Are you going to Science Online 2012? You should!
Daily Archives: November 2, 2011
Pseudonymous and anonymous identities on the interent
An interesting thing happened the other day. The identity of a pseudo-anonymous internet troll kown as Franc Hoggle, who writes the blog “Grey Lining” was revealed (probably) to a number of Hoggle’s internet targets, and they had a discussion about whether or not to out him. The general consensus was that he should be outed as well as drawn and quartered, but that it would be a violation of Internet Ethics to do so. That is not going to stop his name from getting out into public. If one group of people can figure out who he is, others can, and eventually were’ all gonna know who this guy is. But in the mean time, there could be an interesting discussion about the questoin of pseudonymous blogging and commenting.
I think that conversation will mostly be happening here: “Elevatorgate” Clannenge #4
Vote for LeRoy Bell
My nephew LeRoy Bell is Contestant Number THREE.
Vote for number 3.
You can vote here when the show is over. You can also vote in Twitter and via phone.
Vote for LeRoy Bell on XFactor!
LeRoy is Number THREE.
Vote for number 3.
You can vote here when the show is over. You can also vote in Twitter and via phone.
Do you take Vitamin E to avoid prostate cancer? Stop. Now.
In a recent study, 35,533 prostate cancer-free men in a higher risk age group for prostate cancer in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico were given various treatments of Vitamin E, selenium, and placebo in order to see if claims that Vitamin E and/or Vitamin E with selenium were effective in reducing prostate cancer risk.
- 8752 received selenium alone – 575 developed prostate cancer.
- 8737 received Vitamin E alone – 620 developed prostate cancer.
- 8702 received both – 555 developed prostate cancer.
- 8696 placebo – 529 developed prostate cancer.
It turns out that Vitamin E may increase the risk of prostate cancer. Using Vitamin E and/or Selenium to reduce risk of prostate cancer in men old enough to have a higher risk of this disease is ineffective.
Klein, E., Thompson, I., Tangen, C., Crowley, J., Lucia, M., Goodman, P., Minasian, L., Ford, L., Parnes, H., Gaziano, J., Karp, D., Lieber, M., Walther, P., Klotz, L., Parsons, J., Chin, J., Darke, A., Lippman, S., Goodman, G., Meyskens, F., & Baker, L. (2011). Vitamin E and the Risk of Prostate Cancer: The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 306 (14), 1549-1556 DOI: 10.1001/jama.2011.1437
Florida School Prayer Bill Advances
A school prayer bill is back before state lawmakers for the third year, and the sponsor thinks this time it will pass the Legislature.
Sen. Gary Siplin thinks students should be able to choose a so-called inspirational message for extracurricular school events, such as football games or commencement ceremonies.
His bill would allow school boards to decide whether students should have that ability. It prohibits teachers and other school leaders from participating in the selection of a message or prayer.
…
“We pray in the Florida Senate and a variety of different people’s prayers. So if we can pray in the Florida Senate, we are part of government, and our constitution is ‘In God We Trust,’ so why can’t we teach our young folks how to deal with different concepts, different invocations and benedictions.”
The bill passed a State Senate committee by one vote.
Vote For My Nephew on XFactor!!!
Not that I’m trying to influence you or anything, but you BETTER DO IT!!!
LeRoy Bell is clearly the best singer of the bunch. You can vote for him using any of five different methods.
… we are giving you a handful of ways to cast your votes for your favorite 12 finalists. And they are…
1) PHONE: You can vote via calling a toll-free phone number. Each act will be assigned their own toll-free number, which will appear on screen after their performance.
2) TEXT: You can vote via Verizon SMS/text voting. Each act will be assigned their own four-digit short code, which will appear on screen after their performance.
3) ONLINE: Vote online at www.TheXFactorUSA.com and follow the instructions there, and if you have a Facebook account you can also vote at Facebook.com/TheXFactorUSA
4) TWITTER: You can vote by sending a Direct Message containing the number of the act for whom you wish to vote via Twitter if you follow @TheXFactorUSA. (Note: We don’t need to follow you back.) Tweets do NOT count. The number assigned to each act is based on order in the performance show each week, much like the toll-free and SMS voting methods. So, if you wish to vote for act number 1, send a Twitter Direct Message containing the number 1 to @TheXFactorUSA. Or, visit twitter.thexfactorusa.com and follow the instructions for how to Direct Message your Twitter vote(s).
5) MOBILE APP: If you are a Verizon subscriber with an Android device, you can vote via The Xtra Factor App. Download the app now! For Verizon Android tablets, you will need to log into a Facebook account. For Verizon Android handheld devices, you vote via SMS/text message. Beware: for the Verizon Android handheld device voting the short codes and keywords for the acts will be different to those shown on air, but that’s the only thing different..
A few more things to keep in mind here before you pick up the tellie or get your texting fingers warmed up — voting opens five minutes before the end of every performance show and is open for two hours after the show ends in each time zone. Voting is available to people from within the Continental US, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“If you want to go crazy voting, direct SMS, SMS in-app, and telephone votes are unlimited. But online and Twitter votes are maxed out at 50 votes. Got that? And all of that is brought to you by Verizon.”
Wednesday, Nov. 2 is when voting begins and on Thursday, Nov. 3 it will be the first of the results show, where the effects of your power will be shown!
Very Important Global Warming (Politics thereof) News
See my post here, and follow the links therein!
Béatrice Coron: Stories cut from paper
JT Eberhard Interviews GT Laden
Freethought Blogs is growing at an insanely fast rate. Glorious, says I! However, a lot of you may not be aware of all the authors on FtB. Even if you are, you may not know who their celebrity crushes are or what they think of Kim Kardashian’s marriage. In an effort to acquaint everybody with the rabble here at FtB, I’m going to be conducting interviews with the bloggers.
The first up is author of the X Blog, Greg Laden.
Hey, I got interviewed!
Freethought Blogs is growing at an insanely fast rate. Glorious, says I! However, a lot of you may not be aware of all the authors on FtB. Even if you are, you may not know who their celebrity crushes are or what they think of Kim Kardashian’s marriage. In an effort to acquaint everybody with the rabble here at FtB, I’m going to be conducting interviews with the bloggers.
The first up is author of the X Blog, Greg Laden.
Here.
An Important Victory for Climate Science
You’ve heard about “ClimateGate.” ClimateGate was a very successful but illegal campaign by anti-science to discredit climate science and climate scientists. Rest assured, the climate science is fine and the climate scientists are just trying to do their jobs, and doing quite well at that. Nonetheless, a combination of inaccurate representation of the contents of various emails written between climate scientists and what amounts to unethical treatment of climate science by the press resulted in a shift among the general populous in the US from about half of the people thinking that Global Warming is some sort of hoax (at worst) or bad science (at best) to something closer to 80% of citizens thinking this to be the case.
Continue reading An Important Victory for Climate Science
Vote For My Nephew on XFactor!!!
Not that I’m trying to influence you or anything, but you BETTER DO IT!!!
LeRoy Bell is clearly the best singer of the bunch. You can vote for him using any of five different methods.
… we are giving you a handful of ways to cast your votes for your favorite 12 finalists. And they are…
1) PHONE: You can vote via calling a toll-free phone number. Each act will be assigned their own toll-free number, which will appear on screen after their performance.
2) TEXT: You can vote via Verizon SMS/text voting. Each act will be assigned their own four-digit short code, which will appear on screen after their performance.
3) ONLINE: Vote online at www.TheXFactorUSA.com and follow the instructions there, and if you have a Facebook account you can also vote at Facebook.com/TheXFactorUSA
4) TWITTER: You can vote by sending a Direct Message containing the number of the act for whom you wish to vote via Twitter if you follow @TheXFactorUSA. (Note: We don’t need to follow you back.) Tweets do NOT count. The number assigned to each act is based on order in the performance show each week, much like the toll-free and SMS voting methods. So, if you wish to vote for act number 1, send a Twitter Direct Message containing the number 1 to @TheXFactorUSA. Or, visit twitter.thexfactorusa.com and follow the instructions for how to Direct Message your Twitter vote(s).
5) MOBILE APP: If you are a Verizon subscriber with an Android device, you can vote via The Xtra Factor App. Download the app now! For Verizon Android tablets, you will need to log into a Facebook account. For Verizon Android handheld devices, you vote via SMS/text message. Beware: for the Verizon Android handheld device voting the short codes and keywords for the acts will be different to those shown on air, but that’s the only thing different..
A few more things to keep in mind here before you pick up the tellie or get your texting fingers warmed up — voting opens five minutes before the end of every performance show and is open for two hours after the show ends in each time zone. Voting is available to people from within the Continental US, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“If you want to go crazy voting, direct SMS, SMS in-app, and telephone votes are unlimited. But online and Twitter votes are maxed out at 50 votes. Got that? And all of that is brought to you by Verizon.”
Wednesday, Nov. 2 is when voting begins and on Thursday, Nov. 3 it will be the first of the results show, where the effects of your power will be shown!
“The American Cancer Society is not happy…”
…It insists that it is not discriminating against atheists. It insists that its recent decision to deny the Foundation Beyond Belief a national team in their upcoming Relay for Life — and its decision to reject the $250,000 matching offer that would have gone with it — had nothing to do with the fact that the FBB is a non-theist organization.
This is getting interesting. Click here.