Custom, annotated google maps

HOW-TO: Make your own annotated multimedia Google map - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Art Rock: Richard Aldrich /5BE Gallery at Rockefeller Center

Lisa's brother Oliver has some works by Richard Aldrich on display at the Art Rock show at Rockefeller Center this week. Lisa sent along this writeup: jameswagner.com: Art Rock opens intense arty week in New York.

Keep an eye on Mt. St. Helens

Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam - Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

Layoffs Seem to Conflict With Tax Break

Here's a stunner (in the Duh, of course it's not working the way Congress intended sense): Layoffs Seem to Conflict With Tax Break Meant to Propel Job Growth. In response to a WTO ruling on how the US taxes or provides subsidies to US businesses with international outposts, the US Congress passed a one year law to allow for the repatriation of foreign income at a reduced tax rate, while also repealing the subsidy which caused conflict with the WTO. The thinking was that businesses would take advantage of the break t pur the money back into their businesses, rather than into executive bonuses. Anyway, according to the WSJ: There is more evidence that a tax break intended to boost U.S. jobs isn't getting the job done.

Consider several major companies that say they are considering bringing home hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign profits under a tax holiday that is part of the American Jobs Creation Act passed last year. These include National Semiconductor Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Colgate-Palmolive Co. -- all of which recently cut staff. These companies' example calls into question how effective "repatriation" will be in spurring new jobs, adding to already reported concerns about the wiggle room the law gives companies in how to spend the money.

But the law gives companies flexibility to use the cash for purposes with indirect links to job creation at best. [...] The Treasury's guidelines require only that companies attest that the spending "likely would have direct or indirect positive effects on employment in the United States."

Perk for average joe gets nailed: ESPP discounts to be expensed

The Stock-Purchase Perk May Get Harder to Offer: When the FASB looked at and recommended expensing stock options, they apparently also recommended the expensing of the discount on employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs): Under old accounting rules, the shares were not reported as an "expense," and didn't hurt profit. Now, companies will have to expense the cost of the stock they set aside for ESPPs (the full market value, minus what the employees paid), and those expenses will reduce earnings. [...] Aside from reducing the discount, the most likely change that companies will make to their ESPPs will be to shorten the investment cycle in the lookback, say, to three months from six months, or to get rid of it, so that the discount applies only to the stock price on the day of purchase or at the end of the investment cycle,

New AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) Terms of Service

Via Slashdot comes news of AOL's updated AIM Terms of Service. I took interest in this bit, it seems to imply (to me, uneducated as I am in the ways of the Internet) that AOL claims the right to intercept and repurpose any communications transmitted over AIM: In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

Now, I use Trillian which is a multi-protocol chat client, and includes an encryption bit. I don' t know whether the encryption bit is end-to-end or if it's end-point to AOL to the opposite end-point. However, I'm going to be looking now for a chat/IM application that doesn't require an intermediary to connect two or more clients.

And yes PDF, I know about GAIM, I'll look into that as well

New on the strip: Museum

In Wired News: Museum Stirs Atomic Age Memories, Wired covers the opening of the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, NV. Over 100 atmospheric tests were conducted by the U.S. (unclear if that's in the continental U.S. or worldwide) out of over 1000 tests overall.

The museum traces a half-century of nuclear weapons testing in a nation that grew to love or hate the bomb. It describes developments that let scientists peer into the first millionth of a second of a nuclear blast before instruments vaporized, and it charts research that continued after earthshaking explosions ended in 1992 at the test site.

The museum is criticized for glossing over the effects of testing on a group called the Downwinders, people who lived in the fallout zone, places like St. George, UT.

Thomas remembers a fine ash falling like snow across St. George. When fallout warnings sounded, her mother would don an old straw hat, pull on rubber dish gloves and tie a dish towel around her own mouth to pluck laundry from the outdoor drying line.

New Order Ringtones via Digital Posters

Via engadget comes news that New Order is using Bluetooth enabled posters to transmit ring tones based on tracks from their new album Waiting for the Sirens Call: New Order Pioneers Digital Posters:

Shoppers in HMV stores in London and Manchester will have the opportunity to check out the band’s upcoming album, Waiting for the Sirens Call in digital interactive posters. The posters, designed by Hypertag, can beam song clips, photos and ringtones directly to fans’ cell phones. The posters, using infrared and Bluetooth technology, send data straight to fans’ phones, eliminating network charges to either fans or the band’s label.