Slashdot

Budenny writes "In which Monckton purports to prove, using data from Hadley Centre, and the IPCC models' own predictions, that the key prediction which the theory of man made global warming makes has been falsified. If this article is right, it is game over for the theory of man made global warming, climate catastrophe and a lot of other stuff. Its over for usufruct also (if you have read Hansen's latest rant)."
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/whatgreenhouse/moncktongreenhousewarming.pdf

Budenny writes "An extraordinary correspondence will be found at climateaudit.org. The participants have been attempting to reconstruct exactly how Hansen gets from the raw station data in various parts of the world to the data as reported by the IPCC. Russia, India and other parts are being scrutinized. Turns out its very hard to do, Hansen will not reveal what he did or how he did it, when you look at the results half the time they seem nonsensical. And we are all being asked to spend billions if not trillions on the basis of this 'evidence'."
http://www.climateaudit.org/

Do Apple and AT&T have the legal right to stop hackers from selling unlocked iPhones? Under their terms, only AT&T may sell iPhones, and Apple gets a commission. When unlocked iPhones are used on other providers' networks, AT&T and hence Apple get nothing beyond what they earned on the initial sale of the hardware. Can they prohibit unlocking? Reselling? The article in Businessweek gives the for and against arguments, but appears to indicate that the hackers have the law on their side for once.
http://businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2007/tc20070827_230698.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

An anonymous reader writes "Clark County School District in southern Nevada is proud to be the fifth largest school district in the U.S. In the past 5 years they have spent dozens of millions of dollars to build out a state of the art fiber network to deliver cutting edge media delivery to most schools in the district. They are trying to move every school onto their district-wide VoIP telephone system. They are aggressively pursuing grants and other sources of funding to keep their extensive computer labs stocked with modern hardware. In the district's Technology Plan, the introductory Vision Statement states, " Through the effective integration of technology, our schools will provide learning experiences which are active, personalized, involve teamwork, and focus on solving real-world problems." In enumerating the district's goals, the Technology Plan further states, "Goal 1: All students and teachers will have access to information technology in their classrooms, schools, and communities."

Over the last two years the principal at the local high school banned all computer programming classes. The school's technical computer efforts have been decimated. Now that the principal has been promoted to another school, some in the community are trying to rebuild. However, word comes that the school district has banned all "web programming" education. Any programming classes related to the internet are forbidden. This doesn't seem to line up with Goal 3: "All students will have technology and information literacy skills as aligned with national/state standards and district goals."

The Clark County High School Curriculum Guide certainly neglects technology and information literacy completely. What national standards are there for "technology and information literacy skills"? What standards should there be?"

OmNara writes "Yahoo! news reports about a teenager who unlocked his iPhone and traded it for a new car and 3 iphones. In addition he is offered a consulting job.
The teenage hacker who managed to unlock the iPhone so that it can be used with cellular networks other than AT&T will be trading his reworked gadget for a new car. The job took 500 hours, or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone's June 29 launch.
Hotz made the deal with Terry Daidone, co-founder of CertiCell, who also promised the teen a paid consulting job.
more news here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070828/ap_on_re_us/od d_iphone_unlocked
worth spending your time hacking high profile toys?"

Budenny writes "This important and sobering essay is by the Home Affairs Editor of the Daily Telegraph. It summarizes some of the changes to British civil liberties made during the present Administration's tenure, and puts together in one place, with concrete examples of their implications, most of the legislation and some of the proposals. It also gives links to supporting material. When you read it (and it is quite long) bear in mind that it leaves out a number of other items relevant to the topic. There is for instance no mention of the Mental Health legislation, which will allow compulsory medication; of the Family Courts, which meet in total secrecy and with no appeal; or of ASBOs, which allow acts not forbidden by any law to be made criminal for particular people."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/article2104562.ece

Budenny writes "In the effort to move our organization away from a fairly small proprietary database using a locked format, we have discovered that it will export our data, but only as xml. What would you all suggest as appropriate tools to use and edit our data in this format? Whatever we use, we need to give access both browsing and editing from Windows as well as Linux — though probably we could use different packages if that were the only way. The database is a few thousand records of a few tens of fields. The ideal solution would be to use the xml that the package exports exactly as it comes out, and then we would have the added security of being able to go back if we ever needed to (some organisational nervousness is felt about leaving the old and familiar too far behind....)"

Roland Piquepaille writes "Most of you know at least one person who has been affected by cancer and treated by chemotherapy, suffering from side-effects such as hair loss or nausea. This is because chemotherapy attacks both healthy and unhealthy cells in the whole body. Now, Australian researchers are using nanotechnology to offer chemotherapy relief. They've created 'nano-cells' from 'inert' bacteria — meaning they can't reproduce — which can deliver potent drugs exactly where they're needed. As this new therapy allows to target very precisely the tumors, the amounts of drugs are much smaller and the harmful side-effects of chemotherapy will be avoided in the future. This method could be used for a wide variety of cancers and human clinical trials should start by the end of this year. Read more for many additional references about this future harmless cancer therapy."

tinpan writes "I've got a communication problem. When non-technical managers ask me to explain technical choices, they often make choices I recommend against and they later regret. I can tell that they do not understand their choice because of how they are explaining things to each other, but they usually refuse further explanation.

So it's time for some education. I want to get better at communicating technical subjects to non-technical people. More accurately, I want to get better at helping non-technical people make better technical decisions and I'm willing to accept it may include some understanding of "selling your idea."

What books, online courses and/or seminars do you recommend and why?"

Andy Updegrove writes "Norway has become the latest European country to move closer to mandatory government use of ODF (and PDF). According to a press release provided in translation to me by an authoritative source, Norway now joins Belgium, Finland, and France (among other nations) in moving towards a final decision to require such use. The Norwegian recommendation was revealed by Minister of Renewal Heidi Grande Roys, on behalf of the Cabinet-appointed Norwegian Standards Council. If adopted, it would require all government agencies and services to use these two formats, and would permit other formats (such as OOXML) to be used only in a redundant capacity.Reflecting a pragmatic approach to the continuing consideration of OOXML by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the recommendation calls for Norway to 'promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage.' According to the press release, the recommendation will be the subject of open hearings, with opinions to be rendered to the Cabinet before August 20 this summer.The Cabinet would then make its own (and in this case binding) recommendation to the Norwegian government."

doug141 writes "A British scientist has shown that wearing a bicycle helmet actually exposes cyclists to further risk. Drivers passed an average of 8.5 cm (3 1/3 inches) closer with the helmet than without. The researcher was struck by both a bus and a truck in the course of the experiment. Will bicycle helmet laws suffer a backlash? How much should legislators weigh science?"

An anonymous reader writes "UK scientists say a modest increase in the number of urban parks and street trees could offset decades of predicted temperature rises. Specifically, a mere 10% increase in the amount of green space in built-up centers would reduce urban surface temperatures by as much as 4C."