Wired: Top Stories (18 unread)
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Someone's Out to Get Wikimedia's Deputy Director
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 7:45pm EDT by Epicenter
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Wikimedia's deputy director, Erik Möller, has come under fire for early writings that suggest a disturbing defense of child pornography. Danny Wool, one of Wikimedia's most vocal critics insists he didn't leak the writings to the press, but he knows who did.
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San Francisco Wants to Make Electric Cars as Common as Cable Cars
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 7:00pm EDT by Autopia
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The City by the Bay is the first city in America to invite Project Better Place to develop infrastructure for citywide electric vehicle charging similar to the system the Silicon Valley startup is rolling out in Israel and Denmark.
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Review: Asus Eee PC 900 Is Even Better Second Time Around
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 6:45pm EDT by Gadget Lab
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The second version of the Asus Eee PC is here. And guess what? Asus has managed to make a sequel that's even better than the original.
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Get Started With Amateur Radio: A Guide for 'New Hams'
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 6:25pm EDT by How-To Wiki
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Interested in getting a ham license and riding the amateur radio airwaves? You'll be well on your way to Elmerhood after following our guide. In Wired.com's How-To Wiki.
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Christian Warrior is Behind the Obama Smear Video
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 4:40pm EDT by Threat Level
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The filmmaker behind a misleading 13-minute video "portrait" of Barack Obama is producer and host of a weekly Christian satellite TV show, who once shot an anti-Islam video showing how to make cookies in the shape of Muhammad.
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Marauding Ants Foul Houston-Area Computers
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 4:15pm EDT
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Hairy, reddish-brown ants, who apparently arrived aboard cargo ships, are fanning out across the Houston area, fouling electrical boxes and playing havoc on area computers.
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Entertainment Industry Leaned on L.A. Politicos to Declare Piracy a 'Public Nuisance'
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 3:40pm EDT by Threat Level
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The motion picture and recording industries muscled the Los Angeles County politicos to adopt an ordinance declaring piracy a 'public nuisance.' The ordinance was based on inflated financial figures. The measure's key backer received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the entertainment industry as well.
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Fewer Flying This Summer, But Air Travel Will Remain Hellish
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 3:25pm EDT by Autopia
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With fewer people expected to fly this summer, airlines are slashing service to cut costs and increase revenue. That means air travel will still be as pleasant as a root canal.
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Hitler Remixes Are Big -- on YouTube
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 2:00pm EDT by Underwire
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Jokers dub satirical subtitles over a movie about the Führer's downfall, blasting everything from Hillary Clinton to the Patriots' dramatic Superbowl loss.
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First Look: Mozilla Thunderbird Mail Adds Tabs, Better Mac Support
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 1:45pm EDT by Compiler
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Mozilla makes more than browsers. The next version of the organization's popular e-mail client, Thunderbird 3.0, is well on its way to becoming a full-featured desktop communications manager. We take a peek at the newest alpha release.
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NASA Discovers Galaxy's Most Recent Supernova
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 1:10pm EDT by Wired Science
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NASA announced that the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has discovered the most recent supernova found yet, an explosion that's just 140 years old.
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California Hands-Free Cellphone Law Could Save 300 Lives a Year
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by Autopia
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Based upon the impact similar laws have had in other states, a policy wonk says that requiring Californians to use headsets behind the wheel will save almost one life a day.
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Developers: Adobe Delaying Online Music Apps
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 11:30am EDT by Listening Post
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If online music mixers, studios and instruments are the next big thing in music, why isn't Adobe getting on board?
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Britain Opens Archives on UFO Sightings
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 10:55am EDT by Associated Press
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More than 1,000 reported sightings of unidentified flying objects, heretofore kept locked away in the National Archives, have been released. Of particular interest is a 1984 sighting, made simultaneously by several experienced (and sober) air traffic controllers.
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Landline Use Falls Off as Mobile Usage Grows
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 10:20am EDT by Associated Press
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Three in 10 Americans now do most, if not all, of their talking on cellphones, a study finds. A growing number, mostly the young and less affluent, use mobiles exclusively.
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MySpace Gets $230 Million Judgment Against 'Spam King'. Good Luck Collecting.
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 9:56am EDT by Associated Press
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A federal judge orders "Spam King" Sanford Wallace and his partner to pay MySpace about $230 million in what is believed to be the largest anti-spam judgment ever. The tough part, of course, is collecting one thin dime from the pair, who lost the case when they just didn't bother to show up to court.
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May 14, 1796: Jenner Tests Vaccination on Human Subject
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Randy Alfred
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1796: Edward Jenner inoculates a boy with cowpox. After the lad recovers from the infection, Jenner inoculates him with smallpox, but the boy remains healthy. Vaccination is born.
Before Jenner, smallpox was a massive scourge and a leading cause of death, especially among children. Those whom it didn't kill it disfigured with pockmarked faces.
Some European families adopted the Turkish practice of inoculating their children with low doses of smallpox in hopes of building up their immunity to the disease. This was popularized in England by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who had her own child inoculated. The Royal family, freshly arrived from the Kingdom of Hanover in Germany, inoculated two of the Princess of Wales' children in 1723 to secure the succession. (Ironically, the Hanovers had come to the throne of Great Britain because so many Stuart and Orange heirs had succumbed to smallpox.) But the process was risky.
Jenner had heard the folk wisdom that milkmaids and others who contracted the mild and harmless cowpox through their proximity to cattle did not fall victim to the deadly smallpox. He inoculated his year-and-a-half-old son in 1789 with swine pox (a related pig disease) and then smallpox. The boy did not contract smallpox.
The dramatic 1796 experiment used fluid taken from a cowpox sore on milkmaid Sarah Nelmes. The experimental subject was 8-year-old James Phipps, who did not get smallpox despite Jenner's repeated attempts to infect him starting July 1. Ethicists debate whether such an experiment would be at all possible today.
Jenner carried out further experiments on patients and was likewise unable to infect them with smallpox if he had vaccinated them or they had contracted cowpox naturally. He published the results of 23 cases in a 1798 monograph, An inquiry into the causes and effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a disease discovered in some of the western counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and known by the name of the cow-pox.
Jenner wrote several revisions of this work as he added cases, and other researchers soon replicated his work. He called the process vaccination after the Latin word for cow, vacca. He also introduced the word virus.
Vaccination caught on quickly, but more than a century passed before scientists isolated and understood the viruses involved. After a global vaccination campaign, the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated in 1979.
(Source: Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina)
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Alt Text: Workin' at the Internet Cafe -- Laptop Dilemma
Posted: May 14th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Lore Sjöberg
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I love internet cafes. Given that my job requires hours of sitting and typing, sitting and drawing, or sitting and procrastinating, a change of scenery is welcome, allowing me to be around people without actually having to interact with them, listen to them or acknowledge their existence beyond sharing a power outlet. To me, a cafe is like a large desktop image that dispenses caffeinated beverages and scones.
However, as any science-fiction writer can tell you, with any new technology come new problems and new sex acts. I haven't gotten to the sex act part yet, but the problem is quite apparent: What do I do with my laptop when I have to use the bathroom?
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Solution 1: Leave it there on the table
Yeah, great idea. I'll just throw my credit cards and loose change on the table, too, maybe carve my Social Security number and bank password into the wood to maximize the convenience of anyone who wants to ruin my life.
Solution 2: Ask the person next to me to keep an eye it
It's not that I think the guy next to me is going to steal my laptop -- he's already got one, and his is generally nicer -- it's just that I don't think he's going to do a damn thing if a desperate-looking hood and/or thug walks right up and grabs my iBook. Hell, if he's like me, he won't even notice. If I were the sort of person who paid attention to his surroundings, I wouldn't be bringing a laptop into public spaces.
Solution 3: Bring it in with me
The easiest thing would be just to tuck it under my arm and head to the head. And yet ... I feel like that raises questions. "Why is he bringing a laptop into the bathroom? Has he been overwhelmed by the erotic power of superheroine porn? Is this some sort of sick YouTube stunt? Who said he could do that? Why won't somebody stop him?" I don't trust people to say one word if a pod of roving computer thieves leaps from a running van and grabs my laptop, but I'm sure someone will tackle me at the knees to prevent me from carrying it into the john.
Solution 4: Bring everything in with me
OK, this doesn't even make sense to me, but here's what I often do: I put my laptop back into my satchel, put my iPod back into my coat and bring my entire life with me into the bathroom. I don't know why I feel this is more socially acceptable. What do I want them to think is in there? A makeup case? A wide selection of hygiene products? Maybe I'm trying to fool them into thinking I'm just stopping by the men's room on the way out. If so, it works, because I generally come back to find my coffee cup in the bus bin and my seat taken.
Solution 5: Lock the thing up
I haven't tried this, but it would be the very avatar of simplicity to get one of those laptop locks and attach my laptop to the table or chair. I'm reluctant, though, because I don't want to come across as one of those twitchy people who obsess about extremely unlikely crimes and devise elaborate schemes to foil largely fictional criminals. However, looking back over this, I guess I am one of those people. I should probably just blog from an underground bunker in rural Montana, pausing every three paragraphs to re-oil my shotgun. I'd probably get more work done.
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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a Beat poet, a beatboxer and a beat frequency.