Only thing going up now is the cost of war

I was reading the headlines lately about China’s current space mission, where their satellite is set to begin orbiting the moon in a few weeks. Then today I read about Syria cleaning up the mysterious industrial site allegedly bombed by Israeli planes last month. The imagery included with that article reminded me of the great site Intrepid Earth, a showcase for the satellite imagery to be found on Google Earth.
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Facebook’s worth fifteen billion? I think not.

Okay, that’s it. Money truly doesn’t mean anything anymore. Its all paper, worthless paper. I learned today that Microsoft just paid $240 million for a 1.6% share in Facebook.

Facebook, for crying out loud! And Microsoft’s quarter billion got them less than two percent of it!

I’m all for people being rewarded for their innovations, but Facebook is just another stupid social networking site. Where’s the lock-in? What’s to keep the next fad-du-jour from suddenly stealing their users? Remember Friendster? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Give it up to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for hoodwinking Ballmer on this. He’s pulled off the con of the century.

hhgregg opens today

I read with interest in today’s paper that hhgregg is opening up two stores in Raleigh today. Being a geek, the more electronics stores the better. Then I read further in today’s article that the salespeople work on commission.

Whoopsie.

That’s the very reason I don’t go into Circuit City anymore (well, that and their disastrous backing of Divx): no one wants a salesperson hanging on you like a cheap suit. While you may sometimes have trouble finding a salesperson in Best Buy, if you’re clueful about what you need you can save yourself a bunch of hassle.

I’ll give hhgregg a try but the minute I get hassled in the store I’m switching back to Best Buy.

Thunder!

I’m listening to the glorious sound of thunder this morning. It’s mesmerizing! The forecast calls for widespread rain for the next few days: just what this area needs!

I may bring the laptop out to the porch and enjoy the show.

Woman narrowly escapes as car gets hit by train

The kids were asking to see a train video tonight, so I searched YouTube for ‘train’ and came up with a remarkable video of an incident one week ago in Greer, SC. A woman got lost driving at night and got her car stuck on the track. A policeman gets her out seconds before an Amtrak train turns her car into a fireball. Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt.

Watch the video filmed from the patrol car here.

Your laser printer may be killing you

A study by an Australian scientist shows that laser printers pollute the air with microscopic particles potentially as harmful as cigarette smoke. Lidia Morawska, a Queensland University of Technology professor, made the discovery when studying office air filtration and ventilation systems.

A study led by the physics professor found many laser printers emit clouds of ultra-fine particles that she compared with cigarette smoke and motor vehicle emissions. “They are so small you can’t see them.”

Although her team has yet to analyse their chemistry, she warned that such small particles “can get deep into the lungs”, leading to respiratory and cardiovascular problems. Some particles were potential carcinogens.

Printer manufacturer HP disputes the findings. In the meantime, y’all might want to move that printer away from your desk (after you print out the study, of course).