US judges rule for teacher who called creationism superstitious nonsense

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21 August 2011
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A public high school teacher in California may not be sued for making hostile remarks about religion in his classroom, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by a student charging that the teacher’s hostile remarks about creationism and religious faith violated a First Amendment mandate that the government remain neutral in matters of religion.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the lawsuit against an advanced placement history teacher at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo must be thrown out of court because the teacher was entitled to immunity — via redwolf.newsvine.com

BrickBox

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21 August 2011
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In Design
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Individual BrickBoxes can be reversed so as to display books or other items on one side or the other, correspondingly adding white space to the composition of the other.

Each box can be broken back down, packing flat for extra portability (if not being used to transport books). Their only hint of decor comes via the light wooden edges, adding smaller detail to the larger white-painted surfaces.

Finally, each set of boxes can also be firmly interlocked for more permanent shelf storage, and/or raised up on casters and wheeled around a room. Currently, the the BrickBox is only for sale in Europe — and not entirely cheap, but nor is it cheaply made — via Dornob

IBM unveils cognitive computer chip to mimic human brain functions

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20 August 2011
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US computer giant IBM has announced that it has developed prototypes of computer chips that mimic the way the human brain works.

The New York-based company known as Big Blue said on Thursday the experimental cognitive computing chips could eventually lead to machines that emulate the brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition.

These chips are another significant step in the evolution of computers from calculators to learning systems, signalling the beginning of a new generation of computers, said Dharmendra Modha, project leader for IBM Research.

Future applications of computing will increasingly demand functionality that is not efficiently delivered by the traditional architecture, Mr Modha said.

Creating a recovery disk using Recovery Disk Assistant

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20 August 2011
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Lion’s recovery partition is a wonderful idea, but doesn’t really help out if your hard drive fails. That’s why yesterday’s announcement of the Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple was welcome news to a lot of people who were trying to figure out how they could easily create a recovery disk on external media. Here’s how you can do make your own recovery disk using the assistant — via TUAW

Sodom and Australia

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20 August 2011
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Faith, however, puts you outside the realm of intellectual honesty. Don’t think, it demands; the ancients have already done that for you. This freedom to believe without thinking allows for the continuation of otherwise unjustifiable prejudices into adulthood and makes it possible for svelte Christian honeys like Rebecca Hagelin to jetset around giving off spleen about the lives of others.

The Australian Family Association, a Christian lobby group, booked The Great Hall in Parliament House on Monday and had Rebecca, an author of Christian self-help books, fly in from whatever part of the States they are still free to revile queers.

She spoke of same-sex marriage, and to hear her on the radio name-checking Sodom and Gomorrah made me stop in my tracks. She said there was no greater evil than the forces who proposed to legalise gay marriage and that we were in a war for the future of the human race — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The Salon at Sundown / Brian Kaspr + Payton Turner

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20 August 2011
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I used to cover my schoolbooks in brown paper bags, and then throughout the course of the year, I would draw and put stickers all over them. They looked cool, but decidedly messy, with all those incongruous stickers living on a single surface.

So I think this art installation, The Salon at Sundown, is interesting. Brian Kaspr and Payton Turner took stickers of all kinds and grouped them together to make wallpaper patterns. They look orderly and neat from far away, and up close, it’s fun to check out the variety of stickers — via CRAFT

Pallas’ Kittens / Cincinnati Zoo

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20 August 2011
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Three healthy Pallas’ Cat kittens (two males and one female) were born on 8 June 2011 at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden following a laparoscopic oviductal artificial insemination (AI) procedure conducted by scientists from the Cincinnati Zoo’s Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW).  This pregnancy and birth are the first ever in Pallas’ Cats from artificial insemination — via ZooBorns

Trainmaster Celsius Watch / BALL

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20 August 2011
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This is a watch honouring Anders Celsius, the inventor of the modern temperature measurement scale. Though, this is not the first time BALL has incorporated a mechanical thermometer into one of its watches — the mechanical thermometer module can also be found on BALL’s Engineer Master Diver II TMT watch. The mechanical thermometer module (TMT) was developed and patented by BALL, and is able to measure the outside temperature between -35°C and 45°C with an accuracy of 97%; the thermometer readings are given in the half-moon shaped window at six o’clock on the dial. As a final homage to the inventor of the modern temperature scale, the caseback bears the portrait of Anders Celsius — via Perpetuelle.com Watch Blog

Shut Down or Reboot Your Mac Immediately with a Keyboard Command

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19 August 2011
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Sometimes you just need to reboot or shut down right away-and we mean right away, with no waiting. Thankfully, If you need to reboot and you don’t feel like shutting down your apps one by one or waiting for Mac OS to walk you through them, press Ctrl+Cmd+Eject to reboot your Mac immediately, with no alerts or warning dialogs. If you need to shut down and run out the door, press Ctrl+Opt+Cmd+Eject to shut down immediately, also without alerts or warning dialogs. Be careful using these commands though: you won’t be prompted to save your work or review your open apps first.

You can also press Ctrl+Eject (or press the power button) to bring up the power management menu and select whether you want to reboot, shut down, sleep, or do nothing. Before you use any of these commands though, remember you can always press Cmd+Opt+Shift+Esc to force-quit the front-most application if that’s what’s making you want to reboot — via Lifehacker

Cybercrime bill has serious flaws, says Greens Senator Scott Ludlam

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19 August 2011
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Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has told the Gillard government to fix serious flaws in its proposed Cybercrime Bill, which will force ISPs to collect real-time internet traffic data and make it available for police locally and internationally for up to 30 days.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland introduced the bill in June, saying the new laws would allow Australia to join a global treaty on fighting cybercrime.

More than 40 nations are signatories to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, which aims to fight fraud and other offences committed using the internet, such as computer hacking, child pornography and copyright infringement.

But Senator Ludlam said the proposed legislation goes well beyond the already controversial European convention on which it is based — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Copper Pipe Magnet

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19 August 2011
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The neodymium magnets are super powerful and even though they are not attracted to the copper, they still produce eddy currents that buffer the fall as seen in the video. Lenz’s Law make a great experiment for kids to adult. Also, great at parties when conversation goes stale

Villa V4 Replica

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18 August 2011
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In Design
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If you’ve never heard of the Villa V4, it’s not surprising: this racing motorcycle never turned a wheel in anger. The lovely machine here is an immaculate replica of Francesco Villa’s planned 1969 GP racer — a bike that was killed overnight by an FIM edict limiting 250cc bikes to two cylinders. This example was built in 2008 by one of Villa’s former employees, and uses many original components. It’s going to be auctioned off by Bonhams at the Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show in the UK on 16 October, and the estimate is — wait for it — $40,000 to $55,000 — via Bike EXIF

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