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Education

Submission + - Revising History To Fit The Bible 2

macs4all writes: Not content to mold science class to foment its agenda, this article reports that those ka-ray-zee "educators" in Texas are proposing "revamping the K-12 curriculum to emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. Two of them want to remove or de-emphasize references to several historical figures who have become liberal icons, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall."

Of course, reasoned heads on the Texas Board of "Education" will surely prevail. Those members, hand-picked for their "enlightened" views are exemplified by Board member David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a group that promotes America's Christian heritage; and Rev. Marshall, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God's judgments on the nation's sexual immorality.

The conservative reviewers say they believe that children must learn that America's founding principles are biblical. For instance, they say the separation of powers set forth in the Constitution stems from a scriptural understanding of man's fall and inherent sinfulness, or "radical depravity," which means he can be governed only by an intricate system of checks and balances.
Medicine

Submission + - Marijuana smoke damages DNA (examiner.com) 8

mmmscience writes: http://www.examiner.com/x-1242-Science-News-Examiner~y2009m6d17-Marijuana-smoke-damages-DNA The campaign to legalize marijuana has a new obstacle to overcome. Researchers from the UK and Sweden have discovered that smoking the cannabis plant causes DNA damage that could potentially lead to cancer. Because cannabis is less combustible than tobacco, the report states that it has 50% more carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. And what's more, there is the added danger of smoking technique: marijuana smokers inhale more deeply, meaning 3-4 cannabis cigarettes a day is equivalent to 20 tobacco cigarettes.
Handhelds

Submission + - SPAM: Kindle Pricing, Business Models and Source Code

narramissic writes: "A trifecta of Kindle-related news surfaced this week, with Jeff Bezos speaking at Wired's 'Disruptive by Design' conference on topics including Kindle pricing and business models. And yesterday, reports blogger Peter Smith, 'there was a flurry of blogging activity yesterday stating that Amazon had released the Kindle source code. Once everyone caught their breath, it became apparent that the files in question were just some open source libraries that Amazon had modified (they're being good open source citizens and releasing mods they've made to open source code — good for them!), not the complete source code.' Now, back to the Kindle pricing: According to a post at Wired, Bezos said Amazon opted to sell the Kindle for 'something akin to the actual cost for hardware,' rather than subsidizing the hardware costs and requiring a monthly subscription or requiring the buyer to purchase a certain number of books per month because 'fees and minimum purchase requirements create friction.' Smith has a different take: 'If I'm buying a Kindle from Amazon that enables me to buy books from Amazon, I'm broadcasting a desire to buy Kindle books. I would welcome some subsidization of the hardware since I'm going to be buying content anyway. No, I really think Amazon priced the Kindle the way they did because they thought they could get away with doing so (and they were right, it would seem).' Meanwhile, over at the New York Times, Bezos said 'that he sees Kindle-the-device and Kindle-the-book-format as two separate business models, and that the Kindle iPhone App won't be the last software reader to appear.'"
Link to Original Source
Microsoft

Microsoft To Open Retail Stores 535

chaz373 writes "CNET reports that Microsoft is going retail. In the 'Beyond Binary' blog Ina Fried reports, 'After years of brushing off the notion, Microsoft said on Thursday that it will open up its own line of retail stores. Without detailing the plans, Microsoft said it has hired David Porter, a 25-year Wal-Mart veteran, to lead the effort. Sources say that Porter's mission will be to develop the company's retail plans and that the effort is likely to start small with just a few locations.'"
Space

Submission + - Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger? 3

Ponca City, We Love You writes: "There is an interesting story in Seed Magazine on active SETI — sending out signals to try to contact other civilizations in nearby star systems. Alexander Zaitsev, Chief Scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, has access to one of the most powerful radio transmitters on Earth and has already sent several messages to nearby, sun-like stars. But some scientists think that Zaitsev is not only acting out of turn by independently speaking for everyone on the entire planet but believe there are possible dangers we may unleash by announcing ourselves to the unknown darkness. "We're talking about initiating communication with other civilizations, but we know nothing of their goals, capabilities, or intent," says SETI researcher John Billingham. This ground has been explored before in countless works of science fiction most notably "The Killing Star," a 1995 novel that paints a frightening picture of interstellar civilizations exterminating their neighbors with relativistic bombardments, not from malice, but simply because it is the most logical action. Billingham urges a broad, interdisciplinary discussion of Active SETI. "At the very least we ought to talk about it first, and not just SETI people. We have a responsibility to the future well-being and survival of humankind.""
Programming

Submission + - Java Developers Jumping the Apple Ship? 1

dringess writes: There is an Apple hatefest going on in the Java developer community about Leopard not shipping with Java 6. As a MacBook Pro owner and a Java developer, I know I am definitely disenchanted.
Security

Submission + - Apple: Is Mac OS X wide open by default?

evw writes: Subrosasoft has announced MacLockPick that claims to grab all the passwords stored in the Key Chain including but not limited to logins, disk images, Wi-Fi passwords, iTunes, iChat, Remote Desktop, email, all your banking info, and peer to peer information. MacNN, Gizmodo and other blogs review it.

This sounds like snake-oil to me. Granted, anyone with physical access to your machine to plug in this USB based device can probably pwn you to start with, but this device seems to rely on the user leaving everything wide open. If you use FileVault, turn off auto-login, require a password to wake from sleep, use a decent password and don't grant KeyChain Access blanket permission to access your key chains, does this thing really work? It seems to me that it relies on the digital equivalent of the password written on a post-it stuck to the monitor.

But even if the claims are true, don't panic because it's only for sale to licensed investigators.
Space

Submission + - Black Holes, a Doorway to Other Universes?

cez writes: "Newscientist.com has an interesting story about a new theory on blackholes. "The objects scientists think are black holes could instead be wormholes leading to other universes, a new study says. If so, it would help resolve a quantum conundrum known as the black hole information paradox, but critics say it would also raise new problems, such as how the wormholes would form in the first place.""
Music

Submission + - Internet Bands Using Youtube to Bypass Labels

An anonymous reader writes: Youtube's featured pick of the day [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdYqrlQuXF0[/u rl] is a prime example of how independent bands are using viral video to bypass record labels and promote themselves through online. Instead of creating throwaway music videos, bands are now integrating the video blog style to tell extended narratives.
Mozilla

Submission + - 7 year old bug keeps businesses from using Firefox

Mike Moening writes: "Firefox is a terrific browser. Every day many developers are switching to Firefox for both home and business use. However, there is a 7 YEAR old bug that has almost single handedly slowed the adoption of Firefox for business applications.

The ability to do something as simple as properly validate a field on a browser form. Because of this 7 YEAR old bug it is not possible to do this. With applications become richer with technologies like AJAX and client side Javascript this inability separates Firefox from its competitors.

The Mozilla/Firefox developers are legendary for their ability to nail bugs like this quickly. So why does a bug that is SEVEN YEARS old still remain unfixed? What does it take?
Business want to use Firefox! Are business centric problems are being ignored?
See bug: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53579 for the gory details. Comment #31 says it best. FYI the posted workarounds to this bug don't work either.
Hats off to Firefox developers! Keep up the good work!"
Oracle

Oracle Linux Adopters Suffer Backlash 274

atbarboz writes "One of the first converts to Oracle's support for Linux said it has endured a public backlash since its decision to drop Red Hat. 'Melbourne company Opes Prime Stockbroking told ZDNet Australia that in the weeks following its announcement to adopt Oracle Linux, upset Linux enthusiasts phoned, e-mailed and wrote about the company online to complain at the decision. "People called us out of the blue to tell us we were idiots," said Opes executive director Anthony Blumberg.'"

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