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As expected, after years of news release after news release extolling the virtues of this beer, THE FIRST BEER FOR WOMEN with a “…touch of Clover Honey,” is on life support, and probably has been for awhile. The two female owners of this Amazonian beer, however, are spinning this story in a different way. Beautiful Brews Inc. has decided to put the entire operation up on e-Bay because they have “…not been able to raise enough capital to take the Honey Amber Rose to the next level” with one of the owners suggesting that “This is an opportunity for established...

For years, cheap imported garlic has been cutting into the bottom line of Gilroy's signature crop. Now one entrepreneur has come to the Garlic Capital of the World to grow the key ingredient in tequila, agave. Grower Frank Leal has made an award-winning winery business in the hills above Hollister. Planting 10 acres of blue agaves, he has set his sights on being the first to bottle California's take on tequila. Our video report has more (Link)

When I was a young woman married to a Delta Airline pilot - there was a great story that went around Coweta County, Georgia. A veterinarian told it to me. The story went: ‘”what are the two most dangerous things in rural Georgia?” The answer: an out-of-control loaded pulp wood truck careening down hill, and … a pilot in search of an investment. In the 70s, airline pilots with Delta or Eastern often lived in rural Coweta, Carroll or other Georgia boonies outside of Atlanta. Some pilots and airline personnel, at that time, made a good bit more money than...

Once upon a time in a land far away, a master woodcarver decided to move to a new village deep in a forest. He was convinced that in the forest he could find a good supply of the high-quality wood he needed. So he loaded his young family, all of his belongings and his tools into a cart pulled by his faithful donkey and set out for the village. Along the way, the wood carver met another man and his family who were moving to the new village in pursuit of a living. He was a tinsmith. Like the woodcarver,...

Some Classic Ads You'd Never See Today

A 50,000 to 100,000 barrel of oil equivalent a day pilot production scheme on Brazil's offshore Tupi field is planned to begin in 2011, the chief executive of BG Group PLC (BG.LN) Frank Chapman said Thursday. Speaking in a conference call he said an extended well test, with production in the range 10,000 to 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, will begin on Tupi later this year in advance of the pilot program. http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=64639

Intego might have stumbled across an OS X specific virus being offered for auction that targets a previously unknown ZIP archive vulnerability.Mac antivirus maker, Intego, have published an interesting alert about a potential OS X virus that an enterprising individual is trying to sell through auction. With absolutely no technical information to go on, the antivirus maker is treating the announcement with caution. Based on the rate and type of vulnerabilities identified by projects like the Month of Apple Bugs it isn't too far fetched to expect that there are dozens or even hundreds of OS X specific viruses/malware creations...

MacDailyNews reader Chad reports having received an email from Yahoo! that the Yahoo! Music Store will be closing. Here it is verbatim: The Yahoo! Music Store Will Be Closing; Important Information About Backing Up Your Music Files Greetings, The Yahoo! Music Store, along with the ability to purchase and download single songs and albums, will no longer be available as of September 30, 2008. Songs and albums that were purchased through the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store are protected by a digital rights management system that requires a valid license key before they can be played on your computer. After the...

Just curious what people think the best way to collect taxes is. I have my own opinions, but I'd like to know what you all think. Consumption vs. Income; Flat vs. Progressive (or even Regressive); Many small taxes or few large taxes? Weigh in.

(Intel is a sponsor of SVW)Intel announced plans for a new business group manufacturing system-on-a-chip (SOC) semiconductors. SOCs are souped-up microprocessors that are tuned for specific types of devices, such as mobile internet devices, smart phones, or medical devices.Intel's SOC chips combine a microprocessor with memory, graphics, and embedded software plus specialized chip and software functions.SOCs can shrink almost an entire board of chips into just one or two chips. This makes digital products more reliable and less expensive to make.Intel predicts that within a few years there will likely be billions of digital devices connected to the Internet. Most...

I'm writing this sitting in a Singapore Airlines double-decker Airbus A380 bound for the carrier's home city. We're at 35,320ft and I'm up in tech heaven. I have my Eee PC 900 open in front of me, its meagre battery being kept topped up from the power socket in the armrest to my right. My iPhone is sitting on the fold-out table next to the Eee – it's being charged from the USB port to the right of the large, crisp , decent-resolution seat-back LCD. There's a light under the screen that, when activated, provides illumination for my keyboard. If...

I did a search, and it's been 4 years since this quiz was posted. I though it would be fun to see where everybody scores! While the quiz certainly has its flaws (what in the world does that fact that I recognize that astrology is superstitious nonsense have to do with my politics?) it at least puts politics on an X-Y axis instead of a simple left-right line. What's more, my score does seem pretty dead on: Economic Left/Right +8.5, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian -0.56. What are your numbers?

The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc. In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three—the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal—the Office takes the position...

As more and more PC users switch to Macs, they're bringing viruses and other malicious software with themWhen Apple beat Wall Street expectations convincingly on Monday after its best quarter ever, its share price fell. Financial analysts were worried about Apple's once stellar profit margins, the health of its irreplaceable chief executive, Steve Jobs, and fears that a slowing global economy will mean weaker sales of iPods, iPhones and MacBooks. Amid this uncertainty, a different type of analyst told me of another troubling development for Apple, one that is probably not yet written into any financial models: Apple is beginning...

In November, I wrote that many Windows users who are switching to the Mac are doing so because they're fed up with viruses, spyware and other threats aimed at the platform. Many are victims of malware that often relies on social engineering to infect a system. They're enticed into taking some action that places malevolent code on their machines. In other words, these users' bad computing habits are a major cause of their own woes. These security-clueless folks, I wrote, are now bringing those bad habits to the Macintosh platform, and according to a new story on Times Online, the...

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- The latest thinking in the Silicon Valley scene regarding the Microsoft-Yahoo-Carl Icahn Saga, which is not going away, might be about some sort of killer patent owned by Yahoo. Right now financial researchers everywhere are trying to figure out what exactly the patent is. The blogosphere has been abuzz with various notions that the real reason Microsoft Corp. wants Yahoo Inc. has to do with a patent that Microsoft needs to implement its future money making philosophies. One of the hot articles with the most details regarding these possibilities is written by blogger-essayist Usman Latif, who...

Alaska House Approves $26.6B TransCanada Gas Pipeline Plan by Cassandra Sweet Dow Jones Newswires 7/23/2008 URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=64567 SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones Newswires), July 23, 2008 The Alaska House of Representatives approved a bill late Tuesday that would award TransCanada Corp. (TRP) an exclusive license to build a $26.6 billion natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope to Alberta, Canada. The proposal, by Republican Gov. Sarah Palin, could go up for another vote by the state House on Wednesday, under what's called "reconsideration." If the bill doesn't fail in a reconsideration vote, it would proceed to the state Senate, which has...

Eva Mendes will soon be making men's hearts skip a beat, as she's getting set to pose for a new Calvin Klein underwear campaign. The gorgeous actress will show off her perfect body wearing nothing but Klein's classy lingerie in the label's new Seductive Comfort line show. The new bras will be available in stores later this year (08).

Buzzword chimera the size of a paperback Start-up CherryPal is taking pre-orders today for its partly cloudy "desktop" that mashes web-hosted computing, going green, open source, and social networking into a 10 ounce box. The (self-titled) CherryPal systems are $249, and surprisingly won't require a monthly subscription despite the fact that most of its storage capacity and several of its features hosted in the cloud.Note: we still haven't seen a working unit with our own eyes. According to CherryPal, as of Friday the boxes were still being given the fine tooth courtesy of US Customs and Border Protection's best and...

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 third quarter ended June 28, 2008. The Company posted revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $5.41 billion and net quarterly profit of $818 million, or $.92 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.8 percent, down from 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 42 percent of the quarter's revenue. Apple shipped 2,496,000 Macs during the quarter, representing 41 percent unit growth and 43 percent revenue growth over the...

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. today announced that its 40Gb/s InfiniBand technology interconnects the new 29TFlops computer systems research cluster at the Center for High-End Computing Systems (CHECS) within the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. 40Gb/s InfiniBand was introduced in June 2008 and this compute cluster showcases the quick industry acceptance and adoption compared to other high speed interconnect technologies. Mellanox 40Gb/s InfiniBand technology provides the necessary scalability and performance for the CHECS research activities and will be the foundation for the development of next generation, power-aware high-end computing resources. “Mellanox continues to lead the high-performance computing and enterprise data center...

Apple accuses brothers Robert, left, and Rudy Pedraza of copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract. A Doral company founded by two South Florida brothers has been sued by technology giant Apple, which is attacking the Mac clones the brothers started selling in April. Attorneys for Apple are accusing Psystar Corp., owned by Rudy and Robert Pedraza, of copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract for building and selling ''cloned'' computers that run on Apple's Leopard operating system. In addition to monetary damages, Apple wants a court to force the Pedraza brothers to stop selling their clones...

KAPOW! The new Batman movie "The Dark Knight" smashed the weekend record set by "Spider-Man 3" last year, selling an estimated $155.3 million worth of tickets during its first three days of release across the United States and Canada, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures said on Sunday. The hotly anticipated film, co-starring late actor Heath Ledger as the anarchic Joker, surpassed the $151.1 million haul for "Spider-Man 3" during its first weekend in May 2007.

What would you do if you had the bully pulpit? What policies would you promote. What are the best ways to preserve the US and make the world a better place for our children? This is obviously a vanity, but there is a wide range of opinion represented here and clearly not enough vision is coming out of our elected government. What would you do?

The Wisconsin Humane Society is buying one of the largest dog breeding facilities in the nation, and plans to close the kennel and find new homes for the more than 1,100 dogs there, the society announced Friday. The action appears to be an unprecedented step in the campaign by U.S. humane societies against puppy mills."We have not heard of this ever being done by a local facility," said Cory Smith, program manager of animal sheltering issues for the Humane Society of the United States. "You see these places and it's heartbreaking. So when you know that people are making a...

All Things Considered, July 17, 2008 · A generation ago, the livelihood of Gloria Nunez's family was built on cars. Her father worked at General Motors for 45 years before retiring. Her mother taught driver's education. Nunez and her six siblings grew up middle class. Things have changed considerably for this Ohio family. Nunez's van broke down last fall. Now, her 19-year-old daughter has no reliable transportation out of their subsidized housing complex in Fostoria, 40 miles south of Toledo, to look for a job. Nunez and most of her siblings and their spouses are unemployed and rely on government...

While Apple is the famously fruity iPod and Mac company, a small upstart named Psystar has sought to steal a small amount of Apple’s thunder by producing clones of the famous Apple computers. Psystar took advantage of Apple’s recent conversion of all of its personal computers to use Intel microprocessors, the same microprocessors at the heart of ordinary PC’s, to make clones that (mostly) run Apple’s OS X software operating system. Of course, Psystar is not doing this out of benevolence, as its website proclaims: "Why spend $1999 to get the least expensive Apple computer with a decent video card...

There is much exuberance in the Mac orbit this week over news from market research and analysis firm Gartner Group that Apple has edged past Taiwan-based Acer into third-place spot for computer sales volume in the U.S. with 8.5 percent of the domestic personal computer market, although it still ranks sixth globally. However, domestically, according to Gartner estimates, Apple's sales now surpass all competitors save for for Dell and HP, showing amazing sales growth of 38.1 percent year-over-year, and that's with fourth-place Acer having gobbled up Gateway and Packard Bell whose sales are included in the Acer total. Gartner' market...

Ahead of the summer Olympics, Apple on Saturday will open the doors to its first retail store in China, a glass-enclosed high-profile shop situated in Beijing's newest retail development: the Village at Sanlitun. Keeping with his tradition of attending Apple's gala international retail launches, our friend Gary Allen from ifoAppleStore has made the grueling journey across the Pacific to be on hand for tomorrow's grand opening at 10:00 a.m. Allen reports that Apple's space within the Sanlitun complex "is nearly invisible from the street," because it sits within the center's inner courtyard. "But once you see it, it’s impressive --...

As Microsoft (MSFT) continues to waste time and resources figuring out how to win a sideline game it has already lost--Internet media--its shareholders have bigger things to worry about. Namely, the future of the Windows and Office cash cows. It has been so long since Microsoft had anything real to worry about in these businesses that it's easy to take their perpetual domination for granted. Don't. We've written frequently about the cloud computing threat: Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and other web-based services companies offering functionality and apps for free that Microsoft currently charges a boatload for. Microsoft is aware of this...

But Mac clone maker might counter with anti-competitive argumentApple Inc.'s demand that a Mac clone maker recall computers because the company installed Mac OS X on the machines may be an extreme measure, but it's hardly unprecedented, an intellectual property attorney said today. "It would be extreme because it would likely put Psystar out of business, but it's not a remedy that's coming out of the blue. It's not completely without precedent," said Carole Handler, a partner in the intellectual property (IP) department of Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon. Handler is best known for her work on a case involving...

A fake Robert de Niro was caught when he tried to use forged ID papers for the star during a routine police roadside vehicle check. Police in Iasi, Eastern Romania, said: "He was even dressed up like the Hollywood star with a designer suit and sunglasses - but he didn't fool officers. "We knew that Robert de Niro would not be driving alone around a remote part of the country. We guessed he was an imposter." A search of the man's home later exposed him as part of a forgery gang that had been helping provide fake Romanian ID's to...

An advertising world first has been launched in London - pitvertising. The innovative new concept uses digital TV screens built into the armpits of shirts. It was developed by deodorant manufacturer Right Guard as the ideal way to market its products. A hired team of 'Pitvertisers' was sent out into the streets of London to test the new medium. Passers-by were reportedly amazed by the new marketing tactic - some were clearly impressed; but others thought it the pits...

The national Internet service providers, AT&T and AOL, signed an agreement with state government to eliminate child pornography from the Internet, announced the office of state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, New York, on Thursday. As part of the agreement signed with Cuomo, the two Internet access providers agreed to work towards eliminating certain newsgroups that distribute child pornography online. A similar agreement was signed with Verizon Communications, Time Warner (News - Alert) Cable, and Sprint Nextel on June 10, 2008. The decision on making the service providers sign the agreement came after Cuomo’s office identified 88 different newsgroups that contained...

Sloshing back and forth in constant rhythm, the ocean's tides are a predictable source of renewable energy. Hoping to tap into this, the world's largest tidal turbine is set to start generating electricity this month. The installation of the SeaGen marine current generator was completed this past May in Strangford Lough, a large inlet on the coast of Northern Ireland. The system, designed and built by Marine Current Turbines Ltd., has two rotors that each span 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter. "The technology is very analogous to wind, except we are doing everything underwater," said Peter Fraenkel, the company's...

LOS ANGELES - In a bid to regain lost ground in the fiercely competitive gaming business, Sony announced Tuesday that it will cut the price of its high-end PlayStation 3 console by $100. It also will introduce downloads of movies and TV shows to the game machine's online store and, with some software partners, roll out a number of exclusive games. The moves suggested that Sony still views Microsoft as its chief rival rather than market leader Nintendo, which seems focused on extending its lead. But, of course, that's not how Sony brass portrayed its announcements at a press event...

The latest round of graphics card dueling between AMD and Nvidia isn't just over high-end gamers. The vendors will also exchange blows for the hearts and wallets of your friendly neighborhood medical imagers, seismic modelers, and computational fluid dynamicists. AMD is refreshing the FireStream processor line with a new general purpose GPU (GPGPU) that boasts more than one teraflop of processing power. Instead of handling gaming or graphics operatins, GPGPUs are built to crunch hundreds of parallel calculations per clock cycle. They promise massive speed improvements over a CPU in mathematical workloads of the scientific, educational and high performance computing...

(Pabst touts ascent to No. 1 American-owned beer maker) Pabst Brewing Co. doesn’t operate breweries anymore, but it wants to be the first choice for every red-blooded American beer drinker. The company, which owns dozens of beer brands and contracts with MillerCoors LLC to create most of its brews, is staking its claim as the largest remaining American-owned beer maker. Just days after industry giant Anheuser-Busch Cos. announced its sale to InBev, a European brewer, Pabst is conducting an online survey, asking customers about it. “Did you know that after this sale is completed, Pabst Brewing Company will be the...

It's the first ETF that covers only the world's second-largest continent, Africa. On Monday, Van Eck launched Market Vectors Africa (NYSEArca:AFK - News). It tracks the Dow Jones Africa Titans 50 Index of companies based in or deriving more than 50% of their revenues from 11 countries in Africa. "It's a resource-rich continent," said Harvey Hirsch, senior vice president of marketing at Van Eck Global. "It's receiving a tremendous amount of investment from foreign investors and it's a key beneficiary of Asian demand." The ETF most heavily weights companies domiciled in Nigeria at 25%, South Africa 25%, Egypt 13% and...

Despite President Bush's less-than-subtle jab this week, Florida is not the reason why gas prices are more than $4 per gallon. On Monday, Mr. Bush indulged his passion for empty symbolism by lifting a presidential ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, a ban his father established. The gesture is symbolic because Congress would have to go along, and Congress won't, primarily because Democrats won't.

Apple has sent out the following email to MobileMe customers: MobileMe services are now available We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped. Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running. Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all...

Worldwide PC shipments reached 71.9 million units in the second quarter of 2008, a 16 percent increase from the second quarter of 2007, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. "Mobile PCs continued to lead unit growth across all regions as the average selling price (ASP) of mobile PCs declined sharply relative to desk-based PC ASPs," said Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner's Client Computing Markets group, in the press release. "Economic uncertainties have hit PC revenues, resulting in steep ASP declines, especially in markets such as the United States and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. The...

A vintner is alleging that the man who wants to open a retail wine store on North Santa Cruz Avenue in Los Gatos told him "God will punish" him if he spoke out against the application. Entrepreneur Rahul Ravulapati, who owns a winery in Livermore, says he never threatened anyone and accused the vintner, Fred Faltersack, and other Los Gatos wine makers of discrimination. "These people are blackmailing me," Ravulapati said after the July 9 planning commission meeting, where commissioners unanimously recommended against approving the permit. The dispute started last month when Ravulapati called local vintners to ask if they...

What does everyone here think of the Federal Reserve? Does it do too much or too little? What should it's role be? Is it necessary? Should we actually have it at all? Just curious to get people's opinions.

Thomas Hickman drove through New Mexico, police say, until his Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo ran out of gas. Then the 55-year-old North Richland Hills man walked into a field, tied helium balloons to a gun, covered his mouth with duct tape, and shot himself in the back of the head, according to New Mexico State Police. That determination is a far leap from what authorities first suspected when Mr. Hickman's body was discovered March 15 near Santa Rosa, N.M., about 100 miles east of Albuquerque. Authorities initially thought the Red Lobster executive had been kidnapped and slain. Thomas Hickman But...

I thought this was interesting and thought provoking at the very least: For those who may be confused by the controversies surrounding the "New World Order", a One-World-Government, and American concern over giving the UN more power; those unaware of the issues involved; and those wishing more background, I offer the following. Originally presented for an Honors Class, "Dilemmas of War and Peace," at New Mexico State University, the paper was ridiculed and characterized by Dr. Yosef Lapid, (an acknowledged and locally quoted "expert" on Terrorism and Middle Eastern affairs) as "paranoid... possibly a symptom of mental illness." You may...

DACULA - As the famous twang of Hank Williams Jr. blasted from an SUV stereo Friday afternoon, about 30 folks socialized, sipped soda and puffed on cigarettes. No, this wasn't a Fourth of July backyard barbecue. It was the run-up to a wedding. In a Waffle House parking lot. The lucky couple, George "Bubba" Mathis and Pamela Christian - both 23 and employees at the Dacula diner located at the Ga. Highway 316/U.S. Highway 29 interchange - wouldn't have it any other way. "I don't know, it's something different," Mathis said while fixing his tie prior to the ceremony. For...

- 400GB drive cuts acoustic noise during data seek by 2dB*1 for near silent operation -TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced a new line-up of high performance 2.5-inch HDDs, including a low-noise flagship model that boosts areal density to 477Mbit/mm2 (308Gbpsi) to achieve a capacity of 400GB on just two platters, plus five drives that bring new levels of performance and 7,200rpm rotational speeds to the company’s full range of storage capacities. Mass production of the 400GB MK4058GSX will start from September, targeting notebook PC and consumer electronic applications. Mass production of the 7,200rpm drives will start in August. The line-up includes...

Charges copyright, trademark infringement, violation of OS X software license (Computerworld) Apple Inc. has filed suit against Psystar Corp., the computer maker that in April started selling Intel-based systems with Mac OS X pre-installed. Apple is charging Doral, Fla.-based Psystar with copyright and software licensing violations, according to court records and a Florida attorney. A Psystar employee who answered the company's telephone this morning and identified himself only as "George," said that the company had no comment on the lawsuit. Although the full complaint has not been posted to the federal court system's electronic document system, Apple filed charges on...

SEC to limit shorting of Fannie, Freddie, brokers Emergency order will try to protect struggling firms against 'naked shorting' By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch Last update: 6:17 p.m. EDT July 15, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that it will try to limit so-called "naked" short selling of shares in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and big brokerage firms The SEC will issue an emergency order stating that all short sales of shares in these companies will be subject to a "pre-borrow" requirement, said Christopher Cox, chairman of the SEC. This will last for 30 days,...