http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022591.html
October 17, 2009
Book Review: Who's in Big Brother's Database?
Who's in Big Brother's Database? By James Bamford - A review of The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency by Matthew M. Aid.
"On a remote edge of Utah's dry and arid high desert, where temperatures often zoom past 100 degrees, hard-hatted construction workers with top-secret clearances are preparing to build what may become America's equivalent of Jorge Luis Borges's "Library of Babel," a place where the collection of information is both infinite and at the same time monstrous, where the entire world's knowledge is stored, but not a single word is understood. At a million square feet, the mammoth $2 billion structure will be one-third larger than the US Capitol and will use the same amount of energy as every house in Salt Lake City combined."
For my Statistics and my Disaster Recovery classes. Maybe the government really is training us to drink the kool-aid. (Or perhaps we have found a major component of the cost of health care?)
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/17/1651206/On-the-Efficacy-of-Flu-Vaccine?from=rss
On the Efficacy of Flu Vaccine
Posted by kdawson on Saturday October 17, @04:39PM from the because-we-just-know-it-works-that's-why dept.
The Atlantic is running a major article questioning the received wisdom about flu vaccines and antivirals, for both seasonal flu and H1-N1.
"When Lisa Jackson, a physician and senior investigator with the Group Health Research Center, in Seattle, began wondering aloud to colleagues if maybe something was amiss with the estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction for people who get flu vaccine, the response she got sounded more like doctrine than science. 'People told me, "No good can come of [asking] this,"' she says... Nonetheless, in 2004, Jackson and three colleagues set out to determine whether the mortality difference between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated might be caused by a phenomenon known as the 'healthy user effect.' Jackson's findings showed that outside of flu season, the baseline risk of death among people who did not get vaccinated was approximately 60 percent higher than among those who did, lending support to the hypothesis that on average, healthy people chose to get the vaccine, while the 'frail elderly' didn't or couldn't. In fact, the healthy-user effect explained the entire benefit that other researchers were attributing to flu vaccine, suggesting that the vaccine itself might not reduce mortality at all."
Read below for more excerpts from the article.
One way your competitors can compete with your “exclusive” deal with Apple is to build a better(?) phone and remind users that their network can actually support it.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/verizons-anti-iphone-gets-its-first-commercial-droid-does/
Verizon's anti-iPhone gets its first commercial: 'Droid Does'
by Darren Murph posted Oct 17th 2009 at 10:04PM
We knew Verizon Wireless would soon be throwing caution to the wind in an effort to sway uncommitted smartphone buyers towards Big Red, and it looks like the November-bound Motorola Droid will be VZW's anti-iPhone. The spot, which launched tonight and can be view in its entirety after the break, is a 30 second clip that begins by mocking Apple's cutesy music and iconic font typically seen in iPhone plugs. It reels off a number of things that the iPhone can't do, and then abruptly goes into full-on tease mode by flashing glimpses of a robot-controlled future and a tagline that simply states: "Droid Does." No shots of the actual Motorola Droid (or Sholes, as it was known in the past) are shown, but a dedicated teaser portal has already been erected; through that, we're told that the phone will boast Android 2.0 and a 5 megapixel camera. At this point, we'd say the gloves are definitely off -- AT&T, have anything to say for yourself, or is the iPhone doing just fine on its own?
Warning! Cynical rant follows!
Eons ago, when I was young and naive, the difference between liberals and conservatives was much clearer. Conservatives supported business and believed government should be minimized and liberals believed people were too weak/ignorant/lazy to do anything for themselves and therefore government needed to do it and they never saw a business they believed wasn't out to 'oppress the masses.' Today it seems that politicians ignore these “principles” and convince themselves that anything the lobbyists want must be good for the country.
Democrats, Minority Groups Question Net Neutrality Push
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 17, @10:21AM from the not-so-usual-suspects dept.
uuddlrlrab writes"A group of 72 Democratic lawmakers is the latest to question the US Federal Communications Commission's move to create new net neutrality regulations. Democrats, including US President Barack Obama, have generally supported new rules that would prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content, but the group of 72 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter Thursday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, saying they're concerned that new regulations would slow down investment in broadband networks. A coalition of minority groups made their objections known as well, saying, 'We are concerned that some of the proposed regulations on the Internet could, as applied, inhibit the goal of universal access and leave disenfranchised communities further behind.' This follows news from earlier in the week that similar letters were sent by a group of 44 tech companies and a group of 18 Republican senators."
It's worth noting that the FCC is receiving letters in support of the net neutrality regulations as well. One such is from a group of internet pioneers, which includes Vint Cerf and Stephen Crocker.
Interesting, but I don't think I fully agree.
What “on-demand” media really means and why your cable company should be scared
by John Biggs on October 17, 2009
Very interesting (if big) add-on. Worth watching the videos! For all my students, since I (try to) make them search large documents and the web for every class.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/yolink-a-search-accelerator-for-deep-internet-research/
Yolink – A Search Accelerator for Deep Internet Research
Oct. 18th, 2009 By Saikat Basu
… There are numerous tools that aid the serious searcher. Yolink belongs to that tribe.
I will add this y electronic handouts in each class.
6 Excellent Web Apps To Help You Create Automatic Reminders
October 16, 2009
For my Hacker Wanna-bes
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a-beginners-guide-to-the-windows-command-line/
A Beginners Guide To The Windows Command Line
Oct. 17th, 2009 By Tina
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