Greg In The Desert

• Kid hides in dryer as thugs invade home | KRQE News 13 New Mexico – When armed men invaded the Uecker home Wednesday 10-year-old Chris took refuge in a place that would usually worry parents: the clothes dryer.
• Vampire flick to shoot in New Mexico – New Mexico Business Weekly: – “Let Me In” is based on the cult hit, “Let the Right One In,” made in Sweden. It’s a contemporary vampire tale about a bullied young boy who befriends a girl new to his neighborhood.
• Handcuffed soldier escapes custody at DIA – The Denver Post – Authorities say a soldier suspected of being AWOL is at large after escaping from a federal escort at the Denver airport. Denver police say the handcuffed man was being transferred from Salt Lake City to Colorado Springs via Denver on Wednesday when he ran from his escort on Concourse B at Denver International Airp
• Anti-war protesters target McCain’s office – About 50 people gathered outside Sen. John McCain's Phoenix office on Wednesday to protest the war in Afghanistan. Protesters stood on the sidewalk near 16th Street and Missouri Avenue as they chanted, "Eight years of war, not one more."
• Steve Stucker’s Blog: Why Balloon Fiesta is In October – It's a great question, and has been asked MANY times. Those in charge say they have studied the long term weather patterns, and that on average, the first days in October are as good as any, offering conditioons that are nearly perfect for ballooning. It is also the period most likely to feature the famous n wind pattern known as the Albuquerque Box.
• Road rage incident turns to gunfight | KRQE News 13 New Mexico – Investigators said that two 15-year-olds were in one car and officer Early Nagy and his wife were in another car when someone cut the other car off. Officers said the teens got out of their car and fired at the off-duty officer, and then he returned fire.
• Owner of Pike’s Peak llama located – The Denver Post – The mystery behind a baby llama roaming the rocky slopes of Pikes Peak for more than a month has been solved.
• Lawyer sues to end Dallas group’s ‘threat’ prayers | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News – Weinstein, 54, said his family has received death threats, had a swastika emblazoned on their home in New Mexico, animal carcasses left on their doorstep and feces thrown at the house. Weinstein, who is Jewish, said the harassment started several years ago when he began protesting Christian proselytizing at his alma mater, the Air Force Academy. Weinstein started his foundation shortly after that to battle the influence of extremist evangelical Christians in the armed forces.
• Prayer Effort Seeks ‘Right Thinking’ From Liberals : NPR – "We believe in the power of God. We are commanded to pray for our leaders, even those we disagree with," says Mat Staver, who, as head of Liberty Counsel, spends most of his time fighting for Christian causes in court. "And so we are asking people to pray so that our leaders are restored to right thinking."

• Phoenix Greyhound racetrack to shut down – The Phoenix park, near Washington and 40th streets, opened in 1954 and runs live races seven days a week. The business has faced a number of challenges in recent years, including increased competition from casinos, declining revenue and dwindling visitor numbers. On-track attendance at the track dropped 14 percent last year to about 106,000 annual visitors, and has declined 56 percent since 1998, according to its annual reports.
• Boulder-based Sunflower Farmers Market operating its own farm – The Denver Post – Boulder-based Sunflower is believed to be the nation's first grocery chain to own and operate a commercial-scale farm.
• Focus in terror probe seems to be shifting to NYC – The Denver Post – As the multistate terrorism investigation centered on Aurora shuttle driver Najibullah Zazi continued Tuesday, authorities appeared to turn their focus to people and businesses in his one-time home of New York.
• Lawsuits target chicken and its veggie substitutes | California Consumer | Los Angeles Times – Chicken, fake and real, looks to be a target of several consumer and nutrition groups. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is acting as co-counsel on a lawsuit filed today by an Arizona woman accusing Quorn Foods Inc. of not disclosing on labels the fact that some people have serious allergic reactions to the main ingredient in its Quorn line of meat substitutes.
• Gender-bending bass found in Yampa River – The Denver Post – Male bass in Colorado rivers and other basins around the nation widely exhibit feminine sex traits, a federal fish study released Monday shows. This gender-bending was most common in the southeastern U.S. as well as in western Colorado, in the Yampa River, where 70 percent of male bass had eggs developing alongside their testicular organs, the U.S. Geological Survey study found.
• Coding Horror: 9 Ways Marketing Weasels Will Try to Manipulate You – It's a fascinating examination of why human beings are wired and conditioned to react irrationally. We human beings are a selfish bunch, so it's all the more surprising to see how easily we can be manipulated to behave in ways that run counter to our own self-interest.
• Space heater controlled by digital thermostat – This project allows you to set the room temperature according to the time of day and day of the week, giving you much needed flexibility to save energy and avoid waking up to a freezing house! You can save energy by programming the thermostat to lower the room temperature at night, but still get out of bed to a toasty room in the mornings.
• Electronics ‘missing link’ united with rest of the family – tech – 14 September 2009 – New Scientist – In the 18 months since the "missing link of electronics" was discovered in Hewlett-Packard's laboratories in Silicon Valley, California, memristors have spawned a hot new area of physics and raised hope of electronics becoming more like brains.
• EFF Supports JUSTICE Bill to Reform the USA PATRIOT Act and Repeal Telecom Immunity | Electronic Frontier Foundation – Today, Senators Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin — along with eight other Senators — have taken the Administration up on its offer by introducing the JUSTICE Act, which would rein in the worst excesses of PATRIOT and last year’s FISA Amendments Act (FAA). The announcement of the bill’s introduction, along with a fact sheet outlining the bill's details, is here; the text of the JUSTICE Act is here (the “JUSTICE”, if you’re wondering, stands for Judiciously Using Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts”).
• Cold War missile silos cleaned up | KBIM News 10 New Mexico – But three of them blew up during fuel loading exercises eventually causing the silos to be shut down. Decades later the Army Corps of Engineers celebrated the removal of chemicals like PCBs found at the sites.

• Why Neoconservative Pundits Love Jon Stewart — Daily Intel — New York News Blog — New York Magazine – "There is genuine intellectual curiosity," May told New York. "He's a staunch liberal, but he's a thoughtful liberal, and I respect that." May isn't the only conservative gushing about Stewart. While the movement professes a disdain for the "liberal media elite," it has made an exception for the true-blue 46-year-old comedian. "He always gives you a chance to answer, which some people don't do," says John Bolton, President Bush's ambassador to the United Nations and a Fox News contributor, who went on the show last month. "He's got his perspective, but he's been fair." Says Bolton: "In general, a lot of the media, especially on the left, has lost interest in debate and analysis. It has been much more ad hominem. Stewart fundamentally wants to talk about the issues. That's what I want to do."
• Autopsy: Bear killed woman near Ouray – The Denver Post – An autopsy has determined that a 74- year-old woman was killed by a bear, just the third such documented fatal attack in Colorado. Wildlife officials say they think Donna Munson was killed as the result of years of feeding bears that visited her log cabin north of Ouray.
• Apple Shoots Ad For New Product in California Diner | Cult of Mac – Amid tight security, Apple shot a TV advert for an unreleased product at Jax Truckee Diner on Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, there are no pictures or even a description of the mystery product. Because of the security, no photographers or reporters were allowed on set. Filming took place on Tuesday afternoon.
• Is public healthcare in the UK as sick as rightwing America claims? | Society | The Guardian – The NHS has become the unexpected target of those opposed to Barack Obama's healthcare reform proposals. Republicans and rightwing commentators in the US have made strong allegations about the failings of Britain's health system. Denis Campbell and Girish Gupta put those claims to professionals in the health sector
• Warner builds pic with Lego – Entertainment News, Los Angeles, Media – Variety – Now count Warner Bros. as one of those studios: WB is toying with plans to develop a movie around Lego and its popular building blocks. Scribes Dan and Kevin Hageman are penning the script for the family comedy that will mix live action and animation. Warners is keeping the plot tightly under wraps, but it's described as an action adventure set in a Lego world.
• www.KOB.com – Simpsons documentary films at Isotopes Park – Director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, 2004) is working on a documentary of The Simpsons, the cartoon series from which the Isotopes got their name.
• EC criticized for conduct during Intel investigation – Ars Technica – Did the European Commission overlook some evidence during its antitrust investigation of Intel that might have influenced the outcome of the decision, which went against the chipmaker? The European Union ombudsman believes that may have been the case, saying that EC investigators failed to include details of a meeting that presented one PC mantufacturer's decision to choose Intel CPUs as being purely performance based.
• Phoenix – Valley Fever – Customer Allegedly Bumps KFC Employee With Car After Condiments Dispute – Monique Aguet, 26, zipped through the drive-through at a Kentucky Fried Chicken near Bell and Reems roads about 7 p.m., Surprise police say. When she dipped her hand in her bag of food and found there were no condiments, Aguet allegedly went off the deep end.
• www.KOB.com – Many unemployed turning to truck driving – The rough economy may be responsible for a dramatic increase in enrollment at the CNM truck driving school. Many of New Mexico's unemployed are going to school so they can hit the open road and switch gears to a more stable industry.

• Police: Argument over better father ends in shooting – A man shot his former lover's new boyfriend in the leg early Saturday morning after the two men argued about who was a better father to the first man's son, police said.
• Home invasion suspects tied to border group – KVOA News 4, Tucson, Arizona - – The trio are alleged to have dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home about 10 miles north of the Mexican border in rural Arivaca on May 30, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter.

  Their motive was financial, Dupnik said.

  "The husband who was murdered has a history of being involved in narcotics and there was an anticipation that there would be a considerable amount of cash at this location as well as the possibility of drugs," Dupnik said.

  Forde is the leader of Minutemen American Defense, a small border watch group, and Bush goes by the nickname "Gunny" and is its operations director, according to the group's Web site.

• News : Intel fined for hazardous waste – The New Mexico Environment Department fined Intel for violating the state’s hazardous waste management regulations in March.

  On March 25, NMED conducted a hazardous waste compliance evaluation inspection at Intel Corporation. Inspectors discovered that Intel failed to close several containers of universal waste lamps. Universal waste lamps are bulbs used for standard office lighting and can contain levels of mercury and lead that make them hazardous waste when disposed.

• Growing the Poison Pepper – Boing Boing – I ordered naga jolokia pepper seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University. The naga jolokia, sometimes called the bhut jolokia, the ghost pepper, or the poison pepper, is the world's hottest chile pepper. My brother, the expert gardener, is growing them right now. These are pretty difficult to grow in Minnesota; they take forever to germinate and the drop flowers at the slightest provocation.
• Bare-bones warning to Boulder cyclists – The Denver Post – Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner warned Thursday that police will ticket bike riders if they expose their genitals during the World Naked Bike Ride, which is planned for Saturday as a protest against oil dependency.
• Not so windy: Research suggests winds dying down – The Denver Post – The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming—the very problem wind power seeks to address.
  The idea that winds may be slowing is still a speculative one, and scientists disagree whether that is happening. But a first-of-its-kind study suggests that average and peak wind speeds have been noticeably slowing since 1973, especially in the Midwest and the East.
• Four Reasons Why iPhone Owners Hate AT&T – With the iPhone 3G S news now in the wild, the discussion digressed from the announcement of the 3G S itself to AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive carrier in the U.S. (at the moment). Without a doubt, this relationship is where Apple's weaknesses lie.
• Three Things the Palm Pre Does Better Than the iPhone 3GS | Popular Science – Arguably the Pre’s biggest draw is its super-elegant multitasking schema—apps fill up “cards” as they’re launched, which you can quickly scroll through horizontally by pressing the main button, which zooms out into a “card”view. Closing apps is done by flicking it off the top of the screen, which feels great. Aside from the five icons in a quick-launch bar and those within the three drawers of the app launcher, there is no icons-on-a-desktop conceit.
• Al Jazeera English – Europe – WHO declares H1N1 pandemic – The World Health Organisation has declared a H1N1 pandemic, the first such annoucement in more than 40 years, as infections continue to rise around the planet.
• Atomic Warfare – Intel last week bought for $884 million Wind River Systems, a venerable embedded operating system company — yet another of the chip giant’s recent forays into software. The reason for this purchase is both simple and grand — to help Intel vertically integrate and to further its Linux ambitions. Intel’s ultimate target with this purchase is Microsoft. It’s all about kicking Redmond out of the netbook business.

• Captain America (1990 film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Captain America is the title of a low budget film based on the popular Marvel Comics superhero of the same name. While the film takes several liberties with the comic's storyline, it features Steve Rogers becoming Captain America during World War II to battle the Red Skull, being frozen in ice, and subsequently being revived to save the President of the United States. The film received a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.
• Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine Workout – Jackman did weight training for 15 months before filming started
• Jalopnik – 1982 Datsun Voice Warning Box Used Tiny Phonograph Record, Just Like Moon Base Robots – Retro – But no! They created a miniaturized, shock-resistant phonograph, using a 3" white plastic record cut with six parallel grooves (one for each voice message, including "Left door is open," "Right door is open," "Parking brake is on," "Fuel level is low," "Keys in the ignition," and "Lights are on."), and a super-precise stylus that drops in just the right groove when triggered by the device's control circuitry. We're talking about the very pinnacle of analog automotive devices here, and I never knew it existed until a recent junkyard trip. That's when I found an intriguing box labeled "Audible Warning – Don't Drop" under the dash of a 1982 Datsun 810 Maxima.
• Sleepy Eye mom: Teen would defy court order – Hauser, whose son was diagnosed in January with Hodgkin's lymphoma, said conventional treatments such as chemotherapy conflict with the family's religious beliefs. She said they prefer natural remedies such as herbs and vitamins.

  Asked where she learned about the alternative healing techniques, Hauser said, "on the Internet.''

• Boiling Frogs-Intel vs. the Village: A Scientist’s Response to Intel Re ATSDR Report – After a somewhat quick and dirty review of the first 14 pages of the Intel response letter, I offer the following talking points for you to consider.

  The first and major comment is that most of the Intel letter is at odds with the factual evidence, including FTIR measurements made on their property by their own contractor during an especially low-production period.

• NASA set for dramatic shuttle rescue- msnbc.com – The rescue shuttle, Endeavour, would have to pull within about two dozen yards of the stranded shuttle Atlantis, and then help Atlantis' crew members make their way across a lifeline to refuge. Then Endeavour, full to capacity, would have to leave Hubble as well as Atlantis behind and return home — but not before Atlantis' controls are set for a self-destruct sequence.
• Urban chickens the latest healthful-living trend – They want to know where it came from. They want to be sure it is free of chemicals, pesticides or hormones involved in production. They want to decrease the amount of fossil fuel burned to get it to the table.

  For the Wells family, and others like it, these concerns are eased by keeping chickens – even in suburban and urban neighborhoods that are miles from the nearest barnyard.

• Police target unbuckled RRHS students – Police are telling Rio Rancho High School students to buckle up or else, as part of "Teen Operation Buckle Down."
• In-N-Out: Can perfection survive? – Los Angeles Times – Perman observes that In-N-Out has prospered by hewing close to the stolid principles of controlled growth, limited menu, fresh food and regional focus — with the exception of one store in Utah, its 232 locations are all in California, Nevada or Arizona — set in stone by its founders, like commandments. (Harry died in 1976, his widow in 2006.) As a private company, In-N-Out doesn't release financial figures, though the trade press estimated sales in 2005 at $370 million — a healthy sum for a small chain.
• Dish Debuts Remote DVR Feature – 2009-05-08 16:46:41 | Multichannel News – Dish Network officially launched a service Friday that lets customers with Internet-connected DVRs remotely access recordings, catching up to rival DirecTV after more than a year.

  The feature is free to Dish customers with a broadband-connected ViP Series DVR. Dish Remote Access provides the ability to search through a nine-day programming guide, and can use keywords and filters such as genre, channel, sports, content rating and language.

A botnet is a group of computers that have been infected with automated software that is used to do nefarious things, like attack other computers or send spam. The owner of the computer doesn’t know their computer is participating in the botnet. Botnets are common on Windows based computers due to their ease of being infected by viruses.

Back in January, it was widely publicized that pirated versions of iWork ‘09 had a trojan or a virus of some sort in it. Someone with bad intentions took the standard installer package for iWork, added their malware to it and released it on Bittorent. People who downloaded the Bittorent thought they were just getting a bootleg version of iWork. They also got an added surprise.

According to ZDNet, the purpose of this malware is to create a Mac botnet that is now being detected. This shouldn’t be anything to worry about for most Mac users who legally purchase software. It was more of a social engineering solution to get the malware on users computers buy hiding it in other software. It’s interesting to see that virus writers are making some attempt to target the Mac.

Intuit’s Quicken online sent a letter to mint.com requesting evidence and substantiation on how mint.com comes up with their claim of 3000 new users a day, according to Tech Crunch. Then Intuit responds to Tech Crunch saying it was just a simple request to understand how Mint counts their users. I read the letter, sound like Inuit thinks Mint is lying.

I’m not surprised by Mint’s growth and they were one of the first at doing the online bank account management and linking. Quicken online is trying to play catch up.

The way Mint works is by users giving Mint their account numbers and passwords for various online bank and credit card accounts. Mint then can help manage users money with this information including paying bills. I would never trust Mint or Quicken or any such site with my account and passwords, they look like a huge target for breach and it’s only a matter of time before this information is stolen.

I use the Quicken Mac desktop app. I love what it does for me I hate that it’s old and out of date. At least my information stays on my computer where I have control over it. I fear that one day I will have no choice but to use a online system like Mint’s where I have to provide my account and passwords and the desktop clients will go away.

• What You Need to Know About Gold – WSJ.com
  But for investors who want to hedge against potential economic turmoil, "buying gold is a very good idea for 2009," says Chuck Butler, president of EverBank World Markets in St. Louis.
  (tags: money gold reference)
• Cash4Gold Will Offer One-Third of the Actual Value for your Gold
  Cash4Gold is completely ready and willing to screw you. They are far away (unless you live in Pompano Beach, Florida), casting a big infomercial net across late-night television, trying to snag gold as cheaply as they can from anyone. They don't care if you are insulted by the first offer, because they have a larger offer in their front pocket. A MUCH larger offer, ready to hand over as soon as you turn to exit.
  (tags: gold cash4gold consumer cash scams)
• Busted! What Should I Do Now? – Feature/Features/Classic Cars/High Performance/Hot Lists/Reviews/Car and Driver – Car And Driver
  We talked to seven state troopers from across the country—Florida, New Jersey, Kentucky, Louisiana, Illinois, Oregon, and New Mexico—and asked, “What are the five best things a motorist can do when pulled over, and what are the five worst?” We wanted to know which procedures would render a traffic stop as painless as possible for both parties. There wasn’t a perfect consensus, but the answers went pretty much like this:
  (tags: advice cars law legal car)
• Italy bans kebabs and foreign food from cities – Times Online
  It is, though, the “foreign” kebab that is being kicked out of Italian cities as it becomes the target of a campaign against ethnic food, backed by the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.

  The drive to make Italians eat Italian, which was described by the Left and leading chefs as gastronomic racism, began in the town of Lucca this week, where the council banned any new ethnic food outlets from opening within the ancient city walls.

• Bloomberg.com: Obama and Congress Seek to Limit Pay at Bailed-Out Companies
  President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress are moving to cap Wall Street bonuses and pay.

  White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it’s “very safe” to assume that new rules guiding the administration’s financial rescue will address bonuses and executive pay.

• It’s Theirs and They’re Not Apologizing – NYTimes.com
  “People come here because they want to work hard and get paid a lot for working hard,” one investment banker said Friday as he wended his way, lunch bag in hand, through the World Financial Center. “I think there’s a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street.”

• Mayor Chavez, You've Got a Drug Problem
  Men would congregate outside my door or window, only to briskly walk off when I opened my door to see what they were up to. They usually had a lighter in one hand, and something else clinched in their fist. Sometime during the afternoon, three police officers on horseback came strolling down the street, but I really don’t know the purpose, since the loud clackity-clack of the horses walking on the blacktop announced their arrival to everyone within hearing range. I realized that my confrontational tactic might not be a good idea, considering how vulnerable I am, especially when the sun goes down. And my car would make a perfect target for retribution, since I have to park it on the street.
  (tags: albuquerque newmexico )
• Mac Memories: The Day Steve Jobs Showed Me the First Mac – Forward Thinking by Michael J. Miller
  n the fall of 1983, I was working on the west coast for Popular Computing , and my editor asked me to go down to Cupertino to see the work Apple was doing on the Macintosh, which at that point was the hot rumor in the valley. Once there, I met with Steve Jobs, who was then Apple Chairman and heading up the Mac project, along with a number of the key designers of the machine, including Burrell Smith, the original hardware designer, and Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson, key software designers.
• The Raw Story | Limbaugh's desire for Obama to 'fail' is 'arguably treasonous': Stewart
  With Daily Show link that is HILARIOUS!