- Never let it be said that Chrysler is a company with a
heart. If the automaker had one, it would not be ordering the destruction of a preproduction
1992 Dodge Viper SRT, given to South Puget Sound Community College’s automotive
program and valued at $250,000. Automotive professors and students the
school were notified of the decision, with the car headed for the chopping
block within two weeks. “It’s like the day Kennedy was shot,” said Norm
Chapman, an automotive technology professor at SPSCC. “No one will forget where
they were when they heard the news.” While his analogy is a big reach, this
community college learning helper does have a point. Steven Glasco, vehicle
donations coordinator at Chrysler, recently informed the school and other
institutions in possessions of the educational donation Vipers nationwide.
Chrysler won't say how many of the vehicles exist or why they must be
destroyed. “All I can tell you is we sent a letter to the school,” Glasco said.
According to Chapman, 93 of the cars are believed to exist and he was told that
their destruction is the result of two educational Vipers that “got loose” and
were involved in accidents, costing parent company Fiat millions of dollars. Automakers
regularly donate damaged, non-street-legal or unsellable vehicles to
institutions of learning and SPSCC has about 20 donated vehicles in its auto
shop. As part of the donation agreement for the donated Viper, the car must be
destroyed if the company orders it to be. Because it has no emission controls
or speed limiters, it is not street legal. Because it features a makeshift
hardtop, it is one of a kind because the company did not make a production
hardtop until 1996. It is capable going from zero to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds,
which is still not fast enough to keep it from becoming a compacted hunk of metal……….
- Myanmar is not a friendly place at the moment. When international
medical non-governmental organizations (NGO) aren't welcome, then your country
has gone from untenable to violently hostile and then some. The Burmese
government has banned Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) from operating in its
strife-torn Rakhine State following official accusations the aid organization
is biased towards the state's persecuted Rohingya minority. Fabricating such
accusations isn't difficult when looking to bogusly ban such a group and it
becomes so much easier when you don’t have a soul or care about a group
donating essential healthcare to tens of thousands of patients. According to
the organization, the government has allowed it to resume operations in a
number of regions, but not in Rakhine State, where the majority of the
predominantly Buddhist country's disenfranchised Muslim Rohingya minority is
concentrated. That sounds an awful lot like discriminating against a needy
minority, but of course a government would never do anything like that. Since
2012 Rakhine State has been plagued by communal violence that has further
exacerbated the suffering of an estimated 800,000 stateless Rohingya who reside
there. In a statement, MSF said it was "deeply shocked by this unilateral
decision.” Prior to the crackdown, the organization ran clinics in nine
townships across the state, "treating anyone who was unable to access the
medical care they required," including tens of thousands of vulnerable
people who displaced into camps by recurrent communal violence. Ye Htut,
spokesman for Myanmar President Thein Sein, claimed that MSF was banned from
the state for consistently showing favoritism towards the Rohingya -- a stateless
group Myanmar's government does not recognize as a legitimate ethnic minority.
Why it should matter who a non-profit group helps with its own funds is
unclear, but the government views the Rohingya as interlopers from neighboring
Bangladesh. “MSF's foreign and local staff in Rakhine have created a lot of
problems because they are not following their core principle of neutrality and
impartiality," Htut said. Stay classy, Myanmar……..
- The Oakland Raiders aren't exactly rife with Pro Bowl
players or even top-end talent. If their current Pro Bowler has his way,
they’ll listen to his ideas and allow them to guide their offseason activity.
As free agency began Saturday, the Raiders embarked upon their segment of the
NFL’s annual spending spree with the words of Pro Bowl fullback Marcel Reece echoing in their ears. "What I
want to see Reggie do, and I'll be honest with you, just like I'll be honest
with him, I want him to be fearless," Reece said in a speech at the team's
Commitment to Excellence dinner, referring to Raiders general manager Reggie
McKenzie. "I want to not worry about anybody else. I want him to be
fearless and, let's go for it right now.” Reese, sounding very much like a
veteran tired of being on losing teams and realizing he’s probably in for more
of the same as long as he remains in Oakland, warned against any “safe moves”
and advocated for “smart, calculated, fearless, Raider-ass moves that you don't
care about anything else.” On one hand, the NFL has proven in the past that a
team can go from last place to world champion in a couple of seasons, but on
the other hand….they’re the Raiders. They blow draft picks on huge risk picks
merely because a guy runs a fast 40-yard dash at the scouting combine and they
bring in troubled free agents with character concerns. In response to Reese’s
remarks, McKenzie said a whole lot of nothing about nothing. "What I want
to do is make this team better. And that's what we're going to set out to do
this Tuesday and really, not waiting until Tuesday but, just with our own team,
just trying to get things done. We want to upgrade this football team and we
intend to do that,” McKenzie said. With about $65 million in salary cap space
and 17 unrestricted free agents, there should definitely be plenty of activity
around the Raiders, but the question is how effective those moves will be……..
- Google Glass has already contributed heavily to society. In
addition to confounding many, creating so-called Glassholes and failing to
deliver the impact that the search giant hoped for, the latest gadget in the
Google arsenal has spawned scores of new apps and inspired developers to find
ways to utilize what it can offer. Enter Emotient into that mix, an app aimed at
allowing Google Glass wearers to distinguish emotions in case they happen to be
emotionally dense and/or clueless. The app uses the front-facing camera on
Google Glass and is quick enough to catch micro
expressions, which are small facial movements that allow clever mentalists,
psychics and other stage performers to pretend they can actually read people’s
minds. On the surface, the app can distinguish between smiles, frowns, scowls
and other facial expressions and translate what each means in terms of overall
emotional sentiment. A Google Glass user could then know whether someone
they’re talking to feels positive, negative or neutral – although if someone is
talking to a Google Glass user, odds are they feel outright contempt
because…well, they’re talking to a Google Glass user. Sorting through a catalog
of emotions that includes surprise, joy, anger, rage, frustration and dozens
more can be tough, so it’s about time humanity received some assistance. Right
now, Emotient is in the beta testing stage and images from it are fed back to
the company's software platform, where the emotional analysis is performed and
then the results are pushed back to the user via the Google Glass screen.
However, Google has let developers working to create apps for its product that facial
recognition apps are forbidden. Emotient will attempt to work around this by
not personalizing the data is analyzes or storing any information about a
person. Emotient hopes to expand its app into areas such as retail and
healthcare, hoping big dollars will follow………
- The rest of the field at the box office could not hold off
a mob of angry Spartans. “300: Rise of An Empire” battled its way to the top spot of
the earnings list in its debut, banking $45.1 million to claim first place in
its first weekend of release. Fellow newcomer “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” snagged
second place with $32.5 million, bumping previous earnings king “Non-Stop” to
third place with $15.4 million in its second weekend, good for a two-week
domestic take of $52.1 million. “The LEGO Movie” was next on the list, placing
fourth with $11 million. In five impressive weeks, the animated flick has now
banked $225 million and counting in domestic earnings. “Son of God” fell three
spots to fifth (setting up a possible resurrection next weekend?) as it made
$10 million, good for a two-week tally of $41.5 million. “The Monuments Men”
was next on the list, finishing sixth with $3.2 million and a cumulative
domestic bank roll of $70.6 million in five weeks. “3 Days to Kill” continued
to kill the career of every one at Relativity Media who green-lit this
cinematic train wreck, earning a mere $3.1 million in its third weekend for a
seventh-place result. So far, this colossal disappointment has ground out a
paltry $25.5 million in domestic money. “Frozen” furthered its astounding
success by finishing in eighth place and thereby remaining in the top 10 for a
16th consecutive weekend with $3 million, giving it $393.1 million. “12 Years a
Slave” soared nine spots to ninth place as its limited release widened, making
$2.2 million. Its $53.1 million in domestic earnings are just the start as the
inevitable Oscar bump keeps it in America’s collective cinematic consciousness.
“Ride Along” rounded out the top 10 with $2 million and has amassed $129.9
million in eight weeks. “RoboCop” (No. 11), “About Last Nigh” (No. 12) and “Pompeii”
(No. 13) all dropped out from last weekend’s top 10………å
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