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+ - The 61 Countries Most Vulnerable To An Internet Shutdown->

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "In the wake of Syria’s 52-hour digital blackout last week, the networking firm Renesys performed an analysis of which countries are most susceptible to an Internet shutdown, based simply on how many distinct entities control the connections between the country’s networks and those of the outside world. It found that for 61 countries and territories, just one or two Internet service providers maintain all external connections–a situation that could make possible a quick cutoff from the world with a well-placed government order or physical attack.

Another 72 countries have between three and ten providers that link to the outside world, a situation that makes a cutoff harder but by no means impossible. Egypt managed to black out its Internet last year despite having seven ISPs with external connections, though it took several days for it to track down and cut off all seven."
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Twitter

+ - Vatican unveils Pope's Twitter account @pontifex->

Submitted by Big Hairy Ian
Big Hairy Ian writes "The Pope is to begin sending Twitter messages using the handle @pontifex as his personal account, the Vatican said.

A spokesman said Pope Benedict XVI wanted to "reach out to everyone" with tweets translated into eight languages.

The first tweet from his account, whose name means both pontiff and builder of bridges, is expected on 12 December.

Last year, the Pope sent his first tweet last year from a Vatican account to launch the Holy See's news information portal.

"We are going to get a spiritual message. The Pope is not going to be walking around with a Blackberry or an iPad and no-one is going to be putting words into the Pope's mouth," Greg Burke, senior media advisor to the Vatican said.

"He will tweet what he wants to tweet," he added, though the leader of the world's 1.2 billion or so Roman Catholics is expected to sign off, rather than write, each individual tweet himself."
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+ - UK Governement mandate the teaching of evolution as scientific fact->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "There is a sotory on the BBC website that the Governement has put an extra clause in a funding bill to ensure that any new "free schools" (independant schools run by groups of parents or organisations but publically funded) must teach evolution rather than creationism or potentially lose their funding

The new rules state that from 2013, all free schools in England must teach evolution as a "comprehensive and coherent scientific theory".

The move follows scientists's concerns that free schools run by creationists might avoid teaching evolution.

Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, said it was "delighted".

Sir Paul told BBC News the previous rules on free schools and the teaching of evolution versus creationism had been "not tight enough"."
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Comment: Re:tax minimisation (Score 1) 331

by Walterk (#42072427) Attached to: Australian Govt Pledges Action On Google Tax Evasion

Depends on one's definition of fair. If all multi-national companies in the UK paid the tax they are supposed to*, the UK deficit would vanish. That in turn means benefits for the poor wouldn't need to be cut, nor a squeeze on the health care system, education, investment in science wouldn't need to be reduced. Hey, and maybe everyone could pay fewer taxes if everyone paid what they ought to.

*: By this I mean the corporation tax based on their profit margin as reported to their investors and their regional sales.

Comment: Single Double Summer Time (Score 1) 475

by Walterk (#41906377) Attached to: On Daylight Savings Time:

In the UK there is DST as well but there have been some rumblings to introduce Single Double Summer Time (SDST) (yes, it's a stupid name). This would shift the entire time to be GMT+2 though all the year. It would deprive people in the north of Scotland of a few hours of daylight in the morning, which seems to be the main opposition. For the rest of us it would mean fewer traffic accidents. But ho hum, as long as the farmers are happy.

Comment: Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? (Score 1) 89

by Walterk (#41750163) Attached to: UK ISPs Asked To Block More File-sharing Websites

Well, no one should be surprised by this. No one will be surprised to learn that the banning of TPB has made no significant difference to the amount of traffic to it. The BPI like the RIAA sees every download as lost revenue, where the real link is that the most prolific downloaders tend to be the most frequent purchasers of media as well. The biggest impact on reduction of illegal downloading has been the introduction of legal services such as iTunes, Amazon MP3 store, etc..

Of course, posting this here is just preaching to the choir.

Comment: Re:Anonymity (Score 1) 341

by Walterk (#41535933) Attached to: Why Are We So Rude Online?

There's a problem with that theory of yours. People on facebook tend to have their real names on their accounts, so the stupid/offensive things people say on there can be traced back to them very easily.

The thing is that people say both stupid and offensive things all of the time, but if you actually say them to another person, there won't be a paper-trail of it, nor does it have a potential audience of millions. As an example all of the people who say "my boss is a dick", only to have that shared by a colleague who has their boss as a facebook friend. Whoops. You'd probably say that to that colleague to their face, who might agree with it, but neither would say it to your boss' face.

There is something in the pang of change More than the heart can bear, Unhappiness remembering happiness. -- Euripides

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