A true story of Mother’s Sacrifice

This is a true story of Mother’s Sacrifice during the China Earthquake.

After the Earthquake had subsided, when the rescuers reached the ruins of a young woman’s house, they saw her dead body through the cracks. But her pose was somehow strange that she knelt on her knees like a person was worshiping; her body was leaning forward, and her two hands were supporting by an object. The collapsed house had crashed her back and her head.

With so many difficulties, the leader of the rescuer team put his hand through a narrow gap on the wall to reach the woman’s body. He was hoping that this woman could be still alive. However, the cold and stiff body told him that she had passed away for sure.

He and the rest of the team left this house and were going to search the next collapsed building. For some reasons, the team leader was driven by a compelling force to go back to the ruin house of the dead woman. Again, he knelt down and used his had through the narrow cracks to search the little space under the dead body. Suddenly, he screamed with excitement,” A child! There is a child! “

The whole team worked together; carefully they removed the piles of ruined objects around the dead woman. There was a 3 months old little boy wrapped in a flowery blanket under his mother’s dead body. Obviously, the woman had made an ultimate sacrifice for saving her son. When her house was falling, she used her body to make a cover to protect her son. The little boy was still sleeping peacefully when the team leader picked him up.

The medical doctor came quickly to exam the little boy. After he opened the blanket, he saw a cell phone inside the blanket. There was a text message on the screen. It said,” If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.” This cell phone was passing around from one hand to another. Every body that read the message wept. ” If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.” Such is the mother’s love for her child!!

Source: Internet

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Valobashi Tai, Valobeshe Jai - The Bangla Drama Full Download Link

Valobashi Tai, Valobeshe Jai 

Full Download Link in High Quality. (MediaFire)

Full Download

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Valobashi Tai - The Bangla Drama Full Download Link

Valobashi Tai 

Full Download Link in High Quality. (YouTube)

Part 1

Part 2 

Part 3 

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

(If you are in trouble when downloading from YouTube, mail me [armantring@gmail.com], I will show you a easy way to download. Thank You. )

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Ghost city appears above Xin'an River

Tall buildings miraculously appeared on the normally clear Xin'an River. Picture: ITN

• City appears over Chinese river
• Residents think it's a "vortex"
• Scientists say it's a great mirage

IT looks like any other city skyline with skyscrapers, a few mountains and trees - except it isn't real.

The giant mirage appeared across the skyline near in East China earlier this month after heavy rainfall and humid conditions along the Xin’an River.

As mist settled over the river at dusk, tall buildings appeared to rise from nowhere, leading residents in nearby Huanshan City to speculate that the vision may be a "vortex" to a lost civilisation.

Scroll down to see amazing footage of the ghost city

"It's really amazing, it looks like a scene in a movie, in a fairlyland," one resident told UK news channel ITN.

The mysterious city had vanished just as quickly as it had come.

Scientists have quashed the vortex theory and, as per usual, have a simple explanation for the incredible sight.

They believe it may have been a mirage, caused when moisture in the air becomes warmer than the temperature of the water below.

When rays of sunlight cross from the colder air into the warmer air they are refracted or bent – creating a reflection in the air that looks similar to a reflection in water.

It's a common sight for many travellers on Australian roads. But we Australians tend to see puddles of water that disappear when you get close, not entire cities floating on rivers.

Don’t get it? Here’s a scientist to explain

Source: News.com.au

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Guinness names Filipino as world's shortest man

SINDANGAN, Philippines (AP) — A poor Filipino blacksmith's son who stands less than 2 feet (60 centimeters) tall was declared the world's shortest man by Guinness World Records on his 18th birthday Sunday, sparking a celebration in his hometown.

Junrey Balawing smiles as he is presented by Craig Glenday, second from left, with a Guinness World Records certificate for being the world's shortest living man following the last of a series of measurement conducted at Sindangan Municipal Hall, Sindangan township, Zamboanga Del Norte province in Southern Philippines, Sunday June 12, 2011, his 18th birthday and coincidentally the Philippines' Independence Day. Balawing was officially measured at at 59.93 Centimeters (23.5 inches) dislodging Nepal's Khagendra Thapa Magar with a measurement of 26.4 inches. At left is Sindangan Mayor Filomeno Sy, and at right is Balawing's father Reynaldo. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

The title was bestowed on Junrey Balawing in Sindangan in the southern Philippines, with his parents, villagers and officials showering the coastal town's newly famous resident with a feast of roasted pigs and seafood, cake, balloons and cash gifts.

Balawing measured 23.5 inches (60 centimeters) during the ceremony attended by about 100 villagers and journalists at the town hall. Guinness World Records representative Craig Glenday presented Balawing with official recognition of his status as the shortest adult man in the world, with the framed certificate nearly reaching the ears of the standing recipient.

Balawing, who wore a white shirt emblazoned with the Guinness seal, took over the title from Khagendra Thapa Magar of Nepal, who is 26.4 inches (67 centimeters) tall, Glenday said.

Dozens of journalists descended on Sindangan, a fishing and farming town of 90,000 located about 450 miles (730 kilometers) south of Manila, to cover the event.

"Thank you," Balawing told the crowd in a local dialect which was translated by his father, Reynaldo. Balawing tried repeatedly before managing to blow out the candles on the cake and clapped heartily each time the crowd applauded. He was later heard saying "Kapoy," or "I'm tired."

Balawing — who is about the size of a toddler and has a child's demeanor — needs to hold onto something to stand because of weak knees. He was photographed propping himself up with empty Coca-Cola bottles, which were taller than his waistline.

Balawing's mother grew teary-eyed during the ceremony, saying she was happy with her son's instant fame.

Glenday said he was struck by Balawing's lively personality and constant smile.

"Although he's short, he takes that in stride," Glenday told The Associated Press. "He has this cheeky smile."

Aside from the Guinness certificate, the crown does not come with any cash award. Glenday said he hopes the international fame will bring in gifts and donations, particularly medical supplies to ensure Balawing's health.

Nobody could explain why Balawing stopped growing two months after his birth, his father said, adding that he first walked with help from his parents when he was 5 years old.

Sindangan Vice Mayor Bess Jagonio, a doctor, speculated that he may have had an endocrine or a birth-related defect.

Balawing's brother and two sisters are all average size.

His family said they tried to send Balawing to school but withdrew him after he distracted other children's attention.

Local officials got the idea of informing the Guinness records committee about Balawing from journalists who learned about his size.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Koran ayats appear on body of newborn baby in Dagestan - SUBHANALLAH

Ayats of the Koran appear from time to time on the body of a newborn baby in Dagestan, APA reports. When the ayats appear, the temperature of the baby reached 40 degrees. Ali was born in Krasno-Oktyabrsk village of Kizlyar region. The baby’s mother Madina Yagubova said a bruise first appeared on his jaw.
“Then we saw the word “Allah” in Arabic in the place of the bruise. The Koran ayats usually appear on the baby’s body on Mondays and Fridays, his temperature reaches 40 degrees and he cries. The writings disappear within three days and new ayats appear in their place,” she said.
The parents say first they decided not to tell anyone about it, but when they saw the words “show my signs to the people”, they decided to reveal the fact.
Representative of Dagestan Muslims Department did not comment on the fact, only said they were astonished.

According to Ahmadpasha Amiraliyev, chairman of Sadig Murtuzaliyev charitable foundation, the woman told doctors when she was pregnant that the baby was crying. “The doctors also witnessed it. The gynecologist was astonished to see that the baby’s body was transparent. He said the internals of the baby were seen,” he said. Then the doctors told the Yagubovs that the baby will live two or three days. But despite this, the baby survived and is nine months old now.

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A letter from Peter Kemp. (Wikileaks Related)

Legal sanity emerges in Australia

By Peter Kemp, Solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW, on 2010-12-04

Dear Prime Minister,

From the Sydney Morning Herald I note you made a comment of "illegal" on the matter of Mr Assange in relation to the ongoing leaks of US diplomatic cables.

Previously your colleague and Attorney General the Honourable McClelland announced an investigation of possible criminality by Mr Assange.

As a lawyer and citizen I find this most disturbing, particularly so when a brief perusal of the Commonwealth Criminal Code shows that liability arises under the Espionage provisions, for example, only when it is the Commonwealth's "secrets" that are disclosed and that there must be intent to damage the Commonwealth.

Likewise under Treason law, there must be an intent to assist an enemy. Clearly, and reinforced by publicly available material such as Professor Saul's excellent article:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/dont-cry-over-wikil...
...Julian Assange has almost certainly committed no crime under Australian law in relation to his involvement in Wikileaks.

I join with Professor Saul also in asking you Prime Minister why has there been no public complaint to the US about both Secretaries of State Condaleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton being in major breach of International law ie UN Covenants, by making orders to spy on UN personnel, including the Secretary General, to include theft of their credit card details and communication passwords. Perhaps the Attorney General should investigate this clear prima facie evidence of crime (likely against Australian diplomats as well), rather than he attempts to prosecute the messenger of those crimes.

It is also disturbing that no Australian official has castigated Sweden for the shameful treatment Mr Assange has received ie his human rights abused, in that he has not been charged and served with papers in the English language regarding the evidence against him of alleged sexual offences. This is contrary to Article 6 of the European Covenant on Human Rights to which Sweden is a signatory nation.

Those offences remain unclear and the Swedish prosecutor Ms Ny appears to be making up the law as she wants. It appears now, by Ms Ny's interpretation that when consensual sex occurs but if a condom breaks, the male party is liable to 2 years imprisonment for sexual assault. All this information is publicly available.

An Australian citizen is apparently being singled out for "special treatment" Prime Minister. There are legitimate concerns among citizens here that his treatment by the Swedes is connected to US interests which are against the activities of Wikileaks, and you will note the strident, outrageous (and illegal) calls inciting violence against him in the US in demands for his assassination, by senior influential US politicians.

Granted that in western political circles, Mr Assange is not flavour of the month, but what he is doing in my opinion, and in the opinion of many here and abroad, is vitally necessary to expose American foreign policy failures and potential war crimes and crimes against humanity--not for the purpose of damaging US interests but to make them accountable.

While we have close and a good relationship with the US, there is no doubt that US influence and power is declining. That we appear to be still posturing, (given that declining power and a new paradigm of privately enforced accountability) to the US on the issue of Wikileaks is, Prime Minister, deeply disappointing.

Yours Faithfully
Peter Kemp.

(Readers are encouraged contact the Australian Prime Minister here: http://www.pm.gov.au/PM_Connect/Email_your_PM)

 Reference: Legal sanity emerges in Australia

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World’s hottest pepper is ‘hot enough to strip paint’

Fiery food mavens seeking to one-up each other now have to gear up for a whole new test of culinary bravado: the world's hottest chili pepper.
Yes, the Naga Viper, the latest claimant to the world's-hottest-pepper crown, outdistances its predecessor, the Bhut Jolokia, or  "ghost chili," by more than 300,000 points on the famous Scoville scale of tongue-scorching chili hotness. Researchers at Warwick University testing the Naga Viper found that it measures 1,359,000 on the Scoville scale, which rates heat by tracking the presence of a chemical compound. In comparison, most varieties of jalapeño peppers measure in the 2,500 to 5,000 range -- milder than the Naga Viper by a factor of 270.
[Related: Most dangerous food ingredients]
You might think the Naga Viper would hail from some part of the world with a strong demand for spicy food, such as India or Mexico. But the new pepper is actually the handiwork of Gerald Fowler, a British chili farmer and pub owner, who crossed three of the hottest peppers known to man -- including the Bhut Jolokia -- to create his Frankenstein-monster chili.
"It's painful to eat," Fowler told the Daily Mail. "It's hot enough to strip paint." Indeed, the Daily Mail reports that defense researchers are already investigating the pepper's potential uses as a weapon.
But Fowler -- who makes customers sign a waiver declaring that they're of sound mind and body before trying a Naga Viper-based curry -- insists that consuming the fiery chili does the body good.
"It numbs your tongue, then burns all the way down," he told the paper. "It can last an hour, and you just don't want to talk to anyone or do anything. But it's a marvelous endorphin rush. It makes you feel great."
[Related: Secret chili ingredients unveiled]
A member of the Clifton Chili Club -- a group of Brits who travel around sampling chilis -- decided to try one of Fowler's Naga Vipers on camera. You can watch his less-than-pleasurable experience here.
(Photo of Bhut Jolokia, the previous holder of the hottest pepper in the world title: AP/New Mexico State University)

Reference: Yahoo! News

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The Amazing Readability Of Google Maps

It’s been my experience that Google Maps has always been the most legible of the online map services, though even the worst have come a long way since the early days. I figured it was just the same magical Google power that returned search results so fast and pushed email to my phone in seconds. But while the juice that makes those things go is largely behind the scenes, the optimizations Google has made to the Maps interface are staring you right in the face every time you use it. But you might not have noticed them.

This post at 41Latitude, a blog dedicated to this kind of analysis, is a minute examination of those optimizations, and what competitors might look like if they did the same thing. It sounds dry, but I found it an interesting read, and it’s also one of those things that you can’t un-see.

(click for a larger version)

The primary difference seems to be the way the city labels are placed and weighted. The low-contrast background and various levels of white outline to the type make larger cities pop, and looser rules on where the city label is relative to its dot allow for better spacing between items. And there is apparently a sort of “halo” around larger cities that suppresses labeling of smaller items, the better to highlight the big cities and routes on the map. There are illustrations of these techniques at the post, and I recommend taking a look if you’re at all interested in psychovisual optimization and UI planning.

I don’t mention it just to give Google a pat on the back (though they deserve, and I give it to them — now), but also to bring up the fact that little things like this do add up. Superiority you can see, as Google Maps shows, is important to retaining users. If they know why they like your service, that’s good; if they don’t know, that’s also good. Of course, a different user might prefer Bing’s maps, with their different aesthetic — as long as it’s done with the same attention to detail.

A site like Flickr would quickly be put out of business by a competitor if they didn’t put the photos front and center, in high resolution, with good compression and simple navigation. The best feature set in the world won’t matter if your potential users ricochet off the site instantly because of something that can’t quite put their finger on. Like the idea in Gladwell’s Blink that you can do an extraordinary amount of processing in a fraction of a second, you can do quite a thorough evaluation of a service like Google Maps or Flickr in the same amount of time.

Tiny optimizations create a friendly environment for users, something sites don’t care enough about. Sloppy UI and poor presentation get picked up on by many who don’t even realize they’re doing so. So, a lesson to the competition: the little things don’t take care of themselves, but they might take care of you if you’re not careful.

If you’re interested in the usability of maps thing in particular, 41Latitude is full of posts on the topic.

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Google Earth Engine Revealed At COP 16

Today at the United Nations’ conference on climate change COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico Google.org introduced its latest philanthropic project, the Google Earth Engine— an analytics tool for earth scientists and conservationists especially.
Google.org dubs their product “a planetary-scale platform for environmental data & analysis.” A product web page said:

The Google Earth Engine brings together the world’s satellite imagery—trillions of scientific measurements dating back more than 25 years—and makes it available online with tools for scientists, independent researchers, and nations to mine [a] massive warehouse of data to detect changes, map trends and quantify differences to the earth’s surface…

The search leader also introduced the Google Earth Engine API— only available to approved partners at this time— to help researchers develop, access and run algorithms on the full Earth Engine data archive, using Google’s parallel processing platform.

Some early Google Earth Engine partners mapped surface water in the Congo and created a granular map of Mexico’s forest cover and water. One scientist, Carlos Souza Jr. of IMAZON, the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment, a non-profit research entity, took original satellite imagery of Surui indigenous territory in the southern Brazilian Amazon (image, above) then analyzed it using Google Earth Engine to reveal forest damage in the region (image, below).

Google envisions their Earth Engine and API advancing a number of monitoring, reporting and verification efforts. Results could be: maps that show where ecosystem services exist and gaps where they are needed, reports that find and illustrate changes in the Earth’s surface over time, and visualization of land use trends as agricultural activity shifts in response to water shortages, rising sea levels, and other problems that result from climate change.

Countries are rallying to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing nations at COP 16 this year. Healthy trees and forests abate climate change, keep the air cleaner and food supplies stronger, according to the United States Forest Service.

Developing nations are (and have already been) most negatively effected by a rise in global temperatures as Kofi Annan, the former U.N. chief and Nobel Prize winner attests here. Keeping forests healthy in these regions could have a near-term beneficial impact.

In light of the COP 16 initiative, Google plans to donate “10 million CPU-hours a year over the next 2 years on the Google Earth Engine platform, to strengthen the capacity of developing world nations to track the state of their forests,” the company announced today.

Images via Google Earth Engine

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Google vows quicker, tougher copyright enforcement

SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. is promising to do a better job of weeding out copyright violations on the Internet.

As part of a crackdown announced Thursday, the Internet search leader said it will respond to complaints about pirated material posted on its YouTube video site and other services within 24 hours. Google didn't specify what its average response time is now, but many copyright holders have griped in the past about the company taking too long to remove videos or other content posted illegally.

Under federal laws, websites aren't held liable for hosting unauthorized copyright content, as long as they remove the pirated material after being notified of the problem. That can be a daunting task given that Google's search engine indexes more than 1 trillion unique Web links and about 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube per minute.

YouTube was swamped with pirated video in its early days, outraging television broadcasters and movie studios. The rampant violations prompted Viacom Inc. to sue Google and YouTube for $1 billion in damages, but a federal judge concluded Google and YouTube had followed the law in a ruling earlier this year. Viacom plans to appeal that decision Friday.

Google has tried to prevent pirated video and music from appearing on YouTube by introducing technology that automatically detects unauthorized content.

Without providing specifics, Google said it will be introducing more tools to make it easier and quicker to flag copyright violations. The changes that will be rolled out during the next month will include countermeasures to allow people to challenge copyright complaints.

Google also plans to police the websites in its online advertising network more closely. Sites that repeatedly try to make money by improperly hosting copyrighted content will be banned from the Internet's largest ad network more quickly. The increased vigilance, in theory, could encourage more websites to avoid becoming piracy havens.

Publishers, broadcasters and movie studios contend they would have made far more money from online advertising and licensing during the past year if not for rampant copyright abuses. Google frequently is a focal point of the copyright complaints because its search engine serves as the springboard for so much Internet traffic.

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WikiLeaks switches to Swiss domain after attacks

STOCKHOLM – WikiLeaks was forced Friday to switch over to a Swiss domain name, wikileaks.ch, after a new round of hacker attacks on its system prompted its American domain name provider to withdraw service.

WikiLeaks' U.S. domain name system provider, EveryDNS, withdrew service to the wikileaks.org name late Thursday, saying it took the action because the new hacker attacks threatened the rest of its network.
"Wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure," EveryDNS, headquartered in Manchester, New Hampshire, said .
EveryDNS.net provides access to some 500,000 websites.
In a tweet on Friday, the owner of EveryDNS, Dynamic Network Services Inc., wrote that "trust is paramount: Our users and customers are our most important asset." It did not specify whether it was referring to WikiLeaks, however.
WikiLeaks confirmed the move in a separate tweet, saying "WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks." It was not clear where the alleged attacks were coming from.
WikiLeaks' new domain, wikileaks.ch, is owned by the Swiss Pirate Party, a political group formed two years ago to campaign for freedom of information and sensible technology policy.
Pascal Gloor, the party's vice president, said they registered the domain about six months ago.
"We wanted to show our support for Wikileaks," he told the Associated Press by telephone, adding the party is only offering the domain name right now and that it hasn't provided the site with any servers or infrastructure.
WikiLeaks has previously claimed that intelligence agencies from the U.S. and elsewhere have been targeting its site, which has spilled thousands of embarrassing U.S. diplomatic cables as well as classified U.S. military documents.
WikiLeaks has so far released some 667 cables — out of the 250,000 it says it has on file.
Earlier this week, WikiLeaks' Swedish server host, Bahnhof, confirmed that the website had been hit by a cyber attack just before it leaked thousands of classified documents.
In addition to the latest batch of sensitive material, WikiLeaks has angered the U.S. and other governments by publishing almost half a million secret documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not clear how WikiLeaks obtained the diplomatic documents, but the U.S. government's prime suspect is an Army private, Bradley Manning, who is in custody on charges of leaking other classified documents to WikiLeaks.
On Wednesday, Amazon.com Inc. — which had provided WikiLeaks with use of its servers to distribute embarrassing State Department communications and other documents — evicted it. The site remains on the servers of its Swedish provider.
The ouster from Amazon came after congressional staff questioned the company about its relationship with WikiLeaks. Sen. Joe Lieberman praised Amazon's action and said it should "set the standard" for companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute "illegally seized material"
In its decision to terminate the service for Wikileaks, EveryDNS cited what it called a violation of the provision stating that a member should "not interfere with another member's use and enjoyment of the service."
Andre Rickardsson, an expert on file-sharing and information technology security at Sweden's Bitsec Consulting, said domain name providers normally don't drop their clients unless the clients themselves have breached their user contract. "WikiLeaks is not behind the disturbance here, but individuals trying to disturb WikiLeaks' operations," he said.
Rickardsson said he had never experienced a user being shut off under similar circumstances.
"I don't believe for a second that this has been done by EveryDNS themselves. I think they've been under pressure," he said referring to U.S. authorities.
Mark Stephens, the London-based lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, also speculated that outside pressure had forced EveryDNS to pull the plug on WikiLeaks.
"Pressure appears to have been applied to close the WikiLeaks domain name," he wrote on the micro-blogging website.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has been out of public sight for nearly a month. Sweden has issued an Europe-wide arrest warrant for him over allegations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, but the exact nature of the allegations are still unclear.
Assange's Swedish and British lawyers claim their client has attempted to assist in the questioning but so far Sweden has turned down his offers. According to his lawyers, he has also yet to receive formal notice of the allegations.
In an interview with BBC's Radio 4 on Friday, Stephens said that "those that need to know where Julian is — his co-workers, his lawyers and indeed law enforcement... know how to get in touch with him," but did not give more details on his whereabouts.
An American defense official has also indicated that U.S. government lawyers are investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted for spying. He also risks legal action in his homeland, where Australia's Attorney General Robert McClelland has said Australia would detain Assange if possible in response to the warrant filed in the Swedish case by Interpol.
Since his last public appearance was at a Geneva press conference on Nov. 5., Assange has spoken publicly only through online interviews.
Later Friday, he was due to participate in a live online chat on British daily the Guardian's website. Such interviews are generally text-based web chats rather than online video conferences, although a call seeking clarification from the paper was not immediately returned.
___
Associated Press writers Raphael G. Satter and Cassandra Vinograd in London and Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

Reference: Yahoo! News.

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The Gentleman Hacker

There was a good crowd at the TechFellows event tonight in San Francisco. I ran into a lot of people I don’t see all that often. Among them were two entrepreneurs that have made a ton of money by selling their companies in the last couple of years. They’re both working on a slew of new projects, and the way they’re doing it is fascinating.

What does a person do after becoming fabulously wealthy?

Sometimes the type A pirate personality that got them to where they are just doesn’t stop. They move on to a new challenge, and try for an even bigger win. They keep working, keep creating.

Sometimes they just retire out of tech. Maybe do some angel investing. Or buy a basketball team. Or a formula 1 racing team. Occasionally they go into politics, which never ends well. Brute force of personality doesn’t get stuff done in politics, these people usually fail at it.

Sometimes they vanish from tech entirely, never to be heard from again. We need a VH1-style “where are they now” show to track these people down.

But I’m hearing more and more about people who are simple setting up an office somewhere close to their multi-million dollar home in Silicon Valley or San Francisco, hiring a handful of hackers, and just building stuff to see what happens.

In many ways it’s analogous to the gentleman farmer – someone who farms, sorta, but doesn’t really worry about profit because they are independently wealthy.

It doesn’t take much capital. You already have a name that will attract developers, or you pull them out of their old jobs working for you. A million dollars or so will get you an office and a handful of hackers, and keep them well paid for more than a year. Get someone really young who wants responsibility and they may even work for next to nothing in exchange for big equity stakes in their projects – sort of a modified Y Combinator model.

Then, you build. Whatever you want, for no other reason than you feel like it. Michael Birch, one of the people I spoke with tonight, is doing this through an entity he calls Monkey Inferno. He’s got gobs of cash from his $850 million sale of Bebo to AOL two years ago. His projects include an expansion of Birthday Alarm and Charity Water, which we wrote about here.

But Birch has quietly moved a political site, called Jolitics, into private beta in Ireland. Some details are here.

The other entrepreneur I spoke with tonight hasn’t given me permission to say his name. But he also had a multi-hundred million dollar exit recently. And his plans are much the same. Open up shop with a bunch of hackers and just build stuff. Some will turn into businesses, others won’t.

Having fun, helping the world and focusing on doing what you want seems to be the key differentiating factor with these guys. And the fact is that the same forces that are allowing startups to get off the ground for next to nothing these days – open source stacks, hosting and computing services like Amazon Web Services, and the ability to plug in services like Facebook Connect to make community building significantly less frictional than just a year or two ago. That means a couple of guys messing around with a crazy idea for a year while working for Michael Birch may just churn out something interesting. Something that may be a real business.

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YouTube Officially Launches Ads and the Skip options available there

Yep, you read that right. Today, YouTube is officially launching TrueView, a new ad format that lets users skip over ads they aren’t interested in — and advertisers are actually okay with it.

It’s a new format that YouTube has been testing for a while now, and it’s a bit different than what you’re probably used to. When a TrueView ad unit begins playing, you’ll notice a five second countdown timer — as soon as that’s up, you’ll see an arrow that will let you skip the remainder of the ad and get back to the content you wanted to see, or you can choose to keep on watching the ad. No kidding.
It’s a bit counterintuitive (advertisers are constantly looking for ways to force you to watch an ad, after all), but YouTube says that the results have been promising so far. Advertisers like it because they only pay if the user doesn’t hit the ‘skip’ button, which means, at least in theory, that the people who do watch their ads are more interested in whatever they’re selling.
Of course, given how different this is from what most consumers are used to, it may be a bit too early to gauge how well these ads are actually working — users may be skeptical of hitting the skip button at all because they’ve never seen it before.
TrueView has another component that you may be more familiar with — for some videos it will lets users choose between three different pre-roll ads. Note that unlike the ‘skippable’ ads, this is very similar to what Hulu has offered for a couple years now.
Note that not all ads will be in the TrueView format — it’s still up to the advertisers to decide if they want to use it or a more traditional format.

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Firefox Is No Longer The Top Browser, Google Crome is the One!

It has finally happened. It took a little longer than anticipated, but Chrome has now passed Firefox as the browser most often used to visit TechCrunch. For the month of November, Chrome is number one for the first time, edging out Firefox 27.80 percent to 27.67 percent.

Back in early September, on Chrome’s second birthday, we noted that Google’s browser had been making huge gains over the past couple of years and was only about 3 percent away from passing longtime leader (again, in terms of browsing traffic to TechCrunch) Firefox. The quickly progressing Firefox 4 beta likely slowed Chrome’s march to the top a bit, but it couldn’t fully hold it back. Now the question is: can Chrome hang on?

Mozilla is slated to launch Firefox 4 early next year. So far, the update looks to be a big improvement both in terms of speed and functionality. Features like F1 (Mozilla’s experimental social browser add-on) and Panorama, are sure to be hits.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is preparing to launch the initial release of IE9, a version of the web browser which finally seems ready to adhere to actual web standards.

And then there are the social browsers, which are coming around again: Flock and RockMelt. The difference this time is that both of these browsers are built on top of Chromium, the open source browser that Chrome is also built on top of. Previously, Flock was built on top of Firefox.

But Google isn’t sitting around doing nothing. The search giant has been refreshing their browser like it’s going out of style. About every six weeks we now get a new version of Chrome. The big changes are less common than they were a year ago, but Google still has plenty of stuff they’re working on.

The Chrome Web Store, for example, is about to launch. This will feature web apps that can be downloaded through Chrome. And while Google says that many of these apps should work fine in “modern browsers” (their cute way of basically saying “anything but IE”), you’ll still need to access the store through Chrome.

And then there is Chrome OS, which will launch in beta before the end of the year. It’s Chrome, but it’s also your entire operating system.

Here’s the breakdown of the big boys for the month of November:

• Chrome: 27.80%
• Firefox: 27.67%
• Safari: 20.42%
• Internet Explorer: 15.74%

What’s most surprising here may actually not be that Chrome passed Firefox, it may be how high Safari is. If Chrome has something to worry about, it might actually be Safari, believe it or not.

If you’re wondering how Apple’s web browser is so high on the list, remember that it’s the browser used on every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch now. These devices boost Safari’s numbers by well over 10 percentage points. And if mobile traffic keeps growing the way it is, there’s a chance (just a chance) that Safari could even eclipse Chrome and Firefox as the top browser viewing TechCrunch. Since August, Safari has grown by two percentage points, while Chrome has gained just one.

Prior to this month, Firefox had been the number one browser visiting TechCrunch since at least late 2006, when we started keeping track of such stats. While IE was obviously the dominant browser back then (and still is number one overall), the Firefox usage shouldn’t be too surprising since those users tended to be more tech-savvy, and more likely to be reading TechCrunch. The problem for Mozilla now is that many of those same people are now using Chrome instead.

It has been a nice four-year run, Firefox, but we’re now in the age of Chrome.

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Bradley Manning, alleged WikiLeaks source, set up an early Facebook?

Well, it’s a strange world out there. It’s been reported that the man accused of passing thousand of secret US documents to WikiLeaks was a tech geek who set up a primitive ‘social network’ at his school, years before Facebook appeared.
Private Bradley Manning joined the US Army in 2007 and was posted to Baghdad, where he worked on classified army networks. He has been linked to the publication by WikiLeaks of a video showed a US Apache helicopter attacking Iraqi citizens and two Reuters journalists (“Collateral Murder”), the Afghan War Diaries (76,000 US military documents published by WikiLeaks in July 2010), 400,000 US war logs from Iraq, and 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables. He’s currently languishing in a US jail, awaiting a military court marshall. Founder Julian Assange is currently on the Interpol Wanted list.
But before all that, back in 2001, he was a 13 year old boy, newly-arrived in Wales, UK, with his mother, herself recently divorced from a US citizen. Bradley joined the Tasker Milward school in the quiet Welsh town of Haverfordwest, in the same year.
Channel 4 News has revealed that he quickly developed a reputation as a geek, designing a site which supposedly anticipated social networking sites, most likely some sort of community bulletin board. Former school friend Tom Dyer told the new channel: “Overall, Bradley was renowned for his IT skills.”
Channel 4 details how Manning spent his teenage years growing up as something of an outsider, and was regularly bullied, but – at least according to his old school friends – developed what they imply was a strong sense of morality. However, he eventually dropped out of school and returned to the US shortly afterwards. The rest, as they say, is history.

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First Reflections on Jumo

As you may have heard, Jumo is now open in beta. What is Jumo? As Mashable reports, “Jumo was designed to let users find, follow and support the causes important to them, and with 3,500 organizations on board at launch, would-be philanthropists should be able to find and follow something of interest upon joining. (For comparison’s sake — Apple’s Ping had 2,000 artists two months out of the gate.)” I’ve been playing around with the new social platform this morning and wanted to share some of my early reactions. (So have others – here’s a blog post from Beth Kanter and Steve McLaughlin on Jumo.)

Functionality

Persistence
So far, trying to navigate the site to browse or set up a profile has about a 50/50 chance of hitting either a 504 or 500 error page. It’s been quite a frustrating process, especially when inputting 33 different countries one by one in the “where we work” section just to have the “save” not work. Complaining about the errors on Twitter along with @Kanter, @pgjones00 was Mark Mann:
It is in beta, let’s not forget! So, patience and persistence are the keys to success. I’m always the first to admit I’m not patient, but I persistence this morning has gotten me pretty deep into the site – so keep refreshing your browser and you’ll get through!
Facebook Requirements
It seems that you have to have an organizational presence on facebook in order for the project page on Jumo to work/look right – I put in my facebook ID, thinking it was verifying my association as the admin on the organizational account, but instead it put my photo and info as the organization’s! I’m not sure that organizations will want to maintain, or create, a profile on facebook just as a ticket to using Jumo. Is this experience correct – have others found this to be true?
Transparency
Here’s the screen shot for the TechSoup Global page on Jumo. I am following the organization and am an administrator on the page – doesn’t appear to show either of those facts!

I’m also not finding any way to customize the URL so that users could more easily find, and I could more easily share/promote the page.
Messaging
I’ve had quite a string of issues with the messaging in Jumo. Here are some of the posts I’ve shared this morning with members of a social media for nonprofits group in facebook:

• when I try posting on people’s pages, it doesn’t appear to go through, but then they say they get 4 emails telling them about it (this is what one contact reported after I posted on his wall); when I tried posting an update on my own page it went through twice! Just checked back and Jumo deleted the second/double post but the diction is very strange! “Amy Sample Ward wrote on her/her profile:”
• I just posted on Beth’s wall on jumo and left the “post to facebook” box checked to see if it would post on her or my facebook wall as well, but it doesn’t seem to have done so.
• Also interesting, that it let me post on Beth’s wall (if the Jumo terms use “wall”) even though we weren’t following each other. Could mean that users don’t have a way to manage the amount of posts (read: spam) that could get through to them…
• I got an error that said only letters, spaces and punctuation were allowed… no numbers?!

Avi Kaplan shared some feedback on my facebook wall this morning, as well:
I really agree with Avi – there doesn’t seem to be a way to comment on someone’s post to reply, or to reply to the news items. Isn’t that the point? Not just to broadcast, but to have a conversation, share ideas, and provide context.
Building a Network
As Debra Askanse posted in a facebook group discussing Jumo this morning, how do follow people, and not just organizations?

The reason a site for finding and following causes you care about has social features is because it isn’t just the organizations we care about that we like to follow, but also the people we care about. If a friend or family member donates to an organization, starts or shepherds a campaign, or shares an appeal for support, data has shown that we are more likely to listen and even take action – we trust our friends and family and listen to what they say more than just ads or mass-messages. So, finding and following the people we want to listen to should certainly be easier in Jumo!
Donations
As Marie Deatherage pointed out, “Did you see that 15% of donation goes to jumo, about 5% to network4good? That’s the default.” As an administrator on an organization’s page, I find it interesting that it doesn’t share these details with you during the set up process. You would need to seek out the details to find out what the donation details are even though the option for people to donate through the profile is there immediately!

Purpose

As Tom Watson posted in a facebook group this morning, what’s the point?

Jumo vs Change.org – is that the question?
Change.org describes itself as:

Change.org is the world’s fastest growing social action platform, empowering people to make a difference across a variety of important causes. Our team of writers and editors provides daily coverage of breaking social action campaigns, connecting people to opportunities to get involved. We also provide free tools that allow anyone to run their own campaigns. Our tools are used by thousands of grassroots activists and organizations around the globe. We count many of the world’s leading nonprofits as partners, including Amnesty International, Sierra Club, Human Rights Campaign, and the United Nations Foundation.

So, does the nuance between the two platforms come down to “action” or something else? Organizations that I am or could follow are on both platforms, so what is the deciding factor influencing their strategy for engagement on the platform and the deciding factor for which platform I use to connect with them?
Beyond a Platform
Beyond this platform or that one, why do you, as an individual who is passionate about a cause, want to connect directly with a nonprofit organization online? Is it to take action – online? or off?  Is it to know what they are doing and how they use the funds you may have given them? Is it to see if they are worth your donations or volunteer hours? How does your purpose for engagement influence your choice of platform?
I’m really interested to hear what you all think! What are your experiences, thoughts, reactions or conjectures? What are you most curious about or hopeful for?

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WikiLeaks Founder Added To The Interpol Wanted List

Two days after Internet whistleblower WikiLeaks released 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables to major media organizations including the New York Times and Der Spiegel, international police organization Interpol has placed founder Julian Assange on its wanted list for “Sex Crimes,” in a warrant issued by the Public Prosecution Office in Gothenburg, Sweden.
While Assange might be facing criminal charges if he returns to his native Australia and is under investigation in the US for espionage, the Interpol mediated charges here are in connection with rape allegations made by two different Swedish women back in August.
While Interpol makes it clear that its infamous Red Notice list does not function as an international arrest warrant, it does serve the purpose of broadcasting internationally that the person in question is a fugitive and can aide in extradition process.
Assange, who has previously denied the allegations, is rumored to currently be hiding in the United Kingdom, which as of yet has not shown any signs of taking legal action. The @wikileaks Twitter account has remained dormant since news about the release went out.

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US Government Shuts Down File-Sharing Websites

It seems like legal efforts against Limewire and ThePirateBay were just the tips of the iceberg.

Software piracy is definitely nearing the end of its run. The US Government is getting more and more involved in shutting it down. In actual fact, the US Government is shutting down just about anything illegal on the Internet.

The US Government’s legal activities on the Internet include shutting down torrent searching sites, downloadable music sites and websites that sell fake designer clothing.

All of the websites were suspended as a result of actions of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency which represents the Department of Homeland Security.

Not yet sure on how downloading a movie affects homeland security but It’s interesting to know that the Government is increasing efforts against file sharing anyway.

ICE warning notice

Up until today, the ICE agency managed to shut down more than 70 websites involved in dubious activities. The websites that were turned in now feature an official government (such as the image above) warning to people who access it.

Like I said, this is a great initiative from the long arm for the law as software piracy does have its risks. What I’m not so sure about is how the legal forces are acting. The ICE simply takes over the domain they target.

This means that they can put these notices on the front page but there is a problem. The illegal trafficking websites still work, the only difference is the fact that they changed domains.

Basically, the US Government is going to take down software piracy and mischief on the Internet but it doesn’t want to harm it. That doesn’t make much sense.

ICE complete warning notice

The list of websites that have been targeted by the law is quite large but let’s go through a few of the most important ones. The biggest name shut down by the ICE is torrent search engine torrent-finder.com.

After that we learn about troubling online shops with counterfeit merchandise such as louis-vuitton-outlet-store.com, burberryoutletshop.com and mydreamwatches.com.

As far as music piracy is concerned we find that the website called rapgodfathers.com is also down.

Here’s my biggest problem with this website shutting down. When the US Goverment took control of the domain they did limp activity but didn’t shut it down.

Some of the 70 websites the law shut down are continuing their activity under new domain names. Up until the ICE and the US Government gets their act together the Internet will still house illegal activities.

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The Worlds most expensive Car Maybach Exelero

The Maybach Exelero was first introduced by German car manufacturer Maybach in 2005. This two-seater vehicle is said to be the fastest car in the world with a top speed of 351 km/hr. This luxury car is priced at a whopping $8,000,000 USD. At that price it can be safely assumed that you have to be unbelievably wealthy to even fathom buying this baby. If you just happen to win the lottery over and over and think that you can finally lay your hands on a Maybach, I’d suggest you spend that money in acquiring a vacation home in at least three continents along with a Mercedes S-class sedan to accessorize each home. But, if you happen to be P. Diddy, then nothing should stop you from buying this insanely expensive beauty for your 16 year old son’s birthday! However, you do not need to have any money to enjoy these beautiful photos of the Maybach Exelero and I’d suggest a good nap after to drive this dream car.

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