Month: August 2008

Land Sail 90mph in a 25mph Wind

The Greenbird – the fastest wind powered vehicle on Earth!
Harnessing the power of the wind is what Ecotricity is all about! And now we’re taking our love of wind to a new level, with the fastest wind powered vehicle on Earth!

The Greenbird will challenge all your preconceptions of wind powered travel – it’s simply an amazing machine powered only by nature. And not just on land… on ice too.

It’s part aeroplane, part sailboat, part Formula One car…

When “Free” Isn’t Free

The Federal Trade Commission’s Information on Free Annual Credit Reports
The FTC has received complaints from consumers who thought they were ordering their free annual credit report online. Some consumers responded to TV ads, email offers, or simply searched online.

A recent amendment to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months. But there’s only one online source authorized to do so. That’s annualcreditreport.com. Beware of other sites that may look and sound similar.

Now Truckloads Of Servers

Microsoft’s data centers growing by the truckload | Latest Microsoft News – CNET News – CNET News
Starting with a Chicago-area facility due to open later this year, Microsoft will use an approach in which servers arrive at the data center in a sealed container, already networked together and ready to go. The container itself is then hooked up to power, networking, and air conditioning.
Microsoft graphic

“The trucks back ’em in, rack ’em, and stack ’em,” Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie told CNET News. And the containers remain sealed, Ozzie said. Once a certain number of servers in the container have failed, it will be pulled out and sent back to the manufacturer and a new container loaded in.

At the growth rate of 10,000 servers a month Microsoft should be at 218,000 servers at the end of August 08.

China & India To Spend Their $$$

Maybe the Olympics will awake people in the developed world, who are grossly ignorant of the size and power of the economies in the developing world.China has 1.4 billion people, and India has 1.1 billion people.  Together they make up about 40% of the world population.  The U.S. and Europe together total about 700 million people or about 12% of the world population.

<> Both China and India would like to do infrastructure development and the current decline in the price of world commodities will allow them to use the trillions of U.S. dollars that they have set aside for just such purposes.  China has said that they will spend $250 billion for each of the next two years on repairing the damage of the huge earthquake of 2008.  In addition, China announced some time ago a $13 trillion dollar plan to upgrade their railroads, plus $ trillions more on other huge plans for dams, roads, airports and many other infrastructure programs.

Proof Chinese Cheated Gymnist’s Age

China Media Project » Blog Archive » China’s early press coverage of “secret weapon” He Kexin

Click on the link above for original China publications and their translations. China’s female Olympic gymnastics team is now coming under intense pressure as evidence mounts that champion gymnast He Kexin (何可欣) is below the age of eligibility for Olympic competition in the event. The evidence against He’s eligibility includes online news coverage by China Daily and the official Xinhua News Agency, which Chinese officials are now saying is inaccurate.

But as Berkeley’s China Digital Times has noted, a number of Chinese newspaper articles last year and early this year reported He’s age as 13. In trying to build a credible case for the gymnast’s eligibility, Chinese officials will find themselves denying a series of independent Chinese news reports.

Here is the link to the China Daily web page that revealed her true age, that has since been taken down by the embarrased government.

More Documents found on-line by Mike Walker

Fay Crashes Kiter Into Building

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Thanks to Kiter Randy Marks
Here is the link to the full news broadcast. Again Hit the “Enlarge ” button for better viewing.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A 26-year-old kite surfer was critically injured when winds associated with a Tropical Storm Fay feeder band slammed him face-first into the ground and then dragged him through streets until he hit a building.
The man, who did not heed emergency officials’ warnings to seek shelter during severe weather from an approaching Tropical Storm Fay, was kite surfing on the Fort Lauderdale beach at A1A and Las Olas Boulevard when the storm winds intensified.
Witnesses said a huge gust of wind caught the man by surprise.The surfer, Kevin Kearney, was harnessed into his sail and videotaped being dragged along the beach and then into buildings, WFOR in Miami reported.A WFOR photographer said Kearney was blown away by a forming waterspout.Kearney was transported to Broward General Medical Center in critical condition.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) — The condition of a kite-surfer thrown airborne into a Fort Lauderdale building by strong winds this week has improved, his mother said Wednesday. Broward General Medical Center upgraded Kevin Kearney’s condition from critical to serious Wednesday morning, said his mother, Alicia Paradise-Garza.

Georgia started this fight — Russia finished it

Blowback From Bear-Baiting – HUMAN EVENTS

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight — Russia finished it. People who start wars don’t get to decide how and when they end.

Russia’s response was “disproportionate” and “brutal,” wailed Bush.

True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more “disproportionate”?

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing? Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them. -Patrick Buchanan

Continue reading “Georgia started this fight — Russia finished it”

Jon Stewart – News Anchor?

Television – Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America? – NYTimes.com
When Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN. And a study this year from the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded that “ ‘The Daily Show’ is clearly impacting American dialogue” and “getting people to think critically about the public square.”

China Eathquake Is No Whining Zone

Op-Ed Columnist – Where’s the Trauma and the Grief? – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com
Click on the NY Times link for interviews with Chinese survivor’s stories. No Kartina whiners here.

These were weird, unnerving interviews, and I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on in the minds of people who have suffered such blows and remained so optimistic. All I can imagine is that the history of this province has given these people a stripped-down, pragmatic mentality: Move on or go crazy. Don’t dwell. Look to the positive. Fix what needs fixing. Work together.

I don’t know if it’s emotionally sustainable or even healthy, but it raises at least one interesting question. When you compare these people to the emotional Sturm und Drang over lesser things on reality TV, you do wonder if we Americans are a nation of whiners.