Men, do you want to live longer?

Thomas Kirkwood writes in Scientific American about why women live longer than men. Fellas, the good news is that you might be able to increase your lifespan by fourteen years. The, uh, bad news:

As many dog and cat owners can attest, neutered male animals often live longer than their intact counterparts. Indeed, the evidence supports the notion that male castration might be the ticket to a longer life. 

Might the same be true of humans?[...] 

The historical record is not good enough to determine if eunuchs tend to outlive normal healthy men, but some sad records suggest that they do. A number of years ago castration of men in institutions for the mentally disturbed was surprisingly commonplace. In one study of several hundred men at an unnamed institution in Kansas, the castrated men were found to live on average 14 years longer than their uncastrated fellows.

[via]

Mother Shakes Baby To Death For Interrupting Her During FarmVille

Alexandra V. Tobias, best known for her wonky yet still piercing gaze, shook her 3-month old son to death for interrupting her while playing FarmVille on Facebook.

She told investigators that she shook the baby, smoked a cigarette "to compose herself," and proceeded to shake him again. The baby may have hit his head during one of the two shakings, she said.

FarmVille, named one of the "worst inventions" in recent decades by Time magazine, has more than 60 million members, most of whom access the game through Facebook. Some players have found it so addicting that they've lost their jobs and racked up debts north of $1,000.

What in the hell's the matter with people? And why does it always seem like the morons WITH ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS (or significant genealogical differences from the other parent) CARING FOR A CHILD the ones that keep having them? Because I'd like to propose a sterilization program. Ha - did I say sterilization? Because I meant euthanasia by shotgun.

"FarmVille" Interruption Cited in Baby's Murder [mashable]

Mac vs PC

Oh Never Mind

Mel Hussain

Things I don't have to think about today

Today I don’t have to think about those who hear “terrorist” when I speak my faith.
Today I don’t have to think about men who don’t believe no means no.
Today I don’t have to think about how the world is made for people who move differently than I do.
Today I don’t have to think about whether I’m married, depending on what state I’m in.
Today I don’t have to think about how I’m going to hail a cab past midnight.

Today I don’t have to think about whether store security is tailing me.
Today I don’t have to think about the look on the face of the person about to sit next to me on a plane.
Today I don’t have to think about eyes going to my chest first.
Today I don’t have to think about what people might think if they knew the medicines I took.
Today I don’t have to think about getting kicked out of a mall when I kiss my beloved hello.

Today I don’t have to think about if it’s safe to hold my beloved’s hand.
Today I don’t have to think about whether I’m being pulled over for anything other than speeding.
Today I don’t have to think about being classified as one of “those people.”
Today I don’t have to think about making less than someone else for the same job at the same place.
Today I don’t have to think about the people who stare, or the people who pretend I don’t exist.

Today I don’t have to think about managing pain that never goes away.
Today I don’t have to think about whether a stranger’s opinion of me would change if I showed them a picture of who I love.
Today I don’t have to think about the chance a store salesmen will ignore me to help someone else.
Today I don’t have to think about the people who’d consider torching my house of prayer a patriotic act.
Today I don’t have to think about a pharmacist telling me his conscience keeps him from filling my prescription.

Today I don’t have to think about being asked if I’m bleeding when I’m just having a bad day.
Today I don’t have to think about whether the one drug that lets me live my life will be taken off the market.
Today I don’t have to think about the odds of getting jumped at the bar I like to go to.
Today I don’t have to think about “vote fraud” theater showing up at my poll station.
Today I don’t have to think about turning on the news to see people planning to burn my holy book.

Today I don’t have to think about others demanding I apologize for hateful people who have nothing to do with me.
Today I don’t have to think about my child being seen as a detriment to my career.
Today I don’t have to think about the irony of people thinking I’m lucky because I can park close to the door.
Today I don’t have to think about memories of being bullied in high school.
Today I don’t have to think about being told to relax, it was just a joke.

Today I don’t have to think about whether someone thinks I’m in this country illegally.
Today I don’t have to think about those who believe that freedom of religion ends with mine.
Today I don’t have to think about how a half-starved 23-year-old being a cultural ideal affects my life.
Today I don’t have to think about how much my life is circumscribed by my body.
Today I don’t have to think about people wanting me cured of loving who I love.

Today I don’t have to think about those who view me an unfit parent because of who I love.
Today I don’t have to think about being told my kind don’t assimilate.
Today I don’t have to think about people blind to the intolerance of their belief lecturing me about my own.
Today I don’t have to think about my body as a political football.
Today I don’t have to think about how much my own needs wear on those I love.

Today I don’t have to think about explaining to others “what happened to me.”
Today I don’t have to think about politicians saying bigoted things about me to win votes.
Today I don’t have to think about those worried that one day people like me will be the majority.
Today I don’t have to think about someone using the name of my religion as a slur.
Today I don’t have to think about so many of the words for me controlling my own life being negatives.

Today I don’t have to think about still not being equal.
Today I don’t have to think about what it takes to keep going.
Today I don’t have to think about how much I still have to hide.
Today I don’t have to think about how much prejudice keeps hold.
Today I don’t have to think about how I’m meant to be grateful that people tolerate my kind.

Today I don’t have to think about all the things I don’t have to think about.

But today I will.

[via]

If you read this

New Study is Studious

Horror Movies on Tatooine

Hannibal Lecter on The Red Carpet

[via]

2 Bunnies, 2 Cups

Who's Linked In? 7% of Babies Boast their Own Email Address

By Bonnie Rochman Friday, October 8, 2010 [via]

Today's world is about being connected. Apparently some parents believe that can't start too soon: new research shows that 7% of babies and toddlers have their very own email address. A full 92% of U.S. kids have some sort of online presence by their second birthday, which sounds astounding until you stop to wonder who the 8% of parents are who haven't gotten around to sharing digital pics of their cuties. (More on Time.com: 5 Pregnancy Taboos Explained (or Debunked))

AVG, an Internet security firm, surveyed 2,200 mothers with Internet access and children under 2 in the U.S., England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. When they inquired about their children's cyberpresence, researchers learned that one-third of U.S. women set their children's course for the World Wide Web before their kids even enter this world by uploading ultrasound images. Their motives are mostly pure — 70% said they simply want to share their kids' photogenic qualities with friends and family — yet AVG's chief executive J.R. Smith cautions that this “digital dossier” could come back to haunt them at a later date. “It's important for parents today to realize they are creating an online dossier for a human being that will be with them for years to come,” Smith says in a blog post. “It's worth considering what kind of digital footprint or online history you want to leave for your child. And when your child is a teenager or adult, what will they make of the information you are currently uploading now?” (More on Time.com: "Mompetition": Why You Just Can't Make Mom Friends)

The juvenile Internet hoo-ha doesn't stop there. Gung-ho Twitter-parents might thrill to news of a toy that can access the microblogging site. The Twoddler connects a Fisher-Price activity center (hope this wasn't one of the 10 million toys recalled last week by the company) outfitted with pics of relatives and friends to a Twitter account; when baby plays with the toy, various actions trigger an automated Twitter update. Created as part of a class on “mobile and pervasive computing” at Hasselt University in Belgium, the Twoddler works as follows, according to its creators:

“The software captures sensor data from the activity center and tries to select a predefined text that is related to that sensor data. For example: when Yorin plays with mommy's picture for over 3 minutes, a twitter message will be posted saying ‘@mommy_yorin Yorin misses mommy and looks forward playing with her this evening,' or when Yorin is hitting the doorbell button four times in a row, a twitter message will be posted saying ‘Yorin is showing off his music skills with a new tune.'”

The techie toy took top honors at the Innovative and Creative Applications (INCA) 2009 awards. The jury was impressed with what it called “a good, well implemented idea, with a lot of potential…that allows people/children that are not capable of verbal communication to communicate through an inventive combination of hardware and software.”

Alas, don't bother adding the Twoddler to your holiday gift list. As of now, it's only a prototype that's not available for purchase.

Time Magazine, http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/08/whos-linkedin-7-of-wee-ones-boast-their-own-email-address/

Craptastic

Let the Wookiee Win

[via]

Font joke

Can your Mac do this?

How to date an Alderaan Princess

Teen shot by Memphis man in the backside for not pulling up baggy pants

A MEMPHIS man is facing aggravated assault charges for shooting a teenager in the buttocks after he refused to pull up his baggy pants.

Kenneth Bonds, 45, was charged on two counts of assault on Saturday and was being held on $25,000 bond, reported The Commercial Appeal. Bonds fired shots at two teenagers, ages 16 and 17 after he yelled at them to pull up their baggy pants and the teens refused. Using a semiautomatic pistol, Bonds fired at 17-year-old and missed. The teens ran as Bonds fired more shots, hitting the younger teen in the buttock. The bullet exited his thigh. The injured teen was treated at two local hospitals.

Read more at The Commercial Appeal.

Fired Chicken

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip, Skip out for beer during commercials, Because the revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox In 4 parts without commercial interruptions. The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia. The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal. The revolution will not get rid of the nubs. The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother. There will be no pictures of you and Willie May pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run, or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance. NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32 or report from 29 districts. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the proper occasion. Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news and no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be right back after a message bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl. The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. The revolution will put you in the driver's seat. The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised. The revolution will be no re-run brothers; The revolution will be live.

Written by Gil Scott-Heron lyrics reproduced because they are awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised

New Ratings System

Jackhammers

“Access Blocking means looking away instead of acting“

by AK Zensur am 30.09.10 1:37

via http://ak-zensur.de/2010/09/looking-away.html

Blocked for two years, then taken down in just 30 minutes – a disastrous result of Internet Blocking policy

Internet blocking is advocated as an allegedly effective measure against the proliferation of child abuse images. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark have been using this technology for years. But a practical test by the German Working Group against Access Blocking and Censorship (AK Zensur) in cooperation with European civil rights advocacy groups has shown: Internet blocking does not fight abuse, in practice it only serves to conceal the failures of politics and police. Websites can remain on blocking lists for years even though they have either been deleted or could be deleted easily and quickly.

How is this possible, and what could be done against illegal sites? Answers are given by a new analysis of current blocking lists from Sweden and Denmark by the Working Group against Access Blocking and Censorship. The group developed software to select, categorise and geo-locate 167 blocked Internet domains as a representative sample of websites blocked in Denmark at the time of the investigation. "The result is a smack in the face of law enforcement authorities", says Alvar Freude of the Working Group. "Of the 167 listed sites, only three contained material that could be regarded as child pornography." Two of these three sites had been blocked in Denmark since 2008, and these are, or least were, blocked in Sweden, Norway and Finland as well. These sites were therefore known for at least two years in several countries, and apparently law enforcement authorities did nothing to try and get this illegal content removed.

This is even more disturbing because the Working Group managed to take down the remaining sites just by sending a few emails. Two of the sites were hosted in the USA, and even during the weekend they were removed by the hosters within 30 minutes. On the following Tuesday, the third website was taken down by its registry in India, three hours after notification. The content was stored on a server in the Netherlands. "The removal of this dehumanising content and the pursuit of the perpetrators must have absolute priority. Internet Blocking leads to the exact opposite", says Alvar Freude, who sent the take-down requests.

Analysis of the remaining entries on the Scandinavian blocking lists demonstrated again that blocking is ineffective. More than half of the listed sites had already been deleted – but were still being blocked. The investigators seem to be operating a "fire and forget" strategy by just putting the sites on the lists – they don't seem to go after the crimes and the perpetrators, and they don't unblock sites that are no longer relevant, which they should do for freedom of speech considerations.

"The fact that internet blocking is hailed as a cure-all by national and EU politicians is scandalous," said AK Zensur's Vera Bunse. Commissioner Cecilia Malmström is trying to create facts by introducing an EU directive – making Internet blocking compulsory for all European countries. As to how effective blocking has been so far, politicians tend to evade the questions. Vera Bunse continued: "It seems that not only at the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA), but also in politics, the motto seems to be 'hide rather than pursue'".

"Blocking means looking away instead of acting," says Alvar Freude, summarising the debate. "It is time for politicians to turn to meaningful action. They should agree to take down the content and pursue the perpetrators instead of hiding the content and protecting the perpetrators."

The analysis: analysis-blacklists.pdf (PDF, 487 kB)

Background information:

Why web access blocking is the wrong approach in fighting "child pornography"
Sexual abuse ranks among the worst things that can be done to a child. And that's exactly why it is so important to focus on efficient, proportionate measures in the fight against spreading documents of abuse. Blocking web sites, as proposed by EU commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, will not help here, on the contrary: it is counterproductive even as a "last resort" measure.

Blocking rings an alarm for criminals
It is easy for operators of "child porn" web sites to set up automated tests on whether their web sites are currently blacklisted, gaining insight into investigations against themselves. As a result, access blocking acts as a rapid alert system for criminals.

Blacklists won't remain secret
By employing access blocking measures, authorities in effect publicise a table of blacklisted sites: Once websites get blocked, it is easy to scan whether any given site is part of the list and eventually deduce the complete list. That is not a theoretical claim, it has been proven in practice. Pedophiles could therefore use these lists to find the content in question.

The illegal sites don't hide in "failed states"
It's often argued that a majority of "child porn" content is distributed from nations where criminal prosecution is impossible. This has been proven wrong. All analyses show that the majority of blacklisted websites is hosted in the United States and Europe, notably Germany. According to an analysis of a Danish blacklist by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA), these are the major server locations:

USA: 1148; Germany: 199; The Netherlands: 79; Canada: 57

None of all the blacklists leaked so far contains even one website that's hosted in one of the so-called "failed states" (though the BKA won't cease to claim the contrary).

Quick takedown of illegal content is possible
A University of Cambridge study shows that banks succeed in having fraudulent websites (so-called phishing sites) taken down within four to eight hours – worldwide. If this is possible for simple fraud sites, why can't the same be done when it comes to depictions of child sexual abuse, which are outlawed all over the world?

Cross-border takedown is possible, as we could prove
Even before the current analysis, an experiment by AK Zensur’s Alvar Freude showed that it was possible to take down 61 websites from the blacklists within 12 hours, simply by contacting the respective host providers’ abuse departments by e-mail. Why don't we make investigators follow that approach, rather than waste their time compiling and maintaining blacklists?

Blocking is welcome news for authoritarian regimes – and it won't stop access
Web access blocking introduces an infrastructure that can be used for any content whatsoever, which is usually attributed to authoritarian states only, e.g. China, Iran or Saudi-Arabia. These nations already point to Internet blocking in European states to justify their own internet censorship. Moreover, access blocking is easily circumvented: Whoever manages to find this material in the first place will have no trouble avoiding any kind of blocking. This is because the content remains on the web and is only scarcely hidden.

Blocking misses its (professed) target
Experience with similar blocking systems in other countries has shown that the publicly stated aims of these measures can not be achieved. In all countries with an existing blocking infrastructure, websites distributing no illegal content at all have been affected as well. A dentist’s website has been blocked in Australia, an islamist site hosted in Germany has been blocked in Denmark, a native anti-censorship activist in Finland, and Italy sees gambling websites being blocked.

No significant commercial market
A recent study by the European Financial Coalition (EFC) confirms earlier analyses of there being no significant commercial market for "child pornography". Even talking of "no significant" market seems exaggerated, as the study showed that commercial suppliers of depictions of sexual abuse could not be found at all.

Freedom of information vs. human dignity
Distribution of "child pornography" is a crime outlawed all over the world, and it can be fought all over the world as well. Websites are just a minuscule part of the overall problem. And truly combating crime requires more than just setting up blinds that don't really prevent access. The basic principle must be: "Take down the content and pursue the perpetrators" rather than "Hide the content and protect the perpetrators".

These aren't my glasses