Hello again everyone! Let's feed some squishy eyeballs some superfood. :). First off, in piracy news, it seems a judge has noticed that IP addresses are not like fingerprints and can't identify you in person. This is important as it raises the bar ever so slightly on those organizations who would like to launch mass copyright infringing lawsuits based on an IP address alone. In reality, getting an IP address should be the start of an investigation, not the end of one, similar to getting the license plate of that truck tells you who the vehicle was registered to, not who was driving.
In other legal news, it seems that a court in Colorado is letting persons go for what was once illegal, but now legal possession of marijuana. While it seems like the right thing to do, this only seems to apply to those who had a small amount who were appealing their case when the law legalizing it was passed. Good job Colorado for treating its citizens like human beings.
In additional law enforcement news, it seems that not following policy, that's policy, not law mind you, can get you arrested. That's what reportedly happened to a mother of a student in St. Louis county after she was called in to take care of her son and didn't sign in. She was eventually taken to the police station on trespassing charges. I'm not sure what the whole story here is, but arrested for trespassing when you're invited to pick up your child is just insane. This is probably a case of people mindlessly following procedure and not having a perspective on what the procedure is there for.
Speaking of bureaucratic procedure, according to an article over at the Washington Post, the U.S. government processes retirement benefits of its workers by hand on a huge amount of paper. It seems they tried to automate it over the years, but whoever the I.T. contractors were, they couldn't get a system that actually worked under the stress that was required.
In news of government working too quickly (who would have thought that would have ever been a problem?) across in Egypt, a court has sentenced 528 supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to death. What's especially unusual about this is that the conviction of the 528 people happened over two court sessions, one of which was the sentencing session. Hopefully Egypt ends up with someone a bit more sane in office to help them get through this very troubling period.
In additional news of learning the hard way, some researchers from Vanderbilt university show it's possible to improve how you learn by zapping your brain. While transcranial direct current stimulation is not that new, I'm going to wait for it to become a bit more mainstream before I decide to strap one on.
Speaking of altering your state of mind using science, Neil deGrasse Tyson is hosting a re-boot of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" on PBS, a series once hosted by the legendary Carl Sagan. This would be enough to be newsworthy, but it seems that the unexpected popularity of a series on science has thrown some for a loop as Creationists are demanding that they receive the opportunity for equal airtime on the show. This is so silly I am almost at a lost for words. Almost. First, if you would like to broadcast your opinion on something, you don't try to hijack someone else's show, you make your own. Oh wait, there's a whole industry devoted to broadcasting religious views all over the planet. Second, it makes sense your beliefs are not on a science show, because it's not science. Would you expect to see someone cooking a soufflé in the middle of a basketball game? Finally, to turn the argument on its head, imagine giving scientists equal time on all the religious programs out there, where they discuss scientific topics and point out that, quoting Neil deGrasse Tyson, "when different experiments give you the same result, it is no longer subject to your opinion".
In different news about creation, did you know Google was working on creating an advanced humanoid robot? Neither did I until an article on the verge pointed out that Google doesn't want any direct military funding and the military doesn't want to fund them. DARPA did give us the Internet and GPS, but Google gave us Google, so I'm not sure who to root for to get a humanoid robot working first. From what I can tell though, DARPA threw some money at some small companies to invent some important pieces of a robot they could probably send into war, and Google has gobbled them all up. Advanced robotics isn't exactly a common skill to have.
Speaking of upgrades, Microsoft is getting a bit desperate for you to stop using XP, going so far as to offer USD $100.00 credit on buying a new PC through their store. For many XP is good enough and upgrading is unnecessary. Microsoft doesn't know how to compete against itself and it's starting to show more and more. I wonder how many support tickets they're going to get once they officially stop supporting XP.
Finally, in news of a different type of ticket, a Texas teen turned the tables and gave a police officer parked in a fire lane, a USD $10.00 ticket. The officer had a good sense of humor on the whole situation and even gave the teen a gift card.
Well that's it for this installment, I hope you enjoyed it and remember to keep those eyeballs squishy!
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