links for 2009-07-19

"The advice appears in guidance circulated to parents, teachers and youth workers, and is intended to update sex education by telling pupils about the benefits of sexual pleasure. For too long, say its authors, experts have concentrated on the need for “safe sex” and loving relationships while ignoring the main reason that many people have sex, that is, for enjoyment. " I totally agree.

"A tiny glass telescope, the size of a pea, has been successfully implanted in the eyes of people with severely damaged retinas, helping them to read, watch television and better see familiar faces. The new device is for people with an irreversible, advanced form of macular degeneration in which a blind spot develops in the central vision of both eyes." Cool.

"So perhaps the biggest surprise about the Central Intelligence Agency’s furor du jour — the secret program, hidden from Congress, to kill the leaders of Al Qaeda — is not that there was such a program, which many Americans assumed. The real surprise is that in eight years of off-again, on-again brainstorming, planning and training, the program did not kill a single terrorist. It did not even mount an attempt, C.I.A. officials say."

"Amazon says that that the books in question were added to its catalog using the company's self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. And it says it will no longer delete books in this manner. Von Lohmann believes the Federal Trade Commission may be interested in Amazon's actions. He said the government agency has been looking into situations in which people who bought music protected by a digital rights management system find themselves denied access to their music when the service shuts down. If Kindle books are rentals, he said, they should be described that way. "The Kindle gives you the sense that you are buying the book," he said." Well hopefully this won't happen again.

"In the first six months of this year, the Russian human rights organization Memorial, where Ms. Estemirova worked, documented 74 kidnappings in Chechnya, compared with 42 for all of 2008. Human rights groups have laid the blame for the bulk of the disappearances, and the killing of Ms. Estemirova, squarely at the feet of the regional president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, and his security forces."

"To bring this great project to a close, we wanted to make sure the Outlook team had a constant reminder of just how strongly we all feel about their lack of standards support. Trending topics on Twitter come and go, we wanted something a little more permanent we could send their way."

"One of the coolest things about FriendFeed is how you can see everything that's happening on the site in real-time. Starting today, this is even more true with real-time search." Good job FriendFeed.

"As of today, 250 million people are using Facebook to stay updated on what's happening around them and share with the people in their lives. The rapid pace of our growth is humbling and exciting for us, and it affirms that people everywhere are realizing the power of staying connected to everything they care about on Facebook." Crazy.

"The states’ willingness to spend, even under excruciating budget pressures, is a measure of the support for expanding health care coverage to the uninsured as Congress and the administration intensify their negotiations over a new federal health care bill."

"A Chinese official says police shot dead 12 Uighur rioters in Urumqi this month, in a rare government admission of deaths inflicted by security forces. Nuer Baikeli, governor of Xinjiang region and himself a Uighur, said those killed had ignored police warning shots and were attacking civilians and shops."

"Well, you can run change_bulb($electricity,$filament) or bulb_change($plug,$filament,$electricity) or Zend_Light_Bulb::change() or download a pear package that has this undocumented $houseMaintenance->changeBulb() method or you can run this script I found on the internet that will make a web form that posts super globals directly into the light bulb." Lol.

"A US spacecraft has captured images of Apollo landing sites on the Moon, revealing hardware and a trail of footprints left on the lunar surface. The release of the images coincides with the 40th anniversary of the first manned mission to land on the Moon." So awesome.

"The Obama administration has proposed a number of new regulations and agencies, notably including a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would be charged with safeguarding consumers against things like abusive mortgage, auto loan or credit card contracts. The new agency is to encourage “plain vanilla” products that are simpler and easier to understand. But representatives of the financial services industry have criticized the proposal as a threat to innovations that could improve consumers’ welfare. As the story of the steam engine shows, innovation often entails tension between safety and power. We need to foster inventions that better human welfare while incorporating safety mechanisms that protect the public. Could the proposed agency accomplish this task?"

"Astronauts have begun the first of five spacewalks to be performed by the crew of the shuttle Endeavour at the International Space Station (ISS)."

"The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s support in a bitter legislative dispute, then the group’s chairman flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay." Oh fun.