Saturday - July 13, 2013

Must Remember This Useful Phrase

TV Station Makes Excruciating Error

This afternoon, the Bay Area’s KTVU Channel 2 news made an embarrassing mistake while reporting the names of people they thought were pilots on the Asiana flight that recently crashed.

The station says the names were confirmed to them this morning by NTSB.

...

According to Channel 2, the crew was comprised of:

Captain Sum Ting Wong
Wi Tu Lo
Ho Lee Fuk
Bang Ding Ow

And here’s how the station’s producer responded when he learned of the error:

Oh sh*t.

In a press statement, the NTSB later said

Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.

Naturally, noses were all out of joint all over the Bay Area at this heinous offense.

No word yet on the intern or his fate. Hey, is that show Punked still on the air?

MORE - Pride Goeth Before A Fall ... this station was patting themselves on the back for what a super job they’d done covering this crash with an on-air promo

“This past weekend viewers flocked to KTVU Channel 2 News for coverage of the tragic crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

KTVU Channel 2 News owned this breaking news story with a number of firsts!

- First on-air.
- First on-line.
- First with alerts to mobile devices.
- First on Twitter & Facebook.
- First with aerial shots from KTVU NewsChopper 2.
- First with a live reporter from the scene.
- First live interview with anyone connected to someone on the flight.

“Being first on air and on every platform in all aspects of our coverage was a great accomplishment, but being 100% accurate, effectively using our great sources and social media without putting a single piece of erroneous information on our air, is what we are most proud of as a newsroom.”

Crivens, they were just begging for it.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/13/2013 at 12:26 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Hitler Chicken

Hey, I never get a chance to do any chicken blogging, so how could I resist this one?

Schoolchildren dressing up as Nazis and a billboard advert showing Hitler were just the start.

Thailand’s obsession with so-called ‘Nazis chic’ just won’t go away - and now a fried chicken takeaway called Hitler - complete with a logo showing the Nazi leader in a bow tie - has opened its doors.

Alan Robertson, 43, who lives in Bangkok, said: ‘The place opened last month and nobody quite knows what to make of it.

‘I went in for a bite last week and got some fried chicken, which was pretty good, and asked the guy behind the counter why it was called Hitler.

‘He just shrugged his shoulders and said the owners had thought it was good image.’

[Hitler modified] Cartoon pandas, Teletubbies and Ronald McDonald have all been spotted on show around the capital Bangkok.

And we think our education system is a failure??

Posted by Drew458     on 07/13/2013 at 12:09 PM   
Filed Under: • International •  
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“But I Just Bought This!!!”

UHDTV is coming to us faster than you think. Prices on the super high pixel count flat screen TVs are down 75% from just half a year ago, and now they are merely unaffordable, instead of costing as much as a decent new car. Plus this new Codec thing ... we could be seeing a new digital broadcast standard in 5 years or less.

I finished paying off my awesome 2 year old Samsung 3D LED TV just last month.

Following on the heels of Samsung’s announcement yesterday of its first smaller--and less expensive--Ultra HD TVs, LG is launching its own 55- and 65-inch sets in the LA9700 series, which will carry price tags of $6,000 and $8,000, respectively.

...

The sets will also be among the first to include a built-in HEVC (also known as H.265) decoder. HEVC is a new video codec that uses an extremely efficient compression scheme, so it can send higher-quality content--such as Ultra HD movies and TV shows--without requiring more bandwidth. In the future, we expect to see many content providers, as well as broadcasters and Internet video services, move to the HEVC format to deliver Ultra HD content. We also expect Blu-ray to adopt the HEVC standard in Ultra HD Blu-ray players sometime next year.

Well, maybe not the Blu-Ray thing, but maybe so. I think the trend is going to be to complete On Demand streaming media. High bitrate digital music, far cleaner and clearer than CD, SACD, or DVD-A, downloaded to your buffer box (a HD connected to your stereo plus lots of RAM). Any television show episode you want, whenever you want. Any movie ever made, and all the ones more than 10 years old for free. All at the click of a mouse or a tap on your tablet.

Our cable TV has a decent On Demand, and we live by it. But it doesn’t have all the current TV shows, and it doesn’t have every episode of every season. That’s just a matter of data storage, and data storage is very inexpensive these days. So expect this concept to really expand within a short time.

The new codec is the real key here. It’s an algorithm. A bit of computer code. If it does loss-less compression, or nearly loss-less compression, then it’s a winner: the algorithm can be expressed as a tiny circuit board or perhaps even a single chip (ie cheap cost), which makes upgrading easy, and that means it will happen much much faster than originally predicted. But it gets better! The current H.265 standard works just as well with “8K” pictures, 16 times the resolution of current HDTV. AND it incorporates 10 bit color depth, which increases the number of available colors from “only” 16.8 million to more than a billion. More than 6 times the gradation, and 4 (or maybe someday 16) times as many pixels. It’s going to look like real life. Maybe even sharper than real life. Wow.

And UHDTV? Fantastic. If you have a decent flatscreen monitor for your computer, it probably runs at the standard 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. This is the same resolution, called 1080p, that your big flatscreen HDTV uses. But the pixels on the computer monitor are much smaller than the ones on the TV; I view my 23” monitor from about 24” away and nearly everything looks smooth, from fine fonts to giant graphics files. 1920 x 1080 is about 2 mega-pixels, so looking at any digital photograph of a higher density (4Mp, 8Mp, etc) requires scaling. If I had a 46” 3840p monitor that had the 3840 x 2160 UHDTV pixel resolution (which goes by the simple name of 4K), I’d have 4 times the viewing area with the same super fine pixel granularity as this monitor. Which means I could view 8Mp photographs full size, in a larger than life 40” wide format, and NEVER be able to detect a pixel, even from this close viewing distance. And a super hi-def 46” monitor would be mind blowing for video game junkies. So UHDTVs will be the same way. You’ll be able to sit much closer if you want, and get a really immersive wide screen experience, or you’ll watch shows at your regular distance and they’ll be 4 times sharper. Which will all but eliminate viewing fatigue, and make everything look nearly three dimensional because it’s almost as sharply rendered as real life, even real life viewed through young eyes.

Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to wait another decade until the price comes down to my level. But hey, by then cable TV will be a RIGHT, and I’ll just swipe my EBT and get my Obama-TV for free. But I’ll probably have cataracts and glaucoma by then no doubt.

The article says that a TV maker I’ve never heard of, Seiki, already has a 50” UHDTV on the market for $1400. So maybe the wait won’t be years, but merely a handful of months. Awesome. But I just bought this one!!

PS - that $1400 Seiki can be purchased right now for $966.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/13/2013 at 09:08 AM   
Filed Under: • High Tech •  
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Unequal Treatment

Bean Town Cop Busted With Army Issue Bombs

A Boston police officer is free on $1,000 bail after police in Plymouth say they found a cache of military grade explosives in a shed at his former home.

Kirk Merricks, 43, of Dorchester, was charged Friday with 11 counts of possession of explosives, along with theft and ammunition charges.

Police say they received a call on Thursday from the homeowner, identified as Merricks’ estranged wife, saying she was cleaning out a bedroom closet and found four ¼ sticks of TNT and assorted ammunition in a metal box marked “highly explosive.”

The bomb squad responded to the home on Paddington Way, where explosives experts recovered a briefcase from a shed outside the home that had “a bandolier that contained four military-grade M203 rounds, six detonator cords with attached blasting caps and two rolls of timed fused cord connected to non-electric fixing mechanisms,” District Attorney’s office reported.

Merricks is accused of stealing those explosives and storing them in the shed.

Plymouth Chief Michael Botieri says investigators think the items were stolen because they are military grade and not available for purchase by the general public.

While Merricks is licensed to carry Boston police-issued ammunition, ammo possession charges were also filed because the ammunition that was recovered was not police-issued, according to investigators.

Ok, a big FU to Assachussets first, for their NY/NJ level firearms laws that are so insane that having “other” ammo is a crime. Ammo not issued by the State or in calibers for which you have no registered weapons. And the “quarter sticks of TNT” sounds an awful lot like the large fireworks called blockbusters around here. The “1/4 stick” thing is pure urban legend and totally false ... because if you had REAL sticks of TNT, why on earth would you break it into little pieces and then store it?

But the detonators are a different story. And the 4 M203 rifle grenades are another, much uglier story altogether.

The guy busted in NJ the other day had “military grade explosives” as well. Maybe, don’t ya think, just MAYBE somebody somewhere ought to be looking into how these things are getting out of thought-to-be secure military storage, or snuck back from the wars by soldiers and sold on the black market? Because we’ve spent billions and billions “terrorist proofing” all those places, and the military absolutely can search every last package and duffle bag leaving the sandbox. No excuses for even a single bullet coming back in anyone’s footlocker.

Hey, I’m all for the Second Amendment, but I don’t want whackos having crew served machine guns, grenades, artillery shells, or commercial explosives ... unless the stuff comes on the open market for the rest of us to buy if we want. Yeah, like that will EVER happen.

So now that Crappy Nappy is quitting the DHS to go play School Marm, will the Swiss Cheese Ammo Dump be the next never-shoulda-happened scandal to push under the Obama-bus?

Oh, and dig this:

Boston police have placed Merricks on paid administrative leave and taken away his handgun and badge. He has worked for the department since 1999.

Merricks was released on [$1000] bail and the case was continued until a probable cause hearing on September 10.

Excuse me, what? What what what? The guy had stolen Army bombs and commercial explosives in his shed, and he gets TIME OFF WITH PAY and bail set at only $1000??? I call racism. RAAAAAAACIIIISSM!!! Because if he was some loner White guy, bail would have been $30 million and he’d be rotting in a deep dark cell, immediately fired from whatever job he may have had, and convicted by the media on every TV channel. 

Posted by Drew458     on 07/13/2013 at 08:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Racism and race relations •  
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   Friday - July 12, 2013

Rodent Revival!

Okay peiper, I meet your Ray Stevens bid and call!

Posted by Christopher     on 07/12/2013 at 01:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff • Humor •  
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R.I.P. Richard Dawson

Possibly I’m late, but this just got posted on WND.com. He died over a month ago.

Richard Dawson (born Colin Lionel Emm; November 20, 1932 – June 2, 2012) was an English-born American actor and comedian, and a game show host and panelist in the United States.

Dawson was well known for playing Corporal Peter Newkirk on Hogan’s Heroes, being the original host of the Family Feud game show from 1976–1985 and 1994–1995, and a regular panelist on the 1970s version of Match Game on CBS from 1973 to 1978. After a successful career in British television and cinema, Dawson moved to Los Angeles. In 1984, he became an American citizen while remaining a British subject.

In 2012, Dawson died of complications from esophageal cancer. He is buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

Posted by Christopher     on 07/12/2013 at 01:08 PM   
Filed Under: • OBITITUARIES •  
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   Thursday - July 11, 2013

“Intolerant, no-nothing, dickheads…”

Only Pat Condell could say that and make me laugh!

Posted by Christopher     on 07/11/2013 at 08:10 PM   
Filed Under: • PAT CONDELL •  
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Porn is good for you!

So writes the female entertainment editor at The Daily Caller.

As soon as you start to feel the crushing weight of the world creeping down on you, look at some porn.

According to new research from Carnegie Mellon University (and dudes in office cubicles across the nation), porn reduces stress and makes you more productive, Men’s Health reports

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/11/looking-at-porn-can-be-good-for-you/#ixzz2YmhFJxxM

So the next time the boss catches you looking at naughty pictures while on the job, direct him/her to this article.

Posted by Christopher     on 07/11/2013 at 07:53 PM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries •  
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a ray stevens video

I have always been a huge fan of this guy. So why am I two years late in finding this?

Note to Peiper ... see the box that says, ‘subscribe’?  Well doh.

Better late then never. And to think I used to earn my living by playing his records, among others. The late and much lamented better days past.

Posted by peiper     on 07/11/2013 at 02:36 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Humor •  
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answering muslims dot com on YT

Found this before getting ready to close for the night.

Perhaps some of you are familiar with this guy.  ??

He has a series of videos and I wish I could post a few right here right now. Space and time dictate otherwise but I’d recommend checking out his other You Tube postings before they take him down.  That may not happen but my new found paranoia says it could.

After this, check out this.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErzxOz3Dzv8 , Shariamerica: Islam, Obama, and the Establishment Clause

Posted by peiper     on 07/11/2013 at 02:18 PM   
Filed Under: • International • muslims • Sharia law • Terrorists • UK • USA •  
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a sign of the politically correct times

A very sad sign of the new times.

Where’s the insult?  What a dirt bag the complaining woman is.  Of course, as you read the article you will find she’s a member of the Labour Party.  The all hail diversity, there’s never any losers and multi culture crowd of political correctness.  So it doesn’t surprise me.  Maybe she’ll die soon. Make the world a better place.

Take a look at this one.

Politician, 71, given warning after commenting on young councillor’s figure when she offered to open a door for him

Hailey Townsend offered to hold door for Mel Winter in Bridgend council

Grandfather said: ‘With a figure like that, you can hold the door all day’

Mrs Townsend said: ‘no place for sexist comments within the workplace’

By Anna Edwards

A veteran politician has been rapped with a warning for making a ‘sexist’ joke about the figure of a female Labour councillor.

Mel Winter, 71, was carrying a cup of coffee in each hand when Hailey Townsend, 29, asked if he wanted her to open the door at a council HQ.

A grinning Mr Winter replied: ‘With a figure like that, you can hold the door all day.’

But his racy remark backfired when Mrs Townsend reported it to senior council officials.

The grandfather was summoned to see council legal director Andrew Jolley for a warning about his behaviour.

Aggrieved Mr Winter, an independent councillor in Bridgend, South Wales, for 30 years, said: ‘It is a sad day when you can’t make a compliment to a lady.

‘I think of myself as a gentleman and I get on with most women, young and old.

‘I was passing her a compliment in good faith and in a light-hearted manner. I’m very sorry she has taken it in the wrong way.

‘I felt quite annoyed that it had happened to me after 30 years working on the council. The saying that it is political correctness gone mad come to mind.’

Mel later apologised to mother-of-two Mrs Townsend who was elected last year as a new Labour member of the council at Bridgend, South Wales.

Mrs Townsend reported Mel for saying: ‘With a figure like that, you can hold the door all day’ - although Mr Winter remembers it as ‘With a body like that...’

He said: ‘Whether it was body or figure, if I say something and I’m wrong, I will apologise.

‘But you have to be so careful how you even look at people these days.

‘You just can’t have a bit of a fun anymore. The whole atmosphere at the council has changed for the worse over the past 20 years or so.

‘You would never believe the stuff that used to go on in the good old days!’

Mrs Townsend, who is vice chair of Bridgend Labour Party and an executive member of the National Union of Students, defended her complaint.

She said: ‘Elected members should be role models and champions for equalities and diversity.

read more and see photos here

Posted by peiper     on 07/11/2013 at 12:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • UK • work and the workplace •  
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Problem #300

The tactical theme is Knight fork. White to move…

Posted by Christopher     on 07/11/2013 at 12:42 PM   
Filed Under: • CHESS •  
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Perhaps A Real Gun Nut

Man Appears To Have Committed Suicide In Mahopec NY
Cops Find Big Weapons Stash In Basement
Machine Guns, Grenades, Explosives, “Military Ordnance”




We know how the media always exaggerates these things, and can’t usually tell a Howitzer from a slingshot. But photos show several crew served medium and heavy machine guns plus large assortment of possibly full auto weapons. Pardon the pun, but we may have dodged a big bullet here.

Man found dead in house with large weapons cache

NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) - Westchester County Police are investigating the shooting death of a gun hobbyist inside his house in Mahopac, NY.

The victim’s wife found Jonathan Orser, 41, dead after returning to their East Lake Blvd home on Thursday evening. The shooting does not appear to be suspicious, according to police.

Orser maintained a large cache of what appear to be fully automatic weapons, low explosive powders (ie black powder and smokeless powder for reloading ammo), hand grenades and military ordinance, said police.

Some of the ordinance in the house was taken to West Point where it would be disposed.

Surrounding homes were evacuated as a precaution during the removal through Friday morning.

“ ... improvised hand grenades, 20mm bullets, and more than 100 weapons ... blasting caps ... “ Oh, and the guy also had a TANK in his backyard. Which was properly registered. As some of the automatic weapons may have been registered or de-milled. (or perhaps all of them, we don’t know yet). And all the reloading gear is legit as well. But making your own bombs and hand grenades ... that’s a bit beyond the pale, even for a total End Times survivalist. Absolutely not legal. Pretty certain blasting caps are a big no-no as well. Unless they were dummies too, which are legal. We may never know.

Found in the 303 E. Lake Blvd. house Orser shared with his wife was a collection that included 14 unregistered handguns, improvised hand grenades, blasting caps, tracer rounds, buckets of gunpowder and other military ordnance, the removal of which required the bomb squad and an Army explosive ordnance disposal unit.

Orser was known in the neighborhood, particularly as the owner of a British amphibious tank he kept in his yard. Rich DiRusso, commander of the nearby Veterans of Foreign Wars post, has said Orser did not strike him as someone who would take his own life.

“He was a character,” DiRusso said. “He had a great sense of humor.”

More video here. Kudos to the cop and the Fox reporter for keeping it real, noting that the machine guns and assault weapons have not yet been proven to be fully automatic.

And some of those “unregistered” guns may have had C&R status - antiques in other words - which means that they don’t need to be registered, even in gun-phobic New York. It may turn out that everything they took out of his house was completely legal, but don’t hold your breath for that follow-up story or for his gear to be returned to the family if so. Hey, it isn’t even illegal to own 20mm ammo, as long as the “bullets” aren’t explosive.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/11/2013 at 11:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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Housebound

I am a pedestrian today.

My wife’s car had the good grace to break down at the service station last night, right in front of the late working mechanics. So they looked at it right away, and determined that the camshaft and crankshaft position sensors were going bad. This is a fairly common problem on the 2.5L Nissan engine; the original sensors were plastic and tended to leak oil around one of the electric connector pins, shorting out the part. Which means that the engine stops dead. Let it cool off and drain the oil back for a bit, and they start right up again, as I proved when I stopped off at the gas station and started her car right up in the parking lot. Still, she chose to have the parts replaced, and I can’t fault that decision.

Nissan uses the same sensor for both locations, and the “new” version of the part is now tightly enclosed in a little metal can. about $30 each for quality aftermarket parts, and one of the sensors is actually dead easy to get to. A 5 minute job with just a 10mm socket. The other one is a bit fussy for DIY, an hour’s worth of blood and swearing, but easy if you can put the car on a lift. Aftermarket companies have been making the “new” version for nearly a decade now, so I’m quite hopeful that the mechanics will source one of those from their NAPA dude. [fast online research - OMG the internet rocks! - shows 2 in stock at the parts guy 1/2 mile away. Sweet.]

So she had to take my lumpy old Saturn to work - rock solid dependable after 17 years - and that leaves me here with just sneaker power.

Oh well. Guess I’ll be doing housework today.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/11/2013 at 10:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
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