Flickr = Censorship

What's got me pissed today is that according to Rebekka, Flickr has removed her image from their site. That's right. Not only did they remove and kill her image and her *non-violent* words of protest, but they censored each and every one of us who commented on her photograph, who offered support to Rebekka, who shared in her frustration by wiping every single one of our comments off the face of the internet forever.

Imagine finding out that a company is stealing your art and making thousands of dollars off it. You post about the incident on a community site and the company completely wipes it off the map, threatening to terminate your account. Imagination not needed, welcome to Flickr.

Source: Thomas Hawk

Dude, you bought a girl car?

My aim with this post not to insult, but rather it is to point out that at some point after buying one of the cars on this list that you will most likely hear a comment about your car being a “girl car”.

Too bad this is only a top five. At least the Mazda Miata made the list. For that I am appreciative.

Source: Automotive Blogger

Toyota Claims 100% Hybrid In 2020

Takimoto also made the bold claim that by 2020, hybrids will be the standard drivetrain and account for “100 percent” of Toyota’s cars as they would be no more expensive to produce than a conventional vehicle.

The way things are going with our environment, having that many hybrid vehicles on the road would be the next best thing to no vehicles at all. Hybrid vehicles doesn't sound very manly, but the fact is, they can be fast, as is evidenced by the Tesla Roadster which can go from 0 - 60 in under 4 seconds.

Source: Motor Authority

Idiots Guide To Shipping a Plasma TV

The guy who shipped this may or may not have been a professional delivery person. It's tough to tell based on the work he did on this plasma TV. Seriously though, he might as well have shipped this thing using bowling balls. Or, I dunno, hammers.

If you own a Plasma, you know that the boxes are rather thin, but not this thin. Imagine shipping a gorgeous TV without any protection whatsoever. It would look better if it was thrown out a window!

Source: Geekologie

U.K. Music Label Creates a Vinyl-MP3 Hybrid

The records are beautifully packaged, double-weight vinyl discs that come with a unique code. With the code, buyers can download an unprotected, 320Kbps MP3 version of the music, to use however they like. First Word is not the only label offering an LP-plus-MP3 combination. Saddle Creek, which puts out Bright Eyes records, also includes a download code with some of its LPs.

This is a great idea. For those who love the sound of records, it's seems like a win/win, since you can own both the record and the portable file. It would be great to see this catch on with other indie labels.

Source: Wired

Students Embarrass eBay With Firefox Add-On

An anonymous reader sends along a posting from the Grooveking blog on a group of Stanford students who got together to help promote Firefox and ended up releasing a long overdue eBay Toolbar for Firefox before Mozilla and eBay could release their jointly developed extension in Europe. Mozilla's COO said the preemptive release of the eBay Toolbar had ruffled some feathers among European eBay execs.

Long overdue is an understatement. I am a fan of eBay, so I quickly downloaded both to try them out. Although it sounds like two is too many, using both together is quite useful. The unofficial one helps by showing thumbnails for -all- auctions, while the official one can be used to show notifications of auction happenings.

Source: Slashdot

Deep Blue vs. Kasparov 10th Anniversary

For the tenth anniversary of Deep Blue's victory over the world chess champion Garry Kasparov, Wired has an interview with Deep Blue developer Murray Cambell. The discuss the power of the now-aging supercomputer (equivalent to just one Cell processor), and the nonexistent future of PC vs. Human chess contests.

I was in grade school when this was big news. From the moment I heard of it, I knew I wanted to grow up and be just like Kasparov. Couple wedgies later, I decided to play Nintendo instead.

Source: Slashdot

Apple Updates Popular MacBook

CUPERTINO, Calif., May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple(R) today updated its MacBook(R) consumer notebooks with faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 1GB of memory and larger hard drives in every model. The MacBook is just one-inch thin and features built-in 802.11n wireless networking for up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g.

Source: Apple Press Release

Tech Roundup for May 16

Motherboards & Processors
• DFI LANParty UT NF680i LT SLI-T2R - Hot Hardware
• ECS AMD690GM-M2 - Bjorn3D

Displays & Video Cards
• A190A2-T08 19" TFT LCD - Big Bruin
• ATI HD2900XT - MadBox PC
• Foxconn 8600 GTS - Metku
• HIS HD2900XT - Overclocker Cafe
• MSI GeForce NX8800GTX OC Liquid - Tweak Town

Memory & Storage
• Super Talent 200x USB rive - DV Hardware

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Casebuy LCD EZ Power Supply Tester 3 - Benchmark Reviews
• Logitech G5 2007 Version - Oz Hardware
• NZXT Sentry 1 Controller Panel - Hard-h2o
• Plantronics Audio 550 DSP Headset - Overclockers Club
• XCLIO Stable Power 1000W Power Supply - eXtreme Outer Vision

Cases, Enclosures & Complete Systems
• Cooler Master Centurion 534 - Overclockers Online