links for 2009-11-09

Scientists need to remember to be sympathetic.

"Google is trying not to be creepy. That's according to CEO Eric Schmidt, who told Fox Business Thursday that "we're trying not to cross what we call the creepy line" when it comes to the data it gathers. As an example, Schmidt said Google only publishes satellite data that is a month old, indicating that Google would consider it creepy to publish real-time satellite data."

"To preempt the tide of angry comments and emails, let me clarify that, despite the ambiguity of the leading clause, I support Second Amendment rights. But one of the favorite arguments used by staunch advocates of the Second Amendment is some variant of the "we don't need more guns laws, we just need to enforce the current laws." Ya think? The recent undercover operation conducted by New York City blows a giant hole in the idea that we're enforcing the current laws. Of course, guns don't kill people, people kill people. Well, sure, but they're killing a lot more people in red states than blue states. Holding DC aside, the ten states with the lowest per-capital gun death rates all voted for Barack Obama, and seven of the ten high highest voted for John McCain."

"Traffic Server enables the session management, authentication, configuration management, load balancing, and routing for an entire cloud computing stack. Yahoo says that with the open source version of Traffic Server, organizations can benefit from access to cached online content. In addition, Traffic Server enables faster responses to requests for stored Web objects, such as files, news articles or images."

"So here I am to answer your dreams: A simple straightforward function that sends HTML e-mails with a plain text counterpart for those over 80 and still using AOL 2.5."

"Thus, the direct person-to-person connection Kiva offered was in fact an illusion. Kiva’s lenders were actually backstopping microfinance institutions, and since Kiva and other online giving and lending models pride themselves on their transparency, Mr. Roodman and others suggested it might better explain what its lenders’ money — about $100 million over four years — was really doing." Interesting and really bad pr for Kiva.

"Page navigation (scrolling) and pagination using keyboard shortcuts with micro-formatted html "

"It turns out the size of the average American’s social circle is smaller today than 20 years ago, as measured by the number of self-reported confidants in a person’s life. Yet contrary to popular opinion, use of cellphones and the Internet is not to blame, according to a new study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. In fact, people who regularly use digital technologies are more social than the average American and more likely to visit parks and cafes, or volunteer for local organizations, according to the study, which was based on telephone interviews with a national sample of 2,512 adults living in the continental United States. The study found some less-than-social behavior, however. People who use social networks like Facebook or Linkedin are 30 percent less likely to know their neighbors and 26 percent less likely to provide them companionship." It makes sense.

"The resulting chaos is a yet another stark reminder of how much modern civilization relies on behind-the-scenes automation to deliver and control basic services and infrastructure."

"A study put out by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy has found evidence that the majority of teens at risk of unwanted pregnancy are not from low income and/or single parent families."

"Stop. Ok, I feel your frustration. You're a web developer and you're ready to tear your hair out because you have to support Internet Explorer 6, but, to put it tactfully, IE6 doesn't support you. You've spent hours on it, but you just can't seem to get your layout right. I can empathize. I can also help."

"I’ve been looking for a solution to cache heavy pages and just serve a static html version for a little while now, and I’ve found a solution in output buffering."

"Sex columnist Dan Savage explains the benefits of having a religious upbringing."

"Sometimes we want to extract the HTML content of the remote website page, this technique is called as HTML scrapper. This article will discuss on how we can extract the HTML content of the remote webpage."

"Here’s how to create a basic web service that provides an XML or JSON response using some PHP and MySQL."

Shredders are fun, dag yo.

Programmers are tiny gods.

"Say goodbye to the browser-specific properties and hacks cluttering your files and say hello to lean, mean CSS. With eCSStender, when you write the rules, browsers pay attention."

"This leads us to conclude that the Top Grossing Apps list seems to include In-App Purchases in its calculations."

"First of all, I'm not sure why this magazine cover is scandalous and this one isn't. Teen pregnancy is talked about and featured everywhere – from glamorized pics of Bristol Palin to MTV''s 16 and Pregnant. And the fact is, the teen pregnancy is a reality – the teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. went up for the second year in a row for the first time in a decade (thanks, abstinence-only education!). Is it really better to hide the issue?"

"The Stupak-Pitts amendment makes it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new system to offer abortion coverage to women. This would have the effect of denying women the right to use their own personal private funds to purchase an insurance plan with abortion coverage in the new health system — a radical departure from the status quo. Presently, more than 85 percent of private-insurance plans cover abortion services."

"An amendment was passed that prohibits coverage for abortion in the government-run programme except for rape, incest or if the mother's life is threatened. Private plans can still offer the cover."

"For all intents and purposes, then, Stupak-Pitts prevents private insurance plans from offering coverage for abortions. Appalling stuff."

"Current public opinion about childhood vaccinations sometimes seems to be influenced less by science and more by Jenny McCarthy. But here's something that rarely gets discussed: the threat posed by the nonvaccinated to children who are immunosuppressed. Last year, while searching for child care for our 2-and-a-half-year-old son, my husband and I thought we had we found the perfect arrangement: an experienced home day care provider whose house was an inviting den of toddler industriousness. Under her magical hand, children drifted calmly and happily from the bubble station to the fairy garden to the bunnies and the trucks, an orchestrated preschool utopia. But when I asked: "Are any of the children here unvaccinated?" the hope of my son's perfect day care experience burnt to a little crisp."

"The final scorecard: ten machines totally unprotected, eight machines poorly protected, two machines well-protected. That's an improvement, but then again any protection at all would have been an improvement. We still have a long way to go."

"Yoani Sánchez says the police beat her while she was on they way to a march for nonviolence."

"The bill would reward states for reducing the number of uninsured and limit malpractice awards. It has no chance of passing."

"There were other hints too, that Strategic Vision's poll may have been fake. The scores that Strategic Vision claimed the kids had gotten, for instance, were strangely underdispersed. And they seemed to contradict results from Oklahoma's own standardized testing, which asked much more difficult citizenship questions and found most of the students doing just fine."

"This evening, CBO released a preliminary analysis of a substitute amendment to H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, proposed by Representative John Boehner, the Republican Leader in the House of Representatives. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that the amendment would reduce federal deficits by $68 billion over the 2010-2019 period; it would also slightly reduce federal budget deficits in the following decade, relative to those projected under current law, with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between zero and one-quarter percent of gross domestic product."

"In New Jersey, you had an extremely unpopular incumbent — Jon Corzine — who had never particularly clicked as a governor, and who's approval ratings crossed into the red in February, 2008. In Virginia, you had an open seat race to replace an outgoing, and in fact fairly popular Democratic governor."

"Earlier this week, a billboard went up in Nashville for a group called Secular Life. An offensive, hateful, evil billboard. One so awful, a number of people denounced it!" One has to wonder the average IQ level of the people who called.

"A MARTA bus driver is on suspension following allegations that he forced passengers to pray before allowing them to exit the bus. Christopher James was one of those passengers. James said, initially, he thought something was wrong when he rang the bell to get off the bus and the door didn’t open. James said the bus driver asked him and three other passengers to join hands in prayer. James said the driver prayed with the group for about four minutes." This is beyond insane.