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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 7 declined, 1 accepted (8 total, 12.50% accepted)

Apple

New dating site for Apple fans only->

Submitted by GBC
GBC writes "A soon-to-be-launched dating site for Apple fans only, called Cupidtino (tagline: "Meet an Apple fanboy or girl"), has just been announced. Quoting their holding page:

Cupidtino is a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products! Why? Diehard Mac & Apple fans often have a lot in common — personalities, creative professions, a similar sense of style and aesthetics, taste, and of course a love for technology. We believe these are enough reasons for two people to meet and fall in love, and so we created the first Mac-inspired dating site to help you find other Machearts around you. Cupidtino will launch in June 2010 exclusively on Apple platforms — Safari, iPhone and iPad apps. It's time to share the love.

What do you think /. — genuine or parody?"
Link to Original Source

Censorship

Wikileaks publishes Australia's "secret" b 1

Submitted by GBC
GBC writes "Wikileaks have done it again. They just published the Australian government's proposed secret blacklist of internet sites. Details of the leak are covered in a Sydney Morning Herald article which notes that,

about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.

In that same article Nick Minchin, the Opposition Communications spokesman, is quoted giving a reasonable perspective on the blacklist:

"The regrettable and unfortunate reality is there will always be explicit and illegal material on the web and — regardless of blacklists, filters and the like — those with the means and know-how will find ways of accessing it. Adult supervision is the most effective way of keeping children safe online and people shouldn't be led into believing by Labor that expanded blacklists or mandatory filters are a substitute for that."

Slashdot recently covered a related story about the Australian government adding several Wikileaks pages to the banned list.

Since I am an Australian, I am not linking directly to the list (which is readily available on the Wikileaks site for those who wish to seek it out) as, according to that same article from the Sydney Morning Herald, "Australians caught distributing the list or accessing child pornography sites on the list could face criminal charges and up to 10 years in prison." So much for free speech downunder!"

Idle

Teen's rampage over change in computer privileges->

Submitted by
GBC
GBC writes "Local6 reports that, "A 15-year-old was taken into custody after police said he chased his mother with a knife and beat his brother with a sugar cane over a change in computer privileges... Police said the boy was on the home computer when he grew angry over changes to the system. Police said the teen then threw several objects and picked up a knife and a stick of sugar cane. The older brother and mother told police the teen pushed his mother several times while clutching the knife. He also struck the brother with the sugar cane, police said."

I can see it now: You are about to attack your family members — Cancel or Allow?"
Link to Original Source
Transportation

Steve Fossett may have faked his own death ->

Submitted by
GBC
GBC writes "New claims are being made that Steve Fossett may have faked his own death. Fossett, the first man to fly non-stop round the earth in a hot air balloon, went missing last September when his final flight in a light plane over the Nevada desert went missing. His disappearance led to a massive search which has been covered previously on Slashdot — here, here, here and here. He was declared dead on 15 February 2008.

Lieutenant Colonel Cynthia Ryan of the US Civil Air Patrol, said "I've been doing this search and rescue for 14 years. Fossett should have been found. It's not like we didn't have our eyes open. We found six other planes while we were looking for him. We're pretty good at what we do."

Robert Davis, an investigator acting on behalf of insurers Lloyd's of London states "I discovered that there is absolutely no proof that Steve Fossett is actually dead. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm a man who deals in facts, and I don't really care if he is alive or dead, it make no difference to me. What I am interested in is the truth — and a proper criminal investigation of this man's disappearance was never undertaken by law enforcement or officials in the state of Nevada." Of course, according to the article, Llyod's may have to make a £25m payout if Fossett is dead, so it is in their interests that he not be.

News Of The World lists some other revelations uncovered by the investigation including Fossett having mistresses, possible massive divorce payouts and not having any emergency kit with him on the flight — but it is News Of The World, so take that as you will.

What do you think — did he fake his own death or is it just that they haven't found the body yet?"
Link to Original Source
PC Games (Games)

Spore creatures now outnumber Earth species

Submitted by GBC
GBC writes "AFP is reporting that, as of a week ago, the number of creatures in the "Spore" database exceeded the number of known species on Earth. They are created using "Creature Creator", which is available in a free (with limited parts) or paid download at the Spore website. Will Wright seems extremely happy with the progress so far: "We hit 100K in 22 hours and a million by the end of the first week. The numbers are just blowing us away." It looks like EA/Maxis have a potential bestseller on their hands based on those numbers. So have you played God and created anything so far?"
Movies

Uwe Boll responds; declares his genius.

Submitted by GBC
GBC writes "Following up from the story earlier this week about a petition to get Uwe Boll to stop making films, Boll has posted an expletive-filled video response in his defence. In the one-minute video, he manages to call Michael Bay a "fucking retard", says that Eli Roth makes "the same shitty movies over and over again" and insults George Clooney. Oh and he also says he is "the only genius in the whole fucking business"!

Slashfilm has a story on the video here as well as a response from Michael Bay and Eli Roth (who calls it "the greatest compliment ever").

It is hard to be too sympathetic though, given Boll bought the petition upon himself by saying he would stop making films if it got to one million signatures. What do you think of his and the other directors' responses?"
Biotech

Alcohol and tobacco more dangerous than ecstasy

Submitted by GBC
GBC writes "The Lancet [lancet.com — free registration required] has published an article about a rational system for drug classification in the UK.

The article claims that "In the UK, the total burden of drug misuse, in terms of health, social, and crime-related costs, has been estimated to be between £10 billion and £16 billion per year."

It proposes that drugs should be classified by the amount of harm they do, rather than "A", "B", and "C" divisions in the UK Misuse of Drugs Act. The three main factors that determine the harm associated with any drug of potential abuse are: physical harm to the individual user caused by the drug; tendency of the drug to induce dependence and addiction; and effect of drug use on families, communities, and society. Each of these factors is further broken down into three sections.

Based on assessments from independent experts and specialist addiction psychiatrists, drugs were then ranked according to these nine parameters. Alcohol and tobacco are considered alongside other drugs in the rankings.

Of the twenty substances examined, alcohol was ranked fifth most harmful (behind heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and street methodone) and tobacco came in ninth (behind ketamine, benzodiazepines and amphetamine).

4-MTA, LSD and Ecstasy (all considered "Class A" drugs under the Act) all ranked lower than alcohol and tobacco. From the article: "Overall there was a surprisingly poor correlation between drugs' class according to the Misuse of Drugs Act and harm score."

As someone who supports an end to the "War on Drugs", it would be nice if this article leads to a more rational examination of drug policy both here in the UK and abroad; I am not holding my breath though."

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll invite himself over for dinner. -- Calvin Keegan