Former nuclear bunker up for sale - ideal starter home

From the bizarre corner of Ebay, an ideal first time home for those looking to get a foot on the property ladder.

The Titan Missile Base in central Washington is up for sale. Currently up for grabs at a cool $1.5 million, it features all the mod-cons you could need:

• 57 acres of grounds
  
• 16 underground buildings
  
• with 3 160 foot tall missile silos
  
• 2 antenna silos
  
• 3 4 story equipment buildings
  
• and 2 control and power domes
  

The auction details are pretty comprehensive, with lots of links to even more information, and some great pictures of the layout. The seller claims it's still dry, with only minor spray paint vandalism, which is rare for a silo.



If you fancy a bid, you can find the auction as item number 190132455924.

A word of caution, though - it's probably still dialled in as a target in ex-Cold War guidance systems. especially given it's location. Buyer beware and all that ;-)

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titan missile base, ebay, missile silo, nuclear bunker

Nintendo is second largest company in Japan

Somewhat surprising news from Japan is that the big N is well on it's way to conquering all comers.

Based on market cap, Nintendo is now the second largest company in Japan, second only to Toyota.

That's right - a gaming company is larger than heavyweights like Mitsubishi, Panasonic - and, yes, even Sony. With Nintendo shares closing up 3.1% today the big N has moved into second place, usurping Canon.

The top three largest companies in Japan now stand at:

• Toyota - Y24,000bn (that's 24 trillion yen)
  
• Nintendo - Y8,390bn (roughly $73 billion)
  
• Canon - Y8,120bn
  

Citing Nintendo's historically conservative profit forecasts, the Financial Times and other analysts don't think Nintendo is overvalued - which means it's still got room to grow.

Having surpassed Sony and their market cap of Y6,540bn back in June, it's clear that Nintendo's strategy of innovating rather than competing head to head with Microsoft and Sony is really paying off.

It's a shame their innovation didn't pay off years ago when they got Silicon Graphics to help with the design of the Nintendo64. Both companies seemed to suffer badly in the following years, although the team from SGI left to form ArtX (who developed the Flipper chip use for the Gamecube's graphics). ArtX were then bought out by ATI, and used their technology to develop the R300 series of graphics cores.

Those R300 cores powering ATI's graphics cards for the last few years can trace their technology all the way back to the Infinite Reality graphics that gave Silicon Graphics machines the power to bring those famous Jurassic Park dinosaurs to life - which also formed the basis for the graphics in the Nintendo64.

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nintendo, market cap, japan, silicon graphics, ati, r300, infinite reality

US Navy swastika bunker to get makeover

The US Navy Exchange in San Diego is due to undergo $600k of landscaping and changes. Built in 1967 it achieved fame in 2005 when users of Google Maps found that the overhead satellite images of site bore more than a passing resemblance to a swastika.

You can check it out for yourself here.

Apparently the Navy noticed the building's shape when it went up 40 years ago, but did nothing about it because "it wasn't obvious from the ground".

Ignoring centuries of Buddhist use, and focussing instead of the Nazi overtones the building portrays, the Navy now plans to spend $600k to "change the walkways, landscaping and rooftop solar panels of the four L-shaped barracks". Scott Sutherland, deputy public affairs officer for Navy Region Southwest, confirmed: "We don't want to be associated with something as symbolic and hateful as a swastika."

Right. Good use of $600k there guys.

Technorati Tags:
us navy, nazi, swastika, buddhist

TOR admin arrested by German police

Germany recently passed some harsh computer security laws, and in the best tradition of governments the world over, the wording is so vague as to be utterly useless for catching real criminals, whilst putting normal users at risk.

The German police have since been busy raiding data centres to take down TOR nodes. Developed by people at the EFF, TOR (The Onion Router) is a way of tunneling your traffic to help improve your anonymity when using the Internet.

As revealed in his blog, German TOR server operator Alex Jansen was arresting by German police, over a bomb hoax posted on a forum by someone using TOR.

The police intimidated Alex and his wife, confiscated his personal possessions - and yet didn't shut down the offending TOR server.

Sadly the end result is that Alex has a pile of legal bills to foot now, and he's shutdown his TOR server. Clearly it seems laws aren't even needed - clueless police intimidating and arresting the innocent can cause enough pain and hassle.

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tor, german, police, clueless

Video conferencing

Email, IM and IRC are all pretty good ways of keeping in touch, but sometimes you just need face-to-face interaction.

Video conferencing has been around for a while, but everyone has their own idea of how it's done. For example, I have a built-in iSight camera on my Mac which will work with iChat. When working at home, though, I'm in front of an SGI O2, with very competent but incompatible video conferencing software. Neither of these will talk to Skype or MSN Video messenger or or or ... you get the idea.

MegaMeeting have come up with a great video conferencing solution that works entirely within the browser. No software to install, no hassle, and very much cross platform.

It's not just useful for video conferencing either - you can use it to create your own webinars or run a one-to-many video conferencing training session.

I found it simple and easy to setup, and within minutes had a video session going between my Mac and a colleague based in Eastern Europe, who has a Linux machine. Time to start exploring training provision via video ;-)

Technorati Tags:
video, conferencing, browser, sgi, mac, linux

Tories want to remove the stand-by button

In a latest attempt to appear green, the Tories have announced a crack-down on that nefarious pollutant, the stand-by button.

Their recently released "Quality of Life" report, at over 500 pages, seems a bit too full of waffle. However, buried amongst it is this gem:

“All new electrical items will require a functionality that switches them off after a specified period, rather than remaining on standby.”

UK consumer electronics retail giant Dixons tried this a while ago, pushing back on manufacturers and suppliers to do the same thing. Dixons got the cold shoulder - big time - and it was clear that manufacturers just didn't care.

How much impact this sort of policy will have - especially as it looks like the Tories aren't going to be forming any sort of government in the near future - remains to be seen. Is it just headline grabbing, or is there a real need.

Clearly, from research done, leaving modern devices in standby mode does unnecessarily consume power. HardCOREware carried out a review of the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii to measure power consumption levels, with interesting results.

As long as politicians jet around the world for photo-opportunities, and drag around huge armies of staff in 4x4's, I can't see how lecturing everyone else to save energy and be green can come across as anything other than the rankest sort of hypocrisy.

Technorati Tags:
stupid politicians, green, standby, energy

meh, car insurance time

A friend of mine in the US - who is a complete technophobe - has been asking me about getting insurance quotes online.

I had a dig around several US-based sites, and ended up pointing her to the Advantageauto quotes website. The site is nice and simple to use - just make your selections from checklists and pull down menus, with a minimum of typing needed.

They also have a decent range of policy coverage, which is important as my friend needs a teen driver auto policy (she's only 19) and many sites treat teens as a specialist risk, and won't do online quotes for that age group.

She quickly managed to get a decent quote and sort out her insurance, which was pretty impressive considering how much of a novice she is when it comes to computers.

Technorati Tags:
car, auto, insurance, quote

Blogsvertise - interesting

Blogsvertise is an interesting service where you are paid for your blog posts. Sounds odd, but on further investigation it looks pretty legit.

Rather than having to wax lyrical and talk up a product, advertisers on Blogvertise want to generate 'buzz' and discussion of their product/site/whatever in the blogosphere.

You take on a 'task', which gives you a product or URL which you then need to blog about. No cheating here - you need to actually write something worthwhile, preferably with a few hundred words, showing that you've taken the time to look at what the advertiser is pushing, and have drawn your own conclusion.

As a traffic boosting mechanism, it's a brilliant idea. Advertiser's can sign up here and get bloggers to start talking about their products. I would think this would be a godsend for new startups who are trying to push the next big 'thing'. Using word of mouth social networks like blogs is a great way to get people talking, and the feedback - especially the negative - is a fantastic way to tune your offering and highlight any problems.

I'll be keeping on eye on Blogvertise - it could end up being a very interesting enabling tool.

Satellite hacking

I picked up a cheap satellite setup from Lidl at the weekend. I've always been interested in satellite TV - not just to catch up with stations from Eastern Europe where part of my family come from, but also there's just something very *cool* about picking up signals from satellites miles above the earth.

The whole kit was just under £60, and including an dish, LNB, receiver, all the cables, and a dish mount.

Fitting everything took a couple of hours - luckily my house has a south-facing single storey side extension with a flat roof, so there was a nice space to mount the dish there.

Hotbird 13E was very quick and easy to find - just kept the dish horizontal and roughly south, and bam, we have a signal.

Astra 28.2E was a bit more hassle, which was annoying because that was the main one I wanted to pick up, as it has all the channels you can get via Freeview in the UK.

I'd picked up a satellite tuner as well, which is a nifty box you plug inline in the cable between dish and reciever. It beeps and shows LEDs for signal strength, which was what I needed when the compass showed I was in approximately the right location.

Now I've got the 'Big 3' positioned, I think its time to pick up a motor for the dish. The receiver that came with the kit is a Silvercrest SL65, with has DiseqC support, so will work with any DiseqC compatible motor. Thanks to this it can also support multiple LNBs, although the receiver itself only has one co-ax in port.

All in all I think the set was a bit of a bargain, and has provided a cheap entry into the full world of satellites. Once the motor is in place, I'm going to have to run a co-ax feed into the office, and start playing around with satellite software on the computers.

Technorati Tags:
satellite, hacking, hotbird, astra, lnb

Major new iPod news

So Apple's media event "The Beat Goes On" has announced a complete refresh and overhaul of their entire iPod line, along with a few surprises.

The iPod Nano gains a colour screen, games, and increased capacity, as well as the CoverFlow interface from the iPhone.

The trusty old iPod is renamed the iPod Classic, and capacity has been boosted to 80gb or a whopping 160gb.

If you like the iPhone, you'll be pleased to see the new iPod Touch, which looks very very similar, and includes the natty touch screen interface.

Ars Technica have seen nice photos here. It'll be available in 8gb and 16gb versions.

In a move that'll please consumers but is pretty much guaranteed to piss off early adopters, Apple has also reduced the price of the 8gb iPhone by $200, and is going to drop the 4gb model once stock is out. It's clear they want to introduce a 16gb model inline with the iPod Touch, but with such a massive price cut coming so soon after launching the iPhone, I'm sure there are a lot of iPhone owners out there who are pretty steamed right now.

By far and away the coolest thing, though, is the launch of the iTunes Wi-Fi store. The iPod Touch comes with Wi-Fi, and will allow you to buy songs direct from the iTunes store. The next time you sync your iPod to your Mac or PC, these new purchases will be backed up.

This is really impressive - with the flood of wi-hi hotspots, especially in cities and large towns, this enables the sort of impulse purchase that was missing from the already slick iTunes/iPod experience.

On top of this, Apple have struck a deal with Starbucks. The iPod Touch will not only work seemlessly with Starbucks' wi-fi hotspots, showing an icon when you're in range, but can also pop up a "buy the song that's playing" link. Like the tune playing while you wait for your coffee? Just click a couple of times and it's yours, downloaded to your iPod.

This is the sort of slick integration of technology that has made the iPod so successful. Remove the hassle and barriers to the purchase, make it easy for the consumer to get what they want, and you're on the road to success.

When Microsoft announced the Zune would have Wi-Fi support, this is the sort of thing I was hoping they meant. Sadly they crippled the whole experience, and the Zune ended up as just another MP3 player - there's no advantage there that would eat into iPod sales.

With this latest announcement Apple have made it clear that they understand the consumer's needs perfectly.

The other music stores and MP3 player manufacturers must be more than a little worried this morning.

Technorati Tags:
ipod, touch, nano, iphone

Gordon Brown fails to learn from others

Given David Cameron's recent pronouncements about trying to crack down on violence in video games, it was only a matter of time before more confused and ill-informed politicians jumped on the bandwagon, desperate to they're doing something about this apparently terrible issue.

Naturally it's Gordon Brown, our un-elected Prime Minister, who has now spoken out about graphically violent video games.

According to The Inquirer and MCV, Gordon Brown is planning to launch a review on the advertising and sale of games to children (ie. anyone under 18). Apparently the Prime Minister mistakenly believes that "Parents are concerned about whether children are exposed to harmful violence and sexual imagery in games and on the internet."

Really? If they're that concerned, why don't they actually be parents, and stop their kids buying and playing games they think are inappropriate?

How about they follow the mandatory legal rating of the BBFC for some games, and the voluntary PEGI rating for the rest of them? You know, actually read the big age rating label, which is exactly the same as the one on DVDs and videos - and then actually follow it.

Why is it that some parents are so hopeless that they are shocked to find a BBFC classified 18 game like Doom 3 has strong violence and horror elements? What do they think the BBFC and PEGI ratings are for?

And how out of touch is the Prime Minister? Can he really be unaware that graphically violent videogames are rated by the BBFC, which carries the same legal weight and penalties as the ratings the BBFC gives to films? ie. if you sell an 18 rated game or DVD to someone under 18, you go to jail. Why would we need any more laws - it's already a crime!

I suppose it's much easier to blame the easy scapegoat of computer games, rather than focus on the real problem - irresponsible parents who seem to think the job of raising their children properly is someone else's problem.

Given how many similar efforts in the US have always been smacked down, we can only hope that the same sorry circus will get played out over here as well.

Always good to see our tax money hard at work :-)

Technorati Tags:
computer games, gordon brown, stupid politicians, laws, prime minister

Tube strike :-(

Bizarre.

If the company you're working for goes bankrupt, it means they don't have the money to pay the bills. Everyone loses their job, the place gets asset-stripped, it's game over for all concerned.

I thought that this was established wisdom - I mean, everyone knows how businesses function, surely?

Apparently not the Tube workers. Members of the RMT union have staged a 72 hour walkout because - get this - they want assurances that they will keep their jobs and pensions.

Right. So the company has folded, and they're inconveniencing everyone else in London, to demand that they keep their pensions and jobs.

Even more bizarre - they've been given assurances that they will keep their jobs and pensions. The other unions are happy with this - yet the RMT decided to stage a 72 hour walkout anyway.

Why? What on earth do they hope to achieve? They've already got what they've asked for, and now they've decided to inconvenience everyone who works and lives in London.

The RMT come across as nothing more than a bunch of obnoxious militants who want to flex some muscle and show their power. The last thing we need is a return to the 70s, where nothing got done because unions were more concerned with pushing around their employers than actually doing the work they were paid to do.

We can see what happened to the British car industry thanks to that.

The problem with Tube strikes is that, if you work or live in London, you're being held to ransom. Sadly, there's no other way to get around as quickly, unless you've got a motorbike or you cycle.

Luckily, where I'm working they have changed rooms and showes for cyclists. Despite the hassle of having to man-handle my bike onto an over-crowded commuter train, I've rediscovered the joy of cycling through rush hour traffic.

Plus I get to save on my Tube fare as well.

Maybe this is how they plan to improve the Tube service - by driving people away from it?

Could work ;-)

Technorati Tags:
cycling, unions, tube strike, slackers