Archive for ◊ February, 2009 ◊
Here’s an awesome song. I think I want this played at my funeral. It’s a superb message about the fact that death isn’t a sad thing but rather a celebration! God only cries for the living because they’re left to carry on…
Popularity: 7% [?]
Proof that Christians can be normal and that all Christian music DOESN’T sound the same. Barlow Girl is awesome and always impresses me with the quality of the music and the positive message.
Popularity: 7% [?]
This is a triumphant video about a son asked his father, ‘Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?’. The father who, despite having a heart condition, says ‘Yes’. They went on to complete the marathon together. Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying ‘Yes’ to his son’s request of going through the race together. One day, the son asked his father, ‘Dad, let’s join the Ironman together.’ To which, his father said ‘Yes’ too.
For those who don’t know, Ironman is the toughest triathlon ever. The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile (3.86
kilometer) ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile (180.2 kilometer) bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile (42.195 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island . Father and son went on to complete the race together.
What you’re about to read is directly copied from ESPN at http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=2631338 .
KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii — When Rick Hoyt developed cerebral palsy at birth in 1962 after his umbilical cord became wrapped around his neck, cutting off oxygen to his brain, doctors suggested to his parents that he be institutionalized. But Dick Hoyt and his wife refused, insisting that their son have as normal a life as possible.
Although some might question whether running nearly 1,000 marathons and triathlons over 27 years is normal, the Hoyts think it is. On Saturday, Dick and Rick will attempt their fifth Hawaii Ironman Triathlon World Championship.
The normal life saw Rick, who cannot talk or walk, graduating from a public high school and going on to Boston College, where he earned a degree in special education. After teaching for one year, Rick turned to his interest in computers, and helped Boston College develop the “Eagle Eyes” computer system that uses eye and head movements to help him communicate.
While attending a college basketball game, he heard an announcement about a benefit run for a cross-country runner who had become paralyzed in an accident.
Dick remembers his son coming home and saying, “Dad, we have to do something for him. I want to show him that life goes on even though he is paralyzed.”
“It was Rick who was the motivation,” for their racing career, Hoyt said. “He asked me to race.”
That first race, in 1979, was a five-mile run with Dick pushing Rick in a two-wheel running chair.
“We started building up to marathons, and entered our first marathon in 1981,” Hoyt said. Their list of racing accomplishments includes 64 marathons, a distance of 26.2 miles, including 24 consecutive Boston Marathons.
“We did our first triathlon in 1985 — a one-mile swim, 40-mile bike ride and a 10-mile run,” Hoyt said.
In 1988, they attempted their first Ironman race, featuring a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a full marathon. They had to drop out when Dick became nauseated during the swim and failed to make the cutoff time. They returned the next year and finished the race. In 2003, they crashed at the 85-mile mark of the bicycle ride and spent five hours in a hospital emergency room. But they finished again in 2004.
They also completed a triathlon over the Ironman distance that was not sanctioned by Ironman. That race, in 1986 at Cape Cod, Mass., gave them their best finish time of 13½ hours.
“Rick loves sports,” his father said. “He really looks forward to the Ironman and gets very excited. He is getting the same benefits I get. His adrenelin really gets going.”
During the swim, Hoyt tows his son in a 5-foot-long rubber inflatable boat, with a tow line attached to a belt around his waist. Rick sits in a seat in front of the specially built bike, and in a three-wheel chair for the run.
“The chair has been updated to make it lighter,” Hoyt said.
The long bicycle ride takes athletes from the pier in this seaside village over barren lava fields to the rolling ranch lands at the northern end of Hawaii Island.
“I don’t mind the hills, but the winds can be brutal,” said Hoyt, who pushes a total of 365 pounds during the bike ride.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” said Hoyt, 66, adding that this will be their last Ironman-distance race. “But we’re not giving up on triathlons.”
He said he and his son, now 44, plan to compete in the new Ironman 70.3 series of races, which cover a distance half that of the regular Ironman course.
Now retired from the Massachusetts Air National Guard after 37 years, Hoyt spends much of his time traveling extensively as a motivational speaker. He also promotes the book he wrote during the first six months of his retirement. The book, “It’s Only A Mountain,” book chronicles how Rick’s parents “went about raising him,” and “is selling all over the world,” the father said. “It was recently translated into Korean and is in the process of being translated into Japanese.”
The Hoyts also are featured in two DVDs, including one called “Team Hoyt Ironman” with “My Redeemer Lives” as background music that Hoyt said is “very powerful.”
Their impact is evident when they walk down the street here and are constantly stopped by fans who wish them well, thank them for their inspiration and ask to pose for pictures.
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press
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Here’s a song by Agonist called Business Suits and Combat Boots. It’s killer…
I’m not sure of the statement they are trying to sell- perhaps they’re socialist anti-war vegetarians? It’s hard to understand what they are screaming into the mic but the instruments are phenonominal!
Popularity: 9% [?]
Microsoft on Friday confirmed it will issue no more beta releases of Windows 7 and will instead move directly to a single release candidate (RC) and then the final release. The company offered no guidance on when we can expect the Windows 7 release, however.
“The next milestone for the development of Windows 7 is the Release Candidate or ‘RC,’” Microsoft senior vice president Steven Sinofsky confirmed in a blog post. “We’ve released the feature complete Beta and have made it available broadly around the world. The path to Release Candidate is all about getting the product to a known and shippable state both from an internal and external standpoint.”
Sinofsky notes that the RC version of Windows 7 will be “Windows 7 as Microsoft intends to ship it” and will place the OS on a fast track towards RTM (release to manufacturing), when the code is literally completed, and general availability (GA), when it is made available to the public. No timeline for the RC, RTM, or GA were provided. “The answer [to the schedule questions] is forthcoming,” Sinofsky added.
“We are taking a quality-based approach to completing the product and won’t be driven by imposed deadlines,” Sinofsky claimed. “We’re promising to deliver the best release of Windows we possibly can and that’s our goal. Together, and with a little bit more patience, we’ll achieve that goal.”
It’s pretty clear that Windows 7 will, in fact, be delivered well before the 2009 holiday and back-to-school seasons, which are key sales bump periods in the consumer market. Insiders Expect to see the RC version of Windows 7 in April alongside Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2), and the RTM release by mid-2009.
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In February Microsoft will announce its plans for the various Windows 7 product editions it will sell when that OS is released to the public sometime this year. The announcement was eagerly awaited because of the confusing and broad range of Windows Vista product editions, with their overlapping feature sets.
Unlike with Vista, where Microsoft crowded the market with lots of versions of Windows, Windows 7 will ship in just a handful of common-sense product editions. And also unlike with Vista, these product editions are all supersets of each other, so there are no overlapping feature sets (which is good) and simpler upgrading (which is even better).
For this version of the OS, Microsoft and its PC maker partners will market just two mainstream product editions, Windows 7 Home Premium–the recommended choice for consumers–and Windows 7 Professional, which is aimed at enthusiasts and IT professionals.
Here’s how the complete product line breaks down (where each product edition is a superset of the one before it.)
Windows 7 Starter. This version will be sold only through PC makers to users in emerging markets. As with previous Windows Starter Edition products, it is limited in some ways: You can run only three applications at once, you don’t get Windows 7′s full mobility capabilities, and you can participate in but not create a Home Group.
Windows 7 Home Premium. The volume Windows 7 offering for consumers builds on Starter and includes Mobility Center, Aero Glass, advanced windows navigation features like Aero Snap and Aero Peek, and multi-touch, as well as the ability to both create and participate in Home Groups. Home Premium will be sold at retail and be included with new computers.
Windows 7 Professional. This version builds on Home Premium and adds features like domain join, Group Policy controls, location-aware printing, advanced backup, EFS, and offline folders. Pro will be sold at retail and be included with new computers.
Windows 7 Enterprise. As before, Enterprise is aimed at Microsoft’s Software Assurance (SA) volume-license customers. This time, however, Enterprise is a superset of Professional and adds much-heralded Windows 7 features like Direct Access, Branch Cache, BitLocker, and BitLocker To Go.
Windows 7 Ultimate. For those few customers who simply must have everything, Windows 7 Ultimate offers all of the features from Enterprise but loses the volume-licensing requirement. So you can think of Ultimate edition as Enterprise for consumers (and other retail customers).
So you may be looking back over this list and thinking, well, hold on a second there: That’s five product editions. Are they really simplifying anything? Yes, they really are. Microsoft and its partners will focus most of their efforts selling Home Premium and Pro to the retail and consumer markets, and Enterprise to volume licensing business customers. Ultimate and Starter are, by definition, niche products that are available only to address low-volume but important markets. But what really makes this work is the “Russian doll” structure where each version is a true superset of the one below it. With Windows Vista, Home Premium had some features that Business did not and vice versa. That made choosing a product edition difficult.
A few other product edition notes: It will be possible to electronically upgrade from any Windows 7 product edition to a higher-end product edition, and to do so quickly and easily. So even a Starter edition user will be able to upgrade all the way up to Ultimate if they so choose.
Vista users will face simple upgrade choices: You can go from Vista Home Basic or Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium or any higher product edition, for example. XP users? They can only “upgrade” by performing a clean install of Windows 7–Microsoft will not support an in-place upgrade–but there will be utilities to smooth the process and get data transferred over easily.
This info comes from Paul Thurrott with the Windows IT Pro magazine. Read the article at http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/101416/microsoft-details-windows-7-product-version-plans.html
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