Monday, December 29, 2008

The Ultimate in Self Defense



Always Remember; If you use too much Hai Karate, you have
to know how to defend yourself against attacks from women!


Sunday, December 28, 2008

Vin Scully to NAB Hall of Fame

Simply the best sports announcer ever.

The “voice of the Dodgers” across six decades, broadcaster Vin Scully will be inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame at the next NAB Show.

Vin Scully, one of the most celebrated sportscasters in history, will be inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame during the NAB Show Radio Luncheon sponsored by ASCAP. Scheduled for Tuesday, April 21, the luncheon will also feature the annual presentation of the prestigious NAB Crystal Radio Awards.

"For nearly 60 years, Vin Scully has entertained fans with his vivid play-by-plays and passion for baseball," said John David, NAB executive VP, Radio. "We look forward to honoring his significant contributions to radio broadcasting during this year's Radio Luncheon."

Scully joined the Brooklyn Dodgers broadcast team in 1950 and followed the team when they moved to Los Angeles in 1958. As the "voice of the Dodgers" on the team’s flagship station, KABC Radio, Scully won the distinction of being the only current broadcaster to serve 59 consecutive years on one team. In addition to his Dodger broadcasts, Scully has called play-by-play for 25 World Series and 12 All-Star Games.

Hailed as the poet laureate of baseball by “USA Today,” Scully has captivated listeners for years with his lively delivery. In 1976, Dodger fans named him the Most Memorable Personality in L.A. Dodger history.

He was also named baseball's all-time best broadcaster in Curt Smith's "Voices of Summer," and was voted the top sportscaster of the 20th century by more than 500 national members of the American Sportscasters Association (ASA). In 1982, Scully was inducted into the broadcasters’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame as the Ford C. Frick Award recipient.

For more information, visit www.nabshow.com.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

ISP Wants RIAA to Pay!

The RIAA wants ISPs to play bad cop now that they've stopped suing downloaders... One ISP's response is hilarious:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10127841-93.html?tag=rtcol;pop

Panasonic to Buy Sanyo: $9 Billion

Wants their battery business....

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2401/81/

RIP VHS Format 1976- 2008

Last supplier of VHS tapes stops distribution... It was Video Home System by the way...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-et-vhs-tapes22-2008dec22,0,4649589.story

Sony Shuts Last US Manufacturing Plant

560 workers in Pennsylvania let go. Everything's from Baja or Asia now...

http://www.avrev.com/home-theater-news/industry-trade-news/sony-closes-their-last-remaining-u.s.-tv-manufacturing-plant.html

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Friday, December 19, 2008

Can't Connect to Asia Today?

Is the internet going down? Undersea sub-cables have just broken...

Breaking news: something's happening to the internet, right now. We're just not quite sure what.

Interoute, the internet networks company, reports that three of the four internet sub-cables that run from Asia to North America have been damaged.

These carry more than 75 per cent of traffic between the Middle East, Europe and America.

RIAA Ends the Stupidity

Drops All Downloading Lawsuits

By SARAH MCBRIDE and ETHAN SMITH

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.

The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html?mod=testMod

Deep Throat Croaks

Mark Felt, the Watergate "Deep Throat" informant, dies...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121900228.html?hpid=topnews

Star Trek Computer Voice Dies

Majel Barrett, later Majel Roddenberry, has left us...

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-roddenberry19-2008dec19,0,1017655.story

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Listen to Music, Lower Your Cholesterol

Sound Research

Scientists are discovering new physical and mental benefits to listening to music

JULIET CHUNG (Wall Street Journal)

Researchers have found that music can affect people, animals and even plants in many ways. Now, several small-scale studies suggest some surprising benefits of listening to music, from the brain down to the blood vessels.

A team at Stanford University's School of Medicine found that listening to music might hold an adaptive evolutionary purpose. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to gauge activity in 18 people's brains as they listened to obscure 18th-century symphonies. The team found that activity in the regions of the brain associated with paying attention, making predictions and updating events peaked during the short periods of silence between movements.

Published last year in the journal Neuron, the study provides a glimpse of how the brain organizes events, says lead author Vinod Menon, and suggests that listening to music can help sharpen the ability to anticipate events and sustain focus.

Finnish researchers have found that music could help aid cognitive recovery soon after a stroke. The study, which followed 54 patients and was published February in the journal Brain, found that verbal memory and focused attention improved significantly more in stroke patients who listened to their favorite music several hours daily than in those patients who listened to audio books or to nothing at all. Patients were randomly assigned to the music group and listened to the music for at least an hour daily, for two months, during their acute recovery phase.

Listening to your favorite music can also promote the functioning of blood vessels, according to a new study out of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Researchers found that the diameter of the average upper-arm blood vessel expanded by 26% when subjects listened to music they had previously selected for making them feel joyful. The diameter constricted by 6% when subjects listened to music that made them feel anxious. Blood-vessel expansion indicates nitric oxide is being released, which can reduce the formation of blood clots and LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, according to Michael Miller, the study's principal investigator and director of preventive cardiology at the medical center. The results were presented in November before the American Heart Association.

Of the 10 participants, several chose country music as their joyful listening selection and several said heavy metal made them feel anxious. But that says more about the participants than about any inherent vascular benefits of the genres themselves, says Dr. Miller. "I was listening to Hootie & the Blowfish last night and I had, I'm sure, a lot of endorphins being released," he says.

A study published in January by the Cochrane Collaboration, a London-based nonprofit that publishes reviews of health-care interventions, suggests that listening to or making music with trained therapists can help in treating depression. The group found five randomized studies that examined music therapy; four reported that depression symptoms lessened more among those who were randomly assigned to music therapy than those who received treatment that did not involve music. The fifth study reported no significant change. Further research needs to be done given the small number of credible studies in the area, the study says.

Other new studies confirm old hunches. A team at Brunel University in England found that certain music deemed motivational can enhance a recreational athlete's endurance and increase pleasure while exercising. In blind experiments on 30 participants, tracks from artists like Queen, Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers increased endurance on a treadmill by up to 15%, says Costas Karageorghis, a reader in sports psychology at Brunel.

Recreational athletes might be served well by picking workout music that is up-tempo, has "bright, major harmonies" and is studded with encouraging phrases, says Mr. Karageorghis. "There's a reason Olivia Newton-John's 'Let's Get Physical' was a huge hit" for workouts, he says.

Friday, December 12, 2008

DVR Viewers Skip Commercials?

Hard to believe they charge $100 a month for television service AND they want you to watch their commercials....

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=96555

NFL in 3D Continued

Very impressive overall. One crash during the demonstration, but with plenty of food and drink available in the lobby....

http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv/nfl-telecast-shows-potential-1212/

Nortel Faces Delisting

The former engineering arm of Bell Canada appears to be meeting the same fate as its American cousin did years ago. Nortel Meridian was one of the premier telephone suppliers in North American ten years ago.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122904390690700391.html?mod=testMod

Monday, December 8, 2008

GM States the Obvious

Gee, I wish I could go down to the bank, tell them I'm an idiot, and they had me cash and don't even begin to make payments for two years...

GM says it "disappointed" and "betrayed" consumers
Mon Dec 8, 2008 8:40am EST

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp on Monday unveiled an unusually frank advertisement acknowledging it had "disappointed" and sometimes even "betrayed" American consumers as it lobbies to clinch the federal aid it needs to stay afloat into next month.

The print advertisement marked a sharp break from GM's public stance of just several weeks ago when it sought to justify its bid for a U.S. government on the grounds that the credit crisis had undermined its business in ways executives could never have foreseen.

It also came as Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, who has led the automaker since 2000, faces new pressure to step aside as GM seeks up to $18 billion in federal funding.

"While we're still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you," the ad said.

"At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs became lackluster."

The unsigned open letter, entitled "GM's Commitment to the American People" ran in the trade journal Automotive News, which is widely read by industry executives, lobbyists and other insiders.

In the ad, GM admits to other strategic missteps analysts and critics have said hastened its recent decline.

"We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we lost adequate focus on the core U.S. market," the ad said. "We also biased our product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs."

But GM also says in the ad that it was hit by forces beyond its control as it tried to complete a restructuring earlier this year.

"Despite moving quickly to reduce our planned spending by over $20 billion, GM finds itself precariously and frighteningly close to running out of cash," the ad says.

A failure of GM would deepen the current recession and put "millions of job at risk," according to the ad, which also highlights the automaker's pledged restructuring and intention to begin repaying taxpayers in 2011.

GM spokesman Greg Martin said the ad was an attempt by the automaker to present "a pledge directly to the public."

"We believe we need to deliver this commitment unfiltered since quite a bit of media commentary has not kept pace with our actual progress to transform the company," Martin said.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut who is central to the effort to craft an auto bailout bill, on Sunday said GM should replace Wagoner.

GM says Wagoner has the support of the company's board.