A few days ago, in the state of Veracruz, left wing politician Celestino Rivera Hernandez was caught in the act of sodomizing and raping a 12 year old boy that he had picked up on the street. Celestino is a “respected” pillar of his community, but he had done this before. No less than 5 [...]
Want to know how many pictures you need to take of a group of persons, to be statistically sure noone has their eyes shut or is in mid-blink? Admit it. Intriguing, isn’t it? It is even more intriguing to know that there actually is a formula to take care of that:
1/(1-xt)nwhere:
x = the average number of blinks per second of a person
t = the camera’s shutter speed plus de duration of an average blink
n = the number of people in the group
A little bit complex, isn’t it? But here’s the rule (applicable to groups smaller than 20) condensed into an easy manner:
For this discovery, Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes won the 2006 [Ig Nobel prize] – an annual award that recognizes zany scientific research – in the mathematics category. You can read more about it [here]
Obviously, this rule does not apply to people that pathologically shut their eyes when pictures are taken of them, like Earl:
Now, I can’t for my life know what one would like an iBible for. I mean, if one is interested, you can always carry a print version of it. Why spend USD 60.00 (FOB Hong Kong… US Price might be something like USD 110.00) for something that can be had much cheaper? Better to give that money to charity.
They have finally done it. The ADSL monopoly company Prodigy (owned by the landline monopoly Telmex) here in Mexico have begun blocking VOIP services now. I have 2 Swedish VOIP accounts, both of which ceased to function as of today. Looking in the setup page for my PAP2, which handles both accounts, the equipment de-registers continually from the SIP servers. The system manages to register every 15 seconds, but just for a couple of seconds at a time. Talked with people that also have VOIP services, and they have the same problem.
Now, as they say – they are in their own right to block such services (they name VOIP specifically) that “compromise the quality” of the ADSL service. What does that mean, exactly? According to this, you can’t use the ADSL service for VPN:s either (another premium service from Telmex). Wouldn’t it be better to say in the user agreement that they can’t allow any competition, since Telmex themselves live off the phone conversations of other people and sell VPN services?
The biggest problem might not be the fact that they actually do this. The biggest problem is that there is no place to turn to. Mexican consumer advocate groups have no power basically, and Telmex have an excellent standing with the government, given that they have spent millions in restoring Mexico City’s old town, infrastructure projects, etc. So basically they can screw the consumer as long as they don’t screw the government. That sucks.
Now, Telmex/Prodigy are into starting to send TV through the Internet. They have already acquired the necessary licenses. Is their next step to make Youtube illegal? Will they slam down on anybody downloading movies / television content? I think Mr. Slim needs a better team of advisors regarding his IT strategies… Mr Carlos Slim already owns most of CompUSA (which is, as I heard, struggling), and of US Prodigy. He should sit down and see what he wants to do with the extreme power that comes with purveying 80% of all Internet infrastructure to Mexicans.
It has caused quite a bit of a stir at ALT1040 Mexico’s (?) most prominent tech blog. Read [here]
…sounds like the bad (or good?) title of a porn movie… but this is what the Democrats offer as their main candidates for the presidential election. Hillary Clinton has officially proclaimed her candidacy, as has Barack Obama (today, actually). Both of them seem to be good people… I mean, look at the two dumbnuts the US have right now as prez. and vp. “Dumb and Dumber?” Darn. Anything would be better than that, wouldn’t it? Whichever of these 2 win the official presidential nomination, I sincerely hope they beat the republicans’ asses.
Somebody had the idea to use a monochrome screen from a calculator (TI-84) to show video… the results? Interesting might be the word… read about it [here]
You can see on this picture, the quality we’re speaking of… btw, the image on the screen is from the movie Matrix.
A MAGAZINE report that says priests are not preaching what they are supposed to practise has enraged the Vatican.
L’Espresso reporter Riccardo Bocca says that what some priests tell Catholics in the confessional does not conform to church doctrine.Bocca visited 24 churches in five large Italian cities and confessed sins he’d never committed, or invented ethical dilemmas for the priest.
In one confessional, in Naples, he told the priest he felt guilty over his father’s death after the family allowed a doctor to secretly disconnect a respirator.
Though euthanasia is condemned by the church, he claims the priest told him not to worry too much because God would be the ultimate arbiter.
“If I had a wife, a father or a son who for years was alive only because of artificial life support, I would pull the plug, too,” said the priest, who then gave him absolution.
On homosexuality, one priest allegedly told him: “Well, homosexuality is a tendency which is a valid human expression. There are even homosexual priests and lesbian nuns.”
Apart from abortion, which all 24 priests condemned, he received conflicting advice on issues such as divorce, stem cell research and prostitution.
The author said the article tried to show the difficulties priests face, but the Vatican reacted with vehemence.
The Vatican’s newspaper, l’Osservatore Romano, said the report had profaned the sacrament of penance.
“Shame — there is no other word to express our shock over something that is disgusting, unworthy, disrespectful and particularly offensive,” the newspaper said.
REUTERS
Comment: Isn’t it time the church took a good look at where it stands? The world keeps evolving but they want to stay true to the “word” of more than 2000 years ago. It’s ridiculous… they are going to lose support and in the end alot more if they don’t take a look at their surroundings and act accordingly.
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is on a crusade against Mexico. Mexico president Felipe Calderón defended his economic policies in Davos last week, saying that he believes openness to foreign investments is way better than the nationalizing of industries, like they have done in Bolivia, Venezuela and Argentina (leftist regimes, all of them).
This really pissed Hugo Chavez off. He called Calderón a “small ignorant donkey” and that the reason the US is building a wall on the border is to avoid the “avalanche” of poor people from Mexico pouring in.
Chavez is a first class looney. A ruling was recently passed in the Venezuelan parlament (by coincidence, a vast majority of the parlament support him, since opposition parties didn’t participate in the last parlamentary elections), which gives Chavez during the next 18 months, the authority to pass laws by decree. Meaning, this first rate cuckoo can do whatever he pleases with his country. His first “decree” was to nationalize the power industry. The next is to nationalize all oil business.
Add to that his marxist views, and his living style which looks more like taken from “MTV Cribs” than anything else. He just bought a 65MUSD Airbus 319. He revels in expensive watches, cigars and clothes. All the while the poor people in Venezuela die of hunger.
It’s time for Mexico to step up the rethoric against these crazy people wanting to destabilize Latinamerica. He’s gonna fall by his own weight soon enough.
@BestBuyMexico Tienen algun plan de abrir tienda en Cuernavaca? Segun Expansion en 2009, tenian el plan de abrir 11 nuevas tiendas en Mexico
Peña Nieto sale a caminar y ve un pájaro de color azul: "Mira! Un Twitter!" #soyprole #LibreriaPeñaNieto
#Telmex has taken so far 12 days to move a phone line and an Internet line within city limits. Only phone is working so far. Telmex SUCKS