The US says it targeted insurgents in an air strike in eastern Afghanistan but local officials say 22 civilians died.

Good or bad, there're bound to be some interesting photo ops today...

So, is Curious George really a monkey? Can you identify what species of monkey or ape he might be?

After being seriously over-exposed to Curious George and the admonitions to "Be a good little monkey," I am starting to think that he probably isn't a monkey. For starters, he doesn't have a tail. Isn't that the key distinction between apes and monkeys? Also, isn't he rather large for a monkey? I think he might be a chimpanzee, but in the illustrations and TV show, he's brown, not black.

So, is Curious George really a monkey? Can you identify what species of monkey or ape he might be?

I have a child who is nearly 3 and I clearly have been getting too much George on TV, books, and the computer.

newVideoPlayer("/bulldogs_fuck_yeah.flv", 494, 278,""); Sure, the English may have invented the national founding document, parliamentary democracy, the bicameral legislature and baited their bears to extinction with bulldogs. But who taught those bulldogs how to ride skateboards? Yanks from California. We just took one of the ten best fireworks displays from IAC's Vimeo and used Apple's genius Final Cut Pro to luma-key the footage over clips of skateboarding bulldogs found with Google search on YouTube. The audio quality isn't as good as it could be, but at least we're having more fun than evil foreigners — if not the olds.

Project: MySQL Forge RSS/Atom feedsKEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS LAST WEEK* Integrated the RSS/Atom feeds on the website.* Agreed on what to do next after finishing the feeds (Extending PHPUnit test coverage)* Found some items for the ToDo list (functionality on the Forge which isn't complete working at the moment)KEY TASKS THAT STALLED LAST WEEK* Commit changes to main branch. I found out that the feeds who are generated aren't 100% valid with the RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom specifications so I have to fix this before committing the extension to the branch.KEY CONCERNS* NoneTASKS IN THE UPCOMING WEEK* Finishing the RSS/Atom feeds and merging them with the BZR branch.* Reading the PHPUnit documentation.* Installing PHPUnit and exercise with the functionality.

Neighbors of Cayuga Park, a gem of an open space nestled in a small neighborhood just southwest of the Excelsior, were heartbroken when their longtime gardener, Demetrio Braceros, retired in April. Following his departure, plants began to wilt and vandals...

Filed under: Digital Cameras, HDTV

Engadget HD managed to acquire one of JVC's Everio HD40 camcorders -- you know, that HD shooter with 120GB of onboard storage. If you're interested in seeing it get unboxed and manhandled (along with comparison shots with Samsung's delightful SC-HMX20C), click on over and enjoy. For those wanting some serious impressions, keep a check on this space -- we'll be forming some opinions and penning a review here shortly.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Buried under predictions that 2012 will bring dominance for Blu-ray over DVD and breaking news that the PS3 just may have had a hand in winning the format war the Entertainment Merchant's Association 2008 Annual Report on the Home Entertainment Industry holds survey results showing 87% of PS3 owners reported they watch Blu-ray movies on their console. That's a stark contrast to last year's NPD survey indicating 60% of owners didn't even know it played them. We don't know what's behind the jump, be it better marketing/consumer education, or something wrong with how one the surveys were conducted. You can mull that one over during the fast money round while also peeping results that say 22% of HDTV owners think they're watching HD programming, but in fact are not -- not like we haven't heard that before.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

With the recent announcement by OpenNews.ru we got a chance to look at the browser market in Russia.

Firefox is just breaking the 20% mark there which means up 5% during recent 5 months (15% in the end of January).

The other good news is that the modern browsers are up by 11% and especially Firefox 3 is really received well with over 6% of the market in less than 2 weeks from the release!

In other countries in the region, Firefox 3 is also getting good grades from the users. In Poland over 5% of the Internet users have switched and in Hungary it’s almost 6%!

What’s interesting in those number is where the users came from. So in case of Poland, Firefox 3 raised 4% in two weeks, 2.9% came from former Firefox 2 users, 0.7% from IE6 users and 0.3% from IE7 users!

In all countries of the CEE region that we track, we can see from 4 to 6% of the market taken by Firefox 3 users in such a short time after the release. The response is amazing and it’s the best prove that the work of Mozilla project matters. Congratulations to MozillaRu, Aviary.pl, Magyar Mozilla Project and all of you who contributed to this achievment!

p.s. Just to compare, it took Firefox 1.0 over 10 months to get 6% of the market share in Russia, it took Firefox 2.0 over 5 months to break 6%, and it took Firefox 3.0 around two weeks.

Filed under: Handsets, LG, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS

It's easy for some of the mid-range riff raff to get buried by the headliners at trade shows, and that's exactly what happened with a pair of LG sliders at CommunicAsia this year that still deserve just a little bit of attention. The KT520 is arguably the more attractive of the two, featuring HSDPA, QVGA display, and a 3 megapixel autofocus cam. The KF390, meanwhile, doesn't put a heck of a lot of effort into being pretty or powerful -- but the basic model does feature a handful of disappearing touch-sensitive buttons (a little tribute to the Chocolate, we guess) and a 2 megapixel cam.

[Thanks, Craig]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

1 PM: It’s showtime!

Finally getting a chance to really walk the show. One of the first companies I checked out was Dasso, which makes bamboo flooring, veneers, panels—and this intriguing prototype chair, “cushioned” with bamboo fibers. The booth design itself was also a great demonstration of the material’s variety and expressiveness, as well as its chameleonlike nature, capable of shifting from spongy to supple to superstrong.

+ 100percentdesign.com.cn
+ dasso.comcn

It’s been a month since I decided to remove red meat from my diet. Ever since I came from San Benito Farm, my outlook on food diet changed my life. I had initial misgivings about The Farm. I found it expensive and the food though appealing to the eyes wasn’t something I was [...]

Women who get a replacement kidney from a male donor are more likely to reject the new organ, scientists suggest.

A Canadian court orders a review of a US army deserter's failed asylum bid, in a case that may affect scores of others.

Outspoken and powerful US conservative dies

German town celebrates next chord in a 639-year concert

I saw Gilberto Gil in concert last night in Boulder. I hope I have half his energy when I'm 66.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stynxno/2637019279/

[More:]We are very cruel people.

I thought this was apropos for today. Sounds sappy, but you guys are very important to me. When you feel pain, I have pain; when you have joy, I have joy. So Cheers to all of us Bunnies; may we all be peaceful places soon.

What are the best strategies to help a performer roll with the punches?

Okay, so I've been doing a mix of performance poetry, stand-up, compering and music for over two years now, and I've reached the stage when I realise that this is something that I want to 'do', and want to do well. I love it, and find it a really satisfying challenge, but until recently I've always had the mental get-out that I'm just 'dabbling'. Now, my gigging schedule has increased to a level where I can't dig my toe in the carpet and hide behind new boy status anymore.

Basically, I'd like ways of remaining stoical whilst still learning from my mistakes in the face of bad gigs, po-faced audiences and general incompetence. What are good strategies for maintaining my self-confidence without closing off that all important negative feedback?

I understand intellectually that gigging can be a bit like being in an unhealthy relationship - sometimes the audience heap praise on you, sometimes they're cold and aloof, sometimes they're downright hostile. It'd be nice if there was a way to take it less personally while still maintaining a serious, professional focus on improving rapport. My schadenfreude wouldn't say no to a few 'the time I died on stage' anecdotes, either, if you think communal shame might help.

Anti-virus software managed to remove most of the viruses from my mother's computer. However, two files remain. How proactive do I need to be about deleting them?

I am a Mac user and have no experience dealing with computer viruses, so please pardon any stupid statements I might make here. My mother's computer was recently infected with a whole slew of viruses, because my brother the PC user gave her anti-spyware software but completely neglected to make sure she had any virus protection. I used Defender Pro (don't know if that was a good choice, but it and McAfee were all that was available at 10 PM at Wal-Mart in my hometown) to get rid of almost all of the viruses. However, two infected files and their subfiles still remain - mtewdh.dll and tdffdl.dll. Google tells me that these files host viruses that steal online gaming passwords. My mother doesn't online game, so it's not an issue, but should I be more worried about them and be more proactive about getting rid of them? If so, what on earth do I do? Or should I assume that Defender Pro will update its antivirus definitions at some point and will get rid of them? unfortunately, I am not PC savvy enough to have any clue about what to do here. I've found this explanation for how to get rid of one, but I'm nervous about screwing something up.

Cheapest and easiest overall way to use skype, what is it? Details inside.

I've got the adapter that lets me use a regular phone with skype. It's fine, but it requires my full size computer running all the time to use it. That stinks. I could pickup one of the linksys standalone skype phones, but they're like $150+ and they're one trick ponies. Is there something easier?

I've got a MotoQ, which doesn't do Wifi and we're a good year out of 3G wireless speeds in this here podunk town. I'm a long way away from being out of contract, so a phone upgrade is going to be expeeeeeensive. (I think I could get an HTC for like $220 right now...)

I thought about something like an EEEpc, but that's still kinda large. I'd sorta like to be able to carry it with me, although it's not required.

What about a pocketpc? Are there any cheapish ones that you like that can run skype AND wifi?

I've got the Q, so I don't really really need the PDA, but it seems like if I'm paying the money I might as well have the functionality. I could, I suppose, drop the data plan from the Q and save my employer $25/month, as my workplace and home are wi-fi'd, although lots of places aren't and I needs my emails.

So tell me how I can most effectively make use of my subscription! Homebrews and hacks are welcome.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident: Wikipedia's Tyranny of the Mob sucks. Every time I run an item about Jimmy Wales, my page gets hacked. So what about Jason Calacanis's pursuit of happiness over at Mahalo? Former Uncov blogger and army of one Ted Dziuba has posted a step-by-step pictorial guide to practicing your First Amendment rights using the search index' new open editorial system. Try this on Wikipedia, and someone from the armed and unregulated Militia of Truth will likely kill your edits on sight. But on Mahalo, only Calacanis' paid mercenaries will bother to fix pages. At $10 an hour, there's no way they'll be able to keep up. Let Freedom ring!

Over the last months I have seen some impressive presentations about Open Solaris, and I wanted to give it a try. The live CD provided with opensolaris 2008.05 is very easy to install, and so I set it up in a virtual machine. The environment looks familiar for a seasoned Linux user, and thus I decided to use it as a test bed for my MySQL Sandbox, which includes a test suite that lets you run a complete test with little effort. Well, little effort for you, maybe, but not for the operating system. The test puts a lot of stress on the operating system, as you can see from this picture. Running a complete test for a single version (1 single server + 3 replicated, + 3 circular, + 3 multiple, + 1 custom group = 11 servers) is already demanding. But since in my Mac I dare run the test with 7 concurrent versions for a total of 77 instances of MySQL, and I have still memory to spare, I ran a test with 2 versions on 2 virtual machines, one with Ubuntu 8 and one with Open Solaris. I am sorry to say that opensolaris did not fare well with this test. The Linux virtual box, with 512 MB of RAM, ran 22 MySQL instances without trouble. The opensolaris box, with 1 GB of RAM, ran out of memory after 18 instances. Nothing to be afraid of, though. From this negative test I got some useful experience. I asked for help in the opensolaris forums, and I got quick and smart advice. I haven't solved the problem, but I got enough information to file a proper bug report. According to someone in the forum, that's not even a bug, but the expected way of opensolaris of dealing with memory allocation requests, which is allegedly safer than Linux. I am not in a position to judge who's right, but perhaps someone in the audience is better qualified to provide an objective answer to this problem. For now, I will just lean back in my chair and wait for comments.

Via Planetalinux.mx, I read this post by César Espino refering to Wordle.
Quoting from Wordle's main page:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

I could not resist it. I even went to a computer with a Java runtime installed.

The application is very nice and usable, although its startup time is frankly irritating (specially as there is no feedback on why it's not loading). Anyway, the results are quite beautiful!

Linux Kernel x86_64 ptrace Local Memory Corruption Vulnerability

37signals -- no more IE6Apple -- no IE6 support for their new web offeringThe greatest thing Microsoft could do with IE6 now would be tell everyone on MSN.COM or whatever the default homepage is to upgrade.

For all of you Vi fans, word

Hardcore to the Emacs yo

Personal preference goes to Vi for myself. I’m about to type up the intro paragraph for my index page at michaelbox.net in Vi.

Oh yeah, happy Independence Day everyone in the US. I don’t want to hear about hospital trips though.

identi.ca is free software, licensed under the GNU Affero GPL. It's similar to twitter and others, but it's free.

After a grand total delay of: too long, I’ve finally unveiled Michaelbox.net.[1] I like it, but of course there are areas that aren’t quite so pretty and could use work, and they will get worked on, hopefully faster and sooner than it took for me to even launch anything. This isn’t a call or request for critiques, but if you see something that just bothers you, feel free to leave a note and I’ll look into it.

[1] http://michaelbox.net

Trailrunner7 writes "Internet Explorer has been a security punching bag for years, and rightfully so. IE 6 was arguably the least secure browser of all time. But Microsoft has been trying to get their act together on security, and the new beta of IE 8, due in August, will have a slew of new security features including protection against Type-1 cross-site scripting attacks, a better phishing filter and better security for ActiveX controls."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader brings us Computerworld's interview with Don Woods, one of the creators of Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym (INTERCAL). INTERCAL and its documentation were created in 1972 as a parody of that era's languages and instruction manuals. Among other things, Woods had this to say: "We designed the language without too much trouble. Writing the manual took a while, especially for things like the circuit diagrams we included as nonsensical illustrations. The compiler itself actually wasn't too much trouble, given that we weren't at all concerned with optimising the performance of either the compiler or the compiled code. I admit I'm surprised at its longevity. Some of the jokes in the original work feel rather dated at this point. It helps that the language provides a place where people can discuss oddball features missing from other languages, such as the 'COME FROM' statement and operators that work in base 3."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

- Shit! There are no more M8 screw-nuts.
- What? Use M12, bozon should pass through.
- We all will be fucked this Monday!



Good night. Actually I'm as a former physicist can say, that at least two out of four killing theories are really stupid, but nevertheless its interesting! Comments (0)

"Several songs on the instrumental album were voted Best in Genre, and then shortly after that I was flown out to Los Angeles and nominated Independent Artist of the Year by the Association of Independent Artists." Until age 40, he'd never played piano. Then he suffered a concussion.. Also, cavemen sang -- and maybe echo-located. Where? Where they painted their cave art.

A November ballot measure to boost the amount of renewable energy generated by California utilities has attracted a wildly diverse group of opponents - from the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Democratic Party and PG&E. "It's kind of like I'm uniting...

Two historic Victorians in Old Oakland were damaged this afternoon in a three-alarm blaze apparently caused by a paint-removal heat gun, firefighters said. The fire started near the roof of a two-story building at 8th and Washington streets around 2:45 p.m....

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Now that you've had a little over a month to cram down popcorn while enjoying your shiny matte new Roku Netflix Player, we're interested to find just how pleased (or displeased) you are with the $99 purchase. Has it lived up to your expectations? Is the quality sufficient for you? How does it look on your HDTV? Is wireless performance up to par, or were you practically forced to run an Ethernet cable all the way downstairs? We already know what the paid professionals said -- we want the cold, hard facts straight from the users themselves. Let us have it comments below.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Plus I feel I can't be honest about how bad I feel with any of my friends. So chalk me up as another sad bunny.

It's a holiday, you bunnies need to start drinking.

[Thyroid/CFS-Filter] Do TSH and thyroid levels typically fluctuate within a period of weeks? If so, how much fluctuation is normal?

I've looked at previous thyroid questions before but couldn't find any that answered my specific questions... and I know, YANMD. I'll be seeing a doctor next week - but then, I've also seen about 3 doctors this year, with varying results.

I was diagnosed with CFS at the beginning of this year. As a teenager, I went through a period of subclinical hypothyroidism for about a year or so. During the past two years (I'm in my early twenties now), I started experiencing some symptoms of hypothyroidism, the more persistent symptoms being coldness and numbness in extremities, fatigue, dry skin, low blood pressure, hair loss, cold intolerance, constipation, increased sleepiness, inability to concentrate/focus and depression. About 3 months ago, I got my TSH and free T4 tested - which turned out to be 5.082 mIU/L and 14.48 pmol/L respectively. Six and a half weeks after that test, I had another thyroid test done: my TSH was 2.21 mIU/L, free T4 was 18.65 pmol/L and T3 (which hadn't been tested previously) was 1.32 nmol/L.

I had no treatment between the tests (the tests were administered by different doctors), and to my memory, did not make any changes to my diet or the supplements (vitamins and minerals) I was taking. For each test, the doctor administering the test pronounced me healthy and said I had no thyroid problems.

Up until now, I've figured my symptoms were/are just part of the CFS. But I was just looking at the test results again and wondering why my TSH and free T4 seem to fluctuate quite a bit (?) within 6.5 weeks when I didn't really make any changes to my diet or lifestyle, let alone take any hormone supplements. Is this normal? Am I overthinking this?

I have friends that seem to neglect a dog almost to the point of abuse. What should I do?

First off, let me say I ABHOR dogs. I can't stand them. Everytime I see one, I think "nasty, poop eaters".

I didn't write that to put 90% of the population off your dogloving mood. I do have a point to it.

Even though I do not like dogs, I do have a heart: for real, I do.

I have friends who are a newlywed couple. We all live in our own respective apartments in NYC (read: small). I don't know whats up with them, but even though they had been living together for more than a year, they decided to get a dog after they got married. Great. F'in great.

It was all fine and dandy, till I got calls every so often saying "Jimmy needs to be walked...can you take him out? He hasn't been out since 5 in the morning, and we're going to come home at 8pm". Dang. I have no choice (unless I want this animal to suffer), so I walk the dog.

I do this on a pretty regular basis now. I STILL hate dogs, but I don't have an option; the dog did NOTHING wrong. Why should I let it suffer.

Its about a 40-60 lb dog, and its young, like almost 2 years old. I have no idea what breed, but its pretty big and I get chicks AND DUDES left and right coming over to pet the dog because they love it. Weird ass dog-lovers.

Anyways...so I'm on permanent dog duty because I live close by, and they work TONS. I'm talking TONS. One is away from the house for about 14 hours of the day, and the other is WAY MORE into their work.

They stopped asking me to walk their dog a few months ago, and I figured "oh cool, dog problem all solved". I figured they worked out their work schedule so they wouldnt have to worry about leaving the dog alone so damn much. Didn't give it another thought.

So last week, I got another call, and of course, I obliged. I came into their apartment, and DAMN!!!!!

Dog food spread out everywhere (naughty, dog), pee stains on the carpet, 4 big chunks of fresh poo on the carpet, TONS of poo stains on the carpet all over the place. This has ALL been done in the course of the last few months when they stopped asking me to walk the dog.

THEY JUST NEGLECTED IT!!!

I talked to them about this saying "Say...a LOT of people have come up to me offering to buy the dog for $2,000 on the spot(yeah, crazy but true). They seem like they can REALLY care for it, and maybe it would be best for Jimmy." They responded with "Well...we spend time with the dog on weekends...unless we go away". They go away 3 out of every 4 damn weekend. I am on dog duty then too.

I HATE dogs...but I find myself going over to their apartment every chance I get to change its water (GROSS), fill its bowl up with food, and give it a snack for walking without dragging me all over the place. I HATE dogs, but I feel so sad for this dog, I can't help but be nice to it.

Its behavior has also changed DRASTICALLY. Before, I used to have to open the door very quietly, and come in so that it wouldn't come to the door and try to maul me to get out. Now, its scared. When I come in, it cowers a little...and is scared. After I make the "hey jimmy jimmy" sounds, it finally comes, but god damn its attitude has changed. When I leave, I hear it crying or something. ITS THE SADDEST THING EVER...and I HATE DOGS!!!

I hate dogs, I just cant stand animals suffering.

What can I do? This dog needs care, the owners aren't caring for it. Talking to them is USELESS. They TOTALLY avoid the issue like NOBODY'S BUSINESS! Upon confrontation, they TOTALLY switch subjects. Its really messed up.

Few quick details:

1. The building that they live in allows dogs up to 25 lbs ONLY. This dog is WAYYYY over limite. They could get evicted if that happens.

2. Also, I didn't mention how it continues to need medicine since it gets "sick" so often...which they do NOT administer as directed.

3. I'm pretty damn confrontational. I confronted them about it, and they REFUSE to do anything. They just see it as a "yeah, its sad that we aren't home to take care of jimmy more often...speaking of, we're gonna go skiing this weekend, can you take it out for a walk?"

4. There is NO talking to them. I feel I have to report them, or have their dog taken away or something. They will do nothing.

5. I know a few other people who have dogs in seemingly small apartments. Those dogs, are cared for, loved, and HAPPY. I know the difference between a happy dog...and a dog that is being neglected to the point of abuse.

WHAT SHOULD I DO, doglovers???

Oh, I have to be totally anonymous here because well...they're my friends, and I feel like a narc. I don't even know who I could narc to that would do something.

How can I help my sister come to terms with her mental health issues?

My sister and I have shared a home on and off for several years. She was at the top of her game for a long time, but has always been very volatile, with hairpin-turn mood swings and anxiety problems. This past winter she went into a tailspin; she broke up with a boyfriend who had been a constant disappointment, and that same week got fired from her job. Neither situation was black/white, but she immediately fabricated a mentality that allowed her to blame herself for all of it.

Since then she has had severe anxiety attacks, deep depressions, lost several more jobs, put on about ten pounds, and spends almost all her free time sleeping, smoking pot in her room, and watching movies. She's flat-broke most of the time, thanks to the job bouncing, and turns down invitations from almost everyone who offers. It's been 7 months of this.

This week I moved into a new place by myself, which resulted in days of crying jags from sis-- because of how much she will miss my cats. She called everyone we know to cry about losing them. I got a lot of embarrassing phone calls from concerned friends, wondering if she was okay.

I've tried to get her to seek treatment during a few substance-related nadirs, but no dice. She sees professional counseling as something she'll simply never be able to afford, and doesn't really listen to advice that says otherwise. She's on an antidepressant (Paxil, I think?) but I don't know how that interacts with alcohol and weed. I've been pretty supportive, so I don't think she has any idea how freaked out I am by her at this point.

I know it's impossible to diagnose her, but looking at descriptions of Borderline Personality Disorder, I am pretty astonished at the similarities. Looking at this list of symptoms, she is seriously afflicted with practically all of them:

* Manipulativeness
* Suicidal threats or gestures, and self-harming acts
* Impulsiveness, jumping into relationships quickly, and without knowing the other person
* Promiscuous sexual behavior
* Drug and alcohol abuse
* Eating disorders
* Unstable relationships
* Sensitivity to the reactions of others
* Tendency to idealize or devalue other people
* Fear of abandonment
* Shifting moods and emotional outbursts
* Engaging in reckless behavior
* Unstable self-image
* Strong dependency on others
* Paranoia and other delusional thinking

Almost everything I read about BPD reminds me of her. I think she's gotten so used to being miserable that she doesn't even remember what normal feels like; normally something changes by now and she gets moving in a new direction. I'm worried, and I don't know what to do to help her. I'm the only family member geographically close enough to see how serious this has gotten-- she's VERY good at only calling our parents when her outlook is temporarily brighter.

I've kept my suspicions about the seriousness of this to myself. But when I try to point things out to her, she just makes jokes or changes the subject. However, whenever disaster strikes (and it strikes several times a week) she calls me in tears wondering what to do. Now that I'm out of the house, I'd like to be a little more honest about how worried-- and often offended-- I am by her behavior.

I know that substance abuse programs say that a person has to fall far enough and land hard enough to decide to make changes on their own, and I'm prepared to allow her to do that. How do I deal with her in the interim? She's a lovely person who I adore, and who looks to me for support (despite never taking my advice). I've bailed her out so many times, financially and otherwise, but now I'm wary and fatigued. I'd like to know what I can or ought to do to help her take treatment options seriously and handle disasters in the interim.

What are the challenges that independent filmmakers + people working in the industry (actors, crew, etc) face today? What tools do you use currently for the different stages of your production? What do you like about them, what do you wish for?

I am currently conducting research to understand the landscape of independent filmmaking, and where solutions / hacks exist for filmmakers in dealing with the problems.

From Global Voices:

On Wednesday, Iranian members of parliament voted to discuss a draft bill that seeks to “toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society.” The text of the bill would add, “establishing websites and weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy,” to the list of crimes punishable by death.

Hoo boy, I can hardly wait for Michael Moore's take on this one. (Photo by AP/Saman Aghvami)

[ MDVSA-2008:131 ] - Updated phpMyAdmin packages fix multiple vulnerabilities

FreeStyle Wiki Unspecified Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability

Site@School 'slideshow_full.php' SQL Injection Vulnerability

Mercurial 'patch.py' Directory Traversal Vulnerability

IcedTea 6 Mercurial tip configured with –enable-liveconnect on Fedora 9:

That’s a signed LiveConnect applet.

ruphus13 writes "Twitter has had a lot of public woes with Open Source technologies like Ruby on Rails, and a lot of alternatives have sprung up in the micro-blogging world, but no one has managed to dislodge twitter in its usage or appeal. Now, an Open Source alternative by Identi.ca, backed by project Laconica has emerged. From the article, 'It supports OpenID for logins, is completely free software, and is designed to apply a Creative Commons license to all the traffic that it carries. It's also built to support the OpenMicroBlogging protocol, meaning that (at least in theory) it can attack scalability issues by federating together multiple autonomous servers. The underpinnings of Laconica include PHP, PEAR, and XMPP. You can download a tarball of the source, or check it out directly if you're using Darcs (there's also an unofficial mirror on Google Code, giving you Subversion access for a read-only copy).' The community will still need to work on this, if a true competitor to twitter is to be had. It is lacking APIs, and SMS integration. Oh, and millions of users!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "When some North Carolina State students recently brought to the attention of the Court the apparent illegality of the RIAA's investigations by unlicensed investigators, they also caught the attention of the judges. After reading these new papers, District Judge Louise W. Flanagan, who admits that she's been routinely signing the RIAA's ex parte discovery orders in the past, has indicated that she is now going to take 'a fresh look' at the RIAA's tactics. She issued a stay of the subpoena, ordering NC State not to respond to it, and referred the motions to dismiss the cases to a Magistrate Judge for him to take that 'fresh look' at what has been going on."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alameda, which just might host the longest Fourth of July parade in the world, was sitting curbside Friday on its best folding chairs. Nobody wanted to miss a single twirler, trumpeter, council member, beauty queen, flag bearer, unicyclist or prancing pony....

Faithful readers will know I am not even close to finished exploiting my painful job experiences at the Chuck E. Cheese in the Bergen Mall for Gizmodo fodder. God I hate that place. When I was growing up, the cooler place to be with way better pizza and far better games was ShowBiz Pizza. ShowBiz also had another advantage: this terrifying but captivating animitronic musical band called Rocka-fire Explosion, which is the subject of this documentary. I am watching it, and lighting a candle in remembrance. And Fuck Chuck E. Cheese. [Youtube via BoingBoing's David P.]

How do you celebrate July 4th like a true Gizmodian? If you answered "waking up on the 5th with a severe hangover and sparkler burns where the sun don't shine," you'd be correct! Oh, that, and visiting our July 4th tag.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/iPhone_3G_line_camping_begins_now'; So we heard some really over-eager folks have decided to get a jump on the iPhone 3G line -- a really, really big jump. Obviously, we had to head down and see if it was true... and it is. Right now, about ten people have started a line outside of Apple's flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York. Word is that the family at the head of the queue are attempting to break some kind of record which involves their baby -- which kind of sounds a little intense if you ask us. On the other hand, you didn't hear Greg Packer complaining, right? We're going to wrangle some of these cats for an interview and video, so stay tuned! For right now, check some more pics after the break.

Update: So it appears that this group is all together, and we're about to talk to their "spokesman." We're not ruling out the possibility of this being some kind of stunt, but we should know more very soon.

[Via GearDiary]

Continue reading iPhone 3G lines start at the Apple Cube... one week early

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Filed under: Networking

So here's a bit of brilliant statistics work for you: The Pew Internet & American Life research project has determined after endless polling and number crunching that 62 percent of American dial-up users have no interest in upgrading their connections to something a bit more peppy. In fact, only 14 percent of them would upgrade if they could. They cite high prices, barrier to entry, and -- ooh, is Survivor on? We look at it this way: if you're not already on broadband with the multitude of options, and you can get broadband (i.e. you're not stranded out in the wilderness) in one way shape or form, you probably just don't really care, and we can make fun of you because you're not reading this post anyway.

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Microsoft has announced interesting new security features that will be in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. They are following other browsers such as Firefox on some issues, and taking bold new steps on others.

IE8 Security Part I: DEP/NX Memory Protection IE8 Security Part II: ActiveX Improvements IE8 Security Part III: SmartScreen® Filter IE8 Security Part IV: The XSS Filter IE8 Security Part V: Comprehensive Protection

Firefox users are already filing bugs asking for us to match some of these features.

Every now and then I find some piece of code in the Mozilla code base that makes me go WTF?  Today, I found out about the moz-icon scheme.  Try this URL in Firefox: 

moz-icon://.js?size=128

Of course it's no secret, other than not being documented, but I found an interesting use via css.  Sometimes I'm the last one to know about something.

Just when I think I’ve seen everything that you can do in Firefox, along comes an add-on like Pencil (Firefox 3 required). By coupling the Gecko drawing engine with the ability to display, save, and load an external canvas, together with a palette of shapes, Pencil installs an entire drawing application into your Firefox browser. If [...]

The intrepid Geekologie Writer here wishing you all a happy Fourth of July. I'm currently between drinking binges and figured I'd say hi and let you all know I was thinking of you. I also included a video up of one of my favorite past-times -- shooting fireworks at your friends. And, like every firework war I've ever had, this one goes horribly wrong. Oh, and a heads up -- there's some NSFW cussing in it. Now everybody get out there and have a great holiday weekend. But remember: safety first. Under no circumstances should you play with fireworks without an alcoholic beverage's supervision. Happy fourth! Be safe and I'll see you bright and early on Monday. Youtube

Here are some of the jobs listed on CrunchBoard over the last week: Fulltime Senior AJAX/PHP Web DeveloperDriverSide - San Francisco, CA QA EngineerGx5 - Anywhere Software Support SpecialistK&L Wine Merchants - Redwood City, CA GoodBarry .NET Web Development NinjaGoodBarry - San Francisco, CA Head of Web Design & Front-End DevelopmentGlobal Campus - London, UK Quality Assurance CowboyJanus Health - San [...]

Google has just released a lengthy blog post to announce that it has finally put its privacy policy on its homepage. The search giant has been repeatedly questioned over the last few months over its lack of a readily available privacy policy, which until now has been buried in the “About Google” section of [...]

Regator, a new blog aggregator that hopes to reduce the blogosphere down to consumable chunks for the average user, has launched today in private beta. The site acts like a combination between Digg and a standard RSS reader, allowing users to vote on the most popular stories drawn from 3,000 blogs that have been [...]

Tomorrow we celebrate July 4th, and a week later our long National Nightmare is over. On the 11th we deposit our 2G iPhones in the FriendFeed donation bins and officially hook ourselves up to the Enterprise iPhone. The ePhone will change how we work and play, and in the process free us from the tyranny [...]

Google Earth is turning out to be a great resource for scientists to visualize and communicate the phenomena they study. You can see the migration patterns of endangered and other threatened animals, based on data collected by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. (The image above shows the range of both the Northern spotted [...]

The launch of Twitter clone Identi.ca earlier this week caused a bit of a blogstorm because it appears to have a solution to Twitter’s all-too-regular downtime. (That problem has reached comical proportions, with the familiar Twitter Fail Whale now appearing on T-shirts and kitschy art). Identi.ca’s answer to Twitter’s scaling issues is by [...]

It’s not the 4th of July without the Coney Island Hot-Dog Eating Contest (that’s how we celebrate in Brooklyn, by stuffing our faces with as many hot dogs we can fit). This year’s winner is defending champion Joey “Jaws” Chestunt, who won in overtime from six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi. Both ate 59 hot [...]

The FTSE 100 index closed on Friday at its lowest level since November 2005 as it threatened to join counterparts in Asia, the US and Europe in bear market territory

A top Beijing security official has warned that hostile movements are intensifying their efforts to sabotage next month's games

The next editor of the Washington Post will be mandated to accelerate the combination of its print and online divisions, according to people familiar with a search that is expected to end early next week

Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada's second-largest bank, said it would take a pretax charge of about C$96m for the mispricing of derivatives by a senior trader who has left the London office of its investment dealer unit.

Two teams of soldiers and five officers are suspended over a shooting at a military show in south-west France.

Fire caused the collapse of the third tower at the World Trade Center, a final report is expected to find.

Firefighters in California continue to battle huge wildfires that now threaten several towns in the US state.

Colombia releases video of the daring raid that freed hostage Ingrid Betancourt, as she returns to France.

AT&T has decided not to renew its contract to resell television services provided by Dish Networks. The announcement, made last night in a filing from Dish with the SEC, have sent shares of the satellite company tumbling and analysts rushing to point out that this may not be the end for Dish and AT&T. My [...]

Citrix CTO Simon Crosby wants his company to be the dominant player in the virtualization market. Part of his strategy involves Microsoft???s Hyper-V hypervisor, while part of its revolves around services that ???play nicely with others.???

AT&T, long before it merged with SBC had made a half-hearted attempt at getting into consumer VoIP by selling a service called, CallVantage. It was surprisingly good, especially its call quality. Unfortunately, the company never quite made the commitment to it. And when SBC merger happened, well it fell victim of save-your-mentality that comes with [...]

Finally got around to implementing smooth movement for OpenGLContext.  Instead of just "jumping" a given distance on each press of the key, the default movement manager will now smoothly interpolate to the position (same for orientations).  Code is pretty straightforward, the only tricky thing was getting holding down the key to make the motion faster.

Under the covers I'm using a pair of timers to handle the interpolation.  Each time a key-press event is received the timer is restarted to interpolate between the current position and the target position.  Problem was that the timers would start a frame behind, and by the time they were firing the next key-press event would be firing as well.

Result was that the cycle-fractions produced for the first frame of the animation would be about 1/2 of the time that was intended (since the key-press processing occurs between frames).  Since a new keyboard event would come in that frame too, the timer would get reset all over again.  Result was that pressing and holding the key would slow down the motion by about 1/2 compared with pressing discretely.

To get around that, I compress the natural fraction from the timer by 1/2 and shift it 1/2 forward.  Result is that the viewer jumps forward 1/2 of the distance, then slowly adjusts into the final position if they press the key once.  If they kept the key pressed, however, they tend to move forward at about 1/2 of the step distance per frame.  Only real downside is that speed is once again affected by frame-rate, rather than being entirely simulation-driven.  Still, it looks reasonably good and feels natural.

http://chik-a-boom.blogspot.com/

Outside for days now. The sounds of snapbangs and explosions.

[More:] Searching "boom" gets you underwhelming and random results.

Fireworks!
July should just be explosion month.
Go blow something up.
Put your big bangs here.

Can you recommend a good live-but-recorded upbeat Broadway performance in the style of MTV's Legally Blonde or the London Oklahoma with Hugh Jackman a few years back? I'm not looking for a Hairspray Movie (though I loved it) but rather recordings of shows performed as shows, not as movies. Thanks!

Looking for a short story I read in high school English ages ago. Rough story line: Guy dies. Slowly over time pieces of evidence that he ever lived disappear from the world...

...Finally, many years after his death, the last piece of paper bearing his signature is burned. Now the last trace of his life is gone. Sorry I can't give more detail. Probably read this in about 1980, and that's all that stuck. Thanks for your help!