Macintosh computer is 30!

           

                   

This week in the year 1984 was a watershed for the personal computing market, a year which saw Apple introduce the Macintosh and forever change the way people looked at desktops.

On the 30th anniversary of that release, there was no shortage of coverage looking at the historic launch of the Mac and its impact on the industry and society as a whole.

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O.K. folks, tornado season is almost upon us in parts of North America, and these people are READY!

Guest Post By Rik Myslewski

A pair of intrepid 20-year-old Iowans have constructed a tornado-chasing vehicle that looks for all the world like a cross between a Stryker M1126 ICV, F-117 Nightwhawk, and a Ford E-350 van.

The similarity to that last one may seem a bit tenuous, but that is the actual vehicle that Brennan Jontz and Dan Auel converted into the tornado-chaser that they’ve named – what else? – Dorothy.
The dynamic duo took the 12-passenger van, which is equipped with a 255 horsepower 5.4L V8, chopped its top, covered it with steel plates, and coated those plates with an eighth-inch-thick coating of Line-X, a rubberized coating that will “stop a 9mm bullet,” said Jontz.
That precaution seems a wise one, seeing is how their goal is to drive Dorothy into a tornado – a violent storm that, as Iowans, they may very well have the share of opportunities to visit soon.
As pointed out in a newscast about the vehicle by Des Moines, Iowa’s KCCI, it’s now spring, and with the change in seasons comes the onset of tornado season.

Dorothy was built for the Iowa Storm Chasing Network, a group of guys – why is it always guys? – who attempt to get as close as they can to tornadoes to gather data on them. And, we can only assume, to get a bit of an adrenaline rush, as well.

“Once you get in a tornado, all you see is debris flying around so the main goal is to get close, get slow motion video of the tornado, slow it down and analyze the data,” Dorothy’s navigator, meteorology student Zach Sharpe, told KCCI.

One of the more interesting aspects of Dorothy – in addition to its steel armor, half-inch military-grade polycarbonate windows, and live-streaming cameras – is that some of the steel plates lower to the ground to protect tires and, more importantly, prevent her from being flipped into the air by the tornado’s vicious, swirling winds.
At least that’s what Jontz, Auel, and Sharpe hope – Dorothy has yet to be tested in meteorological combat. “At first, there would be some nerves going close to the storm, but I think we’d be all right,” said Sharpe.
We shall see. Although according to NOAA, last year was a rather quiet one for Iowan tornadoes, as every investor knows – including those who invest in futuristic tornado-chasing vehicles – past performance is no guarantee of future results

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Authorities say three elephants escaped from their handlers at a circus near St. Louis and one damaged a van in the parking lot before they were recaptured.

Television station KMOV reports that the elephants escaped from the the children’s ride section of the Moolah Shrine Circus at the Family Arena in St. Charles.

Seems one of the elephants tried to fuck a van, and caused extensive damage!

(The elephants have been rounded up and calmed down!)

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It’s not only tornado’s that are upon us folks, this time of year is POTHOLE SEASON as well!

(Special from the Naked News department!)

At this time of year, people gather in workplaces and at social gatherings across the country and share the oft-repeated joke that there are two Canadian seasons: winter and pothole.

Those people then leave the safety of those gatherings, get into their cars and begin an uncomfortable and bumpy drive home, before their vehicles inevitably tip bumper-first into a chasm the size of Main Street.

In short, spring potholes are bad. So bad that, should someone actually come up with a solution, they would immediately be named President of Canada. Or at least Mayor of Winnipeg. That is, at least, the thinking of one would-be Manitoban mayoral candidate.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported on Friday that Mike Vogiatzakis organized to have the creators of an inventive new pothole solution come to town and demonstrate its healing powers.

“This stuff really works,” Vogiatzakis told the newspaper. “It will save the City of Winnipeg millions of dollars.”
The solution isn’t futuristic, so set aside visions of titanium highways and flying cars.

It is basically a change in the asphalt recipe used to fill the holes. Instead of using a mix that doesn’t stand up to Canada’s cold winters, the new solution uses premium asphalt cement, special additives and crumbled rubber from recycled tires.

The company, Pellet Patch, claims the formula stands up to the cold, is environmentally friendly and can be applied at any time of the year, including the dead of winter, rather than waiting until thaw to apply heaps of regular asphalt to devastated roadways.
The mix is currently the subject of a pilot project by the Genesee County Road Commission in Flint, Michigan. The commission report from last year said that the Pellet Patch mix reduced the cost of pot holes by up to 11 per cent annually, mostly by negating the need to repeatedly fix the same areas.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/someone-permanent-pothole-solution-man-mayor-canada-202525122.html

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How’s THIS for an “Asshole of the Day!”

There is a right way and a wrong way to react to your child coming out.

Scottish mother Emma Green, 37, certainly knows a thing or two about the latter.

The mother of eleven punched her son in the face and launched into a tirade of homophobic insults after he came out as gay at a family gathering, reports the Daily Record.

“I’m homophobic. I don’t care – I hate the little gay bastard,” she reportedly told police.

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Kit Hoover took us inside the home of Rick Harrison, one of the ‘stars’ on “Pawn Stars.” For just over a year, Harrison has been living in his 6,000 square foot Las Vegas mansion, and probably half of that space is dedicated to his huge backyard pool. Harrison describes his living room as “Alice in Wonderland” meets “macabre,” but he keeps most of his play things in his garage. He has over 29 cars and motorcycles combined.

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AND FINALLY: Do ya think we have it bad here, bunky?
Get a load of what they have to put up with in the Middle-East!

Hundreds of Palestinian youths lined up outside a luxury hotel at the crack of dawn on Monday for a chance to compete in the Arab world’s premier talent show, hoping to follow the unlikely example of last year’s winner and sing their way out of a life of conflict and poverty.It was the first time that the top rated “Arab Idol” show has come to the Palestinian territories, marking an important milestone for an area that is not accustomed to celebrating.
“We have to put Palestine on the map. This is the first Arab contest to come here and recruit people, and the other programs will follow,” Mohammed Assaf, the feel-good winner of last year’s competition, told The Associated Press.

Assaf, a young wedding singer for a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, became an overnight sensation across the Arab world thanks to his bright smile, warm tenor and personal story of overcoming adversity.

Assaf said he had to plead with Gaza’s Islamic Hamas rulers to let him leave the territory, then bribe Egyptian border guards to enter the country en route to Lebanon to compete. A fellow Palestinian gave up his slot during the audition phase because he believed Assaf had a better chance at winning. Many of Assaf’s songs touched upon the Palestinian struggle for independence.

Assaf said his success helped persuade the producers of Arab Idol to hold Monday’s tryout.
“I told them, “Look at me. I won, and there are hundreds of other gifted singers in Palestine and they need to get the chance like their other Arab fellows,’” he said.
Some 500 hopefuls showed up for Monday’s tryout, huddling in a large tent outside the Grand Park Hotel waiting for their turn to perform. Each contestant was given one minute to sing in front of the cameras, and the tryout ran from 7 a.m. until well into the evening.
Most of the singers, aged from 15-30, said they were inspired by Assaf. All expressed the hope of leaving behind their lives of dead-end jobs and conflict with Israel. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for an independent state.
Musafa Ayyash, 22, who makes his living as a construction worker in a Jewish settlement near Bethlehem, said he left his house at 4 a.m. to make sure he would get a chance to compete.
“I have a good voice, I sing in the house, I sing for my friends, and they all told me I should come, and I will try my luck,” he said. “This could change my whole life. I do a very difficult job. I work in construction to earn $600 a month. If I get a chance and win, then my whole life will change.”
Nidal Basma, 23, a physiotherapist from a village near Ramallah said he struggles to get by on a salary of $500 to $600 a month.
“I can’t live a good life with such a small salary. If this show gives me the chance to enter the world of singing, I might become like Assaf, who was nobody and now has become a star in the Arab World.”

MBC, the pan-Arab TV station that airs the program, sent a five-member production crew from the show’s Lebanon headquarters for the tryout. The team entered the West Bank, whose border with Jordan is controlled by Israel, on French passports. The producers were not permitted to speak to the media.

Mohammed Zumlot, the chief executive of the hotel, said the station told him it had never considered entering the Palestinian territories because it considered the West Bank too unstable. But after taking into account the current strife across the Arab world — including an Egyptian military coup, a civil war in Syria and unrest in Lebanon — the station changed its mind, Zumlot said.

“They asked if we have private security companies, space, halls, media companies, and to their surprise everything was available,” Zumlot said. “I told them we have the Israeli occupation, but we have life, we have nightlife, hotels, companies everything.”
“When I signed the contract, they told me you are the most stable and peaceful country in the region, referring to Syria, Lebanon and Egypt,” he added.

While the contest brought some rare excitement to the streets of Ramallah, not everyone got to celebrate. Assaf said a request to allow singers from Gaza to travel through Israel to the West Bank for the competition was denied. Maj. Guy Inbar, a defence official, said the request was not even considered because the Gaza-Israel border crossing is closed due to heavy rocket fire out of Gaza last week.

During last year’s competition, the head of the jury, Lebanese singer Ragheb Alama, nicknamed Assaf “the Rocket from Gaza,” in reference to the frequent rocket fire from Gaza at Israel.
For Assaf, though, the competition was simply about bringing a small piece of normalcy to a strife-torn region.
“Being under occupation doesn’t prevent you from singing and playing soccer and creating a good life. I’m singing in the Arab world and tell our story wherever I go,” he said.

Hundreds of Palestinian youths line up waiting for a chance to compete in the Arab world’s premier talent show “Arab Idol,” outside the luxury Grand Park Hotel, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.