p2pnet World Headlines: Nov 27, 2009: #2
Celebrate Thanksgiving the Ayn Rand way: Thank yourself Christian Science Monitor
Ah, Thanksgiving. The word conjures up images of turkey dinner, pumpkin pie, and watching football with family and friends. It kicks off the holiday season and is the biggest shopping period of the year. Children are taught that Thanksgiving came about when Pilgrims gave thanks to God for a bountiful harvest. It seems we vaguely mumble thanks for the food on our table, the roof over our head, and how lucky we are in spite of these hard economic times. After all, our lives are so much better than, say, those in Bangladesh. But surely there is something more to celebrate, something more sacred about this holiday. What should we really be celebrating on Thanksgiving? Ayn Rand described Thanksgiving as “a typically American holiday” whose “essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers’ holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production.” She was right.
Royal Navy use PlayStations to train sailors Telegraph
The Royal Navy has begun a programme to issue hand-held PlayStation computer consoles to sailors so they can study for tests in confined quarters. Marine warfare engineering technicians were the first the receive the devices, and if proved useful they will be distributes around other personnel Photo: GETTY The Sony PlayStation Portables (PSPs), which are blue and worth £120 each, are a practical solution for Navy officers who need to swot up on their maths and physics from a bunk bed in the middle of an Atlantic storm. Marine warfare engineering technicians, who maintain the fleet`s radar, sonar, VHF radio and communications systems, were the first the receive the devices, and if proved useful they will be distributes around other personnel.
Lenovo to Buy Back Handset Unit for Double the Price Bloomberg News
Lenovo Group Ltd., China`s biggest personal-computer maker, said it will buy back a mobile-phone unit at double the price it sold the subsidiary for last year. Lenovo Group agreed to pay $200 million in cash and shares to buy Lenovo Mobile Communication Technology Ltd. from investors including a unit of Hony Capital, the private-equity company controlled by the PC maker`s parent Legend Holdings Ltd., according to a Hong Kong stock exchange filing today. That compares with the $100 million Lenovo Group agreed to sell the mobile-phone company for in January 2008. The computer company sold its unprofitable mobile-phone division to focus on PCs as it sought to fend off rising competition from bigger rivals including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Acer Inc. The handset unit returned to profit last year following the disposal, as demand for communications devices increased in China, the world`s biggest phone market.
Interop: New York Tests Xbox-Based Alert System InformationWeek
State officials eye video game networks as a means to send emergency warnings to younger residents InformationWeek
November 19, 2009 12:26 PM Gamers are used to confronting invading terrorists, nuclear attacks, and natural calamitiesâin virtual form. But those living in New York State could soon receive warnings about real emergencies through their favorite video console. State authorities are testing a plan that would see the Emergency Management Office issue alerts over online gaming networks in addition to regular channels.
Scott’s Antarctic diaries posted on Twitter TG Daily
Scott’s Antarctic diaries posted on TwitterThe Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge plans to release the diaries daily in the usual 140-character posts, chronicling the ill-fated expedition in real time, as it happened 99 years ago. “By republishing the entries as a daily blog, we hope to give the reader new insights into the scale and scope of Scott’s experience,” it says. The expedition started out with everything in apple-pie order. The first entry, written in New Zealand on November 26 1910, reads: “We advertised our start at 3pm, and at three minutes to that hour the Terra Nova pushed off from the jetty. A great mass of people assembled.”
EU charges Philips, others with forming CRT screen cartel IDG News Service
The European Commission has accused manufacturers of cathode-ray tubes of running cartels in the markets for computer monitors and TVs, the regulator said Thursday. The Commission declined to name any of the companies involved, but Dutch consumer electronics manufacturer Philips has received a formal statement of objections from the Commission, the company said in a filing to the Euronext stock exchange. The charges follow a two-year investigation sparked by complaints from customers in 2007. The complainants alleged that Philips and five other manufacturers colluded in order to prevent prices of CRT screens from falling as demand for the old technology almost evaporated.
Oprah to Film at White House New York Times
Oprah Winfrey will film a one-hour Christmas special at the White House that will include an interview with President Barack Obama, her first with him since he took office, Ms. Winfrey announced on her blog late Wednesday. The ABC special, to run on Dec. 13 at 10 p.m., will include a sit-down with President Obama and the first lady, and feature behind-the-scenes preparations for the holidays at the White House. Ms. Winfrey had not endorsed a presidential candidate until December 2007, when she came out for Mr. Obama, a fellow Chicagoan, just weeks before the crucial presidential caucuses in neighboring Iowa, which he went on to win.
If p2pnet has value for you, help me keep it online. Cheers! And thanks : )
(If you don`t fancy online payments, please email me at p2pnet @ shaw dot ca and I`ll send you my snail-mail address.)
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
November, 2009
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It`s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
