Book Of Norm

Read on.. Welcome to Woot. Skip straight to the content or let us know if anything on our site can be improved to further meet your accessibility needs. Polaroid i1035 10MP Digital Camera with 3” LCD $59.99 + $5 shipping Condition: New Product: 1 Polaroid i1035 Black 10MP Digital Camera with 3” LCD I Want One! Discussion on Today's Woot Unmissed Connections Hi Stephanie! Andy here, from high school! Can you believe it’s been 18 years since we graduated? Those were some wild times, huh? Isn’t the Internet amazing? I spent all those years tr...

American Revolutionaries -> Manifest Destiny -> Slaves/Abolitionists -> Abraham Linconln (=Obama in previous life) -> Suffragettes -> the Labor Movement -> the Greatest Generation -> the Civil Rights Movement -> Himself.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Prime Ribbing Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things With Demetri Martin Funny Political News Joke of the Day

"And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." -Pres Obama in his State of the Union Address It would make a lot of sense.. if he were the President of Germany.. Go Mercedes go..

AT&T is pulling the Quickfire from the market... And yes.. this should be too good to be true... They are pulling it because if you put the charger in the wrong way, it catches fire.. amazing.

No I'm not crazy. And no - this is not some 3rd party adapter with 26 different attachments which let you try and find the charger for your phone that was made only on full moon nights between September 2007 and April 2008, and only availble in three retail locations. Ok, its not usually that bad, but a much much better world is coming. 17 major cellphone manufacturers have agreed on the micro-USB standard for chargers after 2012. The only major player not to agree is Apple. This is amazing, changing the course of history absolutely fantastic news. How it did not make national headlines I dont know. What we will be looking at is an era of standardized, cheap, replaceable, interchangeable cellphone chargers. I dont know about anyone else, but I am very very excited (partly as I tend to be somewhat forgetfull with my charger..) With so much weight behind the standard, I would bet that it becomes common for other devices to adopt micro-USB as well.

BWM has determined there is a market for people with regular 3-series who want everyone else to think they have an M3. Its called desperate style biting idiots, and BMW wants to please them. It has decided to whore out the M badge, selling $3-5,000 kits that give you "upgraded suspension" and a bunch of M badges on your car. Wow. All I can say is what a friggin stupid idea if you want to preserve the value to those customers actually looking for a real M3. A sign of the times I suppose that BMW has sunk so low (and that is low).

The largest shakeup in the history of the automotive world continues. The latest news from the front is that Saturn dealers are looking to buy the brand from GM - but the brand only, not any manufacturing capacity. When GM cuts off the models in 2011, Saturn would look for "future vehicles that match the Saturn Brand: fuel-efficient, safe, reliable and affordable." "Boring, plastic, and overpriced" actually fits the original Saturn better, while "Direct copies of European cars" fits the new Saturn. That said, there is something pretty sweet about Saturn's "no hassle" approach, and "tag price" shopping. With one Chinese car company already testing selling cars through Home Depot and other big-box retailers in Mexico (I'm serious), this could be a very good fit for a Chinese or Indian car company (or consortium of companies) looking to gain a massive distribution foothold in the US - and they offer cheap and quirky, which seems to...

Technical chart describing the modern functioning of the supply/demand interaction. Highly academic, but an interesting read:

The solar powered headlamp. I am not kidding. For sale at amazon. See larger image Share your own customer images EverLite Solar Headlamp Other products by EVERLITE 2 Reviews 5 star : (2) 4 star : (0) 3 star : (0) 2 star : (0) 1 star : (0) See all 2 customer reviews... ( 2 customer reviews ) | More about this product ...

I like looking at cars on ebay and craigslist. Every once in a while you come across a real gem. Like this: I NEED TO BUY A 300ZX 3000GT PRELUDE OR .....IDK WAT U HAVE? - $4 (STOUGHTON) Reply to: sale-1040929056@craigslist.org [ ? ] Date: 2009-02-19, 12:42AM EST I NEED A BLOWN MOTOR TRANNY OR WAT EVER 300ZX 3000GT PRELUDE OR THE ONE IN UR DRIVE WAY THAT TAKING SPACE 781 975 6040 All I can say is.. wow.

It has been confirmed that as the two subs were both just running passive sonar (the online story I read mistakenly called this 'for navigation') they ran into each other because they could not see each other. In fact, the French had no idea they hit a sub until they returned to port 3 days later: they thought they hit a cargo container. Just to point out exactly what is going on here - boomers are designed to be very very quiet, and the best way of doing that is moving slow. Both ships were just crawling along. Then, there are two types of sonar: passive and active. Passive = a fancy microphone for listening to the water and figuring out where stuff is. Works really well for boat and biologicals, not so well for other subs. Active = echolocation, with lots of pinging that no sub can hide from. The downside to active is it makes a ton of noise, tells the enemy where you are... and it kills whales (which is sad). Navigation is actually done by dead reckoning, with the occasional...

GM has canceled all high performance programs. The current models will stick around, but no more engineering work is to be done. SS anything, dead (the ones that really make me sad are the new Cobalt SS, the traiblazer SS, and the lack of a Malibu SS) V-series Cadillacs, dead Camero - no SS? Because that would be really really really sad. The General had been rebuilding its hi-po credentials in recent years, and it had actually been getting somewhere. While some were total flops (I'm looking at you Monte Carlo SS and Impala SS) others were really good: the new CTS-V is amazing, the new Cobalt SS, amazing, and the old TrailBlazer SS, also amazing. Too bad they had to die. Also - why is it that CEO's cant take more that $500,000 in salary when hourly workers are not being forced by the govt. to make concessions at all (and gee whiz, I wonder which union should take the blame on this one). Yeah, random extra rant to top of the cake, but there it is.

Obama has now authorized a surge (but dont call it a surge) for Afghanistan. He states that the nation was neglected, we need to send more troops in, and it is the fault of the previous administration that things got this bad. At the same time, he is pushing ahead with pulling out of Iraq, where the surge worked and there have been huge advances in safety, security, and democracy. He is determined to make sure that we pull out whatever the cost, against the advice of every one of his top military commanders. All I can say is WTF WTF WTF! That does not make a damn bit of sense any way that you look at it other than the political move where a failure in Iraq = failure for Republicans/Bush, but he things he can make Afghanistan his own success BY DOING THE SAME DAMN THING THAT ALREADY WORKED IN IRAQ AND THAT HE IS TRYING TO UNDERMINE IN IRAQ. Plus, the whole damn point of his "out within 16mo" plan for Iraq was to "bring the troops home." Wasn't it? Am I crazy? Ins...

GM has released its viability plan, and along with it the fate of three 'non core' brands: Hummer, Saab, and Saturn. Hummer will be sold by March 31st - at least that is the plan. Probably one of the Indian companies will buy it or some such thing. Saab will be restructured and then sold as an independent company, kind of like what Ford is doing with Volvo. This hinges on about $6 billion from the Swedish govt. so there is a good chance is just ends up dead, which would be too bad. Saturn is officially naga, naga, nagonnaworkhereanymore. It will stick around until the end of its current lifecycle and then will be killed off unless some kind of groundswelling miracle saves the company (10 years ago, that might have happened, I dont think it will today). Which is really too bad, because it finally started making new cars (well.. importing Opels, but same thing). If there are firesale prices on Saturn Sky's count me in... one of the best looking cars on the road today:

North Korean missile test. North Korea is looking to test its TD-2 missile in the next few days. The missile could strike the west coast of the US with a chemical/biological warhead, or most of the Pacific (Hawaii, Guam, Japan) with a nuclear warhead. My immediate reaction was "shoot it down." I found out that in 2006, we had planned to do just that, but the missle failed just 100 seconds into its flight. Sadly, with his appeasment stance, Obama will not shoot down the missile. He has not put the interceptor crews on alert, and has not told them to shoot it down. Instead, a successful test will be a bargaining chip for N. Korea in their continued duplicity and manipulation through the 6 party talks. Amazingly, the only thing N. Korea has (its only viable export other than counterfeit US dollars) we are not pushing them on. Shoot it down, and then they might actually be more willing to talk. Prove that the US projection of power is nearly limitless (ok, not true, but its the i...

A bit stale by now, but the news is that a French and British sub collided in the Atlantic. What makes this interesting is that it was a French and British sub, and both were missile subs. The Brits and the French each just have only a few boomers - about 5 each. Both nations (espeically the UK) maintain a largeish fleet of attack subs, but most are the smaller diesel/electric kind popular with the Europeans. Two boomers colliding (and these are big boats - almost as big as the US Ohio class) is a rare event - I am not sure it has ever happened before. Boomers are designed to move very quietly at low speeds. Usually, subs have collided in the past when they were playing cat an mouse games tracking each other - the game was that US or Russian attack subs would wait outside of ports and try and pick up the other side's boomers and then follow them for their 6mo tour. Or b, find the boomer somewhere and tail it as long as you could. In this case, it was two allied (sadly, we could so ...

A while ago I posted this: "It is interesting that on Star Trek, most every race encountered seems to be bipedal, human shaped, and generally very similar in both ability and intelligence. My idea is that it is possible the level of intelligence does not vary greatly between advanced beings, though size and shape will vary widely. Then again... Following the model of evolution on earth, we know a few things to be true. The first is that intelligence only comes about when there is an evolutionary benefit: increasing survival and the size of the next generation. The second, and vital question, is at what point does evolution stop? And I believe that to be directly tied to the notion of a self-aware individual, no longer following instincts. It is of course more complex than that, level of support for all individuals must be relatively similar regardless of intelligence etc, but this is something which came about hundreds if not thousands of years ago for humans. At that point, there...

Jim brought this one to my attention: just how numb we have become to the idea of billions and trillions. Not so long ago, $100,000 was a fair chunk of change and a $50 million govt. bailout brought attention. Today $15 billion for automakers is chump change compared to $2 trillion for the financial world. Now, time for a little perspective: 1 million seconds equal 11 and 1/2 days. 1 billion seconds equal 31 and 3/4 years. 1 trillion seconds equal 31,710 years. Yeah. Its a very very big jump.

This is a classic piece of advertising... I am looking at marine additives for work, an area where there are a lot of dubious claims, and came across this gem: "Through the use of ACES liquid engineering technology produces abundant, upper cylinder lubricant replacing sulfur as the lubricant for injectors and injector pumps. Along with its many other benefits ACES eliminates valve wear by 360% and bore wear by 600%. " WOW. Not only does it get rid of 100% of your valve and bore wear, it liquid engineers you 2.6 new valves and 5 new cylinders!!! Now that is an amazing product..

Some of you probably know that I would like to live a long time. A very very long time. Which is why this discovery is just so damn cool: Get ready for eternal life and better sex: Russians scientists working on a Siberian mammoth graveyard have found unknown bacterium DNA which, according to preliminary lab results, effectively extends mice's life-as well as other things. According to Professor Anatoli Broushkov, their "set of tests and the results prove that simple organisms like fruit flies and mice live longer after being vaccinated with the ancient bacterium extract." Not only that, but the bacterium DNA super-vaccine actually increases mental alertness, physical capability, and sexual activity for both male and female mice. The females actually have had babies at an older age than usual: "Some elderly mice demonstrated a growth of physical, mental and sexual activity, while some females even had babies aged at the human equivalent of 70," said scient...

Darwin is a celebrated figure in the UK, he is even on the 10 pound note. That said, 43% of Brits still dont believe him, stating that they believe in the "young earth," alternately called the "I get my science by literally translating the bible and then shoving it down the throat of others" theory. In related news, 43% of brits also believe in the following: "When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be charged with any related duty. He shall be free at home one year, to be happy with the wife whom he has married." (Deuteronomy 24:5, NRSV) "You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether Israelites or aliens . . . . You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise they might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt." (Deuteronomy 24:1415, NRSV) "Suppose two persons have a dispute and go to court, and the judges...

In a fortunate turn of events, Pakistan has backed down in its confrontation with India, stating that the attacks were partly planned in Pakistan, and that they will work to track down suspects and supporting groups. 1 major international crises/possible war down, 3 (or 4) to go.

Forwarded from James.

Forwarded from my Mom, good article on why we are facing a crappy next few years, and why you got to love Reagan. (Ok, some dont love Reagan.. but so it goes.) Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics The current president wants higher taxes, more regulation, more spending and loose money. By PETER FERRARA In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama said, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified." Or as administration spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in January, the touchstone is, "What will have the biggest and most immediate impact on creating private sector jobs and strengthening the middle class? We're guided by what works, not by any ideology or special interests." [Commentary] Corbis Ronald Reagan and Paul Volcker, July 1981. Unfortunately, this rhetoric is not true. Mr. Obama's economic po...

In the first recorded satellite collision, a defunct russian sat and a current US sat collided today. The pundits are all saying this is a sign that we have too much crap in space. At the same time, experts are saying that there is a tiny chance of this ever happening. Which leads me to two conclusions: 1) Someone somewhere screwed up. The Russian sat could be a dead hunk of metal, but the US sat should have been able to maneuver to avoid getting smashed. We have the technology. We have the radar. Someone was asleep at the wheel. 2) Russians probably think its pretty sweet that their old dead bird just blew up a new expensive eagle.

Chrysler seems to be using slashed production numbers as a way to skimp out on the engineering and development costs of suppliers. It also is accused of pulling a US Government and taking the designs of on supplier and passing them on to a cheaper (in this case Chinese) supplier. I suppose it is what you get with a bunch of hedgies calling the shots, but (even without the lawsuit) the moral of the story is they will be completely screwed in the long term. Full article from autoblog: It seems like all the news coming out about Chrysler these days is of the bad variety and today is no different. The ailing automaker has just been sued by one of its suppliers, Faurecia Interior Systems Inc. of Auburn Hills to the tune of $110 million. Faurecia currently provides interior systems like center consoles, instrument panels and door panels for the PT Cruiser, Chrysler Sebring (at right), Dodge Avenger, Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro. Faurecia is claiming that Chrysler hasn't paid their tab fo...

Russia has impounded a Japanese fishing ship. Not content with just pissing off Europe and the US, Russia is bickering with its old enemy Japan. Technically speaking, the two are at war, as they have never ratified a treaty to end WWII. The reason is a number of islands which Russia took days after Japan surrendered, and has never returned. Because of Russia taking the ship, Japan has canceled humanitarian aid to those islands (they provided medical services). Hopefully, from a political standpoint, oil prices stay low because they are what is financing Russian agression (not to mention Muslim terrorism, Iran, and Syria). It continues to amaze me that Russia is getting away with being hyper-agressive and the collective world response is a slap on the wrist. The pacifist Japanese (who technically still do not have a military), have more backbone than Europe. At the same time, Japan could buy and sell Russia a few times, and the JDF (Japanese Defense Force) could still kick Russia's ...

Secret service agents in Ukraine have impounded hundreds of tonnes of bananas - for five months. The Ukrainian secret service - the SBU - impounded a Greek-owned cargo ship loaded with bananas as part of a drug smuggling investigation. No drugs have been found but security chiefs have said they will not release the ship which is being held in Odessa. Now the ship's crew has been issued with nuclear war-style bio-hazard suits and respirators to protect them from the toxic rotting bananas. Valery Osipov, head of a local ecology group, said: "We are now raising this with the SBU, the port authority and the regional environment department. "They need to understand the situation and release the crew from this 'banana prison'."

Israel, with a parliamentary multi-party system is well known for coalition governments. This time will be especially fractured. The election left both of the major parties without a clear mandate, 61 seats are needed to form a government: the governing centrist Kadima won 28 seats and the right-wing Likud opposition won 27 (see chart). Analysts say that gains by right-wing parties could give Mr Netanyahu a better chance of forming a coalition. On the basis of the exit polls, Likud and various nationalist parties control 65 of 120 seats in the Knesset. Which is kind of a scary idea. Israel has not exactly been a pacifist the last couple years, and with a nationalist governing coalition it is likely that the goal will be to secure "security" for the country. Iran, you may have just launched your first satellite into space, but dont expect to have any kind of nuclear capablility for much longer. Actually, though I believe that Isr...

2009. We've come a long way. But this pic of Eastern Telegraph's undersea lines in 1901 (!!!) is very badass. From Gizmodo:

VW and BWM have both come out with thermoelectric generator (TEG) systems. The basic premise here: use waste heat to make electricity. Get a couple of different types of metal, and some heat, and you get 600w in the VW case or 200w in the BMW case. It is a very cool idea wich completely runs around the difficulties of extracting greater efficiency from the maxed out (as an idea) internal combustion engine.

Great article on Walmart, capitalism, and efficiency: By CHARLES PLATT Writer Charles Platt during his stint as a Wal-Mart employee in Flagstaff, Ariz. Last updated: 8:03 pm February 7, 2009 Posted: 7:36 pm February 7, 2009 Some people, usually community activists, loath Wal-Mart. Others, like the family of four struggling to make ends meet, are in love with the chain. I, meanwhile, am in awe of it. With more than 7,000 facilities worldwide, coordinating more than 2 million employees in its fanatical mission to maintain an inventory from more than 60,000 American suppliers, it has become a system containing more components than the Space Shuttle - yet it runs as reliably as a Timex watch. Sheltered by rabble rousers who forced Wal-Mart's CEO to admit it "wasn't worth the effort" to try to open in Queens or anywhere else in the city, New Yorkers may not fully realize the...

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From Popsci: a prehistoric snake has been found that was 43 feet long at its biggest point it would have been as tall as your hip. All possible because of having a really warm environment. B-movie producers rejoice: more techno-babble for your movies. Largest Snake on Earth Uncovered Holy reticulated snake spine! A fossil reveals a 2,500 pound prehistoric python (along with some surprising facts about global temperature) By Jeremy Hsu Posted 02.04.2009 at 11:56 am 3 Comments Sliding Easy: An artists conception of the snake in its natural habitat, 60 million years ago. Jason Bourque/University of Florida Any character in a B-list film would yelp "Snake? Snaaaake!" upon spotting a specimen stretching longer...

South-to-North Water Transfer Project, China Who’s building it: the Chinese government Budget: $62 billion (445 billion yuan) Estimated completion date: 2050 What it takes: 400,000 relocated citizens and a very thirsty northern China. Economic development in the North China Plain is booming, but its water supplies are falling short, far short. Desperate farming communities are digging wells as deep as 600 feet to find clean water, but the Chinese government has much more digging in mind. Drawing on an unimplemented proposal from Mao himself, the Communist Party has decided to divert water from the Yangtze—a southern river known for its rising tides—to the dry rivers of the north. If it is completed, 12 trillion gallons of water will flow northward yearly through three man-made channels whose combined construction is expected to displace almost 400,000 people. Construction is well underway for the east and central canals, but environmental concerns have kept the western ro...

In the world of supercomputing, everyone always watches who is on the Top 500 list. Every once in a while something comes along that really dominates the old number 1, doubling or tripling its capacity. The new IBM Sequoia is 20x faster than the old number 1. Specifically, 20 petaflops instead of 1. IBM released some info on how to wrap your head around the numbers: • If each of the 6.7 billion people on earth had a hand calculator and worked together on a calculation 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, it would take 320 years to do what Sequoia will do in one hour. ( that's pretty incredible ) • 20 petaflops could offer a 50x improvement in our capability to predict earthquakes, allowing scientists to predict an earthquake's effects on a building-by-building basis across an area as large as Los Angeles County. • 20 petaflops could also provide a 40x improvement in our capability to monitor and forecast weather. This would allow forecasters to predict local weather events that ...

Had to repost this article from Gizmodo. Yeah, its really dorky.. but in a seriously funny and endearing way.. By Jesus Diaz , 7:53 AM on Wed Feb 4 2009, 16,626 views If you had $15.6 septillion and 94 cents in your account, would you save the world from the economic crisis or build a Death Star , destroy the world, and move on to invade the galaxy? A guy called Ryszard Gold—who probably is an alien villain from the Outer Rim planets and got a 49-point score in our Geek Social Aptitude Test —made the calculation of the most basic Death Star's price with current materials and space transport costs here on Earth. Here's a quick summary: • First, assume that 1/10 of the 17.16 quadrillion cubic meters of the Death Star is something other than empty space and 6/10 of the total volume is pressurized space. • That will require 1.71 quadrillion cubic meters of steel, about 134 quadrillion tonnes. T...