Why Gawker's Security Breach Is So Bad | The Atlantic Wire

Why Gawker's Security Breach Is So Bad | The Atlantic Wire

Facebook Wrestles With Free Speech and Civility

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, likes to say that his Web site brings people together, helping to make the world a better place. But Facebook isn’t a utopia, and when it comes up short, Dave Willner tries to clean up.

Keeping Secrets WikiSafe

WASHINGTON — Can the government still keep a secret? In an age of WikiLeaks, flash drives and instant Web postings, leaks have begun to seem unstoppable.

That may be just a first impression. Sobered government officials are scrambling to stop the hemorrhage of documents, even as antisecrecy radicals are discovering that some secrets may be worth protecting after all.

New breed launched cyber counterattack in support of WikiLeaks

Rafix was set to attack. The target was Visa.com. The weapon: a battery of personal computers ready to jam the site with millions of simultaneous log-in requests.

"FIRE at WILL, gentlemen!" Rafix wrote in an online message. "Enjoy the epic battle of glory!"

What Works in the Classroom? Ask the Students

How useful are the views of public school students about their teachers?

Quite useful, according to preliminary results released on Friday from a $45 million research project that is intended to find new ways of distinguishing good teachers from bad.

Web Attackers Find a Cause in WikiLeaks

Starting years ago as mischievous kids, they have grown to a political hacking organization

VA Tech Made Fatal Errors in Shooting

Va Tech critics frustrated by report response.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Critics of how Virginia Tech handled the 2007 campus massacre said Friday they are frustrated but not surprised that the university still refuses to acknowledge mistakes, despite a federal report that concludes officials broke the law by failing to promptly warn students a gunman was on the loose.

Obama's Tax Deal

Charles Krauthammer views Obama as having made a great deal.

Sorkin on Palin's Moose Kill

Aaron Sorkin takes off on the grisly kill of a Moose on Palin's awful Alaska reality show.

The Cost of Inflation

Beck tells audience to ruin Thanksgiving dinner with misinformation about inflation

While advising his Fox News viewers to talk about inflation at their Thanksgiving dinners, Glenn Beck falsely claimed that the government removed food and energy prices from its measure of inflation to hide rising prices, that a survey showed economists are "worried" about inflation, and that Social Security recipients are not receiving a cost-of-living adjustment because the government "changed the calculation."

!st Amendment gets a bit strained

Twitter tirades test limits of freedom of speech

Joking threats expressed as tweets between friends has led them to trouble with law enforcement.

One More Barrier to Education

The Technology Monster

With all that doesn't work in the schools, now comes not a Game Changer, but a Brain Changer -- and unfortunately, not for the good

Decline and Fall of the American Empire?

American Psychosis by Chris Hedges

While I do not agree with the author in his analysis of how the culture of America is driving it to collapse, I think there is a fundamental problem in that, there will continue to be a mismatch between available jobs, the skills required to perform them, and the availability of a workforce was skills matching those required.

Our public education system has declined to the point where it is functionally useless. There is no quick and simple fix for the barriers which make it impossible for 18-year-olds to be sufficiently intellectually competent to qualify for additional training. Moreover, given the financial straits in which universities and colleges find themselves, they are little prepared to receive the many who might seek postsecondary education, and even less prepared to prepare those students who do attend to enter the workforce with the skills it requires.

Even were it the case that a skilled workforce existed, at this point there simply are not jobs regardless of the level of training possessed by individual workers. Employers have either found ways to replace workers with automation or other technology, or they simply do not have enough revenue for them to be willing to hire additional workers. The costs of health care, retirement, and other benefits have become simply so prohibitive that employers are unable to determine with certainty the productivity of additional workers.

It is without this very revenue to workers that prevents what used to be the largest contribution in tax revenue, that which came from consumer activity, from once again increasing. That lack of consumer activity is the very factor which stands in the way of producing the revenue that local governments, state governments, and the federal government all require to get the country out of the economic hole in which it finds itself.

Cyber-theft continues to grow

Cyberthieves still rely on human foot soldiers

Reviews passenger backlash toward invasive "Pat Down Screening"

Congress -- too stupid to care!

Party Gridlock in Washington Feeds Fear of a Debt Crisis

Reading this article, it appears as though our Congress either no longer cares about those it governs, and/or is incompetent and unwilling to solve the problems which face us. Be afraid – Be very afraid!

“The unwillingness of the two parties to compromise to control a national debt that is rising to dangerous heights.”

“After decades of warnings that budgetary profligacy, escalating health care costs and an aging population would lead to a day of fiscal reckoning, economists and the nation’s foreign creditors say that moment is approaching faster than expected, hastened by a deep recession that cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenues and higher spending for safety-net programs.

“Yet rarely has the political system seemed more polarized and less able to solve big problems that involve trust, tough choices and little short-term gain. The main urgency for both parties seems to be about pinning blame on the other, before November’s elections, for deficits now averaging $1 trillion a year, the largest since World War II relative to the size of the economy.

‘… hardly alone in sounding an alarm about the long-term budgetary outlook, which hasMedicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs growing at unsustainable rates and an inefficient tax system that cannot keep up.

“And to use the politics of fear and division and hate on each other — we are at a point right now where it doesn’t make a damn whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican if you’ve forgotten you’re an American.”

Injustice, Hysteria and Corruption of the Law

‘Sexting’ Hysteria Falsely Brands Educator as Child Pornographer

After more than thirty years as a respected educator, the victim is branded a sex offender following an innocent effort to simply do his job. Apparently done only to enhance the "Law and Order' reputation of the town prosecutor.

CS Class Cheating at Stanford

The Temptation to Cheat in Computer Science Classes at Stanford

In January, on the first day of the Computer Science 106A: Program Methodology course at Stanford University, Eric Roberts, the professor, began with his customary admonition: Cheat, and you will be caught. And, he added: Cheat, and your classmates will suffer. More weight will be given to the final exam when calculating the final grade.

Application for Work from Home

This is a current resume and application to interested employers for any possible position which I can fill by working from my home office.

They're at it once again!

The Politics of Fear

(New York Times – February 10, 2010)

An election is coming, so the Republicans are trying to scare Americans by making it appear as if the Democrats don’t care about catching or punishing terrorists