UrbanNerd.com

Because someone asked, here is the scoop on the scooter block party in NYC:

It is June 10&11. I am coordinating the planning for the block party, I have put up an initial page with info on the New York Scooter Club site, so go over and take a look. Within a week this page will be GREATLY expanded, as a bunch of information is in the process of being finalized. So expect a basic schedule up there, as well as a not-yet-confirmed vendor list.

Check it out here & buy yours today!

For those of you who don’t already know, comic book related movies are the hottest commidity in the the movie making industry today. There were a handful of comic inspired movies made early on, with the practically straight to video “Captain America” in 1991, and “The Punisher” starring Dolph Lundgren in 1989 that tested the waters, but had hardly any success.

Then along came “Spiderman” and with this visually stunning and an exciting and inventive script, the flood gates opened. Every studio scrambled to pick up a franchise or two.

2006, and 2007 are no different. There will be somewhere in the range 17 comic related movies comming out, or have been announced. In no particular order:

Ghost RiderTrailer
Spiderman 3
X-Men 3 Trailer
Superman Returns Trailer
V for Vendetta Trailer
Witchblade
Iron Man
Sin City 2
The Punisher 2
Wolverine

Just to name a few. I have added links to the movies trailer for those who have them listed in “bold” print. These are the ones that I am most interested in, and as they are released, I will reveiw them for the site.

Motocycle News writes the following article about an alarm made specifically for the GT & GTS. I am not a big fan of alarms, and I am not sure how available this product is in the US. I am a much bigger fan of the idea of using lojack for your scooter.

If you own a Vespa scooter, then you’ll be keen to keep it. And the Italian firm has brought out a simple-to-fit aftermarket alarm for the top-selling GT and GTS models.

The Electronic Alarm is operated via a key fob, and the siren will sound for 30 seconds if the alarm is triggered. It’s designed to protect people trying to remove parts, start the bike, or disable the arlam by cutting the power supply.

As it’s a Vespa product it can be plugged directly into the wiring loom without the need to cut wires or solder anything. An electronic key and PIN over-ride are built into the system in case you rebak or lose the key fob.

A marching band begins to play. The United Newsreel logo, an eagle in a martial pose, flickers onto the black-and-white screen. Bold letters proclaim: “Nazi War Plants Blasted by R.A.F. in Night Raids.”

This is a World War II era newsreel, one of 100 historic videos retrieved from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and posted Friday on Google Video. The content represents the first fruits of a joint project aimed at putting as much of the National Archives’ video content as possible online.

In this first batch are dozens of newsreels, films on the early 1930s park service, and National Air and Space Administration documentaries on space travel. A must-see includes Orson Welles reading from H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” before discussing the likelihood of extraterrestrial life “beyond the petty surface of our own minute sphere.”

Google Video product manager Peter Chane said the company is working in stages to put as many as possible of the National Archives’ 114,000 film reels and 37,000 videos online.

“This is a tremendous resource of history and knowledge, and we want to expose that to viewers worldwide,” Chane said.

The digitization of long-unseen archival footage has been under way for years, but Google’s nonexclusive deal with the National Archives will likely provide a vast, new swath of material for history buffs, educators and filmmakers.

All of the material is in the public domain, Chane said. That means it can be used or shown elsewhere without paying copyright holders.

Other video services online, including most notably the Internet Archive, also offer a wide range of newsreels and video content ranging across the last 100 years.

Source

I am a big Howard Stern fan. I was very excited when he went to Sirius Satellite Radio. However, once I got satellite I realized the limitations of the technology. Without a window, there is just no chance of reception. I used to listen to Howard’s show on a small iriver FM radio/mp3 player that I could wear around my neck. I would even put the earbuds in so that I could listen on my way into work while riding my Vespa. Then once I got to my desk (without window access in a large office building) I could continue to listen without disturbing others. With satellite, neither of these things is really possible. So I got creative!

I recently purchased (in December) a Pocket PC 6700 from Sprint. I switched from TMobile to Sprint because I was tired of waiting for them to have cool devices & I was also tired of waiting for high speed internet access on handheld devices. Sprint had EVDO & they were the first to have a windows mobile 5.0 device. The Pocket PC 6700 has been a dream to own, I have been using the device to surf the net, get email, post here, pay games, you name it!

So here is how I solved my dilemma: I installed Skype on my Pocket PC with one account, and installed Skype on my PC with another account. I set my PS’s Skype account to auto answer. I jacked my satellite radio into the mic jack on my pc. Viola! I now use my phone’s internet connection (which I pay a flat fee for) to dial up skype & listen to the show. I can even do this while riding on my Vespa into work! The other benefit is that is it off my employer’s network when I get into work. I am not choking their traffic & they are not tracking me.

The one caveat that you should be aware of is that this will drain your battery fairly quickly unless you configure your phone correctly. For instance, because I use the device so much, I have already set the screen backlight to it’s lowest level, and it auto shuts off no matter whether it is plugged in or not (this is a huge power saver, trust me). Also, I do plug the device into my computer’s USB connection when I get into work, other wise it will go dead in about 3 hours or less.

One other note, folks have asked me: why don’t I just stream the show out via windows media or shoutcast or something similar? The reason why is not a technological limitation of the Device, but rather partially legal and partially ease of use. Legally speaking, I don’t want anyone else picking up on a stream I have going over the Internet of Howard’s show. And, in terms of ease of use, I was able to set this entire thing up in 20 minutes. I love technology 

This week we will deal with

- How to make a profit from deposit bonuses
- How to win consistently by following the 80/20 rule

- How to make a profit from deposit bonuses

Poker sites usually offer deposit bonuses of 20-25% about once per month. This means if you deposit $100, you get an extra $20-$25 for free as long as you see the required number of hands. The number of required hands is usually 6-7 times the deposit bonus amount. For example, to earn a deposit bonus of $20, you must see between 120-140 hands. The EASIEST way to make money is to deposit the maximum amount for the maximum deposit bonus AND play the 1/ 2 limit tables very tight. For example, if the maximum deposit bonus of 20% is $100, then you should deposit $500. Then you have to see 700 hands at the 1/ 2 limit tables in order to earn the $100 bonus. As long as you play very tight, you can come out even on the tables and still make $100!

Many different poker sites offer this monthly deposit bonus, which means you can do it every month for every site and make more than $500 per month without much risk. Pacific Poker is the ONLY site that offers an instant bonus of 25% up to $100 for new players. This means that as soon as you deposit $400 in a new player account, you get $100 added to your account without playing a single hand!

- How to win consistently by following the 80/20 rule

In the game of online poker, 20% of the players win 80% of the profits in the long term. The foundation of poker is the starting hand. In order to win consistently in a ring game (full table), you should see about 20% of the flops (+/- 2%). If you force yourself to see 20% of the flops, you will find yourself playing very tight with premium starting hands. Below is a quick chart to help you rank starting hands.

Group 0: AA KK (Always raise pre-flop)
Group 1: QQ JJ AKs (Always raise pre-flop)
Group 2: TT AK AQs AJs KQs (Always 2 bet/call)
Group 3: AQ 99 ATs KJs QJs KTs (Late position, Use judgment)
Group 4: 88 AJ KQ QTs A9s JTs AT A8s (Late position, Use judgment)
Group 5: KJ 77 QJ KT QT JT A7s K9s Q9s T9s J9s (Late position, Use judgment)
Group 6: 66 55 44 33 22 A5s A6s A4s A3s A2s (Late position, Use judgment)
Group 7: A9 K9 98s 87s 76s Kxs(?) T8s(?) 97s(?) 86s(?) 54s(?)

Next weeks column will deal with “Making More Money through Multi-tabling”.
Until then, money won is better then money earned!

TORONTO (Reuters) - A small Canadian university has ruled out campus-wide wireless Internet access because its president fears the system’s electromagnetic forces could pose a risk to students’ health.

Lakehead University, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, has only a limited Wi-Fi connections at present, in places where there is no fiber-optic Internet connection. And that, according to president Fred Gilbert, is just fine.

“The jury is still out on the impact that electromagnetic forces have on human physiology,” Gilbert told a university meeting last month, insisting that university policy would not change while he remained president.

“Some studies have indicated that there are links to carcinogenetic occurrences in animals, including humans, that are related to energy fields associated with wireless hotspots, whether those hotspots are transmissions lines, whether they’re outlets, plasma screens, or microwave ovens that leak.”

Lakehead University published a transcript of Gilbert’s remarks on its Web site. Spokeswoman Eleanor Abaya said the decision not to expand the university’s few isolated wireless networks was a “personal decision” by Gilbert.

But the president’s stance has prompted a backlash from students and from Canadian health authorities, who say his fears are overdone.

Full Article

Chinese-Korean relations have their ups and downs, but it’s been a long time since they resorted to violence to settle scores.

However, in cyberspace South Korean gamers are ganging up to obliterate the Chinese, whom they view as greedy and rude.

“If we don’t kill the Chinese they will grow up to harm Korean players,” wrote Fifth Finger, a Lineage player, on the game’s message board. “They’re just logging on to Korean servers to make money.”

South Korea is a pioneer in the online gaming market, which is led by NCSoft, the maker of games including Lineage, Guild Wars and City of Heroes.

In Lineage, which has more than 3m subscribers, players in the form of knights, wizards and elves chase monsters who drop money and other valuable items that increase players’ strength, such as swords and medicine. These items can be sold for real money through online trading sites.

However, there is an etiquette to be followed: players interact along the way, but you are not supposed to take things dropped by someone else’s monster.

Many young Chinese are joining South Korean matches because that is where the most items are traded and where the most money can be earned. But players say they do not follow the unwritten rules.

“They enjoy the game and they think Korea is cool and they also like earning a little money,” says Sunny Choi, a South Korean gamer who speaks Chinese. “But they don’t understand the manners so Koreans are killing them - it’s a tragedy.”

Full article here

Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.

The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger’s cat to hit “Run”.

With the right set-up, the theory suggested, the computer would sometimes get an answer out of the computer even though the program did not run. And now researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have improved on the original design and built a non-running quantum computer that really works.

Full Article