Archive for October 12th, 2007As part of the 2007 Breakthrough Awards discovered on Popular Mechanics. Frayne’s device, which he calls a Windbelt, is a taut membrane fitted with a pair of magnets that oscillate between metal coils. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph slivers of wind, making his device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines. Frayne envisions the Windbelt costing a few dollars and replacing kerosene lamps in Haitian homes. Video Filed under: Business, Poultry, Stores & Shopping, Health & Medical
Banquet is recalling all of its frozen chicken and turkey pot pies after a salmonella outbreak made 100 people sick. The company that owns Banquet, ConAgra, even went so far as to completely stop making the pies yesterday while the cases are investigated. Here’s a little twist to this particular recall story: they’re also telling consumers not to eat “similar generic brands.” Yikes. Here’s all the info on the recall, including what code numbers to look for and what to do if you want a refund. Oddly enough, I’m posting a recipe for a chicken pot pie today. Permalink | Email this | Comments So I got persuaded into blogging for Sitepoint and this is my first post. I’ll be writing mostly about PHP, since that’s my main area of competence, but will probably touch on related topics. PHP doesn’t do stuffIt basically boils down to one thing; PHP doesn’t do stuff for you. Taking a look at the hordes of extensions, which comes with PHP by default — or the overwhelming array of core functions — it may appear that PHP does an awful lot of things, but it doesn’t. Not really. This functionality is mostly passive; When you look at the language core, it makes very few assumptions about the application, you’re going to build. Instead, it supplies the tools to do so. This is the tradition of open source. Linux is renowned for having a multitude of desktop environments, shell interpreters and whatnot. PHP follows the same organisation. It does have a one pivot point though; The language itself has only one official implementation. Well, two actually, but that’s hopefully going to be fixed eventually. PHP doesn’t have a framework ..These days, application frameworks are all the rage. Simply put, a framework is a body of rules for how you write an application, backed by a collection of libraries to support this specific way. The rules guide you, when building your application, and the libraries integrate better, because they can make assumptions about your application. Rails was the one lifting it from a fad to the hype it has become, but PHP has its own fair share. It should be no surprise, given the diversity of extensions and libraries for PHP, that there isn’t a single defining framework, unlike most of PHP’s competitors. That’s a bit of a problem, since frameworks tend to be mutually exclusive — At least to some degree. .. and it won’t either!Some might say it’s a matter of time before one will rule them all. I rather believe, that the unique nature of PHP is exactly in its diversity. This diversity is ensured through the lack of a single application framework, which is tightly integrated with the language. That’s not to say, that there isn’t room for frameworks, but it will always be in plural. This makes them fundamentally different than the monoliths of Ruby or .NET. Whether that is uplifting or depressing is a matter of personal temper, but it’s indisputable. Now, that should prompt some comments. This article provided by sitepoint.com.
Filed under: Action & Adventure, Drama, Newsstand, War
The important thing to remember, though, is that West didn’t end up directing Black Hawk Down. The great Ridley Scott did, and it ended up a flawed but ultimately well-made film. Show me somebody in Hollywood who honestly thinks West is capable of the same work, and I’ll eat this blog. And I mean this person would have to take a lie detector test and prove to me that he or she really, really thinks this is going to be good enough to garner West his own Oscar nomination (as Scott received for BHD) and not just an easy-money attempt at the current trend of Iraq War-based movies. The latter is more likely the case for the six producers besides West, which includes Randall Emmett and George Furla (both of the Wicker Man remake), and five executive producers, which includes BHD’s writer Ken Nolan. There has yet to be a dramatic feature about the war that’s as good as the many docs on the subject, and I can definitely promise this will not be the movie to achieve that status. At least it probably won’t be as bad as West’s proposed Dalí biopic would be. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Action & Adventure, Casting, Remakes and Sequels
At first, they say, he wasn’t going to star in the sequel, but maybe money problems and traveling issues inspired him to reconsider. Snipes starred in The Art of War in 2000; it was a mid-range, generally-forgotten action movie that starred him as UN covert op that uses questionable means to keep the peace. However, then he’s framed for the murder of a bunch of Vietnamese refugees, and he has to find the answers in the typical wrongly-accused film fashion. The film isn’t quite the blockbuster that is itching for a sequel (although that’s never stopped filmmakers before), but I wonder if we’ll now see Snipes revisiting more of his lesser-known roles to get a good payroll going to help his tax woes. If not, he might want to try to break up Pam and Rick and get in on his sex-for-money offers. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video  Here it is folks, the TIFF image we tested that exploits firmware v1.1.1, giving you full root level file access to your iPhone (without upgrading from v1.0.2) and iPod touch. Before you click the link, note the caveats:
Good luck!
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life! Filed under: PlayStation Store  The European PSN has been updated. There are no signs of a Ratchet and Clank demo (looks like another week of sneaking over to the US store and pinching their stuff), or anything else particularly interesting for that matter. Here’s the full release list:
The Ninja Gaiden Sigma add-ons keep coming this week with the Weapon Master pack. Other that there’s very little else that hasn’t already been available on the US store for at least a week. The Fallout 3 trailer may be the most worthwhile download here. For those of you more excited about interactive content, sit tight and wait for the US update. The Ratchet and Clank demo is on its way. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments Filed under: Contests and Giveaways  Click for high-resolution image. Day 3 is over (we’re busy picking our third winner) and Day 4 of our Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron PSP-2000 bundle is ready to kick off. Along with our friends at Joystiq and PSP Fanboy, we’re giving away the fourth of five brand-new limited-edition Darth Vader PSP-2000 systems this week. These Ceramic White systems feature Darth Vader’s menacing profile on the back, and are a must-have for the dedicated Star Wars nerdcore. Not only that, the package includes the brand new PSP-exclusive Star Wars Battlefront game. So, how do you enter? First, find out what the PSP Fanboy team thinks about Star Wars Battlefront (Andrew, Jem, Nick, and Colin and ) and then leave a comment settling this once and for all: Does Han hurt nerves or herd nerfs, cause he can’t do both? Be sure to leave your comment on the corresponding giveaway posts at Joystiq and PSP Fanboy, for a total of three entries today. We’ll select one comment from all three sites at random tomorrow morning before we give away another PSP-2000. Of course, there are rules. You must be a US resident, 18 years or older. Limit 1 entry per person per site … or else (that means three entries spread out, no more)! This entry period ends at 11:59am ET tomorrow, so get your entries in before then. For complete rules you can shared with your loved ones, click here. And much thanks to the fine people at LucasArts for the great prizes. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments Filed under: Computers  Imagine a future where your computer knows when you’re feeling stressed and adjusts to you accordingly. The same system can also, say, sense when an air traffic controller is feeling burned out, and pass the next airplane landing on to someone else — automatically. Well, with $445,000 from the National Science Foundation, researchers at Tufts University are hoping to make such a system a reality. The project uses near infrared light to monitor blood flow in the brain. The near infrared light passes through the human body, but is absorbed by oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin in blood cells. Researchers believe that by watching for increased flow of oxygenated blood to certain areas of the brain, they can monitor stress levels. Eventually, these stress levels could be checked automatically by a computer, which would adjust its interface in subtle ways to relieve said stress. (Or just force you off the system if you’re doing something life-or-death-threatening like landing planes!) Researchers made no mention of specifically how the computer might change its interface, only that it would be lightweight changes — maybe dimmer lighting or fewer onscreen animations? — to reflect the often subtle and imperfect information they glean from the readings. From Slashdot and Computer World
I know this is a comedy website, but this serious, serious song spoke to me. It touched a deep place in my soul. Hey, speaking of owls (no, not an ORLY joke) {o,o} -hoo …I…I just…I apologize. It’s midterms week over on my end, and I’m a little loopy. |
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It’s becoming very clear that we can’t eat anything anymore. Just lock yourself in your home and make everything from scratch.
Eventually every second-tier director will have his own film about Iraq. And yet I never thought someone as low on the tier as 
Last week, I posted that 
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