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Government

Submission + - German government seeks ban on Scientology (cnn.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: CNN reports that the German government is seeking to ban Scientology, considering it "threatening the peaceful democratic order" of the country and "in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution" by "limiting or rescinding basic human rights". Is this move a step in the right direction or an infringement upon the freedom of religion?
Christmas Cheer

Submission + - Santa to relocate? (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by xarak
xarak writes: The kind of brains who are delocalising your IT job have done another study on a rather more fictional activity.
Neither Reindeers' nor Santas Helpers' work conditions have been taken into account...

From the article:

Santa Claus should leave the North Pole and relocate to Kyrgyzstan to optimise the delivery of Christmas presents, a Swedish engineering firm says. The Sweco consulting firm found Kyrgyzstan was the most logical base to avoid time-wasting detours. It took into account main population centres and the Earth's rotation. Santa would have 34 microseconds for each chimney stop, and his reindeer would have to travel at nearly 6,000km (3,700 miles) per second.
Announcements

Submission + - Lenovo to offer Linux on laptops (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by xarak
xarak writes: Lenovo (read IBM) is going the Dell way and offering a Linux desktop alternative. No news on cost or availability, but to the advocate, the fact that this is headlining BBC Tech News should be pretty welcome.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Another city wide wireless project failing

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Madison Wisconsin's city wide wireless project built with Cisco is having setbacks because the signals are having various 'challenges'. Those include trees, hills, concrete and apparently entire brands of consumer wireless client devices. "... a PC user will get better service than a Mac user at the same location because the wireless cards in Macintosh computers are less powerful," according to Todd Anderson, Mad City Broadband technical project manager. With 90 percent of the entire subscriber base on a single provider (who has announced they are terminating their contract with Mad City Broadband) will the project be able to survive long-term?
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Scientists Discover 'Kryptonite' in Serbian Mine

Submitted by
TheCybernator
TheCybernator writes: "Scientists have discovered a new mineral that matches the composition of kryptonite, the mythical rock that could sap Superman's strength in comic books. The rock — named jadarite — was discovered in a mine in Jadar, Serbia, by the Rio Tinto company and identified by London's Natural History Museum. Though the white rock didn't resemble anything known to real-life man, it did match the one substance known to destroy Superman's power. "The new mineral does not contain fluorine and is white rather than green, but in all other respects the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite," said Chris Stanley, the mineralogist who identified the jadarite. The mineral is sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, which "probably won't do Superman or us any harm whatsoever," said Mike Rumsey, a mineral curator for the museum."
Mozilla

Submission + - Must-Have Extensions for Thunderbird 2.0

Submitted by Operator
Operator writes: While Firefox has been in the spotlight for some time now, Thunderbird has yet to enjoy the same wide adoption or glowing praise despite being an excellent email client. It's no surprise that a popular topic has been Firefox's best (and worst) extensions while Thunderbird add-ons have gone largely unnoticed. In celebration of the recent release of Thunderbird 2.0 here are the best extensions for the program along with some honorable mentions.
Math

Submission + - BBC and William Hill fail miserably at statistics

Submitted by
goatpunch
goatpunch writes: "According to the BBC a male and female child have an 18.1% and 23.5% chance respectively of reaching age 100. By age 40 these chances have apparently dropped to 8% and 11.7%. What on earth can account for such a vast reduction in the odds? Surely they should improve with age.

How on earth did the expert statisticians at William Hill give a 90 year old a 0.4% chance (250 to 1) of reaching 100. Something is wrong here. This story has been widely reported, but no-one has pointed out the glaring error in the statistics- bookmakers employ people who devote their lives to defeating gamblers through statistics."
Education

Submission + - Good Teaching Tools for the Kids

Submitted by jdramer
jdramer writes: I was recently asked by someone who home-schools her kids what kind of programs are available for teaching kids about what you can do with computers. She was thinking things like computer animation, drawing programs; basically anything that encourages creativity. So I'm wondering what programs are out there that would be good for young children in primary school?

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