x2a.org aggregator

7 days quiz

BBC - Front page - 4 hours 10 min ago
Can you spot the original Peggy Mitchell from our line-up?
Categories: Mainstream media

Bloodhound budgets

BBC - Front page - 4 hours 10 min ago
Are world land speed records indulgent or essential?
Categories: Mainstream media

Panda Loves to Party

Boing Boing - 4 hours 21 min ago

pandalovestoparty.tumblr.com: a tumblog devoted solely to photographs of pandas enjoying themselves at parties.

(via BB Submitterator, thanks Unicorn Breath)



Categories: Geek news

Ben Brown boogies - it's Odd Box

BBC - Front page - 4 hours 29 min ago
Presenters dancing, lessons in how to fall over and the man who drives a dining room table. It's the week's weird and wonderful video stories in Newsbeat's Odd Box with Dominic Byrne.
Categories: Mainstream media

US pastor cancels Koran burning

BBC - Front page - 4 hours 33 min ago
US pastor Terry Jones cancels his Koran-burning event, claiming those behind an Islamic centre near New York's "Ground Zero" had agreed to relocate it.
Categories: Mainstream media

The Google Instant Alphabet

Boing Boing - 5 hours 9 min ago

In a Boing Boing comment thread around the launch of Google's new "Google Instant" search feature, BB reader Robert compiled a little alphabet ditty based on what typing in each letter of the alphabet yields in the way of suggestions. The results vary by country, and it seems also by state or region, and other more personal factors: say, cookies stored for your prior Google searches. Robert is in the USA. Enjoy.

A is for Amazon, to get all your books.
B is for Bank of America, which holds all your crooks.
C is for Craigslist, no services adult.
D is for Dictionary, to define your result.
E is for eBay, to spend all your cash.
F is for Facebook, web pages like trash.
G is for Gmail, world domination ambition.
H is for Hotmail, Gmail's competition.
I is for Ikea, for a lamp named Bljampäjese.
J is for Johns Hopkins, where they cure your disease.
K is for Kohl's, a store that's old-school.
L is for Lowe's, to buy your tool.
M is for MapQuest, for the place you go to.
N is for Netflix, to add to your queue.
O is for Orioles, a Baltimore obsession.
P is for Pandora, an audio digression.
Q is for QVC, for goods without esteem.
R is for Ravens, another Baltimore team.
S is for Sears, appliances and more.
T is for Target, a Wal-Mart like store.
U is for USPS, where mail you submit.
V is for Verizon, Steve Jobs should use it.
W is for Weather, for forests in flames.
X is for Xbox, a console for games.
Y is for Yahoo, a home page for Chrome.
Z is for Zillow, to value your home.

(Image: a page from the children's French-language alphabet book "Grand Alphabet Amusant," by E. Morel, ~1890; from Bibliodyssey)



Categories: Geek news

TSA warning poster upsets aircraft photographers

Boing Boing - 5 hours 12 min ago

Via the BB Submitterator, reader Keith Irwin writes, Carlos Miller reports that there's a new TSA poster which seems to suggest that people who photograph airplanes are suspicious. The TSA blog has responded saying that 1) the poster isn't new and 2) the pictures on the poster just show general things which happen around airports and are not meant to cast photographers as terrorists. That their current group of posters includes pictures of a stewardess and a maintenance person probably backs up their story. Just in case, though, I fixed it to help us be alert of the real threat which photographers pose. TSA publishes new posters depicting photographers as terrorists



Categories: Geek news

Gang strike paralyses El Salvador

BBC - Front page - 5 hours 15 min ago
Much of El Salvador's public transport grinds to a halt after street gangs force a shutdown to protest at anti-gang legislation.
Categories: Mainstream media

Al-Qaeda men escape Baghdad jail

BBC - Front page - 5 hours 17 min ago
Four prisoners with ties to al-Qaeda have escaped from the US-controlled section of Baghdad's Karkh prison, US officials say.
Categories: Mainstream media

When the First Sentence is Wrong, Why Read On?

Technology Liberation Front - 5 hours 18 min ago

Individuals, shadowy criminal organizations, and nation states all now have the capacity to devastate modern societies through computer attacks.

It’s simply not true.

The author must not know the meaning of “devastate,” which is, according to the handiest Web dictionary, “to lay waste; render desolate.”

There is no such capacity—anywhere—to do such damage through computer attacks, and the capacity of some actors to produce some inconvenience, to cause some economic harm, and perhaps to cause physical damage or injury—none of that justifies such a stupidly phrased sentence.

It’s the first line of the abstract to “An e-SOS for Cyberspace” by Temple University law professor Duncan Hollis. Almost certainly, given the overblown premise, it calls for overblown reactions.

This concludes my review of the first sentence of another fear-mongering cybersecurity paper.

Categories: Libre

Scary speech by gentleman with a "masters degree in communication"

Boing Boing - 5 hours 22 min ago

Ohio councilman Phil Davison screams and shoots eye daggers at the people he hopes will vote for him to be Stark County Treasurer.

The best part is the way he frequently pauses his artificial anger to read his script. The college that gave him a "masters degree in communication" ought to be stripped of its accreditation. Scary Stump Speech of the Day



Categories: Geek news

England suffer dramatic Cup exit

BBC - Front page - 5 hours 23 min ago
England women are beaten on penalties in the World Cup semi-final by world and Olympic champions the Netherlands.
Categories: Mainstream media

Ocean glints

BBC - Front page - 5 hours 23 min ago
The next generation of telescopes could reveal oceans on planets beyond our Solar System
Categories: Mainstream media

Two hurt in plane crash 'stable'

BBC - Front page - 5 hours 24 min ago
Two men seriously injured when their light aircraft crashed into a garden in Hampshire are reported to be in a stable condition, police reveal.
Categories: Mainstream media

Global economy slowing, says OECD

BBC - Front page - 5 hours 27 min ago
The global economic recovery is slowing faster than forecast, but a return to recession is unlikely, an economic group says.
Categories: Mainstream media

Researchers Create Real Tractor Beams

Slashdot - 5 hours 29 min ago
Gadgetank writes "Researchers out of the Australian National University have created a device, working in conjunction with other necessary devices, that can literally move small particles with light. And only light. The way it works is by shining a hollow laser beam around some tiny glass particles. The researchers heat the air around the particles, and therefore cause the dark center of the beam to remain cool."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F09%2F2126244%2FResearchers-Create-Real-Tractor-Beams" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Researchers+Create+Real+Tractor+Beams%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FaQKlOm" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/09/09/2126244/Researchers-Create-Real-Tractor-Beams?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1782538amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d99ab74/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/loVu6mXdgb0R6P-3l2qN2VmzEUw/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/loVu6mXdgb0R6P-3l2qN2VmzEUw/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/loVu6mXdgb0R6P-3l2qN2VmzEUw/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/loVu6mXdgb0R6P-3l2qN2VmzEUw/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/H596vshcVPs" height="1" width="1"/
Categories: Geek news

[ National ] Attentats contre Air India - Reprise du procès d'Inderjit Singh Reyat

Radio-Canada - Grands Titres - 5 hours 31 min ago
Le procès pour parjure du seul accusé reconnu coupable à la suite de l'attentat contre le vol182 d'Air India en 1985 s'ouvre devant la Cour suprême de la Colombie-Britannique. Reyat est soupçonné d'avoir menti à 19reprises dans le cadre du procès de deux autres accusés, en 2003.
Categories: Mainstream media

Iran is to release US woman hiker

BBC - Front page - 5 hours 36 min ago
Iran is set to release on Saturday Sarah Shourd - one of three detained US hikers held since last July and accused of espionage, officials say.
Categories: Mainstream media

[ Manitoba ] Oxford House - Des élèves privés d'école

Radio-Canada - Grands Titres - 5 hours 40 min ago
Les 400 écoliers de la réserve amérindienne devront patienter avant de retourner en classe. Leur école, insalubre, est fermée depuis huit mois. Dans le meilleur des cas, elle rouvrira ses portes en février.
Categories: Mainstream media

[ Montréal ] Lutte contre l'itinérance - Les conservateurs sont interpellés

Radio-Canada - Grands Titres - 5 hours 40 min ago
L'aide fédérale pour lutter contre l'itinérance est insuffisante et le temps presse, selon un réseau d'aide aux sans-abri, appuyé par la Ville de Montréal et par l'opposition à Ottawa.
Categories: Mainstream media
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