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Monthly Archives: June 2005
Lost & Found at Disneyland
“At the end of the day, this dumb woman was so glad to see her little canary she took it out of the cage, and it went right into the trees of the Jungle Cruise,” McFaul says. “I didn’t tell them that hidden in the bushes — and definitely in the Jungle Cruise — are the most beastly cats. I thought, ‘That poor little bird lasted that long,’ ” she says, holding her fingers an inch apart.
Gonzales says his department used a name and number on an expensive camera to contact a family in San Diego about the item. But they had reported the camera stolen three years earlier. “The thief brought it to Disneyland, and we reclaimed it for them,” Gonzales says.
The white-haired McFaul says her matronly appearance allowed her to get away with giving a scolding to some visitors when she returned their valuables.
Via
Cory Doctorow
Teleporting Over the Internet
BBC:
Professors Todd Mowry and Seth Goldstein of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania think that, within a human generation, we might be able to replicate three-dimensional objects out of a mass of material made up of small synthetic “atoms”.
Cameras would capture the movement of an object or person and then this data would be fed to the atoms, which would then assemble themselves to make up an exact likeness of the object.
They came up with the idea based on “claytronics,” the animation technique which involves slightly moving a model per frame to animate it.
Edwards Presidential Campaign Rolls into Milwaukee
John Edwards, running hard for 2008, spends time party building and raising money for State Democrats in Milwaukee Monday evening. Wispolitics has more. 5 x 7 glossy’s are available.
Friedman on Toyota & 500 Miles Per Gallon
I generally like Thomas Friedman’s writing. However, he fails to mention Toyota’s large gas guzzling SUV business while praising their “green” hybrid cars. Jock Gill adds his take.
SBC Seeks Price Regulation Removal
SBC seeks to remove price regulation on basic local phone service in 77 exchanges across the state. The Wisconsin Citizens’ Utility Board, a customer advocacy group, has warned that the proposal could lead to price increases. SBC Wisconsin countered that the competitive landscape in the telecommunications industry means the regulation is no longer needed.
I don’t think we should remove any regulations from SBC. SBC requires local telephone service with a dsl line purchase, which essentially taxes VOIP service on dsl lines.
Globalization, It’s Not Just the Wages
Louis Uchitelle pens an interesting article on Whirlpool’s worldwide production system for washing machines. Quite interesting, particularily their comments on the very small labor cost component in the final product.
Check Your Credit Report – Free Once/Year
Well worth visiting and checking out. This site is reasonably well done, just watch out for the little things they try to sign a visitor up for. I also would not generally give them an email address.
US DOJ Want’s Internet Providers to Retain All Records
The U.S. Department of Justice is quietly shopping around the explosive idea of requiring Internet service providers to retain records of their customers’ online activities.
Data retention rules could permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity months after Internet providers ordinarily would have deleted the logs–that is, if logs were ever kept in the first place. No U.S. law currently mandates that such logs be kept.
In theory, at least, data retention could permit successful criminal and terrorism prosecutions that otherwise would have failed because of insufficient evidence. But privacy worries and questions about the practicality of assembling massive databases of customer behavior have caused a similar proposal to stall in Europe and could engender stiff opposition domestically.
Zawodny: The Big One?
Jeremy Zawodny wonders if the Big One is on the way…. I lived in San Francisco during the “pretty big one”: Loma Prieta and posted a few recollections here, along with notes from AnchorBanker Brian Zimdars.
UPDATE: Chan Stroman emails:
I’m late to the party, but enjoyed reading your recollection of the ’89 Loma Prieta. I was in the Russ Building on the bedrock side of Montgomery street when it hit–the building tipped back and forth solidly for what seemed like forever while we all ran to the stairwell. Later, we walked to a colleague’s apartment on Telegraph Hill, and yes, the sunset that night was eerily beautiful. My husband was in the Macy’s warehouse in South S.F. (“South City”) and narrowly missed having some high shelves with heavy stuff crash down on his head. Back in our flat in the Sunset, other than a couple of framed pictures askew on the walls, nothing was damaged. Thanks to this experience, I’m permanently sensitized to quakes…and bolted straight up in bed here in Madison just about a year ago (epicenter Ottawa, Illinois) just about a year ago.
Visit Chan at www.bookishgardener.com (lots of interesting items, particularily the gardening posts).