- Weather closes government offices a second day
(Reut... Reuters - Federal government agencies in the capital region will remain closed for a second day on Tuesday as residents brace for another blizzard while trying to clean up from a weekend storm that paralyzed the area with two feet of snow.
- World's tallest tower closed a month after opening
(... AP - The world's tallest skyscraper has unexpectedly closed to the public a month after its lavish opening, disappointing tourists headed for the observation deck and casting doubt over plans to welcome its first permanent occupants in the coming weeks.
- Rep. John Murtha, voice for veterans, dies at 77
(AP)
AP - Rep. John Murtha, the tall, gruff-mannered former Marine who became the de facto voice of veterans on Capitol Hill and later an outspoken and influential critic of the Iraq War, died Monday following complications from gallbladder surgery. He was 77.
- Iran moves closer to nuke warhead capacity
(AP)
AP - Iran pressed ahead Monday with plans that will increase its ability to make nuclear weapons as it formally informed the U.N. nuclear agency of its intention to enrich uranium to higher levels.
- Seats at a premium on planes, trains out of DC
(AP)
AP - A $20 cab ride to the airport skyrocketed to the "snow rate" of $100 in the nation's capital, and those travelers who could get to the airport or train station still had to haggle or wait in long lines to escape the snowbound Mid-Atlantic.
- AP Interview: NY's Paterson lashes back at rumors
(AP)
AP - New York Gov. David Paterson on Monday lashed back at what he called a "callous and sleazy" assault on his character in statehouse rumors and media reports that include accusations about womanizing and drug use, allegations he flatly denied.
- Lawyer: Pitt and Jolie sue over split claim
(AP)
AP - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have begun legal action against a British tabloid that reported the celebrity couple was going to split, a lawyer acting on their behalf confirmed Monday.
- Criminal probe is launched in Conn. plant blast
(AP)
AP - Authorities launched a criminal investigation Monday into the cause of an explosion that killed five people at a power plant under construction, saying they couldn't rule out negligence.
- Dem. lieutenant governor candidate exits Ill. race
(... AP - The Democratic nominee for Illinois' lieutenant governor dropped out of the race Sunday night, less than a week after winning the nomination, amid a political uproar about his past.
- Obama's health care summit: Just for show?
(AP)
AP - Could this turn into something more than political theater? President Barack Obama's televised dialogue with Republican lawmakers on health care, promised for later this month, has the makings of an entertaining exchange. But the differences between the basic Democratic and GOP ideas are stark — and the two sides have increasingly hardened their positions in this election year.
- McCain, Facing G.O.P. Foe in Primary, Tilts to the Right Challenged by J.D. Hayworth from the airwaves, and soon in a primary, John McCain has moved starkly, and often awkwardly, to the right.
- On Health Bill, G.O.P.’s Road Is a New Map Republicans this month will bring President Obama a set of ideas and a more modest health care plan.
- News Analysis: For Kremlin, an Election in Ukraine Cuts T... The apparent win for Russia’s preferred candidate in a starkly contested presidential race contrasts sharply with Russia’s recent history.
- Toyota to Recall 2010 Prius for Brake Problems People with knowledge of Toyota’s plans have said the recall would cover the latest-model Priuses sold worldwide before late January.
- Shakespeare Troupe Plans Residency in New York in 2011 The Royal Shakespeare Company will hold court in Manhattan for an unprecedented six-week, five-play residency inside the Park Avenue Armory.
- Dollars Flow Out as Data Flows In The average American is expected to spend nearly $1,000 on services like cable, Internet and online video games.
- U.N. Climate Panel and Chief Face Credibility Siege Rajendra K. Pachauri and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change face accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest.
- Paperwork Hinders Airlifts of Ill Haitian Children Doctors and aid workers are wrestling with proving that they are not illegally transporting children, whose risk of dying is rising while the paperwork awaits.
- Payton’s Winding Path Saints Coach Sean Payton’s path to the top of the N.F.L. embodies the team’s “unwanted and underrated” character.
- Toyota recalls Prius and 2 other hybrids Toyota will announce a global recall Tuesday for three of its 2010 hybrid models.
- Jenny Sanford calls memoir 'cathartic' South Carolina's first lady, Jenny Sanford, said Monday that writing her much-anticipated memoir of her husband's affair was a "cathartic" and "cleansing" experience.
- 3 shot during Super Bowl celebrations in New Orleans Three people were shot amid celebrations surrounding the New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl win, police said Monday.
- Police: Iraq vet abused daughter, held her head in water An Iraq war veteran has been charged with assault on suspicion of abusing his daughter, whose head he allegedly held in water to get her to recite the ABCs, according to police in Yelm, Washington.
- Americans jailed in Haiti tried taking other kids, office... The group of American Baptist missionaries in Haiti who are facing kidnapping charges for trying to take 33 children out of the country last week made an earlier attempt at taking dozens of other children, according to a Haitian police officer.
- CNN Student News Transcript: February 9, 2010 February 9, 2010
- Man goes undercover to combat child sex slavery Aaron Cohen first met Jonty Thern and her older sister, Channy, in 2005 while singing in a karaoke bar in Battambang, Cambodia. He has come back to see them every year since.
- Obama's 'stupid' jab at Vegas President Obama made a couple of stupid little jokes about Vegas. He uses our Las Vegas as a symbol. Everyone knows what Vegas means. Doc Pomus wrote "Viva Las Vegas" for Elvis years before Doc ever visited Sin City and got everything right.
- Iran official: Window for nuke deal open Iran's envoy to the International International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the window for nuclear negotiations is still open -- even as tensions rise over Iran's decision to defy the world on uranium enrichment.
- More than 1,000 get mumps in New York, New Jersey since A... More than 1,000 people in New Jersey and New York, many of them adolescent Orthodox Jews, have been sickened with mumps since August, health authorities said Monday.
- Hipster puppies hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com (via @tokyomango)...
- Mt. Semantics Mount Everest may be the tallest mountain on Earth, but that's only if you're measuring from sea level. Thanks to the curvature of the planet, Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is the highest if you're measuring from the center of the Earth. In fact, by this system, Everest comes in fifth. (Via Chris Pasco-Pranger)...
- Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition, March 12-14 in Emeryvil... The Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition takes place March 12-14 in Emeryville, CA. Organizers promise "the best elements of traditional science fiction and fantasy conventions, [combined] with the passion, ingenuity, and hands-on workshops of Maker events, in a steam-powered, neo-Victorian setting that spans the 1830s through the early 1910s, from the cultured salons of gaslit London to the rugged coast of San Francisco." Sure sounds fun. I'm delighted to see a number of folks we've covered on Boing Boing before, including Jon Sarriugarte, Kimric Smythe, and The Neverwas Haul Crew in the "kinetics" portion of the event. [ Image: Neverwas Haul, photo by Redteam. ] Previously: Previously:Test-driving the Electrobite, a trilobite-shaped DIY vehicle (BB ... Sarriugarte and Mate's trilobyte vehicle http://boingboing.net/2009/05/29/bb-video---boiler-ba.html Three story, mobile Victorian mansion for Burning Man Boing Boing "Steampunk" archives...
- Standard vaccine injections don't work as well for the obese Standard vaccine injections, done with a 1-in.-long needle, aren't as effective in obese patients. Instead, they need a longer needle to get the same level of immune response. Researchers aren't sure why, but it's possible that fat prevents shorter needles from delivering the vaccine directly into muscle, where it has better access to immune cells.(Via Ivan Oransky.)...
- Energy use and your food The whole American food system, from farm to fork, accounts for about 10% of the energy we use in this country. Of that, the largest single portion, 32%, is the energy involved in household food storage and cooking. Put it another way: If we reduced agricultural energy use by 5%, nationwide, we'd save about 20 trillion British Thermal Units of energy a year. Them's no small potatoes. But if just 5% of American households got a more efficient refrigerator, we'd save 54 trillion BTU. Context: I'm spending today and tomorrow at a conference on energy efficiency in agriculture, put on by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Those stats come from a presentation by Martin Heller, a researcher with the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems....
- Ugly furniture Video Link. I sneer at your loveseat! (via Dangerous Minds, thanks, Tara McGinley)...
- PopSci article on "mind reading" I wrote an article in the February issue of PopSci about visual cortex neuroscientists who are figuring out how to read our thoughts....
- Battle of the Deathburgers: Heart Attack Grill sues Hear... The owner of the Heart Attack Grill in Arizona, which offers a "quadruple bypass burger," is suing the owner of the Heart Stoppers Sports Grill in Florida. Both businesses are "heart-attack/medical-themed," with "sexy nurse waitresses." Both serve obscenely large stacked hamburgers, and side dishes of similar nutritional content. At the Heart Attack Grill, there's a scale over in the corner, and if you weigh more than 350 pounds you eat for free. More: Phoenix New Times, WSJ law blog, WSJ Health blog. The food and the concept may be repulsive to many (ok screw it, by "many" I mean "me"), but what gets me the most is the Sad Sexy Nurse waitress, at far right in the 'shopped image above, photo courtesy of the Florida ABC affiliate TV station WPBF. Sexy nurse, why you so sad? Incidentally, WPBF-TV (=stands for "West Palm Beach Florida") is pretty rockin'. As I publish this blog post, their top headline is "Elderly Man Accidentally Shoots Self Outside Gun Store: 80-Year-Old Airlifted To Hospital." (via Veggie Grill, which is totally awesome.)...
- FBI wants ISPs to retain your web surfing records for 2 y... The FBI wants ISPs to keep tabs on which websites users visit, and retain those logs for two years. FBI Director Robert Mueller wants providers to store customers' "origin and destination information" to help in child porn and other felony investigations, said a bureau attorney at a recent federal task force meeting....
- Sony Pictures layoffs explained Fred from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "Paul Sweeting, one of the smartest analysts covering Hollywood's collision with the Internet, does a great job reminding us of the real reasons behind the recent spate of layoffs at Sony Pictures. 'Hitting the snooze button when the alarm goes off doesn't mean that what happens in the meantime is beyond your control. It means you're asleep.'" The shift in consumer behavior toward rental? That was a function of wholesale pricing and the consumers' perception of value, which are entirely under the studios' control. If 40,000 supermarkets in America were selling new release DVDs for $8.99 by the checkout counter, how many consumers do you think would be lining up at the Redbox kiosk in the parking lot? How many supermarkets do you think would let Redbox on the premises? Don't believe me? Then how is it the studios were previously able to alter consumer behavior from rental to purchase when they introduced the (comparatively) low-priced DVD to replace the high-priced VHS cassette? Alarm bells come too late for Sony Pictures (Thanks, Fred!)...
- Google launches Nexus One phone support Customers suffering shipping and technical issues with the new Android phone now have more resources than online support forums.
- Did this Metro PCS ad make the tech world cringe? Cell phone provider Metro PCS' new campaign, featuring two supposed Indian tech experts, is proving a little controversial. The company admits it has received complaints.
- iPad pricing: How low can you go, Apple? It seems odd that Apple execs would even hint at the possibility of an early price cut lest they give folks already on the fence about buying the first iteration of the device more reason to stay there.
- Twins learn of teen brother's death on Facebook Twins logging on to Facebook to read birthday wishes instead discover that people have left RIP posts about their 17-year-old brother. Police hadn't notified the family.
- Silicon: It's good for you, especially in beer Researchers at UC Davis say that silicon, the most common metalloid and a known booster of bone-mineral density, is highly "bioavailable" when consumed in beer.
- University worker accused of extorting student file sharers Security analyst at University of Georgia tasked with catching copyright violators allegedly uses his position to shakedown students.
- TweetDeck gets a few tweaks The latest version of TweetDeck is out, and although it's a minor update it also introduces some useful changes worth noting.
- Boeing's next-gen 747 takes first flight The 747-8 Freighter, whose passenger version is slated to come a year later, is getting tested alongside the 787 Dreamliner in Washington state.
- Former Intel exec pleads guilty in Galleon case A former Intel executive pleads guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud by providing confidential information in the Galleon Group insider-trading case.
- Next-generation 747 takes first air (photos) On Monday, Boeing's 747-8 Freighter took off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., its first flight, and the first for the new 747 program.
- Creepy Locker Room Stalker Stares at Joe Rogan's HOG (Video) Rogan and friends decided to catch his stalker on tape, acting as if they were filming a behind the scenes look at his life, when all they really wanted to do was catch the little pervert in the act.
- Palin: When Limbaugh says 'retarded' it's fine According to Sarah Palin, when Rahm Emanuel says "retarded" privately he's "indecent" and should be fired, but when Rush Limbaugh uses it publicly in the same context it's just fine!
- Dave Grohl, Ashton Kutcher, "SNL" cast get Hardcore [VID] If you missed the final skit of Saturday Night Live, musical guest Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) and host Ashton Kuthcher, along with "SNL" cast members pulled off the most authentic old-school punk song during a wedding reception. It's no surprise considering Grohl's musical prowess, but the wedding cake-dive catches you off-guard.
- How The Space Station Sees Earth [pics] These amazing images are just some of the more 450,000 photographs taken by astronauts with hand-held cameras.
- 15 games this generation that wasted your time and money The games that actually made you just want to bang your head against a wall wondering why you bought these games in the first place.
- Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback? Currently Nickelback has 1,380,820 fans. Can this dill pickle tickle your fancy and get more?Created 02/03/10
- Five Valentine's Desserts Even a Kitchen N00b Can't Ruin Regardless of what gender you are and what gender you're trying to seduce, the fact is that the road to the bedroom is shorter after a tempting, homemade dessert. Following are five desserts that look harder to make than they are.
- Chicago's Rockabilly Subculture [PICS] Artist and photographer Jennifer Greenburg spent the past several years documenting the Rockabilly scene. Her subjects live and breathe a retro lifestyle, which is an artistic expression all its own.
- Can You Buy Your Way to Better Spiritual Health? While you may not be able to take money into the afterlife, these religions let you put it to good work while you’re still around. Always conscious of your bottom line, BillShrink has put together a list of the world’s most expensive religions, in rough order of what it would cost a truly devout believer to attain salvation, enlightenment, etc...
- 13 Incredibly WTF Body Modifications Currently, tattoos and certain piercings are seen as utterly socially acceptable, and no-one blinks twice if your barista has 8 earrings and full sleeve tattoos. But some people take it to the next level, with bodymods that stretch belief and might fire up your gag reflex.
- 1080p streaming not coming to Netflix this year (Josh Low...
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
1080p streaming not coming to Netflix this year — Editors' note, 4:30 p.m. PST: Netflix now claims that it incorrectly acknowledged 1080p streaming in the company's 2010 development road map. A Netflix representative has clarified that the company plans to bring 5.1 surround and closed captioning …
- Job Postings Hint at Amazon's Plans for the Kindle (Nick ...
Nick Bilton / Bits:
Job Postings Hint at Amazon's Plans for the Kindle — It looks like color screens and Wi-Fi might be the next additions to Amazon's Kindle. — Last week, Brad Stone and I reported that Amazon had acquired the New York based multi-touch screen company Touchco to integrate into Lab126, the Kindle hardware division.
- Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 'will start to roll...
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 ‘will start to roll out this week’ — We knew Android 2.1 was coming for the Droid, but we'll confess — we didn't expect it to come this soon. Motorola is now reporting via its official Facebook page that it's “happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to Droid …
- iPhone 4G Parts are Here... (Brian/iPod Repair, iPhone Re...
Brian / iPod Repair, iPhone Repair, Apple Repair:
iPhone 4G Parts are Here... And they have a couple of interesting features. — 1) The LCD appears to be factory glued to the digitizer which is more similar to the first generation iPhones than the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The digitizer can be separated from the LCD on the 3G and 3GS models …
- Google Launching Twitter-Killer For Gmail! (GOOG) (Nichol...
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Launching Twitter-Killer For Gmail! (GOOG) — Google could launch a Twitter-killer as soon as this week, the Wall Street Journal reports. — Google already allows Gmail users to update their status. The prompt reads, “let people know what you're up to, or share links to photos, videos, and Web pages.”
- Motorola Droid's next update to be Android 2.1, includes ...
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Motorola Droid's next update to be Android 2.1, includes multitouch browser — We've just gotten the inside line on the next Droid update that's making the rounds through Verizon's testing department from one of our trusted sources, and overall, it looks like this should take users 95 percent …
- Google doppelgänger casts riddle over interwebs (Cad...
Cade Metz / The Register:
Google doppelgänger casts riddle over interwebs — Why is Google routing the world through ‘Googol’? — Sometime in the middle of October, Google silently launched a new net domain - a barely-disguised doppelgänger to the familiar google.com - and according to the latest stats …
- Apple Management: iPad Prices Could Change (Matt Phillips...
Matt Phillips / MarketBeat:
Apple Management: iPad Prices Could Change … Apple intends to stay “nimble” on pricing of the iPad, possibly lowering prices if the newly unveiled tablet device fails to gain traction among consumers. — That was just one of the items in a note out Sunday night from Credit Suisse recounting meetings with Apple executives.
- How to split up the US (Pwarden/PeteSearch)
Pwarden / PeteSearch:
How to split up the US — As I've been digging deeper into the data I've gathered on 210 million public Facebook profiles, I've been fascinated by some of the patterns that have emerged. My latest visualization shows the information by location, with connections drawn between places that share friends.
- Tapulous launches new iPhone game, Riddim Ribbon (Dean Ta...
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Tapulous launches new iPhone game, Riddim Ribbon — Tapulous has managed to maintain a strong business on the iPhone with its Tap Tap Revenge music games, despite the entry of RockBand from the big guys, MTV Networks and Electronic Arts. Now Tapulous wants to hit another home run with a new music app for the iPhone.
- IBM Releases Power7 Processor Dan Jones writes "As discussed here last year, IBM has made good on its promise to release the Power7 processor (and servers) in the first half of 2010. The Power7 processor adds more cores and improved multithreading capabilities to boost the performance of servers requiring high up-time, according to Big Blue. Power7 chips will run between 3.0GHz and 4.14GHz and will come with four, six, or eight cores. The chips are being made using the 45-nm process technology. New Power7 servers (up to 64 cores for now) are said to deliver twice the performance of older Power6 systems, but are four times more energy efficient. Power7 servers will run AIX and Linux." And reader shmG notes Intel's release of a new Itanium server processor after two years of delays. The Power7 specs would seem to put the new Intel chip in the shade.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Oracle Drops Sun's Commitment To Accessibility An anonymous reader writes "What I feared has come true: after buying Sun, Oracle had a look at its accessibility group and made big cuts in it by firing the most important contributors to the Linux accessibility tools. This is a very sad day for disabled people, as it means we do not really have full-time developers any more." The coverage in OSTATIC has a few more details, including the caution: "This just shows that all too few companies are sponsoring a11y work. If one company laying off a couple of developers spells trouble for the project, then there were problems before that happened" (thanks to reader dave c-b for pointing this out).Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Virtualizing a Supercomputer bridges writes "The V3VEE project has announced the release of version 1.2 of the Palacios virtual machine monitor following the successful testing of Palacios on 4096 nodes of the Sandia Red Storm supercomputer, the 17th-fastest in the world. The added overhead of virtualization is often a show-stopper, but the researchers observed less than 5% overhead for two real, communication-intensive applications running in a virtual machine on Red Storm. Palacios 1.2 supports virtualization of both desktop x86 hardware and Cray XT supercomputers using either AMD SVM or Intel VT hardware virtualization extensions, and is an active open source OS research platform supporting projects at multiple institutions. Palacios is being jointly developed by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of New Mexico, and Sandia National Labs." The ACM's writeup has more details of the work at Sandia.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Study Says OOXML Unsuitable For Norwegian Government angry tapir writes "Microsoft's XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI). The agency wants to start a debate over the report as part of its work on standards in the Norwegian government. (As we discussed a week ago, Denmark has already decided to choose ODF over OOXML)"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Virus-Detecting "Lab On a Chip" Developed At BYU natharward writes "A new development in nano-level diagnostic tests has been applied as a lab on a chip that successfully screened viruses entirely by their size. The chip's traps are size-specific, which means even tiny concentrations of viruses or other particles won't escape detection. For medicine, this development is promising for future lab diagnostics that could detect viruses before symptoms kick in and damage begins, well ahead of when traditional lab tests are able to catch them. Aaron Hawkins, the BYU professor leading the work, says his team is now gearing up to make chips with multiple, progressively smaller slots, so that a single sample can be used to screen for particles of varying sizes. One could fairly simply determine which proteins or viruses are present based on which walls have particles stacked against them. After this is developed, Hawkins says, 'If we decided to make these things in high volume, I think within a year it could be ready.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Shooting For Smartphone Universal Translator nikki4 writes to tell us that in giving some major improvement tweaks to its existing voice recognition tool for the Smartphone, Google is aiming for new translator software that will provide instant translation of foreign languages. "The company has already created an automatic system for translating text on computers, which is being honed by scanning millions of multi-lingual websites and documents. So far it covers 52 languages, adding Haitian Creole last week. Google also has a voice recognition system that enables phone users to conduct web searches by speaking commands into their phones rather than typing them in. Now it is working on combining the two technologies to produce software capable of understanding a caller’s voice and translating it into a synthetic equivalent in a foreign language."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- New Material Transforms Car Bodies Into Batteries MikeChino writes "As battery manufacturers race to produce more efficient lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, some scientists are looking to make the cars themselves a power source. Researchers are currently developing a new auto body material that can store and release electrical energy like a battery. Once perfected, scientists hope the substance will replace standard car bodies, making vehicles up to 15 percent lighter and significantly extending the range of electric vehicles."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Verizon Blocking 4chan An anonymous reader writes "According to 4chan's owner and administrator 'moot,' Verizon has explicitly blocked all traffic on their network from boards.4chan.org, where all of 4chan's boards are located. Moot explains that only traffic to and from port 80 is being dropped and they were able to confirm that it was intentional. 4chan's downtime for Verizon users has been in effect for at least 72 hours since Saturday, February 7."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- A Reflection On Sun Executive Payouts For Failure With the Oracle/Sun merger finally completing at the end of January, one former Sun worker has taken the time to reflect a bit on the extravagant compensation and golden parachutes that the former executives at Sun are receiving for failing at their jobs. "I think it's fair to say that, for all the miscues that eventually led to its demise, the company created many products and technologies of value along the way, enough so that Oracle thought it was worth it to acquire them and try to keep them going. However, I think that it's equally fair to conclude that, after years of running losses, including about $2 billion in fiscal 2009, so that a buyout was necessary to avoid looming bankruptcy, Sun's executives did nothing to deserve lavish rewards, by any conceivable meaning of the word 'deserve.' But what actually happened is by now a familiar story. [...] And here's a prediction that I feel quite certain of: if, against expectations and my hopes, Ellison drops the ball and things start going south for Oracle, it's the employees who will suffer for it, and he'll be doing just fine."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Turns Out You Actually Can Be Bored To Death A study conducted by researchers at University College London shows that boredom can kill you. The researchers found that people who reported feeling a great deal of boredom were 37 per cent more likely to have died by the end of the study. Martin Shipley, who co-wrote the report said, "The findings on heart disease show there was sufficient evidence to say there is a link with boredom."Read more of this story at Slashdot.