Giveaway from Chronicle Books Whip Up Mini Quilts..

As I mentioned below, there would be a giveaway today of Kathreen Ricketson's new book Whip Up Mini Quilts. I am huge fan of quilts and quilting and looking at those teeny quilts below have me jonesing to get my hands on some serious fat quarters of calico! Leave a comment and three winners will be chosen in 24 hrs. Have fun!

so far so fantastic

O my, are we ever having a great time in Oregon. Hiking, meals as a family, good wine, down time, beach trip, feeding horses, beautiful scenery, beautiful people. (O, and free time to edit pictures and sleep in. I love grandparents.)

Chinese 'Red Pad' tablet reserved for top officials

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For the communist cadre who has everything, a shadowy Chinese company is offering a $1,590 tablet computer called the "Red Pad" reserved for the nation's top officials.

The pricey device, whose existence was publicised by state media this week, has drawn mocking comparisons to Apple's

Red is the colour of China's Communist Party and in the political context refers to someone who is patriotic.

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Red Pad Technology, reported to have links to China's powerful Ministry of Information Industry, will not sell the product to the public but only to bureaucrats, state media said.

The Red Pad, called the "

But the company selling the Red Pad appears to have grown publicity-shy, with its official website no longer accessible.

Chinese bloggers said only government officials could afford the tablet since they have access to state funds and illegal sources of income gained through their powerful positions.

"Your products should be aimed at those customers who do not spend their own money," said another microblog posting by Su Hailei.

In what appeared to be a joke, a seller on China's largest online shopping platform

NC State Unveils New DARPA Urban Challenge Driverless Vehicle

In a race that can only be described as futuristic, the Insight Racing team will field a driverless Lotus Elise to compete in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The team will modify the sports car with sensors and on-board computers that have been programmed to autonomously maneuver it through an urban setting complete with traffic, intersections and traffic circles – the vehicle will even have to park itself – all without the help of a human.

The product of a collaboration among North Carolina State University, Insight Technologies Inc., Lotus Engineering Inc. and the Advanced Vehicle Research Center (AVRC), the technology that will guide the Elise through city streets may one day revolutionize not only the way the military performs missions but also the way that commuters drive to work each day.

“The College of Engineering is excited about being a part of this event,” said Dr. Louis Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering at NC State. “Our students will be able to use their engineering skills to solve real-world problems that will one day help save lives.”

Sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Grand Challenge competition was created to answer a congressional mandate to convert one-third of military vehicles to driverless, computer-driven mode by 2015. The objective of the competition is to have teams design a completely autonomous vehicle with no human assistance that can maneuver through an urban setting while avoiding obstacles. The technology developed for the race will help DARPA reach its goal of having the autonomous vehicles perform missions that currently put military personnel in harm’s way.

Today, the Insight Racing team announced that Lotus Engineering had provided a Lotus Elise to use in the competition and will modify the controls interface. The Elise represents a leap up from the 1987 Chevy Suburban used in the 2005 competition, which took an overall 12th place from an original field of 196 applicants.

“Lotus is happy to support Insight Racing in the Urban Challenge,” says Don Graunstadt, chief executive officer and president of Lotus Engineering. “We are impressed with Insight’s proven record and are looking forward to working together.”

“We are proud to have Lotus as a sponsor,” says Grayson Randall, Insight Racing founder. “Lotus Engineering’s leadership will certainly contribute greatly to our efforts. The development of this smart vehicle technology has many applications and will ultimately change how we drive in the not too distant future.”

“It is exciting to think about the many ways this technology will change the automotive industry,” said Dick Dell, executive director of AVRC. “It is great to see North Carolina in a leadership position with this powerful Lotus-Insight partnership.”

Entered as one of the 78 Track B teams – and the only team representing North Carolina – in the 2007 Grand Challenge, the Insight Racing team will now face several elimination rounds to advance to the final Urban Challenge event in November 2007.

“We have a highly talented dynamic team that is composed of students from NC State University, members of the Triangle technical community and retired business executives,” Randall says. “The development of robotics technology will allow us to accomplish both human relief and military missions that pose a threat to our country’s personnel. We are thrilled to compete in this innovative race, which is moving autonomous driving ahead so rapidly.”

Source: NC State University

ATi Confirmed Launch Dates For R5xx GPUs

Some interesting info from an investor meeting held with ATI's CEO Dave Ortonon August 17th :

• Late September Launch Date Set for Three R500 Desktop Discrete Chips (R520,RV530, and RV515)
• The shipment dates will likely be staggered for the three chips, based on thedelivery cycles from TSMC, with one likely shipping at launch date and the othertwo within the first half of October
• R520 had been sampling since Dec/04, and although the architecture and 90nmprocess were not a problem, ATI was not able to run the clock fast enough due toa “soft ground” issue that was discovered in late July after debugging withseveral re-spins.
• R520 and RV530 had functional yields, but could not run at high speeds, whilethe RV515 and the C1 (the 90nm Xbox graphics chip) did not have any issues.
• In terms of performance, ATI believes the R520 should exceed the GeForce 7800GTX in benchmark tests if it can get the proper clock speed, but recognizes thatNVIDIA has some headroom to overclock the GeForce 7800 clock speeds.
• ATI unlikely to launch its R580 (speculated to have 32 pixel pipelines) inC2005 and expect a refresh of the R500 family beginning in spring 2006 withRV560, followed by RV540 and RV505.
• R600 targeted for (DirectX 10, targeting Vista and WGF 2.0) in Q4/F06 orQ1/F07

ASUS S-presso SFF System

ASUS today introduced the S-presso, an all-new desktop barebone system thatoffers multimedia entertainment in a compact small form factor (SFF) casing. Itprovides excellent support for high-quality graphics, powerful computing, TVviewing, video recording, FM radio, and comes in a stylish design that makes itperfect for home environments.

Easy multimedia access
With the LED Easy Touch Panel, the S-presso allows users to surf TV channels,adjust volume, skip CD and DVD tracks etc. Access and control multimediafunctions without touching the keyboard or mouse. When users are resting on thecouch, the S-presso also offers a remote controller, so sit back, relax andenjoy all the multimedia features.

3.4GHz+ Pentium 4 and powerful graphics
Powerful computing performance is a prerequisite for multimedia entertainment.The S-presso is Prescott ready, delivering 3.4GHz+ Pentium 4 processing formulti-task operation. The S-presso is also the only PC of its size with theability to accommodate all AGP 8x graphics cards. It eliminates graphics cardcompatibility issues and provides high-quality visual performance support.

Instant-On – OS-free audio and video
Don’t waste time waiting for the system to boot. Enjoy TV, DVD, CD, MP3 and FMradio right away without entering the operating system.

ASUS Home Theater
This user-friendly interface for multimedia functions is found uniquely in ASUSdesktop solutions. Users can easily switch between different applicationswhether it’s watching TV, listening to CDs, playing DVDs or enjoying FM radioshows.

Convenient assembling
The chassis of the S-presso takes on a simple tool-less design that permitsusers to quickly access the interior of the PC system for system upgrade andmaintenance.

The S-presso offers two models – S1-P111 and S1-P112. Multimedia featuressuch as Touch Sensor LED panel, remote control, TV tuner, ASUS Home Theater andASUS Instant-On are only available in the S1-P111 version. The S1-P112 is agaming system tailored for those who enjoy playing the latest 3D titles.

Specification summary
-CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz (Northwood and Prescott)
-Chipsets: Intel 865G + ICH5
- 800/533MHz FSB
-Memory: Dual-channel DDR 400/333/266. Max. 2GB
-Serial ATA
-1 x AGP 8x
-S/PDIF
-7-in1 card reader (CFI/CFII, Smart Media, SD/MMC, MS/MS Pro)
-TV tuner card

Coming in blue and white, the S-presso looks good in all settings.

nick millard round-up “death nurse”

In a very real sense, if you’ve seen Mick Millard’s other SOV/DTV offering from 1987, Criminally Insane 2 a.k.a. Crazy Fat Ethel 2, then you’ve seen Death Nurse. Only you haven’t. Confused yet? Read on, all will made clear — sort of.

At its core, Death Nurse more or less amounts to Criminally Insane 2 in unconvincing hospital costumes (okay, in fairness the nurse’s getup worn by star Priscilla Alden and the lab coat worn by her pseudo-doctor brother, played by fellow Millard regular Albert Eskinazi,? are perfectly fine, but look for the little touches, like a dish rag attached with rubber bands standing in for a surgical mask, to show just how little money our guy Nick spent on this movie) — after all, it’s shot in Millard’s Pacifica, California condo, it stars Alden, Eskinazi, Millard’s mom, and his stepfather, and it’s about a homicidal fat lady, all of which should sound pretty familiar if you’ve seen CI2/CFE2. In addition,?Death Nurse also runs just under 60 minutes in length and looks to have been shot on a consumer-grade VHS camcorder and then haphazardly edited with a basic two-VCRs-hooked-up-at-home set-up.

And yet — it’s the subtle differences here that show Millard’s creativity in the face of no resources whatsoever. His spread is now a clinic (that takes care of everything from open heart surgery to TB treatment to Betty Ford-style alcohol rehab) rather than a halfway house, his mom plays a social worker who takes care of indigent medical patients rather than a social worker who takes care of newly-released indigent mental hospital patients,? and the larger-than-life Ms. Alden plays Edith Mortley, psycho RN, rather than Ethel Janowski, psycho food lover.

So yes — even though both flicks are hopelessly padded to fill out their meager runtimes with “flashback” footage from the first Criminally Insane film (which in this context makes absolutely no sense being that Alden is supposedly playing an “entirely different” character here — oh, and the opening credits are borrowed from?CI again this time as well, right down to the “directed by Nick Philips”), and even though they both linger on certain scenes waaaaaayyyy too long (check out how much time Millard spends showing us Eskinazi’s Gordon Mortley character digging a “grave,” for instance, or eating ice cream just a few minutes later), there are some key differences. And it’s one of those key differences that, in my mind, makes Death Nurse the superior “feature” (to the extent that either of them can be said to have any redeeming qualities whatsoever) of the two? — and it’s not the dish rag “surgical masks,” awesome as they? are.No, friends, what sets Death Nurse apart from its contemporary entry into the Millard canon is its (entirely unintentional, I’m sure, which makes it all the better in my book) full-throttle, no-holds-barred, do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 leap into the realm of pure, unadulterated absurdity in pursuit of its less-than-lofty mission to simply kill 60 minutes’ worth of videotape.? While Criminally Insane 2? still tepidly clings to the notion of making some kind of rational sense, rest assured that Death Nurse has no such hang-ups.

Consider — the “plot” here revolves around a nurse and doctor (who according to Millard are apparently phonies with no medical training, although the “screenplay,” ad-libbed for the most part as it is, makes no explicit mention of this fact) who take in broke patients and then kill them and keep collecting money from Medicare/Medicaid for their “treatment.” Even though county social workers still have to come by and check on these people. In addition, they don’t even put up the pretense of having real surgical equipment about, resorting instead to using hacksaws and steak knives on their (fully conscious, I shit you not!) patients.? Ethel — I mean, Edith — then feeds the dead remains of their charges to her pet rats in the garage (cue stock footage from Willard) before feeding the rats to others in her care (such is the delicate cycle of nature, I guess). Then a cop (Millard’s step dad) comes along and busts up their little racket and our quaint homemade “epic” is over.

If any of that makes a lick of sense to you, then congratulations on possessing enough suspension of disbelief to almost take Death Nurse seriously. But fear not — Millard’s heavy-handed attempts at “black comedy” still ensure that you won’t (or can’t). Consider : a dead TB sufferer (played by Millard himself with his face covered by a handkerchief at all times) is dug out from his shallow grave and hosed off to “prove” to the pesky lady from county social services that he’s still alive (wouldn’t she notice the smell?). Gordon attempts a heart transplant by inserting the ticker of his dead dog into a human patient — and their cat (who wanders about the clinic freely, apparently) makes off with it. And ol’ Gordo is trading sex for booze with his alcoholic patient (played by Millard’s wife, who also evidently “produced” this movie, whatever that even means).

So yeah, I think it’s fair to say that Death Nurse is more than willing to loose itself from the moorings of reality. But you still can’t really escape the sense that more or less nothing is happening in this movie because, well — it’s not. It just sounds like it is. Watch it and you’ll see what I mean — Millard possesses the unique ability to make even the truly absurd seem hopelessly mundane and to almost hermetically cleanse any scene of all dramatic tension. He could make a real-live snuff film and I swear to God the thing would seem tedious and drawn out. And while some readers out there may find that to be rather insulting to good Nicholas, I genuinely mean it as praise, because it’s a feat I’ve never seen any other director duplicate with the kind of consistently vigorous non-vigor (hell, anti-vigor) that he does. One thing that’s definitely worthy of admiration, though, regardless of how you feel about Death Nurse itself, is the quality of Slasher Video’s new 25th Anniversary DVD release of the movie. Both picture and sound have been remastered to the point of being genuinely passable (no small feat there I would imagine), and it’s loaded with terrific extras including an on-camera interview with Millard (who’s definitely an amiable guy and pretty darn honest about the “quality” of his product), a terrific feature-length commentary with Millard and his wife, Irmi, that’s engaging throughout, a Priscilla Alden tribute featurette showcasing scenes she’s? in from numerous Millard productions, a short-but-sweet still photo gallery, and a YouTube-style “review video” from the head honcho of VHSCollector.com. All in all, it’s a more comprehensive package than any right-thinking person would ever have dreamed a flick like this would receive. Kudos all around.

At the end of the day, it’s pointless to compare Death Nurse to anything other than Millard’s other late-80s SOV productions, not so much because it doesn’t play by the same rules as “normal” cinema, but because it doesn’t even seem to know what those rules are. Although in many ways it’s hopelessly redundant when viewed alongside Criminally Insane 2 (which is already hopelessly redundant in and of itself if you’ve seen the first Criminally Insane), it’s the sheer temerity of Millard thinking he could basically do the same flick again (I picture in my mind him yelling “Cut! — And print!” when he wrapped up CI2 and then saying “Now let’s shoot it again quick in the hospital costumes!,” but I guess they were made a good six or so months apart, which for some strange reason I actually find kind of disappointing), coupled with his absolute unconcern with, if not outright disdain for, trying to be in any way “believable,” that elevates — or knocks down, depending on how you look at things — Death Nurse to its own plateau. This is a work of art — and I don’t use that term lightly, off-handedly, or in any way condescendingly — that manages to be both a complete rip-off and yet defy comparison at the same time. In its steadfast inability to be anything other than what it is, even if “what it is” amounts to being a total rehash of an earlier rehash, it stands alone as perhaps the most jaw-droppingly, amazingly, near-hypnotically pointless movie ever made — until, of course, Death Nurse 2 came along the very next year. Let’s hope Slasher Video sees fit to give it similar treatment in the not-too-distant future.