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Submission + - Bill Nye To Debate Creationist Museum Founder Ken Ham 1

Submitted by cusco
cusco writes: Creation Museum Founder and AiG President/CEO Ken Ham will debate Bill Nye at the Creation Museum on Tuesday, February 4, at 7 PM. According to the Washington Post, 'Ham had been hoping to attract the star of TV’s “Bill Nye The Science Guy” to the northern Kentucky museum after Nye said in an online video last year that teaching creationism was bad for children. The video was viewed nearly 6 million times on YouTube.'

Submission + - Digitally filtering out the drone of the World Cup 1

Submitted by qubezz
qubezz writes: World Cup soccer fans may think a hornet's nest has infiltrated their TVs. However the buzz that is the background soundtrack of the South African-hosted games comes from tens of thousands of plastic horns called Vuvuzelas, that are South Africa's version of ringing cowbells or throwing rats. It looks like the horns won't be banned anytime soon though.

A savvy German hacker, 'Tube' discovered that the horn sound can be effectively filtered out by applying a couple of digital notch filters to the audio at the frequencies the horn produces (another summary in English). Now it looks like even broadcasters like the the BBC and others are considering using such filters on their broadcasts.
The Media

Submission + - New York Times bans use of word "Tweet" (theawl.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New York Times standards editor Phil Corbett has had enough of his journalists' sloppy writing. Their offense? Using the "inherently silly" word "tweet" 18 times in the last month. In an internal memo obtained by theawl.com, he orders his writers to use alternatives, such as " 'use Twitter' . . . or 'a Twitter update'." He admits that " . . . new technology terms sprout and spread faster than ever. And we don’t want to seem paleolithic. But we favor established usage and ordinary words . . . ." After all, he points out, ". . . another service may elbow Twitter aside next year, and “tweet” may fade into oblivion." Of course, it is also possible that social media sites will elbow paleolithic media into oblivion, and Mr. Corbett will no longer have to worry about word use.
Google

Submission + - Pedestrian Follows Google Map, Gets Run Over, Sues 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Toronto Star reports that a Utah woman is suing Google for more than $100,000 in damages, claiming its maps function gave her walking directions that led her onto a major highway, where she was struck by a car. Lauren Rosenberg sought directions between two addresses in Utah about 3 kilometers apart and the top result suggested that Rosenberg follow a busy rural highway for several hundred meters. The highway did not have sidewalks or any other pedestrian-friendly amenities, and Rosenberg was struck by a car. Rosenberg filed suit against both the driver of the car that struck her and Google, claiming both carried responsibility in her injury and her lawyers claim that Google is liable because it did not warn her that the route would not offer a safe place for a pedestrian to walk. Google has pointed out that the directions Rosenberg sought come with a warning of caution for pedestrians but Rosenberg claims that she accessed the Maps function on her Blackberry mobile device, where it did not include the warning. Danny Sullivan notes on Search Engine Land that despite getting bad directions from Google (or a gas station attendant, a local person or any source), people are also expected to use common sense. "So when you come to an intersection like this (photo at bottom of page), as Rosenberg would have come to before crossing onto the highway," writes Sullivan. "You might be expected to consider for yourself whether it is safe to continue.""
NASA

Submission + - NASA Mars Lander Phoenix killed by ice (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: NASA officially ended its Phoenix Mars Lander operation today after a new image of the machine showed severe ice damage to its solar panels and repeated attempts to contact the spacecraft had failed.

Submission + - The Road Ahead, by Bill Gates, 15 years later (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by smooth wombat
smooth wombat writes: It's been 15 years since Bill Gates wrote his book, The Road Ahead, in which he talks about how technology would shape the future. In the intervening years, technology has changed most aspects of our lives for better or worse. So how did Bill Gates do on his predictions? The Atlantic takes a look at the good and bad of some of his prognostications. Overall, it appears Bill let optimism guide his thoughts, except when it came to the Internet
United States

State Senator Caught Looking At Porn On Senate Floor 574

Posted by samzenpus from the let's-vote-on-this-instead dept.
Everyone knows how boring a debate on a controversial abortion bill can get on the Senate floor. So it's no wonder that Florida State Sen. Mike Bennett took the time to look at a little porn and a video of a dog running out of the water and shaking itself off. From the article: "Ironically, as Bennett is viewing the material, you can hear a Senator Dan Gelber's voice in the background debating a controversial abortion bill. 'I'm against this bill,' said Gelber, 'because it disrespects too many women in the state of Florida.' Bennett defended his actions, telling Sunshine State News it was an email sent to him by a woman 'who happens to be a former court administrator.'"
Transportation

Was Flight Ban Over Ash an Overreaction? 673

Posted by timothy from the in-his-unbiased-opinion-of-course dept.
HaymarketRiot writes "Richard Branson has claimed that the flight ban, due to the eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajokull, was an overreaction on the part of the authorities. Britain's government has even called for the airlines to be compensated. This does look like a perfect excuse for already greedy airlines to try and get more money ... any experts care to comment on the effect of volcanic ash on planes?"
Image

George Washington Racks Up 220 Years of Late Fees At Library 146

Posted by samzenpus from the at-least-he-read dept.
Everyone knows that George Washington couldn't tell a lie. What you probably didn't know is that he couldn't return a library book on time. From the article: "New York City's oldest library says one of its ledgers shows that the president has racked up 220 years' worth of late fees on two books he borrowed, but never returned. One of the books was the 'Law of Nations,' which deals with international relations. The other was a volume of debates from Britain's House of Commons. Both books were due on Nov. 2, 1789."

Comment Re:Real Graph (Score 1) 584

by defconpuck (#31677874) Attached to: How Smart Are You?

To better fit the data with reality, change the titles as follows:

-Change 'Super Genius' to 'Above Average' -Change 'Above Average' to 'Average' -Change 'Average' to 'Below Average' -Change 'Below Average' to 'Super Genius' -Change 'Chewbacca' to 'Really Freaking Stupid'

If your talking about just within the context of the /. community sure. But, in the wider context of the general human population, I think the labels are just fine. Since most in the /. community are, probably, a few IQ points ahead of the pack.
Privacy

Submission + - Israel's Supreme Court: Yes for Internet Anonymity (2jk.org)

Submitted by jonklinger
jonklinger writes: The Israeli Supreme Court ruled this week that there is no civil procedure to reveal the identity of users behind an IP address, and that until such procedure shall be legislated, all internet postings, even torturous, may remain anonymous. The 69-page decision acknowledges the right for privacy and makes internet anonymity, de-facto, a constitutional right in Israel. Justice Rivlin noted that revealing a person behind an IP address is "an attempt to harness, prior to a legal proceeding, the justice system and a third party in order to conduct an inquiry which will lead to the revealing of a person committing a tort so that a civil suit could be filed against him".
Caldera

Submission + - SCO v. Novell Goes to the Jury (groklaw.net)

Submitted by
Excelcia
Excelcia writes: "Closing arguments in the six and a bit year old slander of title case between SCO and Novell occurred today and the case is finally in the hands of the jury. It's been an interesting case, with SCO alternately claiming that the copyrights to UNIX did get transferred to them, and that the copyrights should have been transferred to them.

Judge Ted Stewart said, after the jury left to begin to deliberate, that in all his years on the bench, he's never seen such fine lawyering as in this case.

We're not going to find out the results until at least Tuesday, however, as one jurist is taking a long weekend. Great lawyering notwithstanding, we can all hope next week that the energizer bunny of all spurious lawsuits will finally go away."

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