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Via this blog (link in spanish) a guy, who works in the department of a Human Resources consultancy company, says they made a selection process in which, among other things, they asked for a person with ample experience in using the internet (navigation, searches, formats…).

They received 50 candidacies, from which 30 came from Hotmail-directions, all of them erased as they entered.

The reason: You can’t pretend being an internet expert and use a Hotmail account at the same time.

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“I’d long been fascinated by George Orwell’s work, but I resisted reading 1984 until I finished the manuscript for Stasiland. After that, I devoured it, and I couldn’t believe Orwell’s prescience. When I went into Mielke’s office, I saw it had the number 101, which in 1984 is the number of the torture chamber. 1984 was banned in the G.D.R. but of course, Mielke and Honecker had access to banned material. The guide told me that Mielke wanted this number so much that even though his office was on the 2nd floor, he had the entire first floor renamed the Mezzanine so that he could call his room 101.”

–Anna Funder, author of Stasiland

Letter to the Transport Authority:

Gentlemen:

I have been riding trains daily for the last two years, and the service on your line seems to be getting worse every day. I am tired of standing in the aisle all the time on a 14-mile trip. I think the transportation system is worse than that enjoyed by people 2,000 years ago.

Yours truly,
A Commuter

We received your letter with reference to the shortcomings of our service and believe you are somewhat confused in your history. The only mode of transportation 2,000 years ago was by foot.

Sincerely,
The Railroad

I am in receipt of your letter, and I think you are the ones who are confused in your history. If you will refer to the Bible, Book of David, 9th Chapter, you will find that Balaam rode to town on his ass. That, gentlemen, is something I have not been able to do on your train in the last two years.

Yours truly,
A Commuter

Just for the URL alone it should be in the wtf category, but take a look at the news marked in yellow:

http://wtfcnn.blogspot.com/

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What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a “reference design” and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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Californias elections chief is proposing the toughest standards for voting systems in the country, so tough that they could banish ATM-like touch-screen voting machines from the state.

For the first time, California is demanding the right to try hacking every voting machine with red teams of computer experts and to study the software inside the machines, line-by-line, for security holes.

The proposals are the first step toward fulfilling a promise that Secretary of State Debra Bowen made during her 2006 election campaign to perform a top-to-bottom review of all voting machinery used in California.

County elections officials balked at the proposed standards in a letter Monday to Bowen and hinted broadly at the same conclusion reached by several computer scientists: If enforced rigidly, the standards could send many voting machines, especially touch-screens, back for major upgrades. Local elections officials argued that there isnt enough time to fix any deficiencies before the February presidential primary.

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“In SONY BMG v. Merchant, in California, the defendant’s lawyer wrote the RIAA a rather stern letter recounting how weak the RIAA’s evidence is, referring to the deposition of the RIAA’s expert witness (see Slashdot commentary), and threatening a malicious prosecution lawsuit. The very same day the RIAA put its tail between its legs and dropped the case, filing a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal. About an hour earlier NYCL had termed the letter a ‘model letter’; maybe he was right.”

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Two Kiwi schoolgirls are worldwide celebrities after their school experiment forced an international pharmaceutical and food giant to admit it made false claims about vitamin C levels in Ribena.

GlaxoSmithKline, the second-largest food and drug company in the world, was yesterday fined $217,500 in the Auckland District Court after it admitted 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act.

The case was brought by the Commerce Commission after a science experiment in 2004 by 14-year-old Pakuranga College schoolgirls Jenny Suo and Anna Devathasan raised questions about the vitamin C content in Ribena.

[..]

Jenny said the Ribena ready-to-drink product was one of the first of the juice products they checked the results for.

“We just couldn’t believe it. We thought we must have done it wrong,” she said.

“We tested it another 10 times, and tested the syrup as well. The other products all came up with more vitamin C than they said, but not Ribena.”

They took their results to Ribena, but had little feedback.

They were not too impressed by an invitation from GlaxoSmithKline to visit once the commission case began “to say thank you for bringing it to their attention”, and even less impressed by the company’s efforts to have the fine set at $60,000.

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Transatlantic talks over the US grab for European personal data in its war on terror are floundering, the European Parliament heard yesterday.

US negotiators have told the Europeans that an agreement over its demand for Passenger Name Records isn’t necessary, possibly putting a deal beyond the reach of the German Presidency of the European Union.

Hans Jurgen Forster, lead negotiator for the Presidency, told a public hearing of the European Parliament last night: “A new agreement will potentially run into the Portuguese Presidency. This is something the Americans will need to be made aware of.”

A combination of factors could hinder attempts to strike a deal before the current, interim PNR agreement runs out on 31 July, just a month after the Portuguese Presidency begins.

“People expected the negotiations to be difficult and they are,” said Forster.

“The US doubt the need for a new PNR agreement. They even think a short extension of the existing interim agreement is unnecessary,” he said.

The US wants to ditch the old agreement, which is using provisions based on the first PNR deal, signed in 2003: “The US feel that it is up to them to decide on things like data retention. They feel it is a matter of national sovereignty.”

And it is. OUR national sovereignty.

The key phrase in the interview:

The Gizmondo guy asks “There’s no way to get both, right?”, to which she replies “No, you wouldn’t want them both.”

Oh, really? So if I’m in the middle of a phone call and want to lookup a piece of information, or take down a piece of information, or do something as terribly extreme as using a calculator app, then I’m out of luck?

She must be working in marketing, she seems to know much better what I want than I could ever know myself. Instead of saying “No, there is a technical limitation” she responds with something more along the line of “People smarter than you decided this is how you are going to use your phone”.

Well, Samsung, wrong choice.

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N the end it was David Hicks himself, and not the Australian or US governments, who ended the uncertainty.
By pleading guilty, Hicks will serve a fixed sentence with the knowledge that there is an end in sight.

Had Hicks pleaded not guilty, he may still have been found guilty by the military commission.

He would also have risked a sentence of life imprisonment, the maximum penalty for providing material support for terrorism.

Instead, the prosecution and defence have agreed upon a sentence that will be presented to the commission today.

The guilty plea means that Hicks should soon be able to return to Australia.

Last year, Australia and the United States agreed to permit prisoners such as Hicks, who have been sentenced by a US military commission, to serve their time in an Australian prison.

Hicks’ guilty plea could be cast as a victory by the Australian and United States Governments.

They can now point to a successful prosecution in the military commission.

After five years, they have finally achieved their first conviction. But that this has been brought about by Hicks’ plea, and not after a trial, is significant.

It bypasses the many questions about the fairness of the process, such as the potential to use hearsay statements or evidence that was obtained by coercion.

However, it seems that not even Hicks can end the debate. People are already questioning the integrity of his plea.

This week, Hicks’ Australian lawyer, David McLeod, indicated that an option Hicks was considering was how to get out of Guantanamo Bay at the earliest opportunity.

It also says a lot that members of the Greens and National parties are singing from the same song sheet.

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Procter and Gamble Co. does not worship Satan, according to a US court ruling that revolves around a decades-old urban myth targeting the world’s biggest consumer goods company.

P&G said late Monday it had won 19.25 million dollars in a civil suit brought against four former distributors of direct-selling company Amway who were accused of spreading false rumors.

Last Friday’s jury award in Salt Lake City represents the latest in a long line of court battles between P&G and Amway over the devil-worshipping claim, which has taken on new currency in the Internet era.

“This is about protecting our reputation,” Jim Johnson, P&G’s chief legal officer, said in a statement.

“We will take appropriate legal measures when competitors unfairly undermine the reputation of our brands or our company,” he said.

The former distributors were accused of rehashing a rumor that dates from at least 1981, to the effect that P&G is in league with the Devil.

According to the false urban legend, the global company’s logo contains a “666″ symbol, its bosses have appeared on television talk shows to declare their love of Beelzebub, and part of its profits go to the Church of Satan.

Satan could not be reached for comments.

In the category “things that get my hope in humanity up”, there’s this.

If you’re part of the Minutemen, here is an excellent geography lesson for you.

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Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’s senior counselor yesterday refused to testify in the Senate about her involvement in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Monica M. Goodling, who has taken an indefinite leave of absence, said in a sworn affidavit to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she will “decline to answer any and all questions” about the firings because she faces “a perilous environment in which to testify.”

Comments Of Sen. Patrick Leahy:

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“It is disappointing that Ms. Goodling has decided to withhold her important testimony from the Committee as it pursues its investigation into this matter, but everybody has the constitutional right not to incriminate themselves with regard to criminal conduct.

“The American people are left to wonder what conduct is at the base of Ms. Goodling’s concern that she may incriminate herself in connection with criminal charges if she appears before the Committee under oath.”

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That was the question I was asked: how would you prove to a blind man, that photography exists?

I knew what he was getting at. We had been discussing psychics. He was a firm believer in psychic powers, had had psychic experiences, and regularly visited a psychic. His point was, since I had not experienced psychic powers, I would never be able to believe in what he “knew” to be true. You could never prove to a blind man that photography exists, and likewise no one would ever be able to demonstrate to me that psychic powers were real.

It took me about ten seconds to think of a way to show he was wrong. This is what I said. Give the blind man a camera, a tripod and a remote shutter release. (Ideally the camera is a Polaroid, or a digital with an instant picture facility.) Everyone leaves the room but the blind man. He takes a picture of himself, and holds up a number of fingers (1 to 5) at random. The sighted person comes back into the room, looks at the picture and says “you were holding up X fingers”. If he gets the right number, and continues to do so every time this experiment is performed, the blind man will eventually conclude that photography is real. Technically, he will conclude the hypothesis that “a camera can record a visual image”, might be true.

He will want to repeat the experiment with different rooms and different sighted people. He will want to tighten his controls to make sure no one can see through the window or the keyhole. He will want other blind friends of his to do the same experiment successfully. But essentially, he will be convinced by this method.

Read the rest of this entry »

Typisch nederland. Administratieve boetes zijn belangrijker dan het opsporen van overvallers.

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Diebold Election Systems Inc. , one of the country’s largest manufacturers of voting machines, is scheduled to argue in court today that the Office of the Secretary of State wrongly picked another company to supply thousands of voting machines for the disabled.

Diebold says it will ask a judge to overturn the selection of AutoMARK , a Diebold business competitor, because the office of Secretary of State William F. Galvin failed to choose the best machine.

The contract is valued at about $9 million.

William M. Weisberg , a lawyer representing Diebold, said in an interview yesterday that the company wants a review of the internal records showing how Galvin’s office came to select AutoMARK earlier this year.

“We compete against AutoMARK around the country all the time,” Weisberg said. “Based on the criteria set out by the Commonwealth, we had a fair degree of confidence we’d come out on top, and nothing we heard during the process dissuaded us of that confidence.”

In other words, Diebold wants to see the proprietary scoring format used to judge who should be awarded the contract.

Why does that sound familiar?

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Billboard owners would be able to clear-cut trees on Georgia’s roadsides to make it easier to see their signs if legislators approve new rules.

For each new billboard, owners would be allowed to cut trees and other vegetation growing for 500 feet alongside an interstate. In the most extreme example — a two-sided billboard overlooking a wide right of way — billboard owners would be allowed to clear potentially thousands of trees from an area the size of 11 acres.

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Amy Sorrell figured the articles on teen pregnancy, teen motherhood and sexually transmitted diseases would be controversial, so she submitted them to her principal before publishing.

But the Woodlan Junior-Senior High School teacher didn’t preapprove a student column calling for tolerance toward gays and lesbians that appeared in the same edition of the school paper.
Little did she know, that piece would make state and national news — and get her suspended from her job this month.

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For 10 years, Joe Hill was just another struggling, unpublished writer coming up with one book project after another only to have them rejected. Now, though, he has a bestseller on his hands – an efficient horror thriller entitled Heart Shaped Box – and a secret to reveal. He is, in fact, the son of Stephen King, the master of American popular horror fiction.

He must be Joe King…

okay, I admit, I only posted it for that pun

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The case is Parker v. North Brookfield, Case No.06-P-167 (Mass. Ct. App. Feb. 15, 2007). The facts are simple.

Sheryl Parker worked for the town of North Brookfield, Mass. as an “animal control officer.” Parker was legally eligible for health insurance benefits from the town. She asked to be covered, and the town reacted by firing her and eliminating her position. The sole reason for firing her was to avoid the cost of insurance.

Parker sued based on three claims: firing her violated the law that provided health insurance, was inviolation of public policy, and was gender discrimination. The trial court and the court of appeals dismissed her complaint. In other words the courts saw her claims as so lacking in merit they did not even require a trial.

Isn’t “at-will” employment just great?

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For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with police departments in other cities. A police report on an organization of artists called Bands Against Bush noted that the group was planning concerts on Oct. 11, 2003, in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. Between musical sets, the report said, there would be political speeches and videos.

“Activists are showing a well-organized network made up of anti-Bush sentiment; the mixing of music and political rhetoric indicates sophisticated organizing skills with a specific agenda,” said the report, dated Oct. 9, 2003. “Police departments in above listed areas have been contacted regarding this event.”

It sounds like Cointelpro is still alive, and they don’t want you to know about it.

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Lawyers for the city, responding to a request to unseal records of police surveillance leading up to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, say that the documents should remain secret because the news media will “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” hurting the city’s ability to defend itself in lawsuits over mass arrests.

In papers filed in federal court last week, the city’s lawyers also say that the documents could be “misinterpreted” because they were not intended for the public.

“The documents were not written for consumption by the general public,” wrote Peter Farrell, senior counsel in the city’s Law Department. “The documents contain information filtered and distilled for analysis by intelligence officers accustomed to reading intelligence information.”

If this is what we know they’re doing, what the hell do we not know about?

If the police have nothing illegal to hide, they’ve got nothing to worry about. Right?

Copyright: Gemini Observatory, AURA, NSF

Why are bullets of gas shooting out of the Orion Nebula?

Nobody is yet sure. First discovered in1983, each bullet is actually about the size of our Solar System, and moving at about 400 km/sec from a central source dubbed IRc2. The age of the bullets, which can be found from their speed and distance from IRc2, is very young — typically less than 1,000 years. As the bullets rip through the interior of the Orion Nebula, a small percentage of iron gas causes the tip of each bullet to glow blue, while each bullet leaves a tubular pillar that glows by the light of heated hydrogen gas. Pictured above, the Orion bullets were captured in unprecedented detail by the adaptive optics technology of the Gemini North telescope. M42, the Orion Nebula, is the closest major star forming region to us and filled with changing dust, gas, and bright stars. The Orion Nebula, is located about 1,500 light years away and can be seen with the unaided eye toward the constellation of Orion.

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House Republican Leader John Boehner would have appointed Rep. Wayne Gilchrest to the bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming — but only if the Maryland Republican would say humans are not causing climate change, Gilchrest said.

“I said, ‘John, I can’t do that,’ ” Gilchrest, R-1st-Md., said in an interview. “He said, ‘Come on. Do me a favor. I want to help you here.’ ”

Gilchrest didn’t make the committee.

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He expressed his interest in the committee several times to Boehner and Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, telling them the best thing they could do for Republican credibility was to appoint members familiar with the scientific data.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a research scientist from Maryland, and Michigan’s Rep. Vern Ehlers, the first research physicist to serve in Congress, also made cases for a seat, but weren’t appointed, he said.

“Roy Blunt said he didn’t think there was enough evidence to suggest that humans are causing global warming,” Gilchrest said. “Right there, holy cow, there’s like 9,000 scientists to three on that one.”