What? You don’t believe me? Well, take a look at these psychos who jump off of perfectly good mountains for the sole purpose of acting like a flying squirrel! They don winged jump suits that essentially just have fabric between the arms and body as well as connecting their legs, and then they make like a human lawn dart. You’ll see…

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Let me explain. You see, a while back I was forcibly converted to the Mac at work. At first I complained. A lot. But later it grew on me. Now, even though I hate to admit it, I have to say I actually prefer the Mac for most computing operations. One of the things that I did not enjoy, however, was the pathetic iPhoto software which was pretty much the only game in town for Mac users… until today.

So, Picasa, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

• First of all, I hate any sort of application that unnecessarily forces it’s users into a proprietary closed platform. And right off the bat, iPhoto does this (just like freakin iTunes!). You see, when you import photos into an iPhoto library it basically takes all of your individual pictures and lumps them into a giant ball, from which the average users can no longer extract them without great pain!

  Clearly they do this for the sole purpose of excluding the use of any other image editing software once they’ve got their grubby hands on your photos, because once they are imported you are going to have one heck of a time getting them OUT of iPhoto without making a huge mess. (You can opt out of this default behavior, but most people don’t know that.)

  If we take a look at Picasa on the other hand, this image management tool simply organizes your photos into directories on your hard drive which it efficiently scans and catalogs - without moving things around or messing stuff up!

  It also means that if you wanted to make a copy of your entire photo library, or a portion of it, for a friend or relative all you need to do is copy those folders onto portable media and hand it over. Can’t do that with iPhoto without a messy Export session! Oh, and while we’re on this topic, the folks behind Picasa were nice enough to include an “Import from iPhoto…” function to help you free those images from their bonds.

• Speaking of liberating your photos, God forbid you ever end up with photos in two separate iPhoto albums! Like one on your desktop and one on your laptop! Attempting to combine them means you’re going to have to literally spend money on third party software to make it happen. That is inconceivable! (You keep’a using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means…)

  But again, Picasa makes this as simple as copying your photo directories to the other computer, and voila! It catalogs the images automatically. And you can still even gain access to those images with another piece of image editing or management software since the photos are just sitting there in directories, just like normal.

  

  By comparison, the Picasa image editor screen places your image in a window on the right, and clearly displays all the tools on the left, and even some more options on the bottom of the screen. Absolutely anyone can figure out how to edit their images using this method. Even my dad. (Love ya Pop!)
  

• Next, let’s talk about the primary interface for a moment, shall we? iPhoto attempts to organize everything into “Events”, and while this might work for someone who doesn’t take that many photos, it will eventually grow completely out of control. For example, I have over 60,000 photos that I’ve taken over the last decade on my primary computer at home. They are neatly organized into directories. How in God’s name could I possibly organize them all into “Events”?
  

  Picasa deals with this quite elegantly. It displays all of the directories on the left and they can be expanded as usual, then on the right side it displays a chrolological stream of the image thumbnails. While doing so it also manages to nicely integrate the ability to do other things such as sync the directory to the Web, burn a CD, change the directory name, and much more.
  

• In addition to the massive differences outlined above, there are a ton of little things that make all the difference between the two applications. For example, zooming in on an image. With Picasa you simply grab and drag the zoom bar at any time when looking at an image. In iPhoto you have to be in the edit menu. This almost drove me to drink!
  

  If you also check that image above again, you’ll see that Picasa is constantly showing you all sorts of vital details about the image you’re viewing like the resolution, size on disk, etc. This detail is all buried in the iPhoto interface for no good reason whatsoever.

• Let’s talk about printing for a moment. My freakin iPhoto literally won’t print an image! I paid $79 for this software, and when I try to print it gives an error! I have to export an image and print it elsewhere.
  

  Meanwhile, Picasa has a wonderful print wizard which basically lets you choose the size of the image, how many you want, and make adjustments to the print settings while you’re at it.
  

Believe me, I could go on for hours about how much better Picasa is, but I’m bored with all this documentation, and frankly if you aren’t sold on giving it a try yet, nothing is going to work. But to sum things up, you can also watch this little Google video that explains some of the features in more detail:

I hope that all of you Mac users out there give Picasa a serious try. You’ve got nothing to lose since, unlike iPhoto, it won’t lock you in or make irreversible changes to your photo library.

Enjoy!

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So, most of my friends that smoke know not to get near me when they’re doing it, and kindly go have a cigarette elsewhere before getting near me. But of course they always come to talk to me right after they have one, and then all that crap lingering in their lungs fills the room I’m in. And it bothers me. Not as bad as if they were actually smoking - but about 30% as bad. Still, I don’t say anything about it because I don’t want to sound like an asshole.

Well, a group of doctors from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston coined the term “third-hand smoke” to refer to the heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that come out of smoker’s lungs and get ingested by kids and non-smokers around them. Their study was just published in the Official Journal of Pediatrics. So to all of you parents who “only smoke when the kids aren’t around”, guess what. You’re still killing them.

Parents who smoke often open a window or turn on a fan to clear the air for their children, but experts now have identified a related threat to children’s health that isn’t as easy to get rid of: third-hand smoke.

That’s the term being used to describe the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to smokers’ hair and clothing, not to mention cushions and carpeting, that lingers long after second-hand smoke has cleared from a room. The residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest, especially if they’re crawling or playing on the floor.
…
“Everyone knows that second-hand smoke is bad, but they don’t know about this,” said Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

“When their kids are out of the house, they might smoke. Or they smoke in the car. Or they strap the kid in the car seat in the back and crack the window and smoke, and they think it’s okay because the second-hand smoke isn’t getting to their kids,” Dr. Winickoff continued. “We needed a term to describe these tobacco toxins that aren’t visible.”

Third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”
…
“The central message here is that simply closing the kitchen door to take a smoke is not protecting the kids from the effects of that smoke,” he said. “There are carcinogens in this third-hand smoke, and they are a cancer risk for anybody of any age who comes into contact with them.”

Among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, which is used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; carbon monoxide; and even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006. Eleven of the compounds are highly carcinogenic.

Read the entire article on the NYTimes site here, or read the actual original study in PDF here.

Oh, and here are a few nice little facts about second hand smoke:

• It is estimated that, in the United States each year, secondhand smoke exposure results in the hospitalization of 7,500 infants and 15,000 children due to lower respiratory tract infections.
• Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in children under 18 months of age across the United States each year.
• If parents smoke around their children, the children can inhale the equivalent of 102 packs of cigarettes by age five
• A recent study found that air pollution levels were 82 percent lower on average in venues required by law to be smoke-free compared to those where smoking was permitted
• Asthma: Children who grow up with smokers in the family are more likely to have asthma by the age of six than children living in non-smoking households
• Smoky bars and casinos have up to 50 times more cancer-causing particles in the air than highways and city streets clogged with diesel trucks at rush hour.
• Nationwide, children exposed to secondhand smoke experience a total of seven million more days of missed school every year.
• Women married to a smoker have a 91 percent greater risk of heart disease.

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Spare us the fireworks and media-parroted claims of Fidel Castro’s dictatorship bringing universal health care and education to Cuba. The real story is that a prosperous Cuba was turned into ruins in just five decades.

Its inflation-adjusted gross domestic product is a mere 5% of what it was in 1958, the year before Castro took over, according to Jorge Salazar-Carillo of Florida International University.

1957: Cuban GDP is about $2.8 billion, unadjusted for inflation.

1959: Castro and his guerrillas take over and begin confiscating U.S.-owned private businesses.

1960: President Eisenhower imposes trade embargo, excluding food and medicine; Castro responds by “rapidly nationalizing most U.S. enterprises,” as he himself wrote.

1961: President Kennedy tightens the embargo. Castro blames it for plant shutdowns, parts shortages and 7,000 transportation breakdowns a month, leaving 25% of public buses inoperable. He then targets Cuban companies for expropriation.

1962: Begins food rationing. Half of passenger rail cars go out of service from lack of maintenance.

1963: President Kennedy freezes Cuban assets in the U.S.

1965: Signs deal with USSR to reschedule $500 million in debt.

1966: Signs new deal with Soviets for $91 million in trade credits.

1968: Begins petroleum rationing, says Soviets cut supplies.

1969: Begins sugar rationing in January, announces state plan to produce 10 million tons of sugar by the following year.

1970: Castro announces only 8.5 million tons of sugar produced. Blames U.S. Diverts 85% of all Cuban trade to the USSR.

1973: Tries for the first time to tie wages to productivity.

1974: Ramps up wartime spending to send 3,000 Cuban troops to Africa. It hits $125 per person, highest in Latin America, by 1988.

1975: President Ford announces softening of the embargo, letting foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies sell products in Cuba.

1979: President Carter lets Cuban-Americans visit family in Cuba. Soviet aid totals $17 billion from 1961-79, or 30% of Cuba’s GDP.

1980: Economic hardship forces Castro to permit farmers to sell surplus to state quotas in private markets with unregulated prices. 100,000 Cubans flee the island for the U.S. via the Mariel boatlift.

1982: Cuba doubles military spending. President Reagan re-establishes travel ban and prohibits spending money on the island.

1983: Cuba signs accord in Paris to refinance its foreign debt.

1984: “Armed Forces of Latin America” yearbook says: “Cuba is probably the world’s most completely militarized country.”

1985: Cuba signs new debt restructuring, blaming Mexico’s crisis for its debacle. Permits selling of private housing for the first time. Total aid from USSR since 1961 hits $40 billion.

1986: Castro defaults on $10.9 billion in Paris Club debt. Blames sugar prices. Abolishes coffee breaks, cuts subsidies. Soviets give $3 billion more in credit and aid. Castro bans farmers markets.

1987: Stops paying entirely on $10.9 billion Paris Club debts.

1988: Forbids release of inflation data, making it impossible for researchers to assess Cuban economic performance.

1990: By official statistics, GDP per capita declines 10.3%.

1991: Sugar crop falls to 7 million tons. Politburo purged. USSR ends $5 billion in subsidies. “Special Period” of austerity begins.

1992: Horse-drawn carts replace cars, oxen replace Soviet tractors. Time magazine reports tin cans are recycled into drinking cups and banana peels into Cuban sandals.

1993: World Bank says GDP contracts 15.1% per capita, as industrial output plunges 40% per person.

1994: Some private-sector activity permitted. GDP per capita shows no growth, but Castro hails “recovery.” Agricultural output down 54% from 1989, with sugar at 4 million tons. Castro blames bad finances, and “errors and inefficiency.” Food consumption, according to USDA, falls 36%. Some 32,000 Cubans flee for Florida.

1995: Havana admits GDP fell 35% from 1989 to 1993. Vice President Carlos Lage claims GDP grew 2.5%, as inflation hits 19%.

1996: Castro hikes private business taxes. President Clinton tightens embargo. Castro claims GDP rose to 7% in year.

1997: GDP reported up 2.5%, falling short of 5% projection. Failed sugar harvest, bad weather, crop pests, foreign debts blamed.

1998: GDP growth claimed at 1.2% with no inflation. U.S. embargo, global financial crisis, low commodity prices, too much rainfall, Hurricane Georges and severe drought blamed. Castro urges other debtor nations to form a cartel.

1999: GDP claimed at 6.2%. Subsidies from Venezuela begin. Castro blames U.S. dollar for woes and urges use of the euro.

2000: Cuban court rules U.S. owes Cuba $121 billion for embargo.

2001: 3.6% GDP growth, output remains below 1989. Blames loss of subsidies, second-worst sugar harvest ever at 3.5 million tons.

2002: Freezes dollar sales to preserve foreign reserves. Shuts down 118 factories due to power shortages. Buys $125 million in U.S. food. Defaults on $750 million in Japanese debts.

2003: Earns more tight sanctions from President Bush and European Union over dissident roundups. GDP rises just 1.8%.

2004: Castro declares GDP a capitalist instrument, adjusts calculations, declares GDP growing at 5%.

2005: Foreign firms asked to leave and market liberalization scrapped. Imports hit three-times the level of exports. Hurricanes blamed for falling farm output. Sugar figures not released. Castro calls economic crisis an “enemy fabrication.” Claims GDP up 11%.

2006: Castro claims 12.5% economic growth, “despite the crippling effects of the U.S. embargo,” Luxner News notes.

2007: 7.5% GDP growth claimed; adverse weather said to have affected construction and agriculture.

2008: 4.3% GDP growth claimed, far short of 8% forecast. “One of the most difficult years since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” economy minister says. Hurricanes and fuel prices blamed.

That, in sum, is Cuba after 50 years. But lest you get the wrong idea, Cuba hasn’t failed at everything: “Given their goal — to destroy capitalism and entrench themselves — they’re a success,” said Humberto Fontova, an expert on Castro’s regime.

Oh, and because I have to pour salt on open wounds, here is a video about the “success of Cuba” too. Enjoy!

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The seven-story building was originally completed in 1921 to house the United States Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The Beaux Arts-style limestone building established Dallas as a center for economic development in the Southwest prior to World War I. The Bank significantly expanded and modernized the property in 1959. Its distinctive architectural style and detailing led the city of Dallas to designate the building a historic landmark in 1979.

In it’s heyday the bank vaults would have been stocked full of gold, and the location in Dallas was a symbol of the city’s power and influence.

The vault may be empty now, but it’s still wickedly cool, and a sight that most people will never ever get to see! Enjoy!

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Maher’s ultimate message is simple: Abandon religion… or we’ll all die.

In the clip that follows, Maher lays out the foundation of this statement. Here are a few choice quotes which I believe pretty much sum things up:

• “If one believes that the world is going to come to an end, does it not drain one’s motivation to improve life while we’re here?”
• “Religion must die for man to live.”
• “Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking.”
• “Those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders.”
• “Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings, who don’t have all the answers, to think they do.”
• “The only attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt.”
• “The solace and comfort that religion brings you, actually comes at a terrible price.”

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Well, I was watching a show with some divers in it when one wrote on a notepad to communicate with another and it hit me! That is how we can make notes in the shower! So, I ordered a large underwater dive slate from Amazon and gave it a try. Guess what… it’s perfect!

You can just use a normal pencil and eraser on the pad, which works out very nicely. I would also advise purchasing a small suction cup with a hook on it so that you can attach it to your shower wall and leave it hanging there.

So if you have this same problem, now you’ve got a solution for under $10. Enjoy! Oh, and please let me know how it works out for you if you actually buy one…

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The initial video primarily focuses on cloud computing, and gives a few industry updates as well as addresses some of LT’s cloud computing news. If anyone enjoys these shows we’ll keep em’ going. Otherwise, we’ll kill them off. You decide!

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Right now those of you who think of me as a neophyte can head on over to PushingPixels.com and read the interview with Elie in which he talks about the development of the Woopra client. Which even I learned he used something called Swing to develop. (And all this time I just thought it was Java!) And for the rest of you, if you want to read something that you’ll never understand, head on over and see what really smart people talk about when you leave them alone at a party.

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Watching this guy juggle is a competitive sport. Just try keeping an eye on all the balls he’s got in the air and it will make you wonder how he even moves that quickly much less throws and catches things without a single miss.

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The State of California will run out of money within two months, forcing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to start settling bills and paying employees by issuing “IOU” notes, his chief financial officer has revealed….

Unless taxes can be raised, or spending reined in, millions of public-sector employees and private contractors face having their salaries paid in “registered warrants,” a piece of paper which the Governor will promise to exchange for cash as soon as he is able.

The effective bankruptcy of an entire state is unprecedented in American history, even during the Great Depression. Yet despite California’s standing as one of the most prosperous regions of the wealthiest nation on earth, its Governor seems powerless to stave off disaster.

So-called “direct democracy,” through which small interest groups can enact laws by making them the subject of an electoral “proposition” or ballot measure that attracts more than 50 per cent of the vote, has severely limited his ability to manage finances.

Property taxes, the mainstay of any state’s income, have been frozen for many homeowners since a proposition was passed in the late 1970s. A separate measure, introduced in the 1980s, means that income taxes cannot be raised without the agreement of two-thirds of the state’s lawmakers.

Meanwhile, a raft of other ballot measures control spending, meaning that only 25 per cent of California’s spending is considered “discretionary”. The rest has been “earmarked” for a particular cause or project….

So to summarize:

• The state is OUT of money.
• They are not allowed to raise income taxes.
• They are not allowed to raise property taxes.
• No one is willing to stop spending!

Well, I guess we’re all about to learn what happens when a state goes bankrupt! As if we couldn’t already learn that from the History channel when every major global power eventually gave up the ghost because they were broke.

California is about to lose it’s place as one of the world’s great super-states. Yee-haw for Texas!

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Here is Andy Mckee playing his song “Drifting” on the acoustic guitar. Enjoy!

Also, you can find Andy on MySpace and FaceBook.

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George Sampson hails from Manchester where spent years dancing on the street to entertain the crowds and earn a little money. Right off the bat, that is amazing because he suffers from a rare condition called Scheuermann’s disease, which affects developing bones in children and teenagers and can cause a curvature of the spine.

The condition even caused him to go temporarily blind in one eye for two months around Christmas time, Sampson said to The Sun Newspaper. “The eye was all inflamed. I’d been using Deep Heat for my sore back, so at first I just thought I’d got it in my eye. But I ended up blind,” he said. “The spinal nerves were trapped and it affected my optic nerves, I lost all my coordination and it was really hard to dance, as I didn’t have my balance. I kept bumping into everything.”

Despite the disease, George actually competed in 2007, but marginally failed to make the grade. However, he didn’t let that stop him! Instead, he went home and worked even harder.

I’m going to take you through his progression in order. First, the initial performance which got everyone interested actually happened in 2007 with George street-dancing to “Timbaland - Drop”.

Unfortunately, he didn’t make it through to the finals that year. But he was undaunted and decided to try again in 2008. An extra year of practice only helped his performance.

George then went on to the semi-finals and performed an absolutely amazing remix of singing in the rain.

Then, the grand finale. Congratulations kid. You deserve it! After winning, they asked George to perform his Singing in the Rain routine once again - which he did flawlessly! Amazing performances, even under pressure. The true mark of a champion.

You’ll be happy to learn that since this show, George has had a few outstanding things happen:

NatWest deal

On 26 June 2008, it was announced that George would become the face of a new 11-18 account for NatWest bank, in a deal reportedly worth £1million.

Into the Hoods

On 4 August 2008, Sampson made his stage debut in the West End hip-hop musical Into the Hoods. With some exceptions, he appeared in the show until it stopped on 30 August. Of his new role, he said: “This year is getting better and better - Into the Hoods show is funky and young and I love the music in it – I can’t wait to get dancing on that stage!”.

Bebo

On 28 November 2008, it was announced that Sampson’s record company and Bebo would work together to make a online television show called Follow My Lead which would include some dance move tutorials by Sampson, but also a behind the scenes look of events and rehearsals. They previously worked together to create a similar show on Leon Jackson.

And More…

Sampson won the under-16 category in the United Dance Organization’s 2007 World Street Dance championships. Following his win of Britain’s Got Talent, he returned to the 2008 championships at the Blackpool Winter Gardens to give a performance together with his dance group A2AA (Access 2 All Areas) and to accept an award for his contributions to raising the profile of street dance from UDO chairman Simon Dibley.

He also received an award in the category “Favorite Winner” at the 2008 Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards and he performed his signature dance “Singing in the Rain” during the ceremony.

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