Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sarah Palin vs. The Internet
How did you spend the Fourth of July? Maybe having a BBQ with friends and family, watching a fireworks show, and generally enjoying a happy patriotic holiday? Batshit-insane American Quitter Sarah Palin ended her own special “Independence Day” by posting a series of desperate grammar-challenged nonsenseFacebook and Twitter pages. Really.
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Monday, June 29, 2009
Ghotit - Dyslexic Checker for writing
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For damage control Chermesh started thinking of a program that could help him find the right words he needed, even when the original spelling of how he perceived the word to look was unrecognizable by a spellchecker. He partnered with a technology graduate from the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and they created Ghotit.
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Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
RCMP Overdoing It - Handcuffing An 11-Year-Old Girl
A complaint has been filed against the RCMP after an 11-year-old girl in Fort Resolution, N.W.T., was handcuffed and put in a jail cell, according to the girl's mother.
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NDP: A record of results for everyday families
At a time when ordinary Canadians are working to make ends meet, or are sadly having to struggle to find work, they need to know their MPs are working for them. That’s what New Democrats have been doing in this session – taking action to get pragmatic solutions adopted and hold the Harper government to account.
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Effective Opposition: By The Numbers
Fewer than 15 percent of MPs are New Democrats, yet New Democrats have been doing more than 50 percent of the work of private members’ in this minority parliament.
Each New Democrat MP did the equivalent work of 41 Conservative backbenchers, 19 Bloc Quebecois MPs and 3 Liberal MPs.
...The ongoing LIsteriosis saga in Canada
“Twenty-two people died in this country. That cannot be swept under the rug.”
- Wayne Easter on June 18, 2009
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
io9 interview with Samuel Delany
Samuel R. Delany has been away from science fiction for over twenty years — and now he's coming back to it, sort of. His new novel Through The Valley Of The Nest Of Spiders is an introspective future history.
When we talked to Samuel R. Delany for our mega-feature about writers we wished would return to science fiction last week, he was gracious enough to stay on the phone and answer some more questions. And since we promised almost a year ago to ask him some of your questions — back when we had a failed game of phone tag with him — we decided to ask as many as we could. Along the way, he told us a lot more about his new novel.
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Friday, June 19, 2009
A no side-effects anti-anxiety drug?
Soon you may be able to buy a drug that can make you calm by mimicking the body's natural self-soothing process. But you wouldn't feel drugged. What would happen to people who suddenly became fearless without side-effects?
A group of European researchers discovered a ligand, or a chemical that binds with molecules, can soothe even the most anxious of creatures. As they write in an article published today in Science, they induced anxiety attacks in mice and men, administered the ligand XBD173, and found that their fear subsided immediately. The best part is that this treatment isn't addictive, doesn't take weeks to be effective, and doesn't make you feel dopey or drowsy.
Authors' (including Ursula LeGuin and Michael Moorcock) top 5 fantasy/real cities
Excerpt (Michael Moorcock):
"Old maps of Europe always showed Jerusalem as the centre of the world and symbolically, of course, this is understandable; but for me Marrakesh is the centre, where so many of the old trade routes met and where, still, Mercedes limousines, camels, donkeys and overloaded Peugeot trucks struggle to enter the narrow gates of a walled city which, rather more often than Casablanca, was where world leaders came to argue over the fates of millions. Marrakesh was where the balance of power between France and Morocco was held. It's where the Taureq, swathed in indigo and riding white camels, come in their haughty magnificence to trade with the Rif and the Bedouin, where privileged tourists lounge beside the pool at the Mamounia hotel, hardly aware of the long and bloody history which everywhere surrounds them."
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