StumbleUpon | lear's blog posts

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/15953858/

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:54:47 -0800

Jenna and Ellen Call The President

During a LIVE taping of her TV show, Ellen asks Jenna Bush to call her dad. Afraid that she might get in trouble, she reluctantly calls the White House. The conversation is priceless.

See video...

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/15952453/

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:10:01 -0800

Arc Shaped 48-inch Alienware Monitor with 2880x900 Pixels

Probably the ultimate gaming monitor (or any other kind of monitor for that matter) is on display at the Alienware stand boasting a 48 inch diagonal and a refresh rate of 0.02 milliseconds.

Read more...

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/14503672/

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:42:06 -0800

Firefox 3 Beta 1 now available for download

Please note: They do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only.
Firefox 3 Beta 1 is now available for download. This is the ninth developer milestone focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso.

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/14407669/

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 09:31:43 -0800

Norway building vast ‘Doomsday vault’

Here’s a question. What will happen if global warming wipes out large numbers of plants in its seemingly unstoppable onslaught? And what about all the species man is destroying itself with deforestation, dam building and so on?
Well, the Norwegian government is getting quite concerned about the potential loss of a diverse range of genetic material over the coming decades, and has decided to do something to try and save as much as they can.
From next February, an underground vault deep inside the Arctic circle will become a seed repository for over 4.5 million samples. At the temperatures to be found in this location the seeds could last a thousand years.
Thanks for your foresight Norway, I have a feeling we’re all going to be very grateful for your services to the planet - and perhaps sooner than we might expect.

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/14385045/

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:38:27 -0800

IKOO

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/14142175/

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:07:52 -0800

Circuit City Refuses to Honor Call of Duty 4 Deal

It should come as no surprise to seasoned game shoppers to hear that Circuit City has apparently refused to honor yet another of their own promotions. Several people saw an ad for Call of Duty 4 saying they could get a free copy of CoD3 if they went to Circuit City to make their purchase and happily made the trek there earlier today. But, as Adam, a reader of The Consumerist, reports:

Today, like many anxious gamers, I went to Circuit City (Store # 3111) to pick up the highly anticipated “Call of Duty 4″ for the XBox 360. I chose to pick it up at Circuit City as this week’s circular ad listed a free copy of the previous game “Call of Duty 3″ with purchase. When I went to check out, I was told that it was a misprint and that they refused to honor it. Myself, along with about half a dozen co-workers were rightfully angry that we wasted our lunch hour on this Circuit City bait-and-switch, that has become too common with this outlet lately.

To make things weirder, that ad in question is still listed on their website for Naperville, IL, and it clearly mentions a free copy of CoD3 not once but twice; not exactly something that can be explained as a simple misprint. My own experiences with Circuit City have been less than pleasant, so I’ve known to avoid them for awhile now. But still, that sort of bait-and-switch tactic is pretty tacky in itself.

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/14117462/

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:49:57 -0800

Does Ubuntu shorten hard drive life?
OS seems to evoke unnecessary drive cycles

According to forum posters, installing Ubuntu could shorten the life expectancy of your laptop's hard drive.

The bugs forum at Launchpad contains a posting that says switching to battery power causes the drive to complete an entire load cycle in a minute.

Many laptop drives are rated as coping with 600,000 cycles per lifetime (some even less). That means you'd need a new hard drive every 417 days. Hardly what you want from your operating system.

It seems Ubuntu uses the hard drive default settings, while Windows uses its own set of values. A fix has been posted at the forum.

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/13974399/

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:03:39 -0700

Dog the Bounty Hunter is a racist pig

Yesterday, Duane Chapman, star of A&E's Dog The Bounty Hunter, released a statement apologizing for the extremely racist remarks that he made while speaking with his son, Tucker, in a recorded telephone conversation. During the conversation, Dog threatened Tucker's career by saying that he'd be fired if he didn't break up with his black girlfriend, Monique Shinnery.Here's his statement:

"My sincerest, heartfelt apologies go out to every person I have offended for my regrettable use of very inappropriate language. I am deeply disappointed in myself for speaking out of anger to my son and using such a hateful term in a private phone conversation. It was completely taken out of context. I was disappointed in his choice of a friend, not due to her race, but her character. However, I should have never used that term. I have the utmost respect and aloha for black people who have already suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred. I did not mean to add yet another slap in the face to an entire race of people who have brought so many gifts to this world. I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to do whatever I can to repair this damage I have caused."

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/13973949/

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:47:18 -0700

Wii lead over PS3 shrinking
Nintendo leads two-to-one, but Sony is slowly catching up

The Wii is still selling twice as fast as the PS3 in Japan, as figures for October have shown, but things are starting to pick up for Sony's slow burner.
Nintendo sold 110,415 consoles in October, compared to 47,183 PS3 sales, according to figures compiled by Japanese magazine publisher Enterbrain.
October is the fourth month in a row which saw the gap between PS3 and Wii sales shrink, as the Wii's 6-1 lead over the PS3 posted in June has slowly settled on 2-1 in that region.
Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 trails with 18,717 sales in the same period.
Mario Galaxy is also out and about in Japan, so we expect Wii to pick up the pace again. Where's Sony's killer Christmas game?

http://lear.stumbleupon.com/review/13973911/

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:45:23 -0700

New Galaxy Anime Company Forms, Lists Unico as Future Release

A newly formed California anime distribution company has formed under the name New Galaxy Anime; the company currently lists the 1981 anime film The Fantastic Adventures of Unico (Osamu Tezuka) as its first planned bilingual North American release.