prostoalex writes "Scientific American is reporting on scientific work done to map the euphoric religious feelings within the brain. As a result, it's now quite possible to experience 'proximity to God' via a special helmet: 'In a series of studies conducted over the past several decades, Persinger and his team have trained their device on the temporal lobes of hundreds of people. In doing so, the researchers induced in most of them the experience of a sensed presence — a feeling that someone (or a spirit) is in the room when no one, in fact, is — or of a profound state of cosmic bliss that reveals a universal truth. During the three-minute bursts of stimulation, the affected subjects translated this perception of the divine into their own cultural and religious language — terming it God, Buddha, a benevolent presence or the wonder of the universe.""

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This is the weirdest CL barter ad I've seen all week.

Well my Dell is on it's last legs. (...) For my needs I am looking for a laptop that is at least 1.5 ghz minimum. Built in wireles, pentium 3 minimum, in good condition. Basically, not a beater laptop but a well maintained machine. (...) Now offering prostate massage.

Link (thanks, Pesco!)

Eric sez, "Finally! I have been waiting all my life for this (OK, a few months). This site is translating the Bible into LOLcat and it's a wiki!"

1. In teh beginnin Invisible Man was invisible, and he maded the skiez and da earths, but he did not eated it.

2. The earths wus witout shapez and wus dark and scary and stuffs, and he rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3. And Invisible Man sayz, i can has light, and teh light wuz...

18. And Invisible Man sawed it wus the goodz, so wai.

Link (Thanks, Eric!)

Update: Ted sez, "The lolcat bible wiki project actually stemmed from this photo I put together back in July."

Under the heading of yet more food I'd love to eat but probably shouldn't, I give you this HOWTO for making glowing punk cupcakes.

I gave the Dracula Punk Monster two large eyes and I used the sponge wedge that I had cut out to make a Punk hair style. It was secured with icing and black spikes added. I used writing icing to add detail to the Halloween cupcake. A green jelly bean made a great tongue.

It will now glow in the dark in a black spooky room. Kids can use the fangs after enjoying eating the cake.

Link

MLCT writes "The Performing Rights Society, one of the UK's royalties collecting societies, has taken a Scottish car servicing company to court because the employees are alleged to have been listening to the radio at work, allowing the music to be 'heard by colleagues and customers'. The PRS is seeking £200,000 in damages for the 'performances of the music' which they claim equates to copyright infringement. The judge, Lord Emslie, has ruled that the case can continue to hearing evidence, commenting that the key point to note was that music was 'audibly blaring from employee's radios'. Where do the extents of a 'public performance' end? Radios on in cabs?"

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Mark Frauenfelder shot this in his house. Thank gopod, it's about time.

FlopEJoe writes "Ticketmaster claims that RMG Technologies is providing software to avoid security measures on their website - even to the point of utilizing bots to get large blocks of tickets. RMG says it just 'provides a specialized browser for ticket brokers.' From the New York Times article: 'The fact that tickets to popular events sell out so quickly -- and that brokers and online resellers obtain them with such velocity -- is clouding the business, many in the music industry say. It is enough, some longtime concertgoers say, to make them long for the days when all they had to do to obtain tickets was camp out overnight.'"

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Tomorrow night Kym and I dance the Jive. this week has been different than the past weeks of practicing in so many ways. We didnt get our song till Tuesday night, meaning we had 6 days. The same as everyone else of course, but dang. Knowing that Monday is going to get here a lot faster than ever before definitely gave me a lot to think about.

But that wasnt the worst part. Jive is easily the most physical of the dances. Just about every step is a jump from the balls of my feet. Not a problem for my right leg. A huge problem for my left. (the hip replacement left the muscles in my leg far weaker than my right). And not only was all the "action" supposed to be high energy and up, but the basic step is supposed to be knees up with a quick kick that is supposed to end with your foot basically kicking yourself in the butt around bringing my feet together while in the air. Yeah, like thats going to happen..

The mind was strong, but the body was weak. There were steps , or more precisely, technique of steps that i was just not able to do. Worse yet was the practice. By the time we got to a routine I could do, we had to practice it again and again and again. I'm sorry, I don't care if I was 21 or the 49 years old that I am, practicing the routine 6 hours a day, every day, is exhausting and I dont want to even explain what the following mornings felt like.

I dont want to sound like Im complaining, but I guess I am. But hey, if Im going to blog , I might as well talk about it all.

So the Jive is not going to be easy for us Monday night. The hope is that all of you that voted for Kym and I will vote again to keep us alive. Your vote is going to be even more important to us Monday because all of Dallas will be watching the Cowboys take on the Bills. The Cowpokes are amazing this season, so Im thinking most Dallasites will not have voting for Mark and Kym as their Monday night priority. Which is another way of saying that I really need everyone's help to get people's attention from 7pm to 8:30pm Monday night and to take a break from the game to call 1800 VOTE 411 or for that matter, just call while you are watching the game ! Go to ABC.com at halftime. Email your friends and have them get behind us..

As always, thank you for all your support. It really means a lot to Kym and me

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anagama writes "Conventional wisdom is that one should lockdown wifi, your ISP doesn't want you to share your connection, that person checking email outside the coffee shop ought to be arrested. The UK ISP BT is offering an alternative model. The company will encourage its three million broadband users to pick up a FON router and start sharing signals. 'For BT, the move makes its broadband offering more useful to customers, who can access the Internet from more places, and BT doesn't need to build out a new wireless network itself. BT's Gavin Patterson, a managing director, holds out hopes that the FON scheme can someday "cover every street in Britain." "We are giving our millions of Total Broadband customers a choice and an opportunity," he added in a statement. "If they are prepared to securely share a little of their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of FON and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny." '"

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James Hardine writes "Wikileaks is reporting that the CIA has funded covert research on torture techniques, and that the NSA has pushed tens or hundreds of millions into academia through research grants using one particular grant code. Some researchers try to conceal the source of funding, yet commonality in the NSA grant code prefix makes all these attempts transparent. The primary NSA grant-code prefix is 'MDA904'. Googling for this grant code yields 39,000 references although some refer to non-academic contracts (scolar.google.com 2,300). The grants issue from light NSA cover, the "Maryland Procurement Office" or other fronts. From this one can see the broad sweep of academic research interests being driven by the NSA."

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Best 1.3 television minutes of all time. If I can exhibit just a fraction of the indefatigable professionalism that Swedish TV game show host Eva Nazemson demonstrates here, in the world's moment of need, I will be a proud, proud woman. Seriously. I mean, she just gets right back the hell up and keeps on going. Barely wipes her mouth! After composing herself, and continuing with the show, even explaining in embarrassing detail and candor the intimate cause of her sickness -- she lets loose with the projectile puke a second time off camera. Poor thing! I know this has been all over the internet, but it's just too profound to not post here. What a pro. Video Link, second cut with more barf at the end: Video Link. (thanks Coop)

jBubba writes "Windows XP SP3 build 3205 is the first official & authorized release of the next Windows XP service pack; and has been made available to testers as a part of the Windows Server 2008/Windows Vista SP1 beta program. NeoSmart Technologies has the run-down on the included 1,073 patches/hotfixes including security updates. Contrary to popular belief, Windows XP SP3 does ship with new features/components, most of which have been backported from Windows Vista. Some included features: 'New Windows Product Activation model: no need to enter product key during setup. Network Access Protection modules and policies have been brought to XP after being one of the more-well-received features in Windows Vista. New Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module - the Windows XP SP3 kernel now includes an entire module that provides easy access to multiple cryptographic algorithms and is available for use in kernel-mode drivers and services. New "Black Hole Router" detection - Windows XP SP3 can detect and protect against rogue routers that are discarding data.'"

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SkiifGeek writes "A survey carried out by McAfee and the NCSA found that while more than 90% of users believed that they were protected by antivirus or antimalware products that were updated at least once a week, only 51% actually were. 'Even with significantly growing awareness by everyday users of the need for efficient and effective antivirus / antimalware software, and the increasing market penetration achieved by the security industry, the nature of rapidly evolving Information Security threats means that the baseline of protection is outstripping the ability of users to keep up (without some form of extra help).' The study is available online in PDF format. What sort of an effect does this sort of thinking, and practice, have on the overall security of your systems, networks, and efforts to educate?"

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no0b writes "Guy Hands is the new head of EMI, Britain's largest music publisher. Hands has come out publicly with a statement warning the industry against something music listeners have probably understood for some time. In the words of the Telegraph article, 'the industry will not survive if it continues to rely on CD sales alone.' More from the piece: 'With both new and established acts now capable of making money without the backing of a big company, McGee says record labels are being left out of the loop. He scoffs at their efforts to make up lost ground by developing into "multimedia entertainment companies that can manage bands and share in live income". But try they must. Revenues from record sales in Britain have dropped by more than £130m since 2004. The true cost to the industry could be far greater. TNS, the market researcher, looked at the spending habits of file-sharers between 2003 and 2005 and estimated a £1bn loss to the country in retail spend.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

no0b writes "Guy Hands is the new head of EMI, Britain's largest music publisher. Hands has come out publicly with a statement warning the industry against something music listeners have probably understood for some time. In the words of the Telegraph article, 'the industry will not survive if it continues to rely on CD sales alone.' More from the piece: 'With both new and established acts now capable of making money without the backing of a big company, McGee says record labels are being left out of the loop. He scoffs at their efforts to make up lost ground by developing into "multimedia entertainment companies that can manage bands and share in live income". But try they must. Revenues from record sales in Britain have dropped by more than £130m since 2004. The true cost to the industry could be far greater. TNS, the market researcher, looked at the spending habits of file-sharers between 2003 and 2005 and estimated a £1bn loss to the country in retail spend.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Nine months after the Los Angeles Unified School District launched SAP HR and Payroll as part of a larger $132M ERP rollout, LAUSD employees are still being overpaid, underpaid or going unpaid. In June, about 30,000 paychecks were issued with errors, falling somewhat short of the Mission Statement 'to effectively deliver services to meet the payroll needs of all District employees serving our students.' Meanwhile, a $17M PeopleSoft-based payroll implementation has been making life miserable for Chicago Public Schools teachers and staff since last April, including June retirees who were stiffed for more than $35M. It's been a bad computer year for CPS staff, who also had to contend with a new $60M system that wasn't up to the task of taking attendance."

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