gregladen | January 2, 2011Hacktivists have struck a blow against the regime in Zimbabwe by attacking a number of government websites. The cyber-assault appears to have been in support of newspapers who published secret cables in the ongoing WikiLeaks saga, to the annoyance of the-powers-that-be in the country.
Grace Mugabe, wife of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe, was recently reported to be suing a newspaper for $15 million after it published a WikiLeaks cable that claimed she has benefited from illegal diamond trading.
As news spread amongst the loosely-knit group of Anonymous hackers who support WikiLeaks,…
gregladen | January 2, 2011Except when it does not work.
A glitch on Apple's iPhone has stopped its built-in alarm clock going off, leaving many people oversleeping on the first two days of the New Year.
Angry bloggers and tweeters complained that they had been late for work, and were risking missing planes and trains.
Bloggers late for work? LOL.
Apple is not revealing why this happened but claims they will have it fixed by January 3rd. So, tonight, if you use your iPhone as your alarm clock, just go to sleep knowing you'll be awakened in the morning exactly as you wish. Because, you know, it's an Apple product,…
gregladen | January 1, 2011Atheists Talk, #98, January 2, 2011
As 2010 rolls out, we all hope the future is bright for 2011. Along with hope, there's always hype. Bringing us a reality check from their areas of expertise are these savvy thinkers:
Greg Laden, bio anthropologist and bogger for Scienceblogs.com, will give his top ten list of science stories for 2010, with commentary on the new field of paleogenomics
Maggie Koerth-Baker, science journalist and writer for BoingBoing.net, will talk about the Future of Energy in the US
Steve Borsch, media trend expert at Connecting the Dots, has insights for a year of…
gregladen | January 1, 2011Almost Diamonds has two interesting posts on the Julian Assange sexual assault/rape accusation/charges. I want to make a comment on part of the second post, but this may not make a lot of sense to you until you read both of them. They are concise and compelling so you will not regret the time you spend on them:
Assange and the Presumption of Innocence
Assange and the Victim Conspiracy
The issue is that of jealousy or resentment. Some Assange defenders, for some reason, seem to feel the need to point out suspicious or negative aspects of the women, their actions, reactions, decisions, etc…
gregladen | January 1, 2011This year, I will:
Totally empty my email inbox every day.
Read one classic novel published before 1950 each week.
Learn the names of the capitols, mottos, bird and mineral of all of the fifty states.
Learn to play five new musical instruments.
Lean to speak five new languages
In the spring, plant a large garden and live off the produce through the subsequent winter.
Learn how to frame pictures from scratch.
Reduce my personal carbon footprint to zero.
Clean the fridge once a week.
Go to the gym every fifteen minutes.
Change my own oil.
Learn fifty new emacs key combinations.
Not eat any…
gregladen | December 31, 2010... is temporarily suspended due to technical difficulties. I am experiencing the equivalent of a denial of service attack from our friends in Turkey.
Commenting has been turned back on, but seems to be broken at least on recent posts. Sorry for the inconvenience. Should the situation persist in the morning, I'll be here, waiting for SB.com to go back to normal.
Happy New Year!
gregladen | December 31, 2010Thanks, Gwen for the tip on this must see, soon to be viral video (or is it something that's been around for years and I didn't notice?)
gregladen | December 31, 2010When it comes to ease of use, there is no difference between a computer with Windows and a computer with Linux, assuming both systems are installed properly. That there is a meaningful difference is a myth perpetuated by Windows fanboys or individuals who have outdated experience with Linux. Also, the comparison that is often being made is unfair: One's experience with a computer purchased as Best Buy or supplied at work, with OEM Windows already installed (see below) is being compared with a self-install of Linux onto an about to be discarded computer.
When something "breaks" the two…
gregladen | December 31, 2010The latest epic viral fail, designed for maximum wow factor but that hardly qualifies as an a-ha moment, is the Lake Superior University list of words to be banned in 2011. I heard the back story from my BFF, well, it's not very interesting.
Some would say that Lake Superior U should man up and admit that language is flexible, and that it is pointless to refudiate neologisms such as "Mamma Grizzlies" if the American People want to live life to the fullest, linguistically, as it were. I'm just sayin'
If you think this blog post is interesting, please facebook it. If you want to know the…
gregladen | December 30, 2010The last Kodachrome processing machine, at Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, shut down and will be sold for scrap. This is a bummer, because I think I still have some film laying around that I've not gotten 'round to getting developed. They figured out why Skype crashed earlier this month, and it has to do with a bug in a Windows version of Skype that users should have updated but didn't. But don't blame the users. They were using Windows, and there is no automatic updating process for software on Windows, like there is in, ahem, Linux. People who use unsecured operating systems such as…
gregladen | December 30, 2010Atoms are the smallest things stuff can be and still be an element. So, why should the periodic table be so huge? Like, covering almost an entire piece of paper?
gregladen | December 30, 2010Today's falsehood1 is the idea of "The Missing Link." You've heard about The Missing Link. You'll hear that some palaeontologist has discovered something and they tell us it is "The Missing Link." Often, it is a supposed "link" between some ancestor of humans (a fossil ape, a monkey, whatever) and us humans. And often, you'll also find that when the press reports a "missing link" the science blogosphere erupts with a torrent flowing over the phrase and the concept, about how there really is no such thing as "The Missing Link," or that this particular report of such a link is spurious, or…
gregladen | December 30, 2010This is what I was thinking:
Nationally and globally, the most important events probably included the Earthquake in Haiti (not to minimize the importance of the current, ongoing cholera epidemic there); the dramatic increase of the use of stem cells in therapy (and research) with some real potential for cures just around the corner; Tiger Woods did not get laid all year; Iceland's volcanic eruption and its effects on European travel; New research shows that tigers are about to become extinct in the wild and there isn't much we can do about it, though token efforts will be made; The end of the…
gregladen | December 30, 2010Imma post something substantive in a minute, but for now have a look at this:
gregladen | December 30, 2010Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Hat Tip: Ana
gregladen | December 28, 2010Sarah Palin has accidentally revealed her own 500 dollar haircut, her own Chappaquiddick, her own Monica Lewinsky. On a recent trip to Canada, during a speech, she revealed the fact that when she lived in rural Alaska as a child, her family regularly slipped across the Canadian border to avail themselves of the Canadian Healthcare System.
Yes, folks, Sarah Palin was an illegal in Canada, as I assume the health care system there is for Canadians, not Unitedstateseans. And, yes, folks, Palin's people are socialist commies who engage in socialist commie Obamacare Canadian style then lie about…
gregladen | December 28, 2010I just read this Action Alert and pursuant to it I sent this note to AMC theaters:
Thank you for NOT running the anti vaccination add by the so called "Safeminds" organization. The mercury in flu shots is in a form that is not absorbed into human tissues, but is an important part of an anti-fungicide that keeps the flu vaccines safe. Meanwhile, a flu vaccine is an important preventative medical step everyone should take. The ads are based on unscientific and incorrect information. Thank you for pulling them from your theaters.
There are a number of different things you could do.…