Don't confuse me with the facts!
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/012110.html
August 13, 2006
National Safety Council Statistical on Risks We Encounter Daily
National Safety Council: What are the odds of dying? - "The table [included on this page] was prepared in response to frequent inquiries, especially from the media, asking questions such as, "What are the odds of being killed by lightning?" or "What are the chances of dying in a plane crash?" August 2, 2006.
"National Geographic magazine's August 2006 issue features the "Ways to Go" chart based on the National Safety Council's Odds of Dying statistics"
Interesting question. Is AOL required to notify everyone?
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/index.blog?entry_id=1537641
27B Stroke 6
by Ryan Singel and Kevin Poulsen Friday, 11 August 2006
Did AOL Put Your Id Online?
Are you an AOL customer who is wondering if you are one of the 648,000 people whose searches were released by AOL? That data set has quickly been fed into searchable online databases so that anyone can search through them (but I'm not linking to them).
You might think that AOL would have notified each member by now (it should be a trivial task for an AOL engineer to internally re-identify these people), but despite all their public apologies, they haven't said squat about notifiying their affected customers.
Perhaps that's because their lawyers told them they might be on the hook for $658 million?
So if you were a paying AOL customer from May to June this year, you might try the nifty little page the Electronic Frontier Foundation set up, which has AOL phone numbers, talking points, and a feedback form to tell EFF how it went.
Also if you want to take some basic precautionary measures when searching the internet, try this handy guide Wired News made when the feds came after Google's data store (which Google has no intention of limiting, even though it could and its president CEO knows the data is a ripe target for the government).
We can, therefore we must?
Plan for Cameras at New York Clubs Raises Privacy Concerns
By WINNIE HU August 14, 2006
City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn has become the city’s most visible gay official, leading the fight for same-sex marriages and even marching as a grand marshal in the gay pride parade this summer.
Ms. Quinn’s political career has thrived on her support of gays and lesbians, but she surprised and angered some members of that core constituency when she proposed last week that the city’s 250 nightclubs be required to install security cameras at their entrances and exits.
... While the details of the proposal have yet to be worked out, it would apply to nightclubs that operate with city-issued cabaret licenses that allow dancing. If the nightclub owners refused to comply, their licenses could be suspended or revoked.
... Ms. Quinn, who also wants to require nightclubs to install identification-checking machines to curb under-age drinking, plans to convene a nightlife conference next month for club owners and city agencies to discuss other ways to improve club safety.
... Many large Manhattan nightclubs already use security cameras, but the technology is intended for the protection of the club owners and not their patrons.
Robert S. Bookman, a lawyer for the New York Nightlife Association, said the video footage is checked if, say, a patron claims to have been denied access because of discrimination or mistreatment by a bouncer.
... Ms. Quinn said that she did not believe the technology should raise privacy issues at clubs where people are routinely asked for identification. [But no record is kept... Bob]
This is even better than a secret law, this is a “we don't need no stinking laws!” Will all liquids be baned from the subways?
Court upholds random NYC subway searches to prevent terrorism
By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer August 11, 2006, 3:39 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- Calling the terrorism threat to public safety "substantial and real," a federal appeals court Friday upheld the constitutionality of random bag searches by police in America's busiest subway system to prevent terrorism.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected a challenge to the searches by the New York Civil Liberties Union, saying a lower court judge properly concluded that the program put in place in July 2005 was "reasonably effective."
... The appeals court said counterterrorism experts and politically accountable officials had undertaken the delicate task of deciding how to use their resources to fight terrorism. [We don't need no stinking congress!” Bob]
... Christopher Dunn, the NYCLU's associate legal director, said: "Because this program authorizes police searches of all subway riders without any suspicion of wrongdoing, we continue to believe it raises fundamental constitutional questions, and we are considering further appeals."
Worth consideration?
Serence KlipFolio 3.1 Beta B
Posted by Reverend on 13 Aug 2006 - 19:32 GMT
Techzonez Serence KlipFolio is a free information awareness and notification application for Windows. It's quick to install and easy to use. KlipFolio lets you configure and monitor a wide variety of real-time information services on your desktop--like weather, stocks, breaking news, RSS feeds and auctions. These information services are called Klips.
View: Release Notes Download: Serence KlipFolio 3.1 Beta B
View: Serence KlipFolio homepage Download: Techzonez Klips
As you might expect, this site has been overwhelmed. Keep trying, live long and prosper!
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/13/1314252&from=rss
Star Trek... Inspirational Posters?
Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday August 13, @11:54AM from the welcome-to-sunday dept. It's funny. Laugh.
Noryungi writes "Hot on the heels of Despair dot com, here comes... the Star Trek Inspirational Posters!. Imagine a mind-meld of Mr Spock, Despair's demotivational attitude and the Linux Distro Parodies, and you have one heck of a funny site. If you are a true Trekkie, don't click on the link, as this is certainly going to offend you..."
Another forensic tool?
Hackers beware: You are what you type
In an InfoWorld interview, computer forensics expert Dr. Neal Krawetz reveals how key taps and other clues can identify online bad guys
By InfoWorld staff August 14, 2006
... Krawetz sat down with InfoWorld Senior Editor Paul F. Roberts at the Black Hat Briefings in Las Vegas to talk about his research and one of his more contentious claims: that he may have identified the author of the Agobot, Phatbot, and rBot malware.
InfoWorld: How is what you do different from classical forensics?
Dr. Neal Krawetz: Classical forensics are tried and tested. They’ve been proven in a court of law. Most things with computers haven’t been around that long. Most classical computer forensics are things like “How to analyze a hard disk” or “How to use a mail header.” Those have been around a long time. Nonclassical forensics are things that are very much on the experimental side. There’s science behind it. The approach is basically scientific.
IW: What can you do in nonclassical forensics that you can’t in classical forensics? What advantages are there?
NK: Oh, you can pull out a lot more information. For example: Are two documents written by the same author, or is the author left- or right-handed? These are not things you could pull off a hard drive.
Have they copyrighted English or are they just “over lawyered?”
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/08/google_warns_me.html
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Google Warns Media on Using Its Name as a Verb
The Independent Online reports that Google has fired off a series of legal letters to the media, asking them not to use the name of the company as a verb. This despite the fact that the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's include the search engine as a verb - e.g. "to google."
Beyond the sheer legal issues, one of the places where this of course gets fuzzy is in the definition of "media." How in the world do they expect to enforce this when every blogger under the sun uses the phrase on his/her own sites? It's part of the pop culture.
This has to go down as one of the worst PR moves in history. They're getting all this free publicity and it's right on message. Google sounds like a big arrogant company that has forgotten its roots. That's too bad. (Footnote: Microsoft, an Edelman client, is a Google competitor.)
As often happens, this web site was overloaded and crashed. You don't suspect a CIA plot do you? Me neither... so why did you bring it up?
http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Iranian_President_has_a_blog
Iranian President has a blog!
submitted by KnightMareInc 18 hours 32 minutes ago (via http://www.ahmadinejad.ir)
Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad's blog.
There are days when this is as much intellectual activity as I can handle...
http://digg.com/design/HUGE_Comic_Books_Archive_2861_comics_online
HUGE Comic Books Archive - 2861 comics online
ozguralaz submitted by ozguralaz 14 hours 16 minutes ago (via http://www.aibq.com/catalog.php )
Awesome archiece. Download older DC Comics
Are we becoming rational? ...Nah!
Don't mess with my flight plans
Aug. 13, 2006. 09:42 AM DAVID OLIVE
"Pretty soon we'll have to fly naked!"— "Staquille," contributor to a New York Times website forum last Thursday after that day's revelations of a foiled terrorist plot to destroy as many as 10 airliners during transatlantic flights, on the resulting severe restrictions on carry-on items
It should have been seen as one of the most catastrophic events in modern history. Or so one might have thought last Thursday morning, when British authorities revealed they had thwarted an alleged scheme by terrorists to kill as many as 3,500 civilians on 10 jetliners in mid-air explosions over the Atlantic.
... The mass media rapidly embraced the storyline fed them that morning. The BBC, CNN, CBC Newsworld and other all-news broadcasters covered scarcely anything but the narrowly averted catastrophe throughout the day. And a friend of mine in a Toronto newsroom reported that "the editors' hair is on fire. They're trying to cover every conceivable angle of this story."
Funny thing, but the general public wasn't buying it. Thousands of ordinary folks posted their thoughts on Web forums set up by the BBC, The New York Times and other news outlets to monitor reaction. And that reaction was surprisingly mundane and cynical.
... Another wrote: "This is just another Goebbels moment for the government. They must keep reminding us of the perceived terrorist threat to justify the crackdown on civil liberties."
... The media came in for excoriation: By pushing the panic button with its blanket terrorism coverage, it enabled media-savvy terrorists to cause chaos at world airports on both sides of the Atlantic even with a foiled plot, to say nothing of abetting officialdom in keeping the public in a perpetual state of fear.
It seemed to me last Thursday that this sanguine populist reaction was, well, nuts. But within 36 hours, British authorities had released one of its 22 captured suspects and had yet to lay formal charges against any of the others — rather odd, given that the probe into their alleged activities had been going on for the better part of a year.
... An early hint that the curious popular response to "8/10" was a manifestation of public distrust of officialdom came in a midday Thursday interview on National Public Radio. An intelligence official, unnamed but widely quoted all morning, had said that this latest plot "is really, really serious. This is the real deal — honestly." Which prompted an U.S. academic on an NPR panel discussion to ask, "So then, all the previous warnings have been false? The Code Orange alerts didn't mean anything? How are people supposed to believe their government officials when, five years after 9/11, they suddenly come up with what they call a `real' warning. It's absurd."
... To see what real people were thinking, in real time, I read the first 1,000 postings on the BBC's online reaction site, the 502 comments posted on the New York Times site from the moment it was launched at about noon Toronto time until 11 p.m., and the 45 contributions to the CBC's similar online forum.
... A fear of terrorism accounted for 23 of those first 1,000 BBC postings. Suspicion that the whole thing was a hoax accounted for 163 of them, or a rather startling 16.3 per cent.
Approximately 40 per cent of the postings were bellyaching about the new carry-on restrictions, or frustration over disruptions in the travel plans of themselves or family and friends. Almost half of the correspondents (46 per cent), including those skeptical about the timing and authenticity of the alarming news, felt the U.K. had a terrorist attack coming because of lax security, haphazard intelligence operations, an overly aggressive U.S. and U.K. foreign policy in the Middle East, and a media-abetted terrorist network whose every atrocity or failed attempt garnered terrorists the global attention they crave.
Just 14 per cent of postings expressed gratitude to those who thwarted the alleged plot.
The composition of the New York Times postings was roughly the same, with only rare mention of the spectre of planes being blown to bits over the Atlantic. Almost 80 per cent of contributors to the site dealt with the complaints about botched travel plans, needless airport chaos and carry-on restrictions regarded as absurd.
While about 20 per cent of writers commended U.K. authorities on their police work or rose to the defence of the Bush administration's foreign policy, an equal portion doubted the veracity of the revelations and condemned the "meddling" of President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Middle East.
http://digg.com/tech_news/Time_Magazine_s_50_Coolest_Websites
Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites
vekron submitted by vekron 12 hours 47 minutes ago (via http://www.time.com/time/2006/50coolest/index.html )
Time Magazine has put together a list of 50 coolest websites from six different categories. Many of them are Web 2.0 sites, others aren't. There's no surprise Digg is one of the websites, but many lesser-known sites made the list too.
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