Copy Machines, a Security Risk?

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the good, old-fashioned copy machine. But, as Armen Keteyian reports, advanced technology has opened a dangerous hole in data security.

Irreverent obituary is center of attention

Click the image above to read the actual obituary

Debby Lynn Gross kept Burleson laughing for most of her 45 years.

Now, she's having the last laugh on us all.

Ten days after Gross' death, radio stations are reading her hilarious Sunday obituary notice, and bloggers are e-mailing it around the world.

We knew her obituary was different from the beginning: "Forgo the bad organ music and somber routine."

The notice told friends to "stir it up and laugh" at a memorial Saturday morning in Fort Worth: "She expects old-fashioned home-cookin' funeral food! If you try to sneak chain-restaurant brown gravy or powdered potatoes into the party, we will hurt you. Also, please don't ask when you can pick up your covered dishes. We're keeping them!"

And that was only the first paragraph.

Read the rest of Bud Kennedy's Column Here

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Time Lapse Video: Salvaging US Airways Flight 1549

A little more than a year after one of the most impressive landings in the history of aviation, N106US, formerly known as Flight 1549, will be on the auction block. Word on the street is that there are some very interested buyers out there with some very creative plans for this Airbus A320. David Martin, who lives just above the site of the water landing, spent 72 hours filming time lapse video of the recovery effort to remove the submerged aircraft from the Hudson River. The result is more than a little bit impressive. Also, word to the wise, check the carfax history on this plane before making any bids, I hear that it might have some water damage.

Posted on Kontain.com - [Flight 1549] from David Martin on Vimeo.

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Need First Aid? There's An App For That

Alone in the darkness beneath layers of rubble, Dan Woolley felt blood streaming from his head and leg.

Then he remembered -- he had an app for that.

Woolley, an aid worker, husband, and father of two boys, followed instructions on his cell phone to survive the January 12 earthquake in Haiti.

"I had an app that had pre-downloaded all this information about treating wounds. So I looked up excessive bleeding and I looked up compound fracture," Woolley told CNN.

Click the image above to read the CNN article.

Big Picture: Earthquake in Haiti

Tuesday afternoon, January 12th, the worst earthquake in 200 years - 7.0 in magnitude - struck less than ten miles from the Caribbean city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The initial quake was later followed by twelve aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.0. Structures of all kinds were damaged or collapsed, from shantytown homes to national landmarks. It is still very early in the recovery effort, but millions are likely displaced, and thousands are feared dead as rescue teams from all over the world are now descending on Haiti to help where they are able. As this is a developing subject, I will be adding photos to this entry over the next few days, but at the moment, here is a collection of photos from Haiti over the past 24 hours. (36 photos total)

Click the image to see the full collection.Click the picture above to see the full collection. Warning: Some images are graphic.

Haiti Damage Via Twitter

People are using Twitter to send out news and photographs of the damage in Haiti. The picture above is of the Presidential Palace before and after the quake.

Click on the image below to see the search results. Click on the links in the search to see the news/photo updates.

Lemons vs. Lemonade

Here is the scenario. You are trying to fly. While waiting at the airport some nincompoop walks around the security checkpoint. All the sudden you and thousands of your closest friends are delayed while security tries to find the perpetrator and re-screen everyone in the terminal. Talk about a grand 'ol lemon moment.

Well, by now you know that happened Sunday night at Newark airport. Fortunately for many of the passengers they had a lemonade maker in their midst. Josh Wilson, a "Contemporary Christian musician" broke out his guitar and led the group in song.

Here is what Pete Wilson wrote

I’ve been a fan of Josh Wilson now for a while. His music is powerful and he’s truly one of the good guys. Don’t know if you’ve seen this video yet, but if you haven’t you’ve got to watch this.

Josh was stuck, along with thousands of other travelers, as police were searching for the perpetrator of the security breach at the Newark airport on Sunday night. So how do you react when your plans are totally ruined and you’re surrounded by a bunch of unhappy, impatient, travelers in Newark’s Terminal C? Why not bust out in a song, right?

My inside source tells me that CNN and Inside Edition have been trying to contact Josh to ask him about the event but he’s actually in India with his wife on a mission trip. Just one more reason to be a huge fan!

I just read the following statement from Mark Batterson in his new book, Primal. He said,

"In my experience, it’s much easier to act like a Christian than it is to react like one. Anyone can put on an act. But your reactions reveal what is really in your heart."

How true and convicting is that? How do you react when you’re caught in less than ideal circumstances? Like everyone else around you, or can you rise above the circumstances and react with joy, love, and maybe even a song.

Thanks to Pete Wilson at WithoutWax.TV

Happy World Hypnotism Day!

Happy World Hypnotism Day!

Happy New Year, readers. And Happy World Hypnotism Day!

That's right: Today (really) is World Hypnotism Day. (And we didn't get the day off. Can you believe it?)

In honor of this event, I bought a new watch. Would you like to see it? OK, here it is...


Shiny, isn't it?

It's fun to watch it sway to and fro. That's right. Just focus on the watch. Back and forth. Back and forth.

There. Do you feel nice and relaxed? Highly suggestible? Goooood. Now:

You are happy. You will praise this blog post and the person posting it. You will leave comments every day.

You will quit using ALL CAPS when sending e-mail or commenting on blogs, facebook, etc. That is internet 101.

You will make every effort to spell correctly when writing online correspondence. A mistake is no big deal. Pages full of mistakes shows you are really not paying attention.

You will stop using your cell phone while you drive, especially for texting. You will pull over when you do have to be involved in a call...especially if you are one of those folks that talks with your hands.

Anyway, as I was saying: Happy World Hypnotism Day.


Thanks To Runner's World Daily

Room at the inn: Hyatt in downtown Dallas welcomes the homeless

Last Christmas, Mack Choice was among the homeless people treated to a free meal and room on Christmas Eve at the Hyatt Regency Dallas. This year, he was among those rolling out the red carpet for the homeless at the hotel.

Click the picture above to read the article.

Watch the Dallas Morning News video here.

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

"Santa" Reunites Girl With Missing English Bulldog

A 7-year-old girl in the Parker County city of Hudson Oaks will have trouble NOT believing in Santa Claus.

As NBC5 reported, Brooke Botello wrote a letter to Santa asking for the return of her 6-month-old English bulldog puppy, which was stolen from in front of her home.

Someone -- an elf, perhaps? -- turned in the dog to police, and Brooke and her buddy were reunited.

Now's there's a Christmas Story we can all believe in.

Click the picture to read the article.

Portraits of Power

In 1976, Richard Avedon went to Washington to photograph Henry Kissinger. As Avedon was leading him to his mark, Kissinger said, “Be kind to me.”

Artists have been making portraits of the mighty for centuries—from Velázquez’s Philip IV to Lucian Freud’s Elizabeth II—and the act of portrait-making can leave the royal or the tyrant, the President or the diplomat with a sudden feeling of disequilibrium, of a transfer of power. Avedon knew that Kissinger was trying to manipulate him, but what, exactly, did he want? “Did Kissinger want to look wiser, warmer, more sincere than he suspected he was?” Avedon wrote later. “Isn’t it trivializing and demeaning to make someone look wise, noble (which is easy to do), or even conventionally beautiful when the thing itself is so much more complicated, contradictory, and, therefore, fascinating?”

This past September, when nearly all the world’s leaders were in New York for a meeting of the United Nations, Platon, a staff photographer for this magazine, set up a tiny studio off the floor of the General Assembly, and tried to hustle as many of them in front of his lens as possible. For months, members of the magazine’s staff had been writing letters to various governments and embassies, but the project was a five-day-long improvisation, with Platon doing his best to lure the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chávez, and Muammar Qaddafi to his camera.

And so what did the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ask the photographer before the shutter clicked? “Platon,” he said, “make me look good.”

History is full of leaders who cannot bear the result of their sittings. Winston Churchill publicly praised a portrait of him by Graham Sutherland, but soon decided that it made him look senile. His wife, Clementine, destroyed it. Usually, it seems, politicians seek out a portrait artist at the beginning of their career. On February 27, 1860, the day he delivered his career-defining speech at Cooper Union, Abraham Lincoln walked over to Mathew Brady’s studio and had his picture taken. The greatest of American political lives had begun.

But the anxiety persists. While political theatre went on inside the General Assembly, Netanyahu kept stopping by Platon’s makeshift studio and repeated his request: “Make me look good.”

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2009/12/07/091207_audioslideshow_platon#ixzz0Z9WqCiMd

Click the image above to see the photos.

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Order Your Balloon Boy Costume Before It Is Too Late

Click the image to read all about it.

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Ammo Shortage Starting To Ease In Fort Worth

Finally! I know cousin Pam in Oregon was worried that her Texas family might run out of bullets.

Gentlemen, commence firing.

Click the picture to read the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

A very interesting perspective.

Thanks To Ronne at "Adventures of a Christ-Stumbler"

Rogue Tire Kills Construction Worker

Sunday I posted a video showing a truck tire almost hitting a police officer (see it here). After posting it I was asked how dangerous that would be if it had actually hit someone. Now we know.

Click on the picture to read the story and see the video.

Too Close For Comfort

America's Top Researcher Is An Evangelical Christian. Problem?

The Houston Chronicle Science blog had this article today (the title is theirs...not mine).

This week the U.S. Senate will likely confirm the nomination of Dr. Francis Collins to direct the National Institutes of Health. In this position Collins will be responsible for distributing $30 billion to the country's biomedical researchers. Although the job has a substantially lower profile than the U.S. Surgeon General, with that kind of budget it wields far more power.

Collins' nomination is notable because he is a scientist who is an evangelical Christian who speaks openly and often about his faith. (See, for example, his book The Language of God).

His nomination has drawn fire from some scientists and atheists who argue with his views that science has made belief in God "intensely plausible." Prominent atheist Sam Harris made this very argument in a New York Times op-ed recently.

So what does the nomination of Collins really mean for scientists, and the broad chasm between American culture and science? I asked Josh Rosenau, a staffer at the National Center for Science Education, which defends the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Click the picture to read the article.

NYC Buys Homeless One-Way Tickets Out Of Town

New York City is buying one-way plane tickets for homeless families to leave the city.

It's part of a program by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration to keep the homeless out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family.

Click the picture to read the article.

Thanks To Bobby Vaughan

Randalls Employee Fired For Chaing Theft Suspect.

(Click the image to read the full article)

I do understand why the company has this policy, but it sometimes puts them in a PR nightmare. The policy is in place to protect the company from lawsuits in the event an employee or customer is injured. They paint it as 'to protect the customer and employee', but the reality is that in our current legal system, they are at risk from lawsuit if the thief is injured, if the employee gets hurt or if the 'wrong person' is chased. And when an employee violates this policy the company has to follow through with the defined discipline or the policy loses it's effectiveness.

Well, in this case they fired the employee (as the policy states) and then get all kinds of negative publicity for taking a job away from a good Samaritan. No matter what they do now they are in a no-win situation.

Turn Your Cell Phone Into A Medical Instrument

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are proving that a camera phone can capture far more than photos of people or pets at play. They have now developed a cell phone microscope, or CellScope, that not only takes color images of malaria parasites, but of tuberculosis bacteria labeled with fluorescent markers.

Click the image to read the article.

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing