Get out your bus passes...

On the way home last night from work I spotted a gas station's prices that almost made me drive into oncoming traffic in frustration. Instead, I decided to snap a pic with my cell. Don't mind the quality since it was around midnight and shot through limo tint:

























Thanks Katrina for giving an excuse to raise the oil prices :

/rant

Speaking of Katrina - why are there so many people being rescued from her devastation? There was plenty of notification regarding the magnitude of her size and power. Approximately 3000 people were reported being rescued yesterday alone. Don't tell me all of them were homeless, because that's not true. I have a feeling that alot of people didn't take this too seriously. I feel bad for the kids, but not for anyone that had the means to evacuate in a prompt manner. boneheads.

/rant

Nova | The Elegant Universe

"The fundamental particles of the universe that physicists have identified—electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and so on—are the "letters" of all matter. Just like their linguistic counterparts, they appear to have no further internal substructure. String theory proclaims otherwise. According to string theory, if we could examine these particles with even greater precision—a precision many orders of magnitude beyond our present technological capacity—we would find that each is not pointlike but instead consists of a tiny, one-dimensional loop. Like an infinitely thin rubber band, each particle contains a vibrating, oscillating, dancing filament that physicists have named a string."

All three hours of this popular mini-series are now viewable online! You'll need Quicktime or a Realplayer alternative (I don't recommend Realplayer) like Real-Alternative to view. Worth every minute - a definite must-see.

Where's Bush?

"Mr. President,

There is something wrong with this picture.

Hurricane Katrina is now being called one of the worst, if not the worst, disaster in US history. Instead of focusing on this growing tragedy in the southeast, you are at this moment giving a speech in California about World War II and Iraq. Yes, you devoted one minute of that speech to the hurricane, but now it's been 20 minutes and you are still talking about WWII and Iraq.
"

Click link above picture.

I've not pimped anyone's blog before, but this one deserves a read considering what's been unfolding around Katrina's devestation.

GPS/Windows Mobile/smart phone is a first

"Mio will next week preview the A701, its first GPS-enabled Windows Mobile-based smart phone, The Register has learned.

According to basic specifications we've seen, the device is based on a 520MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor backed by 192MB of memory, of which we reckon at least 64MB will be ROM. The phone runs Windows Mobile 5, aka 'Magneto'."

Green Day steals the show

"Punk veterans Green Day picked up seven awards at the MTV Music Video Awards Sunday. In a show usually dominated by hip-hop or pop acts, Green Day managed to take a bundle of awards, including best rock video and video of the year for the hit "American Idiot.""







Ya know, it sure is nice to see that Rock still has its place even in the washed out and generic cesspool of modern pop music. By the way, this album is a must have if you haven't picked it up yet (and if you haven't, you should kick yourself in the chin and call it a day)

The Edge 103.9

Pimping my favorite local station. Although I don't listen to much over the airwaves (I prefer my .mp3 collection or podcasts) when I do turn on the radio, it's always this one. It's not corporate driven, which is a big plus.

Check out the streaming broadcast here.(Windows Media Player)

Google Talk

Just as predicted, Google has emerged with an open sourced Jabber client called Google Talk. It's ad free, light, and works very well. Let's hope this catches on among the "big three" instant messenger clients.

There is a nice review of Google Talk here.

Web server the size of a match head?

""The single chip computer in the above picture runs the iPic web-server, the world's tiniest implementation of a TCP/IP stack and a HTTP web-server. The chip above is a complete micro-computer, and it includes all components of a complete computer on a single tiny micro-chip (this includes the CPU (central processing unit), memory, serial port interface circuitry, and clock oscillator)."





The nerd in me showing in today's post. This is just incredible.

New Urbanism

"NEW URBANISM promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities. These contain housing, work places, shops, entertainment, schools, parks, and civic facilities essential to the daily lives of the residents, all within easy walking distance of each other. New Urbanism promotes the increased use of trains and light rail, instead of more highways and roads."

I ran across this site today while surfing around. The idea is simple enough, but with most Americans being fairly materialistic, are they willing to commute using alternative methods other than their own car? Probably not.

Nevertheless, this sure would be an ideal way to start curbing our use of oil and prepare for the astronomical gas prices that are yet to come.

Copy protection screws ipod owners

Sure there are a couple of ways around this, but for the layman, it is ridiculous that an ipod user (of which there are millions), cannot transfer these cd's to their ipod. Not being able to easily backup or rip a cd I purchased without some trick is frustrating. Sorry RIAA, you're pushing more people to illegally download music with tactics like this.