Erik D. Jones's Blog

Bismark Dinius did not hear good news today as the Judge denied the defense attorney’s motion to dismiss the Lake County District Attorney from the trial. Judge Byrne said today in court “There is sufficient evidence that the matter has to be tried.” The Judge ruled against the defense after hearing arguments from both sides. Defense attorney claimed that the Deputy District Attorney Haltom purposefully withheld vital evidence revealed to the defense on the day the trial was set to begin last May.

There were about two dozen protesters outside the Superior Court today in Lake County with equal numbers of supporters for both Dinius, the accused in this case, and Russell Purdock, the officer who was driving the speed boat that crashed into into the sailboat killing Lynn Thornton. To date, Purdock has not been charged with any crime despite admittedly driving at speeds in excess of 40 MPH.

The court is in recess right now while the Judge considers the date for the trial to begin. The defense has said “We want to go as quickly as possible.” The attorneys are meeting with the Judge in chambers.

• In-laws arrive today! <Begin the good-son-in-law onArrival="javascript: Smile();" onLoad="javascript: HideNaughtyThings();"> #
• Started our second batch of beer! Hefeweisen, here we come! #
• Websites like the LA Times that are running the story of Michael Jackson are failing due to traffic loads. Wow. Biggest story of the year! #
• Michael Jackson (#michaeljackson) dies from cardiac arrest. So sad. #
• It's going to be a gorgeous day in San Francisco this weekend! 76 degrees on Saturday! Wooo!! Sailing.. sailing.. sailing… #
• Successfully unlocked my iPhone 3G running OS 3.0. Thank you #ultrasn0w and the iPhone-Dev-Team! #
• iPhone 3.0 for 3G unlock and jailbreak #ultrasn0w is available now! http://is.gd/1cIJC #
• Project Runway Australia returns to the air July 8th! And Mark is back as online host! EEEK! See more at @ProjectRunwayOz #
• Who wants to go sailing tomorrow and watch a gorgeous sunset from the deck as it settles behind the Golden Gate Bridge? Msg me! #
• IBM researcher may make breakthrough in homomorphic encryption. Read here http://is.gd/1ctEg #
• Flash comes to Andriod – Will Apple play catchup? http://is.gd/1bSsj (via @TechCrunch) (via @mubix) #
• OK I have to say that this is the most amazing juggling video I've seen in awhile. http://is.gd/1at9x #
• Setup a new website for my Aunt to detail her fight against some evil company in Sonoma. http://savesonoma.com #
• Want to do an evening sail tomorrow after work. Anyone up for it? #
• Lake County District Attorney to answer to defense motion for disqualification. Read my blog posting here http://is.gd/19BWc #
• #metrocrash occurred in DC killing at least one when two commuter trains collided. http://is.gd/19B0m #
• Amazing weekend of sailing both days. Hot, clear and medium to light winds on the San Francisco Bay!! #

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As many of you sailors and cruisers are aware, there has been a dramatic increase in pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia and surrounding areas.  A Russian luxury yacht company is offering to its customers the opportunity to attract and then attack these pirates on the high seas.  For £3,500 per day, you get to act as bait amongst a highly trained ex-commando crew.  If attacked, the yacht and its commandos will retaliate with grenade launchers, machine guns and rock launchers.  For additional sums of money, the guests will be provided with ammo and their own AK-47 to fire off.

What do you think?  Part of me says, “Way to go!”  But the more sensible side says that a UN-lead force should protect the international waters–and to date, they’ve done a terrible job.

Read about the Luxury Yacht offer here.

Finally at long last and a week following the official iPhone 3.0 release by Apple, the iPhone Dev Team has released #UltraSn0w. UltraSn0w allows iPhone 3G, 2G and 1.0 to unlock their iPhones to use on any carrier. Using #redsn0w, you can jailbreak the iPhone 3.0 OS and then unlock with #ultrasn0w after that.

The instructions and download links are can be found at http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/128573459/ultras-now

Note: If you’ve previously jailbroken your phone, you should execute a “Restore” from iTunes after upgrading to 3.0. There have been problems with poor battery life and call reception on 2G and 3G phones.

Finally after what seems like an eternity (two three years since the incident first took place).  The State Attorney General’s office is looking into the Bismark Dinius case in Lake County.  The attorney for Mr. Dinius has been asking Jerry Brown’s office to look into the matter since this all began.  After the recent increase in press, blogging, tweeting, facebooking and several news reports and video blogs by KGO’s i-Team investigators, it appears Mr. Brown is finally getting off his duff to look into the matter.

You can get facebook updates on the case from Latitude 38 here.

Dan Noyes from the i-Team investigative team has a twitter containing updates on the case  here.

* Updated 6/25/2009: I did my math wrong. It’s been three years!