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Submission + - Link Between Crime & Chilly Weather Is Complex, Controversial (randomchannel.net)

Submitted by imoveez
imoveez writes: Heat gets a bad rap for fueling human hostility. But what’s the deal when the mercury drops? The cold effect has been somewhat less studied, although there are hints that being uncomfortably chilly can contribute to conflict in some situations and quell it in others.

Submission + - Valve's Steam removes its first game (forbes.com) 1

Submitted by tlhIngan
tlhIngan writes: Today marks the first day that Valve has removed a game completely off its service. Order of War: Challenge has been not only removed from the service, but it is the first to be removed completely from a user's library as well. Previously, when a game was removed from Steam, it was just removed — as long as a local copy exists in your library, you could always play it, back it up, reactivate it, etc, (similar to Apple's iTunes and App Store — it may be gone, but as long as a copy exists, it'll work). Now it appears that Valve has actually gone the next step alongside Amazon and Google and removed games from a library.

Submission + - Google's New Social Networking Patent is Truly Comical

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire reports on Google's just-granted patent on creating and sharing social network status updates in the form of comic strips, a la Bitstrips. Google also envisions an educational role for its new invention, which the search giant has dubbed the Self-Creation of Comic Strips in Social Networks and Other Communications. Google explains, "Aside from humor, such comic strips are also usable for education, for instance in summarizing a real-time conversation between two political leaders as it is happening. By posting such a comic strip on a social network facility such as a social network blog or tweet, others may more readily follow the flow of the conversation than if it had been summarized in plain text." Hey, as the wise Anchorman Ron Burgundy once said, "Instead of giving people the news they need, why not give them the news they want?"

Submission + - Oil Train Explosion Triggers Evacuation In North Dakota

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: The LA Times reports that the small town of Casselton, North Dakota dodged a bullet after being partially evacuated when a train carrying crude oil collided with another train, setting off a large fire and explosions. Officials received a report at 2:12 p.m. of a train derailing about a mile west of Casselton, a city of 2,432 people about 20 miles west of Fargo. At some point, another train collided with the derailed train, belonging to the BNSF Railway, carrying more than 100 cars loaded with crude oil. The explosions and fire erupted after cars from the grain train struck some of the oil tank cars. "A fire ensued, and quickly a number of the cars became engulfed," said Sgt. Tara Morris of the Cass County Sheriff's Office adding that firefighters had managed to detach 50 of the 104 cars but had to leave the rest. This was the fourth serious accident involving trains hauling crude in North America this year. In July, an unattended train with 72 tank cars carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale fields rolled downhill and set off a major explosion in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. The accidents have put a spotlight on the growing reliance on rail to move surging oil production from new fields in Texas, North Dakota and Colorado. US railroads are moving 25 times more crude than they did in 2008, often in trains with more than 100 tank cars that each carry 30,000 gallons. Though railroads have sharply improved their safety in recent years, moving oil on tank cars is still only about half as safe as in pipelines, according to Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane University Energy Institute. "You can make the argument that the pipeline fights have forced the industry to revert to rail that is less safe," says Smith. One problem is that the trains go through small towns with volunteer fire departments, not well schooled in handling a derailment and explosion. Casselton Mayor Ed McConnell says it is time to "have a conversation" with federal lawmakers about the dangers of transporting oil by rail. "There have been numerous derailments in this area," says McConnell. "It's almost gotten to the point that it looks like not if we're going to have an accident, it's when."

Submission + - New York Investigators Obtain Fraudulent Ballots 97 Percent of Time (nationalreview.com) 8

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: National Review reports, "New York City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) has just shown how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable. Its undercover agents were able to obtain ballots for city elections a total of 61 times — 39 times using the names of dead people, 14 times using the names of incarcerated felons, and eight times using the names of non-residents. On only two occasions, or about 3 percent of the time, were the agents stopped by polling-place officials. In one of the two cases, an investigator was stopped only because the felon he was trying to vote in the name of was the son of the election official he was dealing with. Ballot security in checking birth dates or signatures was so sloppy that young undercover agents were able to vote using the name of someone three times their age who had died. As the New York Post reports: “A 24-year female was able to access the ballot at a Manhattan poll site in November under the name of a deceased female who was born in 1923 and died in April 25, 2012 — and would have been 89 on Election Day.” All of the agents who got ballots wrote in the names of fictitious candidates so as not to actually influence election outcomes."

Submission + - The 47 dumbest moments of 2013 (time.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: Over at TIME.com, I rounded up the year's dumbest moments in technology. Yes, the launch of Healthcare.gov is included, as are Edward Snowden's revelations. But so are a bunch of people embarrassing themselves on Twitter, both BlackBerry and Lenovo hiring celebrities to (supposedly) design products, the release of glitchy products ranging from OS X 10.9 Mavericks to the new Yahoo Mail, and much more.

Submission + - Increasing Number of Books Banned in the USA (npr.org)

Submitted by vikingpower
vikingpower writes: Isabel Allende's The House of The Spirits. Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man.

What do all these titles have in common with each other ? Exactly, they are banned somewhere, on some school, in the USA. . Yes, in 2013. A project named The Kids' Right to Read ( by the National Coalition Against Censorship ) investigated three times the average number of incidents, adding to an overall rise in cases for the entire year, according to KRRP coordinator Acacia O'Connor. To date, KRRP has confronted 49 incidents in 29 states this year, a 53% increase in activity from 2012. During the second half of 2013, the project battled 31 new incidents, compared to only 14 in the same period last year.

"It has been a sprint since the beginning of the school year," O'Connor said. "We would settle one issue and wake up the next morning to find out another book was on the chopping block."

The NCAC also offers a Book Censorship Toolkit on its website. If such a toolkit is needed at all, does this indicate that intellectual freedom and free speech are ( slowly ) eroding in the USA ?

Comment Re:If ever there was a "Conscience Award" ... (Score 1) 228

by inode_buddha (#45827607) Attached to: USA Today Names Edward Snowden Tech Person of the Year

I'm pretty sure that you are a lawyer by now.

Also, the constitution is the highest law in the land, and they broke the 4th all over the place. Enough people writing to their congress-critters can get something done about this... let alone lost business (boeing contracs, IT contracts...) Deal with it.

Submission + - 'Military-Style' Raid on California Power Station Spooks U.S. (foreignpolicy.com) 1

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Interesting piece about April's physical attack on a power station near San Jose, California, that now looks like a dress rehearsal for future attacks: Quote: "When U.S. officials warn about "attacks" on electric power facilities these days, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a computer hacker trying to shut the lights off in a city with malware. But a more traditional attack on a power station in California has U.S. officials puzzled and worried about the physical security of the the electrical grid--from attackers who come in with guns blazing."

Submission + - Any concerted effort to revive Usenet? 4

Submitted by taxman_10m
taxman_10m writes: I've felt for a long time that Usenet as a repository for technical knowledge was better than Stack Exchanges, Reddits, Google+ Communities and various assorted blogs and message boards. Particularly Google+ Communities. Recently info on modifying an Acer Chromebook to run full Ubuntu was moved to such a community. I can't be the only one that finds the layout to be an utter abortion, can I? I'm curious if there is any effort underway to bring back Usenet. One of the big downfalls of Usenet mentioned is spam, but certainly there are ways to deal with that now. If such a movement to bring back Usenet doesn't exist, I'd like to get the discussion started here.

Comment Re:And now where does this go? (Score 1) 511

by inode_buddha (#45802437) Attached to: US Federal Judge Rules NSA Data Collection Legal

Ran across the following this AM, wanted to copy-paste them somewhere for posterity: "History is filled with people passionate about fixing the world, and mass graves are filled with the consequences of their passion. " ..."The system is broken only because we are broken. Figure out a way to fix humanity, and the system will fix itself."

Submission + - Federal judge rules NSA data collection legal (foxnews.com) 2

Submitted by CheezburgerBrown .
CheezburgerBrown . writes: A federal judge in New York has ruled the National Security Agency's massive data collection program is legal, one week after another federal judge ruled the opposite.

The conflicting rulings increase the likelihood that the challenges could someday end up before the Supreme Court.

The ruling on Friday came from District Judge William H. Pauley III, in the case of the ACLU vs. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. The judge agreed with the federal government's request to dismiss the court.

copy and pasted from fox news

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