Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance

Red Skelton's "Pledge of Allegiance" was first introduced on the Red Skelton Show on January 14, 1969. It has since been twice read into the congressional record of The United States and has received numerous awards.

Google App Engine Now Open

PC Magazine reports: "Google on Tuesday announced its new Google App Engine, and opened a preview version to the first 10,000 users to sign up. The service essentially does for Web apps what Google Blogger does for bloggers: provides a hosting solution for Web developers to build their apps on top of, integrating with other Google services and sparing developers the trouble of server maintenance and scalability. Basically, Google wants to be your (free) sysadmin."

Google is providing a web infrastructure for application developers to host their apps. If you're a Python web developer, you may want to check this out (this offer is limited to the first 10000 people who sign up).

Dial D for Disruption

Forbes.com reports: "Spencer is the inventor of Asterisk, a free software program that establishes phone calls over the Internet and handles voicemail, caller ID, teleconferencing and a host of novel features for the phone. With Asterisk loaded onto a computer, a decent-size company can rip out its traditional phone switch, even some of its newfangled Internet telephone gear, and say good-bye to 80% of its telecom equipment costs."

Learn about an open-source program called Asterisk that is making waves in the telecommunications industry.

Suddenly Last Supper

Popped Culture reports: "There's nothing like a couple thousand years of of repetition and an iconic painting by an Old Master to get story to get lodged inside the heads of the creators of pop culture. Leonardo da Vinci's 15th century depiction of Jesus announcing that one of his 12 disciples would betray him is so iconic that it has been co-opted by those wishing to give weight to their parodies, tributes and caricatures. As many of the pictures as possible are linked to a more detailed version."

Several humorous paraodies of the last supper.

Microsoft Building `Containerized` Data Center

eWeek reports: "Microsoft is in the process of building the industry's first container-based data center.

Microsoft first said a year ago that it was considering the idea, and now the concept is coming to fruition, Michael Manos, Microsoft's senior director of Data Center Services, said April 1 in a keynote address at the AFCOM Data Center World conference here."

I have heard of companies playing with the idea of container-based data centers for the last few years. Its nice to see them finally using them.

Clifford Stoll: 18 Minutes With An Agile Mind

Clifford Stoll could talk about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Or hunting KGB hackers. Or Klein bottles, computers in classrooms, the future. But he's not going to. Which is fine, because it would be criminal to confine a man with interests as multifarious as Stoll's to give a talk on any one topic. Instead, he simply captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides -- and even a science experiment. After all, by his own definition, he's a scientist: "Once I do something, I want to do something else."

Photos: How data centers are cooling down

CNET News.com reports: "California data centers from the Oregon border down to Bakersfield now demand as much as 500 megawatts, which could grow by another 50 to 70 megawatts within the next 18 months, according to Mark Bramfitt, program manager for customer energy efficiency at Pacific Gas & Electric."

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data centers use about 2 percent of U.S. energy consumption. That may sound small, but that is a lot of power being used. Personally I work with servers all day, so I get to see these technologies in action.

Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer

Wired Reports: "Internet griefers descended on an epilepsy support message board last weekend and used JavaScript code and flashing computer animation to trigger migraine headaches and seizures in some users.

The nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation, which runs the forum, briefly closed the site Sunday to purge the offending messages and to boost security."

There is no defense against an attack like this unless you turn off all scripting and other browser technologies like Flash. Although by doing this you will disable most or all the functionality of popular web sites.

What Does a Computer Virus Look Like?

What Does a Computer Virus Look Like? - News and Analysis by PC Magazine: "A Romanian artist and MessageLabs, a computer security services company, have teamed up to provide renderings of what the world's most deadly malware might look like."

Check out the slideshow, the concept of the artwork is interesting. Although, the article does reads like an April Fool's Joke.

Google Docs getting offline access

Webware reports: "Google Docs' word processor is finally getting offline access. Using the free Google Gears extension, users will soon be able to read and edit their files even when they have no Internet connection.

The Gears-enabled version of Google Docs will roll out to users over the next few weeks, starting Monday. If you don't have access to the feature, just keep trying, Google Docs product manager Ken Norton told me. You'll know you have the feature when you see a little 'offline' menu item in the upper right of your document window in Google Docs."

This technology has the potential to start a whole new standards war in the near future if it takes off the way a few companies are betting it will...

Google: April Fools' Day Hoax

Below is a list of previous Google April Fools' Day Hoaxes:

(2007) Google: TiSP (Toilet ISP): Google's new free in-home wireless broadband service.

(2007) Google: About Gmail Paper (New Feature): Gmail, you can request a physical copy of any message with the click of a button, and we'll send it to you in the mail.

(2006) Google Romance: "A place where you can post all types of romantic information and, using our Soulmate Search™, get back search results that could, in theory, include the love of your life. Then we'll send you both on a Contextual DateTM, which we'll pay for while delivering to you relevant ads that we and our advertising partners think will help produce the dating results you're looking for."

(2005) Google Gulp (BETA) with Auto-Drink: A line of "smart drinks" designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.

(2004) Google Copernicus Center: Google is interviewing candidates for engineering positions at our lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007. This unique opportunity is available only to highly-qualified individuals who are willing to relocate for an extended period of time, are in top physical condition and are capable of surviving with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes, The Sopranos and a steady supply of oxygen.

(2004) GMail was announced on April 1, 2004 and people thought it is another hoax!

(2002) PigeonRank: The heart of Google's search technology is PigeonRank, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University.

(2000) Google MentalPlex: Search technology that read user's mind to determine what the user wanted to search for. No need to actually type in the search query.

Other April Fool's sites:

• Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes
• Mr. C's Top 12 Internet-Based April Fool's Day Pranks
  

After 38 years, a new type of memory to hit market

CNET News.com reports: "Why will the world want PCM? Performance, says Numonyx CTO Ed Doller. PCM chips can survive tens of millions of read-write cycles, he said, or far more than flash. Reading data to PCM chips takes 70 to 100 nanoseconds, or as fast as NOR flash. Data can be written to the chips at a rate of 1 megabyte a second, or equivalent of NAND flash. There is also no erase cycle, making it similar to DRAM."

Its amazing how long this technology has been in development, let hope it works out.

Design Coding Rap

The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) is back with another marketing rap. This time he describes how web standards and proper design can affect the ranking and conversion of pages on your site.

Parody: MacBook Air

A parody of Apple's MacBook Air commercial. The song is "New Soul" by Yael Naim. The film was created by THE BUREAU (www.umdbureau.com)

Reasoning Behind Owning a PDA

Photos: Treasure trove for the pocket-protector set

CNET News.com reports: "Long before Craigslist, eBay, and niche online merchants made it easier to find out-of-the-way oddities, stores such as American Science & Surplus were sourcing and selling obscure, hard-to-find electronic and mechanical components to geeks and artists. Seventy-one years ago, the company's founder listed discarded optics and military equipment in the back pages of Popular Science magazine."

This looks like a very cool place to shop, I could spend hours here just roaming and looking around.

Images: 100 miles per gallon or bust!

CNET News.com reports: "Carmakers are already charging batteries, tuning engines, and inflating tires to get ready for DARPA's Progressive Automotive X Prize contest, which will deliver $10 million to the winner whose car can exceed 100 miles per gallon. At the New York auto show last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency unveiled Progressive Casualty Insurance as the sponsor of one of the most interesting auto contests to date."

I want these cars now, this would be 3 to 4 times better gas millage then I am currently getting.

Beethoven's 5th Argument

No cue cards, no teleprompters, and no second takes--legendary funnyman Sid Caesar pioneered live television sketch comedy with his 1950s sitcoms Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour. This classic sketch is "Argument to Beethoven's 5th," Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray play a married couple in a argument with pantomimed action and the dialogue is classic music.

The Onion: Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?

Panelists discuss whether controversial decisions by the Robot Congress and President Executron indicate robots have too much control over our lives. (More coverage at: http://onion.com)

Did You Know 2.0 (official update to "Shift Happens")

An official update to the original "Shift Happens" video from Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, this June 2007 update includes new and updated statistics, thought-provoking questions and a fresh design. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com -- Content by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, design and development by XPLANE.