I Live Digital

It is pretty amazing what one can do with cloud computing.

Original Article:

“Peter Harkins, a Senior Engineer at The Washington Post, heard the news spread through the editorial department as the National Archives announced the release of Hillary Clinton’s official White House schedule. The data was going to be released to the public on March 19th at 10am. 17,481 pages of data as a non-searchable PDF.

The documents included Hillary Clinton’s daily activities as a First Lady during President Bill Clinton’s two terms in office, from 1993-2001 that were being made public under the Freedom of Information Act after multiple requests from journalists and watchdog organizations.

Harkins knew that reporters would be very interested in this data but it would take hundreds of man hours to pore through the document’s low-quality PDF files. So, about 45 minutes after the release, Harkins started working with the data, trying to find a way to convert the images into usable, searchable text and deliver them to the newsroom within the same news cycle.

Harkins first tested various PDF and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools to convert the images into machine-readable text. With these software tools, he estimated that it would take about 30 minutes per page to process the sizable document including reformatting, resizing, and scanning each page.

Working against time, Harkins moved the project to the cloud—Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). With Amazon EC2, he launched 200 server instances to process the images to his specifications. With a processing speed of approximately 60 seconds per page, the project was completed within nine hours and sent to the eager writers who began searching against the data. Then, Harkins and team created a polished web interface and made their searchable database available to the public 26 hours later.

Harkins ruminates, “EC2 made it possible for this project to happen at the speed of breaking news. I used 1,407 hours of virtual machine time for a final expense of $144.62. We consider it a successful proof of concept.”

The database of Hillary Clinton’s 1993-2001 Schedule is publicly available at: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/clinton-schedule . “

“As we launch DOCSIS 3.0 in the trial markets, we plan to offer a 50/5 MB speed tier for $99 per month. “

I would pay for that in Rochester but honestly, it isn’t proportional enough. only 5mbits up yet 50mbits down, we don’t need more download, we need more upload. Currently with 15 mbits down and 1mbit up, the download speed is totally “ok” but 1mbit up I always notice the speed limitation everyday. Every day remote desktoping into my network, uploading pictures, etc. The only time I’d notice 15 mbits not being enough is if I was downloading from a very fast server, say Microsoft for ISOs but then again, they will limit the speed you can get during peak times, so what is the point?

“A new 100 GB Road Runner Turbo package for $75 a month will offer speeds of 10 Mb/1 Mb. Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.”

They say in order for them to provide DOCSIS 3.0 they need to charge more, this is order to provide more speed. So they are going to charge me more money and also lower my speed? Lowering my current 15mbits to 10mbits? 

Oh how I wish for Verizon FIOS or Muni-ISP with fiber to the home.

Source: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090410/BUSINESS/90410003

Source: http://a.longreply.com/109511

This is why Apple is dumb. They call everything a feature and then say we have 100 new features. Bullshit. One of the advanced new features "cut, copy and paste," my pocket pc from yesteryear had that. Another advanced feature "Send photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS," all phones I had for several years now could send files over MMS. And I am not picking the smallest off the first, these both are from their little list of 4 features out of those 100 features.

Go to: http://www.apple.com/iphone/preview-iphone-os/ to see the page on Apples site.





 

This future home vision is pretty much reality now. Fun video to watch, good music for it.

 
Video: Microsoft Home

One of the first steps to getting health insurance for kids that don't have it, vetoed, even though both Republicans and Democrats supported it in Congress. Bush's fourth veto in nearly 7 years in office.

"Of the over 43 million people nationwide who lack health insurance, 9 percent, or over 6 million, are under 18 years old." 

"The Democrats who control Congress, with significant support from Republicans, passed the legislation to add $35 billion over five years to allow an additional 4 million children into the program. It would be funded by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack."

So basically this would of left "only" 2 millions children uninsured. Still not good of course but it would of been a start. Children deserve health care. They don't have any way of trying to get it for themselves. Especially in the early years (but also true for ones whole life), having proper health services provided is key to future grow and development.

Only time will tell what will happen in the health care world of the US but something needs to be changed but while you wait for that, go watch Michael Moore's new documentary Sicko.

EDIT: So I just got one in an email that this happened 2 days after "Child Health Day" on 10-1 which Bush issued presidential proclamation commemorating it.

"On this day it is also appropriate to recognize the important role the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has played in helping poor children stay healthy . To preserve that role and ensure that poor children can get the coverage they need, SCHIP should be reauthorized."

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Bush vetoes child health insurance plan - President George W. Bush - MSNBC.com

"Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress to add $42 billion to the $147 billion already requested for the military. The money would pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2008 budget year, which begins Monday."

"If approved, Congress would have appropriated more than $760 billion for the two wars, having already approved of $450 billion for Iraq and $127 billion for Afghanistan."

Do you know what the world could do with $760 billion?

We could cure cancer.

An "impossible" task could be done.

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Bush asks for $50 billion more for wars - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

 w00t...it is great to have more Star Trek in development especially since there has not been any new Star Trek since May 2005 when Enterprise ended.

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2008 release planned for new ‘Star Trek’ movie - MORE MOVIE NEWS AND FEATURES - MSNBC.com

 Rest in peace Bob. You truly created the best supermarket around in your lifetime.

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Customers and Employees remember Bob Wegman - News - MSNBC.com