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Submission + - Miss Universe's visit to Guantanamo (nytimes.com) 2

Submitted by pegdhcp
pegdhcp writes: The latest winner of Miss Universe Contest (during which, no IQ test is performed, obviously) had visited the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and as far as I can read (before my brain started to melt and drain from my ears) she wants to stay there forever. It seems that the original blog entry is off the air at the moment but that probably would not be the end of this story. Poor Chavez, I would not want to be in his shoes, when the phone rings, and the call is from Cuba...
Education

Submission + - Bilingualism slows down Alzheimer's/Dementia

Submitted by
Dee
Dee writes: "From the article: "Bilingual people typically develop dementia about four years later than those who only speak one language, a research team from York University in Toronto and other institutions said. The research was conducted on 184 patients with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia undergoing treatment at the Memory Clinic at the Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain in Toronto. Researchers analyzed various data on patients including their academic background and occupation. "

This seems like the best motivation I've come across for learning a second language, and it makes sense when you think about it. What with your brain needing to parse information between two seperate formats, just straight up thinking to yourself in different languages seems like it would exercise your grey matter. Maybe it's time to start trying to get the grandparents to learn French!"
Wii

Woman Killed In Wii-Related Competition 784

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the natural-selection dept.
snuffin writes to tell us that a local radio competition to "hold your wee for a Wii" has ended with a Sacramento woman dead from water poisoning. From the article: "An Associated Press interview with another contestant, named James Ybarra, claimed that contestants were initially given eight ounce bottles of water to drink every fifteen minutes, with larger bottles being used once contestants began to drop out. According to Ybarra, 'They told us if you don't feel like you can do this, don't put your health at risk.' He described the victim as 'a nice lady' and that 'she was telling me about her family and her three kids and how she was doing it for her kids.'"

An Indian On the Moon By 2020 299

Posted by kdawson from the joining-the-club dept.
turgid writes, "The Hindustan Times reports that the Indian Space Research Organization plans to land an Indian on the Moon by 2020. First, experiments will be conducted to launch, orbit, and recover a capsule. Plans are to launch an Indian into space in 2014. Manned orbital missions will be launched, initially for a day, but eventually lasting a week or more. Expeditions to the Moon are expected to last 15 days to a month." The article doesn't estimate the cost of such a program. The US Apollo program cost about $135 billion (in 2006 dollars), according to Wikipedia.
Patents

Submission + - Flickr patenting "interestingness"

Submitted by tjcrowder
tjcrowder writes: Boing Boing reports that Flickr has filed for a patent on a system for determining "interestingness". From the patent application abstract:

Media objects, such as images or soundtracks, may be ranked according to a new class of metrics known as "interestingness." These rankings may be based at least in part on the quantity of user-entered metadata concerning the media object, the number of users who have assigned metadata to the media object, access patterns related to the media object, and/or a lapse of time related to the media object.

So, patenting the use of tags applied to media files. I'm sure the USPTO will recognize that this is neither new nor non-obvious. (Wait, what am I thinking?)

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