SpaceNeedle
Internet Providers to Start Policing the Web July 12th
WTF? Via Russia Today:
Some of the biggest Internet service providers in America plan to adopt policies that will punish customers for copyright infringement, and one of the top trade groups in the music biz announced this week that it could begin as soon as this summer.
The chief executive officer of the Recording Industry Association of America told an audience of publishers on Wednesday that a plan carved out last year to help thwart piracy is expected to prevail and be put in place by this summer. RIAA CEO Cary Sherman was one of the guest speakers among a New York panel this week and he confirmed that, at this rate, some of the most powerful Internet providers in America should have their new policies on the books by July 12, 2012.
Last year, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision Systems and other Internet service providers proposed best practice recommendations that they…
Wal-Mart Will No Longer Have People Greeters At The Door
Sign of the times? Claire Gordon writes on AOL Jobs:
After 30 years, “People Greeters” will no longer welcome Walmart customers with a “cart and a smile.” Four months after Walmart got rid of its night-shift “People Greeters,” the big-box retailer is moving its day-shift greeters inside the store. Walmart claims it’s all in the name of better customer service, but the announcement has left some greeters uncertain about the future of their jobs.
Jerome Allen has greeted morning shoppers at Walmart for five years, the last two at a supercenter in Fort Worth, Texas. He heard through the grapevine that the store was reassigning its night-shift greeters, but was surprised when the store manager called him into his office on Thursday, and told him that there would be no more door greeters at all.
Allen’s new position, which begins Feb. 6, will be to stand in “high traffic” areas of the store, ask customers…
Oxygen Discovered Around Saturn’s Icy Moon Dione
Pallab Ghosh reports on BBC News:
A NASA spacecraft has detected oxygen around one of Saturn’s icy moons, Dione.
The discovery supports a theory that suggests all of the moons near Saturn and Jupiter might have oxygen around them.
Researchers say that their finding increases the likelihood of finding the ingredients for life on one of the moons orbiting gas giants.
The study has been published in Geophysical Research Letters. According to co-author Andrew Coates of University College London, Dione has no liquid water and so does not have the conditions to support life. But it is possible that other moons of Jupiter and Saturn do …
Speech-Jamming Gun Unveiled By Japanese Researchers (Video)
It’s only a prototype, but if it worked for a longer amount of time, wow. Geeta Dayal writes on Wired’s Underwire:
Two Japanese researchers recently introduced a prototype for a device they call a SpeechJammer that can literally “jam” someone’s voice — effectively stopping them from talking. Now they’ve released a video of the device in action. “We have to establish and obey rules for proper turn-taking,” write Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada in their article on the SpeechJammer (PDF). “However, some people tend to lengthen their turns or deliberately disrupt other people when it is their turn … rather than achieve more fruitful discussions.”
9/11 Terrorist Featured in Facebook Ad
Sajid Farooq reports on NBC Bay Area:
As Facebook gets ready to go public, the eyes of the world will become even more focused on the Menlo Park-based social network.
That’s just partly why Friday’s report of an insurance advertisement on Facebook featuring the face of 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta is not the type of publicity the site wants ahead of its initial public offering.
Atta’s face reportedly appeared on the site as part of an ad selling car insurance. The ad appeared on the right hand side of some users’ profiles and it read “Important: Drivers in Texas Who Drive Less than 35 Miles a Day Read This.”
The text was alongside a Texas driver’s license with Atta’s picture on it, which was actually originally taken from his Florida’s driver’s license.
Women Leading the Facebook De-Friending Trend
Chris Matyszczyk reports on cNet News:
A Pew study suggests that finally, finally human beings — and especially women — have begun to prune their alleged friends on Facebook. Could there be rational, even venal, reasons for this?
It’s Friday and therefore time to muse about friendship. Here’s one thought: If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then my friend may, in fact, be more troubling and irrelevant than Ann Taylor separates. Here’s another: People appear to suddenly be realizing that their Facebook friends are not — and will never be — real friends. Oddly, though, they are finally doing something about it.
I am grateful to my nonfriends at ReadWriteWeb, who have unearthed a new Pew study that says defriending is trending on Facebook. People are finally wandering around their Facebook garden and, perhaps stimulated by FarmVille, are taking shears to their peers …
iPhones Cost Less Than $30 To Make?
Eric Mack writes on cNet News:
Recent Foxconn revelations hint at higher costs than previous estimates that are still staggeringly low by Western standards. An unprecedented peek behind the curtain of Foxconn’s factories in China may have revealed new hints to how much it actually costs to make each iPhone.
ABC’s “Nightline” was recently given access to the factory floor, and the resulting reporting has provided some new insights into exactly how iPhones are built, a part of the gadget’s gestation process that’s typically been a very closely guarded trade secret.
Horace Dediu, blogger, analyst, and former business development manager for Nokia, tried to parse some of the clues and came to some interesting conclusions …
Icelanders Avoid Inbreeding Through Online Incest Database
So says Samantha Grossman in TIME:
Nowadays, some light Internet stalking is as common a pre-date ritual as showering or putting on a clean shirt. But for Icelanders, that online screening process can include running a date’s name through an incest database.
Sound ridiculous? Consider this: when you live in an isolated nation with a population roughly the size of Pittsburgh, accidentally lusting after a cousin is an all-too-real possibility. But a search engine called Íslendingabók (the Book of Icelanders) allows users to plug in their own name alongside that of a prospective mate, determining any familial overlap. The site claims to track 1,200 years of genealogical information about the island’s inhabitants. Anyone with an Icelandic ID number — that is, citizens and legal residents — is accounted for, the New York Daily News reports.
Not only can the site rule out courtships that might be a bit too close for comfort, but also it…
Mysterious White-Nose Syndrome Is Killing Bats Across The U.S.
Holy Fungus, Batman! Reports David Wrights and Jonann Brady of ABC NEWS:
A mysterious fungus is killing off thousands of bats around the country. Scientists are calling it white-nose syndrome, because of the distinctive white smudges on the noses and wings of infected bats.
White-nose itself doesn’t kill bats, but it disturbs their sleep so that they end their hibernation early. During the winter there are no insects to eat, so the bats literally starve to death.
Bats may be one of Mother Nature’s least cuddly creatures, but they are ecologically important, keeping mosquitos and insects that attack crops in check.
Researchers say the syndrome has killed upward of half a million bats from New England to Virginia.
Stupid People Freaking Out About the Great (Intended) Wikipedia Blackout of 2012
To be expected, and I think Gawker has found some of the best ones:
Youth is no excuse … I call the members of this generation (and their educators) who are so confused, the WikiStupid.
Oldest Known “Beds” Had Insect Repellent
Insects have bugged human beings for a long time. Via Discover:
In a South African cave, researchers have uncovered traces of the oldest known human bedding, 77,000-year-old mats made of grasses, leaves, and other plant material. While it’s not especially surprising that early humans would have found a way to improve the cold, generally unpleasant experience of sleeping on a cave floor, archaeologists know little about our ancestors’ sleeping habits and habitats.
Using scanning electron microscopy, the researchers identified several species of local rushes and grasses that made up the bulk of the mattress, as well as leaves of the Cryptocarya woodii tree. These leaves contain chemical compounds that repel mosquitoes, lice, and other insects, suggesting that the cave’s ancient residents protected their bedding with natural insecticide.
UFO Bubble Over Cinisello Balsamo, Italy (Video)
A television report about a translucent UFO in the sky above Cinisello Balsamo, Italy. This was recorded on November 13, 2011 by Antonio Urzi:
Used Cooking Oil: A Hot Property Black Market Item
Natt Garun writes in Gizmodo:
People resort to the black market for all sorts of stolen goods: cellphones, watches, cars, babies. But used cooking oil? According to the Washington Post, that’s a thing too.
Thieves are now moving into the green market by stealing used cooking oil from the back of restaurants. They sell the sludge to recyclers, who then process it into biodiesel. The oil can go for as much as $4 per gallon on the down low.
Since this is a pretty new criminal enterprise, police aren’t entirely sure what to do with the perps — or how to stop the theft from happening. In some states it’s a misdemeanor. Meanwhile in Virginia, two men caught greaselifting were charged with grand larceny. Serves you right for those sticky, err, slippery fingers.
Russian Woman Stores Alien Corpse in Fridge for Two Years?
Molly Fergus reports via Yahoo News:
Has a genuine alien corpse been discovered? One woman in Russia certainly thinks so. Marta Yegorovnam claims she salvaged an extraterrestrial body from the site of a UFO crash in 2009 and stored it in her fridge for two years before authorities took it away from her for examination, according to the Daily Mail.
The being is about 2 feet tall and looks suspiciously like stereotypical extraterrestrial beings: It’s skinny, sort of slimy looking, with a large, bobbly head, bulging eyes, and twiggy arms. The two men who confiscated the supposed body said they were from the Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Of course, the odds are high that this could all be a hoax.
In April, an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old student set off an Internet frenzy by planting what looked like an otherworldly being’s remains in the snow in Irkutsk, Siberia, according…
Jack the Ripper’s Blade Found?
Via the Telegraph:
It was found among possessions belonging to Welsh surgeon Sir John Williams, a chief suspect in the Victorian murders. Sir John, known to his family at the time of the killings as “Uncle Jack” was the surgeon to Queen Victoria who lived in London at the time of the slayings.
He fled the capital after the murders and later founded the National Library for Wales in Aberystwyth. One of his distant relatives has now unearthed the old black-handled surgeon’s knife, which he used for operations, and believes it could be the murder weapon.
Tony Williams, 49, Sir John’s great-great-great-great nephew, has now published a book, which features the startling image of the knife, to expose his relative’s guilt.
No Alien Visits or UFO Coverups, According to The White House
Nice catch from Nancy Atkinson on Universe Today:
The White House has responded to two petitions asking the US government to formally acknowledge that aliens have visited Earth and to disclose to any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings. “The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” said Phil Larson from the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, on the WhiteHouse.gov website. “In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”
5,387 people had signed the petition for immediately disclosing the government’s knowledge of and communications with extraterrestrial beings, and 12,078 signed the request for a formal acknowledgement from the White House that extraterrestrials have been engaging the human race.
“Hundreds of military and government agency witnesses have come forward…
Parents Using Facebook to Trade Viruses In the Mail to Infect Their Children
Right, because you’re “afraid” of vaccines, let’s deliberately put pathogens in the mail. Reports KPHO CBS 5 News:
PHOENIX — Doctors and medical experts are concerned about a new trend taking place on Facebook.
Parents are trading live viruses through the mail in order to infect their children. The Facebook group is called “Find a Pox Party in Your Area.” According to the group’s page, it is geared toward “parents who want their children to obtain natural immunity for the chicken pox.”
On the page, parents post where they live and ask if anyone with a child who has the chicken pox would be willing to send saliva, infected lollipops or clothing through the mail. Parents also use the page to set up play dates with children who currently have chicken pox. Medical experts say the most troubling part of this is parents are taking pathogens from complete strangers and deliberately infecting their children.
