TowleTech v.79

Please welcome Jon Barrett, with this week's tech news including solar homes, the iPhone honors, Facebook snoops, a way to get your photos to an online gallery without connecting your camera or an SD card to a wire, and cybersex strategies.

For the first time in the three-year history of the Solar Decathlon, a European team has won the collegiate competition to build and operate the best solar home. Students from Germany's Technishe Universitat Darmstadt beat 19 other teams to take top honors. Metropolismag.com reports: "Stretching four blocks and flanking both sides of the [National Mall in Washington, D.C.], each home in the Solar Village had to power itself using only the sun over the two-week trial period, and also had to generate enough energy to fuel an electric car." See pictures of the entry homes here.

Time magazine this week named the iPhone the invention of the year: "The thing is hard to type on. It's too slow. It'€™s too big. It doesn'€™t have instant messaging. It'€™s too expensive. (Or, no, wait, it's too cheap!) It doesn'€™t support my work email. It'€™s locked to AT&T. Steve Jobs secretly hates puppies. And—€”all together now—we'€™re sick of hearing about it.... But when the day is over, Apple's iPhone is still the best thing invented this year."

Meanwhile, if you'€™re still saving your pennies to buy an iPhone, think again. Apple is now only letting people buy them with credit or debit cards. According to employees at the Apple store, the policy is designed to let the company track who purchases the phone and, in turn, prevent them from unlocking and reselling them.

One of the perks of working at Facebook? Monitoring the profiles you and I check out, according to Valleywag: "Turns out Facebook employees can (and do) check out anyone'€™s profile. Not only that, but they also see which profiles a user has viewed—€”a major privacy violation." Valleywag also reported on one occasion when a Facebook employee allegedly logged into a member'€™s profile and changed her profile picture to something more revealing.

Speaking of your privacy, on Wednesday nine consumer advocacy groups asked the Federal Trade Commission to create a "do not track"€ list for Internet users who do not want their online activities tracked. Reports Reuters: €œSuch a list would function much like the FTC'€™s '€œdo not call'€ registry that consumers can join to prevent telemarketing calls."

As anybody who'€™s ever tried to hook up online will attest, doing so depends on how good your profile photos are. Mirror-reflected flashes and protruding arm shots are seldom selling points. Rather than resort to one of the generous men on Craigslist who advertise free photo sessions, check out the Self Portrait Arm, an aluminum pole that lets you take shots of yourself (without having your own arm in the foreground). Before your know it, your in-box will be overflowing with enticing invitations.

In anticipation of the November 8 debut of its Roberto Cavalli line, H&M has launched a blog devoted to everything Cavalli.

Downloading your digital snaps just got so much easier thanks to the Eye-Fi—2 GB SD card that adds Wi-Fi capability to any camera. The $100 device automatically loads shots onto one of 20 different photo sites, such as Flickr, and sends a copy to your PC for safekeeping.

You didn'€™t believe me when I first reported about Phone Fingers. "€œThey're a hoax,"€ you mocked, wagging your own phone finger in my general direction. But the man behind the latex finger condoms, meant to keep your iPhone screen smudge-free, is insisting that they'€™re legit and that he'€™s already "€œreceiving many orders."

If any of you have a thing for pasty-white naked men (and I, for one, hope there are at least a few of you out there), check out this Philips ad for wireless headphones. (NSFW).

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Towleroad Guide to the Tube #193

DAN ABRAMS: On Washington State Rep. Richard Curtis and Republican hypocrites, plus interview with Cody Castagna.

AMY WINEHOUSE: Gives a very shaky performance of "Back to Black" at the MTV European Music Awards.

JONATHAN PAPELBON: The Boston Red Sox pitcher appears on David Letterman.

JOHN EDWARDS: Fresh off the recent debate, Edwards is out with a new 60-second ad.

Check out our previous guides to the Tube here!

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In Honor of Dennis Kucinich, a Map of UFO Hotspots

From one of my favorite sites, Strange Maps, here's a map showing "the number of UFO reports per 100.000 people by county in the continental US."

They note that extraterrestrials seem to like it out west, except for a huge portion of northern Minnesota and small splotches in Florida's panhandle as well as Missouri and Illinois. Also, they don't seem to like the Bible Belt much.

Incidentally, the location of Shirley Maclaine's home, where Kucinich claims to have seen his UFO, was in Graham, Washington, just outside of Seattle.

Here's that video again, for those of you who missed it.

UFO Hotspots Map [strange maps]

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News: Adam Levine, Bigot of the Year, Writer's Strike, Thailand

Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner and partner Matt Nye are expecting twins in January.

Daughter of anti-gay leader Amy Contrada (MassResistance) comes out of the closet: "I am a lesbian, which my mom still does not get. She just says that I am confused. I realized in around eighth grade, but I was in denial for quite some time because I was scared due to my mother constantly saying that homosexuality is wrong. How can it ever be wrong to love though? That’s what I’d like to know."

Reuters discovers that some Republicans are gay!

Scientist tweak gene in mice to create "mighty mouse": "Scientists at Case Western Reserve University have genetically engineered mice that outrun, outlive, and out-eat ordinary mice while staying lean, light, and fertile well into old age...A major unanswered question, Hanson's team notes, is what brain changes accompany the genetically engineered mice's hyped-up activity."

Ellen DeGeneres takes on the holiday as a "not pregnant" Jennifer Lopez.

Maroon 5's Adam Levine dresses down for slut-o-ween.

Daniel Radcliffe confirmed for Equus on Broadway in September 2008: "... it took months of negotiations to secure a deal with the theatre-owning Shubert Organisation and for the producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers to sort out all the paperwork for the play's two leading men to perform in New York. Director Thea Sharrock will begin rehearsals next August."

Get ready for more Reality TV: Hollywood writers to strike for the first time in almost 20 years - "We've never been more united and we are willing to deal -- and our decision makers are at the table. Their decision makers are not at the table, and that tells you pretty much all you need to know about how the companies are pushing this."

Royal blackmailer Ian Strachan to apply for bail: "Lawyers representing Ian Strachan, 30, are due to make an application behind closed doors at the Old Bailey. A previous application last week was adjourned after a few minutes because the lawyers needed more time to prepare. Strachan is not expected to attend but will be released from Belmarsh prison, south-east London, if bail is granted."

Bishop wins Bigot of the Year award from UK gay rights group Stonewall: "An employment tribunal in Cardiff in April heard how youth worker John Reaney, 42, was left feeling humiliated after a two-hour interview during which the bishop grilled him about a previous gay relationship. The tribunal decided Mr Reaney had been a victim of unfair dismissal and awarded damages against the Church of England."

On Wednesday I posted about the latest hustler to bring down a Republican hypocrite, and his porn past. Fleshbot has a big round-up of Cody Castagna's adult activities (NSFW).

SLOG reads the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, and it's quite terrifying.

Munich version of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin features drag queens and Brokeback Mountain references. It's not being received well: "There is no novelty value left in the outing of Tchaikovsky. Half-naked cowboys and men in ballgowns are cheap cliches. An exploration of the two men's relationship is legitimate, since it is one of the opera's deepest and certainly its most tragic. With more subtlety and professionalism, it might have worked."

Thai gay activist says he was refused insurance because he is gay: "Natee Teerarojjanapongs, president of the Gay Political Group of Thailand, said he had tried to buy a policy from AIA sales agent Pachara Pipatwong on Sunday. However, after Pachara called to consult an AIA official who liaises with the company's agents, Natee was told he could not do so because he was gay. 'AIA is violating the 2007 Constitution, as it is restricting my rights. [Pachara] told me the official said AIA policy stated that it did not give homosexuals insurance,' Natee said after speaking to the council, which met to monitor how the new Constitution was being implemented. 'I'm willing to let them give me a full health check if they think that I'm in a high-risk group. There's no reason to deny me and other gays or transvestites life insurance. We are educated like others in society. Not all of us engage in risky behaviour,' he said."

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The Streak

Ever have one of those visual cues you just can't seem to shake? Everytime I look at the promo shots for the upcoming Sweeney Todd film starring Johnny Depp, all I see is the late intellectual Susan Sontag.

Depp talks about the look in the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly: "The idea was that he'd had this hideous trauma, from being sent away, locked away. That streak of white hair became the shock of that rage. It represented his rage over what had happened. It's certainly not the first time anyone's used it. But it's effective. It tells a story all by itself. My brother had a white spot growing up, and his son has this kind of shock of white in his hair. In those early meetings, what started to go into the look, before the white streak and any of that, was the eyes. As with any character, the history is there. It sounds really stupid, but I thought they needed to be far away and very close at the same time. They needed to have experienced too much, you know. That's where the darkness came around them. These heavy rings around his eyes of purple and brown, this kind of awful fatigue and rage. It's like he's never slept."

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Bush and Pelosi Exchange Harsh Words Over Policy, Action, Legacy

In some of the sharpest verbal sparring between them to date, George W. Bush and Nancy Pelosi have spent the last couple of days in a war of words over their stymied agendas.

President George W. Bush bashed Congress in a speech yesterday at the Heritage foundation: "Some in Washington should spend more time responding to the warnings of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the requests of our commanders on the ground and less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protestors."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded quickly and angrily: "What does he have to show for his presidency? He is the President of the United States already talking about his library -- what is he going to have in the library? A tax cut for the wealthiest people in the country at the expense of the middle class and a war without end that is a total failure?"

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