Lawrence M. Krauss, professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, has an interesting essay in the NYT about the changing landscape in the battle between creationists and schools:

With their changing political tactics, creationists are an excellent example of evolution at work. Creation science evolved into intelligent design, which morphed into “teaching the controversy,� and after its recent court loss in Dover, Pa., and political defeats in Ohio and Kansas, it will no doubt change again. The most recent campaign slogan I have heard is “creative evolution.�

But perhaps more worrisome than a political movement against science is plain old ignorance. The people determining the curriculum of our children in many states remain scientifically illiterate. And Kansas is a good case in point.

[…]

As we continue to work to improve the abysmal state of science education in our schools, we will continue to battle those who feel that knowledge is a threat to faith.

But when we win minor skirmishes, as we did in Kansas, we must remember that the issue is far deeper than this. We must hold our elected school officials to certain basic standards of knowledge about the world. The battle is not against faith, but against ignorance.

Correction, that’s what people used to do. It’s ok to look, just don’t record images as it might be interpreted as intent to cause harm. Information has literally become power. The Register has the scoop:

The FBI said Monday that it had no information to indicate that the men in custody had any ties to terrorist organisations, the Associated Press reports. Nevertheless, the local police and prosecutors seem persuaded that they’ve foiled a dastardly plot, and appear prepared, for now, to go through with the prosecutions.

Additionally, photos of the five-mile long Mackinac Bridge were found in a digital camera belonging to one of the suspects, prompting local authorities to imagine it was a target.

A lawyer defending the men told the AP that the photos were tourist snapshots taken while the men were stuck in traffic. “That’s what people do when they see a tourist attraction: they take pictures,” the wire service quotes him as saying.

Only a few days after the AusCERT announced that the top antivirus firms are the ones least able to find viruses, Microsoft has catapulted itself into the #2 sales position with…wait for it…agressive pricing. Selling for $19.99 instead of $49.99/year seems to make more people buy your software. Who would have thought? Microsoft was quoted saying:

“We see our comprehensive ‘PC Care’ approach as a new and important direction for consumer PC services and are encouraged to see that more consumers are taking steps to effectively protect and maintain their PCs,” Samantha McManus, a business strategy manager at Microsoft, said in an e-mailed statement.

Yes, it is good to see that they can sell more units at half-price the price of their competitor’s product, but do we believe they are selling better units? Can someone find anything to show that “effectively protect and maintain” translates to a reasonable boost in user safety with One Care versus other products (e.g. fair competition on quality/price) or is this just about distribution targets and sales numbers for Microsoft (e.g. price alone)? In other words, will they consider themselves most successful when they have reached the #1 antivirus product by number of users even though they are found to be the least effective against virus infections? Something about the AusCERT warning tells me the whole AV “industry-leader” ranking system needs an overhaul…

The Register has noted that AOL apologized for exposing the search data from their users:

“This was a screw-up, and we’re angry and upset about it,” AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said, AP reports. “It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.”

That is close to what I had expected would come out of this, as I mentioned before. But the apology is unlikely to cool the jets of the EFF, which has filed a complaint with the FTC. Perhaps most embarassing to AOL is the fact that the EFF is accusing them of violating their stated Privacy Policy. They are also arguing that AOL should not be allowed to store more than 14 days worth of search records on users. And that makes me wonder if AOL might eventually offer an interface like Scroogle for those who want to opt-out of AOL’s analytics/tracking.