thomas fitzgerald.net

Singapore Airlines’ new A380 has, not just first class, but super first class.

Found this interesting article in the Guardian. Apparently use of the word “Olympic” could be barred in the UK under copyright law. Fascinating, if scary article. Well worth a read.

Boing Boing reports on a new series of books packaged to look like cigarette boxes.

BreakingNews.ie | World News | Chinese welder ‘killed by exploding phone battery’:

A welder in western China was killed when a mobile phone battery exploded in his breast pocket, state media said.

Scotty’s Off To Space - Science News - Playfuls.com - Science & Technology:

It seems that actor James Doohan, Star Trek’s Scotty, indeed has a legacy to reach the final frontier as his ashes will reach space aboard a private rocket.

Along with James Doohan’s cremated remains will also travel the ashes of one of NASA’s first space travelers, Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, aboard a privately-built rocket set to launch from New Mexico this month.

Link

From Yahoo News:

“DALLAS (AP) — In the most serious admission yet of the extent of Dell Inc.’s financial woes, the company’s internal audit committee said it has found a number of accounting errors and evidence of misconduct in its months-long review of previous earnings statements.

In a short news release, the Round Rock, Texas, company said that the audit also found “deficiencies in the financial control environment.”

….

“Dell also said Thursday that it would miss an April 18 deadline to file its annual 10K financial report to the Securities and Exchange Commission until the internal review is completed.

The company added in the statement that it was working with management and the company’s independent auditors to determine whether the errors would require the restatement of previous earnings reports.

“As we move toward the conclusion of our investigation, we are committing the time and resources required to ensure a thorough and comprehensive review and resolution of all identified issues and the implementation of appropriate remedial measures,” Thomas W. Luce III, chairman of Dell’s audit committee, said in the statement.

Does this sound familiar? Of course, I’m sure Dell will get a considerably easier time of it in the Press that Apple has, but it’s fitting that the hardware giant, which has so often criticized Apple now finds itself in a strikingly familiar and delicate position with the SEC.

Every time I read about some twit that claims not to believe in Global Warming I get really annoyed. Its not about faith, or about beliefs. It’s about science and taking preventative steps to protect our species. Who ever decided to use this issue as a political tool to discredit their enemies should be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity. The two things that annoy me the most about people who doubt global warming are as follows.

1. It’s basic science.
People who claim that Global Warming is a myth always say that the current warming trend is caused by something other than humans, such as coming out of the last ice age or that it’s caused by cosmic rays. All these interesting theories are great, but they conveniently side step one pretty big issue. The effects of humans on the atmosphere is basic science. We know what happens when we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. We know it has a warming effect. No one doubts that. It’s basic science. We know that the amount of carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere is growing exponentially. No one doubts that either. Therefore the only thing people claim is false is the conclusions reached by putting those two things together even though it’s blatantly obvious. It would be like saying that if I put a lighted match to a piece of paper and when it starts to burn, saying that it is on fire because of the light entering the room or a freak gust of warm air. We know the effect of putting a naked flame to something flammable, and we know we put the flammable object in the path of the naked flame. To say that you accept these things but that you then don’t believe the flame caused the paper to burn is absolutely absurd, yet this is what people are claiming when it comes to global warming.

2. It’s better to be safe than sorry
Even if you forget the first point, and shame on you if you do, then consider this. If it became known that some famous brand of bottled water or coffee or even coke or pepsi contained some chemical that could cause cancer, even if it only increased your chances by 10 or 15% there would be uproar and the brand would be pulled from the shelves until the chemical was removed. It happened in europe in the 80’s with perrier. So even if you don’t believe that there’s enough proof that man is the cause of global warming, why take the risk? If there’s even the slightest chance we should be acting to try and prevent it. If you are wrong billions of people will die. If this hadn’t become a political issue, this conversation wouldn’t even be happening. No one was quite sure what would happen with the millennium computer bug but millions were spent to prevent anything from happening. What is the difference here? On the off chance that the scientists are wrong, the only thing lost is money. If they are right and we do nothing, countless lives will be lost. Is money that much more important that human lives that we would rather risk lives than risk spending money?

By creating doubt around this issue, those who crave power have used it as a tool to hurt those who merely want to do the right thing. It was a simple political move. Turn the thing your opponent stands for into a bad thing and suddenly they can’t run on that any more. Unfortunately in this case the same old lies and political games will cost us not just another corrupt government, but loss of life on a massive scale and the potential extinction of the entire planet. Is any political office worth that?

Wil Wheaton chimes in on how the media reacted to the fiasco in Boston.

“So the first thing is that the fucking idiot media need to stop referring to this as a terrorist hoax, because it wasn’t, okay? And all these politicians and newsdrones who are embarrassed now that it’s clear they overreacted also need to stop trying so hard to put this all at Turner’s feet.”

Nail…meet head.

Technorati Tags: technology

Interesting article on European Broadband Adoption.

“The take-up rate of broadband internet access slowed sharply across Europe last year, while in some key markets former monopoly operators are reclaiming market share lost to rivals in recent years, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association said in a statement onin Thursday. ECTA believes the two trends are connected.”

interestingly enough, broadband has always been a hot button issue here in Ireland, where the previously state owned monopolistic telecoms provider Eircom has frequently been called out for holding up broadband competition and competitive pricing. Today, however the Government announced new powers for the regulator to tackle these problems.

Technorati Tags: technology

From Breaking News.ie

“The body of a missing woman has been found in a delivery truck, crushed to death by lettuce.

A dockworker at a grocery store distribution centre found the body of Sheila Kay Ross, 47, three days after she was reported missing in Arizona.

Ross was accidentally pinned inside the truck while it was being loaded, said Dr. John Kraemer of the Iowa medical examiner’s office. The cause of death was compressional asphyxiation.”

Wait for it… this is the best bit

“A spokesman for the distribution centre said the lettuce in the truck was destroyed.”

Anyone following the news in recent days, particularly over here in europe will have read/saw/heard of the container ship that was beached off the coast of Devon, in southern England. the Flickr Blog has an excellent entry with links to some great photos of the merchandise being washed up after falling from the stricken container ship

From Engadget... This is just wrong

Technorati Tags: technology, Wii

From BreakingNews.ie: World:

“US astronomers want to search for alien life by scouring space for extraterrestrial TV broadcasts.
The project would use a new radio telescope to look for signs of life from around 1,000 stars. Previous programmes have tended to look for possible high-frequency beacon-like signals deliberately beamed across the universe. They have avoided searching for lower frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum because of the potential for interference from Earth-based sources.”

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If ever there was an example of just how much Apple and the iPod have changed the world it’s the fact that this year, in addition to delivering it on TV, Radio and Online, the Queen will also podcast her christmas message.

“The podcast and online versions of the speech will become available at the same time that the speech is broadcast on TV: 3:00 p.m. GMT on Monday.

Interested listeners can sign up for the Royal Podcast now and will receive the latest episode, the Christmas speech, at the time of the broadcast.”

The Queen’s Christmas Message has been one of the mainstays of british culture for decades and for it to move to a new format like this is a pretty significant endorsement from a traditional and conservative custom.