Daniel Askill – WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE

via vimeo.com

this just blew my mind…..

Lithuania from 1960s-1970s

My family’s home country, Lithuania, in the 60’s and 70’s

Category: History, Photos, Russian Art, Russian People |

Those are photos from Lithuania when it was a part of Soviet Russia. All the photos made in the time period of 1960s-1970s but what’s most touching people on those photos look almost like they look like now.

via photographer.ru

NASA -beautiful photo of final night time shuttle launch

via nasa.gov

Watching History Unfold
Guests look on from the terrace of Operations Support Building II as space shuttle Endeavour launches on the shuttle program’s last planned night launch. Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39A to begin the STS-130 mission early Monday, Feb. 8, 2010. Mission STS-130 will deliver a third connecting module, the Italian-built Tranquility node and a seven-windowed cupola, which will be used as a control room for robotics, to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers

Whose Fault is Snowmageddon?

in other news, today Republicans in Washington were quick to blame President Obama for the epic record-breaking “Snowmageddon” snowstorm, angrily proclaiming, ‘we never had this much snow in Washington when we had white presidents!’

 

Karl Rove’s first post-divorce date was a hair-raising rouser and he stopped off at this market for an early-morning snack.

via cache.gawker.com

Karl Rove’s first post-divorce date was a hair-raising rouser and he stopped off at this market for an early-morning snack.

First Month Nexus One Sales Slow, Says Analytics Group

LG Voyager, HTC Touch, BlackBerry Bold, Samsung Omnia, Sony Ericsson Xperia, BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre, BlackBerry Storm 2, Motorola Droid, Google’s rebadged HTC Nexus One…Who wants to challenge iPhone Next?! GIVE IT UP, LOSERS!

By Scott Morrison, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- Google Inc. (GOOG) sold about 80,000 Nexus One mobile phones in its first month on the market, roughly one-eighth the number of units the original Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhone sold in its debut month, according to analytics group Flurry Inc.

The slow sales figures highlight the challenges Google faces as it attempts to establish a new model for pricing, marketing and distributing mobile phones. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet giant broke with conventional sales models when it launched its smartphone, saying it would sell the unit directly to consumers without a cell phone company contract.

Nexus One sales appear to have been steady week over week during its first month, according to Flurry’s analysis. The company made its estimates by measuring mobile applications usage and then extrapolating overall ownership.

By contrast, Apple’s iPhone got off to a very strong start when it debuted in mid-2007, selling an estimated 600,000 units in its first month, according to Flurry. Apple announced it sold 1 million iPhones during the first 76 days they were on sale.

via nasdaq.com

The Great Knickerbocker Snowstorm of 1922

86 years ago today, the big one hit…

Digging out during the record-breaking Knickerbocker snowstorm, January 28, 1922. From NOAA Library.

When I was a young kid back in the 1970s there was a neighbor we called “Old Man Bean” who would tell us stories about an amazing snowstorm that produced drifts over 10′, stopped the trains between Manassas and Clifton, Virginia, and collapsed the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater. His stories made an impression on me as a kid and fueled my interest in weather, particularly big snowstorms. Many years later, I researched the Knickerbocker Snowstorm, which still ranks as D.C.’s single largest snowstorm.

Crandall’s Knickerbocker Theatre on the morning after its roof collapsed under the weight of a 28-inch snowfall, January 29, 1922. From Washingtonian Division, D.C. Public Library.

The Knickerbocker Snowstorm began during the evening of January 27, 1922 and by the morning of January 28, the snow total had reached 18 inches. By mid-afternoon, the accumulation reached a depth of 25 inches. The snow did not stop until the morning of January 29, with an official snow depth of 28 inches, a single storm snowfall record for Washington, D.C. that still stands today. A snow depth of 33 inches was measured in Rock Creek Park, three miles to the north of Washington’s official weather station at that time. Temperatures were in the low-to-mid-20’s during most of the storm and the liquid total of the snowfall was 3.02 inches.

The snowfall map of the Washington, D.C. area after the Knickerbocker Snowstorm.

The weight of the record-breaking snow collapsed the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre. The roof of the theater fell on scores of moviegoers, killing 98 and injuring 133. The disaster ranks as one of the worst in Washington’s history.

Inside the Knickerbocker Theater after the roof collapsed. From the Library of Congress.

The storm responsible for the record snowfall formed east of South Carolina on the morning of January 27 and moved slowly north to a position well east of Cape Hatteras on the morning of January 28. It then drifted slowly east-northeast out to sea. A stationary high-pressure system north of New York State ensured that temperatures remained cold throughout the event.

The climatological data for January 1922 shows a month that was not unusual, outside of the massive snowstorm. On January 5, 1922, the temperature reached 62 and on January 20 the temperature reached 53. There was a very short cold wave on January 13 when the high temperature only reached 30. Overall, it was not a very wintry month, aside from the Knickerbocker Snowstorm. More information about the snowstorm can be found in the book, “Washington Weather.”

By Kevin Ambrose |  January 28, 2008; 10:30 AM ET Photography
Previous: Forecast: Warming Up but Not Warm | Next: CommuteCast: Clear and Warmer

via voices.washingtonpost.com

Steve Jobs is a FRAUD!!!

To everyone who hates the iPad, and most importantly, STEVE JOBS:

You’re so right. This guy is such a fraud. Has anyone ever had a worse 10 year run as CEO of company? I mean first that iPod….I mean, no thanks, I’ll keep my Nomad, thank you very much. The iPhone? What a joke that thing is…my Treo can access the internet and check email too…epic fail on that one. And his timing on things? Awful. I mean, he came out with an mp3 player like 3 years after the first one on the market and the iphone was so late to the smartphone game that it will never do well. There’s a reason why companies like Dell will always be bigger and more profitable than Apple, so stop trying Steve.

And I mean, I can recall even more blunders by this idiot. Remember that original iMac that no one bought? He put USB in those things and removed the floppy drive!!!! Epic fail right there. OS X? Huge mistake. Just give me my beige box because the rest of the industry is more concerned with horsepower than aesthetics…do you think Dell would ever come out with a laptop that sacrifices some power for design appeal? And if they did, I bet they wouldn’t charge a premium for it.

You’re so right about this guy…no one even pays attention to this company anymore. Looking at your previous posts, its clear you never think about Apple or Steve Jobs, like the rest of us don’t. After this past earnings quarter, I’m wondering why Apple hasn’t ousted their entire management team….these people are completely out of touch with what the public wants.

So yes, the noose is getting tighter on Steve Jobs….he’s up against the wall over there at Apple, if this product performs like the last few consumer products they’ve introduced or if they have another quarter like their last one, I’m looking for heads to roll. Incompetence can only last for so long.

via engadget.com

To all the iPad Bashers – We remember what you said about the iPhone!

Go ahead and bash away at the iPad, folks. We still remember all the stuff you said about the iPhone, which has taken the world by storm since! Bash away all you like, and we’ll post your iPad bashes in a few years just for the fun of embarrassing you yet AGAIN. cheers!

• “[iPhone] just doesn’t matter anymore. There are now alternatives to the iPhone, which has been introduced everywhere else in the world. It’s no longer a novelty.” – Eamon Hoey, Hoey and Associates, April 30, 2008

• “We are not at all worried. We think we’ve got the one mobile platform you’ll use for the rest of your life. [Apple] are not going to catch up.” – Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft Mobile Communications Group Product Manager, April 01, 2008

• “Microsoft, with Windows Mobile/ActiveSync, Nokia with Intellisync, and Motorola with Good Technology have all fared poorly in the enterprise. We have no reason to expect otherwise from Apple.” – Peter Misek, Canaccord Adams analyst, March 07, 2008

• “[Apple should sell 7.9 million iPhones in 2008]… Apple’s goal of selling 10 million iPhones this year is optimistic.” – Toni Sacconaghi, Bernstein Research analyst, February 22, 2008

• “What does the iPhone offer that other cell phones do not already offer, or will offer soon? The answer is not very much… Apple’s stated goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 seems ambitious.” – Laura Goldman, LSG Capital, May 21, 2007

• Motorola’s then-Chairman and then-CEO Ed Zander said his company was ready for competition from Apple’s iPhone, due out the following month. “How do you deal with that?” Zander was asked at the Software 2007 conference. Zander quickly retorted, “How do they deal with us?” – Ed Zander, May 10, 2007

• “The iPhone is going to be nothing more than a temporary novelty that will eventually wear off.” – Gundeep Hora, CoolTechZone Editor-in-Chief, April 02, 2007

• “Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone… What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a ‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures… Otherwise I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see.” – John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, March 28, 2007

• “Even if [the iPhone] is opened up to third parties, it is difficult to see how the installed base of iPhones can reach the level where it becomes a truly attractive service platform for operator and developer investment.” – Tony Cripps, Ovum Service Manager for Mobile User Experience, March 14, 2007

• “I’m more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular… iPhone may well become Apple’s next Newton.” – David Haskin, Computerworld, February 26, 2007

• “There’s an old saying — stick to your knitting — and Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer, that’s not their knitting… I think people overreacted to it — there was not a lot of tremendously new stuff if you think about it.” – Greg Winn, Telstra’s operations chief, February 15, 2007

• “Consumers are not used to paying another couple hundred bucks more just because Apple makes a cool product. Some fans will buy [iPhone], but for the rest of us it’s a hard pill to swallow just to have the coolest thing.” – Neil Strother, NPD Group analyst, January 22, 2007

• “I can’t believe the hype being given to iPhone… I just have to wonder who will want one of these things (other than the religious faithful)… So please mark this post and come back in two years to see the results of my prediction: I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008.” – Richard Sprague, Microsoft Senior Marketing Director, January 18, 2007

• “The iPhone’s willful disregard of the global handset market will come back to haunt Apple.” – Tero Kuittinen, RealMoney.com, January 18, 2007

• “[Apple's iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine… So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.” – Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, January 17, 2007

• “The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant… Apple is unlikely to make much of an impact on this market… Apple will sell a few to its fans, but the iPhone won’t make a long-term mark on the industry.” – Matthew Lynn, Bloomberg, January 15, 2007

• “iPhone which doesn’t look, I mean to me, I’m looking at this thing and I think it’s kind of trending against, you know, what’s really going, what people are really liking on, in these phones nowadays, which are those little keypads. I mean, the Blackjack from Samsung, the Blackberry, obviously, you know kind of pushes this thing, the Palm, all these… And I guess some of these stocks went down on the Apple announcement, thinking that Apple could do no wrong, but I think Apple can do wrong and I think this is it.” – John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, January 13, 2007

• “I am pretty skeptical. I don’t think [iPhone] will meet the fantastic predictions I have been reading. For starters, while Apple basically established the market for portable music players, the phone market is already established, with a number of major brands. Can Apple remake the phone market in its image? Success is far from guaranteed.” – Jack Gold, founder and principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, January 11, 2007

• “Apple will launch a mobile phone in January, and it will become available during 2007. It will be a lovely bit of kit, a pleasure to behold, and its limited functionality will be easy to access and use. The Apple phone will be exclusive to one of the major networks in each territory and some customers will switch networks just to get it, but not as many as had been hoped. As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiating a better subsidy, sales will stagnate. After a year a new version will be launched, but it will lack the innovation of the first and quickly vanish. The only question remaining is if, when the iPod phone fails, it will take the iPod with it.” – Bill Ray, The Register, December 26, 2006

• “The economics of something like [an Apple iPhone] aren’t that compelling.” – Rod Bare, Morningstar analyst, December 08, 2006

• “Apple is slated to come out with a new phone… And it will largely fail…. Sales for the phone will skyrocket initially. However, things will calm down, and the Apple phone will take its place on the shelves with the random video cameras, cell phones, wireless routers and other would-be hits… When the iPod emerged in late 2001, it solved some major problems with MP3 players. Unfortunately for Apple, problems like that don’t exist in the handset business. Cell phones aren’t clunky, inadequate devices. Instead, they are pretty good. Really good.” – Michael Kanellos, CNET, December 07, 2006

• “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” – Ed Colligan, Palm CEO, November 16, 2006

via macdailynews.com

iPad About « The New Adventures of Stephen Fry

iPad About

By Stephen Fry
January 28th, 2010

iPad About

Well bless my soul and whiskers. This is the first time I’ve joined the congregation at the Church of Apple for a new product launch. I’ve watched all the past ones, downloaded the Quicktime movies and marvelled as Apple’s leader has stood before an ovating faithful and announced the switch to Intel, the birth of iPod, the miniMac, the iTunes Store, OS X, iPhoto, the swan’s neck iMac, the Shuffle, Apple retail stores, the iPhone, the titanium powerbook, Garageband, the App Store and so much more. But today I finally made it. I came to San Francisco for the launch of the iPad. Oh, happy man.

Today had special resonance. In front of his family, friends and close colleagues stood the man who founded Apple, was fired from Apple and came back to lead Apple to a greatness, reach and influence that no one on earth imagined. But a year ago, it is now clear, there was a very strong possibility that Steve Jobs would not live to see 2010 and the birth of his newest baby.

With revenues of 15.6 billion Apple is now the largest mobile device company in the world, Jobs told the subdued but excited six hundred packed into the Yerba Buena Cultural Center for the Arts Theatre this morning. A few more triumphant housekeeping notes followed and then we were into the meat of it. Well, the whole event is available to be watched online, you don’t need me to describe it. He picked up an iPad and walked us through. Afterwards I was allowed to play with one myself.

I know there will be many who have already taken one look and pronounced it to be nothing but a large iPhone and something of a disappointment. I have heard these voices before. In June 2007 when the iPhone was launched I collected a long list of “not impressed”, “meh”, “big deal”, “style over substance”, “it’s all hype”, “my HTC TyTN can do more”, “what a disappointment”, “majorly underwhelmed” and similar reactions. They can hug to themselves the excuse that the first release of iPhone was 2G, closed to developers and without GPS, cut and paste and many other features that have since been incorporated. Neither they, nor I, nor anyone, predicted the “game-changing” effect the phone would so rapidly have as it evolved into a 3G, third-party app rich, compass and GPS enabled market leader. Even if it had proved a commercial and business disaster instead of an astounding success, iPhone would remain the most significant release of its generation because of its effect on the smartphone habitat. Does anybody seriously believe that Android, Nokia, Samsung, Palm, BlackBerry and a dozen others would since have produced the product line they have without the 100,000 volt taser shot up the jacksie that the iPhone delivered to the entire market?

Nonetheless, even if they couldn’t see that THREE BILLION apps would be downloaded in 2 years (that’s half a million app downloads a day, give or take ) could they not see that this device was gorgeous, beautifully made, very powerful and capable of development into something extraordinary? I see those qualities in the iPad. Like the first iPhone, iPad 1.0 is a John the Baptist preparing the way of what is to come, but also like iPhone 1.0 (and Jokanaan himself too come to that) iPad 1.0 is still fantastic enough in its own right to be classed as a stunningly exciting object, one that you will want NOW and one that will not be matched this year by any company. In the future, when it has two cameras for fully featured video conferencing, GPS and who knows what else built in (1080 HD TV reception and recording and nano projection, for example) and when the iBook store has recorded its 100 millionth download and the thousands of accessories and peripherals that have invented uses for iPad that we simply can’t now imagine – when that has happened it will all have seemed so natural and inevitable that today’s nay-sayers and sceptics will have forgotten that they ever doubted its potential.

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via stephenfry.com