Thursday, April 19, 2012


Here's what a number of you have been waiting for. The Privacy Foundation (http://privacyfoundation.org/ ) has announced the topic for their May 11th Seminar!
The Fourth Amendment Clash with Technology: Warrantless GPS Tracking and Court Ordered Release of Encryption Codes
Legal and ethical implications will be discussed by some very interesting speakers.
Make your reservations early! Contact: Diane Bales, Sturm College of Law, 303.871.6580


It's obvious Privacy isn't high on the President's list.
Hearing Strains to Revive Addled Privacy Watchdog
April 19, 2012 by Dissent
Adam Klasfeld reports on yesterday’s hearing on nominees to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a board that has been inactive for years:
… Three years into his term, Obama made his first five nominations: James Dempsey, an executive with the Center for Democracy & Technology; Elisebeth Collins Cook, a former Department of Justice lawyer; Rachel Brand, an attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Patricia Wald, a former federal judge for the D.C. Circuit; and David Medine, a WilmerHale partner tapped to chair the board.
Dempsey, Wald and Medine are Democrats. Cook and Brand are Republicans.
All of the candidates seemed reluctant Wednesday to comment on Obama administration policies that most trouble civil libertarians.
Read more on Courthouse News.
The nominees seemed to follow the same strategy as Supreme Court nominees: say nothing controversial or even clear about specific issues.


It's a bad law, but it's all we have?
"The case involves an online game, MapleStory, and some people who set up an alternate server, UMaple, allowing users to play the game with the official game client, but without logging into the official MapleStory servers. In this case, the people behind UMaple apparently ignored the lawsuit, leading to a default judgment. Although annoyed with MapleStory (The Judge knocked down a request for $68,764.23 — in profits made by UMaple — down to just $398.98), the law states a minimum of $200 per infringement. Multiply that by 17,938 users of UMaple... and you get $3.6 million. In fact, it sounds like the court would very much like to decrease the amount, but notes that 'nevertheless, the court is powerless to deviate from the DMCA's statutory minimum.' Eric Goldman also has some further op-ed and information regarding the case and judgement."


Congressman surprised to learn how government works?
"Despite President Obama's recent call for companies to 'insource' jobs sent overseas, it turns out that the federal government itself is spending millions of dollars to train foreign students for employment in some booming career fields--including working in offshore call centers that serve U.S. businesses. The program is called JEEP, which stands for Job Enabling English Proficiency. It's available to college students in the Philippines through USAID. That's the same agency that until a couple of years ago was spending millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money to train offshore IT workers in Sri Lanka. Congressman Tim Bishop (D-New York), told about the program on Tuesday, called it 'surprising and distressing.' Bishop recently introduced a bill that would make companies that outsource call centers ineligible for government contracts." [Let's hope he meant “offshoring” rather than “outsourcing” or he's in for another surprise. Bob]


Could be useful for my dual language students...
Sobotong is a free to use search engine that lets you search for items in two different languages. You use the site like any other search engine; the only difference is that you specify two languages to go along your query. A wide list of languages is supported by the site. Your search results are displayed in the first language you select, with the translated query on top.
Similar tools: 2Lingual.


'cause I never seem to have enough.
On Monday I published a list of Seven YouTube Channels Not Named Khan Offering Math Lessons. Thanks to three helpful readers I learned of three more good YouTube channels offering mathematics tutorials. Then I reminded myself that The New Boston which is primarily a channel for computer science lessons also has some good playlists of geometry, algebra, and basic mathematics lessons.
James Gubbins commented on Monday's list with the suggestion of adding Hurley Calculus to the list. Hurley Calculus, as the name implies, provides lessons on calculus. There are currently 73 videos in the Hurley Calculus channel.
Math Doctor Bob's YouTube channel was suggested by a reader using the Disqus ID Npisenti. Math Doctor Bob offers nearly 700 video lessons on statistics, algebra I and II, calculus, geometry, and much more. The lessons feature Doctor Bob giving the lesson in front of a whiteboard so you see him and don't just hear his lessons.
Patrick JMT was suggested by Robert Borgersen who wrote, "Patrick JMT is HUGE, and equally good, if not better in some places, than Khan." Patrick JMT doesn't cover as many topics as Khan or Math Doctor Bob, but the videos are equally solid. I've included one of the Whole Numbers and Place Values lesson video below.

(Ditto)

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