Healthcare Reform Dead>> 06:09 PM - Dan Turner ( 16 comments ) After 8 months of negotiating, bargaining, cajoling, and horse trading, the loss of a single democratic seat on the US senate has brought the whole health care reform bill to a screeching halt.
Even with a majority in the house and senate the democrats still can't pass this piece of legislation without republican support.
I think that most Americans are in agreement that reform is needed, but obviously the health care legislation in its current form is unacceptable. Can the republicans and democrats ever come together under normal circumstances on something as important as universal health care? I doubt it. Unfortunately it seems in this great country of ours it takes a cataclysmic event before politicians can agree on anything.
ASUS Xtreme Design Contest>> 03:19 PM - Dan Turner ( 4 comments ) Our friends over at ASUS are hosting a contest designed to bring out the engineer in all of you. They are looking for extreme system designs that can take advantage of their technology.
If you're interested in finding out what it's all about, jump over to our forums and have a look around.
Millionaire Teens Wanted>> 02:41 PM - Dan Turner ( 7 comments ) One of our industry friends has asked us to find a couple of teenage millionaires to be interviewed on national TV (ABC). Any of you tech geeks or gaming masters out there want to tell your story on national TV???
If yes, follow the contact us links at the bottom of the page, select "Contact Sales Team" from the menu and send us your contact information. We will forward your information directly to the producers of the show and they will contact you directly to discuss the details.
Thanks!!
As you may or may not know, Vandy won our Editors writing challenge a few years ago. Now he's taking some time off from school which has given him some free time to game.
We've thrown up four choices in our poll, and are awaiting your guidance.
Section 8
Champions Online
Mini Ninjas
Fallen Earth
Tuesday August 11, 2009
US Healthcare reform debacle in the making?>> 11:52 AM - Dan Turner ( 52 comments ) I believe that this could be the one issue that will finally demonstrate if our elected leaders are intelligent, thoughtful people who are looking out for the interest of the American people, or a money grubbing bunch of crooks who's only interest is power and wealth.
Obama is smart. He's outlined what he wants, and given congress the tiller. If they succeed in solving the problem, he'll be a hero. If they steer us into the rocks, then he can veto the legislation and tell them to start over. Assuming he's willing to veto the legislation.
Unfortunately my faith in Obama has softened as I see him caving to the special interest groups that dominate the DC landscape. He's already caved to big Pharma, which is spending upward of US$200,000,000 fighting health care reform. Of course I don't blame them. The Canadians get their prescription drugs for a fraction of the price we Americans pay, and congress passed legislation years ago to make it illegal for us to buy from Canadian pharmacies. This industry uses it's status as the developer of life saving medicines to stick it to the American public and then uses that money to buy legislation to protect their profits.
Insurance companies are no better. Some estimates show that doctors overhead is increased by some 30% just to manage the insurance company paperwork. My insurer, Blue Cross of California, contributed over $3,000,000 to political campaigns in 2008. I can hardly imagine what they are spending during this political debate to protect their bottom line. But I do know that on July 1st my premium increased 25% for the sixth year in a row. In pre-tax dollars, my medical insurance now cost me almost $20,000 per year. No wonder there are 50 million Americans without health care. They may claim to be not-for-profit, but a quick look at wealth of their executives should dispel any myth about where the money is really going.
These insurance companies think that they help the American population, when in fact they are a bane to our society and need to be dismantled.
But the real question remains, will Obama fix our health care system, or will he ultimately crumble to the pressure by our military.... I mean medical infrastructure.
"In modern string theory, dark energy [also called the cosmological constant] is the energy stored in empty space, where pairs of matter and anti-matter particles are spontaneously created and annihilated," said Baylor researcher Gerald Cleaver.
"When the cosmological constant is positive, dark energy is literally pushing space itself apart. When it is negative, then space is contracting. So by arranging the cosmological constant to be positive behind the ship and negative in front of the ship, it should be possible to travel distances that would ordinarily need faster-than-light speeds, even though the ship itself does not exceed the speed of light."
The only downside? The amount of dark energy needed to power such a device is equivalent in size to the mass of the planet Jupiter. In time though researchers believe they can reduce the amount of energy needed to warp space. "Early calculations indicated that a warp drive would require more mass energy than was available in the entire universe," Obousy said. "Later, a more ingenious calculation demonstrated that it would require about the mass energy contained within an entire galaxy. What is exciting about our warp drive paradigm is that we have further reduced the energy requirement to the total mass energy contained in a typical gas giant--the planet Jupiter, for example."
Deadpool Movie is a Go>> 02:19 AM - Tom YodaBlues Colarusso ( 9 comments ) After watching the horror that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine this weekend, count me unimpressed. Then again, Ryan Reynolds is confirmed and he nailed it for the 10 minutes he was in it.
"Fresh off the muscular performance of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" at the boxoffice, Fox has thrown into development a spinoff featuring Deadpool, the wise-cracking mercenary played in the film by Ryan Reynolds.
Reynolds is attached to reprise the character for what for now is simply being called "Deadpool." Lauren Shuler Donner and Marvel Studios would act as producers. "
It be interesting, it wasn't so damned depressing.
Oracle Buys Sun for 7.4b>> 04:23 AM - Tom YodaBlues Colarusso ( 6 comments ) After the IBM deal fell through, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone got them. This puts Java, mySQL, and Solaris under the domain of the enterprise database giant.
From Pirates to Little Sisters>> 06:13 AM - Tom YodaBlues Colarusso ( 5 comments ) Gore Verbinkski has apparently left production of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film to focus on other projects, including the upcoming Bioshock movie. Not much has been released regarding the Bioshock film, other than the script is currently in development by John Logan, writer of The Last Samurai (Woo!) and Star Trek: Nemesis (Ah crap).
Bioshock is scheduled for release in 2010 from Universal Pictures.
