Robot falls down stairs

I think its a honda robot.
Surely the video is on youtube.
They say its really sad.
Robot starts walking up the stairs.
Then falls backward, arms flailing.
Robot owners pull a big screen over the stage so you can't see his disembowled body splayed all over the stage. Engineers com running out and try to re assemble their pride and joy.

Civil rights

KLCS los angeles school district tv showed this GREAT documentary about the end of segregation in the south.
Man I learned a lot.
I did not know that eisenhower was one of the LETS NOT RUSH THINGS guys.
The best part of the documentary were the recorded phone conversations between president kennedy and mississippi governor.
The governor played the LETS NOT RUSH THINGS card with kennedy.
Kennedy replies HOW LONG DO YOU NEED?
Mississippi governor stammers well uhhh
Kennedy goes HOW ABOUT TWO WEEKS?
Governor really starts back peddling.
Kennedy remarks YOU'VE HAD NINETY YEARS, ISN'T THAT ENOUGH TIME?
(referring to emancipation proclamation)

Interesting to think.
When medgar evers finally registered at Old Miss. And went to school...
When rosa parks road on the bus...

The resistance that the south put up was the last gasps of the civil war.

Bunch of bumbling old men who had lost touch with reality much like emporer franz joseph from austria who was puzzled why nobody wanted him to be emporer anymore.

---
Harry Myhre
lambretta.sx200@gmail.com

James Kim R.I.P.

James

Thanks for all the cool reviews over the years!
Every time a new product that comes out we will be looking for your review on CNET.

Can open source progress

Been reading and lisyening to lots of opensource podcasts and news.

It all sounds good.

I guess I still don't GET IT though.
Why is somebody going to SLAVE away and invent something really cool, and then just give it away?

Don't you think those guys who invented the idea of the spreadsheet would like to have had a little cash for fleashing out the idea?
Can money be made by support alone? Support that comes from users of your free software.

Here's another stumbling block - drivers.
Nvidia slaves away to create awesome graphics cards. If they release open source drivers, can someone reverse engineer the software driver and figure out what makes their hardware brilliant? If yes, why should they innovate? If they know it will be stolen by chinese ?

Intel is open sourcing lots of their hardware - sound , video graphics sets.

---
Harry Myhre
lambretta.sx200@gmail.com

chicken door stop

Somebody gave me a cast iron chicken door stop. Many times as my dog Gigi
and I are going out the door, she RUNS DOWNSTAIRS and try to knock the damn
chicken over. She could easily give it a swat with her paw to knock it
over, but she prefers to give it a gentle push so she can watch it topple.
When she does that she knows it pisses me off. She must DELIGHT in seeing
the chicken topple and then me scold her.

Uncle Ken's Dog

My aunt bonnie did not allow dogs inside her house. Uncle Ken and aunt bonnie had a dog much like my dog Gigi. Uncle ken built a dog house for their dog in a window sill.

Their house had a basement. The window to the basement was actually below ground. So the window was down in a little hole. That's where the doghouse was.

My cousin karl slept downstairs. At night Karl would secretly open the window and let the dog in, so the dog could sleep inside.

My old Sony 43" projection T.V. gave up the ghost this month. It developed a green crescent in the upper left hand portion of the screen. I replaced it with a 50" Vizio HDTV. I will post some comments on the Vizio in time , after I get used to it.

Jerry pornelle

Jerry Pornelle hasn't changed.
Here's a great story I heard him tell on the TWIT podcast.

He was in mocow at a science fiction convention. He met these guys who were writing the PARAGRAPH handwriting recognition program. They asked him for a sample of his handwriting to test the pgm with. He gave them fifty pages from his notebook.

Microsoft bought PARAGRAPH. So now if you use a windows tablet pc, and your handwitings like jerry pornlle, you will do well.

RAZR is by motorola. Nothing really special in my opinion. Just a thin standard cellphone. Works really well as a cellphone but that's all it does. Don't think it has a web browser.
Never thought a web browser on a cellphone mattered but its super useful. Because people don't have to write special apps to run on the phone. They just write apps to run in a browser. Much easier for pgmrs.

One big bugaboo with cellphones. The big four - cingular, verizon, sprint, t mobile - are scared to let apps run on their phones. Why? I think viruses. So the innovation really hasn't happened yet on cellphones.

Also - linux hasn't happened on cellphones. Palm has been saying for YEARS they're gonna do linux on cellphone. But so far its basically talk. I think the day of reckoning is fast approaching for palm. Seceral upstart taiwanese outfits are nipping at palms heals. And one of them - H.T.C. Has the blessing of microsoft.

Return of newton?

The return of newton is to mac fans as a beatles reunion is to rock fans. I heard a rumor on the latest MacCast podcast that apple may introduce an iPhone. That has been rumored for a long time.

But now they are talking about two iPhones. The other is a smart phone; I.e. Qwerty keyboard, calendar, email, and maybe iChat for mobile phones.

FW:

Did you ever listen to Black Sabbath in the 70's?

I was over at a friend of my sister's - Alfred Fizicaro.

He pulls out this album. It has this dark cover - some black castle against
a purple sky.

And this weird black witch chick is standing there in the rain or something.

He pulls out the record and puts it in the turntable - "LISTEN TO THIS MAN"!

This is like 1971 - way before FM radio had really caught on.

So there was no way I would have ever heard this music.

I am so relieved! In the fall of 2006 there was this big Sony battery recall. I thought my Mac iBook was going to be affected. I kept waiting for it to explode any day. Tonight I figured I better get busy and fill out the form on the Apple.com web page to get the battery swap process going. Lo and behold when I typed in my computer's serial number and the serial from the battery their system says my battery isn't one of the infected batteries!

Yeehaww

Parking For Scooters: Sign the Vespatition

This is a personal invitation to Harry Myhre from Harry Myhre to sign the Vespatition

Hi!

As you may know, I'm a proponent of two-wheel vehicle ridership, i.e. scooters and motorcycles. For years, we've been trying to get legalized two-wheel vehicle parking in our towns and cities. Given the current state of high gas prices, we are only going to add more two-wheel vehicle riders to the road, which makes available two-wheel vehicle parking even more critical.

Just as parking spaces for compact cars and handicapped parking stalls have increased efficiency and convenience in urban and suburban communities, officially designated two-wheel parking facilities can do the same.

Government agencies should consider removing the two-wheeler from the four-wheeler parking space and placing it in its own, scaled down zone. This is a simple concept that can be embraced by city councils, urban planners, local merchants, contractors, shopping center management and private businesses whenever parking for motor vehicles is provided.

I'd like to ask you to sign the Vespatition, promoting the conversion of some automobile parking spaces to two-wheel spaces. You can do it right here: http://www.vespausa.com/Vespatition

The results will be publicized and sent directly to our local mayors.

Thanks!

Harry Myhre

You are receiving this message because a visitor to www.VespaUSA.com forwarded it to you. If you believe this to be an abuse of the system, please forward this email to Webmaster@PiaggioUSA.com.

Tanker Explosion

A video from SpikeTV of a wrecked tanker in asia, that was carrying styrene and explodes...

Lambretta Ad

Funny Lambretta scooter ad from Italy, circa 1960's

vespa

All about what Vespa means

Ouch

Piercings are one thing.
Another thing that teenagers are doing here in southern california are “cuttings”.
Cuttings? Is that something that you do in the garden?
No, these teenage kids take knives and carve designs into their bodies.
I wouldn’t be surprised kids are doing that in Canada and other countries too.
Saw an article about it in the local paper the other day.

Young kid. Eighteen years old on the front page of one of the inside sections.
Thank god they didn’t put him on the front page of the newspaper.
Big old scar running across his arm.
Big stupid grin on his face.

You gotta wonder.
Why do they put his mug in the newspaper?
Other teenage kids will see him and idolize him.
OTOH, maybe some kids will see how dumb he looks and decide it’s not for them.

I would really like to read an analysis by a shrink about how these things became socially acceptable.
In the sixties when I was growing up, the only people a person saw with tattoos were sailors who got drunk and went down to skid row, passed out and their buddies dragged the poor drunk into a tattoo parlor. When he woke up he saw a lovely tattoo on his arm.

And sailor dudes were the only ones who ever got tattoos. Usually army or air force guys never got tattooed. Sometimes Marines would get tattoos, but marines are somehow connected with the navy. Maybe it’s that salt water that did it.

The other day I was in a coffee shop.  Into the coffee shop walked an attractive woman.
Except for one problem.
She had a ring thru her lips.
She had seven piercing going thru her ears.
Lord knows what she had under her clothes.
And growing all over her body were all kinds of bizarre tattoos.
And I wondered “when will she stop?”
Meanwhile – her husband was clean as a whistle. Not a tattoo on his body.

Anyway – don’t pay any attention to anything I wrote there!
It’s all just personal opinion and I shouldn’t even be voicing it, because it’s not my business!

I’d just really like to read that analysis of what happened to make it socially acceptable for gorgeous ladies to put all these tattoos all over their bodies, that in ten years or so are going to turn into blue disfigured blobs that are totally indistinguishable.

vaccum

There's been something wrong with Sony for the past few years.

They just aren't hitting the home runs that they used to.

Sony used to be a company that could do no wrong.

Everything they did turned to gold.

Not so lately. They are starting to slow down.

I think both Microsoft and Apple see that weakness and want to fill that
vaccum.

Mac pro vs dell

Mac world website has a great comparo of mac pro vs dell. They specked out a mac pro and dell with same hardware. Mac comes in $900 or so cheaper.

So question is - is apple selling machines with intel chips way low? Did steve obs do one of his negotiating jobs again? Or is dell gouging their customers?

Obsessive complusive cat flushing the toilet

Cat obsessively keeps flushing the toilet over and over again

This is the hottest time of the year in Santa Clarita, Southern California. The high temperatures have been right up there around one-hundred degrees f. Overnight lows are usually only about seventy degrees f.

Subaru All Wheel Drive Motorcycles Coming In 2008

Subaru is poised to do something no auto manufacturer has ever done – enter the motorcycle market. While several motorcycle companies have entered the car market, Subaru will be the first to do the reverse.

read more | digg story

Encinitas

I am in Encinitas, California today. Was raining when I left santa clarita in the morning. Its sunny down here in San Diego.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.

Un sospir' di voi

Digg makes the Wall Street Journal

**No registration needed** Digg.com makes the Wall Street Journal in an article called "Digging Out the News" The story reads: "Tech news site Digg.com takes a unique approach to determining what to publish: it lets readers, not editors, decide. But such an approach presents some risks."

read more | digg story

Went to Las Vegas for Christmas 2005. Drove up on a Saturday. Stayed Saturday and Sunday nights at a Best Western on Main Street downtown. Big mistake. Will never stay there again. Very bad location.

Had fun visiting the casinos. Have not been for about eighteen years. Fernando's dad went with us.

Went for New Year's eve dinner to Outback Grill here in Stevenson Ranch.