seems that there's a bit of an outage. happening for you as well?

Enjoy this video of GM Cacoy Canete and Zach Whitson at Sandor Urban's US Kenpo Kai in Miami;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgS2IgSf7Vs

More information on this year's event can be found here www.uskenpokai.com

Looking into Web 2.0 sites. Any recommendations?

I've already got accounts setup on myspace, facebook and twitter but since I've not played around much with the next edition of web stuff I would really appreciate a few pointers.

Thanks in advance :)

all right... went to the smartcar website and played around for a few minutes. What I came up with was this little baby;

fortwo passion cabriolet, 1.0 L, 71 HP, 3 cylinder engine

Base price

$ 16,590.00

body panels in deep black

N/C

Black leather seats

tridion safety cell, black

N/C

Standard equipment

smart premium sound system

smart premium radio (AM/FM, mp3-compatible 6 disc CD changer; incl. 2 speakers, Aux input jack for MP3 device)

smart sound system (2 tweeters, 2 mid range, subwoofer)

Engine/drivetrain

1.0 L, 71 HP, 3 cylinder engine

5 speed automated manual transmission

Paddle shifters

Wheels/tyres

9-spokes alloy wheels (15") with front tires: 155/60 R15; rear tires 175/55 R15

Tire pressure control system

Exterior

body panels in deep black

Fully automatic convertible top with glass rear window

Projector beam halogen headlights

Side indicators in yellow

Exterior mirror cap in tridion color

Interior

3-spoke leather sports steering wheel with steering wheel shift paddles (incl. leather gear knob)

Basic seat with weight detection and seatbelt recognition

Flat folding passenger seat with backrest adjustment

Storage areas beside the steering wheel and in both doors

Coin holder

Dome light

Mirror in passenger sun visor

Storage

Lockable glove compartment

Safety

Hydraulic dual-circuit brake system

Tire repair kit

Top Tether for child restraint system

Panic button on key

esp - electronic stability program with hill start assist

Anti-lock braking system (abs) with electronic brake force distribution

Full-size driver and passenger airbags

Head/Thorax-Side Airbags

Integral safety seats

Seat belts with belt tensioner and belt-force limiter

Drive lock - auto-activation of the central locking when driving

Functional/electrical equipment

Air conditioning with automatic temperature control (incl. dust, pollen filter)

Power windows with one-touch lowering function

Electronic and heated side mirrors

Central locking system with remote control

Instrument cluster with multifunctional display (fuel-level indicator, coolant-level indicator, residual fuel indicator, service interval indicator, trip mileage indicator, clock)

Outside temperature indicator

Indicators with lane changer function

Front windshield wiper with speed-dependent interval wiping and wiper-/wash function

Electric rear window defroster

Electric tailgate release

Locking gas cap

12-volt socket, with cover

Special equipment

Comfort Package - includes the following features

$ 850.00

Black leather seats

Heated seats

Electric power steering (eps)

Rain sensing windshield wipers

Light sensor (autolight)

Auto-off headlamps with exit delay

Extras

Fog lamps

$ 110.00

Additional instruments (analog clock and rev counter)

$ 120.00

Anti-theft alarm system

$ 160.00

Total price[*]:

$ 17,830.00

All in all a neat little car for the money. Perhaps one of these is in my future... Considering its almost time for a new ride and something less fuel intensive than what I have.

Well, it's official... the MPA has forced powertabs.net to shut down. This is arguably one of the worst examples of the power and abuse of the whole copyright/music industry issue. Powertabs.net was an incredible online community of musicians who were taking their time and effort to transcribe all sorts of music for the guitar, bass and keys in both traditional music notation and tabulature format. It was one of the largest sources of music transcription on the internet using the FREE & popular Power Tab Software. The community that was there was a terrific example of peer review and feedback to aspiring musicians who were learning their craft and learning how to transcribe music.

So I posted this the other day kind of flippantly. I wasn't looking for the response I got but I really found the whole math of the mod system pretty amusing. It got modded up a few times as insightful (when it shouldn't have) and then modded as over rated and then finally as troll. Kind of funny.

Anyone have a few interesting javascript links they'd be willing to share? I'm looking for a few shortcuts on how to gray out a page (like idle.slashdot does when you click on the watch link) as well as some nice css/html tricks for onmousover events.

Update: A few interesting variations of the gray out page concept;
http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/
http://jquery.com/demo/thickbox/
http://www.eight.nl/files/leightbox/

This weeks Instructables newsletter has a great hack for a Blu Ray Star Trek Phaser. Way cool hack! This one will cost about $100 to build but the coolness/geekiness/trekkie factor is way up there. I'd rate this one a 10 out of 10.

Ran across this great article on Breitbart about a cancer researcher who has discovered a way to burn salt water as fuel using radio frequencies. Originally, he was trying to desalinate the water and found a novel way to get it to burn. While the article is a little short on the details, it is none the less an exciting discovery as salt water is one of the most abundant resources on the planet. If this turns out to be a viable method of using it as fuel, this would certainly be a coup de gras for oil cartels and the petroleum industry.

This article on news @ nature.com discusses a recent discovery of a technique that removes the need for eggs or embryos. Three different groups in the past week have reported research that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed into an embryonic state in mice. The race is on to apply the same procedure to human cells. From the article;

"It would change the way we see things quite dramatically," says Alan Trounson of Monash University in Victoria, Australia. Trounson wasn't involved in the new work but says he plans to start using the technique "tomorrow". "I can think of a dozen experiments right now -- and they're all good ones," he says.

Found on Matt Drudge's website; This TimesOnline article reports that personal information like name and email addresses are embedded into AAC files from Apple's online music distribution service, iTunes. Effectively, this digitally watermarks purchases. The information is is also found in the tracks sold under Apple's new iTunes Plus system. It links to an ARS Technica article that originally brought the information to light. The information on how to verify this can be found here on The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Well, this is about the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Apparently, this cop has been in the habit of confiscating peoples pot and rather than turning it in, keeping it for personal use. So, he makes some brownies with just a 1/4 ounce of some freshly confiscated herb, eats the whole tray of brownies, and then has to call 911. Here is the 911 call in all of its glory. Enjoy.

Drugs are bad 'mkay...

What's the score on the redwings game?

Ran across this article while dredging Drudge earlier;
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2007-01-29T233921Z_01_N29192563_RTRUKOC_0_US-HOBBIT-SPECIES.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
Seems that the little hobbits finally get some recognition, interesting read, hope you enjoy.

This is just one of those astounding things... 11 million Americans who were starving no longer are! Yes folks it is true. With the swipe of a pen and a quick relabeling of terms our government spin doctors have magically declared that there are no longer any hungry or starving Americans.

Just 11 million folks with "very low food security" and zero starving people in this country.

This is total bullshit.

I hate pc terms like this as they are just convenient ways to diguise or veil situations in less than accurate ways.

Starving is Starving. Hungry is just that. /me goes back to work...

Well, well... I suppose you CAN find interesting news items on Drudge's site. This one in particular caught my attention:

Aliens could attack at any time!

UFO sightings and alien visitors tend to be solely the reserve of sci-fi movies.

So when a former MoD chief warns that the country could be attacked by extraterrestrials at any time, you may be forgiven for feeling a little alarmed.

Allright... go read the whole thing here...