viyh writes with coverage on MSNBC of the discovery of ancient microbes fossilized in the gut of a termite. "One hundred million years ago a termite was wounded and its abdomen split open. The resin of a pine tree slowly enveloped its body and the contents of its gut. In what is now the Hukawng Valley in Myanmar, the resin fossilized and was buried until it was chipped out of an amber mine. The resin had seeped into the termite's wound and preserved even the microscopic organisms in its gut. These microbes are the forebears of the microbes that live in the guts of today's termites and help them digest wood. ... The amber preserved the microbes with exquisite detail, including internal features like the nuclei. ... Termites are related to cockroaches and split from them in evolutionary time at about the same time the termite in the amber was trapped."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This week on CRAFT we saw:

I Heart Moxie (guest post by Brookelynn Morris)

UCU Summer Show: Call for Food Vendors

Bazaar Bizarre at Maker Faire

Gluten-Free Play Clay Beads

CRAFT Video: Get Crafty at Maker Faire!

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rbrander writes "Vancouver, Canada's third-largest city, has adopted a policy of 'open standards, interfaces and formats' for all public data. They will also consider open-source software on an even footing with proprietary for all new software purchases. Fifteen of the fifteen people who signed up to speak to city council on the topic spoke in favor. Their only criticism was, 'can't you do more?' with one advocating that free and open source software be given preference, not equal footing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First an update on today's earlier blog post. Apparently Google Reader does not support reading lists. I think when I asked the question, the 140-character limit on Twitter made it impossible for an accurate answer.

No matter what, maybe it would be a good idea now to try to give a complete technical explanation of what a reading list is.

1. There are many kinds of "feed consumer" apps, all of them are capable of supporting reading lists, not just feed readers or aggregators. In the rest of this piece I'll use the shorthand "FC" to refer to a feed consumer app.

2. When you subscribe to a feed you're telling the FC that you want it to periodically read the contents of that feed and somehow act on the new items in the feed.

3. A reading list contains a set of feeds. The format of a reading list is exactly the same as the OPML-based subscription list format that's supported by many FCs.

4. When a FC subscribes to a readling list it does not import the feeds.

5. When the FC checks for updates, it checks for new items in the feeds in the reading list. Therefore it must keep a record of the feeds in the reading lists it is subscribed to.

6. If a new feed appears in the reading list, it does whatever it does for a new feed. Many FCs will consider all the items in the feed as "old" the first time the feed is read, esp if it's a podcatcher.

7. If a feed that was in the reading list has been removed, then the feed is not read and all record of the feed is erased from FC database, with the following exception. If a feed appears in two or more reading lists, a reference count must be maintained, and the feed is erased only when the reference count goes to zero.

8. Obviously the user can subscribe to as many reading lists as he or she likes.

9. The behavior I've described is how the NewsRiver aggregator that runs in the OPML Editor works. I suppose it's possible that other FCs work differently. If so, it would be great to hear about them.

I think that pretty much covers it.

Linus the Turbonerd sends in the bulletin that BPA, a toxic chemical used in the production of polycarbonate, the plastic composing hard, clear water bottles, has been found to leach out of such containers, directly into the water that their users consume. "In addition to polycarbonate bottles, which are refillable and a popular container among students, campers and others and are also used as baby bottles, BPA is also found in dentistry composites and sealants and in the lining of aluminum food and beverage cans. ... 'We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA's endocrine-disrupting potential,' said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Times (UK) reports that by allowing old maps to be overlaid on satellite images of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, Google has unwittingly created a visual tool that has prolonged an ancient discrimination, says a lobbying group established to protect the human rights of three million burakumin, members of the sub-class condemned by the old feudal system in Japan to unclean jobs associated with death and dirt. 'We tend to think of maps as factual, like a satellite picture, but maps are never neutral, they always have a certain point of view,' says David Rumsey, a US map collector. Some Japanese companies actively screen out burakumin-linked job seekers, and some families hire private investigators to dig into the ancestry of fiances to make sure there is no burakumin taint. Because there is nothing physical to differentiate burakumin from other Japanese and because there are no clues in their names or accent, the only way of establishing whether or not they are burakumin is by tracing their family. By publishing the locations of burakumin ghettos with the modern street maps, the quest to trace ancestry is made easier, says Toru Matsuoka, an opposition MP and member of the Buraku Liberation League. Under pressure to diffuse criticism, Google has asked the owners of the woodblock print maps to remove the legend that identifies the ghetto with an old term, extremely offensive in modern usage, that translates loosely as 'scum town.' 'We had not acknowledged the seriousness of the map, but we do take this matter seriously,' says Yoshito Funabashi, a Google spokesman." The ancient Japanese caste system was made illegal 150 years ago, but silent discrimination remains. The issue is complicated by allegations of mob connections in the burakumin anti-discrimination organizations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's the latest privacy rupture: old school newspaper archives are showing up online, getting indexed, and becoming part of the permanent googlable record for the people who wrote for them and the people who appeared in them. This is the latest installment in an ongoing story -- for example, when DejaNews (now Google Groups) put Usenet's archives online, the material we thought we'd written in a no-archive medium became part of our googlable past. Soon, face-recognition will put names on every photo on the web, and then, look out!

As the papers have begun digitizing their back issues, their Web sites have become the latest front in the battle over online identities. Youthful activities that once would have disappeared into the recesses of a campus library are now preserved on the public record, to be viewed with skeptical eyes by an adult world of colleagues and potential employers. Alumni now in that world are contacting newspapers with requests for redaction. For unlike Facebook profiles -- that other notable source of young-adult embarrassment -- the ability to remove or edit questionable content in these cases is out of the author's hands.

When Terrence J. Casey, then the Collegian's editor, got Ms. Dobo's request, he referred to a policy put in place by previous editors: The Daily Collegian does not remove any editorial content from its Web site. However, if there is a factual inaccuracy in a story, the editors will run a correction or an update as needed.

Lyle, a graduate of Emory University who asked that his last name be withheld because he is in the military, got pretty much the same response from The Emory Wheel, where he served as opinion editor for three years before graduating in 2005 and joining the Marine Corps. Lyle had sounded off on domestic politics, the wars, and economic policy in a column that is preserved in the paper's Web archives. "If any of my Marines were to end up Googling me, I'd feel uncomfortable with them knowing my own politics," he said. "As a rule, politics and the military don't mix."

Alumni Try to Rewrite History on College-Newspaper Web Sites (via /.)

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Roger Grimes offers a spreadsheet-based calculator in which you can key in your current password policy and see how your organization's passwords might hold up against the number of guesses an attacker can make in a given minute. The calculator includes results for four different password entropy models, and is based on length, character set, maximum age, whether complexity is enabled, and the number of guesses per minute an attacker can attempt. As an example, Grimes assumes an eight-character password, with complexity enabled, a 94-symbol character set, and 90 days between password changes. Such a policy, typical for many organizations, would require attackers to make only 65 guesses per minute to break — not at all hard to accomplish, Grimes writes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Javier sez, "A teenager asks Yahoo! Questions whether maintaining a lending library in his school locker is illegal (as opposed of merely in contravention of school regulations). A school friend asked to borrow off him The Catcher in the Rye, one of the books in the banned list, and one thing led to another..."

This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality. Some of these books are:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
His Dark Materials trilogy
Sabriel
The Canterbury Tales
Candide
The Divine Comedy
Paradise Lost
The Godfather
Mort
Interview with the Vampire
The Hunger Games
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Animal Farm
The Witches
Shade's Children
The Evolution of Man
the Holy Qu'ran
... and lots more.

Anyway, I now operate a little mini-library that no one has access to but myself. Practically a real library, because I keep an inventory log and give people due dates and everything. I would be in so much trouble if I got caught, but I think it's the right thing to do because before I started, almost no kid at school but myself took an active interest in reading! Now not only are all the kids reading the banned books, but go out of their way to read anything they can get their hands on. So I'm doing a good thing, right? Oh, and since you're probably wondering "Why can't you just go to a local library and check out the books?" most of the kids are too chicken or their parents won't let them but the books. I think that people should have open minds. Most of the books were banned because they contained information that opposed Catholicism. I limit my 'library' to only the sophmores, juniors and seniors just in case so you can't say I'm exposing young people to materiel they're not mature enough for. But is what I'm doing wrong because parents and teachers don't know about it and might not like it, or is it a good thing because I am starting appreciation of the classics and truly good novels (Not just fad novels like Twilight) in my generation?

Give that kid a medal and a full-ride scholarship to the best library school in the country, please!

Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school? (Thanks, Javier!)

TheManagement writes "Many current developers of web games seem to have a fondness for 2D platformers. However, their desire to capture what made Sonic and Mario games so great is rarely achieved. In an attempt to breach that gap, Significant Bits takes a look at three common design principles that made those classic titles so enjoyable. 'To start off, the interface needs to be quick and responsive. Input should have an immediate effect on the character in order to foster a sense of full control. Granularity and different control techniques, i.e., pressing, tapping and holding, are also important as they provide a level of precision to the movement. ... Now, as far as the environments themselves, it's not a coincidence that they're often filled with all sorts of slides, bridges, trampolines, ladders, etc. In a way, they're simply playgrounds for the player, both literally and figuratively. They're catered to the moveset, and they enhance the flow of the game.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

viyh writes with an update to the ongoing legal troubles faced by Craigslist over their adult-services ads. According to CNN, a South Carolina judge has told the office of the state's Attorney General, Henry McMaster, to cease their efforts to bring criminal charges against the operators of Craigslist. "On Friday, Judge Weston Houck granted Craigslist's request for a temporary restraining order preventing McMaster and his employees from 'initiating or pursuing [any] prosecution against Craigslist or its officers and employees in relation to content posted by third parties on Craigslist's Web site' until the court rules on the merits of the site's lawsuit. Craigslist's lawsuit cites an interview McMaster gave to Fox News on Monday, in which he likened the site 'to a hotel or motel owner that knows prostitution is going on on their premises and fails to do anything about it especially after having been told.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[Image from Electric Vehicles are for Girls]

Nikki Bloomfield pointed this one out to me yesterday while we were talking about EVs.

The idea here is that if you want to do an electric car conversion, but are not fully confident, you can join others and take an online course through the Electric Cars are for Girls site. The site is already a decent source for EV information. There is a good description of the project on Auto Blog Green:

Converting a liquid-fueled vehicle to electric drive is nothing new, but, if you've never done it before, then everything can be fresh and totally overwhelming. For those of you interested in trying a conversion project, the fine folks at Electric Cars Are For Girls are here to help. The site is getting ready to put EV conversion classes online using the same materials and demonstrations that they use in local classes. The project is called EV University, and they are currently running a survey to find out what would be most useful to home mechanics. The classes will include written materials, videos, lectures with slides and a chance to interact with the instructors. Help them out by taking the survey. If you want to help them out more, they are also looking for people to teach the courses.

This is a new project, looking for participants. Right now the site is in "seed mode" with starter bits of information in place with a promise of more to come. Nikki is up for teaching a class on Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicles or PHEVs. They have a survey up asking for people to tell what they are interested in learning on the EV subject. If you have a huge bucket of knowledge on the subject, maybe you teach a class?

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animeking503 was one of several readers to send word that after closing its doors earlier this year, CircuitCity.com is alive and kicking once again. Systemax Inc., the company that owns TigerDirect and CompUSA, purchased the Circuit City e-commerce brand name last month, and has now re-launched the website with promises of lower prices and better service. The Consumerist points out that the new site's return policies leave something to be desired.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mister Jalopy is having a bike sale at his store, Coco's in LA this weekend:

This time last year, we hardly had any bikes to sell. We were new to the game and almost all the bikes we had came from garage sales. Since then, we have become considerably more efficient at buying bicycles. More trade-ins, more collectors, more scrap pickers, more junk stores saving bikes for us. And, fortunately, for our customers, we are overloaded. Remembering the days when we were so hungry for bicycles, I am poor at moderating acquisition.

Well, it has come to a breaking point. We have too many bikes to ever finish. We are tripping over them. And my personal bicycle collection has swelled so that I need to sell some of my really, really good stuff.

What will you find at Coco's this weekend? About 100 bikes.

20% off our bicycles that have been completely refurbished. We never negotiate on the prices of our refurbed bikes as we have so much money sunk in them. So, this alone is uncommon.

Bike sale at Coco's in Los Angeles

Kevin Marks, who works at Google, tells anyone who will listen that Google Reader has a new feature that's exactly like reading lists, and that's a good thing -- because they are powerful and useful, and likely a key to making news reading work for more people.

Reading lists allow you to delegate subscription to feeds to experts. So for example, I could let Lance Knobel, an economist who I trust, choose the feeds I follow in his area of expertise. That way, when a new feed comes along, instead of sending me an email saying "Hey Dave you might want to subscribe to this feed" he can do it for me simply by adding it to his reading list.

Similarly, if a feed is no longer being updated, when Lance unsubs from it, so will I, automatically.

You can think of reading lists as a mutual fund of feeds. Busy people don't have time to research which feeds to follow and unfollow, so they delegate that to experts.

Another application -- the BBC has a large number of feeds, some for special events like the Olympics or elections. They could have a reading list for all their feeds, and when one falls off, they'd remove it, and when a new one comes on, they could add it.

It's an obvious extension to RSS, and to the ability to import and export OPML subscription lists. You can subscribe to a list of feeds in addition to individual feeds.

Now I'd love to provide reading lists for users of Google Reader, but I can't because they're using an incompatible format. This is absolutely the wrong thing to do. When asked to explain why, Marks gives a nonsense answer about the OPML Editor, which this has nothing to do with. It's always a shame when technologists, who have to answer precisely to the computer, use political spin when talking to users.

Further, if Google plans to challenge Twitter, as I've said I hope they do -- they will not get my support if they respond to Twitter's locked trunk with their own locked trunk. They must use RSS, OPML, Atom, everything they can find that there is even a bit of consensus for, including Twitter's API. They must achieve a remarkable level of compatibility to make the barrier to entry as low as it possibly can be and to send a signal that they just want to be a player in the market, not the dominator of the market.

Google's attitude in this area has been very unfortunate -- they've tended to be incompatible with existing formats whenever they can get away with it.

If Google had not invented a new format for reading lists, this would be a very different post. I'd be offering some reading lists of my own for their users to subscribe to, and encouraging my colleagues to do the same. I'd have written a howto that shows people what they need to do to create a reading list for Google Reader if they don't use Google Reader.

It's bad strategy to be gratuitously incompatible. It's also bad manners. Google was given a market for their reader built on open formats. They ought not consume that open-ness, they ought to at least preserve it, if not enhance it.

However, I will sing their praises if they fix their implementation to use the same format we use for their implementation of reading lists. If not, we'll wait to see what their efforts to compete with Twitter look like.

The Canadian Plastic Industry Association commissioned a study concluding that using cloth bags is bad for your health because they're full of bacteria (and certainly not because using cloth bags is bad for the profitablity of Canadian Plastic Industry Association members!). They hired an ex-health regulator (Dr. Richard Summerbell, Director of Research at Toronto-based Sporometrics and former Chief of Medical Mycology for the Ontario Ministry of Health) to say that cloth bags put you at risk of "skin infections such as bacterial boils, allergic reactions, triggering of asthma attacks, and ear infections". Of course, it's bullshit, and the regulator who traded his credibility for a consulting fee should be ashamed of himself.

Um, yeah except that coliform isn't an indicator of really anything in a shopping bag. It's a great indicator of water quality, but not great for food (coliforms are all over the place, including on produce). And mean relatively nothing.

The lack of real data is probably why it was reported in CFU/ml (a water measurement -- pretty hard to tell what a ml of a shopping bag represents). The most telling data was that no generic E. coli or Salmonella was found.

Are reusable bags really a food safety concern? (via Consumerist)

Delia Sherman's delightful The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen is the sequel to her equally excellent Changeling, the beginning of a series of books of modern fairytales set in a "New York Between," a parallel New York in which the folkloric traditions of many lands combine to make a place that's as wonderful, familiar and strange as the fairytale woods of the Grimms would have been to the people to originally told those tales.

Magic Mirror continues the education of Neef, the Changeling of Central Park, the last wild place in New York, ruled by the Green Lady, the older Genius in the five boroughs. Neef, a human girl kidnapped as an infant and raised to be a diplomat and hero for Central Park, needs to formalize her training, and so her fairy godmother sends her to changeling school, Miss Van Loon's School for Mortal Changelings.

What follows puts Hogwarts to shame, combining the anarchic charm of Ronald Searles' dark and hilarious St Trinian's cartoons with a deep and thorough knowledge of folklore, a wonderful sense of humor and bottomless imagination.

Neef is thrown together with the outcast Changelings from the Lower East Side and the theater district, pitched against the elf-obsessed willowy Changelings of the rich neighborhoods, and while she tries to do her best to hew to the 600 rules of Miss Van Loon's, she can't help but find herself on a quest to avert a war between Central Park and the Harbor Folk, not to mention sworn by oath to conjure Bloody Mary on Hallowe'en.

Every bit as witty and engrossing as Changeling, Magic Mirror is a strong second volume in a series I'm very much looking forward to following for years to come.

The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen

reporter writes "According to a startling report by the Wall Street Journal, the Internet has empowered ordinary people to be part-time intelligence officers, uncovering secrets like military facilities and prison camps across the landscape of North Korea. The report states, '[Curtis] Melvin is at the center of a dozen or so citizen snoops who have spent the past two years filling in the blanks on the map of one of the world's most secretive countries. Seeking clues in photos, news reports and eyewitness accounts, they affix labels to North Korean structures and landscapes captured by Google Earth, an online service that stitches satellite pictures into a virtual globe. The result is an annotated North Korea of rocket-launch sites, prison camps and elite palaces on white-sand beaches. "It's democratized intelligence," says Mr. Melvin. More than 35,000 people have downloaded Mr. Melvin's file, North Korea Uncovered. It has grown to include thousands of tags in categories such as "nuclear issues" (alleged reactors, missile storage), dams (more than 1,200 countrywide) and restaurants (47). Its Wikipedia approach to spying shows how Soviet-style secrecy is facing a new challenge from the Internet's power to unite a disparate community of busybodies.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You may remember a case we discussed this April in which a Boston College student's computers and other electronics were seized after he allegedly sent an email outing another student as gay. The search warrant made sure to note the student's ever-so-suspicious use of "two different operating systems," one of which was "a black screen with a white font which he uses prompt commands on." Now, the EFF reports that a Massachusetts judge has thrown out the search warrant and declared the search and seizure illegal. Quoting: "In her order Thursday, Justice Margot Botsford rejected the Commonwealth's theory that sending a hoax email might be unlawful under a Massachusetts computer crime statute barring the 'unauthorized access' to a computer, concluding that there could be no violation of what was only a 'hypothetical internet use policy.' Thursday's decision now stands as the highest state court opinion to reject the dangerous theory that terms of service violations constitute computer 'hacking' crimes. Justice Botsford further found that details offered by police as corroboration of other alleged offenses were insufficient and did not establish probable cause for the search." The court order (PDF) is available for viewing, and the EFF has broken down the significant arguments against the Commonwealth's claims.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Using little more than some PCBs from Sparkfun, two micro servos, some right angle headers and screws left over from a junked Gameboy, Jose Torres from RampageRobotics built this pan-tilt robot camera rig (with the help of a Dremel and a soldering iron). The CMOS camera module is from Electronics123.com. Clever use of the bent header pins to create a right-angle mount for the tilt-servo PCB.

Build a Pan-Tilt Camera Mount in Less Than an Hour

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theodp writes "At a time when the question of what a good job looks like is wide open, a book excerpt in the NY Times magazine says it's time to take a fresh look at the trades. High-school shop-class programs were dismantled in the '90s as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers' in a pure information economy. Was this was a huge mistake? A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic instead of accumulating academic credentials is now viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive, complains Matthew Crawford, who took his University of Chicago PhD and opened a motorcycle repair shop. Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it, 'You can't hammer a nail over the Internet' (never say never). Guess we all should have paid more attention to Nicholas Negroponte's landmark-in-retrospect Being Digital (ironically, no Kindle version)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This weekend Marc Geller of Plug In America and I were interviewed by Nikki Bloomfield for EVCast, a biweekly podcast about Electric Vehicles.

Host Nikki Bloomfield is joined by lifelong educator Chris Connors from MAKE Magazine and Marc Geller, EV advocate and blogger from Plug in America. They discuss encouraging young people into the world of EVs through education, hands on experiments and workshops.

A few of the things we talked about were helping kids get excited about Electric Vehicles, resources for EV information, education resources for teachers, next week's Maker Faire, and the Electric Vehicles Flickr pool. Good books we talked about EVs included Solo by Noel Perrin, Electric Dreams by Caroline Kettlewell and Build your own Electric Vehicle by Bob Brandt and The Adventures of Ellie the Electric Car by Julia Ammons.

You can listen to the show or if you fill out the free registration, you can download the mp3 file. Nikki has also edited the file down and it is on her site.

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/environment/EVCast_Get_kids_excited_about_Electric_Vehicles
';

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

• DIY bike helmet fan

• Rock Band axe in a box [above, top-right]

• Anybody lose a lightning bolt? [above, bottom-right]

• Music box plays solenoid beats [above, top-left]

• Maker's Notebook 555 cover

• Etch A Sketch, automated, wireless [above, bottom-left]

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Hugh Pickens writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that as college papers have begun digitizing their back issues, their Web sites have become the latest front in the battle over online identities. Youthful activities like underage drinking that once would have disappeared into the recesses of a campus library are now preserved on the public record, and alumni are contacting newspapers with requests for redaction. Unlike with Facebook profiles, that other notable source of young-adult embarrassment, the affected parties can't remove or edit questionable content. In 2007, a Cornell University alum sued the Cornell Chronicle over a newly digitized article from 1983 that reported he had been charged with burglary while a student at Cornell. The alum found the article after Googling his name and claimed that its new presence online was causing him 'mental anguish' and 'loss of reputation.' But a California judge threw out the case after determining the report to be accurate. Some student papers, like The University Daily Kansan, have found a middle ground by adding the noindex meta tag so that the documents stay online, but search engines such as Google do not index them. 'I thought that would be better than kind of like sticking it to [the alum] and saying the paper is always right and we can publish anything on the Web we want,' says the paper's editor."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jzoom555 writes "In an interview with Discover Magazine, Gerald Edelman, Nobel laureate and founder/director of The Neurosciences Institute, discusses the quality of consciousness and progress in building brain-based-devices. His lab recently published details on a brain model that is self-sustaining and 'has beta waves and gamma waves just like the regular cortex.'" Edelman's latest BBD contains a million simulated neurons and almost half a billion synapses, and is modeled on a cat's brain.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Slate reports on the horrible — and preventable — death of a young UCLA biochemist in a t-butyl lithium incident, which led a Chemical Health and Safety columnist to the disheartening conclusion that most academic laboratories are unsafe venues for work or study. It's estimated that accidents and injuries occur hundreds of times more frequently in academic labs than in industrial ones. Why? For one thing, Slate says, occupational safety and health laws that protect workers in hazardous jobs apply only to employees, not to undergrads, grad students, or research fellows who receive stipends from outside funders."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British Airways is eliminating the First Class cabin on its new plane. I'm not surprised. First Class costs thousands of pounds more than business class, and the only substantial difference between the two services is that First comes with a free pair of cheap pyjamas and a lobster salad. You can buy the same jammies at Heathrow and pick up a lobster salad at Pret on your way onto the plane and save a mint.

"The long-haul aircraft that we take delivery of this year will not have any first class cabins in them," said Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive. He insisted there was no direct link to the recession, but he added: "Longer term we will review the configuration of [all] new aircraft." BA is also launching a service this year from Heathrow to Las Vegas, a prime destination for high-rollers, with no first class option.

First class is the last remnant of the more romantic days of air travel when BA's predecessor, British Overseas Airways Corporation, offered first class tickets alongside the more down-at-heel tourist or economy cabins. Its upmarket reputation has become even more rarefied over the years following the introduction of slightly less luxurious business class seats in the late 1970s, and cut-throat competition on the transatlantic market.

British Airways ditch first class in new planes as age of austerity bites

"Mighty Uke is a feature documentary that travels the world to discover why so many people of different nations, cultures, ages and musical tastes are turning to the ukulele to express themselves, connect with the past, and with each other. From the Redwoods of California through the gritty streets of New York, from swinging London through Tokyos highrise canyons to Hawaii, ukers tell the story of the peoples instrument: The Mighty Uke."

AMP Motor Works is a company set up to convert the mass produced Saturn Sky to an Electric Vehicle.

AMP claims that the Sky EV gets 125 miles per gallon equivalent fuel economy based on how much energy it takes to charge the batteries. At current energy prices, this will cost you around 3 cents (US) a mile.

Additionally, because the car is all-electric, it produces zero tailpipe emissions and has many other added side benefits such as no oil changes, no regular tune-ups, no clutch, no transmission fluid and no differential fluid -- all of which could add up to significant savings over the life of the vehicle beyond obvious savings on fuel costs.

This sure isn't a cheap way to get an EV, but, you gotta start somewhere, right?

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suraj.sun sends in an update from TechCrunch on a story that generated a lot of controversy a few months back, "Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?" "Now we've located another source for the story, someone who's very close to Last.fm. And it turns out Last.fm was telling the truth, sorta... Last.fm didn't hand user data over to the RIAA. According to our source, it was their parent company, CBS, that did it. Here's what we believe happened: CBS requested user data from Last.fm, including user name and IP address. CBS wanted the data to comply with a RIAA request but told Last.fm the data was going to be used for 'internal use only.' It was only after the data was sent to CBS that Last.fm discovered the real reason for the request. Last.fm staffers were outraged, say our sources, but the data had already been sent to the RIAA. We believe CBS lied to us when they denied sending the data to the RIAA, and that they subsequently asked us to attribute the quote to Last.fm to make the statement defensible. Last.fm's denials were strictly speaking correct, but they ignored the underlying truth of the situation, that their parent company supplied user data to the RIAA, and that the data could possibly be used in civil and criminal actions against those users."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.