News stories the mainstream media missed : 04/17/10

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Royce

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

** HIGHLY ABBREVIATED “TWITTER” EDITION **

* Sign o’ the times: A reporter researches how to eat well on a food stamp budget of $68.88 a week. [BOSTON]

* We may be getting a collect call from the M82 galaxy. [NEWSCIENTIST]

* A computer retailer put in their license agreement they own the user’s souls. Too late: Microsoft did this back in ’95. [FOXNEWS]

* Box Office Futures are now a legitimate stock to trade along with oil and gold. Is Wall Street nucking futs? [HOLLYWOOD REPORTER]

* 100,000 Californians’ unemployment benefits are up this weekend. California unemployment rate is 12.6 percent. FUBAR, big time. [KION CBS NEWS CALIFORNIA]

* 3d TV may harm pregnant women, the elderly, children and people with serious medical conditions. That’s a lot of side effects for a TV! [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]

* School laptops were secretly taking video and photos of child students while they were sleeping. Evil bastards thought it was OK. [PHILLY]

* Polar Bear deals with paparazzi- North Pole style. [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]

Polar Bear Deals With Paparazzi

Volcanic ash cloud will cover Europe today

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Royce

The ash cloud that’s grounding flights isn’t just your run of the mill volcanic burp.

A wonderful graphic from timesonline.co.uk shows just how bad it is right now and probably will be in a few days. Check out the “6AM Today (Predicted)” image on the upper right of the graphic. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Ash Cloud Graphic from timesonline.co.uk

That’s a big ash cloud.

AT&T covers more countries than actually exist?

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Royce

AT&T now says they cover over 220 countries! That’s quite an upgrade to their cellular network!

AT&T Stupidity

This claim is really amazing since the United States’ State Department recognizes 194 independent countries and the UN says there are only 195!

Here’s the full list of countries from WikiAnswers.com.

Covering more than 25 imaginary countries! That’s AT&T!

Hey AT&T… tell the bonehead who came up with this ad to check out this crazy new thing called GOOGLE next time.

Need a six month extension to file your taxes?

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Royce

For those of you who have not filed your income taxes yet, here’s the direct link to the IRS form 4868 for a six-month extension to file [NOTE: PDF FILE].

It’s better to have a day or two extra to get everything in line and file this next week as opposed to avoiding the whole process.

Off to do mine now! (D’oh!!)

Every tweet is going to be archived by the Library of Congress!

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Royce

Be careful what you tweet! A new article on CNN says that… “Twitter and the Library of Congress announced Wednesday that every public tweet posted since Twitter started in 2006 will be archived digitally by the federal library.”

Just think! “Every 140-character snippet of info you’ve ever shared publicly on Twitter will soon have a home next to the Declaration of Independence.”

My big question is if they are they going to link to the photo and web shortcuts that are occasionally referenced in all these archived tweets. Without the link of reference, a lot of tweets will lose their meaning.

I think I’ll have to come up a special commemorative tweet for the occasion! Something for posterity! How about “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rig” (D’oh! That was 140 characters!)

Here’s the link to the CNN article.

End of the (on)line for the original Xbox

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Royce

Today is D day for playing games online with the original Xbox.

According to Neowin, “as of April 15, all active servers for original Xbox Live subscribers will be shut off. This means that all multiplayer components of original Xbox games, including those available through the Xbox 360‘s Xbox Originals program, will no longer be accessible. ”

I still have my original Xbox somewhere, and I haven’t played it in years, but I do remember wasting tons of time online with Halo 2.

With everyone playing online with the latest gen consoles, this shutdown isn’t too big of a surprise. Going back and playing a previous generation console after getting used to the most recent games is really only for nostalgia.

Here’s the link to the story on Neowin.

Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in black and white

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Royce

Oooooh yeah. It’s one of those days that needs Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 as the background music.

Boredom + Photoshop = Star Trek episodes we will never see

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Royce

So I’m stuck babysitting a major server restore and I’m bored out of my ever lovin’ mind. With me is my laptop, a stack of old TV shows and movies, and Photoshop.

Voila! Star Trek episodes we will never see!