For real, I’m just getting a little sick of the coverage, when there is real news to be reported concerning major events. Honduras, Iran, Summer Fires, Heat Waves, Etc. Yet a washed up pop star who sold millions of records IN THE 80’s dies, and we stop everything to hear anything about it.

SFGate: Politics Blog : Who is sick of Michael Jackson TV coverage?.

Who is sick of Michael Jackson TV coverage?

Anybody else oversaturated with cable news coverage of Michael Jackson’s death? For us, the high-water mark hit when Anderson Cooper led “AC 360″ Tuesday night with maybe a seven- or eight minute-interview (or so it seemed) with a woman purporting to be Jackson’s nurse. Or nutritionist. Or both. She then detailed some requests that MJ made about his favorite pharmaceuticals over the past few months.

AC cautioned the audience that CNN couldn’t confirm her story independently.

THEN WHY PUT HER ON THE AIR? You’re not a low-rent blog, AC. You’re the face of the self-described most trusted name for cable news. You have a huge international audience. (The nurse is now making the rounds of several shows.) Same question for MSNBC, the self-described “place for politics,” which went wall-to-wall Jackson on Friday. Where’s the political angle? (And no, interviews with ex-presidential candidate Al Sharpton don’t count.) MSNBC’s substitute “Hardball” host Chuck Todd was still milking Jackson stories on Wednesday.

“It’s a sad day when you have to tune into Rush Limbaugh to get news about health care or the coup in Honduras that the prime time news programs aren’t providing,” Karl Frisch, a senior fellow at the liberal Media Matters thinktank told us. “Now, Rush Limbaugh may be feeding you a line of BS, but at least you’re hearing about them.”

So why do the cable nets keep on the Jackson story? With America involved in two wars, mired in a recession, engaged in a fierce debate over a health care plan that affects EVERY American, watching a coup in Honduras and repression in Iran..etc., etc., why is Michael Jackson’s nurse leading the news?

Because, uh, a lot of people watch. More than usual.

The cable net ratings are BOOMING in June, according to the latest stats. CNN and HLN posted impressive gains over last year, thanks to ongoing coverage of Jackson’s death. CNN had its best second quarter since the Iraq War’s beginning in 2003.

Fox News isn’t just continuing to win the cable ratings war, it is lapping its competitors. Fox’s overall numbers are up 33 percent over last year in the second quarter — and equal to that of MSNBC and CNN combined.

But yet many viewers think that there is TOO much Michael news. According to the pulse-takers at the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, the “public closely tracked the sudden death of pop superstar Michael Jackson last week, though nearly two-in-three Americans say news organizations gave too much coverage to the story.”

Said the Pewsters: “But from the time the Jackson story broke Thursday afternoon to the end of the day Friday, 60 percent of the news coverage studied was devoted to his death, his life story and his legacy, according to PEJ. Iran coverage dropped to 7 percent of the newshole in that same time period.

Pew Research Center for People and the Press

You love charts, don’t you.

The result: CNN is not holding onto its Michael viewers — at least not to the extent that Fox and MSNBC are.

And guess what is coming Thursday: NBC’s Matt Lauer will broadcast live from Neverland. Says NBC: It will be “an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the home where Jackson lived for 15 years, getting a rare look inside the private world of the King of Pop.”

With all due respect to the Jackson family, anybody else for letting them mourn in peace? Or at least not on the news programs?

Makes you feel old, doesn’t it?

Walkman, at 30, a mystery to teen.

What better way to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Sony’s iconic Walkman than to ask a teenager for some feedback on the device?

The BBC couldn’t think of one, and neither can I.

I like to imagine that the experience was similar to an archaeologist rediscovering how a recently excavated artifact was employed thousands of years ago. But I’m well aware that it must have been different for 13-year-old Scott Campbell, who co-edits his own news Web site. For one, teenage impatience must have stood in the place where I fantasize scientific curiosity should have been.

“My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day,” Campbell wrote. “He had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realized he meant that big. It was the size of a small book.”

Sure enough, people on the street noticed the antique clinging from his belt with amusement and friends on his school bus were quick to come up with some witty remark.

Campbell went on to criticize the portable cassette player’s size, appearance, functionality and the “hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises.”

Even when he discovered the cassette had more music on the other side (it took him three days), Campbell was still disappointed it could only hold a small fraction of what an iPod can.

“Did my dad … really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?”

Ouch.

A daily dose of postings from The Chronicle’s technology blog (sfgate.com/blogs/tech)

This article appeared on page C – 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

YouTube – How Willy Wonka Should have Ended.

I love everything about this video. From the reference it makes in the first place, creepy. Through the uncomfortable spot where he reveals his plan. And then when Gene Wilder is pulled away to reveal that Mitch Hedburg should have played the remake, I think this should have been the way it ended.

I love Willy Wonka and Gene’s performance really is one of my favorites. It is what made me grow to love him in all of his roles, as he becomes them. But also, I remember this really touching scene from the interviews on the DVD and Gene, years wiser, realizes that he might have been a bit extreme in parts of this movie, to most people, if viewed as a child, it can disturb you. If viewed by Gene Wilder as a kid, these kind of things led you to him as Gene Wilder. Gene showed in that video though that he is of the kindest heart.

We’ve always reveled in Jack and Heath playing the Joker, but I know from his performance in Wonka, that Gene could have made a creepier Joker, but he never played a bad guy in anything I’ve ever seen.

So yeah, it has been a while, but I figured this would be the perfect homecoming to my… homepage. Hope everyone is doing well. Summertime is here and it is awesome. I’ll post some pictures soon.

I just feel bad for this guy. Thank you @carbonickid for the stumble!

While things can look bad with civil liberties in the U.S. post Patriot Act, it is good to see what happens in China concerning dissent. The umbrellas are a nice touch.

Yes. Finally, I have succeeded. Granted I did use a solution guide.

And while solving it, things got a little... weird.

This is what I’m all about. I’d love to shake this kid’s hand, and make sure he’s off to a great school. Perhaps for an MLS? Also, we have most of what’s on the short list at NorthLibrary.com /plug Oh, and Cory rules!

Kid keeping a lending library of banned books in his her locker

POSTED BY CORY DOCTOROW, MAY 24, 2009 6:32 AM | PERMALINK

Javier sez, “A teenager asks Yahoo! Questions whether maintaining a lending library in his school locker is illegal (as opposed of merely in contravention of school regulations). A school friend asked to borrow off him The Catcher in the Rye, one of the books in the banned list, and one thing led to another…”

This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality. Some of these books are:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

His Dark Materials trilogy

Sabriel

The Canterbury Tales

Candide

The Divine Comedy

Paradise Lost

The Godfather

Mort

Interview with the Vampire

The Hunger Games

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Animal Farm

The Witches

Shade’s Children

The Evolution of Man

the Holy Qu’ran

… and lots more.

Anyway, I now operate a little mini-library that no one has access to but myself. Practically a real library, because I keep an inventory log and give people due dates and everything. I would be in so much trouble if I got caught, but I think it’s the right thing to do because before I started, almost no kid at school but myself took an active interest in reading! Now not only are all the kids reading the banned books, but go out of their way to read anything they can get their hands on. So I’m doing a good thing, right? Oh, and since you’re probably wondering “Why can’t you just go to a local library and check out the books?” most of the kids are too chicken or their parents won’t let them but the books. I think that people should have open minds. Most of the books were banned because they contained information that opposed Catholicism. I limit my ‘library’ to only the sophmores, juniors and seniors just in case so you can’t say I’m exposing young people to materiel they’re not mature enough for. But is what I’m doing wrong because parents and teachers don’t know about it and might not like it, or is it a good thing because I am starting appreciation of the classics and truly good novels (Not just fad novels like Twilight) in my generation?

Give that kid a medal and a full-ride scholarship to the best library school in the country, please!

Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school? (Thanks, Javier!)

via Kid keeping a lending library of banned books in his her locker – Boing Boing .

NEW YORK (Fortune) — For Jonathan and Michelle Opp of Chapel Hill, N.C., the Internet, like electricity and indoor plumbing, is an indispensable part of their lives. Always armed with their iPhones, they regularly check travel information and weather forecasts, and even use their devices to find answers to offbeat questions. But there are also major differences in the way the married couple use their devices and Internet connections.

“Michelle probably does more functional things like shopping or paying bills. I like to spend more of my spare time reading music reviews and checking soccer scores,” says Jonathan, a marketing communications manager.

In fact gender, more so than race, ethnicity or economic status, determines how and what we peruse online. According to a recent study by eMarketer, slightly more women say they use the Internet than men. However once logged on, male Internet users tend to spend more time surfing the Web than females.

Meanwhile, in a separate report, eMarketer estimates that U.S. marketers will spend 37.2 billion dollars on online advertising by the year 2013. Clearly understanding what gets the genders ticking makes economic sense for any business buying ad space on the Web.

Internet Protocol addresses, however, don’t come in shades of pink and blue. So companies eager to reach men tend to focus ads on sports, technology and news sites. Businesses concentrating on women often center on stereotypically female-oriented sites, like parenting Web sites.

“Smart companies use behavioral targeting to try to reach their desired target demo online, but even then, they can’t tell who exactly is behind the IP addresses they are following,” says Lisa Phillips, an eMarketer senior analyst and author of the report “Men Online.”

So what, businesses may ask, is keeping the genders glued to their computer screens? For one, men are much more interested in watching online videos than women, notes Phillips.

The presumption that online images are more appealing to males should hardly come as a surprise: men have long been touted as the more visual sex. Other gender stereotypes seem to carry over to the online world as well: Women, who are often seen as caretakers of a family, tend to click on health care Web sites more frequently than men do.

However companies should be aware that not all Internet tendencies mirror offline generalizations.

“I would say for every situation where you think a trend may be confirming a stereotype, there seems to be another counterintuitive trend that might emerge as well,” says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

For example, women are often dubbed the more verbally adept sex. However they are no more likely to use online communication tools like e-mail, blogging, or social networks than men are.

And although women are sometimes pegged as more avid shoppers, men are just as keen as women to make online purchases. But their shopping behavior may differ.

“Men generally have the attitude, I’m going to go there, I’ve got to get it and get out,” says Phillips. “Females like to go online and socialize and shop around – much like going into a store.”

Furthermore, Phillips says fathers are just as voracious as mothers about finding online information to improve their children’s health or education. Like Web-savvy moms, they also tend to buy products with their families in mind.

Companies should also be wary about making generalizations on how the genders manage their finances. For years, men have been considered financial authorities in many families. But nowadays women are just as likely as men to bank online, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

And though men are more likely to search the Internet for stock quotes or mortgage interest rates, Phillips says the dwindling economy has more women visiting online job sites. This is despite the fact that men have been hit harder by rising unemployment.

Meanwhile Michelle Opp, a software developer, has no problem admitting she shops online more frequently than her husband. But she insists it has nothing to do with gender.

Rise of the NanoMachines

So, wow, I’ve anticipated this would be around soon, but here it is. There are so many implications that could be made with these things, and there are some scary ones to be thought about a little as well.

The bacteria propel the machine in different directions.

Friday, May 15, 2009

By Kristina Grifantini

Click here for video

Researchers in Canada have created a solar-powered micro-machine that is no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. The tiny machine can carry out basic sensing tasks and can indirectly control the movement of a swarm of bacteria in the same Petri dish.

Sylvain Martel, Director of the NanoRobotics Laboratory at the École Polytechnique de Montréal, previously showed a way to control bacteria attached to microbeads using an MRI machine. His new micro-machine, which measure 300×300 microns and carry tiny solar panels, will be presented this week at ICRA ‘09 in Japan.

On such a small device there is little room for batteries, sensors or transmitters. So the solar cell on top delivers power, sending an electric current to both a sensor and a communication circuit. The communication component sends tiny electromagnetic pulses that are detected by an external computer.

The sensor meanwhile detects surrounding pH levels–the higher the pH concentration, the faster the electromagnetic pulses emitted by the micro-machine. The external computer uses these signals to direct a swarm of about 3,000 magnetically-sensitive bacteria, which push the micro-machine around as it pulses. The bacteria push the micro-machine closer to the higher pH concentrations and change its direction if it pulses too slowly. This is more practical than trying to attach the bacteria onto the micro-machines, says Martel, since the bacteria only have a lifespan of a few hours. “It’s like having a propulsion engine on demand,” he says.

Martel suggests that micro-machines could one day be used for medical purposes although there’s still a long way to go.

The video below shows 3,000 bacteria maneuvering a V-shaped robot around via computer control.

Tags: robots, bacteria, robotics, magnets

via Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors’ blog: Tiny Machine Commands a Swarm of Bacteria.

Started Spinning Poi last month, (one of the reasons I haven’t updated in almost half a month!) first time I was photographed at night. Taken by my friend JaneDoughnut!