The Blog's of Elijah Lynn.

This is what kids do when they aren't glued to the television all day long.

2010-03-07T11:59:00.001-07:00

Obscura Cuelight Pool Table

2010-03-07T11:50:00.001-07:00

Owl City - Fireflies (Live Nation Studios)

2010-02-28T11:29:00.001-07:00

This video definitely had a lighter and more connected feel than many mainstream live performances. They all seemed to be up front and there wasn't any real focus on one of the members. I really liked the way they set this up. They ended the show with a nice bow too!

Who is Peter Joseph?

2010-02-21T17:43:00.000-07:00

Who is Peter Joseph? from charles robinson on Vimeo.

This is a fantastic video!

Flattr - This is Flattr

2010-02-14T21:06:00.001-07:00

World Record Claps 721 for minute

2010-02-14T11:17:00.001-07:00

Guy disables landmine with his pocketknife!

2010-02-13T09:55:00.001-07:00

He is a good guy, must watch.

Lego Augmented Reality

2010-02-13T09:49:00.001-07:00

Embrace Life - always wear your seat belt

2010-02-06T17:14:00.001-07:00

Loved the cinematography and soundtrack for this one!

The Happy Train

2010-01-23T11:26:00.001-07:00

Smile :)

Baby Laughing Hysterically at Newfoundland Dog

2010-01-17T10:36:00.001-07:00

Borneo Apes - Malaysia

2010-01-17T10:32:00.001-07:00

Bonobo chimp plays Pac-Man

2010-01-17T10:11:00.001-07:00

The Eyewriter on Vimeo

2010-01-11T22:39:00.000-07:00

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

The Truth About 'Free-Range' Eggs - Jonathan Safran Foer

2010-01-09T20:56:00.001-07:00

"Free range has no legal definition whatsoever"

Non-graphical. Short.

Iio - Is it love (Poetica)

2010-01-09T20:31:00.001-07:00

Nobuyuki Tsujii - WOAH!!!

2010-01-09T19:55:00.001-07:00

This made me very happy with a few tears!

Amazing Technology.... About 10 people a day lose a finger in table saw accidents. Guy bets a finger he has the solution.

2010-01-09T19:39:00.001-07:00

The Third & Seventh - Beautiful CG

2010-01-07T09:41:00.003-07:00

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Absolutely beautiful! Listen with some good speakers or headphones!

Drop of water

2010-01-07T09:21:00.001-07:00

Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe - Reality TV Editing

2010-01-06T08:36:00.001-07:00

This is a good watch!

Everythings amazing nobodys happy

2010-01-02T19:48:00.001-07:00

I swear I act like this guy sometimes (in this clip)!!! Be grateful peeps!!! You have toilets, movies, food, , internet, lighting and climate control IN THE FREAKIN AIR people!!!

Stargate Studios Reel - Greenscreen made easy!

2010-01-02T19:36:00.001-07:00

Nuff said.

U.S Soldiers Are Waking Up!

2009-12-29T19:23:00.001-07:00

Drupal.org Redesign Update - 20091212

2009-12-29T08:14:00.003-07:00

About this Video
-------------------------------------
Druplicon is rockin' to the beat! And then comes Lisa Rex who was so kind as to give us an update on the Drupal.org redesign. I am thankful because I had no clue what was going on with it, I had heard it was going to happen and then nothing happened and I know many other people are wondering the same thing. Her update is pretty exciting and in conjunction with it
Dries Buytaert said in his keynote at Do It With Drupal 2009 in New Orleans that he hopes for the redesign to be done in early 2010.

Technical Details
-------------------------------------
In this video I grabbed a custom track from Sonic Fire Pro called "Juggernaut" and made my first real attempt at syncing keyframes with the wave form of the music in Final Cut Pro. I think it turned out pretty good considering it was my first attempt. In addition to the rapid keyframing I used the "Motion Blur" effect in the "motion" tab of the layer.

Irrelevant Details
--------------------------------------
This is one of my first real YouTube videos of many more to come. Over the next year or so I will be producing some music videos for the amazing musical artist Sonya Leigh and I also have a ton of footage of the Ron Paul Blimp that I will be releasing (creative commons). I just have to get it all transferred onto disk and that entails me getting another DV camera that has a working firewire port. I prefer to get the same model it was shot on, a Sony TRV-27, so I have the best chance of zero dropouts (so, if anyone has a TRV-27 then hit me up!). I have some awesome blimp footage and although I haven't watched any of it since it happened it is sure to be some good content for the movement. The whole election fraud of Ron Paul kind of pissed me off a bit. I think I am finally recovered from that hugely stressful event and I now feel that it is time to get active again. Although, I am now moving more in the direction of The Venus Project as I think that is the best plan for a sustainable, peaceful and pleasurable planet for us all to enjoy for eons to come!

Mechanical Traffic Signals

2009-12-27T13:35:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking about this for quite a while now and just came across this video.

While I am glad we are doing away with mechanical assemblies I think we have much more work to do as far as synchronizing traffic lights. I envision the future to have a more open system where people can participate in the timing of the traffic lights. A system that minimizes waiting time. If Google were in charge it would turn green as soon as the last perpendicular car crossed. It would have GPS, motion sensing, and infrared technology all perfectly coordinated so we would have a traffic light system that was as efficient as our computers.

Welcome the traffic light 2.0 system as it makes its grand entrance over the next 10 years! I can't wait!

HAMSTERDAM HILARIOUS VIDEO! WATCH!

2009-12-25T14:07:00.001-07:00

Save water, pee in the shower.

2009-12-20T20:01:00.001-07:00

At least that is what this commercial is encouraging you do if you live in Brazil.

Google Chrome + Extensions = Awesome!!!

2009-12-19T19:45:00.005-07:00

I have been playing with Google Chrome for quite a few months now. It appears we are on version 4 already and the neat thing is that I have never had to update it, it just happens!

So Chrome opened up shop for the extensions gallery recently and I recently had some time to treat myself to the buffet! All I wanted was mouse gestures but I got so much more!

Here is what I have installed so far!

* AdThwart (so nice to not have all those distractions)
* Aviary (most amazing photo editing, screen capture, effects webware I have ever seen!)
* Beautify Facebook (installed just for fun but no way will I uninstall it n ow, 1 of the things it does is show the Facebookers age under their picture area)
* Blog This! (the reason for this blog post, it is now "easy" to post content to Blogger)
* Center Image (one of those "once you got it why go back" extensions)
* Chromed Bird (Twitter client)
* Cooliris
* Google Mail Checker
* Google Quick Scroll (another one that is useful but you never would have missed it if you didn't know about it, I would miss it now)
* Google Sidewiki
* Google Translate
* Google Wave Notifier
* Send from Gmail (sets default email client to Gmail and also allows you to use the context of the current page for a new email)
* Smooth gestures (all I wanted to begin with, my first extension that led to all these other ones)
* SmoothScroll (pretty nice, would not disgard)

All in all, the extensions install much faster than Firefox and so far I don't seem to have any extension bloat. I am a happy camper. Google Wave is still a bit slow but I think I shouldn't judge that right now since it is in "preview".

So, if you haven't checked out Chrome yet then Google it and get chomping! And let me know if you have any more extensions that you couldn't live without!

Did Google buy Appjet (Etherpad) or did it buy its talent back?

2009-12-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

Have a look at the page below. One of the co-founders in addition to two others previously worked for Google before Appjet. Maybe Google just wanted its talent back?

That is quite weird to leave Google, form a company and then have them buy you back!

Just an observation I had.

EtherPad: AppJet Company Overview

JK Wedding Entrance Dance

2009-12-19T11:32:00.001-07:00

This was a cool gig!

Evian Roller Babies international version

2009-12-19T11:14:00.002-07:00

I think bottled water companies have got to go! We need to start creating systems that take the water we have locally and make it gold. We have the technology. This video shows how marketing campaigns can sell you something that is free, they remind me of pharmaceutical companies.

Very funny video though, just for the wrong purpose.

Facts about bottled water: http://www.onlineeducation.net/bottled_water/

The Venus Project Music Video

2009-12-05T12:05:00.001-07:00

It would be cool if Google's Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt had a serious look at "The Venus Project" and had a meeting with Jacque Fresco, now, soon!

P.S. I like this song too.

Alanis Morissette's Weight Loss Success with "Eat To Live" by Dr. Fuhrman

2009-11-13T14:46:00.001-07:00

That is so cool that Alanis talked about the social pressures for women in this country. Even though I am a man, lately I have started to realize how much pressure women feel to look or act a certain way. Men have pressures to perform certain duties or be bulkier as well but I think women have it a bit tougher. That is great Alanis put it in perspective at 2:51 "Alanis: I started with eating disorders since I was real young and almost every woman I know has been influenced by society's standards of what is sexual and powerful and aesthetically perfect and it can really kill your self-esteem and completely ruin your relationship with your body which is for me becoming a more profound relationship the older I get.

ProFORMA: Probabilistic Feature-based On-line Rapid Model Acquisition

2009-11-12T17:16:00.001-07:00

iRobot's Soft Morphing Blob 'Bot Takes Its First Steps

2009-11-08T18:14:00.001-07:00

VAIL Autonomous Valet Parking Demo

2009-11-08T18:07:00.001-07:00

WoW!

What's in your flu vaccine?

2009-10-26T10:57:00.001-06:00

This is hilariously funny!

Deer Door - PetTube.com

2009-10-24T16:27:00.001-06:00

The Axis of Awesome 4 Chords

2009-10-24T10:08:00.001-06:00

This is great! I never knew!

The Swine Flu Conspiracy (of the 70's)

2009-10-13T16:25:00.001-06:00

There was a Swine Flu previously, in the 70's. One woman featured in the video above got Giambre disease right after her shot.

My personal opinion is that this flu is just like every other flu, people die every year from the flu. However, I do think that the companies that makes these vaccines are "in need of an epidemic". There is much money to be made if there is an epidemic, remember that.

Even if you are pro vaccination you should at least watch this video so you can be educated as to what other people may be thinking about. You should always see all sides of the story, right?

Sean Stephenson's Bucket List

2009-10-12T12:16:00.001-06:00

This is a great video. You should watch it. It is similar to a vision board. One thing that I found fascinating is that he hung out with Richard Branson on his private island because he had it on his bucket list.

One thing on my vision board is to play tennis against Richard Branson on his private island with Dr. Fuhrman. Abbie Jaye gave me his book, "Losing my virginity" this past summer (2009) when I was in LA. I read the book and it is one of my favorite books ever now! If you haven't read it you should. That book is so amazing!

I can't wait to meet Sean Stephenson too! What a guy!

Piano stairs - Rolighetsteorin.se - The fun theory

2009-10-10T15:15:00.001-06:00

Amazing choir (Perpetuum Jazzile) uses their hands to simulate storm

2009-10-10T10:10:00.001-06:00

Melting steel with sunlight, James Mays big ideas

2009-10-06T18:48:00.001-06:00

Chinese dictator puts on a "look at me" show

2009-10-03T10:52:00.001-06:00

People run on a pool of oobleck

2009-10-02T18:52:00.001-06:00

Wow!

OpenShot Video Editor: Over 10,000 Downloads Served!!!

2009-09-30T14:08:00.000-06:00

OpenShot Video Editor: Over 10,000 Downloads Served!!!

Linux is getting another non-linear video editor! For some reason I think this one is going to be the one! It just feels right. I contributed $15 to the project already and hope to contribute more time and money in the near future!

Check it out!

Great Granny Goes Tandem Hang Gliding (100 Years Old)

2009-09-28T16:29:00.001-06:00

This made me smile!

Light Peak to Connect Consumer Devices at Record Speed

2009-09-27T18:49:00.001-06:00

Lindy Hop Showdown

2009-09-27T18:03:00.001-06:00

Talk about a full body work out! This would be fun to learn someday soon! I can see a mixture of this and hiphop, popping and breakdancing forming soon!

gyro bike interbike 2009

2009-09-26T21:24:00.001-06:00

Teleprompter for the Obama Campaign Quits

2009-09-26T20:30:00.001-06:00

Michael Moore's Tense Interview With CNN's Wolf Blitzer

2009-09-26T20:24:00.001-06:00

Honda Develops New Personal Mobility Device: U3-X

2009-09-26T16:36:00.001-06:00

Oh, The Temptation

2009-09-24T20:40:00.001-06:00

James Bond squirrel- Mission Peanuts

2009-09-24T20:35:00.001-06:00

Tony Robbins

2009-09-21T20:00:00.001-06:00

Windows 7 or KDE 4?

2009-09-11T16:06:00.001-06:00

Good stuff here!

Bangarang

2009-08-30T18:32:00.001-06:00

Smile!

VideoTrace - 3D modelling using real video

2009-08-23T13:40:00.001-06:00

Wow! This is some cutting edge technology!

Laser + Sound = Amazing Toy! (also a maze finder)

2009-08-15T08:52:00.001-06:00

This is the coolest thing!!!

Bat in the house!

2009-08-04T20:26:00.002-06:00

I was just on Dr. Fuhrman's weekly phone chat that I host every Tuesday and next thing you know I see a bat flying around, yes a bat!! Everyone on the call had to deal with me vocally squirming as the bat was flying right above my head, I was afraid it was going to bite me, particularly my ear. One of the callers mentioned getting tested for rabies. I later found out that rabies are pretty serious business!

I thought it was a bird at first but then realized it wasn't making any noise. After the phone chat ended I looked up "How to catch bat house" on Google and up came this article, http://www.wikihow.com/Catch-a-Bat-in-Your-House, so, I talked with my house guest staying downstairs and he saw the bat too! I talked about how the article said to open all the doors and windows and chase it towards the area and that we should use a towel etc. just as the article says. I gave him a big bath towel and got one myself too. It was good that he took the lead, calmly, walked upstairs and saw the bat had stopped flying around and settled into the upper side of a window.

My guest was brave enough to just slowly take the towel and wrap it around the bat and sure enough, just as the article said, the bat started making clicking noises, I said, "that is normal, that is what the internet said". I pulled the blind further up and assisted with my towel. It ended up in my towel (the handoff) and it was very weird, I could feel the bat almost vibrating in the towel as he was fighting to get out. I kept thinking that he was going to bite through the towel for some reason, even though it was a very thick bath towel. We then took it outside and slowly unwrapped the towel on a table. Just seconds later the bat was free once again!

In the end it worked perfectly, my heart is still beating though, the bat got away safely, no one got bit and it worked much faster than my idea of opening all the windows and doors and trying to chase it out.

Btw. The bat was upstairs and none of the upstairs windows open anyways.

Where the Wild Things Are - Official Trailer

2009-08-02T20:02:00.001-06:00

Reminder to watch this movie!

King salmon vanishing in Alaska, smokehouses empty

2009-08-02T18:39:00.003-06:00

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_12978540

Self-explanatory but...

We as a planet need to consider the impact that we are having on future generations. I am not perfect in anyway nor claim to be. The best we can do is to do our best, the best we know how to at any given time. It also helps to have a peer group that you can look up to and be inspired by. Anyways, the less animal products we eat the better. We hear too much talk about carbon and not enough about methane. If you want be a environmentalist you will at a minimum need to reduce your intake of animal products and your dependence upon them. No need to cut them out entirely but just treat them as you would alcohol.

Susanese woman to dare court over flogging

2009-08-02T18:33:00.003-06:00

A journalist arrested in Sudan for wearing trousers has become a symbol for women's rights across Africa.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/sudanese-woman-to-dare-court-over-flogging-20090802-e5tf.html

The world is beginning to awaken. Lubna Hussein is helping to inspire the revolution in Sudan and other nearby nations. Can you actually believe a group of men go around and arrest women for not wearing the right dress? Seriously! I don't care what people say about culture this is absolutely ridiculous! Human rights will be universal someday soon! Meaning that everyone on the planet is treated with respect and fairness no matter their age, race, clothing, skin color, eye color, or sex.

Cops should be drafted not recruited...

2009-08-02T16:24:00.001-06:00

I kinda like this idea!

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/23056 - Edit: This link has a permission denied problem so I just looked at Google's cache, deactivated the link and posted the article below.

After Professor Gates, Why Pretend?

NEW YORK--The current national conversation about race and the police reminded me about an incident that occurred when I was in Uzbekistan. As I walked into an apartment complex for an appointment I noticed the decomposing body of a man lying on the side of the road.

"How long as he been there?" I asked my host.

"Three, maybe four days," he said.

"What happened to him?"

"Shot, maybe," he shrugged. "Or maybe hit by a car. Something."

I didn't bother to ask why no one had called the police. I knew. Calling the Uzbek militsia amounts to a request to be beaten, robbed or worse. So desperate to avoid interaction with the police was another man I met that, when his mother died of old age at their home in Tashkent, he drove her body to the outskirts of town and deposited her in a field.

With the exception of New Orleans after Katrina, it's not that bad here in the United States. Consider Professor Henry Louis Gates: he shouldn't have been arrested by that Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer, but he came out of the experience physically unscathed.

Nevertheless, the Gates incident has illuminated some basic, strange assumptions about our society. Cops think they have a constitutional right to be treated deferentially. And black people think cops are nice to white people.

Yeah, well, take it from a white guy: we don't like cops either.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. references "the African immigrant killed while reaching for his wallet, the Maryland man beaten senseless as he lay in bed, the Miami man beaten to death for speeding, the dozens of men jailed on manufactured evidence in Los Angeles and manufactured police testimony in Tulia, Texas, the man sodomized with a broomstick in New York. Are we supposed to believe it coincidence that the men this happens to always happen to be black?"

Of course not. Blacks are 30 to 50 percent more likely to be arrested than whites for the same crime. Their prison sentences are longer. In the notorious "driving while black" New Jersey trooper case, African-Americans made up 70 percent of those randomly pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike--but fewer than 17 percent of motorists. Blacks are more likely to be stopped, frisked, arrested, beaten and murdered by the police than members of all other ethnic groups. American racism against blacks remains systematic, pervasive, and murderous. When there's a policeman in the picture, it's best to be white.

Still, whites and blacks have more in common than they think when it comes to their feelings about the fuzz. When those flashing lights appear in the rearview mirror, even the biggest right-winger's day is ruined.

No one should be less scared of cops than me. I'm white, clean-cut, middle-aged, invariably polite: "Hello, sir. Is there a problem, officer?" Yet I can't point to a single positive experience I've ever had with a cop. Neutral ones, sure--basic, cold, bureaucratic interactions. But no great ones.

And lots and lots of negative ones.

Where to begin?

I'll never forget the New York traffic cop who stepped off the curb in front of my car on Madison Avenue and ordered me to turn right. He wrote me up for illegal right turn. "But you told me to," I protested. "Wrong place, wrong time," he smirked. $165 plus three points on my license. I appealed. The cop lied under oath. The court believed him.

Or the Nevada highway patrolman who pulled me over. I was doing 80 in a 70. He wrote me up at 100 mph. My brother-in-law, never the suck-up, confirmed I was going 80. I was so furious--the fine would have been $400--that I spent double that to fly back and challenge the ticket in court. I won.

When my 20-year-old self forgot to turn on my headlights as we pulled out of a parking lot while on a road trip with my druggie roommate, a Massachusetts cop pulled us over. I couldn't begrudge him probable cause; pot smoke billowed out the window, "Cheech and Chong"-style, when I opened it. Still, what came next was unforgivable: he handcuffed my arms so tight that the metal cut to the wrist bone. (The scar lasted ten years.) When we got out of the town lock-up the next morning, $400 was missing from my wallet. (A judge, examining my wrist a few months later, dropped the charges. My $400, of course, was gone forever.)

An LAPD cop--it bears mentioning that he was black--arrested me for jaywalking on Melrose Avenue. I wasn't. I didn't resist, but he roughed me up. Upon releasing me, he chucked my wallet into the sewer, laughed and zoomed off on his motorcycle. I filed a complaint, which the LAPD ignored.

And so on.

I admit it: I don't like cops. I like the idea of cops. The specific people who actually are cops are the problem. My theory is that cops should be drafted, not recruited. After all, the kind of person who would want to become a police officer is precisely the kind of person who should not be allowed to work as one. But I didn't start out harboring this prejudice. It resulted from dozens of unpleasant interactions with law enforcement.

Race has long been a classic predictor of attitudes toward the police. But high-profile cases of police brutality, coupled with over-the-top security measures taken since 9/11 that targeted whites as well as blacks, have helped bring the races together in their contempt for the police. In 1969, the Harris poll found that only 19 percent of whites thought cops discriminated against African-Americans. Now 54 percent of whites think so.

Don't worry, Professor Gates. We don't care what you said about the cop's mama. A lot of white guys see this thing your way.
_______
Ted Rall Online: www.rall.com
COMING OCTOBER '09: New graphic novel "The Year of Loving Dangerously"

About author
Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.

Researchers launch study of ocean & garbage patch' twice the size of Texas

2009-08-02T16:20:00.001-06:00

www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/30/1m30trash231552-researchers-launch-study-ocean-gar

Is Vancouver About to Become the Greenest City in the World?

2009-08-02T15:51:00.001-06:00

The city has made a rapid transition: It draws 90% of its energy from renewables, has a booming bicycle culture and a very popular progressive mayor.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/141657/is_vancouver_about_to_become_the_greenest_city_in_the_world?page=2

Close up lightning strike (language - NSFW)

2009-08-02T14:36:00.002-06:00

Mute this if you are at work. What do you think you would say if this happened to you!

Bill Maher says America is a Stupid Country

2009-08-02T14:29:00.003-06:00

How Differential Gear works (BEST Tutorial)

2009-08-02T14:29:00.001-06:00

This was very educational!

Katy Perry - Hot and Cold (Cover)

2009-08-02T14:07:00.001-06:00

This was very entertaining. Makes me smile for some reason.

Bobby McFerrin rocks the audience with the pentatonic scale!!!

2009-08-01T20:59:00.001-06:00

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

You must take a minute to enlighten yourself with this feat!! I have never seen anything like it. Must watch to understand!

Woman slows light to 38 MPH!!!!!

2009-07-31T09:52:00.000-06:00

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/02.08/99-hau.html

You must read this story and you must wonder why this isn't common knowledge. Why didn't the mainstream TV news crush this story to death? Start asking questions.

War and Lies - Governments Lie, We Die

2009-07-30T19:06:00.001-06:00

I Love Living Life. I Am Happy.

2009-07-28T09:37:00.001-06:00

If you press play you need to watch the whole video.

After being kidnapped at the age of 16 by a group of thugs and enduring a year of rapes and beatings, Assiya Rafiq was delivered to the police and ...

2009-07-27T21:41:00.003-06:00

After being kidnapped at the age of 16 by a group of thugs and enduring a year of rapes and beatings, Assiya Rafiq was delivered to the police and thought her problems were over. Then, she said, four police officers took turns raping her.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/opinion/26kristof.html?em

After being kidnapped at the age of 16 by a group of thugs and enduring a year of rapes and beatings, Assiya Rafiq was delivered to the police and thought her problems were over.

Then, she said, four police officers took turns raping her.

The next step for Assiya was obvious: She should commit suicide. That’s the customary escape in rural Pakistan for a raped woman, as the only way to cleanse the disgrace to her entire family.

Instead, Assiya summoned the unimaginable courage to go public and fight back. She is seeking to prosecute both her kidnappers and the police, despite threats against her and her younger sisters. This is a kid who left me awed and biting my lip; this isn’t a tale of victimization but of valor, empowerment and uncommon heroism.

“I decided to prosecute because I don’t want the same thing to happen to anybody else,” she said firmly.

Assiya’s case offers a window into the quotidian corruption and injustice endured by impoverished Pakistanis — leading some to turn to militant Islam.

“When I treat a rape victim, I always advise her not to go to the police,” said Dr. Shershah Syed, the president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Pakistan. “Because if she does, the police might just rape her again.”

Yet Assiya is also a sign that change is coming. She says she was inspired by Mukhtar Mai, a young woman from this remote village of Meerwala who was gang raped in 2002 on the orders of a village council. Mukhtar prosecuted her attackers and used the compensation money to start a school.

Mukhtar is my hero. Many Times readers who followed her story in past columns of mine have sent her donations through a fund at Mercy Corps, at www.mercycorps.org, and Mukhtar has used the money to open schools, a legal aid program, an ambulance service, a women’s shelter, a telephone hotline — and to help Assiya fight her legal case.

The United States has stood aloof from the ubiquitous injustices in Pakistan, and that’s one reason for cynicism about America here. I’m hoping the Obama administration will make clear that Americans stand shoulder to shoulder with heroines like Mukhtar and Assiya, and with an emerging civil society struggling for law and social justice.

Assiya’s saga began a year ago when a woman who was a family friend sold her to two criminals who had family ties to prominent politicians. Assiya said the two men spent the next year beating and raping her.

The men were implicated in a gold robbery, so they negotiated a deal with the police in the town of Kabirwala, near Khanewal: They handed over Assiya, along with a $625 bribe, in exchange for the police pinning the robbery on the girl.

By Assiya’s account, which I found completely credible, four police officers, including a police chief, took turns beating and raping her — sometimes while she was tied up — over the next two weeks. A female constable obligingly stepped out whenever the men wanted access to Assiya.

Assiya’s family members heard that she was in the police station, and a court granted their petition for her release and sent a bailiff to get her out. The police hid Assiya, she said, and briefly locked up her 10-year-old brother to bully the family into backing off.

The bailiff accepted bribes from both the family and the police, but in the end he freed the girl. Assiya, driven by fury that overcame her shame, told her full story to the magistrate, who ordered a medical exam and an investigation. The medical report confirms that Assiya’s hymen had been broken and that she had abrasions all over her body.

The morning I met Assiya, she said she had just received the latest in a series of threats from the police: Unless she withdraws her charges, they will arrest, rape or kill her — and her two beloved younger sisters.

The family is in hiding. It has lost its livelihood and accumulated $2,500 in debts. Assiya’s two sisters and three brothers have had to drop out of school, and they will find it harder to marry because Assiya is considered “dishonored.” Most of her relatives tell Assiya that she must give in. But she tosses her head and insists that she will prosecute her attackers to spare other girls what she endured.

(For readers who want to help, more information is available on my blog at:www.nytimes.com/ontheground.)

Assiya’s mother, Iqbal Mai, told me that in her despair, she at first had prayed that God should never give daughters to poor families. “But then I changed my mind,” she added, with a hint of pride challenging her fears. “God should give poor people daughters like Assiya who will fight.”

Amen.

I just donated $25 to the Mukhtar fund. It was created by the woman who kept her from committing suicide. This happened to her too.

If you want to help her and many more then go to the link just below this sentence and mention her name, Assiya Rafiq, in the comments.

https://donate.mercycorps.org/donation.htm?DonorIntent=Mukhtar

Here is an interesting site on the charity in question in case some were skeptical like me.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4078

Elijah Lynn

Moving Windmills

2009-07-27T21:40:00.001-06:00

Very Inspirational!

Reddit is interviewing this man.

Ксения Симонова - Реквием из песка

2009-07-15T21:00:00.001-06:00

Very pretty video

Class Day Lecture 2009: The Uniqueness of Humans

2009-06-20T13:09:00.001-06:00

Good stuff!

Optibike vs Giant Twist Freedom DX

2009-06-18T22:25:00.004-06:00

I am thinking of purchasing an Electric Bike until the new pure electricTesla Model S comes out in 2011.

Right now I am leaning towards the Optibike, handmade in Boulder Colorado, USA. I am also going to test drive the Giant Twist Freedom DX. The Optibike seems to be one tough bike with all sorts of high-end features and it is also made in the USA which is a rare find these days!

We will see what happens!

Day in the Cloud VS Ten Grand is Buried Here

2009-06-18T22:12:00.006-06:00

Too funny! Microsoft is pulling a dirty scheme to get attention to their browser and Google and Virgin are doing something similar (getting attention) but with much more class!

I will never participate in Microsoft's evil game, Ten Grand is Buried Here, attempting to get innocent users to download Internet Explorer 8 to find $10,000. But, the catch, you cannot find it with any other browser, it must be the golden IE8! Hah! They are really desperate.

On the other hand, I would love to participate in the "Day in the Cloud" event on the 24th. They let you play 2 sample rounds and it really gets your brain thinking! Plus, you can use any common browser to participate. I will probably use Chrome, Firefox, or possibly the new Opera Unite I just installed but never IE7 or IE8.

Google and Virgin have so much more class! The winner gets free flights on Virgin America for 1 year, a HP netbook and a TB of Google Storage.

Just to be fair. Here are the links to both events.

www.tengrandisburiedhere.com
www.dayinthecloud.com

Note to self: Revisit when building next house.

2009-04-13T00:06:00.002-06:00

http://abduzeedo.com/unusual-houses

Wow! Water powered jet suit!

2009-04-12T22:55:00.001-06:00

Amazing New Water-Powered Jet Pack - Watch more Funny Videosjavascript:void(0)

What does it mean to be free?

2009-04-11T14:50:00.004-06:00

Congrats to the winner of the Linux Foundation's commercial contest!! I really like the video, a lot!

Open Source is the future of the world. For all those who say it isn't.. Go join the camp who was against Orville and Wilbur Wright, ya know the guys who revolutionized the world with flight after all the "experts" said it couldn't be done.

Soon proprietary software will be a thing of the past and we will find ourselves telling stories that are start with, "Can you believe we use to pay for proprietary software!".

Here are the runner up videos which I thought we're excellent as well!

The Origin...

The Origin... from Agustin Eguia on Vimeo.

This one had a bit of Harold and Kumar spin to it!

A-Pod part 1 - New robot with some amazing music!

2009-04-11T14:42:00.001-06:00

If you have some good headphones that can pump out some bass then put them on! This song is by Trifonic and is called Lies. This song reminds me a lot of Stabbing Westward, which was one of my favorite bands when I was a teen!

The robots are coming! We must embrace the technology and not resist it. People fought computers once to you know. Now we all use them because they do many of the mundane tasks so much better. Jacque Fresco talks alot about how we will use new technologies to make this world a better place and explains why their isn't logical basis for fearing robots and new tech. His book is called "The best that money can't buy" and is amazing!

Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait - Lucky (Live!)

2009-04-11T14:32:00.003-06:00

These two did a great job on this!

Dealing with Impossible Crises

2009-04-11T14:27:00.003-06:00

http://danieltenner.com/posts/0007-dealing-with-impossible-crises.html

Highly recommended article for dealing with situations that may seam impossible to overcome. Daniel Tenner has some great words of wisdom here. I sent this to some of my close friends recently and amazingly to my surprise many responded and actually thanked me for sending it. Most of the time my emails don't get much response. So, this tells you that this is good and you should invest 5 minutes of your life into reading this article.

Enjoy!

Jason Mraz ft. Colbie Caillat "Lucky"

2009-04-11T14:23:00.001-06:00

A rather sad story

2009-04-08T00:48:00.002-06:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

I just read this story. I shed a few tears at how some of these people are treated, slaves who somehow got sucked into thinking it would be a better life. One woman even left her child behind and is now stuck with no passport to get back.

Humans have to be the most cruel species on this planet. We must evolve past this level. Humans are one.

Financing Volunteer Projects

2009-03-29T22:00:00.008-06:00

This entry is more of a bookmark for now.

I found this article fascinating and am so glad that it was linked to off of Mark Shuttleworth's page on Ubuntu.org.

http://www.advogato.org/article/844.html

It discusses why introducing money into a volunteer workflow can seriously hamper the whole community. It also discusses that even if two contributers are sitting right next to each other they should keep their discussions in the public forum or mailing list.

There is something about the free and open source software movement that make money completely unnecessary. It just messes things up. Transparency is key. If you talk on the phone. Record and transcribe it and make it available for everyone. If you don't want to do that then don't talk on the phone.

There shouldn't be discussions that say, "Well, me and Tony decided at lunch the other day". Those actions will demean the community effort.

On another note. I originally found that page because I wanted to see how much support for Ubuntu Linux costs. $250 for 9-5 support for a desktop for a year. I would much rather give my money to Canonical than Mac or Windows. Mac's customer service is horrible, it is like a lottery, you never know if you are going to get someone who has been using Mac for years or just started working there.

It would be nice to "test out" Canonical's support option. I may do that if I have some extra cash someday. But first I need to take another pilot lesson.

I just wish there would be a pro video editing suite on par with Final Cut Studio (FCS) for Ubuntu Linux. Or at the very least be able to install FCS on Ubuntu. Maybe someday. I know Apple has a hard time getting FCS to run reliably on their own hardware for now.

Until next time...

Interesting Navigation Concept for a website plus a cool diddy for a website!

2009-03-28T20:09:00.005-06:00

This website has a concept I have not seen before. I kinda like it.

It is somehow similar to this page but not quite.

I really like the music intro played on this page.

I found these sites from Popurls, it was linked to 30 Creative Examples of the Hand Drawn Design in Web Designs.

Edit - I also liked this site too. Although not even close to being search engine friendly.

Why are we here?

2009-03-28T19:23:00.004-06:00

I believe that we are on this earth to feel. Yup, that's it! To feel.

I believe the big answer, the big secret as to why we are here is so we can experience life. The good and the bad. There wouldn't be good if there were no bad. There would be no pleasure if there wasn't any displeasure.

Personally, for me, I try to appreciate everyday I have and make the best of what I have at any given moment. I want to be happy and I have learned to do that by being thankful for what I do have. There are some people in your life that will just bitch about what they don't have. Don't hang around those people. They just bring you down. You can a little bit, they need someone to bring them up but be careful they don't suck you into their world.

I have learned quite a bit over the past 5 years. From people like Tony Robins, Wayne Dyer, Joel Fuhrman and Jacque Fresco. These are all amazing people who have made a tremendous impact in my life and the way I view it.

The reason we are on this planet is to experience feelings. And at the same time, depending a person's mindset they can, in an instant, create their own living hell or heaven. For me, every day is heaven because I choose to do so. Who want's to live life being angry and depressed all the time? I don't but I used to.

If you want to be happy in life just be happy, it is as simple as that. If you have a bad thought and that makes you feel bad then why are you still thinking about it. Get those bad thoughts out of your head because they don't do you any good, do they? Seriously, name an advantage of thinking about that bad thought in your mind? What does worrying about it do for you? Can you change anything? Then stop it!

Clear it out, and replace it with a good thought, think about the running water, the hot water, the car, the food, the clean food, the shelter, the electricity, the eyesight, the fresh air and the everything in your life that is truly amazing! Think about that instead. It is time we strart being grateful for the things in our life that we do have than the things we don't have.

Cheers,

Elijah

My New Car!! Terrafugia Roadable Aircraft

2009-03-28T17:07:00.005-06:00

The video is a tad misleading but accurate with the "sport license" statement. A "sport license" will allow you to "operate" the vehicle but not fly to another airport. This means that if you takeoff from you local airport then you must land at the same airport. This is the way it was explained to me by the folks at Solberg airport in Central Jersey.

I took my first lesson a few months ago and have made 3 more appointments since then but they were all canceled due to bad weather. I plan on having my pilots license by 2011 so I can fly a Terrafugia. I really like the fact that I can land at any one of the 5,000 airports if I get ill or the weather gets bad and just drive the rest of the way. Most small aircraft accidents happen because of bad weather.

I can't wait to take to the skies in my new Terrafugia!!!!

Awesome Music Video - Borne on the FM waves of the heart by Against Me

2009-02-17T17:36:00.007-07:00

No embed code but this is a really great video on Nate Weavers website! Nate Weaver has some skills! It is also on their homesite but not nearly as high-quality as Nate Weavers site, although Nate Weaver doesn't have a full screen option so you choose!

The lead singer reminds me a lot of Dave Wilmot with "The Rock Doctors". I would love to see Sonya Leigh and Dave Wilmot cover this tune out in Denver, CO!

Out of this world video effects!!

2009-01-13T21:00:00.002-07:00

Engine Room Audition... from Kevin Atkinson on Vimeo.

I really want to look into this more!

It could just be coincidence

2009-01-12T19:23:00.001-07:00

This should be required watching for many people.

Beautiful Clouds of Lao!!

2009-01-11T09:19:00.003-07:00

My buddy Rafael shot this timelapse video on his Sony EX1. It is Breathtaking!

The river on top from Rafael on Vimeo.

Instruction Manual for Life

2009-01-10T11:26:00.001-07:00

Amazingly well done!