Category: Uncategorized

From ars technica:
New chat bots can be added to translate Google Talk chats in real time. As we expected, Google’s automated translation yields mixed results, but it’s a big step in the right direction.
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Prank May Have Led to Shock Treatments
By DENISE LAVOIE

BOSTON (AP) — State officials are investigating complaints that at least two teenagers were given electric shock treatments at a residential center for people with special needs because someone telephoned fake orders to the staff.

“There is still an ongoing criminal investigation,” said the school’s senior counsel, Ernest Corrigan. “We are working very closely with investigators.”

The state’s Disabled Persons Protection Committee is investigating a complaint that a third resident of the center — an adult — also received unnecessary shock treatments after the call, said Nancy Alterio, the committee’s executive director.

The complaints have been referred to the state police and the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, Alterio said.

Full story available at: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gqyb1VTkV4O4FXoTfCCDh_yWvLYQD8TJUQ0G2

Inward harmony
Weak, transient effect: This morning you feel very much in harmony with yourself and able to do whatever you have to do single-mindedly.Your energies flow with less resistance, and life seems to be easier now.As a consequence, you can relate to people more easily, for others perceive your inward harmony and are drawn to you because of it.Obviously this is a good time for any kind of group activity. You are able to relate your own interests to the interests of any group you are working with, so that everyone will gain from what you do. Relations with women are also improved for the same reasons. A marriage or intimate relationship will be especially harmonious now, for this is a time of real understanding. On the physical level this harmony is expressed as a feeling of vitality, even if you may not feel driven to accomplish a great deal of work.

Study: Monkeys Perform Addition As Well As College Students
Duke University researchers said their finding sheds light on the shared evolutionary origins of arithmetic ability in humans and non-humans.

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    Title: Study: Monkeys Perform Addition As Well As College Students   
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    Publication Date: 12/18/2007 9:22:56 AM

Evasive maneuvers
During this time it may well be that you hide yourself away somewhere to avoid having to deal with the tension between your desires and your anxieties. Or perhaps you give in to your desire, but only half- heartedly, so that you get only half of something in the end, which is not what you actually wanted. This quality of time can indicate where your difficulties lie, i.e. in acknowledging your desires and completely giving yourself up to certain experiences. You will perhaps ascertain that this has to do with an insecurity or feeling of inadequacy of yours. That is why you should find out which experiences you actually avoid – then you can make a conscious effort to share these experiences with an understanding, sympathetic person who will not injure you anew.

Mental Mercury aligns with the Sun in your sign, allowing you to be a source of support and inspiration for others. Meanwhile, your feelings pull at you from another direction, tempting you to just take care of yourself. It’s difficult, as you must sustain multiple perspectives that don’t overlap. Be patient; by midday, you start to see the light of a solution and it can truly be exciting.

I found this story listed on FARK… I just had to share it…
Fox News reports:

The panties, which were sold in the juniors department, seemed to suggest that girls don’t need money, they just need a sugar daddy — in this case Santa Claus.

The hipster briefs — carrying the slogan “Who needs credit cards …” on the front and “When you have Santa” on the derriere — caused an uproar among parents, who called for the $2.96 drawers to be pulled off the racks.
“There’s nothing quite like telling adolescent girls that they don’t need to worry about finances since they have their very own moneypot between their legs,” Jessica Valenti, the executive editor of Feministing.com, wrote on the panty blog post.

Organization web site Unclutterer hits on a novel way of enforcing a daily cleaning habit instead of letting your mess take over your weekend. The author, who tackles one room each workday, uses her iPod to keep track of time:

We have created playlists that are 15 to 30 minutes long on our iPods with collections of fun songs to listen to while we clean. So, when the music stops, our cleaning tasks are usually coming to a close.

It might sound kind of “duh,” but many can attest to the power of losing yourself in music to make a daily cleaning regimen seem less like work. If you really want to get ambitious (and have a lot of Motorhead in your MP3 player), you could try keeping your house clean in 19 minutes a day.

Kentucky State Police Instant Messaging Application Wins International Award 
Excerpts from: http://techlines.ky.gov/2007/dec/kywins.htm
The Commonwealth has a new toy for emergency personnel, and it’s been catching eyes:

The Kentucky State Police (KSP) recently received an international award for the Kentucky Wireless Interoperability Network System (KyWINS) Messenger, a statewide instant messaging system for use by all emergency responders in Kentucky.  The award was accepted by Major Brad Bates, KSP chief information officer, at the 114th International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA.

The article continues:

The KyWINS Messenger system was created by KSP with coordination and support from the Commonwealth Office of Technology, Kentucky Office of Homeland Security and the Center for Rural Development.  Utilizing Jive Software’s Openfire open source product, which was modified to meet the system specifications, KyWINS Messenger provides one unifying and central communication tool across several areas and disciplines in the commonwealth where uninteroperable mobile message switching applications are being used.

By using an Internet connection or the statewide 800 MHz wireless data communications infrastructure, immediate text communication is available to authorized users, regardless of location. The system not only provides mobile-to-mobile communications but also allows personnel at dispatch centers across the commonwealth to quickly communicate with each other in the event of an emergency. These quick avenues of communication help avoid radio traffic congestion through both one-to-one and one-to-many communication, with the later being based on the system’s group conferencing feature.  In addition, KyWINS Messenger can broadcast an immediate message to all online users in order to spread important information rapidly and requires little technological knowledge to use. In order to ensure complete security and confidentiality, all system messaging traffic is encrypted.

It’s a nifty little toy, but needs a lot of work. Trust me…

Not only did Google add colored labels to Gmail today, they’re rolling out AIM compatibility in chat, too. The new AOL Instant Messenger support lets you log into your AIM account to chat with your AIM buddies right inside Gmail. Not sure yet if your AIM chat history is stored in your Gmail account the way GTalk convo’s are. Update: AIM chat history does indeed get stored in Gmail. Rock!We’re not seeing it just yet, but being an AIM over GTalk user, I’ll keep refreshing till I do. To try it out you’ve got to be using the new version of Gmail in IE7 or Firefox 2. Sign into Chat and hit the Options menu to see the “Sign into AIM” option. Any readers out there get AIM in Gmail yet? Let us know how you like it. Image via Zoorgloob.