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Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 01:25:42 PM EST
The New YouTube Revealed [PICS]

Starting today, YouTube will look dramatically different for everyone. That's because the Google-owned video website will be rolling out its redesign to all users over the next few hours -- the rollout should be complete by 7:00 p.m. today.

You may have already seen elements of this redesign: The actual interface was revealed two months ago. Since then, though, YouTube has tested, iterated and made changes to the new design. Today, however, it feels comfortable enough to roll it out to its millions of daily viewers.



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 01:33:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The Washington Monthly

QUOTE OF THE DAY.... A 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released the other day found that 50% of respondents would be willing to support an openly-gay presidential candidate. The Family Research Council, a prominent religious right group with ties to the Republican leadership, suggested yesterday that President Obama may effectively (not literally) already be "our first gay president." (via Right Wing Watch)

[I]f it was argued during his two terms in office that Bill Clinton was "our first black President" because of his supposed liberal policies that would benefit African-Americans (though I'm not quite sure what President Clinton did, that he wasn't forced to do, that would benefit any minority except for Chinese monks with political donations to spend.) With that argument shouldn't Barack Obama already be our "first gay President" due to his liberal policies pushing the homosexual agenda?

The Family Research Council isn't saying President Obama is gay; it's saying President Obama might as well be considered gay, the same way Bill Clinton was considered black.

And the religious right wonders why it's so hard to take their movement seriously.



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 01:36:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
What does this make Sarah Palin
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 07:40:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The Family Research Council isn't saying President Obama is gay; it's saying President Obama might as well be considered gay, the same way Bill Clinton was considered black.

Except Clinton was called our first black president as a compliment or sign of appreciation by a black intellectual, whereas the FRC is calling Obama our first gay president as a term of abuse.

The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Apr 1st, 2010 at 06:09:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
BBC News - Nigeria Sharia court confirms Twitter debate ban

An Islamic court in Nigeria has permanently banned a rights group from holding an internet debate about amputation as a form of punishment.

This follows a temporary order made last week by a court in northern Nigeria preventing Facebook and Twitter being used to discuss the issue.

The ban was initially sought by a pro-Sharia group which said internet sites would be used to mock Islamic law.

The Sharia code runs alongside secular law in 12 of Nigeria's 36 states.



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 01:45:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
BBC News - Yahoo targeted in China cyber attacks

The Yahoo e-mail accounts of foreign journalists based in China and Taiwan have been hacked, according to a Beijing-based press association.

Rival Google has been involved in a high-profile row with the Chinese government following similar cyber-attacks against Gmail accounts.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) has confirmed eight cases of Yahoo e-mail hacks in recent weeks.

Yahoo said it condemned such cyber-attacks.

But the FCCC accused Yahoo of failing to update users about the situation.



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 01:47:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
BBC News - Tory free schools `barking mad' says teachers' leader

A teachers' leader has described Conservative plans to allow parents to set up and run their own schools in England as "barking mad".

Mary Bousted, from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, claimed the move could lead to some pupils being taught creationism instead of literacy.

She said the Tories had not addressed how it would benefit poorer children.

Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove insisted the policy aimed to "tackle education inequality".



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 01:53:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Web blocking powers return * The Register

Mandybill The government has been circulating revised web-blocking powers for the Digital Economy Bill with industry and activist groups, and The Register has seen a draft. This version is believed to have won the backing of the Tories, and could end up in a Second Reading.

The revised Clause 18 we've seen is a hybrid of the earlier Clause 17 (which was defeated) and its successor, the Tory/Lib-Dem Clause 18 (which was withdrawn). Ben Bradshaw's latest draft gives the Secretary of State the power to allow Courts to grant injunctions against service providers compelling them to block "internet locations" - but only after a Parliamentary vote, and with a lot of conditions to be met.



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 02:08:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

By an overwhelming margin, technology experts and stakeholders participating in a survey fielded by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center believe that innovative forms of online cooperation could result in more efficient and responsive for-profit firms, non-profit organizations, and government agencies by the year 2020.

A highly engaged set of respondents that included 895 technology stakeholders and critics participated in the online, opt-in survey. In this canvassing of a diverse number of experts, 72% agreed with the statement:



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 02:16:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Need to emphasis the word "could" in there.

Bureaucracy is a human invention to prevent change.  Eventually the change is prevented to ludicrous lengths.   The infamous "tally sticks" depository of the British Exchequer is the poster child.  They kept making and storing the things for hundreds of years passed any conceivable use.

And when they did, finally, get rid of the things in 1834 ... they burned the Parliament building down.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 05:19:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]
NASA - NASA Mars Spacecraft Snaps Photos Chosen by Public
WASHINGTON -- The most powerful camera aboard a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars has returned the first pictures of locations on the Red Planet suggested by the public.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, is nicknamed, "the people's camera." Through a program called HiWish that began in January, scientists have received approximately 1,000 suggestions. The first eight images of areas the public selected are available online at:


Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 02:17:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Journalism jobs and news from Holdthefrontpage.co.uk
Regional publisher Johnston Press is quietly dropping its experiment in introducing paywalls to some of its local newspaper websites.

As first revealed by HTFP last November, JP imposed a £5 subscription for anyone wanting to read stories in full on some of its local sites, including the Whitby Gazette in North Yorkshire and the Southern Reporter in Selkirk.

However the paywall at the Gazette has now been dropped with full stories now freely available again to users.

In a parellel experiment, some other titles, including the Worksop Guardian in Nottinghamshire, stopped uploading full stories to their websites and told readers to buy the paper instead. This aspect of the trial still appears to be ongoing.

The company has told HTFP it will be making no public comment about the trial and has even refused to confirm that it is coming to an end.

However a source at one of the titles involved in the trial said it had been a "disaster" and that the number of people subscribing had been in single figures.



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 02:48:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
holdthefrontpage
However a source at one of the titles involved in the trial said it had been a "disaster" and that the number of people subscribing had been in single figures.

ET - it's like getting the news months early.

ThatBritGuy 25/11/2009:

They don't, and can't.

The Whitby Gazette? Whitby has a population of six and a half people, and two of them are undead.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 07:48:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
My local paper is one of theirs. In theory its an evening paper. In Practice its now available by midday, having been put to bed before  10pm the night before. So in effect it has been finalised before the National dailies that have been at your door first thing in the morning. So all my local news appears 2 days out of date.

every couple of months when the paper bill arrives there is a level of discussion about whether it will be cancelled for the next 2 months.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 at 08:02:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Homework makes the grade

In the team's analysis, three clusters emerged: One group of students solved the problems about 10 minutes after the problem first popped up, another answered a day or two later, and a third typically answered correctly in about a minute. Because the online system presents problems one at a time, it precludes working out all of the answers ahead of time and entering them all at once.

"Our first reaction was "Wow, we must have some geniuses at MIT'," Pritchard says. The team soon realized that the answers in this quick-solving group were entered faster than the time it takes students to read the question, raising suspicions that these students had a cheat sheet of copied answers.

[...]

In the study, the heaviest copiers were male, and although most of the students in the classes were freshmen and had yet to declare a major, subsequent analyses turned up an interesting trend: "Copying homework is a leading indicator of becoming a business major," Pritchard says.

Cue that kossack sig: "A career criminal is just a sociopath who never saw the value of getting good grades and going on to business school."

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Apr 1st, 2010 at 06:58:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
BBC News - Science writer Simon Singh wins libel appeal

A science writer has won the right to rely on the defence of fair comment in a libel action, in a landmark ruling at the Court of Appeal.

Simon Singh was accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association over an article in the Guardian in 2008.

Dr Singh questioned the claims of some chiropractors over the treatment of certain childhood conditions.

The High Court had said the words were fact not opinion - meaning Dr Singh could not use the fair comment defence.

'Meaning of words'

However, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger and Lord Justice Sedley ruled High Court judge Mr Justice Eady had "erred in his approach" last May, and allowed Dr Singh's appeal.



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Apr 1st, 2010 at 07:07:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
British Chiropractic Association v Singh [2010] EWCA Civ 350 (01 April 2010)

Ms Adrienne Page QC and Mr William McCormick (instructed by Bryan Cave Solicitors) for the Appellant
Ms Heather Rogers QC (instructed by Messrs Collyer Bristow) for the Respondent
Hearing date: Tuesday 23 February 2010

________

HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Apr 1st, 2010 at 07:08:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

34. We would respecfully adopt what Judge Easterbrook, now Chief Judge of the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, said in a libel action over a scientific controversy. Underwager v Salter 22 Fed 3d 730 (1994):

"Plaintiffs cannot, by simply filing suit and crying "character assassination!", silence those who hold divergent views, no matter how adverse those views may be to plaintiffs' interests. Scientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by the methods of litigation. ...More papers, more discussion, better data and more satisfactory models - not larger awards of damages - mark the path towards superior understanding of the world around us"



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Apr 1st, 2010 at 07:43:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It will make drug companies and organisations providing therapies more cautious in bringing libel actions against those writers and academics who express strong opinion about the ethicacy [sic] of their drugs and therapies.


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Thu Apr 1st, 2010 at 07:46:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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