The Miami Herald (subscription site, no link) is reporting that heavier Americans are costing the airline industry millions in additional fuel. According to the CDC, the average American gained 10 pounds in the 1990s. The Herald says the extra weight adds up to 350 million gallons of extra fuel, and 3.8 million tons of released pollutants.
That’s a lot of CO2.
(Via Fox News Channel)
The second of three debates for the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates ended moments ago, and I think John Kerry won. (Full disclosure: I am a likely Kerry voter for the November 2nd General Election.)
I don’t like either Bush or Kerry. They both have policies I strongly disagree with, and I agree with the sentiment of others who feel that they are just two sides of the same coin.
I think John Kerry gave more honest, open answers; provided strong rebuttals to President Bush’s comments; and provided a more solid plan for America’s future. He also defended the comments of the Bush campaign about his “wishy-washiness” with logical responses.
I don’t think either of these men are up to the job of representing me and the rest of America, but I will support John Kerry as the best alternate with a chance of winning.
There are times I wish I was an artist.
I missed the announcement, but Flash MX Professional 2004 is out, and the hands-down best feature is Flash Video.
Most of us are familiar with Real, Windows Media, and QuickTime – the three primary streaming video packages available today. The problem with each of these is that they play video in boxy rectangles, just like TV and movies.
Flash Video apparently is treated just like the other vector graphics in Flash, and the results are stunning. Effects like wiping in video under a pencil eraser, seamless integration with sharp vector-based graphs, and more have all been done in the few weeks Flash has been out. I visited many of the sites in the Flash Video gallery (I highly recommend the IBM and Ben and Jerry’s examples), and never – not once – did any presentations skip. That impressed me. I’m on broadband, but I’m usually not that lucky.
Of course, you need some artistic skill, which I have (some, I mean – not nearly enough), but it looks like in the right person’s hands, the new version of Flash may just be a scalpel and chainsaw at the same time.
The headline says it all, and here’s a little snippet in case that’s not clear enough:
…The Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.
The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.
Read the rest of the Lone Star Iconoclast’s editorial here.
(Link via Yahoo! News/Reuters)
Neiman Marcus, best known for its $50 t-shirts and other miscellaneous overpriced items, unveiled its 2005 holiday catalog on Tuesday. Among the wares for sale are a zeppelin, bowling alley (yes, the entire alley), suit of armor, and my personal favorite – a submarine for only $1.7 million.
Seeing that the Navy’s Virginia-class submarines are going for $1.5 billion a pop, that $1.7 seems paltry by comparison. Heck, Bill Gates could buy a his-and-her matching set, and have plenty left over.
Seeing what a bargain the Neiman Marcus model is, we can probably stop calling them “Needless Markup”, right?