Take a Deep Breath.

Why the FBI might soon cut off your Internet
WHAT? Oh, stupid alarmist headline writers.

The FBI is NOT shutting off anyone's internet connection. The "DNS Changer" Trojan goes into your system settings and modifies your DNS settings to connect with a server operated by the BadGuys any time you enter a web page. (this is bad) The BadGuys have been caught and the FBI has been operating the BadDNS servers as legitimate DNS points under the provisions of a court order. (this is good) The court order will expire on March 8th and the FBI will no longer be able to provide DNS servers at the address used by people who are still infected by the trojan. So your DNS lookups will fire off into the ether and never get a response.

Gizmodo:The FBI has a court order allowing it to set up temporary replacement DNS servers so that those with infected computers or networks can get the worm off of their systems. The court order, however, expires on March 8th. Unless that order gets extended, anybody who hasn't cleaned up their act before it expires, might get cut off from the Internet altogether.

FBI:
As part of that order, the defendant’s rogue DNS servers have been replaced with legitimate ones. Internet Systems Consortium (“ISC”), a not-for-profit entity, was appointed by the court to act as a third-party receiver for a limited period of 120 days during which time it will administer the replacement DNS servers. Although the replacement DNS servers will provide continuity of Internet service to victims, those replacement servers will not remove the Malware from the infected computers.

If this happens to you, your internet might appear to stop working on march 8th, but all you need to do is point it at an active DNS server to make it go. (just like always.) That first article makes it sound like the FBI is digging up the wire in your front yard to keep you from spreading the virus to others (which would be a serious problem and gigantic lawsuit)

You can go here: http://dcwg.org or here: https://forms.fbi.gov/check-to-see-if-your-computer-is-using-rogue-DNS for instructions on checking your settings, but I doubt you've got it unless you install really sketchy codecs on your machine.

Between this IP...	... and this IP
77.67.83.1	77.67.83.254
85.255.112.1	85.255.127.254
67.210.0.1	67.210.15.254
93.188.160.1	93.188.167.254
213.109.64.1	213.109.79.254
64.28.176.1	64.28.191.254

You should go ahead and change your DNS to Google's Public DNS anyway though, cause it's faster than the ones your ISP provides and the numbers are SUPER easy to remember:

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/

One Map To Rule Them All.

So this is pretty sweet. About a year ago I was in the Caribbean. It was nice. Then sometime after I got back Google launched something called "Map Maker". Its basically a copy of Google maps that people can edit in certain regions, wiki-style. One of those not mapped was Grand Cayman, which I had limited but first-hand knowledge of. So I went to town making little roads and buildings, trying to match up the satellite image with my memory and photos I'd taken. After a little searching I even found a scanned tourist map of the area that told me road names and points of interest. I digitized as much as made sense and promptly forgot about it. My knowledge was pretty much exhausted after 21.9 km of roads and 22 business listings, hey, I was only there for a few hours.

As of today, my account is 337 days old and Google is announcing that they're rolling Map Maker changes into real Google Maps for those newly updated areas.

• Google LatLong: Map Maker Graduation: Part II

A quick comparison shows that, yup, maps looks pretty much the same as the user generated map Maker version. But more importantly is how much detail is found on Grand Cayman now. There was literally nothing there when I started. (actually the island polygon was .5 km west of the satellite imagery) And random people with personal experience filled in the gaps. Other people helped with formatting and bam, all of a sudden there's a useful reference tool online.

• Map Maker

I guess I find this interesting because its what I though they were going for when they started the project and it actually worked. To try crowd sourcing obscure information. People don't really want compensation, they just want to collaborate, and maybe hope that people who know something they don't will share too.

Machines Making Art.

If you hadn't heard, the writers guild is stepping up to become the next artistic representative to be despised by the populous is exists because of. Of course its got a long way to go to be an RIAA or an MPAA, but you gotta start somewhere. And objecting to the kindle II's ability to interpret written text into an audible format is a good start. Apparently they thing the rights to read a book and the rights to read a book out loud should be sold separately.

Actually no, that's not fair, they're willing to admit you're allowed to read a book to whoever you want in a private and non-commercial setting. But they are taking issue with an automated reader that they percieve as an infringement into their audio book market. Which is of course ridiculous.

I had two thoughts about this today.

First, what are the standards in music? Buying sheet music of a song is not the same as buying a CD of a musician playing the song. But you certainly have the right to play the sheet music at home on a piano. Do you also have the right to have a synthesizer play back the song? I think so. Is that really viable competition to (and infringement of) the professionally produced and artist performed version? I wouldn't think so.

Second, what if there was an automatic writing machine that could create works of text with virtually no human input? Would it put human authors out of business or would the Writer's Guild assert that human authors brought something more to the table than machines could?

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the audio books are performances of written material. They're also selling the source material which is essentially instructions for creating private performances, whether human or not. If they're upset about losing some income, the Writers Guild should be focusing on value they could add rather than trying to limit the options of its customers.

• Authors Guild Digs Itself In Deeper Concerning Kindle Text-To-Speech

Touch Me Twice.

I could see Apple being the type of company that restricts users and intellectual "property" to keep them tethered to its own devices. Which is what most lends credence to this rumor of Apple asking Google to remove multi-touch from its Android OS. And that's what it looks like happened, the feature was implemented and then commented out of the release. Although its not that big a deal if you really care about it. Android is open source, just uncomment the feature and run your own build. The real question is whether Android developers will anticipate an audience of "hacked" multi-touch users and include functions to take advantage.

Some people raise flags that Apple could seemingly command partner Google, and rather than risk the fickle reprisals in which Apple is known to engage. Yeah, that's kinda silly, but I'd rather keep my Google brand iPod apps and the G1 not be tied up in litigation, so I'm fine with Google's decision. I think the real problem is that Apple thinks it owns multi-touch to begin with. Folks have been working on multi-touch since 1982, and sure, Apple brought a device to maket with the technology after buying up a company that made then since 1999. But come on, using more than one finger to interact with a device? How in the hell is that not obvious? Hmmm... I've made a touch screen that responds when I touch it with my finger... I have ten fingers... I guess I'm all done here.

And even if you are an Apple fanboy, this shouldn't seem cool because now instead of dreaming up that next great feature, Apple can sit around on the multi-touch hill, making sure no one else tries to climb it.

• Did Google Leave Multi-Touch Out Of Android At Apple's Behest? | Techdirt

Holy Crap Guys.

So I bought a computer yesterday. I was only kinda in the market, but NewEgg sent me this deal that I just couldn't pass up. Like seriously, I just couldn't stop thinking about it so I had to pull the trigger if only so my brain could get around to the other tasks I had. Anyway, I just got my invoice email a few minutes ago which contained a tracking link. Here's my status:

Sweet jebus! You almost delivered the machine before the email telling me it was coming. And that was on the cheapest shipping option. What happens if you pick the $76 one? Would it have arrived last Monday?

Uh Oh.

So I accidentally bought an iPod a couple weeks ago; breaking my self-imposed "no iPods in my car" ban. Its pretty nice though. I've had a little troubl finding an FM transmitter of the same quality/ power as the old one I had, but that's Griffin and the FCC's fault, not Apple's. All the little games and other apps you can download are a nice bonus too, although I haven't really seen the need to pay any money for one yet.

Anyway, I finally busted out the iTunes store over WiFi last night to search for an artist someone told me about. Searches as you type, stream clips of each song, only 7.99? Okay... Downloaded in about 3 mins and its already on my iPod read to roll. Shit; I may have just relapsed into my itunes addiction. And't I'd kicked it so well; for so long!

Emusic sends me to a reactivate page when I head to their site. For 12 bucks I'd get 30 songs a month (40 cents each) in pure MP3 format, instead of 99 cents each for DRMed up itunes tracks. Half as much for freeer (three "e's", really?) content doesn't seem like much of a contest, but honestly the ease and instant gratification of mobile iTunes is a much bigger draw than I thought it would be.

So I guess I've got some soul searching to do. Reactivate with Emusic? Pay through the nose with Apple? What I really need is an Emusic iPod app to search and download just like I do with the built-in iTunes app. I actually find getting music on the computer easier with Emusic since my machine runs firefox better than iTunes. But Apple has control over the walled iPod app garden and this is exactly the kind of app I could see them not letting through the gate.

P.S. New organic options at the store, you gotta get your torso on these badboys

Damn.

Well shit. Now I need a suit that flies. To be honest that movie kinda kicked my ass. I want to have Jon Favreau's babies.Although I coulda used less of the prototype/ kidnapping portion and more flying around kicking random people's asses. The best part about Spiderman, Superman, Batman, (And now Iron Man. What? Too good for a one-word name?) isn't the epic battles with supervillians bent on world destruction/domination. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that mayhem too. But the ease with which these guys dispense with "normal" badguys is much more entertaining and serves to deliver a baseline of just how badass they are. I'm sure they'll put a nod to this concept in the sequel, but it won't be the same. Instead of "what the eff is that?" *wham* muggers will say "oh crap here comes Iron Man". (Though to be fair there was plenty of the military going "what the eff is that?") But that's about the only problem I can invent to have with this movie. Well, besides being pissed off that I can't have anything I just saw.

Tiny Baubbles, In My Gear.

It seems a class of article I really like is new materials and fabrics. Nanotech is pretty exciting in producing fundamentally different building blocks that would seem to break traditional preconceptions.

We'll start of with a non-textile revolution. Liquid bandages rated for combat sized wounds will change the way field medicine is practiced. Pretty soon everyone will carry a tube of glue that can seal up previously fatal blood loss. And I image you can use it on your paper cuts too.

• Military-grade gel-based liquid bandages approved by the FDA - Engadget

Anti-taser material provides protection from electric shock like would be delivered by a standard taser to the torso. Guess the cops will have to start aiming for skin pretty soon.

• Thor Shield ensures you can't tase me, bro! - Engadget

Next up is a nano-engineering feat that could keep the rain out of your face; with out using a windshield wiper. The layered materials combine to provide an active nano-"dust" layer that pushes debris to the sides of the surface. Talk about sufficiently advanced science, this is no doubt magic.

• Wiperless windshields in your future? Thanks, nanotech. - Engadget

I've always been amazed at the way skin reseals itself, given enough time and cleanliness. Cut yourself? Just leave it alone and after a while it'll be good as new. They're working on a rubber than will reconnect after being cut, more like a glue but with substance. So don't worry about duct-taping leaks in your garden hose. That's so 90's.

• Synthetic rubber mends itself after being sliced - Engadget

And don't worry about sporting your stab-vest on the streets or Europe. There's a new material that claims to provide similar protection but has the weight quality of a t-shirt. The article says that it can be penetrated by "sharp points" so I spose its more protection against being slashed, I'm mot sure. But they're on the right track.

• Nihon Uni shirts resist stabbing, make you feel like a superhero - Engadget

So, some pretty exciting stuff, although I'm still waiting for that spandex super G skiers wear to trickle down to the consumer market. I'd assumed everyone was as pumped up as I was about everyday armor and wiperless windshields but this survey claims that 66% or Americans think that nano-tech is morally unacceptable. Yeah, I hope you're doing a spit-take like I did at reading that cause its so silly. Do you have a problem with modern farming and immunizations too? Do you refer to airplanes as evil metallic birds? Perhaps you have no idea what nano-tech is or how it benefits us all but just assume that it has something to do with three headed cows and killing babies.

• Two-thirds of Americans think nanotechnology is morally unacceptable -- wait, what? - Engadget

Update:
Ok, so I can technically get that d30 flexible armor stuff, but $350 is still a little steep for a shirt I will only wear so that my friends can hit me with 2x4's.

• Spyder 2007/2008 | Product | | Freeryde | Men's | D3O Armored L/S Crew

Like, Thanksgiving And Stuff?

Well shucks. It appears to be November and I still have post stubs going back all the way to September. Lets see what we can do about that; DP style.

<-- Maybe this is why I'm psyched to see wind turbines on the horizon. I think they're pretty.

• EcoGeek: energy plant

This little future-Civic looks pretty kickass. Slap a type R badge on the back and stick a diesel under the hood and its really something to get excited about. Honda is bringing the diesel; its gonna rock; just bide your time.

• Jalponik: Type R to burn oil

Nice little tip here: cotton balls soaked in petroleum, once lit, will burn through pretty much anything. I'm gonna start carrying cotton balls and steel wool in one pocket with Vaseline and 6 volt batteries in the other.

• Lifehacker: Start a fire in the rain

We're gonna need a term for faster than fast as balls. Remember the concord? Childs' play. Forget twice the speed of sound, when you're in a hurry you need mach 5. Maybe a little faster. That's what the EU is hoping to get out of the A2; fueled by hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Looks like we keep finding reasons to love hydrogen. Now if we could just figure out how to make an ass-load of it.

• Register: Hypersonic hydrogen airliner

Yeah, you can find good stuff in the trash. Especially if you know a little something about art, apparently. Although I gotta believe if you're lookin for large cash settlements, your chances are a little better playing the lottery or jumping in front of limos.

• Treehugger: Dumpster diver finds $1m

Maybe its just cause my windows transfer more heat than a Central American arms merchant, but I'm totally in love with these windows. They have three, count em, three highly insulating panes. The center of which has a heat reflective surface like a one way valve. So in the summer you can keep heat out, but flip the frame during winter to keep heat in.

• EcoGeek: Better Windows

I know that anesthesiologists are generally very good and people normally don't wake up in the middle of surgery; but if I opened my eyes and saw a couple of surgeons standing over me with a bottle of hot sauce I would FREAK OUT. Straight-up crazy. Like they'd have to knock me unconscious with a shoe.

• AP News: Doctors test Hot Sauce

This one was gonna to be a joke about Cheney. I'm sure you can fill in the details.

• National Geographic: King tut died in hunting accident

I just couldn't resist the title of this one. Now that's good journalism. I'm not exactly sure how you make bio-fuel from lamb, but I'm sure quality is directly related to the fluffiness.

• EnvironmentalGraffiti: Cute Fluffy Lambs Sentenced to Death

This is pretty cool. It's a memory card with wifi built right in. So whenever it can find the Internet it'll upload your newest pictures whereever you want. Those chumps who bought that kodak wifi camera are kickin themselves now. Too bad my cameras take CF. Where's the Sea-FI love?

• Engadget: Eye-Fi Wifi enabled SD

Dangerous = Cool. Its just a fact of life. The more dangerous the activity, the cooler you look while doing it. For example: skydiving. Pretty cool looking. Now strap on a jetpack and some wings. Evel Knievel never dreamed of looking so good. Reminds me of the switchblade from Die Another Day, but with jet engines.

• Register: Stealth strap-on jet plane

You're Just Addicted To Sucking.

This article goes on for two pages detailing how email is a leach and a cancer and a detriment, distracting people from the task at hand every chance they get.  Then in the last paragraph he says:

you often find confident people who are immune to e-mail addiction. They just don't understand what the fuss is about. They check e-mail when they need to; they turn it off when they've got stuff to do. It's a tool that serves them.

I don't get what the fuss is about.  I check my email and empty my inbox of items that are no longer pending.  When I have access to it I deal with it.  I don't feel the sky pressing down on me when I'm cut off from email for a few days, and I never check my work email out of the office.  I can.  But I don't.  I have separate accounts for work, personal, even for business-personal, and of course blog.

So if you can "often" find people like me who use email as a primary communication tool, yet know how to use it and - more importantly- how to not use it, why is anyone railing against email?  (besides an opportunity to cash in)

Many people who are addicted to e-mail are more correctly described as addicted to work.

There we go.  The problem isn't the technology, its the people who don't have enough sense to use it in a manner that's effective.  Seems to me that calling it an email addiction is just a way to avoid telling people they suck at life.

• Are you addicted to e-mail? - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine

Things Should Work.

Well, Casino Royale came out on DVD yesterday. Its not so much a question of whether I'll get it, but how soon I'll get it. So I was about to watch it last night and I popped it into the DVD player. Nothing happened. Weird. I took it out and put it back in. Nothing. Did I buy the blueray version somehow? No... I try the special features disc and it works. I put the feature disc back in and again, nothing. Now At this point I'm pretty sure that I got a bum disc and I'll have to go back to the store to get a new one. Which also means that I won't be watching it now and I was kinda excited cause I don't remember everything that happened when I saw it in the theatre.

But I have access to a few other DVD players, so I pop it into my computer and it starts up a little flash intro that lets me click to visit the website or play the movie or some other option I don't really care about. Huh, so the disc is readable. I try to play the movie and Media Player comes back with an error about needing enhanced drivers for the device. And my thoughts immediately jump to DRM. Have they come up with a new scheme to disenfranchise actual paying customers? Is this a new rootkit that's gonna screw my computer to bejezus and back? Will I seriously not be able to watch this movie on my home theatre because movie executives assume I'm trying to steal a movie I've already bought?

All of these seem like reasonable assumptions as I head to the next DVD device in my line of sight, the good old PS2. He's set up with his own 19" tv behind my bedroom door and hardly gets any play anymore since that playboy of a Wii moved in. Pop it in. Loading... Loading... Loading... The PS2 didn't come equipped with the best DVD software invented so I imagine if it doesn't play in the normal DVD player its not likely here. But it does! The menu comes up and I pick a scene, the little black box dives right in! Huh, who woulda thunk it?

Back to the living room, I try it in the 1st DVD player again. Maybe the disc is warmed up now or something, I dunno. Same thing, it reads for way too long and then displays all 0's on the disc clock. The play, pause, stop, FF, RW and skip buttons all result in the annoying "this operation is not currently supported" symbol on screen. I'm a little pissed off, one or two stages from whacking the crap out of the DVD player. But before I proceed to that step of the device repair manual I decide to press every button on the thing. I start with the menu button. And it goes to the menu. What? You must be kidding. The disc just doesn't have an auto-run file? I just spend the last ten minutes inspecting the bottom of the disc and cursing the MPAA because you suck at designing DVDs? I've never, ever, ever seen this before and I've seen over 240 movies.

Well, lesson learned, if your disc doesn't work, press menu. Now you know. And knowing is half... good.

Take Your Censor And Cram It... Into Your Living Room.

Yes!  Roll this out into every American's home today!  Well, maybe just to everyone who complains about the language and suggestive content on TV.  I'm mostly unsympathetic to these folks; if you don't want to see it, don't watch it.  Pretty simple, don't go complaining to the censors every time your virgin eyes get molested.  I know we've got the rating system and we've got the v-chip, but that's apparently too hard to use.  Enter the personal TV censor.  Its like having a 1950's school teacher running the volume control in your living room.  Every time she sees a dirty word pop up in the closed captioning the TV mutes for a second.

Yeah, the first thing I thought when I read this was "but the closed captioning is a little behind the audio on most shows."  So you'd just end up bleeping some innocuous word a few seconds after the eff bomb.  Whatever, I don't care, cause I'm not getting one.  No one is getting one.  But I feel like this idea is important because but it'll help crystallize the issue.  You are responsible for the content you consume, just like food.  Sure, the government may have regulations about packaging and labeling, but if you want to eat spam you're allowed to eat spam.  People aren't complaining because they're accidentally exposing themselves to objectionable content.  (dammit, I was at the grocery store looking for healthy food and I accidentally opened and ate a can of spam, even though it was clearly marked as such)  They don't want you to expose yourself to that content.  And they don't have that right.

• Engadget: Inventor Patents Personal Censor

$20,000,000 Skivies.

I can't tell you what a cramp changing underwear every day puts in my style. Luckily I live in the greatest country in the world and they've got my back. Sure, we get criticized for spending more money on defense than anything else in the history of mankind, but just look at the results. I mean you don't see the French military coming up with a pair of underwear that you can wear for weeks at a time. And no, that wasn't a crack about how you'd have thought the French would be the ones looking into dirty underwear technology.

Yes, the pentagon spent 20 million dollars to devise a superskivy for its troops that sometimes can't be bothered to swap out a new pair every 72 hours. The mainstay is a special water resistant bacteria retardant coating that"both kills bacteria, and forces liquids to bead and run off." I'd like you to really focus in on that statement. Forces liquids to bead and run off. Got that mental image? Nice.

• LiveScience.com - Self-Cleaning Underwear Goes Weeks Without Washing

Stand Back... I Think I'm Gonna Blag.

Ok, so I know I just did this with the multiple items in a single post, but I'm still all blocked up from that week of not crapping, er... I mean posting. So hold on. Its gonna be a rough one.

Hackers went pretty hard on RFID the entire year, breaking what meager encryption companies may have tried. Showing us why is may not be such a great idea to sport our credit card, passport, or biometric data in an easily gankable format. Well here's a little switch for you, the Chaos Conference attendees will be tracked via RFID, and their locations will be displayed in a publicly accessible form. Kind of a "no one has secrets" approach. Sure you can see my info, but I can see your too. The beacons broadcast at five power levels and are triangulated by 35 readers throughout the conference.

• Hackers get theirs, RFID tags follow them everywhere at CCC - Engadget

LEDs are great. I'm trying to get into them as much as possible, mostly cause I don't really like the compact fluorescent kick everyone (especially walmart) is on these days. Of course the reason I like em (not very mainstream) is the very reason I can't use them for everything. But there's a nice guide for LED beginners. I know what I'm doing the next rainy weekend.

• Instructables: LEDs For Beginners (TreeHugger)

I've been thinking of wiping my hard-drive lately. Mostly case there are so many things installed that I don't use. What do I really need? FireFox and Itunes. That's all that comes to mind. But its still a scary step. This disc might make the emotional hurdle a bit easier to get over. Its called software for starving students and contains all those essential open programs all in one place. Sounds pretty nice, but keep in mind that its a disc image, so don't go downloading it unless you plan on burning it.

• Download of the Day: Software for Starving Students (Win/Mac) - Lifehacker

Nothing like a batch of holiday porn. Be careful what you give Jimmy for his birthday cause you never know what's gonna come preloaded on those storage devices. iPods, video games, cameras, they're all susceptible. The more I hear about this stuff the more I think its Fight Club.

• Techdirt: Unintentional Porn Atop Holiday Gift Lists

Gambling, we all do it. Even if you live in a state where gambling is illegal. Yes, I'm talking about insurance. When you buy car insurance, you're saying 'I bet I'm gonna screw up my car.' Of course its not quite that clear cut, but take a look at Weatherbill. Its a site where you can buy insurance against the weather. Maybe you've rented a site for an outdoor cookout or you're organizing a parade. I dunno, there must be all kinds of reasons for hedging your bets. And I mean that literally, the site also invites people to place wagers on the weather in places that will have no effect on them. So insurance, or gambling, it all good.

• Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Use WeatherBill To Bet On The Weather

Oh good another wire format to keep track of. I haven't even found anything to plug into my HDMI port yet and already I'm feeling like I need a new system. Whatever, can't we all just agree on a standard plug for high quality audio and video? I mean how am I sposed to feel future proof if you keep changing things on me?

• DisplayPort to support HDCP, too - Engadget

In other news, the best pirate pickup line of the week is:
Avast, me pretty! Strike your panties and prepare to be boarded.

I'm So Over Longhorn.

Vista is ready to roll out and under-deliver on all those promises that Microsoft made way back when they decided to make Longhorn instead of Blackcomb. The new phenoms are now Fiji and Vienna. Fiji being a kind of Vista second edition (remember when you got win98 second edition? That was pretty sweet.) And Vienna is the whole new shebang that was sposed to be Blackcomb in the first place. (remember when you got winxp after win98se? Even more sweet.) It'll use voice recognition as a major input and do away with folder management and menus. Sounds like the computer scifi writers have been dreaming about for centuries. Of course a bunch of this stuff was sposed to be in here by now but was postponed so don't get too excited. The cool features will most likely get the "that's really hard, it'll be in the next generation" bump just before release.

Oh, and all of you who think you just wasted 70 seconds reading that cause there's no way you're going to remember that Blackcomb is now Vienna just like you didn't know that Vista was Longhorn, you're right. You wasted your time.

• Next up after Vista? Fiji and Vienna - Download Squad

I Just Saw This Movie.

We had big plans for Saturday. We decided to watch Mission Impossible. And Mission Impossible 2. Then I bought Mission Impossible 3 and we watched it. Then we watched Anchorman. And then Aurthur. It was a rough day.

Anyway, that whole preface was just to credential myself when I give you a summary of MI:2 because you probably remember very little of the plot. Tom Cruise almost dies while free climbing in Arizona (damn.) and then crashes a Carrera in South America. They use the girl for bait to figure out what they're trying to do. Turns out that there is a super cure drug called Balerafont but the scientists created a super virus, Chimera, when they spliced some viruses together. The bad guys want to infect everyone and then sell the cure. A bunch of things blow up. You get pissed off when it turns out that everyone was wearing a mask and they destroy the virus in the end.

So now switch to the real world. Two Biotech companies are working on super vaccines that will combat any type of flu. They'll be ready for testing in 2007 (wait, that's this year) and can readily stockpile massive amounts. Anyone else feel like we're being set up?

• One vaccine for every strain of flu, including bird flu | Great News Network

I'll Have Your Network With His Phone And Their Services.

I saw a commercial yesterday - I dunno why I saw a commercial, I must have been spacing on the fast forward button - for a cell phone or something. It was called Helio and was almost in the style of those Old Navy commercials that make me vomit. Not so much in the dancing around to hip music trying to be a GAP ad, but in the cool young people having fun with whatever the product is. I know that sounds vague, but I'm fine with it. Anyway, the one guy finds the other guy using the phone's GPS or something (kinda cool) and the other guy says something about Google Maps on his phone. Alright, I'm listening.

Well, I wanted to find out more about this product, but I couldn't remember the name of the company (advertising is very effective on me) until I read an article about how bad Cingular sucks and someone asked what the deal with Helio was in the comments. (no one answered him) Ah! It was called Helio. Wiki to the rescue-

Helio is a MVNO joint venture between SK Telecom and Earthlink. MVNO means that they don't own any licensed spectrum but rent service from other providers. Look at the coverage map of my area. No whitespace. They've got a ton of 3G coverage that they lease from Sprint and they lease voice only access from Verizon for all the other areas. What? They only reason I'm on Verizon is because they have the most pervasive coverage in my area. They don't have the best service they have the most ubituitous service. And now they don't have that because I can go through someone else to get a hybrid service. So right out of the blocks that's sounding sweet. But there's more:

The premise of this new company would be to bring advanced mobile devices in service from SK Telecom's home market of Korea to the US wireless market, where such advanced devices had been noted, by many, to be lacking. Helio, as it was to be called, would market itself to the younger demographic, promoting itself using the latest in cutting-edge handset technology. They plan to avoid taking on the major US wireless carriers directly, and instead they intend to carve out a niche for themselves with technology-savvy consumers.

Yeah? Bringing some of that rocking handset technology over here from Korea? Awesome. And marketing themselves to a savvy consumer base sounds like they won't want to piss people off by crippling their phones.

Want some more? Ok, they realize they're selling convergence items. So after you switch over for one of their devices you can send in your old tech for cash rewards. Like the phone in my pocket is worth a $46.75 trade-in. And I'm pretty sure I've got a couple more in my glove box. But its not just phones. They want iPods, PSPs, cameras, PDAs whatever your new convergence device is replacing. I mean, sure maybe you could get more for it on eBay if you're willing to put a bit more effort into it. But I find it very refreshing for a company to embrace convergence and enable its customers' transition.

That and the options look so freaking simple. Pick a phone, pick how many minutes you want and pick a data option. 65 or 40 bucks a month. I obviously need to look around a little more but this sounds like the kind of company I'm angling for.

• Helio | Drift, Hero, & Kickflip cell phones, MySpace Mobile, buddy beacon, mobile games, & more

Stones Squeal On Hog Line Burns.

Now granted I've only been curling for like half a season, but I hadn't really considered that one of the most controversial calls in the sport is a hog line violation. See, you slide off the hack with a 44 lb stone while balancing on a Teflon sole against a sheet of ice. 33 feet out is the "hog line" which is the plane by which you have to have released the stone. If anyone touches the rock after that line it is "burned" and removed from play.
I'm not really coming that close to a hog line violation, I usually release a couple feet before the line, so I never really thought about having to make these close calls. Obviously you wouldn't touch the stone if you knew you were over the line, and at competitive Speils there are hog line judges to make sure.

Like the digital timer and electric starting gun, technology is being used to absolutely differentiate as athletes push the boundaries of rules. These rocks have circuitry in them that detects when the thrower's hand lets go as well as detect when the stone passes the hog line. Hang on a fraction too long and red lights flash on the stone so you know to remove it. Pretty cool stuff, but at 650 bones a pop its a little prohibitive for smaller clubs. But next time I see a national competition on TV I'll be looking for these babies.

• Eye on the Hog

Holy Crap, This Guy Is Clinically Dead.

Clinical death occurs when the heartbeat and breathing have stopped. Since regular breathing is impossible when the heart is stopped, clinical death is synonymous with cardiac arrest or cardiac death.

So you've probably taken some kind of CPR course where they make you check a dummy for pulse and breathing. If there's no thump thump, you're sposed to violently bang on his chest until you are relieved by a more competent person or the patient physically stops you.

Well toss that out cause we're going all Frankenstein. A patient in Canada has had a device installed that constantly circulates the blood in his body. That's night, no heart, no pulse, no blood pressure. This is the guy, along with the kitchen sink part he's got strapped in his chest. Wild stuff. I mean, I don't like to think about RFID chips under my skin, so this is definitely creeping me out.

• Bodyhack

Pretend This Bag Of Chips Is A Cat.

I do like CG. I normally just think about it in Pixar films because its noticeable there; the entire film is CG. I like to watch the special features and see how the shots and objects were modeled, or how the creative process worked to created the characters in movies like Finding Nemo or Cars.

But that's one type of CG that's about style and art. The goal of traditional CG is to blend in to the film and be unnoticeable to the viewer. (watch the Emperor's new groove, a hand animated movie, and pick out the CG objects. they did a good job.) I finally got around to watching my copy of Dead Man's Chest this weekend and didn't really think about the special effects. I spose that means they did a good job; especially so considering how much actual editing ILM did for the film. Now, I didn't watch the 8 hours of special features yet so I'm sure this site is just a taste, but I like the interaction. Head on over to the ILM site and you can view some of the process and mouse-over clips to reveal the original shot. These guys are good.

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