Friday, February 8, 2008
Cool Stuff: Lenticular 3D Star Wars Poster
UK-based company Synthetic Dimensions has gotten the rights to create a fully licensed lenticular 3D recreation of the original Star Wars Poster. I’m not exactly sure how they’ve done it, but they used the Synthetic Dimensions’ proprietary Syndimation process to convert the original 2D painting used in 1977 to promote the Star Wars. This unique, deep 3D lenticular poster is 47cm x 67cm (18.5″ x 26.5″ approx) requires no 3D glasses. I’ve seen some incredibly dimensional 3D posters in my day, so don’t let that crappy Speed Racer one-sheet scare you away from the lenticular processes. The company plans on selling the poster for only £12.99, or what translates into around $25 American (I’m sure there will be some shipping feeds as well). I’ll keep you guys updated on when this becomes publicly available. But for now check out the YouTube video after the jump to see some of the depth and detail Syndimation is hoping to show in the poster.
Recreating Hitchcock
Vanity Fair decided to recreate some of the classic scenes from the films of Alfred Hitchcock using modern day actors and actresses. Imagine Charlize Theron in Diam M For Murder, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. in To Catch a Thief, Seth Rogen in North by Northwest, Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem in Rear Window, Niomi Watts in Marnie, Keira Knightley and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Rebecca, Emile Hirsch and James McAvoy in Strangers on a Train, Rene Zellweger in Vertigo, Jodie Foster in The Birds, or Tang Wei, Josh Brolin, Casey Affleck, Eva Marie Saint, Ben Foster, Omar Metwally and Julie Christie in Lifeboat.
Well stop imagining, the photos are after the jump. As always, click to enlarge. Pick up the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue for the full sized photo-spreads.
Shuttle blasts off with $2B science lab
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Thu Feb 7, 6:54 PM ET
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - After two months of delay, shuttle Atlantis blasted into orbit Thursday with Europe's gift to the international space station, a $2 billion science lab named Columbus that spent years waiting to set sail.
Atlantis and its seven-man crew safely roared away from their seaside launch pad at 2:45 p.m., overcoming fuel gauge problems that thwarted back-to-back launch attempts in December.
The same cold front that spawned killer tornadoes across the South earlier in the week stayed far enough away and, in the end, cut NASA a break. All week, bad weather had threatened to delay the flight, making liftoff all the sweeter for the shuttle team. The sky was cloudy at launch time, but rain and thunderstorms remained off to the west.
"Three, two, one, zero, and liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis as Columbus sets sail on a voyage of science to the space station," NASA's Launch Control exclaimed.
Probably no one was happier than the 300 Europeans who gathered at the launch site to see Atlantis take off with their beloved Columbus lab. They celebrated with Belgian and French chocolates and sparkling grape juice, in keeping with NASA's no-alcohol rule at the Kennedy Space Center.
"It's not very European," observed Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, smiling, as he popped open bottles of juice and filled plastic wine glasses. He flew on the last shuttle mission.
Twenty-three years in the making, Columbus is the European Space Agency's primary contribution to the space station. The lab has endured space station redesigns and slowdowns, as well as a number of shuttle postponements and two shuttle accidents.
"We're all as excited as heck," said an emotional Alan Thirkettle, Europe's space station program manager. "I've lost about 500 grams (about 1 pound) so far, and that's just been tears."
Columbus will join the U.S. lab, Destiny, which was launched aboard Atlantis exactly seven years ago. The much bigger Japanese lab Kibo, or Hope, will require three shuttle flights to get off the ground, beginning in March.
Atlantis' commander, Stephen Frick, and his U.S., German and French crew will reach the space station on Saturday and begin installing Columbus the very next day. Three spacewalks are planned during the flight, scheduled to last 11 or, more likely, 12 days.
"Certainly, no launch can be any more momentous than the launch of Columbus, which brings to the space station truly international capability and participation," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.
Besides Columbus, Atlantis will drop off a new space station resident, French Air Force Gen. Leopold Eyharts, who will swap places with NASA astronaut Daniel Tani and get Columbus working. Tani will return to Earth aboard the shuttle, ending a mission of nearly four months.
To NASA's relief, all four fuel gauges in Atlantis' external fuel tank worked properly during the final stage of the countdown. The gauges failed back in December because of a faulty connector, and NASA redesigned the part to fix the problem, which had been plaguing the shuttles for three years.
NASA was anxious to get Atlantis flying as soon as possible to keep alive its hopes of achieving six launches this year. The space agency faces a 2010 deadline for finishing the station and retiring the shuttles. That equates to four or five shuttle flights a year between now and then, something Griffin considers achievable.
"We're coming back, and I think we are back, from some pretty severe technical problems that led to the loss of Columbia. We understand the foam now," he said, referring to the chunks of insulating foam that kept breaking off the fuel tanks.
Later in the day, Mission Control informed the crew that cameras spotted at least three pieces of foam or other debris coming off the fuel tank two minutes after liftoff. There was no evidence that the debris hit Atlantis, but the astronauts will pull out their laser inspection pole Friday for a routine survey of their spaceship.
Barring any more major mechanical trouble or freak hailstorms like the one that battered Atlantis's fuel tank one year ago, "this should be like some of those earlier times when we had some fairly interrupted stretches with no technical problems where we could just fly," Griffin said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That's what I'm looking forward to."
___
Associated Press Writer Brian Skoloff contributed to this report.
Free Alternatives to Proprietary Software
Most interesting to me is Lightning, which integrates Mozilla's calendar app (Sunbird) into Thunderbird, k3B as an alternative to NERO (you reading this Bernardo?), and galleon.tv for expanding your Tivo's capabilities. I'd heard of some of these before, but there are some new ones here as well and a ton worth investigating.
Shine A Light post has been fixed
Swapped for a smaller, more friendly, non-autoplaying (but lower resolution) YouTube version.
Top Ten Awesomely bad movies from the 80's
From a time long forgotten. A time when big hair and ripped jeans ruled the streets. When Michael Jackson was someone to look up to. A time when break dancing was rampant. This time was known as "The 80's". And from the 80's came some of the worst movies of all time.
Heres a list of the most awesomely bad movies of the 80's. These films were some of my favorites as a child growing up. I like to relate them to driving past a car pile-up, you don't want to see what you are seeing but you always slow down to look. This was going to be a Top Ten List but # 11 was to dear too my heart to let go.
so without further delay lets look at the top eleven awesomely bad movies of the 1980's. And remember, except for #2 I like these movies.
WARNING: SPOILERS ARE INCLUDED IN SOME OF THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FILMS. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ANY OF THESE MASTERPIECES AND ARE INTERESTED IN VIEWING THEM DON'T READ ANY FURTHER!!!
Get the WHOLE LIST HERE: bad movies from the 80's
Make sure to file so you can get your Money
WASHINGTON
Congress, facing the prospect of an election-year recession, passed an emergency plan that rushes rebates of $600 to $1,200 to most taxpayers and $300 checks to disabled veterans, the elderly and other low-income people. President Bush indicated he would sign the measure.
House passage by a 380-34 vote Thursday came a few hours after Senate leaders ended a drawn-out stalemate over the bill. Still, by congressional standards, lawmakers approved the legislation with exceptional speed to jolt the weak economy. The plan, which adds $168 billion to the deficit over two years, is intended to provide cash for people to spend and tax relief for businesses to make new investments -- boosts for an economy battered by a housing downturn and credit crunch.
Rebate checks could begin arriving in May. They would be based on 2007 tax returns, which are due April 15.
The Senate's 81-16 vote capped more than a week of political maneuvering. The logjam broke when majority Democrats dropped their demand that rescue proposal offer jobless benefits, heating aid for the poor and tax breaks for the home building and energy industries.
GOP senators blocked those ideas, but agreed to add $300 rebates for older people and disabled veterans to a $161 billion measure the House passed last week.
Bush called the bill "robust, broad-based, timely, and it will be effective." The compromise, he said in a statement after the Senate acted, was "an example of bipartisan cooperation at a time when the American people most expect it." The White House said Bush would sign the bill sometime next week.
The legislation would deliver rebates -- $600 for individuals, $1,200 for couples -- to most taxpayers, plus an additional $300 per child. Individuals making up to $75,000 a year and couples earning up to $150,000 would get the full rebate, with those making more than that or too little to owe taxes getting smaller checks.
People who paid no income taxes but earned at least $3,000 -- including through Social Security or veterans' disability benefits -- would get a $300 rebate.
"We believe the stimulus, the way it is targeted, will put money into the hands of those who will spend it immediately, injecting demand into the economy and therefore creating jobs," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told colleagues.
10 Most Amazing Google Search Tricks
Searching on Google can be a magical experience once you find out how to make your search queries efficient. By making efficient I mean using some tricks or the cheat sheet provided by Google itself to quickly find what you actually require. Having being hooked onto Google for a long time now, I have come across some amazing search tricks which can change the way you look at Google today.
In this article I will list down the search tricks which I use quite frequently. Be it finding time, meanings or watching the cricket score, searching PDF’s, with Google as the search engine life cannot be more simpler. Here are the 10 most amazing Google Search tricks:
1. Different Types of Files at your will
How many times would you have asked for materials (PDF, PPT, DOC) for a particular topic from a friend? Its almost everyday that we might have the necessity to ask them either for knowledge, preparing a presentation, white-paper or for case studies. Such times it mostly difficult to look out what to exactly search for because most of the times you don’t know about the topic at hand. But this petty keyword unleashes its lethal power at such occasions.
Let’s say I want to implement a case study on SOA which means I have to read a lot of information for SOA. So I just have to find materials which might have already been uploaded on the web in the form of PDF’s, DOC’s or PPT’s. These materials can be easily obtained by doing a search for:
- PDF - service oriented architecture filetype:pdf
- PPT - service oriented architecture filetype:ppt
- DOC - service oriented architecture filetype:doc
2. Scholarly Search
If you want some authenticity of the materials then it would be better to find the materials from educational institutes or universities. For this use the Google scholar search. But suppose you don’t like to switch to Google scholar search you can add the same query with an additional parameter to the normal Google search box,
3. Meanings of any word in an instant
Now you do not have to carry a dictionary or install a dictionary software just for the purpose of finding out a meaning of a word. With the wealth of information in Google’s hands, its a piece of cake to find out the meaning of the word. Just use the define: keyword. The meaning would of course be displayed but also a set of other links which might have an alternative definition are also given out with the link to read more about it.
You would argue here that, a dicitionary gives out more information than this. But what about words that don’t actually fall within the vocabulary. Suppose you want to know what SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is then you would have no choice. Google Search comes to your rescue in this case,
- Abbreviations - define: SOA
- Jargons - define: Web 2.0
- SMS language - define: LOL
4. Find the time of any location
Many of us might be probably working for client which are based at different locations. And communication has to be carried out frequently carried out in such cases. But before a communication you have to know which time zone the location is falling into otherwise you would be causing a disturbance.
I have seen people installing time zone software for showing the time of the location they would be calling to. But with Google at your hands you don’t have to install any software. It would be just simple to use a query for finding the current time such as,
psst….look closely the time on the little clock graphic. It also shows the perfect time!
5. Weather at your fingertips
I had been to GOA for a Christmas vacation in the last week of December. But I made a mistake of not finding out the temperature of GOA before leaving. Had I known that it is hot even in the winter I would not have made the mistake of carrying additional luggage consisting of blankets and jackets.
If you are thinking to visit a place it is useful to know what the temperature of the place is before hand, it can make efficient packing. Google helps you here too. Just use this query without asking anybody or waiting for the news to make a weather report. I wish I had thought of this!
6. Google does live commentary too!
Indians are cricket fanatics. But its amusing to see the organizations here trying to put together tactics to devoid cricket lovers from wasting time to watch the cricket scores instead of doing their work. What I think they fail to understand is that by blocking the live cricket scoring sites they are actually making the employees more curios and provoking them to hunt for proxy networks or listen to the radio or chat with their friends elsewhere.
Jokes apart, you actually don’t need proxy networks to view the live cricket scores if you at least have access to Google. If you want to find the latest info about all the cricket matches then just type,
But if you want to find out only about a particular match then use only the names of the two playing nations,
Remember that the scorecard will come only when the play is going on.
7. Calculate with your browser
Every OS has a calculator inbuilt but when the browser is the thing which is constantly open whey bother to open up a calculator. Open Google and straight away type your mathematical expression. You can go all the way from basic arithmetic to trigonometrical expressions. This is simply amazing stuff accomplished by Google.
8. Compare your currency with others
Now that the dollar is declining, the rest of the world must be busy trying to check the impact of the dollar on their currencies. But first of all one must know how much a particular currency amounts to when cashed in another currency. Google’s inbuilt currency converter just does this.
9. Keep track of the stocks
With the booming stock market it is very important to track the stocks on a day to day basis. Putting a stock ticker in the search box is the most obvious thing you would think of. But it is not always you would remember the stock ticker, you should add the keyword “stocks:” to the company name.
The best part of the obtained result is that it provides a chart which shows the trend in the company’s stock along with important statistics.
Note: Currently the results are restricted to the companies listed in the US stock markets.
10. Wanna find some faces?
This is most interesting trick. You might be needing images for various occasions and searching for images is the most difficult thing because what we expect might not be possibly mapped to a query. But Google has a parameter in place for images in situations we need an image which describes a face.
Suppose I search for the term “happy” then the Google results page displays smileys. But I would like to use images of happy people. Even if I choose the term as “happy face” the results don’t show images which contain people. For this there is a parameter “imgtype” which you can use with the URL. For this put in the URL as follows:
There are many more variations which can be bought about with the above tricks thus making your search experience not only enriching but also exciting. If I have missed any tricks of common usage, feel free to mention it.
Update 1: Google keeps on experimenting new ways of searching. If you liked the above tricks then don’t miss out my article which mentions how to use the new search experiments introduced by Google. Believe me, they are brilliant!
Update 2 : Search for your favorite movie information with Google and enjoy it even more. Have fun with the 5 Most Fantastic Movie Search Tricks With Google.
It's Not Unusual to ... Insure Your Chest Hair?
Feb 7th 2008
By Tom Radler
When you've got a valuable asset attached you your body, it definitely makes sense to get some insurance. Surgeons insure their hands; professional runners insure their feet. And Tom Jones, the aging "heartbreaker" who croons to little old ladies in Vegas, insures his chest hair.That's right, Lloyd's of London gave him a policy worth almost $7 million to make sure his follicles stay put.
"Admittedly, this is one of the most obscure requests I've had -- but I still came up with a wording that addressed the need," underwriter John Thomas is quoted as saying.
In the past, Lloyd's has insured other celebrities' body parts, including Keith Richards' fingers and Jennifer Lopez's booty.
But if you don't have the cash to insure that love rug on your man-cleavage, we've come across some tips for keeping yours in shape, after the jump.
According to Isabella Snow, there's definitely some value in keeping your pelt in primo condition. She suggests that you trim the hair, but not shave or wax your chest.
"If you really want to highlight your chest, the best way is to bring the hair in line," she writes. "All you need to do is trim it. Keep in mind, if you trim it too much, it will not look natural. The idea is to maintain it without making it look like you put too much effort into it."
Strange Tanks
STRANGE TANKS
Have you heard of the Ferrari Tank?
No, not this one:
I am talking about ARMY FERRARI - F333E “Lizard”
——————-
Cold War -CLICK HERE FOR MORE CRAZY TANKS
Alton F-650 XUV makes a big statement
Chicago 2008: Alton F-650 XUV makes a big statement
click above for high-res gallery of the Alton F-650 XUV
We've seen some outrageous F-650-based vehicles like this before (the DeBerti for one), but for some reason, the Alton F-650 XUV jumped out at us at the Chicago Auto Show. Perhaps we were already focused on Ford's Work Solutions trucks in the vicinity, but this insane beast just put our DSLRs on autopilot. The F-650-based XUV was built by Alton Manufacturing and carries a GVWR of 25,999 lbs. That makes the 660 ft-lbs of torque generated by its 7.2L Caterpillar engine seem paltry. Besides the big-rig-meets-Excursion bodywork, your nearly $200,000 expenditure for this XUV will get you hardwood floors, custom captains chairs, a 42-speaker sound system, two drop-down 16-inch TVs plus a 42-inch plasma, four computer workstations, plus a train horn. Oh, you'll also get bragging rights for the biggest, baddest truck in 99% of the world's neighborhoods.
Police: Oregon panhandlers raking in the green
By Associated Press
COOS BAY, Ore. - A police survey says panhandlers outside Wal-Mart in Coos Bay can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much.Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law - asking for money is considered protected free speech.
Coos Bay authorities say most panhandlers are not criminals.
Coos Bay Police Captain Rodger Craddock says most have lived in the city a long time and they actually have homes. Craddock says, "This is just their chosen profession."
He says most are docile, and that people should report those who are not.
Bob More, director of housing and emergency services at South Coast Community Action, says many panhandlers are there for the money - to feed their addictions.
He suggested a voucher system involving tickets people could give that are good for a meal or bed in a shelter.
Time travel one step away! Sign up
Two Russian scientists claim a device created to investigate the origins of the universe could become the world's first ever time machine. Scientists say the vast atom-smashing machine at the European Particle Physics Centre near Geneva could create a time tunnel.
Scientists create 'see-through' fish
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright |
Jailed: Keith Brown had a speck of cannabis on his shoe: Dubai
Briton jailed for four years in Dubai after customs find cannabis weighing less than a grain of sugar under his shoe
Last updated at 10:23am on 8th February 2008
Comments (40)
Jailed: Keith Brown had a speck of cannabis on his shoe
Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through the United Arab Emirates on his way back to England when he was stopped as he walked through Dubai's main airport.
A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g - so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar - on the tread of one of his shoes.
Dubai International Airport is a major hub for the Middle East and thousands of Britons pass through it every year to holiday in the glamorous beach and shopping haven.
But many of those tourists and business travellers are likely to be unaware of the strict zero-tolerance drugs policy in the UAE.
One man has even been jailed for possession of three poppy seeds left over from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow Airport. Painkiller codeine is also banned.
If suspicious of a traveller, customs officials can use high-tech equipment to uncover even the slightest trace of drugs.
Mr Brown was detained and arrested in September last year and has been held in a cell with three other men in the city prison ever since.
This week the youth worker, who has two young children and a partner at home in Smethwick, West Midlands, was sentenced to four years in prison.
A 25-year-old Briton who was found with a similar speck in one pocket as he arrived on holiday has been awaiting sentence since November.
Meanwhile a Big Brother TV executive has so far been held without charge for five days after being arrested for possessing the health supplement melatonin.
The authorities claim to have discovered 0.01g of hashish in his luggage.
Last night Mr Brown's brother Lee said his case "defied belief".
"For that sort of amount common sense should prevail, from where it was found it was obviously something that had been crushed on the floor - it could have come from anywhere."
Rastafarian Mr Brown had been returning from a short trip to Ethiopia, where one of his children lives and where he owns property.
He was travelling with his partner Imani, who was also stopped and detained for more than a week.
Normally he flew direct to and from the UK, but decided to stop off in Dubai.
"He was incensed when he called me," said driving instructor Lee, 57. "It would be funny if the circumstances weren't so unpleasant.
"Bugs are crawling out of his mattress when he's sleeping. His family are frantic with worry and can't call him."
Last night campaign group Fair Trials International advised visitors to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to "take extreme caution".
Chief Executive Catherine Wolthuizen said: "We have seen a steep increase in such cases over the last 18 months.
"Customs authorities are using highly sensitive new equipment to conduct extremely thorough searches on travellers and if they find any amount - no matter how minute - it will be enough to attract a mandatory four-year prison sentence."
Mrs Wolthuizen added: "We even have reports of the imprisonment of a Swiss man for 'possession' of three poppy seeds on his clothing after he ate a bread roll at Heathrow.
Held: A campaign is underway to secure the release of Cat Le-Huy from a Dubai jail
"What many travellers may not realise is that they can be deemed to be in possession of such banned substances if they can be detected in their urine or bloodstream, or even in tiny, trace amounts on their person."
Only two months after Mr Brown was stopped economics graduate Robert Dalton was detained in almost identical circumstances.
Mr Dalton, from Gravesend, on Kent was with two friends when he was stopped and asked to empty his pockets.
Officials found 0.03g of cannabis in a small amount of fluff. He is currently on trial and if convicted, is likely receive a four-year prison sentence.
Last night his brother Peter, 26, told how it took 24 hours to find out why he had been stopped.
"As we understand, the amount of cannabis was barely visible to the human eye and was at the bottom of the pocket of an old pair of jeans.
"He's not a drug user, but he goes clubbing and the speck was so small."
Last week Cat Le-Huy, a London-based German national, was arrested on arrival at the airport.
Mr Le-Huy, 31, head of technology with Big Brother production company Endemol, was arrested on suspicion of possessing illegal drugs after customs officers found melatonin, a health supplement used for jet lag available over the counter both in Dubai and in the US.
Authorities also claim they discovered fragments in one of his bags which they believe to be hashish. Fair Trials International said the amount was 0.01g.
A window into Alzheimer's
An innovative imaging technique has revealed that the plaques that develop throughout the brains of Alzheimer's patients can form overnight, and they are likely a cause rather than a symptom of the disease.
Plaques, a defining hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, are brain lesions that result from the abnormal accumulation of a protein called amyloid-beta. Since the symptoms of the disease progress over the course of decades, plaques were generally thought to appear and accumulate slowly.
"The notion was that since the disease plays out over a long period of time, individual lesions in the disease process would also have that same tempo," says Bradley Hyman, director of the Alzheimer's unit at Massachusetts General Hospital's MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease. But his study's results, which appear in this week's Nature, suggest that plaques can develop in a single day.
Hyman's team harnessed a fledgling imaging technique called multiphoton confocal microscopy to peer into the brains of living mice. The technique generates images using rapidly pulsed lasers that penetrate deep into living tissue without damaging it. By cutting out tiny sections of skull and replacing them with glass, the researchers created windows into the brains of mice that were genetically engineered to develop amyloid plaques. They could then repeatedly observe the same area of brain, and thus follow plaque formation over time.
"This gives us an opportunity to apply a time stamp to the events that are occurring," says Hyman. "So rather than simply having an individual snapshot of a pathophysiologic event, we can watch the process evolve."
While groups have applied multiphoton confocal microscopy to living brains before, Hyman's group is the first to apply the technique to the study of a neurodegenerative disorder. "It really pushes the technology forwards," says Steven Finkbeiner, associate director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved with the study.
Besides revealing the surprisingly fast pace of plaque formation, the study addresses a long-standing debate over the role of amyloid plaques in the development of Alzheimer's disease.
A long-established hypothesis posits that amyloid plaques themselves bring about damage to neural tissue, causing the disease's symptoms--most notably behavioral changes, memory loss, and dementia. But some scientists counter that plaques are not correlated strongly enough with the disease to be a convincing culprit for its symptoms. Rather than causing the symptoms of Alzheimer's, plaques could themselves be symptoms--stemming from some other, yet unknown mechanism.
"There's always been a lot of debate," says Juan Troncoso, codirector of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was not involved with the study. "What happens first, and what's responsible for what? Is the damage to the nerve cells first, and then the plaque, or vice versa?"
Deal Has Been Reached to End Writers' Strike: Eisner
 |
Deal Has Been Reached to End Writers' Strike: Eisner
MEDIA, ENTERTAINMENT, WRITERS STRIKE, DISNEY, HOLLYWOOD
By CNBC.com
CNBC.com
| 07 Feb 2008 | 06:05 PM ET
A deal has been struck between the major media companies and the Writers Guild of America to end the writers' strike, former Walt Disney chief executive Michael Eisner revealed on CNBC.
"It's over," Eisner said. "They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal. It's going on Saturday to the writers in general."
Eisner, speaking live on CNBC's "Fast Money," seemed to hesitate initially about whether it was possible that the writers could still reject the agreement, but finally suggested the deal's acceptance was inevitable.
"A deal has been made, and they'll be back to work very soon," Eisner said, adding, "I know a deal's been made. I know it's over."
Eisner did not elaborate on terms of the agreement. He said he expects most of the media companies affected by the strike to have "small" write-downs as a result of the deal. Eisner said the deal was struck last Friday.
As a result of studio cutbacks, however, many of the writers who went on strike are unlikely to return to the same big-money contracts they'd had as individuals with the studios, Eisner said.
Shares of Walt Disney and CBS were both up in extended electronic trading Thursday.
© 2008 CNBC.com
URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/23057002/
A Meter Wide Shark Head With 17 Feet of Shark Love To Follow
Dr. Eric Vetter was in a submersible off the coast of Moloka'i when a 6-gill shark, at an estimated 17ft, swam within feet of the sub.
The virtual motor- music to the ears!
The Virtual Motor audio system offers the sound — but not the fury — of a high-performance engine for your everyday car or truck. A German company named in.pro is now selling its Virtual Motor system, which taps into the RPM sensor of a vehicle and then plays a choice of four different engine sounds through the vehicle's stereo.
If it wasn't early February, we'd have thought this was some sort of automotive-themed April Fools joke. Apparently, the Virtual Motor is very much for real — or at least as real as a gadget that makes fake engine noise can get.
According to in.pro's press release, the system's easy installation "does not represent any problems that cannot be overcome by anybody." We'll take their word for it. Following in.pro's instructions, the first step is to remove the car's current radio from its slot in the dash.
Then "insert the sound module of the Virtual-Motor into the ISO plug and run the supplied cables to the engine compartment to pick up the rpm-signal. Done!" Our guess is that, if you really must have a Virtual Motor, your best bet is to find a skilled mechanic — preferably one with a very good sense of humor.
So what will the roughly $140 needed for the Virtual Motor actually get you? The system's repertoire of engine sounds includes four distinct choices: an "Italian V8" (think Ferrari, not Fiat), a six-cylinder boxer engine as well as the sound of "rally" and "formula cars." In.pro appears to have been extra careful and awfully ambiguous when it came time to naming the engine notes.
Frankly, it all sounds more than a little ridiculous to our ears. Then again, the idea of mating the sound of a screaming Formula One engine to something like a beat-up old Geo Metro does have a strange and very twisted appeal.
What this means to you: As automotive gags go, they don't get much better (and worse) than the Virtual Motor. — Nick Kurczewski, Correspondent
Val Kilmer to be the voice of KITT in new Knight Rider
HOLLYWOOD, California — Val Kilmer, whose screen roles have ranged from gunman Doc Holliday to porn star John Holmes and legendary fighter pilot "Iceman," can now add crime-fighting car voice to his resume.
Kilmer has been tapped to replace Will Arnett, best known as the star of TV's short-lived Arrested Development, as the voice of KITT in NBC's upcoming Knight Rider movie. The problem is that Ford is a huge ad buyer on the Knight Rider series, particularly promoting that KITT is now played by a Mustang Shelby GT500 KR.
Arnett has a previous voice-over relationship with GMC, and Ford was apparently uncomfortable with the association.
What this means to you: If he ever plays Jim Morrison again, Kilmer can sing "Knight Riders on the Storm."
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