michael favia

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BY KATASTROPHIK

AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker / flickrIn response to their team's less-than-mediocre performance in 2007’s home opener against Arkansas State, Longhorn coaches continually stressed the importance of finishing off opponents throughout training camp this season. And to that end, the team left little to chance in this year’s opener, steamrolling Florida Atlantic and their overly loquacious head coach, 52-10, last Saturday.

More of the same is to be expected this week when the Longhorns face the Miners of UT El Paso, who are coming off of a 42-17 loss to Buffalo in which they gave up 484 total yards on defense and committed three turnovers.

But despite the presumed lack of drama, the game will give fans and coaches the opportunity to gauge the progress of the 18 players who appeared in their first NCAA game in Week 1 for the Horns, particularly those in the defensive secondary.

Starting safeties Earl Thomas and Blake Gideon showed significant improvement after halftime, but gave fans cause for concern with a number of miscues in the first half that resulted in big gains for Florida Atlantic. Afterward Mack Brown chose to focus on the more impressive of the two halves, saying “It was probably the biggest and fastest learning curve I've ever seen with young guys” when asked about the performance of his freshman safeties. “Hopefully they will play better this week”, he added.

And considering UTEP’s lack of offensive prowess compared to Florida Atlantic, expectations should be raised across the entire secondary.

Offensively, a conservative game plan is expected from coordinator Greg Davis, who is likely waiting for the Big 12 schedule to begin before revealing the full extent of his playbook. Rather, the present concern is developing chemistry between Colt McCoy and his young receiving corps, who were impressive last week, as well as continuing to refine John Chiles’ role in the offense.

NOTES:

• Perhaps a pot of coffee may be more appropriate than your usual case of pre-game Lone Star, as kickoff is scheduled for 9:15 p.m., meaning the game could stretch into the wee hours of Sunday morning. It will be broadcast on ESPN2.
• The team will be without starting defensive tackle Lamarr Houston due to suspension. Houston was arrested on DWI charges hours after the conclusion of last week’s game.

Gunnar/FlickrThere was an interesting editorial in yesterday's Washington Post, which was reprinted in the Statesman. Basically, the price of oil has fallen dramatically in the last few weeks and gas prices are coming down as a result. This is good new for the stock market and Hummer drivers, but it threatens to wipe out recent decreases in domestic consumption of gasoline (U.S. motorists to drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June compared with a year earlier). The bottom line of the editorial is that higher gas prices result in lower consumption, so any national energy policy seriously aimed at reducing consumption should include an increased gas tax that would maintain the incentives to conserve gasoline.

Driving is cheap, easy and efficient for the person driving the car, but it imposes a lot of costs on everyone else. Traffic congestion is a $78 billion annual drain on the U.S. economy. Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death among Americans aged 4 to 34. Construction and maintenance of roads and highways costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Energy imports are a major component of the U.S. trade deficit. Many of those energy imports come from countries that most Americans would rather not be financially supporting.

If the purpose of the increased gas tax would be to reduce these costs, not to raise revenue, then it should be offset by an energy tax credit (and should be much larger than the increase proposed by the Washington Post). If we assume that a person drives 10,000 miles per year in a car that gets 20 miles per gallon (hardly aspirational numbers), that makes 500 gallons of gas per year. This person would come out even if they got a $1,000 tax credit and the gas tax went up by $2 per gallon. People who drove more fuel efficient cars or drove less, or both, would come out ahead.

paulkoan writes "I have been using ReiserFS for my file system across a few servers for some time now (follow the link below for details of my experience). I can't foresee the future of ReiserFS, but if I'm going to have to migrate as support diminishes, I'd like to begin that process now. My criteria are: in-kernel support, shrinkable, and has good recovery when the file system is not closed properly. That shrinkable requirement precludes a lot of options. What's a good replacement for ReiserFS?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Dead body found in Lady Bird lake.
• Hays County Sheriff's Office deputy injured in accident dies.
• Dell looks to sell factories worldwide.
• Gov. Sarah Palin has Austin ties.
• Heart lash out at McCain campaign’s use of “Barracuda.”
• Obama enlists Clinton to help counter Palin.
• Pop star's murder sheds light on hidden world.

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google Inc. on Sept. 7, 1998, they had little more than their ingenuity, four computers and an investor's $100,000 bet on their belief that an Internet search engine could change the world. It sounded preposterous 10 years ago, but look now: Google draws upon a gargantuan computer network, nearly 20,000 employees and a $150 billion market value to redefine media, marketing and technology.

narramissic writes "Engineers from T-Mobile, AT&T, M2Z Networks, Nokia, Metro PCS, CTIA and XM Sirius have convened at a Boeing facility in Seattle this to watch as the FCC performs tests it hopes will quiet debate over a proposed spectrum auction. At issue is the FCC's requirement that the winner offer free wireless broadband services in a portion of the spectrum, a move the wireless industry contends will lead to interference for 3G phone users. The FCC is conducting some of the same tests that T-Mobile, one of the more vocal opponents of the FCC plan, has already done plus some additional tests, focusing on interference between handsets running on the different frequencies. Some of the tests involve using handsets connected to WiMax or UMTS networks running on spectrum the commercial providers would use, and then issuing signals using the proposed new service and spectrum, to determine at what signal strength the proposed service causes the WiMax or UMTS call to drop."

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aGLIFF: Pansy Division--Life in a Gay Rock Band
Friday September 5
Alamo Drafthouse Downtown (320 E 6th Street)
5:30pm, Badges are still available, some tickets may be avail. at the door
[info] In 1991 while the mainstream was discovering grunge music, a new revolution was already brewing. In the heart of San Francisco, Jon Ginoli and Chris Freeman were realizing that just because they were gay didn’t mean they had to like dance music. Frustrated with the lack of musical options in which to celebrate their lifestyle, they decided to create their own—gay music that wasn’t music for a gay bar. Pansy Division was born.

These two visionaries led a new musical movement—what came to be known as “queercore.” Their bold sound and proudly explicit lyrics sent them to the cultural front lines, where they pushed the envelope and gathered their own following. Caught between resistance from the straight crowd (who didn’t seem to think they were hetero enough) and resistance from the gay crowd (who thought their music was too hetero), they moved forward anyway, eventually getting record deals, playing Madison Square Garden with Green Day, and making it on to MTV. And through it all, Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band is there.

With archival footage, new interviews, and plenty of good old-fashioned pop/punk/rock music, this film is an in-depth look into the strength it took for these guys to make their music and to speak out for what they believed in. At a brisk 83 minutes, it never drags. Mike Carmone’s direction is on point; it’s well edited and has clever graphics to spice up the slightly more cumbersome details. Whether revealing the wildly humorous lyrics with subtitles, detailing the Spinal Tap-like parade of drummers, or telling how the band got Kirk Hammett (of Metallica) to play a solo for one track, you’ll definitely be entertained. Watching bassist Chris Freeman spray crowds with silly string or stealing a kiss from a straight fan, it’s hard not to get caught up in Pansy Division’s chaotic joy.

MojoKid writes "Solid State Drive technology is set to turn the storage industry on its ear — eventually. It's just a matter of time. When you consider the intrinsic benefits of anything built on solid-state technology versus anything mechanical, it doesn't take a degree in physics to understand the obvious advantages. However, as with any new technology, things take time to mature and the current batch of SSDs on the market do have some caveats and shortcomings, especially when it comes to write performance. This full performance review and showcase of four different Solid State Disks, two MLC-based and two SLC-based, gives a good perspective of where SSDs currently are strong and where they're not. OCZ, Mtron and Super Talent drives are tested here but Intel's much anticipated offering hasn't arrived to market just yet."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Word is that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin gave one of her children the middle name "Van" so that his name would rhyme with Van Halen. Does that give the GOP ticket the edge on who would be better for music? Not necessarily.

Death Metal Maniac sends along a link from TorrentFreak on the latest development in game developer Topwear's battle against file sharers in the UK. "US game developer Topware Interactive, the people behind the now infamous Dream Pinball affair, are about to turn up the heat. Operating through London lawyers Davenport Lyons, they have managed to convince the High Court to send out an order demanding that ISPs in the UK start to hand over the details of several thousand alleged pirates... BT, one of the UK's largest ISPs..., confirmed it had been ordered to hand over details of alleged copyright infringing file-sharers... Virgin Media was a little more slippery in its response but reading between the lines it seems obvious they are involved too."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Matt Amato writes "With the recent discussion of the ISS having to dodge some space junk, many people's attention has once again focused on the amount of stuff in orbit around our planet. What many people don't know is that USSTRATCOM tracks and publishes a list of over 13,000 objects that they currently monitor, including active/retired satellites and debris. This data is meaningless to most people, but thanks to Analytical Graphics, it has now been made accessible free of charge to anyone with a copy of Google Earth. By grabbing the KMZ, you can not only view all objects tracked in real-time, but you can also click on them to get more information on the specific satellite, including viewing it's orbit trajectory. It's an excellent educational tool for the space-curious. Disclaimer: I not only work for Analytical Graphics, but I'm the one that wrote this tool as a demo."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nokia warns that its 3Q global market share will decline from 2Q levels, sending its U.S. shares tumbling more than 11 percent in premarket electronic trading. Nokia gave no figures, but in July had predicted that "its mobile device market share in the third quarter of 2008 would be approximately at the same level sequentially" as the second quarter.

Nokia warns that its 3Q global market share will decline from 2Q levels, sending its U.S. shares tumbling more than 11 percent in premarket electronic trading. Nokia gave no figures, but in July had predicted that "its mobile device market share in the third quarter of 2008 would be approximately at the same level sequentially" as the second quarter.

Hugh Pickens writes "An engineer at Jet Propulsion Labs says it should be possible to identify people from the way they walk — a technique called gait analysis, whose power lies in the fact that a person's walking style is very hard to disguise. Adrian Stoica has written software that recognizes human movement in aerial and satellite video footage by isolating moving shadows and using data on the time of day and the camera angle to correct shadows that are elongated or foreshortened. In tests on footage shot from the sixth floor of a building, Stoica says his software was indeed able to extract useful gait data. Extending the idea to satellites could prove trickier, though. Space imaging expert Bhupendra Jasani at King's College London says geostationary satellites simply don't have the resolution to provide useful detail. 'I find it hard to believe they could apply this technique from space,' says Jasani." Comments on the article speculate on the maximum resolution possible from KH-11 and KH-12 spy satellites.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Martin Heller directs attention to ongoing investigations of more than 40 phantom registrars linked to The Directi Group, including PDR, one of the 10 worst offenders on the Net. According to KnujOn, an additional 19,000 domains advertised through spam have been hiding their ownership behind PrivacyProtect.org, which The Washington Post has outed as Directi-owned. Directi claims it suspends illicit domains, but KnujOn provides documentation suggesting that Directi reports the registrars suspended and then reinstates them at another IP address. 'There has been some outcry about all this from the ICANN At-Large Committee, but as of this writing there has been no response from ICANN's Tim Cole,' Heller writers. 'Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that LogicBoxes, a Directi-owned registrar, has sponsored ICANN meetings in L.A. and Delhi.' Directi has since issued an official response to the allegations."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

smooth wombat writes "Imagine a database whose aim is to centralize and analyze data on people aged 13 or above who are active in politics or labor unions, who play a significant institutional, economic, social or religious role, or who are 'likely to breach public order.' At first glance one might think the country in question is Russia or Zimbabwe but the truth is, it's a democratic nation which is implementing this database. Specifically, France. Now, with the summer break over and as the people of France return to work, there is a small but growing movement to storm this electronic Bastille. Michel Pezet, a lawyer and former member of a body charged with protecting French citizens from electronic prying, had this to say about this new data-gathering law: 'The Edvige database has no place in a democracy. There is nothing in the decree that sets limits or a framework. Whether the database is used with or without moderation depends only on orders from up high. The electronic Bastille is upon us.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anti-Globalism writes "Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but also, in part, how the brain is able to recreate it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anti-Globalism writes "Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but also, in part, how the brain is able to recreate it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1885: Sylvanus F. Bowser delivers the first gasoline pump. It improves safety, but can't guarantee low prices.

The automobile was yet to be invented, and gasoline was a byproduct of refining kerosene for stoves and lamps. Some of that equipment could use gasoline, but it wasn't much in demand.

You bought fuel in a general, hardware or grocery store. You had to bring your own gallon (or whatever) can, and the storekeeper would ladle the flammable fluid from a barrel. Wasteful. Messy. Dangerous.

To reduce spillage, Bowser built a pump in his Fort Wayne, Indiana, barn. He sold and delivered the first one to Fort Wayne merchant Jake Gumper 123 years ago today.

The self-contained unit included a wooden storage barrel, marble valves, a wooden plunger, a hand lever and an upright faucet lever. It was a success. Bowser formed the S.F. Bowser Company and patented his pump in 1887.

The Bowser pump soon became known as a "filling station," and Bowser started selling an improved model to the first automobile-repair garages in 1893.

Most places that sold fuel to motorists used the "drum and measure" method. Gasoline was gravity-fed from a large steel drum into a five-gallon measuring can. The motorist then carried the can over to his automobile and poured the fuel into the car's tank through a funnel that was lined with a chamois filter to remove grit and impurities. A big bother all around, and not awfully safe, either.

Bowser came up with a big improvement in 1905: He enclosed a square, metal tank in a wooden cabinet equipped with a forced-suction pump. A hand-stroke lever pumped the gas. This pump featured air vents for safety, stops that you could set to deliver a predetermined quantity and -- wonder of wonders -- a hose to dispense the gasoline directly into the vehicle's fuel tank. He called it the Bowser Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump. (Rival John J. Tokheim of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had fitted a pump with a direct-delivery hose in 1903.)

The word bowser soon became a generic term for a vertical gasoline pump. That usage has dropped away in the United States, but lingers in Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, Canada. A bowser is also a tank truck that delivers fuel to airplanes on the tarmac, and in Britain the term applies as well to self-propelled tanks carrying any fluid that is delivered directly to the end user -- for instance, water after a disaster.

Bowser's later career was quirky and litigious. He invented and personally marketed a backscratcher and a sit-down enema. He also sold postcards of himself next to the "Stone of Scone," part of the coronation throne on which British monarchs sit while being crowned in Westminster Abbey.

Source: Petroleum Collectibles Monthly, others