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Submission + - Hacking for Humanity: Random Hacks of Kindness (rhok.org)

Submitted by
Elizabeth Sabet
Elizabeth Sabet writes: "Google, Microsoft, NASA, The World Bank and Yahoo! are unlikely partners but they have joined forces in the spirit of working towards the greater good by bringing together the best and brightest in disaster relief management and the ever-growing hacker community. This progressive initiative is called Random Hacks of Kindness (www.RHoK.org) and its mission is to mobilize a world-wide community of technologists to solve real-world problems through technology.

Random Hacks of Kindness is gearing up for its first world-wide “hackathon for humanity” on June 4-6, 2010. Following last years inaugural event in Mountain View, California, which produced software solutions that were used on the ground during the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the incredible team of partners have decided to take the effort global.

RHoK engages volunteer software engineers, independent hackers and students from around the world in a marathon weekend of hacking events and coding competitions to develop software solutions for problems posed by subject matter experts. This first global Hackathon will feature sponsored events in Washington DC, Sydney, Nairobi, Jakarta and Sao Paulo.

The DC event will begin with a keynote reception at the State Department followed by 48 hours of competitive hacking at Microsoft’s Washington D.C. offices and will conclude with an awards ceremony showcasing the winning hacks. The upcoming RHoK event will be held in conjunction with the D.C. Crisis Camp and the Understanding Risk: Innovation in Disaster Risk Assessment conference at The World Bank. Awards for the best global hacks will be presented at all event locations.

Participation is open to everyone so bring your laptop and get ready for an incredible experience. Meals, cooperative workspace and plenty of prizes and RHoK swag will be provided. Bring your friends or come to make new ones. Registration is open and free so sign up today and take part in an exciting collaborative and open source project that has the power to save lives and make a difference in the world.

RHoK is a partnership initiative inspired by the notion that Hacking for Humanity is a call to action for the best and most innovative software engineers to make a difference. We can’t wait to see you there!

For more details or to register for the DC event, please visit http://rhok.me/bryArm"

Submission + - Emergency dispatcher fired for facebook drug joke (news.com.au)

Submitted by kaptink
kaptink writes: Dana Kuchler, a 21-year veteran of the West Allis' Dispatch Department, was fired from her job for making jokes on her Facebook page about taking drugs. She appealed to an arbitrator, claiming the Facebook post was a joke pointing out she had written "ha" in it and urine and hair samples tested negative for drugs. But the arbitrator said she should be entitled to go back to work after a 30-day suspension, but the City of West Allis complained that was not appropriate.
Is posting bad jokes on Facebook a justifiable reason to give someone the boot?

Submission + - A contrarian stance on Facebook and privacy (oreilly.com)

Submitted by macslocum
macslocum writes: Amidst the uproar over Facebook's privacy maneuvers, Tim O'Reilly offers a contrarian view. He writes: "... let's not make privacy a third rail issue, pillorying any company that makes a mistake on the privacy front. If we do that, we'll never get the innovation we need to solve the thorny nest of issues around privacy and data ownership that are intrinsic to the network era ... With that in mind, I'm willing to cut Facebook some slack. For now."
Businesses

Local TV Could Go the Way of Newspapers 180

Posted by Soulskill from the not-as-good-for-wrapping-paper-though dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Alan D. Mutter writes on his 'Reflections of a Newsosaur' blog that the economics of local broadcasting may begin to unravel as dramatically in the next five years as they did for newspapers in the last five years, due to the unparalleled consumer choice made possible by a growing mass of (mostly free) content on the Internet. 'Once it becomes as easy and satisfying to view a YouTube video on your 50-inch television as it is to watch "Two and a Half Men," audiences will fragment to the point that local broadcasters will not be able to attract large quantities of viewers for a particular program,' writes Mutter. The economics of cable TV programming already are geared to serving small but targeted niches, but as audiences shatter, those options won't be available to local broadcasters, who will be deprived of the vast reach that enabled the high ad rates and enviable profits long associated with their businesses. Although barely 8% of US households had access to IPTV in 2009, this technology is likely to be available to some 20% of the more than 100 million homes subscribing to pay-television services in 2014, according to senior analyst Lee Ratliff of iSuppli, a private market research company. 'We already have gotten a hint of what the future could hold. Acting to trim spending during the recession, many local stations cut back their news staffs, resulting in a decline in the caliber and depth of their coverage,' writes Mutter."
Cellphones

Turning an iPod Touch Into an iPhone 175

Posted by kdawson from the at&t-not-best-pleased dept.
David Burnett recommends an eWeek article on the leading contenders to make an iPhone out of an iPod Touch. Of course your newly phone-capable iTouch needs no activation and no binding carrier contract, just Wi-Fi. One of the companies working in this space, JaJah, is bundling the software with back-end services such as billing, so that carriers — or anyone really — can offer free-calling iTouch phones.
Image

South Carolina Seeking To Outlaw Profanity 849

Posted by samzenpus from the f@#k-those-f@#king-f@#kers dept.
MBGMorden writes "It looks like in an act that defies common sense, a bill has been introduced in the South Carolina State Senate that seeks to outlaw the use of profanity. According to the bill it would become a felony (punishable by a fine up to $5000 or up to 5 years in prison) to 'publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.' I'm not sure if 'in writing' could be applied to the internet, but in any event this is scary stuff."

Comment Re:It would be cool (Score 1) 448

by bodhijon (#25241465) Attached to: Ultrasound Machine Ages Wine
It depends on what you mean by a 'cheap' bottle of wine. I've had a $200 bottle that tasted like rubbish, and many $14-$20 bottles that were quite good. I've never drank a $5 bottle of wine that was very good. I'm no expert on wine by any means, but I enjoy drinking it, and know what I like and don't like. It really does come down to the quality of the process and the fruit used, and good!=expensive. If you do your homework, you can find a lot of good $20 bottles. It's just that, like a lot of other things, price gets used as a shortcut for the people who aren't knowledgeable. One possibility: a certain winery makes a wine that is very good for 4 or 5 years, it generates buzz, demand grows, and the price grows with it. Maybe the winery gets bought by a conglomerate, and they start brewing in larger batches to cash in on the name. The quality goes down, etc. Check out tv.winelibrary.com for some fun, non-uptight talk about wine.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA protests Oregon AG discovery request (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA is apparently having an allergic reaction to the request by the State Attorney General of Oregon for information about the RIAA's investigative tactics, in Arista v. Does 1-17, the Portland, Oregon, case targeting students at the University of Oregon. See The Oregonian, December 1, 2007 ("UO suspects music industry of spying") and p2pnet, November 29, 2007 ("RIAA may be spying on students: Oregon AG"). Not only are the record companies opposing the request (pdf), they're asking the Judge not to even read it. (pdf)"

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