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Your Rights Online

Submission + - Amazon wipes Kindle account of Norwegian customer and refuses to tell why (bekkelund.net)

Submitted by
Max Romantschuk
Max Romantschuk writes: "Martin Bekkelund writes about his friend Linn, who had her Kindle wiped and account closed by Amazon, with Amazon refusing to say why. The only thing Amazon is saying seems to be that 'We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled.' According to the blog post, Linn has only ever had a single Amazon account and has no idea how she could have done somethwing wrong.

Can we really trust corporations to wield this much power, while providing no transparency at all?"
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Amazon Deletes User's Kindle Account (bekkelund.net)

Submitted by lightbox32
lightbox32 writes: It appears that Amazon is at it again. Not content with the backslash received after deleting the ebook 1984 from user's Kindle, it appears that they have now banned a user from their service, erasing all their Kindle's paid content in the process.
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Assange Declared 'Enemy of State' (smh.com.au)

Submitted by lightbox32
lightbox32 writes: According to documents obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald the US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States — the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency.
The documents, some originally classified "Secret/NoForn" — not releasable to non-US nationals — record a probe by the air force's Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London.
Meanwhile Assange remains holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London. He was granted diplomatic asylum on the grounds that if extradited to Sweden to be questioned about sexual assault allegations, he would be at risk of further extradition to the US to face espionage or conspiracy charges arising from the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic reports.
Science

Submission + - Smartphones Have Banished Boredom (and Why That's Bad) 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Doug Gross writes that thanks to technology, there's been a recent sea change in how people today kill time. "Those dog-eared magazines in your doctor's office are going unread. Your fellow customers in line at the deli counter are being ignored. And simply gazing around at one's surroundings? Forget about it." With their games, music, videos, social media and texting, smartphones "superstimulate," a desire humans have to play when things get dull, says anthropologist Christopher Lynn and he believes that modern society may be making that desire even stronger. "When you're habituated to constant stimulation, when you lack it, you sort of don't know what to do with yourself ...," says Lynn. "When we aren't used to having down time, it results in anxiety. 'Oh my god, I should be doing something.' And we reach for the smartphone. It's our omnipresent relief from that." Researchers say this all makes sense. Fiddling with our phones, they say, addresses a basic human need to cure boredom by any means necessary. But they also fear that by filling almost every second of down time by peering at our phones we are missing out on the creative and potentially rewarding ways we've dealt with boredom in days past. "Informational overload from all quarters means that there can often be very little time for personal thought, reflection, or even just 'zoning out,'" researchers write. "With a mobile (phone) that is constantly switched on and a plethora of entertainments available to distract the naked eye, it is understandable that some people find it difficult to actually get bored in that particular fidgety, introspective kind of way.""
Security

Submission + - Angry Hacker Threatens ISP.. With An Ax (sophos.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An Australian man has admitted hacking into an Adelaide ISP's servers, and deleting data belonging to the business, after he had threatened to burn their offices down... and menaced a company director with an ax.

29-year-old Bryce Kingsley Quilley, of Tailem Bend, South Australia, pleaded guilty to three counts of unlawful modification of computer data at the Adelaide firm that he used to work for, one aggravated count of threatening to cause harm and one aggravated count of threatening to damage property.

Sentencing is scheduled for later this year.
Microsoft

Submission + - Screen shots and light review of Microsoft Office 15 early beta (winsupersite.com)

Submitted by
jbolden
jbolden writes: "Winsupersite has recently published a light review of the upcoming version of Microsoft Office Microsoft Office 15 Preview. The new Office a new Metro look and feel with more traditional elements showing the transition towards the Windows 8 paradigm. There is a button which resizes screen elements to make the interface touch acceptable. The mechanics of the ribbon interface have changed, though some of the menus are still too small to be usable with finger / touch. Skydrive is fully integrated into the save menu."
Math

Submission + - Research Says Which Is Best Change Lanes or Stick In Heavy Traffic (i-programmer.info) 1

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: We all know the problem — stick with a slow moving lane or change to the other lane, which usually then slows down even more than the original lane. Now we have a definitive solution via a Monte Carlo Simulation.
And you might not like the answer:
It all depends on what everyone else is doing. If more than 50% are changing lanes then you don't win if you change lanes but you do if you're in the minority. This mirrors many of the results in game theory where a selfish strategy works well, but only if it is the minority strategy. Given most drivers stick in a lane then swapping is probably a good choice — unless this news gets out.
Microsoft

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Does you company use stack ranking to evaluate your performance? (vanityfair.com) 1

Submitted by jmcbain
jmcbain writes: I'm a former Microsoftie, and one thing I really despised about the company is the 'stack ranking' employee evaluation system that was succinctly captured in a recent Vanity Fair article on the company. Stack ranking is basically applying a forced curve distribution on all employees at the same level, so management must place some percentage of employees into categories of overperforming, performing on average, and underperforming. Even if it's an all-star team doing great work, some folks will be marked as underperforming. Frankly, this really sucked. I know this practice gained popularity with GE in the 1980s and is being used by some (many?) Fortune 500 companies. Does your company do this? What's the best way to survive this type of system?
United States

Submission + - Thomas Jefferson: Scientist, Inventor, Gadgeteer 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence whose signing we celebrate today, was considered an expert in architecture, civil engineering, geography, mathematics, ethnology, anthropology, mechanics, and the sciences and although Jefferson never failed to acknowledge that in science he was "an amateur," Jefferson's home at Monticello was filled with examples of his scientific philosophy. An inventor and gadgeteer of great ingenuity, Jefferson's practical innovations or improvements on others inventions included: the swivel chair, the polygraph, letter press, hemp break. pedometer, mouldboard plow, sulky, folding chair, dumb-waiter, double acting doors, and a seven day clock. Throughout his life Jefferson experimented in agriculture with studies in crop rotation, soil cultivation, animal breeding, pest control, agricultural implements and improvement of seeds. Jefferson promoted science as President by recommending to Congress a coast survey to accurately chart the coast of America that later evolved into the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The Lewis and Clark and Pike expeditions were the precursors of the United States Geological Survey and stands as one of the outstanding feats of Jefferson's administration. Jefferson's expert testimony before Congress led to the establishment of the Naval Observatory and the Hydrographic Office and Jefferson's report to Congress on a plan of coinage and weights and measures based on the decimal system was expanded into the National Bureau of Standards. As Secretary of State Jefferson laid the cornerstone of our patent system and is considered to be the father of the Patent Office but the majority of patent applications during his tenure were rejected with only 67 patents granted, among them a patent to Eli Whitney for the cotton gin. Jefferson, an inventor himself never applied for a patent, which was consistent in his belief in the natural right of all mankind to share useful improvements without restraint."

Submission + - Why Your Brain is Extremely Good at Detecting Fake Laughs (medicaldaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Those who think they've perfected the art of fake laughter are in for a surprise: You're not fooling anyone.

In a new study, to be published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, scientists found that even our most realistic efforts to feign amusement fool no one.

Researchers found that people are actually "extremely good" at detecting even the most realistic sounding of phony giggles.
Education

Submission + - Texas GOP Educational Platform Opposes Critical Thinking Skills (amazonaws.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Texas Republican delegates met earlier this month to put together their 2012 platform. Much of this focused on the educational system. Alarmingly, they openly state that they oppose schools teaching critical thinking, on the grounds that it may challenge "student's fixed beliefs" and undermine "parental authority."

http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012-Platform-Final.pdf (page 12 for the tidbit)
Games

Submission + - Atari turns 40 today (time.com)

Submitted by
harrymcc
harrymcc writes: "On June 27, 1972, a startup called Atari filed its papers of incorporation. A few months later, it released its first game, Pong. I celebrated the anniversary over at TIME.com by chatting with the company's indomitable founder, Nolan Bushnell, who also started Chuck E. Cheese and more than 20 other companies--mostly unsuccessful, but often visionary--and hired and influenced Steve Jobs when he was an antisocial Reed College dropout."
Microsoft

Submission + - Gunmen crash van into Microsoft's Greek headquarters in Athens (msn.com)

Submitted by lightbox32
lightbox32 writes: As reported in MSNBC, gunmen rammed a van packed with gas canisters into Microsoft's Athens headquarters on Wednesday and then set the vehicle on fire, causing damage but no injuries..
Previous assaults have been mostly blamed on left-wing extremist groups, but police said it was too early to say who was behind Wednesday's attack.

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