links for 2009-05-06

"Conservative political commentator Michael Savage, real name Michael Alan Weiner, is one of 22 people barred for fostering extremism or hate." Freedom of the speech people we have it, Britain not so much.

"You can be good without god", too controversial for Indiana.

Sex ed over the cellphone, pretty neat.

"Two media freedom campaign groups have criticised Yemen for what they say are attempts to suppress reporting about protests in the south of the country."

"Using some prelaunch log-in credentials provided by the Wolfram team, I decided to run my own Wolfram Alpha versus Google test. I used a handful of search terms that could produce data-centric answers and tried variations in a few cases to see what might happen." Pretty interesting differences.

"The question remains how far those figures can be trusted because some official Chinese statistics have proved questionable in the past and because some crucial indicators suggest a far less optimistic picture." Go China manipulating data to prove a point.

Intel will start advertising it's brand as opposed to the company's role in well everything.

"Senator Arlen Specter, Republican-turned-Democrat of Pennsylvania, may be his state’s senior senator, now in his fifth term after first being elected in 1980. But as far as committee assignments go, Mr. Specter now ranks below all other Democrats, including Pennsylvania’s junior senator, Bob Casey, who was only elected in 2006. Perhaps fitting for this curious turn of events, Mr. Casey, 48, now out-ranks Mr. Specter, 79, on the Special Committee on Aging." That is kinda funny.

"The judge overseeing Chrysler's Chapter 11 proceedings says the automaker can start taking steps toward selling the vast majority of its assets to Italy's Fiat." And Chrysler's long recovery begins.

Twitter first new and popular form of search since Google and Microsoft hasn't been able to build a Google Killer. This idea actually makes some sense.

Oh we won't miss you SCO.

"One of Twitter’s charms is that it demands almost nothing of us."

"…Oracle has to also learn a lot about open source development and working with the community." Oracle has never been much of a friend in the opensource world.

"Matthews: See how you’re hedging. This is why people don’t trust Republicans." Impressed with you Chris Matthews.

No die, die IE6.

"Don Knuth has been very generously sending these checks (now certificates of deposit at The Bank of San Serriffe) as reward for my bug reports about his books." 8 Knuth checks, wow.

"It started early Monday morning with Yahoo’ers chattering that the long awaited Microsoft search deal, first floated in the middle of last year when an outright merger was abandoned, may be near. Something internal at Yahoo set these guys off, and non C level executives got wind of it. The buzz started, with one call I received saying a deal was closing now. As in ASAP." Are we finally about to end this crap?

"Vincent van Gogh did not cut off his own ear but lost it in a fight with fellow artist Paul Gauguin in a row outside a brothel, it has been claimed." Of Van Gogh, whatever you did you still crazy and an awesome artist.

"US Vice-President Joe Biden has said Israel must back a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians." There are days when I am amazed that Biden can form a coherent sentence, I kid somewhat.

"Even as competitors like Circuit City go bust, B&H remains packed with loyal customers. And that makes me very happy. For a business owner, there's nothing more satisfying than watching honest dealers expand their operations while the schmucks, with their going-out-of-business markups, go down the drain. It's inspiring to know that starting with the premise of treating your customers well really does pay off." Sums it up.

"The judge overseeing Chrysler’s bankruptcy case in Manhattan ruled Tuesday afternoon that the group of dissident secured debtholders in the case must make their identities public, ruling against their effort to submit their roster under seal. But the judge, Arthur J. Gonzalez, said that the creditors could not benefit from court protection of their identities simply because they were taking an unpopular position." Indeed.

"The Chrysler headquarters building is a spectacular sight from I-75 in Michigan. But the Auburn Hills edifice and its sprawling campus sit in the middle of one of the most economically depressed areas in the country. When the building was erected in the early 1990s, it was designed so it could be repurposed into a shopping mall without too much modification if the perennially troubled Chrysler should go out of business." That says it all.

"According to an NPD survey, the five top-selling smartphones between Jan. 1 and March 31 were the BlackBerry Curve, the Apple iPhone 3G, the BlackBerry Storm, the BlackBerry Pearl (not including the Pearl Flip) and the T-Mobile G1 with the Android operating system." Good for BlackBerry.

"Facebook tried to buy Twitter. Google and Microsoft have been giving the red-hot Internet-messaging startup the eye. But we hear it's Apple that's closest to sealing a deal, possibly for as much as $700 million." I just don't see it, what do they have in common?

"Mexico says it has written to the World Trade Organization (WTO), demanding an explanation from countries which have restricted its imports over swine flu. Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz Mateos said such bans lacked a basis in science and would not be permitted." Good for Mexico, bad Russia, China and you other countries.

"People love to talk about Apple buying other famous companies. Sometimes they say that deals are in the works (although I wonder if any of the rumored transactions even reached the talking-it-over stage). Other times, they just wistfully hope that a deal might happen, or wonder what would transpire if it did." Lots of rumors not much deal making.

"US President Obama's administration has announced a $63bn health plan to fight Aids and other illnesses overseas." A continuation of Bush's work on this front.

"A woman from Texas has become the first US resident believed to have died from swine flu." The second H1N1 flu death outside of Mexico.

Hey who knows.

"A group of lenders unhappy with the reconstruction of Chrysler – in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection – has asked a New York court to halt the process." My bet, not going to happen.

"Washington DC city council has voted to recognise same-sex marriages conducted in other US states. Because Washington DC is not a state, the decision will now have to be approved by Congress before it can become law."

"You see, in Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista, Explorer used to Hide extensions for known file types. And virus writers used this "feature" to make people mistake executables for stuff such as document files." Still there.

"Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it is laying off more workers, almost completing its plan to cut 5,000 jobs by June 2010, and left the door open for yet more job cuts." Still only 5%, Microsoft isn't hit to bad by this economy, just getting rid of the cruft.

"Under the new standard from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the roof must withstand three times the curb weight of the vehicle, and there is no longer a 5,000-pound maximum. Furthermore, pressure will be applied first to one side and then the other side of the roof. For years, some safety advocates have asked for a two-sided test. They have argued that it better duplicates what happens when a vehicle rolls." Make sense.

"Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion." Are you kidding me?

"At some point the vaunted Republican noise machine stopped being about winning elections and became instead a feckless attempt at mass justification, popping out one lame excuse after another for the party's failures." Pretty much.