Month: July 2006

Software Makes Fireworks’ Booms Beautiful

Software Makes Fireworks’ Booms Beautiful
Most of the major fireworks shows will be choreographed with a program called Show Director by Infinity Visions. The firing machinery for a show can cost between $30,000 and $50,000 while the software costs between $2,000 and $8,000

The software allows firing cues to be placed at certain times, superimposed against the waveform of the music that will be played. Once the show is choreographed, the instructional files are uploaded into the firing machines, and the programmers can step back and simply push “play”. The computer sends the appropriate signals down a web of cables to the firing modules, which in turn are connected to the shells.

Internet Calling Pressures Bells to Lower Rates

Internet Calling Pressures Bells to Lower Rates – New York Times
During the first quarter of this year, the number of traditional telephone lines dropped by 150,000 a week, according to TeleGeography. At the same time, the number of subscribers to Internet telephone services has increased by 100,000 a week.

The main reason for falling prices for phone service is that it costs less to deliver voice communications over the Internet than over the traditional phone network.

With the old technology, phone companies use costly equipment that directs a call through complex switches to its destination. On the Internet, phone calls are broken up into small packets of data, just like an e-mail message or a Web page, and then delivered to their destination.

Rainbow Family Founder Urges Suit vs. Feds

ainbow Family Founder Urges Suit vs. Feds – Forbes.com
Barry Adams, known in the Rainbow Family as Barry Plunker, told a council circle at the first day of this year’s weeklong gathering at Routt National Forest that federal pressure has gone too far.

Dozens of Forest Service officers, county deputies and Colorado State Patrol officers are manning checkpoints and patrolling camps as thousands of hippies flood the forest about 30 miles north of Steamboat Springs.

Cubans Find Backdoor Route to U.S. Soil

Los Angeles Times: Cubans Find Backdoor Route to U.S. Soil
To leave Cuba legally, Cubans must generally get a visa from the country they’re going to visit, plus a letter of invitation from a citizen of that country. They then must seek an exit visa from the Cuban government, which is sometimes denied. The process can take months.

The Cubans — who couldn’t simply fly from the Dominican Republic to the United States without a U.S. visa — then paid between $1,500 and $2,000 to be taken by boat to tiny Mona Island. That’s at least $12,000 total for one boatload.
The trip aboard low-slung boats called yolas is hazardous and many have died in the 80-mile-wide Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where the Atlantic collides with the Caribbean and is often stormy.

Report urges funding Castro foes

Report urges funding Castro foes
The report also says there is growing evidence that ”senior elements of the regime” are hiding their financial assets overseas, including properties and bank accounts. It recommends tracking down these assets and returning them “for the benefit of a Free Cuba Government.”

According to the text, Castro and his inner circle ”have begun a gradual but intrinsically unstable process of succession” working with “like-minded governments, particularly Venezuela, to build a network of political and financial support designed to forestall any external pressure to change.”

This maefesto from inside Cuba in the Washington Post ” The Unstoppable Cuban Spring”