Submission + - Should sites like Wikipedia be blocked at schools?
Londovir writes: Recently our school board made the decision to block Wikipedia from our school district's WAN system. This was a complete block — there aren't even provisions in place for teachers or administrators to input a password to bypass the restriction.
The reason given was that Wikipedia (being user created and edited) did not represent a credible or reliable source of reference for schools.
My question is: should we block sites such as Wikipedia because students may be exposed to misinformation, or should we encourage sites such as Wikipedia as an outlet for students to investigate and determine validity of information? What's your opinion?
Submission + - FBI Translating 1,000 Wiretap Conversations a Day
An anonymous reader writes: New on the Bad Guys blog:
FBI Translating Over 1,000 Wiretap Conversations a Day
Spurred by adding hundreds of new linguists and help from allies overseas, the FBI is translating a record 34,000 wiretapped conversations a month, Bureau officials tell the Bad Guys blog. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/badguys/070220/f bi_translating_over_1000_wire.htm
Long criticized for their lack of language specialists, FBI officials say they are finally catching up to an unprecedented intake of surveillance since 9/11. In the last four years, the Bureau's counterterrorism investigations have netted a windfall of foreign language materials:
Over 500,000 hours of audio
5.5 million electronic data files
1.8 million pages of text
The growth in FBI electronic surveillance is due largely to counterterrorism and counterintelligence wiretaps. The number of national security wiretaps approved by the secret FISA court jumped by 122 percent from 2001 to 2005, the story notes, while criminal wiretaps have increased by only 19 percent.
Feed News: Here we go again (penny-arcade.com)
Gabe: You might have seen this story on CNN about the teens that murdered a homeless guy and then equated it to the sort of thrill one might get from a violent video game. There will be plenty of articles focusing on these kids and their crime. I"d like to take a second and talk about the parents of these teenagers instead. It is the job of a parent to teach their children certain rules. Obviously the rules themselves and the emphasis each family places on them will vary, but there are certain universal constants that these parents obviously failed to pass on.
Submission + - VR used to treat US soldiers with PTSD
dhardisty writes: "Researchers at the University of Southern California have created a virtual reality program 'that simulates life in the war zone for Iraq veterans suffering from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).' The program incorporates wrap-around vision, sounds, physical sensations, and even smells. It is used to support exposure therapy, an empirically supported cognitive behavioral treatment for PTSD."
Comment Re:I will Ask Again! (Score 1) 126
Miss a vote? What did you leave the country for a 2 years or something?
