Fox News successfully creates climate confusion, but only among conservatives ~ ArsTechnica
As it turns out, the survey contained information that can help address this issue. Over 40 percent of the self-identified Democrats sometimes watch Fox, while 17 percent of Republicans tune in to CNN and MSNBC. When the numbers for those viewers were broken out, two different trends were apparent. Among Democrats, it didn’t matter how often they watched Fox; their acceptance of climate change remained roughly steady. Republicans who watched MSNBC and CNN, however, had a much higher acceptance than their peers who maintained a strict diet of Fox.
Happy Birthday Carl Sagan!
Happy Birthday Carl Sagan!
November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. —Carl Sagan
HTC Aria FINALLY updated to Android (FROYO) 2.2
HTC Aria ™ for AT&T Android 2.2 ROM Update | 02.25.2011
This software is an update for the HTC Aria™ for AT&T. Please note that during this update process, the device will be Hard Reset and anything that is NOT part of the Operating System (applications downloaded from Android Market, SMS/MMS, Email, etc)) will be permanently deleted; always make a point of backing up your devices data on a regular basis!
Note: All Music, Pictures, and Video are stored on the MicroSD card and will not be deleted during the update process. All applications downloaded from Market are linked to the Gmail account set up on the device and can be restored to the device using that Gmail account.
Investigative Report: How the BP Oil Rig Blowout Happened–Popular Mechanics

”…the Horizon disaster resulted from many human and technical failings in a risk-taking corporation that operated in an industry with ineffective regulatory oversight. By the time the blowout came, it was almost inevitable. ‘It’s clear that the problem is not technology, but people,’ says Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California–Berkeley. ‘It was a chain of important errors made by people in critical situations involving complex technological and organization systems.’”
”Oil and gas leases are the federal government’s second largest source of revenue, after income taxes…”
”What unfolded over the next few hours could almost have been written as a treatise in the science of industrial accidents.”
”The offshore rush was on, and nothing was going to stop it. ‘when you think you’ve got a robust system,’ says Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering at Duke university, ‘you tend to relax.’”
“How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?”
“The argument revealed the inherent conflict on the rig. BP, which was paying Transocean $500,000 daily to lease the Horizon, wanted to move as quickly as possible. With its costs covered, Transocean could afford to focus more on safety and well control.”
”In the end, 11 men died…But worst of all, says Ford Brett, president of Oil and Gas Consultants International, the blowout ‘wasn’t an accident in the traditional sense, like when someone just hits your car. It was an accident that was totally preventable.’”
Message To Computer Security Experts From Users: Take This P******d And Shove It!
ARE PASSWORDS REALLY THAT DIFFICULT?
When it comes to creating passwords for social networks, business [to a lesser extent] or more alarmingly e-commerce programs, most Web users seem to have gotten lazy. That’s the (not particularly shocking) news last month from Web security firm Imperva, which examined data uncovered in a recent breach of a site called RockYou.com: users are simply continuing to ignore experts’ advice.
Fortunately, or not depending on your perspective, there is no paucity of advice on the subject of password selection and protection offered by computer and information security (CIS) experts and analysts – and even though that advice has been around for even as long as a couple of decades now, it is continually evolving.
And yet there will likely be no changes in users’ behavior even with the recent news of the intrusion into web company RockYou and the subsequent pilfering and posting of approximately 32 million user passwords: security analysts were alarmed to find a continuing trend in password choices: one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat - they choose simple, weak, easily guessed passwords like “abc123,” “iloveyou” or even “password” to protect their data.
There are even some experts like Cormac Herley, Principle Researcher at Microsoft Research who are suggesting that the burden is just too high for users and that it might be entirely rational to reject the experts advice.
It appears Herley might be correct in his assertion [spelled out in detail in his paper] that statistically the overall costs to all users exceeds the relative benefits to the few who might be harmed, yet none of us would appreciate being counted among the statistical few who are indeed compromised.
Vigilance over our digital data is mandatory and the advice offered by experts is valid, but I agree with the assertion made by Herley that the blame lies not with the pallid behavior of computer users, but rather with the complex and incoherent burdens placed upon individual users. More directly: the blame lies with the security experts and the burdens they place upon us.
In order to fix this apparent hole from an individual users point of view there needs to be a universal solution that is far easier to enact than what is about to follow. The human factor is truly security’s weakest link.
Homeopathy: There’s nothing in it ~ The 10:23 Campaign
Latest News:
What is homeopathy?
Homeopathy is an unscientific and absurd pseudoscience, yet it persists today as an accepted complementary medicine.
Ask many people what they think homeopathy is, and you’ll be told "it’s herbal medicine" or "it’s all-natural". Few realise that it’s been proven not to work; even fewer know it involves substances so dilute that there’s nothing left in them. Homeopathy takes advantage of this uncertainty to sit alongside real, proven medicines on the shelves of our major pharmacies.
The 10:23 Campaign
The 10:23 Campaign aims to raise awareness about the reality of homeopathy. We will tell you how it can be proven not to work, why homeopaths’ claims are impossible, why you should care.
The campaign is organised by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, a non-profit organisation for the promotion of scientific skepticism. More information about Merseyside Skeptics is available on their website.
At 10:23am on January 30th, more than four hundred homeopathy sceptics nationwide took part in a mass homeopathic ‘overdose’ in protest at Boots’ continued endorsement and sale of homeopathic remedies, and to raise public awareness about the fact that homeopathic remedies have nothing in them.
What’s the Harm?
If there is nothing in it, it can’t do any harm, right? Wrong! Journalist and science-writer Simon Singh tells us why.
An Open Letter to Alliance Boots
Last year, Boots admitted that they don’t believe homeopathy works. They said they stock it because "customers believe it works". Sign our open letter and demand Boots stop lending legitimacy to nonsense.
Hot Comments
People think it works because of where they buy it- Stop lending credibility to homeopathy!
- Bernard Knappenberger, Canada
Download the leaflet
Not everyone uses the internet, so if you can’t send them a link, download and print our flyer. Give it to family, friends – whoever you think may be interested. We’re sure you will come up with some more creative uses too!
Petition the PM
Figures obtained last year by More4 News revealed that the NHS spends around £4 million per year on homeopathy, money which could have paid the salaries of almost 200 nurses!
We would welcome any move to evaluate on a medical basis (as opposed to a political one) the provision of unproven treatments such as homeopathy on the NHS. So if you are able, we think it is important to support this petition, which calls for the government to instruct the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to evaluate whether it is appropriate for the NHS to fund homeopathy.
Ford Start Concept – More than simply a design exploration into the feasibility of a small car.
PRESS RELEASE
SMALL, GREEN, SMART AND FUN: FORD START CONCEPT A DESIGN INSPIRATION FOR THE MEGA CITY
BEIJING, April 23, 2010 – For parts of the world that are growing increasingly urban, the future of the automobile looks small, green, smart and fun in the eyes of Ford designers who created the Ford Start Concept. It’s a design vision inspired for the transportation needs of the world’s mega cities.
Making its global debut at the 2010 Beijing Auto Show, the Ford Start Concept is more than simply a design exploration into the feasibility of a small car. It also demonstrates how Ford will extend the promise of its EcoBoost engine technology story even further – previewing a fuel-efficient petrol Ford EcoBoost engine with just three cylinders and 1.0 liter of displacement, yet the power of a larger, 1.6-liter I4 engine.


The Barnes & Noble Nook Color’s update v1.4.1


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