Greg In The Desert

• Review: NeatReceipts for Mac Review | Scanners | Macworld – NeatReceipts ships with a small portable scanner that you use to scan documents into the NeatWorks application. (NeatWorks works with several other scanners and is available for purchase separately from the NeatReceipts package. The Neat Company has a list of scanners that work with the program.) When a scan is complete, NeatWorks begins performing optical character recognition (OCR) on your documents; depending on the size of and amount of information on your document, this can take anywhere from a few seconds to just under a minute to complete. When the OCR is done, NeatWorks does two things: it tries to determine the type of document you’ve scanned (text document, receipt, or business card), and then populates data fields with information it finds on your document based on the document type it has selected.
• New gel is stronger than steel – Latest News – MSN Tech – Scientists have created a gel that acts like muscle when charged with electricity but is far more powerful.
  The "aerogel" is almost as light as air, as stretchy as rubber, and stiffer than steel by weight.
  Made with ribbons of carbon "nanotubes" – tiny hollow tubes of carbon – the material can expand to 220% of its original length or width in milliseconds when electrically charged.
• Apartment Therapy The Kitchn | How To Make Finger-Licking Fried Chicken It’s Not As Scary As It Seems – After getting married, one of the first things we learned to make was fried chicken. With a husband whose Grandmother had award-winning chicken frying skills, it was a quick realization that we too would soon be learning the trade. Even though a fryer lives in our pantry, we don't bother. With techniques that are simple and are sure to produce perfect results each time…just make sure to lock the front door so you don't have neighbors following their noses into your kitchen!

  There is a fear of frying. We know… and it's ok, we're here to help you overcome just in time for picnic season!

• Identity Theft and the Economy – After four years of steady declines in identity theft cases, the new report found a 22% increase in the past 12 months. This adds up to 1.8 million more victims in 2008 than 2007. Identity theft is making a comeback.
• News : Rio Rancho trying to get share of federal stimulus money – Rio Rancho Observer – Rio Rancho officials are making sure their city gets its piece of the pie.

  Earlier this month, the city got news from the Mid Region Council of Governments that it would receive $14 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to extend Paseo del Volcan from Iris Road to US 550.

• News : Presbyterian still on hold – Rio Rancho Observer – The construction of Presbyterian Hospital in Rio Rancho is still on hold, but Elizabeth Brophy, a spokesperson for Presbyterian Healthcare Services, said the company is still committed to building a hospital in Rio Rancho.

  “We are very committed to Rio Rancho and the residents of Rio Rancho,” Brophy said. “We want to be able to provide services needed in that community and we will continue to focus very hard on that.”

  The construction of the $230 million hospital is on hold because of the bad economy. Presbyterian Health Services’ board of directors decided last year to hold off on issuing $200 million in bonds until the economy improves and there’s more clarity in the economy.

  “It’s frustrating for all of us on every level,” Brophy said. “We want to fulfill our promise but we are still coming to Rio Rancho, it’s just frustrating.”

• News : Secret bases and UFOs on Rio Rancho man’s mind – Rio Rancho Observer – The Northern New Mexico town of Dulce has long been associated with rumors of UFO sightings and an alleged secret military base underneath a mesa, but Rio Rancho resident Norio Hayakawa is hoping to provide the town’s residents with an opportunity to dispel those rumors, or perpetuate them.

  For a one-day conference, Hayakawa is bringing together residents, former police officers and Jicarilla Apache (Dulce is on a reservation) officials to discuss the rumors and to give people an opportunity to come forward with new information

• Mexico’s woes draw renewed focus now by the United States – A maelstrom of drug-related violence. A brewing trade war. A wheezing economy.

  The United States has sometimes treated its southern neighbor like an afterthought, but Mexico's growing problems are taking center stage now as a parade of U.S. Cabinet members descends on Mexico City ahead of an April 16-17 visit by President Barack Obama.

  This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit, trying to find common ground on contentious issues such as border violence and trade rules before Obama's trip.

• Land use may have been responsible for the 1930s dust bowl – Ars Technica – The dust bowl can be attributed in part to natural climatic patterns such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation; however, a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science suggests that the agricultural expansion of the 1920s my have played an important role in amplifying the drought.
• 10 business lessons from ‘Battlestar Galactica’ | Topics | Macworld – You think your business has it rough? The people of Battlestar Galactica have lived through a recession you wouldn't believe. With dwindling resources, a skeleton crew, enemies constantly lurking out of view, and a pervasive threat of annihilation, Admiral Adama navigates the vast unknown. Like any leader, he makes his share of mistakes–sometimes with devastating consequences. But regardless of the fate of that ragtag fleet, the tale of Galactica is rife with lessons that can benefit any business leader.

• Residents’ wait continues at Superfund Site – In 1982, Motorola Inc. reported a leak from a 5,000-gallon underground tank containing TCE at its facility at 52nd Street. TCE is a manmade industrial solvent suspected of causing cancer. In 1989 the area became a federal Superfund Site, which is any contaminated land that poses a risk to public health or the environment.
• Reality Check, Please! | ThatsSoYummy.com – While I was reading The Food Network Magazine, I found a tid-bit I wanted to share with you all.

  Restaurant Menus are designed to make you eat more and spend big.

• Holder says Feds will stop medical marijuana raids – War Room – Salon.com – For those of you keeping score at home, add another major policy shift by the Obama administration to the tally. Breaking with precedent set under former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Department of Justice will not raid medical marijuana dispensaries allowed under certain state laws.
• Televisionary: Word Salad: The History of the Cylon Race Comes Tumbling Out on "Battlestar Galactica" – Confused about the secret history of the "Old Cylon" race? Let's see if we can work it all out from what Battlestar Galactica has told us thus far.
• U.S. Consumers Driven Away From Drink Spending: Chart of Day – The CHART OF THE DAY shows why. Take-out sales of alcoholic beverages tumbled 9.3 percent in the fourth quarter, the steepest drop since the U.S. Commerce Department started compiling data half a century ago. They sank four times as much as overall consumer spending, depicted by a green line in the chart.

  The plunge, which took place as the U.S. recession surpassed the one-year mark, shattered the previous record of 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 1991. That decline capped three quarters of falling sales as the U.S. came out of a recession.

• Hulu Gets Nasty, Blocks Boxee Browser From Videos – Old media's war against technology just escalated: Hulu, the Web video site owned by Fox (NWS) and NBC (GE), just blocked Boxee, a Web TV-specialized browser, from accessing its videos. (What's Boxee? See explanation at bottom.)

  Specifically, this means that Hulu videos can't be watched on Boxee's new video RSS reader, while Hulu's content will (presumably) still work with other Web browsers and RSS readers. This is sort of along the lines of Microsoft hypothetically blocking Mac users from Hotmail.

• $1.27 Per Share: The General Motors Of 1933 – GM stock dropped 25% today, hitting $1.27 per share during intra-day trading. It's a level not seen since April, 1933. Let's put things into perspective and take a look back at the GM of 1933.

  The GM of 1933 and the GM of 2009 are two seemingly diametrically opposite companies connected by only one thing — a stock price. One was exiting the Depression, while today, one is apparently just entering one.

• Pepsi introduces drinks with natural sugar | Markets | Markets News | Reuters – Pepsi Natural, a premium cola made with sugar, natural caramel and kola nut extract, will be sold in glass bottles in the premium or natural food aisles of stores in 10 markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle.
• Signs of Life from the Real Estate Market – BusinessWeek – The Fairfield ZIP code had the biggest annual increase in sales in the fourth quarter of last year, according to a ranking of the 25 U.S. ZIP codes with the most improved sales compiled for BusinessWeek.com by Santa Ana (Calif.)-based First American CoreLogic. California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada ZIPs dominated the list, as we expected, but Howell, Mich., near Detroit; Woodbury, Minn.; Rio Rancho, N.M.; Humble, Tex., outside Houston; Duluth, Ga., in the Atlanta metro area; and the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Ill., also showed strong or at least stable sales at the end of last year. We limited the ranking to ZIPs with at least 10,000 households and selected only one ZIP for any given metro area. (If we hadn't done this, California would have taken almost all of the top 25 slots).
• Supercomputer Adds Up, but not in the way The Journal Believes – Well, a few weeks ago, the Albuquerque Journal editorialized in glowing terms about the jobs supposedly being created by the State's $39 million supercomputer. It made me wonder whether the State got ripped off for their computer or whether, as is so often the case, the government officials allowed taxpayers to get ripped off. Well, it turns out that it was basically the latter. After poking around and asking some questions, I discovered that the computer really cost taxpayers $42 million because the State had to "fund the creation of a permanent office, build more college gateways, and hire staff…and design a planned central office for the project and to buy equipment for the gateways on college campuses."

One of my favorite shows, Battlestar Galactica, will have it’s fourth and last season coming up.

“This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and, finally, an end,” Eick and Moore said in a statement on May 31. “Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end, and we’ve decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms. And while we know our fans will be saddened to know the end is coming, they should brace themselves for a wild ride getting there: We’re going out with a bang.”

Sure, I’m disappointed but I have to wonder how long they were going to have them out there in space. I’m certainly excited to see how it’s going to end. Perhaps they can do some spin-offs.

A few of my favorite shows on TV include Battlestar Galactica, Boston Legal and Las Vegas. Reality isn’t included in any of them and I don’t get much excited about reality shows. However the Deadliest Catch is an exception.

The show is about Alaskan crabbers who literally risk their life so we can enjoy some tasty seafood. Last years show, which I caught by accident, was incredible. This year things have changed.

Unlike last season — the last derby style race to catch as many crabs as possible in a matter of days — fishermen must now abide by a new set of rules and regulations that were implemented to decelerate the already dangerous conditions in the Alaskan waters. New policy dictates that each ship is given its own quota instead of one fleet-wide quota, allowing captains months to trawl for crabs instead of days.

I wonder if it wont be as good this time without the derby but it should be considerable safer. It’s certainly not worth anyone loosing their life’s over so I welcome the change for that reason. There’s some more background on the change from derby to quota from the Anchorage Daily News that’s worth reading.