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The Almighty Buck

Creationist Bets $10k In Proposed Literal Interpretation of Genesis Debate 1121

Posted by samzenpus from the what-would-darwin-do? dept.
HungWeiLo writes "A California man who believes the literal interpretation of the Bible is real is offering $10,000 to anyone who can successfully debunk claims made in the book of Genesis in front of a judge. Joseph Mastropaolo, the man behind this challenge, is to put $10,000 of his own money into an escrow account. His debate opponent would be asked to do the same. They would then jointly agree on a judge based on a list of possible candidates. Mastropaolo said that any evidence presented in the trial must be 'scientific, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated.' For his part, Mastropaolo has a Ph.D. in kinesiology and writes for the Creation Hall of Fame website, which is helping to organize the minitrial. It's also not the first such trial he's tried to arrange. A previous effort, known as the 'Life Science Prize,' proposed a similar scenario. Mastropaolo includes a list of possible circuit court judges to oversee the trial and a list of those he challenged to take part on the evolutionary side of the debate."

Comment One group that defies their tracking analysis (Score 1) 88

In a recent Slashdot poll, 7% of all respondents didn't have a mobile phone. I'm one of them.

Not having a mobile phone doesn't mean you're paranoid about privacy. It could just as easily mean that you're waiting for the technology to mature. I notice that everyone seems to hate something: hardware quality, hardware cost, no signal, dropped calls, awful sound quality, basic service cost, roaming charges, long term contracts, etc. The list of complaints goes on and on.

Why do you guys put up with that crap? They never address the basic problems. They dangle flashy new features in front of you, you eagerly gobble them up and then gradually you realize that you still have the same old litany of problems hobbling your new gadget.

Vote with your money. Use land lines till they solve the fundamentally flawed user experience. In the meantime, you don't have to worry about your phone use identifying you better than fingerprints.
Beer

How Beer Gave Us Civilization 325

Posted by samzenpus from the the-cause-and-solution-to-all-of-life's-problems dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Jeffrey P. Khan writes in the NY Times about how recent anthropological research suggests that human's angst of anxiety and depression ultimately results from our transformation, over tens of thousands of years, from biologically shaped, almost herd-like prehistoric tribes, to rational and independent individuals in modern civilization. The catalyst for suppressing the rigid social codes that kept our clans safe and alive was fermented fruit or grain. 'Once the effects of these early brews were discovered, the value of beer must have become immediately apparent,' writes Khan. 'With the help of the new psychopharmacological brew, humans could quell the angst of defying those herd instincts. Conversations around the campfire, no doubt, took on a new dimension: the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds.' Examining potential beer-brewing tools in archaeological remains from the Natufian culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, the team concludes that 'brewing of beer was an important aspect of feasting and society in the Late Epipaleolithic' era. In time, humans became more expansive in their thinking, as well as more collaborative and creative. A night of modest tippling may have ushered in these feelings of freedom — though, the morning after, instincts to conform and submit would have kicked back in to restore the social order. Today, many people drink too much because they have more than average social anxiety or panic anxiety to quell — disorders that may result, in fact, from those primeval herd instincts kicking into overdrive. But beer's place in the development of civilization deserves at least a raising of the glass. As the ever rational Ben Franklin supposedly said, 'Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.'"
The Courts

Court: 4th Amendment Applies At Border, Password Protected Files Not Suspicious 194

Posted by Soulskill from the you're-doing-it-right dept.
An anonymous reader sends this Techdirt report on a welcome ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals: ""Here's a surprise ruling. For many years we've written about how troubling it is that Homeland Security agents are able to search the contents of electronic devices, such as computers and phones at the border, without any reason. The 4th Amendment only allows reasonable searches, usually with a warrant. But the general argument has long been that, when you're at the border, you're not in the country and the 4th Amendment doesn't apply. This rule has been stretched at times, including the ability to take your computer and devices into the country and search it there, while still considering it a "border search," for which the lower standards apply. Just about a month ago, we noted that Homeland Security saw no reason to change this policy. Well, now they might have to. In a somewhat surprising 9th Circuit ruling (en banc, or in front of the entire set of judges), the court ruled that the 4th Amendment does apply at the border, that agents do need to recognize there's an expectation of privacy, and cannot do a search without reason. Furthermore, they noted that merely encrypting a file with a password is not enough to trigger suspicion."
Books

Apple Patent Describes iTunes Reselling and Loaning System 97

Posted by timothy from the on-the-internet dept.
An anonymous reader writes "An Apple patent granted on 7 March details a system allowing customers to resell iTunes and iBooks content to other users at a reduced price, or to loan the content temporarily for free. Such a system could pave the way for second hand content being made available on iTunes for a discounted price." (Note: Beware the auto-playing video ad, with sound.)
Crime

US Attorney General Defends Handling of Aaron Swartz Case 276

Posted by samzenpus from the that's-some-good-police-work-there-lou dept.
TrueSatan writes in with the latest in the ongoing Aaron Swartz tragedy. "Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said the suicide death of internet activist Aaron Swartz was a 'tragedy,' but the hacking case against the 26-year-old was 'a good use of prosecutorial discretion.' The attorney general was testifying at a Justice Department oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary committee and was facing terse questioning from Sen. John Cornyn (D-Texas). ...Holder stated: 'I think that's a good use of prosecutorial discretion to look at the conduct, regardless of what the statutory maximums were and to fashion a sentence that was consistent with what the nature of the conduct was. And I think what those prosecutors did in offering 3, 4, zero to 6 was consistent with that conduct.' Notwithstanding Holder's testimony, Massachusetts federal prosecutors twice indicted Swartz for the alleged hacking, once in 2011 on four felonies and again last year on 13 felonies. The case included hacking charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that was passed in 1984 to enhance the government's ability to prosecute hackers who accessed computers to steal information or to disrupt or destroy computer functionality."
Mars

Protecting the Solar System From Contamination 121

Posted by Soulskill from the life-will-find-a-way dept.
tcd004 writes "An article at PBS begins, 'Imagine this crazy scenario: A space vehicle we've sent to a distant planet to search for life touches down in an icy area. The heat from the spacecraft's internal power system warms the ice, and water forms below the landing gear of the craft. And on the landing gear is something found on every surface on planet Earth... bacteria. Lots of them. If those spore-forming bacteria found themselves in a moist environment with a temperature range they could tolerate, they might just make themselves at home and thrive and then, well... the extraterrestrial life that we'd been searching for might just turn out to be Earth life we introduced.' The article goes on to talk about NASA's efforts to prevent situations like this. It's a job for the Office of Planetary Protection. They give some examples, including the procedure for sterilizing the Curiosity Rover: 'Pieces of equipment that could tolerate high heat were subjected to temperatures of 230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 144 hours. And surfaces were wiped down with alcohol and tested regularly.'"

Comment "feel" each other's gravity? "want to"? (Score 1) 520

by WebManWalking (#43070145) Attached to: Neil deGrasse Tyson On How To Stop a Meteor Hitting the Earth
Neil, I realize there's a need to dumb things down sometimes, but you're going to provoke suggestions that we criticize the asteroid's weight so that it'll run away crying.

Here's a more useful idea: Use asteroids to improve our situation on Earth. Deflect otherwise-colliding asteroids to pass by us in front of our orbit, not behind us. Let gravitational pull add to our speed around the sun. Let it add to our rotational speed. We need a higher orbit around the sun and less baking when we're facing the sun. I realize the relative masses assure that it won't noticeably help. But it would help more than deluding folks who don't know any better than to believe that asteroids have emotions.

Comment Re:WHAT FUCKING SITE?!?!? (Score 1) 59

by WebManWalking (#42938057) Attached to: Facebook Hacks Points To Much Bigger Threat For Mobile Developers
Astroturfing was the word that occurred to me too. I almost submitted it as a tag, in fact. Or maybe slashvertizement (however that's spelled).

It's like those news website articles with misleading title (or question as title) hotlinks to entice you to visit the article. The more page hits, the more advertizing sold. Only in this case, they're trying to generate hits on F-Secure's website. If that's your intent, you cannot give away information up front. It would defeat the purpose.

I suppose it helps to get angry at them (if they hear about your anger somehow). It lets them know that their teasing technique isn't building the sort of goodwill that could result in a customer, at least not in those who see through it.
Facebook

Facebook Hacks Points To Much Bigger Threat For Mobile Developers 59

Posted by samzenpus from the protect-ya-neck dept.
DavidGilbert99 writes "Facebook admitted last weekend that it was hacked but assured everyone that no data was compromised. However following some investigation by security firm F-Secure, it seems this could be just the tip of the iceberg and that thousands of mobile app developers without the dedicated security team Facebook has in place could already be compromised. The vector for the attack was a mobile developer's website, and the malware used likely targeted Apple's Mac OS X rather than Windows."

Comment Similar problem, also in the UK (Score 1) 174

by WebManWalking (#42929649) Attached to: UK Apple Shop Forced To Change Its Name
Tech blogger, tech conference speaker and JS Bin developer Remy Sharp has a Twitter handle that made lots of people think that he was the band R.E.M. When the band disbanded, he got tons of tweets, so many that it was excruciating wading through them all for tweets that were actually intended for him. But he didn't give up his Twitter handle.

You don't HAVE to capitulate to mass misunderstandings.

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