Archive for: January, 2008

Starbucks lost it?

Starbucks new offering

It’s not surprising if you’ve heard this already, but Starbuck is testing $1 coffee with free refills. No, the coffee isn’t leftovers, and it’s definitely not a going out of business sale. Starbacks is facing steep competition from fast food franchise giant McDonalds. They will attempt to gain back some of its market share they […]

European Union IP Addresses Redefined

Google Privacy

IP addresses help track users visits to websites and personal settings when available, but they all can be traced back to an identity. For that reason the E.U. privacy regulators want it classified at personal information, such as your date of birth and social security number. Their reasoning is that the IP address in most […]

Safeway runs on biofuel

Wind Power

 Safeway has a fleet of more than a thousand trucks that will eventually run on biodiesel fuel. This gradual phase-in will reduce Safeway’s carbon output by an estimated 75 million pounds. More companies are associating with cleaner practices as consumer awareness of the environment grows.

Next Generation Silicon Batteries

Next Gen Battries

With a storage capacity 8 times of conventional lithium batteries, the applications of these revolutionary batteries are endless. The semi-technical term is silicon-nanowire batteries, and the research was a collaboration of Stanford University, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Hitachi.

Google Duality: trying to save and own the world

Helping Hand

Google.com has a philanthropic venture group of the same name, except they end with an “.org”. Besides its many mission goals, the “other half” of Google is working on issues like identifying infectious diseases, predicting droughts, and funding international social and economic services in third world countries. The timeline for its “core initiatives” is between […]

Prostate Cancer Risk Identified by Genetics

Strand of DNA

What exactly does having 4 or 5 bad genes mean to you? A study found patients with variants of these genes have a four to five times chance of prostate cancer over patients that did not have them. According to the Times article, “Nearly half of the cases of prostate cancer among the approximately 5,000 […]

Fuel prices up again

Gas Prices

According to the Lundberg Survey released Sunday, national regular gasoline prices rose to $3.07. Unleaded gas rose to about $3.19, and super unleaded rose to $3.30. If you’re the bargain shopper type, you might have to travel a while to get the best deal. The nation’s lowest price was in Cheyenne, Wyoming at $2.77 a […]

TSA Flying Blindfolded

Flight Times

As if getting on a plane wasn’t hard enough, now you have to face the consumer support nightmare of their website. The current No Fly List isn’t perfect, and the process of disputing it is even more ridiculous. Concerns over the TSA’s customer support website were first brought up last February by a blogger Christopher Soghoian.

Health Risk of Sweetener Sorbitol

Colorful Gumballs

Published in the January 12 issue of the British Medical Journal, an observation found your gum chewing habits could lead to negative consequences. The observation done by Dr. Herbert Lochs and Dr. Juergen Bauditz found two of their patients experienced rapid weight loss due to excessive diarrhea. Both parents were visiting the bathroom in excess […]

Even the Feds make late payments

Sealed Documents

It’s not surprising the U.S. Government may loose its AAA credit rating for the first time in the nation’s history. According to a report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, nearly half of FBI’s phone bills linked to operations was not paid on time. And as expected in every case of nonpayment, their operations […]

National ID card a reality this spring

National ID a reality

You might want to check if your state is opting out of the Fed’s National Identification Card program, which will be required by 2014 for citizens born after 1964. For non-participating states in the program, the Feds have mandated to the commercial airlines industry that your state driver’s license is no longer valid identification to […]

Worst Domain Registrar of the Year Named

Domain Names Held Hostage

 Network Solutions Inc. recently reversed its policy of reserving domain names searched through its website. Who hasn’t visited a registrar and searched for a domain they wanted to buy. Most of the time it would of already been registered, but guess how many of those times were because of Network Solutions’ blatant greed and deceit?

Economic slowdown hurts Japan

The Value of Money

According to Goldman Sachs, the world’s largest global investment banks, Japan may be close to a recession. As the second largest free market economy, with the U.S. as the largest, they too are experiencing a slowdown in economic growth. The subprime mortgage crisis in the states has caused capitol investors to liquidate their holdings in […]

Does living longer benefit you?

Please refrain from licking your screen, this is just a picture.

A study done on 20,000 middle to senior aged people dived into the vague moniker of “being healthy”. The factors in the study used to rate the participants were how much they smoked, were they physically active, did they moderately drank alcohol, and did they consume five serving of fresh fruit and vegetables a day.

Charities Focus 2008

Charity

Following the charitable giving article, I’ve been persuaded by a colleague to write a follow-up article about humanitarian efforts. The instability in both Africa’s political and social systems has thwarted many of even the most determined social workers. The fact that even my colleague’s director in Africa is unable to return to the school she helps […]

Engineering environmental consciousness

Pushing for greener advances

 ”Unfortunately, most (blanks) are loaded with toxins, have short life spans and are not designed for recycling,” can you guess what fills that blank? If you’ve guessed electronic gismos, then you guessed the main theme of this year’s Consumer Electronic Show in Los Vegas. The technology industry’s largest: Sony and Dell among others are changing […]

Technology streamlines charitable giving

Ugandan Kids

Who wouldn’t walk a 10k race for a good cause? Well, thanks to the availability of fast online money transfers you can be charitable and still save your feet. And the numbers don’t lie. According to Forbs, individual giving accounted for about $220 billion last year, nearly $7 billion of that was from online giving. […]

Placebo in the shape of a pill

Daily Pills

Sure you could do without the pill shaped placebo, but where would be fun in that? According to a Times article the effect of just telling patients they would be getting painkillers induced them to create endorphins naturally. The question arises in the ethics of doctors manipulating natural psychological behaviors in an attempt to help […]

The million dollar domains aren’t real

Expensive Domains

It’s internet history that a lot of today’s best domains were already off the market in 1994-1996. What defines a “good” domain? Some would say a good domain would consist of a single real word, short and easy to remember, and be related to the content of the site.♣ I’ll get to examples of this […]

Feds sued by 16 states over environmental standards

federal government vs. states over the enviroment

How happy would you be if some company you trusted with your personal information let that information fall into thieves hands? How much more insult to injury if they weren’t legally required to inform you, except that some of the victims lived in California, and their law requires it? This parallels in that the federal government believes […]

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