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The Internet

Submission + - Facebook Leaves Advertisers Exposed to Hate Speech (newscloud.com) 1

Submitted by
NewsCloud
NewsCloud writes: "Does Facebook believe that no publicity is bad publicity? Why else would they leave a group called, "Fuck Islam" open since July 21, 2007 despite more than 53,482 members joining an opposing group called petiton: if "f**k Islam" is not shut down..we r quitting facebook group. Furthermore, advertisers such as Sprint, Verizon, T Mobile, Target, Qwest and French's wouldn't be too happy to learn that they are paying for ads on the "Fuck Islam" group pages.

I'm not advocating a policy against free speech, just strict enforcement of Facebook's own Terms of Use. The group name is clearly vulgar and obscene. Arguably, inflammatory and hateful. Facebook has positioned itself as the darling of the social network world, without the spam, porn and the sex offender problems of MySpace. Yet, this sort of thing isn't new to Facebook (see Facing Up to Facebook Racism and Elder hate groups on facebook. There's even an active group called I hate Iraqis targeting Iraqi refugees fleeing to Jordan.
Shouldn't a startup like Facebook, worth reportedly more than a billion dollars with over a hundred employees be expected to comply with its Terms of Use in less than six weeks?"
Google

Submission + - Patent fuels Google mobile phone rumours (latimes.com)

Submitted by
David Hume
David Hume writes: "According to the Los Angeles Times, 'The Google Phone is like the Roswell UFO: Few outsiders know if it really exists, but it's got a cult following.' 'The vision: mobile-phone service offered free of monthly charges to consumers willing to put up with advertising. The goal: for Google to broker advertising on mobile phones the way it has on the Web. The fear: Wireless carriers worry that Google will muscle its way into the young market and capture their wireless advertising dollars.' Somewhat contrary to the Los Angeles Times article, according to the Telegraph, 'Google has filed a patent for a mobile payment processing system, as rumours that the search giant is planning to launch a mobile phone reach fever pitch.' The technology blog GigaOm lists 'Five Facts About Google Phone' including '1.Google Phone is based on a mobile variant of Linux, and is able to run Java virtual machines.' The Boston Globe reports that 'Rich Miner, a Google executive sometimes described as the company's vice president of wireless but officially a 'technical staff member,' has shown Google's new mobile phone to a handful of Boston entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, some of whom have signed nondisclosure agreements and some of whom haven't.'"
The Media

Submission + - Bad Science (badscience.net)

Submitted by
DocDJ
DocDJ writes: "Ben Goldacre (who writes an excellent article in The Guardian called Bad Science, which regularly demonstrates how poor the mainstream media is at reporting science) points out the flaws in the recent reporting of research which purported to show the evolutionary basis of 'blue for boys, pink for girls'."
Networking

Submission + - Internet growing too large for current hardware?

Submitted by
rkohutek
rkohutek writes: "There has been a very interesting discussion happening on the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) mailling list about the scalability of today's Internet routers. A vast quantity of those routers support only 256,000 unique networks. According to the CIDR-Report, there are ~233,216 routes on the Internet, and at the current rate of 3,500 additional routes per month, we are going to be bumping into those hardware limits very quickly. Not many people are aware of the situation, and even fewer are prepared to perform the expensive upgrades. Has anybody already dealt with this and have solutions?"
The Internet

Submission + - Man arrested for speeding after posting on YouTube (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by bluce
bluce writes: A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of having posted a video of himself on YouTube driving at speeds of more than 140 mph, police said Thursday. Sergeant Scott McLachlan, from the Roads Policing Unit at Dumfries and Galloway police, described it as "completely foolish behavior." "Not only did he endanger his own life, but that of other road-users. It is unacceptable, and to post a recording of such driving on the Internet is entirely stupid."
Space

Submission + - 2 killed in SpaceShipTwo motor test explosion (cnn.com)

Submitted by RZG
RZG writes: Two people were killed and 4 were injured during a "cold fire test" of the motor for SpaceShipTwo. This obviously is a setback for Virgin Galactic and the non-government space community in general. "Aerial video of the blast aftermath showed a charred and twisted flatbed trailer attached to a truck cab with a large silver tank next to it. Large pieces of debris appeared to be strewn for hundreds of yards from the center."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Specialists vs. Generalists

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I am working in a department at a software company that has recently put together a training group. They are putting together a good heap of classes. The problem is they are requiring every member of the department to attend every class (even the technology specialist that they used as a resource when writing the class). My boss says this is because he wants to be 'consistent'. Basically they are trying to get a department of people with good general skills and no specialists in anything in particular.

I know that is a bad idea from my experiences in other companies, but I am having difficulty articulating why. Does anyone know of any good examples or arguments of why over-generalization is just as bad an idea as over-specialization in the IT field?
Power

Submission + - Solar Cells Could Be Produced with Inkjet Printers

Submitted by
Late-Eight
Late-Eight writes: "From Science Daily: Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. "The process is simple," said lead researcher and author Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT's Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations.""
Security

Submission + - FBI Busts Contractor Trying to Sell Secrets (go.com)

Submitted by
Evil W1zard
Evil W1zard writes: "ABC News is reporting that a contract worker at the Oak Ridge Reservation nuclear research facility in Tennessee has been arrested and charged with attempting to sell classified information to undercover FBI agents posing as foreign buyers. The information that was being sold is allegedly related to methods of enriching uranium. Full story can be read at: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3394036&page =1"
Education

Submission + - Eating Beef is Less Green than Driving (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Japanese scientists have calculated the overall effect on the environment of producing beef for consumption, and show that 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours at 50mph. The amount of energy consumed would light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days. Taking into account all the processes involved, they said, four average sized steaks generated greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 80.25lb of carbon dioxide. Most of these emissions are in the form of methane released from the animals, but over two thirds of the energy is used to produce and transport cattle feed."
Space

Submission + - Six minutes of terror: landing humans on Mars

Submitted by OriginalArlen
OriginalArlen writes: Universe Today has a fascinating article discussing the difficulty of executing EDL (entry, descent, landing) on Mars for vehicles bigger than MER, Viking and Pathfinder, and for manned craft in particular. Airbags can't be used for obvious reasons, but the atmosphere is too thin to be used for parachutes or aerobraking by large heavy vehicles, and the stronger gravity (compared to the moon) makes an Apollo-style powered descent impossible. The best current idea is a huge inflatable torus called a hypercone.
Biotech

Submission + - Box to make biofuel from car fumes (msn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "They have developed a box which they say can be fixed underneath a car in place of the exhaust to trap the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming — including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide — and emit mostly water vapor. The captured gases can be processed to create a biofuel using genetically modified algae. .... More than 130 tests carried out over two years at several testing centers have, the three say, yielded a capture rate between 85 and 95 percent. They showed the box to David Hansen, a Labor MP for Delyn, North Wales, who is now helping them." Text quoted from the article, located at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19846205/
Books

Submission + - IFPI: "Pirate Bay 'Helped' Leak New Harry Pott (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by
Jared
Jared writes: "IP Chairman John Kennedy says the BitTorrent tracker site now hurting the "publishing industry" in addition to record labels, movie, studios, etc. The Pirate Bay, an international engine of illegal file-sharing, is accused of facilitating the distribution of pre-release copies of the latest Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in a move that has been criticised by publishers Bloomsbury. Author J.K. Rowling has previously asked people to respect her embargos and described those who ruin others enjoyment as "sad individuals." http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8916/Pirate+Bay+Attac ked+for+'Helping'+Leak+New+Harry+Potter+Book"

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