Another Manager in the Braves Farm System Goes Cuckoo
I’m not sure where the teams in the Braves farm system find their managers, but they sure pick some good ones.
Two years ago the Mississippi Braves (Class-AA) presented us with Phillip Wellman…
…and now the Rome Braves (Class-A) have given us Randy Ingle
Sure Ingle’s doesn’t throw the base or turn of the rosin bag into a grenade but hey its Class-A.
Italian swimmer has her suit rip (Yeah there)
In what has to be one of the most embarrassing swimsuit issues I’ve seen in a while (excluding losing your entire suit when diving in), Italian swimmer Flavia Zoccari had her suit tear in a rather unfortunate place causing her to be disqualified from a championship race at the Mediterranean games.
The Daily Mail comes through with the proof.
Two things
1. I hope Jaked, the maker of the suit and sponsor of the Italian team, is doing some heavy apologizing because one she missed the swim and two the suit costs 318 Euros.
2. Is it just me or does the official behind Zocarri look to be enjoying her misery quite a bit
Dell Sells Monitors Cheap – Too Cheap
Seems Dell is a little bit of a pickle in Taiwan. According to The Register the company mistakenly sold 140,000 monitor at the wrong price.
The company accidentally labeled 19-inch LCD monitors as costing NT$500 (US$15, £9), much lower than the actual price of NT$4,800 (US$148, £90). When Dell corrected the price and refused to honor the mistake price 471 people complained to the Taiwanese Consumer Protection Commission.
The Commission is now telling Dell they need to honor the pricing mistake for one monitor bought per person (discounts for any other ones bought). Should Dell choose not to follow through the Commission will consider it a violation of their fair trade laws and seek legal remedies.
Dell has been known to mislabel items on their site in the past, including a 1.5 TB external Hard Drive. About two years ago Slickdeals.net posted that Dell has the hard drive on sale for $67.99. I bought one only to have the item pulled and replaced with the right price. In my case Dell refused to honor the price citing a clause in their TOS allowing them to do so.
How-To Resolve Issues Installing Miro in Ubuntu 9.04
When I added the Miro repository to my sources.list file and ran an update I couldn’t install miro because the dependency “libtorrent-rasterbar2” couldn’t be met. Looking at synaptic I realized I had libtorrent-rasterbar4 installed, so I attempted to uninstall that and install version 2. When I attempted to uninstall 4 it said deluge was going to be uninstalled as well, which wasn’t something I was wanting to do.
A quick googling revealed the work-around:
- libtorrent-rasterbar4 isn’t in the Ubuntu repos, its added by the deluge team’s PPA. So edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file and comment out the deluge PPA.
- Uninstall libtorrent-rasterbar4 (which will take deluge with it)
- Install Miro
- Head over to getdeb and grab the deb file and install (or use the version in the ubuntu repos – 1.16 compared to getdeb’s 1.1.9)
Mad Dash Around Oklahoma County Courthouse
A man whose bond was denied last month bolted from an Oklahoma County courtroom, leading authorities on a chase across the building, deputies said.
Christopher Willis, 21, was in court on May 27 on charges of possessing a firearm while on supervised probation.
MLB: Watch Live Games on Your iPod…Maybe
I’m not a huge baseball fan, but every now and then I’ll turn on a game, so a while back I impulsively bought MLB at Bat 2009 (iTunes Link). The app is $10 but it’s worth the money for even the mildest of baseball fans, and the addition of live streaming games made it a most buy in my book. That is until I tried to actually watch a game.
The two games available per day are subject to blackouts, basically meaning no local games. Obviously the app needs to use geolocation to determine where you are and if you can watch the game. If you’re on an iPhone its simple, iPod Touches on the other hand don’t have GPS built in. From what I understand iPod Touches use Wi-Fi triangulation, using nearby networks to figure out your location, which in fine if you’re in a big city (say when I’m in Tulsa) where there are numerous other networks around you. It’s not so good when you’re in the suburbs or out in the middle of nowhere. I’m not in the middle of nowhere, but there are no other Wi-Fi networks around me to allow the app to determine my location. End result no live games for me.
So if you’re an iPod Touch user whose not in a big city (or don’t have networks near you) and are planning to buy the app to watch live video you might as well not. The app still has a ton of features and you can still watch recorded clips and listen to live game audio, but you’re SOL on the live video.
iPhone killing AT&T
AT&T the exclusive provider of the iPhone in the United States has racked up 7 million users since it’s launch in 2007. That’s good for the company’s bottom line, but the head of Nielson’s telecom research division says its bad for the network.
According to Roger Entner, the reason AT&T was not one of the carriers to offer tethering and MMS with the release of the iPhone 3G S and version 3 of the phone’s operating system, is because the network simply cannot handle the load.
Entner estimates that average iPhone users are using 400 megabytes of data a month, compared to normal Smartphone usage of 40 to 80 megabytes. Part of the reason for this is that the device constantly checks back with the AT&T network, making adjustments as necessary. The iPhone’s "chatty" nature is one reason it performs so well. But the back and forth also eats up a lot of network capacity.
AT&T is planning on upgrading its network to HSPA which according to the company will improve performance by four or fives times once its fully implemented in 2011 – and users buy a new phone. The iPhone 3G is not compatible with HSPA so users will need to buy a new phone to access the improved network.
Sounds to me like another reason to forbid exclusive contracts with companies and let people go where they want to go. Not only would it improve performance for all users of AT&T but it could mean iPhone users in the US can actually get features like tethering and MMS.
Drunk Town Councilwoman “I approve your salaries”
As Glastonbury councilwoman Barbara C. Wagner was being booked on DUI charges she had to remind the booking officers just whose in charge of approving their salaries:
"I approve your salaries. I approve your salaries," she says.
"Ma’am, that’s not really going to get you anywhere," an officer responds.
Wagner laughs and says, "I’m just kidding."
Wagner has subsequently released an apology to the police chief saying she was “"frightened, embarrassed and not thinking very clearly at the time." More:
"I would like to apologize to the Glastonbury Police Department if I engaged in any inappropriate conduct at the station. Obviously, the entire episode was inappropriate, and I deeply regret my conduct and can assure you that I’ve stayed out of trouble for my first 33 years living in Glastonbury up to now and hope to have several more decades to redeem myself.”
OHP releases Dashcam video of Police/Medic altercation
After initially refusing to release the dash cam version of the altercation between an Oklahoma Highway Patrolman and an EMT for the Creek Nation, the Highway patrol has decided to release the video. According to NewsOK the decision to release video was contrary to official procedure, and was done because of high public interest and that the video would not affect the internal review of the incident.
Both the officer, Jeff Martin, and the EMT, Maurice White Jr., have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the Okfuskee County District Attorney.
The dash cam video embedded below shows the initial confrontation between the ambulance and the patrol car, in which the patrolman says the ambulance failed to yield, as well as the full confrontation once the patrolman stopped the ambulance.
The earlier video of the incident was recorded by a relative of the patient being transported to the hospital and can be viewed below
Mattress and Life Savings Thrown Away
For anyone who remembers the classic episode of The Beverly Hillbillies were Granny decides to stuff her mattress full of money, this news story will remind you why that’s not a good idea.
One women in Israel accidentally threw out her mother’s old mattress after buying her a new one. What she did not know was that her mother was hiding her life savings, all 1 million dollars worth, in the mattress. So far the two have searched two landfills and have yet to find the mattress or the money, one landfill even had to keep workers over night to help fend off treasure hunters.
The BBC quotes the daughter as saying "People have to take everything in proportion and thank God for the good and the bad," but did not receive a comment from her mother.