113045801234496283

in

Tropical Storm Beta (Hurricane soon?)

Tropical Storm Beta, the 23rd tropical storm of this record-breaking season continues to grow stronger in the western Caribbean. Beta is creeping to the north at 3 mph with winds of 60 mph. Beta is forecast to quickly reach hurricane strength (possibly category 2) and turn westward making landfall along the coast of Nicaragua by Sunday. A hurrcane warning is now in effect for the islands of San Andres and Providencia. In addition, the government of Nicaragua has issued a tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch for the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua from the border with Costa Rica northward to Cabo Gracias a Dios near the Nicaragua/Honduras border and adjacent islands. Heavy rain across western Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua will be the most significant impact. Rainfall amounts on the order of 10 to 15 inches (locally 20) are possible.

113037111421504129

in

Creative Whining because Apple took their toy and wont share.

MP3 player manufacturer Creative says there's an industry-wide shortage of flash memory that will make it hard to deliver 1GB flash players. It's a shortage that's affecting everybody but Apple -- and Creative blames it on Apple's "special deal" with Samsung to buy up a large amount of its quarterly flash-memory production. It also sounds like Creative's CEO is blaming Apple for putting price pressure on the industry that a lot of companies can't handle. His response? Raise prices. Sounds like that should work, because if people favor a rival's product, raising the price of your own will certainly make it more attractive. Maybe the real problem is that a Creative MP3 player never made anybody king of the Internet.

113037063481046411

in

Patriot Act Absuses

From slashdot: The Washington Post is reporting that recently discovered documents indicate serious intelligence violations by the FBI. This comes just months after the U.S. House voted to extend the Patriot Act, EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center) has obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act of thirteen cases of possible misconduct in intelligence investigations. The case numbering suggests that there were at least 153 investigations of misconduct at the FBI in 2003 alone.