Blog Heap of Links for the day 22 April 2009

"Now programs with millions of lines of code are written by teams of programmers, none of whom knows the entire program; hence, no individual can predict the effect of a given command with absolute certainty since portions of programs may interact in unexpected, untested ways." That's what might have happened during an exercise in South Africa in 2007, when a robot anti-aircraft gun sprayed hundreds of rounds of cannon shell around its position, killing nine soldiers and injuring 14.

kicked her children out of the car in downtown White Plains and drove away on Sunday after they were bickering... 45-year-old mother let her 12-year-old daughter back in the car after she ran to catch up. A Good Samaritan picked up the crying 10-year-old and bought her ice cream while calling police.

The phone in the Parentes' 10th-floor hotel room rang just before midnight. By then, a mother and two daughters staying there had been beaten and suffocated by the man who answered the phone. Not long after taking that call -- from a college roommate of his older daughter's -- the father used a knife to commit suicide.

Rogers County authorities say a man charged with drunken driving showed up in court so drunk he had to be hospitalized. ... blood alcohol level measured .31 — nearly four times the amount considered legally drunk.

Although the state faces a $900 million budget hole, the House approved a measure Tuesday that would drop the state's income tax rate from 5.5 percent to 4 percent.

Fidel Castro says President Barack Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's remarks regarding the United States and bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on dollars people send to the island.

Apple -- on the verge of celebrating its 1 billionth App Store download -- has pulled a controversial application called "Baby Shaker" from its virtual store shelves that generated public outrage. ... a game that involved shaking the iPhone vigorously to make a crying baby on the screen stop crying. Two red X's appear over the baby's eyes when you "win."

Today Linden Lab announced more concrete plans for separating out adult content from the rest of Second Life. Originally discussed last month, the plans began by soliciting community feedback for definitions of adult content and, eventually, filtering that out of search results and locating it on a separate virtual continent from most of Second Life's activities. The specific plans now include definitions of PG, Mature, and Adult content for ratings and preferences, a more rigorous age verification system, either through payment information or the Aristotle system added in 2007, and the launch of a new viewer with more controls.

The base for the filtering is a new three-tiered rating system that will offer the ability to divide Second Life into Adult, Mature and PG regions. Search results will also be filtered according to the new ratings system. Adult-oriented content will be migrated from the Second Life mainland to a newly created continent.

incredible pictures from Nasa's new telescope show a galaxy of millions.... Scientists believe it could unveil the first gripping evidence of small, rocky planets like the Earth with the right conditions to support life....

Troubled by the possible shuttering of his hometown paper, Sen. John Kerry reached out to the Boston Globe on Tuesday, then called for Senate hearings to address the woes of the nation's print media. "America's newspapers are struggling to survive, and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the lives and financial security of the employees involved, including hundreds at the Globe, there will also be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount," Mr. Kerry said. [Also seeks to bolster the blacksmith industry....]

Scientists have found the first skeleton of a land-dwelling relative of seals, sea lions, and walruses. The 20-million- to 24-million-year-old Arctic fossil sports webbed feet instead of flippers, providing a long-sought glimpse of what such animals looked like before they dove into the sea.

David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of money-losing mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead at his home early Wednesday in what police said was an apparent suicide.... Some neighbors said Kellermann had lost a noticeable amount of weight under the strain of the job, and some said they suggested to him he should quit to avoid the stress.... was named acting chief financial officer last September when the government seized control of the company and ousted top executives. Freddie Mac lost more than $50 billion last year, and the government has pumped in $45 billion to keep the company afloat.... death is the latest in a string of blows to Freddie Mac, which owns or guarantees about 13 million mortgages and us the No. 2 mortgage finance company after sibling Fannie Mae. The company has been criticized for financing risky mortgage loans that fueled the real estate bubble, and its first government-appointed CEO, David Moffett, resigned last month after six months on the job. As the company's financial chief, Kellermann was working on the company's first quarter financial report, due at the end of May, with federal regulators closely overseeing the company's books and signing off on major decisions.... Kellermann was neither a target nor a subject of the investigation and had not been under law enforcement scrutiny....

Tuesday marked the official unveiling of Bluetooth Core Specification Version 3.0 + High Speed (HS), the next iteration of the personal area networking technology. The revision aims to improve the speed of data transmission by harnessing the power of 802.11 connections, borrowing part of their bandwidth to transmit large files.

The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time. The observations are baffling astronomers... Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity....

stunning images of Saturn taken by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft show the ringed planet, its moons and rings in the most incredible detail yet.

Plans by Internet service providers to deliver targeted adverts to consumers based on their Web searches threaten online privacy and should be opposed, the founder of the Web said Wednesday.

In an interview broadcast Monday on the CBC, Ms. Napolitano attempted to justify her call for stricter border security on the premise that "suspected or known terrorists" have entered the U. S. across the Canadian border, including the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. ...

In a release Tuesday night following the interview, she called Canada a "close ally and an important partner" and said she was simply misunderstood. "I know that the September 11th hijackers did not come through Canada to the United States," she said in the statement. "There are other instances, however, when suspected terrorists have attempted to enter our country from Canada to the United States. Some of these are well-known to the public -- such as the Millennium Bomber -- while others are not due to security reasons."

Lawrence went to the restroom, leaving her purse on the table, and the man snatched it, Boss' mother said. But the 5-foot-10, 250-pound Boss was right behind him as he jumped over a 5-foot fence behind the Float. She felt her leg snap as she hit the ground but grabbed the man's shirt, spinning him around and causing him to fall, Westerman said. Five men nearby saw the man fall and pinned him before he could get away.