Contrary to popular belief, oil and water do mix - you just have to add enough dispersant.
I'm really pissed-off that the government said stop using dispersants and a foreign company had enough clout to say "fuck you".

Greenpeace recently marked the 25 year anniversary of the sinking of The Rainbow Warrior by French Agents.

A new Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior lll is being built at a Gdansk shipyard, and Greenpeace is actively fund-raising. Here's a link to their site:http://www.greenpeace.org/international/...

Seems the BBC News will sometimes feature items other than the eternal conflict in Africa. I came across this little story on their site about a new Indian-designed Tablet PC, aptly nick-named the IPad - (IndiaPad ?) - that they hope will retail for the paltry sum of $35.00.

India has made similar announcements in the past without delivering on promises, but the promise in itself is worth the while.

Like most people, I've followed the news about the BP Gulf Oil-spill since the Deepwater-Horizon oil well exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico.
The flow of oil into the Gulf has finally stopped, and having watched several million gallons of perfectly good oil escaping into the Gulf I'm left to wonder: Why was this well "abandoned"?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/07/gulf-awash-abandoned-oil-gas-wells/

Kickstarter Beta is new internet based service that enables project creators to gain financial pledges for their creative endeavors, and allows interested individuals and parties to back creative projects.

Kickstarter is fund-raising with a twist – and an inteligent way to gauge interest in your project.

Is Facebook a monetized Wikipedia pretender?
Facebook is a Cash-cow. Nothing more, nothing less. Facebook presents itself as something Wiki-like, a "public" institution. But is it, at all?

The issue with Flash-Cookies is not whether they be good or bad - for the most part they're a helpful tool - but the fact that many companies are using them semi-clandestinely, knowing that most users have no clue that "flash-cookies" exist and persist on their computers.

To check how many Flash-cookies are on your computer – and there's probably a lot – go to Macromedia Settings Manager and scroll through the list.
To control Flash-Cookies get the BetterPrivacy Plug-in for Firefox, or, if you're not using Firefox, use Adobe's Macromedia Settings Manager.

Original Report at: Social Science Research Network
So you think you cleared the Cookie cache on your browser? They're not tracking you? Think again! The insidious tracking of web users' activities reaches new levels of sophistication every year. The current favorite of some of the web-giants is the Flash-cookie. Modern browsers come equipped with privacy controls to protect users from the prying eyes of commercial and institutional interests. Yet, every time software vendors implement new security and privacy features, web companies find newer, more sophisticated ways of circumventing those protections. To wit - Flash-Cookies.

Are "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" based "Learn To Get Rich" seminars a rip-off, or just a way to see your fellow man as a sucker and think that it's normal to do so?

Ever heard of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter?
It's not a new book, it was published some ten years ago, has been widely read, and, for most part, was well received.

The book was so successful that Kiyosaki licenced his name to Whitney International, to be used in a series of financial self-help seminars and workshops.

These seminars have come under fire as nothing more than sales sessions designed to up-sell more expensive seminars and workshops in which nothing of real value is taught or learned.

CBC's Marketplace took a closer look at the current series of 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' based "Learn to get Rich" seminars which are being hosted throughout major Canadian cities. The report is less than favorable.

Photo by NeoSpire@FlickrThe WorldWideWeb is a very public place. Information about its users is one of the most valued commodities for companies looking to profit by it.
Modern operating systems and web-browsers matured to keep pace with the evolving nature of the Internet, and so have the data-miners who are always watching and tracking our movements and interactions on the web.

Panopticlick is a new web app recently launched by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to help us gain a clearer understanding of how we're being tracked and recorded as we surf the web.

A similar story about this subject at CBS

This weeks technology buzz is focused almost entirely on Apple's new iPad. Rants, critiques, raves, and reviews – it's even in the national news. What a great scam! How many other companies' products are featured on prime-time news? Few if not none. Well, this week the trumpets heralded the arrival of the new iPad, (the 21st Century's answer to the Etch-a-Sketch).
And what was the great fanfare about? Is it some revolutionary new technology? A new "killer-app" that will shave hours off' your work day, or an entirely new way of accessing the burgeoning Internet information super-highway?
No, it's none of the above. The single most interesting news about the iPad is that it will retail at prices starting as low as $499.00.
Bam! There it is! You can acquire this marvelous new piece of the Apple-tosh techno-toy for a mere $499.00.
Here's a quote from Peter Jeffrey's most excellent Wall Street Journal write-up: