Jon Stewart has a question for the atheist group suing to block the cross at the 9/11 memorial : “Why do you give a shit?” The cross is “an artifact found at Ground Zero that has come to mean something to people,” said the Daily Show host, who was appointed to…
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One borough in the Belgian capital has taken trash collection back to a bygone era. (Aug. 5)
Continue reading …Gmail’s Preview Pane brings ‘tablet-like’ layout to your browser, but kills Multiple Inboxes
August 5, 2011 No Comment
Google’s still doing a fine job of ignoring Gcal’s inability to routinely provide alerts and notifications to select users (nah, we’re not bitter), but at least the Gmail team seems to be firing on all cylinders. Just this week, the outfit revealed its newest Labs feature — Preview Pane. As you’ve probably gleaned from the title, it provides a “tablet-like” layout that’s actually similar to standalone mail clients from yesteryear, and for those with more vertical space than horizontal, there’s even an option to split the divider in that manner. In practice, we found it drop-dead simple to use, and it’s largely an improvement over the stock Gmail layout. The only issue? It nukes Multiple Inboxes, so those accustomed to scrolling down and easily clicking into their Starred emails (for example) will likely be reverting back with dreams dashed. See if it’s in your Settings pane and give it a go — who knows, it might be love. Gmail’s Preview Pane brings ‘tablet-like’ layout to your browser, but kills Multiple Inboxes originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 11:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …The comic know around the world as nerdy Mr. Bean is recovering in a British hospital after crashing his McLaren F1 super car, striking a tree and lamppost before the vehicle burst into flames. “Rowan Atkinson is “lucky to be alive considering the state of the car,” said a witness….
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Exam boards seek to reassure students who sat papers containing errors that they will get the grades they deserve Students who sat exam papers that contained errors this summer will “get the grades they deserve,” exam boards have said. Qualifications regulators for England, Wales and Northern Ireland are investigating why mistakes appeared in 12 exam papers. Some 10 of the errors were in papers sat by pupils in England. The Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents exam boards, said it had taken action to ensure no pupil would be disadvantaged by the errors. In some cases, exam boards have awarded pupils full marks for rogue questions, while in others they have discounted the question and changed the total number of marks available for a paper. It said exam boards had used “well-tested statistical procedures … to ensure that all students receive the grades they deserve”. In a joint statement, the exam boards said they “deeply regret” that the errors occurred and “wish to apologise again to students and their families”. “Although only 12 out of more than 60,000 questions set this year were affected, we understand the distress they have caused,” they said. Exam boards said they had told university admissions tutors which papers have contained errors so that students’ chances of winning places on degree courses would not be jeopardised. The qualifications regulators said their investigation into why the errors happened would be finished before the end of the year. The errors included a printing mistake in a maths paper, set by the AQA exam board, which included questions originally answered by pupils taking the same exam in March. Over 31,000 pupils at 567 schools and colleges took the paper. Other errors were discovered in a GCSE Latin paper and a physics A-level exam, both set by the OCR exam board. GCSEs Schools A-levels AS-levels Students Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Exam boards seek to reassure students who sat papers containing errors that they will get the grades they deserve Students who sat exam papers that contained errors this summer will “get the grades they deserve,” exam boards have said. Qualifications regulators for England, Wales and Northern Ireland are investigating why mistakes appeared in 12 exam papers. Some 10 of the errors were in papers sat by pupils in England. The Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents exam boards, said it had taken action to ensure no pupil would be disadvantaged by the errors. In some cases, exam boards have awarded pupils full marks for rogue questions, while in others they have discounted the question and changed the total number of marks available for a paper. It said exam boards had used “well-tested statistical procedures … to ensure that all students receive the grades they deserve”. In a joint statement, the exam boards said they “deeply regret” that the errors occurred and “wish to apologise again to students and their families”. “Although only 12 out of more than 60,000 questions set this year were affected, we understand the distress they have caused,” they said. Exam boards said they had told university admissions tutors which papers have contained errors so that students’ chances of winning places on degree courses would not be jeopardised. The qualifications regulators said their investigation into why the errors happened would be finished before the end of the year. The errors included a printing mistake in a maths paper, set by the AQA exam board, which included questions originally answered by pupils taking the same exam in March. Over 31,000 pupils at 567 schools and colleges took the paper. Other errors were discovered in a GCSE Latin paper and a physics A-level exam, both set by the OCR exam board. GCSEs Schools A-levels AS-levels Students Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
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Scotland Yard issues fresh warning to hackers following arrests of teenagers accused of links to LulzSec and Anonymous The Metropolitan police has quadrupled its cybercrime unit to 85 officers in just two months as the investigation into so-called “hacktivist” groups, LulzSec and Anonymous, gathers pace. Scotland Yard issued a fresh warning to computer hackers following the high-profile arrests of three British teenagers accused of having links to the groups. Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, the head of the Met’s e-Crime unit, said on Thursday that the cybercrime division has benefited from a recent £30m boost to its budget. The Met has helped coordinate an international investigation into the hackers linked to attacks on gaming firms and government agencies, including the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca and the US Congress. Jake Davis, an 18-year-old from the Shetland Islands, was released on bail on Monday after being charged with five offences under the Computer Misuse Act, the Serious Crime Act and the Criminal Law Act. Davis is accused of gathering data from NHS computers, being involved with attacks on News International and being part of an attack that crippled Soca’s website. The arrest of Davis, who allegedly used the online alias “Topiary”, follows that of Essex teenager Ryan Cleary in June and the arrest and release of an unnamed 16-year-old from London two weeks ago. The apparent ringleader of LulzSec, known as “Sabu”, remains at large. Police have warned that anyone using a computer unlawfully – which includes online denial of service (DoS) attacks, used frequently by the hacker collectives – faces up to 10 years in prison. Det Supt McMurdie warned : “What they’re doing isn’t civil disobedience, it’s serious crime.” The Met said in a statement: “Under UK legislation, it is an offence if a person acts from within the UK upon a computer anywhere else in the world. It is also an offence if someone anywhere else in the world to criminally affect a computer within the UK.” Hacking Internet Computing Metropolitan police Police Crime Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Scotland Yard issues fresh warning to hackers following arrests of teenagers accused of links to LulzSec and Anonymous The Metropolitan police has quadrupled its cybercrime unit to 85 officers in just two months as the investigation into so-called “hacktivist” groups, LulzSec and Anonymous, gathers pace. Scotland Yard issued a fresh warning to computer hackers following the high-profile arrests of three British teenagers accused of having links to the groups. Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, the head of the Met’s e-Crime unit, said on Thursday that the cybercrime division has benefited from a recent £30m boost to its budget. The Met has helped coordinate an international investigation into the hackers linked to attacks on gaming firms and government agencies, including the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca and the US Congress. Jake Davis, an 18-year-old from the Shetland Islands, was released on bail on Monday after being charged with five offences under the Computer Misuse Act, the Serious Crime Act and the Criminal Law Act. Davis is accused of gathering data from NHS computers, being involved with attacks on News International and being part of an attack that crippled Soca’s website. The arrest of Davis, who allegedly used the online alias “Topiary”, follows that of Essex teenager Ryan Cleary in June and the arrest and release of an unnamed 16-year-old from London two weeks ago. The apparent ringleader of LulzSec, known as “Sabu”, remains at large. Police have warned that anyone using a computer unlawfully – which includes online denial of service (DoS) attacks, used frequently by the hacker collectives – faces up to 10 years in prison. Det Supt McMurdie warned : “What they’re doing isn’t civil disobedience, it’s serious crime.” The Met said in a statement: “Under UK legislation, it is an offence if a person acts from within the UK upon a computer anywhere else in the world. It is also an offence if someone anywhere else in the world to criminally affect a computer within the UK.” Hacking Internet Computing Metropolitan police Police Crime Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Over at Digby’s place, David Atkins points out that these financial Masters of the Universe don’t really know what they’re doing, and are instead lurching from one strategy to another: So in the midst of this giant selloff, where did the masters of the universe decide to put their money? Why, treasuries, of course : Treasury bond yields are plunging to levels seen in the 1950s on concern the two-year recovery in the world’s largest economy is stalling. Yields on benchmark 10-year U.S. notes are about 4.3 percentage points below the average over the past 49 years and almost where they were when President Dwight D. Eisenhower began his administration in 1953. The yield, which dropped to 2.40 percent today in New York, reached a record low of 2.04 percent in December 2008 during the global financial crisis… “It’s signaling a flight to safety,” said Ethan Harris, head of developed-markets economic research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York, on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday” with Tom Keene. “Even with the Treasury market as a weakened safe-haven market, it still gets the safe haven money.” The S&P 500 fell 4.8 percent, dropping more than 10 percent drop from its April 29 peak. The MSCI All-Country World Index slid 4.3 percent. Oil plunged 6.2 percent to $86.27 a barrel as all 24 commodities tracked by the S&P GSCI Index declined. Gold futures retreated from a record. Yes, the same treasuries that were supposed to be in horrible trouble because the ratings agencies said America was too far in debt to keep the yield on our treasuries at healthy levels. The same treasuries concern that led to the austerity bill that led to the market drop that led everyone to run to the only safe place left: treasuries. Brilliant. And tomorrow [today] there’s a jobs report coming out, which will no doubt be worse than expected and lead to even more nonsensical selloffs, considering the strong bottom lines of the American companies that have made such a killing precisely by keeping that unemployment rate at high levels. If this is all the work of genius master manipulators, someone will have to explain the evil scheme. What it really looks like is a bunch of greedy fools who can’t see past next quarter’s profit statement and next April’s tax return, and end up swerving all over the political and economic road like the world’s most shortsighted driver. Meanwhile, all the passengers get sick in the back wondering what the next swerve is going to be. The only real question is: when do we take their hands off the wheel?
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