Apple has sold more than 42 million of the devices since they went on sale in 2001, including 14 million in the fourth quarter last year. The devices can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the sound for more than 28 seconds per day, according to the complaint.

The iPod players are "inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss," according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, on behalf of John Kiel Patterson, of Louisiana.

The suit, which Patterson wants certified as a class-action, seeks compensation for unspecified damages and upgrades that will make iPods safer. Patterson's suit said he bought an iPod last year, but does not specify whether he suffered hearing loss from the device.

Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.

Dumb!

Lawsuit: iPods may cause ... eh?

That's right. The HP ScanJet 4c's SCL (Scanner Control Language) command set includes an unofficial PLAY TUNE command. I stumbled across this after reading an article on the ScanJet 4c in the feb. 1997 issue of HP Journal (see the sidebar Sing to Me).

The PLAY TUNE command basically varies the stepping rate of the scanner motor to produce audible frequencies. All it needs is a series of note frequencies and durations previously written to its SCSI buffer. The ScanJetPlay utility resulted from my efforts in trying out this easter egg. Check dis shit out, babee! :^)

ScanJetPlay requires libsane and libsanei (for SCSI access) from the SANE backends package. Note that libsanei and its header files is not installed per default, and must be done manually.

Video here...

http://www.ghana-projects.de/scanjet-elise2.mpg

This just sounds so cool ... :)

ScanJet Music

SNL - The Chronic of Narnia Rap

'So bad yet so.. HaHa...'

SNL - The Chronic of Narnia Rap

India's and China's educational systems — known for producing vast numbers of engineers — are commonly thought to be slowly and steadily overtaking the U.S. in technological leadership. But that may not be the case.

A controversial Duke University study contradicts that perception, pointing out that engineers are defined differently in different places. Those differences give the impression that foreign colleges are graduating more engineers, as measured by U.S. standards, than they really are. In addition to blurring the definition of the term, schools in India and China may not be graduating engineers of the same caliber as those in the United States. And their graduates may not be competitive in a global sense for a variety of reasons, including language issues and job locations.

While the study may augur well for the United States and do much to deflate the "sky is falling" hyperbole about the alarmingly low numbers of qualified engineers here (see Opinion, Dec. 12, page 4), it's not a black-and-white analysis. Some in the field predict a continued drop in the number of U.S. engineering graduates and increased salary pressure from other countries. They point out that current failings of the K-12 educational system in the United States create future risks to U.S. technological dominance.

The 2004 engineering school graduate figures often cited are 352,000 for India and 600,000 for China, according to the Dec. 12 study.

U.S. engineer education not in dire straits: study

Calling all fans of Spam, dead parrots, upper-class twits and lumberjacks! MONTY PYTHON'S PERSONAL BEST, six one-hour specials airing on PBS February 22-March 8, 2006, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET., showcases the all-time favorites of the groundbreaking masters of sketch comedy: Monty Python.

Each episode will include members of the original Monty Python troupe performing in favorite clips from their unorthodox television series, "Monty Python's Flying Circus," repurposed with exclusive new material. Each of the five living Pythons - John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - produced and wrote his own episode, and collaborated to create the sixth special in honor of deceased member Graham Chapman. The episodes will air over a three week period in two-hour blocks on PBS on February 22, March 1 and March 8.

"As the network that originally introduced the fresh and unconventional comedy of Monty Python to America, PBS is proud to present these new specials," said John F. Wilson, PBS senior vice president and co-chief programming executive. "These specials will allow Monty Python fans to learn more about the men who have made them laugh for decades, while introducing a whole new generation to these world-renowned comedians."

Viewers familiar with the Pythons or new to their zany brand of chaos will be treated to the troupe's favorites, including:

* "Michael Palin's Personal Best"--Michael Palin takes a look at one of Britain's most popular leisure pursuits: fish slapping. In possibly the first in-depth documentary on this piscine subject, he examines method, technique and equipment. In between are some of his favorite sketches from "Monty Python's Flying Circus," including the Cheese Shop, Blackmail and, appropriately, the Piranha Brothers.

* "Eric Idle's Personal Best"--Eric Idle returns to the Hollywood Bowl to introduce his favorite skits from "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Idle has been described by some as the third-tallest member of the Monty Python team and this is reflected in his selections, which include the Silly Olympics, Bruces, Lumberjacks and the Hairdressers' Expedition to Mount Everest.

* "Terry Jones' Personal Best"--Terry Jones reveals for the first time that he was the true creative genius behind Monty Python and in fact wrote all the shows himself. This makes the job of selecting his favorites all the harder, but he manages to produce an hour that features The Bishop, News for Parrots, Bicycle Repair Man and the Spanish Inquisition.

* "John Cleese's Personal Best"--John Cleese chooses instructive selections as his favorite sketches from "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Viewers learn how to defend themselves against fresh fruit, perform brain surgery Gumby-style and fly. For music lovers, there's the exploding version of the Blue Danube.

* "Terry Gilliam's Personal Best"--Terry Gilliam is animated about animation as he presents his cartoon favorites f... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Monty Python's Personal Best

Commentator David Brown offers this appreciation of the campy television show Batman, which premiered on ABC on this day 40 years ago. Brown says for people his age, who were little kids at the time, the Dynamic Duo were larger-than-life superheroes. And, 40 years later, he still appreciates the show's absurdist brillianc

The Campy, Absurdist Brilliance of TV's 'Batman'

High-integrity software systems are often so large that conventional development processes cannot get anywhere near achieving tolerable defect rates. This article presents an approach that has delivered software with very low defect rates cost-effectively. We describe the technical details of the approach and the results achieved, and discuss how to overcome barriers to adopting such best practice approaches. We conclude by observing that where such approaches are compatible and can be deployed in combination, we have the opportunity to realize the extremely low defect rates needed for high integrity software composed of many million lines of code.

Good read... poor software costs about $60B a year Sheesh..!!!!

Correctness by Construction: A Manifesto for High-Integrity Software

"When a Marquette University Dental School student blogger made some nasty comments about an (unnamed) professor and (unnamed) classmates on his personal blog, the Dental School administration imposed a draconian punishment on him. He was to be suspended from school for a year, lose a prestigious scholarship, and seek counseling for supposed "behavioral problems." The case received wide attention, starting with local talk radio, the local daily paper and reverberated through the blogsphere. Dental School Dean William Lobb, considering the case on appeal, has now reduced the student's punishment. The student now faces probation rather than suspension, will be allowed to keep his scholarship, and will not have to seek counseling. He will have to do 100 hours of community service, and apologize for the blog posts. While this is certainly good news for the student, it leaves open the question of how much freedom Marquette Dental School students have in posting on their personal, non-university connected blogs."

Dental School Blogger Punishment Reduced

Nick Naylor, chief spokesman for Big Tobacco, makes his living defending the rights of smokers and cigarette makers in today’s neo-puritanical culture. Confronted by health zealots and an opportunistic senator, Nick goes on a PR offensive, spinning away the dangers of cigarettes, but he begins to think about how his work makes him look in the eyes of his young son Joey.

Looks like a good movie...

Thank You For Smoking...

Maybe it was jumping on Oprah's couch.
Or perhaps it was his testy interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today" show, or his constant expressions of love for his fiancee, Katie Holmes.
Maybe it was all of those things combined that prompted British movie fans to name Tom Cruise the most irritating actor in Hollywood.
Cruise was found to be more annoying than Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey.
Britain's Empire magazine surveyed 10,000 movie fans.
But while Cruise may annoy them off camera, they still like his movies. They named him the greatest movie star of all time.

WSMV - Nashville Channel 4 News Tom Cruise Voted Most Irritating Star Of All Time