2005-09-04

Crazy News, 2005.09.05

I'm a pretty callous guy in general, but this AP article has me ready to chip into the relief effort:
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home, and every day she called him and said, `Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, `And yeah, Momma, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday' _ and she drowned Friday night. She drowned on Friday night," Broussard said.

"Nobody's coming to get her, nobody's coming to get her. The secretary's promise, everybody's promise. They've had press conferences _ I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
And then more intellectual property stupidity, where by opening a "single-use item" you agree to not reuse it, and if you do, you're liable for patent infringement. Capitalism has its good points, but the dark side is that its political hooks bend the law so that perfectly legitimate things become criminal.

Here's an article reporting that dinosaurs may've had feathers, not reptilian-like scaly skin. Our unknown history keeps revising itself.

Even more important, apparently Shell has come up with a novel way to extract oil from shale. Maybe the Peak Oil theories missed something? Either way, I need to read up on this. Maybe I should buy some Shell stock....

Lastly, here are a bunch of articles on Blu-Ray, including some very unpleasant ones.
Playstation 3 Blu Ray drive will cost Sony $100+
Blu-ray players to "punish" users who hack their gear?
DVD format war looms as Blu-ray backers plan launch

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