These pages are a modest attempt to provide up-to-date news that is relevant to the areas of mathematics, education, computer science or information technology. Reader should keep in mind that old links often disappear.
1/28/11
TechNews for the week: January 28; January 26; January 24;
War, Politics and Reports (Also, see Finance and Economics)
Egypt ruling party offers no concessions; Adds Facebook and Internet to Blocked communications. How did the Egyptian government turn off the Internet?;
America Is Paying the Price for Supporting Corrupt Dictatorships in the Muslim World; Cables Show How U.S. Privately Pressured Egypt;
Egyptian President Mubarak forces government to resign;Obama urges him to deliver on promises Why U.S. Shouldn't Fear Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood;
Thousands of Yemenis demand change in government;
Karzai Agrees to Seat New Afghan Parliament; opens parliament with accusations, call for unity; Former Spy With Agenda Operates Own Private C.I.A.;
Border Patrol: Question Drug War, Lose Your Job;
State of the Union Address; 'Win the future'; GOP responds and then Tea Party weighs in;
House GOP Lists $2.5 Trillion in Spending Cuts; Justice Scalia to address Tea Party Caucus on Capitol Hill;
Health-care law: Arizona tries new approach to cut Medicaid for 280,000 of the state's poor. ; The GOP's 5 Most Absurd Lies About Health-Care Reform, Debunked;
Koch Brothers get ready for Billionaires Gathering in California Desert; Corporate contributions have surged for new Republican leaders in House ;
Today's Republicans would call Nixon and Eisenhower left wing radicals; Republicans Say Everything the Dems Pass Is Unconstitutional;
Anonymous: U.K. arrests are 'declaration of war';
Former McClain speechwriter wrote anonymous Obama novel 'O';
Math, science and technology:
Security issues
Whitelisting vs. Blacklisting;
Aerial drones use by law enforcement likely to prompt privacy debate; The legal Use of Armed Drones;
Botnets, Hacked Credit Cards Selling At Bargain Prices; Hacker Selling Access to Government Websites;
Exploit Toolkits: Software That Makes Cyber-Crime Easier;
REAL-ID Implementation;
U.S. Strategy to Prevent Leaks is Leaked;
Math and science
Mathematical Model Explains How Complex Societies Emerge, Collapse;
Ancient Puzzle Gets New Lease on 'Geomagical' Life;
Science Rocks: She’s an Engineer;
Web design issues
What Screen Resolution To Design For; Using the HTML5 Canvas Element and HTML5 Video Element;
To avert Internet crisis, the IPv6 scramble begins;
Other news
Next-Gen Android tablets still can't hang with iPad on price; LibreOffice Release arrives;
Glen Beck and the Wacko-Right Treatment; Jon Stewart Lampoons Bill O'Reilly's Nazi Analogies;
Akron woman gets jail time in school residency case; mom gets early release;
New case may prevent employees from getting fired over derogatory Facebook comments;
Finance and Economics
Inquiry finds Financial crisis was 'avoidable'; Federal budget deficit estimated to hit almost $1.5T;
The link between financial trouble and mental illness;
A Long Island tax cut backfires on the Tea Party;
5 ways your bank spies on you;
Education:
Report: Less Than Half Of US Students Proficient In Science; College Freshmen Report Record Stress Levels;
Don't expand ROTC. Replace it.;
Louisiana Board targets 450 Academic Programs for elimination; As Deficits Loom State Spending on Higher Education Edges Down;
Endowments Regain Ground With 12% Returns; Campaign Donations and U Tennessee Board Appointments;
Investigators Say Naval Academy Punished Professor Who Criticized Affirmative Action; Academy and Professor settle;
For-profit college group sues to block federal rules;
Humor: ‘So You Want to Get a Ph.D. in the Humanities: 9 Years Later’;
Donors Who Give to Both Sports and Academics Tend to Give More; The Less-Is-More Approach to Sports;
UConn Donor, unhappy about not being kept in the loop, Wants His $3-Million Back;
Football conferences net record $170 million take; 'Big O' Sues NCAA Over Use of His Likeness;
13 Iowa players have muscle malady after workouts;
1/21/11
TechNews for the week: January 21; January 19;
War, Politics and Reports (Also, see Finance and Economics)
Afghanistan's push to tax U.S. contractors could renew tensions; Afghan parliament to defy Karzai's postponement order;
Israeli Test on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay; Special Report: Stuxnet may be the Hiroshima of our time;
WikiLeaks cables: Turkey let US use airbase for rendition flights;
'Speech or debate' clause invoked in Justice Department investigations of House members;
House votes to repeal health-care law ; Behind the health care repeal vote; Government finds up to half of Americans under 65 have preexisting conditions;
Supreme Court to hear case about whether corporations have the same rights to "personal privacy" that individuals do;
Public employees blamed for state budget problems;
New GOP proposal targets federal workforce;
Plans being drawn up to let states declare bankruptcy;
Math, science and technology:
Security issues
Crypto-Gram January Newsletter, Recording the Police, Cyber War book review and more;
Research paper: Cost-Benefit Analysis of Full-Body Scanners;
OECD report: Cyberwar is Overhyped; 'New Revelations' of Mossad, the Israeli spy agency;
How Attackers Get Away With Data;
Math and science
Study: Stretching may help ward off "runner's knee";
The importance of Mathematics and Tiling; Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 available free;
Has '4G' lost its meaning?
Top U.S. Particle Accelerator Set for Shutdown This Year;
Web design issues
Tech Tips: Alternatives to Delicious;
Differences between HTML4 And HTML5; How to use the HTML5 Audio Tag;
How to Run a Group-Authored Blog;
Other news
Republican politico's do-not-regulate Net manifesto;
Keeping Track of Archive Photos;
Fox News denies unbooking Joan Rivers over Palin remarks;
MySpace Confirms Sale Rumors;
Finance and Economics
Banks allow ads in online checking accounts; Chase spends $2M to fix errors on military mortgages;
FCC approves Comcast and NBC joint venture; What the deal means?
Seniors may have to pay for Medicare home health;
Verizon fires legal shot against Net neutrality rules;
Education:
College not for Serious Students; Are Undergraduates Actually Learning Anything? The Lure of “Easy” Classes;
Book Lays Failure to Learn on Colleges' Doorsteps; full data in a separate report;
Is Education A Public Good or a Private Good? For Many, College Isn't Worth It; Goals of college admissions questioned;
'U.S. News' to Start New Rankings of Teacher Ed Programs;
Pitch by U. Oregon President to alter state funding; Financial Outlook Brighter for Some Colleges, Still Negative for Most;
Texas budget plan sends Waves of Fear Across Texas Higher Education; Contrast: Texas funding of Higher education and athletics;
Bonuses and Raises Amid U. of California Cuts;
Student Views on Technology and Teaching; Wolfram education apps raise teaching dilemma;
Funny videos: So you want to be a college professor?
U. of Texas Strikes $300-Million Deal With ESPN for TV Network ;
U. of Delaware Eliminates men's crosscountry and outdoor track and field teams; Division II Sports Seasons to Start Later;
1/14/11
TechNews for the week: January 14; January 12; January 10;
War, Politics and Reports (Also, see Finance and Economics)
Ariz. Dem. Congresswoman Giffords wounded, 6 killed in shooting; Rep. Giffords expected to recover;
Sarah Palin's 'blood libel' comment overshadows a calibrated message; some say she doesn't get it;
Watchdog over Afghan reconstruction, resigns amid congressional pressure; As opium prices soar and allies focus on Taliban, Afghan drug war stumbles;
NPR story: Top Military Officers Abandon Armed Forces, the article;
Historians AWOL From Public Debate Over 'War on Terror';
Math, science and technology:
Security issues
Special Report: "Homeland Security Hasn't Made Us Safer"; Security Threat of Forged Law-Enforcement Credentials; Surviving a Terrorist's Nuclear Attack;
James Fallows on Political Shootings;
The one security tool every Windows user should know about;
Math and science
Video: The Joy of Stats;
Data Encrypted, Stored In E. coli DNA;
Using Spreadsheets for Everything;
Web design issues
UIE: Responsive Web Design; Report Cites Problems with FBI's Approach to Agile Development;
Nudgemail: to Set Email Reminders; Review Adobe Acrobat X Professional; 8 Steps for making A Stop-Action Movie;
Use JavaScript to Add a Read More Link When Text is Copied From Your Site;
Other news
Five myths about why the South seceded;
1986 Privacy Law Is Outrun by the Web; Piracy Websites Attract 53 Billion Visits Annually; Europe Finds Flaws in Internet Filtering Software;
Sony closes CD plant: Bye-bye, physical media?
Finance and Economics
Ill. faces 66 percent tax boost amid budget crisis; Illinois business leaders bristle at tax hike plan;
California Governor Cuts Employee Cell Phones ;
More Western nations match China's financing strategy to win contracts;
Google's H.264 decision: It's all about YouTube costs;
F-35 looking more like white elephant;
Education:
Parents Show Preference for Colleges With Higher Graduation Rates;
Law Schools Urged to Focus More on Practical Skills and Less on Research; Two science articles Fault Universities as Favoring Research Over Teaching;
Texas’ 10% Plan Found to Influence Choice of High School;
California's Public Colleges Face $1.4-Billion in New Budget Cuts; State of Washington to Offer Online Materials as Texts;
Far From Border, U.S. Detains Foreign Students;
How Student Communications; Students get cash for notes; Teaching tools: Dropbox 1.0; Students using iPods, iPads to improve reading, math;
Sliding Down the Ethical Slope;
NCAA President Speaks Out Against 'Threats' to College Sports; At Many Colleges, No Health Insurance Means Athletes don't Play;
NCAA Proposal Gives Companies More Latitude to Use Athletes' Images in Ads; NCAA Balks at Efforts to Loosen Restrictions on Athletes’ Images in Ads;
NCAA Athlete Survey Released; College Athletes Identify Trouble Spots in Women's Basketball;
Division III Athletes and Students Graduate Comparably;
1/7/11
TechNews for the week: January 7; January 5; January 3;
War, Politics and Reports (Also, see Finance and Economics)
U.S. efforts fail to convince Pakistan to target Taliban; Party pulls out of Pakistan's ruling coalition, threatening government ;
Tribe's deal with Afghan government offers chance of peace in southwest district ; Report: U.S.-funded infrastructure deteriorates once under Afghan control;
Demise of Iraqi water park illustrates limitations, abuse of U.S. funding program ; Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr returns to Iraq after self-imposed exile;
Air Force to deploy revolutionary airborne surveillance system; U.S. Army and Marine Corps to reduce number of troops on active duty;
BP, Transocean, Halliburton blamed by presidential Gulf oil spill commission ;
GOP-led recital of Constitution sparks testiness over omissions; The Conservative Constitution of the United States;
Republican bid to scrap healthcare hits snag; Dems say GOP exempting $1 trillion from deficit;
Haley Flip-Flops On Budget;
Math, science and technology:
Security issues
The Social Dynamics of Terror;
Microsoft warns of Office-related malware; Microsoft Confirms Unpatched Flaw in Windows image rendering;
Smartphones Major Target for Cybercriminals; Net-Connected Devices Create New Security Risks; "SMS of Death" Could Crash Many Mobile Phones;
Security Researcher Releases Browser Bug Tool;
Math and science
Google, Facebook, IBM and Others' Weird Job Interview Questions in 2010;
Study: Walking speed appears to predict longevity in seniors;
Journal: Study linking vaccine to autism was fraud;
Scientists Conclude Bacteria Ate "Much Of" Gulf Spill;
Magnetic North Pole Shifts to Russia, Affects Airport Runway Navigation;
Web design issues
Firefox Extension: LinkChecker and Dummy Lipsum; and Color That Site!; and Font Finder; Top 10 Sites for Images and Clip Art;
Google Chrome Updates: Chrome Web Store and OS; Internet Explorer Dethroned in Europe;
Researchers Show JavaScript Allows Web History Sniffing;
HTML5: Multimedia;
Other news
Author claims Internet Serves authoritarian governments;
FBI Seizes Hard Drives Used by WikiLeaks; Bank of America Works to Protect Against WikiLeaks Attack;
CES: Motorola reveals iPad-rival Xoom tablet;
Finance and Economics
December Unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent in November;
Social Security 101; Social Security Data Center Approaching Collapse;
'Earmarks' to nowhere: States losing billions; Census Bureau reports: Recession-bruised states' revenue sank 30 percent in 2009;
Prison reform: A smart way for states to save money and lives;
Report: IRS's 'hard-core' collection tactics needlessly harm taxpayers;
Bank of America to change fees for checking accounts, cites increased regulation; Taxes on E-Books Could Increase Prices 21%;
Education:
The most popular graduate degrees; Cash Rewards for College Grades Show Some Success; Legacy's Advantage May Be Greater Than Was Thought ;
Military Recruiting: Are We Passing The Test?
How did Tennessee become one of the first states to win Race to the Top funds?
Is Academic Freedom a License to Indoctrinate?; Literacy Redefined; Teaching Ignorance in Arizona;
Ohio budget deficit threatens tuition increase; New Jersey Governor Revives Plan to Merge State Universities;
U. California Leaders Reject Bigger Pensions for Executives; Faculty Buyouts Create Staffing Headaches at 2 Texas Campuses;
Introduction to educ tech; More Colleges Allow Applicants To Submit Video Essays; 6 Top Smartphone Apps to Improve Teaching, Research, and Your Life;
Athletics Leaders Have Doubts That Revenues Will Improve; IRS to examine Orange Bowl Committee for Caribbean 'Junket';
How Do Grad Rates of Division III Athletes Measure Up?
Firing Rich Rodriguez Leaves Michigan In A Bad Spot; North Carolina A&T Official Told Coaches to Skip Sickle-Cell Test 2 Days Before Athlete Died;