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It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - 'Stop piping cats' and 9 less amusing UNIX tips

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "Author/consultant Michael Stutz offers to help you "Learn 10 good UNIX usage habits" in an article posted to IBM's Web site. Number 10 had me laughing out loud: "Stop piping cats." Maybe the joke is lost on those who speak fluid UNIX, but those of us who don't speak any might conjure up all manner of thoughts upon hearing the phrase. Here are just a few.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/9764 "
Education

First Russian Anti-Evolution Suit Enters Court Room 485

Posted by Zonk from the popular-thing-to-do dept.
sdriver writes "If you thought it was only the US giving Darwin a hard time, Russia has its own problems starting with evolution. A student has 'sued the St. Petersburg city education committee, claiming the 10th-grade biology textbook used at the Cervantes Gymnasium was offensive to believers and that teachers should offer an alternative to Darwin's famous theory.' The suit, the first of its kind in Russia, is being dismissed out of hand by the principal and teachers. The teacher of the science class had apparently even taken the step of stating at the start of the school year that there were other theories on the origin of life."
User Journal

Journal Journal: LINUX: Why Is it "Hard" for a Lot of People? 3

Journal by eno2001

I read a post in the front page story asking "Why Do People Hate Microsoft" this morning. In it the poster suggests that they've never had any success using Linux long term as a desktop, so they use Windows. This person doesn't even seem to be anti-Linux. And I've seen this repeated frequently among various friends of mine as well. Considering that I and various members of my family have moved to Linux as a desk
The Internet

Cleanfeed Canada - What Would It Accomplish? 211

Posted by Zonk from the they-thought-of-the-children dept.
Bennett Haselton has another article on offer for us today, this time looking at the implications of a Canadian initiative to protect children online. Bennet writes: "Cybertip.ca, a Canadian clearinghouse for providing information to law enforcement about online child luring and child pornography, has announced that a group of major ISPs will begin blocking access to URLs on Cybertip's list of known child pornography sites. A Cybertip spokesperson says that the list fluctuates between 500 and 800 sites at any given time." Read on for the rest of his analysis.
Biotech

Submission + - Research centre seeks to legitimize ID

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Newscientist.com has an article about the Biologic Institute (an ID friendly research centre) hopes to produce scientific evidence for anti-darwinists in an attempt at credibility through what they call "lab science". They hope to both produce evidence of the "creators handwork" and discredit darwinism. Any papers produced, even if not published in peer-reviewed journals could have significant political influence
Software

Submission + - SPAM: How to annoy people at dinnertime with open source

Submitted by
alphadogg
alphadogg writes: "Telemarketing calls: we hate them. But the business of calling people at inopportune moments is big business; the so-called outbound dialing market will reach over $200 million by 2011, Frost & Sullivan predicts. For businesses that want to conduct outbound dialing operations on the cheap, open source has come to the rescue. [spam URL stripped]6 /1211linux2.html?t5"
Announcements

Submission + - Top Ten Junk Science Examples in 2006?

Submitted by
JBHarris
JBHarris writes: "According to an article on FoxNews.com (linked from JunkScience.com), this was a terrific year for 'junk science'. Among the claims of the author, global warming as outlined in 'An Inconvinient Truth' is a farse, and that the 'Al Gore-smitten' media largely ignored a report declaring 'Cosmic Rays' as a more likely source of global warming than man-made CO2 emissions. He goes on to list the 10 most notable 'Junk Science' events of 2006. If nothing else, it is a terrific way to see the how so many American's can still think these problems aren't real, and continue to live in denial.

From the Article:
It's time again for JunkScience.com's review of the most notable junk science events of the year — a "top 10" list that may sometimes make you think that the year 1007, rather than 2007, is just around the corner.
And continues with:
So despite the relentless march of junk scientists, particularly with respect to global warming, let's be grateful that the DDT ban has finally been lifted. We'll tackle Al Gore and his climate groupies next year.
"
Education

Resources for Teaching C to High School Students? 166

Posted by Cliff from the best-time-to-learn dept.
mctk asks: "I'm a high school teacher who, disappointed with the lack of computer science in school, has promised to teach a few motivated students programming after school. As an enthusiastic novice with three semesters of C under my belt and a few side projects worth of experience, I feel competent yet ignorant. I would really appreciate suggestions for resources on C that are written to be accessible to high school students and contain lots of ideas for activities. Perhaps you've had success with a series of books that spans beginner to advanced? Do you have any activities you would recommend? How would you map a student's first year of coding? I welcome any and all suggestions. While we're on the subject, is there a brace style that is most standard in the industry?"
Music

Submission + - Why Does Everyone Hate the RIAA?

Submitted by aardvarkjoe
aardvarkjoe writes: I'm doing a short project on the RIAA and its impact on society. A considerable part of this project has been looking into people's perceptions of the music industry and the heavily negative bias of that perception. Since Slashdot is one of the world's forefront leaders on RIAA hatred, I wanted to know: just why do you hate the RIAA? Please be as descriptive and as thorough as you like. Counter arguments and positive comments are also appreciated.

I've got a hundred of these questions, keep posting them!
Networking

Submission + - WInny P2P Creator Guilty of Copyright Violations

Submitted by
lanceblack
lanceblack writes: "Isamu Kaneko, the former Tokyo University professor arrested in 2004 for creating and disributing the P2P file-sharing network Winny has been convicted of enabling users to violate copyright law and fined 1.5 million yen. What does this mean for the future of innovative programmers in this country? Does this mean Sony/Panasonic et al are liable for knowingly making products used to violate copyright on videos and DVD...?"
Television

Submission + - Comcast pushing Ads through the Program Guide

Submitted by WhoKilledGilbertGrap
WhoKilledGilbertGrap writes: Comcast is at it again... I turned on my TV tonight and there were banner ads on the program guide. They tried this last summer and there were enough customer comlaints that they turned it off.

I called customer services and all they could tell me is that this is a new feature and it is here to stay this time.

For details check out:
http://www.pvrwire.com/2006/11/16/comcast-epg-bann er-ads-theyre-baaaack/

For information on where or how to complain (also has a link to an online petition).
http://www.killcomcastads.com/
Books

Submission + - The God Delusion

Submitted by fiannaFailMan
fiannaFailMan writes: Richard Dawkins has attracted a lot of attention with The God Delusion, and for good reason. He pulls no punches with a robust defence of atheism and reason as opposed to using faith as a means of making important life decisions. The tone of the book is shamelessly opinionated, and he leaves you in no doubt as to where he stands. His aim is to encourage more people to 'come out' as atheists, and to 'raise the consciousness' of those who tolerate the widely-held assumptions that blind faith in a higher existence is a virtue and that faith and science are both equally valid. Atheists remain one of the last social groups who are openly vilified and discriminated against on account of what they think, and Dawkins wants that to change.

The damage that has been done to the world by faith-based reasoning and organised religion is covered in a fair amount of detail with plenty of anecdotal stories thrown in to give the reader something to latch onto on an emotional level. The supression of scientific development, the teaching of ignorance at the expense of scientific fact, the subjugation of women, the abuse and brainwashing of children, the fallacy that only faith has a moral code, and of course the jihads and religious wars are all covered.

The philosophical arguments in favour of the God Hypothesis, as he calls it, are presented and knocked down one by one in incisive detail, and many are exposed as circular reasoning. The foundations of religion, the ancient scriptures, are examined closely, and the cruelty and violence of the old testament God is explained in shocking clarity. God is portrayed as an insecure, vengeful, jealous, genocidal maniac. Interestingly, there are examples of scripture that look suspiciously like they were duplicated during centuries of editing. For example, Lot's departure from Sodom (after he showed God how righteous he was by offering his daughters up to a mob to be raped in order to protect some angels who came to visit, Genesis 19:7-8) is suspiciously similar to another story in Judges 19:23-4. The mysoginist tone of the monotheistic holy books is made very clear throughout all of this, indicating how it was all written by men in a time when women were considered almost sub-human, and there are people in the world today who still want to adhere to such inhumane principles both in Christendom as well as the Islamic world.

There is an interesting exploration of the Catholic church's talent for making things up as it goes along using its own self interest as a motive and warped reasoning as the justification. Purgotory was invented as a means of justifying prayer (also exposed as ineffective elsewhere in the book) for the dead and as a means of generating revenue in the form of 'indulgences,' something the author describes as 'the medeival equivalent of the Nigerian internet scam.'

At all times, Dawkins keeps yanking the reader back to the reality of how the world works as explained by science. Natural selection is described not as an unlikely 'chance mutation' but as a gradual process in which the development of complex organisms is actually inevitable in many places in the universe wherever the conditions are suitable. Intelligent design advocates look for holes in scientific knowledge that can only be plugged by a god, only to retract whenever science plugs the gap with new discoveries.

Some people deride atheism as an 'empty existence' and having 'no meaning.' Dawkins extolls the virtues of atheism coupled with a deep understanding of the wonders of science. The universe as known to science is much bigger and much more impressive than the relatively small and young concoction of the ancient peoples who needed simple stories for simple people to explain that which they did not yet have the scientific knowledge to understand.

If you are an atheist and have been shy about voicing your beliefs (or lack thereof) in the presence of religious people, reading this book will give you new confidence and pride in your preference for reason over faith.
The Media

Submission + - Male circumcision reduces HIV risk

Submitted by
gustgr
gustgr writes: "The US National Institutes of Health announced the results of recent clinical trials in Africa that confirms the effectiveness of male circumcision in reducing by 50% the rate of HIV infection. The findings supports a previous South African study which reported similar results. This fact was already noted when Aids first began to appear in Africa: men who were circumcised (due cultural and religious reasons) seemed to be at less risk of infection. The circumcision protects the individuals from the virus because some specific cells in the foreskin may be potential targets for HIV infection and also the skin under the foreskin becomes less sensitive and is less likely to bleed reducing risk of infection following circumcision."
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Wal-Mart asked to drop 'Left Behind' PC Game

Submitted by Canordis
Canordis writes: The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that an "extremely violent" game based on the popular Left Behind series of Christian fiction is being protested against by liberal and Progressive Christian groups. From TFA:
"It's an incredibly violent video game," said Stevens. "Sure, there is no blood. (The dead just fade off the screen.) But you are mowing down your enemy with a gun. It pushes a message of religious intolerance. You can either play for the 'good side' by trying to convert nonbelievers to your side or join the Antichrist."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Talk Like a Race Car Day

Submitted by mybadluck22
mybadluck22 writes: Talk Like a Race Car Day is coming up thursday, December 21! This is a day, much like Talk Like a Pirate Day, but instead of talking like a pirate, one talks like a race car. Race cars often say phrases such as "Vroom!" and "Reowwww!" Here is a flyer that you can post at your school or place of work or anywhere that you feel is appropriate.

Flyer

Spread the words!

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