Jami

Hey, remember when I railed at the members of the House Science Committee about wanting to cut funding from NASA’s climate observation missions? In a draft bill to authorize funding for NASA, they specifically said they wanted to redirect funding from NASA’s climate research to that of weather forecasting. They also said that 12 other agencies study climate change, so NASA doesn’t need to.

Which is baloney. NASA's work is critical to studying the climate. But remember, Republicans are the majority party in the House and therefore on the Science Committee, and their political stance on the science of climate change is overwhelmingly one of denial. I was and still am gravely concerned about this defunding of NASA’s very important climate work (the budget is still being hammered out between the House and Senate), but even when I first wrote about the NASA budget, I wondered to myself if this attack on climate research would be limited to just NASA, given that those other federal agencies study climate as well.

It turns out I may have good reason to be concerned. Freshman congressman Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) has sponsored a bill (H. R. 2413) that would likely defund at least some of the climate research done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in favor of weather prediction. The bill actually doesn’t say this out loud, of course—it doesn’t even have the word climate in it, bizarrely enough—but it specifically uses the phrase “redirect NOAA resources,” which is clear enough. By making weather forecasting a priority, coupled with the limited budget for NOAA in the House funding, the bill (currently in committee) will certainly de-emphasize and deprioritize other work done by NOAA. That includes, of course, climate research.

If you are unfamiliar with Bridenstine, let me introduce you to his moment of infamy, where he demanded that President Obama apologize to the people of Oklahoma for funding climate change research. (A key claim in that speech, not-so-incidentally, was rated “mostly false” by PolitiFact; I’d have used stronger language). Although a moderate on many issues, Bridenstine is a full-on climate change denier, so any weather- or climate-related legislation he sponsors needs to be examined with more than a touch of skepticism.

The thing is we need climate research to understand our changing weather. The extremes we are seeing—more fires, more drought in some areas, flooding in others, more high-temperature records broken all the time—are all precisely what is expected from global warming. This is the new normal.

The responsible thing for Congress to do is to fully fund both climate research and weather forecasting. Both are critical to our nation right now, as well as its future.

It’s stunning that the committee, which makes decisions on our nation’s most basic scientific research, is controlled by people who toss out any and all evidence if it goes against their preconceived (and well-funded) notions. To have such blatantly anti-science people on a science committee is madness.

I can hope against hope that come the next election, these anti-reality Congresscritters will get kicked to the curb. But we need to keep their feet to the fire and to make sure the people of our country, and our representatives, know what’s going on.

Tip o’ the thermometer to Diane Bosnjak and the Facebook page for the Public Coalition on the Understanding of Science.

The UK's on-by-default censorship, as you might expect, presses with a heavy thumb: coolnumbr12 writes "The Open Rights Group spoke with several ISPs and found that in addition to pornography, users will also be required to opt in for any content tagged as violent material, extremist and terrorist related content, anorexia and eating disorder websites, suicide related websites, alcohol, smoking, web forums, esoteric material and web blocking circumvention tools. These will all be filtered by default, and the majority of users never change default settings with online services."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Extreme weather is ruining farmlands as British farmers find it difficult to cope with volatile seasonal changes

"The wheat is usually green at this time, but its already gone brown," says Laurence Matthews, overlooking a bone-dry and dusty field on his 3,000-acre farm near Dorking in Surrey. "It's like a tinderbox: there's a real risk of fire."

The summer heatwave is having a dramatic effect on his crops. "Without water, the plants just shut down," he says. But it is the twists and turns of increasingly erratic weather that is making farming more difficult, Matthews says. "In spring 2012, it was unbelievably dry and hot, then from April it just rained right through to 2013, which made it very difficult to get our crops established."

The autumn-sown crops that survived the deluge developed only short roots, as the soggy soils made drawing up water easier. But the sudden heatwave this summer has left the crops without the deeper roots they need to flourish. "We'll get smaller grains," he says.

"The volatility in the weather in the last few years has been much greater," he says. "It is definitely getting much more difficult to manage."

Matthews is the third generation of his family to run the farm, which grows wheat, oil seed rape and barley on 2,000 acres and raises about 1,000 cattle on the remaining grassland. The farm undertakes numerous environmental schemes, from six-metre wildlife margins in fields to returning some arable land to pasture, although a planned green energy project – using manure and maize to create bio-gas – has met local opposition. He says: "We are not separate from nature as farmers."

But Matthews says that a European ban on pesticides linked to serious harm in bees will hurt farmers: "If you ban them everywhere [around the world], that's OK, but the EU ban just exports production to other countries" where the pesticides can still be used.

"Technology has always come along to help us, but it is not keeping up," he says, with the challenges of extreme weather and the growing demand for food fed by global population growth.

"A lot of yields, including wheat, have plateaued in the last few years, as there are no new technologies coming through," Matthews says. He adds new genetically modified crops would be useful. "At the end of the day, we are a commercial unit and we have to make as much money as possible."

Matthews has three sons, all interested in the farm, and looking ahead, he says: "Farming has got a good future, as the demand for food is so high. It is going to be challenging, but that's life."

Extreme weather is the major challenge, he says, along with a fast-changing global political landscape and the changes that is bringing to markets and subsidies. But, he says: "The one thing they will all want is food."

This is a case study to accompany Damian Carrington's article on the threat of extreme weather to UK farming

Michael Mann is a climate scientist who was flung into the spotlight when he and his colleagues published a graph several years ago showing the explosive growth of global warming over the past century or so. The original work has been updated and extended many times, by many different scientists, and each time the pattern of results has been supported and strengthened. Additional data going back 11,000 years show that we are experiencing an unprecedentedly rapid rise in temperatures.

This, of course, has made Mann a big target of climate-change deniers. While most of them attack the graph—failing in their attempts, I’ll note—some have taken a more personal tack. Two groups, the far-right National Review Online and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, have made this personal indeed. In a frankly disgusting article by Mark Steyn, the NRO accused Mann of academic fraud. It even compares him to the ex-Penn State University coach Jerry Sandusky, a convicted serial child molester. Steyn got this comparison from an article by Rand Simberg in the CEI’s blog, who called Mann “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science … [who] molested and tortured data.”

Nice, huh? So Mann sued for defamation.

Unsurprisingly, both the NRO and CEI were unhappy with this and tried to block the lawsuit using SLAPP laws—rules used to stop lawsuits that try to censor criticism. However, a District of Columbia Superior Court judge has ruled that SLAPP doesn’t apply. Mann’s lawsuit can move forward.

This is great news. The judge, Natalia Combs Greene, was pretty clear that the NRO and CEI don’t have a leg to stand on to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that their SLAPP claims are not credible. She further says that “to call [Mann’s] work a sham or to question his intellect and reasoning is tantamount to an accusation of fraud.” She also notes that while proving malice on the part of NRO and CEI may be difficult, “there is … sufficient evidence to demonstrate some malice or the knowledge that the statements were false.” Therefore, Mann may continue to pursue his defamation lawsuit.

The beauty of this, as Christopher Round points out in an article for PolicyMic, is that Mann has been the target of numerous investigations into his work and has been cleared of any wrongdoing every time. Since some of these investigations were prompted by NRO and CEI, they had to know he was cleared of academic fraud, yet they continued to accuse him of it.

Oops.

As a scientist, I find these attacks on Mann distasteful. In scientific circles you attack the research, not the researcher; that’s how science works.

As a human being, I find these attacks outrageous. There can be a place for ad hominem arguments; when the focus of those arguments shows a history of hyperbolic or distorted claims, for example. But Mann has no such history, and in fact quite the opposite is true. He has been impugned by United States congressmen, the Virginia attorney general and Republican gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli—who has wasted huge amounts of taxpayer money investigating Mann for wasting taxpayer money, if you can believe it—and, of course, global-warming deniers of all stripes. Mann has done very well surviving these attacks. Of course, that’s partly because, duh, he’s right.

In the arena of scientific investigation, being right is usually enough. But in the sometimes savage and merciless court of political and public opinion, it clearly is not. Even if Mann wins his defamation lawsuit, there will always be other deniers to step in, willing and able (and generally sufficiently funded) to fling whatever nonsense they can at him and other climate scientists in the hopes that something will stick.

It’s astonishing just how mean-spirited and vitriolic these attacks on reality can be. But perhaps it shouldn't be unexpected. When you don’t have facts, evidence, or science on your side, what’s left?

Read more about this lawsuit:
Think Progress
Climate Science Watch
Open Parachute
The Energy Collective

And more about global warming denial:
Followup: The Wall Street Journal Doubles Down on Global Warming Denial
Bill Nye Teaches “Climate 101”
Slaying the Zombie Ideas of Climate Change Denial
Case Closed: Climategate Was Manufactured
No Need to Worry about Global Warming, Folks: More Carbon Dioxide Will Be Awesome

NSA whistleblower's father says he has lost faith in the US justice department and his son needs a safe haven

The father of the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden says his son has been so vilified by the Obama administration and members of Congress that he is now better off staying in Russia.

Lon Snowden had been working behind the scenes with lawyers to try to find a way his son could get a fair trial in the US. Edward Snowden has been charged in federal court with violating the Espionage Act by leaking details of NSA surveillance.

But in a telephone interview with the Associated Press, the elder Snowden said he had lost faith in recent weeks that his son would be treated fairly by the justice department. He now thinks his 30-year-old son is better off avoiding the US if possible until an administration that respects the constitution comes into office.

"If it were me, knowing what I know now, and listening to advice of sage people like [Pentagon Papers leaker] Daniel Ellsberg ... I would attempt to find a safe haven," Snowden said.

As a military analyst more than four decades ago, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret study of America's involvement in Vietnam, to newspapers.

The elder Snowden said he thought Russia was probably the best place to seek asylum because it was most likely to withstand US pressure. Edward Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia last week.

Lon Snowden, a Coast Guard veteran who has worked on national security issues in his career, said he has tremendous faith in the American people and in the constitution. He said that in a more subdued environment his son could get a fair trial, and his actions would be considered in the context of his desire to expose a surveillance program that he and others believe exceeds constitutional bounds.

But he said the justice department's efforts to pressure other countries to turn over Snowden, coupled with silence from President Barack Obama and the attorney-general, Eric Holder, in the face of denunciations from members of Congress who have labelled Snowden a traitor, have eroded his hope for a fair trial.

On NBC's Today show on Friday, Lon Snowden said there had been a concerted effort by some members of Congress to "demonise" his son.

Lon Snowden and his lawyer, Bruce Fein, released a letter on Friday asking Obama to dismiss the criminal charges against Edward Snowden and to support legislation "to remedy the NSA surveillance abuses he revealed".

The elder Snowden and Fein said they were disgusted by Holder's letter on Friday to Russian officials promising that Snowden would not face the death penalty if he were extradited. They said it reflected a mindset that Snowden was presumed guilty and that a sentence of 30 years or life would be a reasonable punishment.

In the phone interview Lon Snowden said he had had no direct contact with his son, and knew no more about his day-to-day life in Moscow, where he is reportedly staying at an airport transit zone, than anyone else.

Lon Snowden and Fein are starting a nonprofit group called the Defense of the Constitution Foundation to promote the issues his son has raised.

"In essence, he has passed on the torch of democracy," Lon Snowden said of his son.

He said he wasn't sure there was much he could do to help his son.

"He sacrificed everything and gained nothing," the elder Snowden said. "He's done what he's done. The consequences are unavoidable, and I don't know if I can mitigate those."

notscientific writes "Each wolf has a unique howl, which scientists can now decipher through voice recognition (audio), allowing them to identify wolves individually. The scientists developed sound analysis code that can tell which wolf is howling with 100% accuracy. Previously, pitch was used to tell wolves apart, but these only achieved a relatively low accuracy rate. This sound analysis is important because it could well give researchers the first proper way to effectively monitor wolves in the wild. Interestingly, this research comes after the recent finding that dolphins have names for one another. In the case of wolves, their howls are essentially their names."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

steveb3210 writes "EQ2Wire.com is a fan site for the MMO Everquest 2. One feature of their site is a searchable portal for all game-related stats such as characters, equipment, items, and mobs which they generate from an XML feed provided by the game's publisher. Recently, the owner of a trademark has been threatening them over the name of a character and in the face of possible legal bills, they were forced to remove the character's profile from their site. Adding further insult to injury, the character seems to have been created prior to the trademark in question."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader points out this story about the latest effort by the U.S. to get Edward Snowden back in the country. "A U.S. Senate panel voted unanimously on Thursday to seek trade or other sanctions against Russia or any other country that offers asylum to former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, who has been holed up for weeks at a Moscow airport. The 30-member Senate Appropriations Committee adopted by consensus an amendment to a spending bill that would direct Secretary of State John Kerry to meet with congressional committees to come up with sanctions against any country that takes Snowden in."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Following the /. story on the Feds demanding SSL keys, now comes news that the feds are demanding user passwords, and in some cases, the encryption algorithm and salt used. From the article: 'A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'" ... Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. ... Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.' I'm next expecting to see the regulation or law demanding that all users use plain text for all web transactions, to catch terrorists and for the children."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Työttömyys näyttää ruokkivan työttömyyttä. Selitys saattaa löytyä sekä laumakäyttäytymisestä että työnantajan kyvyttömyydestä arvioida työntekijän työkykyä.

DavidHumus writes "Some of the longer-term effects of the anti-vaccination movement of past decades are now evident in a dramatic increase in measles. From the article: 'A measles outbreak infected 1,219 people in southwest Wales between November 2012 and early July, compared with 105 cases in all of Wales in 2011. One of the infected was Ms. Jenkins, whose grandmother, her guardian, hadn't vaccinated her as a young child. "I was afraid of the autism," says the grandmother, Margaret Mugford, 63 years old. "It was in all the papers and on TV."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "This article is an eye opening perspective on another side effect of power generation — water usage: 'More than 40 percent of fresh water used in the United States is withdrawn to cool power plants. Renewable energy generally uses far less water, but there are glaring exceptions, such as geothermal and concentrating solar.' The article also mentions that power plants have to shut down if the incoming water is too warm to cool the plant. 'Also, even though some newer plants might use far less water, they could find that there’s far less water available as water temperatures go up and water flows go down. Another study found that nearly half of 423 U.S. plants were at risk of lower power output during droughts because their intake pipes for water were less than 3 meters below the surface.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

 

**UPDATE: You'll now be able to share your code with your friends too!**

You’ll probably be aware that we recently released Final Fantasy VII on Steam, following a one year exclusivity period where it was only available on the Square Enix Store. Since then we’ve received a lot of feedback and requests asking for Steam keys for those people who previously bought the SE Store version of the game.

We’ve read the comments and feedback intently – across multiple locations – and we understand the convenience in being able to add a game to your Steam library. We’ve been looking at this in detail, talking to Steam and trying to find a solution which would keep everybody happy – but unfortunately, it’s not going to be possible to grant those requests.

Ultimately, it’s not uncommon for a game to have a period of exclusivity with one retail platform, before being made available more widely, and it’s simply not practical to hand out Steam keys to everybody that’s purchased direct from us in the past year. We considered making them available to people who purchased more recently, but wherever we draw that line – 1 day, 1 month, 3 months – there will always be people upset because they’d fall the wrong side of that line; and so we couldn’t be fair to everybody.

Now, I know it’s something that will be a frustration to a number of you, and I’m sorry that this time we couldn’t find a good solution for you. I’ve seen a lot of comments pointing to other companies that hand out Steam keys at the point of purchase, or even in retrospect – I can’t comment on their business or deal structures, and we spent a lot of time working on it, but unfortunately we’re just not able to do the same thing for this title.

That said – and this will be little consolation to those people upset right now – but we will learn from this and put in place measures to prevent something similar happening in future.

But it’s important to us that you feel comfortable about buying games from the Square Enix Store, and to that end, if you purchased Final Fantasy VII from us direct in the past, we would like to offer you a 20% multi-use discount voucher for use in the Square Enix Store* on other products**.

The voucher will be valid from July 26-August 31, and may be used as many times as you like during that period. You’ll also be able to stack that discount with any other reduction that might run during that time as part of another sale (although please note that in that situation the discount will apply to the sale price, not the original price). Plus, you can share the code with your friends too!

In order to get your code, just follow this link and our Customer Support team will verify that you have Final Fantasy VII on your Square Enix account. They’ll then give you your unique Store discount code – and between July 26 and August 31 you’re good to go.

I know it’s not what you wanted, but hopefully it’ll be of some use all the same.

*This discount code isn’t currently available to customers of the Square Enix France Store, because of some technical differences to the SEE Store. However, they are working on a separate solution and we will update with details once we have them; sorry for the delay.

*This discount offer will not be available to customers in North America; if you are based in North America please contact Square Enix America Customer Services.

**Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy VII, Front Mission and Last Remnant will not be included in the discount offer.

Katherine Losse claims social network's customer support could access any user's account with a master password

Mark Zuckerberg's former speechwriter has warned that Facebook users should be wary of sharing their personal data with the site, highlighting yet more privacy concerns as the site launches its social search tool graph search.

Katherine Losse, who spent five years at Facebook until she left in 2010, told the Guardian that while the NSA revelations have left many social networking users concerned about government access to their personal information, employees at the fledgling social network had access to data including user passwords.

This is especially concerning as many Facebook users still use the same password for multiple accounts elsewhere on the internet.

"Users of social networks generally assume that they are the only ones that can access the information they input, and in most cases at most companies that is most likely not true, because at least some of the staff need to have access to user accounts in order to do their jobs," she said. "There has to be a way for the staff to manage and repair user account issues, and for this reason user data within most startups, especially when they are young, is never completely locked up from company staff."

She added that in light of monitoring undertaken by US intelligence agencies, the idea of private data is certainly no longer true. "Even if an average staff person can't access it, the information may still be recorded somewhere for the NSA."

Last year Losse wrote the book The Boy Kings, exploring social technology and its impact on the world.

When she joined Facebook as its 51st employee, the site had less than 5 million users, and customer support staff were each handed "a master password by which we could log in as any Facebook user and access to all their messages and data".

She added that as the social network grew, "more secure forms of logging in to repair accounts" were implemented. Losse worked on customer service and later as founder Mark Zuckerberg's personal speechwriter.

Facebook did not comment on staff access to passwords, but a spokesperson said: "To be blunt, this viewpoint is that of a rogue employee whose view is shared by no one at Facebook."

Losse caused a small fracas in March when she criticised Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg's new book in an article for Dissent magazine. "Lean In bears more in common with a well-funded Silicon Valley startup than a grassroots feminist organisation," she said.

Losse also claimed that although her managerial duties and workload increased went up under Sandberg's tenure, she was refused a raise on the grounds that engineers (largely males who often earned at least double her salary) had not recently been given one.

Facebook's former PR chief Brandee Barker, who left the company and has helped promote Sandberg's book, responded furiously on Twitter.

A private message that Barker sent to Losse on Facebook – "There's a special place in hell for you" – did was made public by Losse, who uploaded a screenshot of the message to both her Facebook and Twitter profile.

"Maybe sending Hellfire and Damnation messages is part of the Lean In PR strategy. LEAN IN OR ELSE YOU'RE GOING TO HELL," she added.

In Britain, we had the MMR triple jab controversy during which media outlets tended to give more credence than was due to a single campaigner, Andrew Wakefield, who produced a fraudulent research paper that claimed the vaccine caused autism.

In the United States, a similar controversy blew up around another single-minded campaigner, Jenny McCarthy, who argued that childhood vaccines cause autism (after her son was diagnosed with autism) and who wrote a foreword to Wakefield's book.

Now a new row has broken out because McCarthy has been chosen to co-host the popular US TV daytime chat show, The View, as Tom McCarthy (no relation) reported in The Guardian.

He listed several examples of forthright hostility to her being given such a high-profile platform. Examples here and here and here, plus plenty on Twitter here. Such is the antagonism to McCarthy's views, allied to the belief that she has been responsible for children's deaths because of people refusing to vaccinate their offspring, there is even a website called Jenny McCarthy body count.

But many people - perhaps the majority of the American public - may not have read opinion pieces by commentators who oppose giving McCarthy a chance to spread what they regard as misinformation.

Instead, as an article in the Columbia Journalism Review points out, they will have read news articles about her new job in which her discredited claims were given equal weight to those of the scientific medical community.

The CJR's writer, Brendan Nyhan, refers to this fake balance as "he said, she said" coverage. In so doing, he touches on one of mainstream media's common bad habits in attempting to produce so-called objective and/or impartial journalism. The mission to explain is replaced by the sustaining of myths.

Nyhan lists some examples. A USA Today reporter described McCarthy as "a brash blonde" (yes, note the sexism too) who had "embraced the controversial claim that vaccinations cause autism" which "has drawn the ire of pro-immunisation advocacy groups."

A Philadelphia Inquirer reporter simply, and simplistically, noted that "Jenny made enemies of doctors when she said vaccination caused her son Evan's autism."

And an Associated Press report, carried by several newspapers across the States, observed only that McCarthy "emerged as an activist, campaigning about the dangers of vaccines, which she claims triggered her son's autism."

Nyhan comments: "There is no perfect way to cover McCarthy's hiring, of course, but giving 'balanced' coverage to fringe beliefs is the worst approach to covering misinformation."

He cites an article by another CJR author, Curtis Brainard, in which he contended that balanced coverage "helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism." In other words, by writing of McCarthy's viewpoint in strictly "neutral" terms keeps the myth alive despite scientific evidence that has effectively proved it to be unsupportable.

Treating McCarthy's claims as "controversial" and calling her a "campaigner" or "activist" is liable to give her and her opinions a spurious credibility, thereby justifying Nyman's point about such reporting having "potentially dangerous consequences for public health."

GovTechGuy writes "The Department of Justice maintains it does not need a warrant to track an individual using location data captured from their cellphone. 'Cellphone location records are currently lumped under Title 1 and Title 2 of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (PL 99-508), which cover stored communications and call details. Accessing those types of information typically requires only a court order, rather than a warrant, as is required for the contents of a phone call or digital message under Title 3.' That has prompted Maine and Montana to pass laws banning warrantless cellphone tracking; unfortunately, Congress doesn't appear close to doing the same."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The fast-food chain offers staff advice on how to live on $7.70 an hour. Have some humbug with your hamburger, why not?

You can accuse McDonald's of lots of things, but never say it doesn't respond to changing cultural tides: the salad menu, for example, and those Bo Concept-style chairs in some of the ritzier locations. Also, the marginalization of Ronald McDonald, who everyone realised at some point was just creepy.

Now, in partnership with Visa, the fast food chain has tacitly responded to criticism that you can't get by on a McJob, with some handy budgeting advice for its staff. As the website deathandtaxes and others have pointed out, there are several glaring omissions in the sample budget, including frivolous extras such as heat, food and gas. Perhaps the McDonald's $1 menu comes into play at this point, although with a suggested budget of $20 a month for health insurance, that isn't a long-term solution.

The budget also premises its figures on a combined monthly income from two jobs, which, assuming they're both minimum wage, adds up to almost two full-time positions.

True, McDonald's comes in for lots of flak that might just as easily be directed at other fast food outlets. (The menu at KFC, for example, has always given me the heebie-jeebies much more than the McDonald's menu has.) And none of it acknowledges the small but sincere pleasure of eating a Quarter Pounder With Cheese.

And there is nothing risible about urging people to save. As the brochure states, "consider that saving $3 a day would give you an extra $1,095 at the end of a year". It counsels staff to keep a spending journal and suggests small tweaks to their daily routine such as "try not to use an ATM outside of your bank's system to avoid extra service charges". All good, sensible advice.

The problem, of course, is one of stick-in-the-throat obnoxiousness. The aim of the exercise is to identify where, in a household budget, you can afford to trim the fat – not something any of us would look to McDonald's for leadership on. Being told to "spend less money than you make" by the very people who pay you as little as $7.70 an hour isn't altogether a winning move. It sounds a bit like being told where to get better security by a burglar.

"Every day and every dollar makes a difference" runs the slogan at the beginning of the pamphlet. With the best will in the world, it's hard to imagine how McDonald's employees will make this advice work for them with anything like the success that, when it comes to setting staff wages, it is working out for their employer.

McDonald'sin työntekijöilleen tarjoamat budjettineuvot ovat holhoavia ja osoittavat täydellistä ymmärtämättömyyttä sen työntekijöiden arjesta.

Saksalaismies kutsui kavereitaan kierrokselle Yhdysvaltojen turvallisuusvirasto NSA:n alueelle Saksassa. Vitsimielessä lähetetty kutsu toi saksalaispoliisit kotiovelle – amerikkalaiskyttääjien pyynnöstä.

FF13：『アルティメット ヒッツ ファイナルファンタジーXIII-2』本日発売
LRFF13：「LRFF13」公式サイトに、「FF14」「FF10/10-2」とのコラボページ「FF GO THERE」が公開

KH：『KINGDOM HEARTS χ [chi]』 正式サービス開始、7/25までのキャンペーンあり
DOD：『ドラッグ オン ドラグーン3』公式更新、CHARACTERページに、姉妹で唯一の処女「フォウ」追加
すばせか：「すばらしきこのせかい」6周年記念ミニ音楽イベントにSAWAさんとNulie Nurlyさんの出演が決定

スクエニ：「ケイオスリングス」PlayStation Mobile版が7/24に配信決定。PSVitaでもプレイ可能に
スクエニ：WEBラジオ「スクエニChan!」第92回配信！ 『LINE スライムコゼニト～ル』特集
スクエニ：先日フランスで行われた「Japan Expo」スクエニブース・フィギュア・ステージ・サイン会等写真集

[Comicon 2013]
FF：コミコンスクエニブースに展示されている「WoL」のPA彩色済み
FF10：現在開催中の、サンディエゴコミコンに、ユウナのPA彩色が展示
FF10：コミコンのスクエニブース展示されている、ティーダ（未彩色）とユウナ（彩色）
FF7：コミコンスクエニブースに展示されている、ナナキPA

[その他ニュース]
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 – Official Teaser Trailer　（Youtube）

According to a report by Norwegian researchers at Ipsos, piracy has fallen alarmingly in that country thanks to viable alternative sources. For example, music piracy has fallen from 1.2 billion songs in 2008 to 210 million last year. About 60 million movies and TV shows were pirated last year, compared to 125 million and 135 million five years ago. In short, access to paid content, whether via streaming or a la carte services, is slowly whittling away the impetus to pirate.

To be clear this data comes from Norway and may not be representative of all areas but given the popularity of services like Spotify, Rdio, and Netflix – not to mention the many platform-specific releases made available on each of these services – has done what Hollywood couldn’t.

Writes Torrentfreak:

Norway has led the charge against file-sharing sites, recently passing a law that can shut down sites at the ISP level and allows rights holders to go after copyright offenders. However, it seems it’s a case of “Too much, too late.” The laws coincide with some of the lowest levels of piracy in the country which, in the twisted logic of the MPAA, will be chalked up to strong laws and not to the success of stable, usable, and preferable alternatives to piracy.

As Gabe Newell of Valve said “We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.” If a product is available in staggered intervals or is completely unavailable or at a particularly onerous price differential, the impetus to pirate is far greater. When everything is easily available one click away it is a far more interesting market and far better for the producer and the consumer.

another random user writes with an excerpt from TorrentFreak: "It's no secret that copyright holders are trying to take down as much pirated content as they can, but their targeting of open source software is something new. In an attempt to remove pirated copies of Game of Thrones from the Internet, HBO sent a DMCA takedown to Google, listing a copy of the popular media player VLC as a copyright infringement. An honest mistake, perhaps, but a worrying one. ... Usually these notices ask Google to get rid of links to pirate sites, but for some reason the cable network also wants Google to remove a link to the highly popular open source video player VLC. ... The same DMCA notice also lists various other links that don't appear to link to HBO content, including a lot of porn related material, Ben Harper's album Give Till It's Gone, Naruto, free Java applets and Prince of Persia 5."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Enemmistö kansalaisista uskoo, että sosiaali- ja terveyspalvelu-uudistus johtaa palveluiden huonontumiseen. Asia käy ilmi Kunnallisalan kehittämissäätiön tekemästä mielipidemittauksesta.

The Cuckoo's Calling became an instant bestseller once the Rowling brand emerged – a sad indictment of publishing

When JK Rowling published a crime novel under a pseudonym earlier this year, she didn't have to worry about sales. The book did quite well for a piece of fiction by an unknown author; it got some good reviews and sold 1,500 copies, which is more than respectable for a first novel. But there was always the possibility of revealing the ruse or having it exposed by someone else, which is what happened at the weekend when the Sunday Times named her as the author. The transformation in the fortunes of The Cuckoo's Calling was immediate, with the book soaring from number 4,709 to the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

In that sense, what Rowling has done, however admirable her intentions, was less risky than it first appeared. She took a gamble when she wrote as Robert Galbraith, instead of under her own name, but she admits that the chances of keeping the secret were "incredibly remote". The book had the same editor and publisher as her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, and it wouldn't have been hard to predict the likely impact once the secret was out.

Most first novelists don't have the option of doing something that will have such a dramatic effect on sales, and they're already painfully aware that the situation for unknown authors is dire. Publishers have seldom been so reluctant not just to take a risk on new writers, but to back up publication with the resources which go into promoting successful authors.

Indeed, while I don't doubt Rowling's motives for one moment, it's instructive that the revelation of her authorship has quickly become a story about a well-known writer doing something quirky and eccentric – rather than a telling tale about the state of publishing. Whether she likes it or not, she is in that category of stratospherically famous authors who have become brands; Dan Brown is another obvious example. This is a recent development and its impact on other writers is disastrous, creating a situation in which huge publicity budgets are placed behind a handful of authors, skewing bestseller lists.

I have a declaration to make here: much as I would love to see my novels and non-fiction advertised on posters on the London Underground, I have only ever had one paid-for advert in my writing career, and that was in a trade magazine. Most authors are in the same position, but very few readers think about the vast discrepancy in promotional budgets when they look at the bestseller lists.

It's also interesting to compare the effects of Rowling's experiment with an almost identical one staged by Doris Lessing three decades ago. These days Lessing is a winner of the Nobel prize for literature, but she was already highly regarded in the early 1980s when she sent out a couple of novels under a pseudonym.

Unlike Rowling, who decided to disguise herself as a man even though crime fiction is supposedly a level playing field in gender terms, Lessing chose a female alter ego. Her novel The Golden Notebook had sold almost 900,000 copies in hardback and won one of the top literary prizes in France, but the efforts of "Jane Somers" were not so well received. The first book was rejected by Lessing's long-time publisher, who decided it wasn't "commercially viable", and it was eventually published by Michael Joseph. The novel got few reviews and Lessing said her point had been proved. "I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success'", she explained in 1984.

Interestingly, the revelation of Lessing's hoax did not propel her Jane Somers novels into the bestseller charts. It caused ripples in literary circles, but nothing like the furore over Rowling's ruse. But then Lessing has never been a celebrity, unlike Rowling, who has had to suffer the kind of intense media scrutiny usually reserved for pop stars and supermodels. That's one of the disadvantages of the author-as-celebrity phenomenon, as Rowling explained in her testimony to the Leveson inquiry.

But there's another downside, which is the negative impact on thousands of writers the public has never heard of or, more importantly, had the opportunity to read. In that sense, it could even be argued that Rowling's well-intended hoax has backfired, turning into yet another story about fame in the modern world.

Pretty CGI? Check. Awesome music? Check. No idea what's going on? Check.

Yep, this is Final Fantasy.

I'm digging what I've seen so far from the third FFXIII game, and this new trailer is pretty neat too. For more on Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (which is out this February for PS3 and Xbox 360), check out my hands-on thoughts.

No valid passport, conditional asylum offers and US diplomatic pressure make it hard for NSA whistleblower to leave Moscow

Edward Snowden is not just trying to find his way out of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. He is also attempting to navigate his way through a thicket of international law on political asylum while staying beyond the reach of the US and its allies.

It is a perilous balancing act that has so far proven hard to pull off. Washington has made it clear to friend and foe alike that there would be a heavy price to pay for providing shelter to the runaway American intelligence analyst.

Hence the extraordinary step taken last week by France, Portugal, Spain and Italy, of denying airspace to Bolivian president Evo Morales's executive jet, wrongly suspected of carrying Snowden from Moscow to Latin America.

And hence the hedged nature of most of the asylum offers Snowden has received to date. Vladimir Putin said two weeks ago that Russia would provide asylum on the condition he stop "harming our American partners"; in other words, shut up and stop leaking to the press.

Overtures from Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua meanwhile, have been conditional on Snowden applying on their territory. Venezuela's offer seems firm, but Snowden must still get to Latin America to benefit from it – a big condition in view of his circumstances for the past 20 days, locked in the sterile limbo of the Sheremetyevo transit lounge without a valid passport.

His press conference was an attempt to escape that catch-22.

Widney Brown, Amnesty International's senior director for international law and policy, said the Latin American states involved could theoretically have sent envoys to Sheremetyevo to furnish Snowden with travel documents.

"However, that would be a highly unusual procedure for use in extremis," Brown said. "It may be that these states would prefer to go through the normal procedures for adjudicating asylum claims."

Snowden's strategy – to appeal for temporary asylum in Russia to allow him to file for asylum elsewhere – is a reaction to these conditions. He is responding to Putin's conditionality by insisting he has no intention of harming the true interests of his home country, but it is not clear whether he would agree to a temporary gag while in Moscow. Judged on his record so far, it would seem out of character, but he may have little choice, and a Russian member of parliament has suggested the American fugitive was prepared to agree to such a deal.

Temporary haven in Russia would give Snowden protected status so that even if there were a sealed Interpol warrant waiting for him when he emerged on to the streets of Moscow, his pending asylum request should, under international law, take precedence and be ruled on before any extradition requests.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said Snowden has a good prima facie case for asylum, based on a well-founded fear of political persecution. Snowden's public statement at Sheremetyevo, couched in the language of the US constitution and international law, will have served to entrench that case.

Human rights lawyers say those grounds have been strengthened by the extraordinary lengths to which Washington has gone to try to get him back, as well as the lack of whistleblower protection for national security officials in the US under the Espionage Act, the brutal treatment of the soldier behind the WikiLeaks revelations, Bradley Manning, and the prospect of long-term incarceration before trial, possibly in solitary confinement.

Human Rights Watch notes: "The US should also keep in mind that for many decades it has offered political asylum to people who suffer severe penalties for criticising their governments." It has called on Washington not to play by double standards. The Obama administration is unlikely to appreciate the implicit comparison with the world's dictatorships, but right now, Snowden just needs to persuade Putin.

We've released another fan kit with more amazing images from Eorzea! Give your smartphone a makeover with adorable minion Twitter icons as well as new class illustrations featured on the official blog!

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Poliisit eri maakunnista kertovat saaneensa ilmoituksia autoja pysäyttelevistä ihmisistä, jotka kauppaavat rihkamaa tai kerjäävät rahaa. Pirkanmaan poliisin mukaan tilanteita...

Report says there is 'a genuine threat of humanity returning to an era where mortality due to common infections is rife'

The growth of antibiotic-resistant infections represents a "looming public health issue" for Australia that requires "urgent" new funding to prevent deaths from minor ailments such as sore throats and cut knees, the country's top scientist has warned.

A report by the Office of the Chief Scientist (pdf) states there is "a genuine threat of humanity returning to an era where mortality due to common infections is rife".

The paper blames the "misuse and overuse" of antibiotics, such as for animal husbandry, for driving up resistance levels in humans.

"Some bacteria are now so resistant that they are virtually untreatable with any of the currently available drugs," the report says.

"If we do not take action to address this threat, humankind will be on the brink of a 'post-antibiotics era', where untreatable and fatal infections become increasingly common.

"In Australia, the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant infections appearing in the community and acquired during international travel represents a looming public health issue."

The report points to a "collapse" in research and development into new antibiotics as an area of significant concern.

"Only one antibiotic that works in a novel way has been discovered and developed for use in humans in the last 50 years," the study says.

"Most companies have now either abandoned the field or are in the process of reducing their commitment. Whilst some cancer medicines are sold for $20,000 a course, we still expect to pay $20 for a course of antibiotics."

Most of the antibiotics currently used in Australia are derived from microbes, such as fungi, viruses and bacteria. While scientists have long anticipated bacteria to evolve resistance, the report points out that this process is accelerating, aided by misuse in animals and the liberal prescription for viral infections in people.

The outcome of this, the chief scientist warns, is a scenario where illnesses such as strep throat infections or minor cuts could prove fatal.

"Antibiotic resistance has the potential to become one of the world's biggest public health challenges, requiring a serious response from our scientists, our industries and the community at large," says professor Ian Chubb, Australia's chief scientist.

Michael Moore, the chief executive of the Public Health Association of Australia, told Guardian Australia it was "brilliant" that the chief scientist had identified antibiotic resistance as a problem.

"There have been warnings from scientists and those in the health fraternity for a number of years, so to have the gravitas of the chief scientist behind this should be a wake-up call for Australia," he says.

"We are already seeing people with antibiotic resistance dying in Australia. Because there is so little R&D in the pipeline, it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

"We are a developed country with good nutrition, immunisation and clean water, so there are other factors to our public health. But we have got into a habit of not worrying about infections because of antibiotics.

"We need clear restrictions on last-line antibiotics so that they aren't used on animals. We also need to look at how often they are prescribed for humans. There needs to be pressure put on pharmaceutical companies for greater R&D, but the government has a role to control when and where antibiotics are used."

All scientific outputs should be judged on content regardless of whether the author is male or female, says Laura Waters

Celebrating my 10th anniversary as an academic scientist I find myself as committed as ever to being the best researcher and lecturer I can be. Yet a big part of me is also keen to be waiting at 3:15pm to meet my son as he rushes out the school gates eager to tell me about his day. Is it possible to do both of these things successfully? Can you be a devoted mum, a dedicated scientist and get promoted? That not only depends on you, but also on the people that surround you.

To make it as an academic scientist requires years of training, an incredibly thick skin and long hours. To make it as a mum requires patience, compassion and equally long hours. To do both however, requires an organised mind and a continual 'plan B'.

I'm a scientist but not a feminist. Yes, we could do with more women choosing a career in science and yes, we need more women at the higher levels of management but that doesn't make me a feminist: I'm an 'equalist'. I believe that all scientific outputs should be judged on their content rather than on the fact the author was a female or male scientist. Regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other factor, what matters most is achieving the results by having the best person for the job – male or female.

Where we tend to fall down is ensuring women actively choose to stay in science and climb the promotional ladder. It's a tough climb and if you throw in being a parent alongside this it can make it impossible. I would never say that women have it harder than men, or vice versa – many friends would be considered 'unconventional' where the mother is the major wage earner and the father stays at home. However, having witnessed several accomplished female friends commit career suicide (especially in academia) in favour of a family, I know it does happen.

I've been lucky at the University of Huddersfield to have been able to gradually increase my hours back up to full time this year. That isn't to say it has been easy though. To keep my research group going has meant many late nights working on the laptop after bedtime songs are sung.

To be a successful scientist in academia (children or no children, male or female) you really must love your job, and self motivation is essential. Just as important for me though is having a partner who supports me and a work environment that can be flexible.

Far more could still be done in universities to help encourage women to stay and succeed, some have childcare on campus, some have flexible working hours policies, yet lots of the women I know are still 'choosing' between a career and parenting rather than trying to do both, so clearly more support is needed.

There's no doubt that more men still occupy senior roles in academia and industry, but there are initiatives in place to redress this imbalance. The Athena Swan scheme is one such example of a programme helping universities externally recognise their achievements and internally devise plans for their shortfalls. Even so, there is still far from equal gender representation in academia, especially in subjects such as chemistry and engineering. I am fully devoted to promoting science to women as a great career choice and I honestly believe we need more women at all levels in science, but that is because I am an 'equalist', not a feminist.

Laura Waters is a senior lecturer in pharmaceutical science at the University of Huddersfield – follow her on Twitter @DrLauraWaters

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