The Master’s School could tolerate the fact that Rachel Aviles wasn’t Christian, but gay ? That was apparently too much for the Connecticut private school to bear. Though she was a model student in most every way, administrators of the Christian school told Aviles to withdraw or face expulsion once…
Continue reading …Americans are big on the concept of freedom of religion—but they aren’t so keen on Muslims. According to data from a larger study last week, spotted by Dino Grandoni of the Atlantic , 88% of Americans say the country was founded on the principle of religious freedom, yet a whopping…
Continue reading …A 13-mile hike up a 14,100-foot mountain would be challenging for anyone, let alone someone with a physical disability. Tomorrow, a 42-year-old paralyzed Colorado man will do it in a wheelchair. Glen House will be one of about 450 hikers participating in the Pikes Peak Challenge for charity, and…
Continue reading …ESPN is cracking down on anti-Semitism. Of late, a gaggle of bigoted fantasy football enthusiasts have been creating league names like “Jews are Immoral” and “Jews are terrible”. In response, ESPN expelled from the online community all such anti-Semitic designations, USA Today reports.
Continue reading …Crime rates are falling all across the US—so why are more police officers dying? That’s “the million-dollar question, and we’re all studying it and trying to figure it out,” the chief of the LAPD tells the Wall Street Journal . This year has seen 130 cops die already nationwide—a…
Continue reading …Quick, what’s the most you’re willing to pay for a pair of shoes? If you’re figure was less than five-digits long, then you can’t hope to hang with British rapper Tinie Tempah, who last night spent a whopping $37,500 for the first pair of “ Nike Mags ,” a limited edition…
Continue reading …In tough times, it’s probably no surprise that sales of lottery tickets are booming across the country, as noted by USA Today . But a recent Mega Millions winner wasn’t so down-on-his-luck to begin with: Virginia’s Brian McCarthy, the son of Marriott hotels president Robert J. McCarthy, took home the $107…
Continue reading …Sprint will not only get the iPhone 5 next month, it will also be offering something its competitors aren’t: unlimited data. Or at least, that’s what sources are telling Bloomberg . Neither Sprint nor Apple will comment, as the Sprint iPhone deal hasn’t been officially confirmed yet. Further evidence that Sprint…
Continue reading …Michael Stern Hart created the free online ebook library long before the advent of Kindle, Nook or iPhone Long before the Kindle, Nook or iPhone, there was Michael Stern Hart and his Project Gutenberg , a network of volunteers dedicated to providing free online access to as many books as they could. Hart, who is also considered the founder of the ebook, died Tuesday at his Illinois home, said Stephanie Gabel of Renner-Wikoff Chapel and Crematory. He was 64. Gabel did not know the cause of death. Hart was a student at the University of Illinois when he founded Project Gutenberg 40 years ago. He got started in 1971 by typing the text of the US Declaration of Independence into a computer network that he and about 100 others had access to. In an interview last year, he said the project, and partners it works with, had made more than 100,000 books available for free online. His obituary, posted on Project Gutenberg’s website , said Hart worked as an adjunct professor – someone who works without tenure and has to, effectively, be rehired every year. But in interviews over the years, he made clear the project was his life’s work and joy. “I get little notes in the email, saying, ‘Hey! I just [found] Project Gutenberg, and this is great stuff,’” Hart told WILL radio in Urbana in a 2003 interview. “You get people that [it] just tickles their fancy, and they just read and read and read, and they’re so happy about it.” Hart was born in Tacoma, Washington state, in 1947 and grew up in Urbana. He served in the US army before graduating from the university with a liberal arts degree. Books added to Project Gutenberg were initially typed by Hart and others for distribution. The project has sometimes been criticised for errors and typographical mistakes. But Hart said he just wanted to distribute as many books as possible. “This mission is, as much as possible, to encourage all those who are interested in making ebooks and helping to give them away,” Hart wrote on the project’s website. He later noted: “Project Gutenberg is not in the business of establishing standards.” Ebooks E-readers United States Libraries guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …David Brooks counts himself among the “stimulus skeptics,” but he’s signing on to President Obama’s plan to juice the economy. The president’s proposals come from “the middle of the ideological spectrum,” and collectively they help guard against the “truly horrifying” prospect of a double-dip recession, Brooks writes in the New…
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