Signal vs. Noise:
Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web — A couple weeks ago on Twitter I said: “I still maintain the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web. Has been for years.” A few people agreed, but most didn't. Some thought it was a joke. I wasn't kidding.
… may be much cheaper thanks to this service so consider using it. You also get local Spanish number 
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Five quick physics lessons for President-Elect Obama from the author of Physics for Future Presidents (@ Amazon). One of the lessons: nuclear power is the way to go.
It's true that after 300 years, nuclear waste is still about 100 times more radioactive than the original uranium that was removed from the earth. But even this isn't as scary as it sounds. If the waste is stored underground in such a way that there's only a 10 percent chance that 10 percent of it will leak -- which should be more than doable -- the risk will be no worse than if we had never mined the uranium in the first place.
Muller asserts that safe nuclear power is a solved technical problem and that the use of it is a political issue.
(link)I was fortunate enough to have started my career in journalism during a real old fashioned newspaper war, one waged between the Los Angeles Times -- its Orange County edition -- and the Orange County Register. In 1989 and through the early 90s, the papers invested in people and newsprint to win the readership of the area. I was one of the many troops hired on, first with the Times and later jumping ship to the Register.
Now nearly 15 years later, I'm back in Orange County and wondering what happened. Yes, from various friends and former coworkers, I've heard of the cuts over the years. And yes, I've read about the decline of newspapers in general and some of the decline in particular for my two alma maters. And yes, I've seen the changes in both papers over time, when I've read them on occasion during my yearly visits back home. But now resident again, it's just shocking. Astounding is what I've felt after this Saturday's edition of the LA Times.
"Column One" is the main feature story that appears each day in the Los Angeles Times. I remember when that story slot was given its formal name in 1989 or 1990, during a major redesign. Though a major feature story has always been on the front page for as long as many could remember, giving it a formal name added extra oomph. Veteran journalists aimed to have a "Column One." When one of my coworkers -- a stringer rather than actual vaunted "Times Staff Writer" miraculously landed her article in the spot, we all gave her a huge round of congratulations, not diminished by our envy and hope to have such positioning for our own stories.
Column Ones could take weeks to complete, such was the research that went into some of them. They were almost always a Big Deal. And this Saturday's Big Deal? A feature on the woes of Wall Street Wives, having to make do with less but far more than most people earn: Wall Street wives had the richer, now they're a bit poorer.
I don't want to take away from anyone's particular pain or suffering. However they feel it, whatever the cause, however absurd it might seem to a distant observer, it is no doubt real to them. My issue is more about why of all the stories that deserved the attention of a Column One, this is what the Times chose?
After Apple began selling Macintosh systems based on Intel processors, a program called "Parallels Desktop" was released that let you run Windows in a window on a Mac. It instantly became the de facto standard for breaking down walls between operating systems on the Mac OS. Parallels uses a technique called "virtualization," which creates a virtual computer running within the physical, real computer. Called a "virtual machine," it can use different operating systems, allowing Mac users to simultaneously run, say, Windows or Linux.  | - View Specs |
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Google has been making headlines recently with its new Online Flu Tracker which, as the Fox News story says today, “will help U.S. federal health experts track the annual flu epidemic.” The new Flu Trends page at Google describes how the tracker works, and includes this explanation:
Each week, millions of users around the world search for online health information. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season, more allergy-related searches during allergy season, and more sunburn-related searches during the summer. You can explore all of these phenomena using Google Trends. But can search query trends provide an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena?
We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. We compared our query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and discovered that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States.
Reuters - China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile service provider, said on Tuesday the tender for construction of the second phase of its parent’s third-generation mobile network had been completed.
Original post by Reuters
Sometimes a phone is a clearer mirror of ourselves.
Call it what you want. Marketing sensitive denizens may call this another PR spin from Nokia but I see it from another point of view. Nokia’s latest campaign dubbed Somebody Else’s Phone has been around since October and although it differs in every region, one particular message stands out. They’ve hit it right in the bag: You are your phone.
Imagine this. If you were to stumble across a phone in a dark alley that was obviously lost by its previous owner, would you itch to hazard a peek into it? And believe me, you can find out so many things about a total stranger by just peeking into his or her phone. So much of our life is hidden in the unlocked safe that is our mobile. From inbox text, sent messages, call history, music, photos, video and even the applications installed - tell us so much about a person without meeting them.
How much sensitive information do you keep in your phone? Let’s say you were to lose, god forbit, your phone tonight at a party, how much if your life would be revealed to a complete stranger?
Digital voyeurism at its best!
[screenshot from Somebody Else’s Phone]
Tags: Campaign, Help, Lost Phone, Nokia, Privacy, security, Somebody Else's Phone, Strategy
This story has all the makings of a tragic soap: a vulnerable love sick teenager, a sick vengeful adult and death. Unfortunately this story is not confined to the pages of a book, but is a reality that took place in October 2006 and resulted in Megan Meier, aged 13 at the time, taking her own life. But why did she do it? What had happened before? Who caused it? And what does this have to do with technology?
It all started when Megan fell out with the daughter of her neighbor Ms Drew in St Louis, prompting Ms Drew to take it upon herself to spite Megan. She did this by creating a fictitious 16 year old boy, Josh Evans, who lived in the local area which she did by creating a fake MySpace account. This was then used to contact the unassuming Megan, and create a friendship, although the implication is that Megan believed it to be more serious than that.
But why would she do this? The idea was to get back at Megan by then breaking up the virtual relationship, which of course would cause harm to Megan—the aim of the whole scheme. However the comments were incredibly harsh, including one that said the world would be better of without her and a distraught Megan took her own life. Now, Ms. Drew is on trial under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, something only previously used against computer hackers but the only law in Missouri that the prosecutors could take her to court for.
Although she is not being directly charged with the death of Megan (the judge had considered this, but later dismissed the idea of excluding suicide evidence) she could still end up with a 5 year prison sentence. However this will end up being a very gray area, as Dean Steward the defense lawyer believes “The jury is going to end up thinking that Lori Drew is being tried for the death of Megan Meier. . .“ Nevertheless, there is still a chance that the jury will take this into account regardless, which although is not ideal, it could result in a full 5 year sentence.
So what can we learn? Firstly that there are bad people out there, and that we are in danger of becoming immune to this threat because of the amount that it is publicized. Perhaps the teens of today don’t care what adults say and will go out of their way do to the opposite, but we must remember that they are still vulnerable and that social networking can be dangerous. So if you are considering getting back at an ex, a hated enemy or an irritating boss, remember that it is not hard to track this kind of thing.
Source [BBC]
Full Story » | Written by Christian Milsom for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software, Odds and ends, Apple
TUAWNew MacBook Pro benchmarked within Boot Camp originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Verizon Wireless will launch the BlackBerry Storm on Nov. 21 for $200 with a two-year contract.
The BlackBerry Storm is the first touch screen BlackBerry with the world's first "clickable" touch screen. It also supports multi-touches, taps, slides and other touch screen gestures to easily highlight, scroll, pan and zoom.
The BlackBerry Storm's integrated accelerometer automatically switch between landscape and portrait modes. Users can navigate websites with the touch screen interface, double tapping to zoom in and sliding a fingers to scroll and pan. The browser has built-in RSS support, so new content can be automatically pushed to users.
The BlackBerry Storm will be available beginning Nov. 21 in stores and online for $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement.
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Filed under: Cellphones
Motorola adds another 5-megapixel phone to the mix with VE66 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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