Sunday, May 04, 2008

California Court Posts SSNs

California court posting SSNs and other personal data, privacy advocates charge

Privacy advocates claim that Social Security numbers, medical histories, tax records, bank account data and other sensitive personal data are freely available online via the Web site of the Superior Court in California's Riverside County.

Searches done on the court's Web site by Computerworld, using case numbers provided by Virginia-based privacy advocate Betty "BJ" Ostergren, turned up various documents related to civil cases that contained sensitive information. Included were complete tax filings, medical reports pertaining to cases handled by the court, and images of checks complete with signatures as well as account and bank-routing numbers.

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Limiting Food Purchases

Flour.


Rice.


The Chinese know, and got a second cart of rice.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Professor Sues Students

DARTMOUTH PROF SUING 'MEAN' STUDENTS
By EMMA HABERMAN and CYNTHIA R. FAGEN

April 30, 2008 -- An irate Ivy League lecturer at Dartmouth College says she is suing her fresh-mouthed freshman students because they were mean to her in class.

Professor Priya Venkatesan was so taken aback by what she claims was rude behavior - including the class applauding another student for disagreeing with her - she wants to sue her former pupils for harassment and discrimination.

"I was horrified," she said.

"My responsibility is not to stifle them, but when they clapped at his comment, I thought that crossed the line. I was facing intolerance of ideas and intolerance of freedom of expression," she told The Dartmouth newspaper.

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Math In Nature: Fibonacci, Bezier Curve

Fibonacci Numbers and Nature

The Bézier Curve