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UK to watch your vehicle via satellite
The UK is testing a satellite speed sensing system that cam measure the speed of a vehicle between and 2 points. This new system can also capture license plate numbers in all weather conditions. Watch out UK drivers big brother will be watching you all the time when you are mobile. This is just plain sick. Is traffic that bad in the UK that they need a system like this? Doesn’t the UK government have better uses of its tax pay dollars?
For the full story read this
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Facebook – new changes that must be undone!
Facebook has really done it now. They want you to give all your information to anybody and everybody. To stop this maddening go to “Privacy settings” > “Applications Settings” and then view the following:
“Instant Personalization – Select partners can personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites.” Be SURE to uncheck the “allow” button.
http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy&ref=mb#!/settings/?tab=privacy§ion=applications
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MPAA & RIAA war against the US Citizen
The big media giants and the large financial backed political legal staff have gone overboard now. Please take the time to read the whole article. The following is just some of the highlights by Cory Doctorow.
“Digital Economy Act: This means war,” explains how the latest round of dirty tricks from the entertainment industry — perverting British law, proposing an American police state, building an oppressive global treaty behind closed doors — changes the game. We’re no longer merely arguing about the future of control over culture: now it’s about the fundamentals of a just and free society:”
Read the rest of his article.
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Airlines at their best – NOT
The following is a quote from a handicapped persons blog.
“The attendant standing in the front section of economy was a blonde woman probably in her late 40s-50s and I called her over to explain that I needed her assistance because I wasn’t capable of lifting my luggage due to my disability. To my surprise, the attendant rejected my request while excusing it by saying: “If I helped everyone do that all day then MY back would be killing me by the end of the day!” I asked her how I was supposed to get my luggage stowed and her answer was: “You’ll just have to wait for someone from your row to come back here and ask them to give you a hand.” When I asked what would happen if no one would, her response to me was: “Well, normally a passenger is around to overhear something like this and they’ll offer to help with it on their own. You’ll just have to ask someone when they get back here.” Then she turned back around and went up to the front seats where she waited to “assist” other passengers.
“I was completely flabbergasted, but with no other option, I sat down to wait and pulled my carry-on suitcase as close as I could to try to get it out of the way of the aisle. As I’m sure you’re aware, however, your aisles are considerably narrow and even my best efforts left half of even my small carry-on suitcase in the aisle. What’s more, rather than help me, most of the passengers simply knocked into my suitcase and shoved past me on the way to their own seats. Every time they hit the suitcase, it in turn hit me and jarred my back more and more with each strike.”
She complained and got this response:
“I won’t apologize for her actions and I’m not sorry for what happened to you. It’s not in our contract to assist passengers with their luggage and we reserve the right to refuse assistance to anyone. If that’s what you need, then perhaps in the future, you should make other travel arrangements.”
You can read the whole account from her blog here.
If there was some other way to travel to get great distances within a short time….
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Air Marshalls – useful?
US Congressmen John Duncan from Tennessee has and interesting post on his blog about the US Air Marshals.
He says that the taxpayers spend $200 Million for each arrest made by an Air Marshal. I feel that this is just a little high on the cost/reward scenario. He also goes on to say that “Since 9/11, more than three dozen Federal air marshals have been charged with crimes, and hundreds more have been accused of misconduct.”
This seems to me that we should be doing something, like just eliminating the service. It is just costing us too much.
Professor Ian Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania wrote last year about the money feeding frenzy of the war on terror. He also wrote, “For the country as a whole, however, it has become maelstrom of waste.” And there is no agency for which those words are more applicable than the Federal Air Marshal Service.”
Read Congressmen Duncan’s post here.
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Net Neutrality?
What is Net Neutrality? If you don’t know, now is the time to learn what it is an why it is very important.
Net Neutrality as defined by Wikipedia is “a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as communication that is not unreasonably degraded by other traffic.”
Basically this means that the Internet should not be restricted as to types of web sites, software used to display data, not be restricted from the use of any type of protocol (traffic), and not throttled or restricted based on data types (streaming media).
Recently Comcast was restricting peoples Internet speed based the type of data (bit torrent) people were sending. The FCC told Comcast they could not do that and Comcast sued the FCC and won. This was a huge blow to the FCC on their power to regulate. Since then the FCC has asked congress for more guidance and authority. (Stacy Higginbotham explains this in great detail here)
So what does this mean to you and me? The following is an example of what can and will happen if Net Neutrality is not maintained. I am never around when the TV shows are on that I want to watch so I try to remember to record them for later watching but usually forget. Therefore I go to hulu.com and watch the TV show I missed. Since I have a high speed Internet connection, I can watch the show in HD over the Internet. If I were a Comcast customer, they could decide that I was using too much bandwidth and throttle my connection so I could not watch it in HD or possibly not at all. Hulu.com is in direct competition to Comcast since Comcast streams video content also.
(Jim Louderback has a more detailed explanation of the consequences of not maintaining Net Neutrality)
Please join myself and others to help the FCC keep Net Neutrality in force by signing this partition.
For a little entertainment watch the following video:
youtube video “home taping is killing music”
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iPad – Not 4 me
If you are a Apple fan boy, I hope you enjoy the iPad and all its proprietary software. It is just not for me.
I like a device that the stuff I buy for it is mine to use as I see fit and move it to a different device if I feel so inclined. Try that with your iPad.
I also like to save free things I download an give a copy to a friend. Try that with you iPad.
I also like to replace the power source when it fails. Uh, the battery for example. Try that with your iPad.
I also don’t like to to be restricted to what I can and can’t use with my products. Mother Apple tells you what is good and not good for your device. Enjoy the ipad.
Oh, have you priced the apps for the iPad? Hmm, the apps for the iPad are twice as expensive as the same app for the iPhone. Mother Apple again telling you what you can and can’t have with the iPad.
Oh, the books that you down load for the iPad are 1.5 to 2 times more expensive than they are for the Kindle.
I rest my case.
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USA Worst – US Copyright Group
Excuse me while I quote Cory Doctorow from his blog.
“The number of Americans targeted by entertainment industry lawsuits nearly doubled this month, as the the US Copyright Group (“an ad hoc coalition of independent film producers and with the encouragement of the Independent Film & Television Alliance”) brought suit against 20,000 BitTorrent users. 30,000 more lawsuits are pending, bringing the total number of US entertainment industry lawsuit defendants up to 80,000 (when you include the 30,000 victims of the RIAA).”
It seems to me that they enjoy picking on the average citizen because we don’t have deep pockets to fight them in court. Why can’t they learn from other industries and innovate. I want to find out what producers are in the US Copyright Group so I make sure I do not view, rent, or support them in any way.
Keep up the good work Cory and keep us posted on the shenanigans.
Click here to read his complete post.
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Health Care and Manufacturing
US manufacturing companies John Deer and Caterpillar release statements on how they feel the new Obama Care bill will impact their companies.
Quote from news release, “MOLINE, Ill. (AP) — Deere & Co. said Thursday that the new health care reform law will raise its fiscal 2010 expenses by approximately $150 million.
The farm equipment maker said most of the after-tax expenses will likely be incurred in the second quarter and that its 2010 earnings forecast of about $1.3 billion did not account for the expense hike because it was given prior to the law’s signing.
Deere, based in Moline, Ill., is the second company this week to indicate that the new law will increase its costs. On Wednesday, heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said the new law would create a $100 million drag on its first-quarter earnings.”
Source http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=248690
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Delaware increases your driving pleasure
The Delaware Department of Transportation is installing 10 more red light cameras to enhance your driving pleasure. That means we will have a total of 30 in the first state by this summer. Just in case your car gets it’s picture taken, you will receive a nice letter from DELDOT with a bill or better stated, a fine in the amount of $112.50 which the state will share with the county and the company that installed the cameras.
