News: Facepalm Headache

Car stuff:

• A few articles on how drivers don't seem to give a shit whether a pedestrian is legally in the crosswalk and apparently how some states don't either.
• Thoughtful essay on how many people don't consider how a long commute will make them miserable. (I learned this lesson long ago, and as I said, it played a huge factor in my job-hunting this time.)

Intermission:
This is too true:

Fakebook crap:

• This guy got sued by Facebook for crawling their data, except he claims he was honoring their robots.txt guidelines for search engines. While Facebook has once again lowered my already-astonishing-low opinion of their understanding of technical anything, I doubt a judge is going to comprehend and honor the 16-year-old robots.txt convention for guiding web crawlers. (The guy in question said he has actually notified Facebook of various security holes over the years. Because, like I said, they have no idea what the hell they're doing as far as security.)
• Facepalm Award of the Week: A 16-year-old has sued his mother for "harassing" and "slandering" him on his Facebook page.

Compucrap:

• Corporate security has more to do with making auditors happy than actually securing the data. Yes, the two are more often than not mutually exclusive in my experience, at least as far as computers go.
• Apparently a YouTube video of a teenager destroying an iPad sparked outrage. WTH? If he wants to waste $500 of his parents' money, that's their problem. It's not like he's desecrating a religious icon... oh, wait, to some Apple cultists, he probably is.
• Just the other day I was talking to someone about how this was bound to happen: a UK man is blaming Google Street View for his house being burglarized, because their picture of his home was taken when his garage was open, showing the world his possesions. Whether or not he can prove it in this case... I'm not sure Google's definition of "not being evil" is in the same reality as mine, or as many other people's.
• Required password changes are a major hindrance to productivity. I can tell you that from experience on both sides (user and administration) of the issue. And since the majority of users are no doubt just swapping in one easily-crackable password for another, there's not much point to it.

Awesome of the Week:

• A Nigerian "kingdom" has been ruled only be queens for generations because men who try to take the throne seem to die rather quickly...

Dumbass of the Week!

• A modern-day snake oil informercial "star" was thrown in jail on contempt charges after telling his fans (morons, all, I'm sure) to email the judge in his current (and there have been many) civil case. Now, who hasn't wished they could throw a spammer in the slammer? And this guy is as slimy as can be. Snake oil will do that do you.

Just plain sad:

• The National Science Foundation apparently considers evolution and the big bang irrelevant to science literacy. They left it out of their biannual report on Americans' understanding of science and technology. Words cannot express how... yes, let's pander to extremist idiots. That will make our children soooo much smarter and competitive in a technology-driven world. (The White House is saying they did not approve this omission to the report.) So much for separation of church and state.