FTP is 40 years old

The backbone of the Internet, FTP (file transfer protocol), celebrates its 40th birthday tomorrow. Originally launched as the RFC 114 specification, which was published on 16 April 1971, FTP is arguably even more important today than when it was born — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Misogynistic schmuck week

Revolutionary thinking; when a soldier engages in the premeditated debilitation of a compatriot soldier, traditionally we don’t question the victim’s bravado.

Traditionally, we describe the act with words like treason, and dishonourably discharge perpetrators – or send them to jail.

There is, of course, a significant difference for Bob Ellis in this case.

The victim at ADFA has tits — via redwolf.newsvine.com

National Museum of American Jewish History / Ennead Architects

The most recent addition to the iconic buildings of Independence Mall in Philadelphia is one dedicated to illustrating the American Jewish experience. The National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH) designed by Ennead Architects opened in November 2010. Adjacent to Independence Mall, the museum overlooks such attractions as Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the National Constitution Center — via ArchDaily

Hairy House / Ashworth Parkes Architects

The site is very small measuring 7.5 metres wide by 10.5 metres deep, and is flanked by 3 metre high walls to the East and the North, and a 2 metre high wall to the West. The new house [Ashworth Parkes Architects] was not allowed to rise higher than the eaves of the house next door to the North. We were only allowed 1 metre squared of obscured window on the Southern elevation, no windows above the top of the wall on the Western elevation and 1 metre squared of window on the Northern elevation. We had to set the building back from the road, decreasing the usable space on the site even further — via ArchDaily

Comrade Derptopus

Another odd-size paper experiment. I doodled this derpy guy at work one day, and couldn’t get him out of my brain until I painted him up properly. This doesn’t happen all that often – inspiration strikes all the time, but rarely is it so insistent. Once I finished the painting, I decided he needed borders, and played with acrylic gel medium and Claybord and La Carte and foam core. Interesting lesson: La Carte can be completely denuded with gel medium. I knew it didn’t like moisture, but I didn’t realize I’d end up covered in a cement-like mix of glue and sand. It was fun.

Bonus points if you can decipher my uneducated attempt at Russian half-hidden in the borders — via CrashOctopus Blog

DRM Accused Of Sending Personal Info To Help With Licensing Shakedown

DRM. Is there nothing evil it can’t do? Between installing rootkits and propping open back doors, DRM is a copyright enforcer’s best friend. Miguel Pimentel, a Boston-area architect, believes he’s stumbled across its latest trick: extracting $150,000 from your wallet via a quick unannounced “phone home” to the nearest copyright cop.

Ima Fish directs our attention to the class action lawsuit, filed March 30, 2011, which alleges that Transmagic’s 3-D software came prepackaged with phone home DRM that gathered personal user information and passed it on to their copyright enforcement consultants, ITCA (IT Compliance Association). This information (including name, company name and phone number) was used by ITCA in an attempt to extract $10,000+ per year in licensing and maintenance fees — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Inability to Detect Sarcasm, Lies May Be Early Sign of Dementia, UCSF Study Shows

By asking a group of older adults to analyze videos of other people conversing — some talking truthfully, some insincerely — a group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco has determined which areas of the brain govern a person’s ability to detect sarcasm and lies.

Some of the adults in the group were healthy, but many of the test subjects had neurodegenerative diseases that cause certain parts of the brain to deteriorate. The UCSF team mapped their brains using magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, which showed associations between the deteriorations of particular parts of the brain and the inability to detect insincere speech.

These patients cannot detect lies, said UCSF neuropsychologist Katherine Rankin, PhD, a member of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and the senior author of the study. This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier — via redwolf.newsvine.com

FBI charges 11 internet poker kingpins

Australian internet whiz Daniel Tzvetkoff, who has become a prized FBI informant in a bid to avoid a 75 year jail sentence in the US, may have brought down the multi-billion dollar American online poker industry.

The FBI announced on Friday it had charged 11 people, including the founders of three of the largest internet poker companies in the US, with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offences.

The three poker sites – PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker – have been shut down — via redwolf.newsvine.com

WordPress hacked in root-level attack

Hackers appear to have stolen source code in a root-level attack on WordPress that could compromise its VIP clients including NASA, the BBC and the New York Times.

Attackers compromised Automattic, the company that maintains the popular WordPress publishing platform, and broke into to several servers, gaining access to “potentially anything on those servers”, according to the company.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg said in a statement that it was unlikely that access details were stolen — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Making temporary changes to brain could speed up learning

In a breakthrough that may aid treatment of learning impairments, strokes, tinnitus and chronic pain, UT Dallas researchers have found that brain nerve stimulation accelerates learning in laboratory tests.

Another major finding of the study, published in the April 14 issue of Neuron, involves the positive changes detected after stimulation and learning were complete. Researchers monitoring brain activity in rats found that brain responses eventually returned to their pre-stimulation state, but the animals could still perform the learned task. These findings have allowed researchers to better understand how the brain learns and encodes new skills — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Fujitsu plans 1Gbps fiber optic network for rural Britain

Economies of scale mean that densely populated cities have generally been the ones to benefit from the roll out of superfast broadband networks, while those in rural areas have missed out. Following Google’s recent announcement that it will build and test 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks in selected cities with between 50,000 to 500,000 residents in the U.S. starting with Kansas City, Kansas, Fujitsu has unveiled plans to create a similar superfast FTTH broadband network for five million homes and businesses in rural Britain to bridge the digital divide between city and country — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Sheep Impact

A competition organised by Carlton Dry where the winner’s short story is made into a mini-film starring Steven Seagal has led to the production of Sheep Impact, in which the martial arts legend and friend attempt to kill a sheep, evade a policeman and pursue an attractive young woman — via Mumbrella

Wedge House / Min | Day

The Wedge House is a seemingly simple, yet efficient three-bedroom house that uses structural insulated panels and stack-effect cooling to reduce energy consumption by the house year-round. It is originally designed for a site in Phippsburg, Maine by Min | Day — via ArchDaily

Language universality idea tested with biology method

A long-standing idea that human languages share universal features that are dictated by human brain structure has been cast into doubt.

A study reported in Nature has borrowed methods from evolutionary biology to trace the development of grammar in several language families.

The results suggest that features shared across language families evolved independently in each lineage — via redwolf.newsvine.com

County Cork Painter’s Studio / LOCAL

A repeat client from New York approached LOCAL to turn an old stone barn on his wife’s family farm compound in Ireland into a painter’s studio and vacation cottage. Because she is a landscape painter, she wanted a view and lots of light. At the same time, they wanted to retain the rustic character of the old stone barn. LOCAL decided to keep the façade facing the other buildings on the compound virtually untouched, and instead break out the entire façade facing the best view of the hills beyond the farm. Two skylights, invisible from the street, bring in light into the rear part of the house — via ArchDaily