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16 Apr 2011 20:58

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World: Wow: Fidel Castro’s brother Raul suggests term limits for Cuba

  • two the number of terms — five years each — Raul Castro just suggested Cuba limit its elected officials to
  • 47 the number of years his brother Fidel led the communist nation for; which explains why this is a surprise source
  • » A rare meeting: Raul made the suggestion at a meeting of the Communist Party Congress — the first get-together of the organization in 14 years. Raul said the country needed the changes to encourage a “systematic rejuvenation of the whole chain of party and administrative posts.” Let’s face it, Raul Castro (the 79-year-old younger brother) isn’t going to live forever. No word on what his brother thinks of this.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 17:25

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World: “Walk to Work”: Did Uganda shut off Twitter & Facebook?

  • No, no, it is not us; it seems it is the government that has blocked the service. Even us, we are crying like you.
  • A Warid telecom engineer in Uganda • Expressing frustration that Facebook and Twitter reportedly no longer working in the country. The report — which would be the second bout of social media downtime the country has faced in the past few months — suggests a degree of par-for-the-course suppression as Ugandan citizens plan a “walk to work” protest for Monday, to fight against quickly-increasing food prices. Which, by the way, has been a root cause of much of the unrest throughout northern Africa of late. (hat tip John Ness) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 16:38

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U.S.: FAA: Maybe we need to change air-traffic controllers’ schedules

  • cause Like sharks in a slow news period, air-traffic controllers have fallen asleep numerous times over the past few weeks — including one just last night in Miami.
  • reaction In an effort to help limit the workers’ on-the-job issues, the FAA plans to change their schedules to better adapt to the late-night shifts. source
  • » Some hard numbers: Our whole grumbling about air traffic controllers being the new sharks did get us curious about whether there were actually more errors among air traffic controllers. But USA Today beat us to the research back in February. Their findings? Incidents involving air traffic controllers are up 81 percent since 2007, from 1,040 to 1,887 in 2010. More serious incidents — which we’re assuming “sleeping on the job” includes — are up 26 percent over the same period, from 34 to 43. Not to say air traffic controllers shouldn’t be incredibly good at their jobs, but considering that we’re still talking about less than 2,000 incidents nationwide — big or small — over an entire year suggests at least some degree of overreaction.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 11:34

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U.S.: Scary report: Many meats have high levels of drug-resistant bacteria

The Translational Genomics Research Institute notes that while the meat is safe to eat, consumers should take care in handling and cooking it. Still though, yikes. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 11:04

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U.S.: Poker sites work around federal shutdowns, get sites back up

  • The developments are confined to the U.S. and do not have any impact on your ability to continue using our services. Please be assured player balances are safe. There is no cause for concern. For all customers outside the U.S. it is business as usual.
  • A statement from PokerStars • Informing users that despite its site being shut down in a federal sting, its app is still operating and will continue to do so … for users outside the U.S. The site is now located at PokerStars.eu. Full Tilt Poker, relocated to a .net domain, has a similar message up at the moment. (Absolute Poker, however, isn’t up as of this writing.) We imagine a bunch of poker addicts high-tailing it to Canada to get their fix. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Apr 2011 22:11

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World: TEPCO: Paying displaced residents … but cutting our workforce

  • 50k the number of households near Fukushima eligible for payments from TEPCO
  • ¥1M the amount that could be offered to each household — roughy $12,000 total
  • ¥50B the amount that would be offered based on that assessment —around $600 million source
  • » Raising money by cutting jobs? While Company President Masataka Shimizu didn’t speculate on what the final amount might be, he did point out a possible way to pay for said payments to local residents. They’re looking at cutting jobs to streamline operations and pay the people affected by the accident. “We must pursue rationalization that regards nothing as sacred,” he said. “We will make utmost efforts to raise funds.” Now, maybe we’re wrong here, but doesn’t it seem weird to cut employees after a massive disaster that had at least some root in safety issues?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Apr 2011 16:27

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U.S.: Ultra-popular online poker sites shut down by federal government

  • Like online poker? Well, you won’t like this story. A bunch of executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker just got charged with money laundering and bank fraud, and their sites had to shut down. Above is what Full Tilt Poker‘s front page currently looks like. This is alarming — nearly a million unique visitors went to that site in March. While AbsolutePoker.com is still up as of this writing, PokerStars has a similar message. Sucks to be a gambler. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

15 Apr 2011 16:12

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Tech: Three reasons why the RIM BlackBerry Playbook isn’t ready yet

  • one Despite the fact that the one thing the BlackBerry does better than any other mobile device is e-mail, the Playbook doesn’t allow you to use e-mail unless you’re tethered to a BlackBerry phone. Wait, what?
  • two The device reportedly has very few native apps — not even obvious ones like Facebook or Twitter. Or calendar apps. RIM says it’ll get Android apps at some point, but why didn’t they have it ready for launch?
  • three And that “not ready for launch” thing gets at the heart of the problem — the product seems rushed because updates keep coming. It makes it seem like they almost missed a major opportunity. source
  • » Getting a tad too defensive: One of Research in Motion’s main men, co-CEO Jim Balsillie, used this sentence of utter nonsense in defending his company’s inexplicable decision to avoid allowing e-mail over wi-fi on the Playbook: “I don’t think people realize the threat matrix to your own personal information and your PCs and a lot of different smartphone architectures is a lot greater than people realize.” What? “Threat matrix”? Really? That’s BS.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Apr 2011 14:09

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World: In Canada, the money — not just the credit card — goes plastic

  • Sir Robert Laird Borden gets a plastic makeover: Do we need any more proof that paper’s a dying medium? Last month the Bank Of Canada announced details about their polymer-based $100 bills, which offer more security due to the basic fact that plastic is harder to counterfeit than paper. The first ones roll off out of the mint in November, and the $50 bill will change over in 2012. “Canada’s new bank notes will have innovative security features that are easy to verify,” said the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney. “The leading-edge technology in these notes will expand the frontiers of bank note security.” And on top of all this, the money is safer from the elements than paper. Are there any disadvantages to making bills out of plastic? (Above: Samples of paper $100 bills, via Bank Of Canada’s Flickr page. | EDIT: Oshea-green points out that Australia led the way with plastic money of their own starting in 1988. Every bill they’ve made since 1996 has been polymer-based.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Apr 2011 12:01

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Biz: Google’s Larry Page deserves praise, not criticism, for earnings

  • Doing what Google needs to do to be a fast-growing dominant company in five years means sacrificing some of the bottom line this year and next (and maybe forever). It also means spending less time kowtowing to Wall Street and more time focusing on products and users. In his first few weeks on the job, Larry Page is doing exactly that. And if Wall Street doesn’t like it, whatever.
  • Business Insider’s Henry Blodget • Offering a spirited defense of Larry Page and Google, which just felt investor rage over a quarter that didn’t meet their expectations. We’re with Henry. They’re already making more money than God, so why give them crap over not making every penny they can, and trying to think long-term? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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