JohnTyra.com

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death by Customers - NYTimes.com. This is sad, and it pisses me off. Really people?!? Is the $10 off of dog food worth someone’s life? According to the report, and I quote, “people started pulling the doors from their hinges and rushing into the store”. Now, 99% of Americas have been into a Wal-Mart at least once in their lives, and most can probably attest to the fact that their doors are industrial-grade metal framed doors. No wood, plastic, etc…metal. Yet, this mob of people pulled the doors off of their hinges! Again, it is very sad that this person died, but it’s stupid that the mob of shoppers were being so ignorant.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide. Nothing out of the ordinary with this story, but it’s worth glancing over. Personally, I’ve always been amazed at the ‘Black Friday’ shopping events, but have never cared to partake in them. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had to be on the other side of the counter before, when I worked retail, and know what kind of hell it is.

BBC - Newsbeat - Technology - Woman cleared of MySpace bullying. This witch got off lite, IMHO. I bet if it was her daughter that commited suicide because of what was done, she’d want blood. Typical political crap….ok, I’m done…

Internet worm exploits Windows vulnerability | Security - CNET News. A new worm, exploit or vulnerability for Microsoft is not exactly news. But, I did think it was interesting that this particular worm will actually patch the system in question after infection to prevent other malware varients from taking over the system. Greedy, greedy worms I tell you…

Could it be a Blue Christmas for Blu-ray? - PC World. Now here is an interesting spin that I had not previously thought about; how well will the Blu-ray format do compared to DVDs in it’s first head-to-head seasonal buying session against the dominate DVD format. Sure, HD-DVD is not in the mix any longer, so it’s only Blu-ray right? Well, not really, since we are all too eager to forget the previous format. The same held true for the VCR to DVD transistion, which was not overnight but eventually did take over.

So, who knows? Everyone is watching their spending, even with Black Friday just around the corner, so it could be anyone’s game.

Streaming Netflix to Your XBox - BusinessWeek. This is not exactly ‘new’, since Microsoft announced earlier this year (and was covered by the blog here) that they would be offering Netflix streaming to the Xbox console eventually. However, while this may sound ‘new’ it actually has been available to normal Netflix customers over the computer for a while now, as long as you’re not using the least expensive plan. It’s OK I suppose from what I have tried…they have about 10k movies or so available to stream, but they are usually not very new. Hopefully this will change with time as more people start using it on their Xbox.

What is new, however, is the update to the Xbox console. If you haven’t gotten online recently with your Xbox, be sure to fire it up and get your updates! =)

GDP shows weakest U.S. economy in seven years - Nov. 25, 2008. Yet another indicator that you’d better save your cash while you can. While it is always a good idea to be frugal, doing so during tougher economic times could mean the difference between making ends meet or not. Be careful out there folks…

Verizon fires workers who snooped on Obama cell records | ZDNet Government | ZDNet.com. A few days ago, news broke about Obama’s cell phone records being accessed (or maybe released?) was making headlines. Verizon has updated their statement to show that they have fired some (unknown) number of employees who were involved in this situation. Well, good — I think that employees for *ANY* company should be held responsible for the actions they perform on customer data. No matter who’s data it is, Obama or an average citizen, it should be treated with respect and confidentality.

Maybe there should be a password put on each account, at the discression of the customer, which is required for the employee/rep to access the account. Thus, only managers and employees higher up the food chain can openly access customers accounts. Entries should all be logged for auditing should anything come up, of course. =)

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Family shock at Florida web death. This is pretty sad, yet the facts are (as always) not being represented correctly by some media outlets. Short version: 19-year old Abraham Biggs overdosed on his meds to commit suicide online (via web-cam) after posting his intentions on his online via his blog and some forum posts. After he took the overdose of medications, he stayed online broadcasting his eventual death via his web-cam.

According to BBC, “His father said it was “unimaginable” that neither the website’s operators nor any viewers alerted the police.” It’s understandable that the family is devastated by this tragic event, but this statement shows how obviously unaware he is about these online communities. There are thousands, if not millions, of people on any given online webpage or service which makes it *impossible* to completely regulate these communities. Even if it was, the police would be literally swamped with calls due to people who are falsely claiming self-harm via some method or another. Not to mention those who would produce a fake picture/movie/etc for attention or some other reason. This happens ALL of the time currently, but very few if any are actually called into the authorities because it happens so often.

It is still very sad that this young man’s death occurred, regardless of the fact that it was broadcasted via his webcam. However, it’s not going to be a simple task to monitor and regulate reports of self-harm across the web due to the sheer volume of online members. Hopefully, this will be a reason to start some type of program (or law?) to keep this from happening in the future.

Zune Pass subscribers get to keep 10 songs. Wow, this is pretty darn good really. Think about it: @ $1 x 10 songs, you’re getting $10 free per month like the article says, so you’re only paying $5 for the subscription. Not a bad deal, even though I use an iPod myself. =)