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Hello again, air travelers. For those of you that move about enough to warrant them, have you noticed that your elite status isn't getting you nearly as much as it used to?
In far more serious issues, if civilian, open, trials were good enough for the Nazis, they're good enough for any accused terrorists. Furthermore, people acquitted, even in military tribunals, should be released. The current policy of the United States is creating terrorists because we do terror to other people. That we have had two Presidents now that believe haebeas corpus is option outside the declaration of martial law is a trend that should not continue. Unfortunately, it looks like both of the major party candidates this election cycle believe this, which means that we're fucked for at least the next four years on the rule of law and international treaties.
Useful to all of you - when it comes to things like love memes or when you need a boost, it's okay to ask for what you want. You should always get what you want.
And finally, The New York Public Library is considering a plan that would convert the research stacks into a circulating library, while also closing some nearby circulating libraries. Several objections to the plan have been raised, some on the grounds of "TRADITION!", others on "You're turning it into an Internet cafe!", and one that actually has a bit of weight - the branch libraries of the New York Public Library system are not as well-endowed as the central library, and so they could use more of the money that will go into the renovation plan.
Out in the world today, a federal court in Canada has rules that the Federal Government has a duty and requirement to make its websites accessible to Canadians with vision disabilities. (The requisite analagoue in the United States is section 508 of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires that all governmental websites must be accessible to the vision impaired and/or screen readers.) The court ruled that the Government was in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Staying in Canada for a bit, a member of the Conservative Party of Canada displayed Tea Party Republican levels of conservatism, claiming anti-bullying statutes passed in the country should apply to fetuses. We were hoping that strain would stay confined to the United States, where their media mouthpieces believe that being poor means that you lack basic appliances in your dwelling. I suppose we are thankful that it hasn't yet mutated into the strain where a far-right politician assaults other politicians on television, but there's already a spot that suggests that Canada should withdraw from the United Nations after the UN criticized certain Conservative Governmental policies regarding the treament of alleged war criminals.
The government of Ethopia, which has been filtering its citizens' Internet access for some time now, has leveled a ban on VOIP services, because such things cannot easily be restricted or controlled. Said government has also blocked access to the TOR network and is demanding the ability to censor newspapers printed on state printing presses.
The government of Israel is demanding that persons entering the country log into their personal e-mail accounts and social networking accounts, and accusing those who refuse this invasion of their privacy of terrorism. This is one of those things that U.S. persons would scream about if Eurasia or Eastasia demanded it, but are far too quiet about it when it's fellow Oceanians. Just how much B.S. can you get through in the name of "national security", anyway?
Out of this section, Denmark jonis the Century of the Fruitbat, legalizing matrimony between lesbian and gay couples.
In the United States, a supervisor at the TSA was revealed to be a man who had stolen a dead criminal's identity and provided it for the background check. Supposedly, the Port Authority checks these things before allowing someone into a job with security clearance...
A University of Texas researcher summarizes a survey and claims there are significant differences in well-being between children of same-sex parents and those of married opposite-sex parents. (For those who would rather not wade through the paper, the author summarizes the paper in a Slate article, saying that kids in gay and lesbian-parented houses tend to do more drugs and have more household instability, for example. Funny thing is, when you do work like this, that means having to expose your work to scrutiny. And when that happens, people point out when you include divorced or single-parenting homes in one group and exclude it from others, and note that doing so makes one group look much better than another. So, more succinctly, Major Methodology FAIL.
Plus, even if such a study were methodologically sound, it would not, in fact, prove what it says it proves. At best, it can be used to notice how well children with two involved parents that stay together compare to single-parenting or other situations that have nothing to do with parental sexual orientation. Which is a long-winded, many-linked way of saying "THBBBBBPTH" at someone who designed a study to say what he wanted it to say, and yet failed to even make the biases line up properly. And if you want to show that something against the prevailing wisdom, you have to have your methodology be even stronger than everyone else's.
Senator Wyden of Oregon used his Senatorial hold power to prevent a quick and silent passage of a renewal of the power to wiretap without the need for warrants. Which is the way those powers were probably intended to be used, before the filibuster-hold culture came to being in the Republican Party of the last decade.
A school nurse refused to administer an inhaler to a student during an asthma attack - because the student lacked a parental permission form to have their inhaler. The school is standing by the nurse's decision, which likely means that the Zero Intelligence Policy has Zero Intelligence enforcers. First, Do No Harm, remember? Second, LISTEN TO YOUR PATIENTS. They will communicate useful information to you because they know their bodies are not doing well and about what kind of bad things may be happening.
Elsewhere, another example of why teachers are normally exceedingly paranoid about expressing opinions where students may see it - a Kansas teacher let his conservative Christian beliefs out on Facebook, and several students defended him and others attacked him. I suspect, however, that there will be discipline involved because the teacher expressed their opinion in a public forum.
Last out: A Florida man is running for Congress on his legal name...VoteForEddie.com.
In technology, Criminy. Password leakage was much bigger than originally thought, so it's probably a good idea just to change all of your passwords. And hope that your services don't have the world's worst password requirements that would make any attempt you gave to make a secure password not allowable by the system.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is now receiving the assistance of a prominent retired federal judge in fighting the behavior of the federal government by seizing Megaupload and not returning any of the data on their servers to their owners.
A federal judge ruled that APIs are not copyrightable, and thus Google is not liable to Oracle for any damages based on headers and declarations from Java that Google used in Android.
Speaking of Google, Apple confirmed its intent to prevent Google Maps from being part of iOS devices, ready to roll out their own replacement with the next incarnation of iOS. Thus, Apple ensures that it doesn't have to compete with another product.
The Kodak Corporation had a highly-enriched uranium nuclear reactor installed in the basement of one of its properties. Apparently, they needed it to run impurity tests on some of their material...but a private company with weapons-grade nuclear stuff sounds more like an Amazing Stories piece than reality.
Rather than just provide a vibratory feedback on the pressing of keys on a smartphone touchscreen, a new company has the screen layer deform itself so as to provide actual pressable keys on the screen. I love living in The Future.
Actually, let's spread that love some more. Israeli scientists have successfully used stem cells obtained from human fat to grow human bone.
Finally, a proof of concept that would utilize the technology in a Microsoft Kineckt to join two cube-satellites to each other autonomously. The cubesats would see each other and be able to adjust until they were properly docked.
Welcome to opinions, where Froborr explains the mindset of someone using Nice Guyism and eventually growing out of it. As a Slacktiverse item, the comments are additionally enlightening and build on the post nicely.
Keeping in the theme of Men Behaving Badly, a new book suggests that the high-pressure environment of finance affects male hormone production and makes male decision-making worse under stress or while riding the winner's high, potentially exaggerating the boom and bust cycles.
More seriously, a Kickstarter project for a woman to explain how video game tropes are not kind to women attracted the attention of a misogynist horde, possibly spurred on a bit by the 4chan legions. They tried to get her YouTube channel flagged as terrorism, vandalized her Wikipedia page, and left many many comments of hate, bile, and sandwich/kitchen comments. In other words, she hit a nerve somewhere, which suggests the idea is even more sound than originally posited. This applies more than to just video games, but in a more general case overall. (Do pay attention to the comments there - there's a strong discussion about whether or not the use of "men" and "LGBTQ" in the same unordered list implies that the two sets are mutually exclusive, and thus gay men and transmen are not real men. The opinion of the majority of the comments there are that this did happen, even if the intent was not to do so.)
Elsewhere, the actual costs of following the Evil Overlord's list.
Last out of opinions, the question of being an Order Muppet versus a Chaos Muppet.
And last for tonight - SCIENCE! Observe the transit of Venus! (JPG)
Also, as it turns out, the Gallup data for the various Republican candidates throughout their primary jockeying makes a varied set of butt plugs. There's something here about the sense of humor of the universe. or how people will be able to use Republican data to make things the conservative movement abhors, but I'm not cosmically enlightened enough to get it. Perhaps because I think it's linked somewhere to the school that will forfeit baseball games rather than play against a team that has a woman on it.
In far more serious issues, if civilian, open, trials were good enough for the Nazis, they're good enough for any accused terrorists. Furthermore, people acquitted, even in military tribunals, should be released. The current policy of the United States is creating terrorists because we do terror to other people. That we have had two Presidents now that believe haebeas corpus is option outside the declaration of martial law is a trend that should not continue. Unfortunately, it looks like both of the major party candidates this election cycle believe this, which means that we're fucked for at least the next four years on the rule of law and international treaties.
Useful to all of you - when it comes to things like love memes or when you need a boost, it's okay to ask for what you want. You should always get what you want.
And finally, The New York Public Library is considering a plan that would convert the research stacks into a circulating library, while also closing some nearby circulating libraries. Several objections to the plan have been raised, some on the grounds of "TRADITION!", others on "You're turning it into an Internet cafe!", and one that actually has a bit of weight - the branch libraries of the New York Public Library system are not as well-endowed as the central library, and so they could use more of the money that will go into the renovation plan.
Out in the world today, a federal court in Canada has rules that the Federal Government has a duty and requirement to make its websites accessible to Canadians with vision disabilities. (The requisite analagoue in the United States is section 508 of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires that all governmental websites must be accessible to the vision impaired and/or screen readers.) The court ruled that the Government was in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Staying in Canada for a bit, a member of the Conservative Party of Canada displayed Tea Party Republican levels of conservatism, claiming anti-bullying statutes passed in the country should apply to fetuses. We were hoping that strain would stay confined to the United States, where their media mouthpieces believe that being poor means that you lack basic appliances in your dwelling. I suppose we are thankful that it hasn't yet mutated into the strain where a far-right politician assaults other politicians on television, but there's already a spot that suggests that Canada should withdraw from the United Nations after the UN criticized certain Conservative Governmental policies regarding the treament of alleged war criminals.
The government of Ethopia, which has been filtering its citizens' Internet access for some time now, has leveled a ban on VOIP services, because such things cannot easily be restricted or controlled. Said government has also blocked access to the TOR network and is demanding the ability to censor newspapers printed on state printing presses.
The government of Israel is demanding that persons entering the country log into their personal e-mail accounts and social networking accounts, and accusing those who refuse this invasion of their privacy of terrorism. This is one of those things that U.S. persons would scream about if Eurasia or Eastasia demanded it, but are far too quiet about it when it's fellow Oceanians. Just how much B.S. can you get through in the name of "national security", anyway?
Out of this section, Denmark jonis the Century of the Fruitbat, legalizing matrimony between lesbian and gay couples.
In the United States, a supervisor at the TSA was revealed to be a man who had stolen a dead criminal's identity and provided it for the background check. Supposedly, the Port Authority checks these things before allowing someone into a job with security clearance...
A University of Texas researcher summarizes a survey and claims there are significant differences in well-being between children of same-sex parents and those of married opposite-sex parents. (For those who would rather not wade through the paper, the author summarizes the paper in a Slate article, saying that kids in gay and lesbian-parented houses tend to do more drugs and have more household instability, for example. Funny thing is, when you do work like this, that means having to expose your work to scrutiny. And when that happens, people point out when you include divorced or single-parenting homes in one group and exclude it from others, and note that doing so makes one group look much better than another. So, more succinctly, Major Methodology FAIL.
Plus, even if such a study were methodologically sound, it would not, in fact, prove what it says it proves. At best, it can be used to notice how well children with two involved parents that stay together compare to single-parenting or other situations that have nothing to do with parental sexual orientation. Which is a long-winded, many-linked way of saying "THBBBBBPTH" at someone who designed a study to say what he wanted it to say, and yet failed to even make the biases line up properly. And if you want to show that something against the prevailing wisdom, you have to have your methodology be even stronger than everyone else's.
Senator Wyden of Oregon used his Senatorial hold power to prevent a quick and silent passage of a renewal of the power to wiretap without the need for warrants. Which is the way those powers were probably intended to be used, before the filibuster-hold culture came to being in the Republican Party of the last decade.
A school nurse refused to administer an inhaler to a student during an asthma attack - because the student lacked a parental permission form to have their inhaler. The school is standing by the nurse's decision, which likely means that the Zero Intelligence Policy has Zero Intelligence enforcers. First, Do No Harm, remember? Second, LISTEN TO YOUR PATIENTS. They will communicate useful information to you because they know their bodies are not doing well and about what kind of bad things may be happening.
Elsewhere, another example of why teachers are normally exceedingly paranoid about expressing opinions where students may see it - a Kansas teacher let his conservative Christian beliefs out on Facebook, and several students defended him and others attacked him. I suspect, however, that there will be discipline involved because the teacher expressed their opinion in a public forum.
Last out: A Florida man is running for Congress on his legal name...VoteForEddie.com.
In technology, Criminy. Password leakage was much bigger than originally thought, so it's probably a good idea just to change all of your passwords. And hope that your services don't have the world's worst password requirements that would make any attempt you gave to make a secure password not allowable by the system.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is now receiving the assistance of a prominent retired federal judge in fighting the behavior of the federal government by seizing Megaupload and not returning any of the data on their servers to their owners.
A federal judge ruled that APIs are not copyrightable, and thus Google is not liable to Oracle for any damages based on headers and declarations from Java that Google used in Android.
Speaking of Google, Apple confirmed its intent to prevent Google Maps from being part of iOS devices, ready to roll out their own replacement with the next incarnation of iOS. Thus, Apple ensures that it doesn't have to compete with another product.
The Kodak Corporation had a highly-enriched uranium nuclear reactor installed in the basement of one of its properties. Apparently, they needed it to run impurity tests on some of their material...but a private company with weapons-grade nuclear stuff sounds more like an Amazing Stories piece than reality.
Rather than just provide a vibratory feedback on the pressing of keys on a smartphone touchscreen, a new company has the screen layer deform itself so as to provide actual pressable keys on the screen. I love living in The Future.
Actually, let's spread that love some more. Israeli scientists have successfully used stem cells obtained from human fat to grow human bone.
Finally, a proof of concept that would utilize the technology in a Microsoft Kineckt to join two cube-satellites to each other autonomously. The cubesats would see each other and be able to adjust until they were properly docked.
Welcome to opinions, where Froborr explains the mindset of someone using Nice Guyism and eventually growing out of it. As a Slacktiverse item, the comments are additionally enlightening and build on the post nicely.
Keeping in the theme of Men Behaving Badly, a new book suggests that the high-pressure environment of finance affects male hormone production and makes male decision-making worse under stress or while riding the winner's high, potentially exaggerating the boom and bust cycles.
More seriously, a Kickstarter project for a woman to explain how video game tropes are not kind to women attracted the attention of a misogynist horde, possibly spurred on a bit by the 4chan legions. They tried to get her YouTube channel flagged as terrorism, vandalized her Wikipedia page, and left many many comments of hate, bile, and sandwich/kitchen comments. In other words, she hit a nerve somewhere, which suggests the idea is even more sound than originally posited. This applies more than to just video games, but in a more general case overall. (Do pay attention to the comments there - there's a strong discussion about whether or not the use of "men" and "LGBTQ" in the same unordered list implies that the two sets are mutually exclusive, and thus gay men and transmen are not real men. The opinion of the majority of the comments there are that this did happen, even if the intent was not to do so.)
Elsewhere, the actual costs of following the Evil Overlord's list.
Last out of opinions, the question of being an Order Muppet versus a Chaos Muppet.
And last for tonight - SCIENCE! Observe the transit of Venus! (JPG)
Also, as it turns out, the Gallup data for the various Republican candidates throughout their primary jockeying makes a varied set of butt plugs. There's something here about the sense of humor of the universe. or how people will be able to use Republican data to make things the conservative movement abhors, but I'm not cosmically enlightened enough to get it. Perhaps because I think it's linked somewhere to the school that will forfeit baseball games rather than play against a team that has a woman on it.
