I'll probably (.72) send this to my
Statistics students.
Facebook
to host online casinos?
… reports are emerging from the
United Kingdom that Facebook is considering allowing casinos to
operate within its virtual friendship facility.
When I say casinos, I mean ones with
real money.
The Daily Mail fulminates
at the prospect. It cites the knowledgeable people at eGaming
Review in insisting that Facebook is in negotiations with around
20 gambling experts, consultants, and homes of online gambling.
So maybe it will die out?
Sexting
far less prevalent than previously reported
A study published in the January, 2012
issue of Pediatrics
asked teens whether they had sent or received sexually suggestive,
nude or nearly nude images of themselves--a practice commonly known
as "sexting."
What they found is that 2.5 percent of
the 10- to 17-year-olds in the survey said they had appeared in or
created images that depicted themselves nude or nearly nude. But,
when the researchers asked if the images "showed breasts,
genitals or someone's bottom," only 1.3 percent said they had
appeared in or created such images.
… Why
this study is important
This study shows that sexting is not
the norm. The vast majority of kids are not involved in this type of
behavior. And the reason this is important is
because of evidence from other studies that show that people are more
likely to engage in behavior that they consider to be "normal."
We should call this “e-Fine Print”
"If you used Ticketmaster's
website to buy tickets between October 21, 1999 and October 19, 2011,
you're in for a windfall. Well, a $1.50
per ticket order windfall. Because of a proposed class action
settlement, Ticketmaster is being forced to credit $1.50 per ticket
order (up to 17 orders) to customers because they profited from
'processing fees' without declaring as much. And despite the
reparations, Ticketmaster can continue to profit off transactions —
they just have to say they're doing so on
their website."
Snail mail gets snail-er...
"The United States Postal
Service will be closing half of its processing centers this spring.
Currently, 42% of first-class mail is delivered the following day for
nearby residential and business customers. But that overnight mail
will be a thing of the past, with delivery
guaranteed only for 2-3 days. About 51% will be delivered in two
days. Periodicals may take up to nine days. (Additional delays
beyond this may come into play when Congress also authorizes USPS to
close operations for some days each week.)"
Drone maybe, they shouldn't even 'see'
a stealth drone. (Of course they can fail an fall out of the sky
without any help...)
Did
Iran Capture a U.S. Stealth Drone Intact?
For the second
time this year, the Iranian government is claiming it forced down
a stealthy U.S. Air Force spy drone. Only this time, Iran says it
bagged the RQ-170 “with little damage” by jamming its control
signal — a potentially worrying development for American forces
heavily reliant on remote-controlled aircraft.
There are good reasons to question
Iran’s story — or at least parts of it. For starters, the
earlier claim of a drone shoot-down proved false. Why would this
announcement be any more credible? Also, for most U.S. unmanned
aircraft, merely jamming the control signal won’t bring them down.
Some don’t have control signals at all.
Standardizing the future?
December 04, 2011
NIST
Cloud Computing Program
"Cloud
computing is a model
for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and
released with minimal management effort or service provider
interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed
of five essential characteristics (On-demand self-service, Broad
network access, Resource pooling, Rapid elasticity, Measured
Service); three service models (Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS),
Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS), Cloud Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS)); and, four deployment models (Private cloud, Community cloud,
Public cloud, Hybrid cloud). Key enabling technologies include: (1)
fast wide-area networks, (2) powerful, inexpensive server computers,
and (3) high-performance virtualization for commodity hardware."
Draft Documents as follows:
Another sign that we're teaching
Paleotechnics?
December 04, 2011
Harvard
Law/Computer Scientist Declares PCs Dead
"The following
op-ed by Harvard Law School
Professor Jonathan
Zittrain appeared in the Nov. 30 edition of the Technology
Review - The PC is dead. Rising numbers of mobile, lightweight,
cloud-centric devices don't merely represent a change in form factor.
Rather, we're seeing an unprecedented shift of power from end users
and software developers on the one hand, to operating system vendors
on the other—and even those who keep their PCs are being swept
along. This is a little for the better, and much for the worse. The
transformation is one from product to service. The platforms we used
to purchase every few years—like operating systems—have become
ongoing relationships with vendors, both for end users and software
developers. I wrote about this impending shift, driven by a desire
for better security and more convenience, in my 2008 book The
Future of the Internet—and How to Stop It."
(Related( Time for...
How
to build your own app for free
Ever want to build an app for yourself?
It's actually not hard. There are a
number of companies that offer the ability to create your own app for
a minimal fee, which is great for small businesses looking to stay
relevant in this increasingly mobile world. Or if you just have a
lot of time on your hands.
Take Conduit. The company made its
money creating branded toolbars found on your browser. But over the
past few months, it has been expanding into the mobile world with a
free service that allows you
to build an app and mobile Web site in minutes. It's part of a
planned shift by the company to build its consumer awareness after
spending years serving other businesses in a white label capacity.
… I've tried the service, and it's
pretty simple to use. The best part: it's completely
free. Conduit has a team set up that will take you
through the submission process and it will even pay
your fee to get the app up in the various mobile app stores.
Another author suggesting that paper
books need to be updated... (See Nature's “post Gutenberg”
textbook)
Guest
Post: Tablets Deliver a New Business Book Mashup
… This interactive component has
been non-existent in business books because of the stand-alone,
linear nature of the dead-tree publishing format.
Until now.
With the release of the new full-color
Kindle Fire tablet from Amazon a few weeks ago (as well as the Apple
iPad and Barnes & Noble Nook) a new kind of business book is
born. As an author of seven previous books, I was excited about the
opportunities for delivering content in a new way—a mashup of a
book and a blog.
Business books on a tablet computer
means a non-linear experience and makes the content come alive! You
can instantly jump from one part of the book to another. Better yet,
now you can instantly link from the book to external content too. In
addition, it’s in full color allowing infographics to illustrate
key points. It means a book read on an iPad or Kindle Fire is like
reading a blog post with links to valuable content from other places.
The new book experience means watching the video the author
mentioned with one click. It means you can check out the Twitter
feed of the expert cited in the text. You can see the cool picture
that was once worth 1,000 words.
Speaking of eBooks...
Monday, December 5, 2011
The web is full of ebooks, you can see
mine here, but finding them isn't always easy. You can search by
file type on Google or visit any number of document hosting services
like Issuu, but even then you might be missing something good.
Search EBooks
is a service dedicated to helping you find free ebooks. When you
find an ebook on Search
EBooks you can view a preview of it, download, or grab an embed
code without ever leaving the search results page.
Applications
for Education
Many useful how-to manuals are
published as ebooks. If you're looking for a manual or other how-to
document to share with your students or colleagues, Search
EBooks could help you locate it and share it quickly.
Think this area is hot enough to get
Grants or other funding for “Bob's Academy”
Bring
Virtual Science Education To Campuses
Some readers may be familiar with Khan
Academy, an awesome eLearning platform that offers students,
self-starters and everyone in between the opportunity to learn at
their own pace by watching instructive videos on subjects that range
from arithmetic to physics. The non-profit startup has been growing
like gangbusters of late, and now has more than 2,600 videos in
its library.
… Supplemental learning resources
like Khan Academy’s stand to play a significant role in the
changing educational landscape. The fact of the matter is that,
while we might be in a higher education bubble, colleges and
universities (public institutions, especially) face a challenging
economic climate, which has led to budget cutbacks across the board.
This is exacerbated by the increase in student enrollment, along with
dwindling resources available to students and teachers, chief among
them the limit of physical space within classrooms.
… One startup, like Khan Academy,
has built an online platform that can become part of the solution,
allowing universities to continue providing engaging curricula even
when resources may not be available. Late
Night Labs, a New York City-based startup, offers an web-based
educational platform for distance and hybrid learning settings that
lets students take biology and chemistry labs, for example, without
the real-life explosions.
… The platform comes with (150+)
standardized courses that meet national science requirements, or
teachers can use the platform to create their own customized classes.
Just what a teacher needs! Now, with a
single click, I can insert my most common text (“Please read the
damn textbook!”) into any email!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Everyday brings a new round of Man
vs. Email to my life. Some days "Man" wins and other
days "Email" wins. Now I have a new weapon in this battle
and its name is Insert
Text.
Insert
Text is a Google Chrome Extension that allows you to right-click
on any field in your email or other web form and insert a chunk of
text from your personal library of saved text. Insert
Text allows you to build a library of sentences and paragraphs that
you use frequently. Then when you need to use one of
those sentences in an email just right-click and select the sentence
you want to use.
If nothing else, a place to find
interesting resources!
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