limbicsystem writes, "I'm a scientist. I like Al Gore. I donate to the Sierra club, I bicycle everywhere and I eat granola. And I just read a very convincing article in the UK Telegraph that makes me think that the 'scientific consensus' on global warming is more than a little shaky. Now IANACS (I am not a climate scientist). And the Telegraph is notoriously reactionary. Can anyone out there go through this piece and tell me why it might be wrong? Because it seems to be solid, well researched, and somewhat damning of a host of authorities (the UN, the editors of Nature, the Canadian Government) who seem to have picked a side in the global warming debate without looking at the evidence." The author of the Telegraph piece is Christopher Monckton, a retired journalist and former policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher.

GameDaily has up an article grading the current and next-gen consoles on their past and (apparently) future performance. Ratings come with an explanation, which is good because some of them seem just a bid dodgey. Only a B+ for the PS2? Really? From the article: "Considering the competition, the PS2's $129.99 price tag seems downright diminutive. The slim PS2 comes sans fan (meaning potential overheating for long-winded players) but the compact design makes it a must-have for anyone with limited space in the entertainment center. The DualShock 2 is arguably one of the best game controllers of all time and extras can be snapped up for a mere $20 for head-to-head or online multiplayer action." The Aeropause blog has a follow up on the ratings, giving you another perspective on the same consoles.

aqkiva writes, "This past weekend, 33 schools from around the world gathered at MIT for the international genetically engineered machine competition. Teams consisting of mostly undergraduates had designed, built, tested, and characterized biological parts, devices, and systems over the course of the summer and came together to present their work. The competition is helping push the field of synthetic biology and opening access to the tools to engineer biological systems by providing standard biological components. The team from Slovenia won first prize overall for their engineering of mammalian systems and won the 'BioBrick,' a large metal Lego brick. The MIT team won the top prize for the best system with their engineering of bacteria that smell like wintergreen and banana. For news coverage of this weekend's jamboree, see the Boston Globe and Technology Review."

illeism writes "Ars Technica has a good piece on Valve's about face on multithread and multicore application in programming. From the article: '...we were treated to an unveiling of the company's new programming strategy, which has been completely realigned around supporting multiple CPU cores. Valve is planning on more than just supporting them. It wants to make the absolute maximum use of the extra power to deliver more than just extra frames per second, but also a more immersive gaming experience.'"

Ravi writes "Python, the dynamic object oriented programming language created by Guido van Rossum is known to deliver both the power and general applicability of traditional compiled languages without the complexities accompanying them. Coupled with its ease of use, programs written in Python can be run on multiple Operating systems and system architectures which gives it the same portability of any interpreted language. My first brush with Python was when I tried out a beautiful game called PySol — which is more like a collection of over 200 card games and PySol is entirely coded using the Python language. Nowadays a variety of Python web frameworks have also cropped up which promise the same kind of rapid application development that is possible using other programming languages." Read the rest of Ravi's review

An anonymous reader writes to let us know about the roundup of a phishing gang by the FBI and authorities in Poland and Romania. 18 arrests were made in what the FBI calls "Operation Cardkeeper." The gang has allegedly been selling stolen identities and information on credit cards and bank accounts since at least 2004. To remind us what a drop in the bucket such international operations are, the article says: "The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry consortium, said more than 10,000 phishing Web sites were active on the Internet in August, about double the number of sites in January."

GiovanniZero writes "Child's Play, the Penny-Arcade based charity just kicked off their 2006 season. Stop by, donate and bring some cheer to sick kids all over the world. 'Since 2003, gamers have banded together through registered Seattle-based charity, Child's Play. Over a million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception ... Last year's drive raised over $605,000 for sick children, and we're hoping to smash that record total this winter. Check out the wish lists, read up on the local events and let's show the world what the gaming community is all about!'"

prostoalex writes, "HTML tutorials usually mention alt tags for images and noscript tags as something optional that a Web designer should add to a site for the crawlers and users browsing with graphics or JavaScript turned off. However, a recent lawsuit against Target by the National Federation of the Blind accuses the retailer of not complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Since Target's online store is unbrowsable with a screen reader, the nation's 200,000 blind people who go online cannot become paying customers, the NFB contends. From the article: 'In denying Target's motion to dismiss the suit two months ago, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel... held that the law's accessibility requirements applied to all services offered by a place of public accommodation. Since Target's physical stores are places of public accommodation, the ruling said, its online store must also be accessible or the company must offer equally effective alternatives.' Does the judge's name ring a bell? Yes, it's the same Marilyn Hall Patel who handled the RIAA's case against Napster in 2001." Web builders and tools may need to start brushing up on the Web Accessibility Initiative.

DieNadel writes, "The Brazilian senate is considering a bill that will make it a crime to join a chat, blog, or download from the Internet without fully identifying oneself first. Privacy groups and Internet providers are very concerned, and are trying to lobby against the bill, but it seems they won't have much success." From the article: "If approved, it will be a crime, punishable with up to 4 years of jail time, to disseminate virus or trojans, unauthorizedly access data banks or networks and send e-mail, join chat, write a blog or download content anonymously."

Wired is running a piece about how "Web 2.0" (still hate that buzz word) can save democracy this upcoming election date. Web 2.0 hyperbole aside, the piece itself covers the extent of the different mapping tools, get out the vote, finding who funds a candidate and other election candies. Good round-up story.

simoniker writes "Sony's new PR boss Dave Karakker has been talking about his challenges handling publicity for the PlayStation 3, explaining how Sony will be switching things up: 'We were allowing media to drive the message for us, and interpret it for us. So allowing someone like Peter Moore, who's a good friend of mine, to stand up there and say negative things about Sony, there wasn't anybody refuting that. People just took that for face value. Now we're very aggressively defending our turf.' He also defend the lack of universal achievements on PS3: 'Frankly, how I view it is I don't care if you're great at Madden if I'm playing you in Resistance. Because that doesn't tell me you're that much better in Resistance. An overall score doesn't really tell me much, it tells me you've spent a lot of time online, it tells me you spend a lot of time playing games, but it doesn't tell me how good you are at a particular game.'" Should be noted that Simoniker is a former Slashdot editor -- also, the AP write-up about reactions to the PS3 is quite positive.

teumima writes "I found this article very nice and simple on how to configure mutt for g-mail." Indeed; nice piece. I've been experimenting with using Gmail as my default mail drop, but don't really want to be dependent on being online or just POP; I just wish they would let me pay for IMAP service. Linux.com is also owned by OSTG.

An anonymous reader writes "While browsing the 2007 Macworld speaker bios, I found an interesting Google+Mac piece of news. Looks like Google has appointed the famous Amit Singh in charge of their Mac Engineering (also confirmed on Singh's website). While Google generally seems to lag behind in Safari compatibility they have been offering some native Mac software. We earlier heard Google CEO Eric Schmidt's joining Apple's board of directors. Then following Microsoft MacBU's lead, Google started their own Mac Blog a few weeks earlier. Google's jobs website also lists several Mac openings. If Singh's technical expertise and history of OS X wizardry any indication, we can hope for some cool Mac software from Google. Also wondering if all this is just Google's response to Apple's market growth or maybe a more serious partnership is coming? ;-)"

An anonymous reader writes "From vr-zone.com: 'We have received news that all the 8800GTX cards out in the channel are being recalled due to manufacturing defect. We heard it is probably due to a resistor controlling 2D/3D switching and that leads to 3D corruption. However, the defect doesn't affect the 8800GTS cards.'"

PreacherTom writes "For years 3G, or 'third generation,' denoted some future wireless utopia where voice, data, and video would all merge into a wondrous amalgam, marked by snazzy phones that do everything perfectly — and fast. There is indeed a new wireless utopia, and again, it's about merging voice, data, and all the other stuff at even faster speeds. It is known as High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, or HSDPA, and it has started appearing on wireless networks operated by companies such as Vodaphone in Europe and Cingular Wireless in the U.S. Meanwhile, South Korea's Samsung has even started building HSDPA-ready phones. The technology promises wireless speeds as high as 3.6 Mbps but in practice will be much slower than that — fast enough, though, to make wirelessly surfing the Web and downloading music and video well worth the effort."