Advent Conspiracy 2009
Resurgent coder, intrepid tramper, gastrophile, utter & complete bibliophiliac and zombie apocalypse surviving brain smasher
Excerpt:
Our plan was to debut the CrunchPad on stage at the Real-Time Crunchup event on November 20, a little over a week ago. We even hoped to have devices hacked together withGoogle Chrome OS and Windows 7 to show people that you could hack this thing to run just about anything you want. We’d put 1,000 of the devices on pre-sale and take orders immediately. Larger scale production would begin early in 2010.
And then the entire project self destructed over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication.
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Full Article: Tech Crunch
Speaking at the 2007 EG conference, trainer Ian Dunbar asks us to see the world through the eyes of our beloved dogs. By knowing our pets' perspective, we can build their love and trust. It's a message that resonates well beyond the animal world.We may call dogs man's best friend, but according to Dr. Ian Dunbar, humans often fail to reciprocate. Dunbar's decades of research on hierarchical social behavior and aggression in domestic animals truly give him a dog's-eye view of human beings' incomprehensible and spontaneous -- if involuntary -- cruelties. Dunbar says we might break our unseemly, unflattering habits and usher in an "era of dog-friendly dog training" by coming to understand why dogs do what they do -- Is Fido misbehaving, or just being a dog? -- and the repercussions of our actions toward them. (We might foster better relationships with our fellow humans, too.)Dunbar has written numerous books, including How to Teach a New Dog Old Tricks and The Good Little Dog Book. He has also hosted several award-winning videotapes on puppy and dog training.
San Francisco, CA
September 15, 2003 This was not the first discussion of environmentalism as a religion, but it caught on and was widely quoted. Michael explains why religious approaches to the environment are inappropriate and cause damage to the natural world they intend to protect.
X-Flex is a new kind of wallpaper: one that’s quite possibly stronger than the wall it’s on. Invented by Berry Plastics in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, this lifesaving adhesive is designed for use anyplace that’s prone to blasts and other lethal forces, like in war or natural-disaster zones, chemical plants or airports. To keep a shelter’s walls from collapsing in an explosion and to contain all the flying debris, you simply peel off the wallpaper’s sticky backing, apply the rollable sheets to the inside of brick or cinder-block walls, and reinforce it with fasteners at the edges. Covering an entire room can take less than an hour.
X-Flex bonds so tightly, it helps walls keep their shape after blast waves. Two layers are strong enough to stop a blunt object, like a flying 2x4, from knocking down drywall. During our tests, just a single layer kept a wrecking ball from smashing through a brick wall. The wallpaper’s strength and ductility is derived from a layer of Kevlar-like material sandwiched by sheets of elastic polymer wrap. The combination works so well that the Army is now considering wallpapering bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Civilians could soon start remodeling too—Berry Plastics plans to develop a commercial version next year.
Click here to see our test: X-Flex vs. wrecking ball
Congratulations to Google on the open sourcing of Google Chrome OS
When Chrome OS was announced in June we saw this as a positive development, bringing choice to the consumer. We considered how open source development is as much about co-operation as it is about competition. Google have made it clear that they are keen to develop Chrome OS openly and we have had the pleasure of hosting a number of the Google team at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Dallas over the last few days where we have been able to see that openness in action.
In the interest of transparency, we should declare that Canonical is contributing engineering to Google under contract. In our discussions, Sundar Pichai and Linus Upson made it clear that they want , wherever feasible, to build on existing components and tools from the open source community without unnecessary re-invention. This clear focus should benefit a wide variety of existing projects and we welcome it.
On the consumer side, people will ask about the positioning of Chrome OS and Ubuntu. While the two operating systems share some core components, Google Chrome OS will provide a very different experience to Ubuntu. Ubuntu will continue to be a general purpose OS running both web and native applications such as OpenOffice and will not require specialised hardware.
So 2010 looks set to be a very exciting year. In addition to delivering Ubuntu experiences with both existing and new OEM partners, we will be working with Google on Chrome OS based devices.
Chris Kenyon VP of OEM Services, Canonical
This is a really awesome idea - one I will implement some day.
From: Levitate UK
