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Survey Shows That Fox News Makes You Less Informed 1352

Posted by samzenpus from the fair-balanced-and-simple dept.
A survey of American voters by World Public Opinion shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. One of the most interesting questions was about President Obama's birthplace. 63 percent of Fox viewers believe Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear). In 2003 a similar study about the Iraq war showed that Fox viewers were once again less knowledgeable on the subject than average. Let the flame war begin!
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.'"
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Own Your Own Fighter Jet 222

Posted by samzenpus from the only-one-on-the-block dept.
gimmebeer writes "The Russian Sukhoi SU-27 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 (more than 1,300 mph) and has a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 to 1. That means it can accelerate while climbing straight up. It was designed to fight against the best the US had to offer, and now it can be yours for the price of a mediocre used business jet."
Games

NYT's "Games To Avoid" an Ironic, Perfect Gamer Wish List 189

Posted by Soulskill from the more-or-less dept.
MojoKid writes "From October to December, the advertising departments of a thousand companies exhort children to beg, cajole, and guilt-trip their parents for all manner of inappropriate digital entertainment. As supposedly informed gatekeepers, we sadly earthbound Santas are reduced to scouring the back pages of gaming review sites and magazines, trying to evaluate whether the tot at home is ready for Big Bird's Egg Hunt or Bayonetta. Luckily, The New York Times is here to help. In a recent article provokingly titled 'Ten Games to Cross off Your Child's Gift List,' the NYT names its list of big bads — the video games so foul, so gruesome, so perverse that we'd recommend you buy them immediately — for yourself. Alternatively, if you need gift ideas for the surly, pale teenager in your home whose body contains more plastic then your average d20, this is the newspaper clipping to stuff in your pocket. In other words, if you need a list like this to understand what games to not stuff little Johnny's stocking with this holiday season, you've got larger issues you should concern yourself with. We'd suggest picking up an auto-shotty and taking a few rounds against the horde — it's a wonderful stress relief and you're probably going to need it."

Comment Re:This is why I have an iPod Touch and a cheap ph (Score 1) 555

by josh_freeman (#30033910) Attached to: Verizon Droid Tethering Comes At a Hefty Price

Same here. For $30 a month for a dataplan, I could go out and buy a new netbook EVERY YEAR, and be content on wifi if I got a call from work that something had gone completely pear shaped. I'm usually not THAT Far from wifi, and I certainly am not going to be hacking config files in VI with my smartphone while driving down the interstate.

Comment Re:Install Ubuntu (Score 0, Offtopic) 823

by josh_freeman (#26223689) Attached to: Configuring a Windows PC For a Senior Citizen?

You can lock down and secure any OS given enough time, effort and ingenuity. My Windows VMs seem to run along happily without any serious complications. My one physical window system has been largely happy.
That being said, when my mom's computer died the last time I told her that if she wanted me to fix it, it had to be a Mac, if for no other reason than the hardware is more uniform, so it's easier to write a stable os. Other htan having some printer issues, it's worked great.

Comment Re:Install Ubuntu (Score 1) 823

by josh_freeman (#26223627) Attached to: Configuring a Windows PC For a Senior Citizen?

That is the biggest problem with windows. You install a program, it craps all over the registry, and uniinstall leaves kruft there. Do that a few dozen times and you have a machine utterly incapable of booting. I spent entire weekends fixing PCS like that. *NIX (including MacOs) doesn't get that krufty, at least with something that gets loaded into memory like the registry. Hmm. Maybe Windows 7 should have a /etc directory?
Windows

Configuring a Windows PC For a Senior Citizen? 823

Posted by kdawson from the keeping-it-simple dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I would like to know if there are any resources on the Web or elsewhere describing how to configure a Windows PC for an older parent not living in the same household. Assume little computer familiarity or aptitude. Some stuff is obvious, like using only a few large icons for favorite Web sites, or an icon perhaps for composing email and another for checking email. Other considerations are eliminating nuisance messages from Windows update and antivirus/firewall. What works and what doesn't? Can anyone who has worked/volunteered at a senior center offer some insights?"
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The Smell of Space 70

Posted by samzenpus from the excuse-me-while-I-smell-the-sky dept.
According to NASA scientists, space smells a lot like my uncle's workshop. One can detect hints of fried steak, hot metal, and the welding of a motorbike. They have hired Steven Pearce, a chemist and managing director of fragrance manufacturing company Omega Ingredients, to recreate the smell in a laboratory. NASA will use his research to help train potential astronauts. Steven said, "I did some work for an art exhibition in July, which was based entirely on smell, and one of the things I created was the smell of the inside of the Mir space station. NASA heard about it and contacted me to see if I could help them recreate the smell of space to help their astronauts."

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