Harry Potter Finale Shatters US Box Office Record

LOS ANGELES: The final Harry Potter movie shattered the record for an opening weekend at the North American box office, industry trackers said.

Muggles -- non-magical people -- of all ages handed over a collective $169.2 million as they flocked to see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2," the eighth and final film about the boy wizard.

The haul is $11 million more the previous opening weekend record of $158-million set in 2008 by the Batman film "The Dark Knight."

"DH-2" had already raked in a record $92.1 million in opening day sales, smashing the previous record held by "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," which took $72.7 million in 2009.

In the finale to one of the most successful film franchises of all time, released in both 2D and 3D versions, Harry takes on evil Lord Voldemort in a climactic showdown at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

James Harrison Does More Harm To Steeler's Image

The Pittsburgh Steelers are a sexually assaulting, drunk-driving, bin Laden-loving, gun-toting, head-hunting, in-fighting, gay-bashing, finger-pointing rogue outfit. And most of that was just in the past couple of months.

Some of it is just allegations and some interpretation. And this is certainly not a statement on gun control, but instead just about image.

The Steelers' image as the gold-standard of NFL righteousness was always mythology anyway.
But with Hines Ward’s arrest for alleged DUI, Rashard Mendenhall’s tweets about the U.S. not hearing Osama bin Laden’s side of the story and Ben Roethlisberger’s lingering bad-guy standing, things were changing. Now, after James Harrison’s cover story in the upcoming issue of Men’s Journal, it has all added up to a new image for the Steelers. They have touched on, danced on, stomped on, just about every part of the stereotype of athletes behaving badly. It tops off with Harrison’s cover photo.

Imagine what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell must have felt Wednesday morning when he saw Harrison, the guy he has held as an example of dirty play, on the cover of a magazine, arms folded across his chest, holding a gun in each hand under the headline: “Confessions of an NFL Hitman.”
Highlights in the article include Harrison calling Goodell a devil, a thief, a dictator and a puppet, and saying “If that man was on fire and I had to (urinate) to put him out, I wouldn’t do it. I hate him and will never respect him.”

And this about Harrison’s own quarterback, Roethlisberger, who threw big interceptions in the Super Bowl: “Hey, at least throw a pick on their side of the field instead of asking the D to bail you out again.

Read the full story and view his interview HERE

Flying Cars Legal Now?

A flying car? Doesn’t that deserve a place in the pantheon of crazy gizmos that we would never be able to see in our lifetime? Perhaps, but chances are quite high that the Britney Spears generation will be able to see one take to the skies – and the road, sometime during this life. After all, the Transition as the vehicle is called, has just received its clearance from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), making it road-worthy.

As for the skies, fret not – Terrafugia’s Transition has already gone through the paces at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for flight, where it is classified under the “light sport aircraft” category. 

Basically, the Transition is able to use the same tires it employed when it took off in 2009 for its air and road trials. The Transition is going to cost $200,000 if you want a two-in-one vehicle in your garage.

Source: Here

ISPs Agree For "Six Strikes"

American Internet users, get ready for three strikes "six strikes." Major US Internet providers—including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable—have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won't filter or monitor their own networks for infringement. And after the sixth "strike," you won't necessarily be "out."

Much of the scheme mirrors what ISPs do now. Copyright holders will scan the 'Net for infringement, grabbing suspect IP addresses from peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. If they see your IP address participating in a swarm for, say, Transformers, they will look up that IP address to see which ISP controls it, then fire off a message.

ISPs have committed to forward such notices to subscribers—though, crucially, they won't turn over actual subscriber names or addresses without a court order. This is a one-way notification process.

The agreement puts heavy emphasis on "education," going so far as to recast this behavior as some "right to know" on the part of parents unaware of a child's P2P activity. According to today's announcement materials, the goal is to "educate and stop the alleged content theft in question, not to punish. No ISP wants to lose a customer or see a customer face legal trouble based on a misunderstanding, so the alert system provides every opportunity to set the record straight."

It would be much easier to see "education" focus as a principled stand by content owners if they hadn't spent years suing such end users, securing absurd multi-million dollar judgments in cases that they are still pursuing in court. As it is, the shift looks more like a pragmatic attempt to solve a real problem through less aggressive measures after the failure of scorched earth tactics.

UFO Sightings

   There has been an increasing amount of UFO sightings this last year. I just got done watching a video, about twelve-ish minutes long, that just really got my thinking there just might be more life than just us out there in this large universe of ours. That, or some very damn fine photoshoppers. To view the 12 minute video click HERE! The beginning of the video is more of a compilation of UFO sighting videos, but later on there is an on air radio talk show where you here from a former employee of Area 51, which was also an interesting theory. 

Are aliens real? Is there life beyond our planet? You decide.

Apple's iPad 2 Announced!

   Well as most of you may now know, Apple has announced that the new iPad will be selling anytime soon. I personally don't see what all the hub-ub is all about. There is only a few new features being added such as a dual-camera, duel-core A5 chips, and dual-view HDMI. All though it will have iOS 4.3 I don't see why they would really need it besides maybe the iMovie program or whatever. (Yeah, I'm not much of an Apple fan). It seems like a waste with the iOS 4.3 since everything is pretty much locked-down with Apple's crazy restrictions on absolutely everything they make. 

    In my personal opinion, I would sit this one out guys. For the price they are charging and for what features should have been out on the first iPad, I suggest just waiting, but if you're a hipster and live in a coffee shop and like to throw money at Apple, go for it. I would rather sit in the comfort of my command center next to my cozy tower I like to call 'The F16' (On the account that it sounds like a jet at times). Back on topic, if Apple would stop charging crazy prices, and opened up their operating systems, they would have one more customer.

Source: Here

Free Stuff Friday 2/25/11

So every Friday I try to put together some stuff that are completely FREE! Sorry for not putting together one for last week, hopefully this one will make up for it. This week on Free Stuff Fridays I am giving out a list of great programs that are used for troubleshooting computers and all can be ran off your USB device, and most of all; they are all FREE!

• Device Doctor Portable

          Great USB tool that can easily scan your computer to find if your, or someone else, computer needs to  have their drivers updated. I don't know how many times I use the windows driver updater and it just tells me I have the latest drivers. Another great thing about this is that it finds the correct driver for you to download and provides a link.
           Download link: Here

• Speccy

          Another cool tool that when ran scans your computer specs and comes with a very slick looking user interface that can tell you everything hardware related to your computer. It gives you information such as CPU, motherboard, RAM, HDD drives, optical drives, audio devices and temperature if your hardware supports it.
           Download link: Here

• Dead Pixel Fixer

          Great tool if this ever happens, I have had a dead pixel and it is one of the biggest annoyances in the world next to girls who scream at their phones while in the movie theater. Run the program, select the settings for the dead pixels like size and length of time you want it to run, the longer the better, but don't over do it. Pretty easy tool, all though this tool doesn't always work; it usually works 80% of the time though.
           Download link: Here

• Add/Remove Program Cleaner  

          Another one of those tools that will help with those little annoyances of life. Ever removed a program through windows add/remove program to find it's still there? Yeah, I know I have. This tool will clean all that mess up.
          Download link: Here

This concludes another week of Free Stuff Friday, I have many more USB tools that I'll be posting next week too, I just don't have the time (or space) to write them all up at once. 
Enjoy!