Book Of Norm

China recently started to use its supply of rare earth elements as a political bargaining chip - or possibly just a nationalistic play based around their desire to start shifting over their entire car fleet to hybrids, a stated goal. Any way that you look at it, the move (preventing the export of many rare earth elements) was going to screw over Japan and the US. Japan, never a fan of China (though tied to them economically much more that even the US is) quickly inked an agreement with China's smaller rival to the south, Vietnam (yes - China helped Vietnam in the Vietnamese war, but they are not traditional allies, and because of the Spratly islands and other reasons, they have not been allies for quite some time, and are becoming increasingly antagonistic towards each other). The US has now figured out a way to deal with the ban also. A US company has decided to reopen a mine near LA which will be able to supply of the US demand within a few years. This mine closed 10 years ago, w...

So, the UAW has succeeded in (nearly) killing off the American auto companies. Chrysler is mostly dead, Ford and GM needed government money (GM a full on purchase from the American people - $150 per person or so). The UAW is to a large degree to blame for this. They are a bunch of lazy overpaid workers who fight hard to ensure that pay is based on tenure rather than skill and hard work. They really are one of the worst, most despicable, most destructive organizations still operating in the US. And now, they are trying to organize the US plants of the foreign automakers. What assholes. Those plants have been able to do well and grow precisely because they have NOT had the UAW working there. And these are not underpaid and unhappy workers. They are paid well, have good satisfaction, and oh wait, he is a big one... STILL HAVE JOBS. Lets see whats happened to Detroit, home of the UAW and all the love and joy that they bring... Yeah. Detroit is in one of the worst states of urban decay of a...

Google has just handed out its first netbooks, with the first public version of Chrome OS onboard. In my opinion, it is a complete failure. You can read the detailed review here from engadget , but basically, the critical piece of information is this "if you have seen the Chrome browser, you have seen Chrome OS." That, in my opinion, is not a good thing. You see, I have a netbook, and I love it. It has Windows XP Pro on it, which is relatively lightweight (better than Mac OSX or Win 7 in terms of battery use), but is compatible with... everything. Really, just about everything runs on XP. So why then would I want a netbook which does just a fraction of what my current netbook does? The Google plan is to sell you a netbook which comes with a lightweight OS and a data plan from Verizon wireless. This is at a time when more and more smartphones come with the ability to tether (something I have always had on my Pre), so that you can simply hook your laptop to your phone and use ...

Yes - if you download things illegally, you are breaking the law. Unless you have fair use of the article in question. I have gotten a takedown notice from Verizon for copyright infringement, which is pretty frigging annoying. I downloaded an epsiode of True Blood which was available through OnDemand as I am an HBO subscriber. I did so to watch the episode over at my girlfriends house. However, they are claiming that I am somehow still sharing the file. Which means that they have no goddamn idea what they are doing, because I never shared the file. Dumbasses. For more info on the epic fail that is IP tracking for torrents, read on. Researchers discover that “Practically any Internet user can be framed for copyright infringement today,” and that “Even without being explicitly framed, innocent users may still receive complaints.” University of Washington researchers released a new study today that suggests that the current tactics being employed by the entertainment industry to target c...

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Just wanted to make sure everyone had a quick read up on their constitution. Because, you see, when you read it this way it should be pretty clear: the searches currently going on in airports across this country are, in fact, unconstitutional. The issue is that no one has the balls to say what freaking makes sense: no plane has been hijacked by a US citizen since at least the 1960's, and I could find no clear reference to any incident at all. Its not about searching everyone. That's unconstitutional, in the same way that you don't get recorded every time you make a phone call because some people use phones for crime. Of course, with th...

This movie is just Russian trucks being Russian trucks. And it is awesome.

Yes - aging can be reversed. If you are a mouse, and you have a shortage of telomerase. The cute little white fluffy guys managed to rejuvenate their ageing organs: "The Harvard group focused on a process called telomere shortening. Most cells in the body contain 23 pairs of chromosomes, which carry our DNA. At the ends of each chromosome is a protective cap called a telomere. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres are snipped shorter, until eventually they stop working and the cell dies or goes into a suspended state called "senescence". The process is behind much of the wear and tear associated with ageing. At Harvard, they bred genetically manipulated mice that lacked an enzyme called telomerase that stops telomeres getting shorter. Without the enzyme, the mice aged prematurely and suffered ailments, including a poor sense of smell, smaller brain size, infertility and damaged intestines and spleens. But when DePinho gave the mice injections to reactivate the enzyme, ...

Nope, this is not April 1st. The Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in an MSNBC interview a few days ago that they were looking into requiring the instillation of cellphone jamming equipment in every car. Really, not just banning cellphone use, they have jumped right past that to crazy fucking nanny state insanity. They say this could save up to 5,500 lives a year. I would not be surprised if it cost that many lives as well, not to mention billions and billions of dollars in lost productivity. It is completely ridiculous on many levels, and a sign of how idiotic this administration is that it was even brought up in a serious interview. It is unlikely it will save lives: distracted driving is very hard to pin down to cellphone use - why not ban eating food in your car, changing radio stations, looking at billboards, talking to a passenger, or having kids in the back seat. Furthermore, the cellphone companies paid the FCC for that spectrum, and now the government wants to install 1...