Daily Archives: October 19, 2011

Business and Politics — No Comments
19
Oct 11

Top ten list: Tax evaders’ wall of shame

Sunday, April 10, 2011 – Ad Lib by Catherine Poe

When you read about GE paying no corporate federal taxes in 2010 while getting a $3.2 billion rebate, does your blood start to boil?

If you listened to the corporate whining, you probably thought companies like GE paid 35% in federal taxes. Not so. It’s a rare company that ponies up that amount.

For too long the American public has been hornswoggled by this century’s “robber barons.”

Remember, it was our tax dollars that saved the hides of many of these multinationals with colossal bailouts, and how do they say thanks?

By not paying their taxes. Nada, zero, zilch. And it’s legal, thanks to Congress.

However, I am betting you’ll pay your 2010 taxes on April 15th.

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Music / People — No Comments
19
Oct 11

Chuck Berry – 85 years young…

Legendary guitarist, singer and songwriter, Chuck Berry (b. Oct. 18, 1926) is 85 today and is often referred to at the King of Rock and Roll – or as John Lennon put it: “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’”

In the film Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll! Eric Clapton states ‘If you wanna play rock and roll – or any upbeat number – and you wanted to take a guitar ride you would end up playing like Chuck…because there is very little other choice. There’s not a lot of other ways to play rock and roll other than the way Chuck plays it; he’s really laid the law down…”

In 1992 Keith Richards told Best of Guitar Player “Chuck was my man. He was the one who made me say ‘I want to play guitar, Jesus Christ!’…Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do.”

Berry’s showmanship has been influential on other rock guitar players, particularly his one-legged hop routine, and the “duck walk”, which he first used as a child when he walked “stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical” under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when “performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk.

Source: Wikipedia

Art / My Photos — No Comments
19
Oct 11

Orange on Green – Project Flickr: Round

Art / My Photos — No Comments
19
Oct 11

Mosaic on Blue – Project Flickr: Round

Books / Science & Technology — No Comments
19
Oct 11

A sign of the times

By James Milstid

E-Readers, the Internet, and digital audio books have changed the way many of us are reading.

Sure, real books have a certain warm and cozy je ne sais quoi and appeal that I’ll never deny. But electronic books have won me over for convenience and ease. I’m sure that my being a techy has something to do with it too. But having read at least thirty books on my nookcolor (and several more on my iPhone before I had a nook) puts me way beyond the exploratory mode. My e-Reader is my preferred media for books.

I’ve been interested for some time how digital media is affecting publishers, bookstores, libraries, and the like. So it was with some interest that I read this article in the New York Times. It certainly is a sign of the times…

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Science & Technology — No Comments
19
Oct 11

O. M. G. I’m salivating…

Canon Unveils the 1D X: One DSLR to Rule Them All

As the rumors foretold, Canon has announced a new DSLR today combining the 1D and 1Ds line of DSLRs into a single camera: the EOS-1D X. This beastly DSLR is an 18-megapixel jack of all trades. It’s full frame, but still shoots 14fps using 61 autofocus points and a 252-zone metering system. ISO can be boosted up to a whopping 204,000.

There’s a large 3.2-inch LCD screen on the back, and a futuristic optical viewfinder that offers things such as a dual-axis electronic level and an on-demand grid. For remote shooting and file transferring, there’s a handy built-in wired LAN connection. In terms of video, camera can also do 1080p recording at 24/25/30fps, along with 720p at 50/60fps. You’ll have to start saving up though — the 1D X will cost $6,800 when it’s released in March 2012.

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Science & Technology — No Comments
19
Oct 11

What the Hell Magnets? Why Are You So Amazing?

By ANDREW LISZEWSKI

You don’t need to be a physicist, a PhD student, a geek, or even a member of the Insane Clown Posse to appreciate the awesome capabilities of superconductors and magnets as demonstrated in this video by Tel-Aviv University.

An unidentified member of the university’s Superconductivity Group School of Physics and Astronomy shows off the quantum locking, or quantum trapping, effects of a magnet that’s been super cooled with liquid nitrogen. Now we’ve probably all seen demonstrations of super cooled magnets floating above a track before, with promises of them facilitating high-speed trains zigzagging across the country. But this video goes one step further, showing how the position and angle of the magnet can be locked in a magnetic field while it’s in motion. The moral of the story is that it makes for an impressive demo, and I better see hoverboards popping up in toy stores by Christmas.

Via GIZMODO