Missing Mary Road

The Free Software Foundation today launched a campaign against Microsoft Corp.’s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, calling it ‘treacherous computing’ that stealthily takes away rights from users. At the Web site Windows7Sins.org, the Boston-based FSF lists the seven ‘sins’ that proprietary software such as Windows 7 commits against computer users. They include: Poisoning education, locking in users, abusing standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), leveraging monopolistic behavior, threatening user security, enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy, and invading privacy. ‘Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files,’ said executive director Peter Brown. And if Microsoft’s Trusted Computing technology were fully implemented the way the company would like, the vendor would have ‘malicious and really complete control over your computer.”

for the rampant facebooker’s.

Facebook as Evidence

In today’s modern world of technology which includes Internet-based social networking and the accompanying rise in the sharing of personal information, a recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision, Leduc v. Roman (“Leduc”), has concluded that such personal information is a legitimate form of documentary evidence for civil litigation cases.

Social networking websites, such as Facebook, provides the opportunity for millions of internet users to connect, interact and, at times, share personal information with other online users ultimately creating “online communities” of individuals that share common interests. The sharing of personal information is done via postings on community member “walls” (a space on users’ profile pages that allows community members to post messages for the user or other members to view), “photos” and “videos” (where users can upload albums, photos and videos); and “status” which allows users to inform community members of their whereabouts and actions.

Leduc was involved in a motor vehicle accident wherein he alleged that as a result of Roman’s negligent driving his enjoyment of life had lessoned, in particular his personal life.

Leduc maintained a Facebook account but with restricted access permitting only those who were personally authorized by him (Facebook “friends”) to view his personal information. Those who did not receive Leduc’s authorization were not categorized as a Facebook “friend” and subsequently only able to view information commonly available for all to see such as his name, photo and city of residence. Despite not having “friend” status, Roman’s counsel requested that Leduc produce contents of his Facebook profile pages to ascertain whether or not his claim was genuine. Leduc refused to produce the Facebook pages on his private setting. As a result Roman sought an order from the court to obtain access to the information on the private setting.

The Court of Appeal granted Roman the opportunity to cross examine Leduc to determine if any information on his private setting would be relevant to the litigation and if so, to produce it. In making this order the court stated, “to permit a party claiming very substantial changes damages for loss of enjoyment of life to hide behind self-set privacy controls on a website, the primary purpose of which is to enable people to share information about how they lead their social lives, risks depriving the opposite party of access to material that may be relevant to ensuring a fair trial.”

The Court of Appeal appears to have been persuaded by the fact that Facebook, as a social networking site, is a means by which one can reveal one’s personal life to others, and for that reason is likely to contain relevant information about how one leads their life. Accordingly, despite privacy controls and settings, the contents of a social networking website can be disclosed to a third party but only if the contents are relevant. One cannot go on a fishing-expedition of all profile materials that do not relate to the matter or are overly broad.

This case illustrates that the development of social networking sites opens the door to new sources of evidence; evidence which litigants may now obtain and rely on as potentially key information that would have only been previously captured through surveillance. The information of course has to be relevant.

For employers, information contained on an employee’s profile may be useful in cases involving disability management whereby an employer may have the ability to obtain valuable information regarding the employee’s daily physical activities, or in cases involving wrongful dismissal claims whereby an employer may be able to obtain information regarding the employee’s efforts, or lack thereof, to find alternate employment.

the idiot’s guide to ramadan by the bbc.

Personas is an application that searches your name on the web and returns a profile of what it finds. Mine is pictured.

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

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more from captain steve.

previous q&a here.

Remember when two physicists mathematically disproved the existence of vampires? Well here come the zombies. While a zombie attack is one of the least likely ways the world could end, four Canadian mathematicians/graduate students did a mathematical analysis of a hypothetical zombie outbreak to determine the likelihood of human eradication, should such an attack ever occur. According to their model, “a zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilization, unless it is dealt with quickly. While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most effective way to contain the rise of the undead is to hit hard and hit often.”

New Jersey police detained 68-year old American music star Bob Dylan recently, after a young officer failed to recognize him. A disheveled Dylan was wearing a hoodie, wandering around in the rain looking at a house for sale. The 24-year-old female officer was responding to a phone call from the occupants of a home that had a “For Sale” sign on it. The residents were called in with a report of an “eccentric-looking old man” in their yard

“We got a call for a suspicious person,” Buble said. “It was pouring rain outside, and I was right around the corner so I responded. By that time he was walking down the street. I asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood and he said he was looking at a house for sale.”

“I asked him what his name was and he said, ‘Bob Dylan,’ Buble said. “Now, I’veseen pictures of Bob Dylan from a long time ago and he didn’t look like Bob Dylan to me at all. He was wearing black sweatpants tucked into black rain boots, and two raincoats with the hood pulled down over his head.

“So I said, ‘OK Bob, what are you doing in Long Branch?’ He said he was touring the country with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. So now I’m really a little fishy about his story. I did not know what to believe or where he was coming from, or even who he was. We see a lot of people on our beat, and I wasn’t sure if he came from one of our hospitals or something,” Buble said.

Scientists have discovered a fungus in Thailand that takes over ant brains, compelling them to mindlessly do the fungus’s bidding. We’ve heard about parasitic ant zombification before, but scientists have no idea how the fungus controls the ants so effectively.

The carpenter ants in question build hives in trees and forage on the forest floors. When they are taken over by the zombification fungus, however, they stick exclusively to the ground. A study reported in the American Naturalist says that this is because the fungus knows it will prosper closest to the ground, so it compels the ants to stay out of the trees.

That’s the heart of what is happening here: the fungus somehow forces the ant to do exactly what it wants. The ant first acts as a personal transportation service, conveying the fungus to exactly where it wants to be (the leafy forest floor), and then the ant dies and becomes an abundant food source for the fungus. The fungus even forces the ant to clamp its mandibles onto a desirable leaf habitat, where it stays locked until its death.

Imagine if this happened on a human scale: the fungus would compel you to walk out into a forest, grab tightly onto a tree, and slowly die curled up on the forest floor, probably driving you mad as it ate your brain from the inside.

dawn news has made a superb documentary on the pakistan military. unfortunately, as all things pakistani, the bureaucrats within have decided that it is not meant for public consumption has gone ahead and banned it. my buddy wajahat has hosted and narrated the entire documentary. as in all things video, you can find it in all its glory over at youtube. the first page brings you to the promo’s and trailers. clicking on playlist will allow you to watch the film in it’s entirety. hope you enjoy. oh yeah, apparently there’s a petition going around on facebook to lift the ban. i ain’t on facebook, so whomever knows the link, help a brother out and send it to me so i can link to it here.

happy independence to ya’ll. read all about how it happened here. hope it was worth it.

the utility of the ipod fast wore out rather quickly after it first came out, for me at least. the sound quality sucked, the ear buds and speakers sucked, my ears hurt most of the time wearing those damn things and the enjoyment of music wasn’t there as it would be with a proper audio home setup. the iphone has a fairly low appeal for me as well, gets lame rather quick after the “cool” factor wears out and also why i won’t be buying one any time soon. never the less, these are very cool covers for ipod nano’s.

everyone reading this needs to go buy the box set for firefly, then watch serenity and then go watch dollhouse. immediately. stat. why? cuz joss whedon will make you a happy person or else gremlins will come out and haunt  you while you’re dreaming of elves and unicorns. oh by the way, after all of this, why don’t you come join in on the sing-a-long blog by dr. horrible.

The Babylonians marked time with lunar months. They proscribed some activities during several days of the month, particularly the

first — the first visible crecent,
seventh — the waxing half moon,
fourteenth — the full moon,
nineteenth — dedicated to an offended goddess,
twenty-first — the waning half moon,
twenty-eigth — the last visible crecent,
twenty-nineth — the invisible moon, and
thirtieth (possibly) — the invisible moon.

The major periods are seven days, 1/4 month, long. This seven-day period was later regularized and disassociated from the lunar month to become our seven-day week.

The Naming of the Days

The Greeks named the days week after the sun, the moon and the five known planets, which were in turn named after the gods Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronus. The Greeks called the days of the week the Theon hemerai “days of the Gods”. The Romans substituted their equivalent gods for the Greek gods, Mars, Mercury, Jove (Jupiter), Venus, and Saturn. (The two pantheons are very similar.) The Germanic peoples generally substituted roughly similar gods for the Roman gods, Tiu (Twia), Woden, Thor, Freya (Fria), but did not substitute Saturn.

Sunday — Sun’s day
Middle English sone(n)day or sun(nen)day
Old English sunnandæg “day of the sun”
Germanic sunnon-dagaz “day of the sun”
Latin dies solis “day of the sun”
Ancient Greek hemera heli(o)u, “day of the sun”

Monday — Moon’s day
Middle English monday or mone(n)day
Old English mon(an)dæg “day of the moon”
Latin dies lunae “day of the moon”
Ancient Greek hemera selenes “day of the moon”

Tuesday — Tiu’s day
Middle English tiwesday or tewesday
Old English tiwesdæg “Tiw’s (Tiu’s) day”
Latin dies Martis “day of Mars”
Ancient Greek hemera Areos “day of Ares”

Tiu (Twia) is the English/Germanic god of war and the sky. He is identified with the Norse god Tyr.

Mars is the Roman god of war.
Ares is the Greek god of war.

Wednesday — Woden’s day
Middle English wodnesday, wednesday, or wednesdai
Old English wodnesdæg “Woden’s day”
Latin dies Mercurii “day of Mercury”
Ancient Greek hemera Hermu “day of Hermes”

Woden is the chief Anglo-Saxon/Teutonic god. Woden is the leader of the Wild Hunt. Woden is from wod “violently insane” + -en “headship”. He is identified with the Norse Odin.

Mercury is the Roman god of commerce, travel, theivery, eloquence and science. He is the messenger of the other gods.
Hermes is the Greek god of commerce, invention, cunning, and theft. He is the messenger and herald of the other gods. He serves as patron of travelers and rogues, and as the conductor of the dead to Hades.

Thursday — Thor’s day
Middle English thur(e)sday
Old English thursdæg
Old Norse thorsdagr “Thor’s day”
Old English thunresdæg “thunder’s day”
Latin dies Jovis “day of Jupiter”
Ancient Greek hemera Dios “day of Zeus”.

Thor is the Norse god of thunder. He is represented as riding a chariot drawn by goats and wielding the hammer Miölnir. He is the defender of the Aesir, destined to kill and be killed by the Midgard Serpent.

Jupiter (Jove) is the supreme Roman god and patron of the Roman state. He is noted for creating thunder and lightning.

Zeus is Greek god of the heavens and the supreme Greek god.

Friday — Freya’s day
Middle English fridai
Old English frigedæg “Freya’s day”
composed of Frige (genetive singular of Freo) + dæg “day” (most likely)
or composed of Frig “Frigg” + dæg “day” (least likely)
Germanic frije-dagaz “Freya’s (or Frigg’s) day”
Latin dies Veneris “Venus’s day”
Ancient Greek hemera Aphrodites “day of Aphrodite”

Freo is identical with freo, meaning free. It is from the Germanic frijaz meaning “beloved, belonging to the loved ones, not in bondage, free”.

Freya (Fria) is the Teutonic goddess of love, beauty, and fecundity (prolific procreation). She is identified with the Norse god Freya. She is leader of the Valkyries and one of the Vanir. She is confused in Germany with Frigg.

Frigg (Frigga) is the Teutonic goddess of clouds, the sky, and conjugal (married) love. She is identified with Frigg, the Norse goddess of love and the heavens and the wife of Odin. She is one of the Aesir. She is confused in Germany with Freya.

Venus is the Roman goddess of love and beauty.
Aphrodite (Cytherea) is the Greek goddess of love and beauty.

Saturday — Saturn’s day
Middle English saterday
Old English sæter(nes)dæg “Saturn’s day”
Latin dies Saturni “day of Saturn”
Ancient Greek hemera Khronu “day of Cronus”

Saturn is the Roman and Italic god of agriculture and the consort of Ops. He is believed to have ruled the earth during an age of happiness and virtue.

Cronus (Kronos, Cronos) is the Greek god (Titan) who ruled the universe until dethroned by his son Zeus.

ever wonder what the 20th century would have been like if star wars had been real and not fiction? obviously not, you’re not geek enough. but all these people are, and they’re good at photoshop too. awesomeness.