Remember the reason for Memorial Day

It's that time of the year again. Grills start to fire up, publics pools begin to open, and the start of summer is officially right around the corner. Most of America gets the day off tomorrow to conclude a much needed three day weekend. While all of that is great and always welcomed, let us not forget the reason we get to enjoy these amenities.

Tomorrow marks the annual American holiday of Memorial Day. A day when the people of this great country should take time from their hectic schedules to remember all the brave men and women who unselfishly gave their lives, allowing us to enjoy the freedom and security we do today. Without the soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice there is no doubt this country would not be in the place it is today. While you may argue that America is not at its finest point in history right now, that argument is best reserved for the political arena and a day that is not Memorial Day.

So come tomorrow if you have an American flag be sure to fly it at half-staff from dawn till noon, as is tradition. Also remember that a national moment of remembrance will take place at 3:00 p.m., and if you would like to do more visit a national cemetery if you live nearby and maybe plant some mini flags. Do whatever pleases you, it's your day off but just remember the reason why you have this day off to do whatever you please.

God bless America and those who have served and presently serve the land of the free and the home of the brave.

What are your plans for this patriotic Holiday?

Apocalypse averted...whew

The sun has risen six times, the NYSE's opening bell has rung has five times, and America got a new idol. All this has happened within the time frame between now and Harold Camping's failed prediction of Judgment Day being last Saturday May 21, 2011. Luckily for the majority of the world it wasn't so, because according to Camping only 200 million Christians were going to make the ascension to Heaven.

The Family Radio broadcaster is a bit confused but has not given up hope on his apocalyptic prediction. Camping says that May 21 was in fact Judgment Day, but was a spiritual event and not a physical one as he thought it would be. He still stands strong to his belief that October 21, 2011 will be Doomsday, the day that we as human beings cease to exist. We will have to wait five months to see how that prediction pans out and hopefully we get the same result as we did this time around.

Camping may have not had many believers in his words but there's no doubt his words reached a massive amount of ears. In the days leading up to last Saturday Judgment Day was one of the hottest topics on main stream news broadcasts along with social networking websites. #endoftheworldconfessions quickly became a trending topic on twitter Friday night and garnered millions of tweets, some of them quite hilarious.

For many the Judgment Day that wasn't became the butt of a international joke, but for those who believed in Camping's prophecy it was no laughing matter. Many of his followers had quit their jobs, given away all their earthly possessions, and some even left their family months ago to spread the message of impending doom that was supposedly heading our way. One in particular is a man named Robert Fitzpatrick who spent $140,000 of his life savings to help spread the word. When 6:00 rolled around on Saturday evening Fitzpatrick was in New York City's Time Square awaiting the return of Christ, when that did not occur he stated "I do not understand why nothing has happened."

My question to you is do you think Harold Camping's prophecy was financially motivated, or do you think he truly believes May 21 was Judgment Day?

Sony continues to be breached

A month after Sony's PlayStation Network was breached and subsequently shut down, the Japan based company's security woes continue. It all began last month on April 20 when the PSN was breached by a group of hackers who stole millions of names, addresses, and credit card information from online users.

Since the initial breach last month which has been dubbed "The Great PlayStation Network Outage" Sony has continued to battle with hackers who have targeted different branches of the company's infrastructure. While the PlayStation Network was still down earlier this month Sony Online Entertainment also suffered the same type of attack. SOE which is the company's online PC gaming network which host games such as "Star Wars Galaxies", "EverQuest", "DC Universe Online", and many more was forced to shut down for two weeks after customers' personal information had been compromised.

Most recently Sony's security has been breached outside of their gaming networks. Earlier this week Sony revealed that 8,500 Greek users personal information had been stolen along with sites stationed in Thailand and Indonesia. Today the company's most recent breach involved a Canadian Sony Ericsson music website, which forced the site to shut down after 2,000 people's names, e-mail addresses, and passwords were stolen and published on a hacking news website.  

As of right now Sony is proving to be unable to protect their customers' personal information that they have entrusted them with. This lack of trust shows in the decline of Sony's stock price since the breaches began and will more than likely have an even more damaging effect when the company's earnings for this quarter are released.

Air France 447 plummeted 38,000 feet

The recently discovered wreckage of Air France 447 has shed new light onto the plane's and passengers' final moments. The flight which departed on May 31, 2009 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was heading for its destination of Paris, France. The mystery that has surrounded the cause of the crash is no more, as flight recorder data has been revealed.

The recordings indicate that before making its fatal plunge into the Atlantic Ocean, Air France 447 stalled roughly 38,000 feet in the air and then proceeded to free-fall from that distance. The data shows that the fall lasted approximately three minutes and thirty seconds before contact was made with the ocean surface. During the fall the plane reached speeds of over 100 mph's.

Reports indicate that nearly ten minutes after then captain announced he would be taking a rest break the emergency began. Another co-pilot stepped into to take the captain's place while he rested; during this time a left turn was executed to avoid an oncoming set of storms. Within minutes the autopilot system shut its self-off and a co-pilot could be heard saying "I have the controls," soon after the captain returned to the cockpit.

The pilot took the jet into an ascent of 3,000 feet where it finally reached 38,000 feet off the ground. When the jet began its disastrous stall the captain continued to try and pull the nose up, which goes against a pilot's training. During a stall a pilot is trained to lower the nose so airflow increases over the aircraft's wings.

A little over two hours after Air France flight 447 departed, it began its doomed plummet into the ocean below where it reached its resting point 12,800 feet below the surface for nearly two years. The crash claimed the lives of all those aboard, a total of 228 people. The French BEA (aviation accident investigation agency) continues to investigate what caused the errors to occur and what can be done to prevent such tragic accidents in the future.

PlayStation Network Comes Back On

Ladies and gentleman the day has finally came...the PSN is being restored as we speak. Here is a direct quote from the PS Blog.

"Thank you for your patience and encouragement over the last few weeks. As covered in the post from earlier today, you can now update the firmware on your PS3 and change your password. Kazuo Hirai just announced that we have begun the phased restoration by region of some of the services, starting with online multiplayer functionality.
Please note that these services will take a bit of time to be turned on and rolled out to the whole country. The process has begun and some states are being turned on now, so please be patient as we reach your city and state. We’ll be updating the map below as service comes online in individual states. It will take several hours to restore PSN throughout the entire country, so please keep checking back for the latest updates. In the meantime, now’s a great time to get your PS3’s firmware updated and change your password, both of which are required to get online."


 Game on!

Judgment Day May 21?

If Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping is correct people of the world have less than two weeks to repent for their sins. Camping who is also the president of Family Radio has made a shocking revelation that he has found undeniable mathematical evidence within the Holy Bible that Judgment Day is scheduled for May 21, 2011. Judgment Day according to the Christian religion is the day in which Jesus Christ will make his second coming to Earth and rapture all the believers to Heaven where they will spend eternity. Those who lack faith will remain on Earth and face Christ's wrath as he rules as the King of Earth until Doomsday, which Camping says will take place on October 21, 2011.

Many people before have made predictions of Christ's return that passed with no such event. Even Camping himself who stated in his book "1994?" that the Day of Judgment would occur in 1994. To give him some credit though within his book he did state that he had a feeling 2011 would more than likely be the year, and later admitted to have making a mathematical error that caused him to believe the false date. The thing about the others though is that they didn't put the marketing into the prediction like he has. All across the country billboards, post cards, and printouts can be found stating the doomed warning.

Along with the print media Camping also has groups of missionaries that have quit their jobs and basically given up the life they led before to spread his message. They tour the country in RV convoys wrapped with words and images supporting their claim that the end is near. It is their hopes to get the word out and attempt to save as many people as possible before May 21.

For more information on this check out Family Radio's official site.

PlayStation Network down till the end of May?

Rumors have spread recently that the disabled PlayStation Network could stay that way until at least May 31st. The network has been down now for almost three weeks and if the rumor is true that would put its total outage time around six weeks.

The patience of many has already been worn thin by what has been dubbed "The great PlayStation Network outage of 2011", on forums and comment boards across the web disgruntled users have expressed their dissatisfaction towards Sony. Some have already given up hope and sold their PlayStation 3's and converted to Microsoft's X Box 360.

While May 31st is not a date set in stone its source comes from a recent report from Bloomberg. In the article Sony spokesman Shigenori Yoshida is quoted as saying "Sony is uncertain when it can resume the services," Yoshida also went on to say "The company is in the process of adopting an improved security system and its plans to restart the services fully by May 31 is unchanged."

Many are taking this with a grain of salt after Sony has already missed three windows they claimed that service would be restored in, the most recent one being last week. Time shall tell if Sony will get the network up and running before the month's end or if they will again disappoint their eager fans.

For more on this story click here.