MC2 Post 2027 There's No Crying Or Spying in Baseball

Post Title borrowed from TNT podcast on the TWIT Network.

St. Louis Cardinals probed by FBI for hacking Astros, stealing baseball info

From:    http://arstechnica.com

Link:   http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/st-louis-cardinals-probed-by-fbi-for-hacking-astros-stealing-baseball-info/

TinyURL:  http://tinyurl.com/qe546pe

===================================

===================================

Uber Runs into a Big Speed Bump in Florida

Uber Appeal Focuses on Question: Are Drivers Contractors or Not?

From:   http://www.becker-poliakoff.com

Celia Ampel, Daily Business Review

Uber has a tough road ahead as it appeals Florida's recent decision that a former driver was an employee, not an independent contractor, employment law experts said.

"They vigorously fight these cases and, in my opinion, are trying very hard to keep their business model in place," said employment lawyer Jamie Dokovna, a shareholder of Becker & Poliakoff in West Palm Beach. "Whether or not they get to continue with it may not be their choice."Uber considers its drivers to be partners running independent businesses. But the state took a different position earlier this month, when the Department of Economic Opportunity notified a former Uber driver that he could seek unemployment benefits because he was an employee.

The key issue: Could the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company exercise enough control over its drivers to be considered their employer?

Link:   http://www.becker-poliakoff.com/are-drivers-contractors-or-not

 

TinyURL:   http://tinyurl.com/pcx55sj

===================================

===================================

=============

=============

MC2 LOGO

=============

=============

MC2 Post 2026 A very Different Kind of Cable Cutting Going On in Bay Area

FBI seeks vandals who cut Bay Area fiber-optic cables





From:    http://www.sfgate.com

The FBI asked for the public’s help Monday in identifying people who have severed underground fiber-optic cables throughout the Bay Area.

 

Over the past year, vandals have used tools to intentionally cut the cables in Berkeley, Fremont, Alamo, Walnut Creek and San Jose in 10 separate incidents, most of which happened in the middle of the night, said FBI Special Agent Greg Wuthrich. The cost of the damage was not discosed.

 

The FBI is coordinating the investigation, which involves several local law enforcement agencies, Wuthrich said.

Link:   http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/FBI-seeks-vandals-who-cut-Bay-Area-fiber-optic-6328388.php

TinyURL:  http://tinyurl.com/putryqk

===================================

===================================

First look: Facebook's new photo-sharing app Moments

From:   http://www.usatoday.com

  


LOS ANGELES — Facebook, which is the No. 1 place folks share photos with family and friends, introduced a new app this week to share photos privately.

It's called Moments and it's available for free in the Apple and Google app stores.

 



Link:   http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/15/facebook-introduces-new-photo-sharing-app/71258360/

 
 

TinyURL:   http://tinyurl.com/o2lahwk

 

===================================

===================================

=============

=============

MC2 LOGO

=============

=============

MC2 Post 2025 This 30 year-old Commodore Amiga Just Keeps School Districts Heating System going

and going and going....

The 30 year-old Commodore Amiga still powering school district heating system...

From:    http://boingboing.net

The Commodore Amiga was new to GRPS in the early 1980s and it has been working tirelessly ever since. GRPS Maintenance Supervisor Tim Hopkins said that the computer was purchased with money from an energy bond in the 1980s. It replaced a computer that was “about the size of a refrigerator.”

The computer is responsible for turning the heat and the air conditioners on and off for 19 school buildings.

“The system controls the start/stop of boilers, the start/stop of fans, pumps, [it] monitors space temperatures, and so on,” Hopkins explained.

A Kentwood High School student programmed it when it was installed in the 1980s. Whenever the district has a problem with it, they go back to the original programmer

who still lives in the area.

Link:   http://boingboing.net/2015/06/12/30-year-old-commodore-amiga-st.html



TinyURL:  http://tinyurl.com/qghghhh



===================================
===================================

Seiki and PC Perspective Are Giving Away a Pair of SM40UNP 40-in 4K 60 Hz Monitors!

Subject: Displays | June 5, 2015 - 02:26 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, sm40unp, Seiki Pro, seiki, gleam, giveaway, contest

Earlier today we posted our review of the Seiki Pro SM40UNP monitor, a 40-in behemoth with a 4K resolution and 60 Hz refresh rate. Clearly this is not a monitor for mere mortals: you must have an impressive system to push out the pixels required for a 4K display and also have the desk space for a display that many would considerable sizeable for a TV!

Link:   http://www.pcper.com/news/Displays/Seiki-and-PC-Perspective-Are-Giving-Away-Pair-SM40UNP-40-4K-60-Hz-Monitors

===================================

===================================

It's Alive! Comet Lander Philae Phones Home 

After Months of Silence

 A European probe that made a bouncy landing on a comet last year, and then slipped into a silent hibernation, is alive again and phoning home.

The European Space Agency's Philae comet lander, which dropped onto Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from the Rosetta spacecraft last November, beamed an 85-second wake-up message to Earth via Rosetta yesterday (June 13), ESA officials announced today. It was the first signal from Philae in seven months since the probe fell silent on Nov. 15 after its historic comet landing. "Philae is doing very well," Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), said in a statement. "The lander is ready for operations."

From:   http://www.space.com

Link:   http://www.space.com/29661-philae-comet-lander-wakes-up.html

 

TinyURL:   http://tinyurl.com/ooqkdkv

===================================

===================================

=============

=============

MC2 LOGO

=============

=============

MC2 Post 2024 A "To Boldly Go" reminder that NASA Is Still Pushing the Envelope

Just by luck, I caught this Google+ posting by NASA this morning:


NASA

Shared publicly  -  9:29 AM

TODAY: Join us at 1 p.m. EDT as we preview our New Horizons mission, which will help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first flyby of dwarf planet Pluto July 14 and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt – a relic of solar system formation. 

Watch live on NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Question? Use ‪#‎askNASA‬

#PlutoFlyBy #NASABeyond

Well that 1 p.m. EDT translated to 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.  I looked at the clock and saw it was 1 minute to 10:00.  I opened another tab in my browser to the NASA TV link shown above and for the next hour 1/2 

I was informed in really nice detail, about 

the Pluto Flyby next month.
 

Educational programming at its best.


After the program there was a link for a Desktop NASA app for Windows and Apple to follow along on this momentous journey to the farthest reaches of our Solar System.

 

Very Impressive.

===================================
===================================

There are 5 scientific experiment gathering

Devices on board the 
Pluto FlyBy Vehicle.

Two were named after a

Very Famous TV

Comedy  Couple.

Big Hint -  It's NOT 

George and Gracie.

Try and guess the Names:

===================================

=============

=============

MC2 LOGO

=============

=============

MC2 Post 2023 Why Getting TAKEN to the Movies Is Still Fun with Neeson

Wikipedia the site says this about Taken (2008):



The Taken film series is a series of French action films beginning with Taken in 2008. All three films feature Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills.

Every Actor (male or female) wants a continuing cash cow movie series.  Except for a few, Trilogies with chic centered hunters like Twilight series, the hunger games, Tomb Raider and  Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil allowed to play in this mostly male dominated Action Movies.  


And most of those don't or can't stop at just three movies.  Cha-Ching!

 

Liam Neeson has found such a property, and it's so distinctly his, that it doesn't even have to be called 'Taken' anything anymore.  


Some, get shoe-horned into a 'Taken-styled' motif like "A Walk Among the Tombstones" (title from Lawrence Block's book),  and it turned out badly.

 

His latest film, faired better, called "Run All Night" with Ed Harris and Joel Kinnaman (of  AMC's The Killing), and Vincent D'Onofrio (of  Law & Order: Criminal Intent) was the right amount of  non-lead acting on an already familiar set piece.


Other Action Hero Movies with more than 3 films each...Have done quite well too!


The Short List:  James Bond, Rocky, Rambo, Die Hard, Bourne Identity, Dirty Harry,  Mission Impossible, The Man with No Name (Clint), and now Liam Neeson's Taken...




From:    http://en.wikipedia.org

Link:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taken_%28film_series%29#Box_office_performance

TinyURL:    http://tinyurl.com/nntb4x4

===================================

===================================

Again, Wikipedia says:

Action film is a film genre in which one or more heroes are thrust into a series of challenges that typically include physical feats, extended fight scenes, violence, and frantic chases. Action films tend to feature a resourceful character struggling against incredible odds, which include life-threatening situations, a villain, or a pursuit which generally concludes in victory for the hero

Link:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_film

TinyURL:   http://tinyurl.com/ypejl6

===================================

===================================

The 50 Best Action Movies

Wingman says:  Most are on My List Too!

Link:   http://gearpatrol.com/2013/11/11/definitive-mens-movie-collection-50-best-action-movies/

TinyURL:   http://tinyurl.com/qylt9rd

===================================

===================================

Update:  At last week Google's Android I/O Event they announced Jump, a 360 degreeevironment with 16 cameras (which GoPro will have a setup for Real Soon Now.)

 The 12 most important announcements from Google I/O 2015

A new Android, smarter apps, and virtual reality

A few of My Picks from the 12.    Wingman.

A   New Google Photos app with free online storage

 

Google already has a photo tool for your Android phone, but Google Photos is a revamped app that will back up an unlimited number of photos and videos for free (photos up to 16MP, video up to 1080p), organize them as a timeline, and group them together by locations, things like "beaches" or "boats," and people — using what purports to be some pretty advanced auto-tagging. And there are new interface tools for sharing your photos or making collages and movies out of them. Yes, it’s competing with some similar iOS tools, but it could stack up pretty well; it’s available starting today for Android, iOS, and web.

A VR Camera rig for everyone

Link:  http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8673367/google-io-2015-gopro-3d-vr-cameras-360-degree



TinyURL:    http://tinyurl.com/p2n96bz

In an effort to make it easier for people to film VR-compatible video, Google partnered with GoPro to build a circular 16-camera rig. The geometry of the rig, called Jump, will be made available this summer for anyone to build their own. Once you’ve recorded something with these cameras, Google’s assembler will figure out depth data from the different images and stitch them together into a stereoscopic VR video. Google said the assembler takes "thousands of computers" and would be available this summer to a "select few" people.

Lots of videos at    theverge   to catchup.....    Wingman.

Link:   http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8676769/google-io-2015-highlights-announcements-recap

TinyURL:   http://tinyurl.com/ot7ly84

=============

=============

MC2 LOGO

=============

=============

MC2 Post 2022 Why May 2015 was Such a Weird Ally

I was still having mega-problems with the Android Lollipop 5 upgrade, for my Asus Nexus 7  2012 tablet.  And if you caught Any of my posts on Twitter and Google+ I really Vented...

Aside from that, I got back to reading Real Books, and somehow got hooked into reading 2/3 of  William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy.  "Virtual Light" and  "All Tomorrows Parties".   I haven't started the book in the middle "Idoru".  My tablet has returned to better usability.

I've read these Gibson books before, but with all the talk these days about VR, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon,  I remebered Gibson had some interesting things to say about it and how things could go horribly wrong.

To Me, he's also way more poetic with his words and ideas than Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" which everyone points to as being the reason why Zuckerberg bought Oculus Rift for 2 billion.

I'm also reading  Walter Isaacson's The Innovators, and  "You Are Not a Gadget", a manifestio by  Jaron Lanier.

===================================

===================================

Well last week during Google's Adroid I/O event,  

Taipei was having a Computex  EVENT

===================================

===================================

4th Gen Intel® Core™ Processor Family: What’s Changed

===================================

===================================

===================================

===================================

A tour through Taipei's Syntrend tech mall

From:   http://www.engadget.com


Taipei isn't really lacking in gadget shopping options, but, even so, the recently launched Syntrend Creative Park is noteworthy. A joint project between electronics supplier Hon Hai and Taipei's government, Syntrend is a massive 12-story tech-focused mall covering more than two acres. And it's got plenty of notable tenants, including storefronts from Intel, Samsung, Sony, Asus and Lenovo. For the most part, it's a place for you to relax and check out new gear. Imagine an Apple Store-like experience for dozens of tech brands across a high-end mall, and you'll get the idea. Now that we've pretty much seen all there is at Computex, we took a stroll through Syntrend to see if it really deserves to be likened to Tokyo's Akihabara district. 

Link:   http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/04/syntrend-mall-taipei/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

 

TinyURL:   http://tinyurl.com/o8q4m28

===================================

===================================

===================================

===================================

=============

=============

MC2 LOGO

=============

=============

MC2 Post 2021 With Only 3 Blogs Last Mpnth, This month should be a Cinch

===================================

All I have to Do is fill in the BLANKS...

===================================

===================================

From:   


Link:  



TinyURL: 


===================================
===================================




From:  



Link:  

 
TinyURL:  


===================================
===================================



Link:  

===================================
===================================

=============
=============

MC2 LOGO

=============
=============