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Did anyone see the Armenian team at the opening ceremonies? I didn't, since this year they're not in alphabetical order, and I wasn't about to watch the whole thing...

Amy jan, shnorhavor! Hope you're wedding went without a hitch! (Or rather... Puns aside, I wish you the best as a happy new bride. So when are the kids coming? Azat - those were awesome pics of wine country...

Hey hey hey! I,m late again for the birthday wishes. Hope they were full of happy times!. Movses, Azat, Sip, Armen Edward, Anoushik: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Welcome Rohana, I think Armen's post is from years ago, so likely the site he was linking to no longer exists. It's great that you're working with Gampr's - hopefully the breed can indeed be established in North America - good luck!

Bari Taredarts Armen jan

Multitasking is so 1980's

I'll admit my bias. I always wish an Armenian success - but there needs to be more context in your question. By "vote", I assume you're referring to a general/public vote, and not a vote by judges in an officiating capacity. In the latter case, I would act with the integrity demanded by the position.

Complete silence is hard to find

Not yet covered by Canadian media, but nevertheless... From the Associated Press (AP.org) And here's a BBC article on PKK demands excerpt:

Happy birthday Domino jan...

Never - my mistake, Elly jan (typo) I would in fact love to see one - but probably mosjan "the wise", knows that I already have too much on plate to handle a Gampr... Mos, yete gampr tanem toun, tan mech k@pahem @ntaniki het - khekhtch shounin dours chem karogh k@tsem...

Elly do you know of any Gamprs in Canada? I have ever seen one...

It's actually still a pretty cool service. One wonders about the privacy issues though...

I think it's fair to say that a relatively small group of fanatical activists purporting to be "environmentalists" have thoroughly trounced the public perception of the fundamentals of environmental conservation - which although rather broad, is essentially a concern for ecology and the natural environment and how it relates to our civilization. Those whose efforts are trying to establish ways within our societies to minimize environmental impact in the face of current environmental "threats" (overpopulation, resulting over development, uncontrolled consumption, and a generally "disposable" society, to name a few) are in fact pursuing a noble cause. Environmentalists have indeed made some headway - there are pragmatic solutions, or steps towards solutions that have been established in the last 15 years or so that are relatively successful (curbside recycling programs, re-usable grocery bags etc.), not to mention general public awareness. The negative side is that with each new solution, there are a host of new problems once a critical mass is attained. Example, solar power is great, but what do you do with the batteries once they've outlived their usable life? Windfarms can generate enough power to provide energy to run entire small towns - but what is the impact of their construction (not to mention the effects of the noise etc.)? It's difficult to legislate a cultural change (unless you're China) so I'm not wholly in favour of establishing a slew of new laws that will quickly become dated or obsolete as new data/technology develops. But I am in favour of consumer empowerment. New labeling guidelines will at least provide consumers with the ability top make choices - and as the greater population becomes sensitized to environmental and ecological issues, public demand will help drive innovation, responsibility and environmental sensitivity within consumer products and development in general. Utopia maybe? A little anecdote: I recently purchased some organic lettuce, with a nice green label and a logo that screams environmentally responsible - I recently noticed that I'm able to find the same brand/packaging of lettuce in markets all over the province - and even in other provinces. That's a LOT of organic lettuce. How can this be? To produce that quantity of goods, regularly enough for weekly shipments (if not more), with a consistent quality - hmmm - methinks you'd need a factory like operation. Besides the individual packages are all plastic. I can't even check the provenance of the lettuce; just how "organic" can it be if they've had to ship it by truck for 3000km? For me this just illustrates the lack of information available to consumers, and highlights the gap between the socially responsible public and the profit-seeking producers/corporations. Is there a way that concerns of both parties can be met? Can we, as a society, establish a win-win?

I remember the old Dr. Who - it used to play frequently when I was younger. Didn't really take much of an interest in the show, I was never much of a TV watcher. The new Dr. Who I know nothing about.... I rarely watch television, although I have been working my way through the first two seasons of Dexter - but there's absolutely nothing Armenian about him...

Although there are those who argue, "if a piece of software is worth doing, Google is already doing it"... Not sure if that holds water or not. On another note, Adobe has also release an application that allows the browser to become the primary application layer (as opposed to the OS). Although it's still fairly new, it looks like it's gaining a bit of traction. Here's a linke to Adobe AIR, and here's a quote from their site:

I'm half expecting you to add "Na-na-na-na-naaaa-na" and stick your tongue out at us I'm not sure of any new "domains" - but there are several possibilities for a showdown between google and MS. The obvious possibility, would be that google's efforts (with the plethora of platform independent google apps being published & beta'd) are towards a scenario that renders the specific OS irrelevant. By creating a layer above the OS upon which most productivity applications are run, it will no longer be pertinent whether you're running windows/linux/mac etc. That "layer" is essentially your browser, acting as a sort of "virtual machine" that hosts and runs all that you need. This supports the future paradigm for the for most popular applications, which seems to be web-based; and with the advent of Google Gears, users don't necessarily need to be constantly connected to the net to use them - pretty nifty' huh? The natural target are the key Microsoft franchises Windows & Office. So what I think we're seeing (and this is from an outside, casual non-web developer's perspective) is the "gearing" up for the next war in IT, MS vs. Google.

Hey dude! Doing well, good to see you posting - are you still working crazy hours?

Joe Nocera of the NYT has written an article lambasting Yang for not only refusing the MS deal, but signing a deal to become a mere "pawn of the most dominant company on the Internet." The article is written as a memo to Yang, and the subject line reads: "Shafting Yahoo’s Shareholders". Pretty strong statements. It's clear that the Microsoft search deal sealed Yahoo's fate, so it's understandable they didn’t want to do it. But this Google deal is a last ditch effort to remain independent, and it may work for a while. But it seems that it'll erode their current business model in the medium to long term. As long as Yahoo is serving Google’s ads, they’ll see their own customers flee to Google rather than their own platform. Google has, in a sense, wiped out the #2 competitor - whether that gets by anti-trust issues we'll have to see how that plays out... Google is unstoppable...

Note: Thanks to Arratta for this article. U.S. RECOGNIZED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN 1951, WORLD COURT DOCUMENT REVEALS While President Bush and several of his predecessors have avoided characterizing the organized mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as genocide, it has recently come to light that 57 years ago the United States government officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in a document submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court. This half a century old reference to the Armenian Genocide was discovered by Prof. William A. Schabas who posted it on the website "PhD Studies in Human Rights," on June 4, 2008. Prof. Schabas, a world renown expert on genocide and international law, is director of The Irish Center for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway. This document, filed by the Government of the United States with ICJ, is included in the May 28, 1951 ICJ Report titled: "Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide." The specific reference to the Armenian Genocide appears on page 25 of the ICJ Report: "The Genocide Convention resulted from the inhuman and barbarous practices which prevailed in certain countries prior to and during World War II, when entire religious, racial and national minority groups were threatened with and subjected to deliberate extermination. The practice of genocide has occurred throughout human history. The Roman persecution of the Christians, the Turkish massacres of Armenians, the extermination of millions of Jews and Poles by the Nazis are outstanding examples of the crime of genocide." This is a very significant statement as it was made by the American government of that time with the sole intent of telling the truth, without taking into account any political or other considerations. Neither Armenians nor Turks had lobbied for or against the U.S. statement. In other words, it was simply made on the basis of historical facts. How different is the situation today when the White House readily caves in to threats and pressures from the Turkish government to prevent the House of Representatives from passing a commemorative resolution on the Armenian Genocide! Now that this critical filing by the United States government before the International Court of Justice has been discovered, it is no longer necessary to exert excessive efforts to try and reaffirm the facts of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. Congress, particularly since the House of Representatives adopted Resolutions 247 and 148 in 1975 and 1984 respectively, to commemorate the Armenian Genocide. Furthermore, there is no particular reason to insist that the next President of the United States acknowledge the Armenian Genocide since President Ronald Reagan, back on April 22, 1981, issued Presidential Proclamation Number 4838 which stated: "Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it – and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples - the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten." Of course, should an elected official issue a statement reaffirming the facts of the Armenian Genocide, such an acknowledgment would be most welcome by Armenians worldwide. On the other hand, should a public official either deny or refuse to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, Armenian-Americans would have good reason not to support his or her election. Regardless of whether one agrees with Pres. Reagan’s politics, most people acknowledge that he was a man of principle. His successors – Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – failed to display such moral leadership. During their presidential campaigns, they misled voters by pledging to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, and broke their promises after the election. These three recent U.S. presidents went far beyond not keeping their word; they did everything in their power to prevent the adoption of congressional resolutions on the Armenian Genocide. The names of these infamous denialists should be etched in perpetuity on a special "Wall of Shame," so future generations will not forget their reprehensible behavior. On the basis of the official statement submitted by the Government of the United States to the World Court in 1951, combined with the two House resolutions adopted in 1975 and 1984, Pres. Reagan’s 1981 Proclamation, and resolutions adopted by more than forty U.S. states and hundreds of U.S. cities, Armenians should now classify the United States among the more than 20 countries that have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide. All those who claim that the United States has not recognized the Armenian Genocide are misrepresenting the U.S. government’s clear record on this issue. By Harut Sassounian, Publisher, The California Courier

Yahoo announced a search deal with Google yesterday, and soon afterward, the stock plunged, along with some key executive departures. Almost 3.6 billion$ has been knocked off their market cap. So what does this mean? Is this is end of Yahoo? Will MS be able to fight google for on-line search advertising market share on their own, or are we stepping towards a full-fledged google monopoly on search and search engine advertising? This is major news for anyone who's involved in internet related business, please share your thoughts....

Happy Birthday Anony-mouk Cheers to you...

Bari taredarts Eva, Elle yev Alma

Could the scroll button on the mouse just be stuck? (Er... do you eat & type?) ;-)

Lol!