If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.

– Bertrand Russell, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” 1943

[Quote]:

Right after the EU Parliament somewhat emphatically rejected ACTA, there was a report saying that ACTA was pretty much dead in Mexico as well — especially since the Congress there had been against ACTA since before it was “cool” to be against ACTA. However, the very next day, the Mexican government surprised an awful lot of people by signing ACTA anyway.

Of course, the agreement still needs ratification, and that seems like an uphill battle. However, the Mexican IP Office — major backer of ACTA — is now claiming that it believes that the Mexican legislature can be convinced to sign on. Of course, it would help if the Mexican IP Office was even the slightest bit intellectually honest. For example, in explaining its reasons for signing on, it points out that the EU signed on — which is kind of funny coming so soon after the EU Parliament’s wholesale rejection of ACTA. Seems like that would be a point worth mentioning, rather than implying that ACTA was going to be implemented in the EU. This move still has the US’s fingerprints all over it. The US needed some sort of “win” for ACTA these days, and coming so soon after the US allowed Mexico to enter TPP negotiations, it’s hard not to think that there was some horse trading going on here.

Seriously awesome! – a 1kb Javascript chess engine

A Mexican software developer Óscar Toledo Gutiérrez wrote Toledo
Javascript Chess (http://bit.ly/nanoChess), the world’s smallest chess
program in JS.

This version won the first JS1K contest and defeated several hundreds of
novice players along the world. Its just crazy how small this game is -
in fact I’m going to post the entire game source code in this post just
so you understand what kind of feat this was (more info here

http://bit.ly/MzcwO5).

Complete source code:

for(B=i=y=u=b=i=5-5,x=10,I=[],l=[];B++<304;I[B-1]=B%x?B/x%x<2|B%x<2?7:B/x&4?0:l[i++]=”ECDFBDCEAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIMKLNJLKM@G@TSb~?A6J57IKJT576,+-48HLSUmgukgg
OJNMLK IDHGFE”.charCodeAt(y++)-64:7);function X(c,h,e,s){c^=8;for(var
o,S,C,A,R,T,G,d=e&&X(c,0)>1e4,n,N=-1e8,O=20,K=78-h<<9;++O<99;)if((o=I[T=O])&&(G=o^c)<7){A=G–&2?8:4;C=o-9?l[61+G]:49;do
if(!(R=I[T+=l[C]])&&!!G|A<3||(R+1^c)>9&&G|A>2){if(!(R-2&7))return
K;n=G|(c?T>29:T<91)?o:6^c;S=(R&&l[R&7|32]*2-h-G)+(n-o?110:!G&&(A<2)+1);if(e>h||1<e&e==h&&S>2|d){I[T]=n;I[O]=0;S-=X(c,h+1,e,S-N);if(!(h||e-1|B-O|T-b|S<-1e4))return
W(),c&&setTimeout(“X(8,0,2),X(8,0,1)”,75);I[O]=o;I[T]=R}if(S>N||!h&S==N&&Math.random()<.5)if(N=S,e>1)if(h?s-S<0:(B=O,b=T,0))break}while(!R&G>2||(T=O,(G||A>2|(c?O>78:O<41)&!R)&&++C*–A))}return-K+768<N|d&&N}function
W(){i=”<table>”;for(u=18;u<99;document.body.innerHTML=i+=++u%x-9?”<th
width=60 height=60
onclick=’I[b="+u+"]>8?W():X(0,0,1)’style=’font-size:50px’bgcolor=#”+(u-B?u*.9&1||9:”d”)+”0f0e0>&#”+(I[u]?9808+l[67+I[u]]:160):u++&&”<tr>”)B=b}W()

In the last 22 hours, my mail server delivered 1367 messages to various users, and rejected 1.5 million outright because they came from dial-up networks.

So, about 0.0009% of mail offered was real.

Thank you bot nets. Die in a fire.

[Quote]:

Mitt Romney’s utterly vacuous campaign is turning the nation’s Republican governors into blathering idiots. I don’t know what I’d say in their place, but that’s sort of the point, What can you say? If you offer some advice like maybe Romney could release his tax returns and put this controversy to bed, you’re forced to walk it back the next day. If you say that Romney should spell out his economic plans, you ignore that his economic plans poll so badly that the Democrats have decided that no one will believe them if they talk about them. If you suggest that Romney humanize himself by talking more about his personal life, you ignore that Romney is basically a straight-laced Clark Griswold who does weird things like strap a dog crate to the roof of his station wagon before he sets off on a lengthy vacation. If you tell him to defend his work at Bain Capital, you aren’t taking account of the fact that he’s had twenty years to try to do that as a candidate and has never succeeded. And you know in your heart that releasing his tax returns won’t make the issue go away, but will destroy his candidacy in its crib.

And he’s the best the GOP could find…

[Quote]:

A year ago this coming Sunday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the Transportation Security Administration to do a notice-and-comment rulemaking on its use of Advanced Imaging Technology (aka “body-scanners” or “strip-search machines”) for primary screening at airports. (The alternative for those who refuse such treatment: a prison-style pat-down.) It was a very important ruling, for reasons I discussed in a post back then. The TSA was supposed to publish its policy in the Federal Register, take comments from the public, and issue a final rule that responds to public input.

So far, it hasn’t done any of those things.

The reason for the delay, stated in a filing with the court last year, was the complexity and expense of doing a rulemaking in this area. But CEI’s Ryan Radia, at work on a legal brief in the case, notes that the TSA has devoted substantial resources to the PreCheck program during this time, rolling it out to additional airports. How can an agency pour resources into its latest greatest project yet claim poverty when it comes to complying with the law?

So on Monday, I started a petition on Whitehouse.gov. It says the president should “Require the Transportation Security Administration to Follow the Law!”

[Quote]:

The owner, who posted the video at 1addicts.com, suspects the thieves broke the glass to access the BMW’s on-board diagnostics port (OBD) in the footwell of the car, then used a special device to obtain the car’s unique key fob digital ID and reprogram a blank key fob to start the car. It took less than 3 minutes to accomplish the feat. (That said, despite their sophistication, the thieves were, comically, unable to thwart the surveillance cameras, though they tried.)

Jalopnik reports that BMW thieves are likely exploiting a gap in the car’s internal ultrasonic sensor system to avoid tripping its alarm when they access the car.

But there’s another security flaw in play. The OBD system doesn’t require a password to access it and program a key fob. According to Jalopnik, this is a requirement in Europe so that non-franchised mechanics and garages can read the car’s digital diagnostic data.

source

[Quote]:

Hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers will begin touring the country today enforcing sponsors’ multimillion-pound marketing deals, in a highly organised mission that contrasts with the scramble to find enough staff to secure Olympic sites.

Almost 300 enforcement officers will be seen across the country checking firms to ensure they are not staging “ambush marketing” or illegally associating themselves with the Games at the expense of official sponsors such as Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and BP. The clampdown goes on while 3,500 soldiers on leave are brought in to bail out the security firm G4S which admitted it could not supply the numbers of security staff it had promised.

Yesterday, the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, refused to rule out that even more soldiers may be called upon to help with security, but dismissed the issue as merely a “hitch”. However, as well as the regular Army, the Olympic “brand army” will start its work with a vengeance today.

Wearing purple caps and tops, the experts in trading and advertising working for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are heading the biggest brand protection operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £20,000.

Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including “gold”, “silver” and “bronze”, “summer”, “sponsors” and “London”.

[Quote]:

Earlier this month I wrote about how Microsoft engineer Terry Zink said he discovered spam was being sent from compromised Yahoo accounts via what looked like an international Android spam botnet. Sophos, as well as other security researchers, backed up his claim, saying everything pointed to such a development, though nobody had found clear-cut evidence for it. Google quickly got in touch with me and denied Microsoft’s claim by saying spammers are probably using infected computers and a fake mobile signature to make it appear as if the e-mails were coming from Android devices. Now there is further proof that Microsoft may have been right, although the botnet in question has still yet to be found.

One way spammers could be sending such large quantities of e-mail that appears as if it’s being sent from Yahoo accounts used on Android devices is to exploit a Yahoo Android app vulnerability. In fact, Trend Micro says it recently uncovered a vulnerability in the Yahoo Android mail client, which can let an attacker do just that by gaining access to a user’s Yahoo Mail cookie.

My mail server specifically looks for technical details that indicate the sending client is the yahoo android app and blocks that. This single rule stops an insane amount of spam.

[Quote]:

Despite court cases in the Netherlands and the U.K. forcing ISPs to place blocks on their systems to prevent customer access to The Pirate Bay, the blocks may ultimately prove futile, according to data seen by the BBC and others.

One major U.K. broadband provider said peer-to-peer traffic on its network returned to “just below normal” only a week after it was forced to block customers’ access.

But in the days following the court decision in late April, traffic had reached record levels as a result of the increased media coverage. This backs up earlier claims that The Pirate Bay had a 12 million views traffic boost on May 1, thanks to the “free advertising” by the media.

[Quote]:

Something strange is happening all over America: Insurance companies are sending checks to their customers.

[Quote]:

In the Name of Allah The Beneficient The Merciful

Toronto Sun Staff and Writers:

My Name is Al-Haashim Kamena Atangana and I have been reading in recent weeks sexual Assaults that have been occurring At York University. I just wanted to suggest a few changes within the Canadian laws that will help prevent sexual assaults from happening in the future.

Just to introduce myself I am a Muslim born in Montréal, Quebec 33 years ago. I was born in a Christian Family and I have decided to embrace Islam in 1998. I do allot of Islamic Outreach Programs downtown (yonge and Dundas).I am from African Carribean Ethnicity.

I wanted to mention that the reason why these sex attacks are continuously happening is because the Canadian laws, which gives too much freedom to women, are the cause of these sex attacks. It has been revealed that every 5 seconds a woman is being sexually assaulted in North America. Women in North America are falling victims of the Democratic Freedom that you they passionly believe in. The reason why a woman gets raped is because of the way she dress. Women dress so provocatively so much that they receive too much attention for themselves and that attention at times leads to death.

[Quote]:

AT&T recently dropped the price of Nokia’s flagship phone, the Windows Phone-powered Nokia Lumia 900, to $50 with a new two-year contract. It’s a great deal for a high end phone that was already pretty cheap at the original price of $100, when most popular phones sell for $200. But is Nokia’s phone worth it, even at $50?

The problem with the Lumia 900 is that it’s essentially a dead end from a technology perspective. In the fall, Microsoft is rolling out Windows Phone 8, the next generation version of its new mobile platform. And all current Windows Phone devices can’t upgrade to the new OS. Sure, Microsoft will be upgrading current Windows Phone 7.5 devices to Windows 7.8, but is that enough to convince you to live with the Lumia 900 for the length of a two-year contract with AT&T?

To really succeed in a business or organisation, it is sometimes helpful to know what your job is, and whether it involves any duties. Ask among your co-workers. “Hi” you should say. “I’m a new employee. What is the name of my job?” If they answer “long-range planner” or “lieutenant governor” you are pretty much free to lounge around and do crossword puzzles until retirement.

Most jobs, however, will require some work.

There are two major kinds of work in modern organisations:
1. Taking phone messages for people who are in meetings; and
2. Going to meetings.

Your ultimate career strategy will be to get a job involving primarily No. 2, going to meetings, as soon as possible, because that’s where the real prestige is. It is all well and good to be able to take phone messages, but you are never going to get a position of power, a position where you can cost thousands of people their jobs with a single bonehead decision, unless you learn how to attend meetings.

The first meeting ever was held back in the Mezzanine Era. In those days, Man’s job was to slay his prey and bring it home for Woman who had to figure out how to cook it. The problem was, Man was slow and basically naked, whereas the prey had warm fur and could run like an antelope. (In fact it was an antelope, only nobody knew this).

At last someone said “Maybe if we just sat down and did some brainstorming, we could come up with a better way to hunt our prey!” It went extremely well, plus it was much warmer sitting in a circle, so they agreed to meet again the next day, and the next.

But the women pointed out that, prey-wise, the men had not produced anything, and the human race was pretty much starving. The men agreed that was serious and said they would put it right near the top of their ‘agenda’. At this point, the women, who were primitive but not stupid, started eating plants, and thus modern agriculture was born. It never would have happened without meetings.

The modern business meeting, however, might better be compared with a funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be somewhere else. The major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose. Also, nothing is really ever buried in a meeting.

An idea may look dead, but it will always reappear at another meeting later on. If you have ever seen the movie Night of the Living Dead you have a rough idea of how modern meetings operate, with projects and proposals that everyone thought were killed rising up constantly from their graves to stagger back into meetings and eat the brains of the living.

There are two major kinds of meetings:

1. Meetings that are held for basically the same reason that Arbor Day is observed – namely, tradition. For example, a lot of managerial people like to meet on Monday, because it’s Monday. You’ll get used to it. You’d better, because this kind account for 83% of all meetings (based on a study in which I wrote down numbers until one of them looked about right). This type of meeting operates the way “Show and Tell” does in nursery school, with everyone getting to say something, the difference being that in nursery school, the kids actually have something to say.

When it’s your turn, you should say that you’re still working on whatever it is you’re supposed to be working on. This may seem pretty dumb, since obviously you’d be working on whatever you’re supposed to be working on, and even if you weren’t, you’d claim you were, but that’s the traditional thing for everyone to say. It would be a lot faster if the person running the meeting would just say “Everyone who is still working on what he or she is supposed to be working on, raise your hand”. You’d be out of there in five minutes, even allowing for jokes. But this is not how we do it in America. My guess is, it’s how they do it in Japan.

2. Meetings where there is some alleged purpose. These are trickier, because what you do depends on what the purpose is. Sometimes the purpose is harmless, like someone wants to show slides of pie charts and give everyone a big, fat report. All you have to do in this kind of meeting is sit there and make up elaborate fantasies, then take the report back to your office and throw it away, unless, of course, you’re a vice president, in which case you write the name of a subordinate in the upper right hand corner, followed by a question mark, like this “Norm?” Then you send it to Norm and forget all about it. (Although it will plague Norm for the rest of his career.)

But sometimes you go to meetings where the purpose is to get your “input” on something. This is very serious because what it means is, they want to make sure that in case whatever it is turns out to be stupid or fatal, you’ll get some of the blame, so you have to escape from the meeting before they get around to asking you anything. One way is to set fire to your tie.

Another is to have an accomplice interrupt the meeting and announce that you have a phone call from someone very important, such as the president of the company or the Pope. It should be one or the other, however, not both. It would a sound fishy if the accomplice said “You have a call from the president of the company, or the Pope”. You should know how to take notes at a meeting. Use a yellow legal pad. At the top, write the date and underline it twice. Now wait until an important person, such as your boss, starts talking; when he does, look at him with an expression of enraptured interest, as though he is revealing the secrets of life itself. Then draw interlocking rectangles. If it is an especially lengthy meeting, you can draw more elaborate doodles and maybe even a caricature of the boss.

If somebody falls asleep in a meeting, have everyone else leave the room. Then collect a group of total strangers, right of the street, and have them sit around the sleeping person until he wakes up. Then have one of them say to him “Bob, your plan is very, very risky. However, you’ve given us no choice but to try it. I only hope, for your sake, that you know what you’re getting yourself into”. Then they should file quietly out of the room.

Two Thai girls asked me if I’d like to go bed with them. They said it would be just like winning the lotto. I agreed and they were right. We all stripped off and to my horror we had six matching balls.