Alright, on further inspection Netvibes does appear to have the same functionality as iGoogle. Just took some poking around to figure out how it works. The edit buttons for the feed widgets were not visible for me in the default theme so I couldn't figure out how to edit or delete content initially.
Good recommendation. Now I'm ready for when iGoogle goes dark . . . in November of 2013.
Just looked at Netvibes. Its a social media aggregator with news feeds from Yahoo and Bing (bleck). I put in "science" as my starter topic and it comes back with thousands of forum posts and blog entries. I'm not interested in what forum trolls and paid sock puppets think about the LHC press conference. I'd like to read about the contents of the press conference.
I'm looking for something that draws on actual news sources like AP, Christian Science Monitor, the Guardian, CNN, etc. without me having to open a dozen web pages and sift through their individual interfaces. I guess I need to learn to use GoogleNews and then open up a few other pages for weather, chat, etc.
Maybe I need to ask a broader question: If having a personalized home page is obsolete, what's the new way to see all the basic information you're interested in one place?
I've been using iGoogle as my home page forever. Considering the broad range of services Google provides now - email, chat, voice services, etc. - you'd think they'd want to provide a central hub. I've got mine set up for some basic news headlines with sports, hollywood, and Fox filtered out. I also use it for local weather, Google Chat, and to manage account settings. I think I'll miss the news aggregator function the most.
Any suggestions for a good generalized news aggregator? Something that will draw from a variety of sources and can be customized for topic preferences.
I suspect most people will "change their behavior" after the warnings or speed throttling by switching ISP's.
Perhaps once telecoms begin to lose customers as a result of being MAFIAA enforcers, they'll decide to side with their customers and more modern copyright laws.
Always interesting to see the categories different parts of academia place each other in. The post's author is calling math, physics and comp-sci "natural sciences" and apparently considers statistics to be "social science". I'm a geology professor and, as far as I'm aware, my colleagues and I tend to consider Earth, environmental, and biological sciences to be the "natural sciences"; physics, chemistry, engineering, and any math to be "physical science"; and psychology, sociology, (cultural) anthropology, etc. to be "social sciences". Everything else is art and/or humanities.
I wonder how other groups categorize one another? Right off the bat I'd suspect that mathematicians don't always consider themselves scientists. Perhaps ditto for engineers. People tend to form and place each other in groups of varying degrees of subjectivity. How you place others probably says something about the standards and values of one's own group.
This sounds like it'd make a great piece of social-psych research! They love this kind of fluff, right? (j/k)
This is exactly the problem with American chips lately. They're too lazy to put any effort into their work. Sure, they're "saving energy" but that just means they're going to become even more obese. Chips from many Asian manufacturers are already much more accurate and efficient than American ones. We need to encourage American chips to be more interested in STEM fields if we're ever going to turn our economy around!
I've always gotten the impression that the dark and dystopian futures prevalent in cyberpunk and related genres are the result of corruption and abuse of the power and potential of technology. They are a warning against what technology can become if not applied responsibly. Most tech-heavy sci-fi ends up being a warning against potential results of some new science and technology.
Snow Crash . . . is basically reality now . . . Diamond Age is a better example. It portrayed two opposing views of nano tech implementation: centralized vs. decentralized production. Either way it demonstrated the potential of nanotechnology. And, hey, now we have people building 3D printers in garages and using them to make toys for their kids rather than enslave the underclass.
You're absolutely correct! We should immediately begin funneling money into a (heavily) manned mission to Venus so that we can bring the freedom-hating planet to justice. Once we're done there, we should deploy additional craft to Mars, as intelligence suggests that they may have facilitated logistical support for Venus and its allies. In fact, the time may come when we are forced to consider actions against Jupiter . . . for the greater good, of course . . .
I was thinking more in terms of population density combined with industrialization (cities, roads, power plants, etc.). Throw in your suggestion of brightest lights and you basically get Beijing or Shanghai.
I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories and crazy end-of-the-world stuff, but I was just thinking about the same thing. What if aliens were to finally visit the Earth? They'd be likely to head for the largest modern civilization, which is basically China. Would we ever hear about it, especially if something went wrong? Same deal with any other sort of globally important event or disaster. Weaponized nationalist pride, basically . . . scary.
When comparing panspermia to a terrestrial origin for life people seem not to fully comprehend one important factor: time.
It began raining on the Earth about 4-4.4 billion years ago, meaning surface temperatures and atmospheric conditions were stable enough for the oceans to accumulate. Some of the earliest evidence of biochemical alteration of the atmosphere (banded iron formations) first appear about 3.7 billion years ago. That's over 500 million years for naturally occurring amino acids to jump to self-replication and then to simple prokaryotes. Now, think about the rate at which microorganisms reproduce. 500Ma is about as much time as its taken for life to jump from single-celled forms to modern vertebrates, etc.
Panspermia includes too many unknown and slim chances. And, as mentioned elsewhere in these posts, where are these life-seeding bolides coming from?
With $6.4B in losses, its possible that actual pirates are attacking and pillaging their shipments, factories, etc. Or its a bit of creative bookkeeping - every downloaded Black Eyed Peas single represents a loss of $18,000 . . . so that's nearly $40,000 right there.
They go by a different name in the NYC area. We call them "public restrooms" or "Port-a-Johns" more popularly.
The major problem with this plan is that the kiosk touchscreens will probably be turned on 24/7, cycling through pictures, ads, etc. How are the homeless people who inevitably take up residence in these booths going to be able to sleep if the screen is constantly running?
I've seen this from both sides. One of the schools I work at used to have an older chemistry professor that basically refused to use modern computers. The department had to hire a part-time student worker to do email and submit attendance and grades for the guy. He wasn't a technophobe - he used an old Pentium PC to run research software - he just stopped keeping up with computer progress.
On the other hand, I can see why teachers might avoid technology in the classroom. In my experience, schools seem to hire IT professionals out of the business sector who tend to bring business-class technology solutions along with them. Like help desks and call centers that treat students and staff like they are low-priority clients. Smart board systems that require a remote control and a pointer/wand device to fully utilize . . . the remotes and wands disappeared within months of deployment, so now the boards are very expensive marker boards and projector screens. Access to and quality of classroom technology can be highly inconsistent and, thus, frustrating to use.
What if we made sure that every classroom in the world was supplied with a solar-powered, fully recyclable, free-trade produced Van De Graaff generator? We've seen how such devices can spark the interest of physics students in western classrooms over the years. Surely it will have the same effect in classrooms throughout the world! Just present one to the teacher and . . . science!
The first teacher I ever had who used email was my freshman HS algebra teacher. She used Compuserve so her email address was some sort of random number sequence. Prodigy and AOL were far superior because they encouraged you to pick a goofy nickname to use while online - your screen name. Because, hey, who knew this internet thing would become so serious?
People are still using stupid screen names for primary email. I get to see a lot as a teacher. There are too many female students out there, for example, with emails including some variation on "juicy". My all time favorite, though, was a student whose email address was "SmurfKiller" with some additional numbers. There must be a lot of smurf killers out there . . .
Thanks for the link and instructions, very helpful. I ran through the procedures and am happy to see that I'm clean. The same page also indicates that this bit of malware basically deletes itself if it finds evidence of security software running on the system, such as Little Snitch or ClamXAV. I was neither offended nor confused by the reference to Terminal. Mac OS has had a hidden command line at least as far back as OS 7.1, IIRC.
Another simple precaution Mac users can take is to make sure they are not logging into their computer for daily use as an Admin. In System Preferences, under Users & Groups, make sure your personal user account does NOT have Admin level access. Make a separate Admin account, with a very strong password (yes, yes slashdot community, I know there's no such thing . . . let's just pretend for now) and give your usual login account Standard access only. The bad news with this set up is that whenever you install software, move apps and files to a new directory, or change system settings you'll be prompted to enter the Admin login and password. The good news is that malware trying to install or run in the background will also run into the same obstruction.
I've been seeing stories like this a lot lately. Of course, like most people, my immediate reaction is that this is ridiculous. Should employers be able to access your email accounts as well? How about your Amazon or eBay purchase histories?
But, aren't there other ways around this? If your Facebook is sufficiently secured, how would an employer even know you use Facebook unless you are honest/foolish enough to tell them you use it? If your employer can't just randomly look you up on Facebook, then they don't know you're using it.
I'm also tempted to suggest simply deleting your Facebook - better to let it burn rather than fall into "enemy" hands, if you will. But, for people who use it as a primary means of communication that's probably not an option.
Quick, everyone jump on their always-on internet connections and complain about needing an always-on internet connection to play this new game! How ridiculous to expect people with a computer or console capable of running this game to also have internet access in the 21st century.
The government complains about a lack of scientists and engineers as it continues to cut funding to education across the board at the state and federal levels.
K-12 schools can't afford to give their teachers cost-of-living raises or even hire new, competent teachers in some cases. Colleges are raising tuition year after year despite overcrowding because attendance is up but funding is down. Schools in general have trouble keeping their labs and equipment up to date due to budget cuts as well. Less money for science and math teachers leads to fewer students pursing science and math in college. This leads to fewer science/math professionals, including fewer good teachers. And so on . . .
When a government begins attacking education - banning printing presses, burning books, defunding schools, demonizing teachers' unions - its because they want a stupid, docile populace. If you're raising sheep, don't expect to get anything more than wool out of them.
And what are Japan, Germany, etc. going to do for energy once they've phased out their big, scary nuclear power plants? Unless they find a way to quickly and effectively implement large-scale solar plants/farms, geothermal, etc. they're going to resort to burning fossil fuel. A big step backwards because, under extreme circumstances, nuclear can be dangerous.
You know what's even more dangerous than an accident at a nuclear plant? A world-wide war over the planet's dwindling fossil fuel supplies.
Seconded. The eastern seaboard would benefit greatly from an impact-induced tsunami. Imagine rebuilding NYC, etc. with a layout built around modern public transportation instead of peddler's carts and horse-and-buggies!
Slashdot Mirror
Alright, on further inspection Netvibes does appear to have the same functionality as iGoogle. Just took some poking around to figure out how it works. The edit buttons for the feed widgets were not visible for me in the default theme so I couldn't figure out how to edit or delete content initially.
Good recommendation. Now I'm ready for when iGoogle goes dark . . . in November of 2013.
Just looked at Netvibes. Its a social media aggregator with news feeds from Yahoo and Bing (bleck). I put in "science" as my starter topic and it comes back with thousands of forum posts and blog entries. I'm not interested in what forum trolls and paid sock puppets think about the LHC press conference. I'd like to read about the contents of the press conference.
I'm looking for something that draws on actual news sources like AP, Christian Science Monitor, the Guardian, CNN, etc. without me having to open a dozen web pages and sift through their individual interfaces. I guess I need to learn to use GoogleNews and then open up a few other pages for weather, chat, etc.
Maybe I need to ask a broader question: If having a personalized home page is obsolete, what's the new way to see all the basic information you're interested in one place?
I've been using iGoogle as my home page forever. Considering the broad range of services Google provides now - email, chat, voice services, etc. - you'd think they'd want to provide a central hub. I've got mine set up for some basic news headlines with sports, hollywood, and Fox filtered out. I also use it for local weather, Google Chat, and to manage account settings. I think I'll miss the news aggregator function the most.
Any suggestions for a good generalized news aggregator? Something that will draw from a variety of sources and can be customized for topic preferences.
I suspect most people will "change their behavior" after the warnings or speed throttling by switching ISP's.
Perhaps once telecoms begin to lose customers as a result of being MAFIAA enforcers, they'll decide to side with their customers and more modern copyright laws.
Always interesting to see the categories different parts of academia place each other in. The post's author is calling math, physics and comp-sci "natural sciences" and apparently considers statistics to be "social science". I'm a geology professor and, as far as I'm aware, my colleagues and I tend to consider Earth, environmental, and biological sciences to be the "natural sciences"; physics, chemistry, engineering, and any math to be "physical science"; and psychology, sociology, (cultural) anthropology, etc. to be "social sciences". Everything else is art and/or humanities.
I wonder how other groups categorize one another? Right off the bat I'd suspect that mathematicians don't always consider themselves scientists. Perhaps ditto for engineers. People tend to form and place each other in groups of varying degrees of subjectivity. How you place others probably says something about the standards and values of one's own group.
This sounds like it'd make a great piece of social-psych research! They love this kind of fluff, right? (j/k)
This is exactly the problem with American chips lately. They're too lazy to put any effort into their work. Sure, they're "saving energy" but that just means they're going to become even more obese. Chips from many Asian manufacturers are already much more accurate and efficient than American ones. We need to encourage American chips to be more interested in STEM fields if we're ever going to turn our economy around!
Normally:
CO2 + Light = Algae
Now:
CO2 + Algae = Light
Brilliant!
I've always gotten the impression that the dark and dystopian futures prevalent in cyberpunk and related genres are the result of corruption and abuse of the power and potential of technology. They are a warning against what technology can become if not applied responsibly. Most tech-heavy sci-fi ends up being a warning against potential results of some new science and technology.
Snow Crash . . . is basically reality now . . . Diamond Age is a better example. It portrayed two opposing views of nano tech implementation: centralized vs. decentralized production. Either way it demonstrated the potential of nanotechnology. And, hey, now we have people building 3D printers in garages and using them to make toys for their kids rather than enslave the underclass.
You're absolutely correct! We should immediately begin funneling money into a (heavily) manned mission to Venus so that we can bring the freedom-hating planet to justice. Once we're done there, we should deploy additional craft to Mars, as intelligence suggests that they may have facilitated logistical support for Venus and its allies. In fact, the time may come when we are forced to consider actions against Jupiter . . . for the greater good, of course . . .
I was thinking more in terms of population density combined with industrialization (cities, roads, power plants, etc.). Throw in your suggestion of brightest lights and you basically get Beijing or Shanghai.
I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories and crazy end-of-the-world stuff, but I was just thinking about the same thing. What if aliens were to finally visit the Earth? They'd be likely to head for the largest modern civilization, which is basically China. Would we ever hear about it, especially if something went wrong? Same deal with any other sort of globally important event or disaster. Weaponized nationalist pride, basically . . . scary.
No, no. That's old school. They want new, advanced techniques. Perhaps they can start using a fuel cell in place of a car battery . . .
When comparing panspermia to a terrestrial origin for life people seem not to fully comprehend one important factor: time.
It began raining on the Earth about 4-4.4 billion years ago, meaning surface temperatures and atmospheric conditions were stable enough for the oceans to accumulate. Some of the earliest evidence of biochemical alteration of the atmosphere (banded iron formations) first appear about 3.7 billion years ago. That's over 500 million years for naturally occurring amino acids to jump to self-replication and then to simple prokaryotes. Now, think about the rate at which microorganisms reproduce. 500Ma is about as much time as its taken for life to jump from single-celled forms to modern vertebrates, etc.
Panspermia includes too many unknown and slim chances. And, as mentioned elsewhere in these posts, where are these life-seeding bolides coming from?
With $6.4B in losses, its possible that actual pirates are attacking and pillaging their shipments, factories, etc. Or its a bit of creative bookkeeping - every downloaded Black Eyed Peas single represents a loss of $18,000 . . . so that's nearly $40,000 right there.
They go by a different name in the NYC area. We call them "public restrooms" or "Port-a-Johns" more popularly.
The major problem with this plan is that the kiosk touchscreens will probably be turned on 24/7, cycling through pictures, ads, etc. How are the homeless people who inevitably take up residence in these booths going to be able to sleep if the screen is constantly running?
I've seen this from both sides. One of the schools I work at used to have an older chemistry professor that basically refused to use modern computers. The department had to hire a part-time student worker to do email and submit attendance and grades for the guy. He wasn't a technophobe - he used an old Pentium PC to run research software - he just stopped keeping up with computer progress.
On the other hand, I can see why teachers might avoid technology in the classroom. In my experience, schools seem to hire IT professionals out of the business sector who tend to bring business-class technology solutions along with them. Like help desks and call centers that treat students and staff like they are low-priority clients. Smart board systems that require a remote control and a pointer/wand device to fully utilize . . . the remotes and wands disappeared within months of deployment, so now the boards are very expensive marker boards and projector screens. Access to and quality of classroom technology can be highly inconsistent and, thus, frustrating to use.
One Van de Graaff Generator per Child
What if we made sure that every classroom in the world was supplied with a solar-powered, fully recyclable, free-trade produced Van De Graaff generator? We've seen how such devices can spark the interest of physics students in western classrooms over the years. Surely it will have the same effect in classrooms throughout the world! Just present one to the teacher and . . . science!
The first teacher I ever had who used email was my freshman HS algebra teacher. She used Compuserve so her email address was some sort of random number sequence. Prodigy and AOL were far superior because they encouraged you to pick a goofy nickname to use while online - your screen name. Because, hey, who knew this internet thing would become so serious?
People are still using stupid screen names for primary email. I get to see a lot as a teacher. There are too many female students out there, for example, with emails including some variation on "juicy". My all time favorite, though, was a student whose email address was "SmurfKiller" with some additional numbers. There must be a lot of smurf killers out there . . .
Thanks for the link and instructions, very helpful. I ran through the procedures and am happy to see that I'm clean. The same page also indicates that this bit of malware basically deletes itself if it finds evidence of security software running on the system, such as Little Snitch or ClamXAV. I was neither offended nor confused by the reference to Terminal. Mac OS has had a hidden command line at least as far back as OS 7.1, IIRC.
Another simple precaution Mac users can take is to make sure they are not logging into their computer for daily use as an Admin. In System Preferences, under Users & Groups, make sure your personal user account does NOT have Admin level access. Make a separate Admin account, with a very strong password (yes, yes slashdot community, I know there's no such thing . . . let's just pretend for now) and give your usual login account Standard access only. The bad news with this set up is that whenever you install software, move apps and files to a new directory, or change system settings you'll be prompted to enter the Admin login and password. The good news is that malware trying to install or run in the background will also run into the same obstruction.
I've been seeing stories like this a lot lately. Of course, like most people, my immediate reaction is that this is ridiculous. Should employers be able to access your email accounts as well? How about your Amazon or eBay purchase histories?
But, aren't there other ways around this? If your Facebook is sufficiently secured, how would an employer even know you use Facebook unless you are honest/foolish enough to tell them you use it? If your employer can't just randomly look you up on Facebook, then they don't know you're using it.
I'm also tempted to suggest simply deleting your Facebook - better to let it burn rather than fall into "enemy" hands, if you will. But, for people who use it as a primary means of communication that's probably not an option.
Quick, everyone jump on their always-on internet connections and complain about needing an always-on internet connection to play this new game! How ridiculous to expect people with a computer or console capable of running this game to also have internet access in the 21st century.
The government complains about a lack of scientists and engineers as it continues to cut funding to education across the board at the state and federal levels.
K-12 schools can't afford to give their teachers cost-of-living raises or even hire new, competent teachers in some cases. Colleges are raising tuition year after year despite overcrowding because attendance is up but funding is down. Schools in general have trouble keeping their labs and equipment up to date due to budget cuts as well. Less money for science and math teachers leads to fewer students pursing science and math in college. This leads to fewer science/math professionals, including fewer good teachers. And so on . . .
When a government begins attacking education - banning printing presses, burning books, defunding schools, demonizing teachers' unions - its because they want a stupid, docile populace. If you're raising sheep, don't expect to get anything more than wool out of them.
Ewww . . . maybe MS should just stick to copying Apple's UI and features. Its served them well these past 15+ years.
And what are Japan, Germany, etc. going to do for energy once they've phased out their big, scary nuclear power plants? Unless they find a way to quickly and effectively implement large-scale solar plants/farms, geothermal, etc. they're going to resort to burning fossil fuel. A big step backwards because, under extreme circumstances, nuclear can be dangerous.
You know what's even more dangerous than an accident at a nuclear plant? A world-wide war over the planet's dwindling fossil fuel supplies.
Seconded. The eastern seaboard would benefit greatly from an impact-induced tsunami. Imagine rebuilding NYC, etc. with a layout built around modern public transportation instead of peddler's carts and horse-and-buggies!