geology class around 3pm, said officials at Northern Illinois University.
The gunman, armed with a shotgun and two handguns, then opened fire before shooting himself on the stage.
Police officials said five people had died, including the gunman. Many victims were shot in the head at the university in DeKalb, 65 miles west of Chicago.
Witnesses said the gunman- said to be aged between 18 and 20 – kicked open a door near the stage in Cole Hall just 10 minutes before the end of the lecture and started shooting with the shotgun without saying a word.
Dispensing with the shotgun, the gunman – who was wearing a black ski cap and black trenchcoat – pulled out a pistol and walked down the aisles firing it into the crowd of terrified students.
Police Chief Donald Grady said the gunman was a student but not at the DeKalb campus.
Kevin McEnery, who was sitting in the fourth row of the lecture, estimated that he let off around 30 shots. He said: “He just kicked the door open and started shooting. I didn’t hear him say anything, just people shouting and screaming to get out.”
Some students dived for cover under their desks while others ran for the exits.
The campus was plunged into panic, as students poured out of the building, many trying to use their mobile phones and others simply praying.
All the injured were taken to the local Kishwaukee Community Hospital which said it had received 17 victims, of whom three or four had head wounds.
The university issued a statement on its website about an hour after the shooting saying that “the immediate danger has passed. The gunman is no longer a threat.”
George Gaynor, a fourth year geography student, who was in Cole Hall when the shooting happened, described the gunman as “a skinny white guy with a stocking cap on”.
He described the scene immediately following the incident as terrifying and chaotic. “Some girl got hit in the eye, a guy got hit in the leg,” he said.
Some witnesses said the gunman shot at random but Edward Robinson, another student, claimed he appeared to target students in one part of the lecture hall. “It was almost like he knew who he wanted to shoot. He knew who and where he wanted to be firing at,” he said.
All classes were cancelled on Thursday night and the 25,000-student campus was closed on Friday.
In April last year, 32 died after a mentally-disturbed and heavily armed student ran amok in the Virginia Tech campus. The incident prompted immediate changes in Virginia law that had allowed the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, to buy handguns.
